Harry Potter and the Circle of Oblivion

I'm sure you can all tell I'm a great fan of trio interaction, but I'm an even bigger fan of H/Hr interaction… which is the purpose of this chapter. Just a little snippet to promise you I'm spurring them on… slowly but surely.

***

“So, mate,” Ron ventured as he and Harry made their way back to Gryffindor Tower that night, “come up with any good ideas about… you know… ?”

Harry was tired, sweaty and rather sore from quidditch practice after being hit three times on accident with a quaffle. He had also been pondering what they had learned before class that afternoon and found himself in an increasingly bad humor. It was not the time to talk about Snape or Deatheaters or Voldemort. “Nothing.”

Ron knew when not to ask questions and found it very convenient that they had arrived in front of the Fat Lady. “Shrivelfig!” he shouted. The Fat Lady looked disapprovingly at them, but said nothing for once, swinging back to let them pass.

“Where have you two been?” Hermione was standing, arms crossed, by the door.

“Where does it look like?” Ron said, his and Harry's robes splattered with mud.

“It looks like you've been rolling around in the dirt.” She said shortly, “It's only,” she looked almost nervously at Harry, “I just thought quidditch practice would be over before now.”

“Did you need something, Hermione?” Harry asked, his voice hollow, knowing full well that she'd been waiting since the moment they'd left to talk about what Tonks and Dumbledore had said.

“No… I… well, I thought…”

Harry sighed, “I don't know. I don't know why he's going after squibs and I don't know what he's going to do next. I do know what you're asking though, and I haven't gotten anything. No burning scar, no knowledge of his emotions, no possession of my body and no scary visions of locked rooms and empty corridors! Nothing! So could we please not talk about it right now!”

He was being unfair and he knew it. But this morning he'd woken up the same as the last few months. Happy. He'd gone to the library and played pranks on Hermione and laughed wildly with Ron and now… it was as if all the good things had disappeared in an instant throwing him violently back into the darkness that had inhabited him the year before. Suddenly, and for the first time in weeks, the main thought pressing his brain was, Sirius is dead.

So, he turned and left. Ron stood, mouth agape, as Hermione called after him.

“Harry!” She said a bit too loud. “Harry!”

Ron's left eyebrow rose and he looked at her pointedly, “Looks like he might want to be left alone to me.”

“He doesn't know what he wants!” She said bitterly and started through the portrait hole after him.

“Hermione!” Ron drawled.

She turned and looked at him, face flushed, “Aren't you coming?”

“No.” Ron said as if she'd asked him to befriend Malfoy. “You know how it is when he gets like that. He'll bite our heads off. Best to just let him cool --”

Before Ron could say anything else Hermione had rolled her eyes and turned, hair billowing after her. She ran quickly down the stairs and was somewhere on the second floor when she spotted him. “Harry!” She called again.

He finally turned on his heel, face set in a tremendous rage, “What do you want, Hermione?”

"I want you to stop being an annoying prat." She hadn't meant to say it so harshly and didn't notice the few students headed toward the dormitories who stopped when they heard the commotion.

He stared back at her, obviously surprised at her response. "I... what?"

"You're going to let one day, one tiny bit of information destroy nearly five months of normalcy?"

He laughed sardonically. "That's just it, Hermione, I'm not normal. We're not normal. It was all a brilliant joke... us being regular people. But it's not true."

"So?" She said with an, I can be angry, too look on her face.

"SO?" His voice was rising. "Don't be stupid."

"We both know I'm not." She was eye for eye with him in this argument and not about to give in. "And stop staring at us!" She shot to a group of 7th year Hufflepuff boys who were standing, mouths agape, in the corner.

Had it not been for the circumstance, Harry would have laughed heartily at the looks on the boys' faces when Hermione spoke to them, as it was, he barely noticed and wasn't given time to comment.

“I refuse to let you do this. To spend another year where you're unhappy. It makes me… and Ron miserable to see you like this. That vile temper of yours turns on and off so quickly that we've always got to be on guard around you and I hate that. Just one thing today and you've gone stomping off without us. So what if you're not normal. When did any of us ever want to be, really?” She moved beside him and leaned her back against the stone, “If being an ordinary person means I have to forget there are bigger things somewhere beyond the four walls I surround myself with, then I don't want any part of it.”

“Even if that bigger thing is Voldemort?” He asked quietly.

“Even then, Harry.”

“Keen on bodily injury and death threats, are you?” He was softening and turned his head to look at her, a slight smile creeping onto his face. Without speaking, they both sank to the ground as they had many times on the roof of Number Twelve. Harry rested his elbows on his knees and placed his head in his hands. “I'm sorry. Sometimes it's just… too much. And I'd almost let myself forget…”

“Forget?”

“I feel so responsible. For everything. For everyone.” He looked up at her, willing her to understand what he meant, “I feel like yours and Ron's and everyone else's life is in danger because of me. And today… I dunno… it just reminded me of that. Of Sirius.”

“We know what it means to be your friend, Harry. We haven't run away yet.” She sighed, “I wish you knew…”

He looked at her, puzzled, “Knew what?”

“I wish you knew how much we all needed you. And not to fight Voldemort or kill him or do whatever task you've put on yourself to defeat him… but just… that we need you simply to be there. You're my friend, Harry. My best friend. You and Ron are… I…” Her eyes defied every inner command she spat at them not well up.

“Hermione…” He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, letting her head fall onto his chest. “I feel sometimes like I need the two of you more than you could ever need me. You're all I have.”

“That's not true,” she croaked, “Dumbledore and the Weasley's…”

“You're right. But they're not Ron.” He lifted her chin with his finger, “And they're not you.” He smiled down at her, “Who else would have flown after me tonight and not-so-politely told me to stop acting like a child?”

“Those words never came out of my mouth!” She smiled, eyes shining with wetness. She marveled sometimes at being a teenager. Moments ago she'd been in tears and now she felt like laughing. Ron would blame it all on hormones. She wasn't completely sure he was wrong.

“I'm sure they were somewhere in there, though. Bossy.”

“Maybe.” She locked her eyes playfully with his.

For an instant, neither spoke. Their faces were only inches apart and a flash of something Harry hadn't felt before sparked inside. It swept over him quickly and before he could process it, it was gone. He didn't know if Hermione had noticed… he didn't know what he should have expected her to notice. But he did know that letting go of her at the moment, was not an option.

She put her head back against his shoulder and watched curiously as Harry took one of her hands, turned it over in his and traced the lines on her palm lightly with his finger. “Don't say a word about Professor Trelawney.”

“I wouldn't dare.” His voice held a smile in it. And slowly, he laced his fingers with hers and then, delicately grazed his lips across the back of her hand.

Hermione squeezed her eyes tightly shut, glad Harry couldn't see her face. This was the second time she had been sure her entire body was on fire after being with him. She'd hugged and touched and linked arms to walk about the grounds with him dozens of times before, but now… when he held her hand like that… and he'd never kissed her before…

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good. WORK! Bloody piece of no good parchment!” Ron's voice sounded in the hallway, quickly halting Hermione's churning thoughts.

Harry leisurely let go of her hand and she felt his chest shuddering with laughter.

“I solemnly swear I am up to no good! Arrrghh! Harry? Hermione?” Harry's laughter burst out of his chest and Ron's footsteps rounded the corner. “Where the bloody hell have you two been? Sitting out in the middle of the hallway for the last hour?”

“You said you weren't coming.” Hermione said, Harry's arm no longer around her.

“You were avoiding me?” Harry asked, teasing.

“In that temper,” the red head looked incredulous, “Yeah. But after long enough I got a bit worried about where you'd gone and…”

Harry grabbed the parchment from Ron's hand, smiling, and tapped it, “I solemnly swear I am up to no good!” The interior of Hogwarts appeared and the names of everyone within the grounds of the castle shone brightly in their various location. “There. Is that what you needed?” He thrust the map back up to his friend.

“I did that a million times!” Ron drew the parchment close to his nose, “And how would I have been able to tell where you were anyway? You're names are practically on top of one another! I can't read that nonsense!” Ron looked down at the two of them, “Well? Are we going to stay out here in the hall all night and risk running into Mrs. Norris?”

“You came to rescue us, then, Ron?” Hermione smiled and he only glared back at her.

Harry stood and held out a hand to help Hermione up. “Let's go, then.”

“You're in a much better mood. What did you say to him, Hermione?” Ron asked as they walked toward Gryffindor tower.

“She told me I was a prat, actually.” Harry grinned. Thinking how much he appreciated the unyielding honesty the three of them shared together.

“She was right. And I don't say that often.” Ron smiled back and winked, fully expecting the slap on the arm that he received a few moments later.

“I will hex the both of you into next term if you don't stop trying to run on my nerves.” Hermione tapped the map that Ron was studying as he walked and said, “Mischief managed!” eliciting a cry of outrage from him. “Well!” She said matter-of-factly, “You couldn't walk for looking at that silly thing! Now I'll have all my toes in the morning.”

“We're not going to bed anytime soon.” Harry said to both of them, only receiving looks of bewilderment. “We have squibs to discuss.”