[A/N: Ah! Here it is, the dreaded book 6, *shivers* I tried to explain it as best I could, and I hope it's satisfactory. I play a little between direct memories and related memories, ull get what I mean when u start reading. Hope it's not too confusing, and good reading!!]
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Dumbledore's Funeral.
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"How had it come to this?" she lamented, while watching Harry and Ginny walking away from the neatly aligned white chairs, hand in hand. Hermione was sitting in one of the back rows of the funeral, on a seat next to where Harry had been, with Ron on her other side, against whom she was now leaning her head, silently crying against his chest, letting the tears fall against his dress robes, while he awkwardly caressed her hair, trying to comfort her, and his own tears fell and mingled with hers on the soft surface of his robes.
But this was not where she wanted to be, was not with whom she wanted to be. No, the person she wanted to be weeping against, the person she wanted to be comforting her was walking further away, with another girl attached to his arm.
And she cried.
She cried for Dumbledore. Though she never really knew him as well as Harry, she still knew what a great person and wizard he was, and how important he was to Harry.
She cried for Harry, for the ordeal he must be going through, blaming himself for some mistake that only he could make out as his. Once more, someone had gotten close to Harry, and had been taken away. "Why does he have to lose so much when all he does is give" she thought, a few more warm tears waterfalling down her cheeks.
And finally, she cried for herself, for the hole she currently found herself in, and for the irony that came with the fact that she had helped dig it. The whole year she had been getting further away from Harry, completely the opposite of what her heart desired.
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At the end of the previous year, when she thought she was on the edge of life, she had clung to whatever she could, just to be able to see him, and tell him what she felt for him. But when she had awoken, Harry was in no state to bear the burden of her love, already crushed under the loss of his godfather Sirius. To tell him she loved him at that moment wouldn't have brought him the comfort she wished she could have given him, but would instead have given him yet another thing to worry about.
So she had postponed her declaration, thinking it for the best, and decided to give him time. "I'll tell him eventually", she would tell herself. After they parted at King's Cross, she couldn't stop thinking about him, worrying and wondering. And most of all she wanted to be able to be there for him, to tell him everything would be okay, to show how much she meant it, in person. But she had to settle for feeble ink scribblings, mere shadows of what she wanted to express to him. In letters she attempted to console him, knowing full well that he would not read any of it, and just amass a pile of letters, while wallowing in his depression. But she hoped he would pull through, she hoped he would not stay deep in depression, and maybe see the light, and see that others needed him, that she needed him. She hoped he would be rational, and see that it was useless to replay the scene over and over again and blame himself, that Sirius would not have wanted Harry to waste away.
When she arrived at the Burrow, and learned that Harry would also be arriving, she made a decision, that she should tell him then, when she saw him. She recited what she was going to tell him over and over again, analysing every single detail, every single flaw she found had to be eliminated. Of course she knew so much could go wrong, and that it all depended on how Harry reacted. She was done waiting, she was ready, and she accepted what the consequences could be, seeing the potential of a blooming relationship between them enough to risk the friendship they already had.
And on the night before his arrival, her heart was pounding, and her fingers were trembling with anticipation and dread. She felt elated because she was finally going to release her long held secret, and she also felt worry at the unpredictability of his reaction. All she could hope was that he would feel the same, or at least not turn her down or anything of the sort.
She went up to her room after dinner, thanking and complementing Mrs.Weasley on her cooking, and bidding everyone a good night. It was fairly early, and usually she never went to sleep so early, but she wanted to be well rested and fresh, so as to make the best impression on Harry the next day, and not have sleepiness hinder her declaration. She quickly changed into her pyjamas and unfolded the covers on her bed, when someone knocked on the door to Ginny and hers bedroom.
"Are you descent in there?" came a perky voice from outside the door.
"Yeah Ginny, I'm dressed" Hermione replied, recognising the voice as her best female friend's.
The door creaked lightly as she opened the door and walked in, her flowing red curtain of hair swishing behind her. Only when she closed the door and assured herself that it was locked did she break the confused silence that had come to settle in the room.
"I kinda wanna have a private chat with you…"
"Of course Ginny, what about?" Hermione asked politely, sitting up on the edge of her bed and patting the spot next to her, signalling the redhead to sit down. But she waved it off and began pacing. Hermione was puzzled by her peculiar behaviour, she usually was so confident.
"Um…you remember how in first and second year I…ah…had a crush on Harry right?" she didn't stop her pacing, and was now fidgeting with her hands, staring at the floor while walking in a ellipse in the centre of the room.
"Yeah…" She pronounced it lengthily, urging her to continue.
"Well…er…I know I told you it was just a crush and that it passed…but…I never really…um…got over him" and at that she stopped her pacing and looked at her friend, waiting for her reaction.
Though Hermione's face and body language didn't betray it, inside her a brutal battle was waging, her mind battling against her heart, the first deciding to see to why Ginny was telling her this and what she wanted from her, and her primal heart wanting to scream ownership of Harry Potter and declare her undying love for him while beating Ginny to a red-haired pulp.
As always it was her rational mind that won, and Hermione settled for a nod, showing Ginny that she should continue. She seemed more confident now.
"I know that you told me to move on, that he didn't see me that way, and I tried! I did! I mean I went out with other guys and everything! But the more I tried to forget him, the more I realised he was the only one I wanted! I mean the guys I went out with were nothing compared to the Harry Potter".
And there lay the depth of Ginny's feelings. Hermione knew that Ginny wouldn't love Harry as much as she did, because she didn't know him as well as she did, and because she didn't want the same thing from Harry. What she knew of him was what she read in articles and glimpsed briefly in the few encounters they had had together. And of course she was bound to feel something for him since he saved her life.
"Hey, don't forget that you started having feelings for him when he saved you from the troll" a voice came up in her head. "True," another one answered, "but that was in first year, and I've had 5 years to get to know him, and to see him for what he really is, not just the poster boy for bravery and victory over evil".
"Um…if you say so, but why are you telling me this?"
"Because I need your help" Ginny replied, a desperate look in her eyes.
Hermione could faintly see where Ginny was going with this, but she wasn't going to help her get there. All she did was nod again.
"I'm going mad, I can't take it anymore, this image of little sister he has of me. It's driving me out of my mind, I need to get him to notice me! And I've tried everything I could think of, everything! And it hasn't changed anything" she sighed. "I've tried talking to him more, I've tried hanging around him more, I've tried insinuations, I've even been pretty forward a few times, and he STILL doesn't see me as anything more than his best friend's -"
"Ahem" Hermione interrupted indignantly.
Ginny redirected her gaze on Hermione, a confused and questioning look in her eyes, then after a split-second of hesitation she realised what she had said wrong. "Oh right, ONE of his best-friends' sister".
Hermione may want more of the relationship she had with Harry, but she was still proud of how close she actually was to him, and no way would she be overlooked just because she was a girl and boys are usually closer.
"I mean he hasn't even looked at me below my eyes! What kind of a boy is he!?" continued Ginny.
Hermione snorted. "Goes to show how well Ginny knows Harry, if she thinks doing all of those things will attract his attention."
Ginny seamed to think the snort was for Harry's comportment, instead of mocking her own, and powered on. "And now, this is where you come in. I need you to get him to notice me. You're the closest girl to him, and I'm not about to go to Ron for advice on how to get to snog his best mate."
"So this is what she wants hmm…"pondered Hermione "she wants me to get her Harry". This placed her in a difficult position, because if she said no to Ginny, then there would be no way to find an excuse that would convince her that it wasn't because she wanted Harry for herself. And of course not only would it ruin her friendship with the girl, but Ginny would probably go into one of her famous raging fits and go and tell Harry about Hermione's feelings for him. So, by saying no, she would lose her best female friend, and her perfect declaration would be ruined, and possibly her friendship with Harry as well.
But if she agreed to help Ginny out, she could lose her chance at having Harry, only to be replaced by Ginny.
Finally, Hermione decided that agreeing would be less risky, because it only posed a potential threat, whereas she was sure of Ginny's reaction if she denied her request.
"Ok, what do you need me to tell you?" Hermione said in the end. And as Ginny's face lit up, they embarked on a long discussion of all that is Harry, and what Ginny should do to get him. Countless times did Ginny gasp in surprise at certain descriptions of Harry's personality, another reminder of how superficial her obsession with him was.
Hermione was confident that she could deviate Ginny from Harry, and that anyway he would never go for her. But she didn't know of how determined and convincing the youngest Weasley could be, and could never suspect that by agreeing to Ginny's request, she officially started digging a hole that she would find herself stuck in at the end of the year.
So of course, the next day when Harry arrived, she did not profess her love to him, and either way never found a moment when she was alone with him. She stepped down from her determination, and left a spot for Ginny to gradually take the spotlight in Harry's life.
Another problem was added to the equation when he told her and Ron about the prophecy, because it appeared that the weight of the world did ultimately rest on his shoulders, and she was surprised he wasn't crumbling under all the emotional torture and mental strain he must have gone through the last month.
Though he was not in a depression, and she was grateful for it, she noticed a slight dimness in his eyes, their brilliance slightly faded since the last time she had seen them. And his smile did not seem to reach as high as it used to. Her heart saddened. "Would he ever feel truly happy again?" she wondered. And it only furthered her want to make him happy. But now was not the time, he still needed time, and she would wait to get to Hogwarts, where they would be more apart from Ginny.
Meanwhile her red-haired friend was still bombarding her with questions about what to do with Harry, to the point where Hermione was even suggesting what she should say.
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The months passed, and Hermione was slowly getting brainwashed by Ginny. Every night she would ask Hermione what to do, and every time Hermione would help, Ginny would blabber on about how perfect Harry and she would be together.
Hermione was never a very confident girl, except when it came to studies of course. And as more time passed, and Ginny got closer to Harry, she began to buy into Ginny's words, and began to think that they truly were meant to be. Especially when she would see how he smiled at her. It was his old smile, his happy one, not the shards of it that he would flash at anyone else.
And because of how much she loved him, she wanted his happiness most of all, and so she stepped away from Harry, slowly realizing that he didn't appear to need her anymore anyway. It broke her heart when Ginny and he got together, when they kissed in front of the whole common room, in a film-like embrace. "That's the stuff you see in romance movies" she though sadly "the stuff that has a dream- like ending." And she knew she had done the right thing for Harry, that even though she was in agony, it was worth it just to see that smile of his, even if it wasn't for her.
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Back to Funeral
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And so she cried for her predicament, her partly self-inflicted predicament.
All she could wish now is that she would manage to get over him somehow. But in her heart she knew it would be impossible, a love like she had for Harry never completely went away. All she had left was hope, either that she would get over him, or by some miracle, he and Ginny would break up, and she would manage to get back into the passenger seat of his life, so that she may try to change the tides again.
She never expected the latter to actually happen...