Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of HP but I do own this little plot.
Author's note: This is a chapter which is leading up to the thing we've all been waiting for…hint hint! It's slightly sad but I hope I managed to convey their feelings for one another well enough. This is for Yun Ting. Happy Birthday dear! ,
Well done! We are well on our way to towards our goal and I congratulate you for having successfully established a close relationship with that lucky witch! We shall now proceed on in this quest by moving on to the fifth step in winning her heart:
5. Listen to her when she talks.
Many will scoff at this. It sounds so ludicrously simple that most may be thinking at this juncture, "Of course I listen to her." But do you really listen to what she is saying? Most wizards make the mistake of thinking that just because they are sitting there and watching her lips move; they are listening to the lady. But that is not so.
Most witches (if not all) like to talk. They can talk about their problems, their worries, their insecurities as we have seen in the last chapter. However the complaint I hear from so many witches is that their boyfriends (and even some husbands) don't understand them fully. And why is that so? It's because these wizards have made the mistake of not listening to their girlfriends, causing them to not know everything their girlfriend wants and needs from them.
The important trick in this game is to always listen. Don't just sit there and stare at her lips moving, thinking about how really hot she is and giving non-committal answers. You have to show her that you respect what she is saying, what she is trying to tell you. Listen attentively. Don't break eye contact by looking down at the floor or your hands or elsewhere when she is talking, because it sends her the message that you're bored and you're just sitting her to listen to her out of the sheer politeness of it all.
As I emphasized before, honesty and mutual respect is very important. Look into her eyes, listen attentively. This cannot be emphasized enough. Don't interrupt her when she's saying something, talk only when she has finished speaking. This in turn will send her the signal that you care about what she is saying, that it means a lot to you and that you are listening genuinely to what she is saying because you care and you're not sitting there out of mere politeness.
So get out there and don't forget to listen, listen and listen!
-12 Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches, Chapter 5, Listen With Your Heart
Hermione frowned down at the parchment, its words seeming to glow in the harsh glare of the light. She studied its contents once more, her eyes roving over the list of ingredients, instructions and other seemingly endless effects of the potion. With a sigh, she propped her chin using her right hand, staring blankly at the parchment, her thoughts in actual fact far, far away from the potion that the Healers had concocted to counteract the elusive illness that they had been actively trying to cure for so long.
She was in fact, disturbed about something else. Something that did not have to do with work, but rather something that had to do with Ron. She didn't know why it was bothering her so much now, but yet there it remained in her mind, refusing to be simply dismissed like that without her thinking about it in great depth.
After the ball, when Harry had helped her back up to the ballroom, she had been slightly perturbed to see that Ron had not noticed her long-drawn absence nor had he noticed her slightly puffy eyes as he had simply dragged her off to meet Jesse Wright, the Quidditch Captain of the Falcons. At first, she'd just dismissed it, not wanting to make a mountain out of a molehill.
But yet, over the day it seemed to nag at her. As her boyfriend, shouldn't Ron have been the one to notice her obvious misery of her awful haircut (which she had managed to salvage the other day upon finding a hair growing potion)? Shouldn't he have been the one to comfort her, to tell her that she was beautiful instead of Harry?
Not that she minded Harry being the one to tell her that she looked beautiful and that those women had no idea what they'd been talking about her in the bathroom. She had felt a sudden rush of warmth, of something when he told her that, she could see it from the earnest conviction in his emerald eyes, the intensity in his voice when he'd told her that she was beautiful. She'd felt gratified when she saw how truly angry he was at those women for having gossiped such poisonous things about her, form the way he had set his jaw when listening to her tearfully recount the entire incident.
He made her believe that she was and could be everything that she could be.
But yet, shouldn't Ron have been the one to do all that, if Ron was her boyfriend?
It would have been so much better if things had just stopped at that. But lately it seemed as though something was wrong, something was missing after that. It felt wrong when Ron hugged her, when he kissed her even, and she seemed to be trying ways and means to avoid him, to avoid his acts of love towards her. She could not help but recoil slightly even when he took her hand out in the street sometimes but could not bring herself to pull away, only being able to force a weak smile onto her face.
And when Ron told her he loved her, she found herself wondering, even as she said the same thing back to him, Do you really mean it? Do I really mean it?
It had gotten worse of late. She no longer felt in love with him anymore and she knew it. She found herself constantly comparing what Harry did with Ron for some reason and she always felt so guilty for doing that to Ron. Like when Harry had sent her a bouquet of lilies the other day to congratulate her on having successfully made a breakthrough in finding the cure for that disease, it had been all she could have done, not to admire it so as not to have to compare how sweet Harry was to her as compared to Ron.
She'd realized a lot of differences between the both of them however, how Harry would always, always ask how her day was and consciously remembered what had been going on in her workplace, and she knew he was truly interested in what she had done. But Ron, she realized with yet another pang, had only, after Harry asked what was going on in her life, asked what she was doing in St. Mungos' and the feeling she had gotten was that it was merely an obligatory question, because he barely waited for an answer before going on into what he had done at practice today, how many goals he had saved and how he was no longer just a reserve on the team but the official Keeper of the team.
It bothered her how Harry was always taking the time to talk to her, to help her figure out what was the ingredient that the cure needed despite his adequacy at the subject but how Ron never seemed to care, only offering the requisite, "If you need any help, I'm there." But there was such a big difference between offering to help and helping, she'd realized.
With a sigh, she stood up, the legs of her chair scraping against the floor loudly with her abrupt motion, but she didn't care. Carefully weighing the parchment down with another book, she left the room and headed for Harry's room. She needed to talk to him, she had to try and figure out what had been going on lately. He would understand, she knew, he would care, seeing as how Ron was his friend as well. Maybe he could help her.
She spotted a silver of light beneath his door and couldn't prevent the soft sigh of relief that she released, belying how much she really, really needed to talk to him. With that she tapped at his door, standing in the dark hallway quietly, her hands quietly twisting themselves as she waited. She could hear his footsteps coming and the door opened.
"Mione?" Harry opened his door wide, his brow furrowing in concern and curiousity, apparently not noticing that he was wearing only his pajama pants, his chest being exposed and revealing a very well-toned six pack. Hermione flushed at that thought immediately at that thought, almost guiltily and looked down. 'What's wrong?"
She looked up then, trying to avert her eyes from his chest. "I… I just needed to talk to you…" She cleared her throat quietly, keeping her eyes locked with his. "Can I come in?" Merlin, she hoped he couldn't see her blushing.
"Yeah… sure, come in." Harry stepped aside to let her enter his room, running a hand through his hair as he shut the door behind her.
She was pleasantly surprised to see that it was relatively neat, his Auror textbooks being piled up in a stack at the corner of the room, notes and some other pieces of parchments strewn across the table in what she assumed he must have been studying. She knew his Auror examination was coming up and once he passed, he would be a full-fledged Auror. Carefully, she walked over to his bed and seated herself on the edge, her toes sinking into the carpet on the floor as she stared at her hands in her lap.
He walked over, grabbing a white shirt thrown over the back of his chair and yanking it over his head as he leaned against the table to watch her for a few minutes, his silence and the way his eyes traced her face, her body made her feel almost nervous. She flushed again at his gaze, realizing she must have looked a sight, her hair rather mussed and she yanked the flaps of her robe together so as to hide the silky camisole and shorts she had been wearing underneath them.
He cleared his throat uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "So, is something wrong?"
Hermione sighed, some of the tension leaving her body as she continued staring at her hands in her lap. "I… I don't really know." She admitted softly, all the thoughts jumbling themselves in her mind. "I… I guess… it's about Ron."
Was it just her or did Harry seem to tense a little at Ron's name? Was it just her imagination that he seemed to straighten slightly and the muscle in his jaw clench momentarily? But she blinked and the tension in his body language seemed to have dissipated.
"Yeah, Ron." Harry shoved his hands into the pockets of his pajama pants, now dropping his gaze to the floor as well. "So, is something wrong between him and you?" His voice was slightly curt, and she looked up at him, her own brow furrowed in confusion at his almost abrupt tone when talking about his best friend.
"Well, yeah." Harry looked up at these words as well, looking at her almost expectantly but a hint of confusion in them. "I… I don't really know how to put it," She paused, trying to find the right way to phrase her thoughts without revealing that she had been comparing Ron to him with everything he did. "I don't think he really cares about me."
"What do you mean?" Harry asked, concerned. Was she just thinking too much or did he sound slightly excited at that mention? She shook her head, hoping to clear her head of all these crazy thoughts. Merlin, she was really reading too much into all this.
Harry interpreted her gesture as an answer as he replied, in a slightly less excitable tone, "I guess he should care for you…" He looked down once more, directing his words to the floor. "I mean, he, you know, hugs you and holds your hand all the time, doesn't he?" The words sounded brief and uncomfortable coming from him.
Hermione sighed, and shut her eyes. "Harry, you should know that that doesn't necessarily mean that he really cares for me, do you?" She inhaled sharply before continuing. "I don't need hugs or his kisses," She failed to see Harry look up at this mention of intimacy. "I just need him to tell me he loves me and that when he says it, he means it."
"Do you?"
"Well, no." Hermione found herself floundering upon opening her eyes to meet his intense gaze, "I mean, yes. I… don't know." She admitted softly, unsteadily. "I…love him…I guess. But… but its no longer enough anymore."
"What do you mean it's no longer enough anymore?" She could now clearly hear the note of restrained anticipation in his voice but did not bring it up.
"I… I don't know!" She burst out. "He tells me he loves me, but I can't bring myself to say the same anymore! If I do say it back to him, it just feels so… so wrong!" She paused, hoping to swallow some of the emotion in her voice. "I get the feeling that he likes the idea of me…but that he doesn't care about me."
There was a long-drawn silence at her little outburst before Harry pushed himself off the table and knelt by her, taking her hand in his.
"Listen," he began. "I'm not sure if Ron knows… you know, all this." He sighed and squeezed her hand slightly. "Maybe he just doesn't know how to put it, how to make it right. You know he's never been good at handling girls and I don't think he meant to make you feel that way." He paused, seeming to want to say something more. "I think he still loves you a lot." The last sentence came out of his mouth almost unwillingly.
Hermione looked down into his eyes, trying to decipher that odd expression in their depths, the one that looked neither comforting nor encouraging, but rather, almost sad. "Do you really think so?" She settled for a question instead and found herself anticipating his answer for some reason.
He released her hand at that, and stood effusively, not meeting her gaze. "Yeah."
Hermione found herself strangely disappointed at his answer, but took his standing and his answer as an almost silent dismissal and found some tears pricking at her eyes, for reasons unknown. She felt let-down, miserable at the way the entire thing had turned out.
She stood too, looking down at the carpet. "Well," her voice broke slightly and she cleared her throat, steadying it. "Thanks for listening. I… I won't disturb you any further." She too slipped her hands into the pockets of her robe, not wanting to look at him any longer and with that, she left, without a backward glance at his stricken face.
Something seemed to have changed between the both of them as well, she thought, a solitary tear sliding down her cheek as she went back to her room.
Only she didn't know what.
Okay this is slightly sad but I hope you guys still liked it! Please review!