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“This is getting ridiculous,” Hermione observed.
She was looking over at the Hufflepuff table as she said it where a group of girls were all eyeing Harry speculatively. Lisa Pritchett looked like she was contemplating undoing her fourth button and sauntering over. Hermione couldn’t say that they were wrong to, exactly — it wasn’t as if she hadn’t noticed that Harry was handsome as well, she’d heard enough talk about it this year to be sick of the thought — but she couldn’t help but feel rather indignant about their open perusal of him. They didn’t know the real Harry at all.
Harry buried his head in his arms. “I don’t want to think about it,” he said, miserably.
There was a tap on his shoulder, and he startled. “I won’t,” he declared wildly, hitting out with his arm.
Ron grinned, dodging the arm and dropping into the seat across from him.
“You’ve grown paranoid, mate,” he said. “What you need to do is get a girl. That’ll shut em all up.”
There was a love mark on the side of Ron’s neck, and he rubbed at it, looking pleased.
Hermione bristled. “Yes you would think that,” she said, buttering her toast. Her knife scraped along the bread.
Ron’s expression turned sheepish.
“Ronnie!” a sugary voice called, and Ron looked up. The look he gave Lavender was one that Hermione was rapidly growing familiar with. It no longer caused her stomach to ache quite so badly, though she still couldn’t say she liked looking at it.
“Over here Lav,” he said, gesturing her over.
“Don’t bring her,” Harry said into his arms. “She always brings a posse. I don’t have the strength for the brigade today.”
Ron looked over at Hermione, as if asking for permission. It was a move that irritated her. “Go on then,” she said, gesturing with her bread down the table.
He sighed, standing and heading towards Lavender, who immediately linked arms with him, pulling her down towards where Parvati and Demelza were waiting.
Hermione watched him sit with a sort of resigned melancholy.
Harry looked up from under his arms at her. His expression was sympathetic.
“No,” she said to him, pointedly.
“Yeah alright,” he mumbled. He cast a flinty-eyed glance down the table, and then poured himself another mug of coffee, ignoring his food.
Hermione frowned at him, spooning some eggs onto his plate. He rolled his eyes, but obediently picked up his fork. He ate the eggs in three bites before setting his fork down.
Hermione sighed. That was pretty good for Harry.
“What you need to do is just invite someone to Slughorn’s party,” she said. “They’re all asking because they think you’re shy and won’t ask them. Which you won’t. So just pick someone, and the rest will leave you alone.”
Harry sighed, running a hand through his hair. He hadn’t been sleeping, Hermione thought. There were dark circles pressed beneath his eyes, and he looked like he always did at the start of term, like he had been stretched too thin. He had probably been studying the map again instead of sleeping.
“Harry,” she said, attempting to gentle her tone. “You deserve to have some fun, too. Would it be the worst thing…”
“I can’t,” he said, loudly. And then flushed as people looked over. “I’m not,” he said more quietly. He was examining his plate with a ferociousness that took Hermione aback. But then Harry always seemed to feel things with an intensity that surprised her. “They all think that dating me would be some great thing, right? But they have no fucking idea. I’m not going to date someone just to put a target on their back, alright? I’m not that selfish.”
He looked up at her. His eyes were very green.
Hermione’s mouth softened. “Harry,” she started. But he stood up from the table in a rush, almost knocking over the bench.
“I’m going to the library,” he said.
There were so many things that Hermione wanted to say to him that they battled within her, and by the time she had opened her mouth to speak, he had already disappeared down the walkway between tables, and then he was gone.
Harry didn’t actually like the library that much. He knew it was meant to be a safe haven, but he thought that the quiet only made the noises that were there even more loud. He preferred doing work in the common room where at least the hubbub was intentional, and you could lean over and make a loud complaint without being judged for it.
“You know the library is not really the spot to escape me,” Hermione said, putting her bag down on the chair across from him. The chair leaned precariously under its weight, but she dropped into the seat, balancing it out. She carried around enough books to fight even a weightlessness charm. “This is my place, you know.”
Harry rubbed at his nose. “I’m just sick of the staring in the Hall. I’m beginning to think I should just wear the cloak around school”
He could feel eyes on him now, and he looked up and saw that one of the sixth year Gryffindors was eyeing the two of them from the table across from them, one that always hung around with Lavender. “Maybe Ron was right,” Harry said, wearily. “I could just ask someone to pretend for a bit and maybe some of it would die down.”
Hermione made a scoffing noise. He looked up at her. She was gathering her curls into a bun at the top of her head, making a sound of frustration as one escaped her hold, falling across her cheek. Harry reached over and handed it to her, pinching the hair between his fingers and pushing it into her grip. She looked up at him.
“Thanks,” she said. “It’s being impossible today.”
He leaned back in his seat. “I’m familiar with the feeling.”
She stuck another clip in it, and then dropped her hands, looking over at him. “You know anyone you dated would be lucky to date you, right?”
Harry flushed, rubbing at the back of his neck, his eyes skating away from her.
Hermione was good at these kinds of conversations, but they always made Harry feel lost. “I just can’t, Hermione,” he said. “You get that, don’t you?”
She was silent for a moment. “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”
He braved looking at her again, and saw that her gaze had gone far away as she thought . It was easier sometimes to look at Hermione like this, when it was so clear she was lost in her own mind, sorting through some problem or another. It was just strange when Harry knew the problem was him.
He tapped his fingers against the table, and then stood up. “I’m going back to the Common Room,” he said. “You want to come?”
“Harry, I just walked all the way here to follow after you.”
“You don’t have to come,” he said, but Hermione stood too, looking down at her bag, tilting the chair again now that she was no longer counter weight.
Harry shook his head. “Give it here then,” he said.
“It’s heavy.”
“I’ll call it my training for the day. I haven’t been working my shoulders enough apparently.”
She smiled, shaking her head, and handed it over. Harry tossed her his lighter bag, and she laughed. When Harry looked up, he saw that the sixth year girl was looking at them, her gaze narrowing.
“Come on,” he said, taking Hermione by the arm to try and move her apart from her scrutiny, but Hermione tripped at the tug of his hand, and fell into him. He felt her hand flutter at his side, before grasping tight to his blazer. He caught her elbow, laughing, and steadying her.
“Careful,” he said. “You’re going to take me down now.”
Her eyes had grown quite wide, and the strand of her hair had fallen into her face again. Harry thought, as if removed from himself, of pushing the hair back again. It was an odd thought, and for a moment he couldn’t sort where it had come from.
She made a coughing sound, and tugged on his blazer to regain her balance. Harry straightened, setting her back on her feet.
“We could go together,” he said, suddenly. He felt quite foolish for not thinking of it sooner.
“What?” Hermione said, tucking that strand behind her ear. Harry watched the path of her fingers.
“To Slughorn’s,” Harry said. He rubbed at the back of his neck. He remembered all at once that he had been sure that Hermione had been wanting to go with Ron. “It would, you know, take the pressure off, right? And I mean, I know I said, but—”
“Oh,” Hermione said, but her expression looked relieved, and she smoothed a hand over the front of his blazer’s collar. It was a familiar mothering gesture that Harry was used to, but at the moment it felt a bit like she was patting him on the head.
She looked over his left shoulder, distracted. “Now that I think of it I might stay here. I really need to get some work done, and I’ll get more done here than back in the common room. My bag, please.”
Harry nodded, placing it in her palm. “We’ll go though, yeah?” he asked, not sure why he was pushing it.
Her eyes went back to him. Her face was intimately familiar to him. He didn’t think there was anyone who’s face he knew more.
“I’ll give you my dress color so we can match.”
Harry’s eyes widened.
Hermione’s smile softened. “Your expression.” She shook her head. “Your black suit will be fine.”
She looked over his shoulder again, her expression something strange, but before Harry could say something more about it, she had ducked around him and disappeared off into the stacks, and Harry was left wondering if he’d done the right thing after all.
There was an Inquisition waiting for Hermione when she returned to the dorms. She sighed, shucking her bag and rolling her shoulder to try and alleviate some of the ache. She had suspected this was coming, which is why she’d stayed away. Damn Romilda.
“Hermione Granger,” Parvati said, seriously, from the window seat. She had braided her long dark hair in a halo around her head. “Did you really think you could get away with this?”
“It’s not that big a deal,” Hermione said, hoping it didn’t sound as if she was pleading. She’d like to emerge from this with at least some of her dignity intact.
The entire dorm room was filled to the brim with all of the sixth year girls, and most of the fifth. They had obviously been waiting for a while. Ginny was sitting on Hermione’s bed, petting Crookshanks. She shot Hermione a bemused look. Traitor.
“You promised,” Lavender reminded Hermione. “You swore.”
“Yes, well,” Hermione said. “That was before.”
Lavender leaped from the bed, tugging on Hermione’s arms. “Come on then,” she said. She pushed Hermione onto the bed beside Ginny, following after her, and folding her legs up to examine Hermione up close. Crookshanks made an angry sound and departed.
Hermione sighed.
“It’s not that big a deal,” she repeated.
“Romilda saw,” Lavender said, gesturing to the aforementioned girl, who, Hermione noticed, looked rather sore about the fact. “She said Harry was stroking your hair and making eyes.” She somehow made this sound like an accusation.
“You know when we went to the dance he didn’t even brush my hand once,” Parvati provided. “It was weird. I gave him so many openings, too. I was worried he was a monk.”
“Come to think of it,” Ginny said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him touch anyone that isn’t you.”
Hermione felt a traitorous flush spread up her neck. “I’m sure that’s not true,” she said.
“It is true,” Lavender said, knowingly. “And he’s been sending Ron away so he can have you all to himself. We’ve all noticed.”
Hermione’s flush deepened, but she didn’t have the heart to tell Lavender that Harry was only sending Ron away because he couldn’t stand to be around her personally. She wasn’t that cruel.
“He caught her when she fell,” Romilda piped up. “It was very gallant.”
All the girls turned to look at her, which seemed to please Romilda at least.
“I tripped,” Hermione said, but she was drowned out as the girls asked Romilda to extrapolate, as they clearly thought she was a better source of information than Hermione.
Romilda started into an indepth analysis of Harry’s behavior, which Hermione thought was a bit of overblown, and soon Demelza and Parvati had begun acting out the scene with dramatic gestures. Hermione inched her way up the bed to sit beside Ginny.
“Madness,” she muttered. The girls shrieked as Demelza’s hands started to wander from Parvati’s waist.
Ginny laughed, watching the girls goof around, but after a moment, she looked over at Hermione. “Did he really ask you out then?” she asked.
“Not you, too, Gin,” Hermione said. “I’m about sick of Harry fever.”
“I think I’ve been inoculated against him by now, don’t worry,” Ginny said, smiling. “But you know I know how Harry is. If he was ever interested, I don’t think there are many people who would say no. He’s just like never interested. Dumb as a block of bricks, that boy.”
Hermione snorted.
“But I always thought he liked you. That’s why Cho couldn’t stand you, you know?” Ginny’s expression was serious, and Hermione exhaled.
She did know. And she…
Merlin, it was true that if Harry had ever shown even the slightest bit of interest…
But he hadn’t. And she didn’t think he had now. She had just been a solution to the problem, conveniently already in the line of fire. But she should have thought of it ahead of time, and suggested it so she didn’t have this strange feeling as if…
But no, she wasn’t getting caught up in the Harry fever just because everyone else was.
“Oh Hermione,” Lavender said from across the room. Now that it was clear that Hermione was not battling her for Ron’s affection, Lavender seemed to have decided that they were now friends. “You’ll let me do your makeup for the dance, won’t you? I’m dreadfully jealous I’m not going.”
All the girls piped up similar sentiments.
“What about my makeup?” Ginny asked, loudly.
“Dean is already in love with you,” Lavender said, dismissively. “We’ve got to seduce the monk. That means we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
The news that Harry was taking Hermione to Slughorn’s party spread quickly throughout Hogwarts, but it had, as Hermione had feared, simply thrown her into the Harry fever firestorm, not lessened the flames.
“Now this is really ridiculous,” she said, coming into the common room and dumping her bag, already working up to a good rant. “You would think that in the face of everything that’s currently happening people wouldn’t go around just slinging purist slurs, like they might think to just couch their insults in something else instead of just putting it right out there for the world to see. But look!” She brandished the piece of parchment at Harry, who was sitting by the fire, his books out on his lap. The words were painted in red lipstick in some sort of macabre attempt at intimidation.
Harry blinked rapidly, his expression falling, and Hermione realized all at once that she should never have shown him. She had just felt so angry that she had wanted to share. She hadn’t thought of how Harry he would be about the whole thing.
“Hermione,” Harry started. He sounded a bit as if the breath had been knocked from him.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” Hermione said, balling up the parchment, and moving to throw it into the fire, but Harry stood, catching her wrist.
“Yeah it is,” he said, prying the paper from her grip.
He examined it closer, still holding onto her wrist, and Hermione looked at his face as he read it over, his expression growing progressively angrier.
“Who did this?” he asked.
Hermione exhaled. “Nobody important,” she said. “I told you, it’s—”
“And this is because you’re going with me to Slughorn’s.”
“Well yes,” Hermione said, making to take it back. Harry held onto it, and Hermione pushed into him, her hair falling into her face as she made to grab it. He looked down at her, his face suddenly quite close to hers.
“Hermione,” he said, his voice sounding strangled.
She flushed, and stepped back, feeling suddenly shy. He looked surprised at this reaction, and Hermione flushed darker.
“It’s really not a big deal, Harry,” she said. “It’s not like it’s the first time.”
He swallowed. “This isn’t the first time someone has called you a,” his nose wrinkled, “Mudblood whore?”
Hermione inhaled, and then released the breath. “No it isn’t.”
Harry looked as if she had punched him.
“But Harry,” she said, stepping forward again. “I don’t care, I mean—”
The fact that she had come storming in here because she really did care was beside the point.
“We won’t go then. I’ll just go by myself, the rest of the school can—”
“It won’t matter,” Hermione said, exasperated.
“Why not?”
“Because…” and she realized she didn’t truly want to tell him after all.
“Because what, Hermione?”
“Because people have been saying this stuff for years now. I’m used to it, it’s fine, it’s—”
“What do you mean? It’s not fine. People are—”
“Listen,” Hermione said, stepping forward and taking him by the hand. “I’m not saying it’s okay, just that I’ve accepted it. Whatever we do, people are going to say it, so let’s just drop it, okay?” This was not even half of what she meant, but she hadn’t worked up the bravery yet to say the other half. Some Gryffindor she was.
Harry looked pained. His hand raised as if he meant to touch her, but then he lowered it. “I don’t want people to do things to you because of me,” he said. “I want…” he trailed off.
“What?” Hermione said. “What do you want?”
Harry opened his mouth, and then closed it. Something went distant in his eyes, and Hermione wondered for a disconcerting moment if he was Occluding.
She blinked rapidly, and then realized all at once that they were still in the middle of the Gryffindor common room. A couple of third years were watching them wide eyed from several armchairs over. She exhaled.
“Come on,” she said, taking him by the wrist, and pulling him through the portrait hall and out into the hallway.
They didn’t speak as they made their way down from Gryffindor tower out to the main entrance, tracking a familiar path for the two of them, and then they were pushing out onto the steps. The early December air was bracingly cold, and Harry sighed, and pulled off his sweater and held it out to her.
“I don’t get cold,” he said, though he was already shivering.
Hermione shook her head, but pulled it on over her own jumper.
She pulled a jar out from her bag, and cast her signature blue flames, passing it over to him. “For your hands,” she said, burying her own in the too long sleeves of his jumper.
They started around towards the lakeside path. It was almost curfew, and they probably shouldn’t really be out here, but Hermione couldn’t find it within herself to care.
“I wish you’d told me,” Harry said, finally, after they had walked aways in silence. The blue light cast his narrow face at sharp angles. “That people said that stuff to you.”
Hermione exhaled. “I knew it would upset you.” She frowned. “I wanted to protect you.”
“But I don’t want you to protect me when it hurts you,” Harry burst out, and then he clamped his mouth shut.
Hermione looked over at him in surprise. But then why should she be surprised? Hadn’t she known that Harry always felt things deeply? Why should his feelings about her be any different?
“I know you want to look out for me, Hermione,” Harry said, after they had walked a ways further. “I just wish you’d let me look out for you sometimes, too.”
Hermione opened her mouth, and then closed it, not knowing at all what to say. She had known that Harry would be upset about what people were saying, of course. He cared more about doing the right thing than anyone else she knew. People throwing around slurs would always upset him. She just hadn’t really considered that he would be upset for her personally.
And there was something about Harry angry over her in the moonlight that felt powerful and secretive, as if her imagination had conjured him that way.
“Thanks,” she said, softly.
They walked aways further. And then Hermione said the other half at last. She had come this far after all. “It’s worth it, you know,” she said. “That’s what I meant earlier. Being friends with you is worth bearing whatever people will say.”
Harry released a heavy breath, and then looked over at her. He opened his mouth, and then closed it, obviously battling with himself. But, “Let’s head back,” was all he said, looking off towards the castle.
It was only when they had walked halfway around the lake again that he spoke again.
“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we had met in the Muggle world? Apart from all this? You know, where I could just be Harry Potter, not the Boy-Who-Lived or the Chosen One?” He ran a hand up through his hair.
Hermione felt as if she was hardly breathing.
“Christ Hermione, I sometimes feel like you’re the only person who knows that guy, the real me, you know? Even Ron sometimes…”
His expression had grown melancholic, and Hermione linked her arm with his, pulling him into her side. Harry was shivering all the way up to his shoulders.
“And who would I be in this different world?”
He reached over and ruffled her hair, his expression growing lighter. “You’d be my best friend, of course,” he said. “The brainiest, bravest girl in school, like always.”
These words soothed something deep in Hermione’s chest, and she felt her cheeks grow warm. When it came down to it, she was always sure that Harry would choose Ron over her as his closest friend. And while she had always felt like Harry was hers, she rarely ever heard him reciprocate the sentiment.
She tightened her grip on him.
“Not the school slag then?” she asked. “Apparently that’s what I am here.”
Harry’s eyebrows raised. “If you wanted,” he said, and then grinned. “I always thought you were the school swot though.”
And Hermione laughed as she swatted at him, and thought that it was, it was worth every bit of it.
Harry and Ron had been sitting by the fireplace for hours now. They had started by playing chess, but the chess had petered out awhile back, and now they were just sitting in silence. “Well,” Harry said, rubbing his hands on his trousers and moving to stand. It was half past six. “Best start getting ready then, I suppose.”
Hermione had disappeared hours before into the girls' dorm. She’d shot him a panicked look as Parvati and Lavender had almost carried her off. Harry had laughed, but Ron’s expression had been strange as he’d watched it. Harry and Ron had not talked about the fact that Harry had asked Hermione to the dance at all, though the rest of the school seemed interested in little else.
But now Ron stood, too, and made as if to follow Harry up the stairs. Harry stopped at the bottom of the stairway, confused. “You coming with?” he asked, skeptically. “I’m just changing, mate.”
“Harry,” Ron started, looking determined.
“Ron.”
“This, tonight I mean, isn’t going to, I dunno,” he rubbed at the back of his neck, “Make things weird, is it?”
“What is?” Harry asked.
He looked up towards the girl's stairway, wondering what exactly it was that girls did that meant they had to make getting ready such a production. The whole thing had begun to make him feel horrendously nervous. This was worse by far than the one demented date with Cho.
The madness of Slughorn’s ridiculous party was beginning to get to him. This was Hermione. Since when had Hermione ever made him nervous?
“You and Hermione,” Ron said. He looked as if he were squaring himself for battle, though Harry had no idea why.
“Ron,” Harry started again.
“No, I mean, I always thought that you liked her, and I mean…” Ron looked as if he were pulling his teeth out. “Now that me and Lav… What I mean to say is that if you want…”
“It’s not like that,” Harry said, feeling sort of panicked inside. Hermione hadn’t thought that it was like that, had she?
But then now that he thought about it, he realized they’d never said.
And, a sneaky little voice said in the back of his head, would it be the worst thing if she did think it was a date?
Ron frowned.
“I’m just…” Harry shook his head, trying to figure out how to put it into words. “You know, doing what you said,'' he finished helplessly.
Ron only looked more confused.
“You know,” Harry said, leaning forward to whisper it. “Asking someone so that everyone else left me alone.”
Ron’s skeptical expression didn’t lift. “Really?” he asked.
Harry nodded emphatically. “Really,” he said. “You know I’m helpless at all that stuff.” He gestured vaguely with his hand to indicate the whole enterprise.
Ron, who had only had experience with one girl, nodded sagely. “Ah,” he said. Then, “You a poof?”
Harry choked on air, looking around at the mostly empty common room. He had truthfully never really considered this concept before. He couldn’t imagine ever fancying someone like Ron or Dean or Seamus, but then he hardly had time to think of fancying anyone at all.
“I dunno, mate,” Harry said. “The only person I’ve fancied was Cho, and you know how that went.”
“Yeah,” Ron said. “Right mess.”
He laughed, clapping Harry on the shoulder. “Well, just give em a show, mate. Hermione’ll be a sport.”
“What?” Harry said. “You think I should like… do something?”
This concept had somehow never occurred to him. He had just assumed that of course they would go, and probably make fun of the whole thing, and then return back to the common room like normal. But then he was not sure what the new normal with Hermione and himself was anyway. Probably, he thought, he should never have asked her in the first place. He could have gone with someone less complicated, Luna maybe. He couldn’t imagine getting tied into knots about Luna.
Ron was looking at him as if he had grown two heads. “Why did you ask her if you didn’t want people to think you were, you know? Off the market?”
Harry ruffled his head, trying to edge towards the stairs, and escape this conversation. He had been hoping to avoid discussions of things like feelings. “I didn’t have to do anything when I went to the yule with Parvati.”
Ron snorted. “Yeah, and that’s why she hates you, mate.”
Harry wondered how suddenly he and Ron seemed to be speaking different languages. But it did seem as if since Ron had started dating Lavender he had access to a whole package of knowledge that Harry had never even known existed.
Ron leaned forward, as if he were imparting some great knowledge. “Just you know,” he said. “Touch her arm a lot, you’ll be fine.”
Touch her arm, Harry thought. Well he could do that, he supposed. He shot a panicked glance up towards the girls dorm, wondering what Hermione was making of it all. He had a sudden urge to ask her. She was always good at explaining these sorts of things in ways Harry could actually understand. But he didn’t know if he was meant to ask her about this one.
And he thought of Hermione looking up at him in the moonlight, a painful intensity in her wide brown eyes. It’s worth it, she had said. But Harry was not sure being with him was worth it at all.
He shook his head, and started up the stairs to the dorm room. Right mess, he thought. Well that was par the course then.
“It’s fine, Lavender, really,” Hermione said. “Really, really no more, okay?”
Lavender tilted her head, looking at her. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, pulling the makeup brush back. “You’re not much of a glitter girl.” This thought seemed to distress her.
Hermione had been staring at her own appearance for the better part of three hours, and it was making her feel vaguely insane inside; but she had to admit that Lavender had done a good job with the whole thing. She hadn’t even made her straighten her hair, just smoothed potion after potion through it so the curls came out glossy and full. And she hadn’t gone overboard with the makeup either, just played with light and shadow here and there so she looked… pretty. Hermione rarely ever thought of herself as pretty. There had always been a plethora of other words to choose from.
She knew what most people thought of her.
She looked away from the mirror, glancing down at her feet. They looked strange in the pair of black pumps. And she’d somehow let the girls talk her into wearing all black, too. It was a dress she’d always been too intimidated to wear, thinking that the skin tight nature of it all was a little too intense for her. But as Lavender had said, “When else are you going to wear it if not on a date with the Chosen One?”
That had shut Hermione up.
Harry had never cared what she looked like, Hermione knew. She loved that about him. He had seen her covered in dirt and sweat and blood and sat with her at three am when she hadn’t washed her hair for days and listened to her rant about elvish rights without ever looking at her any different.
So why did she care if he saw her in a pair of heels?
But then almost against her will, Hermione remembered Harry’s expression when she’d walked down the stairs the night of the Yule Ball, as if he had been confounded. The power the sight of his stunned face had given her had prickled across her skin. It had been a feeling she’d wanted to keep locked away, to pull out only when she was feeling particularly swotty and needed to know that she could make someone look like that, like they couldn’t believe she was real. And it hadn’t been just someone. It had been Harry.
The boy who had come to battle a troll just to make sure she was alright. Her first real friend. The boy who had told her that he thought she was the only one who truly knew him.
“You’re lucky Harry is so tall,” Demelza said, eyeing Hermione’s admittedly substantial heels. Her own boyfriend was a fifth year named Tobias who was several inches shorter than Demelza.
“Ron is taller,” Lavender said, happily, sinking back into the bed. “Since you’re all going to be gone tonight, I think we’ll…” Hermione tuned her out, really not wanting to know what she had planned anyway. Some lines were better not crossed.
Parvati dropped into the seat beside her. “You have a plan, don’t you?” she asked.
“A plan for what?” Hermione asked, patting at her curls one last time before turning from the mirror.
“Look,” Parvati said. She had a pore strip spread across her nose, but she still somehow managed to look deadly serious. “You can’t count on Harry to make the first move. You’ve got to have a plan for how to, you know?” She raised her eyebrows.
Hermione shook her head, looking away. She wasn’t having this conversation.
“Don’t act scandalized,” Parvati said, pointing a finger at her. “I know you snogged Krum. Don’t think any of us have forgotten.”
“Yes, well,” Hermione said. “That was different.”
“Why?” Lavender asked, curiously, from her position spread now across the bed. “Most guys do it the same.”
“Because…” Hermione petered out. Well, because it was Harry.
And Harry was gorgeous, of course. She’d have to be blind not to notice, hadn’t she already admitted that? And he was funny, yes, and deeply kind, the type of guy who didn’t let anything lie when he thought it was wrong. And also okay, he was an enormous pain in her arse, because he never took care of himself, but he put up with Hermione’s mothering anyway, and every time she would do something for him he would look at her with a kind of weary affection that always took her breath away, and, “Oh no,” Hermione said, miserably.
“It’s hit her,” Lavender said, smiling. “We’ve been waiting.” Her expression was smug.
“Just take him for a walk around the lake after the party. You’re always going for long walks together anyway.” Parvati looked smug, too. “And then, you know, ravish him. You’re probably the only one who could manage it.”
Hermione flushed. “Ravish him, honestly,” she said, primly. “I don’t live in a romance novel, you know?”
Lavender’s pleased expression grew. “Sure, you don’t.”
Several hours later, Hermione was not feeling as if she were living in a romance novel, though the scenery, a decadent array of silver Christmas decor spread out across Slugnorn’s private rooms, was like something out of one of her mother’s bodice rippers. Harry beside her, was fidgeting with the hem of his suit jacket, looking miserable.
Hermione glanced up at him again. He had tried to tame his hair, but only sort of managed it, and it gave him a slapdash look that was admittedly rather charming. But then he had the benefit of looking unfairly good in a suit, which probably meant he could pull off any hairstyle. No more Harry fever, Hermione reminded herself. She wasn’t going to fall ill just because he’d put on a suit. She had seen him in a suit before. It shouldn’t be any different now.
Except it was.
He was also avoiding looking at her which was making Hermione feel as if she had done something wrong, and she had no clue at all how to pull him closer, not without crossing lines that she’d built for her own protection.
“Ohoho, and what do we have here?”
Slughorn descended upon them, and Harry straightened rapidly as if he had been shocked.
“My two favorite Gryffindors,” Slughorn said, grinning. He leaned conspiratorially over to Hermione, as if imparting a grand secret. “You know he told me all about you the night we first met.”
Hermione stole a glance over at Harry, and found that he was examining his feet, his cheeks flushing a dark red.
“The Brightest Witch of Your Age he called you, didn’t you Harry, my boy?”
Harry made a mumbling sound of agreement.
Hermione’s cheeks flushed, too.
She was not accustomed to being the one that people bragged about.
But she was not a Gryffindor for no reason. She reached over, and took hold of Harry’s hand.
At this, Harry looked up at her, a vaguely panicked expression on his face.
She tilted her head in question at him, and he exhaled, tightening his grip on her hand.
Hermione had held Harry’s hand multiple times before, but suddenly she was struck by the thought that it had only been when they were running for their lives. It was different to be doing it as a choice.
“Well, I see you are in good hands, my boy,” Slughorn said, clapping his hands together. “Very good hands indeed. Now I’ll introduce the both of you to some people that I think will be quite interested to meet you, we’ll start over by the—”
“Actually, Professor,” Hermione said. “Harry had just asked me for a dance before you came over.”
Harry looked surprised at this. There was a band playing, but there was only one couple dancing on the edge of what must have been considered the dance floor. And there was no one who hated dancing as much as Harry Potter.
But then Slughorn didn’t know that.
Slughorn’s expression froze. “Oh well surely just a few—”
But Hermione tugged on Harry’s hand and left Slughorn behind.
She thought for a moment, Harry might resist, but then he relaxed and pulled her into him, placing one hand politely on her shoulder blade.
“I’m not good at dancing,” Harry said. “You remember that, don’t you?”
“We’ll just sway,” Hermione said. “It’s better than sipping mead with some Ministry cronies anyway.”
Harry exhaled on a laugh, and she felt his breath stir her curls.
It was true that Harry was tall now, Hermione thought. Though this was a recent enough development that it still felt surprising. Even in four inch heels, she fit within the curve of her arm.
You grew up, she felt like saying. But that made it sound as if she herself had not grown up, too.
But then they were no longer eleven-year-olds sneaking around the castle under the cloak together. The thought threatened to make her tear up. Stupid.
“Thanks for the rescue,” Harry said. “I hate coming to these fucking things.”
“You’re welcome,” Hermione said, and then swallowed, pulling back just enough that she could look at his face. “You don’t have to treat me like a leper, you know? It is just me.”
Harry looked surprised at this, and he looked down at her, his pupils blown. “I wasn’t—”
“You were,” Hermione said, firmly. “I know why you invited me, you don’t have to look at me like I’m preparing to—” ravish you, Hermione thought, her cheeks flushing, “-- come at you with an ax or something. This isn’t The Shining. ”
Harry swallowed, and his hand flexed on her back. She could feel his palm on her bare shoulder blade, calloused from playing Quiddtich, and it was a strangely electric feeling that Hermione was trying rapidly to squelch.
She smiled to push off the nervousness.
Harry smiled, too. “Think you can brave a spin?” he asked.
“Best not,” Hermione said. “I truly don’t know what’ll happen in these shoes.”
Harry looked down at her foot. His expression did something strange, and Hermione shuffled closer, her feet brushing his now, as if to hide her heel clad feet behind his dragonhide dress shoes.
“Let’s just sway, yeah?” she asked.
Harry tightened his grip on her, pulling her closer so that they were practically embracing. She had hugged Harry so many times before, she thought. But not like this.
“Yeah,” he said.
Around them, the party continued on, but they stayed there just holding each other.
The party wrapped up at around ten thirty, everyone heading back towards the common room. Ernie MacMillan was tipsy and kept loudly offering to share his patented midterm notes system with anyone who would listen. Harry dawdled in the doorway to Slughorn’s room, looking up towards the path to the Gryffindor tower. For some reason the idea of going back to the common room held no appeal.
He looked down at Hermione. “How about it?” he asked her.
“I don’t want his notes,” she said, automatically. “His system is chaotic at best.”
Harry snorted.
He put his hands in the pockets of his trousers, suddenly unsure what he meant to do. “Fancy a trip to the kitchens?”
Hermione bit her lip. “I’m stuffed honestly.”
“How about a walk then?” Harry asked.
Hermione stiffened, and Harry wondered if he had said something wrong, but then she nodded. “Yeah, a walk sounds nice.”
Harry pulled out the map, glancing at it, and then offered Hermione his hand, palm up “Come on,” he said. “We’ll go the back way and we should be fine.”
She looked down at his hand, and then stepped forward and took it.
They made it to the front entrance without incident, and then they were stepping outside into the night air. The moon was high in the sky, and it felt almost bright outside. Harry thought, as he often found himself thinking these days, that his days here were numbered. It was as if the stretch of Hogwarts’s familiar landscape could fade at any moment, and he’d find himself on the battlefield.
“I can’t believe the term is almost over,” Hermione said. “Soon we’ll be through the year, and then there’s only one more year till NEWTS.”
Harry didn’t want to say that he wasn’t even sure he would be taking his NEWTS. He wanted to pretend just for tonight that he was a normal boy. “Come on,” he said, starting down the steps.
But Hermione paused. Harry looked back up at her, and saw that she was examining her feet.
Harry swallowed. “You look nice,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ve said that yet.”
Hermione looked up at him. Several of her dark curls had fallen forward to frame her face, and her cheeks had flushed pink from the cold. “You did,” she said. “But thanks.” Her smile was wry. “I almost feel like a girl for once.”
She tapped her shoe with her wand, and it transformed into a more sensible boot. “I always think you’re a girl,” Harry said. She shifted to do the other one, and Harry offered her his arm. She took it, her hand braced on his shoulder. Harry shivered, and she looked over at him again. Her pupils had grown, turning her brown eyes almost black. It was a strangely affecting sight.
They started down the steps. Though she didn’t usually wear them, without the heels, Hermione looked smaller. She burrowed into his side, and Harry felt a flushed, pleased feeling settle over him.
He put his arm around her shoulder. “You cold?” he asked.
She made a harrumphing kind of sound.
“We could go in,” he offered.
But she shook her head, and thus they began the long shuffle around the lake.
The two of them had walked the rambling path enough that everything about it was familiar: the lake, the curling edge of the trees, even the shape of the icicles on the branches. And yet, suddenly out here tonight in the moonlight with Hermione’s arm snug around his waist it all felt different, as if with almost no effort Harry at all had walked into an entirely different world.
“It feels weird, doesn’t it?”
“What does?” Harry asked, wondering how Hermione had caught the trailing edge of his thoughts.
Hermione did not immediately answer. When Harry looked down at her, he found her studying the frozen lake, her gaze far away as she sorted her thoughts. He wondered if she was thinking about him again, and his stomach performed a strange dip, but, “You know,” she said, after a moment had passed. “When I first found out about magic, it felt like a dream, but also it didn’t feel like a dream at all.”
Harry blinked, confused.
“It was as if something essentially true about myself was slotting into place, you know? Something I’d known all along but just hadn’t put into words. Magic. Magic was real. I could hardly bear it I was so excited.”
Harry thought back to eleven year old Hermione with her huge hair and swotty attitude, and felt a wave of affection wash over him. There had been something almost embarrassing about the zeal with which she had taken to magic. Harry himself had felt so overwhelmed by the whole thing that he had just accepted his place at the middle of the class. But then Hermione had never been good at accepting anything.
“I felt that way, too,” he said. “Like it all made sense once I knew.”
Hermione nodded, as if she had expected that. But then he had never needed to explain most things about himself to her. He sometimes thought that she understood things about him that Harry himself was still puzzling out.
She stepped back from him, releasing a breath, and turning to face him head on. She hadn’t put on a coat, and her shoulders were bare, and there was snow falling into her hair, causing it to frizz in familiar ways. And Harry thought: Hermione is beautiful. Like it was an unavoidable fact that he had somehow only just now encountered for the first time.
“What I’m trying to say, Harry, is that I’m willing to fight. You know that, right?” Hermione’s forehead wrinkled the way it did when she wanted to make sure he really understood something. “Whatever it takes. I’m with you till the end.”
Harry swallowed. He didn’t like to think of Hermione fighting. It reminded him too much of seeing her in the hospital, Dolohov’s curse wrapped around his torso, her face gone pale and still. He’d thought back then that perhaps she’d never wake up again, and all of it, all of it would be his fault, without him—
But he couldn’t imagine fighting without her either.
“Yeah,” he said. “I know you are.”
“And I thought about what you said the other day, about us meeting in the Muggle world. And I realized that I didn’t want that, even if it would have made things simpler. I want us to have met here, in this world, because this world has magic in it, and I’m magical. And so are you. You’re extraordinary.” Harry felt a desire within himself to protest this, but Hermione kept barrelling onwards, as if once she started, she couldn’t be stopped. “But this world,” she continued. “This place even, isn’t how I thought it would be when I was eleven, because all of it could just slip away in an instant, just because I wasn’t born to it. And that makes me so angry I just want to scream at times. So yes, I want to fight with you. But even if I didn’t love you, I’d still be fighting, so just—”
Hermione raised her hand to her mouth, the pink of her cheeks deepening further. “Sorry,” she squeaked. “What I meant to say was—” Her hand fluttered midair. “I mean I do love you of course, Harry, you know that. I mean, don’t you? But it—”
Harry caught her hand in his. “Breathe, Hermione,” he said.
But he felt robbed of breath himself. He was trying to remember if anyone had ever said they loved him before. His parents had, surely, but not when he could remember it. And it wasn’t really the sort of things blokes said to each other.
Her hand curled around his, and he looked down at it, their hands clasped together.
“I don’t want you to be alone,” she said.
“I’m not alone,” Harry said, stupidly. “I’ve got you.”
Hermione blinked, wide-eyed, at him, and Harry wondered if what he’d said had revealed himself. Revealed what though? He felt as if they were having three conversations at once.
“You get that you do, right?” she said. “Have me, I mean. Always. You’re always going to have me.”
“Hermione,” Harry said, because he didn’t have anything else.“I don’t want you to be alone either.” It wasn’t exactly what he meant, but Hermione smiled, as if she knew without him saying.
She stepped forward, her hand coming to rest on his cheek. “Can I ravish you now?” she asked.
Harry’s eyebrows raised, and he felt laughter come over him. “Ravish me?” he asked, but her mouth had already pressed to his, and her lips caught his laugh. Her hand pressed against his stomach. The air around them was cold, but she felt warm.
After only a moment though, Hermione pulled back to check his expression. But Harry had no clue what face he was making. “Huh?” he said. Somehow she had robbed him of all words.
She frowned, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows, and sunk back down onto the balls of the feet. She’d had to stand on her toes to kiss him. She moved to pull away, and Harry shook his head. “No,” he said, and leaned forward and caught her mouth again.
The only person he had kissed before had been Cho, and it had felt—
Bugger, but what did it matter what it had felt like? It hadn’t felt like this.
He could feel Hermione smiling against his lips, and just for this moment, all he could think was: he was kissing her, he was kissing her, he was kissing her.