Missing the Point

I can't shake the thought of you

I should get on; forget you,

But why would I want to?

I know we said goodbye:

Anything else would've been confused,

But I want to see you again.

Dido Sand In My Shoes

During The Christmas Break

Harry paced the common room. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately, Hermione had noticed. She had also noticed his volatile mood, which looked like a continual battle between frustration and depression. At the moment, frustration was winning: hence the pacing. Ron was sitting beside her, half-heartedly doing his Transfiguration essay, and sneaking peeks at Hermione's perfect finished version. Neither of them said anything to Harry, knowing he was long past hearing them.

Harry sat down, and put his head in his hands. He felt tears pricking behind his eyes, and shook his head furiously. He knew he was being stupid, knew that He wouldn't be sitting, wallowing in self-pity and crying. He never cried; not once, in all the time Harry had known him, had He ever cried.

Harry stood up again. His hands curled into tight fists in frustration. An ink bottle top rose lazily into the air, then a piece of parchment. A cushion and quill followed, and began to slowly circle round Harry. The fire crackled louder and grew larger, and the windows began to hum with the tension. The objects spun faster and faster. His mind was perfectly clear. No unwieldy emotions cluttered his thinking. He hadn't felt so...calm, and liberated, since...since before a few weeks ago. The windows hummed louder, striking a discordant note.

"Harry, stop!" said Hermione shrilly, very alarmed. A window shattered, and the various objects fell to the floor. Ron dived for Hermione's precious essay. Harry unclenched his fists and looked around in surprise, then he sighed and sat down, muttering 'Reparo' to fix the window.

"Harry...what's wrong?" Ron asked, tentatively.

"Nothing," Harry snapped, and headed to his dorm room. Ron sighed and chucked aside his parchment and quill.

"Ron, something isn't right. Even you must have noticed that!" said Hermione in exasperation. She was trying to discuss Harry's behaviour with Ron, but there is a marked difference between 'trying' and 'actually managing to get a response' when discussion with Ron is involved.

"Can you at least be a satisfactory Cardboard Person^TM for me to bounce ideas off of?"

"Yeah, all right," said Ron with a small grin. Hermione was in 'one of her moods' He was worried about Harry, but...the guy could take care of himself. Everyone smashed a window or two - Fred and George made it a regular practice. Ron's thoughts drifted to Quidditch, and he began mapping out strategies into thin air. Hermione started pacing and talking very fast, her brain and mouth and feet working in co-ordination, as always when she was trying to work something out.

"Harry's depressed about something...what? I'm not going to get anywhere there, he hasn't said much apart from 'nothing' and 'I'm fine' in ages. But he's also frustrated, which suggests he doesn't think the whatever-it-is is worth being depressed over...which means it isn't something like quidditch, or NEWTS...not that he'd worry about that anyway. The school isn't against him, there aren't any bad reports in the Daily Prophet...it's emotional, I know it is," She looked over at Ron, who was moving his hands in complicated patterns that presumably made sense to him.

"Ron, Harry hasn't been behaving...strangely lately, has he?" Hermione asked, breaking his trance.

"Er, Hermione--"

"I mean before all this started."

"I...dunno, I suppose he disappeared sometimes, and at night...not especially, why?" Ron said. Hermione hid a smile. "He's probably just been seeing someone," said Ron nonchalantly. "Give it a rest; he'll get over it."

Hermione's mouth dropped open.

"You actually made an intelligent suggestion." She blinked at him for a second, nonplussed, but got back into action a moment later. "I think there's hope for you yet - come on!" she said, and dragged him out of the common room.

"Where to? Not the bloody Libr--"

"No, Ron; we're going to the Owlery."

"Why?" asked Ron, rubbing his arm where she'd grabbed it.

"To write to Sirius," she said, as if this was perfectly obvious.

*****

Sirius looked up in time to see a small owl, which had been flying erratically at breakneck speeds towards him, crash into the ground and skid to a halt. He chuckled a bit as he retrieved the letter from the unknown sender. The owl looked familiar. It smelt familiar, too, thought Padfoot. Hang on - it was that hyperactive owl he'd given to Ron ages ago. Which meant that the message came from him, or possibly Hermione, and not Harry, unless Hedwig was injured.

Dear Snuffles, It read.

Ron and I are worried about Harry Oh, shut up, Ron. He seems to be depressed about something. It's not Quidditch (he'd have said to Ron) or NEWTS (he'd have asked to borrow my notes then asked Ron where he'd put them) or the Daily Prophet, or the rest of the school. There's something he hasn't told us. I'm not surprised he hasn't told Ron, but he could've told me. Ron, If you're going to (here there was a large blotchy mess) anyway, we were wondering if he'd told you. Ron thinks it is - or rather was - a girl. (First intelligent theory he's had in ages) Hey But Harry tends to be rather obtuse about that sort of thing, so I'd probably have noticed. Hope you can help,

Hermione & Ron

Sirius chuckled again and raised an eyebrow. He scrawled an answer - No, Harry hadn't told him anything, and Ron was probably right. He smiled, imagining Hermione's furious look. Really, Hermione and Ron were quite a pair. He remembered how depressed James had been when Lily had dumped him...mind you, he went around milking it for all it was worth, going the whole nine yards with the misery act. James had always been very flamboyant, much more attention-seeking than Harry was. But he had got Lily back in the end, and Harry'd be all right too.

Hermione breathed carefully and placed the letter down concisely. Oh no, thought Ron, that's what happens when she--

"So, basically, you all think he's hung up over some girl and he'll get over it?!"

"Yeah, probably," said Ron.

"Ron, it was a rhetorical question," said Hermione, her tone slipping from angry to exasperated..."You're all so blind!"...And back to angry again. "Haven't you noticed that he never looks at the Slytherin table? Not even when Malfoy got really annoyed and shoved all his dinner and place setting onto the floor and stalked out! In fact, I'll swear he was trying to bore a hole in the opposite wall with his eyes..." she stopped. "Now that I think about it...he never looks at Malfoy either. And Malfoy never insults him, never even looks at him! It's like for each of them, the other doesn't even exist!" she was getting frantic. "But what does it all mean?" she asked quietly, trying to dig out a few more facts.

"Hermione, how do you notice all this stuff?" asked Ron, happily remembering The Malfoy Incident of Sixth Year. Poor Ron - fate had decided to make him get a lot closer to Malfoy than he'd ever wanted to.

"Well, how do you manage to not notice?" said Hermione, and the conversation shifted from a one-sided discussion of Harry to an argument about Ron being oblivious/Hermione far too observant for any normal human.

******

Hope this got a few smiles (I laughed writing it, but then, I'm the author and definitely slightly mad)! Please review because it makes me so happy.

~CelebrianAngel