20. The Day Is Past

"So?" said Ron to Hermione with a glance towards Harry who sat down at the opposite corner of the empty classroom, near the door.

"Ron… I don't think we should be together."

Ron's face went through a myriad of emotions while Harry looked back at the two, surprised at Hermione's forwardness.

"What? How can you even say that?" Ron finally managed to ask after a few seconds.

"I've given this a lot of thought, I promise you, a lot. I'm not saying this lightly."

"But how can you even know? We haven't even been on a single date."

"That doesn't mean that we don't already know each other," said Hermione, having to make a conscious effort to not look at Harry as she explained. "For us, dating wouldn't be about getting to know each other anyway. It would purely be about trying to have fun. And I don't want to base my important decisions on those moments alone anyway. Do you?"

"Yeah, no, but still, no…"

"Ron, I know you don't want this. Part of me feels the same way. But… Please, just think about us. Think about having to live together for the rest of your life with me. Would you honestly want that?"

"Yes I do. Of course -"

"No, Ron, you haven't thought about it. Have you actually thought about how that would be? Thought of our genuine personalities in those situations? Not the ones we've been acting out these past few months -"

"I haven't been acting."

"Yes, you have, Ron. And so have I."

"This isn't acting. We're just trying to be better people. We're improving each other. What's the problem with that?"

"That's… Not what this is, Ron."

"Then what? Yeah, at times I've said things I regret but you know that I didn't mean them. So would you rather I not try and just say whatever comes to my mind?"

"No, Ron, of course not -"

"I've been trying so hard to make an effort to be a good boyfriend, and what? All that effort meant nothing to you?"

"That's not what I'm saying!" Hermione said loudly.

"Then what? You just don't -"

"RON, YOU left US… YOU! You. You tried to make me choose. You tried to make me leave Harry all alone. Can you imagine? Can you imagine for ONE SECOND if I had chosen you that day? We would be dead, all of us. Why? Because when the going got tough, you bailed. And you didn't just bail, you tried to make me do the same."

"I…"

"And I know the locket had a lot to do with it, Ron, but you weren't the only one who wore it. What about me and Harry? Why did we never give in? And you tried to make me leave. Do you even know how close I was to doing it? Just because it was you. You made me consider such an enormously stupid thing. Something that I would've regretted so much I might've killed myself. You made me do such stupid things. Remember that quidditch trial in your sixth year? When McLaggen went the opposite way and you thought he must have been confunded. Well, I did it. I confunded a person flying fifty feet above the ground just so you would have a better chance. That was how crazy I was about you."

"And THEN," her anger flaring at the brief smile she glimpsed on Ron's face, "and then Lavender. What was that? Was she just a tool to make me jealous? And then when you found out who jealous I was, then what? Why did you need to be so cruel to me then? Always belittling me, making me cry. Did you even feel bad about it or was that just another achievement? And then, all of a sudden, you were done with her. Did you ever even apologise to her for what you did? Did you ever even feel anything for her? Do you feel anything for me? Or will you suddenly be done with me one day the way you were with her? When you'll have used me as much as your pride needs?"

"I… Hermione," Ron tried to speak, his throat dry.

"Don't worry. You're not going to," Hermione said, quickly getting up and moving out, her teary eyes making Harry quickly get up and follow her.

He jogged to catch up to her and started to walk beside her, putting his arm around her shoulder after a little while. She pushed away his arm after a few seconds, before starting to walk faster. Harry sighed and grabbed her arm, making her slow down and then come to a halt.

"Let me go."

"No."

"Please let me go," Hermione turned and said, tears now freely flowing down her face.

"No," Harry said again, and gently pulled her closer. Her resolve melted, her silent tears turned into heavy sobs and she tightly grabbed Harry in a hug. After a few seconds, he said wait and pushed her away, keeping a hold of her arm, making her look up at him, her eyes sad and scared.

After taking a look around, he pulled her inside the nearest empty classroom, before she hugged him again, this time a little more gently. Within a few minutes, her sobs had given way to sniffles and her tight hold on him had lightened to leave her just leaning on him.

"You okay?"

Hermione nodded, before saying, "I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"I made you all wet," she said, pulling away and pointing at where her head had just been.

Harry chuckled, before bringing out his wand to dry off his chest.

"There. Now, you okay?"

"Mhm," she nodded before tears started to flow down her cheeks again, "I'm sorry."

"Shhh, come here," Harry said and pulled her in for another hug.

"Do you want to sit?" Harry asked when her crying had stopped again.

"No, we should go to the common room. What time is it?"

"There's still some time left for curfew."

"I'm okay now. I promise."

"You sure?"

She nodded and started to pull him towards the door.

"I was too harsh, wasn't I?" She asked after some seconds.

Harry hesitated before nodding with a guilty look on his face. "I'll talk to him though," he told her.

"That wasn't how I'd planned on doing it, but when he started to refute what I was saying, I just lost it."

"It will help him, I think. In the long run," Harry said.

"I hope so. I hope it doesn't, you know, does the opposite."

"No, he's, he's not a bad guy. He just… Doesn't think things through sometimes. And he doesn't consider others' feelings sometimes... If it helps, I think you did the right thing. Everyone has to get hurt sometimes."

Hermione nodded and thanked him. After walking in silence for a while, they stopped at a girls' bathroom. As they neared the common room, Hermione said, "and Harry? Thanks. For being there for me."

"Of course."

"I'm sorry I ran away."

"I knew you would."

"Like in sixth year, but I just… Didn't want you to see me cry."

"I know."

"Tonks is a lucky girl."

Harry chuckled. "Really?"

"Are you kidding me? If you ever break up with her, every single witch in this country's going to be after you. You're going to be Teen Witch Weekly's most eligible bachelor for sure."

"Haha… Really? Who holds the position right now?"

"I don't know! I'll have to ask around the girls' dorm."

"Uhhh… Don't. Won't look nice! You know..."

"Oh. Yes. You're right."

"I'll ask them."

"Oh yes. 'Hello ladies, am I no. 1 yet?'" Hermione asked in an awful impersonation of a suave Harry, making him laugh out loud.

When they reached the Fat Lady's portrait, Hermione asked soberly, "think he'll be in the common room?"

"Probably in the dorm, but maybe."

"Do you think I should go and apologize?"

"Uhhh... No?" Harry said in a doubtful tone.

"Yes, he probably won't take it well."

"I'll talk to him. Or at least try," said Harry before telling the Fat Lady the password and entering the common room.

"Are you ok now?" Harry asked Hermione when they reached the foot of the stairs to the dorms.

Hermione nodded and said, "been a long day, huh?"

"It sure has," said Harry with a nod.

"Goodnight then," Hermione said, giving Harry another hug.

"Goodnight! And just... Come on up if you need me, okay?" Harry said when she pulled away.

Hermione shook her head and said, "I'd feel too guilty. We'll talk tomorrow."

"Hey, why don't we make something like those mirrors that Sirius gave me? Then we could talk while we were in bed?"

Hermione gasped. "You could send one to Tonks!"

"I could!" Harry said.

"I'll work on them. I promise."

"Alright! Great! Thanks Hermione."

"No problem. Well then, goodnight!"

"Goodnight!"

"Hey, Ron" Harry said after walking up next to Ron's bed.

Ron gave him a look before shaking his head and turning to bury his face in his pillows.

"We'll talk tomorrow, alright?" Harry said to him before walking over to his bed and dropping on top of it.

"I finished it," Hermione told Harry when he walked back into the common room after a training session.

"What?"

"The talking mirror thing."

"Really?"

"Well, the talking part, yes, but not the mirror part."

"The protean didn't work?"

"Not the way I was hoping it would. It couldn't replicate the light falling on it. It would just replicate the material of the mirror which was already the same. Instead, I'd need a photoreceptive material to be placed underneath it and then replicate that on the other mirror. Although, well, it wouldn't really be a mirror in that case."

"Allll-right."

"I just can't figure out how the one Sirius gave you worked, though I do have some ideas. Maybe I should ask Aberforth. He might know."

"Maybe."

"However," she said, turning and crossing one of her legs on the couch so that her entire upper body was facing Harry, "I got the sound to work."

"That's great! How?"

"Well… Do you know how microphones and speakers work?"

"No?"

"Ok, well, sound is produced by vibrations. For us, we hear things when our eardrum vibrates and usually, that's because the air around us carries those vibrations from other places to our ears. Right?"

"Sure," Harry said with a shrug.

"So, what mics do is that they have a similar drum which vibrates upon hearing some sound and then that vibration is recorded, and then the speaker is also a drum, and in the speaker, that vibration is repeated from the recording."

"But we don't need to record."

"Yep, the thing is just that the drum vibrates very little due to sound, so that vibration needs to be amplified... Increased a lot before it can be played back through the speaker"

"So we just need to send the vibrations from the receivers in one place to the speaker in another?"

"Yep, and that amplification can simply be done with a controlled sonorous," Hermione said with a sigh.

"Well, that's handy!"

"Haha, yes it is!"

"But then, what if you place both in the same room? Wouldn't they just keep on recording the same sound that's coming out of the speakers and make it go back and forth?"

"Now, that... Was the big question. When did you become so smart? Anyway, that was the problem that I was working on for the past few days. I had the basic thing done days ago."

"Oh ok, nice! How'd you do it?"

"Okay... Now, this is complicated, so listen carefully. Sounds are made of waves. Like, this," Hermione said, carefully drawing a wavy line on a piece of parchment in front of her, "this is a sine wave. Anyway, sounds basically a mixture of waves. Actually not of sine waves, but longitudinal waves which... You know what, just go with it. Anyway, the thing is, that if one thing is making one wave, and another thing is making another wave," she drew another wavy line below the first one, "which is the exact opposite of the first one, then when the two waves are taken together, together they'll cancel each other and what we'll have instead is pure silence.""

"Uhhh... What? How?"

"That's the amazing thing, isn't it? I know I didn't explain it well, but that's kinda how it works. Anyway, I figured out a way using arithmancy to make an opposite of the waves passing from the speaker side and pass it to the receiver side so that it could be nullified."

"Uhhh, okay... So... It works?"

"Oh yes, but I suppose it will create problems when using these things in a very echoey room. But anyway, here... Press this. Now go up to your dorm and I'll go to mine," Hermione said, handing him one of her contraptions and getting up.

"Hello?" Harry said once he was sitting on his bed.

"I'm sorry, but the number you've dialed is busy at the moment," Hermione said, making Harry laugh out loud, "please try again after some time."

"Hermione, have I told you how brilliant you are?"

"Once or twice, but this isn't even done. I mean, it still sounds so scratchy. And besides, I don't know how good the range on this thing is."

"How was the range on the protean you used on the DA coins?"

"I don't know, I never tested it. Okay, come back to the common room, just shut it down before you do."

"I thought you had taken care of the same room problem," Harry said when they were both sitting down in their previous places.

"I mostly have. But there's still some work to be done on it," Hermione said, taking the box back from Harry, "other than the visual part, of course."

"Maybe... George could help."

"No. I can't ask him just yet. Because of Fred!"

"It might help him, working on something new."

"I don't want to risk it just yet. And besides, I want to work on this one by myself."

"Why don't you... Just make it work like a walkie-talkie? That only one can talk at a time while the other just listens?"

"That's too simple."

"Oh! Alright."

"It wasn't a bad idea, Harry," she quickly said to console him, "I know that would probably significantly improve the quality. However, I would like for it to work more like phones. I don't mind making it a bit more complex if I have to."

"I understand."

"Thanks. Now, how was training?"

"Good, Ron finally had an up day. Although I don't think we're going to go with him for the next match. Too risky."

"I'm sorry. It's all my fault."

"No. He's the one who has to deal with it. Come on. He can't let his feelings affect his gameplay this badly. Otherwise, the other teams could just heckle him a little before a match and our team would be helpless."

"That's true. But still... I feel guilty."

"Well, you don't need to," Harry said, suddenly gaining a contemplative look on his face.

"Yes?" Hermione asked him after a few seconds.

"I just thought… Why don't people just use chalkboards?"

"What?"

"Instead of letters?"

"I mean, just cast proteans and make one side of each copy from the other board. Instant messaging."

"Huh," Hermione said, lying back on the sofa as she thought before springing back up after a few seconds, "well for one thing, it would be quite cumbersome. Although I suppose we could just use erasable notebooks, but range might be a problem, although I'd have to test it, but also permanence, although that would depend on the creator. A well produced one should work for a few months, at least, shouldn't it?" She asked, lost in thought. "Hang on," she said, starting towards the stairs to her dorms before sitting back down and grabbing a piece of parchment in front of her and cutting it into two small pieces.

After a few minutes, she handed one of the pieces to Harry and put the other on the table in front of her and grabbed a quill.

After a few seconds, Harry heard her sigh and then writing started to appear on the piece of parchment he was holding.

We

Are

Idiots!

A/N :

This was an exceptionally weird chapter. Sorry about the technical jargon. I just got to wondering about the technicalities of magic and spent a lot of time thinking about it. Writing that stuff felt like it was something that would suit Hermione's character. But I realise that it might not be a pleasant read for the readers. I hope that you could at least relate to how Harry felt during the convoluted explanations.

Please let me know if you have some criticism that could be helpful.

And thanks for each and every single one of your reviews. They make me really happy.

To the physics major who corrected what I had written about waves... I changed a few words around. Hope it doesn't bother you as much anymore.