Me again-- because I'm a sucker for the reviews that go straight to my head!
(And my ego-- really, who needs canon when there are fans like you to keep me feeling good?) ;-)
Seriously, thank you all for reading and reviewing in these past few days; you're the real reason I won't be leaving fandom and you're the ones who keep me writing and posting this much.
Now for more fluffy smut! :-D
Rated NC-17 (obviously).
Posted in 2 parts because it got very long-- even if it is a one-shot. (But I won't make you wait.)
Started before DH and ignoring DH completely (it takes place in 7th year as it is, so it's obviously AU).
Inspired by the wonderful, brilliant demosthenes91's latest fic, Interlude, that's absolutely heart-stoppingly beautiful and wonderful and brought me to tears-- and if you haven't read it yet, RUN, not walk, to read it now. Forget about this fic; it'll wait.
For demosthenes91- for the inspiration- I love you, Tara! And for my very dear cinnamon_kisses- *hugs* I hope this brightens your day!!
Just For Tonight
Part 1
She didn’t mean for it to happen.
She didn’t really mean to do it at all. Or she did-but she hadn’t planned for it. It just happened-and at that moment, she really could not have done anything else.
She jerked awake with a horrified gasp, trembling, sweating, from the terrors of the nightmare that had held her in its grip. Her heart was still pounding, tears still pricking her eyes, at the mental image of Harry screaming, writhing on the ground while Voldemort looked on and laughed-and she was helpless, tied up, and could do nothing but watch-watch as Harry was tortured. She blinked, mentally shaking herself in an attempt to shake the aftermath of the dream, those horrible remembered images, from her mind and her heart-but it didn’t quite work.
It never really worked-because for all that she knew it had only been a dream, she also knew that it could happen; it could come true and one day, soon, it just might happen-and then she wouldn’t be able to simply wake up.
She wrapped her arms around herself with a shudder, trying to calm down, trying to relax enough to get back to sleep. She had so little sleep these days, she could hardly afford to waste what remained of the night.
But she couldn’t. The memory of the nightmare haunted her-the image of Harry under the Cruciatus tormenting her, just as much in her sleep as it did in her waking hours.
She could never forget it-not now, not with everything that was happening. Always, always, inside her head echoed the one terrible thought, Harry could die-and that thought always managed to drown out any others that didn’t have something to do with horcruxes or Voldemort or Harry-always it came down to Harry.
She didn’t like it; she didn’t want it-she wished the voice in her head would quiet down, go away-and she had hated it because it had soured, strangled, her relationship with Ron, because it had.
She’d thought she fancied Ron-she had fancied Ron, somehow-and Ron had finally woken up and realized that he fancied her too. And they should have been happy; it should have worked out beautifully; she should have been happy… Happy just to be able to kiss him, happy that now she was the girl Ron tried to tug into corners and distract from her books for a quick snog…
But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be-not with that eternal, endless, voice in her head saying Harry could die, he might die; Harry might die… She couldn’t concentrate on Ron’s kiss, didn’t even want to concentrate on his kiss or his touch, didn’t want to be distracted away from her research into horcruxes just so they could snog. There were more important things-like surviving and making sure Harry survived, like finding the horcruxes, like destroying the horcruxes, like defeating Voldemort… like friendship and bravery… How could she possibly think about snogging Ron now?
She couldn’t. That was the simple answer.
And Ron didn’t understand, hadn’t been able to understand. He’d lost his temper and she had lost hers (how could he not understand that saving Harry was more important than anything else?) and in a few shouting matches, it had all been over.
It had hurt for a while-but she’d pushed it aside and focused on the more important things and soon she forgot about the little ache and then the ache disappeared altogether.
When they found the first horcrux-the locket-and she saw Harry’s smile, the brightness of it, for what seemed like the first time in weeks… She’d seen his smile and she knew that, at that moment, nothing else mattered. Not Ron’s sulky silences, not the disgruntled looks he occasionally shot her, not the disappointment that, after all, she and Ron simply could not be. Harry was smiling, a real smile-and nothing mattered more than that. There were more important things, like friendship and bravery… and Harry.
When they found the second horcrux and she saw Harry’s smile, the tentative burgeonings of hope in his eyes, she knew the real reason it hadn’t worked between her and Ron, the real reason that the ache had disappeared so soon. Harry mattered more to her than anything else.
She didn’t try-didn’t dare-to put her feelings into words more specific than that. It didn’t matter; all she knew, all she needed to know, was that, right now, Harry was more important to her than anything else in the world-and for him, for his sake, to help him, she would do anything. He was her best friend, her first real friend (she counted him as her friend before Ron because she’d always known, even back in their 1st year, that if it hadn’t been for Harry, Ron would never have even tried to be friends with her)-and he had been a central part of her life for the past six years. (She refused to think about the fact that Harry was not just a central part of her life; he was the central part of her life.)
Hermione gave up the attempt to sleep and crept out of her room in the small, two bedroom cabin they were staying in for that night. She had gotten one room, of course, while Harry and Ron shared the other-but she knew, because that was what always happened, that Ron would be the only one sleeping in the other bedroom. Harry would spend the night in the main living space, stretched out on the couch if he slept at all (and he usually didn’t, not much at least.)
As she’d expected, Harry was lying on the couch-but she noted when she drew near that for once, he was sleeping and sleeping soundly at that. It was probably the deep sleep of near-total exhaustion but at the moment, that mattered less to her than the fact that he was sleeping soundly, sleeping peacefully.
His forehead was smooth, his expression calm, even content, his hands lying lazily on his chest, his glasses hanging from the fingers of one of his hands curled loosely over the edge of the couch. He looked so… young, she thought, lying here like this. With his glasses off, his eyes closed, and that peaceful expression on his face, he looked like the 17 year old boy he was, rather than the more mature leader, the hero of the wizarding world, with all the weight of the world on his shoulders, that he usually looked like these days.
And that was what made her do it.
She was suddenly filled with a rush of poignant relief and happiness, too, just to see him lying here sleeping so peacefully. She knew, better than anyone, just how little sleep Harry had gotten these past months; she knew just how much pressure he was under and how close to breaking down he got sometimes. But just for this moment, the worries were gone, forgotten-and he was just a boy, sleeping. Just for this moment, he knew peace.
All the emotions she felt for him, all her affection and her concern, combined with the lingering memory of her nightmare, all came together, coalesced inside her and she could no more have stopped herself from doing what she did next than she could have stopped herself from breathing. She knelt down on the floor by the couch and, bending over him, brushed her lips over his.
She brushed her lips lightly over his-and that was really all she intended to do. But his lips were soft and she could smell the familiar scent of him (she knew his scent, she realized) and she had the sudden thought that this would likely be the only chance she ever had to kiss him. He didn’t care about her that way; she couldn’t risk their friendship; there were more important things… But just this once, just for this moment, she decided on a mad impulse, she would allow herself to kiss him- when he was asleep and this wouldn’t wreck their friendship.
So she did. She lowered her head again, her lips brushing his, lingering, and all she felt for him, all that had built up for years now, came together and somehow, insensibly, her lips pressed a little more firmly against his, kissing him in earnest…
His lips softened, parted gradually, and it seemed only natural for her tongue to venture forward to really taste him…
And just when she could feel herself beginning to drown in the sensations beginning to well up inside her, some shred of sanity returned and she jerked away, her eyes opening to meet his.
He was awake.
It was a rather dumb thing to think but for once, her mind was blank and she could only stare at him, at his eyes looking just a little bit dazed-from sleep, she told herself firmly.
She felt her cheeks blush hotly. God, she really hadn’t meant for this to happen, didn’t know how it happened but she’d brushed her lips against his and- and God help her, she hadn’t been able to stop… Not then, not at once, not when she knew she would never have that feeling again…
“Hermione?” His soft questioning word finally broke the silence-and she could hear all the unspoken questions-the why-in his voice and see it in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Harry! I didn’t mean to wake you up, honestly, I didn’t. I just-I was so glad to see you sleeping peacefully, no nightmares, and I-I just wanted to- to-I was just so happy to see you sleeping and I couldn’t help it-I’m sorry…” she babbled incoherently. “Because I care about you so much and I’ve been so worried and-and I…”
What was going to spill out of her mouth next in that flood of words, neither she nor he ever found out because he moved, lifting his head, and then he kissed her.
He kissed her, his lips on hers, applying gentle pressure and then retreating. He kissed her-and for a split second, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think beyond the one startling Harry was kissing her-but then she heard another voice in her head, just this once, and the seductive phrase pushed her past her shock and she kissed him back.
Her lips parted, allowing his tongue to tentatively venture inside, sliding against her teeth and then against her tongue.
Just this once… All other thoughts slid right out of her head as she responded to the pressure of his lips, the warmth of them, the softness of them, her own lips moving against his, her tongue tangling with his. She was vaguely aware of his fingertips lightly resting against her cheek and her jaw, holding her in place with the most gentle of touches-vaguely aware of the fact that her hands had slid into his hair, her fingers tangling in the messy black hair…
Just this once… just once she would kiss him the way she wanted to…
Pleasure was seeping, spreading in her body, radiating outwards from the warmth of his mouth against hers, his breath feathering against her cheek. She felt herself drifting, floating on a sea of warmth, falling into his kiss…
She was quite beyond thought and he was the one to break the kiss off with a gasp, pulling back just enough to rest her forehead against hers. His breath was coming quicker, as was hers, as she scrambled to retrieve her wits again.
“I’m sorry,” it was his turn to apologize now. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
She’d been expecting those words-not precisely the words, but the meaning of them. The regret, the-rejection.
This was a mistake. The words hung in her mind as if he’d spoken them aloud and she squelched the pang of hurt.
She’d known it, expected it-but somehow, it still hurt.
“No, it’s my fault,” she hurriedly said, trying to fill the embarrassing silence. “I woke you up by kissing you; you weren’t thinking clearly; you were missing…” she paused, not quite willing to say the name for some crazy reason, “her,” she improvised, “and it didn’t really mean anything…”
“Hermione,” he interrupted her rush of words, “stop. I said I shouldn’t have done that, not that I didn’t want to do it.”
“I know but you weren’t thinking clearly, you’d been asleep and you’re a boy so-so of course you’d react,” she hastily added, her cheeks blushing even redder though she wouldn’t have thought it was possible, her eyes cutting away from his. “It’s okay; I understand. It was my fault. Really. I shouldn’t have kissed you in the first place.”
She wished desperately that a hole would open up in the ground and swallow her up. At the rate words were rushing out of her mouth, any moment now she’d say something really, unforgivably stupid-like I love you, Harry and then she’d really want to die and she’d never be able to look at him again.
“Hermione!” His interruption this time was a little sharper, his tone more forceful, shutting her mouth effectively. “I might be a boy but I’m not so thick that I can’t tell one girl from another. I shouldn’t-but I wanted to kiss you.”
It was amazing what the emphasis on one word could do.
She blinked and stared at him. And the name she hadn’t been able to say earlier slipped out her mouth now with the ease of surprise. “But… but Ginny… And you don’t feel that way about me. I know you don’t.” Her tone didn’t waver; she hardly even felt a pang at saying the words; she simply accepted them as truth. One didn’t feel hurt over an immutable fact like the sun rising in the east.
To her utter shock, a small smile curved his lips.
“Why are you smiling?” she burst out. “This isn’t funny.”
He visibly forced himself to sober-but then his eyes met hers, and suddenly, she could see, he didn’t have to try, the smile disappearing on its own. “I’m sorry but I just never thought I’d have to say this to you.”
She felt a flicker of irritation at him-amazingly, considering everything, but she didn’t appreciate feeling confused and she simply wished he would let her go, wished he would let her flee so she could hide her face in her own room and not see him again until morning when she would have gotten herself and her emotions under regulation again.
“You’re wrong, Hermione.”
What? “But-but I can’t be,” she said blankly. “You- you don’t fancy me.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know it because you said so!” she burst out.
Because he had said so (oh, not in so many words, but the implication was the same); she remembered the moment as if it were yesterday. The words hadn’t affected her then-well, not like they did now-but she remembered them and now, belatedly, felt the sting of them.
They had been talking about the Prophecy-Hermione had asked him to repeat it since his last telling of it had been hurried and interrupted by that prank of Fred and George’s and then she’d been distracted all that year but now, now when the war was really officially begun, she remembered it and realized she needed to know exactly what it said.
He repeated it, his tone flat, dull, although his voice flinched slightly at the phrase of ‘neither can live while the other survives.’
She’d been thinking over the words-trickily worded, as prophecies tended to be, like the oracle of Delphi, she thought rather cynically, so almost anything that happened could sound like the prophecy coming true-had anyone doubted that Harry was supposed to be the one to defeat Voldemort and had anyone really doubted that he had the power to do so?
Ron spoke up then. “Well, that’s one good thing, at least, mate. You’ve got a ‘power the Dark Lord knows not’ and you’re obviously the one who’s going to defeat him, so that’s a good thing.”
He’d meant to be comforting, meant to nudge Harry out of his bleak reverie.
Instead, Harry snapped, his thin control over his temper in those first few months slipping. “You think it’s good? Fine, then you be the one to fight him! This isn’t good; there is no good. Do you think I like having this destiny, doom- whatever it is-hanging over me? I don’t like any of this; I never wanted any of this. I just want to be normal, just want to be with Ginny--” He cut himself off abruptly, as if the sound of her name was too painful.
And much as she sympathized with Harry, understood his stress and his worry and how tense he was, she couldn’t let his words stand, not with that stricken look in Ron’s eyes-and just in general, Ron aside, she couldn’t let him off with that sort of blatant unjustified anger. “Harry!” she objected sharply on the heels of Ginny’s name-and she would have interrupted him if he hadn’t stopped at that point. “You’re not being fair. You know that’s not what Ron meant!”
Harry threw her a quick, flatly angry glance, before he stormed out of the room.
He returned a few hours later, calmer, and hesitant. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out before he’d even sat down again. He looked at Ron and then turned to Hermione, repeated his words, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that; I know you didn’t mean it that way. I was a git.” He paused and then added, more quietly, looking and speaking at her alone this time, “And thank you for telling me when I’m being a git.” He had ventured a small smile, which she’d returned-and they had been okay again…
She hadn’t reacted to the words then, had been preoccupied with what had come before it, the sudden lash of Harry’s temper-and back then, she hadn’t known what she did now of her own feelings for Harry…
But now, remembering that moment, the words that lingered, echoed in her mind-painfully so-were, I… just want to be with Ginny…
He couldn’t-he didn’t-- fancy her that way. And somehow, now, the thought hurt.
She could see he remembered the moment too, saw the memory (and his shame at it) flickering in his eyes.
“Hermione, that was months ago. Things are different now; I’m different now.”
His words were sweet but she didn’t want to hope, was too afraid to hope. Hope would make it too painful…
His finger moved beneath her chin, lifting her head up gently until she had to meet his eyes, had to see the sincerity in them.
“Do you remember the attack at Hogwarts?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “Of course you do,” he went on immediately.
And he was right; of course she remembered; she didn’t think any of the three of them would ever forget that night. It had been the night Justin Finch-Fletchley had died… The first Hogwarts student since Cedric Diggory to die. They had been at Hogwarts-luckily, it turned out-to talk to McGonagall and Dumbledore’s portrait when the wards had gone off to alert them to an ambush of several Death Eaters. Later, Snape had revealed that the intention had been to try to kidnap several students to force the professors, and Harry, out of hiding-but it had luckily been foiled by the unexpected defense put up by not only the three of them but Remus and Tonks, who had accompanied them to Hogwarts, and by most of the former members of the DA-who had clearly not forgotten and some, at least, had kept up their practicing.
“I realized something that night,” he continued softly, his thumb beginning to brush the skin of her cheek and her chin in idle movements. “You know what I remember most about that night?”
Slowly, she shook her head, barely daring to move, mesmerized as much by the warmth in his eyes and the words he was speaking as by the slow brush of his fingers against her skin.
“I remember seeing Ginny get hit and fall-but I didn’t stop. I knew I couldn’t stop; I just turned to face the next one. I pushed her from my mind and focused on the battle. But then… then I saw you fall…”
At another time, she might almost have blushed in chagrin at the memory. At that moment which Harry mentioned, she had actually tripped-she couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid-over a branch and landed heavily on the ground. But it had turned out to be the most fortunate mistake ever because, at that precise instant, one of the Death Eaters-it turned out to have been Goyle Sr-aimed a Bone-Breaking Curse where she had been a moment earlier which, if it had hit her, would likely have broken her back. Instead, she’d only fallen to the ground, gotten the wind knocked out of her, and immediately taken advantage of it to disarm and then Stun Goyle Sr. before she scrambled back up to her feet.
“I saw you fall,” he repeated, a slight shudder going through him, “and I fell apart. Did you know that?”
She hadn’t; she’d been too preoccupied to notice in the chaos of battle.
“I just stopped moving, couldn’t move until I saw you point your wand at Goyle and I realized you were okay. I completely panicked for a second though.”
He had, too. Even now, Harry could never think of that moment without a shudder and a violent wave of relief. He, who had managed to push the thought of what might have happened to Ginny (she had, luckily, only been unconscious and otherwise unhurt) when he saw Ginny fall, had seen Hermione fall-and he’d fallen apart. Panic, dread, fear, had all filled him at that moment-so much panic, it had turned his heart to ice, his legs seeming to take root, and all he was aware of was a silent scream of utter despair in his head, Nooooo, Hermione, noooo… He hadn’t been able to think, breathe, move, anything. At that moment, he could have seen Voldemort himself pointing his wand at him preparing to say the Killing Curse, and he didn’t think he could have brought himself to react, so petrified with soul-numbing fear had he been right then. Fortunately for him-if it weren’t for that, he’d likely be dead right now-the battle had already been winding down, the tide turning, and he’d seen Hermione move, scramble to her feet, and only then had he been able to return his mind to the battle, so relieved he remembered that moment as if it had been a resurrection.
And it had only been afterwards, when they had left McGonagall and the other professors to strengthen the wards around the school grounds, that he’d had the time to think about the implications of that moment. Of the stark contrast between his level of dismay at seeing Ginny hurt and seeing Hermione hurt. He’d cared about Ginny, been concerned about her, of course-his heart had leaped up into his throat, nearly strangling him, at that moment-but only for a moment. The rest of him-the part of him that knew better-had quickly reasserted itself and he’d been able to go on, pushing Ginny to the back of his mind to focus on the battle at hand. But with Hermione-he hadn’t been able to do that. All of him-body, mind, heart-had all seized up with dread and panic and he didn’t think anything could have broken through it.
It wasn’t, he had realized, that he didn’t care about Ginny; he did. It was that he cared about Hermione more. If something happened to Ginny, he’d be grieved but he would, somehow, be able to go on. If anything happened to Hermione… He would be devastated, beyond grief, and he knew that he would give up then. He simply could not imagine being able to go on, being able to survive on his own, without Hermione. He cared about Ginny still, part of him always would-but he needed Hermione. It had been a slow realization, a gradual thing, in the past months since it had happened-but he knew now, understood, that while part of him still cared about Ginny, Hermione was more than that to him.
And then tonight, he had woken up to her kiss. And in his sleepy state, he hadn’t been able to summon up the willpower or the rationality to pull away or to resist her. He’d only known that she was kissing him, he was kissing her-and somehow, in some small part of him which he’d denied and tried not to think about, he had wanted this for a long time…
And now, he needed to tell her. He’d gone too far to retreat now; the hope in his heart had grown too strong. And the flicker of hurt, of vulnerability, in her eyes and in her voice had completely finished him, demolished all his carefully-constructed reasons for why he couldn’t possibly get involved with Hermione now.
He couldn’t-he shouldn’t-but he also couldn’t, for the life of him, resist it now. All the danger, all the risk-Ron’s reaction-Ginny’s hurt-and, most importantly, the added danger to her, making her more of a target… All of that melted away as quickly as an ice cube on a hot summer’s day-and for once, just for once in this year, Harry let himself push aside the worries of the war, let himself forget it, and just do what he wanted. And what he wanted was to be with Hermione.
“That’s when I realized it,” he told her simply. “I care about Ginny-but Hermione, I need you. You’re more important to me than she is. I wanted to kiss you,” he said again, repeating his words from earlier.
If she had ever heard any sweeter words in her life, Hermione couldn’t remember them. She couldn’t remember ever hearing words that made her heart melt and flutter and then soar with an almost incredulous happiness. She’d barely allowed herself to hope at all-and now to know that not only was this not going to end or threaten their friendship, but he felt the same way… It was incredible. Miraculous.
“Oh, Harry!” She kissed him this time, with the conscious decision that hadn’t accompanied her first impulsive kiss (thank Merlin for acting on impulse; she should do it more often, she decided fuzzily), her lips touching his as she leaned in closer to him, her tongue sliding into his mouth and engaging his in a half-playful, half-tender, wholly-arousing duel.
Continued in Part 2
Seriously, thank you all for reading and reviewing in these past few days; you're the real reason I won't be leaving fandom and you're the ones who keep me writing and posting this much.
Now for more fluffy smut! :-D
Rated NC-17 (obviously).
Posted in 2 parts because it got very long-- even if it is a one-shot. (But I won't make you wait.)
Started before DH and ignoring DH completely (it takes place in 7th year as it is, so it's obviously AU).
Inspired by the wonderful, brilliant demosthenes91's latest fic, Interlude, that's absolutely heart-stoppingly beautiful and wonderful and brought me to tears-- and if you haven't read it yet, RUN, not walk, to read it now. Forget about this fic; it'll wait.
For demosthenes91- for the inspiration- I love you, Tara! And for my very dear cinnamon_kisses- *hugs* I hope this brightens your day!!
Just For Tonight
Part 1
She didn’t mean for it to happen.
She didn’t really mean to do it at all. Or she did-but she hadn’t planned for it. It just happened-and at that moment, she really could not have done anything else.
She jerked awake with a horrified gasp, trembling, sweating, from the terrors of the nightmare that had held her in its grip. Her heart was still pounding, tears still pricking her eyes, at the mental image of Harry screaming, writhing on the ground while Voldemort looked on and laughed-and she was helpless, tied up, and could do nothing but watch-watch as Harry was tortured. She blinked, mentally shaking herself in an attempt to shake the aftermath of the dream, those horrible remembered images, from her mind and her heart-but it didn’t quite work.
It never really worked-because for all that she knew it had only been a dream, she also knew that it could happen; it could come true and one day, soon, it just might happen-and then she wouldn’t be able to simply wake up.
She wrapped her arms around herself with a shudder, trying to calm down, trying to relax enough to get back to sleep. She had so little sleep these days, she could hardly afford to waste what remained of the night.
But she couldn’t. The memory of the nightmare haunted her-the image of Harry under the Cruciatus tormenting her, just as much in her sleep as it did in her waking hours.
She could never forget it-not now, not with everything that was happening. Always, always, inside her head echoed the one terrible thought, Harry could die-and that thought always managed to drown out any others that didn’t have something to do with horcruxes or Voldemort or Harry-always it came down to Harry.
She didn’t like it; she didn’t want it-she wished the voice in her head would quiet down, go away-and she had hated it because it had soured, strangled, her relationship with Ron, because it had.
She’d thought she fancied Ron-she had fancied Ron, somehow-and Ron had finally woken up and realized that he fancied her too. And they should have been happy; it should have worked out beautifully; she should have been happy… Happy just to be able to kiss him, happy that now she was the girl Ron tried to tug into corners and distract from her books for a quick snog…
But she wasn’t. She couldn’t be-not with that eternal, endless, voice in her head saying Harry could die, he might die; Harry might die… She couldn’t concentrate on Ron’s kiss, didn’t even want to concentrate on his kiss or his touch, didn’t want to be distracted away from her research into horcruxes just so they could snog. There were more important things-like surviving and making sure Harry survived, like finding the horcruxes, like destroying the horcruxes, like defeating Voldemort… like friendship and bravery… How could she possibly think about snogging Ron now?
She couldn’t. That was the simple answer.
And Ron didn’t understand, hadn’t been able to understand. He’d lost his temper and she had lost hers (how could he not understand that saving Harry was more important than anything else?) and in a few shouting matches, it had all been over.
It had hurt for a while-but she’d pushed it aside and focused on the more important things and soon she forgot about the little ache and then the ache disappeared altogether.
When they found the first horcrux-the locket-and she saw Harry’s smile, the brightness of it, for what seemed like the first time in weeks… She’d seen his smile and she knew that, at that moment, nothing else mattered. Not Ron’s sulky silences, not the disgruntled looks he occasionally shot her, not the disappointment that, after all, she and Ron simply could not be. Harry was smiling, a real smile-and nothing mattered more than that. There were more important things, like friendship and bravery… and Harry.
When they found the second horcrux and she saw Harry’s smile, the tentative burgeonings of hope in his eyes, she knew the real reason it hadn’t worked between her and Ron, the real reason that the ache had disappeared so soon. Harry mattered more to her than anything else.
She didn’t try-didn’t dare-to put her feelings into words more specific than that. It didn’t matter; all she knew, all she needed to know, was that, right now, Harry was more important to her than anything else in the world-and for him, for his sake, to help him, she would do anything. He was her best friend, her first real friend (she counted him as her friend before Ron because she’d always known, even back in their 1st year, that if it hadn’t been for Harry, Ron would never have even tried to be friends with her)-and he had been a central part of her life for the past six years. (She refused to think about the fact that Harry was not just a central part of her life; he was the central part of her life.)
Hermione gave up the attempt to sleep and crept out of her room in the small, two bedroom cabin they were staying in for that night. She had gotten one room, of course, while Harry and Ron shared the other-but she knew, because that was what always happened, that Ron would be the only one sleeping in the other bedroom. Harry would spend the night in the main living space, stretched out on the couch if he slept at all (and he usually didn’t, not much at least.)
As she’d expected, Harry was lying on the couch-but she noted when she drew near that for once, he was sleeping and sleeping soundly at that. It was probably the deep sleep of near-total exhaustion but at the moment, that mattered less to her than the fact that he was sleeping soundly, sleeping peacefully.
His forehead was smooth, his expression calm, even content, his hands lying lazily on his chest, his glasses hanging from the fingers of one of his hands curled loosely over the edge of the couch. He looked so… young, she thought, lying here like this. With his glasses off, his eyes closed, and that peaceful expression on his face, he looked like the 17 year old boy he was, rather than the more mature leader, the hero of the wizarding world, with all the weight of the world on his shoulders, that he usually looked like these days.
And that was what made her do it.
She was suddenly filled with a rush of poignant relief and happiness, too, just to see him lying here sleeping so peacefully. She knew, better than anyone, just how little sleep Harry had gotten these past months; she knew just how much pressure he was under and how close to breaking down he got sometimes. But just for this moment, the worries were gone, forgotten-and he was just a boy, sleeping. Just for this moment, he knew peace.
All the emotions she felt for him, all her affection and her concern, combined with the lingering memory of her nightmare, all came together, coalesced inside her and she could no more have stopped herself from doing what she did next than she could have stopped herself from breathing. She knelt down on the floor by the couch and, bending over him, brushed her lips over his.
She brushed her lips lightly over his-and that was really all she intended to do. But his lips were soft and she could smell the familiar scent of him (she knew his scent, she realized) and she had the sudden thought that this would likely be the only chance she ever had to kiss him. He didn’t care about her that way; she couldn’t risk their friendship; there were more important things… But just this once, just for this moment, she decided on a mad impulse, she would allow herself to kiss him- when he was asleep and this wouldn’t wreck their friendship.
So she did. She lowered her head again, her lips brushing his, lingering, and all she felt for him, all that had built up for years now, came together and somehow, insensibly, her lips pressed a little more firmly against his, kissing him in earnest…
His lips softened, parted gradually, and it seemed only natural for her tongue to venture forward to really taste him…
And just when she could feel herself beginning to drown in the sensations beginning to well up inside her, some shred of sanity returned and she jerked away, her eyes opening to meet his.
He was awake.
It was a rather dumb thing to think but for once, her mind was blank and she could only stare at him, at his eyes looking just a little bit dazed-from sleep, she told herself firmly.
She felt her cheeks blush hotly. God, she really hadn’t meant for this to happen, didn’t know how it happened but she’d brushed her lips against his and- and God help her, she hadn’t been able to stop… Not then, not at once, not when she knew she would never have that feeling again…
“Hermione?” His soft questioning word finally broke the silence-and she could hear all the unspoken questions-the why-in his voice and see it in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Harry! I didn’t mean to wake you up, honestly, I didn’t. I just-I was so glad to see you sleeping peacefully, no nightmares, and I-I just wanted to- to-I was just so happy to see you sleeping and I couldn’t help it-I’m sorry…” she babbled incoherently. “Because I care about you so much and I’ve been so worried and-and I…”
What was going to spill out of her mouth next in that flood of words, neither she nor he ever found out because he moved, lifting his head, and then he kissed her.
He kissed her, his lips on hers, applying gentle pressure and then retreating. He kissed her-and for a split second, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t think beyond the one startling Harry was kissing her-but then she heard another voice in her head, just this once, and the seductive phrase pushed her past her shock and she kissed him back.
Her lips parted, allowing his tongue to tentatively venture inside, sliding against her teeth and then against her tongue.
Just this once… All other thoughts slid right out of her head as she responded to the pressure of his lips, the warmth of them, the softness of them, her own lips moving against his, her tongue tangling with his. She was vaguely aware of his fingertips lightly resting against her cheek and her jaw, holding her in place with the most gentle of touches-vaguely aware of the fact that her hands had slid into his hair, her fingers tangling in the messy black hair…
Just this once… just once she would kiss him the way she wanted to…
Pleasure was seeping, spreading in her body, radiating outwards from the warmth of his mouth against hers, his breath feathering against her cheek. She felt herself drifting, floating on a sea of warmth, falling into his kiss…
She was quite beyond thought and he was the one to break the kiss off with a gasp, pulling back just enough to rest her forehead against hers. His breath was coming quicker, as was hers, as she scrambled to retrieve her wits again.
“I’m sorry,” it was his turn to apologize now. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
She’d been expecting those words-not precisely the words, but the meaning of them. The regret, the-rejection.
This was a mistake. The words hung in her mind as if he’d spoken them aloud and she squelched the pang of hurt.
She’d known it, expected it-but somehow, it still hurt.
“No, it’s my fault,” she hurriedly said, trying to fill the embarrassing silence. “I woke you up by kissing you; you weren’t thinking clearly; you were missing…” she paused, not quite willing to say the name for some crazy reason, “her,” she improvised, “and it didn’t really mean anything…”
“Hermione,” he interrupted her rush of words, “stop. I said I shouldn’t have done that, not that I didn’t want to do it.”
“I know but you weren’t thinking clearly, you’d been asleep and you’re a boy so-so of course you’d react,” she hastily added, her cheeks blushing even redder though she wouldn’t have thought it was possible, her eyes cutting away from his. “It’s okay; I understand. It was my fault. Really. I shouldn’t have kissed you in the first place.”
She wished desperately that a hole would open up in the ground and swallow her up. At the rate words were rushing out of her mouth, any moment now she’d say something really, unforgivably stupid-like I love you, Harry and then she’d really want to die and she’d never be able to look at him again.
“Hermione!” His interruption this time was a little sharper, his tone more forceful, shutting her mouth effectively. “I might be a boy but I’m not so thick that I can’t tell one girl from another. I shouldn’t-but I wanted to kiss you.”
It was amazing what the emphasis on one word could do.
She blinked and stared at him. And the name she hadn’t been able to say earlier slipped out her mouth now with the ease of surprise. “But… but Ginny… And you don’t feel that way about me. I know you don’t.” Her tone didn’t waver; she hardly even felt a pang at saying the words; she simply accepted them as truth. One didn’t feel hurt over an immutable fact like the sun rising in the east.
To her utter shock, a small smile curved his lips.
“Why are you smiling?” she burst out. “This isn’t funny.”
He visibly forced himself to sober-but then his eyes met hers, and suddenly, she could see, he didn’t have to try, the smile disappearing on its own. “I’m sorry but I just never thought I’d have to say this to you.”
She felt a flicker of irritation at him-amazingly, considering everything, but she didn’t appreciate feeling confused and she simply wished he would let her go, wished he would let her flee so she could hide her face in her own room and not see him again until morning when she would have gotten herself and her emotions under regulation again.
“You’re wrong, Hermione.”
What? “But-but I can’t be,” she said blankly. “You- you don’t fancy me.”
“How do you know that?”
“I know it because you said so!” she burst out.
Because he had said so (oh, not in so many words, but the implication was the same); she remembered the moment as if it were yesterday. The words hadn’t affected her then-well, not like they did now-but she remembered them and now, belatedly, felt the sting of them.
They had been talking about the Prophecy-Hermione had asked him to repeat it since his last telling of it had been hurried and interrupted by that prank of Fred and George’s and then she’d been distracted all that year but now, now when the war was really officially begun, she remembered it and realized she needed to know exactly what it said.
He repeated it, his tone flat, dull, although his voice flinched slightly at the phrase of ‘neither can live while the other survives.’
She’d been thinking over the words-trickily worded, as prophecies tended to be, like the oracle of Delphi, she thought rather cynically, so almost anything that happened could sound like the prophecy coming true-had anyone doubted that Harry was supposed to be the one to defeat Voldemort and had anyone really doubted that he had the power to do so?
Ron spoke up then. “Well, that’s one good thing, at least, mate. You’ve got a ‘power the Dark Lord knows not’ and you’re obviously the one who’s going to defeat him, so that’s a good thing.”
He’d meant to be comforting, meant to nudge Harry out of his bleak reverie.
Instead, Harry snapped, his thin control over his temper in those first few months slipping. “You think it’s good? Fine, then you be the one to fight him! This isn’t good; there is no good. Do you think I like having this destiny, doom- whatever it is-hanging over me? I don’t like any of this; I never wanted any of this. I just want to be normal, just want to be with Ginny--” He cut himself off abruptly, as if the sound of her name was too painful.
And much as she sympathized with Harry, understood his stress and his worry and how tense he was, she couldn’t let his words stand, not with that stricken look in Ron’s eyes-and just in general, Ron aside, she couldn’t let him off with that sort of blatant unjustified anger. “Harry!” she objected sharply on the heels of Ginny’s name-and she would have interrupted him if he hadn’t stopped at that point. “You’re not being fair. You know that’s not what Ron meant!”
Harry threw her a quick, flatly angry glance, before he stormed out of the room.
He returned a few hours later, calmer, and hesitant. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out before he’d even sat down again. He looked at Ron and then turned to Hermione, repeated his words, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that; I know you didn’t mean it that way. I was a git.” He paused and then added, more quietly, looking and speaking at her alone this time, “And thank you for telling me when I’m being a git.” He had ventured a small smile, which she’d returned-and they had been okay again…
She hadn’t reacted to the words then, had been preoccupied with what had come before it, the sudden lash of Harry’s temper-and back then, she hadn’t known what she did now of her own feelings for Harry…
But now, remembering that moment, the words that lingered, echoed in her mind-painfully so-were, I… just want to be with Ginny…
He couldn’t-he didn’t-- fancy her that way. And somehow, now, the thought hurt.
She could see he remembered the moment too, saw the memory (and his shame at it) flickering in his eyes.
“Hermione, that was months ago. Things are different now; I’m different now.”
His words were sweet but she didn’t want to hope, was too afraid to hope. Hope would make it too painful…
His finger moved beneath her chin, lifting her head up gently until she had to meet his eyes, had to see the sincerity in them.
“Do you remember the attack at Hogwarts?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “Of course you do,” he went on immediately.
And he was right; of course she remembered; she didn’t think any of the three of them would ever forget that night. It had been the night Justin Finch-Fletchley had died… The first Hogwarts student since Cedric Diggory to die. They had been at Hogwarts-luckily, it turned out-to talk to McGonagall and Dumbledore’s portrait when the wards had gone off to alert them to an ambush of several Death Eaters. Later, Snape had revealed that the intention had been to try to kidnap several students to force the professors, and Harry, out of hiding-but it had luckily been foiled by the unexpected defense put up by not only the three of them but Remus and Tonks, who had accompanied them to Hogwarts, and by most of the former members of the DA-who had clearly not forgotten and some, at least, had kept up their practicing.
“I realized something that night,” he continued softly, his thumb beginning to brush the skin of her cheek and her chin in idle movements. “You know what I remember most about that night?”
Slowly, she shook her head, barely daring to move, mesmerized as much by the warmth in his eyes and the words he was speaking as by the slow brush of his fingers against her skin.
“I remember seeing Ginny get hit and fall-but I didn’t stop. I knew I couldn’t stop; I just turned to face the next one. I pushed her from my mind and focused on the battle. But then… then I saw you fall…”
At another time, she might almost have blushed in chagrin at the memory. At that moment which Harry mentioned, she had actually tripped-she couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid-over a branch and landed heavily on the ground. But it had turned out to be the most fortunate mistake ever because, at that precise instant, one of the Death Eaters-it turned out to have been Goyle Sr-aimed a Bone-Breaking Curse where she had been a moment earlier which, if it had hit her, would likely have broken her back. Instead, she’d only fallen to the ground, gotten the wind knocked out of her, and immediately taken advantage of it to disarm and then Stun Goyle Sr. before she scrambled back up to her feet.
“I saw you fall,” he repeated, a slight shudder going through him, “and I fell apart. Did you know that?”
She hadn’t; she’d been too preoccupied to notice in the chaos of battle.
“I just stopped moving, couldn’t move until I saw you point your wand at Goyle and I realized you were okay. I completely panicked for a second though.”
He had, too. Even now, Harry could never think of that moment without a shudder and a violent wave of relief. He, who had managed to push the thought of what might have happened to Ginny (she had, luckily, only been unconscious and otherwise unhurt) when he saw Ginny fall, had seen Hermione fall-and he’d fallen apart. Panic, dread, fear, had all filled him at that moment-so much panic, it had turned his heart to ice, his legs seeming to take root, and all he was aware of was a silent scream of utter despair in his head, Nooooo, Hermione, noooo… He hadn’t been able to think, breathe, move, anything. At that moment, he could have seen Voldemort himself pointing his wand at him preparing to say the Killing Curse, and he didn’t think he could have brought himself to react, so petrified with soul-numbing fear had he been right then. Fortunately for him-if it weren’t for that, he’d likely be dead right now-the battle had already been winding down, the tide turning, and he’d seen Hermione move, scramble to her feet, and only then had he been able to return his mind to the battle, so relieved he remembered that moment as if it had been a resurrection.
And it had only been afterwards, when they had left McGonagall and the other professors to strengthen the wards around the school grounds, that he’d had the time to think about the implications of that moment. Of the stark contrast between his level of dismay at seeing Ginny hurt and seeing Hermione hurt. He’d cared about Ginny, been concerned about her, of course-his heart had leaped up into his throat, nearly strangling him, at that moment-but only for a moment. The rest of him-the part of him that knew better-had quickly reasserted itself and he’d been able to go on, pushing Ginny to the back of his mind to focus on the battle at hand. But with Hermione-he hadn’t been able to do that. All of him-body, mind, heart-had all seized up with dread and panic and he didn’t think anything could have broken through it.
It wasn’t, he had realized, that he didn’t care about Ginny; he did. It was that he cared about Hermione more. If something happened to Ginny, he’d be grieved but he would, somehow, be able to go on. If anything happened to Hermione… He would be devastated, beyond grief, and he knew that he would give up then. He simply could not imagine being able to go on, being able to survive on his own, without Hermione. He cared about Ginny still, part of him always would-but he needed Hermione. It had been a slow realization, a gradual thing, in the past months since it had happened-but he knew now, understood, that while part of him still cared about Ginny, Hermione was more than that to him.
And then tonight, he had woken up to her kiss. And in his sleepy state, he hadn’t been able to summon up the willpower or the rationality to pull away or to resist her. He’d only known that she was kissing him, he was kissing her-and somehow, in some small part of him which he’d denied and tried not to think about, he had wanted this for a long time…
And now, he needed to tell her. He’d gone too far to retreat now; the hope in his heart had grown too strong. And the flicker of hurt, of vulnerability, in her eyes and in her voice had completely finished him, demolished all his carefully-constructed reasons for why he couldn’t possibly get involved with Hermione now.
He couldn’t-he shouldn’t-but he also couldn’t, for the life of him, resist it now. All the danger, all the risk-Ron’s reaction-Ginny’s hurt-and, most importantly, the added danger to her, making her more of a target… All of that melted away as quickly as an ice cube on a hot summer’s day-and for once, just for once in this year, Harry let himself push aside the worries of the war, let himself forget it, and just do what he wanted. And what he wanted was to be with Hermione.
“That’s when I realized it,” he told her simply. “I care about Ginny-but Hermione, I need you. You’re more important to me than she is. I wanted to kiss you,” he said again, repeating his words from earlier.
If she had ever heard any sweeter words in her life, Hermione couldn’t remember them. She couldn’t remember ever hearing words that made her heart melt and flutter and then soar with an almost incredulous happiness. She’d barely allowed herself to hope at all-and now to know that not only was this not going to end or threaten their friendship, but he felt the same way… It was incredible. Miraculous.
“Oh, Harry!” She kissed him this time, with the conscious decision that hadn’t accompanied her first impulsive kiss (thank Merlin for acting on impulse; she should do it more often, she decided fuzzily), her lips touching his as she leaned in closer to him, her tongue sliding into his mouth and engaging his in a half-playful, half-tender, wholly-arousing duel.
Continued in Part 2