Chapter 16 – Hermione & Cedric's Library Flirt

Hermione finished off the night with Viktor, dancing until she felt her feet would fall off from being in those heels too long. When the night had ended, the two retreated to the entrance hall to say good-bye and then head off to their separate dorms.

"I had a wonderful time tonight, Viktor," Hermione sighed as she stood at the bottom of the marble staircase. "Thank you so much."

"No, thank you, Herm-own-ninny," Viktor beamed as he leaned down and kissed her cheek. She felt the heat rise in her face as he did this and she stared down at the shining tile floor.

"I suppose I'll see you tomorrow... maybe," Hermione said shyly.

"Yes, tomorrow," Viktor agreed as his friends stopped and waited for him at the door. Karkaroff was at the front of the group and he was still glaring at Hermione as Viktor grabbed her hand, squeezed it and kissed her again on the cheek before walking off to join the group of Durmstrang students.

Hermione was very thankful that Ron and Harry hadn't seen this, or she would never live it down. She did, however, see Ron staring in her direction as she watched Viktor walk away. She gave Ron a withering look and rushed up the staircase past him, in more of a hurry than anything to get up to the common room and remove those shoes. She stopped briefly though when she looked back and saw Cedric rushing up the stairs.

"Hey – Harry!" She frowned as she heard Cedric say this, but her frown didn't last long as she saw him smile and, from what she could see, wink in her direction. She wanted to walk down the stairs and pretend to wait with Harry so she could see Cedric, but Ron was headed towards her and she was in no mood to deal with him.

Figuring it her best bet, Hermione turned around and began to walk down the corridor toward the stairwell where the changing staircases lie. She made it up the first set of changing stairs when she noticed Ron right behind her, only half way up the flight of stairs she had just stepped off of.

"Hermione," he called, but she ignored him as she raced up the next set of stairs. She had thought that she might get away from him, but just as she was about to take a staircase, it moved away from her and she groaned as he caught up with her.

"Go away, Ron, I'm not in the mood," Hermione sighed with frustration as she descended the stairs behind her to go a different route to Gryffindor Tower.

"Hermione, we need to talk," Ron said in a bit of a demanding way.

"We have nothing to talk about," Hermione said simply as she climbed the stairs.

"Oh, yes we do!"

"And what would that be, Ronald Weasley?" Hermione had just sounded so much like Mrs. Weasley that it was in a way scary to her and possibly him as he grimaced, though his grimace was quickly replaced with anger.

"Why did you go with him and not me or Harry?"

"Because you two saw me only as a last resort and I wasn't about to ask you if that's the way you saw me," Hermione hissed.

"Well, you're-," Ron stopped here and mouthed as he stood wordless at the bottom of the seventh floor staircase.

"I'm what, Ron?"

"You're our friend and it never occurred to us to ask you because we didn't see you like that," Ron said indignantly.

"Exactly my point," Hermione called down the staircase as she stood at the top staring down at him.

"Well, if that's your point, then why are you so mad?" Hermione couldn't believe he was being so stupid. She threw her arms up in the air with a grunt of frustration before turning and stalking down the corridor toward the tower entrance, Ron's calls following her as he ran after her.

"Wha- oh, I say! What's all this noise? Vi, wake up... do you remember the password?"

"It's Fairy Lights," Hermione growled before Vi nodded sleepily and the two of them went back to sleep while admitting Hermione. She hoped that the Fat Lady would close soon, but not soon enough apparently as Ron came in right behind her.

"Why did you go with him, though?"

"Because he asked me, Ron, and he seems to see that I'm a girl unlike you!"

"He's using you!"

"Oh, he is not. Get over yourself and quit playing daft all the time," Hermione hissed. "What's your big problem of me going with him anyways? You and Harry both had dates either way, whether I went with him or not."

"I just don't like him being with you!"

"What's wrong with me going to a dance with Viktor as friends?"

"Because he's strange and- and he'll try something, I know it!"

"Oh, honestly... you're being childish."

"Childish? Me, childish! Look at you – parading around on that Durmstrang git's arm at the ball, rubbing it in my face!" This really angered Hermione. She was not doing that, she wouldn't stoop so low as to use Viktor to make Harry or Ron jealous.

"Oh, grow up! I did not do that," Hermione yelled. By now, they were both red in the face and standing ten feet apart in the middle of the common room, yelling at the top of their lungs at one another. "If you don't like the fact that I'm friends with him, then why didn't you do something sooner?"

"I'll do something now! I forbid you to see him," Ron bellowed with authority.

"You can't do that," Hermione snapped.

"If I don't want you to see him, I can," Ron snapped back.

"I'd like to see you try! If you don't like it so much, then that's too bad because either you'll have to suffer it out or the next ti-"

"I will not suffer this out!"

"Well, if you don't like it, you know what the solution is, don't you?"

"Oh, yeah? What's that?"

"Next time there's a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!" She had won, and it was only then, that she noticed Harry was now standing off to the side of this scene watching in confusion and awe. Hermione looked back to Ron who was mouthing wordlessly and figured that it was best to leave this argument there and retire for the night. She was just about to turn around and head for her dorm, when Ron finally spoke up, though.

"Well- well- that just proves- completely missed the point-," Ron sputtered. Hermione rolled her eyes and shook her head, more of her hair falling down as she did. She turned on her heel and stormed off for her dorm, nothing more than a good night's sleep on her wish list for the rest of the evening.

The next morning, Hermione rolled over in bed and stared at the clock. If her clock was correct, which she couldn't be sure because she had thrown it upon entering her dorm last night, it was half way through breakfast time. She yawned and stretched as she sat up, but as soon as she finished stretching, she fell back down on the bed.

She had no energy today, last night had completely worn her out. First the ball and then fighting with Ron, it was all too tiring. She sighed and decided she should get up some time, though. She walked over to her wardrobe and opened the door, the mirror on the door showing her that her hair was back to normal after her good night's sleep. She gave a half-hearted smile, she found that she was in fact happy with herself this way, it didn't matter to her anymore.

She pulled out a pair of jeans and a sweater from the wardrobe and put them on before slipping on her school robes over them. She entered the common room to see that not many people were up yet, but Harry and Ron were sitting on the couch by the fireplace so she decided to join them.

She sat down in a chair next to the couch and curled her legs up beside her as she watched the fire crackle and Crookshanks make his way toward her. He leaped up into her lap and curled up there, purring as she scratched his ears.

"Sleep well?"

"Yes," Hermione sighed in response to Harry. "You two?"

"Fine," Harry and Ron muttered in unison.

"Your hair looked nice last night," Harry admitted. "How did you do that?" Hermione grinned and giggled as she thought about telling him what she had done, and now that she thought about it, how funny it all had been for her to need three hours to do that.

"I used quite a bit of Sleekeasy's Hair Potion," Hermione confessed, "but it's way too much bother to do everyday."

"Oh," Harry sighed. Hermione noticed something hidden in Ron's expression as he looked up from the fire, but she couldn't quite place it as he spoke up, though quietly.

"Yeah, it did look nice," he added in a little more than a whisper.

"Thank you, Ron."

"Your welcome," Ron said in return. This kind of talk made Hermione uncomfortable because it was oddly formal, but still, they were talking and it was civilized so she couldn't complain. She was very glad when the conversation took a turn that made things a little more comfortable.

"You should have heard what Ron and I heard last night," Harry whispered. "We were out in the garden and we heard Hagrid talking with Madame Maxime and he said he was half giant. Then he asked her what side she got hers from and she got all offended."

"Well, I thought he must be," Hermione said as she shrugged. It was no shock to her that Hagrid had giant in him. She had guessed that upon first seeing him. "I know he couldn't be pure giant because they're about twenty feet tall. But honestly, all this hysteria about giants. They can't all be horrible... It's the same sort of prejudice that people have toward werewolves... It's just bigotry, isn't it?" Hermione waited for a reply, but got none so she turned her head toward the window to look out at the Durmstrang ship.

She noticed that there were people jumping off the ship into the water in what looked like swimming trunks. 'Completely nuts, all of them' Hermione thought to herself. 'I mean, I know that this climate here at Hogwarts is warmer than where their school is, but swimming in the dead of winter? It's utter madness!'

Vacation moved on and Hermione would see Viktor most every day, especially at meals and in the library while she was doing her homework for the break. She had also run into Cedric. Each time they saw each other, though, they were polite and friendly to no end it would seem, but then they would reach an awkward stage in the conversation and return to silently working while glancing at each other. Like the last day of Christmas break, for instance.

Hermione had been sitting in the library, putting the finishing touches on a four foot essay from Snape – 'Just like him' she thought – expecting Viktor to appear any moment. She would have been in the Gryffindor common room by the fire doing this, instead of in the drafty library, but she had gotten sick of Ron's constant pleading to see her Defense Against the Dark Arts work so she had left with one last refusal to him. Not to mention, Harry's nervous mood had been bothering her.

He hadn't touched that egg, and she knew that last minute would come and he would be irritable and scrambling to figure the egg out. She would in no way help him though, she had helped him with the first task, she really shouldn't help him with this. She did want him to win, but it didn't give her license to help him, which would in a way be cheating since it was against the rules for the champions to get help with their clues.

This was driving Hermione insane, she couldn't concentrate with this kind of stuff on her mind. She closed her Potions book and was going to proof-read her Transfigurations essay, when she looked up and saw Cedric smiling at her.

He had just entered the library and he was returning a few books when he spotted her. She smiled and nodded, which in turn led to his joining her at the back table.

"Hello, Hermione," he beamed.

"Cedric," she greeted as she giggled at his extremely upbeat attitude. "What makes you so happy today?"

"Just the fact that I finally found you alone in the library," he answered. Hermione was happy about this herself, but she couldn't figure out why he would be.

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really," he laughed. Hermione realized it then, that they were flirting with each other, and she became nervous and flustered.

"So, uh- what- uh- what did you want with me that you wanted to get me alone? Or, I mean- why were you waiting until I was alone? If you were waiting that is... I don't know if you really were waiting, or just per chance wanted to talk to me in private or something or-"

"Hermione, Hermione," he laughed as he tried to calm her down. She had been rattling off nonsensically and she now seemed to be quite embarrassed as well as nervous as her cheeks twinged a pale pink.

"Sorry," she muttered as she stared down at her hands in her lap.

"I just wanted to talk to you... ask you a few things," he said simply.

"Oh, okay. Go ahead," she coaxed.

"How's S.P.E.W.?"

"Fine, fine. It's coming along nicely really," Hermione lied. Really, she hadn't been working on it in a while. Ever since the night of the ball, she had forgotten all about it.

"That's good to hear. What about Harry? Has he cracked that egg's clue yet?"

"Not that I know of, but Harry's clever, he'll figure it out before February," Hermione replied. "At least I hope." They both laughed and Hermione found her heart fluttering as she noticed how his eyes danced with light as he laughed.

She inwardly sighed in a dreamy fashion as she continued to talk with him. He was so handsome with his ocean blue eyes and dirty blond hair. Hermione sighed again, though this time she was sure Cedric had heard as he raised his brow and stared at her.

"Don't you agree, Hermione?"

"Huh? Oh! Uh- yes, yes I do agree," Hermione answered hastily.

"That's settled, then." He paused while Hermione sat there smiling nervously, wondering all the while what she had just agreed to, but she was wondering so much that his next question completely caught her off guard. "So, are you and Viktor- well, you know... are you- dating him?"

"Dating Viktor! Heck no... I like y- I likie him a little bit," Hermione stumbled with a broad, jittery grin.

"Likie?" Cedric chuckled at her strange word and smiled. Hermione floated back into a daze as she felt her heart melt from that gorgeous pearly white smile. He raised his brow again as he caught her staring at him weirdly for the second time, and this time Hermione saved herself.

"So, have you figured out your egg?"

"Yeah, oh, yeah. A week or so ago. I started cracking that thing when I first got it while I was sitting in the hospital tent," Cedric replied.

"Very wise of you," Hermione merited. "I wish Harry could be more like you with that clue. He's driving me crazy about it."

"Seems like you care a good bit," Cedric said.

"Of course I do. I really want Harry to win," Hermione agreed, but she soon regretted these words. As Cedric half smiled and looked away from her to the light snow fall that was coming down outside. "But a win for Hogwarts is a win for Hogwarts either way and I'm sure the best man will win," Hermione added. "I wouldn't mind your winning either in all honesty."

"Thanks. It means a lot that you support me."

"Me?" Hermione giggled stupidly, "I'm sure it doesn't matter if I do... I'd just be another girl from Hogwarts screaming your name as you compete." Cedric's brow shot upward for the third time in the conversation and Hermione choked on her breath as she realized what she had just said. "I mean, I'd just be another one of the girls supporting you because your Hogwarts champ... I'm sure I can't matter that much seeing as you have all those others, especially Cho Chang."

"Yeah," Cedric sighed, "well, she's none too happy with me right now anyways."

"Why?"

"Because she says that I'm too involved in the whole Triwizard thing and that I don't spend enough time with her," Cedric explained.

"That's just selfish!" Cedric had had his head bowed, but his head shot up at Hermione's words. "Oops. I do mean that in the best possible way, you know." Cedric smiled and nodded as Hermione continued. "Does she want you to win or not?"

"Some times I think that she wants Harry to win. She's been acting strange lately you know. She was talking one day about how Harry had asked her to the Yule Ball and she said that she was so flustered and stuff. I'm beginning to think she likes him more than me," Cedric finished with a half sighing laugh.

"Nonsense," Hermione giggled. "How could she? Any girl would be lucky to have you and I'm sure that they wouldn't leave you. She's just going through a tough time and doesn't know how good she has i-"

"Hello," came the voice of none other than Viktor Krum. Hermione frowned and turned to look at him.

"Hi, Vik-"

"Can you give us a minute?" Hermione was in shock as she turned to Cedric who was smiling politely at Viktor. Soon her shock turned to a smile as she turned to Viktor.

"Yes, please, Viktor. Just a moment," Hermione pleaded. Viktor's brow furrowed, but he nodded and walked away, and Hermione turned back to Cedric.

"What were you saying?"

"I forget," Hermione giggled.

"Something about Cho doesn't know how good she has it?" Hermione blushed and bowed her head while giggling even more.

"Yeah," Hermione sighed. "She just doesn't know how many girls would kill to be in her place."

"Do you know how many would kill to be in yours?" Cedric nodded to Krum who was pretending to look at a book while peering over the shelf at Hermione and Cedric.

"Yes, I have some idea of that," Hermione said defeatedly as though she didn't want to be the object of many girls' hate just to be with Viktor. "I guess I should go see what he wants before he starts cursing me over that row of books."

"Yeah," Cedric laughed half-heartedly as he watched her rise and walk away. "I just wish I could hold your attention like that," he sighed to himself as he stood up and left the library, head hung and heart heavy.