Phoenix|| A Harry Potter Love Story

34

The day started out as every day did. Rosie got out of her bed, her black hair radiated curls in every direction. She rushed over to the Gryffindor common girls lavatories to have a clean shower. Girls were usually filtering through at about this hour. Rosie washed her hair with a shampoo that Heather had charmed to smell like peaches.

After she got out of the shower, smelling like a peach, she changed into her uniform. She always needed help with the ties, until the third year when Hermione was so fed up with doing her tie that she sat down Rosie for an hour and taught her a tie-tying spell.

When her uniform was on, and her hair was sorted, Rosie made her way to the dormitory where Hermione was half-way through her own routine. Hermione and Rosie had very different routines. Hermione liked to shower in the evenings so she could calm herself down for sleep. Whereas Rosie loved to crash at night, and she preferred to wake up, feeling fresh.

Hermione and Rosie walked to the dining hall, side-by-side, like every morning. Some mornings they met Harry and Ron on the way, but that wasn't the case today. That wasn't unusual either. When they entered the great hall through the large doors, they were greeted with a familiar sight. Tired students eating their breakfasts, and some not-so-tired, gobbling up toast and eggs to their pure delight. Some students looked like they had just walked out of their own grave, while others looked as if they had been up for hours. 

Rosie and Hermione spotted Harry and Ron talking amongst themselves. They ran up to the boys. 

"Hey," Rosie greeted, Hermione sat down to Ron's left and Rosie to Harry's right. 

"How are you boys this morning?" Rosie asked. 

"I'm alright," Harry said in a monotone voice, he very obviously hadn't had the best night. These were common for harry. He was always plagued with awful dreams, and most days he felt as if the fate of the wizarding world lay upon his shoulders. 

Ron mumbled through a mouthful, "I'm tired." 

Hermione smiled, "So, what have you done to begin studying for your o.w.ls?" She focused her attention on the redhead boy before her, who had just finished his mouthful, "What about you Ronald, how have you prepared thus far?"  

"I-uh-well. Lovely weather we're having!" Ron blurted out, his eyes darting everywhere to look in any direction but at Hermione. 

Hermione was not impressed, "Have you done anything?" 

Ron shook his head, and his gaze landed on Hermione, "No, but Hermione it's only November." 

"That is no excuse!" She yelled, throwing her hands on her hips, "Honestly Ronald, if you don't get your act together you may have no future! You will be like that old gruff that wonders Diagon Alley. He even looks like you!" 

"Excuse me!" He yelled back at Hermione, his hands flying on his hips, "I will not be some 'old gruff!' At least I'm not boring like you-" 

It was at this point Rosie nudged Harry's arm, indicating that they both flee the scene. Harry grabbed two bagels, one for himself and one for her, and they hurried out of the Great Hall. They ran up many flights of stairs and made their way to the abandoned room on the sixth floor, the room they had always fled to before things became too complicated. 

Rosie lay on the floor, her black hair spinning around her everywhere. Harry sat near her torso, so he had just the right angle to look at her. 

"When was the last time we came up here?" Rosie asked him in mid-thought, pondering about the last time they had ventured this far. 

"Not for a while," Harry said, his gaze fading off in the distance, "You and me used to just talk up here before everything got....too weird."

"Yeah. A lot has happened in the past year and a half," Rosie said, her mind drifting back to the kiss against the corridor, and the events that led up to that fateful moment.

"I took Cho up here once," Harry said nonchalantly, "Just to show her this, y'know."

Cho. Of course, he brought Cho up here. Cho, the girl who was stealing Harry away from her. It hurt in ways that she could neither comprehend nor explain. 

"She loved it up here," Harry said, a smile edging on his lips, "We talked up here for hours, one day after a DA meeting. She really loved being alone up here." 

Each comment he said was like a stab to the heart. The stake he was driving inside her, was going deeper and deeper, chipping her heart bit by bit, and soon her heart would break into two. She was going pale from his comments about Cho, and she put a hand on her head. He took notice of this, "Rosie, are you alright?" 

She nodded her head, "Yeah, I'm fi- well no. I'm not feeling well. I have a headache. I'm just going to head to bed for a bit, um yeah." 

Rosie stood up and exited the room at such a quick speed to prevent Harry from seeing the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. Finally, when her back was to the door, she allowed the tears to flow down her cheeks. 

—

Rosie didn't make it to her first class because she was lying in her bed in the girl's dormitory, sobbing. 

Hermione noticed she wasn't in the first class, so she marched back to the Gryffindor Common room, and into their dormitory, where she saw Rosie, her face in her pillow. "Rosie Lupin! How could you be in bed? You missed your first class, Professor Sprout isn't pleased. She had no clue where you were, and the entire- Rosie, what's wrong?" 

Hermione's tone changed when she saw Rosie, the usually perky girl, with black bags under her bloodshot eyes, tears streaming down her pale face. She rushed to her side immediately. 

"I-I can't tell you," Rosie sniffed, wiping some tears from her eyes. 

Hermione shook her head against this claim, rubbing a hand on Rosie's back in a rhythmic pattern. She reminded the crying girl that Rosie could tell her anything, she wouldn't betray her secrets. 

"It's Harry," Rosie said, tears falling down her face, yet again, "We-um- kissed last year. Right after Cedric died, and we made this decision to not get together but not to not get together. And I was hoping that Cho and him, wasn't a thing at all. But he, uh, he-" 

Rosie was overwhelmed with sobs, and Hermione tried to soothe her by rubbing her back. This was a lot of information for Hermione to take in, but she did so gracefully and humbly. 

After a minute, Rosie calmed down a bit, and continued her story, "Harry took her to our special place. That was our place. He replaced me, with Cho." 

That was it, she couldn't contain her composure anymore. Hermione let the blubbering girl cry into her shoulder, as Hermione tried to soothe her. However much she tried, it ultimately wasn't much use. Hermione could not believe her ears of how much hurt that Rosie had been dealing with. It seemed unbearable to Hermione's ears. Rosie was crying. Of the four and a half years that Rosie and Hermione had known each other, as best friends, Hermione had only seen Rosie cry five times, including this time. Rosie wasn't the sort of girl who cried. But, here she was, crying over Harry Potter. 

It was a hard thing for Hermione to watch. Hermione wished she could have stayed with Rosie, but she had to leave for her next class. She covered for Rosie, saying that she had a terrible headache. The "ache" part of that was true, but the placement was wrong. The ache was not in her head, it was an ache in her heart.