Thank You, Rita Skeeter!

Thank You, Rita Skeeter!

Sitting on the edge of her bed, Hermione buried her face in her hands. Her spellbooks and papers were strewn about her dorm, mixed with all of Lavender and Parvati's clothes. I'm never going to be packed by tomorrow, she thought, surveying the mess, scolding herself for allowing the room to become this chaotic. She reluctantly lifted herself from the bed and went to the window. The June sunlight streamed merrily through the diaphanous curtains, warming her face. The mirthful laughs of the students playing on the grounds drifted up through the window. Hermione sighed. I should be out there, laughing and relaxing with everyone, instead of holing up in my room, she thought. But Hermione didn't really feel like laughing and relaxing. Sixth year was over, and tomorrow she was going home. And while she looked forward to seeing her parents, dread filled her at the thought of leaving her friends. With the current state of the wizarding world, she didn't want to leave their side. One could never tell who would be the next victim of Voldemort, but with a best friend like Harry Potter, Hermione was in constant fear. She couldn't imagine losing him, not after all he'd meant to her. She sighed and turned away from the window, back to the mind-numbing packing. She was unraveling a quill from one of Parvati's socks when she heard someone open the door behind her.

"You know, you could help me clean up this room," she said frostily, throwing the sock aside.

"Er, right, sorry," a male voice replied. Hermione spun around and found herself staring into Harry's confused bottle green eyes.

"Oh, Harry!" she laughed. "I'm sorry, I thought you were Lavender or Parvati." She smiled sheepishly at him, and then confusion shadowed her face. "Wait, how did you get up here?"

"The charm was removed from the stairs, remember?" He said, gesturing to the staircase behind him.

"Oh, right." She remembered that the charm preventing males from entering the girl's dormitory had been removed a few weeks ago, much to the delight of Dean and Seamus. "Why aren't you outside with everyone else?" she asked, putting a quill in her trunk.

"Don't quite feel up to it," he said, leaning against the doorframe. He absentmindedly ran his hand through his inky hair and stared dejectedly out the window. "Ron's off trying to gather up all of his chess pieces, so I thought I'd come by and see what you were up to. Why aren't you outside," he asked, smiling.

"Don't quite feel up to it either, to tell the truth. Not to mention I have to finish packing, and I don't even know where half of my belongings are in this mess!" she motioned to the sea of parchments and clothes that surrounded her, then closed her eyes and dramatically fell backwards onto her bed. "Aargh," she muttered.

"Hermione, you look exhausted. Here, I'll help you," Harry said, stepping into the room and gingerly picking up one of Parvati's lacy bras. "Er...How do I know what's yours?"

Hermione opened her eyes and stifled a giggle. "Harry, just throw that on Parvati's bed. I've already gathered up all of my clothes, so it's mainly just the books and parchments that are mine." She stood up and began to rifle through a pile of clothes, searching for Hogwarts, A History.

"None of these parchments or books belong to Lavender or Parvati?" Harry asked, depositing a stack of papers into Hermione's trunk.

"No. They figured that they did enough work last year, what with O.W.L.S. and all. I don't think I saw them pick up a book at all this year," she said. "Too busy with Dean and Seamus, I suppose," Hermione said, a bit more cynically than she had meant. Harry eyed her suspiciously, and Hermione avoided his gaze. While she was usually annoyed with her roommates' obsession with boys, she couldn't help but envy them as well. She only wished everything was that simple--that instead of spending her time worrying and fretting, she could spend it with, well...with Harry. You do spend all your time with Harry, she told herself. Yeah, but not like that, she snorted.

"What?" Harry said, looking up at her.

"What?" she asked.

"You just snorted. What were you laughing at?" he said, staring at her with a mild look of amusement.

Hermione felt her face become very hot. "Oh, uh, I was looking out the window, and I uh, saw...Neville. He tripped." Damnit.

Harry just smiled and went back to gathering up Hermione's belongings. Great, now he thinks I'm touched in the head, Hermione thought bitterly.

"Hermione, what is it!" Harry laughed, his eyes lighting up.

"What?" Hermione asked surprised. "What, why are you laughing at me?"

"You were muttering under your breath! What's with you today?" He put his hand on her shoulder, the corners of his eyes crinkling with laughter. Hermione stared at his hand on her shoulder, and he quickly withdrew it, blushing. "Er..."

"Er..." she said in reply. Really articulate, Granger, she thought to herself, making sure she wasn't muttering. Harry bent down to pick up a shoebox that was half-hidden beneath Hermione's bed. Hermione stared at his back and sighed. He stood up and shook the shoebox. It rattled shrilly.

"Is this what I think it is?" He asked, a grin spreading across his face. Hermione smiled as well.

"Yeah, well, you never know when people might start showing an interest," she said, sitting on the bed next to Harry as he opened the shoebox and plunked the S.P.E.W. badges into a pile between them. She ran her fingers over the glittering pins, chuckling. Harry laughed too.

"Remember all those horrid hats you made?" he said, shielding his face with his arm as Hermione threw a pin at him.

"Horrid! How dare you?" she laughed. They were horrid, and she knew it. "At least the house elves always took them when they cleaned the common room!"

"Er, yeah," Harry said, looking down into the shoebox. He never had the heart to tell Hermione that Dobby was the only house elf benefiting from her hard work. "Hey, what's this?" he asked, glad for the change of subject. He pulled some newspaper clippings from the bottom of the shoebox. They were clippings from the Daily Prophet, from the articles Rita Skeeter wrote about him two years ago.

Harry has at last found love at Hogwarts. His close friend, Colin Creevey, says that Harry is rarely seen out of the company of one Hermione Granger, a stunningly pretty Muggle-born girl who, like Harry, is one of the top students in the school.

"Hermione, I can't believe you kept this garbage, especially after you turned Rita Skeeter into a beetle!" Hermione's face fell when she saw what Harry was reading. Oh no, oh no, why did I keep those? I'm an idiot! Oh, how do I explain this? She cringed as Harry picked up the next article and laughed. "Ha! Hermione, remember this?"

Harry Potter's Secret Heartache

A boy like no other, perhaps--yet a boy suffering with all the usual pangs of adolescence, writes Rita Skeeter. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter thought he had found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, Muggle-born Hermione Granger. Little did he know that he would shortly be suffering yet another emotional blow in a life already littered with personal loss.

"Hermione, why on earth did you keep this? This article made you out to be a scarlet woman, as Ron would say." He laughed at this. "And you spent a day in the hospital wing because of the bubotuber pus in that hate mail! Why--?" But he stopped talking when he looked at Hermione. She was staring at her lap, her face crimson. "Er, Hermione?" he asked cautiously.

Hermione's face was burning. "I, uh," she muttered. What do I say? "I kept them, because, well, they were flattering." She pushed a mass of her bushy hair in front of her face to hide her darkening complexion.

"Flattering? Ha! Pansy Parkinson calls you really ugly! Since when is that flattery? This article turned people against you! Even Mrs. Weasley believed it!"

"Honestly, Harry, you're worse than Ron," she said exasperatedly, leaving the bed and walking over to the window. Worse than Ron? Gosh, that's bad, he thought. He couldn't imagine what he had done to upset her. He watched Hermione sigh and stare out the window. The orange glow from the setting sun struck her chestnut hair, and for a moment a halo of radiance danced about her head. Harry's breath caught in his throat.

"Hermione, what, uh," but she cut him off.

"It was just nice to think that that could be true!" she said, whirling around to look at him, but she found herself staring at the ceiling. Harry watched her hazel eyes, but he could not read them. They looked--scared. But why?

"True?" Harry said stupidly, not risking saying anything more for fear of being berated again.

"Yes! That you, well...that you could, and me, and..." There's that stunning articulation again, she thought cynically. She turned to look out the window again, so Harry couldn't see the look of mortification on her face.

Harry stared at her back, a look of comprehension dawning on his face. "Oh. I--I didn't know," he said, staring at the spot on the ceiling that had held Hermione's attention earlier.

"Yeah, well, you do now. So thanks for the help packing and all, I'd better go search the Common Room, make sure I haven't forgotten anything," Hermione said so rapidly, wiping her cheeks with her sleeve and rushing towards the door. As she neared the door, it slammed in her face and locked. She jiggled the doorknob, but it wouldn't budge. She hastily whipped out her wand. "Alohamora!" But the door remained locked. "Harry, please," she said, not willing herself to turn around and look at him.

"Hermione," Harry started.

"Harry, no, just forget I said anything. I kept those clippings to make paper hats for the house elves. Now please, just let me go," she said, turning the handle once more, as if expecting it to open this time. But it didn't.

"Hermione, I want to talk to you. Please look at me," Harry said. Hermione slowly turned to look at him. He just stared at her, concern in his eyes. She scoffed.

"Harry, honestly, it's okay. I don't need to hear you tell me that we're just friends, I already know that. And I don't need your pity! I'm sorry that I did this, but I MMPH!" Harry rushed forward and cut Hermione off mid-sentence, grabbing her around the waist and crushing his lips onto hers. Hermione stiffened in surprise, but she relaxed into his embrace as he deepened the kiss. It only being Harry's second kiss and Hermione's first, it was short, and it was awkward, with plenty of bumped noses and unsure hands, but it was bliss. All the thoughts, all the worries about the future, slipped away. Hermione smiled against Harry's lips as they broke apart.

"Hermione?" Harry asked laughing at Hermione's closed eyes and vacant expression.

"Hmm..." she muttered.

"Do you know where Rita Skeeter is these days?"

Hermione's eyes opened, and she stared at him, perplexed. "Uh, yeah, I think Luna's dad hired her full time at The Quibbler. Uh, why do you want to know?"

"Oh, no reason," Harry smirked. "I just wanted to write her a thank you letter." She smiled brightly at him as he traced the lines of her face with his fingertip, and when they kissed again, she smiled inwardly and congratulated herself for her own stupidity.