The Sea of Confusion by Rinawen

Rating: PG
Genres: Angst, Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 16/02/2005
Last Updated: 16/02/2005
Status: Completed

Hermione deals with the transition from being just friends, to something else...




1. The Sea of Confusion
-----------------------

The Sea of Confusion

Disclaimer: I am not making any money off of this. All characters and even some of the dialogue
come from JKR’s magical world of Harry Potter. If you sue me because you think I’m profiting in any
way from this meager little fic thing, then you really should check yourself into St. Mungo’s,
perhaps share a room with Gilderoy Lockhart.

*Author’s Note 1:* I wanna thank all my betas for the hard work. I really have awful
grammar. Rini and Nic, thank you, and special special special insanely special thanks to
**Jane** for all the bad grammar you corrected, and for keeping your temper while I worked you
like a slave driver into the wee hours of the night. I hope this fic was worthy of you, although I
doubt anything or anybody will ever be worthy of you, even though you’re Canadian. *runs*

*Author’s Note 2*: This fic was written right after Book 5 came out, which means basically
that it is a million years old. I’m posting this here…I don’t know exactly why. Perhaps because I
vaguely remember someone saying that there was a rec for this on the Portkey forums, although I
never got a chance to check it out because I wasn’t a Portkey person back then. I was stuck at
fanforum.com. Heck, I’m still stuck there.

Keep in mind that I was in a very melodramatic mood when I wrote this, having just finished
reading two melodramatic books.

*~*~*~*~*

The Sea of Confusion is seductive. She isn’t seductive in an obvious way; She doesn’t enthrall
like the Sirens, their song so loud and clear, the malicious harmonies outwardly *intending*
to commit you to your doom. No, the Sea of Confusion seduces you slowly…you aren’t even aware that
you’re drowning. By the time you realize the tide has completely pulled you in, you’re in a
whirlpool, all rational thought lost in the intense sensations that come from not being able to
breathe, knowing that your fall is at hand.

Yes, the sea is traitorous. She is malignant, cunning, and she knows what she wants, and
inevitably, she makes her desires your own.

*~*~*~*

The first recollection I have of feeling the sea’s waters dance around my ankles was the second
I walked in on those two on the train, at the tender age of eleven.

I was eleven. I was young. I was blissfully ignorant. But walking into that compartment I
suddenly felt something. I didn’t understand it then, though now it makes complete sense. It is
that feeling you get when you know that fate has intervened in your life and has directed you
towards a new path. Although I was smart, I was still a child, and thoughts like these were beyond
me. But this glorious intervention, this moment of serendipity, it was what made me stay that extra
second longer. Normally, I would’ve just popped in, asked for Neville’s toad, watch the redheaded
one botch his amateur spell, and quickly left. But no, something made me stay and babble endlessly
about spells and houses, and it was in those few, precious moments that I finally noticed him. Yes
*him*, the person I know best above all others, and perhaps the person who knows me best as
well.

Even at the age of eleven, I *knew,* and indeed comprehended. As soon as my eyes met his,
traveled to his infamous scar and then to his equally infamous hair, I knew that my life would
forever be intertwined with his. The feeling was a remarkably powerful one for a child, and it was
that feeling that moved me to introduce myself. Granted, that feeling alone wasn’t all that drove
me to get to know him; I had read about him all summer, but that was beside the point. He was never
a figure of mythological proportions to me, at least not in the same way he was to the rest
Wizarding World. No, to me he was just Harry, and he has always remained so.

I had already introduced myself to the redheaded one, and even then I knew Ron and I were to
have a volatile relationship. I could tell it took all his self-possession to keep from gagging
every time I breathed, but he was a young boy, and most young boys are daft. He was part of that
“most.”

It was on that day that I took my first tentative steps into the Sea of Confusion, completely
unbeknownst to my innocent, childish mentality. I don’t think I realized how deep in the Sea I was
until I was fourteen, when I suddenly began to analyze our relationship.

*~*~*~*

Ron and I have always been, well, *Ron and I*. I think it was obvious to everyone from the
very beginning that our relationship was definitely one to watch, if not for the hopeless romance
than for the sheer entertaining value.

I was well aware that he detested me for half of our first year, and I was completely fine with
this. In fact, I detested him back! I always thought he was a horribly bad influence on Harry (that
was until I realized that Harry was equally horrid).

Out of everyone in Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy included, I disliked Ron the most. Draco at least had
a reason to be such an awful prat; he was a *Slytherin* after all. But Ron was a Gryffindor!
He was supposed to be courageous and kind…(Apparently, he never received that memo. Or else, he was
too stupid to read it.)

Even after the whole troll incident, the relationship between Ron and I remained unstable. I
could never seem to win with him! I said left, he said right. I said white, he said black. I said
up, he said down. It was a constant battle of wills! And don’t think this battle has ever
diminished. In fact, it’s bloody grown!

Sometimes it grows vicious, like in third year during what Harry lovingly calls “The Pet
Wars.”

Then again…it’s *grown* to a point where I’m *fond* of it. Yes, I am fond of our
passive-aggressive relationship. Sometimes I second-guess myself, thinking that being fond of
something so negative and relatively unhealthy is proof of my insanity, but then again, I think of
it as our *trademark*.

You see, Ron and I have cultivated our banter. It has gotten to the point where it’s sometimes
rather enjoyable. It kills long awkward silences and is a form of entertainment. It makes the long
moments of lethargy…of *worrying*…of waiting…more bearable.

Then there’s the righteous feeling of satisfaction when I prove him wrong. Winning an argument
is always more fun when it is won against Ron because he thinks he’s always right, though more
often than naught he’s wrong. It is quite an exhilarating feeling to poke a pin through his big,
arrogant head; he isn’t Dumbledore after all.

We’re proud of our banter, and we’re even offended and slightly insulted when Harry tells us to
shove it because we’re irritating him.

When I realized that I was beginning to enjoy our arguments, and look forward to the next one,
alarm bells begin ringing in my head. *Oh no*, I thought. *I’ve gone and done it…*

I had stepped too far into the Sea, and now I couldn’t get out. It was too late now; I had let
the tide carry me in to far. And the Sea kept calling me further; the waves beckoned me on. As I
thrashed with all my might to escape her horrible grasp, I found that…I didn’t want to go back.

*~*~*~*

At the start of forth year I was unhappily aware that there was something between Ron and I that
completely went against the boundaries of a platonic relationship. I really couldn’t understand it
myself; perhaps my hyper-intelligent brain felt some sort of odd, misguided attraction to his
relatively stupid brain, the classic chemical attraction of a negative and a positive.

Of course Ron, being the fool that he is, had no clue about this most odious situation. Again, I
really don’t understand how he missed this, as he seemed to explode every time he heard the name
“Viktor Krum,” in conjunction with mine. Then again, I might be as stupid as he is, for there was a
period of time when I thought he finally did get a clue. He was oogling Fleur Delacour in such an
obvious way that I really did think he was deliberately trying to make me jealous. As if I could
ever be jealous of her! I really detested that witch, so ungrateful, vain, and selfish! She
reminded me of a female Draco Malfoy…and now that I think about it, I really don’t hope that people
thought my obvious dislike for her was actually jealousy. What an absurd thought!

But a large portion of my ponderings over Ron’s daftness was not strictly designated to his love
life; Ron was daft in many areas of his life that year (every year, really). He was at his shining
daftnest during his self-imposed estrangement with Harry.

The momentary lapse of judgment proved worthless, as all momentary lapses of judgment prove to
be. Ron was wrong (yet again!). And the inseparable triumvirate was now restored.

At least it was according to *them*. The first night that Harry stayed in the Hospital Wing
after the last task, I snuck back in under his invisibility cloak after everyone was gone. I
remember kneeling next to him and staring at him for a long while. He was very bruised…there were
scratches all over his face and arms and hands…I grabbed his right hand and held it tight, tears
stinging my eyes. Now that I was alone I felt I’d be able to grieve over his loss of innocence more
freely, for indeed the ordeal was his loss.

I sat there, clinging desperately to his hand trying to picture all the horrible things he had
endured over the past 24 hours, over the past 4 years, over the past 14 years…

I could forgive Ron just about anything; he could insult my cat, my obsession with schoolwork,
my personality, my looks, anything. But I had been with Harry all year; I had seen how much it
pained him to be without Ron and how much joy it brought him to have him back.

And I knew that I could never forgive Ron for causing Harry that pain. Harry was the person that
*least* deserved to feel any more pain than he already did.

And as much as I knew I was being a melodramatic, childish female, I knew I would never forgive
Ron *that*, never, ever, ever.

And I never have.

*~*~*~*~*

I spent that summer with Ron, and I can’t say that it was a completely unpleasant experience. As
much as I remained true to my vow, Ron was still my friend, and I still felt that unusual
attraction to him. Still, he remained just as clueless as before, and I found that this bothered me
less and less as time passed.

Despite Harry’s absence he remained a large focus in my mind, as he was for the past 4 years.
Harry never strayed from my mind. This has never been a problem for me, at least until that very
summer, when I realized that Harry was more in my mind than I was conscious of, and this began to
irritate others…namely Ron.

“Gods…I wish Harry were here. He really would’ve enjoyed your mother’s treacle tart,” I remember
telling Ron once after supper, “It’s his favorite you know.”

It was a simple statement that I really didn’t think would cause any sort of reaction from
anyone, at least I thought so until Ron jumped from his seat and started yelling.

“That’s it! If you mention Harry one more time I think I am going to leave this place! Yes
Hermione, we all wish Harry were here, but that doesn’t mean we have to voice this sentiment every
5 minutes! It gets irritating after a while! As well as the constant, *‘Do you think Harry is mad
at us? I’m positive he’ll do something stupid if we keep him in the dark forever…do you think we
should go visit him? You know that boggart your mum keeps worrying about, I’m sure Harry would know
how to get rid of it!’* Harry this, Harry that, Harry Harry Harry! Yes Hermione, I’m pretty sure
Harry will be furious with anger once he gets here since we’ve kept him in the dark for so bloody
long, and we all know that Harry is the bloody friggin messiah and that a simple boggart won’t be
that much of a problem for him, but you don’t have to remind us of this constantly. So if you don’t
mind, I am going up to my room and try to *not* think about Harry for the first time in ages,
since apparently, I can’t have any peace in my life when I’m with *you*!”

After that tirade he just stalked off without looking back. I turned to Ginny, Fred and George
to see if they had anything to say, but Fred and George just apparated away and I was left with
Ginny. Ginny closed the book she was reading and stated coolly, “He’s only jealous, you know.”

With that, she walked out of the room and left me to ponder. As you can tell, I’m quite fond of
pondering.

Was Ron being jealous of Harry, in the usual way? The way he’s always been jealous of Harry,
because of his fame and fortune, yadda yadda yadda…

Or did this sudden burst of jealousy have something to do with me? He wasn’t outwardly jealous
this past year, what with Rita Skeeter’s preposterous insinuations about Harry and me in her
articles, so what had suddenly changed that?

Something was pulling at the back of my mind, something I did that could have probably changed
the situation, and that was when it hit me; *I kissed him.*

It wasn’t like it was a big deal! I just kissed Harry’s cheek when we parted ways at the end of
term on Platform nine and three quarters…why would this make Ron angry? Perhaps it was because I
didn’t kiss him as well…

I giggled at the idiocy of it all, and I resolved to kiss Ron’s cheek sometime during the next
year, sometime when it was appropriate, just so that Ron could get such barking mad ideas out of
his head. Honestly! Harry and me, Pfft.

*~*~*~*~*

I remember feeling extremely relieved when I was finally able to wrap my arms around Harry the
second he got to Grimmauld Place that summer. After months of worry he was finally there!

Of course, my worry was not without cause, for Harry was indeed as angry as I had anticipated
him to be; I hadn’t been going “spare” (as Ron says) for nothing. I remember his angry tirade so
well…I’ll never forget it. I was close to tears hearing him…hearing the pain underlined in all that
anger. I almost felt like I was back in the hospital wing the night of the third task, making my
vow that I would never forgive Ron for hurting him…

And here I was, hurting him all summer.

It was a really horrible feeling; it made me feel both very guilty, and depressed. But the
depression lifted as the year progressed and righteous indignation began to take its place. Why was
he taking all his anger out on us for?

Then again I couldn’t really blame him, could I? All the horrible things that had happened to
him, that were *still* happening to him; as I had voiced before: if it were me, I’d be angry
as well.

I did, however, know that I did the right thing by pitching the idea of Dumbledore’s Army.
Despite the heavy consequences born by our folly, the D.A. meetings gave Harry a renowned sense of
dignity, long lost by the constant humiliation he was subject to, and also gave him a feeling of
purpose; he was doing something “for the cause,” no matter how small.

It wasn’t lost on me that he thrived under the attention. He loved being able to share something
he was a Master at, the way he shared his Quidditch abilities on our House team, though you’d be
hard pressed to make him admit he was *good* at it.

The only downside to D.A. was an incident that happened around Christmastime; this incident, so
young and innocent as it was, was not only a downside, it was *my* downfall.

*~*~*~*~*

I was perfectly content being Harry’s *friend*, and only that. Over the past years, Harry
had grown to be my most trusted friend, and I knew I was his; I was the only one who had never
betrayed him, and once or twice he laughingly remarked to me that *I* was his voice of
reason:

“Honestly Hermione, every time I’m about to do something stupid, I always hear your voice in my
head enumerating the many reasons why I should stop. Sometimes I don’t listen and I ignore you, and
I *always* regret it later. But for the times I have listened…thank you. I’d be dead if it
wasn’t for you.”

I’ve always valued the trust that is the backbone of our friendship. During our first year, it
was just the two of us in that little chamber with all the bottles, and he *trusted* me enough
to know that I wouldn’t let him go through those flames if I wasn’t positive he wouldn’t get
burned; during our second year, he trusted me enough, while I was Petrified, to know that I had
found the answer to our serpentine puzzle; during our third year, it was just him and me saving
Buckbeak and Sirius from execution; during our fourth year, it was just us trying to find a way to
get past the dragon, it was just us sitting up at all hours finding spells, pouring through books,
and almost dying of fright.

During fifth year I was glad that, once again, it would be Harry and me. When Ron was named
prefect I almost *died*. For one thing, Ron wasn’t fit to be a prefect; he had no sense of
responsibility, which Harry, having the burden of the fate of the world on his shoulders since
birth, did. Secondly, it meant we, Ron and I, were going to alienate Harry, which is something I
really didn’t want to do for he had felt alienated enough this past summer. Thirdly, I really
wanted to work alongside Harry again, just as we did in the past. It has always been *us*,
which is why I not only thought Harry would be named prefect, *I secretly wished for it.*

Nevertheless, Harry and I still found a way to collaborate; I think its something we just can’t
fight, really. D.A. was our collaboration, our effort. I strategized, he executed, exactly the way
it’s always been. Ron, being busy with Quidditch on top of his prefect duties wasn’t present for
the vast majority of the decisions involving D.A., so I began to see D.A. as *our* project,
completely independent of Ron.

D.A., which inspired in me a general spirit of friendship and camaraderie between Harry and me,
eventually had an adverse effect that completely changed the course of my life.

*~*~*~*~*

I was sitting in the Common Room with Ron waiting for Harry to get back from our D.A. meeting.
Ron was finishing his Transfiguration essay, and I was writing a letter to Viktor Krum. Yes, I had
maintained contact with him. I found that he was rather easy to talk to. Harry and Ron were…vastly
daft and immature, and they really didn’t understand the female psyche at all. Krum, however, was
actually quite shrewd, (Being an older, popular Quidditch star and well known Casanova, he’d had
the practice.) and I found him to be the best person to rant to.

Poor Krum! He probably sat there for hours reading parchments with exclamations like *“Ron is
such an idiot! He should get a clue!”* Or *“Poor Harry, why must he suffer these woes?”*
With Krum I found myself able to voice these sentiments without worry; I knew that if I talked
about them to Harry and Ron, or any of the other girls in school, that it would leak back to them
anyways and I’d end up friendless.

Most of the time Krum would be a gentleman, and try to explain to me the inner workings of the
young, male mind, seeing that when they are young they are at their most complex time, and the only
way to understand one was to actually be, or have been one (And I don’t really think I’ve had the
pleasure of experiencing that…).

But sometimes Krum would become an insufferable git and reply with a short “Screw Ron and date
Harry! You know it’s what you *really* want…”

When that was the case I’d pull my hair out and shriek madly. Why was everyone obsessed with the
idea that Harry and I were to fall madly in love with each other and live happily ever after? Krum,
Rita Skeeter, even Ron had the occasional stabs of jealousy…

I was writing a long, angry letter to Krum, denoting all the reasons why Harry and I would never
work out, when Harry walked in looking like a hen who had just gotten her feathers ruffled by a
naughty rooster.

I knew it the second I laid eyes on him: *she* had kissed him!

Perhaps I should explain who *she* is first. Her name is Cho Chang, a pretty, Ravenclaw
sixth year that Harry had been mooning over since our third year. Last year Harry had managed the
courage to ask her to the Yule Ball, only to find out that he had been beaten to it by the late
Cedric Diggory, the other Hogwarts champion during the Triwizard Tournament and the boy Harry had
seen killed by Voldemort’s command.

Yup, I knew that Harry was setting himself up for disaster by pursuing Cho. It was obvious that
their relationship was going to amount to nothing; Harry was the closest thing Cho could find to a
confidant, a person who could grieve over Cedric alongside her and understand her feelings. The
fact that Harry had a nice personality and was extremely attractive only added drama to what could
have been a really healthy friendship. Cho ended up liking Harry, and Harry already liked her back.
But Cedric Diggory’s ghost remained between them.

As I said before: *Disaster*. But still, I was one of Harry’s best friends, I had to try
and help him however possible, despite knowing that it was a hopeless cause. So I gave him advice
whenever I deemed necessary, whether he took it or not was up to him.

But…when I saw him walk into the room and sink heavily into the armchair next to mine, I
instantly regretted every single piece of advice I had ever given him.

Ron was the first to ask the obvious, “What kept you?”

I tried to remain completely nonchalant, but I couldn’t help staring at him, trying to assess
his emotions. So far he hadn’t really expressed whether he was happy or not; he just appeared
shocked.

Typical Harry.

“Are you all right, Harry?” I finally asked. It was simple enough question, and I tried to ask
it while retaining the outmost calm, though I couldn’t help a negative suspicion from creeping
in.

I wanted to ascertain his feelings by asking him that simple, yet guarded question. I didn’t
want to ask him if he liked it; for he hadn’t told us that he kissed her, I just *knew*. But I
also knew that if he told us he was all right, that meant he *did* like it, and if he told us
he was not, then he was obviously displeased.

For some odd reason I found myself favoring the latter outcome.

But to my utter frustration he only shrugged. I felt like slapping him.

Ron continued his interrogation, “What’s up? What happened?”

Harry still wouldn’t answer, and I felt the need to get up and shake the answers out of him. Yet
I remained calm, and decided to question him directly. Otherwise, we’d be sitting down here
forever!

“Is it Cho?” I asked, trying to retain an air of aloofness. “Did she corner you after the
meeting?”

Harry nodded, just as I expected he would. I heard Ron snigger at that, and I felt like slapping
him for interrupting the conversation. I glared at him, and naturally, he stopped.

“So-er-what did she want?” Ron asked overdoing the casualness in his voice. Amateur.

I really wanted to take the reigns and interrogate Harry myself, but I thought it’d look too
suspicious if I didn’t let anyone else talk.

“She-she-er-“ Harry tried to answer, but I couldn’t take it anymore so I interrupted him.

“Did you kiss?” I asked him briskly. This time I couldn’t hide the emotion out of my voice, and
I couldn’t stop a frown from forming on my face. The idea of him kissing *her* made me want to
dash off and rip the pretty little head off her body.

Harry nodded.

Ron yelled an uproarious “Ha!” and began laughing raucously. I saw Harry grin, obviously pleased
with himself, and I felt disgust beginning to bubble up inside me.

I turned to my letter indignantly, only to find that I couldn’t continue it. I couldn’t think of
any more reasons as to why Harry and I would never work out, and as I read the reasons I had
written earlier, I found them to be completely absurd.

Still, I needed to do *something* to keep myself from exploding, so I decided to doodle on
the parchment instead. Doodling didn’t require much attention, so I was able to keep up with the
conversation Harry and Ron were having without a hitch.

“How was it?” I heard Ron asking Harry.

“Wet,” Harry answered. I felt a lurch in my stomach that had nothing to do with the treacle tart
I had eaten earlier that day.

“…Because she was crying.” I heard Harry finish.

Ah, just as I expected.

“Are you that bad at kissing?” Ron asked, and I thought I might throw a book at him for asking
such a ridiculous question.

“Dunno, maybe I am.”

“Of course you’re not,” I heard myself answer unconsciously. When I realized I had said I felt
my ears turning pink; luckily, they were hidden by my hair.

“How do you know?” I heard Ron ask sharply.

Before another replay of the past summer happened, I thought up a reasonable answer quickly to
get his mind re-focused.

“Because Cho spends half her time crying these days. She does it at mealtimes, in the loos, all
over the place.” It wasn’t like I was lying; this was the truth.

“You’d think a bit of kissing would cheer her up,” said Ron.

I again felt like slapping him, but I accredit this violent need to the bad mood Harry’s news
had unpredictably put me into.

“Ron, you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”

He really was a complete dud when it came to the fairer sex.

“What’s that supposed to mean? What sort of person cries while someone’s kissing them?” I could
hear the indignation in his voice, but that hardly ruffled me the way it normally did.

“Yeah, who does?” echoed Harry desperately.

I sighed. They really were clueless.

“Don’t you understand how Cho’s feeling at the moment?” I asked.

“No,” they said together.

I sighed again, and laid down my quill.

“Well obviously, she’s feeling very sad, because of Cedric’s dying. Then I expect she’s feeling
confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work out who she likes
best. Then she’ll be feeling guilty, thinking it’s an insult to Cedric’s memory to be kissing Harry
at all, and she’ll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out
with Harry. And she probably can’t work out what her feelings toward Harry are anyway, because he
was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that’s all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and
she’s afraid she’s going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she’s been flying
badly.”

The boys greeted this tirade with heavy silence, and I felt like a great weight had been lifted
off my shoulders. If only they knew…

“One person can’t feel all that at once, they’d explode.”

This comment obviously came from Ron, and this time I really did feel like I was going to get up
and hex him until next Thursday. Luckily, I managed to maintain my serene, if not distant demeanor,
and merely retort with, “Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn’t mean we
all have.”

“She was the one who started,” said Harry, and silently I was pleased that it wasn’t him that
initiated it. “I wouldn’t’ve - she just sort of came at me - and next thing she’s crying all over
me – I didn’t know what to do-”

“Don’t blame you, mate” said an alarmed looking Ron.

Seeing the innocently frightened look on Harry’s face as he tried to describe the situation made
me melt inside with sympathy. So I decided to put my inner jealousies aside and give him advice,
what are best friends for?

“You just had to be nice to her. You were, weren’t you?” I looked up at him anxiously, secretly
hoping that he hadn’t been nice and had been a mean and horrible boy and that this whole crush with
Cho would be over.

“Well, I sort of – patted her on the back a bit.”

Idiot! Did he have to be this amusingly boyish with her? I tried to keep from rolling my eyes in
disgust (and envy), and give him more advice.

“Well, I suppose it could have been worse,” I said, attempting to keep the fact that I really
did wish things had gone worse out of my voice. “Are you going to see her again?”

I was hoping for a no here.

“I’ll have to won’t I? We’ve got D.A. meetings, haven’t we?” Harry answered cluelessly.

“You know what I mean,” I said impatiently. Honestly! Did I have to spell everything out for
him?

As he obviously thought over the possibility, I kept my fingers crossed for a “No.”

“Oh well,” I said, trying to keep myself calm while I furiously doodled all over Krum’s letter,
“you’ll have plenty of opportunities to ask her…”

I had to be supportive of Harry and Cho, or else they’d begin to suspect. Thank God for Krum’s
letter! It kept me occupied and focused, at least focused on something that was *not* stabbing
Cho with my quill.

“What if he doesn’t want to ask her?” Ron asked suddenly. This possibility had *never*
occurred to me, but the idea of it appealed to me immensely. I had to make sure.

“Don’t be silly. Harry’s liked her for ages, haven’t you Harry?”

That was it, the million-galleon question. Did Harry still like Cho? Somehow I felt the answer
to this question would dictate the events of the rest of my life…but I dismissed this feeling as a
hallucination.

Harry never got a chance to answer; as per usual, Ron interrupted the conversation.

“Who are you writing that novel to anyway?”

I knew that if I told him whom I was writing to, it’d spark a jealous rant from him. Good. I’d
been jealous enough the whole night, now it was someone else’s turn.

“Viktor,” I answered, quite pleased with myself.

*“Krum?”* Ron asked, obviously disgruntled. Ha!

“How many other Viktors do we know?” I asked. A small smile of satisfaction curved itself on my
face.

The next twenty minutes we spent in silence. Then I excused myself to go to sleep; only I
couldn’t go to sleep that night. I rolled around in bed for an hour, and then I realized that it
was useless and decided to go out for a walk.

I snuck into the boys’ dormitories and borrowed Harry’s invisibility cloak.

While I was rummaging through his trunk, I was close enough to hear Harry sleeping; it didn’t
sound peaceful. He kept tossing and turning, and moaning. My first instinct was to wake him up and
calm him down, but I second-guessed myself and decided not to. If I woke him up, he might not go
back to sleep, and Harry needed his sleep, no matter how fitful.

As it turns out, that was the night Harry had his dream about Mr. Weasley; it was lucky for the
Weasleys that I didn’t wake Harry up, or else Mr. Weasley would have ended up dead.

*~*~*~*

Hogwarts during winter has always been a breathtaking sight. During the day Hogwarts resembles a
perfect picture-postcard, a child’s fantasy of a distant, far-away castle surrounded by a scenic
forest made less ominous by the beautiful white snow on the trees. The hustle of students; students
playing outside, students skating on the ice-covered lake, (enchanted, so that there would be no
accidents with students unceremoniously falling into thin ice) makes the grounds look like an
ancient fairy land where the cares of everyday life are forgotten; effects of the enchantment the
fairies created in order to maintain and protect the beauty of the land.

During the night…Hogwarts is breathtaking in a completely different way. It’s still beautiful,
still an ancient fairyland, but it isn’t the happy picture of a child’s fantasy; it is the
enchanting setting of a young girl’s dream. The snow does not make the forest less-ominous in the
darkness, it makes it more mystifying; the snow on the trees reflecting shafts of moonlight makes
you want to enter the forest, makes you *long* to find the answers to its seductive
mysteries.

Trampling outside the snow-covered grounds, the forest calling to me and the chill night air
reminding me of the warmth I left behind in the castle, I instinctively headed towards the lake,
the lake that Harry and I had circled many times in deep conversation, now gleaming the light of
the moon.

My thoughts were a complete mess. What was rational thought only a few hours ago I now found
completely ludicrous and out of place.

*I was jealous of Cho.*

As I stared at the ice-lake, resting my back against a freezing oak tree, I realized that that
was the clearest thought to pass my mind in *hours*.

*I was jealous of Cho.*

But why?

Duh, Hermione! For kissing Harry!

But why would I be jealous of that? Harry is only my friend…

Really? Are you sure of that? Viktor Krum doesn’t think so…

Shut up! Sod Viktor Krum! It doesn’t matter what he thinks, it matters what *I* think.

And what do you think, hmm?

I think…I think…I think that I don’t know.

Wow. How insightful. This from the girl that scored 113% on her Charms final during her first
year.

Don’t be spiteful! Can’t you see that I’m confused right now?

I know you are. I am inside your head, you know? And right now, things don’t look so pretty in
here…

Well you try realizing that you might have feelings for your best friend, eh? See how you like
it…

Aha! So you admit you have feelings for him?

I do no – well…I don’t know!

Yes you do, you just said so yourself!

Ok then, fine! Maybe I do! But why? Why? And how? And when…?

Why? How? When? You daft girl! This has been happening all along!

All along? Insanity! This couldn’t have been happening all along…I was supposed to be liking
Ron! And I did…I did like Ron…

I remembered the day I kissed him. Granted, it was on his cheek, and I did it to wish him luck.
But the skin of his cheek was so smooth, and the look on his face made me grin with feminine
satisfaction…

Yet you turned right around and kissed Harry as well.

Well, yes! So? I did it for luck.

The way you only kissed Ron for luck?

No. Yes. I don’t know!

*Sigh*

Well, they’re completely different things! Completely different people! Kissing Harry is not
like kissing Ron. My lips felt pleasantly smooth against Ron’s cheek, like they would be quite
content there. Kissing Harry’s cheek…

Which you’ve done twice now…

Yes…which I’ve done twice now (you nosey lout) is…different…

Different how?

I don’t know!

Clueless!

But I DO know (wench) that kissing Harry is revitalizing, like whatever powerful magic that
dwells within him is somehow transferred to you, and it makes you feel…

Different.

Right.

And again I say…Clueless! Completely clueless. You might as well be as clueless as Ron…

I am not as clueless as Ron! *Nobody* can be as clueless as Ron…

You’re right there.

I began to think about the conversation in the common room, the conversation that completely
threw me off in a direction that I wasn’t sure I wanted to go.

*Poor Cho,* I thought. *Now I know how you feel…*

“…she’s feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can’t work
out who she likes best…”

How much of that speech I made was *really* about Cho, Cedric, and Harry?

Not much of it. You know the whole time you were thinking about yourself…

Shut it! Who asked you for your opinion? And so what if the situation applies to Ron, me, and
Harry…

Harry…

So there, I was admitting it. I had feelings for Harry. But again, the same questions: How? Why?
And when?

I mean, I was always encouraging of Harry and Cho. I never felt jealous before –

That was because you always knew it wouldn’t work out.

Excuse me?

I thought you didn’t want my opinion.

Sod what I said!

Not until you apologize.

I’m sorry…

I don’t believe you…

I said I’M SORRY! Get on with it!

Fine. As I was saying, you were never jealous of Harry and Cho because you always knew they
wouldn’t work out. But tonight, you were surprised. They took a step you never thought they would
venture to take, and that spurred your jealousy.

Ooooh, I understand! Pure rubbish.

What?

You heard me. Pure. Rubbish.

I’m sorry dear, but it’s not rubbish. Aren’t you forgetting? I’m you. I’m here, inside your
head, and this is what your head is saying.

Blast my head! Tell me, if my head is so smart…

It is! It got you your good grades…

…If my head is so smart, tell me, what should I do now that I’m stuck in this nasty, horrid
little rut where I have fallen for my two best friends where one of them likes me back but is too
stupid to notice, and the other one is chasing after another girl.

Follow your heart.

What?

Your head is telling you to follow your heart you foolish girl!

Bite me.

That was the night that I was torn away from the coast and thrown into the depths of the sea.
Slowly, the currents carried me towards a whirlpool from whence I knew there was no
escape…Charybdis. And her keeper had green eyes…

*~*~*~*~*

The year had mercy on me. I didn’t have to dwell on my feelings for my two best friends; Ron was
unhappily occupied with Quidditch, and Harry was happily occupied with D.A., and the opposition,
(Which opposition, specifically, there is no name for. It seems he was opposed to everything.) and
Cho…

Grr! Cho! Every time I thought of her kissing him I got the oddest feeling in my stomach…like I
had just eaten a Horseradish Every Flavored Bean.

But I took everything with a grain of salt. I decided that I couldn’t be selfish and begrudge
Harry…Cho. He liked her, and Harry deserved whatever happiness he could get, especially with
Umbridge running loose.

So I decided to help him in any way I could. There were many times in which I had to pull Ron
and myself away so that Harry and Cho could talk privately; there were many instances in which
Harry needed advice, and I had to grudgingly dole it out, *always* keeping my best friend
façade. The second I lost that I knew it’d be over.

The most memorable advice-giving moment for me was right after Valentine’s Day. Harry and Cho
had a date on that day, and I had asked Harry if I could interrupt it, *only* because it was
the only day Rita Skeeter could come in and do the interview for the Quibbler with Harry (though I
won’t deny the fact that some morbid, twisted part of me wanted to see how happy he was with
her).

I was pleasantly surprised to find Harry came alone, and by the look on his face I knew
something had happened. I tried not to let the elation show on my face, and by that time I had
become master at hiding my emotions, or emitting false ones whenever the mood called for.

Later when I asked Harry about his date with Cho, I was surprised to realize that *I* was
the reason why Harry and Cho got into an argument.

I was ecstatic! But I soon felt my happiness die when I saw how miserable Harry was.

I sighed and put on my “best friend advice-giver” façade. I was determined to make Harry happy.
And if Cho was his happiness, so be it.

“Oh Harry,” I said sadly. I had succumbed to the idea of him and Cho. “Well I’m sorry, but you
were a bit tactless.”

“*Me*, tactless? One minute we were getting on fine, next minute she was telling me that
Roger Davies asked her out, and how she used to go and snog Cedric in that stupid tea shop – how
was I supposed to feel about that?”

He was furious. Even though he could sometimes be scary, he always looked good furious. But best
friends don’t think like that.

“Well, you see, you shouldn’t have told her you wanted to meet me halfway through your
date.”

“But, But, but – you told me to meet you at twelve and to bring her along, how was I supposed to
do that without telling her-?”

“You should have told her differently! You should have said it was really annoying, but I’d made
you promise to come along to the Three Broomsticks, and you really didn’t want to go, you’d much
rather spend the whole day with her, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet me and
would she please, please come along with you and hopefully you’d be able to get away more quickly?
And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am too.”

I knew that that last statement was a bit bold…but I couldn’t help myself. I just *had* to
know what he thought of me, physically.

“But I don’t think you’re ugly,” he said. He looked bemused, as if it was insane that I thought
he thought me ugly, or that I thought myself ugly.

I don’t think I could’ve been happier if Umbridge was killed by a niffler.

I laughed, but it was nervous laughter and I hope he didn’t notice it. Then out of nowhere I
made the most asinine comment:

“Harry, you’re worse than Ron…Well no, you’re not.”

As if I had called him, Ron came stomping into the great hall looking all muddy and grumpy after
what looked like an unsuccessful Quidditch practice.

I spent another sleepless night pondering that comment…*what the hell did I mean?*

Lately I had been focusing all of my attention on Harry, and my sudden (*not really sudden,
you know?*) development of feelings for Harry.

I mean, I’ve been aware that I still have lingering feelings for Ron, but…

But what were they in terms of my newfound feelings for Harry?

I was always used to thinking of my individual feelings for them as two separate entities, just
as they are two separate people. But I never really stopped to analyze what they were in terms of
each other.

Who did I like more…Ron, or Harry?

I’ve always gotten along with Harry the best, I’ve always worked with Harry the best, and I’ve
always enjoyed their company equally, but who did I *like* best, in the romantic sense?

Did I like Ron more? Did I like Harry more? Did I like them both equally?

First, I had to enumerate the reasons why I liked them both beyond friendship in the first
place.

But I found I couldn’t do that. It wasn’t like there were a number of set reasons as to why I
felt about them the way I did, it was just something that was. I was attracted to both of them in
their entirety, not because of a loose selection of adjectives. I liked the collective adjectives,
their whole selves, and it was hard enough to like them both at the same time.

How was I to go about figuring out whom I liked best?

*Follow your heart!*

Shut it! I know what I’m doing.

*~*~*~*~*

The summer between fifth year and sixth year was the summer that I lost the ability to breathe.
I had spent too much time beneath the waters of the Sea of Confusion, and I was beginning to think
that I would die in her treacherous waters.

Ron asked me to be his girlfriend that summer.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that day. We were at Grimmauld Place, a month into our summer
holiday, and the lot of us, (well, Ginny, Harry, Ron, and I) were sitting in the Drawing Room, each
preoccupied with our own agenda: I was reading, Ginny was switching stations on her Wizarding
Wireless, Harry was drawing plans for renovating Grimmauld Place for when the war was over, (As he
had inherited the estate from Sirius Harry said Ron and I would move in with him right after the
war was over, and we could renovate together. He even made us choose the rooms we wanted way in
advance. Of course, I figure that this madness is Harry’s way of trying to reassure himself, that
he *will* survive the war and kill Voldemort. But then again of course he’s going to survive.
Why should I worry?) and Ron was just…staring into space.

That in itself should have warned me. He had a horrorstruck look on his face, as if he had done
something stupid and wished he could take it back. He was probably imagining the whole scenario in
his head: he asked me to be his girlfriend, and I in turn slapped him, said no, and stormed out of
the room.

To tell you the truth I almost did that.

Instead, I tried my hardest *not* to look at Harry, and ran out of the room.

I didn’t run to the room I shared with Ginny because I knew she would follow me up and
interrogate me. No, I ended up in the attic with Buckbeak, hiding in the same place Harry had the
Christmas before. I needed to think.

Should I say yes? I mean, I did like Ron, I’d liked him since forever…I should’ve been thrilled
that he asked me, finally, after so very long…

But what was stopping me from saying yes?

Care for me to elaborate…

No thank you! You’ve done enough.

Now, as I was saying, why couldn’t I say yes? I liked Ron. He liked me back. Where was the
rocket science?

And then I remembered the insane urge to look at Harry and see his reaction while Ron asked me,
and then it all made sense.

Harry was stopping me from saying yes.

But how?

It wasn’t like Harry was my boyfriend, and it wasn’t like he liked me back at all. What did it
matter what he thought, or if he approved. We aren’t involved in that way at all!

It was in that moment of self-righteous indignation that I decided that I would say yes to Ron!
Screw Harry! If he didn’t like me back than fine, I wouldn’t like him either! He could just run off
after any skirt he wanted for all I cared…I had Ron now! And I liked Ron…right? I mean…I was doing
well with my decision, right? Everything would turn out fine…right?

Right?

But that is the wile of the sea; she lulls you into a false security, only to destroy you when
the time comes.

*~*~*~*~*

For a while, everything did turn out all right. We returned to Hogwarts with a new mission in
mind, and the year transpired in the usual way; Harry was in mortal peril, Ron and I bickered,
classes were hard, (though nowhere near as hard as last year during O.W.L. season) we got a new
Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, (named Antony Alexandrius, and no, he was not insane) and
Quidditch was the most important thing on earth.

Harry was named Quidditch captain that year, (as no one else was as qualified to fill the
position) and Ron remained Keeper. Ginny became a Chaser, along with Lavender and Parvati, (Who
swore they only did it to appeal more to boys, who liked girls who were Quidditch enthusiasts. They
were good nevertheless, having had years of practice preparing themselves for this day, so Harry
had to accept them.) The Creevy Brothers took over Fred and George’s job as Beaters, and Dean
succeeded Lee Jordan as commentator.

In the past, I never really fancied Quidditch. For one thing, I couldn’t fly. I was afraid of
flying. And since Quidditch was a game where you flew, I didn’t like to watch it because A) It made
me fear for the safety of the players (at least the non-Slytherin ones) and B) I always felt a
slight pang of jealousy when I watched them fly, knowing that I could not. Another reason why I
never liked Quidditch was because everyone got so riled up about it! They completely forgot about
all the important things like school, and the Resistance, and completely concentrated themselves on
Quidditch! Lastly, I hated Quidditch because of Harry. I always ended each game with either
stinging nail marks on my face because of Harry’s near miss, or in tears because Harry almost
died.

Sixth year I practically *loathed* Quidditch. I hated it with, excuse my triteness, the
passion of a thousand fiery suns! I don’t even think that banal phrase is powerful enough to
encompass the extent to which I hated the damned game. Nothing, not the gold of ancient Egypt could
make me want to go to a bloody game!

But nothing, not the gold of ancient Egypt, could *stop* me from going.

During Quidditch games one got a chance to witness Harry in his element; when playing Quidditch,
Harry was at his truest. And he was at his *truest* truest when he played Quidditch, while
simultaneously being his team’s captain.

It was then Harry became Caesar. His teammates were his men, his army, his *legions*, and
he was their glorious leader, because Harry indeed looked glorious while he played. He was the
General, the *Imperator*, his word, his command, was law, and while in the air, his word never
failed. Gryffindor never lost a match while Harry was Captain, the same way Caesar never lost a
war.

And just as Cesar regarded his legions as his family, Harry regarded his team as his family.

The team became Harry’s support group, all united in loyalty under their *Imperator*. And
Harry loved it, loved them. Harry needed love, respect, and loyalty unlike any other, not only
because he was denied these for half his life, but because of the never-ending burdens placed on
his strong shoulders for the other half of his life.

Quidditch was Harry’s mistress; his escape from the trivial, (and the not so trivial in his
case) and the team, his *family*, was the fruit of their love affair.

And I was utterly jealous. I was jealous because I wasn’t partaking of this; I wasn’t partaking
of *any* of it. I wasn’t part of Harry’s family!

I always prided myself on the uniqueness of mine and Harry’s friendship; I was the only one to
remain completely loyal to him in times of chaos; I was the only one with enough courage and trust,
trust in Harry and in our friendship, to tell him the blunt truth, no matter how unbearable,
whenever he needed to hear it. And here he was, holding counsel, with his *Quidditch
team*.

Without me.

Whatever happened to the ever powerful and unstoppable triumvirate? Of course, Ron didn’t feel
the desertion of Harry’s favor since he was part of the Quidditch team himself, and that left me to
bear the full blast of neglect by myself.

I never spoke to Ron of my true feelings. I knew that if I did, the truth would come tumbling
out and I’d regret it to my last day!

But why was he doing this? He hardly ever spoke to me anymore, and when he did it wasn’t very
enlightening. I really couldn’t understand the situation at all! Why did he disrupt the perfect
balance we have fought so much to keep between the three of us?

Why was he ignoring me?

The answer to this question became apparent (at least to me) when a most undesired predicament
(at least to me) began to develop.

I remember recalling that back in fifth year, when Harry met Rita, Luna and I at the Three
Broomsticks for Valentine’s Day that some sick, morbid part of me that liked to see myself suffer
wanted Cho to accompany Harry to meet us because I wanted to see for myself how happy they were
together. Despite my heavy loathing towards the game, this same insane curiosity carried my feet to
every Quidditch game that Gryffindor played throughout the year; sod the fact that Ron, my
*boyfriend*, was Keeper.

It is said that Cleopatra once remarked that it was in the female psyche to investigate the
women of the man they loved in order to make sure that they were worthy of the man, but not
surpassing one’s own worthiness. I couldn’t agree with her more. For this innate reason, if reason
it should be called, compelled me to the Quidditch pitch.

Because she was part of his *family*, they were able to connect.

I remember Ron bursting on me with the happy news; what he had always wanted had come to
pass.

And when I heard, I never thought I’d be able to *feel* ever again.

No emotion would be strong enough; no triumph would be great enough, no kiss passionate enough,
no death sad enough, no pleasure powerful enough for me to ever *feel* it. All sense of being
was lost, and in that instant I became a shell of myself, a ghost Hermione, the kind that went
through the motions, but remained unattached to the events.

So this unattached, emotionless Hermione made her way down to the pitch *every* game to see
*them* together, Caesar and Calpurnia, and I, the lone Cleopatra, knowing it my right to be by
his side.

Oh, goddess of the Nile! How I understood you then!

Ron would always wave to me, and I would smile and wave back, making sure my façade was never
broken. I was here to watch my *boyfriend* play, and for no other reason.

But I watched them; I watched them with an obsession that was *definitely* not healthy.

Before the start of every game, before Harry and the other captain would shake hands, they would
kiss each other. A quick peck on the lips, and she would always squeeze his shoulder and shut her
eyes tight, every emotion conveyed in that split-second public display of affection.

She was a great Chaser, and she never failed the team, she never failed her *Imperator*.
But that didn’t stop her from shooting him the fleeting glances, like the ones I would give him
when ensconced in a sticky situation. And then there were the ones he gave to her…sure, as captain
he was required to make sure of everyone’s welfare, but the glances he gave her were by far the
longest and the most emotional. You could always read his mind through his eyes…and it was obvious
his heart was with her throughout the game.

After the game, always emerging victorious, they would always seek each other out first.

Before it was always I who reached him first, whether to laugh with him in happiness over a win,
or to help him in any way I could when he was injured.

But now it was not like that, they always found each other first, and celebrated with each other
first, and the team would then carry Harry on their shoulders to the common room for celebration.
Harry always pulled her up with him, and so they rode on triumphantly; the victorious general and
his lovely prize.

It was almost enough to make me root for the opposing team.

And it did not end there; I was constantly watching them. *Constantly*.

Before, Harry and Ron would wait for me to come down to the common room before we would descend
to the Great Hall for breakfast. Now, only Ron was there to meet me and we would descend together,
without Harry. Harry usually came in after us, making his grand entrance, with Ginny at his arm;
like an Emperor and an Empress visiting their subjects.

It almost made me want to puke.

Yet I endured it. I took it like a Queen should, never letting her perfect demeanor falter. I
continued on, smiling and looking adoringly at Ron while finding something to bicker with him
about. Let no one know of my true feelings.

And there it dawned on me, the reason why Harry no longer talked to me, why I suddenly became an
invisible thing unworthy of notice, except for the occasional accidental bump.

He had replaced me.

It was as simple as that; Harry had replaced me with Ginny.

I felt like dying!

And Charybdis was aiding the process; surely I would die a sailor’s death in her mouth.

*~*~*~*~*

During my long, unholy exile, several things began to clear themselves up in my mind.

I had completely fallen in love with Harry.

My previous assessment that I only had a crush on Harry was *wrong*. This wasn’t the way it
was with Ron; he was fun and exciting to be around, and I esteemed his friendship very much. He was
only a crush.

Nu-uh, with Harry, it was full on *love*.

I suddenly realized that his absence from my life made me completely miserable.

Alas, Cleopatra, smart woman, was once said to described Antony’s absence from her side like
losing a dimension to her life; life still went on, but something pleasant was missing. But when
Caesar was gone he left a great gaping hole in his place, and she felt so utterly distraught when
he went off that it took all her will to continue *living*.

And that was how I felt with Ron and Harry.

Not having Harry around was making it hard for me to breathe. It was becoming hard for me to do
*anything*; to walk, to talk, to *act*. All my energy was expended with trying to live. I
sharpened my acting skills pretending that I was OK, but the longer Harry was away, the harder it
became.

I never felt like this in fourth year when Harry and I isolated ourselves from Ron. Au
contraire, I relished the closeness with Harry; I got to see a side of him that he is afraid to
show around Ron, the side of him that is thoroughly Muggle, the side of him that is afraid of
Magic, of what it does and what it can do, and what he can do with the magic that he possesses.
This Harry was the Harry that found Magic to be something mysterious and fascinating, completely
alien territory he was eager to conquer. This side of Harry was never present when Ron was around;
Harry feared what Ron would think, and he was afraid of showing him any vulnerability.

But I hated being away from Harry. I didn’t mind Ron’s absence, but Harry’s was quite literally
driving me mad.

That was how I knew I loved him; he was driving me mad. Not mad in the way Ron drives me mad
when we argue, but the kind of mad that most women are driven to by the man they love, the kind
they fear they will never recover from.

Harry was the sea, and I was slowly drowning in his waters.

*~*~*~*~*

That summer, the summer between sixth and seventh year, all the sufferings of the previous year
were alleviated.

The three of us (Ginny included, unfortunately) were again carded off to Grimmauld Place. This
time we saw less of Harry then usual, and we just knew he was off getting trained to fight
Voldemort.

Harry’s training was never spoken of; it was almost like an *unspoken pact* that we
*shouldn’t speak of it*. Because the end loomed so near, it was almost as if we wished to
ignore the subject all together, as opposed to before when it was all we could talk or think about.
Then again, I hardly ever spoke at all, so maybe it was just me.

It was getting harder to ignore Harry ignoring me. I felt the waters tugging at my legs, and I
knew that if I didn’t speak soon I would definitely drown!

But I was saved this unpleasantness by some angel of mercy, (or perhaps it was Isis).

I stayed awake one night; way past everyone else had gone to sleep. I wanted to get a head start
on reading all the books for seventh year, and I stayed up in the drawing room in order to do so.
It was too hectic to really do anything constructive during the day, and nighttime allowed me the
solace I needed to study at my own leisure (this was the year of our N.E.W.T.’s you know!)

I didn’t even have to look up from my book; I felt him in the room. For some odd reason, I felt
my stomach start to turn in knots and my skin begin to tingle and warm.

Normally, Harry would never elicit such reactions within me. I was usually most comfortable with
myself when I was around Harry, and this odd reaction I had to his mere presence was proof enough
of how much our relationship had changed; I didn’t know him anymore.

He was slow moving; he took his time, walking to my place by the fire. He stared at me for a
while, and I could feel the heat, heat not having *anything* to do with the fire, begin to
glow within me. Quite frankly, it was unnerving to be observed so meticulously. But again, I did
not let it show; I could not let him know how he affected me, or else, all would be lost, and I’d
never be able to repair our friendship.

And his friendship meant more to me than anything else; despite the way he’d treated me all
year.

He sat down next to me, and still I did not move the book away from my face. For a second there,
I thought this was just going to turn out like any other day where we sat side by side and didn’t
say a word to each other, or acknowledge each other in any way.

But then, breaking the still of the room, he utters the three magic words, the three words I’d
been longing to hear for an entire year!

“I am sorry.”

I continue to pretend that I was engrossed in my book, while fighting hard to keep myself from
breaking down into hysterical tears. But by this time I had learned to manage my emotions past
mastery, and I remained composed.

“Hermione, aren’t you listening? I said I’m sorry!” He grabbed the book out of my hand and flung
it to the ground. It almost landed in the fire.

All I could do was look at him. His eyes were shining, effect of the fire no doubt, and I could
tell that this encounter was causing him major amounts of mental distress.

I couldn’t stop myself from causing him more. After all, he deserved it.

“You’re sorry? Sorry for what?”

He threw his arms up in frustration and glared at me. I succeeded at hiding my smile.

“Sorry for what? Hermione are you crazy? Aren’t you the least mad at the abominable way I’ve
been treating you for the past year?”

He was yelling, *yelling* at *me* as if this was all *my* fault.

It took every ounce of will I possessed not jump up and slap him.

“Abominable treatment? Harry, what are you talking about?”

He started pulling the hair from his head. I was pleased; I hoped it hurt him.

“Hermione! I’ve only been ignoring and neglecting you for the past year!”

“Oh, you mean *that* abominable treatment.” I refused to let even a hint of how much he
hurt me show on my face.

“Aren’t you the least bit upset?” I saw his face fall, as if he expected me to rage at him and
feel angry for what he did to me. And when he saw I didn’t, he felt saddened.

“Upset? Why would I be upset? You did me a great favor! This past year has been like heaven for
me, don’t you know? COMPLETE HEAVEN! I haven’t had to worry about you all year! I didn’t have to
join you in some impossible crusade, I didn’t have to live with your sporadic fits of rage, I
didn’t have to spend all my time on *you*! I actually had a life this year! My life didn’t
revolve around you so for that I’m grateful! GRATEFUL!”

The sad look on his face was quickly replaced with a look of anger and indignation.

“Well I’m happy that you were able to benefit from my lack of friendship! If I had known you had
felt like this all along, I would have severed ties with you long ago! If I was such a burden, why
did you never tell me? I wouldn’t’ve wanted you to endure such an AWFUL TYRANT LIKE MYSELF!”

With that, he stormed out of the room, slamming the door along the way.

I crumpled to the ground and burst into tears.

The next morning was awful. We all filed down to breakfast in the usual manner, but we were all
awfully quiet; the others probably sensed something was amiss.

What was amiss became clear throughout the day, as Harry and I tried our hardest to outdo
ourselves with our significant others.

I doted on Ron all day; being extra nice and forgiving him things I would have usually cut his
head off for. I didn’t tell him to tie his shoes properly or to button his top button, or to stop
speaking with his mouth full of food. I also upped on the public displays of affection

Perhaps not as much as Harry though. It seemed like Harry was determined to keep Ginny attached
to his hip.

The fury between the two of us was astounding; usually we ignored each other in a pleasant
manner, almost as if we weren’t aware of each other at all, but today the angry energy was
palpable.

So it was no surprise to me when Mrs. Weasley pulled me aside and asked me if there was anything
wrong between Harry and I; had we had a little spat of sorts?

I assured Mrs. Weasley that there was *nothing* going on between Harry and I. It wasn’t as
if I lied!

Later that night, I stayed up alone again reading late. And almost as if it were a déjà vu,
Harry made his way into the drawing room. But this time, Harry made quick, determined steps and
when he reached me; he tugged the book out of my hand and deliberately threw it into the fire.

“Why on earth did you do that for? You’ll have to buy me another book you know…”

“Oh Hermione sod the book!” He grabbed me by the arm, and forced me to look at him.

“Listen to me! I am sorry. I am really sorry for the way I’ve treated you, not just this past
year but the entire six years of our acquaintance. I have never appreciated you the way I should
have, and the fact that I had taken you for granted became blatantly clear throughout last year,
when the many times I needed you and I could not find the courage to come get you. The past year
has been hell without you, Hermione, and I’ve come here to implore your forgiveness. I also hope to
reestablish our friendship, because I cannot bear the thought of another day without your support
or amity. So please, Hermione, please. Please forgive me.”

His eyes! They would be the death of me! But I had hardened my heart…

“Let go of my arm,” I growled. This time, I could not stop the tears from running down my face.
I had waited too damn long…

“How *dare* you? How dare you think that you could *will* a friendship back into
place! All the years of working side by side, thinking our relationship a special one…only to find
you could discard me without a second thought, and then come back and easily pick me up when you
find it useful! How *dare* you?”

“Hermione, wait, I have to tell you, I-”

“Just stop it! Please, just shut up! I don’t want to hear it! I just don’t! Please! Please
leave, and never speak to me again! Now go.”

“Hermione I…”

“GO!”

And he went, this time not as dramatically. He practically crawled his way to the door,
shoulders slumped, like a chastised puppy. And instead of slamming the door shut, he hesitated and
looked back at me. This time I didn’t wait until he left to start bawling like a child, I let him
see me in my full glory.

I did not call him back, and so he left, closing the door behind him quietly.

I could not sleep that night, as I could not sleep the night before, as I could not sleep
*any* night since I first found out about my newfound feelings for Harry and the sea of
confusion began raging in my head.

Why didn’t Ron vex me like this?

Because you do not love Ron.

Oh, it’s you again.

*What? You’re not happy to hear from me?*

Oh no, I’m absolutely delighted!

Well, you don’t sound delighted. Are you lying?

Of course not! I don’t’ lie!

Yes you do. You’ve been living a lie, darling.

I sighed. I really didn’t want to deal with myself tonight.

You know what? Just tell me what you want to tell me and let me have a good night’s rest for
once!

Well, I only wanted to tell you that you should forgive the boy, and be done with it.

Forgive him! What, are you mad?

Of course I am! I’m you.

Oh stop it! You know very well I can’t forgive him, the ungrateful wretch!

But you know you want to. Well, your heart wants to, it’s your head that has you slightly
confused.

But you’re inside my head.

Why yes I am! I am the part of your brain that is connected to your heart, so I speak in
truth.

Wait! I thought you were inside my head!

*Well, yes, the brain **is** inside the head…*

Don’t be a smart aleck!

I can’t help it.

So you’re saying I should forgive him. But how do I know I won’t end up hurt again?

Well, you don’t.

I sighed again. I was beginning to hate thinking.

The next morning was just like the last, but instead of there being an angry energy between us,
there was another kind. It was inexplicable, just as palpable, and still affecting odd behavioral
patterns into our unconscious minds.

For some odd reason, Ron and Ginny were acting *extremely* possessive. I honestly have
never seen them like this!

It was like role-reversal! Whereas the day before Harry and I tried outdoing each other, it
seemed that today they were both trying to *outdo* Harry and I, almost as if to make it a
point how much they cared for us.

Strange, it looked like they were trying to prove to us how much they cared for us, as if to
stop any weird ideas from getting into our heads…

Madness.

I stayed up again that night, this time completely ignoring my books. I sat there waiting for
him, hoping that he would come so that I could forgive him and we could make up and this entire
nightmare would end.

I was completely depressed when the clock struck 3 a.m. and he still hadn’t come.

I sighed and got up slowly, not caring that I left my books strewn about all over the place.

When I got to the door of the drawing room, I found I could not open it. Something was slumped
against it and that something barred my departure. I guess this something realized I was trying to
get out, for I heard scurrying and then I was able to open the door with ease.

I wouldn’t say I was surprised to see Harry standing there looking like a fish before a curious
swimmer.

“Harry, I-”

“Shut up Hermione, and listen to me. I’m sorry, you were right. I should have never presumed to
be able to will our friendship back into place, it was arrogant of me.”

“Harry-”

“Let me finish! Perhaps you found that you were better off without a friend like me, that you’re
life was easier and jollier, that you never missed me at all. But you must believe me when I tell
you that I really did miss you, that the past year has been the furthest part of Dante’s hell, and
that this was all a result of our estrangement. Even though you can live without me, I definitely
*can’t* live without you. And this has nothing to do about me “finding you useful” once in a
while, no; it has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with me valuing you as my most
trusted friend and ally, and about me loving you as my most trusted friend and ally.”

“Harry!”

“I’m not finished yet! If you decide you don’t want to forgive me, then know that I shall keep
coming back to you, on my knees, *begging* for your forgiveness until you *do* forgive
me. You are one of the most important people in my life Hermione, and I won’t let you get away
again.”

“Harry! I’ve been trying to tell you all night. I forgive you. And also that I’m sorry, I’m
sorry for all the stupid things I said before. I was just a bit miffed, ‘tis all.”

Harry’s sorrowful expression turned into a happy one, and his lips morphed into a “Harry grin,”
the kind that melts Arctic ice with its warmth.

As he pulled me into a hug, I knew everything was right with the world. And as I felt his strong
arms around me, I could not help the threatening tide of tears.

*~*~*~*~*

That summer saw a growth in our friendship comparable to no other time in my life up until then.
Every day that passed seemed to take away a day of my horrible sixth year; that was how powerful
our reunion had been.

The change in our relationship was immediate; the next morning at breakfast everyone saw the
Harry and Hermione that had co-existed from first year to fifth year. We joked, smiled, teased, and
laughed gaily, and our happiness seemed to permeate brightness throughout the whole house (at least
in my eyes).

Mechanical Hermione was dead and buried; Harry had restored her to her former glory.

Our renewed friendship strengthened my feelings for Harry, and I still had to hide my feelings
and keep myself distant at times. But I was no longer acting my every waking moment, and this
proved an agreeable respite to my play-weary brain.

Nevertheless, I was happy. During the day I felt like everything was the same as it was before,
and I felt quite content and comfortable with everything.

Still, I couldn’t help the feeling that things *had* changed. The unbalance of our
illustrious triumvirate was not only caused by “The Estrangement,” but by Ron and me as well.

And I could not deny or ignore Harry and Ginny anymore, as that situation was still there,
glaring at me in the face.

And this change became most apparent at night. I still stayed up late studying, and Harry always
sought me. It was during these clandestine meetings that we tried to make up for out lost year. I
call them clandestine because clandestine they were, they were never referred to during the
day.

During those nights, we would talk to each other about anything and everything; how we would
restore the house, (Harry wanted all the dark green and silver serpent trappings OUT, to be
replaced with Lions and scarlet and gold, a tribute to Sirius who detested everything about the
house) our futures (Harry wanted to be an Auror, and his excited talk about the profession excited
me, and along with him I vowed we would become Aurors).

Our most serious conversations, though, revolved around our goings on of the past year. We found
we were rather different people from last summer; a year had changed us quite a lot.

An odd thing was that we never talked about romance; this in itself was a glaring proof as to
how things had changed. The lines of trust had to be re-drawn, and we were still working our quills
to the parchment.

The ink was splattered all over the place one night, however, when Harry, after a deep
conversation about the odd announcement that we were to keep Professor Alexander (as he liked to be
called) for another year as our DADA teacher, candidly announced that he was on the verge of ending
things with Ginny.

“WHAT!?” I asked, completely shocked out of my mind. A part of me hoped that- but no- that was
ridiculous. Why would this have anything to do with me? It’s not like Harry liked me in *that*
way.

“It’s just that…well, this is *the* year Hermione! This is the year it ends, the year I’ve
been waiting for all my life. At the end of this year, I’m ending it! I am prepared to kill him
Hermione, and die trying if I have to! And I don’t think its fair…I might not…and she
deserves…”

Ah, I understood. He loved her so much that if he died, he would cause her unhappiness, and he
was unwilling to sacrifice her happiness for his own selfish needs. How noble.

God I hated him at that moment.

“She deserves someone who *really* loves her Hermione! I…I’m sorry to say that I don’t. I
never have. Sure, I think she’s pretty, and I enjoy her company, and her support this past year has
been incomparable but…I can’t get past that nagging brotherly feeling I have around her, you know?
Even more now than before, *because* I’ve dated her, she feels more like a sister to me. Ron
and I became brothers through her…and instead of inciting any sort of *feelings* for her, it’s
turned me into another one of her brothers.”

I opened and closed my mouth many times; this was not the speech I expected.

“Besides, I only started dating her because Ron was so vehement about it. Rumor had it that
Ginny had discarded Dean for Draco Malfoy, and I definitely wouldn’t have allowed that! Let alone
Ron. So when Ron came to me with this scheme, I accepted. I feared some harm might come to Ginny in
an effort to attack me, and I could never allow that Malfoy scum the satisfaction. I know Ron has
always wanted the farce to actually pay off and that in the end, I really would like her, but it’s
been no use. I don’t. And I know I never shall.”

I was quite stunned when I heard all this. I was really speechless…and I wasn’t sure it was
because of the new information, or his simple eloquence. Suddenly, he looked so much older…so
*mature*. Ron was a thousand miles behind him, and I wondered if either of them realized
it.

“Does- does Ginny know, of any of this?” I finally managed to squeak out.

Harry’s brow furrowed making him resemble a General pouring over maps trying to win an
impossible battle. “No, she knows of none of this, and she never will if I can help it.”

“Then what are you going to tell her when she questions you as to why you wish to break things
off?”

“I’ll tell her that I’ll be too busy preparing for Voldemort and the war; she’ll understand, and
accept. After all, she is on my Quidditch Team.”

And then Harry smiled like a General while inspecting his legions, finding them all to be loyal
and obedient.

“The one you should be worried about is Ron,” I said jokingly.

Harry’s grin grew wider. “I know. He might just kill me!”

And with that, we started laughing, laughter uninhibited by dark thoughts of evil wizards.

*~*~*~*~*~*

Harry broke it off with Ginny at the start of term, and their break ended amicably enough. Harry
was right; she understood and accepted.

Ron was of course furious, but a glare from Harry and his constant rages were silenced.

Seeing Harry break up with Ginny, my eyes, of course, were immediately turned on Ron.

Oddly, right after Harry and Ginny’s falling out, I began to see every vice that Ron has to
offer, and they annoyed me to no end. I used to think the way Ron chewed on his quills was
endearing, but the sight of it made me scream at him to stop! The way he talked with his mouth full
was always a sore point in his etiquette, and for the most part, except for a few memorable
occasions, I ignored it, but suddenly I found myself yelling every time he dared try! The way his
shoes were constantly untied made me want to sit him down and chide him for being a foolish boy,
and his voice was beginning to be a constant irritation!

I knew I could pretend no more; this was *long* in being over.

But what could I do? If I broke up with Ron so soon after Harry had broken up with Ginny, people
might begin to be suspicious. They might suspect that Harry and I had planned this, or worse, that
after seeing Harry break up with Ginny, I broke up with Ron to seize my chance!

Never!

So no, I knew I had to endure Ron for a short time longer, no matter how hard it might play on
my nerves. Or else I had to *make* him want to break up with me…

No, I could never be that cruel. I’d just have to wait for the right time.

Besides, it wasn’t like my relationship with Ron had changed any; the only difference was that
we kissed every now and then and attended Hogsmeade weekends with each other exclusively.

I could deal with that for a while; it wasn’t like he was a bad kisser.

Oh, but to compare them to Harry’s…

Not like I had kissed Harry! But I just knew I would enjoy his kisses better, only because they
were coming from *him* and no one else.

Would I ever enjoy such pleasures?

*~*~*~*~*~*

Strangely enough, the year flew by in a blur. Perhaps this was cruel fate’s trick, as nobody
wanted the year to end. The end of the year meant the end of the war, and as much as everyone
wanted the war to end, they were not prepared for it to be *Harry’s* end.

I wasn’t prepared for it to be Harry’s end.

I would rather have a war that lasted forever than twenty million years of peace without
Harry.

I know this was a stupid feeling, but what of it? I’m human; I’m selfish. I would rather have
Harry than world peace, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that felt this. I’m sure Ron, the
rest of the Weasleys, Lupin, and especially Dumbledore felt this. Although I hope they didn’t feel
it in the same context I did, or I’d be deeply disturbed…

We had kept up our custom of late night conversation. It was fairly common knowledge that the
common room should be cleared by midnight for our use (It was easy for us to spread the word, since
we were Heady Boy and Girl. Dumbledore finally let Harry have what was rightfully his after seeing
the disaster Ron was as prefect. Oddly enough, he kept Ron as prefect, perhaps seeing the advantage
the three of us would have if we ever needed excuses to keep out of trouble after our latest
adventure. Of course, Dumbledore proved again how wise he is since yes, seventh year we had
*many* adventures…).

Even Ron would steer clear of the common room, and I always wondered why this never bothered
him. But now that I look back, knowing everything I know now, and having lived everything I have,
I’ve come to realize that I’ve severely undermined Ron’s intelligence and how astute he is. He knew
better than I did…

But as I was saying, Harry and I maintained our late night conversations. Again, in the
beginning it was a glaring attempt to make up for last year, but after a while I found it to be an
extension of fourth year. Ron was not there, and we would walk around the lake. This year, Ron was
there, and our lakeside walk-arounds were replaced by comfortable armchairs and warm fires.

On such a night, Harry looked forlornly out at the night’s sky, and dully remarked, “I don’t
want you and Ron to follow me to the Last Battle, nor anyone else. I want to go alone. I want to
*die* alone.”

There it was. I had been expecting it for some time now, and although I was prepared to refute
the statement, I could not for the life of me remember the speech I had written down.

You might think it odd that I knew in advance Harry would address *me* with this, but I
knew this was something that he could only speak aloud to me. It turns out, I was completely wrong
in my views of Harry’s relationship to the Quidditch team.

True, a General’s soldiers are like his family. They are close beyond compare, and survive
things together that bond them in an inexplicable and irrevocable way. They see each other in the
worst of environments and therefore suppose that they know each other best, and this may be true
from soldier to soldier.

But a General is the father. All good fathers, as much as they love their children and are
completely real to them, want the best for them. They want to spare their kids hurt and anguish,
therefore a lot of the times they pretend that everything is ok when sometimes things are obviously
not.

So is the lot of the General; the General has to keep his morale up so that the morale of his
troops does not fall as well.

I had never lost Harry completely to his Quidditch team last year because I’d always get to see
a part of him that they never could.

I like to call him distressed Harry, or deep in despair Harry. Sometimes he’s Grieving over
Sirius and/or Hagrid Harry. Other times he’s panicked Harry, or even Hopeless Harry. Right then, he
was a mixture of them all.

“First off,” I began, “You are not going to die. Second off, Ron and I are coming. Period. Third
off, I don’t care about anyone else. Fourth off, you are not going to die. Fifth off, if you even
*try* to counter anything that I have said you will get hexed. Sixth off, come here and give
me a hug.”

He came obediently, like a sad little puppy coming to his owner for food.

Feeling my arms wrapped around him, I vowed then and there to never again take Harry’s hugs for
granted. I had done so for the past few years of my life…but in that moment I came to realize how
precious they are. They’re like a rare jewel, not rough and edgy, but a jewel that is found perfect
and has no need of being shaped or shined.

Then again, all of Harry can be likened to that jewel.

“How do you know I’m not going to die?” Harry asked, his voice muffled by my hair.

“I just…know.”

“But how do you know?” I could hear the sad, resigned, frown in his voice, and I felt like
running off and destroying Voldemort myself. Why him?

“Because you can’t die.”

“Why can’t I die?”

I sighed. He was not going to give me a break.

“Because you just can’t.”

What I really wanted to say was “*If you die, I’ll die with you, and I’m not ready to
die,”* but the smart part of me took it for the melodramatic pronouncement it was, so I just
stayed hushed.

*~*~*~*~*

True to what I said that night, Ron and I were there.

It was during that momentous night in front of the Riddle House that I finally found myself
completely submerged under water. I submitted myself to the sea, knowing that it was useless to
fight it. The hold it had on me was firm, and to my utter disbelief, I found it had always been
there.

I had thought that the sea was slowly taking hold of me, and that it was up to me to fight the
seductive grip that almost felt like a loving embrace.

But no, the sea had me before I even began to feel her foamy shore. And contrary to what I
thought, the sea did not lead me to complete and utter chaos.

No. She brought me enlightenment, the clearest moment of my life.

The confusion was brought upon me by myself; I kicked and screamed and tried to escape the tide.
If I had just let the current take me, as I let it take me then, I would never have suffered
so…

All along I had been following my head; my head that told me that the proper thing was to let
*him* go, to let *him* be happy, even without me. But my heart, my heart *knew*…and
I disobeyed…

And when I saw the crumpled figure on the floor, triumphant, but nearly dead, I knew that I
could *never* listen to my head again! (Well, except for practical purposes…)

I fell on him.

Ron and other members of the order were dancing around, fighting the last remnant of the Dark
Regime; I had previously been helping them.

Yet I could not bring myself to help them further; my entire being was concentrated on Harry. I
inspected him, a body almost completely devoid of life, and I felt like bursting into tears of
despair.

But I had to protect him.

Every which way Death Eaters kept trying to get at his body, and I knew that if they succeeded,
it would be his end.

So I continued fighting, perched on the floor next to him. A sudden fury overtook my body,
empowering it, where grief would’ve crumpled it.

First came Lucius Malfoy. I knew he would be first; there was no other wizard alive (now that
Voldemort was dead) that hated Harry as much as Lucius, and of course he’d find it fitting to
finish Harry Potter off as his last service to the fallen Lord.

I just *had* to hit him with a spell that would catch him off guard, so I hit him with
*Rictusempra*.

As much as I was worried about the outcome of this final battle, the sight of Lucius Malfoy
laughing hysterically in the middle of a war zone, where bodies were strewn about flying this way
and that, was quite funny. It momentarily made me forget where I was and what I was doing, but that
only lasted a split second. Out of nowhere I felt Bellatrix Lestrange lunge towards me and my worst
fear became a reality.

She grabbed Harry and started dragging his body across the cemetery. They were out of sight by
the time my senses came back to me. I got up and scurried off to find them in a daze. *This could
not be happening…*

I saw that nobody followed me; they were all fighting their own battles. The Order was
concentrated on getting every last Death Eater locked up and sent to Azkaban. A part of me
understood that they were doing what they were set out to do, but a part of me felt bitter that
they didn’t seem to be helping Harry. They probably all thought him dead. And since he had
completed his job, why waste your own life helping him?

I knew I was thinking nonsense, but those were the thoughts that gripped me as I made my away
across ornate headstones and mausoleums in the dead of night to try and find them.

And when I did find them, the site almost made me want to run away in horror.

She had Harry tied to a headstone, and was currently stabbing a small blade through the crook of
his arm. There was a big smoking cauldron in front of them, and Bellatrix added Harry’s blood to
it.

I was riveted to the spot as I saw a replay of what Harry suffered during fourth year. Instead
of a short mousy wizard, however, there was a tall malevolent witch.

Could this be happening? Could this actually *happen*?

Voldemort was dead! Harry killed him! Nothing could bring him back! He wasn’t immortal when he
died! By taking Harry’s blood during fourth year, he made himself mortal which had the happy side
effect of allowing him to *die*.

No, Bellatrix could not bring him back.

So what *was* she doing?

Later on, we would find out the death of her master had driven her mad, and this last, desperate
attempt was just an act of insanity.

But at that moment none of this mattered. The longer Harry had that deep wound in his arm, the
more blood he lost, and he was already weak. He was *beyond* weak.

At the sight of Harry, a pent up fury burst forth through me, and I knew what I had to do.

Harry once recounted the night he tried to use an Unforgivable Curse on Bellatrix Lestrange. It
didn’t work.

*“You need to mean them, Potter!”* she told him. *“You need to really want to cause
pain…”*

Seeing Harry there, more dead than alive, and seeing Bellatrix cackling madly over her cauldron,
I did. I *wanted* to cause pain. I wanted to cause *her* a *lot* of pain…

I jumped from behind the mausoleum I was using for a hiding spot, and turned my wand on her.

“Crucio!”

I heard my voice utter that nasty word, and I felt satisfaction when I saw her fall the ground
screaming.

“Hermione, STOP!” I heard someone yell my name, but I couldn’t stop, I didn’t want to stop. This
was for *Harry*…I was doing this for *Harry*…

Someone jumped on me and I fell to the floor. It was Ron.

“What did you think you were doing? Are you mad?”

“GET OFF ME!” I yelled. And as if I had stung him, he jumped right off me.

I had the full intention of picking up my wand and resuming the torture on Bellatrix, but Lupin
had already stunned her and was looking at me with concerned eyes.

“NO!” I screamed at him. “Let me at her! Let me have her! Let me finish her off…”

In my rage I struggled to get to her, finding it hard to do so since Ron was holding me
back.

“She killed Sirius! She almost killed Harry! Let me *kill* her…”

“Hermione. Hermione…HERMIONE! It’s over! Let it be; it’s over…” I heard Lupin’s soothing voice
say to me.

“Where’s Harry? Is he alive!?” I asked, breathless. An insane energy was running through me, as
if my body refused to accept that the battle, the *war*, was over, despite what my head
said.

“He’s still tied to the headstone, and still alive. *Barely*,” Lupin murmured.

I made my way over to him, and not caring who was watching or how childish I might be acting, I
fell on him and burst into tears.

Oh I cried that night, so very hard. I don’t think I’ve ever cried like that in my life, not
even as a child.

I had almost lost him…and the pain of that truth was unbearable, and the relief that it never
came to pass was extreme.

Right at that moment, that moment of deep emotional anguish and elation, *I knew it; I felt
it.*

That was the moment I finally decided I must follow my heart. I knew that I could never go back
to the way things were, I knew that I would never be content being his friend and *only* his
friend.

*~*~*~*~*~*

That night at the infirmary, I refused to leave his side.

Oh Madame Pomfrey tried! She had the nerve to try and get me out of the infirmary, but I was
adamant about remaining with him. We had a blazing row, she insisting that Harry was still in a
critical condition and that it could turn either way. I insisting that this was precisely why I
should be allowed to stay; I was his best friend and I wanted to be there if…if…

Right before I threatened her with an Unforgivable Curse, Dumbledore swooped into the room and
told Madame Pomfrey Ron and I could stay.

As the night progressed, I became increasingly irritated with Dumbledore’s pronouncement. Why
did Ron have to stay?

Normally, I didn’t have any problem about being affectionate with Harry in front of Ron. I
actually never really thought about it. He was my friend, why shouldn’t I be?

But tonight it felt…*different*.

Tonight I knew I was being scrutinized, that my every breath and movement was being watched. So
I stayed still, Ron on one side of Harry’s bed, I on the other side. I didn’t do so much as grab a
hand, fearing that…

What did I fear, exactly?

I waited until I heard Ron snoring softly.

I seized my chance and grabbed Harry’s hand. I pressed it to my lips, to my forehead…I didn’t
even realize I was weeping. All I could think about was how much I *loved* him…

I kept saying it over and over in my head, “I love you.” I didn’t realize I was whispering it
out loud. “I love you, please don’t leave me…”

“Mmm…Hermione…”

I froze. That was Harry. Was he awake? Did he hear me?

He didn’t say anything after that, and he didn’t stir.

I sighed in relief.

“You know, if I didn’t know any better, I would reckon we were back in fourth year, on the night
of the final task.”

I froze.

“I saw you, you know? I was here sitting in a chair in a corner, cloaked by darkness. You
appeared out of nowhere, and rushed toward Harry and wept on him like you did tonight. I saw
you.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I let Ron continue.

“Of course I *knew* you’d come. That was why I left the Invisibility Cloak for you; I only
took the Marauder’s Map. I thought you’d come down and we’d both keep watch together. But when I
saw you with him I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Ron, I…”

“You thought me stupid, didn’t you? You thought I didn’t know? Oh no Hermione…I *knew*.
I’ve known all along…”

What surprised me is that he didn’t sound angry, or bitter, or cynical. Just resigned…

“There was a reason why, in the beginning, I never expressed my feelings for you. I was afraid,
because I knew *then* what you know *now*, and I always feared the day that you and I
were together and you woke up and realized how you truly felt…

“So I decided it was better to keep quiet and just let you two get together. Only you didn’t.
And I waited…and waited…and waited. And then I saw you two were not going to act on it, and then I
began to doubt my premonitions and I decided to give *us* a shot.

“But it proved to a worthless effort, did it not? You were always pining for him, and I know you
tried real had to keep this all to yourself, Hermione, and you did a smashing job, really, you did!
But I was with you all the time, when no one else was. And I know you better than you know
yourself, the same way you know me better than I know myself.

“But you know him better than you know me, and he knows you better than I. You know each other
better than anyone else.

“And I can’t compete with that.”

What is about the men in my life and their propensity to shock the daylights out of me? First
Harry and the truth about his relationship with Ginny, and know *this*…

“I even tried to set Harry up with Ginny, as you well know. But it didn’t work. Do you know why
Hermione? Because…”

“Harry doesn’t love Ginny,” Harry said suddenly, breaking into the conversation.

“Hermione…there was a reason why I isolated myself from you during Sixth year.”

Oh boy. Oh my god. This wasn’t happening…

“Yes,” I said weakly.

“I must admit, I never really thought of you in any other way besides as a friend. Now that I
think about it, I must have been completely blind and as daft as you thought Ron because others
could clearly see it except for me. Ron saw it, Cho saw it, even *Viktor* *Krum* saw
it…but I didn’t. And I think a part of me didn’t want to see it; I liked things the way they
were.

“But when you and Ron announced you were going out…I knew it at once. And realizing it, seeing
you and Ron was like Sirius’ death all over again. I couldn’t bear to see you together…so happy…so
I decided to distance myself. I agreed to date Ginny; I did anything to keep my mind off of you.
But I couldn’t keep away; if I didn’t have you for myself, I wanted to at least retain a semblance
of friendship. So I begged your forgiveness, which you grudgingly granted. And a year later, here
we are, pent up truths suddenly bursting forth like a wave onto the shore.”

Yes, here we were. And it was time to choose. Was it gonna be the black haired one, or the
redhead?

But then no, I had already chosen. It was time to acknowledge the choice. It was hard to deny
Ron, whom I loved like a friend and brother, and whom I’ve shared great, sometimes exhilarating
times with. He gave me my first kiss; he was the one that awoke my first stirrings of femininity.
He was there throughout the whole ride…knowing that in the end his arms would be empty. He was a
noble creature, and I did love him so…

Though nowhere near the way I loved Harry. He was my best friend and ally, the very air I
breathed for the past seven years. He was my oxygen…a bizarre sort of addiction in a way. And no
one makes me feel the way he does…with just a smile, a slight touch. His very presence in a room
was enough to make me lose all train of thought; he was so beautiful to behold.

Yes, I had horridly fallen in love with Harry Potter and there was no way I could make it go
away.

On that dark night, in that dark room, Harry Potter took my hand and pulled me out of the
water.

It was the simplest, most powerful gesture to ever grace the surface of the earth.

I felt the water around me disappear. I was no longer confused; I no longer doubted anything. I
was back on the beach, watching the sunset into the vast ocean, Harry standing beside me.

*~*~*~*~*

*Finis*



