Love, Are You Still There?
Chapter 4
This is the past!!!! You know what happened to them before!!!
Yea here is the next chapter
Woo Who!
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Hermione thought back to before, while they were at Hogwarts. Everything had been perfect just the way it was supposed to be. The way everything was supposed to be but now matter what she tried, Hermione couldn't live in that summer forever.
Everything good always ends. It comes to a stopping point. So did this. It was all so simple but suddenly things got complicated. The times they spent together weren't so long, and so tender. He didn't hold her as much and he just stopped everything eventually now, going to a dance, or hanging out was to much of a chore. She never could figure it out. What happened? She always brushed every excuse he made off. Her friends told her to cut him loose. Time to move on, but all she would say was no he doesn't deserve that.
So, she went on pretending. But one week it got too much. She had thought about more than she had should have. Considering every possibility for it. So finally She asked him one night when they were the last ones in the common room.
"Harry, what- when- will you ever feel like doing any thing with me, again?" He looked at her long and hard. She tried to envision what was going through his mind.
"I dunno." Was his simple answer. He looked away.
"Harry just tell me what is going on? You can talk to me. You know that."
He looked back up from the table. "You know most people are never in the loop. Parents, friends, family… they never really know what is going…"
"Harry, I don't care… I want to be!" She said in a forceful whisper. She slid her over his as she sat down in the chair next to him. He pulled his hand away and she felt a stab. She knew it was over. She had known it was over for a while now. But she couldn't accept it. She knew it then but she wanted to hear him say it. She wanted him to face her and say it.
"OK, fine then. I think we should break up."
"Fine!" Hermione said with tears in her eyes and stood up and turned away.
"What? Wait! Let me get my thoughts together. She sat back down but still couldn't look him straight in the eye. It wouldn't matter though he wasn't looking at her anyways. Sadly, she felt the sweet thought that he was reconsidering. She made the mistake of saying she had only said fine because she didn't know what to say. Implying she didn't want to, as soon as it escaped her lips though she wanted to reel it back in.
"Not knowing what to say is to be expected." He said it as if he was a physiatrist consoling a patient, as it he was an outsider on the whole thing. She looked at him coldly. How could he be so insensitive? She wanted to scream. She wanted kick and cry. But she sat there with just her simple tears falling slowly down her face.
"How long?"
"Huh?"
"How long have you wanted to break up with me?"
"How long have you felt it was going down hill?" Her answer she kept to herself but he knew she realized it had been awhile.
"Why didn't you just tell me? Why didn't you just break up with me instead leading me through this?" She asked finally looking at him. He continued to stare at the table. "Why didn't you try to do something and tell me?"
"I mean there were plenty of times I could have said something…I tried to give you hints…"
"Yea I got them. I wish just told me!"
"Well I was hoping I wouldn't have to…"
"Oh really so you just going to go on with charade forever!" She stood up and started pacing.
"Actually I was hoping we would get in a fight and never talk to each other again…."
"What you hated me that much? You would rather hate each other forever! Than break up and maybe be friends?"
"Well… I mean I have been trying for awhile…"
"So?"
"It is hard to break up with you. You know me so well! You are one of a few people who know the prophecy, and know the real me…"
"OK well what did you think I was going to go tell Voldemort the prophecy just because you broke up with me or something?"
"That's not what I meant."
"Why did you want to break up with me anyway? I mean you still haven't given me answer!"
"I can't say ok! It's hard to explain!" Harry stood up now and for once, looked her eyes for one minute before looking away.
"What? I can't know?"
"I have had a lot of pressure recently!"
"O and that's supposed to explain it?"
"Ag!" He stormed up the steps to the boys dormitories. Hermione stared after him. And melted. She just began to cry and cry and she couldn't stop. Parvati came out a moment later. "What's going on?"
"Parvati! Leave me alone! Go away!" screamed Hermione. Parvati turned and left to go back to bed. She felt like she was falling apart inside as she sat there on the floor by the fire.
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The next day Luna came up to Hermione as soon as she entered the Main Hall. Luna, Harry, and a few others had become really good friends. Hermione wasn't exactly fitting into this group though. She had hung out with them when she was with Harry sometimes but that was it.
"Look, Harry is going through a lot right now. And you shouldn't give him a hard time and give him dirty looks and all. If you really knew him you wouldn't have asked all those questions last night. He has been trying to break up with you for awhile. Now if you give him a hard time. You'll have to deal with me." Luna gave Hermione one harsh push, and walked away. Hermione looked to the table. Harry had been watching them. But he looked down when she caught him. She swallowed and tried washing away all of her questions about Luna and everything she wanted to ask Harry. She still wanted to be friends. She couldn't lose him altogether.
"I don't hate you," she said as she sat down across the table from him.
"Well that's obvious." She looked up at him with steely eyes but he just kept eating.
"I mean we can still be friends right?"
"Sure," Harry said between mouthfuls. Hermione sigh she knew he would be fine with it. After a while. But time past. She felt things were getting better one day and the next he did not even say hi. One moment it would be just like old times, the next he couldn't care less. He felt she was on a constant tug-of-war. She knew he had won, she had to keep him thinking that at least she had moved on. She had let him think it was over in her heart. However, sometimes what you know in your mind, the heart refuses to accept. One week she decided that all the questions she had left to ask had waited long enough.
"Harry, how long exactly had you been thinking about breaking up with me? I mean seriously?"
"I dunno." Just like always, he shrugged his shoulders. She knew he hated to talk about when they broke up, but she needed to know a few things.
"Why did you break up with me?" He rolled his eyes.
"I told you I can't explain it."
"What the hell does that mean? How can you not explain it? How do you not know why you broke up with someone or how long you wanted to?"
"I dunno, I just don't." He tried to break the tension with his smile. Hermione was starting to feel like a fool. How could she have let herself be so up front and revealed? She knew he could read all her feelings right then.
"Oh, you're just so weird."
"And you realized that just now?" He said knowing he had succeeded in avoiding any more questions he laughed. But they both knew everything would be different. Harry began to avoid her completely.
The thing that confused Hermione the most was that at times when it was the two of them it seemed like just before. He would joke and she would laugh and they would even flirt, but he wasn't the same. They weren't the same. Harry soon made sure he was never alone with her. He stopped coming to place where they would normally hang out with all their friends.
Hermione hid it well from everyone that she still was in love with him. But one friend knew. Every week Ginny asked her one question, are you over him? Every week she answered yes. Every week she told Ginny she was wrong. And every week they both knew she lied.
But when he did come back he brought Cho back to. That week Ginny turn dreadfully to her friend. "He's over you, its time to move on." That week Hermione didn't answer. That week Hermione broke inside, but vowed not to let him see.
Hermione noticed that he would go back and forth between her and Cho. She knew that even before he went out with her, he stuck with her the whole time when they were together, but it was no consolation that she knew he didn't like Cho as much as he had loved her. She got this feeling in her stomach she couldn't get rid of it.
Her heart ached and her stomach throbbed. Her throat constricted, she couldn't breathe every time she saw them together. She was jealous. People added to the back and forth of her heart by telling her, they thought he liked her again. He still knew her better than anyone else did.
He still knew where she was every second of every day. She knew by the glances back she got in class and the hallways. She knew by the seconds of eye contact they shared. It was as if he had a sixth sense for her eyes. But she felt like he loved to hate her. And that killed her slowly.
Hermione, was tired of being ruled by him. She was tired of the power he held over her. She knew it would never be gone but the best thing was to cut any contact with him. Hermione finally decided to tell him everything she felt. She was tired of thinking she would make him feel guilty, because now that was exactly what she wanted to. She had tried to move on and still be friends with him but he had pushed her away too many times. He had do too many things that tramped her. She was going to move on without. She had finally realized that what she feared losing was the one thing she had already lost. Him.
She got up the courage to talk to him. And this time she wasn't backing down. It was going to be over after this conversation. No matter what. That was how it had to be.
"Harry, we need to talk."
"Are you sure Hermione?"
"Oh yea." She pulled him aside from the table in the common room and more to the corner.
"So what's on your mind?"
"Harry, you told me you couldn't break up with me because you knew me too well right?"
"Er… yea."
"And you told me later that you would still like to be friends, correct?"
"Er… yea…"
"So why do you shut me out of your life and then treat me like I'm your best friend and then shut me out again? You can't stand to be around me! You avoid me everywhere we go! You never talk to me any more! You make me feel like I mean nothing to! And you know what sometimes the thing I want most in the world is to hate you but I know I can't! I can't hate you; because you're just… you're just YOU!" She felt herself losing her composure more and more. "I can't hate you, Harry, no matter what I want or how angry I am at you!" She felt herself starting to well up and she talked faster as she went. "Yet regardless of what I feel you still do this to me! You couldn't hurt me any more Harry."
"Hermione please!" Harry tried.
"Harry don't give me any of that bull! I'm talking here and I'm not stopping till I get this out! You used to hold me like you'd never let go. You used to talk to me about everything in the world. You used say you would be there forever. You used to… you used to care…" She knew Harry was beginning to feel horrible but she was still getting started.
"Fine, you want to lock me out of your life. Fine you want to play the old loner card. Fine, you don't love me any more. Fine, you want to be my friend. Fine, you want to act like you don't care. You want to try and screw me over, not fine." She pause the tears were rushing to get out and she forced them back in. She kept looking him straight in the eye. She wanted him to see every drop of pain he had put her through, ever single hope stomped on, every breath neglected. She felt the dam inside break. A few tears came down. She had to keep going through everything that she felt.
"You have people who care." She swallowed she could do his. She had to do this. Her voice sharp and pronouncing each syllable with emphasis, but slowly breaking, much like the rest of her under his gaze that was still hypnotizing. "You have people who want to help you. People who really want you to be there everyday and hold you close. But I'm not one of them." She paused, letting the tears catch up to her, she swallowed. In a hushed voice she continued. "I can't be, because I'm not gonna watch you break me into a million pieces, Harry Potter. I never want to see you again! Harry Potter, leave and never come back." Her voice broke and she pushed her self to continue. "Don't look at me ever again! Don't you dare talk to me! And don't you ever, ever even think of me again! Harry Potter, this my last good-bye…" The look in that one instant in those two eyes was two thousand times worse than then anything she said. She turned. She walked silently out of his life for what was supposed to be forever…
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Told you it wouldn't be long for this chapter.
People review, o and try to guess what Harry has planned. I hope you liked it!