Chapter Six “ Hermione’s Plan
It was the first weekend of the term and Harry had never been more relieved. Luckily he had only had to suffer through one of Snape’s classes; it had been clear, however, from that one class how thoroughly upset Snape had been that Harry had managed to get an O in Potions, and how sure he was that Harry had found a way to cheat. Other than that, the classes had been tough, but not unbearable. Hermione’s behavior was another story.
Early that Saturday morning, Harry came down to find Hermione in the common room writing her Charms essay. She was alone. It was time to approach her and ask exactly what was going on. He sat down in front of her. She looked up at him.
“Good morning, Harry.”
She turned back to her essay.
“That’s it? No ‘your eyes are so green today’, no ‘will you hold my knickers while I brush my teeth’?”
Hermione looked taken aback, but Harry could tell she was hiding a grin.
“I don’t know what you mean by that, but I have to finish this essay. Maybe you should have breakfast and do the same.”
She looked at him expectantly. He got up and walked out of the portrait and into the hall. He didn’t know what Hermione was doing, but he was going to get to the bottom of it eventually. He arrived at the Great Hall and sat down next to Dean and Ginny, then started shoving toast into his mouth, glaring at the butter dish as though it had insulted him.
“Something wrong, Harry?” Dean asked.
“I’m fine “ it’s just Hermione. She’s gone nutters.”
Ginny looked away nervously.
Just then Ron entered the Great Hall. He, too, had been acting oddly all week. Harry had originally thought it had something to do with Hermione- he had seemed hurt earlier in the week when she was ignoring him a little, but now he was just bad-tempered. Unfortunately, Ron hadn’t been around during the only times that Hermione was behaving normally.
“Morning, Ron.” Harry forced himself to sound cheerful.
“Morning, King Potter,” he replied with a note of sarcasm in his voice.
Ginny turned to Dean.
“I have to go take care of something, I’ll see you later.” She turned at left.
Harry knew she was going to see Hermione. He got up to leave.
“Going to see your girlfriend?”
He turned around to see Ron looking at him, his arms folded on the table.
“What are you talking about?”
“Hermione. I’m not stupid; something’s going on with the two of you.”
“Ron, whatever is going on with Hermione, I have no idea, but...”
“Whatever.”
Harry turned and left. This was ridiculous, Ron had been jealous of Harry before, but this had nothing to do with him. Besides, Hermione was following Harry around like a puppy dog. Why would anyone be jealous of that?
And to think I thought I only had to worry about when Voldemort was going to come kill me, he thought to himself.
He was coming around the corner to the picture of the Fat Lady, when he heard Ginny and Hermione’s voices. He stopped to listen.
“I think it’s time you stopped, Hermione.”
“Why? Everything’s going according to my plan. Harry is getting suspicious though.”
“Look, you’ve accomplished your goal...”
“We don’t know that.”
“What are you talking about? Have you seen him lately “ he’s obviously upset.”
“Well, when he asks me about it, then we’ll know for sure.”
“Hermione! You know already, why are you torturing him? He’s not going to say anything to you about it. He’s not like that... I know him. You know him.”
“Fine. I’ll stop. You’re right “ it’s not fair. Wedding Bells”
Harry heard someone enter the common room. He waited. Just then Ginny ran around the corner and knocked him over.
“Harry! What are you “ did you “ why...?”
Harry saved her the trouble of actually choking out her sentence.
“Ginny, I heard you and Hermione. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop lying. Just tell me, what’s going on?”
He glared at her, wishing that he knew Legilimency. She gave in.
“Fine. Hermione’s using you to make Ron jealous.”
“What? Why?”
“WHY? Are you completely clueless? Honestly... because she fancies Ron!”
She looked at him while she waited for him to catch on. Seeing that it wasn’t happening, she continued, trying to be clearer.
“She’s acting like she likes you, so that Ron will stop being a moron and do something about the fact that he likes her.”
Harry slowly caught on.
“That’s what Dean was talking about, on the train, about “ ”
“About them not accepting the truth.”
Finally everything made sense to Harry. The embarrassment over the wedding dream, Ron being angry with Harry, the reason why Hermione showed no interest in him while Ron wasn’t around. That night two years ago after the Yule Ball, when they had that huge argument over Ron not asking her, he had a feeling then there was something going on... but now Harry felt as though he had been ridiculously blind to everything all along. Why didn’t he figure it out sooner?
A/N: wow - just realizing how short this chapter is! anyway - please leave a review ;) the plot is brewing, I promise.