At the Beginning With You [Harmione]

16. The Little Green Monster

Life is a road
And I want to keep going
Love is a river

I wanna keep flowing
Life is a road
Now and forever
Wonderful journey

I'll be there when the world stops turning
I'll be there when the storm is through
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you

- 'At the Beginning' by Richard Marx and Donna Lewis from the movie Anastasia

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"Hermione, you know what we should do sometime? This weekend even?"

Hermione tiredly turned toward Harry and said, "What's that?"

"How about if I take you out for dinner or something on Saturday night?"We can go celebrate."

"Shouldn't it be the other way around, you're the one with something to celebrate, and I should take you out."

"Yeah, but I owe you, remember?" Harry said with a grin.

Hermione smiled and yawned.

"Sounds good, Harry. But as for right now, I think I'm going to go to bed, I need to get up and get going back to school in the morning, and I need to be there early enough to get things ready for classes,"

she said, standing up and stretching. "That is, if it's alright with you if I stay here tonight."

"It's your house too, stay however long you like."

"No, it's not my house, remember? I still have my flat."

"Oh," Harry said, slightly taken aback at Hermione's statement. "That's right."

Hermione smiled and said, "Good night, Harry." She headed for the stairs but was stopped by the ringing of the doorbell. Harry and Hermione gave each other confused looks, wondering who was there, and why they decided that 2 a.m. was the best time to come visit.

Hermione said, "Who in the world comes by this time of night?" She opened the door, and was surprised to find Barrett Smyth standing on the doorstep.

"Barrett. What are you doing here?"

"I'm sorry it's so late, but I wanted to give you something. I went back up to the school and they said you'd be here. I wanted to give you this." He held a newspaper out to her. "It's tomorrow's newspaper, they just printed it, and I wanted to give it to you right away. Oh, hello, Mr. Potter," Barrett said when Harry came to stand next to Hermione in the doorway, a look that could've been construed as anger on his face.

"Who're you?"

"My name's Barrett Smyth, Mr. Potter. I'm the one reporting the story about Miss Weasley's interrogation." He held his hand out to shake, which Harry just glanced at and didn't take. He figured kindness and courtesy stopped at midnight, and him stopping by at two in the morning was enough to push Harry's temper a little bit, and give him a bad impression.

Harry's dislike for Barrett increased when he said next to Hermione, "I was also wondering if maybe you'd like to have dinner sometime. I know this isn't really the best time for it, but I wasn't for sure when I'd see you next."

"Oh! Um, I don't know, when?"

"This weekend work?"

"Oh, well this weekend Harry and I are going out to celebrate. But that's Saturday, so I'd only be free Friday night." Hermione kept looking out of the corner of her eye at Harry, who didn't seem too pleased at what was happening in front of him.