Cards on the Table

Cards on the Table

When Harry entered the Gryffindor Common room after Easter dinner, he could feel the tension in the air like a thick smoke. The room looked much as they had left it, books stacked beside Hermione's favorite chair, an abandoned Chess game in one corner, and a deck of Exploding Snap cards littering the table and floor in the center of the room.

Ron was sitting on the couch in front of the fireplace, his back to the dormitory stairs, fuming so visibly that smoke may well have been rising off of his flame-red hair. And that could only mean one thing. They had been at it again.

Ever since mid-fall, when the two of them got it in their heads that dating would be a fun idea, Harry's two best friends had dragged him along on a roller-coaster relationship. Their highs were high, passionate, and exciting. But their lows... their lows called to Harry's mind the chill of the Slytherin dungeon, and made him think happy thoughts about detentions in Snape's office.

Great, Harry thought. Not only am I supposed to think up a way to defeat the most evil wizard the world has ever known, but I'm also supposed to be a relationship referee. Given his track record, Harry thought that he would probably be more successful battling Voldemort. But he took a deep breath, and approached the sofa with caution.

"Er, that bad, is it?"

"What does it look like?" Ron snapped.

Okay. He was going to play difficult. Harry took a seat beside his friend.

"What happened, Ron?"

"We're done."

"You've said that before..."

"And I mean it this time! We're through!"

Harry took a calming breath. It was Ron's nature to be stubborn and cranky at times like this. He's angry at her, not me. I can't take it personally.

"What happened?" he repeated.

"It's our six month anniversary," Ron said shortly. "She gave me this." He gestured to the floor in front of him. There was a perfect scale-model of a Quidditch pitch and a team of players, the kind of set Wood had used to plan match strategies for the Gryffindor house team. But these players were the Chudley Cannons team, decked in the bright orange robes.

Harry was nonplussed.

"Wow, Ron. Er, that's a really great present," he offered.

"Exactly!" Ron declared, as if this explained everything.

Harry waited a moment, but no inspiration came to him.

"So, what's the problem, then?"

"Don't you get it? Look how much she spent on me! You know what I gave her? A bookmark! A lousy bookmark!"

"It wasn't just a bookmark, Ron. It was a bookmark that held the exact place she left off reading. That's really thoughtful. I'm sure she appreciated it and--"

"Harry! That is not the point! I spent a stinking Galleon on that bookmark, and look what she gives me! How could I possibly think that I could deserve her?"

"It doesn't matter to Herm--"

"It matters to me, dammit! It matters to me! She didn't understand either, and I said something stupid about her not understanding what it was like to be me, and she said I wasn't giving her enough credit... and, I don't know, it went sort of downhill from there."

"Oh." It was all Harry could think to say.

"Pretty soon we were screaming at each other, and then she just stormed off like she always does..."

"Where did she go?" Harry asked, imagining with a pang the heartbroken expression on Hermione's face.

"Upstairs--no, the Library. I don't know."

"You should go after her, say something."

"You don't get it do you, Harry?" Ron spat at him. "This is not something I can fix, alright? She won't understand, and you sure as hell can't understand."

Harry felt his frustration rising despite himself. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he demanded, his voice much harder than he intended it to be.

"Nothing! It's just that you're not in my place. When you're in my place, then you can tell me how to live my life and fix my problems, but until then--"

Harry stood up and glowered down at Ron. "Oh, what place is that? Treating my girlfriend like crap? Feeling sorry for myself because I think I don't deserve her? Taking my anger out on my best friend instead of fixing the problem?" His voice was rising now, and he wasn't quite sure why.

"You just don't get it!"

"Then explain it to me, Ron!"

"You--both of you--you have it so good! She can buy me expensive presents and not worry about whether I'll like them. She can do nice things for me and never worry if it's good enough, and she takes it for granted. You--"

"Don't make this about me, Ron," Harry warned savagely, but Ron was beyond hearing him.

"You take it all for granted, too. You have it all. Fame and money and popularity and women chasing after you..."

Harry could feel the blood thundering in his temples, echoing back and forth with Ron's angry words. "How can you be such a prat, Ron? You think I care about any of that? The only reason I have any of those things is because of what I don't have!" He whipped his glasses off his face with a shaking hand and flung them down, where the right lens shattered on floor of the fireplace.

"Harry, your glasses--"

"I don't care!" He knew he was screaming unreasonably, but he couldn't stop himself. Five years' worth of unvoiced anger was exploding out of him, making his head swim. "I have money and fame because my parents are dead, Ron. Fucking dead! I survived Voldemort--and don't you wince at me like that--I survived Voldemort at the expense of my parents, and Cedric, and hundreds of others! I live with that shit every day. That's the price of wealth and fame. That's my life! To see the people I know and love hurt and killed. To live with near-strangers because they're all I have left. I wouldn't wish it on fucking Malfoy!"

Ron was staring at him, his mouth hanging open, as Harry rushed on, hardly hearing his own words.

"You have everything I've ever wanted, and you call yourself poor! You don't know what I'd give to trade places with you if I could, if I knew it wouldn't hurt you so much. But to have your life and your problems. You have a home, and a father and mother, and brothers and a sister, and--and her. And you take it all for granted when I would give all the gold in Gringotts to have her look at me once--just once!--the way I've seen her look at you!"

Ron seemed to find his voice. "What, Ginny? She's crazy about you! She stares at you every chance she gets!"

"Not Ginny! God. Why does everyone have this ridiculous notion that I'm somehow destined to end up with Ginny?"

"But you said--"

"Hermione, Ron. Hermione, you idiot! You look at her like she's nothing, like she's not good enough or smart enough to see you for everything you are and can be and will be. Like she's not the most caring, intelligent, generous, beautiful..." He broke off, his words hanging in the air.

"Harry," Ron breathed, "what're you-- do...do you..."

"Love her? I--I thought... I think..." But his throat was suddenly and painfully tight.

"I had no idea," Ron said slowly. "I didn't--"

"Of course you didn't. I didn't want you to know. You're my best friends. I wanted you to be happy. I want her to be happy. And it kills me to see you do this to each other, you know?"

"Why didn't you say something...?"

"It doesn't matter, Ron. Just--do you love her, Ron?"

"What? I--of course, I've always liked Hermione..."

"That's not what I asked," said Harry, his voice suddenly harsh again.

Ron hung his head. "I'm not sure. I'm still trying to figure that out."

"She deserves someone who knows he loves her, Ron. She deserves the truth. And she deserves to hear it from you." It was hard to keep the defeat out of his voice.

Ron stared at him for a moment, then rose silently, crossed the common room with long strides, and disappeared out the portrait hole. Alone, Harry gazed unseeingly into the fire, the bleary flames dancing across his vision.

Footsteps on the dormitory stairs.

A voice--her voice--behind him...

"Here, let me fix your glasses." She crossed the room softly, and retrieved his glasses from the edge of the fireplace. "Occulus Reparo. There, good as new."

"Thanks," Harry mumbled, staring at the carpet edge to avoid the questions in her eyes.

"Just try not to throw them around so much," she replied, and he could hear the smile in her voice without looking up. She passed the glasses back to him, brushing his fingers in a gentle way that made the back of his neck prickle.

He put his glasses on, and gazed absently into the fire, listening to her footsteps re-cross the room. She was always there for him. She always knew just when he needed--

O God.

"Hermione... how did you know--"

But she had already disappeared.