Notes: I thought Sadie Dragonfire had something going when she created NWFoL, so I thought I'd try my hand at poking fun at the many clichés of the HP fandom. Because, believe me, it's well deserved. No harm meant, of course, so don't torch me. Jonah
1. JKR neither confirms nor denies a 'ship—
Hermione Granger had just about enough of girls. She supposed it was partly her fault, as she constantly chose the company of two teenage boys than specimens of her own gender, but, really, she imagined even Gandhi wouldn't be able to tolerate the more giggly component of the human race, had he been sitting in the middle of what seemed like the least significant conversation ever.
"—he's got about the most gorgeous eyes in our whole year!" one of Hermione's dorm mates squealed, sending the other girls sitting around her into fresh round of giggles.
"Nuh-uh!" one of the other girls chimed in. "It's got to be that Ravenclaw Keeper! They're so blue!" More giggles.
Hermione, from her perch on her bed on the other side of the room (thank Merlin), turned to address them before she even knew she was talking. "You do realize they've both got girlfriends, don't you?"
It seemed as if the world had suddenly stilled as a sea (alright, a pond) of heads turned in her direction. The looks they were giving her where just a shy away from friendly, and Hermione then realized that the boys were right, she wasn't all that smart, apparently.
"And I suppose you'd know a lot about being a girlfriend, wouldn't you?" the leader of the group said scathingly, making Hermione wonder how the girl had made such a large leap.
"No, of course not—"
"Could have fooled us," one of the other girls interrupted. "You sure hang around Harry and Ron enough."
Oh, Hermione knew where that was leading. "Now, wait just a second—"
"You mean to say you're not interested in them?"
"No, I never said—"
"Oh, so you are?"
"No! I—"
"Who'd it be, then? Harry?"
"Harry? He's my—"
"So Ron?"
"What? Ron's—"
"Well you've got to make up your mind sooner or later," the leader stated bluntly, and just as Hermione was about to launch into one of her famous lectures, the leader had turned her head and initiated a conversation about the upcoming Hogsmeade weekend.
"Honestly," Hermione hissed indignantly, which thankfully went unnoticed by the other girls.
What bothered her the most, though, was that the little twit was right.
2. —because it's just much more fun that way.
Ron waited until Harry was out of the room before he dared ask the question that'd been on his mind for so long.
"Why'd you do it?"
Hermione actually looked up from her book. "Do what?"
Ron pointedly kept his eyes off the Potter Stinks! button he held, but his hand gripped it tightly anyway. "Stay with Harry," he replied, the rest of his sentence hanging invisible in the air between them: and not with me.
Hermione pursed her lips slightly, in the way that always reminded the boys of their Transfiguration professor, before bringing her eyes back to her book. "You had Seamus and Dean, Ron," she stated evenly.
Ron's grip shook. "You know that's not what I mean."
There was the briefest of pauses before Hermione heaved a heavy sigh. She closed her book and gently put it aside. "He needed me," she told him, just as gently as she had handled her book, "more than you did, at the time. Do you understand?"
Ron considered her answer and thought, no, I don't.
But he nodded anyway.
3. The line between love and hate is paper-thin—
Sometimes James's friends worried about him. Oh, they were used to seeing him in bandages and crutches because, let's face it, he wasn't exactly the most cautious flyer on the team, but when he'd walk into the dorm with that goofy smile on his face—the kind that usually meant he'd done something stupid, and in front of a girl—they worried.
"You alright there, mate?" Sirius was the first to ask, because James was his best mate, and that's what best mates do.
"Absolutely perfect," came James's usual reply, only now he'd emitted a dreamy sigh and fell unto his bed, arms outstretched and grinning like a maniac.
It was about at that time that Sirius, Remus, and Peter realized that something good had happened, and all three boys immediately dropped what they were doing to rush to the other boy's bedside.
"Was it Lily?" Remus boldly asked, which was a rarity in itself, but one phenomenon at a time.
"Uh huh," James sighed, gazing dreamily at a spot on their ceiling.
"This must be good," chuckled Sirius, "he's speechless!"
"Spill!" Peter shouted, as the less tactful one of the group.
James's grin never faltered. "I told her she had the prettiest arse I'd ever seen, and she slapped me across the face."
The three of the four Marauders that had not been grinning like an idiot blinked, processing their friend's words.
"Correct me if I'm wrong," Remus said slowly, tentatively, "but I thought that was a bad thing?"
James let out a shaky sound—one that Sirius was tempted to call a 'giggle', but decided it was probably best he didn't—before joyfully exclaiming, "She touched me!" He sighed again, completely awestruck, as his nimble Seeker fingers danced across the side of his face that was quickly reddening.
His three friends exchanged woeful glances.
Sometimes they really worried about him.
4. —but it's there.
When Hermione realized that the sound she had heard—like a coiled, wet rag snapping across a table surface—and the pain she had felt—like a cold burning sensation on the base of her palm—were results of a violent action she had committed, her eyes had grown to the size of Galleons.
It was unsettling, to say the least.
Hermione's eyes focused from her hand to the one she'd connected it to, and saw the disbelief and fear in the Slytherin's eyes. Somewhere behind her, Hagrid was breathing raggedly, and she could make out the vaguest exhalation of, "Whoa."
It was a split second, less than an eye-blink, but it was all the time she needed to remember why she'd swung her hand back in the first place. She narrowed her eyes, opened her mouth, and unleashed verbal hell on Draco Malfoy.
5. Harry Potter is a children's book—
It was a particularly hot morning, and after a few minutes of incessant whining, the Gryffindors managed to break down their stern Transfigurations professor, forcing her to carry out the rest of their lesson out in the school lawns. They were turning lizards into armchairs that day, and Ron, Harry, and Hermione had partnered up to save Filch from having to hunt down more lizards.
The two boys had long since taken off their black robes, but the taunting breeze of the outside urged them to remove their sweater vests as well. Hermione had been pretty diligent about tending to the school's dress code up til then, but even she could not help but remove the extra clothing upon stepping into the dewy lawn. She'd actually gone one step further and unbuttoned the first two buttons of her white polo, reasoning that her long hair made it harder for her than her male companions.
When they finally got down to transfiguring, their appointed lizard was nowhere to be found. They searched high and low, only to realize the lizard had made a home in Hermione's breast pocket—something the young teen still found worthy to scream about, despite the fact that she'd handled worse before.
During the mad hussle, which contained a lot of screaming and exaggerated flailing, it came upon Harry to solve the problem.
Of course, only when he had his hand placed firmly around Hermione's breast did he really begin to think about his solution. Everyone else was thankfully too far away to notice their awkward position, but Ron was there, standing right beside them and staring wide-eyed.
Harry was torn, because he had to let go, didn't he, but if he did, that'd mean the lizard'd go free which would just make the entire action pointless. Hermione seemed to have taken it upon herself to solve his predicament by huffily slapping his hand away and digging in her pocket to retrieve the renagade lizard herself. She let the lizard fall to the ground before deftly transfiguring it to an armchair, looking both embarrassed and angry as she did so.
Harry worried his lip, an apology forming in his mouth, when Ron's sudden laughter cut through the strained silence. Harry glared at him, finding nothing funny about the situation, when Hermione suddenly broke into giggles. Harry stared at both of them, and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment—which only served to send Ron over the edge and the redhead doubled over, clutching his stomach as tears rolled down his freckled cheeks.
"Y-You should have seen your f-face!" Ron finally managed to get out, choking on his laughter, and Hermione squealed, forcing a reluctant smile on Harry's lips. It took a while, but soon, Harry was laughing just as hard.
6. —except when it's not.
There were nights when Harry would dream of a darkened graveyard. Othertimes he'd fall asleep to a cold room with a tall, looming arch. Sometimes he'd wake up feeling the weight of Cedric's body in his arms, and more often than not, he'd remember the way Sirius had never even seen the veil, never saw the dark, emptyness he was falling into.
He'd think of the prophecy, and what it required him to do. He'd think he couldn't do it, that he couldn't be a murderer. But then he'd think of the look on Amos Diggory's face and the future he could have had with a godfather, and he'd think it wouldn't be as hard as he's making it to be. He didn't want to be a cold-blooded killer like Voldemort, as sometimes he'd fear he will be, but all he'd have to do was remember his parents, and Cedric, and Sirius, and all the other people who'd died at that bastard's hands.
And sometimes it helped him sleep at night.
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