The Worst Laid Plans
Disclaimer: You know very well that none of us own anything remotely Harry Potter related, save action figures and numerous posters, which were all purchased quite legally. We hope.
A/N: Here we are with another collaboration written for the fanfict00bs community on livejournal. We hope you enjoy the nice, clean, HBP-free environment.
Chapter One
"This potion, known as the Revelator, will force the one who consumes it to reveal a particular secret on command, provided that the secret is not already guarded by other spells. To show you exactly how this works, we will have a demonstration." Snape paused, eyeing the room. Hermione watched as his eyes drifted up the Gryffindor half of the room, past Parvati and Lavender, past Harry…and landed on her.
"Miss Granger. Surely you would enjoy a firsthand learning experience."
Knowing resistance was, as it usually was with Snape, futile, she stood up and went to the front of the room, racking her brain for all the secrets he could possibly force her to reveal.
Oh, please, please, don't let him ask anything that's going to get us in trouble, Hermione thought with a glance at Harry. They'd broken so many rules, and it might not matter if they were for the right reasons - it definitely didn't matter as far as Snape was concerned.
She knew he'd never be stupid enough to ask anything that would give away information about the Order or the DA. No…he'd probably ask something more personal.
Hermione's palms began to sweat as she reached the front of the room and took the vial of potion Snape held out to her. This…this would be disastrous, no matter what he asked.
"Go on, Miss Granger. Drink the potion."
She took one hesitant look at the dark red liquid before downing it in one gulp. It was tasteless, but she could feel it, warm as it slid down her throat. Hermione waited to feel the effects, but there was nothing.
"All right, class. What shall we ask Miss Granger?"
The Slytherins made a few obscene suggestions that Snape, thankfully, had to ignore. Harry valiantly attempted to spare her, but his questions were simply ridiculous - "Have her say what her favorite book is!" and other such things. It was finally Lavender who asked the fateful question…and it was by far the last question Hermione wanted to answer in that room with those people.
"Make her tell us who she fancies!"
An evil little smirk formed on Snape's face, and Hermione knew she was doomed. Of course, he'd simply love to humiliate her like this… "Yes, that's harmless enough. Miss Granger, who do you fancy?"
Hermione attempted to keep her mouth clamped shut. Gods, she couldn't say it! Not - not here, not in front of him!
But it was no use. Her mouth opened on its own volition, and out it came, against her will.
"Harry Potter."
A great roar of laughter came from the Slytherins. Hermione saw Malfoy doubled over with Crabbe and Goyle laughing like hyenas on either side of him, and Pansy was letting out her own hideous, shrieking form of laughter.
Lavender and Parvati had let out a loud, collective gasp as soon as she'd said it, clearly not expecting that particular answer. Their faces were mirrors of each other, both wide-eyed and with their mouths hanging open in shock.
Hermione stood there at the front of the room shaking, terrified to look at him - oh, how would he react? If he was embarrassed or disgusted, she couldn't bear to see it. But she had to look, didn't she? She had to see…had to find out, now that it was out for the world to know.
She tore her eyes away from the others, feeling her face grow hotter as her gaze finally landed upon Harry.
He was sitting bolt upright in his seat, mouth hanging open wide enough to gather flies, and his face had gone quite pale - paler than usual. He didn't look disgusted, but he didn't look happy, either - there was only shock.
Oh - oh, no, everything's ruined!
And with that thought, Hermione did the only thing she felt she could conceivably do just then.
She cut and ran.
~
Harry had a very hard time getting through the rest of Potions that day. The worst part was that he didn't have Hermione to tell him when he was about to do something completely incorrect. The problem wasn't helped any by the Slytherins puckering their lips and making kissing noises at him, or by Snape's great annoyance that anyone should ever encourage Harry's ego by doing something as absurd as fancying him. Then again, Harry had to admit that it did seem absurd. Why on earth would Hermione fancy someone like him?
After losing 50 points for Gryffindor, nearly pummeling Draco Malfoy and Pansy Parkinson both, and creating a few minor explosions in his cauldron, he finally stumbled out of the room alive. Ignoring Malfoy's question as to whether he was off to "snuggle with the Mudblood," Harry set off to do just that - er, well, not the snuggling bit, but he had every intention of finding Hermione and setting things right. How he was going to go about that was as yet unknown to him.
Skipping lunch, he went straight up to his dormitory to find the Marauder's Map. Several minutes of searching Hermione's usual haunts provided nothing. Eventually he found her, huddled in the middle stall in the first floor girls' lavatory. A strong sense of déjà vu overcame Harry as he headed down there, remembering the first time Hermione had cried in that very toilet. Harry sighed to himself. Shame there wasn't a troll this time, really. Trolls were much easier to handle than crying girls. Trolls were very simple, in fact - levitate their club and bonk them on the head, and it would be lights out for Mr. Troll.
Girls, though…girls were another matter. They had much more complex thought patterns than trolls - patterns that Harry definitely couldn't follow. Really, one minute they'd be perfectly fine, then they'd be crying about their dead boyfriends, and then they'd be kissing you, and without warning, they'd be crying again and yelling at you for daring to have a female friend!
…Suffice to say, Harry hadn't had very good experiences with crying girls.
All too soon, he found himself standing outside the bathroom. With a glance in either direction to check for anyone that might see, Harry went bravely where no intelligent boy had ever gone before.
"Hermione?"
Her sniffles stopped abruptly.
"Hermione, will you come out, please?"
"Absolutely not," she said miserably through the door. "There's no way I can look you in the eye right now."
Harry frowned. "Hermione, you're going to have to speak to me eventually."
There was a moment of silence, and then she hesitantly peeked out. "I've never been so embarrassed in my life," she said. "And - and I'm not sure if I even want to talk about it. I just want to forget it ever happened."
"Hermione -"
She opened the door fully now as she interrupted him. "Look, you don't have to say it. I know you don't feel the same way. I - I can handle that. I'm used to it by now, really. If - if you think it would be too awkward for us to stay friends now, I - I'll understand," she said, choking slightly as her sniffles returned.
"What?" Harry said, baffled. Girls…can't they ever make any sense? "Why would it be too awkward for us to stay friends?"
Hermione stared at him in utter disbelief. "Did you not hear what I said in Potions? I fancy you, Harry. That's going to make things a little…well, weird."
Harry rubbed the back of his neck, frowning. He hadn't thought much about what she'd said, really. He supposed it might have meant more if Harry could imagine anyone fancying him, let alone Hermione…but now that he did think about it, he supposed it was rather weird.
Hermione…fancied him. So…she wanted to date him? Was that what it meant? …Cor, did she want to kiss him? Harry caught himself staring at her lips and quickly looked away.
All right, so things would be very weird.
"I - er - well, yeah, it might be a little awkward for awhile," said Harry, "but you're - you're my best friend. As long as you still want to be friends with me, I don't see why we can't manage it."
Harry watched Hermione's bottom lip tremble for approximately two seconds before she reacted forcefully by exclaiming, "Oh, Harry!" and throwing herself onto him. He stumbled backward as her weight hit him. Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck and he clumsily patted her back.
"I'm so glad you feel that way," she said - in a very muffled way, as her face was buried in his shoulder. "I was so afraid you wouldn't want to be friends with me anymore after you knew, and it would have been just awful if I'd lost you…"
Harry ran a hand over her hair - crying girls found that soothing, didn't they, to have their hair smoothed down? He didn't quite understand it, but he'd seen it done before, and if it worked…
"It's all right, Hermione. We'll always be friends."
Hermione gave one last hearty sniff and pulled away from him, nodding. "Right. Thank you, Harry, for being so good about this." She wiped at her face and turned away from him, looking suddenly embarrassed. "Um. We should probably get out of the bathroom before someone comes in and gets the wrong idea."
"Er, right," Harry said, though he was a little confused as to what the wrong idea would be just now, and followed her out.
~
Ron was through his first sandwich at lunch and moving on to a second when he noticed that something was very, very wrong.
Instead of Harry or Hermione sitting beside him, he found Luna Lovegood staring avidly at him. He felt his face growing hot under her scrutiny - what on earth was she doing at the Gryffindor table, anyway? - and looked across the table to find Lavender and Parvati taking the empty seats.
Not only were his friends missing, but Malfoy also seemed to be up to something. He and Pansy were doing a rather odd reenactment of something that involved some odd kissing faces and swooning. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what had brought that on. Probably something in Potions…maybe that was the reason Harry and Hermione - wait, no, Harry and Hermione wouldn't have anything to do with kissing and swooning…
"Where are Harry and Hermione?" he asked nobody in particular, beginning to become very worried.
Lavender and Parvati exchanged uncomfortable glances. "They're probably somewhere together," said Parvati. "Harry probably went looking for her after Potions."
Ron frowned, trying to ignore that Luna Lovegood was still staring at him. "Why would he have to look for her?"
"Because Hermione ran out in the middle of Potions," Parvati explained.
"…She what?"
Lavender sighed. "Snape made Hermione take a potion that forces a person to reveal a secret. Goodness…if I'd known, I never would have suggested…I feel terrible about it, I felt sure she would say Viktor Krum or - I don't know, Terry Boot or someone brainy like that! Who would have thought?"
"Wait, wait, I'm lost," Ron interrupted. "What on earth did Hermione say?"
Lavender looked very guilty indeed. "Well, Snape asked the class what we should ask her to reveal, and I suggested he make her say who she fancies…"
Ron felt his stomach drop. "She - she didn't say me?"
Parvati shook her head somberly. "I'm sorry, Ron. Not you."
"B-but - she always seemed to like it when we argued, and - and she liked the perfume I got her for Christmas last year!"
Lavender raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You got her perfume? Are you sure she liked it?"
"Sure!" Ron said. "All girls like stuff like that, don't they? She said it was `really unusual.'"
Parvati and Lavender simultaneously broke into sniggers. "Oh, Ron, you don't understand girls at all! That didn't mean she liked the perfume, it meant she thought it was awful and had to find a tactful thing to say about it!"
Ron ignored Luna's remark ("I like unusual perfumes.") and scowled as a very unpleasant, defeated feeling came over him. "So…she doesn't like me that way? Not at all?"
"No, sorry," Parvati said, wearing an uncharacteristically sympathetic expression.
Ron looked sadly down at his unfinished sandwich and pushed the plate aside. Suddenly, he didn't feel very hungry. "So…who does she fancy?"
Lavender and Parvati both squirmed slightly. "Oh - oh, Ron, it's awful to have to tell you this, but - but it's…Harry."
"WHAT?!"
The entire hall looked up at his shout. Ron ducked his head sheepishly as his face turned an impressive shade of red. "Harry? She likes Harry?" Ron said, more quietly.
Before Parvati and Lavender could begin to reply, Luna cut in.
"Of course she does. Why are you all surprised?"
The other three gaped at her. "You knew?"
"Isn't it obvious?" she said, her face showing no change of expression. "He's all she ever talks about."
"Sure he isn't," Ron said. "She also talks about…homework. And…er…books! And house-elves, and…er, knitting, sometimes."
To everyone's surprise, Luna rolled her eyes in a disturbingly Hermione-like manner. "That stuff doesn't matter. He's the only boy she talks about."
Ron opened his mouth to argue, and then shut it abruptly as the painful realization hit him - Luna, for once, was right about something.
"Hmmph."
"I suppose we should have seen it all along," said Parvati. "Poor girl, I don't think he likes her back."
A few moments of tense silence followed as everyone went back to their lunch, and then…
"We should help her!"
"What are you talking about, Lav? How can we help her?"
"Well, look at it this way," Lavender said. "Harry's the same way about Hermione - she's the only girl he ever talks about. I bet he fancies her, too - but he doesn't know it."
"That's just silly," Parvati said. "How could he not know it?"
"I dunno," said Ron, contemplating matters. "She could be right. I mean, Harry can be a right oblivious git when he sets his mind to it."
"So…you think we should try to get Harry to figure it out?"
"I think that's exactly what we need to do."
To be continued very soon
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