A/N: Yay, I have returned from my vacation! The fresh mountain air really did me good, but I'm sorry I had to go so long without posting. As usual, I thank my wonderful reviewers and I have a few notes to you people...

First, I must thank charmedsisters for the continuing reviews; they're dandy and keep my spirits high!

Nox: I'm wondering what you're talking about. I don't recall someone being grossed out by kissing someone else...would you please inform me of what you're referring to?

Allison: Have your friends REVIEW ME! (I hope I can see you soon, too, are you coming here in November?)

Allison's Friend Hannah: Even though you didn't review me, I'm talking to you and telling you to REVIEW, please.

Without further ado I present to you, my loving audience, chapter seventeen! (audience: wild applause)

Chapter Seventeen

Harry stood there, torn between anger and tears, not sure what to do. He had asked what was wrong with Pepper, and she'd finally told him, though he knew he didn't like what she had said. Seeing a sobbing Pepper collapsed on the floor, he used his friend-ly instinct and wrapped his arms around her while his brain took in the exact words Pepper had just told him.

Realization hit him, and he took in the full meaning of her words. The next thing he knew, his tears were hitting Pepper's head.

Pepper's sobs subsided as she realized that Harry was crying. She had no real reason to cry about it anymore, except for the fact that Harry would probably dump her and then hex her into oblivion, but she'd already cried about everything enough. "Harry..." Pepper said hoarsely, not really wanting him to answer her.

Sniffling, Harry stood and left the common room in a rush. Pepper sighed heavily. She stood up and straightened her dress's skirt before retreating to her dormitory.

"PEPPER HALLIWELL!" Hermione shouted, storming into the girls' dorm room.

Pepper shot up in her bed. Bleary eyed, she wrenched back her bed hangings to reveal Hermione, who was very red in the face.

"What?" she murmured. "I was sleeping."

"YOU SNOGGED MALFOY!" Hermione shrieked.

"Who told you that?" Pepper asked stupidly, knowing full well it was Harry who informed Hermione of this. She wondered if he told her about Pepper's cutting problem.

"Harry," Hermione said, putting her hand on her hip. "So it's true then, you snogged Malfoy!"

"He snogged me," Pepper replied haughtily.

"Oh...well, how was it?" Hermione suddenly asked, sitting on Pepper's bed.

Pepper laughed out loud from shock. "Are you serious, Hermione? You're not going to yell at me or anything? You aren't mad?"

"I will be later, but I want to know Pepper! I've always wondered!"

"It was really nice actually," Pepper supplied.

"So you can understand why he's the Slytherin Sex God, then?" Hermione asked hurriedly, blushing.

"Definitely," Pepper said. "If he's that good at kissing then I can only imagine what he's like in bed..."

"Pepper! You've got a boyfriend!" Hermione exclaimed, though she was smiling.

"I may not have my sort-of boyfriend for long, though," Pepper moaned.

"Why not? Because Malfoy snogged you? Oh, I'm sure Harry will forgive you for that Pepper, if you still like him," Hermione assured Pepper.

So Harry hadn't told her about Pepper's problem. "Do you think so?" Pepper asked, playing along and pretending there wasn't another reason Harry might dump her. Not to mention the hexing her into oblivion part.

"Yes I do. I think I'll be miffed at you in the morning Pepper, right now I'm going to bed. Goodnight," Hermione said.

"Night," said Pepper, lying down once more.

"She snogged Malfoy?" Ron asked Harry as they got dressed and ready to go down to breakfast. Harry hadn't told Ron the news last night because Ron was too busy telling Harry about the wonderful girls he danced with at the ball.

"Yes," was Harry's plain reply. He was still stunned about Pepper's news and he wasn't too thrilled at facing her this morning.

"Are you going to dump her?" Ron wondered.

Harry had been considering this all night. Hadn't Pepper said the reason she cut herself was because Harry, Ron and Hermione had been ignoring her? Harry was afraid that if he did dump Pepper and Ron, Hermione and himself were mad at Pepper again then she would cut herself again. He certainly didn't want that to happen. He thought that he could find it in his heart to forgive her for kissing Malfoy; after all, she said that it was Malfoy who snogged her.

"I don't think so," Harry answered.

"Are you sure about that, mate?" Ron said, furrowing his brow in slight confusion. "How do you know she hasn't kissed any other guys?"

"I'm sure, Ron," Harry said. "Besides, I can't really be that mad at her, we're not officially boyfriend and girlfriend."

"So are you going to ask her out, then?" Ron asked, Harry's last statement having confused him even more.

"I think so," said Harry confidently.

Ron's mouth formed a silent "O" and he said nothing more all the way down to the Great Hall.

Pepper wasn't at breakfast, as Harry soon found out, and being as it was Saturday he wasn't certain he'd get to see her at all that day if she was avoiding him. Deciding that he wouldn't, in fact, see her all day, he decided to send her a letter.

He went up to the Owlery and grabbed Pepper and Hermione's new owl, Cashlinn since Hedwig was out sending another letter. Grabbing a spare piece of parchment he scribbled a note to her.

Pepper,

It's Harry. I just want to say I'm not mad at you for kissing Malfoy, though I am really mad at you for cutting yourself. How the hell could you do something like that? If it was because of me, Ron and Hermione I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd go to extremes like that. I want to talk to you in person, so please come out of your dorm; you can't stay in there forever. I didn't tell Hermione OR Ron about what you did, however, I did say something about Malfoy, as Hermione probably told you. I won't say anything to them about it, but I think you should. You should especially tell Hermione, since she is your best friend. Like I said, I won't interfere, though you should definitely tell then, they deserve to know. I need to talk to you, could you meet me in the common room? If you'd like we could take somewhere more private, but we should meet there. Soon.

Harry

Alright, he thought, so it wasn't scribbling a little note...Satisfied, he sealed it and tied it to Cashlinn's leg and sent her out the window. Then he went down to the common room to see if Pepper would arrive.

Pepper heard a tapping on her window and looked over to find it was Cashlinn with a letter. Puzzled, Pepper went over to the window and let the owl inside. Cashlinn landed on Pepper's arm with a hoot, and the girl saw that the letter Cashlinn was carrying was addressed to her. She untied it and opened it up. After reading it she contemplated whether or not to go down to the common room. Deciding that she did, she left the dorm and headed downstairs to meet Harry.

He looked somewhat surprised that she'd showed up and walked over to meet her as she descended the stairs. "Hey," he said, smiling forcedly.

"Hi...I thought you'd be really mad at me," said Pepper.

"Well I am, and I'm not," Harry said.

"Oh..."

"Well you have reason to be mad at me, and I don't think you're irked," he said. "We shouldn't have pushed you to that...though I wish you would have told me how upset you were."

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about this here," Pepper said, eyeing all the people in the common room. "Could we take a walk around the castle?"

"Sure," Harry shrugged, walking towards the portrait hole.

Once they were outside of Gryffindor Tower, they resumed their talk. "So it was our fault then?"

"Yes," Pepper said dully. "I s'pose that's what drove me to it."

"Can I see your arms?" Harry asked. The pair stopped walking and Pepper held out her robe-covered arms. Harry pushed back the heavy fabric to reveal her bare arms that were scattered with fading scars. "Pepper..." he moaned helplessly. "You have a problem. Your arms are covered. I don't know how the hell you could do that..." He shuddered. "You need help."

"No I don't Harry," Pepper told him, pulling her arms towards her and putting her sleeves down. She resumed walking. "I only did it because I was depressed. I didn't have anyone, and that depressed me! So I did it. I haven't for months. I won't do it again."

"Promise?" Harry said, walking quickly to keep up with her.

"Yea," said Pepper. "So anyway, you aren't mad at me for kissing Malfoy?"

"Nope, I don't think I really have a reason to. I mean, we aren't officially together so why shouldn't you kiss him?"

Pepper raised a skeptical eyebrow at Harry. Has he lost his mind? she wondered. "Err..." was all she managed to say.

"Actually, Pepper, I was wondering if you wanted to be my girlfriend," Harry asked.

"So you're not going to ditch me?" Pepper said. Harry shook his head. "Okay, well I say yes then. I promise I won't kiss anyone but you."

"Good," said Harry, slipping his arm around Pepper's waist. As they rounded a corner they saw two figures kissing heatedly against a wall. Pepper and Harry looked in disgust as they walked by stealthily. Pepper recognized the male as Malfoy and the female as another Slytherin by the name of Geri Hanley. (A/N: This is really my friend, but she wanted to snog Malfoy so I put her in the story with a different name.)

"Ick," Pepper said when they were in the next corridor, sticking her tongue out. "That's gross. Now I can tell you I didn't do THAT with Malfoy."

"That's good," Harry said. "So Pepper will you tell Hermione and Ron about what you did?"

"I dunno, I think they'll get really bothered...they'll yell at me, Hermione will give me a lecture...I'm not sure if I want to go through that."

"Pepper, they deserve to know! I think you should tell them! They'd want to know."

"Fine," Pepper said. "I'll tell them. Hermione first, though. I'll do it later today, I guess." Harry squeezed her waist with the arm he had around it.

"I'll be with you when you tell them if you'd like. Unless you want to tell her in the dormitory, then I can't be there. But if you do it down in the common room or something then I can be there. That's only if you need moral support. If you don't then I can spend my time doing something else," Harry ranted.

"That's alright Harry, I think I can do it alone. It is my problem, after all."

"You know Pepper, you and Malfoy are related," Harry mused.

"WHAT?!" Pepper screamed, jumping away from Harry. "Did you just say me and Malfoy are RELATED! How can that be?"

"Yeah, you're related. His mom is Sirus' cousin. Though Sirius was removed from his family tree, so I guess you were too. So by blood you're Malfoy's, what, second cousin? But if you're going by what the family thinks you two aren't related at all," Harry explained.

"That's even grosser than Malfoy's tongue down Hanley's throat!" Pepper cried. "I KISSED MY SECOND COUSIN! Ewwww!"

Harry suppressed a laugh. He didn't know why he hadn't realized the two were related before. "Yeah," he settled on saying to Pepper, not really wanting to comfort her or calm her down – it was too funny. And besides, she had sort of cheated on him, so why not let her pay for it? "Yeah, I s'pose you kissed your second cousin."

Pepper, sticking her tongue out once again, excused herself and ran back to Gryffindor Tower, saying she needed to go wash her mouth out with soap.

Hermione was in the dormitory when Pepper ran in through the door. "Hey, Pepper, how was your talk with Harry?" she asked.

"How'd you know?" Pepper questioned. Hermione held up the note Harry had sent her by way of owl. Pepper nodded in understanding and then remembered why she was up here. "I'll be back in a minute, I've got to wash my mouth out with soap," Pepper told Hermione, running into the bathroom to do so.

"Alright," Hermione said to Pepper's retreating back. Why would she need to do that? Hermione wondered. Surely kissing Harry couldn't be that disgusting.

"That's better," said Pepper, coming out of the bathroom.

"I'd like to know why in the name of Merlin you did that, Pepper," Hermione said to her. "That's one of the strangest things I've ever seen anyone do."

"Did you know I was related to Malfoy?" Pepper asked Hermione hurriedly, sitting on Hermione's bed, next to her pile of books. "Cos that's what Harry just informed me. And that means I kissed my second cousin." Pepper grimaced. "Hence why I needed to wash my mouth out with soap. That's sickening! I wish someone had told me before he went and kissed me."

"That is sickening." Hermione grimaced as Pepper had. "I didn't know that he was related to you...I wonder why Harry didn't tell me."

"He probably didn't think it was important to tell you, I mean, he just remembered it now, and he told me. He said that my dad was Malfoy's mother's cousin, so that makes me Malfoy's second cousin. Eww. Hey, I wonder if Malfoy knows this piece of info. If he doesn't then I could definitely use this to my advantage." Pepper cackled evilly for effect. "Now, in all seriousness, Hermione, I have to talk to you," Pepper said, calming down.

"What is it Pepper? Is something wrong?" Hermione asked with concern, seeing the look on Pepper's face was less than cheerful.

"I s'pose you could say that...I've got to tell you something. Obviously Harry told you about the issue of snogging Malfoy, but he didn't tell you something even more important, he said it was my business but I should tell you...so I'm telling you. You see...when you, Harry and Ron stopped paying any attention to me, I didn't have anyone so I...er...hell, why is this so hard, I blurted it all out to Harry last night...well, I cut myself."

Hermione's eyes opened wide in shock. "What?" she hissed sharply.

"I cut myself, Hermione," Pepper repeated.

"Pepper!" Hermione shouted. "How could you! You could have DIED!" Hermione glared daggers at Pepper before getting up and running out of the dormitory, tears threatening to spill from her eyes.

Pepper sighed, cursing herself for being so tactless. "Well, I guess I should go try to apologize and explain..." she muttered under her breath, leaving the dorm and going down to the common room. There she found Hermione being comforted by Ron and Harry, the redhead glaring at her.

Pepper walked over to them, a desperate expression on her face. "I'm sorry, Hermione," she said, and she meant it. She didn't want Hermione to be mad at her. Crouching in front of Hermione, she tired to make eye contact with her. "Hermione," Pepper pleaded. Ron glared at her but he removed his arm from Hermione, letting Pepper get her attention. "You have reason to be mad, I know." She put her hands on Hermione's knees. "Hermione will you look at me!"

"I am mad at you Pepper. I'm also really sad," Hermione said, still not looking at her friend. "But then, Harry and Ron should be mad at you, too. And you should be mad at Harry."

"I know they should be – wait, why should I be mad at Harry?" Pepper asked.

"Hermione..." Harry said warningly.

"Ron should be mad at Harry too," Hermione said.

"Why?" Ron asked.

"Hermione shut it!" said Harry menacingly.

"He snogged Ginny," Hermione said plainly.

Two things happened at once, Ron stood up and roared, "He did WHAT?" as Pepper jumped up and glared at Harry, yelling, "What did you say Hermione?"

"He snogged Ginny," Hermione repeated for them coolly. Harry was wide-eyed and blushing madly. Ron's face was red too, but it was out of anger instead of embarrassment. He looked like he was going to kill Harry right then and there.

"For your sake, I hope you didn't, Harry," Ron muttered through clenched teeth.

"I can explain, Ron," Harry said desperately, standing up and walking behind the couch to put an object between him and Ron. "See, I didn't know it was Ginny. We were at the Masquerade Ball, so she had a mask on!"

"I thought you liked ME Harry!" Pepper said loudly. The scene was starting to draw the attention of people around the common room, and they were very amused, as was Hermione.

"I do Pepper! I didn't know it was Ginny!" argued Harry.

"But you knew it was someone besides me! How could you Harry?" Pepper asked angrily.

Ginny had heard her name being shouted as she walked out of her dorm and upon entering the common room found Harry behind the couch yelling at an angry Pepper and Ron. Hermione was sitting in the middle of it, dried tears on her cheeks, looking amused.

"What's this about me?" Ginny asked, coming over and standing next to Pepper.

Pepper looked at her to see who it was, and when she recognized Ginny her eyes narrowed. "You snogged my boyfriend!" Pepper accused.

Ginny's face blanched. "I didn't mean to, Pepper, I swear," she said. "I didn't know it was Harry until the unmasking."

"Besides Pepper, you kissed someone other than me! And you KNEW who they were!" Harry exclaimed at Pepper.

"But that's different!" Pepper shouted back at him, not really knowing how Harry kissing Ginny was different from her kissing Malfoy. In fact, it was worse for her to kiss Malfoy because she knew who he was and she knew he's Harry's arch enemy. Whereas Harry didn't even know the girl he was kissing.

"It is not different!" Harry retorted.

"Yea, how is it different?" Ginny wondered, supporting Harry.

"How could YOU snog Harry?" Ron said, rounding on his little sister. "My sister can't snog my best friend! Wait till Mum hears about this! Wait till Bill and Charlie hear about this!"

"For the last time, Ron, I didn't know it was Harry! And no one has to hear about this!" Ginny told him.

Pepper noticed Harry's face at grown paler at the mention of Ron's mother and brothers being notified of this information. She took this opportunity to pick on Harry while Ron was busy yelling at Ginny.

"Why did you snog her? You said you liked me! You asked me out! But obviously you want to be with Ginny. Were you planning on having a secret affair with her or something?" Pepper rambled at Harry.

"You're no better, Pepper, you're the one that snogged Malfoy," Harry said.

"I know, we've been over this a million times, I'm just wondering why you snogged Ginny," said Pepper.

"I couldn't see her face, I thought she was you," Harry explained, lowering the volume of his voice. He was sort of embarrassed that he'd mistaken his best friend's sister for his girlfriend.

"How could you think Ginny was me?" Pepper asked hotly.

Hermione rose from her seat and grabbed Pepper by the wrist, pulling her up the spiral staircase and into their dormitory before Pepper realized what was happening.

When Hermione slammed the door and faced Pepper, she was very huffy. "Why are you so damn sure of yourself?" she fumed angrily at Pepper. "You're so cocky and inconsiderate! You're as bad as Malfoy! Maybe you deserve him! You say you're not better than anyone else but you act that way all the time? How can you just brush off the fact that you cheated on your boyfriend and you slashed your wrists and then turn around and blame Harry for doing something that wasn't even as bad as what you did? You brush EVERYTHING off like that! Like, oh, I'm here now so everything's okay! Well it's not fucking okay! I'm your best friend and I care about you Pepper! That's why I'm telling you this and that's why I'm yelling at you for hurting yourself! As much as you say it was the fault of me, Harry and Ron it really wasn't, you're the one that cut yourself! We didn't, and we couldn't do that for you! Now I know we made you upset, and I'm sorry for that, but you could've come to me, or Ginny or one of the teachers if you were depressed. You didn't have to go to those lengths."

At this point in her speech, Hermione was in tears, but she went on letting her feelings out to Pepper.

"We could have gotten you help or something so you didn't have to resort to doing that. Pepper, you can't just cut yourself every time someone gets mad at you! That's going to happen for the rest of your life! You'll die before then if you keep this up! So next time you even THINK of doing it talk to Ginny or me or even Harry, all right? We'll help you. We won't hate you for being depressed. But you have to promise never to do it again, okay?"

Pepper walked over to Hermione and gave her a hug, very astonished that Hermione felt the way she did, and that she'd tell Pepper that freely. "I'm sorry Hermione, I'm so sorry," she whispered, and she meant it. "I promise I'll never do it again, and I promise to try and be less cocky. I didn't realize I was doing it. I didn't know you thought that lowly of me, Hermione."

Hermione didn't take this moment to yell at Pepper for trying to guilt trip her, instead she said, "Pepper, you're a great person and a good friend, but sometimes you just get carried away. And will you stop arguing with Harry, he tried to cut you a break and then you shoved it in his face. Just forget the fact that you snogged his enemy and he snogged your friend, okay?"

"Alright, I'll stop doing everything you disapprove of, Hermione," Pepper said somewhat sarcastically, though Hermione failed to catch the sarcasm.

"Good," she said, "Now let's go back into the common room so we can make our appropriate apologies."