Love Hurts

Love Hurts

By: Hippogriff_Lover

Rated: PG-13

Genre: Drama/Romance/Humour

Spoilers: Books 1 – 6

Pairings: H/Hr, R/L & with mentions of G /D

Era: Post-Hogwarts

Summary: To fSummary: all in love with your best friend of nine years is simply not done –that’s the oldest rule in the book. So how wrong- how cliché- that it should happen now, after all these years…

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DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author's Note:

This is my first attempt at writing a fanfic in the Potter universe. Well, I think it’s the first piece of fiction that I have written since probably sometime in High School, actually… I came across Portkey almost 3 years ago and I’ve read a lot of great stories here. I’ve got at last the courage to do something of my own, so please let me know what you think about it... J This has been a great challenge to me, as English is not my first language. Many, many thanks to my beta-reader, Chris! (Discount Ninja) He’s been of great assistance and encouragement in times of need. Without him, I wouldn’t have this posted here (at last!). If you see any mistakes on the text, that’s my doing, not his.I have the tendency to add some things here and there post-beta. If you see something not right out there, feel free to point it out to me in a review. Now, let’s see how this thing goes!

A good romance story is harder to find these days, there’re so much of the same around. So I took one of the oldest clichés to try and give it my own little twist. This story is very loosely based in an experience that happened to a friend of mine 3 years ago and in some personal moments, so the plot’s mine. If someone has seen something similar to this, please know that I hate plagiarism and I mean absolutely no disrespect, but as I heard somewhere: ‘There’s nothing new under the sun’. The characters may seem a little OC, but remember that war changes people. It takes place 2 years after the final battle.

So, thanks for giving me a chance. I’ll stop my rambling here. Happy reading!

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Tonight we drink to youth
And holding fast to truth
(I don't want to lose what I had as a boy.)
My heart still has a beat
But love is now a feat.
(As common as a cold day in LA.)
Sometimes when I'm alone, I wonder
Is there a spell that I am under
Keeping me from seeing the real thing?

Love hurts...
But sometimes it's a good hurt
And it feels like I'm alive.
Love sings,
When it transcends the bad things.
Have a heart and try me,
'cause without love I won't survive.

“Love Hurts”, by Incubus.

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Chapter 1

The Big Boom… or was it Doom?

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Friday, July 7, 2000 – Somewhere in London

“So… Ron isn’t going to eat with us tonight?” said Hermione on her mobile phone.

“No. I talked to him earlier and it seems that winning against Puddlemere United, at last, left him exhausted. He told me to tell you that he’s sorry, but that he’s planning to sleep all night,” said the voice on the other side, sounding rather depressed.

Hermione couldn’t stop a grimace. Then she smiled to herself. “Oh, that’s a shame. But we’re still on, are we?”

“Yeah, of course. Unless you have some other plans?”

“No! Er, not at all. I’m actually at the supermarket, the one closest to the Ministry; I’ve run out of some groceries. Is there anything special you’d like?”

“Nah, whatever with meat and you know I’ll eat it.”

Hermione chuckled. “So primitive. Ok, then. I’ll be home in about half an hour.”

“Why? Can’t you just Disapparate from there?” asked the voice confusedly.

“Well, yeah… But the last time that I’ve heard of it, Apparating with one’s car was rather difficult,” she answered cheekily.

The voice snorted. “You’re driving that old thing again?”

“Oh, again with that? Leave my Cadillac alone, Harry James!” she said, a little resentfully.

“Ok, ok... Merlin, some people would think you love that damn thing.”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Hfff... Look, come around my place and if I’m not there already just ‘Alohomora’ yourself in. You know my wards will let you.”

“All right, see ya in a while.”

“See ya,” and with that she ended the call.

One of the most useful Muggle things for Hermione was her mobile phone. Harry usually told her that it was like her fifth limb; she was never out without it. Being a witch she had many ways of communicating with her friends, but owls took their time, you could only Floo-called if you had a chimney connected to the Floo network in your vicinity and she found them a little too impersonal. Instead, with her mobile phone she could reach everyone at any moment, not to mention her Muggle family. It had took her patience and time to show the Weasleys how to use one, but a couple of weeks after getting her own, Ginny, Ron, Fred, George, Charlie and even Mrs Weasley had one. Even Luna got dragged into the phone fever. Thankfully for Hermione, Harry already knew how to use one. He bought his mobile the next day that Hermione had came with hers to the Ministry, where they where having their respective trainings; Harry as an Auror, Hermione as an Unspeakable.

That was another complication. It was commonly known that electrical artefacts didn’t work in a place as full of magic as Hogwarts, St Mungo’s or the Ministry. But with a little help from a friend in the Charms Research Department, Hermione had managed to charm hers, Ron’s and Harry’s mobiles to work nearly everywhere.

Putting her phone inside her bag, Hermione took out her grocery list and began making her route through the supermarket, picking up supplies for that night’s dinner. It was an unofficial tradition that she, Ron and Harry had started after the war had ended almost two years ago. Usually on the first Friday of each month, the three friends got together to make dinner and to keep in touch with each other’s lives. This time it was at Hermione’s home. Last time it was at the flat that Ron shared with Ginny.

With a sigh, Hermione dropped a cauliflower into her basket and moved on. She picked up a bottle of white wine even though she knew Harry didn’t really like it. She enjoyed forcing it on him. That was all.

“Dinner alone with Harry Potter,” she murmured to herself. “How many witches would pay for that!”

Without warning, she felt her face grow hot.

Though Harry was her best friend, and had been for nearly nine years, she had known for a while (almost two years, now) that her feelings for him stretched past friendship. She also knew that he didn’t feel anything for her more than friendship.

The fact was that she knew how Harry thought or her. She was Harry's other best friend. The female one. He was not attracted to her. She was just his little know-it-all, who had helped him with his homework at Hogwarts, with his battles in life, who helped him mentally and emotionally and was basically the best sister anybody could ever want.

Sister.

And he warmly had said it to her one afternoon last December, while they were buying Christmas decorations for his flat. He said something about her being like his younger sister, which was a little bit silly, seeing as she was ten months older than him. Of course, even if he did say it warmly, it had left her heart colder than that December’s weather. 

More than that, she knew he had a date the next night with a gorgeous blonde girl from Auror training. Air-headed tart, she thought bitterly.

Swallowing the lump that had appeared on her throat, Hermione tried to focus on more positive thoughts. But it seemed that thinking about the possibility of taking an internship out of the country (which she had been told that morning) wasn’t working that well.

Get a hold of yourself Hermione!

Raising her eyes from her list, she peered past the corned beef to catch her reflection in the polished metal backing of the shelf. Warm, dark brown eyes, high rosy cheekbones, a pert nose and bushy, brown hair. That hair and her 5’7 inches of height had been the only natural gifts from her father’s side. Other than that, she knew from experience that she was a young clone of her half-French mother, who instead had straight dark blonde hair. “At least people don’t tell you you look like your father, they tell me I look like my father!” she remembered Luna Lovegood complaining at her once. She had decided Luna’s situation was worse then, and had stopped worrying about hers.

Maybe I’m not quite gorgeous date material, but at least I’m best friend material, she thought sadly. She tried to keep her cool by reminding herself of that, lately. That, no matter how badly she wanted Harry, she’d never have him, so she should at least to be happy to be his closest, best friend in the whole wide world. Because of that she was pretty sure. Harry often told her.

Her girl friends all knew about her unrequited love. And that included Luna, her new friend Selma Moltimer (a 23 year old witch that she had met in the Department of Mysteries), and Ginny, who was known as one of the biggest gossipers around (coming second after Lavender Brown— of course, Ginny would snap at anybody who would say a thing like that to her). Hermione had told them because she didn’t want to keep such a big secret from them. At one point or another friends always asked about your love life. She hadn’t even considered dating anyone else in the past year, not when she wanted to be with him that badly. Hermione had to make Ginny swear that she would keep it to herself. At that Ginny had agreed, but not without sending her a resentful glare. She hadn’t been too surprised to hear her confession at all. Ginny told her that apparently she hadn’t been as careful as she had thought.

Hermione didn’t have a solution for her situation. Every time her friends said: “Tell him you like him!” she always said no. She knew him too well to be able to expect a positive outcome and she needed his friendship more than anything. She wasn’t going to put it in danger over something like this. All she could think to do was to sit it out, get over him and get on with her life. And in the meantime, to stay best friends. She had been trying this approach for many months now, but it didn’t seem to be working. It was proving very difficult to get over someone she saw almost every day.

***

On her way back to her flat, her mobile started ringing. Picking it up, she read ‘Ginny’ in the caller Id.  

“Hey, Gin…”

“Hermione, hey! Listen, I need you to do me a grrreeaat favour! Call me back in 2 minutes and don’t pay any attention to whatever I tell you, all right? Okay, bye!”

Then the line went dead.

Hermione frowned at her phone and didn’t bother to close it up, sighing for the poor bloke that was going to be deceived this time. Ginny had made her her “Back-up” plan: for whenever she had a lousy date, reunion or any other unwanted situation. Honestly, Hermione was getting a little tired of this scheme.

After the war had ended, Ginny and Harry had given their relationship another try, but they hadn’t lasted a month. Ginny confessed to her that it had felt a little forced and that she had stopped seeing Harry like her little ‘superhero’. Harry told her that he really hadn’t felt comfortable with it; that it didn’t feel real. Hermione honestly thought that neither of them had put enough effort from the start because they’d known that it wasn’t going to work. Since then, Ginny had been caught in a never-ending cycle of dating and dumping that Hermione thought wasn’t healthy. She truly needed her red-haired friend to settle down.

Two minutes later, she pressed the number 4 and waited.  On the other side she heard Ginny making up an excuse (a really bad one, but the poor bloke bought it anyway) and then Ginny exiting whatever place she was in.

Hermione waited a few seconds in silence. Then she started speaking in a scolding tone.

“Ginny, Ginny, Ginny…”

“Lord, you sounded just like Bill right there… for a moment I was scared, really,” said the redhead with a laugh.

“Are you happy now? Who was it this time?” asked Hermione directly.

“Oh, Hermione… don’t even get me started on that one. Do you remember Ernie McMillan?”

Hermione gasped. “You were on a date with Ernie McMillan? No wonder you needed to be rescued from that one!”

“No! No, not him… his brother, Allie.  He was in my year, but let me tell you: they’re surely from the same branch,” said Ginny, sounding extremely bored.

Hermione stopped her car by a red light. “Well, then why did you accept to go out with him?” she said exasperatedly.

“Oh, Herms. I couldn’t help it. Even if he was really a complete bore, that backside of his… truly delicious!” Ginny said with a giggle.

“I can’t think of any resemblance with Ernie there,” said Hermione with a snort.  Then, turning serious, she added, “And don’t call me ‘Herms’, it sounds awful! Like a disease or something.”

Ginny laughed. “Ok, got it. Someone’s in need of a Cheering Charm,” she muttered to herself. “So… tell me. Where are you? I can hear that blasted old thing, so you must be in the road. Any plans for an actual dinner, ‘cause I’m starving!”

Hermione rolled her eyes. What was with the Weasleys and their ever-starving condition? Wasn’t a girl supposed to eat on a date? And why did people keep abusing her car? “Dinner? Sorry, I’ve got plans tonight... how about Tuesday?”

“Plans on a Friday night, eh? Wiiiith?” Ginny asked slyly.

Hermione laughed, growing slightly uncomfortable. “I can tell by your voice that you already know.”

“My Herms, Hermy, Hermione... why don’t you just talk to him about it?”

“No. There’s no way I’ll talk to him about it, Gin, you know that. And by the way, it was supposed to be our monthly dinner, but Ron just arrived from work, and he’s really tired and—”

“You keep saying so,” said Ginny, completely ignoring Hermione’s last sentence, “but I think it would make you feel so much better if you just talk to him, get it off your chest…”

“Oh, Ginny. Once I tell him that I like him, I know how he’s going to respond, he’s just going to say, ‘Sorry, not interested’,” Hermione said, shrugging even though she knew Ginny couldn’t see her, “and then we’ll only feel uncomfortable around each other forever after. He’s too important to me to lose.”

“He must be important if you’re willing to make yourself unhappy for his sake,” said Ginny. This was followed by a sad sigh.

Hermione, who by now had arrived at her building, got out of her Cadillac and took out her grocery bags. She was almost sure Harry wasn’t there yet. She was 5 minutes early and he was usually late.

She heard Ginny sighing dramatically over the phone again.

“Don’t you see, Ginny? It’s not only for his sake, it’s for my own selfish sake!” she said with a weak laugh. “If he wasn’t around, or if he was upset with me, I’d get upset too, see?”

Ginny laughed. “Your approach to boys is so different from mine,” she said pensively.

“You say it like it’s a good thing,” Hermione murmured, balancing her phone between her neck and shoulder so she could take out the keys to her building.

Ginny and her ways with boys.

“Maybe I should take you into training, tough you up some,” Ginny joked.

“I’d make a good disciple,” Hermione said with a grin as she climbed the stairs to the third floor.

“Where to start, there’s so much to share…” Ginny hummed, making her laugh.

“My pride is going to suffer a big blow from this,” Hermione said, remembering sadly a time in which it had been her giving advice to Ginny, not the other way around. How pathetic I am, she thought.

“First of all, don’t let him get the best of you! Always stay aloof, answer questions ambiguously, and make long, intense eye contact—”

“Gin! This is Harry, our friend Harry, we’re talking about here! Not some guy I’ll be meeting at the Three Broomsticks! And he’s your ex-boyfriend, for heaven’s sake, shouldn’t you be telling me to leave him alone or something?” she asked, knowing well what Ginny’s response would be.

“I know… and you well know that I’m over Harry! I just don’t know how else to teach you, Hermione… it always works for me…”

Hermione paused outside her front door. That wasn’t exactly your tactic with Harry, she thought a little bitterly. “Yeah, well, you’re a tall beautiful busty redhead, with fiery eyes and passionate lips–”

“You’re making me sound like a porn star,” whined Ginny.

“–whereas I am an average Muggle-born, with wild brown hair, big hips and little chest, eyes the colour of mud—” she continued without pause.

“You’re a beautiful witch. People who meet you all say so.”

“Ah. If only people included a certain raven haired, green eyed, spectacled boy…”

“Hey, of course this certain boy with a scar on his forehead isn’t going to say anything, not if he doesn’t know you—”

“I know, I know,” Hermione said, opening her front door and stepping in, at the same time kicking her trainers off. “It’s my own fault for falling for my hero-complexed best friend—”

She stopped dead. Just my luck.

Of course there was Harry, blank-faced, staring at her from her couch. He was leaning over with his elbows on his knees. His mobile phone was in his left hand and he was looking up at her, his wide-eyed expression telling her— everything’s lost, Hermione thought with alarm. Her mind screamed at her to get out of there. Another glance at Harry's face almost made her obey that thought immediately, her entire being dreading that she had just ruined their friendship for good.

She almost dropped her own mobile at that thought.

The irony was that she still had a spare thought to appreciate his looks and figure in that fatal five-second span. He really had grown up from the eleven year old she had met in the train to Hogwarts. He was so tall now, almost reaching 6'1, and broad-shouldered but otherwise slender, his figure fine from years of playing Quidditch. He was wearing baggy jeans –the pair that made his backside look really nice– and that black turtleneck that she so loved to see him with. Black turtleneck sweaters might make another boy look a little gay, but not Harry. She wanted to jump him every time she saw him in it and she was not a boy. His messy, shaggy and longish black hair, his pale skin –though he tanned in a second if he was in the sun– and the greenest eyes she had ever seen behind his patented glasses to finish the sophisticated look he did so well these days.

“...not really something you can help, all things considered. Hello?” Ginny’s voice was suddenly far away and tiny.

“Um,” Hermione tried, not breaking eye contact with Harry.

Harry didn’t move. There was no expression on his face. His phone chirped and they both ignored it.

“I have to go. Call you later? I... we, yeah. We still have to do dinner...okay. Yes master. Mistress. Yeah. Bye.”

She clicked her mobile off, her heart roaring and her throat dry.

“I got here early,” Harry said from the sofa.

No shit!

“That was Ginny, she said hi,” she responded.

“Right,” said Harry. “I brought ice cream for desert.”

Hermione grinned, trying to hide her nervousness. He didn’t hear me? Her thoughts were racing back to the moment she said it. No, she decided, seasick, he must have heard it. Why wasn’t he bringing it up? But if he was going to ignore it unless she said something, then she decided she could also ignore it until he said something.

Why did this have to happen? Why didn’t I pay more attention? And I’m supposed to be the smart one!

“I bought white wine,” she said listlessly, hoping to spark an argument. Arguments always made things go back to normal between them. Either that or they at least distracted them.

“Uh, great, thanks,” Harry said sarcastically, seeming a little angry.

What do I do with that? Hermione thought hopelessly.

“I’m not giving up. I’m going to get you to like it someday,” she said, trying to sound light-hearted and flirty and silly. But her voice wavered a little and it didn’t sound flirty at all.

“I’ll have water please,” he deadpanned. He then flipped on the TV.

Hermione turned around and silently mouthed ‘fuck’ to the wall. She wasn’t one to curse, but there were moments in when it came handy. 

She leaned down and picked up the groceries that she had apparently dropped to the floor somewhere in that last three minutes.

“I’m going to start cooking.”

Harry didn’t respond or even look at her –she noticed from the corner of her eye– as she moved around the corner, out of sight, to her flat’s small kitchen.

What is this? What is this anger? And why is he angry? Why am I getting angry, anyway? Not at him about the wine… I’m angry because he heard. Because I’ll lose him now. Merlin, why wasn’t Ron here? Ron would’ve at least distracted us from the awkward moment with some cranky joke or something. Why did Harry choose today exactly to be early, of all times? And why had Ginny to call me right then? Why?

Hermione wanted to kick something or scream really loudly, but she held it in and ended up biting down rather hard on her tongue. Tears shoot into her eyes. Sulkily, she started the preparations for dinner. They always enjoyed making dinner the Muggle way. It was like honouring, in some way, where they had came from. Ron had been dragged into it, by extension.

She sadly hoped this wasn’t going to be their last dinner together.

At one point she remembered that he had brought ice cream, so she opened the freezer door to see what kind. She took the box out and stood staring at it silently. It was her favourite. It was even the most expensive kind. How could she stay mad at Harry if he did stuff like this?

“It’s the right one, right?” His voice suddenly came from the doorway. Hermione jumped and looked up at him speechlessly. “The one you liked?”

“I… yeah. This is the best!” she gave him a big smile. A smile that felt like it had to be summoned up from the deepest, darkest depths of her heart. “Thank you.”

Harry shrugged, leaning his tall figure against the doorpost. Without meeting her eyes he said, “You paid for dinner. It’s only fair.”

“It’s nice,” she said, more softly, feeling a blush on her face, “I appreciate it.”

Hermione saw him glance up at her with an odd expression, one she recognized he had when he was about to ask her something.

Oh no, she thought. Now is not the time for questions.

“And I’m going to eat it all alone!” she exclaimed quickly, waving the bin of ice cream in front of him.

The serious expression on his face made way for an affronted look. “No you won’t! I got the bloody thing; you’re going to l-”

“You know, I was told that boys like you didn’t even like ice cream,” she said, making a funny face at him.

“Boys like me? You were misinformed,” he said flatly, taking the bin away from her hands and putting it back in the freezer.

Hermione sighed and went back to cutting vegetables. Harry leaned against the fridge then, watching her silently. Harry was like that; when he didn’t feel like talking or didn’t feel he had anything worthwhile to say, he would remain quiet. Hermione was quite the opposite; if a silence felt she would almost automatically fill it up to cover any eventual discomfort. Except when they were studying, of course.

Normally she would have babble into that silence too, earning nothing but a few ironic comments or amused looks from Harry, but she felt too tired. She had had a very long day and her lessons had been draining. So she let the silence sat upon them, the late afternoon sun filtering in and casting shadows on the blue kitchen floor. There was nothing but the sound of the simmering in the pan on the stove and the chop chop chop of her knife on the carrots.

“So you fancy me?” Harry asked out of the blue.

Chop!

“Ouch!” Hermione exclaimed, holding up a bleeding thumb. “Look what you made me do! Asking stupid questions all of the sudden!”

“What kind of stupid question was it that it made you almost cut your finger off?” he asked, grabbing her hand and sticking it under cold water.

She didn’t reply, watching her blood mixing with the water and running down the drain.

“You didn’t cut meat with this knife, did you?” Harry asked her, finding a clean kitchen towel to wrap around the fresh wound. She thought vaguely that she didn’t want to get the towel dirty, but said nothing about it.

“No,” she answered instead, “I was going to do meat next.”

“I’ll do it,” he said, pushing the towel into her good hand. He matter-of-factly rinsed the blood off the knife.

Hermione wanted to protest him for using the same knife again, but she couldn’t find a logical argument against it. It felt as if it shouldn’t be used again until it’d been really washed. Again she said nothing.

Back in silence, switched places. Her head felt heavy trying not to think about what he had just asked. She slumped against the fridge, her face hot. She watched the moving shadow of the leaves from the tree outside the kitchen window, projected blurrily on the floor.

She unwrapped the tea towel from her thumb. It hadn’t stopped bleeding.

“You should get a band aid for that, or at least some of that healing potion you always make,” Harry said, not looking up from slicing the meat.

“I will, when the bleeding slows.”

“Is it deep?”

“No. Should be okay.”

“Sorry for making you cut yourself, Hermione.”

“It’s my own fault for reacting like that.”

Silence.

“So… it’s true then?”

“What is?”

“That you like me.”

She didn’t even try to deny it anymore. She knew it wouldn’t work with Harry.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

Hermione let out a short laugh. Typical Harry. “What do you mean, why? It’s not like people decide these things.”

But inside she thought, because you are who you are, and you are the way you are and I love you for it. She still remembered it like yesterday: “You have never been more fanciable.” How true those words came out to be.

“Yeah,” said Harry uncomfortably, “maybe.”

They were both quiet again, but she felt angry tears welling up and starting to spill down her cheeks. Her face was hotter than before but she cried silently and without turning her face away from him, because she knew he wouldn’t look up from the meat anyway.

This is so humiliating.

When he was finished cutting it, he held the knife under hot water. He didn’t look her way, not when he was drizzling yellow dish soap onto the round pink dish sponge, not when he was running the sponge up and down the knife carefully. He kept his head down. She could tell he was thinking on what to say. Poor Harry, she thought, he has never been good with emotional girls, and now I’m the one complicating things for him.

She rationed her breaths, forcing them out evenly, drawing them in so carefully as to make no sound. Around the edge of her vision her eyelashes were clumping together into unfocused black spikes.

Harry checked the vegetables and then added butter to melt in the frying pan. The leaves rustled a little in the wind outside, and Hermione was still doing her best to cry without making a single sound. She could feel her nose clogging and she knew she wasn’t going to last much longer.

“You know I don’t feel the same way about you,” said Harry softly, dropping meat into the pan. It sizzled a little in the melting butter.

Even when she already knew it, her heart broke at hearing it coming from his mouth.

“I know that,” said Hermione thickly. She decided to turn around after all, embarrassed now that he had heard her talk.

“Are you crying?” Harry asked, his voice sharp.

“No,” she sobbed back.

“Hermione… Hermione, why are you crying?” he sounded nervous. If she had been in his situation, she knew sure as hell she’d be nervous. After all, who wanted to be sprung suddenly with the news that your best friend fancied you?

She let out a nasal moany laugh.

‘Hermione, Hermione why are you crying?’ he said. She still remembered that one time when he had said similar words to her, but back then it had brought her such joy…

When in the final battle she saw that she could have very well lost him, she had discovered the strength of her feelings for him. On that day, Harry, Ron and Hermione had been together, defending themselves and each other pretty well, always staying close. After Harry threw the bag with the 6 Horcruxes that they’d destroyed at Voldemort’s feet, he had cast the spell that had ended Riddle’s era of terror forever.

In that next moment Hermione and Ron were by Harry’s side, each with an arm around him, as he felt unconscious to the ground. He had fallen in a coma, which had lasted almost two weeks. Through all of that time Hermione didn’t leave his side, just to take a bath or to use the loo. She had given a great fight not to be taken from his bedside chair and at last Madam Pomfrey had left her alone, mostly after seeing the resolution in her eyes of not leaving the Hospital Wing without Harry.

It had been in that two weeks that Hermione had realised, recognised really, that all of the things that she felt for Harry were signals of something else. When it had begun she'd never really known. Maybe it was during third year when they'd travelled back in time to save Sirius and Buckbeak. Maybe it was during one of those countless Quidditch matches, the fights between them and Voldemort. Maybe it was when he had stayed one night with her in the Hospital Wing, after being hurt by Antonin Dolohov in their fifth year at Hogwarts, all the while sitting in an uncomfortable chair. Whenever it had begun, Hermione had never known. What mattered was that she’d always like him as more than a friend. Her feelings for him had always been there, whether she’d chosen to believe it or realise it. It was then, waiting for her best friend to wake up, that she had acknowledged that she did feel for Harry more than she should have as a friend.  It was not anymore just a friendly, familial love, but a heart rendering, soul taking love that hat hit her in the gut and stole the breath out of her. She had fallen for him. And it had felt like the most natural, glorious and terrifying thing that could have happened to her in all her life.

After those miserable days of waiting, Harry had at last awakened. She remembered when she threw her arms around his neck, sobbing with anguish and happiness at the same time on his chest, that the first words that he had told her confusedly were:

‘Hermione, Hermione why are you crying?’                               

She was in love with Harry Potter and, for the life of her she could not escape it. It just…was. The realisation had shocked her into a hopeless stupor that she could not delve out of. She had promised herself right from the start that she would never say a thing to him, not when she knew well enough that he didn’t like her like that… It would only ruin things… but she had maybe unconsciously hoped he would come to fall for her along the way. Now she knew it had been just wishful thinking.

Hermione sighed, wiping an eye with her sleeve. The sleeve smudged grey from her makeup and she rubbed mindlessly at it, head bowed.

When she caught her breath a few moments later, she said, “Because I’m embarrassed. I didn’t want you to know and I didn’t want you to find out like this. You weren’t supposed to know.”

“How long have you been hiding this?” he asked her then. Like background sounds, she heard the tap running as Harry washed his hands and she heard the meat hissing. Behind her back, Harry covered the pan with a lid. The hissing sounded tiny and softer.

“For a while,” she answered reluctantly and then she lied, “a couple months, maybe.” Maybe like a couple of years.

“You have to stop that,” he said, “can I add the vegetables like this?”

Hermione, a little confused, turned around to look. “Oh, yes, that should be okay. What?”

“No, stop,” repeated Harry.

“No, on second thought, I’d say you give it another two minutes,” she sniffed, wiping under her eyes.

“Stop it. Stop rubbing your eyes, you look like a panda.” But he didn’t add the vegetables yet.

“Sorry,” she said softly, taking her fingers away from her eyes.

Harry was quiet. She watched him looking down at the pan, stirring with a wooden spoon. What am I supposed to do with him? She wondered. And then she thought: he should add more oil so the meat won’t stick to the pan.

“This is really upsetting you, isn’t it?” he asked.

Really, the boy is at last getting a clue.

“No, it’s fine, I’m fine,” she lied again, exhaling in a loud huff, “I just wasn’t prepared for this.”

They were both quiet again.

“You’ll get over it again in no time, you’ll see,” he said, taking a cup down from the cupboard. He filled it with cold water and offered it to her. Hermione thanked him hoarsely and took it.

After finishing a few sips, she put the cup down on top of the fridge and said, “I’m going to find a band aid… for my finger…”

There aren’t any band aids, magical or not, for what I would really like to heal right now.

.End of Chapter 1.

So… how was that? Should I stop right now? Or should I continue? Well, you tell me! =)