Harry didn't bother knocking when he got to Rory's room. He pushed open the door and found her sitting alone on her bed, a textbook in her lap, still wearing her dress. Her eyeliner was smudged and it was clear that she'd been crying at some point and had scrubbed away her tears. She looked up at him, glared, and then looked back to her textbook.

"You can leave," she said bluntly.

"Let me explain, please," he said, sitting beside her.

"Don't bother," she repeated.

"Fish, I'm so sorry," he said.

Rory scoffed. "Do you even know what it means to be sorry? Because you keep saying it and then completely disregarding that you ever spoke the words. Or maybe, I'm just insane. Because I get to listen to you apologize and then I forgive you, but then you stand me up on our date, on Valentine's Day no less, because you're off having a chat with Cho Chang."

And that was that. There was no gentle way of explaining to Rory that he'd stopped to explain to Cho why he was talking to Rita Skeeter because she'd seen him.

"…I got the flowers for you," he said stupidly. He didn't know what else he could say.

Rory looked up at him from her book, grabbed the flowers from his hand, and threw them with great force into the rubbish bin.

"I don't give a shit about flowers, Harry. I got stood up because you were preoccupied talking to some other girl," Rory said. She wiped tears from her eyes. Harry reached out to touch her, to reassure her somehow, but she swatted him away and she continued to cry. "You promised."

Harry nodded. "I know."

"So do you just not care?" Rory asked. "Do you just say things so I'll stop talking about it while you go off and do whatever you want?"

Harry didn't have an explanation. He just didn't have one. He could say that Cho had stopped him, but did it really matter? Did he really owe it to Cho to explain why he'd been talking to Rita Skeeter? He felt bad for what happened to Cedric. He still had nightmares about it, but it wasn't his job to dig Cho out of her emotional turmoil. He had digging of his own to do. And he'd promised to be that person for Rory and he just wasn't, not lately anyway.

"Rory, I love you," Harry said.

"Do you?" she asked, wiping her eyes and sniffling. "Because you've got a shit way of showing it." She shook her head. "Sometimes I don't feel like I know who you are anymore."

Truthfully, Harry didn't know if he knew who he was anymore. And he didn't know if he knew who Rory was. She'd turned into this jealous, insecure, girl who wouldn't take a moment to listen or understand anything. He knew Rory loved him, knew that the girl he'd fallen in love with was still there, but where had she gone?

Tentatively, he reached out and grabbed her hand. "I'm still me. Things are just… I don't know."

"I don't know either," Rory said. She pulled her hand away. "Can you please leave now?"

Harry's heart dropped into his stomach. "What do you--."

"Right now, I know I'm so angry that I don't want to talk to you or look at you. And I know I'm sick of fighting with you. And I have to get up in front of the whole school tonight and sing a bunch of mushy love songs while everyone whispers about how you blew me off today. So I want you to leave and I want some space."

Harry hesitated, but he had to ask. "How much space?"

Rory wiped her eyes again. "I don't know."


Harry was waiting for Rory to put him out of his misery. She'd barely spoken a word to him since Valentine's Day. She didn't speak to him during meals or during class and he was dreading the DA meeting Tuesday night where she was sure to continue ignoring him.

Or that's what he'd assumed when he woke up Tuesday morning. He dragged himself down to breakfast, alone, and saw Rory sitting there, alone. He walked up to her and then hesitated. He wanted to give her space, as she'd requested. But he was also dying to talk to her and fix things if he could.

Rory looked up at him.

"Are you going to sit?" she asked.

Harry took the seat beside her quickly before she changed her mind or ran away.

"I thought you might still be angry with me," he said, filling his plate.

"I mean, I definitely am," Rory replied, matter-of-factly. "But I can't go on not talking to you forever, can I?"

Harry shrugged. "I mean if you wanted you probably could."

"You think I want to never speak to you again?" Rory asked.

"It certainly feels like it," he replied.

He saw a glimmer of irritation pass over Rory's face and she rolled her eyes.

"Whatever the case, we should still talk. About everything," Rory said.

"Everything?" Harry asked.

"I mean, it's not like things were super before Valentine's Day. We should just... Actually talk instead of pretending things are fine," she said. She cleared her throat and took a sip of tea.

"Tea?" Harry asked. He couldn't recall the last time he'd seen Rory drink anything in the morning other than black coffee.

"I think I'm coming down with a cold. It's fine," she said. "Still feeling well enough for the meeting tonight, don't worry."

"It's not really the meeting I'm worried about," Harry said.

Rory took another drink of her tea clearly in an attempt to hide the blush on her face. "I'm fine. Thank you."

Harry nodded.

The silence between them didn't feel nearly as uncomfortable as it had the last few days, even if it was only punctuated by Rory stifling a cough or a sneeze. She quickly finished eating just as their friends arrived and excused herself to visit Madame Pomfrey.

"Everything alright?" Hermione asked.

Harry nodded. "I think so. She said she wants to talk."

"That's good," Ron replied. "Isn't it?"

Hermione shrugged. "Probably depends on how the conversation goes."

Harry frowned. "Thanks."

"Just being honest. She's really upset," Hermione went on.

"I'm aware," Harry replied. "Do you think she's just drawing this out then?"

"I don't think she wants to break up with you, but I think she might feel like she has to," Hermione said. "But she's not talking to me about it obviously."

"Obviously?" Harry asked. Hermione and Rory had always gotten along well. It was weird that Rory would suddenly shut her out over Harry.

"Because she knows you'll ask me about her," Hermione said. "She's not going to tell me anything that I could potentially repeat back to you. Especially if she's going to--."

Hermione stopped short and quickly took a drink of her orange juice.

"Especially if she's just going to break up with me?" Harry asked. "That's what you think is going to happen?"

"I don't know, Harry. I've just never seen her so upset," Hermione said. "And she has told me that she's sick to death of arguing with you, especially about Cho. I don't think Rory has an inexhaustible amount of patience like you seem to."

Harry was taken aback by that statement. "What do you mean like I do?"

"You don't think that Rory is kind being, I dunno, irrational about Cho?" Hermione asked. "Should you have handled things with Cho differently? Probably. Should you have stood Rory up on Valentine's Day? No. But should Rory have handled things better too? Definitely."

"So are you saying I should break up with her?" Harry asked.

"I'm saying that you should talk. She's right about that. But maybe consider that the outcome of the conversation is that you shouldn't stay together," Hermione said.

That sounded ridiculous to Harry. He looked to Ron to validate that Hermione was the one being irrational, but to his astonishment, Ron seemed to agree.


Harry felt hopeful when he'd talked to Rory at breakfast, but she'd barely spoken to him since then. She'd skipped lunch to have a lie-down, according to Matilda. During Defense Against the Dark Arts, she'd asked him a question about the upcoming DA meeting and said nothing else. During the DA meeting, Rory barely said hello before they got to work on the Impediment Jinx.

Halfway through the meeting, Rory walked over to Matilda and started talking to her. Matilda nodded along and then they both glanced over to Harry quickly and looked away. Matilda nodded again and Rory left.

Try as he might, Harry was so irritated that she would just leave. He'd expected her to stay after the meeting, like always, and they could sort things out. But she was just gone. Back to ignoring him like she'd been doing all day.

"You alright?"

Harry had just stepped away from helping Colin when he heard Cho's voice.

He was not, in fact, doing alright. He didn't have time to respond though because there was suddenly an explosion on the other side of the classroom. There was a scream and when Harry looked over there was a fire. It was out by the time Harry reached the chaos and Zach Smith sat on the floor, covered in ash, robes singed.

"What did you do?" Harry asked.

"Dunno. It just all went sideways," Zach said.

"I told him that his wand movement was for shit," Stephen chimed in, looking pointedly at Zach.

"How? It's a straight line," Hermione said demonstrating.

"Well, excuse me. Usually, his girlfriend is here to give me some guidance, but she decided to run off today," Zach said.

"Probably exhausted her patience with you," Neville said.

Harry let out a deep breath. "Let's just call it an early night before anyone else sets anything on fire."

Everyone seemed to agree immediately and started to file out of the room. Ron and Hermione started to help clean things up, but Harry shook his head.

"Go on. I've got it," he said.

Ron and Hermione exchanged looks.

"You sure?" Ron asked.

Harry nodded. He wanted to be alone. Or he wanted to talk to Rory. He didn't have any in-between feelings except to vent endlessly about how frustrated he was with her. He knew he'd screwed up on Valentine's Day, but either she wanted to break up with him over it, or she wanted to try to talk things out. Avoiding him wasn't doing either of them any good.

After protesting a few times, Ron and Hermione acquiesced and joined the others in leaving the room.

Harry knew he didn't have to clean anything. The room would take care of itself, but he had nothing else to distract him. He had half a mind to march right up to Gryffindor tower and tell Rory that this was ludicrous and that they needed to talk, even if she didn't want to.

"Need any help?"

Harry was startled from his thoughts and turned around to see that Cho was still there. Maybe he couldn't take a hint, but Cho seemed blatantly ignorant of anything he said.

"I'm fine. Just clearing my head for a bit," he said.

"You seemed a bit out of sorts tonight. Is everything okay?" Cho asked.

Harry's natural reflex was to say that things were fine. But he wasn't. He was exhausted. He was tired of waiting for Rory to talk to him. Tired of arguing with her. Tired of her, irrational, immature jealousy. He wasn't fine.

"Things with Rory are just..." he started, but because he'd never vented his frustrations before he stopped himself quickly. But how much longer was he going to hold this in? "They're not great. We've barely spoken since Valentine's Day."

"Because you were late meeting her?" Cho asked.

"I think it was mostly that I was late meeting her because I was talking to you specifically is more what her problem was," Harry said. "I missed her completely by the time I got there. She waited half an hour before she left and saw us chatting."

"What did she think we were talking about? You'd just been telling me about the interview you had with Rita Skeeter," she replied.

"I know," Harry said, not hiding his exasperation because of course he'd already tried to explain this to Rory. But since she wasn't talking to him, Hermione ultimately had been the one who explained the situation to Rory. But three days still passed before she decided that they should have a real conversation. What did it even matter what they were talking about, because all she'd seen was that it'd been Cho he was talking to. Nothing else had mattered to her. "She's just got a lot of feelings about you."

"Negative feelings mostly I assume," Cho said. "I think she used to go out of her way to pretend that she didn't dislike me as much as she does, but I think she's pretty open about it now."

Harry nodded in agreement because that was blatantly obvious to pretty much everyone now. Rory did not like Cho. Rory didn't like it when Harry so much as breathed the same air as Cho. It was an argument every single time. If she knew they were talking now, she'd also have a fit about it.

"Sorry," Cho said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Don't be sorry," Harry said. "It's not your fault that she's being insecure."

The words were out of Harry's mouth so quickly he hardly realized he'd said them at all. But it was true. Rory was jealous and insecure and had taken to just shutting him out instead of trying to talk things through. It drove him insane.

"That must get frustrating," Cho said.

"I've been putting up with it. But she won't talk to me about anything and... What are we even doing if she's not going to talk to me?" he asked.

Cho nodded and Harry felt relieved. He finally got it out. He loved Rory to the moon and back, but lately, things felt torturous. And all this waiting around for her was not helping. If she was going to end things, she just needed to do it.

"Sorry to dump all that on you," he said.

She shrugged. "Happy to lend an ear. Any time."

"Thanks," he said.

The brief moment of relief he felt dissolved almost immediately because that was when Cho kissed him. Harry was stunned for a moment because he had no intention of kissing Cho, probably ever. But what did it matter now? Hermione had all but said that Rory was probably going to just dump him anyway. This might as well happen.

"Oh." a surprised voice came from the door.

Harry and Cho separated, and he paled. Rory was standing there. He could see the confusion in her gray eyes.

"Rory," he started, but what was he supposed to say? There was nothing he could say. Rory was at a loss for words as well. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead, he got to see the heartbreak overtake her face. He watched her confusion give way to pain. She choked back a sob and finally nodded.

"Okay," she said as a tear rolled down her cheek. She turned and walked out of the door.

Harry grabbed his bag from the floor.

"Harry," Cho started.

"Now is really not the time," he said. Harry didn't spare her a second glance as he ran from the room, after Rory.


Rory was wiped. What had started out as a scratchy throat and sniffles that morning, was slowly transforming into something else entirely. Madame Pomfrey had given her something to keep her from sneezing and coughing her way through classes, but now there was a heaviness in her head and all she wanted to do was crawl into bed.

But she had things she needed to get done today. She had an essay that was due tomorrow that she had to finish before the DA meeting. Then there was the actual running of the DA meeting. And she had told Harry she was going to talk to him, which she wanted to do.

She had spent the last three days being furious with him, and yes she was still upset, but just this once, this one time, she thought maybe she should give Harry and Cho the benefit of the doubt. If Rory had randomly stumbled upon Harry having a chat with Rita Skeeter, she'd be pretty upset too. And would Rory want to know the whole story behind what exactly he was telling Skeeter, especially in light of Cedric's death? Absolutely.

Did Harry Potter have to drop what he was doing to have that particular conversation with Cho right then? No. But Harry was not known for properly thinking things out most of the time. He was reckless and impulsive in all things.

And she missed him. It felt like Harry was the other half of her brain sometimes, where she couldn't have a complete thought without talking to him about it, even if he didn't have any input. Sometimes the act of just telling him something made it make more sense in her head. And she just missed him in general. She was done being angry with him. She just wanted to talk it out. She wanted to talk about everything and get it all straightened out. Even if it was hard.

But first, she had to make it through the DA meeting, and she was properly rundown by the time it came around. She left partway through the meeting to go to her dorm and finish off the potion Madame Pomfrey had given her. She told Matilda to let Harry know she'd be back before the meeting was over to talk to him. She could not let whatever illness this was stop her from talking things out with Harry.

When she was headed back downstairs, she was surprised to see many of her friends returning.

"There was a small fire," Matilda said. "Zach is an idiot and apparently can't make a straight line without your help."

Rory sighed and kicked herself for leaving and not just sticking it out. Especially since Zach had proven once again just how useless he was.

"Harry's still down there though. Think he was just tidying things up. Seemed like he was in a bit of a foul mood tonight," Matilda said. "Shit. I forgot to tell him you wanted to talk after the meeting."

"It's fine," Rory said. "If he's not we'll pass each other in the hall."

This was better. She did want to talk to Harry, but without an audience. And asking her roommates to step out for a while was going to do nothing but instigate a lot of teasing.

So, she headed back down to the Room of Requirement. The potion had given her a bit more energy and she thought she'd probably be able to make it through their conversation without having to stop and catch her breath from coughing.

Outside the Room of Requirement, Rory took a breath. She was not used to being in the wrong, but she wasn't any more perfect than Harry was. She'd apologize for overreacting about Cho, apologize for leaving him hanging for three days while she got her head sorted, and would promise that she would also make an effort to communicate better without simply getting angry and shutting him out.

But the world fell out from under her when she stepped into the room.