And So it Goes

Summary: Harry opens Hermione's second Christmas gift to him. This excerpt will give you a pretty good clue of what's to come - 'Was she able to go right back to sleep, or is she sitting at her window right now thinking and feeling the same things I am?' And then he started to panic. 'Was she just consoling me? Had she still been drowsy, and therefore, not thinking clearly about her actions?' And just then, a horrible feeling came across his heart...'What if she regrets it today?

Also, in the middle of this chapter, Harry roughs up Draco a bit, so that's always good.

A/N - I am of the belief that Harry and Hermione would be very sweet and very innocent with their intimate interactions, especially since they are making the transition from friends to more than friends. Physical encounters may happen slower than some readers would like, but I want to be true to how I see them to be.

Rating will be moved to R due to language and future scenes that will progressively get darker.

Dare You to Move - Switchfoot

Welcome to the planet, welcome to existence

Everyone's here, Everyone's here

Everybody's watching you now, everybody waits for you now

What happens next, What happens next

I dare you to move, I dare you to move

I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor

I dare you to move, I dare you to move

Like today never happened

Today never happened before

Welcome to the fallout, welcome to resistance

The tension is here, tension is here

Between who you are and who you could be

Between how it is and how it should be

Salvation is here...

******************************

He stood at the base of the steps, pulled out his wand, and whispered, "Obrigesco!"

As he proceeded to tiptoe up the first few steps he thought about how bloody clever she was. Hermione had decided one day, in case of an emergency, should they need to get to each other in the middle of the night, that they needed to find a counter enchantment that could freeze the steps, thus, stopping the instant slide effect. Of course, she had found it within the week.

Once he made it to the top of the stairs, he snuck into the room and crept over to her bed - he couldn't wake her yet, this picture was too perfect - her hair askew, but her face completely relaxed. He envied that. Once again, the thought crossed his mind about how beautiful she was. 'OK, enough staring,' Harry thought, 'she would kill me if she knew.'

"'Mione?" Harry whispered, as he knelt down next to her bed so that his head was level with hers. "Hermione..." he whispered again, at this her eyes fluttered open and a smile crossed his face, mirroring hers. They were like that for what felt like a few minutes when Hermione shot up, as if snapped out of a dream, suddenly realizing this was not right.

"Harry!" she quietly hissed. "What in blazes are you doing in here??" her eyes wide open now.

"Follow me," Harry whispered, as he stood up and extended his hand to her. She took a big breath, and sighed, rolling her eyes at the same time, but took his hand none the less.

"Where exactly are we going?" she asked once they were at the top of the stairs, rather annoyed with the whole scenario.

"Just to the couch. Obrigesco!" Harry said, smiling as he led her down, suddenly realizing that he still had her hand, but she hadn't pulled away, so he wasn't letting go.

They plopped down on the couch, and he pulled out the disc. "I wanted to see how this worked... with you...not alone."

Her earlier expression of irritation melted away and their eyes locked on each others for just a moment. She looked like she was about to say something, but closed her mouth into a smile and nodded.

With the disc laying in his palm, he put the tip of his wand to it, keeping contact, and said "Accio Family." Instantly an image floated above the disc. It was a picture from Grimmauld Place during Christmas his fifth year. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were standing on either side of the Christmas tree; Fred was behind his dad, giving him bunny ears; George was wearing a Santa Hat and beard, throwing artificial snow - everywhere; Ginny was next to George, and kept swatting at the snow and spitting little flecks as they went in her mouth when she unsuccessfully tried to smile; Ron and Harry were kneeling in front of the tree; Hermione was next to Fred, every now and then breaking from her smile, trying to get him to stop goofing around; and in the middle of it all, standing in front of the tree, behind his Godson, smiling broadly - Sirius.

Harry knew the familiar burning in his eyes. He removed the tip of his wand from the disc and turned his head slightly away from her, 'Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to bring her down to look at this with me,' he thought. Making sure he kept his gaze in the fire, he decided that he had to say something to break the silence.

"Hermione...that was amazing...I...er...I,"as he began to break a little she decided to save him from having to talk.

"I got it for you because I know you don't like sharing how you feel, and I thought, well, you could keep this with you, and no one else.... none of the guys would have to see it,.....you could just bring it out to remind

you that you have a family....," she continued, but whispered, "and that you are loved."

She never took her eyes off of him. He looked away from the fire, to meet her eyes, letting her see the tears that were now quietly rolling down his face, not sobbing and blubbering, just two lone tears. She closed the distance between them, and kissed him softly, but fully on the lips. 'Please don't pull away, Hermione, please,' was the only thought he was thinking. But she did pull back, and moved her hand up to brush aside the hair that covered his scar, and kissed it gently. He closed his eyes, feeling her lips on his skin. It made his scar burn, but not the way it burned after his nightmares, in a way that sent chills down his back. She stood up, took his hand, and walked him over to boys dormitory steps.

"Good night," she said, stretching up one more time to kiss him on the lips. This time he leaned into her ever so slightly more. They weren't holding each other in an embrace, just holding each others hand, but Harry tightened his grip as they stood there, frozen in the kiss. As they broke away, they didn't take their eyes off of each other until she had completely slipped her hand away from his and turned for the stairs. Harry felt like it was so surreal, he could barely move from where he was standing, he just watched her. Once she was out of sight, and he started breathing normal again, he drifted up the stairs.

"How am I supposed to fall asleep now?" he mumbled to himself as he walked in the boys dormitory and moved to the window seat. He just kept picturing Hermione leaning in to kiss him, feeling her lips on his, the way she looked at him. He had gone out with only a few girls, but none of them made him feel like this before, during, or after a snogging session. But it wasn't even snogging, just two kisses - it had all been so simple, so tame, and because of that, it made it all the more confusing.

'Was she able to go right back to sleep, or is she sitting at her window right now, thinking and feeling the same things that I am?' And then he started to panic. 'Was she just consoling me? Had she still been drowsy, and therefore, not thinking clearly about her actions?' And just then, a horrible feeling came across his heart...'What if she regrets it today? What am I supposed to do when I see her? How is she going to react to seeing me?' And then Harry was startled out of his thoughts by a loud snore....'uh - Ron....well there's another problem I hadn't thought about.'

Harry continue to sit at the window, leaning against the wall, almost dozing off, but his thoughts kept racing and he could not put them to rest. He turned back to look out the window just as the sun was starting to come up and cast a soft shimmer across the lake. He decided that he just couldn't sit in that room anymore. He needed to walk to clear his mind, so headed out of the dorms to the Great Hall.

**********

As he traveled down one of the main halls, he slowly started to hear footsteps walking behind him.

"Good Morning, Scarhead."

Harry kept walking straight ahead, but said through a slight grin, "Didn't see you at the sorting ceremony yesterday, Malfoy, did your weekly family 'visit' run late?"

Harry could hear that Draco had stopped walking for a moment, but had then resumed his pace. "Potter, I am warning you, things are going to be different this year. I am a Prefect and you, Weaslebee, and that fucking mudblood are going to be....," but before he could finish his statement, Harry had spun around at what seemed like lightening speed, and suddenly Draco was sliding down the wall that he had just been flung against.

Harry tried to conceal that he didn't know how the bloody hell that just happened. He merely walked over to where Draco now sat in a ball on the floor, and said as calm as possible, "Send your father my regards on your next trip to Azkaban."

Draco looked up at him, actually at his hands, realizing that his wand was no where to be seen. Harry knew what Draco was looking for and played it off by lifting his hands, palms forward, raising his eyebrows and putting a smirk on his face as he started to walk backwards and then turned to continue down to the Great Hall.

'Well, bloody hell,' Harry thought to himself,'that was new. '

As he continued to walk, he contemplated whether or not he should tell Ron and Hermione what had just happened. On one hand, Ron would think it was amazing and would want detail, such as, how much pain Draco was in. On the other hand, Hermione would ask him how he did it, and for the life of him, he had no idea. He figured Draco himself would be too embarresed to recount the story to anyone, so Harry concluded, since it wasn't going to get out anytime soon, he would just think on it.

***************

Harry had only been in the Great Hall for about 15 minutes when other students started to trickle in. He was eating his breakfast, reading the Sunday Edition of the Daily Prophet, when Ron, Ginny, and Hermione came bustling over to where he was seated. Ron sat across from Harry, Ginny on Ron's right, and then Hermione sat to Harry's left. He felt like he couldn't swallow the toast that he was now desperately trying to get down, and reached for his pumpkin juice so he wouldn't choke, plus, so that his mouth was momentarily occupied and he wouldn't have to speak.

Everyone said a round of 'good mornings' to him, including Hermione in her typical morning cheerful tone, and then she proceeded to ask him for his Daily Prophet. He finally put down his drink, and with a slight hesitation, looked over at her, and she looked....the same as always. He didn't know if that bothered him or not. There was no flirtation there, no look of 'We know something no one else at the table knows,' but she also didn't look uncomfortable next to him either. Now it really felt like it was all a dream.

That was until Ron started to talk.

"Where did you go last night? I saw you leave the room around midnight."

'God, I thought he was asleep,' Harry said to himself.

"I couldn't sleep, I went to read in front of the fire," replied Harry, continuing to eat his breakfast.

"You went to read in the middle of the night? Hermione, you have got to stop rubbing off on him."

At Ron saying this, it was obvious everyone was waiting for a typical Hermione comeback, but she just continued reading the paper, a small smile crossing her face as she went to grab for her coffee.

"Anyway mate, you woke me up when you came back in the room last night, I heard you open the window - did you sit there all night?" Ron asked.

Harry could sense that Hermione had now turned her head to look over at him, and then he stuttered out, "I, er, I already said I couldn't sleep...man, can we just change the subject!"

"Blimey, alright, just sayin'!" retorted Ron.

Ginny interrupted, "What, did ickle Ronnikins need his beauty sleep?"

This opened up into a whole brother sister fight. But Harry wasn't even paying attention to them, granted he was looking at them, but he wasn't listening. All of his senses were now acutely aware of Hermione's right hand, which had entwined itself into his left after he had snapped at Ron about changing the subject. She was now making lazy circles on the top of his hand with her thumb. He glanced over at her, but she just kept reading, but her lips lifted into a mischievous

grin. As with the night before, she pulled away from him long before he wanted her to.

"Ginny....GINNY!"Hermione borderline shouted, attempting to stop her and Ron from the tangent they were now on about how arrogant Ron was and how much of ars she'd become. "Can I borrow your mini-quill? she asked.

"Sure," Ginny replied, "what for?"

"There was an article in here about about a Healer. I just want to jot down some notes about it, ya know, to look at later,"answered Hermione.

Giving her friend a questioning look, but not saying a word, Ginny handed Hermione the miniquill that was on the lanyard around her neck.

While Hermione proceeded to write on the paper, the other three carried on about their plans for the day while they cleaned up their places. With Hermione at the table they knew better than to leave it all for the house elves.

After a few minutes, they were up and heading out the door. The girls had decided to go for a walk and the boys were heading back to the dorms to rest before a Quiddich scrimmage that evening. As they went to separate, Hermione went to hand the Daily Prophet back to Harry.

"Could you take this back to the dorms for me?"

"Uh, sure." Harry said with a smile, but as he went to grab it, Hermione didn't let go.

"Oh, and you might want to look at the article on page three. It might be of interest to you," Hermione added nonchalontely.

"No more reading the rest of the day, Hermione! Give us one last day of peace, please,"taunted Ron, to which Hermione quickly stuck out her tongue at Ron, who merely smiled as they went their separate ways.

The anticipation of what was on page three was going to drive him mad. But he couldn't exactly ask Ron to give him a bit of privacy right now to read something from their other best friend, especially since Harry still hadn't even hinted to him about what went on last night. As they walked, he contemplated his options... he could risk letting Ron see what Hermione wrote and just read it when they got back to the common room; suffer all day with curiosity until the day was over; or come up with an excuse to ditch Ron for a little bit? He came to a pretty quick conclusion that the last option was out of the question, he was already lying in a sense to Ron, he didn't want to add more to it. But, he knew there was no way he could handle waiting all day, considering his heart was already going a hundred miles an hour and only 5 minutes had passed since she given him the paper.

So that was it, he decided he would just have to take his chances.

"DuelingDoxies."