Inspiration, like time, has been fleeting of late. Thanks again to AFC for help getting this done.

#

“The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.”

- Albus Dumbledore - The Philosopher’s Stone

“It is Veritaserum - a Truth Potion so powerful that three drops would have you spilling your innermost secrets for this entire class to hear.”

- Severus Snape - The Goblet of Fire

#

“Three drops, right?” said Hermione, holding up the mostly empty bottle to peer closely at its contents.

“That’s the dose, but I really want you to be sure. I mean, there’s no going back.”

Hermione chewed on her lower lip nervously, and Harry could almost see her mind racing through the possibilities.

“I have to do this,” she said, her voice shaking slightly and tinged with an edge of panic that Harry usually only heard when she was unsure about how many extra feet to add to her assignments. “I have to know.”

“If that’s how you feel,” he said, “but I just don’t get it. You are the smartest person I know. Why can’t you see that there is no truth to be found behind these questions of yours?”

Hermione looked even more exasperated, but let out a huge sigh.

"’Let us inquire as to what truth is, by going through the various things in which we say there is truth.’"

Harry stared at her at moment before responding with the most intelligent response he could counter with.

“Huh?”

A small smile crept onto Hermione’s face, the first since Harry dragged her back into the classroom where she previously accosted him.

“It’s a quote about the nature of truth,” she said. “From the eleventh century, I think.”

Harry just stared at her blankly a moment before deciding to clarify his response for some extra emphasis.

“Huh?”

“Forget it,” she said, with a small laugh. “The important thing here is that Veritaserum is magical. Muggles have argued for centuries about the nature of truth, but the magical world bottles it and sells it for a hundred galleons a dose.”

“How much?” said Harry, his voice rising to the point of almost squeaking.

“It doesn’t matter,” said Hermione. “What does matter is that the magic in there will give me some answers-”

“That could be total bunk,” interrupted Harry.

“- or might help me learn things about myself that will make me a better person.”

“That is just total bollocks. You don’t need to be a better person; you are one of the best people I know!” he said.

Hermione smiled, blooming under the offhand praise.

“That’s very sweet of you, Harry, but I’m not blind. I know I have many faults-”

“So does everybody else.”

“Please,” she said. “Trust me.”

Harry started pacing again, unable to keep his anxiety down, and unable to look directly at her. He had things to say, hard things.

“Okay,” he said, pausing to take a deep breath, “but I’ve got a few conditions. I am not going to ask you the questions on your list, at least, not all of them.”

He turned and resumed his pacing, not daring to look at her until after he had managed to get his concerns off his chest. It was difficult for him to talk to somebody like this, openly, frankly and about what he considered deeply personal things. Even after all of his exposure to Veritaserum and the painfully embarrassing moments Tonks had often inadvertently put him through, he was still reluctant to talk about emotions and feelings, especially with one of his best friends.

“You see, the questions you have written down are very good, too good in fact. They won’t help you at all, because you’ve written them in a way that the truth, no matter what it is, won’t help you. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice suddenly taking what was becoming a familiar tone.

He stopped in shock and looked at Hermione, caught off guard by her administering the dose to herself while he wasn’t looking. It really would have been better if she had waited to hear and agree to his conditions first.

“Good,” he said, feeling even more nervous, now that the time had come to follow through on his instinctive plan. “I’ve become a bit of a philosopher when it comes to the truth, so I’m going to only ask you questions I think are meaningful, and I really hope it doesn’t hurt you, but I’m only doing this because you asked me to, okay?”

“I understand,” she said slowly, “but I am worried about your ability to ask insightful questions that will help me.”

Harry snorted.

“More like you are worried about if I actually can ask insightful questions, right?”

“Yes,” she said seriously. “That is a concern.”

“Oh, okay. Anyway, here we go. Er, first up, um. Merlin I hope this isn’t a mistake.

“Hermione, what difference would it make if you were not always ‘right’?”

There was a pause, a lengthening hesitation, as if the answer was too hard to put into words, but then the brilliant Muggle born witch began talking, and Harry listened, trying desperately to understand, and not to judge.

#

“Ginny, I really don’t want to do this,” said Harry, after closing the door and making sure it was securely locked and warded.

He was picking up a lot of new skills from his extra-curricular activities with Tonks, but his ability to ensure a room was secured with no possibility of being overheard was the one that was getting the most frequent use. Well, aside from really nifty colour changing charms he was using to terrorise unsuspecting students with, but nobody knew about them and just automatically blamed the Twins.

“Why not?” asked the redhead girl, fires of challenge gleaming in her eyes.

Say what you would about the youngest Weasley, even after having her most embarrassing innermost thought betrayed, she was still full of defiance. It was kind of cute. A bit psychotic maybe, and definitely slightly scary, but cute.

“Because it could be damn embarrassing,” said Harry. “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m not one for talking about ‘emotions and stuff’, as Ron puts it.”

“You talked to Ron?” asked Ginny, an edge of panic unintentionally lifting her voice an octave or two.

“Well, yeah,” he said, the feeling that he was just digging himself in deeper suddenly rising in his chest. “He sort of guessed something was going on.”

Ginny’s face gained a blush that made it almost match her hair.

“Oh Merlin,” she said.

“Don’t worry,” said Harry quickly. “I didn’t tell him what you said last time or anything. He just told me to ‘grab the garden gnome by its legs’ and get it over with.”

The moment the words left his mouth, he figured he might just have made things worse. Luckily, Ginny seemed determined enough not to take his words the wrong way.

“Did you tell Hermione?” she demanded, embarrassment sliding into a sort of subdued anger so quickly it was terrifying.

“No,” he said, but stopped himself from adding that she had worked it out herself.

The truth was becoming slipperier every day.

Ginny let out a sigh, her anger deflating, thankfully.

“Let’s just do this,” she said, sitting down on the closest seat.

Harry nervously unstoppered the bottle and carefully emptied three drops into her mouth. There wasn’t much left in the bottle now.

Instantly he saw the glazed look settle into her eyes.

“Here we go,” he mumbled to himself before taking a deep breath.

“How do you feel about me now?” he asked, still unsure if the previously agreed upon question was the right way to go, but determined not to try anything as open ended or dangerous as he had with Hermione.

After all, he barely knew Ginny really, and was pretty sure he had no idea what made the girl tick.

“I really like you,” she said. “Although recently, I have been scared of you, and embarrassed by your knowledge of my shameful inner fantasising.”

“Understandable,” said Harry, releasing a sigh of relief, but she wasn’t finished yet.

“I would like to be more than friends with you, but I am terrified that you don’t feel the same way about me, since you have almost totally ignored or avoided me since the first day we met.”

“That’s not true,” said Harry automatically, then reconsidered. “Is it?”

“Yes,” she answered. “You have barely talked to me if anybody else was around, and even then, it’s like you see me as just another friend, and not a very close one.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “Sorry, but I don’t really know you that well. It’s not like we hang out together that much or anything.”

He shook his head, to stop his thoughts from going any further, since that line of reasoning was not what they were here for.

“So,” he said, returning to the subject they agreed to discuss. “Are you over your fan-girl obsession?”

“No,” she said.

Harry sighed.

“You still want to marry me, have talented kids, then see me die tragically young, then?”

“No.”

“Good, I think. Er, what do you want then?”

“I want to become the sort of person you will respect, admire, and eventually love. I want to be so fabulous that nobody else will ever tempt you away, and you’ll see that I am your soul mate. Then you will marry me, have talented kids and live to a ripe old age together watching our children grow up and get married, giving us dozens of grand children.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” said Harry thoughtfully. “What’s the problem?”

“You are going to die fighting Voldemort.”

“Bummer,” said Harry.

It seemed oddly appropriate.

#

“What the hell happened?” asked Ron.

“You don’t want to know,” said Harry, his face clutched in his hands and his elbows resting on the table in front of him.

“You did it, didn’t you? To both of them?”

“Yep. I really screwed up this time,” said Harry mournfully. “I’ll be surprised if Hermione ever talks to me again, and Ginny is likely to burst into tears every time she sees me.”

“You are a bleeding idiot,” said Ron with a laugh. “Only you can get into situations like this, although I think the three headed dog was less of a problem.”

“Hey!” said Harry lifting his head up. “It was your idea!”

“True, but you are the idiot who took my advice. Even I don’t take my advice, and I trust me the most.”

“You’re a real load of help, you know that?” said Harry unable to stop a smile from curling the corners of his mouth.

“You want to tell me what happened?” asked Ron. “It might help.”

“Might make it a lot worse too. They’d probably kill me. Slowly, painfully, and in full view of the rest of the school, who would stand around cheering it for doing what I’ve done.”

“There is that,” agreed Ron smiling. “So just give me the highlights, I don’t want to know all the nitty gritty stuff. That way I won’t have a spot roasting on the spit next to you when it all comes out, but I’ll still be able to add to the gossip once it starts.”

Harry leaned back in his chair and thought about it. He might as well get some of it off his chest.

“I asked Hermione what difference it would make if she wasn’t always right.”

Ron winced and let out a groan.

“I thought she had a list or something,” he said.

“She did, but I told her it was no good and asked her that instead.”

“Where did you get that stupid idea from, and don’t go blaming this one on me – I had nothing to do with that particular bit ‘o brilliance,” said Ron.

“I thought it made more sense than the list she had. I kind of figured that if she wanted to ‘look into herself’ that would set her off on the right path.”

“Set her off alright,” said Ron rubbing his forehead with one hand. “How do you think she is? Is she going to be messed up?”

“I don’t know,” said Harry. “She said some pretty insightful things, I think, I really didn’t understand half of what she was going on about. I picked up a bit here and there and asked her about it, and that seems to have kept her going. Fairly sure the Veritaserum ran out about half way through, but she wasn’t stopping.”

“You want me to Obliviate you?”

“I wish you could, mate.”

“You want me to Obliviate her?”

“Even more, but then I’d be back to square one and she’d be on my case about it again.”

“Well, what about Ginny? What happened there?” said Ron.

“I think she’s been secretly stalking me.”

“That’s not new. She’s been stalking you since first year. I reckon she was the one that made that Creevy kid get as many photos of you as he could, or she stole his collection or something. At any rate, there's a mega-huge box under her bed filled with lots of lovely little pictures of you all waving and carrying on.”

“Great. Thanks for adding to my list of things to worry about. Well anyway, she’s been trying to look past the boy-who-live and see the real Harry Potter.”

“She should spend a night in the dorm listening to you snore and fart then,” said Ron with a laugh. “That’ll cure her.”

“You can talk. She doesn’t even have to be in the same room to hear you.”

“That’s why the Burrow’s got silencing charms around her room I think.”

“So she’s been watching me, has managed to get over most of her silly ideals, but still likes me and wants to be more than just friends, a lot more.”

“That’s good then,” said Ron. “Isn’t it?”

“Not too bad, but the problem is now she’s convinced that I am going to cark it fighting what’s-his-name.”

“Bugger.”

“That’s what I said,” said Harry. “Kind of ruins any hope of having a nice date or something if she is going to burst into tears every few minutes thinking about my blood spattered corpse.”

“Date? You planning on dating my little sister then?” asked Ron, apparently completely missing the central point of Harry’s concerns.

“Not if she’s dead set certain I’m not going to be around much longer,” said Harry. “I can’t see that working out.”

“I suppose you could play the sympathy card, you know, poor me, I am going to die – how about a kiss then?”

“Ron!”

“What? Don’t pretend you didn’t at least think about it,” laughed Ron.

“Well yeah,” admitted Harry. “But I’d never do it. Besides she’s your sister. You’re not meant to encourage somebody to do that sort of thing to her.”

“Meh. It’s you or some other prat, and frankly I’d prefer to have a brother in-law I actually like and I can talk Quidditch with, even if it is only for a couple years before you get your head cut off.”

“Well don’t get too far ahead of yourself. I’m not playing on marrying anybody yet, and I reckon I’d have a bit of a problem spending anytime with somebody whose only thoughts about me are morbid ones.”

“True,” acknowledge Ron. “Could put a bit of pressure on the old ego that. So what are you going to do now?”

“Me? I’m not doing anything. I’ve done what they wanted, now I just sit around and wait to see what happens.”

“Fair enough. Want to go for a fly?”

Harry nodded and both boys stood up, only to come face to face with a very subdued looking Hermione.

“Er, hi,” said Harry cautiously.

“Hi,” said Hermione, rather meekly before looking at Ron. “Ronald, could we have a chat for a moment.”

Ron shot a panicked look at Harry, who smirked nastily.

“Er, okay,” he said. “Here?”

“No, somewhere a bit more private please,” said Hermione.

“I’ll catch you both later then,” said Harry, before hurrying away towards the steps leading to his dorm.

Before ducking out of sight, he caught a glimpse of Ron following Hermione out of the common room, his face showing a great deal of worry.

Harry snickered and darted away before Ron saw him. Now would be a good time to catch some sleep, since he figured Ron might keep him up half the night later, if things went the way he suspected they would.

#

In another part of the castle, another private conversation was taking place under the cover of some rather obscure spells meant to ensure it was not over heard.

"Did you get it?"

"Yep. Mum was only able to get one dose though. Security is pretty tight around it, apparently, but they’ve been using so much lately it’s hard for them to keep a track of it all."

"Do you think the rumours about Potter are false then, if it is so hard to get a hold of?"

“Ha! Do you really think the golden boy-who-lived couldn't get anything he wants? Little twerp could probably have twenty four hour access to the library, if he ever decided to actually study."

“Good point. So, one dose eh? Who we gonna give it to?"

“Only one choice really. I mean who else would be as good a laugh, and nobody is going to bother busting us for it, not with her."

"True. When?"

"After dinner, tonight,” said Marietta Edgecomb, a nasty smirk twisting her all too-plain face. “Yes, I think it's high time little Miss Lovegood faced the truth, don’t you?"