Hermione was just having a very good morning; she had woken up long before the boys, as per usual, and had been able to enjoy a relaxed breakfast without their respective open-mouthed chewing and pouty brooding. She had almost been accosted by Lavender who seemed quite determined to tell her a bit of gossip pertaining to some altercation that had occurred between her two slow-witted best friends in the common room the night before.
Thankfully, she had escaped by artfully declaring she was in a hurry to the library as a book she was anxiously awaiting had finally been returned. It was a simple lie of course, but it was sufficient in allowing her to avoid listening to the lengthy and improperly phrased babbling of her excitable roommate. Besides, whatever Harry had done to poor Ron could not have been so very interesting.
How wrong she must have been, for Ron did not show up to their first class in the greenhouses. Usually this was the one class Ronald attended with no complaining and grumbling-due to the fact that if you had an IQ higher than a salted snail's, you could pass this class quite easily. Nonetheless, her friend did not show up and she feared perhaps Harry had done something irreversibly humiliating or had, heaven forbid, caused him some sort of debilitating bodily harm.
Reluctantly, after searching in the hopes that Pavarti was standing next to her, she gently coaxed the attention of the resident Village Idiot of the Gryffindor Girl's dorms. "I don't suppose you might still be in the mood to tell me what happened between Ron and Harry yesterday."
Lavender's eyes lit up as if it were Christmas. "Sure I will. You see they were arguing about something—quietly arguing where no one could hear them—and we weren't paying much attention to them anyway. But then out of nowhere Harry yells loud enough for everyone to hear…something quite revealing and juicy." Do not roll your eyes. Do not roll your eyes. Hermione thought to herself. "Harry yelled that he and Ron shouldn't have to hide their love!" Lavender whisper-yelled in a ridiculous manner.
"Oh. Okay, then; thank-you." Hermione dazedly replied. She felt sympathetic for poor Ron. As if there weren't enough reasons to make fun of that awkward doof. As for Harry, well, Hermione knew not what to do about him. So far she had been selfish and self-preserving by avoiding him completely. Recently, however, he was becoming more and more uninhibited and disruptive. Publicly humiliating himself in a manner that was becoming both habitual and self-gratifying hinted at a deeper state of detachment and sociopathic egoism that strayed exceedingly far from her original theory that Harry was merely exhibiting an extreme case of 'acting out', common to most adolescents.
As Herbology ended, she knew her first priority, over even her classes, was to find her friends and give them the support they needed. She could not be selfish or cowardice in this, or any, situation; she was the rock of this group, the source of reason and comfort. If she bailed out now or chickened out, those two would fall apart like the sloppily-glues-back-together emotionally wrecked messes they were.
She barged in to the Fifth Year Gryffindor boy's dormitory and caught the last bit of Harry's newest ramblings, "…that's how I learned that bananas and butts don't mix."
She decided it would be best if the first part of that story remained a mystery to her forever. She took in the pitiful scene before her. Ron lay on his back with his arms at his sides and a look on his face as though he were mentally begging Death to take pity and whisk him away. Harry sat crossed-legged with the very tips of his knees atop Ron's person. He was leaning forward and resting his chin on his fists like a little kid watching a film—this allowed Ron no room to escape, physically or mentally, what had surely been hours of psychotic babbling.
"Hey Hermione!" Harry yelled excitedly.
She looked to Ron. He turned his head slowly and looked at her; he appeared haggard, and on the brink of snapping. "Why?" was all he could manage.
"Oh, Ron. You wouldn't know how to read a person if they fell asleep on a newspaper and got the words imprinted on their skin."
Harry appreciated this greatly. "Ohhh! No she di-in't! Up top!" Harry threw his hand up for a high five; she obliged only to quiet him down.
"Hey! Why does everyone got to pick on me? 'Sides, not everyone is smart like you Hermione." Ron whined.
She wanted so much to explain to him that her intelligence was no matter of inborn ability, but only an outcome of her actively seeking knowledge; but now was not the time.
"Can't you see that this, clearly, is a cry for help?" She implored.
"What is?" Harry asked.
"Never you mind, Harry. You just let Ron and I talk for a bit, we have important things to discuss, okay?"
"Fine," Harry petulantly replied. He dejectedly snuggled into Ron's side where he remained pouting. Ron shot Hermione a desperate and horrified look.
She shook her head. "Ron, if that will keep him quiet while we talk then allow him to stay please."
Ron did not look happy about this but he obliged nonetheless. "What do you mean, a 'cry for help'?"
"I mean that Harry is feeling stressed and…well, probably a number of other unpleasant emotions, and he doesn't know how to deal with or express them in healthy, normal, or subtle ways. What he is doing is akin to when your Mom makes you help her with the dishes and you do so but do so while giving her the silent treatment. Or when your dad pays to much attention to one of your brothers and once he does address you, you may say something like, "why don't you go ask George". Do you understand what I'm saying?"
Ron slowly shook his head, he did sort of understand her point. "Wait…how did you know all that stuff about me?"
"Ron, please. All humans of average intelligence are all exactly the same. Now this isn't about you, remember? Do you understand now why Harry is acting this way?"
"Are you sure? Maybe he really is crazy." Ron suggested, shrugging.
"Maybe. I doubt it, though. He seems to have control over his actions, his shenanigans all seemed well-thought out and planned beforehand. If he were crazy, his outbursts would be more emotionally charged, and I mean genuine emotion not those alligator tears. Besides, people don't usually just spontaneously go insane, they have phases in which they act irrationally then act relatively normally, and they do this for some time before they, if ever, succumb to total madness."
"How. The hell. Do you know everything!"
"It's called reading, try it some time."
At this Ron looked particularly grumpy, but he let it slide. "Well how do we make it stop?"
"Make it stop." Harry echoed in a whisper. He had his big green eyes open wide and staring at Hermione. She had been avoiding those eyes as she talked, but she could no longer run away from the gaze.
"Make it stop." He said again eyes unmoving. But even as his expression remain flat and unchanging, he gripped Ron's sleep shirt tightly as if frightened. "Make her stop." He practically screamed, but still his face did not change.
Hermione was beginning to look a lot less sure than she was a few seconds prior. She grimaced both apologetically and worriedly at Ron. "Maybe I was wrong. This is a bit unprecedented and and worrying."
"A bit unprecedented and worrying?" Ron incredulously repeated. "For a smart person you sure don't know how to dumb down your vocabulary for the sake of relaying distress and importance!"
"That was good." Hermione nodded approvingly.
"Thanks." Ron said proudly.
"Mmmmmm." Harry clearly had had enough of their banter. "I want her to leave. She makes Harry sad."
Hermione threw her hands up exasperatedly. "Hey, I just want to help you."
Harry sat up and looked at Hermione closely. "You know facts but you don't know how to feel. I need someone who uses their heart more than their brain; I need an idiot like Ron." Ron at this point had given up trying to get justice for the world's cruel dismissal of him, and said nothing. "You cannot help me with your…reason."
Hermione looked back into his teary, yet resolute, eyes. They stared at one another for bit before she closed her eyes and sighed. "Fine. I'll leave you alone to wallow in your madness with no one to help you but a quick-to-panic dim-witted teenage boy. But know this, when you decide that you want real help, and that you're ready to assimilate yourself back into society, I will be waiting to help you."
She got up to leave, but as she neared the door, Harry stood up from the bed to address her. "I love you, and you are a wonderful friend, but this is for the best. You have so much potential, so much ahead of you; I won't let you get roped up in this. Once you've been tied into my web of madness, you can never truly break free. I am doing this to spare you."
Hermione stood tall as she looked stoically into her friends tear-filled eyes. Then her face shifted and she appeared to have accepted something that only she could see. She nodded slowly, "Thank-you. As melodramatic as that was, I do appreciate you letting me off the hook so I can focus on my OWLs." She turned to Ron. "At the very least don't let him leave this room naked."
And with that, the mad man's only hope of salvation was gone.
Harry turned to Ron. The seriousness of his gaze startled the ginger. "She knows too much."