Hey everyone! Sorry I'm a day late. Honestly, I was just being lazy. It was Victoria Day weekend and I was out doing stuff for like 4 days straight, but I'm here now! :)

Thanks so much for your guys' reviews on the last chapter! And some of you were very good guessers as to why Seamus was there for Katie Bell's announcement haha! This chapter takes place directly after the last one. There's no Ron/Hermione, it's mostly all Harry/Hermione and then some Draco at the beginning. I'm sure some of you will be a little disappointed in Hermione's actions in this one as well, but I've always thought that Hermione has always been a thinker first and a lover second, or at least in the stage of her life! So keeping that in mind, hopefully you'll understand where I'm coming from.

Anyways, I don't want to give too much away. Enjoy, and don't forget to review and leave your suggestions! :)

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Chapter 12:

Draco was walking through the hallways towards the Gryffindor Tower, playing his plan in his mind over and over again. He made a quick pit stop in a washroom and downed the last of his Seamus Finnigan Polyjuice potion before hastily exiting the washroom in search of Katie Bell.

Today would be the day he was going to convince Harry Potter that his best friend was a Death Eater, once and for all. Hopefully this would distract him well enough for Draco to be able to perform his deed bestowed upon him by the Dark Lord himself, and then he would not be a failure. He will have pleased Voldemort, ensuring his and his mother's safety. He will have pleased his father, ensuring he was not ostracized in the family for having been too weak to handle something like this. And he will have pleased himself, because as much as he didn't feel he wanted to kill, he still thoroughly enjoyed seeing Potter fail. Having the added bonus of a ruined life-long friendship was there as well.

He was getting closer and closer to the Gryffindor common room, when he finally spotted Katie Bell rounding the corner in front of him. He quickly ran to catch up with her, evidently catching her by surprise as she spun around to look at him. He assumed she wasn't very familiar with Seamus as she was an entire year older than him and he had never seen the two together as far as he could remember, so he quickly came up with an excuse.

"Oh, err, hey, Katie," he said awkwardly, not really knowing what to talk to her about as they continued to stroll casually down the hall.

Katie gave him a bemused look before smiling awkwardly in return and responding. "Hey…"

"I just had a err, question… about… err…" he stuttered as he spotted a broom closet coming up next in the hallway. "It was a question about err…. quidditch!" he finally said, suddenly remembering she was a chaser for the Gryffindor quidditch team.

"You have a question about… quidditch?" she asked skeptically.

"Yes… which is why I came to you about this. You know, you being a chaser and all. I couldn't help but notice how excellent your err, form was," he said awkwardly, though completely aware of how creepy it had sounded. They were almost at the broom closet as he watched her face contort at his comment.

"My form?" she asked, sounding a little uneasy as to where the conversation might be going.

"Yes…" he replied just as awkwardly, getting prepared for his next move. "I've been watching you play lately and I have always wanted the position of chaser, so I was wondering if maybe you could give me a few pointers for next year-"

He suddenly opened and shoved Katie through the door of the broom closet, causing her to gasp and topple over at the sudden contact. She tried to catch the ground underneath her feet before whipping around to face him again, only to come face to face with Draco's wand. "WHA-"

"Imperio," he whispered, as he watched his wand light up the darkened room and Katie's face immediately neutralize under the curse.

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Draco was now standing in the common room, behind his nemesis Harry Potter, still disguised as Seamus Finnigan. He had used the Imperius curse to have Katie Bell admit to Potter that it had been Weasley who had used the same curse on her earlier in the year. He was hoping to Merlin this would work, because he was running out of ideas. If this didn't go off without a hitch, Harry would probably focus even more of his time trying to figure out what was going on, and that simply was not an option. He listened intently to Harry's conversation with Hermione, suddenly hearing something that may be of use to him.

"….I don't know how Dumbledore is going to-"

"How Dumbledore's going to do what?" he asked eagerly, plopping down in the seat on the other side of Harry on the sofa. Any information on Dumbledore might prove to be useful for him soon enough.

Harry quickly turned to look at him with raised eyebrows. "Oh, err- how he's going to react when he finds out that some first years have been making fun of… his, err, his… beard! Yes, they have been making fun of his beard. Saying it looks like he stuck his face in a candyfloss machine, and what-not," he answered awkwardly. Draco took this to mean that whatever it was he was really talking about wasn't something he was even willing to share with Seamus. He wasn't sure how close Harry and Seamus were, but he had hoped it would be close enough to discuss certain things of that nature. Apparently this was something worth hiding, though.

"Oh?" he said awkwardly, though still fairly certain that Harry was lying. "Yeah, I suppose it does kind of look like that, doesn't it?" He then started laughing as the thought of Dumbledore sticking his winkled old face in a candyfloss machine popped into his head. As much as he didn't want to be the one to kill Dumbledore, he still enjoyed poking fun at the elderly wizard. He had always felt that Dumbledore had somewhat favoured Harry Potter and his Gryffindor friends, and for that reason he had always held some resentment for the old man.

He was suddenly torn from his mental images of Dumbledore using his face as a candyfloss holder when Katie Bell walked into the scene, standing directly in front of their sofa and looking down at Harry. He could feel his heart beat instantly quicken as he desperately hoped she wouldn't somehow mess this up again. He had a lot riding on this and he wouldn't be particularly pleased if he was nearly found out again thanks to this useless girl.

"Anyways, I think I better head up to bed soon," Harry said casually, putting his books away in his bag and reaching for his quill and ink, still completely unaware of Katie's presence. Draco waited in desperation for her to speak, hoping she would sound convincing enough to not appear to be under a curse. Finally, after what felt like forever, she spoke directly towards Harry, her eyes never leaving the top of his head.

"Ron Weasley was the one who put the Imperius Curse on me," she said plainly, her voice void of any sort of emotion. Draco could feel himself cringe at the extreme lack of emotion in her expression, hoping that it wouldn't be evident she was under a curse. Suddenly remembering who he was supposed to be behaving like, he opened his mouth in forced shock at the statement, acting as though he had never seen it coming.

Harry's eyes widened and his head instantly snapped ahead of him at Katie's shocking accusation. The sudden reaction from Harry caused him to spill the jar of ink he had been holding in his right hand all over Draco's pants and shirt.

"Oi!" shouted Draco, looking down at his now stained uniform. He quickly glanced over at Harry to see his reaction, but his frustration drained away and was replaced by a sense of relief to see a sort of disbelief in Harry's face.

"What was that?" Harry asked with an astonished tone to his voice, apparently unaware of the spilled ink that was now seeping through Draco's uniform.

Katie looked down at him with a neutral look on her face. "You said to tell you if I remember who it was that did it. Well I remembered. It was Ron Weasley."

Draco was now desperately waiting to hear Harry's reply, his heart beat increasing in speed as he sat on the edge of seat, along with a few other students who had heard the accusation. He watched as Harry stared up at her with an open mouth, unaware of how to respond to such a thing, and Hermione's eyes widened as she too waited for Harry's reaction.

Finally, after several long seconds passed between the silent group of students, Harry shook his head slowly, his eyes still staring into Katie's. "No," he said firmly, still shaking his head.

The other students remained silent, and Draco could feel a sudden surge of panic strike through him as he sat, desperately trying to think of something to say. Harry wasn't buying it. Katie continued to stare down at him, as she was still under the curse and unable to add any input of her own to the conversation.

Draco watched as Hermione stared at Harry in disbelief, appearing to be reluctant about Harry's answer. "Harry?" she asked quietly, as Harry turned his head away from Katie and towards her.

"No. I won't believe it," he said sternly, turning his head back to Katie before continuing. "I think you're mistaken, Katie. I'm sorry, but I really do. Maybe you should think about it some more, because I'm certain Ron had nothing to do with any of this." His eyes pierced through hers as if waiting to hear her rebuttal, but to Draco's horror she simply walked away and out of the common room. He had no idea where she was going as she was still under the curse, but she had technically fulfilled what Draco had asked of her.

The few students that were standing around them quickly began whispering amongst each other as Hermione stared at Harry with questioning eyes. Draco's panic was increasing as he sat there, unsure of what to do now. Deciding he needed to say something, he leaned in towards Harry.

"Harry, how can you say she's wrong if nobody saw who it was that did it except for her?" he asked confusedly.

Harry turned to look at him and said simply "Because Ron would never do something like this." Draco could only stare at him as he felt panic and anger pump through his veins at the thought of being found out. How is it that after all of this, he would still take that stupid Weasley's side? Was he stupid? Harry then looked down at Draco's lap, and his eyes widened at the mess he had not noticed he had made. "Oh, sorry about that, mate," he said apologetically, quickly picking up his now empty jar of ink from the sofa and putting it away.

"Oh…" said Draco grimly, snapping out of his panicked state of mind. "It's alright." He then stood up and made his way for the exit, inwardly cursing himself and Katie Bell for the whole attempt at corrupting Harry Potter's mind. He couldn't believe that even after an admission from Katie herself that it had been Ron, Harry would still stand by him. Evidently he was going to have to come up with another plan, and hopefully nobody would find out about this whole failure of an event .

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Hermione was staring at Harry in complete disbelief, unable to process what had just passed. The students that had overheard Katie's accusation were now scattered around the common room, no doubt gossiping about what they heard, and Katie had left the room without another word. She barely noticed Seamus standing up and walking away as she tried to understand what reasoning Harry had for being so sure that Katie was mistaken.

"Harry?" she asked again solemnly, unable to contain her curiosity any longer. He stopped packing his things and turned to look at her with raised eyebrows.

"Yeah?" he said, still packing his things away into his bag.

Hermione stared at him in disbelief again at how casually he was behaving after what had just happened. "How can you be sure?" she finally asked quietly.

Harry immediately stopped his packing and sat up properly to look at Hermione, his eyebrows furrowed and a frown suddenly strewn upon his face at her question. "How can I be sure of what?" he asked irritably, although Hermione was fairly certain he knew exactly what she was asking about.

Hermione swallowed thickly before answering him. "How can you be so sure that he's innocent after Katie herself just admitted it was him?" She felt terribly for needing to ask, but she had to know what the reason for it was in order to give her some peace of mind.

Harry continued to glare at her before finally shaking his head. "Are you saying you doubt that it wasn't him?" he asked angrily, taking Hermione a little by surprise. She didn't understand why he was all of a sudden getting upset at the question, as he had been the one accusing Ron of things a couple of weeks ago.

"Of course I'm not saying he did it, but I want to know how you can be so sure without any other proof at all. Especially after you found those papers and the things Draco said to you a while back," she said as casually as possible, trying to not upset him any further.

Harry stared at her now with a relatively shocked expression on his face. "I can't believe you'd even need to ask me that," he said astonishingly. "You can't seriously tell me that you're going to let this one incident change your trust in Ron."

Hermione felt her mouth gape at his answer, feeling a little hurt by his obvious tone. It was as if he had done a complete 180 since a couple weeks ago when he had been suspicious of Ron himself. She found it to be very hypocritical and she felt a sudden surge of anger pump through her at being made to look like the bad guy for asking a simple, reasonable question.

"Harry, are you forgetting you were having the same doubts in Ron a couple weeks ago? And you were given far less reason to suspect him, I might add," she said angrily, her arms instinctively folding across her chest.

A sense of outrage flickered behind his eyes before he snapped back at her "Well things are different now! I was letting all this Death Eater and horcrux stuff make me paranoid, and I won't be making that mistake again. I trust Ron with everything, and I trust that he would never turn on us or anyone else non-deserving of it. He said he had nothing to do with it, and that's all I need to believe him. I'm not going to let this ruin our friendship again."

"So we're just going to ignore this then?" Hermione snapped back, unable to wrap her head around what Harry was saying to her. She didn't want Ron to have anything to do with it as much as Harry did, but this was not something she could just ignore. She had nearly complete faith in Ron, but something so major wasn't going to just go away.

"Yes, that's exactly what we're going to do," Harry said matter-of-factly. "She's not telling the truth, Hermione! She's either, for whatever reason, lying to us, or she's mistaken. We need to trust Ron."

Hermione was starting to feel guilty for having to keep pressing this issue with Harry, but what reason would Katie have for lying? She didn't feel like Katie would have a reason for lying, but if she did they needed to figure out why she would lie about this. She hated to admit to herself that a small, minscule part of her was also not entirely sure that she could trust Ron enough to just let this go like Harry could after everything that had been happening involving Ron.

"Harry," she said sadly, her voice thick with all sorts of conflicting emotions as she thought about how terrible she was for needing to do this. "I can't let this go like you can. I wish I could have as much faith and trust in Ron as you do, but I don't think I can just let this go without any explanation. What reason would Katie have for lying? I'm not saying Ron did it, but I really feel like we need to double check and see if maybe-"

"Hermione, I'm not doing this again!" he cut in harshly, his hand held up in a gesture to let her know to stop talking. "I can't. I promised Ron that I would trust him, no matter what. And I do."

"Harry," she pleaded, reaching out to hold his hand. "Do you remember when you asked me to help you figure out why Ron had those papers in his trunk? I didn't want to, but you needed peace of mind in knowing that Ron had no intention of ever using those curses written on those papers. And as much as it pained me to doubt Ron that way, I agreed to help you, for your sake." She watched as Harry's expression softened, and she could tell she was getting through to him. "And now here we are, and Katie herself has just said it was Ron who did this to her. I know you don't want to doubt him, but I won't be able to sleep at night knowing that she's either trying to frame Ron, or god forbid, that she's not mistaken, and that it was Ron." She winced at the last statement, and she hated herself for needing this for her own selfish reasons.

"Hermione…" Harry said softly, a sympathetic tone to his voice. "I know I put you through that and it's probably my fault that you're having these doubts now since I put it into your head to begin with, but I don't think I can help you. Don't you think you can just trust him? Please?"

"I want to, Harry, I really do!" Hermione pleaded again. "But the possibility of Ron having done it is not my only concern here. I'm nearly confident it wasn't him, which means that it's also possible that someone is trying to frame him. Don't you want to know what's going on?" She watched as Harry went deep in thought about what she was saying. Finally, he looked up at her with a saddened expression.

"Alright," he said reluctantly. "I agree, someone may be trying to frame him if it wasn't him, which I still believe it wasn't. So maybe we should be looking into why someone would be doing this to him. But I don't feel comfortable doing this without his knowledge and participation. Is that fine with you?"

Hermione contemplated what he was asking, and then slowly nodded her head in agreement. "Yes, that's fine. He deserves to know what's being said about him," she said quietly as she thought about how upset he would be when he heard what would soon be going around the school.

"Alright, good," Harry said definitively as he finished packing his things and rose from his spot on the sofa. "I'll talk to him about it tonight when he gets back from his detention, alright?"

Hermione nodded in agreement, but something inside of her needed to ask one more thing of Harry before she could let this go. "Harry?" Harry looked down at her with a knowing look, almost as if he knew that she wouldn't be able to let this go entirely.

"Can you do me one favour?" she asked sweetly, desperately hoping he would grant her this one sin. It would certainly make her feel a lot better about the whole situation.

Harry continued to stare at her in silence, questioning her with his eyes as he waited for her to ask what it was that she wanted from him. Hermione could feel her stomach clench under his knowing gaze as she bit her lip before asking her favour. "Do you think I could take a look around your dorm?"

Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head at her question. "Hermione!" he snapped, still shaking his head and avoiding meeting her pleading eyes.

"Harry, I promise you don't have to do anything! Just let me look around for a few minutes, that's all I'm asking. It'll make me feel so much better," she said hurriedly.

Harry stared at the wall in front of him before clicking his tongue against his teeth and closing his eyes. "Fine," he said coldly, clearly unimpressed with her blatant distrust in Ron. She felt even more guiltier, but she needed this. "You can come up and take a look around, quickly, if that's what will make you stop bugging me about this. But if Ron finds out I am going to make it perfectly clear that I had absolutely nothing to do with this, and that I trusted him one hundred percent. As I should do." His last sentence was a clear hit at Hermione's lack of confidence and trust in Ron, and she could feel her guilt increase tenfold as she stared down at her feet and nodded her head.

"Alright, fair enough," she said plainly, feeling more and more like a bad person for having to do this for her own selfish peace of mind. She grabbed her bag and stood up, avoiding Harrys glare at the back of her head as they walked up the stairs and to his and Ron's dorm.

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Harry was now lying on his bed, angrily staring up at the ceiling as he listened to Hermione riffle through Ron's things. He couldn't believe she was doing this. He knew on some level that she probably felt just as terrible as he had when he had questioned Ron about those papers a couple weeks ago, but he still felt that she was in the wrong here.

He would admit that Katie Bell specifically fingering Ron for having used the Imperius Curse on her, especially after finding the Imperius Cure instructions in Ron's trunk a while ago, seemed suspicious. But after the heart-to-heart conversation he had had with Ron last week, he wasn't going to let any of it sway his trust in Ron. Ron was his best friend and he was going to stand by him, no matter what. And if someone was out trying to frame him, he was going to help Ron figure out who it was that was doing this to him.

The door to their dorm suddenly burst open, and he sat up quickly to see who it was as Hermione jumped from her current position of searching under Ron's bed and casually crossed her arms behind her back. Seamus looked somewhat surprised to be seeing Hermione in their dorm, but he nodded politely at her and then at Harry before making his way over to his trunk.

"Hey, guys," he said casually as he opened his trunk and began searching through his things.

"Hey, mate, sorry again for the ink downstairs," Harry apologized, remembering how he had been so oblivious to spilling ink all over Seamus' uniform. "At least you were able to clean the stain without catching your pants on fire though," he added with a small chuckle. Seamus was well known for blowing the occasional thing up with his magic, and the lads often teased him about it.

Seamus then pulled his head out of his trunk and was now holding some sort of textbook as he looked at Harry with a confused look and an arched eyebrow. "What are you talking about, mate?" he asked as he closed the trunk and made his way for the door.

"The ink I spilled on you downstairs? When Katie Bell made her accusation?" he asked with an obvious tone to his voice. Surely he hadn't already forgotten? It had only been about 30 minutes ago.

"Sorry, mate, I think you spilled on some other bloke. I missed the whole Katie Bell thing," he said casually as he opened the door. "But what do you think of her accusing Ron, oi? Everyone downstairs is talking about it," he asked, waiting for Harry's answer before leaving.

"Oh, well it's err… it's not true," he finally pushed out, still confused by Seamus' apparent amnesia to having been sitting there through it all. "It's not true at all. Ron had nothing to do with it, and you should spread that around."

"Well, that's good then," he said relieved, giving him a big grin. "I was a little worried there; you know living in the same dorm as him and all. I guess it's just gossip, then," he said as he finally walked out the door and closed it behind him.

Harry immediately looked to Hermione, who was already looking at him with her own confused expression. "What does he mean he wasn't there?" she asked curiously, walking over to the other side of Ron's bed, the side closest to Harry's, and sitting down on it.

Harry shook his head. "I don't know," he replied. "I think he's gone a little batty," he said with a small laugh. Hermione continued to stare into the distance over Harry's shoulder though, her mind apparently lost in thought as she bit her lip.

"Maybe," she said. "Or maybe, it wasn't him that was down there with us," she added, a suspicious tone to her voice as she turned to look at Harry again.

Harry's eyes narrowed at her as he contemplated this. "What do you mean?"

"Well he was acting a little, out of character if you will, when we were down there," she started. "And we know he, or at least someone who looked like him, was sitting next to us on that couch when Katie accused Ron. What if it wasn't the real Seamus though?"

Harry's eyes widened at the theory. "Well who would be parading around disguised as Seamus?" he asked curiously. "And how can we be sure that the Seamus who just walked in here now wasn't actually an imposter?"

"I'm not sure," said Hermione, biting her lip once more as she thought hard about it. "Or maybe there's a reason for why he doesn't remember being there," she said. "Maybe something happened to him or his memory. It's very suspicious though," she said, looking down at the table beside Ron's bed. Her eyes suddenly narrowed and a small smile broke across her face as she reached down and picked up a picture of the three of them from first year that Ron had always kept on his bedside table.

"I didn't know he had this here," she said amusedly as she stared at the picture of the three of them in their seemingly too big uniforms, smiling and huddling together for the photo.

Harry smiled. "Yep. He's had it there for as long as I can remember. He never puts it away, no matter how many times I've begged him to," he said with a small laugh. It really was embarrassing to have a picture of you as a child being showcased to the whole dorm all the time, but he was secretly touched that Ron kept the picture and insisted on keeping it by his bed after all these years.

"Hm," she replied, still smiling down at it. "Even when we were fighting?" she asked suddenly, catching Harry a little off guard. He didn't want to let too much slip out.

"Err, yep," he said simply, making sure to omit the fact that he had actually witnessed Ron staring longingly at the picture nearly every night that he and Hermione had been fighting earlier this year.

"Oh," she said quietly, suddenly seeming sad about something. She carefully placed the picture frame back down on Ron's table before looking at Harry. "I think I've made a mistake by coming up here," she finally said, biting her lip again.

Harry gave her a small, knowing smile before nodding at her. He was happy to see that something about that picture made he realize that Ron would never do any of the things he had been accused of over the past couple weeks. "It's alright, we all make mistakes," he replied, reminded of his similar mistake he had made a couple of weeks ago.

Hermione smiled at him and nodded before looking back to the picture with cloudy eyes. "I don't know how I let myself get caught up in any of this. Of course Ron would never do these things, Harry!" she said, her eyes a little teary as she stared at the photo. "I've been so stupid."

"Hey," said Harry gently, standing up to sit beside her on Ron's bed and putting one arm around her shoulders. "You aren't stupid, Hermione. It was just… a moment of weakness. As long as you understand now that he would never, then it'll be fine. We don't need to tell him about this incident."

Hermione nodded sadly and then looked up at him with a small smile. "Alright. I trust him, and I trust you. Promise."

"Good," replied Harry with a smile, feeling immensely relieved at hearing her say that. The three of them had suffered far too many trials this year in their friendships, and he didn't want it to happen again.

Hermione then stood from the bed, smiling at the picture once more before walking towards the bathroom. "I'm just going to use the loo and then we can go back down to the common room and figure out how to convince all those gossipers that it wasn't Ron," she said with a roll of her eyes. Harry nodded and moved back onto his own bed as she closed the door to the bathroom.

The thoughts were swirling in his head as he questioned why someone would want to frame Ron for anything, and why Katie Bell would go along with it. What would anyone gain from doing this to Ron? The only thing that came out of this entire situation was a nearly broken friendship between him and Ron, and some doubts that Hermione had also had in him. And now there was a whole common room downstairs that believed Ron to have used one of the Unforgivable Curses on Katie Bell, which would soon spread across the school. He supposed that whoever did this was trying to take the heat off of who actually performed the spell on Katie, meaning there was a good chance that whoever it did it was the person who performed the curse on Katie. If they could get any leads at all, it would definitely help that mystery.

Hermione then exited the bathroom and walked towards the door. "Alright, well I think I'm going to head back down, if you'd like to join me," she said. Harry nodded in agreement and stood up from his position on his bed, walking over to the door and reaching for the doorknob. As he was about to turn it, he saw the knob was already being turned beneath his hand and he inwardly started panicking at who it could be this time. Hermione's eyes were wide and she stood directly behind the door as it opened, hiding her so long as the door stayed opened.

Harry was now face to face with Ron, who had jumped a little at how close Harry was to him when he opened the door. "Oi, mate, you scared me!" he said with a grin. Of course it was Ron. This was just his luck. Harry could instantly feel his heart rate quicken as he tried to figure out how he was going to get Hermione out of the dorm without Ron noticing.

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Oh no! Will Hermione be able to escape? :o

Perhaps. You will have to come by next Tuesday to find out. It will definitely be a verrrrry important chapter for Ron/Hermione, that's for sure. And I'm going to be squeezing in some Ginny in the next chapter as well, for obvious reasons.

Leave your reviews and comments, and thanks for reading! :)

-ArticulateFiction