Cupidity

Cupidity

By FenrisWolf

Part 4

~~~~~

Harry stared at the report lying open on the desk in front of him and felt the headache he'd been fighting all week start to rear its head once again. 'Back, Beast,' he thought at it, using the same mental exercises he'd practiced while learning Occlumency, and felt it crawl back into its lair.

Meanwhile, the report that had triggered the headache didn't seem like it was going anywhere. According to the Department of Magical Records, Monica MacDermott was a first year student at Beauxbatons, and while she did indeed have black hair and a fair complexion, it would be many years before she affected the pulse of any decent wizard.

On the other hand, Feyd bin Yusef did work for the Egyptian branch of Gringotts. The only problem was, he'd worked for them for over 100 years, and the Wizarding photo included with the report showed a hunched over, dried up prune of a man who could give ugly lessons to a horde of goblins.

The other reports were even more disheartening. The group of 'Dark wizards' who were supposed to be sacrificing Monica claimed to be a Glee Club who met in the dungeons because of the wonderful acoustics. The so-called ritual was some godawful Muggle song, and the copy of the Necronomicon was a cheap knockoff available from a hundred sources in both the Wizarding and Muggle worlds. The Department of Mysteries was quite adamant about that, especially since the real thing hadn't been allowed out of its spellbound iron chest in over a century. They'd checked, just to make sure--nothing like having a bunch of Chthons running around loose to really make your day chthuck--since not only had the star witness for the prosecution vanished, but technically didn't even exist, when a high-priced defense attorney with connections in Knockturn Alley had shown up and demanded their release, the justice division had no alternative but to comply.

All in all, it made for a lot of red tape, a lot of wheels spinning fruitlessly, and a lot of bad feeling, but to what purpose Harry couldn't begin to imagine. Someone was going to a lot of effort to yank his chain, but for what reason? And why involve Hermione in it? Certainly, he worried about her, and kept an eye out for her, and, all right, he admitted it, was absolutely and positively madly in love with her, but what did that have to do with--

Harry's train of thought completely derailed as several things occurred to him at once. First, after several years in a casual, boyfriend/girlfriend relationship, Ron had proposed to Hermione. Next, less than two weeks later, and after years of complete indifference to the red-headed Gryffindor, Luna Lovegood had seduced Ron; not only seduced, but completely captivated him, if his shamefaced confession was any indication. Immediately after that, a very well executed forgery (Draco, for a wonder, actually had an alibi that stuck) of a kidnap note had arrived on Harry's desk, which led to Harry and Hermione walking in on Ron and Luna in flagrante delecto, as the saying went, terminating Ron's engagement with Hermione in a rather spectacular fashion.

Scarcely a week later the Unspeakables had received the bogus tip-off about the Dark wizards, and Harry had been suckered into succoring a bogus damsel in distress, one sufficiently clingy (and attractive, he had to admit) that he, in his all too well known hero mode, had offered her shelter. At the same time an impossibly handsome and charming stranger had put the moves on Hermione when she was still vulnerable from her breakup with Ron, all of which had led to that spectacular scene in Harry's living room. Exit Clingy Damsel and Dashing Stranger, stage left, leaving Harry and Hermione trying to sort out their suddenly jumbled emotions.

Was that what this was all about, he wondered? Was this all some incredibly convoluted, Machiavellian attempt by someone to set Harry and Hermione up? And what was he going to do about it if it was?

~~~~~

Hermione stared out the window of her office at the grounds of Stonehenge University, and tried to make sense of the events of the past few weeks, and of her behavior. What had happened to the cool, collected Research Fellow, and when had this hormone-driven banshee who got into catfights on her best friend's living room floor supplanted her?

She flushed crimson as the memory washed over her again; her blind rage at the little floozy that seemed to have slipped so effortlessly into Harry's life, her desperate need to claw the smug expression off her face...it was so completely out of character for her, she never let her emotions get the better of her, and yet lately, every time she turned around it seemed she was turning into the heroine of a bad romance novel.

When had it begun, she wondered. There had to have been a trigger, some event that brought this side of her to the surface...an image rose unbidden to the surface of her thoughts; Ron on bended knee, presenting her with a small black box, its lid raised to display the ring with its diamond solitaire nestled within. With a start she realized for the first time that her emotions at that moment were not those of a woman faced with what was supposed to be a pivotal moment in her life. Her long-time boyfriend, the man she'd thought she loved, was asking her to make their commitment permanent in the most official way possible, and she'd been...sad?

That was it, she hadn't been shocked, or ecstatic, or any of a dozen other cliché emotions that a woman was supposed to be feeling at that moment, she'd been sad. The man who loved her was asking her to marry him, and somehow, subconsciously she'd realized what Harry had pointed out later on, that while she loved Ron, she wasn't in love with him, and what's more, never had been.

Hermione rose from her desk and went to the tall cabinet on the wall behind her, removing a snifter and the bottle of champagne cognac Fleur had given her during her vacation the previous summer, when she and Ron had gone to visit her and Bill at Fleur's family home in southern France. When she felt like a drink she preferred Muggle types of alcohol, though she did still enjoy an occasional butterbeer. She pourd two fingers of the amber liquid into the snifter and swirled it around, letting the body heat of her hands warm the liquid through the fine crystal. She wandered back to the window, staring out at the moors, the fine cognac sliding down her throat like hot silk, the warmth of it spreading outward from her stomach.

She loved Ron, but wasn't in love with him. That explained the sadness, but it didn't explain her other reactions. She'd been shocked, surprised, and yes, hurt when she saw him with Luna, but why enraged? She tried to recall just what she had been feeling, and briefly wished she had a Pensieve so that she could study her reactions from the outside, but it hadn't been that long ago. She reconstructed the day in her mind, from the moment Harry had interrupted her tanning session (and she blushed again at that) to the instant before Harry had kicked in the door, when she had suddenly recognized just what sort of moans Ron was making, and what Harry was about to see--

Her thoughts stuttered to a stop. That was it; that was the determining factor. She'd been furious because Ron was humiliating her in front of Harry, that after so many years of being there for her, of listening to her bitch about Ron's occasional cluelessness and insensitivity, Harry was going to see incontrovertible proof that she'd been wasting her time in a relationship with their mutual friend. But why did it matter so much?

"Oh, no," she muttered to herself. "No, no, no, no, no..."

She remembered Harry calming her down back at her apartment, remembered how safe she'd felt, how comforted. Remembered how surprised she'd been at his sudden insight into what she'd been feeling for Ron. She remembered spending the next several days in a sort of haze, unable to sort out all her feelings, remembered going out shopping to take her mind off things, and going to her favorite store, where she'd met the person who'd introduced himself as Feyd bin Yusef (She didn't have access to all the reports on Harry's desk, but she'd twigged enough to the oddities of their 'date' to at least confirm that he had been an imposter).

She remembered being flattered by the attention, and had spent several hours discussing a dozen topics about which they were both knowledgeable, as well as some of the books they both wanted to read if they could ever track down copies. That led to a discussion about some of the places they'd both gone to try and find such books, and some of their more spectacular successes and failures.

By this time they were sitting at a small table in the espresso bar Flourish and Blotts' had added for the younger crowd, and their conversation had wandered to their schooling, and their friends, and when she had admitted that yes, she was that Hermione Granger (and honestly, how many could there be?) Feyd had expressed a desire to someday meet the famous Harry Potter. And that was when Hermione had suggested dinner, and dropping in on Harry afterwards when she knew he'd be at home.

Hermione still wasn't sure why she had dug out her Little Black Dress; the one Ginny had forced her to buy years ago when she had been shocked to discover that her brother's girlfriend didn't have a single 'take-me-home-and-fuck-me' outfit to her name. She'd reflected wryly at the time that Ginny's name for the lethal bit of skintight black fabric was completely apt, but Ron had been so apoplectic over the way other men were looking at her she'd never worn it again.

She'd worn it for her dinner with Feyd, though, and his eyes had certainly lit up when he saw it, but now, looking back, she realized that once again, it wasn't Feyd's reaction that interested her.

It was Harry's.

Somehow Hermione ended up sitting back at her desk, her head in her hands. Now, after the fact, she could admit it to herself, she'd wanted to get a rise out of Harry, and to show him that, just because Ron was a stupid, unfaithful git, other men still found her attractive. As near as she could remember, it was working, too. Harry's expression had gone from surprise at their unannounced arrival, to wide-eyed appreciation of her dress, and from there to an apparent immediate dislike of her escort. Recalling his remarks, she was somewhat miffed to realize that he had twigged to something being snarky about Feyd before she had, but before Harry had been able to pursue his concerns, she'd come out of the bedrooms wearing his shirt.

She blushed again as she recalled her own reaction to the unexpected presence of the impossibly attractive young witch. She didn't want to admit to being that shallow, but she'd put an incredible amount of effort into her appearance that night, more than she could recall having done since the Yule Ball in fourth year, and she knew now it had all been for Harry's benefit. She hadn't been consciously aware of it at the time, but having her efforts so effortlessly overshadowed (she thought) had stung her pride, and the girl's casual cattiness had been the last straw.

The catfight that followed was something of a blur, at least until the moment she was inundated under what seemed to be around a hundred gallons of ice water, but then Harry's arms and cloak had been around her, and Monica and Feyd had left, leaving Harry and Hermione in an uncomfortable silence.

She'd been too shaky to Apparate of Floo home, so Harry had given her a set of his pyjamas and sent her to bed in his room, taking the guest room for himself. She'd woken up in the early dawn, taken one look at her ruined dress before borrowing his cloak, and had slipped out and returned home without speaking to him, too mortified by her behavior to face him. And now, a week later, after sending monosyllabic replies to his half-dozen worried owls, she'd finally figured out what was going on: she was in love with Harry.

Which begged the question: how did he feel about her?

~~~~~

Ron was tiredly changing out of his quidditch robes after another grueling training session with the Cannons when the knock sounded on the door of his new apartment. He wasn't expecting Luna until later that evening, and as far as he knew, aside from his mum and Gred and Forge, no one had his new address as yet. Which meant that it came as quite a shock when he saw the green eyes and messy black hair of his best friend waiting when he opened the door. "Hullo, Harry..."

"Hey, Ron," Harry replied, sounding uncharacteristically uncomfortable. "Um...you got a minute?"

"Sure, mate, all the time you need," surprised and pleased to see his long-time friend. He stood aside and gestured for him to enter. "As Gred says, it's not home, but it's much."

Harry looked around the apartment curiously. Ron had moved shortly after his breakup with Hermione, and this was his first visit to his friend's new digs. The 'much' appellation seemed to fit; the apartment wasn't in the most fashionable part of Diagon Alley, but it was well-maintained and spacious, and he could see several homey touches of a somewhat odd variety that bespoke of the influence of Ron's new girlfriend. He peered at a wizarding photo on the mantelpiece that showed Luna and a middle-aged man with a strong family resemblance standing next to a very odd-looking creature, even for people used to seeing everything from acromantulas to thestrals. "Is that...?"

"The Crumple-Horned Snorkack, yeah; Luna and her dad finally tracked one down last winter. Finland, not Norway."

"Wow, so she isn't crazy," Harry marveled, and then flushed at his thoughtless remark. "Sorry..."

"Nah, it's okay," Ron smiled, waving away Harry's apology. "She is crazy, but in a good way, you know?"

Harry chuckled. "Yeah, I know, which means she should be perfect for you." He peered at his friend, who was blushing fiercely. "Seriously, Ron, I've been a bit worried; are you...okay...with everything that's happened?"

Ron shook his head. "It's really strange, Harry, but I am. It's like someone just hit me in the back of the head a good smack and woke me up, you know?" He looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry about hurting Hermione, though. How's she doing, do you know? Have you seen her?" he asked, looking up at his friend.

Harry rubbed his neck. "Actually, that's what I wanted to talk to you about; some really weird shit's been happening, and I think it concerns all of us. Nothing dangerous, at least I don't think so," he hastened to add at Ron's alarmed expression, "but definitely weird." He gave Ron a quick rundown of recent events, and finished up with, "And I hate to say it, but it looks like Luna might be involved, too, at least if my suspicions as to what's going on are anywhere close to spot on." He waited for his friend to explode in defense of his new love, and was stunned by the response he received instead.

Ron's alarmed expression had changed to one of chagrin. "Um, Harry, I don't really know how to tell you but...well...I kind of know what's been happening. Not the details," he hastened to add as Harry's eyes darkened with the beginnings of anger, "Luna confessed a couple of days after you and Hermione, um, 'interrupted' us."

"Confessed to what?" Harry growled through clenched teeth at his possibly soon-to-be-a-newt best friend.

"Well, she didn't have too many specifics, but she said that...uh, Harry, mate, would you mind not looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you're going to turn me into a newt?"

"You'll get better."

"Yeah, but I can't tell you what Luna told me if I'm all slimy and icky."

"All right," Harry grated, "I won't make you any slimier...at least not until after you've told me what it is you know. If I don't like it, though, all bets are off."

Ron chuckled a bit nervously, unsure whether or not Harry was joking; for that matter, Harry wasn't sure if Harry was joking.

"Um, anyway, you know that bad mood you've been in for a while now? And you remember how you told me once how you always felt more relaxed after you'd busted the heads of a few Dark wizards? Well, according to Luna, some of the bustees were getting tired of, how did she put it, 'getting pounded on just so you could get your mad off'? Not only that, they figured they knew the reason you were so grouchy, and decided to do something about it."

Ron took a quick peek to see if he was about to discover newtdom, and continued. "Seems they figured you weren't happy because you thought 'Mione and I weren't right for each other." Harry blushed and looked away, which Ron took as a good sign. "Seems that for some reason they figured you might be right, so they decided to help us 'wake up and smell the firewhiskey', but in a way that wouldn't have you down on their necks for messing with your friends. That's where Luna came in."

"And the rest?" Harry asked quietly, still not looking at his friend.

"That's a bit dicier," Ron admitted. "Luna wasn't involved with any of the other bits, but what it boiled down to was...don't newt me, Harry...someone thinks that the reason you don't fancy seeing 'Mione and I together isthatyoufancyheryourself," he got out in a rush, wincing as he expected to suddenly develop a fondness for crickets. When no slime was forthcoming, he looked closer at his friend, who was standing there with his shoulders slumped. "You do, don't you?" he asked, still surprised despite was Luna had said. "You fancy Hermione."

Harry sighed and nodded. "Yes, I fancy her; have for years, Ron, since before we left Hogwarts."

"Bloody hell, Harry! Why didn't you say anything?"

"What the hell was I supposed to say, Ron?" Harry snapped. "Say, Hermione, I know you love Ron, but how about a shag? Oh, and you don't mind if I paint an even bigger target on your back for Riddle and his flunkies, do you?" He just shook his head. "I wouldn't do that to either of you, Ron. Growing up with the Dursleys might have left me clueless about how normal people act, especially when they care about each another, but even I know you don't treat your friends that way.

"Besides, you were already in enough danger just from being my friends. Even if I thought there was a chance that Hermione...felt that way, I wouldn't have said anything until after the danger was past, and I never saw anything to show that she thought of me as anything but a brother. So I kept my trap shut, and did my best to make sure you two were safe."

"And now?" Ron pressed. "What about now, Harry?"

"Now...I just don't know," Harry admitted. "That's partly why I came to see you, to find out how you felt about all this." He finally met his friend's eyes. "I don't just 'fancy' her, Ron, I'm in love with her. And I'm terrified."

It was Ron's turn to look surprised. "Terrified? You? Of what?"

"Of what she feels for me, if she feels anything," Harry sighed, "Of how she'll feel about what's been happening, how knowing that someone's been playing with our emotions will affect what she thinks about trying to make something happen between us."

Ron was quiet for a few seconds, and then answered carefully. "First off, don't worry about how I feel. Oh, you were right, I would have been royally pissed if you'd just waltzed in and taken her away from me, but that's not what happened, is it? Face it, mate, whoever cooked this up saved Hermione and me from making a HUGE mistake. I won't say I was crazy about the way some parts of their plan turned out, like you kicking the door in and giving me a heart attack--"

"At least you don't have the vision of your best mate shagging while dressed up as Dumbledore burned in your brain."

Ron grinned. "Don't knock it until you've tried it, mate. And you're right, you are clueless, not to mention blind as a bat. You honestly never noticed?"

"Noticed what?" Harry asked suspiciously.

"That Hermione fancies you?"

~~~~~

Hermione was snapped out her thoughts by the sound of small knuckles rapping on the frame of the door to her office. "All ready to go, Hermione?" her friend, Grace, a tall, willowy blond, asked brightly.

"Go? Go where?" Hermione replied somewhat blankly.

"Vacation, Granger, remember?" Grace answered, rolling her eyes at her friend. "You know, the four of us, the beach, sun, eye candy? You said you wanted to get away from thinking for a while?"

Hermione started as she remembered. St. Tropez, reservations at the Tahiti, the tanning bed in her apartment, and Harry showing up while she was tanning...Harry... "Right! Sorry, a lot on my mind. When do we leave again?"

Grace laughed. "Merlin, you do need a vacation! I don't think I've ever seen you this scatter-brained. We're supposed to leave as soon as your friend Ginny gets off work and Apparates here to meet us. You are all packed, aren't you?"

"Just a few things to pick up at home," she dissembled smoothly; after all, how long did it take to pack some toiletries, hers cosmetics bag, and a handful of bikinis? Anything else she needed she could pick up there.

"Good! I'll round up Marcy and meet you downstairs in the lounge at 5:00. We can leave from there and be at the hotel in time for dinner and cocktails...especially the cocktails," Grace grinned wickedly before disappearing out the door.

Hermione shook her head. Her friends Grace and Marcy were as smart as they came and were a treat to work with, but both women went out of their way to dispel the smart girl=bookworm image, and were determined that Hermione do the same, especially now that, for the first time since they'd met her, she was sans boyfriend. It was Marcy who had insisted on St. Tropez and its clothing optional beach, an idea that still made Hermione blush. She hadn't wanted to admit it to Harry, but she wasn't brave enough to go 'the full Monty'. However, the bikinis she'd bought for the trip were much skimpier than anything she'd ever worn before, hence the need she'd felt for the tanning bed. A thong bikini with significantly less than a square foot of fabric to its name did not go well with tan lines...

She'd been a bit surprised when Ginny had accepted her invitation to come along and offer 'moral support'. She was still playing semi-pro quidditch and working in her brothers' joke shop in the off-season, but something had been bothering her. When Hermione had Flooed her about the trip she'd leapt at the idea.

She glanced at the clock and sighed. 3:00, time enough to Apparate home and pick up her things, and still be back in time to meet Ginny before joining her co-workers. Not enough time to sort out her feelings about anything else, but maybe lying on the beach in the warm sun might be just the place to do that...

~~~~~

He'd been home for hours and he still didn't know what he was going to do.

Harry had been floored when his friend dropped the bombshell about Hermione's purported feelings for a certain Boy-Who-Lived. When he pressed him for details, Ron had admitted that he couldn't prove that's how she felt, that he'd suspected for years that she'd had those feelings, but that for some reason had been denying them to herself. "Face it, Harry," he'd said with a touch of exasperation when he'd insisted once again that their mutual friend didn't think about him that way, "when she came down in her dress robes for the Yule Ball in our fourth year, it was your reaction she was watching for, not mine. Sure, she was mad at both of us for being prats and waiting until the last second to ask her, but it was you she kept checking on at the ball itself, not me."

"So why didn't she ever let on how she felt?" Harry had demanded.

"You're asking me that, me, the poster child for insensitive gits?" Ron chuckled. "Mind you, now that I've thought about it I have my suspicions, but nothing I'm brave enough to say out loud. Right or wrong, 'Mione'd kill me if she knew I'd been discussing the whys and wherefores of her feelings about you. It'll be bad enough when she finds out I've said this much."

Harry suddenly eyed him narrowly. "Ron," he asked with a warning tone, "how long have you suspected, really?"

Ron looked away first. "Damn, I was afraid you'd ask me that. Look, I never knew, all right? Not for certain. And I'll admit it; I didn't want to know. I don't like to remember what a prat I was at times in school, especially where you were concerned. It makes me feel pretty damned small when I think that maybe I convinced myself that Hermione and I were some kind of soulmates just so there would be one thing where I came in first."

"Hermione isn't a prize, Ron," Harry said coldly.

"I know that now, Harry, I'm just trying to fess up to maybe not knowing it back at Hogwarts! Don't I get some credit for that, at least?" Ron asked exasperatedly, running a hand through his close-cropped hair.

Harry sighed; Ron was right, what mattered was what happened now, not might-have-beens that served no purpose other than to twist one's guts into knots. "So what do I do?"

"Just talk to her, Harry," Ron replied patiently. "And whatever you do, don't lie to her, about anything. "'Mione might get mad at you for keeping quiet so long, she might yell, or throw things, or give you the silent treatment--all things she's done to me over the years, I might add--but eventually she'll get over it. What she won't forgive, or ever get over, is dishonesty. I don't know if it's a side effect of always being Library Girl, but she sees the truth as something...sacred, I guess, which would making lying sacrilege." He clapped a hand on his friend's shoulder and gave him a shake. "Just tell her the truth."

~~~~~

So here he was, trying to figure out how to approach telling his best friend that he thought of her as more than a friend, and that he had felt that way for years. And he didn't know if what he'd learned from Ron was going to make that easier, or harder. Easier because the fear of rejection was lessened, the fear that she would look at him pityingly, or worse, uncomfortably, before going through the eviscerating ritual of 'letting him down easy'. Harder because now he had hope, and hope meant lowering the barriers he'd worked so hard to build around his deepest feelings, barriers that had become instinctual since those awful days before Riddle's defeat.

'Well, no time like the present,' he thought to himself. He glanced at the wall clock, one of a set of three that had been a gift from Professor Dumbledore after they graduated. It had three faces; one each for him, Ron and Hermione, and like the famous Weasley Grandfather clock, each face had a hand that shifted from destination to destination to indicate where the person was, and a smaller hand indicating their general condition. Right now, for example, both his and Ron's location hands were on 'Home', while their condition hands read respectively 'confused and tired' for him, and 'getting better' for Ron. He snorted and wondered if the clock had briefly manifested the word 'newt' when Harry had made good his threat, though just for a minute.

He looked to the face that monitored Hermione and wasn't terribly surprised to see that hers also read 'confused and tired', but her position hand was flashing 'travelling', and it was moving not towards work or home, but towards 'vacation'. He groaned, remembering Hermione's references to going on a trip with some of her female colleagues from work, where was it? He suddenly remembered; St. Tropez, and he blushed as he recalled her statements about not being ashamed of her 'bits', and his own reaction to the images that engendered.

Now he'd have to wait until she got back to talk to her--

His fireplace flared green and an excited, bespectacled face appeared in the flames. "Chief! We finally got them!"

Harry sighed at the boisterous nature of the Unspeakables' head of research and development. He was young for his position, which underscored his brilliance, but he had some personality quirks that took getting used to. One of them was the name he insisted people use for him, a joke that only the Muggleborns caught, and not always them. "What, precisely, did we 'get', Q?" Harry asked.

"The new disguise charms, the Tactile Chains!" Harry's attention perked up. One thing he appreciated was the need for good disguises in his line of work, especially when one's face was as well known as his. Polyjuice potion was of limited usefulness because of its extremely short duration, but the new Tactile Charms had promise. They consisted of a simple gold chain worn around the neck, and they could be set to alter a whole range of features, eyes, hair, facial features, basically anything above the neck was fair game. What's more, the changes not only looked real, but unlike a simple illusion spell, they felt real. And since no potion was involved, the effect lasted for as long as you wore the chain. It didn't alter the rest of the body, and Harry knew that eventually the Darksiders would come up with a counter, but for now the charms would offer a distinct advantage.

A thought occurred to Harry, and a gleam appeared in his eyes. "Say, Q, you wouldn't be looking for someone to field test those, would you?"

~~~~~