Harry Potter Veela's Embrace

Chapter 32: Hermione's Inner Turmoil



Hermione Granger sighed as she stared at the food on the plate in front of her. She didn't have an appetite but she was trying to eat anyway. Though at that particular moment she didn't even have a utensil in her hand and she definitely wasn't thinking about food. She was thinking about her friend Harry Potter.

"I wonder if it's over?" She thought as her eyes involuntarily glanced in the direction she knew the medical wing was in. She was worried about her best friend and for their friendship.

She felt like she'd failed her friend and in that failure she had cost Harry his future. It had all started four days previous when Fred and George had shown up in the library to tell her and Ron to go to Professor McGonagall's office where they'd been told of being hostages and put into the enchanted sleep.

"I should have gone back," She chastised herself, not for the first time. "I should have said no and went back to help Harry. Maybe we could have found something or Dobby might have found him earlier or...something, anything that might have changed what happened under the lake."

She glanced down the table and saw her other friend, Ron Weasley. He didn't seem to be bothered at all. "But he doesn't know does he?" She reminded herself.

"What will it be like when Harry's bonded? How will Ron take it when he finds out?" She snorted at that. She knew Ron would be jealous. "Two beautiful girls when Ron had to get Harry to get him a date to the Yule Ball?" Hermione shook her head, knowing that she'd probably end up going between the two of them again...unless.

"But will they even be here?" She wondered. "The Delacours both attend Beauxbatons so will Harry move to France? Is that possible?" The possibility that she'd never see her best friend again made a shiver run down her back.

"Even if he does stay, can I still be his friend?" She didn't want to come between Harry and his bondmates especially since..."No, I can't think of that, it can't happen!" She shook her head to clear those thoughts. Hermione once again glanced at Ron who was chatting with Seamus Finnegan.

"What about Ron?" Hermione thought. She started examining her second friend; analyzing him like an Arithmancy problem. Hermione knew he had several character flaws; one of the most serious was his jealousy. He had always been jealous of Harry; of his fame and money and possibly even his courage.

It had even been that jealousy that had caused him to react as he did in that first year charms class that lead to Hermione almost killed by the troll.

The jealousy was always there, simmering right below the surface, ready to rear up whenever something happened to set him off like Harry's name coming out of the Goblet earlier in the year. When it did surface, it would turn her red-headed friend into someone who was to be despised.

"If Harry does leave, would I be the brunt of that jealousy?" Hermione asked herself.

"Would he turn his jealously to my intelligence, my ambitions? What if I made new friends, would he be jealous of them too?" The answer was obvious.

"Yes, but then again what would our friendship be based on? Without Harry, we really have nothing in common," Hermione remembered all the times Ron had belittled the things she loved like her books and her love of learning. A pattern that had continued even after becoming her friend.

"No, without Harry we can't be friends. What would we do if we were? I don't care about Quidditch, at least not when Harry's not playing. I don't play chess and he hates books, at least those without pictures anyway," The last was with a little laugh as she remembered all of the Adventure of Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle comics Ron had in his room.

"Harry," Hermione thought of her friend again. Along with those thoughts came the pang of her failure, and again she looked toward the hospital wing. "When will I know? Would he just leave without saying good-bye?"

"Good-bye?" Tears formed in her eyes as she thought of that word; of a possible life without Harry in it. She remembered her life before Harry.

The years growing up had been fraught with loneliness. It had been a time of being bullied and being called names like geek, nerd, bookworm and beaver face. That had just made her lose herself in more books as she strove to prove herself better than those people.

"Then I found out I was a witch," Hermione thought as she fingered her vinewood wand. It had given her hope as she realized she'd be going somewhere she'd be like everyone else.

She would finally fit in. But it had been the same when she got to Hogwarts; name calling, bulling and rudeness. It was even worse than it had been because there were no parents to comfort her. She'd spent a lot of nights crying herself to sleep. But all of that had changed on that Halloween night and all because of Harry.

Hermione remembered the experience as if it had just happened. She could almost feel the toilet seat she'd been sitting on in the girl's loo crying because Ron had insulted her once again.

She recalled hearing the bathroom door opening and the stench that had flooded the room. Hermione remembered opening the door of her privacy stall and coming face to face with a fully grown mountain troll. She'd read about them, but never expected to see one, especially in the girls' loo. Fear had frozen her in place and she knew she was going to die that night in that loo.


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