What A 'Trip'

                                                                   ~~ What a Trip ~~

 The Great Hall was abuzz as hungry witches and wizards eagerly sat down for their dinner feast, which appeared magically before their eyes right on schedule. Above them, the enchanted ceiling portrayed a starry, serene night sky. Outside of the hall, however, the boy-who-lived was having a less than serene night. He had just broken up with his seventeen year old girlfriend, Ginny Weasley, who had been so distraught that she used a Confundus hex on him before running off to her brother Ron. Harry clumsily leaned against the cold stone walls and cautiously peeked at the Gryffindor table. There sat a perplexed Hermione, there shook a sobbing Ginny, there scowled a pissed off Ronald Weasley. ‘Great,’ thought Harry, ‘I needed my best friends to be mad at me, too.’ Hermione, however, was clearly worried about both parties. Looking back and forth between Ginny and Harry, she stood and began to head towards the latter. Ron grabbed her sleeve, and gestured to his crying sister. Hermione tried to comfort him, but his arguing ended up pushing her away, and she stormed over to Harry with angst written across her face.

Harry sighed in guilt-ridden frustration and attempted to face-palm himself; however, due to the curse on him, he ended up punching himself in the eye and knocking his glasses off instead. Hermione quickly reached his side and got his glasses off of the tile floor, not wanting him to hurt himself getting them. She, being as sharp as a whip, figured out what was wrong with him instantly. “So, a Confundus hex. I presume it’s from Ginny. .  . ?” Harry nodded, and ended up throwing his back against the wall involuntarily.

He swore, hissing: “Yep, Ginny.” Hermione rubbed his shoulder sympathetically and tried to get him to stand up straighter; she didn’t succeed. 

“So, there’s nothing we can do about this curse until it wears off, right?”

Hermione bit her lip and nodded. Harry surprised her by laughing.

“Harry, what on earth could be funny?”

“Sorry, I was just remembering the time you put a Confundus hex on Cormuck a few years ago. Heh, he was bumping into doorways for hours.” Harry’s grin faded. “It’s not so funny now, though, is it?”

Hermione sighed, pushing her tawny-tinted brown curls out of her face in worry as she fixed Harry’s glasses with a quick “Oculus repairo.” He tried to smile gratefully, but ended up sneering crookedly, a few teeth revealed as his top lip pulled up oddly. Hermione sincerely tried not to laugh- she knew that he felt bad and that he couldn’t control his body very well. But still, that face. . . Hermione burst out giggling, attempting to muffle her chuckles with her hand. Harry soon joined in, knowing that she meant no harm. 

Wiping a tear from her eye, Hermione straightened her posture and said, “Harry, how are you?” he opened his mouth, but Hermione silenced him by raising her hand. “I meant, how are you really? I don't want a heroic, shrugged-off story; I want the facts.”

Harry chuckled lightly-that was Hermione for you. “Well, let’s see: I hurt Ginny’s feelings, Ron is pissed at me, Ron is pissed at you for being here with me, and I feel like everything around me is off-kilter and spinning. Otherwise, I'm bloody peachy. You?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Tone down the drama, queen, and answer me this: was Ginny more upset about you letting her go, or about the fact that you only told her you were gay today?” Hermione’s voice colored with disapproval as she concluded her sentence, and Harry knew why; he had come out to Hermione a month ago, but no one else.

He sighed. “Well, I couldn’t just say ‘Oh, hi Ginny. I know we’ve been dating for a year, but I realized that I wasn’t attracted to you because of your gender. Let’s stay friends, okay? I won’t seem like a prat for long!’ *scoff* Not to mention the fact that Ron will totally freak when he finds out. I mean, once Ginny knows something, all the Weasley’s know it. How could I tell her without risking telling all of them?”