Roman Holiday

Chapter Forty-Three

Hermione, upon arriving back in her room, had fallen into bed and slept very well indeed - so well, as a matter of fact, that she almost missed breakfast. She hurried down the stairs from the girls’ dormitories and was about to step down into the common room when she heard Ginny and Harry in a low-voiced argument.

Not wanting to interrupt - and curious, despite her better intentions - she halted on the first step, just out of sight.

“ … can’t just go off like that with him,” Harry was saying in an earnest undertone. Ginny, arms folded, sniffed disdainfully.

“I don’t see why not,” she said, and Harry let out his breath in a frustrated huff.

“Because it looks bad, that’s why,” he hissed. “People were talking.”

Ginny looked mutinous. “And that’s your business, Harry Potter, because …?”

“Because Ron’s my best friend,” Harry said, a little louder. “And your brother. You know that he feels responsible for you, now that Fred and George are gone! And you had him worried sick.” He took a deep breath, then lowered his voice again with visible effort. “We might know that … that he’s harmless,” - this in more conciliatory tones - “but Ron doesn’t know that, now, does he?”

“Someone ought to tell him, then,” Ginny said, shaking her hair back over her shoulders with an irritated toss of her head. “I honestly don’t see why the lot of you are tiptoeing around the issue, anyway. What the hell does he care who ‘Mione’s seeing? He had his chance, didn’t he?” She arched her eyebrows meaningfully. “All last year, after she and Viktor broke things off, and he didn’t so much as look her way. Stupid.” She snorted contemptuously. “Well, he’s made his own bed, and he can damn well lie in it.”

Go, Ginny, go! Hermione thought from the stairwell. This was clearly a morning for Home Truths - and she couldn’t have said it better herself. Now, if there was such a thing as poetic justice in the world, Ron would be listening to this same conversation from the boys’ stairwell.

Under the circumstances, she supposed that was a bit much to ask for.

“You’re being awfully hard on him,” Harry said defensively. “It’s not so easy, you know, being the one who’s expected to make the first move. Bloody nerve-wracking, if you ask me.”

In response to this, Ginny made an extremely rude sound in her throat. “Bollocks,” she said. “How hard can it be? You’re interested, you go up to her, you say so.” She drew herself up to her full height and glared at him. “You boys and your Gryffindor courage,” she said scornfully. “If you’re not careful, you and Ron are going to end up two old men in the same room at St. Mungo’s, arguing about fifty-year-old Quidditch games and running your wheelchairs into walls. Babies, the both of you.”

“Oh, is that so?” Harry snapped, stung. “Well, let me tell you something, then, since you’re so smart …”

Hermione, craning her neck, could see them squared off in front of the fireplace, red head juxtaposed with black, both chins angled at an identically pugnacious tilt. She smothered a grin.

Harry was in over his head for sure, this time.

“Oh, what’s that?” Ginny demanded, taking a step forward. She and Harry were practically butting foreheads. “Go ahead,” she said when Harry hesitated, “say it, then - God knows this is the longest conversation we’ve had in the last four years; we might as well drag it out a little longer. Go on, do - tell me how worried my poor brother was, and how you’re such a good friend to him, that you could have set his mind at ease, and didn’t do it.”

“That’s not fair,” Harry gritted out. Ginny edged him back another step.

“Oh, no?” She bared her teeth at him in a parody of a smile. “Grow up, Harry. How hard would it have been to say, ‘She’s fine; they’re probably both with Hermione, they’re working on a project together’? Or would that have put too much pressure on your delicate masculine nerves?”

Hermione smothered a laugh at Harry’s wince. That had been a shot to the solar plexus; she supposed that a life spent with the Weasley boys would tend to give a girl a fascinating inside angle on masculine sore spots.

They were nose to nose now, Ginny looking wild-eyed and enraged, Harry increasingly uncomfortable. “I didn’t know you were with Hermione,” he said in a low voice - “I swear to you I didn’t. And …” this last, even softer - “I was worried too, you know.”

“What?” Ginny snapped.

Harry flushed. “I said,” he repeated, “that I was worried, too.” He had recovered a bit of his equilibrium - Hermione would characterise his present state of mind as less-shaken, more-annoyed.

Odd that he hadn’t stomped off by now to sulk in private, she thought. Generally Harry sought his own counsel when upset; she couldn’t remember the last time he’d lost his temper long enough to have an argument with anyone, let alone little Ginny Weasley.

Of course, ‘little Ginny Weasley’ was currently making verbal mincemeat of him. And who would have ever seen that in the cards?

He set his jaw at a more stubborn angle and glared at his porcelain-skinned adversary. “Shall I make a bloody announcement during dinner tonight?” he demanded. “Would that be an adequate demonstration of my Gryffindor courage? Or would you prefer to discuss my shortcomings in private?”

This astonishing outburst was followed by complete silence, during which the pique on Ginny’s face gave way to speculation, and green eyes met brown with a click of chemistry that resonated even around the corner of a curved stairwell.

Whoa, Hermione thought. This is getting interesting, isn’t it? Too bad everyone else is at breakfast. I could have sold tickets.

“Well,” Ginny said softly, “that’s something, I suppose.”

To Hermione’s delighted surprise (and, no doubt, Harry’s utter shock), she went up on her dainty toes, leaned forward the bare millimeter that they were still separated, and planted a deliberate, not-too-gentle kiss square on his gaping mouth. A moment later, she pulled back with a narrow-eyed smile.

“Never say,” she told him, “that you had to make the first move with me.”

Before Harry could close his mouth and formulate a response, she turned abruptly and disappeared through the portrait hole. Quietly, Hermione tiptoed back up the stairs to her room.

There were times, she thought, that the male of the species needed to be prodded into conversation for the good of his soul. And there were times that he should just be left alone to sort out his own damn brain.

She wasn’t touching this one with a ten-foot pole.

**

She spent the morning in her room, catching up on her reading for Transfiguration and getting a head start on her Arithmancy term paper. The paper wasn’t due until the week before Christmas vacation, but Hermione was systematically stockpiling where she could.

Graduation may have been top on her list of Events Most Likely To Be Crashed By Evil Death Lords, but she couldn’t get the conversation she’d overheard in the dungeons out of her head. Something was going to happen over Christmas, at the very least a Death-Eater initiation ceremony. At the very most … who knew?

And if the Armoring Fluid didn’t start to come along, they’d be researching far into the night, come December. Best to have big projects finished ahead of time, just in case.

She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood and pushed her chair back from her desk. The careful, systematic, self-preservatory part of her brain said It’s their choice; it’s none of your business, but the rest of her felt oddly responsible for the outcome of that ceremony. Who knew how many of them there were, lining up for the Mark? And they couldn’t all be hard-liners like Parkinson and Avery. Surely something could be done to save at least a few of them, right?

Too much to worry about - she stopped pacing abruptly and threw herself down on the bed, bouncing an annoyed Crookshanks out of his morning nap. “Sorry,” she said, scratching his ears absently, but her mind was still racing.

Dark curses. Bloody prophecies. Long-concealed ghosts. Trips through the bowels of the castle. Hidden rooms and secret lovers and late-night Astronomy Tower encounters and above all, far too many options, none of them perfect but none of them what you’d exactly call bad, either.

She rolled over, scooped the sleepy Crookshanks into her arms, and buried her face in his ginger fur, squeezing him until he yowled in protest. Was this what growing up was all about - this awful, all-pervasive sense of responsibility for the world’s problems? Or was that just part of her nature?

Save the world, Hermione, she thought, not without a touch of bitterness. Discover the potion, rescue the boy, stop the killing, defeat the Evil - and above all, get your bloody homework in on time, because after this there’s another year of school and the NEWTs and then God knows what; college probably and then just years and years of life stretching out in front of you, more potions and more rescuing and more evil and stop it right now because you’re getting far too maudlin and it’s far too pretty a day.

Far below on the lawn, Hagrid was whistling. Hermione set a rumpled Crookshanks back on the comforter and smoothed his fur placatingly.

If there was anyone who always made her feel better, it was Hagrid.

Time to go visiting.

**

By lunchtime, she was feeling much more cheerful - Hagrid had just gotten in a shipment of baby Puffskeins for use with the first-years, and Hermione had spent a pleasurable forty minutes playing with the little pastel balls of fluff, which were much more amenable to cuddling than her cranky, self-involved cat. She slid into her customary seat between Harry and Ron and scooped crisps and lobster salad onto her plate with real anticipation.

Despite Hagrid’s mid-morning offer of tea and treacle fudge, she was starving.

She followed Harry’s surreptitious glance down the table and saw that Ginny, too, was eating heartily, though carefully avoiding the temptation to look their way. Interfering was irresistible, given her knowledge of the situation; she nudged Harry with her elbow and muttered, “Pretty, isn’t she?”

Harry jumped as though she’d dropped ice down his back. “Who?” he demanded, and flushed at Hermione’s knowing look. “Oh. Um. I suppose so, yes.” He fixed Hermione with a stare. “Were they with you last night?”

“Who?” Hermione said innocently. Harry’s lip curled dangerously.

“You know very well who; don’t play dumb with me,” he hissed. “The two of them. Were they with you?”

“Why do you care?” Hermione murmured, carefully schooling her features into blank interest. Harry gritted his teeth.

“Just answer the question, okay?”

Hermione took pity on him. “Yes,” she said. “We paid a little visit to Salazar last night.”

If she’d expected this to have a soothing effect on Harry, she was sadly mistaken - this new piece of information was like a red flag to a bull. “And you took her along?” he demanded in a whisper, shooting a panicked glance in Ron’s direction. (Ron, who had co-opted Harry’s new issue of Broomstick Today, was immersed in a sneak-preview article on the Firebolt X-Treme, and didn’t look up.) “What were you thinking? She’s a baby!”

Hermione choked on a bite of her salad. “Oh, Harry, honestly,” she said. “Does the poor girl have to hire a crane, to hoist you out of Denial Land? For heaven’s sake, look at what’s in front of your face and quit being such a prat.” She sipped her pumpkin juice and shot him a sardonic sideways look. “You don’t want to end up racing wheelchairs with Ron, do you?”

Harry went white, then red, then white again, making his lightning-bolt scar flash against his forehead. “What -“ he stuttered. “You - did you - how did you -“

Hermione just grinned at him and popped in another crisp.

She wasn’t saying anything more.

**