The Eye of the Storm

Out of my Depth

The party was in full swing by the time we got there. The music was loud, the food looked great. Some people were dancing in the middle of the room. A few people had had to much butterbeer and were standing in tables. Other people were leaning against walls and flirting with whoever was next to them.

When we walked in, everyone cheered. A group of girls swarmed Harry as he walked in. He looked at me with a pleading look that half said "get me out of this" and half said "this is why I hate it."

With my blunt comments and Harry's fear of relationships, it only took us ten minutes to get out of the mob, and into the party. I was surprised to not see Lavender in the mob. It seemed right up her ally. I walked over to Ginny, Harry in tow.

"Looking for Ron?" she asked, smirking. "He's over there, the filthy hypocrite."

We looked into the corner she was indicating. There, in full view of the whole room, stood Ron wrapped so closely around Lavender Brown it was hard to tell whose hands were whose.

Oh.

My hand covered my smirk. How did Lavender do it? She could figure out how to get literally any boy to snogg her. I should really think about recruiting her for SHIELD.

"It looks like he's eating her face, doesn't it?" said Ginny dispassionately. "But I suppose he's got to refine his technique somehow. Good game, Harry. You too, Kendra."

"Guess we found Ron," I said as Ginny walked away. Harry was looking everywhere but at them.

"Yeah," he muttered.

"We really need to find Hermione."

We found her in the first unlocked classroom I tried. She was sitting on the teacher's desk, alone except for a small ring of twittering yellow birds circling her head, which she had clearly just conjured out of midair.

"Oh, hello, Harry. Hello Kendra," she said in a brittle voice. "I was just practicing."

"Yeah... they're — er — really good..." said Harry.

"That's some advanced magic," I said, sliding onto the desk next to Hermione.

"Ron seems to be enjoying the celebrations," said Hermione suddenly.

"Er... does he?" said Harry. I sighed.

"Don't pretend you didn't see him," said Hermione. "He wasn't exactly hiding it, was —?"

The door behind them burst open. Anger bubbled up in me as Ron came in, laughing, pulling Lavender by the hand.

"Oh," he said, drawing up short at the sight of Harry, Hermione and I.

"Oops!" said Lavender, and she backed out of the room, giggling. The door swung shut behind her.
There was a horrible, swelling, billowing silence. Hermione was staring at Ron, who refused to look at her, but said with an odd mixture of bravado and awkwardness, "Hi, Harry! Wondered where you'd got to!"

Hermione slid off the desk. The little flock of golden birds continued to twitter in circles around her head so that she looked like a strange, feathery goddess who couldn't decide wether she was going to feed her birds or kill you.

"You shouldn't leave Lavender waiting outside," she said quietly. "She'll wonder where you've gone."
She walked very slowly and erectly toward the door. Harry glanced at Ron, who was looking relieved that nothing worse had happened.

"Oppugno!" came a shriek from the doorway.
I spun around to see Hermione pointing her wand at Ron, her expression wild: The little flock of birds was speeding like a hail of fat golden bullets toward Ron, who yelped and covered his face with his hands, but the birds attacked, pecking and clawing at every bit of flesh they could reach.

"Gerremoffme!" he yelled, but with one last look of vindictive fury, Hermione wrenched open the door and disappeared through it. I heard a sob before it slammed.

I chased Hermione out of the room as she tore down the halls. Her shoulder shook as she went.

"Hermione, Wait!"

She ignored me and stormed into the party. She pushed past the people who barely noticed herZ I followed. She ran up the stairs into our dorm and grabbed the pillow off her bed.

"Hermione—"

She shoved her face into the pillow and screamed. It was a angry, wet scream that sounded like a heart ripping. She sat on her bed and screamed again.

"I hate him! I hate him! I hate him!"

I could barely make out her words through the pillow. I sat down next to her and pried the fluffy object from her clenched hands. Once the pillow was removed, her whole body seemed to deflate. He hands fell limp into her lap, and her head hung. Her hair that was moments ago flung viciously with her body was lying limp against her face.

"He said he was going to go to Slughorn's party with me," she said finally in a quiet voice.

I didn't know what to do, so I put my arm around her and pulled her close.

"He said he was going to go to the party with me!" Hermione's voice was steadily getting loud again. "And now he is off snogging some girl in any place that has a big enough corner!"

"He may have to hold off on all the snogging with those cuts on his arms."

Hermione laughed into my shoulder, then abruptly stopped. "Lavender must think scars are attractive."

"She thinks they're manly," I said before I could stop myself.

However my comment made Hermione laugh a little. "When did she get so ridiculous?"

I shrugged and said nothing, not wanting to betray my other friend.

"Thank you for not taking her side," mumbled Hermione after some time.

I froze. I had to take a side?

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Hey Everyone, I have been planning this drama since I started writing the first book. I am so excited to finally write it.

Forever and Always,

Me.