By: Orokid

Author's Note: Lol. Yet ANOTHER fanfic to be posted in about two hours… I'm a posting fiend! Lol. I'm so freakin' hyper…I just know that I shouldn't be, because I'm listening to a depressing song and was just at band practice. Lol. So… yeah…

Rating: T

Genre: Angst/Romance

Warnings: There's always some angst right now, 'cause I'm in that period in my life, and it's just like that. Lol.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything Harry Potter- and that includes the storyline and the characters and everything else involved with such things.

The Quidditch Cup

Chapter One

Harry didn't like this.

I'm sure you're wondering what "this" was, considering that the Man-Who-Lived seemed to despise it so. "This" was the situation he found himself in weeks, maybe even months, ago, and he didn't know how to sure himself of this strange yet welcomed disease. It was like flying atop his broom in the best day in either Spring or Summer, but it was also like falling into a deep abyss or being cursed by the infamous Avada Kedavra. He…

… was in love.

Sadly, the mere phrase didn't quite promote as much a problem as the person he found himself feeling so deeply for, but rather who it was. It was possibly the worst thing he had known himself to do, falling for someone so beautiful and untouchable, so kind and lovely that a man feels blessed to be in the presence of such a goddess, and he wished that he could let go when her affections are knowingly on another, that he wasn't in pain each and every time she arrived on his doorstep with tears in her eyes and her heart torn in two. He wished that she never smiled so beautifully at him when he'd be in the worst of moods, or when he was trying hard to forget his deep affections for her.

He wished that she wasn't his best friend, the woman he's known since he was on that train as a little, scrawny eleven year-old, soon to be twelve years since then next month. Harry Potter, He-Who-Defeated-the-Dark-Lord, was in love with someone who wouldn't ever look past the boy she had made friends with all those years ago, past the friendly embraces and gentle smiles and the memories they shared together.

And it was evident that the man she loved was none other than the man who took her virgin lips for the first time, who took to studying her, to loving her, before Ron (who still won't admit to this day that he had a rather huge crush upon the woman in question) and Harry ever admitted to themselves of doing.

It seemed so… Shakespearian- or so he'd been told. It wasn't as though he was a man to pick up a book and read it for his own enjoyment, but rather for the good of the wizarding world usually. Learning complex spells here and there, becoming the universe's best hope from being over-taken by a maniac with equally crazed followers- those were the excuses he'd have to why he'd follow the young woman he knew he'd die without to the library and ask for her advice and listen to her soft and loving voice drone on about the method of wand movements it'd take or the exact way he should say the words for the maximum effect.

But back to the present situation, to why the emerald eyed youth felt so irritable as he watched her saunter to and fro, as she acted like she always had around him and the others.

It may have been because the man who she loved as much as the raven haired hero cared for her tended to never leave her side, to watch her with the eyes men in love do watch with. And the reason he was even around her, tagging along like a lost puppy in search of a home, was because he had invited the entire Weasley family (Percy included) and the lovely young woman he fancied- as well as the great Defeater-of-the-Dark-Lord.

To tell the truth, Harry felt as though it had been a forced invitation, and not the friendly, 'let's all be friends' sort that the young woman who had captured more than just the heart of the Man-Who-Lived had hoped. Still, he didn't say a thing to her, but it was mostly because he didn't wish to bring upon World War three on a world that just got over Voldemort. Besides, she and their red-haired companion, Ronald, did it enough that there wasn't enough for the young man to argue with her about.

Also, it was the last thing he wanted to do, considering he wanted to win her heart without the heated, weapon-based war- the second Cold War approach seemed to be a much easier route.

Even though he doubted that there was much of any chance that he could ever do such a thing, thinking about the fact that his right hand pumped as though he held a stress ball within his grasp each and every time her suitor was around. He'd seen how she'd look at him with a question in her eyes, knowing that he obviously wasn't in a position he well liked since she had grown up with the Boy-Who-Lived as he became a man. He knew that she didn't quite know what he might've been so jumpy about, why he held that murderous look in his eye, but she'd stare at him now and then before she'd open her mouth, only to be interrupted by her dear beloved himself.

The emerald eyed man just knew that she hadn't gotten around with asking yet, and so he had to be ready for whenever that moment would arrive, whenever she decided to open that can of worms. He had to be ready to be asked about his issues with the star player on the quidditch field, Viktor Krum.

As he got to thinking more about the bloke, he immediately feel his entire body catch on fire, remembering what he had done lately, right in front of him. Okay, so he hadn't done it to spite him (had he?), but the young man could just feel incredibly angered about this since his situation with the heart department wouldn't allow him to do otherwise. He could remember how she had smiled with both calm and nervousness back towards him, making his heart soar into the skies above, and then turn back to the man to agree to his offer, to be his roommate, tent-mate, until the match had been done.

Naturally, the emerald eyed youth did the best to congratulate her on finding a less crowded tent where she could be herself, and also to look like he was alright with the arrangement. While they had been staying in Grimmald Place for the past few years, leaving time and space for Harry to make a move whenever he decided to (which seemed to be never by the onlookers), he had believed her to take up a tent with either him or the Weasley's- although he had hoped she'd choose him over spending her precious time with a man who only made her scream in frustration.

It had already been one day and one night after they had port keyed themselves to the tournament, and Harry felt as though someone had cast the killing curse upon his puppy. He hadn't slept, for every time he closed his eyes he could see lewd actions that Viktor might try with her so to taint her pureness. Although he knew that no one could ever truly taint her, for someone as saintly couldn't ever be dirtied by the likes of a mere mortal. The man with green eyes didn't feel like he was even godly enough to smile and talk with her like they did all the time, even though he had placed up the guide of 'just friends', as he usually did.

But that little action of pretending like he felt absolutely nothing towards her than friends, that he didn't feel pained when she looked at other men the way he dared to hope she'd look at him one day. It was a hopeless sort, he knew, but it hadn't stopped him from trying to be who she'd look to while lost in the dark, who she'd come to when heartache knocked upon her door.

"Harry?"

She had caught him glaring into his morning coffee, twice the amount of lines under blackening eyes, looking up at her with a more than surprised gaze. This courageous young woman had caught him, preparing to blast his ceramic mug into pieces with merely his usually gentle orbs. It would be Hell trying to convince her otherwise after she asked him what was wrong, and after he said nothing.

"What's wrong? You look like you're about to kill your coffee or something, and you only do that when you're thinking hard about something." Her chocolaty eyes seemed to only gaze straight through him, through the skin and bone and straight to the soul of his very being. It was wrong of her to know him so well, for he now couldn't hide his emotions and needs to himself, couldn't tell them to go away when all he really wanted was to have someone hold him in their arms and rock him like a mother would their baby, and then tell him that all was alright.

He smiled softly towards her with that usual crooked smile that he usually gave her, his eyes sparkling with the emotions he had never spoken aloud, and then he shook his head 'no'. Saying no more than he should, and wishing to say no more than she wished him to, he stood from his seat and slip the chair back into it's original spot before nodding at her- the motion he usually gave as he was walking back into the back of the tent.

Hermione only could watch him leave, her head cocked ever so slightly, watching him with eyes that wondered just what had just occurred.

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Author's Note: Please review!

Lol. I just wanna know what people think about it, you know? It would be nice to get some reviews.