At the Beginning With You [Harmione]

17. Dinners and Dancing

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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"So where are we going?" Hermione said to Barrett as she and he were walking down the streets of London.

"I thought we'd go to this new place I've wanted to try. It's Italian. Do you like Italian?" Hermione nodded that she did. She had been quiet ever since they left the house, feeling guilty about her date with Barrett, especially since it caused a little tension between her and Harry. After Barrett had left the night he stopped by, she had lain awake for a long time going over what had happened in her head, wondering what had caused her to say yes. Yes, he was a relatively good looking wizard, and kind, and from what she and he had talked about so far, very ambitious. But his timing wasn't the greatest. Two o'clock in the morning was by far not the best time to ask someone out on a date. But then, she still said yes. That night she had felt like such a fool, just days before then she was telling Harry that she loved him, and now she was going out on a date with another man. The excuse Hermione had eventually come up with was it was to start getting over Harry. For good this time. She had told herself that now that he knew, she knew now he didn't feel that way about her so she could stop wondering, and she could move on. And a date with someone else was a good step forward, even if his asking her out was unconventional.

"Hermione? Something wrong?" Barrett asked her, as he had stopped talking a little while ago, and Hermione hadn't responded in a few minutes. Long enough for him to be worried.

While Hermione was deep in thought, they had reached the restaurant and had been seated. Hermione was brought out of her thoughts by Barrett's question, and said, "What? No, nothing's wrong, I was just thinking."

"What about?"

"This date."

"Oh," Barrett said with a smile. "Good or bad thoughts?"

"I don't know." Barrett looked a little confused so Hermione went on, "I have to admit, this really isn't something I'd do."

"What, date?"

"No, not just date. Accept a date from a guy I just met who asked me at two in the morning." Barrett smiled sheepishly.

"Yeah, well, it was bad timing on my part. I could tell your roommate wasn't too happy about it either."

"I'm not quite for sure what Harry's problem is about this, whether it was the fact that you came over so late at night or if it's just you."

"Well that makes me feel better," Barrett said a little sarcastically.

"No, no, it's just that he's a little leery about you, he and Ron are like big brothers in a sense. They're just looking out for me. Being cautious. It's something they started doing when we were in school, especially since we were living in uncertain times, and I guess they just haven't grown out of it yet. But I have to apologize for him though; I thought he'd maybe be a little nicer considering it was your article that explained the truth to everyone. Which I have to admit, I am very surprised how easily everyone believed the truth."

"Well, I have a confession to make about that. I truly wanted to help him out, you know, anything for the wizard who saved our world, so there is this special spell we can put on the ink in our articles that makes people believe what is in the article. It's not exactly legal, but people have been using it for years. Most of the time it's used for writers who have to have a good response to their article, they can't stand negative feedback or accusations that they're telling lies. And then there's some that are looking for scandals and are out to shock the world, and they'll use it to make everyone believe what they write, even if it's so out of this world that no one in their right mind would believe it. Rita Skeeter had been known on occasion to use it. Especially a few years ago when she was writing about things going on at Hogwarts during the Triwizard Tournament."