Cappuccino After Eleven
Thank you to merendinoemiliano, Hai, Ronnie11, and GidgetteLover for keeping me motivated with your kind words! You are amazing!
Chapter Eight
Famous
Of course, Hermione knew perfectly well who Harry Potter was. Even in Arizona, updates about the Dark Lord sometimes filtered through to the small community of witches and wizards there.
And of course, when Ron had introduced his friend to her for the first time, she had found him to be looking strangely familiar. But still, she couldn't quite blame herself for not recognizing her windowsill-pen-pal childhood-bestie Harry as the Harry Potter.
Nowadays though, she thought, still baffled by the appearance of a certain Colin Creevey and cronies, who didn't have a slightly familiar face?
She mentally face palmed. When exactly had she stopped paying attention to her surroundings? If she kept losing focus like this, she would have a lot of things to get up to date with when she got back to Ilvermorny.
Hermione shook her head and cut off her racing thoughts to look at Harry.
His smile looked tense. It forced an unnatural crease on the tired lines in his face. Fame hadn't been kind with him, it seemed. Perhaps that was why he had escaped to Italy.
Meanwhile, Colin and the fan club kept spewing out remark after remark.
" –and I can't believe you managed to release that dragon from Gringotts that time in –" the newly arrived fan club chatter continued.
Through the moving crowd she caught the flicker of a familiar redhead, who then started to squeeze through the crowd in the direction of his trapped friend and Hermione.
A thought wormed itself into her mind. Did Ron also share some of the spotlight from Harry, back where they went to school in Hogwarts?
"Hey, Harry!" Ron said loudly when he came up to her, almost making her jump out of the little wine daze she was in.
Colin, too, whirled around. His eyes widened and he smiled nervously.
"Time for us to leave," he muttered as the chatter died on his lips, then his eyes flickered to Hermione, "Nice to meet you, and thanks for the talk, Harry!"
"Yeah sure," Ron said protectively, waiting for them to disappear. When they did, he turned to Harry and Hermione, and she could sense the discomfort coming from them both in waves, even under the numbing blanket of the wine.
"Thanks, Ron," Harry said, brightening up.
"They will just never leave you alone, will they?" Ron replied, eyes drawn down tiredly.
Harry shrugged.
Hermione coughed, "I didn't know you were Harry Potter," she said.
Ron flushed, "Yes, I should have probably told you, but we – he came here for a break from all of that. The constant pressure from people can be quite too much. Especially the journalists,"
"Or should we say the journalist," Harry said, this time with a little humor interlaced with his words.
Both their eyes narrowed, before they broke out laughing together. Hermione was confused.
"Have you ever heard of Rita Skeeter?" they asked her, trying to involve her in their little joke as well. A warmth spread in her chest at the gesture. She was thankful for them handing her the gateway into their inside joke.
Immediately, Hermione knew what they meant.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, perhaps a bit too excitedly, "What a total waste of space that woman is! She never writes a kind word about anyone, and much less about important things. It's always 'Rita Skeeter reveals the secret boyfriend of Teeta Turner' or 'Krum arrived drunk at the Quaffle Conference', and never a word about the elfish welfare movement, or dementors being used as elements of torture in Azkaban,"
They both looked at her in surprise, brows raised and eyes wide in the dancing strobe light of the living room. The bass continued to beat in the background, barely hanging onto the music it played with.
"The what movement?" Ron finally spluttered out.
The two boys locked eyes for a moment and let out a whining laugh together. Hermione crossed her arms.
"The S.P.E.W.," she repeated slowly, "The Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare,"
"The spew?!" Ron twisted her words. He was almost bent over laughing at this point, but Hermione stood there looking unimpressed, "Who names an organization that?"
She didn't reply, and he locked eyes with her, then sobered up at her flat look.
"Me," she stated dryly, shutting them both up in an instant, "Since I'm the founder,"
"Oh," Ron whispered, and Harry looked away embarrassed, as if the wall beside her suddenly looked very interesting.
"It's not something I haven't heard before, though," she said, plastering a smile around her mouth.
"Sorry, Hermione. I didn't mean it," Ron said, looking genuinely apologetic.
Harry cringed, then apologized too.
"It's okay, both of you," she shook her head, "I'm used to that reaction back home in Ilvermorny. Maybe I should have chosen a different name, anyway,"
"No, for sure, Hermione, we'd like to hear more about it. Sorry for laughing about the name, too. It was childish," Harry said, elbowing Ron rather indiscreetly.
Happy enough with their change of mind, she explained the basic changes she wanted to make to the treatment and employment of house elves in the wizarding communities.
For once in her life though, she found herself with active listeners. Unlike her peers back at Ilvermorny – maybe Luna being the exception – they seemed to try and understand her viewpoint, and in the end, they both actually seemed to agree.
Ron, who had grown up in the wizarding world where the abuse of house elves was common, seemed to have a harder time understanding her viewpoints. Yet, in Hermione's opinion, he did seem to get her point.
She got out of the conversation with a real smile on her lips. The fuzzy feeling of the wine had died down but had been replaced by an unfamiliar yet welcoming warmness in her bones that could only be described as feeling accepted. Wanted, even.
She sipped the water in her cup. It tasted like a watered-down version of her wine, with a slight tinge of chlorine from the tap.
Harry had been eyeing Cho for a while, and before he could protest, Hermione pushed him on his way towards her.
"You have to talk to her sometime, Harry," she had said.
That left her with only Ron, in the darker corner of the living room. They stood there in silence for a moment, his eyes brushing over her like a gentle caress, before he awkwardly sipped whatever beverage was left in his red cup.
The music beat rhythmically with her racing heart, and the multi-colored lights flickered over his hair, his face, and the wall behind them.
She leaned backwards towards the wall, and he did the same beside her. They slid down onto the floor, clutching their cups, still laughing from a silly joke that had already been forgotten.
Hermione looked up from her fingernails and asked.
"So, are you also famous in Hogwarts, too? You seem to be Harry's closest friend around here,"
Ron looked at her nervously, a tense look rippling over his otherwise pleasant features. His freckles stood out against his starch white skin in the shadow of their corner.
"I wouldn't say that I'm famous," he replied, somehow seeming… disappointed?
Hermione was confused. She waited in silence for a moment in anticipation of finding out what to say. She didn't have to say anything, though, before Ron elaborated more.
"I don't know why, but sometimes it feels like I'm the side character, you know?" he said, looking conflicted, "It's always 'Harry did this' 'Harry did that', and I'm always just… there. I swear, sometimes it even feels like my family prefers him over me,"
Hearing Ron – sweet Ron with the coffee cup and the different-colored socks, and with the flying bird that folded out to be a letter – confess to feeling unloved admittedly felt like it was her, and not him, that was being hurt.
Hermione shook her head. The words seemed too similar to something she had once told someone she used to regard as a friend.
"I understand," she said, although she didn't really understand it all, but she wanted him to feel less alone, nonetheless, "It must be difficult to be friends with someone that everyone wants to be friends with. It must be hard not to compare yourself to him, especially since you have both grown up together the way you have,"
He looked surprised, "You must be really good at cheering people up," he finally said, baffled.
Hermione was taken aback. She had just received potentially the best compliment of her entire week. Or maybe of the month. And from someone she might or might not be interested in.
"Thanks," she beamed, then shrugged it off.
He smiled with her. Then, suddenly, guilt bled over his features again, and he bit the inside of his cheek, "I'm sorry for projecting all of this on you. You just met Harry today, and he's a really brilliant guy, and I do love him,"
"Oh, don't worry about that," she said, "I'm more than happy to listen. And if it's true that you moved with him to Italy to get him away from the spotlight, I wouldn't doubt for a second that you're a good friend,"
He smiled, "Thank you. Though, there are some other added benefits to moving abroad too. Like the cappuccino for example!"
Hermione laughed heartily and lightly slapped her knee. She took a sip of water from her cup before the silence would get awkward.
"So," she said, looking at the laser lights in the ceiling.
"So...?" he repeated, looking at her.
"Tell me more about your family?" she prompted, smoothing over the rocky conversation with a layer of silk.
A/N: What do you think about the new chapter? I swear the plot is not being carried on the back of a snail!