Harry didn't quite know how to set about telling them

Harry didn't quite know how to set about telling them, and still wasn't sure whether he wanted to. Just as he had decided not to say anything, Hermione took matters out of his hands.

‘Is it Cho?’ she asked in a businesslike way. ‘Did she corner you after the meeting?’

Numbly surprised, Harry nodded. Ron sniggered, breaking off when Hermione caught his eye.

‘So—er—what did she want?’ he asked in a mock casual voice.

‘She—’ Harry began, rather hoarsely, he cleared his throat and tried again. ‘She—er—’

‘Did you kiss?’ asked Hermione briskly.

Ron sat up so fast he sent his ink bottle flying all over the rug. Disregarding this completely, he stared avidly at Harry.

‘Well?’ he demanded.

Harry looked from Ron's expression of mingled curiosity and hilarity to Hermione's slight frown, and nodded.

‘HA!’

Ron made a triumphant gesture with his fist and went into a raucous peal of laughter that made several timid-looking second-years over beside the window jump. A reluctant grin spread over Harry's face as he watched Ron

rolling around on the hearthrug.

Hermione gave Ron a look or deep disgust and returned to her letter.

‘Well?’ Ron said finally, looking up at Harry. ‘How was it?’

Harry considered for a moment.

‘Wet,’ he said truthfully.

Ron made a noise that might have indicated jubilation or disgust, it was hard to tell.

‘Because she was crying,’ Harry continued heavily.

‘Oh,’ said Ron, his smile fading slightly. ‘Are you that bad at kissing?’

‘Dunno,’ said Harry, who hadn't considered this, and immediately felt rather worried. ‘Maybe I am.’

‘Of course you're not,’ said Hermione absently, still scribbling away at her letter.

‘How do you know?’ said Ron very sharply.

‘Because Cho spends half her time crying these days,’ said Hermione vaguely. ‘She does it at mealtimes, in the loos, all over the place.’

‘You'd think a bit of kissing would cheer her up,’ said Ron, grinning.

‘Ron,’ said Hermione in a dignified voice, dipping the point of her quill into her inkpot, ‘you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet.’

‘What's that supposed to mean?’ said Ron indignantly. ‘What sort of person cries while someone's kissing them?’

‘Yeah,’ said Harry, slightly desperately, ‘who does?’

Hermione looked at the pair of them with an almost pitying expression on her face.

‘Don't you understand how Cho's feeling at the moment?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Harry and Ron together.

Hermione sighed and laid down her quill.

‘Well, obviously, she's feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can't work out who she likes best. Then she'll be feeling

guilty, thinking it's an insult to Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she'll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can't work out what her

feelings towards Harry are, anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that's all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she's afraid she's going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team

because she's been flying so badly.’

A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, ‘One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode.’

‘Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have,’ said Hermione nastily, picking up her quill again.

‘She was the one who started it,’ said Harry. ‘I wouldn't've—she just sort of came at me—and next thing she's crying all over me—I didn't know what to do—’

‘Don't blame you, mate,’ said Ron, looking alarmed at the very thought.

‘You just had to be nice to her,’ said Hermione, looking up anxiously. ‘You were, weren't you?’

‘Well,’ said Harry, an unpleasant heat creeping up his face, ‘I sort of—patted her on the back a bit.’

Hermione looked as though she was restraining herself from rolling her eyes with extreme difficulty.

‘Well, I suppose it could have been worse,’ she said. ‘Are you going to see her again?’

‘I'll have to, won't I?’ said Harry. ‘We've got DA meetings, haven't we?’

‘You know what I mean,’ said Hermione impatiently.

Harry said nothing. Hermione's words opened up a whole new vista of frightening possibilities. He tried to imagine going somewhere with Cho—Hogsmeade, perhaps—and being alone with her for hours at a time. Of course,

she would have been expecting him to ask her out after what had just happened ... the thought made his stomach clench painfully.

‘Oh well,’ said Hermione distantly, buried in her letter once more, ‘you'll have plenty of opportunities to ask her.’

‘What if he doesn't want to ask her?’ said Ron, who had been watching Harry with an unusually shrewd expression on his face.

‘Don't be silly,’ said Hermione vaguely, ‘Harry's liked her for ages, haven't you, Harry?’

He did not answer. Yes, he had liked Cho for ages, but whenever he had imagined a scene involving the two of them it had always featured a Cho who was enjoying herself, as opposed to a Cho who was sobbing

uncontrollably into his shoulder.

‘Who're you writing the novel to, anyway?’ Ron asked Hermione, trying to read the bit of parchment now trailing on the floor. Hermione hitched it up out of sight.

‘Viktor.’

‘Krum?’

‘How many other Viktors do we know?’

Ron said nothing, but looked disgruntled. They sat in silence for another twenty minutes, Ron finishing his Transfiguration essay with many snorts of impatience and crossings-out, Hermione writing steadily to the very end of

the parchment, rolling it up carefully and sealing it, and Harry staring into the fire, wishing more than anything that Sirius's head would appear there and give him some advice about girls. But the fire merely crackled lower and

lower, until the red-hot embers crumbled into ash and, looking around, Harry saw that they were, yet again, the last ones in the common room.

‘Well, night,’ said Hermione, yawning widely as she set off up the girls’ staircase.

‘What does she see in Krum?’ Ron demanded, as he and Harry climbed the boys’ stairs.

‘Well,’ said Harry, considering the matter, ‘I s'pose he's older, isn't he ... and he's an international Quidditch player ...’

‘Yeah, but apart from that,’ said Ron, sounding aggravated. ‘I mean, he's a grouchy git, isn't he?’

‘Bit grouchy, yeah,’ said Harry, whose thoughts were still on Cho.

They pulled off their robes and put on pyjamas in silence; Dean, Seamus and Neville were already asleep. Harry put his glasses on his bedside table and got into bed but did not pull the hangings closed around his four-

poster; instead, he stared at the patch of starry sky visible through the window next to Neville's bed. If he had known, this time last night, that in twenty-four hours’ time he would have kissed Cho Chang ...

‘Night,’ grunted Ron, from somewhere to his right.
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