Disclaimer: I don't own anything - instead I borrow it, chop it all up and marinade it in a cheesy sauce. Bake for 35 minutes, at gas mark 6, then leave to cool. Serving suggestion: With a pinch of salt.
AN: Yes, I'm editing this chapter too.
You Can't Be The Hero-That's My Job!
Chapter 2: Must...find...cure...!
Both Ron and Hermione arrived back at the Gryffindor common room, in a bit of a tiz, to say the least.
"We're doomed aren't we? All of us - doomed to become infected with Heroismitis! Doomed worst than we've ever been doomed before! This is it - our undoing!" Hermione, overcome with self-pity and grief, sank to the floor and cried like a baby; while Ron ran up to his dormitory and began packing - he was getting the hell out of there.
Ginny, seeing the duo's strange behaviour, cautiously tip-toed over to Hermione to see what was wrong, and get all the goss'. "Hermione, are you okay?" she asked sympathetically, getting to her knees next to her sobbing friend. "What's happened?"
"G-Ginny! It's Harry. He's ill," Hermione sobbed harder. "Heroismitis - there's no -"
"Cure," Ginny finished. "No. Not Harry. Please, no. There must be some mistake?"
Hermione shook her head sadly.
There was a loud noise, as Ron shoved his trunk down the dormitory stairs.
"Well, I'm off. Tell Harry, no offence and all that, but I'd rather not catch his illness," he buttoned up his cloak and was about to drag his trunk in the direction of the portrait hole, when he was stopped in his tracks.
"Ronald Weasley! How can you leave now? He's your best friend for God's sake," Ginny looked at her brother in disgust. "Harry may have Heroismitis, but you, dearest brother, have got yourself a bout of Cowardiceitis!"
There was silence (even from all the other Gryffindors - they were riveted to the goings-on). It was quite awkward.
"You're right. You're right! What kind of friend am I? Abandoning Harry at a time like this!" Ron would have looked at himself in disgust, if only he'd had a mirror.
Suddenly, the portrait hole swung open to reveal -
"Harry! You're contagious!" Hermione shrieked, as she flung herself behind Ron, for...um...protection! Yes, that's it - protection...from those nasty airborne germs of Harry's. "You've got to go back to the Hospital Wing."
But Harry ignored her and strode gallantly into the common room.
"No," he said nobly. "I can not. Not when I have a quest. A quest to find a cure for this illness. For the good of humanity, I must not sit around in the Hospital Wing. No...I must save us all. It is my duty as the hero, after all," he concluded with his hands on his hips.
This extremely dramatic moment was brought to a close, however, when Seamus (who had been in the crowd of Gryffindors, watching the drama unfold) made a shocking announcement.
"You're not the hero, though. I am."
Everyone turned to stare at him, aghast.
"Don't be silly, Seamus. You're not the hero," Dean scoffed, but then ever so suddenly, he got a mad glint in his eye. "Neither of you are - because I am."
"I don't think so, mate," there was a distinct note of bitterness in Seamus' voice.
"Er, excuse me," Harry was not pleased at all by this distraction - they were taking away his spotlight. "The only hero around here is me. Always has been, always will be."
"Harry, they don't mean it," Ginny hissed. "They're ill - just like you."
"The only way to settle who the true hero is...is with a duel - the winner will obviously be the hero," Dean suggested.
"Fine by me," Harry nodded, courageously.
"And me," Seamus declared.
"Bring it on."
Hermione decided that a duel would be a bad idea. A very bad idea. "Harry can I have a word with you...outside," She nodded in the direction of the portrait hole.
"Of course. Then I'll duel the winner of this so-called heroes'duel," he followed her and Ron out into the corridor.
"Harry, you have to go back to the Hospital Wing, this instant!" Hermione pleaded. "You've already infected three people."
"Well then, all the more reason to fulfil my quest. Think about it - now they're infected, they too will infect others; soon everyone will be infected and there'll be no cure," Harry bravely puffed out his chest. "Even if I infect a thousand people, I've got to find a cure. And when I do, everything can go back to being peachy."
"Peachy?" Ron asked, baffled.
Both of his friends, however, ignored this comment.
"What about the whole V-Voldemort thing?" Hermione was now concerned that a symptom of Heroismitis was memory loss.
Harry rolled his eyes.
"Don't ruin the moment, Hermione."
OOO
The trio were ambling down another corridor, several minutes later. None of them had a clue where to start.
"What do we usually do at the start of a quest?" Harry asked his loyal sidekicks.
"Well, we don't usually call them quests-" Ron began.
"Whatever. What do we usually do at the start of a quest?" Harry repeated...um...bravely.
"We usually just notice suspicious things, I suppose," Hermione strained her mind back through all their previous years at Hogwarts. "The actual "quest" bit doesn't usually happen until June-ish time; coincidentally, most of the time, it was just after we'd finished that year's exams..."
"Except second year," Ron reminisced.
"Yes...second year," Hermione's words were spoken darkly; layered with revulsion, at just the mere memory of that year's exams being cancelled as a school treat. She shuddered involuntarily.
"Well, we can't wait until June to find a cure-it's October for crying out loud," Harry was horrified - in a stout-of-heart sort of way, of course.
Suddenly Hermione remembered she was Hermione-
"To the library!" she cried.
So off they went...but they never made it, due to the fact that they bumped into someone they'd much rather they hadn't. Draco Malfoy.
"Well, well, well, look who it isn't," Malfoy said, smirkishly.
"Get lost, Malfoy," Harry spoke boldly, yet he was clearly disgusted to see his archenemy (well, one of them) within a 40-metre radius of him. "We're too busy for your cretinous insults right now."
"Yeah, maybe later?" Ron added, sarcastically.
"Hold on, just a minute! I won't be spoken to like that; not by anyone - let alone you two losers," Malfoy spat, indignantly.
"Put your dummy back in, Malfoy," Hermione recommended. "Because we don't want to hear it."
"Don't tell me what to do, you filthy, little Mudblood," there was a look of disgust etched upon Malfoy's pointy features.
"Why you little-" but before Ron could lunge himself at Malfoy and tear him limb from snobbish-limb; Harry had valiantly dived on top of blond-bombshell and was now pummelling him into the stone floor.
Malfoy tried to fight back, but the Heroismitis made Harry think he was invincible. Therefore he was. Ah, the power of belief...
AN: Soooooooo...what do you think? I'd simply LOVE to know, so please review!
