51Chapter 19
(Overwhelmed by the response for the last chapter, thanks y'all! Xo)
Ron sat on the sofa, mouth agape. He was expecting an explanation, but definitely not that one.
"Ron, really, stop making such a big deal out of it," said Hermione, who really just wanted to go to bed at this point.
"'Mione, do you even realise what you've just told me? What you've been doing? With him? Of all people… him!" said Ron, still in disbelief at the situation. Exhausted, Hermione couldn't think of anything to say to make him see reason, so she simply kept quiet and walked up to her dormitory. "Why couldn't you have just told me before?" Ron called after her.
"Because I know it's wrong…" Hermione mumbled to herself, closing the door on him.
Harry stood outside the girls' dormitory waiting for Hermione to wake up. Ron had gone to bed last night talking to himself about how Hermione was crazy and didn't know what she was doing.
"Harry, are you alright? The other girls said you've been waiting here for half an hour," said Hermione, dressed and ready for breakfast. She tucked some stray hairs behind her ear and Harry noticed her fingernails were painted a deep, scarlet red. He raised an eyebrow at her.
"That's new," he said.
"It's… It's nothing. Lavender said that… I should try it…" said Hermione, her cheeks blushing slightly.
"It's nice," smiled Harry. They walked down to the Great Hall for breakfast, a very grumpy Ron not too far behind.
"So you told Ron then?" asked Harry as they sat down to eat. Hermione shuffled uncomfortably as Ron sat down to join them.
"Yeah. She sure did," said Ron, piling sausages and eggs onto his plate.
"Ron, I –" started Hermione, but it was pointless. Ron had spotted Draco entering the hall, and proceeded to stab his fork into his sausage and rip it apart with his teeth. Hermione sighed, looking at Draco from the corner of her eye. He'd headed straight for the Ravenclaw table and placed a hand on Cho's shoulder. He was whispering in her ear, and Hermione wished she had a way to listen in. She wished she could be so public about their relationship like that.
"'Mione?" asked Harry, before following her line of sight to the scene unfolding at the Ravenclaw table. "What the…" Harry shook Hermione's shoulder, "They're not too… are they?" he asked. Ron was too busy stabbing and munching sausages angrily to notice.
"I… I don't know… He did say yesterday that he was meeting with a Ravenclaw…" said Hermione, craning her neck to get a better look at the couple. 'Doesn't she care what people think of her? What they might say? No, of course not… She's too… perfect,' thought Hermione to herself.
"She's not that amazing, you know," said Harry, seeing the frustration on her face.
"What are you on about?" asked Hermione, "You were practically obsessed with her… Seems like she's got all the boys completely… Ugh! I don't even know what. Hypnotized, maybe." Harry laughed and drank the last of his pumpkin juice. He leant closer to Hermione, a hand on the small of her back.
"I think you're just as hypnotizing," he whispered as he turned to leave. Hermione froze and dropped her fork. The noise snapped her out of it, and she whipped her head around to see him go. Ron shoveled the last of his sausages into his mouth and stormed off in a huff. He hadn't really looked at either Hermione or Harry the whole morning, preferring to concentrate on his food.
'I wonder where that came from…' thought Hermione to herself, still plastered to her seat in the Great Hall. Her gaze drifted from the giant wooden doors to the Ravenclaw table, and a familiar face stared back at her. Draco had seen the short moment of intimacy from across the room and was now grinning a sly smile, to Hermione's surprise. She wondered if it was a façade, and if really he was just as shocked at Harry's actions. Even Draco couldn't have seen this coming, but he figured it just made things a whole lot more interesting.