Twenty Bloody Questions

HELLO! I am splendiferously excited because I got a rather wonderful response to my last fic. Quite a few people were confused by some of it, but I have explained and all is now well with the world.

*cough*

Yes, well, anyway….

This fic is posted on FF.net, but I have done super!major!revising. Please, oh, please, don't even go read it there. It's positively horrific. You'll laugh at my poor grammar and weak plot flow. *cries* Oh well. On to the story!!!

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“I'm bored,” said Harry for what must have been the seventeenth time. The two of us were sitting alone in a compartment near the back of the Hogwarts Express. Ron and Ginny had left just a few minutes before to help Neville find his toad…again.

“If you're so bored, find something to amuse yourself,” I said, keeping my eyes on my book: A Collection of the Wizarding World's Most Notable House-Elves. I was rather exasperated with Harry, as he had failed to find anything at all to occupy himself with for the last half hour other than complaining to me about just that. Train rides are terribly boring, I thought.

“Like what?” he asked. “You're the only one in here, Hermione, and you're reading. Knowing Neville, it'll probably take Ginny and Ron about another hour to find Trevor.”

I sighed and put down my book, carefully marking my place with a red leather bookmark. “Let's play a game or something,” I suggested.

“Which game?” he queried, highly interested immediately. Ah, so like a boy to pay attention to me only so long as there's something in it for him.

“I spy?” I supplied half heartedly.

Harry rolled his lovely eyes. “I spy something gray and cloud-like,” he said sarcastically. “Yes, that's very interesting.”

“Well, you needn't be so rude!” I exclaimed, indignant. Honestly, if I wasn't utterly in love with that blasted boy, he'd be smashed to smithereens by now.

“Sorry, sorry,” he replied, though quite obviously not so. “Give us something else.”

“Um, the alphabet game?” I suggested.

“No.”

“Guess who?”

“No.”

“The guessing game?”

“No.”

“Spin the Bottle?”

Harry raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Well, if you insist….”

“Harry!” I exclaimed, blushing horridly. What I wouldn't give for an empty butterbeer bottle just now. “I was only joking.”

He smirked again. “What a pity,” he said. I glared at him, feeling a bit lightheaded. He laughed. “How about twenty questions, then?”

After thinking for a moment, I agreed. “You ask first,” I told him. I sat back, hoping the game would provide him with some amusement, at least for a little while.

A few moments later, he asked, “Who do you fancy?”

“Harry!” I sat up violently in my seat and banged my head on the luggage rack. With a groan, I fell back into the seat.

Harry rushed to my side. “It's not bleeding, is it, Hermione?” he asked, peering at my skull amidst the bushels of frizzy hair. His close proximity immediately made my heart beat faster. Blast. Don't faint. Don't faint. Don't faint.

“No, no, I'm fine,” I said. “Just don't ask me that again, okay?”

He looked rather put-out. “But why not?”

I hesitated. “Well, because - because it's awfully personal, and it's hard to just come out and say,” I replied. Because our friendship would be horridly ruined if you knew the truth.

“Oh.” He fell silent for a moment. “What if I guessed at it?” he asked finally.

I peered uncertainly at him. “You can only ask yes or no questions, Harry,” I warned, apprehensive. “We'll be keeping to the rules of this bloody game.”

“Alright,” he said. “Sounds good to me.”

“And I don't have to tell you if you guess wrong,” I added hastily. Please let him guess wrong. Dear Merlin, let him guess wrong.

Harry huffed exasperatedly. “Okay, Hermione, that's fine,” he said. He squirmed about in his seat until coming to a straight-back position. “Now, down to business; is this person at Hogwarts?”

“Yes,” I replied. I immediately began to regret my decision. Harry wasn't stupid. He'd figure it out in a heartbeat.

“Is he in Hufflepuff?” he asked. Then added as an after thought, “Or possibly she I suppose.”

“Harry!” I exclaimed. “Never in my life have I heard -”

Harry clamped both hands over my mouth. “Please don't go into one of your lectures,” he pleaded. “I'm sorry, alright?” Glaring at him scathingly and trying desperately not to pay any attention whatsoever to the fact that his hands were very much so still touching my skin, I nodded. “Alright then,” he said, sitting back with a sigh of relief. “Is he in Hufflepuff?”

“No,” I answered. Why, yes, Harry, I've fallen in love with a Hufflepuff boy who is most definitely not you.

“Ravenclaw?”

“No.”

“Slytherin?”

“Gods, no! Honestly!” I crossed my arms in a huff, pouting his doubt in my integrity. Really, me and one of those ghastly serpents? I'll have nightmares for a fortnight.

“Sorry!” he cried hastily. “Merlin, you're impossible sometimes, you know that?” I simply glared at him in answer. He rolled his eyes once again. “So, this bloke's in Gryffindor, yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed. A wicked smirk played across his features, and I knew what he was thinking. The arrogance of that boy! To assume that I fancy him is just - oh. Right. I do.

“I'm assuming this boy would be in our year,” he said, that bloody smirk still on his face.

“He is,” I replied, my hands beginning to shake.

“Does he happen to have blonde hair?” Harry queried.

“Are there any Gryffindors in our year with blonde hair?” I asked thoughtfully, staring out the window in thought. Perhaps I can distract him with my witty retorts.

After a moment's thought, Harry said, “Well, no, so that question shouldn't count.”

“Oh, as if,” I said contemptuously. “Every question counts, Harry.”

He sulked, crossing his arms and sticking his lower lip out. It was, quite possibly, the most adorable thing I'd ever seen him do, and I had to resist the devilish urge to jump him. “Fine then,” he said. “It will count. Is his hair brown?”

“No.” Drat. He's discovered my clever plot to stall him.

“Red?”

“Harry!”

He put his head in his hands. “What on earth is it now?” he asked desolately.

“In all of Gryffindor,” I hissed, “How many red-haired boys are there?”

Harry cocked his head to the side in thought. “Well,” he said slowly. “Just Ron, I suppose.”

“Exactly,” I told him, triumphant. “You were obviously asking me if I fancied Ron, which is a rather inappropriate question regarding recent circumstances.” Ron and I had broken up just a month or so ago, and things were - shall we say - not at their best between us.

“I apologize,” he said sincerely. I smiled, and he smiled back. “His hair would be black, then, wouldn't it?”

“Yes, it would,” I said. Wonderfully, beautifully, silkily black I am desperate to run my hands through, you know.

Harry lifted his palm and seemed to be ticking things off on his fingers. “What color are his eyes?”

I gave him a stern look. “That's not a yes or no question, Harry.”

He looked put-out. “Can't you let those count?” he begged. “Please, oh, please?”

I quirked an eyebrow at him. “Anxious to have the answers, are we?” I asked, false calm flooding my voice.

“Just a bit,” he replied with a grin. “Answer the question, will you?”

I sighed. “Green,” I told him. The most wondrously marvelous green eyes this world has ever beheld, I mean to say. He looked at me in a curious sort of way. I gazed down at my shoes. He knows. He knows. He KNOWS!

“How many syllables are in his first name?” he asked then.

“Um, two,” I said.

“Last name?”

“Two.” Well, there it goes. He'll have it out of me entirely in just a moment.

“Does he have any siblings?”

Yes! Yes, he does! Seventeen, in fact. “No,” I replied. Confound it all, why can't I just lie? “You only have five more questions, you know.”

“What letter does his name start with?”

“H. Four questions left.” Blast, Hermione, why don't you just get it over with and tell him you want to have his babies? That'll be much less obvious than your stupid answers!

“Last name?”

“P,” I said, my voice rapidly becoming shakier. “Three more.”

“Where does he live?”

“With - with his aunt and uncle. Two more.” The train rounded a curve a mite too fast and our compartment jerked, causing Harry to slide down the bench several inches until our knees were touching. Oh, the irony.

“Would you consider yourselves best friends?”

This is it, Hermione. Lie! Lie, because your friendship depends on it. “He's my very best friend.” Why did you just say that? IDIOT!

Harry, turning towards me and looking me straight in the eye with one of those infernal smirks upon his face, asked, “Is it me?”

NO! NO! It is not you! With a great, shaking breath, I said, “Yes.”

“Well then, I have just one more question for you,” he said briskly.

“You've used up all your questions,” I said, amazing myself with the lightheartedness of my statement. Stupid! You've just told him you fancy him! THIS IS NO TIME FOR JOKES!

He chuckled. “Too bad,” he said. “Because I was going to ask if I could kiss you.”

I stared at him. He was going to ask me what? “I - I - what?” I could only stutter in my shock.

Harry seemed to think it was all wondrously funny. “I just wanted to ask if you would mind terribly much for me to kiss you, you see,” he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “But it seems to me that -”

“Yes!” I squeaked. “Yes, yes, yes, yes!” Ah, that was lovely. Way to play hard to get.

Harry laughed. “I thought you'd say that,” he said, and leaned forward to kiss me in such a way as to make my knees weak. It was a wonderful feeling, being caught up in Harry's arms, blissfully unaware of Ron and Ginny's shouts of approval from the doorway, my heart feeling fit to burst.

You do realize that this is just one of your daydreams? that horrid voice in my head asked me.

If it's all the same to you, I told it, I've decided not to wake up from this one.

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*is happy* Harry decided to be rather cute there at the end, didn't he? Just a mite out of character, but it's a fluffy one-shot, so I'm allowed.

Many thanks to my wonderful reviewers of the last fic! Especially Lady Starlight, who was very helpful in terms of where I need to go with future writing. Muchos gracias!

Hasta luego!

~ Violet Kefira

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