Chapter Eight
Early next morning Draco walked into the room and handed Hermione some floo powder.
"Have a nice and safe trip back," he said with a smile. They had spent the rest of the night up at the roof, talking and laughing. She had told him everything about her family; the fights, the dreams of moving to Australia, stories from her childhood. Things she had never before told anyone. She had grown into feeling.. safe around Draco.
"Thank you. I'll see you at Hogwarts." Draco nodded. He leaned in over Hermione and kissed her forehead. For a second Hermione believed she would explode into firework. Not from he excitement or enchantment of it all, but because she all of a sudden felt very warm. Like she had fever.
Draco took one step back, and Hermione stood in front of the fireplace, ready to travel.
The last few days of the Christmas holiday flew by. Her parents believed every single story she made up from The Burrow; she said that George and Fred had pulled a prank everybody, Percy had shown up, and that her and the boys made friends again.
Hermione did, for some strange reason, wish that it had been the truth. She had enjoyed the night with Draco, but actually becoming friends with Ron and Harry again would be wonderful. She had to admit, she missed them. It was tearing her a bit apart that she had to sit by herself on the train. Unless Draco of course wanted to sit with her again, but she doubted it. Last time had been a coincidence, and there were no way Draco would chose to sit with Hermione if he had a choice.
She still did not fully believe him. She wanted to, but a part of her told her not to lose herself.
"Hermione, dear, I've served tea for you!" Hermione's mother yelled up the stairs on the day before Hermione was going back to Hogwarts. She was packing her suitcase -well the things she had taken out of it during Christmas.
"Coming!" she yelled back.
An hour later as she walked back upstairs after a nice cup of cinnamon tea, Hermione could hear voices. Four, maybe three, people, men, were talking inside her room. Hermione first thought that it was Draco, Lucius and a some Death Eaters coming to punish her for being at their house, but the voices did not belong to them, she was sure of it. They were familiar voices, but some she had not heard in a while.
All of a sudden one or two of the voices disappeared. Maybe they had heard her coming? Hermione felt her stomach tighten a bit.
With slow steps she entered her bedroom, only to find her old friends Harry Potter and Ron Weasly on her bed.
"I most be dreaming! You can't.." Hermione begun, in shock over her schoolmates' appearance at her house. "You can't Disapparate!" Hermione realised that those were the first words she spoke to them in a while. It actually felt good, except for the yelling and confusion of it all.
"Hello, Hermione, it is nice to see you too," said Harry with a sarcastic tone. They all three looked at each other for a while. Awkward silence filled the room. Hermione wondered if her parents had heard her yelling just before.
"I didn't mean it like that, Harry. It really is nice to see you. I apologise for my bad behaviour, you just surprised me," Hermione finally said. Ron looked relieved, as if he had actually believed Hermione was strongly mad at them and forever would be.
"We can't Apparate, but Fred and George can," said Ron. Hermione smiled even though she did not want to. It felt nice to actually be talking to Ron again. She had missed him much.
"Oh that explains the voices all of a sudden disappearing," Hermione said to herself.
Harry and Ron nodded.
"But why are you here?" she asked after a while.
"I've.." Ron started, interrupted by Harry coughing. "We've decided that this whole argument is stupid, and it has lasted far too long." Hermione felt a stone leave her heart.
"But.. This is all great and so, but in-it actually me who is supposed to apologise? I mean, it is after-all me who have been so angry." Hermione felt her lose a bit of her pride by admitting that she was the one to apologise, but if it would make her friends with Harry and Ron again, it was all right.
"Yeah, but we figured you'd never come around, so we had to make the first move," Harry said with a slight of laughter in his voice.
"And I also feel like I need to apologise for the entire Lavender thing. I have actually considered breaking up with her, I just don't know how," added Ron.
Hermione felt her heart skip a beat. He was really going to break up with her? And why was she actually feeling.. excited about it?
"I... Thank you," whispered Hermione. She walked up to the two boys and opened her arms wide to invite them into a hug.
"Can't you ask your mum to bring up some food, I am starving!" Ron said after the three of them had been chatting for a while about Hogwarts, Christmas..
"No!" Hermione broke out. She had not yet told her parents that she had visitors, and she did not intend to tell them. They already thought they'd made friends again. "I mean.. I haven't quite told them that you're here.."
"Of course you haven't, you haven't left the room."
"You don't understand.."
"What's there not to understand, Hermione?" They all felt that the conversation had taken a different turn than it was supposed to.
"I don't want my parents to know," she admitted. She was nervous of their reaction. She could just lie and say that she never told her parents they were in a fight..
"You don't want them to know that we're here? Hermione, what is going on?" Harry broke in. both he and Ron looked very concerned. They had blown the problem, made it bigger than it was.
Hermione wished she had just shut her mouth.
"They think.." Hermione hesitated. "They think we made friends a while ago. They think you invited me over for Christmas." Ron looked very surprised.
"Why do they believe that?" asked Ron. He had never seen Hermione as much of a liar, especially not over for people she loved.
Hermione frowned. How was she supposed to tell them the truth without mentioning the episodes with Draco? They would both go crazy if they found out.
"I received a letter, and I told my mum it was from you," Hermione told. She could feel herself blush. When had she ever gotten so far into a lie? She had never lied before she had gotten to know Ron and Harry. They had taught her how to and when to. She did still feel bad every time she did it, though.
"But who was the letter really from?" asked Harry. He was always so suspicious. Sometimes that was not such a good thing. Other times, it had saved somebody's life.
"Dr-" she cut herself off. "Luna. Luna sent the letter." Both Harry and Ron looked surprised and yet suspicious.
"Luna? Why did you have to lie to your parents about Luna?" asked Ron.
"Yeah, and what did she want from you?" added Harry.
Hermione's brain was thinking like a crazy. She knew that she was all red in the face, and she was also shaking. That usually came when she was nervous about something, as waiting for her O.W.L's.
"She.. she invited me over for Christmas. To have dinner with she and her father." Another lie. Hermione was sweating.
"She did what? That is crazy. I did not know you were friends like that. Ginny says she likes to be on her own," said Ron with a confused look on his face.
"We sat together on the way home for Christmas. She is actually really nice." Harry giggled, and Hermione knew why. She had always found Luna quite.. strange, so it was hard for Harry to imagine them as friends.
"But why did you lie?"
"You see, I once showed my parents a copy of The Quibbler, and they thought that Xenophilius was quite strange. They would not want me to make friends with his daughter." Hermione had indeed showed them The Quibbler last year, but they had actually loved it. It was the only Magic magazine that they read. They liked to keep a bit up with what was going on, and Hermione had told them that The Quibbler was closest to the truth.
"Oh.." Hermione could see on Ron's face expression that he believed her. Harry, on the other hand, still had the suspicious look on his face.
"Anyway, can we stop the bad tension now, and just cherish that we are actually speaking again?" Ron asked all of a sudden. All three of them brightened up, and smiled.
"Yes -yes of course."
Harry and Ron did not leave again until around dinner time. They all agreed on sitting together on the train tomorrow -Hermione and Ron decided to skip the Prefect compartment.
"I'll see you then!" Ron said, and shook hands with Hermione. For some reason they only hugged when they were in life danger or some. Hermione nodded. In that same minute Fred and George arrived. They were going to bring back Ron and Harry.
"Ron, have you kissed your girlfriend good bye properly?" they asked at the same time. Ron threw himself into a small fight with them. Hermione took advantage of their absence to speak to Harry.
"What is wrong?" she whispered to him. At first he looked as if he did not know what she was talking about.
"I was just wondering about.. Are you sure that letter was from Luna?"
Hermione looked at Harry in surprise, and felt her heart beat faster than before. Had he seen her through?
"Y-yes, indeed. Why?"
"Ron was apparently to busy with Lavender to notice that Luna in fact was sitting not far from us, and not with you, as you said." Hermione felt like disappearing into a hole. She had not thought that through. Of course Luna had been sitting with them, she always did!
"I-" Hermione began, but Ron and the identical twins were done fighting, so she shut up.
"See you tomorrow, Hermione," Harry said and hugged her good bye, as had their conversation never found place.
"Yeah, s-ee you," she stammered. She knew she was really on it now. Harry had nearly seen her through, so she had to watch out from now on.
The four boys left her room with a plop; Ron and Harry holding on to each their twin.
Hermione sat down on her bed and slowly started to cry. When had she gone out in this mess, and why? To feel a bit special because a boy treated her well? Maybe she was just tired of Ron always being so rude towards her. Or maybe, Hermione thought to herself, being with Draco had all been to make Ron jealous, because Ron, as much as Hermione did not want to admit it, made her jealous with Lavender. It was her who was supposed to be with Ron! Not snogging with him like that in public -she had class. No, just be with him. It was her he should hold in his arms.. Hermione hesitated with the thought. That would never happen, she was aware. They had been friends far too long to make any kind of romantic relationship.