Chapter 4: Dealing With Jealousy
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Tri-wizard Tournament, Second Task in the lake.
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She inhaled a great breath.
She woke up as soon as her head broke the water's surface. The water was freezing, and she had trouble getting her breathing to steady up. She wondered where Harry was. She turned around to see a big shark head staring at her and shrieked, swimming away quickly. Then she realized it was Krum when she saw the rest of his body, since only his head had been transfigured, and relaxed, though still stayed at a bit of a distance, those teeth didn't look too welcoming.
They both approached the edge of the water, Krum keeping his head underwater yet standing on his feet, so that the closer they got, the more he looked like a sort of sea ostridge. Finally Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey came over to them and transfigured Krum back to his normal self, while wrapping them both in thick towels and pointing them to where they should join the other champions and freed hostages.
As soon as Hermione spotted them sitting there with cups of steaming potion in their hands, she noticed the only champion missing.
"Where's Harry?" she asked, her voice quivering slightly with worry.
"I dunno what the hell he's doing," Cedric spoke first, "I finally got to the bottom of the lake where you guys were tied up and he was already there, with Ron floating loosely next to him, and he was fighting some merpeople to try and get to you to cut your bonds and get you free -" At that Hermione's heart lifted slightly, the fact that Harry would fight mermen to save her warmed her up more than the Pepper-up potion, that Madam Pomfrey had given her, ever could have. But she continued to worry, because if Harry had been there first then why hadn't he been back already, since the rest of the hostages had been saved?
"I `ope `e did not get `urt by ze Gryndylows like me, zey are vile creatures dose sings! Because of zem I do not know where my sister is!" said Fleur, clearly distraught. She continued ranting about how they should be expulsed from the lake, that in her school no dangerous creatures roamed freely or were left untamed. But Hermione wasn't listening.
Fleur's hostage hadn't been returned, she knew Harry, and he would never leave someone behind, But surely he hasn't taken the song seriously, she thought I mean he has his moments but he isn't THAT thick..
But the more she thought about it, the more it made sense, and she didn't want to think of a more dangerous reason either, so she stuck to it.
She was so thoughtful, so worried about Harry, that she hadn't said a word since getting to the group of champions. Krum turned to her, and tried to get her attention. He tapped her on her shoulder but still she didn't look at him, too engrossed in her thoughts and her brow furrowed, her eyes staring into space. So he quickly pecked her on the cheek, and she immediately turned to him, replacing her frown with a look of shock, her eyes round and wide. And they were face-to-face, inches apart. She was Krum's girlfriend after all, so he leaned in to kiss her.
Hermione gave a huge jerk backwards. They had been kneeling on the floor, and she jumped backwards so hard and fast that she kneed Krum in the chin, making his head knock upwards, and making a sickening snapping sound, as his bottom jaw was rammed into his top one.
He instantly pulled back, massaging his chin and looking completely embarrassed, staring at the ground. He hoped that the others hadn't seen what had happened. Luckily, Cedric was staring at Fleur, slightly drooling, and Cho was glaring at Cedric, then at Fleur and back at Cedric, trying to decide who she was going to shout at first. As for Fleur, she was in her little own Fleur-World and didn't notice anything at all.
Hermione was lying on her back, pressed up on her elbows, staring at Krum with a look that clearly said `What the hell do you think you're doing!?', her mouth slightly open in shock.
He was completely lost for words, and she looked murderous, so he thought it best not to make a scene in front of the
others, and pulled her away from the group. They walked a bit, and as soon as they were out of earshot, she started
shouting at him, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing, that he had no right etc…all the while letting out
the stress and worry she had over Harry, taking it out on Krum.
He didn't know how to fix it, he didn't know what to do, he was cowering under this angry Hermione, and he
tried to justify himself.
"I thought it vould be alright! It is vat boyfriend and girlfriend do!"
Hermione's rage flared up a notch and it was like her eyes were on fire.
"I am NOT your girlfriend, nor am I your prize, I'm not something you can do whatever you want with!"
Nice one Viktor he thought to himself.
"But I thought you felt the same about me as I did about you, I mean I'ff neffer felt the same vay about a girl before..." he attempted.
At that, Hermione was simply taken aback, never had anyone said something like that to her, let alone a boy.
Krum seemed to think that her ceased shouting meant that she felt the same way and continued: "Hermione, vould you like to visit me over the summer? If you're not doing anything ov course".
Hermione was saved the trouble of finding a nice way to say no by a huge cry from the crowd, something had broken the stillness of the water's surface.
"Harry!" she cried, and ran off to the water's edge, towards Harry, leaving a disgruntled Krum just standing there with no answer in her wake.
Her heart was beating fast as she rushed to see if he was ok, the worry slowly draining out of her as she saw him and Ron walking towards them, along with a shiny-haired girl and a sort of escort of Merpeople.
What did he do now! she thought, a smile crossing her face. He always managed to make the most dramatic of appearances, and didn't ever mean to.
She tried to get to him but was pushed out of the way by Percy, Fleur and Madam Pomfrey, each rushing to a different person. When Hermione finally managed to get to Harry, he had steam gushing from his ears.
"Harry, well done!" she cried. "You did it, you found out how, all by yourself!"
She congratulated him exuberantly, something she somehow hadn't bothered to do to Krum.
"You haff a water beetle in your hair, Herm-own-ninny" said Krum suddenly appearing out of nowhere. She brushed it away impatiently, not even looking at him, and returned her attention to Harry, fully knowing that Krum had tried to get her focus back onto himself, instead of Harry.
Then the question that had been on her mind since she had regained consciousness burst out. "Did it take you ages to find us?"
She knew that wasn't it, but she didn't want to ask him if he had been thick enough to wait down there to get everyone back, even though the presence of the shiny-haired girl, who by Fleur's reaction Hermione had figured out was her sister, practically validated her theory.
But Harry's eyes darted around to the judges table, and they both noticed Karkaroff watching them, and she let it go, knowing that he would explain in detail later on, away from the prying eyes of Karkaroff.
Hermione took his arm and guided him towards the other champions. Cho and Cedric were having a heated argument, Cho pointing a few times towards Fleur, and Cedric with a frown that clearly showed he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Madam Pomfrey was attending to Fleur, who pushed her away, not caring that her robes were torn and that she was covered in cuts and bruises and asked that she look after her sister.
Fleur then turned to Harry, who had just arrived, Hermione dropping his arm straight away, not wanting Fleur to notice and make a big deal out of it. She was already in enough trouble with Krum, even though she didn't care about making it worse, she still didn't need someone to start suspecting something going on between her and Harry, so as to make Harry suspicious.
After all, Harry is a smart boy, but she blessed his daftness when it came to girls, because she wasn't ready for him to find out about her evolved-crush, not wanting to ruin their friendship if he rejected her.
Hermione didn't hear what Fleur said to Harry but when she bent down and kissed him twice on the cheeks she immediately felt her face flush with rage, approaching the point of outburst similar to that she had had with Krum.
How dare she!! That stupid, bimbo-ing, incapable, self-absorbed, pretentious - but her thoughts were cut short by Ludo Bagman's magically magnified voice booming around them, making everyone jump.
While he started awarding points to the champions Hermione tried to calm her jealousy down. Watch your jealousy
flares, she told herself, he's not your Harry! Well at least not yet… she thought
wryly, a dreamy smile coming across her face. She shook her head, You've got to watch it, it's the second
time you've overreacted over something like this.
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During the Yule Ball.
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She watched as he danced with Parvati on the dance floor, completely clueless as to what to do. Parvati might find
it annoying that he didn't know how to dance, but Hermione thought it was cute to see how much effort he had to put
into it and quietly wished she were the one teaching him how to dance. He was so handsome in his dress robes, she
wished she could walk up to him and tell him she got so dressed up just for him, that he was the guy she woke up for in
the morning, that he was the boy who was on her mind day and night.
Suddenly she felt a hand move down her back, and turned to see Krum's harsh Bulgarian face smiling back at her. Not that he was ugly; he had a chiseled face, with a strong jaw, and a ruggedness that came with his age. But he was nothing like Harry, he didn't have his charm or his bravery, to say the least of the differences.
But beggars cant be choosers, and no one else had asked her, so she had said yes and gone with Krum, after all, the whole point of this tournament was international magical cooperation, and he had a sweet shyness to him after all.
The song changed and she saw Harry and Parvati walking back towards the tables, well more like Harry dragging Parvati away, and all Hermione wanted was to follow him. But Krum grabbed her arm and lead her deeper into the crowd of dancers, so that they were all sandwiched together in front of the stage, some dancing rather stupidly, and others just swaying with the crowd.
She couldn't see a thing, except for people's backs or arms here and there, and of course Krum who was doing a weird sort of chicken dance. She barely managed to stifle a laugh, she didn't want to hurt his feelings but it was hard to keep a straight face when he put his hands behind his neck and started to sort of thrust his body back and forth.
The song finally ended and she rushed out of the crowd, not wanting to be squashed again. She was just about to move towards Harry's table when Krum emerged from the crowd just in time to stop her and tried to pull her back in, but Hermione couldn't go back in there, it was like a moshpit at a metal concert, or like an overcrowded water park. She laughed at the prospect of explaining water parks to Krum and simply said she was thirsty and asked him to get her a drink.
As soon as he went off she looked towards Harry, and saw him looking at her, a strange look in his eye. Why is he looking at me like that? she asked herself, a smile drawing itself across her face, and she quickly wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead, strangely they had appeared after the dancing, as soon as she had met his gaze.
" -Oh what? So you're going to be nervous around him now!?", she mentally battled with herself
"- Well it's not my fault that he has that effect on me, it's those eyes, those emerald green eyes they just -"
"- Yeah, yeah, whatever, get a grip, wave at him, get his attention and go say hi!"
She did as she had told herself and waved at him and then started walking around tables and chairs to get to him. But as she moved, she noticed that his gaze didn't follow, he was still staring at the same spot.
"- Maybe he's day-dreaming" the confident voice in her head spoke up.
"- Ehem, it's night time now, how do you expect him to be DAY- dreaming at night?" the smart-ass voice commented.
"- What, you expect me to say he's NIGHT-dreaming? How stupid is that!"
"- OY!! Let's get back to the present party shall we? Coz while you've been bickering, he's still staring at the spot where we were" another voice sprang out.
With all the noise the band and dancing people were making, plus the silly voices in her head, Hermione's head was starting to hurt. She closed her eyes and began massaging her temples. Then the last voice that had spoken said:
"You do realize how stupid you look just standing on the spot with your eyes closed while everyone's dancing right?"
She growled frustratedly and opened her eyes. She finally made up her mind, that is to say quieted all the voices in her head, and followed Harry's gaze to see what he was so longingly staring at.
"CHO!!!" the voices all shouted together, and each one started defaming her, each with their own `researched' vocabulary.
"WHAT!! He's staring at HER!!" a voice towered over the others " How dare he! I spend hours getting ready! Putting on make-up and doing my hair, I spend galleons on a dress, and HE'S staring at other girls! And plus he's looking at that pretentious idiotic man-enslaving thinks-she's-queen-of-the-world - "
"- Well she's in Ravenclaw so she's not really an idiot is she?" the smart voice butted in.
"GAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!" Hermione's mind exploded as the voices rambled on. She got very red in the face at the sight of him staring at her and would've burst out screaming if that wasn't what she was doing inside her head,
"I seriously need to get myself something to release my stress" one of the voices said, unheard by all the rest, since the voice was still exploding in her mind. "Maybe a diary.."
She took a few breathes and calmed down a bit, as she regained her composure, she was still rather pink in the face, but her boiled blood was slowly returning to normal, and her face was slowly becoming normal again.
She decided not to let this little detail bother her, and went to draw Harry's attention to her, and maybe see if he wanted to dance. Normally she wouldn't be so forward, but she had to show-up Cho, even if she hadn't really done anything
As she approached him he finally turned his attention to her.
"Hi" said Harry. Ron didn't say anything.
"It's hot, isn't it?" Said Hermione, acting as if the dancing had been the cause of her face getting all red. "Viktor's just gone to get some drinks." She didn't know why exactly she mentioned him, but she wondered if it was some inner irrational desire to make Harry jealous.
She was just about to ask him if he wanted to dance when Ron cut in and started accusing her of betraying Harry,
to help Krum. It struck a nerve in her already stressed out mind and a huge row ensued, effectively ruining her chance
to ask Harry, along with her whole night.
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Back to the task
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…Mr Potter's score is forty-five points" boomed Bagman's voice at the end, catching
Hermione by surprise. She quickly recovered however, and started clapping hard with the others, beaming up at
Harry's incredulous figure.
Krum made one last attempt at Hermione's attention, but was shot down once more.
She had eyes only for Harry.
[I put voices in her head because I needed a bit of dialogue, normally it would be a friend who would argue with her, but since she's told no one, I have to insert voices in her head. But I personally think she would have inner battles, seeing as she had been used to being friendless. Anyway that's all, plz take the time to leave a review.]
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