Chapter Nineteen
Gossip
Hermione woke up feeling both calm yet extremely tired, and it took her a moment to remember why. Waking up next to Harry had always made her feel very peaceful; it was a reminder that no matter what, she had a great friend in Harry, and he would always be there for her, and she for him. Usually, however, she felt much more rested—but then, she'd been crying long and hard yesterday.
Fred. Fred, that stupid prat. He'd started the fight, and he'd gone way too far to finish it.
She nestled closer to Harry, determined not to cry again. She would talk to Harry and Ginny, and maybe Ron if he'd cooled off, and they'd dig back into the war with Fred as hard as possible. Ron probably wouldn't notice Hermione's renewed vigor, but Harry most certainly would, as well as Ginny; Hermione doubted that either of them would call her on it, however. They'd simply be there for her and help her, and refrain from asking just why her resolve had hardened. If they did ask, they would give up if she told them that she didn't want to talk.
Harry shifted in his sleep, and Hermione smiled at him before resting her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat as she made plans to take Fred down. Harry's wrist rested on his stomach and she absently watched his wristwatch, wanting to get Harry out of her room before Parvati and Lavender awoke. Just as she was considering waking him up, a familiar squeal sounded.
"Oh, my god, d'you think those are Fred's shoes!"
"D'you think that's his bag?"
"Shh, let's find out."
Hermione could hear Parvati and Lavender attempting to sneak over to her bed. Hermione had no time to even wake Harry, let alone hide him. Panicking, she simply squeezed her eyes shut, feigning sleep as the hangings around her bed were jerked back and wishing she could simply Apparate far, far away so that she could die of embarrassment in peace.
"Oh. My. G—AAHH!"
Hermione's eyes opened as Harry's wrist suddenly flew upwards; she turned to look and saw that Harry, his eyes half-closed, had seized the front of Lavender's robes in an iron grip.
"Either of you says a word to anyone," Harry said, in a calm-but-threatening tone, "and I'll kill you both. Understand?"
"Yeah, Harry," Lavender squeaked. Parvati nodded emphatically beside her.
Harry released Lavender after a moment, and the two girls quickly scurried away, pulling the hangings back shut around Harry and Hermione. Harry waited until he heard Parvati and Lavender finish gathering their shower things and leave the room before he turned to Hermione. "G'morning," he said, grinning.
"Morning," Hermione said, grinning back. "That was brilliant, by the way."
"Do you think it worked?" he asked.
"I don't know," Hermione said, "but the look on their faces was enough for me."
He chuckled, but then his face grew serious. "Listen, Hermione… about Fred…"
"I don't want to talk about it," Hermione said, her mouth set in a firm line.
Harry sighed; from the look on her face, he could almost see her shutting herself down, putting away the emotional pain and replacing it with righteous anger and a determination to kick butt. Still, as Hermione had predicted, he decided to leave it alone, at least for now. To his surprise, however, Hermione had another topic of discussion in mind.
"I do want to talk about the fight with Fred, though," she said, her eyes flashing. "Listen, I think what we need to do here is use gossip to our advantage. I know you don't want to do it, not really, but can we still use that plan? The one where you ask me out?"
Harry grimaced. He hadn't really liked that plan; talking to Fred at the Burrow, while calling the truce, had been the only time they'd done anything along those lines, and Harry had felt rather odd about the whole thing. He didn't really like the idea of Fred thinking that Harry wanted Hermione, partially because there was always a chance that Fred would just say, "Hey, you can have her" and that would be a very… wrong situation. Then, too, there was a chance that Harry was wrong about whatever had happened the day before, that maybe Hermione was wrong about it too, and that Fred really liked Hermione—and who knew what Fred would do if he thought Harry was trying to "move in on his girl?" All sorts of things could go wrong with such an idea, and just about all of them would come down hard on Harry; Fred, despite his joking demeanor, was incredibly smart, and Harry was quite worried what would happen if Fred ever got it together or figured out their plans. Still, it was for Hermione and she was his friend; hell, she'd saved his life on more than one occasion, his life and Ron's and Sirius's and the entire world's, albeit indirectly. He wouldn't feel right abandoning her just because he might wind up embarrassed, especially not after she'd just spent an hour crying on his shoulder the day before.
"All right," he said slowly, smiling, "but now that Parvati and Lavender have seen me in here, that could get tricky."
Hermione laughed. "I love you, Harry," she said, shaking her head. "Anyway, I was thinking… d'you think you could come to the detention tonight? Under the cover of needing homework help or something?"
"Er… well, I'll have to see about Quidditch practice," Harry said reluctantly. "But I'm sure Angelina won't hold it without Fred, so it shouldn't be a problem. Why? What's the plan?"
"Basically just for you to show up, and for me to spend time with you instead of Fred. We need to set a base for this you-liking-me thing, so that it doesn't come out of the blue."
Harry nodded, though he was fairly certain that Hermione just didn't want anything to happen with Fred right now and wanted Harry to show so that Fred would hold back. "All right, sounds like a plan," he said. "Listen, I better get out of here, before anyone else…"
"Yeah," Hermione agreed. "We need to get to breakfast, anyway. I'll meet you downstairs in a few minutes."
"Okay," Harry said, smiling at her before heading out, immediately feeling rather blah once he left. He and Hermione weren't much for hugging or anything on a day-to-day basis; they rarely did anything of the sort except on nights like the previous one. Leaving in the morning had always made him feel sort of funny, like he was leaving a nice protective fortress and heading out onto a battlefield filled with death.
Thankfully, the common room was still empty when he reached it, and he picked up the pace towards his room, not wanting anyone to see him leaving the girls' dormitories in the clothes he'd been wearing yesterday. He made it up the stairs in record time and pushed open his door.
Ron, who was standing by his bed and pulling on his robes, turned to glare at Harry angrily. "And where've you been, huh?" he growled, and pushed past Harry to stomp down the stairs.
Harry sighed. "It's going to be a long day," he muttered.
Four in the morning had found Fred standing next to hastily-created chart full of evil plots that he was explaining in-depth to George and Lee. When he'd finally finished relating his newest plan, he'd turned to find that George was asleep and Lee was snoring softly. Sudden realization had dawned on him.
"My god," Fred had said in horror, "I've become Oliver Wood."
He'd thrown the chart into his trunk and practically ran for his bed, memories of similar middle-of-the-night strategy meetings during Oliver's Quidditch dictatorship floating through his head. Fred couldn't even begin to count the number of times his good friend had burst into the room at one a.m. and ranted about the Quidditch team while he and George attempted to ignore Oliver's voice and sleep and Lee put a spell around his bed to block sound. Fred now fully understood that he was losing it, and had to do what he could to calm down before it was too late.
Still, Fred thought the night hadn't been a total waste, planning-wise. Most of the discussion when George and Lee had been at least half-awake had involved new ways to get one up on Hermione, so Fred was certain that by morning, he would have any feelings for her out of his system and would be fully prepared to take her down. To kick her butt. To slaughter her.
When he woke up, he wanted Hermione.
Damn.
He lay there in bed, listening to Lee snore away, silently yelling at himself to knock it off with the Hermione crap. Yes, she was pretty. Yes, she was smart. Yes, she was a troublemaker pretending to be a Percy. Yes, she was one of the most awesome people he'd ever met. But she'd messed with him. Therefore, she had to go DOWN.
Oh, shut up, a small voice (which sounded like a cross between his mother and Percy) whispered from somewhere deep within him. You're just mad that she doesn't like you. You KNOW this whole mess is your fault.
Fred struggled to refute that claim, but he couldn't. It HAD been his fault (though he had to admit that given the opportunity, he'd do it all over again, just for the look on Hermione's face), and all he really wanted was for Hermione to like him. He didn't really care, not anymore. She could punch him, she could punch his brother, she could embarrass him in front of the entire wizarding world; he didn't care… and another voice (one that sounded more like George) cut in just then.
Hey, when have you ever let anything stop you from doing what you want?
Fred frowned, his mind suddenly reeling. What was stopping him? So she liked Harry, so what? He could still get her. If she'd liked Harry all along… well, that hadn't stopped her from kissing Fred, had it? A crush on Harry, even dating Harry, didn't mean much. Hell, if she'd felt that way about Harry from the start, then it didn't mean a thing; she'd responded to Fred well enough. She couldn't really fake that, could she? No, of course not. Besides, who was to say he couldn't change her mind? If he could drive her to do half the things she'd done recently, surely he could make her like him.
Fred grinned and sat up, more cheerful than he'd been in days. As he'd told her yesterday—no matter what, she was going to be his.
The moment Snape opened the door to the staffroom, feminine giggling reached his ears. He groaned; some of the female teachers had become far too interested in whatever the hell was going on between Granger and Psycho Weasley Number One, in his opinion. McGonagall, Sprout, Vector, Hooch, and Sinistra had all been keeping tabs on Granger for years, practically reliving their youth vicariously through her. She was everyone's favorite student, save for the teachers who no longer had her—in other words, Snape couldn't go into the staffroom without hearing about Granger. Most of the teachers also liked Psycho Weasley Number One and Number Two, even though they wouldn't admit it. McGonagall had been quite proud of herself for getting Granger to retaliate, and the other women had given her a pat on the back.
While Snape was quite tempted to simply turn around, retreat to his quarters and wait for Granger and Psycho Weasley Number One to graduate, he knew that he had to put a stop to the nonsense among the teachers if he was going to have a moment's peace for the next few years. Bracing himself, Snape pushed to door open fully.
"So Hermione looked mortified?" Sprout was asking McGonagall.
"Quite," McGonagall said. "I've never seen anyone run as fast as Hermione did from that bathroom."
"She was moving rather slowly on her way back to Gryffindor tower, though," Sinistra said. "Passed her in the halls; she looked like she was on autopilot."
"Autopilot?" Vector said, frowning.
"Muggle term," Sinistra said with a sigh, "never mind."
"Aren't you lot a tad old to be gossiping?" Snape said, announcing his presence.
"Women are never too old to gossip," Sprout quipped.
"Though men are often stupid enough to call them old," Hooch said, giving him a glare.
Snape rolled his eyes in disgust and sat down. "When are you five going to stop this ridiculous rumor-swapping? It is quite tiresome."
"It's fun, though," Hooch said, "and mostly because you find it tiresome." The others laughed.
Snape sighed. "How on Earth can you find any of this interesting? Until one of them kills the other, I see no entertainment value."
"That's because you're boring, Severus," Sinistra said, grinning.
"Aren't you the least bit curious, Severus?" McGonagall said, folding a long silvery cloak that lay in a heap on the table in front of her.
"No, I'm—wait. Is that an invisibility cloak?"
"Yes," McGonagall said briskly. "We've decided to go see what Fred and Hermione are really getting up to."
"Why on Earth would you want to see that?" Snape said in disgust.
"Honestly, men have no sense of romance," Sprout said, shaking her head sadly.
"Putting on invisibility cloaks to spy on a couple of idiot teenagers making out during detention hardly constitutes as romance," Snape said, rolling his eyes again.
"Sure you don't want to come, Severus?" Hooch said, batting her eyelashes at him. "You might learn a few things about dating," she added mockingly.
An angry reply was on the tip of Snape's tongue when he caught himself. Whatever Granger was doing with Psycho Weasley Number One, it was most assuredly against school rules—and would probably be enough to get them both suspended, or at least in detention for a very long time, when one counted upon the disregard for the rules possessed by those two students in particular. Not only that, but they were both Gryffindors, and a few more broken rules would mean enough house points taken from Gryffindor to secure a Slytherin victory in the house cup.
"All right," Snape said slowly, relishing the shocked looks on his female coworkers' faces. "I'll go."
With that, Snape left, not needing to look at the others to know that they were all gaping after him in disbelief.
End Notes:
I promised myself I wouldn't get into review responses on this one, as it's so taxing to do them for one story, and I just couldn't handle doing it for two, especially not for the two I get the most reviews on. Still, a few people have raised questions that I feel need answers.
Punked-gal: Why Fred? Mostly just because I find Fred cooler. He's more prominent in the books, however slightly, and he has cooler lines. In Goblet of Fire, there are a lot of moments that you can see a Fred/Hermione story developing; you can't as readily see a George/Hermione story. Like, you know, Fred offers Hermione a tart, he tells her how to get to the kitchens, they say the same line in the owlery… and in Order of the Phoenix, I could see even more of it. I just think Fred is cooler than George and more likely to be with Hermione. I want to write a fic one day where they're having a relationship DURING Order of the Phoenix, playing off the scenes with the two of them in that book.
Katie and Alex: No, there's only gonna be Fred/Hermione romance. I don't do Ron/Hermione stories; the closest I come is when I have them dating at the beginning of a fic and breaking up sometime during it. When it comes down to it, I really don't even like Ron as much as the other characters. I have about twenty different people I like better. I don't think Hermione and Ron are well-matched, either… but hey, like they say, "To each his own."
Citcat229: Yeah, I read that about the dorms, but it was AFTER I got the idea for this fic that the fifth book came out, and I decided that I liked the idea enough to just take creative license with that thing about the dorms. Besides, it didn't make sense to me that the students wouldn't figure out how to beat it… for example, how would Oliver wake up Angelina, Alicia and Katie for Quidditch practice at the crack of dawn? And I'm sure people like the twins are tricky enough to get past it… and if you FLEW up the stairs, rather than walked up them… anyway, I realized this fic just couldn't work without at least Fred going up there, and I decided that since he could get up there, I might as well just destroy the whole rule and let Harry and Ron up there. Thanks, though!
Auddie (also commented on by Ehlonna, dizzydragon, and Lady Angelique of mystique): Yeah, I use the Harry/Hermione sleeping in the same bed in several fics, including "The Prank War," and I'll probably use it in "We Woke Up Married" and several fics that I've yet to post. I really liked that idea, just like some of the other things that reoccur in my fics (this story, actually, started as a reoccurring element in "A Night at the Three Broomsticks" and "Harry's New Family") and I do find it useful. I used to do that with one guy friend in particular, a guy named Patrick, and it always made me feel really good, like everything was okay, cuz I had him. I really liked the idea of Harry and Hermione doing that; it seemed natural for them, like something they would do.