This was wrong. So very, very wrong.
These thoughts he'd been having were…far from best-friendly, to say the least.
Harry certainly wasn't an expert in the `Girl' department - he was hardly a beginner - but he wasn't a complete idiot, either. He knew, for example, that offering to carry a friend's books was perfectly normal; especially if said friend had a tendency to pack her bag so full of texts that her back was hunching prematurely. He knew that lending a friend a spare quill was acceptable, as well. That was all well and good.
It worried him, though, that the only reason he wanted to let her borrow the quill in the first place was so that he might touch her hand when she gave it back. That the only thoughts he had while holding her extra supplies were of how much he wished he could throw them to the ground and drag her to some deserted corner, where he could snog her senseless.
It was a bad sign. He could tell.
And the dreams. They were terrible, in themselves.
Though…perhaps terrible wasn't the best way to put it.
If he had to be perfectly truthful, they were actually rather enjoyable. Maybe uncomfortable was more fitting.
Yes. That was it. Because honestly, how much more `uncomfortable' could a person get than to see his best friend across the breakfast table each morning and only remember how it felt to -
Well. Thank Merlin that mate wasn't Ron.
He understood that he fancied her. He'd come to terms with it, gotten used to the idea, even, no matter how it may have confused him. But…it wasn't fair.
Why wouldn't she leave him the bloody hell alone?
Was it such a hard thing to ask? Really, he could do without the `Good morning, Harry's, and the `Goodnight, Harry's, and all the `Harry, would you pass the sugar's in between. She'd sit there, crossing and uncrossing her legs, nibbling on the end of her quill, smiling that same blasted smile as though nothing were the matter. As if she didn't notice. As if his entire bleeding world wasn't crumbling at his feet. Again.
Merlin, he needed a holiday. She was driving him absolutely insane.
…As Easter was a good two months away, he'd have to settle for the brief passing period between Charms and History of Magic. Ten minutes from now, and he'd be doomed. Fifteen, if he dawdled.
Ron, for whatever reason, didn't seem to find it odd in the slightest when Harry insisted on going back up to the dorm for his `favorite quill.' He stood in the doorway while Harry rummaged through the drawers of the desk, blathering on about Quidditch statistics Harry was sure he would have found interesting otherwise, had he not been brainstorming various ways to avoid talking to, or even looking at, Hermione for the next hour.
"They say Belgium's got a real chance this year-"
Blindfolding charms wouldn't work; he wouldn't be able to see where he was walking…
"…I honestly don't understand how anyone could think that Kent, of all players, would make an acceptable Seeker-"
If he sat on the opposite end of the room from her, then… No, that'd be too obvious.
"And their Keeper - no talent whatsoever…" Ron pushed himself from the wall and strode across the room, moving spare bits of parchment and empty ink bottles around.
Or perhaps…just maybe…if he took notes and concentrated, Binns' droning would distract him.
…Not bloody likely.
"Hey, is this it?"
Ron was holding a crumpled purple feather between two fingers, what may have been used to write with years ago. Had he ever bought something like that? Why would he buy something like that?
"Er…no."
"Oh. Well. Anyway, can you believe that?"
"Believe…what?"
"Harry! Belgium. Kent. Crap Seeker. Have you been listening to anything I've said?"
"Eh… Yeah. Of course. Kisslinger was the only real choice."
Ron frowned and Harry caught his breath, hoping he hadn't said something completely off the subject. "…D'you really think so? Because after last season-"
It took seven minutes to get to Binns' room from the Tower, stairs willing, and only five before class started. He made for the door, and Ron followed, breaking off in the middle of a sentence. "Did you find it?"
Right. The quill. "I just remembered I…left it in my bag."
Ron shrugged. "Whatever you say, mate."
~*~*~
Naturally, Binns took no notice of their late entrance, and continued another monotonous lesson on the Goblin Rebellion of the 1600s as Harry and Ron crept towards a table in back. Harry dropped his bag to the floor and slid into his chair, breathing a sigh of relief. He'd managed to avoid Hermione thus far, so -
Bloody hell. She was sitting in the seat directly in front of his. Glaring at him.
"You're late. Where were you?!" she hissed.
He couldn't very well answer, `Avoiding you,' could he? "I…quill. Lost it."
Now, if he looked just a little to the left of her face, didn't focus, didn't think, everything would be fine.
She rolled her eyes, muttered "You could have used one of mine," and turned round again.
"In 1652, Vincent the Voracious set off on a journey through-"
Why was he taking this class, again? Places, dates, dead people; they didn't matter. Well, he supposed they mattered to someone, but…he didn't care was probably the more `appropriate' phrasing. It was the only class the three of them all had together, though, and, in Hermione's words, "An easy O, if you'd apply yourself, Harry." Easy O, his arse - he still wasn't quite sure why he'd listened.
`Applying himself' became rather dull after the first day or so, anyway. Ferdinand the Fat, Percival the Portly…they were all the same, weren't they?
"In the autumn of 1653…"
He glanced at the second-hand on his watch. 58…59…60.
One minute had passed, already, and he'd managed to put off as much as a peek in her direction. He could do this, no doubt -
She shifted to the side a bit, giving him a clear view of her profile. Shook her hair back, exposing a rather large portion of her neck and causing him to grip his quill more tightly in his fist.
Eyes straight ahead, at the board. Binns' beard. What was growing in Binns' beard today? Could anything grow in Binns' beard ever, if he was a ghost? What was -
She bit her lip, the very tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth as she concentrated on what she was writing.
The quill snapped in two. He jumped, cursing under his breath.
Stupid shoddy quills. Stupid heart - why did it have to beat so loudly? Stupid classroom; he couldn't even groan properly amidst all of the…er…silence.
As much as he fancied Hermione, he hated her for doing this to him.
Well, perhaps hate was too strong a word, but it was moving toward a great dislike at this point. Here he was, approaching insanity at the age of seventeen, and why? For what reason? Because she couldn't manage to sit still for two bloody seconds.
He didn't understand. This hadn't happened when he'd fancied Cho…or `dated' Cho…or broken up with Cho, either, come to think of it. So why were things so different now? With Hermione, of all people?
It was one question he didn't know how to answer.
~*~*~
The rest of the day passed fairly uneventfully, save a rather inconveniencing incident between classes when she appeared at the other end of the corridor he was passing through, causing him to redirect his path in order to avoid her. To make a long story extremely short, a staircase moved, he found himself trapped on the sixth floor, and was late for Care of Magical Creatures.
So really, not only was she making it increasingly difficult for him to think clearly, but she was ruining his entire school career, as well.
Though he most likely would've failed all prior classes, without her. The two together must've reached some level of equilibrium, he supposed.
He'd spent dinner `reorganizing his trunk' so as to preempt any further `Breakfast of Doom' realizations, and had taken a trip to the kitchens while most everyone else was still in the Great Hall, instead. Dobby had loaded him down with more food than even Ron could manage in one sitting and, as much as he didn't want to eat in the presence of one hundred house-elves and two hundred giant, eager eyes, the alternative was meeting up with Hermione on his way back to the dorm, and she surely couldn't have accepted such a poor excuse for his absence.
Dobby and the others won out.
At the time, it'd seemed a brilliant plan for evasion. Now that the halls were teeming with students returning to their common rooms, and spotting Hermione before she saw him was ten times harder?
Not so much.
Managing to make it to the tower was a feat, in itself. He'd ducked behind a pair of unnaturally burly Hufflepuff third years most of the way, walking as normally as was humanly possible while hunched over.
And now he was standing in front of the portrait hole. Staring at the Fat Lady. Who was staring right back.
"Well," she finally barked, causing him to jump five feet in the air, "are you going to go in, or aren't you?"
He flushed. "Er…yeah. I suppose so."
He stood, waiting. She sat, in that too-small gilded chair of hers, looking…fat, really. They regarded one another silently, unblinkingly.
"Am I…missing something?" he ventured after what seemed like an eternity, his eyes starting to burn. She rolled her own and heaved an impatient sort of sigh; a look that was all too familiar… "Password?"
"Oh. Right. Fortitudo." The frame swung out of the way and he stepped inside tentatively, sweeping the room for any sign of her, prepared to run in the opposite direction.
She wasn't here.
Thank Merlin. Now. If he could just make it up the stairs before she came back down, he'd be home free.
Except…what was that sitting on her regular table? Books, of course, but something…shiny, too, by the looks of it. She had to be somewhere nearby; that was her cloak on the back of the chair, her neat handwriting filling the scraps of parchment strewn across the smooth wooden surface. He crept closer, one eye on the girls' staircase. Books were lying open and marked in various places, a slew of quills (always prepared, that one), extra scrolls of parchment, and the reflective object, which appeared to be a…silver ink pot.
Well. That wasn't nearly as exciting as he'd expected it to be. Though the color was rather puzzling. Hermione had never struck him as a particularly pink sort of person, but then, there it was. Pale pink ink. Shimmering across pages in all its girlish glory.
Someone laughed loudly behind him and he jumped, eyes darting back to the stairs. He was still in the clear; if he went to the dorm now, everything would be alright -
A picture in the book at the top of the pile caught his attention and he paused, taking a furtive glance toward the girls' dorms before stepping closer to the table. The book was thick and leather-bound - the very same one she'd been reading at breakfast That Day. And the photo was of…a ring? Why would Hermione be doing research on a ring? The other texts had similar illustrations, and further inspection of her notes wielded the same; she'd done a small sketch in the top right corner.
He leaned in, the smell of musty pages enveloping him. There was some form of inscription on its surface, but the language was unfamiliar, and he couldn't make out exactly what it meant.
The fire flared in the background, illuminating the parchment, ink glittering blithely.
`Ancient Egypt…'
`…magic…'
`…spiritual powers…'
`…opposite sex…'
Well that was - wait…what?!
He backtracked, frantically trying to read and process the page, his mind screaming to back away - there simply wasn't enough time…
`Spiritual powers introduced during era of Ancient Egypt (i.e.: talismans, spells). Magical rings - engraved w/ magic words; combined with incantation yields powerful, attractive force for wearer. Wearer lures any person desired. Will be center of attention wherever he or she may go. Improves love relation, revives lost love, betters overall love life.
`…Engravings force opposite sex to pursue…'
But he…but…she…was this why -
He sensed, rather than heard, her enter the room, and froze. Whirled, knocking into the ink pot and sending a river of pink across the table.
Shit.
She paused to correct the wand movements a third year was using to perform a Cheering Charm, and he spun around, scrambling to clean the mess. Towel…towel…he needed a towel. Something to get this ink from her papers before she noticed.
There were no towels. Why, in the name of Merlin, were there no towels?! Did the house-elves do nothing all day? Towels were useful, anyone could use a towel, he could use a towel, what was he supposed to do without a -
"Harry?"
Dammit.
He turned, willing his voice to stay calm. "Yes?"
"What're you doing?" she asked curiously, peeking around him.
"Er…" Might as well tell the truth. "A first year knocked your ink well over."
Alright, well, perhaps that wasn't entirely accurate - he wasn't necessarily a first year, but if she bought it…
"Oh, honestly." She huffed, and he bit his lip. She hadn't seen him, had she? "I've asked them time and again to leave my things alone… Scourgify!" The stains disappeared.
Now why hadn't he thought of that?
"So," she continued, stepping around him and stacking pieces of parchment into a pile, "how'd it go?"
He took a step back. "How'd…what, go?"
She frowned. "Ron said you'd skipped dinner to reorganize your…bunk, was it? I couldn't quite hear."
"Trunk," he muttered.
"Right. Anyway, good for you. It's always best to keep things neat, you know."
He pushed a hand through his hair and shrugged, feeling intensely lucky that, for Merlin knew what reason, he wouldn't have to deal with any pressure to `open up' or `share his feelings,' today. "Er…yeah."
She smiled and stuffed her notes between pages of the book, moving it to the bottom of the stack. Was she trying to hide them from him?
"How'd you go about it?"
"Pardon?"
"Clearing your trunk out, Harry, really."
Did it matter? "I…er…well…"
She was looking at him expectantly and he could hardly manage a completely coherent sentence, much less a probable story. Think, Harry, think. "I…haven't finished, yet?"
It wasn't his best moment by far, but at least it provided an out.
"Anyway," he attempted a semi-convincing yawn, "I think I'll be going up to bed."
She raised an eyebrow. "At 8:30?"
"Um…yes. I'm tired, I guess. What with, you know…waking up…and all." Absolutely brilliant, Potter.
She gave him a scrutinizing look, perhaps to discern whether he was serious or not, before apparently giving up. "Alright, then. See you tomorrow, Harry."
"Yeah. Tomorrow. Right." He turned toward the stairs, glancing at the load in her arms. The book at the bottom had come out a bit, and a corner of her notes poked out enough for him to see the drawing before she looked at him and pushed it back in.
She had one of those rings. He knew she did.
And he was going to find it.
~*~*~
A/N: Yay - a slight hint at a plot! Let's all find a meadow to frolic in, shall we?
Question of the Day: Just how many times was the word `quill' used in this bit?
Answer: A lot. Ten, to be exact.
Number One Item on my Christmas List: A bigger vocabulary.
Anyway. Many thanks to Amethyst for beta-ing, and to all of you who've reviewed. It makes my day, really it does and I want to snog each and every one of you.
Now. Time to start thinking up ways of working a harpsichord into the next chapter…
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