The Sunrise of My Heart

As the days passed, drama seemed to build up. It started when Ron and Harry caught Ginny and Dean snogging in a corridor, which caused Ron to get blow up on Ginny. She later told me everything that had been said, including her mentioning how Hermione had probably snogged Krum.
"Ginny, you didn't!" I said.
"Why shouldn't I have?" she asked defiantly.
"Ron's your brother, he's only looking out for you. I know he was being daft, but you know how he feels about Hermione."
"Everyone knows how he feels about Hermione."
"Yeah, which is why talking about her kissing another guy isn't the best idea. That was a low blow."
"He deserved it!"
"Sometimes, what people deserve isn't actually what they should get."
"I will not apologize for pointing out the obvious."
"All right, fine. Tell me what Harry's reaction was like!"
"He seemed... cool." I noticed she was now lightly pink.
"Cool, like he didn't care? Or cool, like he was being carefully indifferent?"
"Cool like he was trying to keep me and Ron form hexing each other." She was pointedly not looking me in the eyes.
"Ha!" I grinned. "So like maybe he was jealous?"
"I don't know," she answered with a sigh. "Maybe. But it doesn't matter, does it? I like being with Dean..."
I scoffed softly. "Right. We'll just go with that."
Unfortunately, Ginny's words weren't so easily forgotten by Ron. He was suddenly very cold and rude to Hermione, who was confused and hurt, and according to Ginny, he was a total bastard to the entire Quidditch team. By the time the first match came around, Gryffindor had little hope of winning.
And so our second bit of drama starts. A rather furious Hermione decided to rant to me about how she had seen Harry put what she was sure was Felix Felicis in Ron's goblet the morning before the match. The conditions of the match did seem to be rather lucky. I couldn't say I blamed Harry, but I didn't tell that to Hermione. Instead, I nodded and made noises of agreement to her words of outrage about them breaking the rules so much. I decided not to point out that she often broke the rules with them. And that I had been a Marauder, so rules didn't really mean much to me.
"YES!" Harry yelled, interrupting our conversation. I looked up to see that he'd caught the snitch.
As the rejoicing team made their way to the locker room, I followed Hermione, who was marching over with a purpose. Waiting until everyone but Harry and Ron had left, she went in, with me following close behind.
"So, before she kills you, congratulations, guys! That rocked!" I said, grinning at them both.
"I want a word with you, Harry," Hermione said. "You shouldn't have done it. You heard Slughorn, it's illegal."
"What are you going to do, turn us in?" demanded Ron.
"What are you two talking about?" Harry asked, turning away as he hug up his robes. But before he did, I noticed him grinning.
"Harry..." I said, wondering if there was more to his little scheme than met the eye.
"You know perfectly well what we're talking about! You spiked Ron's juice with lucky potion at breakfast! Felix Felicis!"
"No, I didn't," Harry said, turning around to face us again.
"Brilliant," I said softly, laughing quietly. I had figure out what he'd done.
"Yes you did, Harry, and that's why everything went right, there were Slytherin players missing, and Ron saved everything!"
"I didn't put it in!" Harry said, grinning. He pulled out the unopened bottle, showing how the cork was still sealed with wax. "I wanted Ron to think I'd done it, so I faked it when I knew you were looking." He turned to Ron. "You saved everything because you felt lucky. You did it all yourself."
"There really wasn't anything in my pumpkin juice? But the weather's good...and Vaisey couldn't play. I honestly haven't been given lucky potion?" Harry shook his head. For a moment, it seemed as though everything would be fine, but then Ron rounded on Hermione. "You added Felix Felicis to Ron's juice this morning, that's why he saved everything!" He said, repeating her words in a shrill imitation of her voice. "See! I can save goals without help, Hermione!"
"I never said you couldn't-- Ron, you thought you'd been given it too!"
But Ron did not listen. He strode past her darkly, leaving us behind in an awkward silence.
"Er," said Harry, "shall we...shall we go up to the party, then?"
"You go!" Hermione said, on the verge of tears. "I'm sick of Ron at the moment, I don't know what I'm supposed to have done..." She stormed out of the changing room.
I sighed softly. "It was a good plan, Harry. It's not your fault Ron's jealousy made it backfire."
"Ginny told you what happened?" he guessed.
"Yup. Speaking of Ginny, have you noticed how much she matured over the summer? She's gotten really pretty..."
"I, er, hadn't noticed," he mumbled, turning pink.
I smirked at him, one eyebrow raised. "If you say so. Come on, let's go up to the party. Hermione needs to be alone right now, so we might as well have some fun before going to comfort her."
"All right," he answered. We walked slowly back to the castle, silent because we were both thinking. He was no doubt thinking about Ron and Hermione, and how he'd hoped for them to be friends again. I was thinking about Christmas break, and how I was going to be spending it at Ron's house with Ginny. I was picking out stories to tell them while we were there.
As soon as we got to the common room, he was surrounded by fans and admirers, and I was shoved aside. With a roll of my eyes at his fan girls, I made my way to the refreshments table, getting some butterbeer. I smiled, thinking of other parties that had been held in this common room in celebration of matches won, involving a different boy with messy black hair and glasses.
"Ah, James, I wish you could see him," I murmured to myself. "You'd be so proud."
"Who're you talking to?" Seamus Finnigan asked, coming up behind me.
"Myself," I said, smiling. "I'm a great conversationalist."
"You might be the weirdest Slytherin to have ever come to Hogwarts."
"Seamus, I might be the weirdest student to have come to Hogwarts period. House be damned."
"You've got a point there." He chuckled, and I joined in.
At that point, I noticed two things happen in the common room. First, I saw Ron snogging Lavender Brown. Second, I saw bushy brown hair whipping out of sight, leaving the common room. "Crap," I said softly. "I'll catch up with you later, Seamus. I need to talk to Hermione." I smiled and waved in farewell before heading for the door. Unfortunately, it took me quite awhile to get there, because so many people were either grabbing me to talk excitedly about winning, hitting on me, or simply getting in my way.
Finally, I made it out the door. Just as I found the classroom Hermione was in, she came hurtling out of the door, nearly sobbing. I looked in the classroom and saw Ron, who was looking disgruntled. I sighed exasperatedly. "Ron, have you ever considered being a gentleman to Hermione? It would make life so much better." Without giving him time to answer, I followed after Hermione, knowing this time she shouldn't have to be alone with her sorrow.
"Hermione?" I asked softly, finding her crying in an empty bathroom.
"What?" She didn't look at me, she simply curled her knees into her chest and pressed her face into them.
"It gets better," I said gently, sitting down beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "He's being stupid now, but things will improve. Whatever he and Lavender are doing won't last."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked, her voice muffled.
"Sirius did a very similar thing to me, but look at how that turned out. We got married!"
"Yeah but you died right after."
"True, but you're not cursed so you wouldn't have to worry about that."
"Sirius hooked up with another girl?"
"Yeah, like right after he got done telling me that he only wanted to be with me. Total jerk. I didn't talk to him for a month."
"What happened to change things?"
"He proved to me that he deserved a third chance."
"Third?"
"Yeah. When he was telling me I was the only girl he wanted, it was to convince me to take him back after he pulled that awful prank on Snape. That time, I didn't talk to him for four months."
"You guys broke up twice and still got married?"
"Technically, we broke up three times. The third time we hadn't been dating, but we broke up right after what would have caused to get back together. That time, he didn't talk to me for three months."
"Why? What did you do?"
I coughed slightly. "Um... I said the wrong name, right after we... you know..."
"You--?? Why?" She finally looked at me, her eyes startled.
"I hadn't told him about my curse. I didn't want him to get caught up in me again, only to have me die. I thought it would be easier for him if we just stayed friends. We both had too much to drink, and one thing led to another. After, when he was holding me and whispering my name, semi-clear thoughts started to surface, so I did the first thing I could think of, and I said the wrong name."
"Whose name did you say?"
"His brother's. I'm pretty sure he tried to kill Regulus after that. I spent the first three months of my seventh year with mainly Slytherin friends. It was definitely not as fun as being with the Marauders, but James sided with Sirius because he didn't know either. Remus was the only one that I told the truth to, but I made him promise not to tell Sirius."
"But everything got fixed?"
"Yeah, everything got fixed. We got back together in late November, and we stayed together until our wedding day." We were silent for awhile before I stood up and held my hand out to her. "Come on. You're strong enough to get up and walk away from this. Don't let him think it bothers you. You not being jealous will drive him crazy and make him jealous." She nodded silently and took my hand, standing up and walking away from her tears.