Rating: - PG
Disclaimer: - I do not own any of this whatsoever.
Spoilers: - Books 1-4.
Pairing (if any): - H/Hr
Author Note: - Before I begin ranting and raving about how bad I think this chapter is…I'd like to thank all my reviewers and even the people who read this and never review. It still means a lot that you keep coming back. I'd also like to apologise for the lack of posts on my side. I haven't updated as quickly as I'd like but I've had a lot to do recently, not least of which is my coursework and a wedding to plan. Still, I received some reviews of a few people complaining about the lack of posts and asking (as nicely as possible) for me to get my arse in gear and start posting.
I know that this chapter is short but this is all I planned to put in this chapter in the first place. It gets a point across and more of the story line even if it's not the BIG story line that I'm being berated for. All in due time. Be reassured that most of it is written and planned out and I'm just making some final checks and adding a bit more here and there before posting it up. With all speed and such, it should be posted by the next weekend, give or take a few hours because I work nights.
Still, thanks for reading this and I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
~)*(~
~) Unlikely Pitfalls (~
Hermione had found her way to the Library. Pushing the door open, she was met with the inevitable and homely smell of the old books lined up and musty. She revelled in the smell of the books, the old pages from hundreds of years ago still miraculously kept by Madame Pince in one room where she could sit and read all day long. It was marvellous. The feelings she got from just sitting in this room surrounded by all her favourite people in History.
Without hesitation, Hermione made her way to the back of the back of the Library. She felt at home there and it the place, apart from Harry's arms, that she felt a peace.
She thought of Harry.
It wasn't hard to think about him sitting up in his room, talking with Ron about what they'd just done. He wouldn't describe it because she knew Harry wouldn't be that careless with her love. Or would he? She didn't know anymore. The only thing she knew for certain was that it'd been a mistake to do it this early on. Only last week, they were talking about taking things slowly, being more like the friends they were until everything was figured out properly.
They hadn't even said 'I love you'.
She'd wanted to hear that before going further with anyone.
Of course, Harry would be having his first band practice of the year in a few days so he'd be making time to spend with Dean and Seamus rather than her.
Why did she run out of her bedroom like that? What had scared her so badly that she just had to run? Was it the commitment to Harry at seventeen? Was it the feeling of wanting to be with him forever and not feeling it from him?
Was she just frightened of what could have happened?
~)*(~
"Interesting," said Madame Pomfrey, looking questioningly at Harry's quivering form as he lay on the Hospital sheets. He was curled into a foetal position and was nibbling at his knuckles while speaking softly to himself in short, wild bursts.
"What's interesting?" Ron asked, sitting down next to Harry in one of the chairs.
Madame Pomfrey looked from Harry to Ron with a disapproving look on her face. "I don't think you should be in here, Mr Weasley."
"I think I should be with my friend," Ron replied indignantly. "I can't find Hermione so I'm the next best thing."
Madame Pomfrey moved give Ron a tongue-lashing but Professor Dumbledore put a hand on her shoulder to hold her back, saying in her ear that Ron should stay with Harry unless he is direly needed elsewhere. With much hesitation, Madame Pomfrey agreed but still threw Ron a disapproving look that said more than her tongue-lashing could have done.
"Have you concluded anything, Poppy?" Professor Dumbledore inquired, standing his full height and looking at her through his half-moon spectacles.
"It could be a state of shock, it could be a curse, a charm," she said taking her handkerchief from her pocket and blowing her nose. "I have absolutely no idea."
"Would it help if we had Severus up here? Or Filus?" Dumbledore asked.
Madame Pomfrey gave a curt nod and replied a simple, "Yes."
Dumbledore turned and walked through the doors in the Hospital Wing, his robes blowing after him.
Madame Pomfrey turned back to Harry and Ron and shook her head. "I can't go one year without having either
one of you in here."
"We like to put the Hospital Wing to good use, Miss," Ron replied with a grin on his face the size a watermelon slice.
Madame Pomfrey made a tutting sound with her tongue and bustled around the Hospital wing, looking for something that could have been under the beds for all she knew as she stooped low to have a look under one of the white sheet covered beds. She finally gave a tut with her tongue again and moved back to Harry and Ron. With a sigh, she looked at Ron.
"Could you find Miss Granger?" Madame Pomfrey said, taking one of the extra sheets from beside Harry's
bed and tucking it over him. Harry was giving the distinct impression that he was cold because he was shivering
ferociously. "I think she ought to be alerted of Mr Potter's condition, don't you?"
"I guess," Ron replied and slid off the chair. He looked at Harry and said, "I'll be back in a
while with your lady love. Don't die on me."
~)*(~
"Ron, I'm not even close to kidding," Hermione said, packing her books into her bag.
Ron looked like someone had told him Dumbledore was a woman. His mouth was hanging open and he was trying to talk, like a fish trying to breathe out of water.
"What do you mean 'no'?" Ron demanded. "Your boyfriend and our best friend is lying in the Hospital Wing with Merlin knows what wrong with him and you don't care?"
Hermione nodded. "I don't care, Ron."
"Oh, I don't believe this!" Ron shouted.
"Believe whatever you want," Hermione replied. "I don't care about Harry Potter."
Ron caught himself before he fell to the floor in a dead faint. Just as Hermione was about to stalk past him at a near run, Ron caught her by the shoulders and stopped her from going any further.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Hermione shouted, trying to struggle away from Ron's grasp.
"Trying to see what the hell's wrong with you!" Ron replied, holding her still while he looked at her straight in the eye. "What in the world's got into you, Hermione?"
"Harry did, that's what!" Hermione shouted, struggling against Ron, trying to free herself from his iron grasp.
Ron looked confused. "What do you mean 'Harry did'?"
Hermione sighed and stopped struggling for a moment before replying with her head bowed. "Harry…me and Harry…we…"
"You…did you?" Ron gasped. "You've gotta be kidding me!"
Hermione shook her head. "No, Ron, I'm not joking. We…did."
"That still doesn't explain why you won't go and see him," Ron stated. "Did he say something or do something…"
Taking her chance, Hermione threw her arms up, knocking Ron's hands from her shoulders. "He didn't have to say anything! He did enough so he didn't have to say anything to me. We promised each other to take things slowly."
"Maybe it was meant to be," Ron suggested. "Maybe this was meant to happen, Hermione. Merlin knows,
this should bring you closer together, not split you up."
"You'd think that wouldn't you," Hermione said. "Just remember, Ron, that everyone's different. I'm not one of Harry little conquests, I don't need him or anybody else to know that I'm somebody special."
"He knows that," Ron tried. "But, Hermione…"
"But Hermione nothing," Hermione replied. "We've both said enough, Ron. Do what you can for him, I just can't do this anymore."
~)*(~
Ron could kick himself for not dragging Hermione back to the Hospital Wing kicking and screaming. As soon as Ron had walked through the double doors, he swore Harry had asked for her in Parsel Tongue. Of course, to Ron it was no more than a slither but it had made Ron wonder if Harry was partially conscious of what was going on around him.
Ron sat down on the chair next to Harry's bed again and tried to think about the mess this was all causing. It just wasn't fair that he had one friend in a Hospital bed speaking snake language and the other won't be in the same room as the both of them. It couldn't be that bad what they did, could it? Did Hermione feel that bad about it or was it something deeper?
She was under a truth telling potion so she couldn't be lying. And neither could he. He'd give anything to have someone to talk to.
~)*(~
Lavender had been walking back from the Great Hall when she heard the faintest cry from the cupboard. She was in two minds whether to find out who was crying or to just run for it. She'd never had much luck with people crying, and to be honest, when she saw someone else crying, it really got her going too.
She heard a faint sob again from the cupboard and moved towards the door, pressing her ear against it ever so slightly. Yep, someone was definitely crying in there. Sobbing their heart out was more the expression.
"Is someone there?" Lavender asked, tugging at her wand just in case.
"Lavender?" Hermione's voice answered from behind the door. It was muffled and had all the tell tale signs of a good cry, "What do you want?"
Lavender tried to open the door but it was locked, "Can you open the door and let me in?"
The door clicked and opened to reveal Hermione huddled on the floor, her back pressed up against the wall and her eyes bloodshot, tears streaming down her face.
"Oh Merlin," Lavender said, rushing in and closing the door behind her. "What's wrong, Hermione?"
"It's nothing," Hermione lied, brushing away fresh tears from her eyes and trying her best to compose herself. "Nothing, really."
"Does the nothing begin with a 'H' and end in a 'Y'?" Lavender asked, sitting down next to her friend and brushing some of Hermione's hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. "If it does, what the hell has he done and what can I do to him that's perfectly legal?"
Hermione cracked a watery smile, "It's arry Harry but I think HHHHHarry…but…oh, Lavender, I just don't know what to do anymore!"
She started to sob again, into the small handkerchief that she kept stuffed down her sleeve for emergency situations.
"What happened?" Lavender asked, taking out her handkerchief and handing it to her watery friend. "Did he do something? Has he had something done to him? What?"
Hermione sniffed back, "We finally…well…you know."
Lavender gasped, "You…you did? So soon? Merlin, I thought it'd take longer than this!"
"It was supposed to!" Hermione said defiantly. "We were supposed to be…in love and then…then we'd do what we did…just…it's over with now and it feels so…"
"Painful?" Lavender suggested and Hermione nodded, "It's usually to feel like that, I mean,
you've lost something that's so precious to the man you love, it's only natural to feel like you've
lost something."
Hermione shook her head, "No, it's not like that."
"What do you mean?" Lavender asked, raising her eyebrow.
"Something's happened to him, Lavender," Hermione said. "He's…something's happened and I don't know what. He's in the hospital wing now, and I just left him! Like there was nothing wrong! I just…ran out on him!"
~)*(~
Ron had barely begun to eat his sandwich before he felt ill. Harry had fallen asleep already, his thumb tucked into his mouth like a child. Madame Pomfrey had to sedate him over and over because of his fits, still, no one could figure out what the hell was wrong.
It made him sick to his stomach that Hermione wasn't there with him, to hold Harry's hand and make sure that everything was going to be all right. The least she could've done was…Ron didn't know. What did girls usually do in that situation? Did they just not care or something?
"Ron, thank Merlin," Lavender said, rushing into the hospital wing, quickly pecking Ron on the cheek before sitting down next to Harry. "I got here as soon as I heard."
Ron shrugged, "He's asleep now. Pomfrey says he'll be out for the rest of the night, we're not
allowed to bother him."
"Do they know anything?" Lavender asked, looking at Harry's sleeping face.
Ron shook his head, "Not a bloody thing. Dumbledore says that he has all the signs of madness, you know from the Cruciatus Curse or something like that."
"Could it be…" Lavender started but Ron shook his head again.
"They don't think it could be You-Know-Who again," Ron replied. "Harry's not said anything about his scar so…they're presuming that it's not as bad as that anyway."
Lavender sighed, "And here I thought we'd be having the normal year. At least one year out of seven
can't be that unlucky."
"We go to school with Harry Potter," Ron said, "The least he can do is make it interesting every damn
year."
"I saw Hermione," Lavender stated, "She was…crying downstairs. She's a complete train wreck,
Ron."
Ron chuckled a little, "So, it has hit her harder than she let on."
Lavender looked confused; "Will people stop saying things I don't understand?"
Ron raised an eyebrow at Lavender's small outburst. She took in a deep breath and turned back to Ron, a calm and collect person she hoped.
"What do you mean?" Lavender asked.
"She said that she didn't care about him," Ron replied, "She said that she felt like one of his
'conquests', that everything happened so fast because…well…"
Lavender nodded, "I know what you mean…finally. Now I have the whole story I can think about this properly.
What the heck happened to him? Did you just find him like this or what?"
"He was mumbling to himself in a corner," Ron said, "I would swear he's gone mad but…we can't be sure about anything right now. Dumbledore said that he's alive and that's top priority, to keep him alive until they can figure it out."
Madame Pomfrey bustled past with blankets in her arms, heading towards another young lad who was lying in one of the beds. He had a broken arm from the looks of it, probably from Quidditch practice gone wrong, just like Harry in second year. Ron watched Madame Pomfrey pour some of the Skele-Grow juice into a small glass and give it to the young man.
Ron looked down at his hands and then back up at Lavender, "I wish there was something we could do. I keep
wishing that there's something Harry can go and fight again, to make this all better. I know there isn't but it
doesn't stop me from thinking about it."
Lavender smiled and reached out to Ron's hands, taking one of his in her own and caressing it with her thumb,
"Harry needs you, Ron. He needs both of you so don't quit on him. He wouldn't quit on you."
Ron smiled back and looked over at his sleeping friend. Harry looked so normal sleeping like he always did, breathing in and out slowly through his nose and moving his head about on the pillow.
This couldn't be Harry Potter's darkest hour.