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CHAPTER 1

The Pub was full of muggles, there was a large crowd close to the bar and around the tables. And it was so noisy I barely could hear myself thinking. I scanned the room searching for Ron and Hermione, it was incredibly hard with all those people and the smoke from their cigars planning in the air, and it didn't help that the pub was really dark for only a few lights were on. I noticed Harry didn't really know were to look, he seemed unsure if he should look for his friends too or examine his shoe-laces while waiting to be noticed and hoping not to be yelled at. I smiled at this sight.

We finally found them, Ron was sitting on a table not to far from us. I caught Harry's eyes, he swallowed hard and we headed to the red-head. As we came closer to him, I noticed Hermione wasn't there. Instead, there was another girl sitting next to Ron, caressing his arm… Probably another girlfriend, I though. She was thin and brown-haired, she actually remembered me a lot of Lavander Brown. One of this girls who only cares about herself and can't see anything other than how you look from outside. After all this years, I was convinced that Ron only cared about this kind of girls because they were hot, it had to be. There's no way he would like them because they were nice or smart. Merlin, I hated this girl the moment I saw her.

When we where only a few feet from their table, the red-haired finally spotted us. He stood up quickly and came over to us almost running, a huge smile crossing his face.

"Harry! You came! I can't believe it!" he said loudly while hugging his friend.

Harry, who had been tense till then, relaxed completely. He looked relieved as he returned his mate's hug. Ron finally let go of him.

"Hey, so how are you, mate? You've been away for too long, man! By the way, why did you leave at the first place?" Ron was serious now. I saw Harry tensing up, he wasn't ready to face that subject that soon.

"Hello Ron! Won't you talk to me? No, wait, did you at least notice I was here?" I said joking to change the conversation's topic.

"Hi Caroline! Yeah, I didn't know you were there!" he smirked as I punched his arm lightly "Come on then, let's have a seat." He leaded us back to his table.

Ron was now a grown up man, he was 22 years old. He was tall, muscular, handsome, loyal (well, not that loyal anymore…only to his friends.) and smart AND he was a great auror. To sum up: the perfect man.

We took our seats around the table with Ron's girlfriend, I assumed. Ron opened his mouth anxiously to ask Harry more questions completely ignoring the girl's presence. As she noticed it, she made that irritating "hem, hem" noise, exactly like Umbridge. Harry and I grinned at it, and Ron must have recognize it too for he turned his head sharply to face her, shocked to hear this sound again, then relieved and amused as he saw who had done it. His expressions made us laugh harder, and even the red-head would've started laughing if it wasn't the look the girl gave at him.

"Hem….yeah…hum, sorry. Hey, you two, that's Chiva, my, hem, friend" he said.

"Girlfriend. I'm his girlfriend." She said staring at me. Actually she seemed to be studying me, criticizing every inch of my body.

"Hi." Harry and I said in chorus waving simply at her. "So, where's Hermione?" Harry asked.

"She's in the bathroom. She'll be back soon" Ron answered as a shade of sadness crossed his eyes.

"By the way Chiva, we got you something." I said smiling, pulling a bag, I had shorten, from my pocket. I brought it back to its normal size with my wand. It was full of clothes Harry and I had bought earlier this day. I dropped all its contents on the table: many beautiful t-shirts were messed up in there. Chiva's jaw dropped open staring at the clothes.

"Oh my gosh! That's for me?" she said happily.

"Nope." I answered searching for one special shirt in the mess "Only this one" I said as I found it, a big and innocent smile playing on my face, and handed it to her. It was the ugliest man shirt ever. She stared at it disgusted pulling it with the napkin.

"Oh…thanks" she replied even more disgusted. Harry was trying hard to contain his laugher, Ron was absent-minded, completely off-line.

"I'm glad you liked it!" I said grinning, making it harder to my best friend to hold on his laugher much longer.

"You know, Ron and I have been dating for more than a month now." The girl said either to change the subject, or only because she tough that it might force me to be kind to her. Yeah, right.

"Great, she won't last much longer then", I said lowering my voice so only Harry could hear me. That made him laugh harder than before, it would've been impossible for him then to hold it longer if Hermione hadn't just jumped to his neck screaming.

"Harry!" She had just come out of the bathroom and as soon as she had spotted him, she had run straight to us. With the impulse she took, Harry fell down from the chair on his back, Hermione still holding him. Her arriving had brought Ron back to reality and he jumped to put his friends on feet again.

"Hey, Hermione! I'm happy to see you too but I kind of need to breathe, you know?"

"Oh! Sure, I'm sorry" She said pulling away and standing up. "By Merlin's beard, Harry! I still can't believe it's you! I mean, you've been away for so long, and now you're here! We missed you so much Harry!" And she hugged him again, lighter this time.

"It's Ok. I can't believe I'm here neither. But I missed you two to much." He said returning her hug brotherly.

Ronald was staring at her in a weird way, there was like something sad in his eyes and in his smile too. I just couldn't put my finger on it. Could he be regretting something?

"Hello Caroline!" Hermione had turned to me "Thanks so much for bringing him here! I'll never be grateful enough!" she said hugging me this time.

"It's okay, you don't have to thank me. You'd probably be better without him, he can be really annoying!" I said, joking as always…

"Hey! I'm here, you know!" every one laughed, it seemed as if we were 5 years back…just before the war.

Unfortunately, Miss I-Want-to-annoy-the-whole-world-and-specialy-my-boyfriend's-friends had to start caressing "Ronnynyes' " face as soon as Hermione turned to face him. The poor girl had to look somewhere else to hide the tears that had started running down her cheeks.

"Well, I-I'm going to get something t-to drink… do you guys want something?" her voice was trembling and she obviously was trying to fight back her tears.

Harry asked for a something to eat, Chiva refused saying that she would only drink diet stuff… no comments on this. Ron, thank Merlin, didn't ask anything, but he had a guilty expression on his face.

"I'll help you." I said and I followed Hermione deeper into the crowd. She was still crying.

"Hermione, are you O.K.?" I asked checking if we were far enough from our table so the boys wouldn't hear us.

"Yes, I'm fine. Couldn't be better" She said feinting a smile unsuccessfully but there was even more tears running down her cheeks.

"No, you're not. I'm not stupid. See," I pointed to her face "you're crying."

"I'm sorry. It's just…her. I just… I don't know…I think I just can't stand seeing this two together. I mean… How did that happen? I mean we liked each other and then…It just…What happened?" she said.

"I should be the one asking you this. But, you'll see, give him a week and he'll dump her. He can't stand her that long. Even if she tries to convince him to marry her! And then he'll come back to you! You'll just have to…hem…force him a bit."

"Pff…" she shrugged "I bet he won't do that, Ron loves this kind of girls…you know, pretty and…not like me."

"But he fell in love with you first"

-

When I came back to our table, Chiva had left and Harry was talking to Ron, a man-to-man talk, I tough.

Hermione needed to be alone for a while to think. So I came to check on the boys. I stayed far enough so Ron wouldn't see me, but close enough to hear what they were saying. I saw Harry putting his hands on the table then looking directly into Ron's eyes.

"Do you love her?" he asked, looking rather serious. His question brought Ron back to reality, he had been dreaming again, he jumped on surprise.

"No, no, I don't love Hermione!" he said "I don't love her! I mean she's Hermione, my best friend! It could never happen anyway! No, no! I don't!"

"Great, at least now I know what you've been dreaming about! You can't stop thinking about her, isn't it? Because, I was actually talking about Chiva, you know, your girlfriend?" Harry smirked.

"Oh…..hem…yes…hem…Chiva…"he blushed"yeah, hem, I like her." And he returned to his thoughts.

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