A/N: Sorry for the long delay in the update. I will try to update sooner for the next chapter. Things just came up and I wasn't able to finish writing this chapter. Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed the last chapter!!!!! It means a lot to mean and I hope you guys continue to enjoy reading this chapter. Oh I want you guys to vote onto which groups of girls you want to go on a date together with Harry and who gets the individual date. Now I know who most of you probably want to get the individual date so I do have a plan for that and yes there will be some lovely H/hr loving in the next chapter I promise you.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry potter. It belongs to JKR and I don't own the Bachelor which is owned by ABC. This fic is for entertainment purposes only.
Chapter 14
After quite a stressful morning, Harry decided to take a quick nap before he had to get ready for the show.
Harry woke up to a knock on the door and quickly got up and answered the door with a yawn.
"Good afternoon Mr. Potter," Kevin the producer responded.
"Hello Kevin. What are you doing here?" Harry inquired inviting him inside.
"I just wanted to see if you were okay," Kevin replied walking in.
"What do you mean?" Harry asked.
"You didn't see quite yourself last night," Kevin explained.
"Oh, about that… I wasn't feeling quite myself that way but I assure you that I'm feeling much better today," Harry answered.
"That's really good to hear. We were getting a little worried about you," Kevin explained.
"Worried?" Harry asked nervously.
"We were worried that maybe all of this pressure might have gotten to you," Kevin explained.
"Don't worry. I'm really fine," Harry assured them.
"That's good. Tonight's the next rose ceremony," Kevin reminded Harry.
"I haven't forgotten about it. Don't worry about me. You will see that I am fine," Harry answered.
"Okay then just so you know that after the ceremony. One of the lovely ladies remaining will be receiving an individual date from you," Kevin told him.
"Great, I won't forget. Thanks," Harry told him.
"Hermione, this is entirely your fault," Harry muttered to himself as he closed the door.
*~*~*~
Hermione had spent most of her morning in the studio doing some commentary for the episodes that have not aired yet and would be added when the episode aired on the television. She then decided to check out the video she had saved on her computer from the night before. She played the footage from last night again and scanned it for anything mysterious and noticed that the object has been there for quite some time before she tripped. She reviewed the tape a few times and didn't come up with anything new except that her eyes had been playing tricks on her before. And the other possibility would be hard to prove since she had absolutely no idea how Allie could have changed whatever happened on the screen unless she wasn't a muggle either. But she never heard of any spell that could have been done that would work on muggle technology but she was determined to find out if there were any spells that were written for this particular purpose. She quickly walked on over to area of her room where she had hidden all of her books on spells and and other books that she used for her work that she didn't want the other girls to find. She then began to search through the chapters of the books to find if anything that might be related to using it against muggle technology.
After searching for a few hours and coming up with nothing, she closed her book in frustration as she heard a knock on her door. She quickly hid the book away and said, "Come on in."
Jennifer and Chloe entered the room and said, "Hey Hermione."
"What's up?" Hermione asked with a smile.
"I'm just nervous about the rose ceremony tonight," Jennifer answered.
"I am a little bit too," Chloe admitted.
"You guys shouldn't worry too much, you guys seemed to have a good time with Harry on the last date," Hermione reassured them.
"I hope so but you never know what a guy is thinking," Chloe responded.
"That is true," Hermione admitted.
"I don't think that you have anything to worry about though Hermione," Chloe noticed.
"What do you mean?" Hermione asked nervously.
"It just seemed like you and Harry got along pretty well so it doesn't seem like he would pick to kick you off," Jennifer explained.
"I hope so but as you say, with guys you never know what they are thinking," Hermione added.
"Yeah isn't that the truth," Chloe added sitting down.
"How was your date last night?" Jennifer asked Chloe.
"It went nicely for awhile until Allie went up," Chloe explained.
"What happened?" Hermione asked as if she didn't know.
"Well nothing really except that she was the only who won at the game of pool," Chloe explained.
"What did she win?" Jennifer asked.
"Well, Harry was going to give a free pool lesson to whoever did the best at the game of pool," Chloe answered.
"I guess you guys must all be so disappointed that she won. Did anything else happen?" Hermione pressed.
"Well nothing unless you count on Christine tripping," Chloe answered.
"When exactly did Christine trip? Jennifer asked.
"Actually it is kind of funny because she tripped right after she had played pretty well. She was actually the closest one of us to almost win the game of pool," Chloe explained.
"Oh that must have been embarrassing," Jennifer said with a laugh.
"It was, you should have seen her face. I don't mean to be mean but I am glad that it wasn't me," Chloe commented.
"Chloe, we all have felt that way so it is a very normal feeling," Jennifer told her with a smile.
"Yeah, I'm sure that the others felt the same way you did. But out of curiosity what exactly did Christine trip on? " Hermione asked her.
"I'm not exactly sure what it was but it looked like a rather large rock or hard object," Chloe replied after some thought.
"Oh, so was there any other reason you were looking for me?" Hermione asked.
"We were just wondering if you wanted to eat something with us before the ceremony?" Jennifer asked.
"I'll be down in a minute. I am a little hungry," Hermione said with a slight smile.
"Yeah we have noticed that you were up in your room for quite some time," Chloe commented.
"What were you doing?" Jennifer asked curiously.
"I was catching up on some stuff that I needed to do for work," Hermione answered quickly.
"You're very work conscious aren't you?" Chloe asked Hermione.
"Well I don't want to miss out on too much work," Hermione replied sheepishly.
"I know how you feel but it was nice to have a break from everything," Jennifer commented.
"It is," Hermione said with a smile.
"We'll see you downstairs then," Chloe replied with a wave.
"I will be downstairs in a few minutes," Hermione replied with a little wave as she watched Chloe and Jennifer walk down the stairs.
Hermione quickly put away her book and closed her laptop and gave the room a quick glance to make sure that she did not leave anything suspicious out for anybody to find and headed downstairs to meet the other girls.
*~*~*~*~
Harry stood pacing back and forth in front of the board where he placed the pictures of all the women remaining as he thought about his experience with each of them and made his final decisions for which girls to remain. His eyes lingered on Hermione as he thought about how amazing she was and happy that she was there to help him out.
He walked out to the dining hall where the ceremony was going to take place. The roses were in place. Matthew walked in a few minutes later and greeted Harry with a smile.
"How are you doing?" Matthew asked.
"A little bit nervous and sad about having to say good buy to three more girls," Harry replied with a shaky grin.
"Well this is the last round you have to get rid of three girls at one time. From the next ceremony on, it will be one by one," Matthew replied.
"That's good news. I t will make the decision making process easier," Harry added with a grin.
"So you sure you made the right choice?" Matthew asked looking at the clock.
"As well as I can be," Harry said.
"Matthew, you're on in a minute," the camera man told them.
Mathew nodded and quickly looked over his notes and put them down as the camera man signalled for him to start.
"It's that time again for the rose ceremony where Mr. Potter has only 6 roses remaining to hand out to the 9 remaining women. Which six will he choose?" Matthew asked as the 9 women walked down the stairs in formation.
Matthew gestured for Harry to step forward and take his first rose.
"I'd like to say that it's getting harder and harder each and every time I have to do this and I had a great time getting to know each and every one of you," Harry spoke and took a deep breath and called out, "Chloe? Would you accept this rose?"
Chloe stepped up and answered, "Yes I would love to."
Harry smiled and gave her a hug.
"Christine, will you accept this rose?" Harry asked.
"It would be my pleasure," Christine answered and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Hermione stood nervously as the number of girls beside her dwindles down. She put on a smile for the cameras. `What if he decides that he doesn't want to stick to the plan any more?' She thought to herself. She knew that it was possible since the number of women remaining was decreasing and he obviously could never think of her in that way. `Stop thinking like that. You don't even want him to think of him this way,' She told herself.
Harry smiled as he watched her squirm and finally called out "Hermione, would you do me the honour of accepting this rose?"
"Yes I will," Hermione replied with a smile and turned to whisper in his ear, "You enjoyed seeing me flustered didn't you?"
"I couldn't help it because you look so adorable when you are flustered," Harry whispered back.
"I should slap you for that," Hermione told him giving him a hug.
"You couldn't slap such an adorable face," Harry whispered as they broke apart.
"You're the only person that I would ever let get away with a comment like that," Hermione whispered back while pretending to kiss him on the cheek and she walked back to her place.
"The women who did not receive a rose please take a moment to say your goodbyes and you have a few minutes to pick up your things before you have to leave the house." Matthew announced.
Stephanie walked up to Harry first and said, "It was nice getting to know you. I guess that we didn't click as well as I would have liked us to."
"It was nice getting to know you too. Our personalities didn't match well enough for it to be a long term relationship," Harry replied with a slight smile.
"You know I'm a straight forward person and everything and because its part of my nature to get to the truth so I was just wondering if your decision had anything to do with what other people have been saying?" Stephanie asked.
"You don't have to worry about anything like that because I do make my own decisions based on what I see and of course how I feel which of course can't be changed by other people," Harry replied with a slight grin realizing now that he had definitely made the right decision in not giving her the rose.
"That's good to know. Maybe I'll see you around?" Stephanie asked giving him a hug.
"You never know. We might run into each other again," Harry replied with a slight grin.
Next walked up was Sue and she replied, "I'm really glad that I had a chance to get to know you. I wish we would have more time to really get to know each other."
"I had a good time getting to know you too. I would love it if I had a bit more time with everyone but I did do the best with the time that I had," Harry replied.
"Goodbye," Sue said with a wave.
Harry nodded with a small smile.
Last of the group, walked up Jennifer who gave him a hug and whispered, "I'm glad that we have met and I hope that we can be friends," She told him.
"We are already friends," Harry responded with a smile.
Jennifer smiled back and headed over to say goodbye to Hermione and Chloe.
"Hermione, I'm going to miss you." Jennifer said.
"Don't worry. We will definitely keep in touch," Hermione said giving her a hug.
"There is no doubt about that. We're going to miss you," Chloe told her also giving her a hug.
As Hermione turned to say good bye to Sue she saw Stephanie looking a little bit shocked over being kicked out.
"She looks pretty upset with being kicked off," Chloe commented to Hermione.
"Not to mention, bewildered," Sue commented with a slight grin.
"Stephanie, best of luck to you," Lisa walked up to her.
"I have no idea why he would decide not to give me a rose? I mean it's totally his loss," Stephanie muttered out loud.
"I can't believe she has no idea why. I mean its pretty obvious because she's like conceited," Callie commented to Hermione and Chloe.
Hermione giggled softly and walked over to join the rest of the girls and they each grabbed a glass of champagne.
"Here's to us," Harry said looking straight at Hermione with a slight wink.
Hermione smiled back with a grin and lifted her glass to join Allie, Lisa, Callie, Chloe and Christine chimed as they tapped glasses.
*~*~*~*~*~*~
Hermione woke up the next day feeling quite refreshed after a good night's sleep. She was looking forward to the new day and the activities that the day may bring. As she left the room to go to breakfast she heard a beep on the computer signalling that she had a new e-mail. She eagerly checked to see if she got any information on Allie. She read the e-mail eagerly to find out if there was any new information. Inside she didn't find anything truly interesting. She found that Allie seemed like a pretty normal girl who liked to read and was quite and liked to help others. The only thing that is odd is that she seemed to have quite a lot of money for someone of her age and nothing much is know about her parents. Her lifestyle and habits were similar to her which wasn't anything shocking but felt a little bit odd to her. That was a point that Hermione was very interested in looking into. She smiled now that she had a plan of action and walked downstairs to grab some breakfast.
"Good morning Chloe and Christine," Hermione replied cheerfully.
"You're in a good mood this morning,' Christine commented.
"Did anything happen last night?" Chloe asked curiously.
"Nothing happened. Can't I be in a good mood for no reason?" Hermione asked.
"Of course you can. We were just curious that `s all," Christine replied with a smile.
"Hey girls," Callie and Lisa said as they walked in to grab some orange juice.
"Good morning," Hermione said as she poured the milk.
"You seem cheerful today," Callie replied with a smile.
"I feel cheerful myself with a certain person out of the house," Lisa said with a grin.
"Who's cheerful?" Allie asked walking into the kitchen.
"Nobody, just enjoying the fact that we don't have to share the house with three other people," Chloe answered.
"Ah… you're enjoying the peace and quiet without Stephanie," Allie added.
"So you must notice that too," Callie answered.
"Well it is quite obvious that she wasn't very popular around here," Allie answered quietly reaching for the milk.
"You're having cereal today?" Hermione inquired.
"Yes, do you have a problem with that?" Allie asked.
"Of course not, it's just that you usually have toast or eggs in the morning," Hermione replied.
"I felt like a time for a change," Allie answered nonchalantly looking her straight in the eye.
"Why were you asking about her eating habits?" Christine asked her curiously.
"No reason. I just like to ask whatever question is on my mind," Hermione replied a little flustered and uneasy after the last comment from Allie.
Just then the doorbell rang and Lisa ran out to see what it could be and came back with a tiny jewellery box that looked very old made from wood and was decorated with tiny jewels and a tiny key.
"Did you open it yet?" Chloe asked eagerly.
"Not yet, are we all here?" Lisa asked.
"Yep, we all are," Hermione answered.
They all waited anxiously as Lisa opened the jewellery box and found inside a miniature rose and two letters.
"What does it say?" Christine asked softly.
"The first note explains that this would be the first time that Mr. Potter will be able to pick which girls he would like to go on the first group date and it also tells us that the date for tonight will be a cultured night of fun," Lisa explained scanning the note.
"Cool. What does the other one say?" Chloe asked.
"It explains that one lucky one of us will be picked to get the first individual date with Harry and will be picked by the producers using some sort of poll measure," Lisa explained.
"What kind of poll?" Hermione asked.
"It doesn't really explain anything but it's probably more like a popularity poll or something/" Chloe pondered.
"Seems quite likely but maybe it is just by luck of the draw?" Callie asked.
"I'm just excited that Harry is going to choose some of us for tonight. Now we can see who he really likes," Allie commented.
"That is a very good point," Chloe explained smiling.
"Now I wonder who got the individual date?" Chloe wondered aloud.
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