Fic: Gift Exchange for Lena (capeofstorm)
Title: All I Want for Christmas is You
Summary: Harry and Hermione attend a Christmas ball together, but old feelings get in the way. Set about five years after DH. Very AU from the epilogue.
Characters/Pairings: Harry/Hermione, with guest appearances by a few others
Genre: Slight angst
Rating/Warnings: PG
Word Count: 2,642
Author's Note: A really late gift for capeofstorm in the gift exchange. It was supposed to be based around her prompts of ‘friends with UST’ and ‘enthusiastic snogging’ but it didn’t quite come out that way at all. I hope you like it anyway!
For the fifth time in the past five minutes, Harry rolled his eyes at himself and groaned. Why his stomach felt like it was tangled in knots and his wand was shaking slightly in his hand was beyond him.
Really, there was no legitimate reason at all for him to be nervous. It’s not like this was a date. Or anything close to a date.
It was just some party he was going to with a friend. Just a party. Just a friend. Nothing close to anything more than that.
“Don’t be a prat,” he whispered to himself. “Just go to the bloody party. It’s not like you haven’t been to a party before.”
And before he could talk himself out of it, and end up making himself even more anxious about something he should never have been anxious about in the first place, Harry Apparated, twisting around and disappearing into darkness only to reappear seconds later on the street in front of Hermione’s flat.
As soon as his feet touched solid ground, he marched forward, his eyes trained on the door.
“Don’t be an arse,” he murmured to himself as he rang the bell.
Seconds later the door opened. Harry let out a gasp. Hermione was standing before him, hair down and curled softly, her figure perfectly enhanced by the strapless red gown.
Hermione glanced quickly down at her outfit.
“Is something wrong?” she asked worriedly.
Harry shook his head and forced himself to grin in what he hoped was a natural looking expression.
“No,” he said. “No. Not at all. Erm ….” He paused, his face flushing with what he was about to say. “You look beautiful.”
Hermione beamed at him. “You don’t look so bad yourself, Mr. Potter. Now, shall we go?”
He nodded. His mouth felt dry, and the butterflies in his stomach were doing somersaults inside it.
But if Hermione saw anything peculiar in him, she made no notice of it. Instead, she took his arm, turning them both into the blackness, leaving London behind. A few seconds later they reemerged in Hogsmeade.
“Oh,” Hermione whispered softly as they both adjusted to their surroundings.
The sight of Hogsmeade was one that never failed to make them pause. It looked the same as they had always known it, having been rebuilt after the Second War. Not that they came here often. In fact, they usually tried to avoid it if they could help it. Too many memories.
But this night, the shops were all decorated for the holidays. Festive ribbons and wreaths hung in all the doorways, candles glowed in the front windows and floated along the rooftops, Christmas music streamed from an invisible speaker halfway down the road.
Everything looked so perfect, so quaint, so untouched.
But still.
“It’s hard to remember,” Hermione said softly. “Even all these years later.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. In his mind, he could still see Aberforth, the Death Eaters, the castle under attack. He could still feel the terror, the pain, the sadness. They were the images and the feelings that haunted his dreams, still to this day.
He shook his head. Tonight was about fun, not about memories. He smiled bravely at Hermione.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” she said. He reached out and placed his arm through hers. She glanced at him, her eyebrows arched in a silent question.
“You are my date for tonight,” he said. “This is appropriate escort etiquette.”
She laughed. “Is it?”
“It is.”
For a second, he could have sworn he saw her blush, but he shook his head at that thought.
“Don’t be a prat,” he whispered to himself, and he made himself let it go.
Or he tried to. But it was hard. The feeling of her arm in his, the feeling of her next to him as they walked down the road, toward the castle. It was like flashes of a dream that was gone too soon - a cold night, an empty tent, tears, a need for comfort, the feeling of being loved.
He shook his head again.
“Are you okay?” Hermione asked. They were nearing the castle now. He could hear the music coming from the Great Hall.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’m just fine.”
Hermione didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press it. Harry wondered if she knew what he was thinking. It was, after all, like an unspoken agreement between them. A night never talked about, never mentioned. A night that might as well never have existed, except that it did.
The annual Christmas ball was well under way by the time they walked through the doors of the Great Hall, feeling strangely like they were slipping back in time and were no more than the kids they once used to be. The tables that normally graced the room had been vanished, and instead there was a space for dancing, small tables gathered in the back and around the sides for dining. Candles floated through the air, twenty-eight Christmas trees lined the edges of the room and Harry smiled as he caught the shimmery flash of light as Peeves flew in and out of the crowd.
“Harry! Hermione!” Ginny greeted them with a huge smile, bouncing over to them as soon as she saw them. Her hair was pulled back in a knot and there was no denying she was a fully grown woman, but Harry couldn’t help but see the girl he once lay on the bank of the lake with as he gave her a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” She smiled warmly at him, any traces of awkwardness from their break-up six months after the war long gone, and Harry knew she meant every word. “You are coming over for Christmas dinner, aren’t you? My mum would be devastated if you refuse.”
Harry grinned. “You know I can never pass up a Weasley family meal.”
Ginny laughed. “And you’re bringing Hermione, too, right?”
Before Harry could answer, Hermione interrupted.
“Why would he need to bring me? I can get there myself.”
“Oh.” For a moment, Ginny flushed, stammered a little. “I just thought .. I had heard ….” She looked between the two of them for a moment, and then shrugged a little. “Nothing. Just a rumor Draco must have mentioned.”
Hermione frowned. “What rumor?”
Fortunately for Ginny, she was saved from answering by a cry of excitement.
“Harry! Hermione!”
Luna threw her arms around both of them at the same time as Neville stood grinning behind her. When Luna pulled back, it was easy to see the slight swell of her already-growing stomach.
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?” Hermione asked eagerly.
Neville shook his head. “No. But it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “Either way, Luna wants to name it …”
“Wildeshire,” Luna said dreamily. “Like the mystical flower, you know?”
She smiled at them and patted her stomach. Harry tried not to laugh.
“I’m happy for you,” he told them both.
Neville leaned in to Harry, cocking his head in Hermione’s direction. “Should we be happy for you?” he asked.
“Whatever for?”
Harry tried not to groan as Hermione cut in. How she was always butting into things, he still could not figure out, even if it had been eleven years.
“Oh, um.” Neville shrugged. “Just curious.”
Hermione tugged on the sleeve of Harry’s dress robe. “Look, it’s Bill and Fleur! Let’s go say hello.”
Harry let himself be led across the floor.
The Christmas ball was wonderful. It really was. The Hogwarts staff had outdone themselves again. So many people to catch up with, food that melted on your tongue, music that made you feel alive and eager to dance. But as the night went on, Harry was not in a good mood.
“Do you want to dance?” Hermione asked him at one point.
He shrugged, but went with her.
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
He wasn’t, but nodded anyway.
She didn’t ask again.
He sighed to himself as they twirled around the floor. It was stupid, he knew, to let something that didn’t matter bother him. If that was even what was bothering him. Maybe it was something else.
He felt a bump on his left side as the couple beside them knocked into them a little. He turned, ready to scold them for being inconsiderate - where this rush of anger was coming from, he didn’t really have time to stop and think about - but instead he found himself staring at Minerva McGonagall, dancing with a wizard he had never seen before.
“Potter!” McGonagall said. “Granger! It’s so lovely to see you two.”
“It’s wonderful to see you, too, Professor,” Hermione smiled.
“Please,” McGonagall said. “I think it’s about time you called me Minerva.”
Harry saw her eyes flicker over him and Hermione.
“Are you two a …” she started to ask.
“Oh, no,” Hermione cut in instantly. Harry felt something stir inside him. “Just friends,” Hermione continued.
They talked some more. Harry knew he should be listening, but he just couldn’t. It was too much.
As soon as McGonagall and her partner danced away, Harry let go of Hermione and stepped back.
“Harry?” she asked, confusion apparent in her voice.
“I can’t be here with you,” he murmured. And then he was off, pushing past dancers, racing toward the entrance. He felt vaguely like the teenager he used to be, impulsive and full of rage, escaping the hand that had been dealt him. He should be better than this, he knew, but at the moment, he didn’t care. He just kept going, until finally, the door to the castle, the front stoop, down the lawn.
Fresh air. He breathed in. He felt something prickle at the back of his eyes, but he blinked it away. What was his problem anyway? It had been five years. No one knew, no one was ever going to know. It was something that never should have happened.
“It means nothing!” he whispered to himself, angrily. Why couldn’t he just be happy for his friends, be happy for the life he had now, maybe ask out the new auror who kept casting him sneaky looks while they are working?
“Harry!”
Harry groaned. He wanted to pretend like he didn’t hear her. Maybe he could blend into the darkness and she wouldn’t see him.
“Harry Potter!”
No such luck.
She was directly in front of him, hands on her hips, glaring.
“Hermione, go back to the party.”
“What in Merlin’s name is wrong with you?”
“Just go back to the party.”
She stomped her foot, cursing a little as her heel sunk further into the ground than she had intended. She settled for crossing her arms across her chest and glaring harder.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what your problem is. You’ve been weird all night.”
Harry snorted disgracefully.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Talk to me!” Her voice rose dramatically. It was lucky no one else seemed to be anywhere in the vicinity.
But it was Harry’s turn to be mad.
“Talk to you?” he said, almost mockingly. “All night it seems like you’d rather pretend I wasn’t there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you!” He exploded. “And all the ‘oh, no’ and ‘we’re just friends’ along with that look you always have every time someone asks us a question!”
Hermione stared at him. It was quiet, the only sound the Christmas music still playing inside the castle.
“But we aren’t together, Harry,” she said finally, her voice quieter now. “I’m just answering them.”
“Well, who’s fault is that?” he muttered, but more to himself than to her. Feelings were pouring out of him, seemingly from nowhere, but he knew whose fault it was that they weren’t together. And it wasn’t hers. Or not really. He couldn’t expect her to know something he had never told her. Even if it had been her decision - and only her decision - to keep it quiet in the first place.
“Wait. What?” Hermione said. She reached out to touch his arm, but he yanked it away. “Harry, I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand,” he grumbled. He needed to get away from her, before he said something he would regret. More than he’d already said already. “Go back to the party. Please.”
“No, Harry. No.” She reached for him again. Again, he pulled away. “I want to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you. Please go back to the party. Please.” He was almost begging.
But she didn’t move. She just stared at him, like she was trying to read his mind, or see into his soul. He tried to look away, to move, but something in her eyes kept him rooted there.
A cold night, an empty tent, tears, a need for comfort. An innocent dance. Just to make her laugh. Staring into brown eyes. The warm feel of lips upon lips. Fingers in her hair. Laying her down. Fumbling with buttons, with shirts, with knickers. The feeling of her, surrounding him. A brown head of hair on his chest in the morning. A feeling of being loved. And then a plea to never tell anyone again.
He blinked back the liquid behind his eyes again. He hated that he could still see that night so clearly. Hated that it had changed him forever.
Now here, five years later, on the Great Lawn at Hogwarts, he heard Hermione breathe in sharply. “Oh,” was all she said.
But that was enough. Five years of feelings tore out of Harry before he knew what was happening.
“Oh? Oh?!? That’s all you can say is ‘oh’?” Harry glared at her, his voice beginning to rise. “You knew. You knew all this time. You had to have known! You are not that blind. You are not that stupid. But I can’t do this anymore! I can’t stand here with you and pretend to be your friend and laugh with you and take you to parties and then drop you off at the door and be gone. I can’t do that anymore!”
He took a breath and continued.
“I see you, all the bloody time! You haunt my dreams and my thoughts and my memories. Because I remember what happened that night in the forest. Because it meant something to me! Because it changed me. And I … I can’t do this anymore! I can’t!”
He turned away from her. His vision was blurry. He needed to get away. Away from this place, away from the memories, away from her. He fumbled in the pocket of his dress robes for his wand.
“Where the bloody hell are you?” he muttered angrily, checking his other pocket.
A hand on his arm stopped him, tugging him around.
“Hermi -”
He opened his mouth to protest, to tell her he couldn’t talk. Not now, not about this, not with her.
Warm lips on his stopped him. Pressing into him, full of fire and passion and an intensity he had never felt.
Hands were gripping the back of his head.
Lips moving, tongues clashing, teeth grinding, air harder to come by. The taste of salty tears on his lips.
He never wanted this moment to end.
She pulled back first, panting slightly. Her cheeks were wet. He wasn’t sure whose tears they were, hers or his.
“What was that?” he managed to whisper.
She glared at him, but she was smiling. “What do you think that was?”
He tried to speak but he felt like words were suddenly foreign.
She reached out and took his hand.
“You’re not the only one who remembers. You’re not the only one it changed.”
She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to.
He let her lead him back inside.
2,642 words/30 = 88 points for Hufflepuff
Kristine//Puff
Summary: Harry and Hermione attend a Christmas ball together, but old feelings get in the way. Set about five years after DH. Very AU from the epilogue.
Characters/Pairings: Harry/Hermione, with guest appearances by a few others
Genre: Slight angst
Rating/Warnings: PG
Word Count: 2,642
Author's Note: A really late gift for capeofstorm in the gift exchange. It was supposed to be based around her prompts of ‘friends with UST’ and ‘enthusiastic snogging’ but it didn’t quite come out that way at all. I hope you like it anyway!
For the fifth time in the past five minutes, Harry rolled his eyes at himself and groaned. Why his stomach felt like it was tangled in knots and his wand was shaking slightly in his hand was beyond him.
Really, there was no legitimate reason at all for him to be nervous. It’s not like this was a date. Or anything close to a date.
It was just some party he was going to with a friend. Just a party. Just a friend. Nothing close to anything more than that.
“Don’t be a prat,” he whispered to himself. “Just go to the bloody party. It’s not like you haven’t been to a party before.”
And before he could talk himself out of it, and end up making himself even more anxious about something he should never have been anxious about in the first place, Harry Apparated, twisting around and disappearing into darkness only to reappear seconds later on the street in front of Hermione’s flat.
As soon as his feet touched solid ground, he marched forward, his eyes trained on the door.
“Don’t be an arse,” he murmured to himself as he rang the bell.
Seconds later the door opened. Harry let out a gasp. Hermione was standing before him, hair down and curled softly, her figure perfectly enhanced by the strapless red gown.
Hermione glanced quickly down at her outfit.
“Is something wrong?” she asked worriedly.
Harry shook his head and forced himself to grin in what he hoped was a natural looking expression.
“No,” he said. “No. Not at all. Erm ….” He paused, his face flushing with what he was about to say. “You look beautiful.”
Hermione beamed at him. “You don’t look so bad yourself, Mr. Potter. Now, shall we go?”
He nodded. His mouth felt dry, and the butterflies in his stomach were doing somersaults inside it.
But if Hermione saw anything peculiar in him, she made no notice of it. Instead, she took his arm, turning them both into the blackness, leaving London behind. A few seconds later they reemerged in Hogsmeade.
“Oh,” Hermione whispered softly as they both adjusted to their surroundings.
The sight of Hogsmeade was one that never failed to make them pause. It looked the same as they had always known it, having been rebuilt after the Second War. Not that they came here often. In fact, they usually tried to avoid it if they could help it. Too many memories.
But this night, the shops were all decorated for the holidays. Festive ribbons and wreaths hung in all the doorways, candles glowed in the front windows and floated along the rooftops, Christmas music streamed from an invisible speaker halfway down the road.
Everything looked so perfect, so quaint, so untouched.
But still.
“It’s hard to remember,” Hermione said softly. “Even all these years later.”
“Yeah,” Harry said. In his mind, he could still see Aberforth, the Death Eaters, the castle under attack. He could still feel the terror, the pain, the sadness. They were the images and the feelings that haunted his dreams, still to this day.
He shook his head. Tonight was about fun, not about memories. He smiled bravely at Hermione.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready,” she said. He reached out and placed his arm through hers. She glanced at him, her eyebrows arched in a silent question.
“You are my date for tonight,” he said. “This is appropriate escort etiquette.”
She laughed. “Is it?”
“It is.”
For a second, he could have sworn he saw her blush, but he shook his head at that thought.
“Don’t be a prat,” he whispered to himself, and he made himself let it go.
Or he tried to. But it was hard. The feeling of her arm in his, the feeling of her next to him as they walked down the road, toward the castle. It was like flashes of a dream that was gone too soon - a cold night, an empty tent, tears, a need for comfort, the feeling of being loved.
He shook his head again.
“Are you okay?” Hermione asked. They were nearing the castle now. He could hear the music coming from the Great Hall.
“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’m just fine.”
Hermione didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press it. Harry wondered if she knew what he was thinking. It was, after all, like an unspoken agreement between them. A night never talked about, never mentioned. A night that might as well never have existed, except that it did.
The annual Christmas ball was well under way by the time they walked through the doors of the Great Hall, feeling strangely like they were slipping back in time and were no more than the kids they once used to be. The tables that normally graced the room had been vanished, and instead there was a space for dancing, small tables gathered in the back and around the sides for dining. Candles floated through the air, twenty-eight Christmas trees lined the edges of the room and Harry smiled as he caught the shimmery flash of light as Peeves flew in and out of the crowd.
“Harry! Hermione!” Ginny greeted them with a huge smile, bouncing over to them as soon as she saw them. Her hair was pulled back in a knot and there was no denying she was a fully grown woman, but Harry couldn’t help but see the girl he once lay on the bank of the lake with as he gave her a hug.
“I’m so glad you’re here.” She smiled warmly at him, any traces of awkwardness from their break-up six months after the war long gone, and Harry knew she meant every word. “You are coming over for Christmas dinner, aren’t you? My mum would be devastated if you refuse.”
Harry grinned. “You know I can never pass up a Weasley family meal.”
Ginny laughed. “And you’re bringing Hermione, too, right?”
Before Harry could answer, Hermione interrupted.
“Why would he need to bring me? I can get there myself.”
“Oh.” For a moment, Ginny flushed, stammered a little. “I just thought .. I had heard ….” She looked between the two of them for a moment, and then shrugged a little. “Nothing. Just a rumor Draco must have mentioned.”
Hermione frowned. “What rumor?”
Fortunately for Ginny, she was saved from answering by a cry of excitement.
“Harry! Hermione!”
Luna threw her arms around both of them at the same time as Neville stood grinning behind her. When Luna pulled back, it was easy to see the slight swell of her already-growing stomach.
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl yet?” Hermione asked eagerly.
Neville shook his head. “No. But it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “Either way, Luna wants to name it …”
“Wildeshire,” Luna said dreamily. “Like the mystical flower, you know?”
She smiled at them and patted her stomach. Harry tried not to laugh.
“I’m happy for you,” he told them both.
Neville leaned in to Harry, cocking his head in Hermione’s direction. “Should we be happy for you?” he asked.
“Whatever for?”
Harry tried not to groan as Hermione cut in. How she was always butting into things, he still could not figure out, even if it had been eleven years.
“Oh, um.” Neville shrugged. “Just curious.”
Hermione tugged on the sleeve of Harry’s dress robe. “Look, it’s Bill and Fleur! Let’s go say hello.”
Harry let himself be led across the floor.
The Christmas ball was wonderful. It really was. The Hogwarts staff had outdone themselves again. So many people to catch up with, food that melted on your tongue, music that made you feel alive and eager to dance. But as the night went on, Harry was not in a good mood.
“Do you want to dance?” Hermione asked him at one point.
He shrugged, but went with her.
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
He wasn’t, but nodded anyway.
She didn’t ask again.
He sighed to himself as they twirled around the floor. It was stupid, he knew, to let something that didn’t matter bother him. If that was even what was bothering him. Maybe it was something else.
He felt a bump on his left side as the couple beside them knocked into them a little. He turned, ready to scold them for being inconsiderate - where this rush of anger was coming from, he didn’t really have time to stop and think about - but instead he found himself staring at Minerva McGonagall, dancing with a wizard he had never seen before.
“Potter!” McGonagall said. “Granger! It’s so lovely to see you two.”
“It’s wonderful to see you, too, Professor,” Hermione smiled.
“Please,” McGonagall said. “I think it’s about time you called me Minerva.”
Harry saw her eyes flicker over him and Hermione.
“Are you two a …” she started to ask.
“Oh, no,” Hermione cut in instantly. Harry felt something stir inside him. “Just friends,” Hermione continued.
They talked some more. Harry knew he should be listening, but he just couldn’t. It was too much.
As soon as McGonagall and her partner danced away, Harry let go of Hermione and stepped back.
“Harry?” she asked, confusion apparent in her voice.
“I can’t be here with you,” he murmured. And then he was off, pushing past dancers, racing toward the entrance. He felt vaguely like the teenager he used to be, impulsive and full of rage, escaping the hand that had been dealt him. He should be better than this, he knew, but at the moment, he didn’t care. He just kept going, until finally, the door to the castle, the front stoop, down the lawn.
Fresh air. He breathed in. He felt something prickle at the back of his eyes, but he blinked it away. What was his problem anyway? It had been five years. No one knew, no one was ever going to know. It was something that never should have happened.
“It means nothing!” he whispered to himself, angrily. Why couldn’t he just be happy for his friends, be happy for the life he had now, maybe ask out the new auror who kept casting him sneaky looks while they are working?
“Harry!”
Harry groaned. He wanted to pretend like he didn’t hear her. Maybe he could blend into the darkness and she wouldn’t see him.
“Harry Potter!”
No such luck.
She was directly in front of him, hands on her hips, glaring.
“Hermione, go back to the party.”
“What in Merlin’s name is wrong with you?”
“Just go back to the party.”
She stomped her foot, cursing a little as her heel sunk further into the ground than she had intended. She settled for crossing her arms across her chest and glaring harder.
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what your problem is. You’ve been weird all night.”
Harry snorted disgracefully.
“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Talk to me!” Her voice rose dramatically. It was lucky no one else seemed to be anywhere in the vicinity.
But it was Harry’s turn to be mad.
“Talk to you?” he said, almost mockingly. “All night it seems like you’d rather pretend I wasn’t there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about you!” He exploded. “And all the ‘oh, no’ and ‘we’re just friends’ along with that look you always have every time someone asks us a question!”
Hermione stared at him. It was quiet, the only sound the Christmas music still playing inside the castle.
“But we aren’t together, Harry,” she said finally, her voice quieter now. “I’m just answering them.”
“Well, who’s fault is that?” he muttered, but more to himself than to her. Feelings were pouring out of him, seemingly from nowhere, but he knew whose fault it was that they weren’t together. And it wasn’t hers. Or not really. He couldn’t expect her to know something he had never told her. Even if it had been her decision - and only her decision - to keep it quiet in the first place.
“Wait. What?” Hermione said. She reached out to touch his arm, but he yanked it away. “Harry, I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to understand,” he grumbled. He needed to get away from her, before he said something he would regret. More than he’d already said already. “Go back to the party. Please.”
“No, Harry. No.” She reached for him again. Again, he pulled away. “I want to talk to you.”
“Well, I don’t want to talk to you. Please go back to the party. Please.” He was almost begging.
But she didn’t move. She just stared at him, like she was trying to read his mind, or see into his soul. He tried to look away, to move, but something in her eyes kept him rooted there.
A cold night, an empty tent, tears, a need for comfort. An innocent dance. Just to make her laugh. Staring into brown eyes. The warm feel of lips upon lips. Fingers in her hair. Laying her down. Fumbling with buttons, with shirts, with knickers. The feeling of her, surrounding him. A brown head of hair on his chest in the morning. A feeling of being loved. And then a plea to never tell anyone again.
He blinked back the liquid behind his eyes again. He hated that he could still see that night so clearly. Hated that it had changed him forever.
Now here, five years later, on the Great Lawn at Hogwarts, he heard Hermione breathe in sharply. “Oh,” was all she said.
But that was enough. Five years of feelings tore out of Harry before he knew what was happening.
“Oh? Oh?!? That’s all you can say is ‘oh’?” Harry glared at her, his voice beginning to rise. “You knew. You knew all this time. You had to have known! You are not that blind. You are not that stupid. But I can’t do this anymore! I can’t stand here with you and pretend to be your friend and laugh with you and take you to parties and then drop you off at the door and be gone. I can’t do that anymore!”
He took a breath and continued.
“I see you, all the bloody time! You haunt my dreams and my thoughts and my memories. Because I remember what happened that night in the forest. Because it meant something to me! Because it changed me. And I … I can’t do this anymore! I can’t!”
He turned away from her. His vision was blurry. He needed to get away. Away from this place, away from the memories, away from her. He fumbled in the pocket of his dress robes for his wand.
“Where the bloody hell are you?” he muttered angrily, checking his other pocket.
A hand on his arm stopped him, tugging him around.
“Hermi -”
He opened his mouth to protest, to tell her he couldn’t talk. Not now, not about this, not with her.
Warm lips on his stopped him. Pressing into him, full of fire and passion and an intensity he had never felt.
Hands were gripping the back of his head.
Lips moving, tongues clashing, teeth grinding, air harder to come by. The taste of salty tears on his lips.
He never wanted this moment to end.
She pulled back first, panting slightly. Her cheeks were wet. He wasn’t sure whose tears they were, hers or his.
“What was that?” he managed to whisper.
She glared at him, but she was smiling. “What do you think that was?”
He tried to speak but he felt like words were suddenly foreign.
She reached out and took his hand.
“You’re not the only one who remembers. You’re not the only one it changed.”
She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to.
He let her lead him back inside.
2,642 words/30 = 88 points for Hufflepuff
Kristine//Puff