It was only a few days ago that I had made my speech in Ginny’s Muggle Studies class and everyone is still buzzing about it. I didn’t really think that it would’ve received this much support when I first had the idea to add it in a few minutes before I spoke. Ginny is convinced that I had planned it out, though. As for me, I’m still embarrassed that I got emotional during a class speech. At least it wasn’t graded.
“So,” said Ginny as we walked along a hallway to the Great Hall. “Are you still convinced that your speech wasn’t impressive?”
Right then, a seventh year whom I wasn’t familiar with came up at patted me on the back.
“You go, Hermione,” the tall one said.
“Yeah,” agreed his friend. “Tell ‘em like it is, tell ‘em like it is,” he said as he playfully punched me in the arm. As fast as they had come, they just as quickly left.
I was still rubbing my arm when Ginny spoke up again. “Well?” she asked expectantly with a grin.
“I am glad that I was able to finally convince people to do something, but I’m telling you, I didn’t plan this out.”
“Right,” Ginny said as if she didn’t believe me. “Come off it now, you obviously must have thought of it ahead of time.”
“Yeah, about three minutes ahead of time,” I argued. What I really had to thank for my ‘amazing’ speech was my mind for thinking about Harry right before I stood up at the podium. I felt as if I had to do something right at that moment to convince others to help me. Conveniently I all ready had an audience. “The speech wasn’t that great you know.” It was true. I had made the whole thing up as I went along and even now I barely remember what I said to them.
“Uh huh,” Ginny said without really listening. “Remember the D.A. turnout last night?”
She did have a point there. Last night was another of our D.A. meetings, only this time the number of people who came doubled. Harry and Ron were both shocked.
Harry watched with raised eyebrows as people flooded through the Room of Requirement. Thankfully, the room expanded to fit our desperate need of space.
“Wow Hermione,” Harry said. “I still haven’t heard your speech, but it must have been terribly good to get all these people to join,” he remarked as he made a wide gesture around the room.
“I’m glad I have finally said something that people want to listen too,” I said.
“Haven’t you seen one of those fliers Dean Thomas has been handing out?” Ron asked Harry. “It has practically all of Hermione’s speech written on it.”
It was true. It had most of my main points on it and the fliers themselves cried for attention. Dean had made them on the most outrageous colors of paper he could find. They have been posted on notice boards in colors of lime green, hot pink, and sunburst orange. On the fliers was a bewitched picture of a huge smiley face that continuously winked mischievously at you. It said mostly what I had said about getting everyone to work together or else all would fall apart. I felt really honored that everyone was taking heed to what I was saying. All ready I have seen Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and Gryffindors trying to get to know each other better. I do know that the Slytherins will need further convincing to work with us. They won’t listen to a wishy-washy speech from a Gryffindor who they all love to hate, thanks to Malfoy.
“No,” Harry said. “But I guess I better get my hands on one to see what this is all about.”
During the lesson, Harry taught everyone a couple charms I pointed out to him in a book earlier. With Ginny as my partner, we tried the Confundus Charm on each other first. For fifteen minutes after we cast our spells, we ambled around the large room, very confused. Next, we learned the Conjunctivitis Charm where we almost blinded each other. My vision was a blur for a while before Ginny and I convinced ourselves that we were doing fine (that, and we hated having to do these spells on each other; they gave us splitting headaches). I noticed that Malfoy still attended the meetings even though some of his friends had quit coming. I also noticed that Ginny noticed. Which each glance she glance him, her face always turned back to me looking more somber. Thankfully we had accomplished a lot that night despite the surprising size doubling of our group.
I shook my head from the memory and turned back to face Ginny as we neared the Great Hall. The windows behind her were frosted over, but it didn't matter anyways because I knew what I would see. White. And lots of it. For the beginning of December, we all ready had a load of snow that had seemed to land overnight.
“Yeah, I suppose you have a point there,” I replied sheepishly. I didn't want to be boastful every time someone brought up my speech (which was strangely a lot) and I found that being modest was a lot easier and it removed you from the spotlight quicker.
When we entered the Great Hall several groups noticed and stopped talking; giving us a look. It was no ordinary look. It was the look you get from people who were just talking about you, and even though they stop talking, you can always tell. Thankfully it must've not been bad because most of them beamed at me. Ginny nudged me.
“See that?” she said. “Those are your supporters. Look, there's Ravenclaws at the Hufflepuff table and Hufflepuffs at the Gryffindor table!” she exclaimed excitedly. As I looked in the direction she pointed, I noticed exactly what she said. I saw that the Slytherins sat arrogantly at their table with expressions that dared anyone from another house to take a seat at their table. Obviously the Slytherins weren't in favor of house integration.
I pointed out the Slytherins to Ginny. “See? I'm not as good as you say I am. The Slytherins will never listen to me.”
Ginny looked at me, shocked. “Hermione Granger, you will never be pleased with yourself, will you? I think it's amazing that we've gotten this far this quickly!” she said, wildly gesturing at the first three tables.
I hated to admit it, even to myself, but she was right. Everything that was happening right now was beyond anything I ever thought would come out of this. We sat down at the Gryffindor table where Harry, Ron, and Neville were chatting avidly with Justin Finch-Fletchley and Susan Bones. I noticed Harry was pouring over one of Dean's fliers. Apparently he finally got one. The one he had was one of the sunburst orange ones. The spell that bewitched the smiley face to continuously grin and wink was wearing off as its eyes began to close tiredly with each smarmy wink it gave.
“Hey Hermione,” Harry said looking up. “You know, Ginny and Ron were right. This is amazing,” he said as he took a bite of a sandwich and tapped on the flier with his wand. The face became rejuvenated again as its grins became wider and its winks became more hearty.
I smiled. I could see several around the other tables with people obviously talking about them. Some even found their way to the Slytherin table where they were being mercilessly ripped up and burned by wand sparks. My smile became tight as I said, “I'm glad you think so. Too bad everyone doesn't think the same.”
Harry could tell I was talking about the Slytherins as he caught my wry glance at their table. “Oh Hermione, you should just forget about them and be happy with what you've done all ready. Everyone knows that they're just a bunch of jerks,” Harry stated as everyone around us agreed.
I sighed as I turned away from the Slytherin table. If only there was a way that I could get through to the Slytherins. I can't be pleased with only half completing what I set out to do in the first place, which was to unify the school. Not just three houses. No one could understand that, apparently.
Harry and Ron broke off from their conversations to speak with me as Ginny stroke up a new conversation with a couple of Ravenclaws who had just come over.
“Hermione, we've got something big to tell you,” Ron said quietly as Harry nodded.
“What?” I said, fearing for the worst.
“Okay, there's no easy way to say this, but Dumbledore thinks that the war could be ending soon, possibly somewhere this school year,” Ron said. “And you know what that means,” he said as he tilted his head in the direction of Harry as Harry nodded grimly.
I felt my heart plummet as confusion entered my mind. “What?” I repeated. “But it's barely begun! How could it be close to over?”
“That's the thing,” Harry spoke up. “It's possibly close to over,” Harry said in a whisper. “It all really depends on which side wins. You see, if Voldemort loses and I...erm...kill him, then yes, the war would technically be over. But if I happen to lose...and you know...Voldemort wins, then they might as well not call it the Final Battle...unless they refer to it as my final battle,” Harry said awkwardly. Ron had cringed every time Harry said Voldemort's name, and he picked up where Harry left off.
“Dumbledore reckons that You-Know-Who wants to get Harry out of the way as soon as possible so he can go back to how he used to live before Harry became involved,” Ron said in a hushed tone. That made sense, but there was still one thing that was bothering me.
“How do you two know all of this?” I asked inquisitively.
Harry and Ron exchanged a look.
“A member from the Order came to the school last night to talk to Dumbledore,” Ron said. “We wouldn't have known if Harry here didn't overhear his name. Then Harry decided to listen to what was going on...you know...since involved him and all.”
Harry nudged Ron in the ribs forcefully and Ron scowled. “What was that for? It was the truth, wasn't it?”
“Oh come off it. You're making it look like I did it alone when it was your idea to 'investigate' in the first place,” Harry said.
I sighed heavily. When will they ever learn? “You two are just lucky you weren't caught by a teacher,” I scolded. “You could've gotten into serious trouble listening to someone's conversation. And it was the headmaster's conversation, for Merlin's sake!”
“But Hermione, it wasn't our fault that we overheard it! We couldn't help but see what it was about!” Ron argued.
“I still don't know why Dumbledore didn't put an Imperturbable Charm on the door so he couldn't be overheard,” I commented. “I think that’s kind of strange.”
“Maybe he wanted us to overhear him,” Harry said. “But that would be kind of dodgy, wouldn’t it? I mean; he could just bring us to his office and tell us what we need to know, couldn’t he?”
Ron looked from Harry to me and then said, “Dumbledore works in very mysterious ways. Who knows what he could have meant? The point is that we heard what we heard and there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms. “Well since there’s nothing we can do about it now, did you hear anything else that is relevant?”
“Yeah, hang on…” Harry said. “As a matter of fact, Dumbledore mentioned that he has managed to convince the goblins to join our side.”
“Yeah, that surprised me a lot,” Ron said. “I mean, after Ludo Bagman didn’t pay them back their gold, I was afraid that they would go and swear off helping anyone. And that Bagman still hasn’t paid Fred and George back yet. I wish he would pay them so that they would shut up about it all ready,” Ron said grumpily.
“Well that’s good,” I said. “I thought the goblins might side with Voldemort, but I guess you never know. So is that it then?”
Harry nodded. “That’s all we heard. There was probably more, but we didn’t hear the first part.”
I looked at Harry concernedly and felt myself worrying again. What would happen? Would it be long before Voldemort decides to attack? Was Voldemort still gaining followers? Then I began to criticize myself. I hadn’t done enough. I need to somehow get the Slytherins convinced that they need to work with everyone else. But how could I possibly get them to work against some of their own parents? This is mad. I’m a nutter for thinking I can do any of this.
‘But look at what you have done,” a voice in the back of my head said. ‘Amazing, huh? Did you ever think you could accomplish this much?’
No, but…
‘Exactly. Harry is really pleased with you, too.’
What does Harry have to with anything? But at the thought of Harry my heart always does a little tumble. It’s probably because I’m so afraid for him all of the time.
‘Who are you kidding?’ the back of my mind responded.
Just then, Ginny pulled me aside. I’m glad she did it right at that time because now I’m afraid I’m going mad having a conversation with myself in my mind.
“Hermione?” she asked after she noticed I finished talking with Harry and Ron.
“Yes?” I responded as I lifted my gaze from the table.
“Is it…er…okay if we go take a walk around the school?” she asked after she looked around at all of the people around us. “I kind of have to talk to you about something.”
Harry and Ron caught this bit, giving us both curious looks.
“It’s a girl thing,” Ginny added. Harry and Ron’s interest faded just as quickly as it had come as they went back to whatever they were talking about. Quidditch, I suspect. Honestly, you would think that they both still think girls have cooties or something.
I grinned as I watched Ron make a face to Harry as they both turned away. “Sure,” I answered as we both got up from the table.
When we had walked out of the Great Hall and started for the stairwell, I then asked her what was wrong.
“Are you still okay, Gin?” I asked. I knew that she was still a bit upset about Malfoy not talking to her. I still don’t know why he continues to avoid her.
“Yeah, I’m fine…well kind of,” she said. “It’s just that…I think I’ve realized something that I don’t want to admit to myself…so that’s why I want to tell you about it. Maybe if I talk to someone…a girl preferably…I can figure out what’s going on here.”
“Well I’m up to listening,” I told her as we passed a group of Ravenclaws and Gryffindors. They grinned at me and a couple gave me the thumbs up sign as they passed.
“Thanks,” Ginny said. “But this is kind of a secret…so would you mind not telling anyone?”
“Of course not,” I assured her. “You can trust me.”
“Okay, well,” Ginny said as she put her voice down to a whisper even though there wasn’t anyone around. “It’s kind of about Dra…I mean, Malfoy.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I thought so,” I said.
She gave me a surprised look. “You did? Why?”
“Oh I dunno,” I said. “I guess it was kind of just a gut feeling. But go on, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“Well,” she started again. “I know this might sound weird…but…”
“Go on,” I said.
“Erm, Hermione? I think I might be in love with Draco Malfoy,” she said as she winced, waiting for my reaction.
My eyebrows shot up. “Wow, Ginny…are you sure?”
Ginny turned scarlet and nodded a bit. “I think so…it’s just the way he makes me feel inside…you know? I always feel happy and light when I’m around him…or at least I used to before I had to go and ask he if he was going to become a Death Eater,” she said as her face fell.
I patted her back. “You know, it does sound like you are in love,” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” Ginny said. “And I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t even know why I do, I just do. I can’t let Malfoy know…what would he do if he knew a Weasley was in love with him?!” She seemed afraid at the thought. “I can’t let him know…but I had to tell someone…” she trailed off. “I was afraid that people might think I’m mad or something.”
I thought back to the conversation I had in my head a few minutes earlier. Now that was mad. “Don’t worry, Ginny,” I comforted. “You’re not mad. Trust me. And you shouldn’t worry about what other people think either.”
Ginny looked at me. “Thanks Hermione. That really helped.”
“No problem,” I said. “Anytime you want to talk, just pull me away from Harry and Ron.”
Ginny giggled. “Okay.”
There was a silence as we passed the library.
“Um, Hermione? There was also something I wanted to talk to you about…only it’s kind of about you,” she said.
“Really, now? What is it?” I asked with a puzzled expression.
“I know you might not want to hear this, but…”
“Go on,” I urged her again.
“But I think I’m not the only one who’s in love here,” she said looking at me.
“What? You don’t mean me do you? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“How can you say you don’t know? I think it’s painfully obvious.”
“What’s painfully obvious?”
“Well,” she began. “IkindofreallythinkthatyouloveHarry,” she spilled out.
“What?! I did not understand a word you just said.”
She took a deep breath. “I think you love Harry,” she said simply.
A look of bewilderment crossed my face. “Well…I…ah…of course I love Harry! He’s my best friend!” I sputtered.
Ginny grinned knowingly. “You know what I mean. I think you’re in love with Harry.”
I scrunched my eyebrows together and frowned. “That’s ludicrous! Who told you that? Witch Weekly?”
She laughed. “No, silly. I’ve made my own observations, thanks. And it’s not ludicrous…” she stopped. “Well do you?”
“Do I what?” I said impatiently.
“You know…do you love Harry?”
“Well no…erm…maybe? How am I supposed to know?!”
Ginny rolled her eyes. “Well they’re your feelings, after all. I thought you might know what’s going on.”
“What’s going on?” I asked with my cheeks flushing. I felt very much left out of this conversation even though it was only me and Ginny.
“I don’t know!” Ginny said. “I was asking you what’s going on with you and Harry!”
“Nothing’s ‘going on’!” I argued. “…at least I don’t think so,” I said uncertainly.
“There must be something going on,” Ginny said smiling slyly. “I’ve seen you two look at each other…so don’t deny it.”
“What? I can’t look at anyone now?” I said with my face feeling hot.
“You don’t look at anyone else the same way you look at Harry,” she said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said stubbornly. It was true; I had no idea what she was talking about at all.
“Merlin, Hermione!” she said exasperatedly. “Answer me a few questions then, will you?”
I nodded. “Okay…”
“Do you love being around him?”
“Well, yeah…he is my best friend, you know.”
“Don’t make excuses. Now let’s see…have you ever noticed strange little quirks or details about him?”
“Yeah…well I’ve always been fascinated with his eyes…” I said, feeling very embarrassed.
“Anything else?” she asked with her eyes twinkling mischievously.
“Um…” I said as I thought hard. “I’ve kind of noticed what he smells like…” I said as my face heated up even more, if that was at all possible.
“So…tell me about his eyes.”
I conjured up a picture of Harry in my mind. “Well his eyes are amazing…almost indescribable. They’re this intense shade of green, but they’re still very gorgeous…”
Ginny’s large grin was unbearable.
“What!?” I said defensively. “You asked me to describe them! Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of nutter.”
“Okay, fine. Last question then. Does your heart do a little flip every time you see him or think about him and is your stomach filled with butterflies around him?”
‘Oh no. She can’t be serious,’ I thought to myself as I recalled the many times my heart has turned and my stomach felt queasy. “Yes…but that’s because I’m worried about him!” I said.
“What did I say about excuses?” Ginny scolded. “I don’t want to hear them. Now, from what you have told me, it is obvious that you are in love with Harry Potter,” she said as we neared the Great Hall once again.
“That’s crazy,” I objected.
“Well you heard it out of your own mouth,” Ginny shrugged. “Now it’s up to you when you want to come out of denial.”
“I am not in denial!”
“What was that?”
“What was what?” I said as I felt myself growing impatient.
Ginny gave me a stern look.
“It was denial,” I said grumpily.
“Good,” Ginny said cheerfully. “Now that that’s settled, you might want to refer to Harry with a new name.”
“Why in the world would I do that?”
“You know, because he’s your crush. So he needs a code name.”
“Where do you get these ideas?” I asked her, perplexed. “And for the last time, he’s not my crush! He’s my best friend. And that’s it!”
“What did I say about being in denial?” Ginny said firmly. “Anyways,” she continued in her jovial manner, “I was thinking along the lines of ‘The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Steal-Your-Heart.’”
I looked at her like she was mad. “Are you insane? Besides, I’m sure he’ll never figure out who that is,” I said sarcastically.
“Oh come on, Hermione,” she said as we walked into the Great Hall. “You are too stubborn.”
Another round of people waved and grinned at me from their tables as we walked past. I sighed heavily. “Ginny, I just don’t think I can believe you. I don’t even want to be in love, how could I be in love?”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” she said in a distant tone. “You know, Hermione, we can’t always control everything in our lives. Even which people we love.”
At this point, Harry and Ron came up and joined in the conversation.
“Are you done with your girl talk now?” Harry said grinning at me.
“Yeah,” Ron said. “I still don’t see why you couldn’t talk in front of us.”
Ginny rolled her eyes with a grin. “Yes, Harry we were just finishing,” she said as she got back into her merry demeanor. She was probably happy from teasing me so much…argh. I still have no clue what she means…actually I do…but well…oh no, this sounds like denial.
Harry grinned at me, and then I felt very, very confused. Could I possibly be in love with my best friend? There were too many things wrong with this idea. Our friendship would probably be ruined…that, and what would Ron say? He’d probably think this whole thing is crazy, just like I do.
‘But it really isn’t that crazy if you think about it. You’re best friends. You know each other better than anyone else,” a voice in the back of my head said.
Oh no, not you.
‘You can’t be annoyed with yourself, now.’
Oh yes I can… Why is part of me even thinking about this?!
‘You know, he might love you back.’
Oh shut up… I don’t even want to think about this. How can he ‘love me back’ when I’m not even in love with him in the first place?!
‘Well, how are you so sure you’re not? Ginny gave some pretty good reasons…’
I’ve had my heart broken enough for one semester, thanks.
I then proceeded to drown out the voice in my head by chatting with some seventh year Hufflepuffs.
When my train of thought did happen to stop at Harry’s station, I found myself befuddled again. It was so confusing, yet it made so much sense. Not that I wanted it to. I suppose I must be weary from what Seamus did to me. Even that seemed years ago, even though it was only a couple months past. I don’t want to believe it, but could Harry really be The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Steal-My-Heart?
- H. Granger