Chapter Text
Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup on a Saturday in January, and by all accounts it was the most exciting, easiest and greatest victory in the history of the sport. Harry caught the Snitch in a dive so reckless that McGonagall had to replace the commentator for letting out words which are most improper for first-years to hear. Ron let in exactly one goal, which he would bring up for the rest of his life as proof that he was "basically flawless." Ginny scored so many times that the Ravenclaw Keeper reportedly gave up on his dream of becoming a professional quidditch player after graduating.
By the time the team made their way back into the Gryffindor common room, the party had already started without them, because Fred and George Weasley did not believe in waiting for formalities like "the actual winning team arriving."
They had decided — more like were forced by the Weasley matriarch — to accompany the Golden Trio and others in their return to Hogwarts to repeat seventh year and finally get their NEWTs this time. Though the real reason had been them thinking it would be a great promotion for the reopening of their shop, which was shut down by the death eaters during the war.
"THERE THEY ARE," bellowed George, as Harry and the rest of the team entered through the portrait, "THE CONQUERING HEROES."
"Conquering Heroine, in my case," said Ginny, flipping her hair and accepting a butterbeer like a queen accepting tribute.
Someone — later, no one would admit to being the someone, though Weasley twins were widely suspected — had smuggled in firewhisky. A lot of firewhisky. It sat in a cauldron in the corner like a small, however, extremely bad decision waiting to happen, and by ten o'clock most of the common room had made that decision at least twice.
Hermione, who had spent the match gripping Lavender's arm hard enough to leave bruises and shouting things like "HARRY, THE OTHER LEFT" even though the said man was already going to his left, was riding the kind of relief-high that made firewhisky seem like a perfectly reasonable idea.
"One cup," she told Harry primly, holding said cup. "I am having exactly one cup, because I am a responsible person, and then I am going to bed."
She had, by Harry's count, four cups.
Harry, for his part, had lost count somewhere after the third toast to "the single greatest catch in Hogwarts history," proposed by Dean Thomas, seconded by Seamus Finnigan, and enthusiastically over-seconded by Neville Longbottom, who did not usually drink but had apparently decided that tonight he, too, was a man of the world.
By midnight, the common room had transformed into the kind of chaotic, joyous mess that only teenagers and freshly or not so freshly turned adults freed from academic pressure and pressure from the war, armed with unsupervised alcohol can produce. Fred and George were teaching a rapt Luna Lovegood — who had wandered in from Ravenclaw Tower for reasons no one questioned, because it was Luna — how to play a card game that seemed to consist entirely of exploding things. Ron was attempting to convince Parvati Patil that he had once armwrestled a troll (he had not). Ginny had somehow ended up in an extremely intense conversation with Draco Malfoy, who had also — again, for reasons no one questioned — wandered up from the dungeons, apparently on the theory that "everyone was distracted enough that no one would hex him."
He had developed a kind of awkward friendship — using the term VERY lightly — with Harry, the golden trio and rest of the gryffindors after refusing to recognise Harry in the Malfoy Manor and his mother lying about Harry's death to Voldemort which ended up saving his life.
"I'm just saying," Ginny was saying, jabbing a finger into Draco's chest, "that Slytherin's chaser rotation was TRAGIC this year, tragic, Malfoy, an actual tragedy—"
"I don't even play Quidditch anymore, I don't know why you're telling me this—" said Malfoy with a frown on his face which had a tinge of amusement hidden too.
"BECAUSE YOU'RE STANDING HERE AND YOU HAVE A FACE I CAN YELL AT."
Somewhere in the middle of all this glorious chaos, Harry found himself sitting on the floor with his back against an armchair, and Hermione next to him, laughing at something — neither of them could later remember what — so hard she had to hold onto his shoulder to stay upright.
"You were brilliant today," she told him, for perhaps the tenth time that evening, each time with the same sincere, slightly glassy-eyed conviction.
"You've said that already."
"I'm saying it again. It bears repeating. It's a repeatable fact." She poked him in the chest, missed slightly, and poked his collarbone instead. "You, my best friend, were brilliant."
"You're my best friend too," Harry said, and meant it with the full, uncomplicated warmth of someone who had had exactly as much firewhisky as she had. "Best friend in the whole world."
"Obviously," said Hermione. "Ron's my second-best friend."
"Don't tell Ron that."
"I would never. I'll tell him he's my joint-best friend. It'll be very diplomatic."
What happened next has been reconstructed, in the years since, through a combination of foggy memory, a truly unhelpful amount of secondhand gossip, and one extremely awkward conversation the two of them had approximately six months later that neither of them ever wanted to repeat. The short version — the version they eventually agreed on, in a tone that dared anyone to ask follow-up questions — is this: at some point, in the golden, blurry, entirely-too-much-firewhisky haze of that evening, Harry and Hermione slipped out of the common room, ended up in an empty classroom two floors down, and had sex.
That's it. That's the whole story of that part. Neither of them would ever, under torture, under Veritaserum, under the combined threat of Rita Skeeter's quill and Molly Weasley's howler, provide further detail, and frankly the world is better for it.
What matters is what happened after.
————
They walked back to the common room together sometime past two in the morning, both of them significantly more sober than they had been an hour before, in that particular way that shock tends to accelerate. Neither of them said very much. The corridors were dark and cold and smelled faintly of old stone and dying torches. Their footsteps echoed in a way that felt, to both of them, unreasonably loud.
Hermione's brain, which never fully switched off even when the rest of her had had four cups of firewhisky, was already hard at work. This doesn't have to be a whole thing, she told herself. This can just be a thing that happened. People are allowed to have things happen. Harry is my best friend. This doesn't change that. We can be adults about this. She glanced sideways at him. He was staring very fixedly at the distance between them as they walked, ears red, hair somehow even messier than usual. We can absolutely be adults about this.
Harry's brain, meanwhile, having considerably less practice at rapid emotional processing under pressure, had arrived at an entirely different and much simpler conclusion, which was roughly: Hermione and I had sex. Best friends don't have sex casually. Best friends who have sex are together. Hermione and I are together now. I am dating Hermione Granger. This thought produced in him a warmth so exhilarating and unexpected that he nearly walked into a suit of armor.
They reached the portrait hole. The Fat Lady, mercifully, was annoyed for being woken up from sleep and did not comment, though she would absolutely have had opinions if fully awake.
"Well," said Hermione.
"Well," said Harry.
There was a pause of exactly the length required to make everything worse.
“It was great” both said at the same time and let out a nervous laughter.
"So… goodnight Harry and thank you," Hermione said, in the brisk, tidy voice she used when she wanted a conversation to be over. She meant, very specifically: thank you for a nice, contained, one-time experience that we are now going to file away and never discuss, because that is the mature and sensible thing to do, and I would like to preserve our friendship, which is the most important thing in the world to me, more than this ever could be.
"Goodnight Hermione and thank you," Harry said back, in a voice that came out far softer than he intended. He meant, very specifically: thank you for choosing me, thank you for this, thank you for whatever this is that we're starting, I am so happy right now I could set something on fire out of sheer joy.
They looked at each other for one more second.
Then Hermione turned and went up the stairs to the girls' dormitory, and Harry turned and went up the stairs to the boys' dormitory, and both of them lay awake for a long time afterward, staring at their respective ceilings, absolutely certain that they understood exactly what had just happened, and absolutely certain of two entirely different things.