Author's Note: Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present the twelfth chapter of Girl, Let Me Love You. I have about three days until I leave... so I had better step on writing the last chapters. But I'm not too worried, I know what all is going to happen... which is good. >>
Lol, anyway, enjoy! Reviews are much appreciated, as always. Thanks!
Ron strolled out of the broom closet and toward Transfiguration Class feeling that nothing could ruin his mood. How wrong he was. When he opened the doors to class, he got a very dirty look from Professor McGonagall, whom had been in the middle of explaining something to the class.
"Would you care to tell me why you are ten minutes late, Weasley? You should know by now when to be at class," She said angrily. Ron's stomach dropped. Ten minutes late? Had it really been that long.
"Sorry, Professor, I was... er, doing something," Ron said feebly, slipping into a seat by Harry.
"Oh, so now I suppose doing personal things is more important than coming to class? Very well, Weasley. Ten points from Gryffindor, for every minute of review you wasted," She said, giving him a piercing look, then turned back to the rest of the class. "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, as you know, your exams are less than a week away. Next Monday they will start. So, today, we will be doing some review-," She went on, asking a few questions to various students.
"Where were you?" Harry whispered out of the corner of his mouth, still looking up at McGonagall.
"Finding out what Malfoy was up to," Ron whispered back.
"Did you find out?"
"Did I ever. I'll give you the full details after class."
"Okay." They stopped talking and tuned McGonagall back in, trying to pay attention to every word, hoping it would help them for exams.
"Enough of that," She said, then with a wave of her wand, an oak chest moved to the front of the class. "I want you all to line up in front of this chest. We will be practicing changing it into a dog. Just like we've been doing, remember the wand movement? Yes, yes. Then you say, 'Crusova!', right? Come on, come on. All of you get in a line," She instructed, standing off to the side, letting people line up. Hermione was the first one up, naturally. She rolled up her robe's sleeves and held her wand out.
"Crusova!" She bellowed, flicking her wand at the oak chest perfectly. In about a second, were the chest was, was now a big, brown Labrador. Hermione received a smile from McGonagall. The Labrador barked and McGonagall flicked her wand at the dog, making it turn back into the oak chest.
"Next!" She said. Hermione went back to sit down, looking proud of herself.
After everyone had a shot at turning the chest into a dog, McGonagall assigned a pile of homework out of their book and dismissed them as the bell rang. The room filled with groans at the homework, but filed out of the room.
"Argh, I can't believe my rotten luck!" Ron moaned, putting his stuff away.
"Hey, at least it looked like a dog," Harry tried to cheer him up. Ron's attempt at changing the chest to a dog didn't quite work out. Sure it had been a dog, but it had been a wooden dog. Professor McGonagall had told him that it was a "Good wood sculpture, but we weren't in art class." Which he thought was a little harsh.
"You have nothing to complain about, because you managed to make your dog living," Ron said.
"Yeah, but it's tail was still wooden and it couldn't bark," Harry pointed out.
"Big deal."
"Okay, enough. So what happened with Malfoy?" Harry pressed, finding a way to get off the subject. Ron explained what had happened, but he didn't mention the whole them being in a broom closet and Malfoy pretending to come onto him thing. He showed Harry the book and everything. "Woah, I think you're onto something, Ron. I really do. And the way he acted about it... yeah, I'd say something's going on," Harry said
"Yeah, now I just need to find some proof," Ron stated.
"So how are you going to go about doing that?"
"I don't know..." Ron's voice faded in thought.
"I'm actually surprised you could come up with this much," Harry snorted. Ron's ears went pink.
"Actually... Parvati gave me the whole Love Potion idea..." He admitted hesitantly. Harry hung his head.
"Ah, I knew it. There was now way you could figure this all out."
"Hey! Just because I've been getting help, doesn't mean I'm stupid. It's not like I asked for help. I'm not begging you know," Ron pointed out in a somewhat hurt voice.
"Alright, alright. Sorry."
"Are you going to help me out or not?"
"Of course I am. You think I'm going to let Hermione be that slimy git's lover and just stand by and watch? No way."
"Thanks, Harry," Ron said gratefully.
"Any time."
By lunchtime, Ron and Harry had come up with a few reasons Malfoy might have wanted Hermione to fall in love with him: 1.) He wanted an easy tutor, heck, just about everyone wanted Hermione to help them before exams. And since he Malfoy was, well, Malfoy, Hermione just wouldn't agree to it unless she was in love with him or some such. 2.) He wanted to make some girl jealous. But he could have just about any girl in Slytherin, so why would he go after Hermione to make someone jealous? 3.) Maybe he really was gay, so he was just trying to make either Ron or Harry jealous. But the two only found that disturbing when they thought of it, and reminded themselves that this was Draco Malfoy they were talking about. 4.) He could seriously be in love with her, and he found no other way to make her return his feelings. Ron and Harry also found this odd and unlikely, as they did with possible conclusion number three.
Now that they had some sort of idea of what was happening, Ron and Harry were going to try to catch Malfoy red handed. They were going to keep close watch and find the potion, and stop him from giving it to Hermione again.
"All this detective work has got me starved," Harry stated as they sat down. He loaded his plate with chicken wings and sandwiches. Ron, however, was more interested in something across the hall. Hermione was over at the Slytherin table again, a book propped up against a pumpkin juice jug. It looked like she was asking Malfoy questions from it while eating a light lunch. Malfoy suddenly poured something into her goblet and handed it to her. That was defiantly suspicious, considering that the bottle certainly didn't contain pumpkin juice or water. Ron jumped up and practically jogged over, getting some stares in return. He reached the place where the two were sitting and quickly knocked the goblet out of her hands before she could swallow any of the contents. He panted, looking down at her. She looked up at him with wide eyes and back down to her spilled drink.
"What's the meaning of this, Weasley?" Malfoy asked swiftly.
"I know what you were trying to give her!" Ron replied defensively. Malfoy raised an eyebrow.
"Are you still on about that?"
"On about what, Draco?" Hermione finally spoke.
"Nothing, 'Mione, let me handle this," Malfoy replied, giving her a reassuring look. Hearing Malfoy say 'Mione was bizarre enough. This whole scene was completely out of place. Malfoy silently cleaned up the spilled drink with a wave of his wand and picked up the goblet gingerly. Then he gazed back up at Ron. "Anyway, is there a reason why you are trying making our lunch a war zone, Weasley?"
"You think I'm stupid, don't you?"
"On occasion, yes," He replied simply. Ron glared at him.
"I know what was in that bottle, and it was no pumpkin juice or water."
"I know what's in the bottle, too. And you are correct, Weasley, it was no pumpkin juice or water. But I didn't know you would be so paranoid about a little butter beer."
"Butter beer?" Ron said, looking at the bottle.
"Yes, you caught me. I bought a bottle of butter beer from the Three Broomsticks and brought it back to the castle. Want some?" He offered, holding up the bottle.
"You aren't going to fool me with that," Ron said, looking at the bottle like it would explode. "Give me it." He grabbed it out of Malfoy's hands.
"You're welcome," He said sarcastically. Ron sniffed the top. Well, it certainly did smell like butter beer. But maybe he put some of the potion into the butter beer?
"Hey, Draco, can I have a bit of butter beer?" A seventh year Slytherin girl asked, nodding toward the bottle.
"Sure, if Weasley is done with it. May I have it back, then?" Ron gave the bottle back to Malfoy and watched as he gave it to the girl. She poured some into her empty goblet and took a swig.
"Ah, thanks," She said, wiping her mouth and handing it back to him.
"No problem." Ron's stomach felt like it flipped over. Okay, so it was butter beer. His ears burned again and he froze, looking at Malfoy and Hermione. He felt like an idiot, standing there. Hermione stared up at him, but she didn't look mad. She looked almost happy he was standing in front of her. Ron had the urge to just grab her and take her back to that broom closet and snog her like crazy, but he held back. After a moment Malfoy sighed.
"Why are you still here?" He asked Ron.
"He can stay," Hermione said. Ron gave her a small smile.
"May I remind you that this is the Slytherin table."
"That doesn't stop you from having me over here,"
"But, you're an exception. You're my girlfriend, Weasley isn't even my friend." An odd expression flickered across Hermione's face.
"How did I even become you're girlfriend?" She asked faintly, like she really wanted an answer from herself and not Malfoy. She put her head in her hands, shaking her head, like she was trying to remember something... or forget something. "I need to go to the lavatory... excuse me..." She said quietly, quickly getting up and walking out of the hall. Ron looked after her, a worried look on his face. He turned back to Malfoy.
"Stop messing with her mind! Look what's happening! Don't you care?" Ron exclaimed angrily. Malfoy stood up and got an inch away from Ron's face.
"Of course I care," He said in a deadly whisper. He shoved Ron out of the way and practically ran out of the Great Hall. Ron gave the doors a lingering look and went back to the Gryffindor table.
"Alright," He said to Harry, "So that wasn't the potion... and now I'm really worried about what all of those doses of that Love Potion are doing to Hermione..."
"We'd better bust him, soon."
"Yeah..." Ron sighed, picking up a sandwich. He felt sick to his stomach and couldn't even take one bite. They stayed silent for awhile, Harry wasn't able to eat now either. Harry rubbed his temples with his fingers and suddenly had an idea.
"You might want to try watching him while the mail arrives. He might be ordering it from some potion shop, you know. I don't really see Draco Malfoy's perfect silky hands going to the effort of brewing a potion outside of Potions class. Just saying," Harry pointed out, pushing his plate away from him.
"That's brilliant!" Ron exclaimed, thinking it through. Well, at least having some kind of lead had him feeling a bit better.
"No, that's common sense," Harry corrected him.
"Stop being so sarcastic."
"I'm totally serious."
"Well, I guess it's somewhat obvious..."
"Exactly. Now, come on, we have to go to our next class. Lunch is almost over," Harry said, picking up his things again.
They didn't see Hermione all afternoon, she didn't show up for any classes. By supper Ron was really worried, he checked everywhere, from the Gryffindor common room to the library. Most of the Gryffindors had noted her absence and were starting to worry as well, some of the girls had gone on a search party, even. Ron sat in one of the arm chairs, staring at the fire lifelessly. Hermione, where are you? Are you okay? Similar thoughts kept flooding his mind. It was about seven forty by the time Lavender and Parvati rushed into the common room. They ran over to Ron and Harry, out of breath.
"We found her!" They gasped, Ron's heart leapt. "She... she was passed out in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. She's in pretty bad shape. We are going to take her up to the Hospital Wing, but we need some help getting her there and explaining." Parvati finished. They both looked pale. Ron and Harry nodded and hurried after them toward Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.
Oh god, Hermione, please be okay...