Chapter 14
Rubbish for Brains
Hermione watched in confusion as Neville bustled away from the crowds in the Hogwarts Quidditch stadium. He was moving so oddly, while muttering softly under his breath, that she followed him with her eyes until his scrunchy woolen hat drifted out of view.
She wouldn't have minded trading this drafty cold stadium for the brightly warm couch in front of the Gryffindor fire, either.
She had endured both Harry and Ron getting bludgered at least once and she had chewed her nails on her left hand completely off while watching in fury and righteous indignation at each painful hit. It was all she could stand to see both of her friends being hurt even if they acted as if being slammed in the face was the highlight of their year.
Boys must have rubbish for brains.
She shook her head sadly as she rolled her eyes and sighed half-heartedly at the total insanity of her best friend and her boyfriend as they waved heartily at her with both boys sporting newly blossoming bruises across their faces.
The chill was whispering in as the cold air slid through gaps in her muffler and ran racing fingers of drafty frostiness across her face and down her neck. She blew hard on her hands and tried to sit on them to keep them warm, but the ice-cold stadium seats were metal and merely made her colder than before. It was moments like these she remembered her Mum and Dad and caught herself drifting into homesickness. When she was a little girl, they would go to football matches as a family and her parents would wrap their arms around her creating a warm nest that was both mother and father and home all in one. Hermione closed her eyes tightly and she could almost feel her father's arms around her shoulders.
Suddenly, a loud roar shattered her reverie and the match was over. Shrieks of dismay from the Slytherin crowd were overpowered by the joyous cheers of the rest of the school. Harry had caught the snitch and dumped Malfoy onto the ground as the Slytherin had missed an attempt at a rolling grab and found himself face first in the unseasonably bright green grass. Hermione could just make out the angry boy's words which were quite obviously rude from his body language and manner.
If words were swords, Harry would be sliced into little bits by now.
Hermione grimaced at the venomous looks Draco was throwing at Harry as he clawed bits of grass and dirt out of his mouth and off his face.
With a swooping bow, Harry tipped an imaginary hat toward the angry boy and laughed as he held up the snitch in his triumphant hands. The Gryffindor team rolled and barreled around him in flying glee at the first win of the season. Hermione was up and screaming with all the others who wore red and gold and she couldn't help but grab onto Dean Thomas' already red face and shake him as hard as Lavender did. He merely rolled his eyes as he pried her hands off his neck and redirected her jumping and screaming to face the other girls who were doing the same.
The hallways and house of Gryffindor took hours to calm to a manageable roar. The Weasley Twins had redecorated the main wall of the common room with a repeating picture of Malfoy heading face first into the dirt and the succeeding scene of him spitting grass and invectives at Harry. It ran similarly like a movie on perpetual rewind and Fred and George sat in front of it like two movie critics commenting on how they enjoyed it every single time. Dobby had filled the room with treats that were sneaked in by other willing house-elves who always loved to give a party, no matter the reason. Ron was paraded around in full king regalia that had been magicked from a now very disgruntled painting of some vague nobility from some bygone era now having to hide behind a bush or suffer public nudity. Several of the girls were following him about the room and giggled quite loudly as Ron threw out imperial commands for cake which they immediately curtsied and brought to him to his obvious delight. Ginny couldn't help but roll her eyes at her brother's silly display but eventually found herself paying little attention to him as a few older and rather handsome boys had circled her into a corner and were bringing her treats from the dessert tray as well.
Hermione had raced in with the rest of the crowd encircling the Quidditch team. She had laughingly bewitched the now infamous "king" costume for Ron and was currently sitting perched on the window seat watching her friends in all their insanity. She chuckled to herself to see Harry so happy and animated as he mimicked Malfoy and his tirade in front of the picture show. It was good to see Harry so normal and silly. Everything had been so disturbing and ominous for so long, she could barely remember when it had seemed so dire.
Hermione was about to get up and approach Harry when a gaggle of girls swooped in and encircled the Quidditch hero. The girls surrounded him and draped themselves as close as humanly possible. Hermione frowned and her brow creased a little as she saw Harry laughing while he seemed to enjoy the spectacle. Several red lip prints covered his face and neck where the girls had pounced him. He still had his Quidditch uniform on and was wearing the dirt and sweat as a badge of honor. He had an adoring crowd of third years sitting on the floor in front of him hanging on his every word. Pulled up onto the couch like it was a stage, his grin was huge and he was reveling in the attention. He sat down with a flourish and Lavender and Parvati snuggled in beside him. With a laugh, he stole his arms around them. She rolled her eyes and was just about to put her hand on his shoulder and laugh with him when he leaned down to the crowd and stage-whispered, "Just don't tell Hermione, and everything will be great! She's probably got her nose in a book anyway!"
Her hand froze and she could see Neville's eyes grow wide as he looked up and caught her expression from the side. A voice inside her head whispered terrible things to her. The voice wanted her to yell and scream and rip at Harry for saying such things.
The boy hissed for Harry's attention, but Harry had become completely immersed in the fun. Neville winced as he saw the slowly angering girl tilt her head and slowly cross her arms. Neville silently said a prayer of thanks for some of the small blessings of NOT having a girlfriend. Harry didn't know what he was in for. Harry was laughing hard and had the two girls around the waist who were still giving him kisses. Slowly everyone in the circle around the boy stopped laughing and noticed the girl simmering behind Harry's back.
Harry stopped laughing.
"She's right behind me, isn't she." He winced and gulped as he slowly disentangled himself from his groupies and he turned to face his girlfriend.
"It was just a joke!" He pleaded while ineffectually scrubbing at the lip prints across his face and neck. Their red lip rouge had smeared and his frantic efforts made it look much worse.
"I didn't find it funny, Harry." The girl whispered softly in a quiet tone that sent chills down the backs of several boys who suddenly remembered similar incidents in their own past and felt sincere pity for the black-haired boy.
Without another word, she spun on her heels and flung herself through the Portrait hole. Ron tried to stop her but a searing look from the girl caused him to back off with his hands up in obvious withdrawal.
"Excuse me, but remind me to never get relationship advice from you, Harry." Ron shook his head in sympathy.
"Shut up, Ron!" Harry growled. He stormed up the stairs punching the stone wall as he went.
"Aren't you going to go after her?" Neville asked the question everyone was wondering.
"You shut up, too!" Harry yelled from the top of the stairs then slammed the door to the dormitory.
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Hermione stormed down the stairs cursing men in general under her breath until her shoe slipped and she caught herself hard against the wall. Her ankle had twisted a little on the lip of the step when her shoe had come untied and the pain brought tears to her eyes as she landed roughly on the next step.
"Stupid shoes!" She yelled as loud as she could. Tears were flowing down her cheeks for a reason having nothing to do with the slight pain in her foot.
"Stupid miserable insensitive prat!" She whispered more softly through a sniffle and a huff as she tried to gather herself back together. Maybe she did read too much. She never thought being a bookworm was something you could make much fun of. She found herself staring at herself in an old battered mirror in the hallway. Hermione pulled at her hair to tame it a little and rubbed at her eyes where the redness was so awful. The mirror sighed softly and murmured, "It's alright sweetie, you look right lovely. Those silly boys never know what they're saying."
Hermione snorted at the mirror in disgust then slid closer to the wall and leaned into the chill of the stone castle.
Hogwarts had always felt comforting even on the coldest days. In moments of loneliness, she could find a cubby
or corner of sunshine in a small terrace or unused tower room and she could feel like the castle would greet her and
make her feel welcome.
She knew so much about the history of the old stone keep from Hogwarts, A History, that she kind of thought of it as its own personality. The moving stairs, the room of requirement, all these were just humorous things about a kindly old building with an interesting character of its own. She noticed as she leaned into the wall, it softly molded to almost hold her in consolation. Hermione patted the wall with a sniffle and laughed a little at her silly ideas. She rubbed her ankle gingerly then gently stood back up on it to test it. A little wobbly still, but sound.
Thinking back to the blowup in the common room, she shook her head in anger and hurt. It almost felt like there was a thought in the back of her head that she wanted to strike at Harry and make him pay for making her the laughingstock of the whole Gryffindor house. Her anger and fierce desire to cause him pain had scared her and she fled before she ended up saying something she would have regretted. She had never felt such surging hatred before, especially for Harry. She loved Harry, didn't she? Well, she really liked him and who knows where that was going to go in the future. She certainly didn't have feelings of complete hatred against anyone like that before. It had shaken her badly leaving her feeling chilled and very alone.
She wiped at her eyes harshly, and quietly slipped down the stairs to hide in the library, while absently scratching the slowly reddening band of skin around her wrist.
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Harry threw off his uniform and set the water in the shower on full hot. He deserved a little scalding after such an idiotic mess he made. He hated the limelight! What in the world had gotten into him? Schmoozing with Lavender for heaven's sake! Everyone knows what a tart she can be. How could he have even forgotten about Hermione in the same room, either? He was an idiot. He knew it. And now everyone else knew it. That had to be the shortest relationship in the history of Hogwarts.
Finally clean, he kicked his uniform into the corner at that moment hating everything about Quidditch. He grabbed the clothes out of his drawers which he didn't even notice were the castoffs he had recently replaced, and he sullenly wandered downstairs ignoring everyone who tried to catch his eyes.
Within moments he was at the library where he knew Hermione would go to hide. Not a great hiding place, he had to admit since everyone knew where she was, but he knew she felt safe there. He spied her in the far corner and with absolute certainty he was about to be hexed into oblivion, he walked over with his head down and his hands thrust into his pockets.
Her eyes were dry, but very red and he knew he had made her cry. He felt rotten. She had her hands in her lap and was clenching hard around her worry ball that she'd been carrying all term.
He pulled a chair out across the table from her and sat down without looking her in the face.
"I don't know what to say. I'm sorry for being a complete git." He wouldn't look her in the eye and was instead focusing with all his might on the frayed edge of a book of traveling spells as if it would somehow give him the perfect words to say.
"You just completely forgot I was even there, didn't you? I thought you liked me, but I guess I was just available, then?" She spoke quietly and wavered so little that the final crack in her voice made Harry cringe in self-loathing for hurting her.
She had pulled her hands up onto the table and was focusing all her thought on the little round Hogwarts sphere rather than looking at him. He swallowed quietly then put his hands on hers who reacted by stiffening to his touch.
"I wish I could go back in time and change all that." Harry whispered softly to Hermione who looked up through her lashes filled with tears.
At that moment a sharp acrid smell of smoke and the reverberating sound of a loud gong filled their ears and they tried to stand up, finding themselves unable to separate at the hands. The round ball was glowing and getting very warm to the touch. Hermione tried to yell something at Harry but he couldn't hear a thing with the bell noise so loud. It was getting harder and harder to see with the smoke and their hands were getting really hot. In seconds, however, the sound and smoke vanished and everything appeared as if nothing had happened.
Hermione snatched back her hands and shoved the still warm sphere into her robe pockets while standing up and
knocking over her chair. Harry stared gape-mouthed at her and dismally watched her flee the library in tears.
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