Butterflies

Butterflies - Chapter 1 - Epiphanies.

Day 1.

Harry crossed it off on the usual chart he had drawn himself upom arriving home from his fifth, and in his opinion, his most eventful year of Hogwarts. He had no idea why he had decided to make a new chart this summer; he wasn't entirely fussed where he was. 'Either way,' he thought. 'I know i'll be miserable.'

He crossed his bedroom, walking past his school trunk, his Firebolt and Hedwig's Cage, which he had just dumped, unceremoniously in the middle of the floor. He threw himself onto his bed, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. he felt nub, he could not get the events of last term out of his head.

'It was his fault', He told himself, still staring at the dull, dirty white ceiling. 'Everything always came down to him. First his Mother and Father, now Sirius. who had been the closet thing to a parent he had ever known.'

He twisted his undernourished body onto it's side, while his thoguhts turned to his faithful friends, who he had, unknowingly, led into a trap devised by Lord Voldemort himself, to play on Harry's own weakness, his 'love of playing-the-hero' As hermione had called it.

Hermione.
His thought s backtracked to that moment in the Department of Mysteries, that split second that seemed like an eternity. He remembered, with a slightly choking lump in his throat, how Antonin Dolohov, one of Voldemorts Death Eaters ha brutally slashed her across the chest, her small, almost calmly surprised gasp as she fell backwards onto the floor, lying, motionless.

'It was all my fault... my fault. She could have died and it would have been my fault.'

He found himself trying to imagine a life without Hermione, but found he could not do it. Maybe it was that unbearable that his mind simply refused to think about it, he did not know. For some reason, he could do it for Ron, however much he hated to, however cold and miserable it would be. But he couldnot do it for Hermione. He wondered vaguely why this was, and remembered the solidarity and Loyalty she had shown him throughout the years. That was it. She had shown him more loyalty over the years than even Ron.

When the school (including Ron), would not believe him for not putting his name in the Goblet of Fire, she alone had believed him and stood by him. Despite her apparant fear of Flying, she had joined him in his rescue of his newly found godfather, riding on the back of a flying Buckbeak the Hippogriff, clinging tightly to him. Last year, however much she had said it was a bad idea, she came with him to break into Professor Umbridges office, to check if Sirius was in danger, and came up with the brilliant cover story when they were caught. He could still remember, with a fond smile, when they went into the forest twice last year, once to meet Hagrid's 'little' brother, Grawp, they stayed instinctively close to each other all the time, her clinging to him behind a tree, sobbing and whimpering, him hugging her back, protecting her, keeping her safe from harm. At teh time, he wouldn't have thougth about it,there was too much going on, but now he looked back on it, it felt like it was nice, like it shouldn't have been anyone holding her and protecting her.

She even gave him girl advice, he thought fondly, as he recalled his date fiasco with Cho, and Hermione's advice on the matter. She suggested, in furture, not to tell his date that he was meeting with Hermione straight afterwards, and even made a suggestion to call her ugly.

Harry could not imagine why he would ever call Hermione ugly. Despite pug-faced Pansy Parkinson's frequent jealous attempts to make everyone believe otherwise, Hermione was actually nothing short of the word Beautiful. Her once bushy brown hair, was now a mass of fantastic, smooth chestnut curls, framing her youthful, yet womanly face perfectly. Her big Caramel-cup chocolate eyes seemed to compliment her face beautifully, and her body had filled out in all the right places and had all the right curves. Hary found himself checking her out once or twice, watchign her from behind revision books, spotting her biting her frosty red lips as she worked tirelessly...

Harry mentally slapped himself to get thesse thoughts of Hermione out of his head. She was, after all, Harry's best friend of nearly 5 years. He didn't want to ruin that just by his raging hormones. His friends were everything to him, He had no proper friends until he met them.

'But why am I think of her like this?' he demanded of himself, his palms pressing onto his eyelids. Removing them and causing blinking blue stars to shott in front of his eyes, he was strongly reminded of another twinkly blue-eyed person, who for the whole of last year, Harry had come close to hating. He stood up and walked over to his mirror. He surveyed his reflection half-heartedly, not really caring what he looked like. He could easily spot that he was pale, his Jet-black Hair, Lightning bolt scar, and brilliant bottle-green eyes positively screamed that fact out at him. He could also see that even though he was very thin, his minimal Quidditch practice , and his efforts for the DA that year had finally done him some justice. He was no longer skinny and lanky, he had a nice build to him, muscly, but not overly big. He sat down on the floor, his hands around his knees.

'Why do these thoughts of Hermione keep coming up now?' He shook his head, as if giving it a little shake around would shock it into working. 'Ron was hurt too, but i don't see me reminiscing about good times with him.'

'You don't feel the way you do about Hermione with Ron, that's why.'

The nasty little voice in his head was back.

Harry sighed. he knew having inside debates with little voices in his head were not a good sign. he had been warned about that in second year when he kept hearing snakes, by, none other, than Hermione.

'What exactly do I feel for Hermione then?'

'Oh, I don't know,' the nasty little voice was now dripping with sarcasm Harry was strongly reminded of the Potions master, Professor Snape. 'The constant thoughts of her, not being able to imagine life without her, staring at her when you think she isn't looking, watching her work... If I didn't know better, Harry Potter, I'd say you were in lo-'

'BOY!'

Harry groaned and stood up slowly, his back aching slightly. He felt extremely angry with his Uncle for interrupting this crucial stage of his epiphany, just to call him for some rotten job he didn't want to do himself. Dragging himself toward the door, he looked back at his school trunk. Maybe it was his mind thinking of her that made him remember, but as he glanced at his trunk, he realised, he still had one of Hermiones books: Advancing in Charms.As he turned to walk out of the doorway, he smiled to himself. Hermione would be missing her book, he told himself, and it would only be good grace to return it to her.

Chapter 2: Best Friends Meet Again.

Harry woke up with a start that morning at 6am. He tried to get back to sleep fruitlessly for an hour, then decided he could sleep no longer and got up.

Today was the day he would be going to Hermione’s House. He would be catching the train at 8 o’clock from Little Whinging station, and meeting her at King’s Cross. He had already arranged all this by owl, telling Hermione casually that he still had her book; Advanced in Charms, and if she wanted (which he very much wanted her to want), he could drop it round sometime. To his glee, he received an excited scrawl back from her, telling him that she couldn’t wait, and did he want to spend the day there. There then followed an extensive list of things they could do.

He dressed very carefully that morning, taking his time to try to tame his unruly black mass of hair, but to no avail. He wore his best clothes, ones he bought himself from the money at the bottom of his trunk. He moved in front of his mirror to inspect his appearance, and to his complete surprise he found himself looking quite tidy.

At five to eight he arrived at the station in the town of Little Whinging, a small pale pink building which looked more like a primary school than a station. Rushing into the station to find his train, he could see mothers with pushchairs, holding on to struggling 5 year olds, who were crying or eating sweets. Important-looking businessmen and women pushed past him, wearing crisp neat suits and balancing cups of coffee and mobile phones. It wasn’t like Kings Cross station, with porters carrying around trolleys worth of suitcases and luggage, instead people carried their bags by their sides, which bumped into Harry as he made his way to his train. He rushed onto it, and made straight for a seat next to a grimy-looking window, Hermiones book clutched safely in his arms.

There was a long clatter of noise as people barged onto Harry’s train and took their seats, but as the noise subsided and the only loud noise now came from children crying and mothers chatting animatedly to each other, there was a whistle and the train gave a shudder, and pulled itself out of the station. Butterflies of excitement arose in Harry’s stomach. He was actually getting out for the day, something which his Uncle had been reluctant to let him do, but was reminded, by Harry conveniently remembering at that moment that he had to owl the order to tell them he was doing OK, that he should not be horrible to Harry this summer. So to Harry’s delight, he was now on the way to spending a brilliant day with Hermione, just the two of them, with the exception of her parents some of the time, as she had not forgotten to leave them out in her plans for the day, so that Harry could meet them properly.

He looked out of the window, watching large wheat fields fly past, a soft yellow and green blur. Looking further out into the countryside, the horizon looked like a big patchwork quilt of golden yellows and deep greens, with a few cows stitched in for decoration. He sighed, thinking of the hats Hermione had made last year in her attempt to free the Hogwarts house-elves, whether they wanted it or not. Thinking of Hermione gave him butterflies again, so he shook his head and glanced at his watch. He had been travelling for 5 minutes already. Absent-mindedly he glanced down the train at the other passengers, the children had calmed down by now, and were quietly sitting next to their mothers eating their sweets, or looking out of the windows at the cows in speeding fields. Looking around further, he came across an oddly familiar man with an oddly familiar bowlers cap.

‘Of course,’ thought Harry, watching Mad-Eye Moody read his paper, knowing full well that the eye under the bowlers cap was spinning around frantically, looking for any sign of trouble. ‘They wouldn’t let me go off somewhere on my own without a guard tailing me.’ He watched Moody continue to read his paper, then feeling Moodys’ Magical Eye on him, he turned away, looking for something else to stare at. Settling for his watch, he checked the time, and counted down how long it was until his train arrived in London. Not long now…

Stepping off the train at King’s Cross station a while later, Harry was tossed and pushed about by busy, bustling people, while desperately trying to scan the area for any trace of Hermione. This station was much busier than Little Whinging, there seemed to be a hundred times the amount of people here, all of them seemingly businessmen and women, marching briskly along the platform, not looking where they were going, but there seemed to trace of Hermione. Feeling desperate, he was about to go to the Help desk and ask when someone ran up behind him and frantically grabbed his middle, hugging him and knocking the wind out of him. He tried to turn around, but to their vice-like grip, he struggled, all his breath fading rapidly. When he thought the need for oxygen was too great, he softly prised their hands from around him and turned to greet Hermione at last.

On first sight, Hermione looked great. Better than great. Beautiful. Better than that. Her hair was shiny and sleek, long tidy ringlets framing her dainty face, the minimal amount of white across her eyes, illuminating her beautiful caramel-chocolate pools. She was wearing hipster jeans, which were long, flared and purple corduroy, leaving a small slither of her well-toned, brown skin showing off. On top was a striped black and purple woolly three-quarter length top, which encased her delicate arms and torso perfectly. On her face was a beaming smile, showing off her perfect white teeth which she had inherited, most likely, from her parents, the dentists.

‘Well, H-Hi to you too.’ he stuttered out a greeting, which made her beam even wider, her smooth face stretching slightly to make room. She surprisingly wrapped her arms around Harry’s neck and buried her head in his shoulder, causing him more butterflies to the stomach.

‘Oh, Harry! I’m so glad you’re here! I’m sorry I jumped up on you like that, I didn’t hurt you did I? Oh, I’ve looking forward to today ever since we arranged it! It’s going to be so much fun!’ she said with great speed. Harry vaguely wondered how she did it. ‘I’ve been bored all day, You have no idea how boring it is at home on my own.’

‘But you’re not on your own,’ Harry began. ‘Your parents-’

‘They had to go away for the weekend,’ She explained, cutting smoothly across him. ‘Dentists convention or something in Newcastle. So it’s just you and me.’

She smiled at him again, and Harry’s stomach gave an uncomfortable jolt, the butterflies were starting to attack him from the inside, and he smiled back, not too nervously, he hoped. Becoming aware of the fact of why he came in the first place, he realised he had dropped Hermiones book on the floor in the process of getting winded and stooped to pick it up, Hermione seemingly having the same idea. As Harry lay a hand on the book, Hermione mistakenly put her hand on his and they jumped. Looking up at each other nervously, Hermione smiled first, followed by Harry and they simultaneously let out a nervous laugh. Taking her hand away, Hermione stood up, Harry did the same, picking up Hermione’s book in the process. He handed it to her with a nervous smile, she graciously took it with a small; ‘Thank you.’

‘N-No problem,’ he looked determinedly around the station, trying not to look at her again, and held out a long arm, gesturing that they move on. ‘Shall we go then?’

‘Oh!,’ she said, snapping out of her reverie, and she excitedly linked her arm through Harry’s to his surprise. The butterflies in Harry’s stomach were like raging bulls. ‘Yes! I can’t wait to show you where I live! We can’t really do anything special today, since mum and dad have the car, but I’ve rented out some videos for us to watch. One’s a romance; Valentines Day, I wanted to watch it the other day, but if you like we can watch the scary one; Legend of Spooky Swamp.’

Harry and Hermione chatted all the way to her house, topics for conversation came easily, considering all the experiences they had gone through. When Hermione turned and walked through a small black iron gate, Harry turned and for the first time, looked up at Hermiones House.

Chapter 3 - Quality Time with Hermione.

Hermione’s house was huge, compared to Uncle Vernon’s at Privet Drive, but unlike his other best friends house, the Burrow, it did not look like it was held up by magic. There were two windows on either side of the shiny black door, and Harry could see that they were the expensive black PVC that Uncle Vernon had installed at Privet Drive a year ago. The face of the house was coated in a light pink pebble dash, and the roof was a sooty black, to coordinate nicely with the rest of the house.

‘Harry?’ Hermione called from the doorstep. ‘Come on! I want to watch these movies before tomorrow!’

Harry smiled back at her, took one last long look at the outside of her house and walked past Hermione into the house.

‘Right,’ She walked past Harry and into the long hallway in front of them. ‘Living room is through there,’ she pointed it out to Harry’s left. ‘and I’ll go and get us some drinks and the videos. Be right back!’

She turned and almost skipped off down the hallway, Harry could have sworn she didn’t move her hips so much at Hogwarts. Mentally slapping himself he turned left into the Living room and was immediately greeted with a familiar sight.

The room looked almost exactly like Harry had done a lot of his detentions in the previous year, the office of the dreaded Professor Dolores Umbridge, yet with a more friendlier feel to it. The walls were painted baby pink, with pictures of a seven-year old Hermione scattered around them. The curtains were a light fuchsia, frilly and light, with a white net curtain to match. The sofa and chairs were white, small and very cosy looking, and opposite to the biggest and squashiest looking sofa was a massive television, looking very posh and very expensive. There were pink drapes hung around the room at random places which made the room look very inviting and sweet. There was a strawberry smell in the air, which suited the colour of the room perfectly.

He walked over to the sofa and sat down awkwardly, not wanting to disturb the tidiness of the sot pink cushions scattered over the sofa. Waiting for Hermione to come back, he took to looking at the different pictures hanging on the wall. There were pictures of Hermione in her Hogwarts robes, looking very smart and pretty, pictures of her in primary school uniform, with her bushy brown hair and big teeth which had now disappeared. Pictures of her doing things with her parents were the most frequent photos on the walls, her and her dad laughing together, her hugging her mum tightly. It made Harry realise how much he missed.

‘Okay,’ Hermione returned with a tray of drinks and snacks, and placed it carefully on the table. She straightened up and held out two videos, their choices of entertainment for the day.

‘There’s this one,’ she held out a white box decorated with a lot of red hearts. She smiled at this one, and explained. ‘It’s called; Valentines Day. it’s a very romantic one I’ve been meaning to watch lately, but I’ve never really got round to it.’

‘Well, we can watch that one first if you want,’ Harry offered courteously. ‘I don’t normally get to watch movies much at the Dursleys so I wouldn’t know what they’re like.’

She beamed at him with delight, and rushed over to the T.V to set up the video. Harry’s butterflies were surely raging war on his stomach. He silently debated with himself whether to punch himself in the stomach. He let his bottle-green eyes drift to her, watching her every move, trailing his eyes down to her…

‘There we go!’ Hermione jumped around and Harry jumped. He really ought to stop himself doing that in future.

She rushed excitedly back to the sofa, where she plopped down cross legged next to Harry.

The film lasted at least two hours, Harry almost dozed off several times. He could not understand the plot of this film, only that it was set on Valentines day. He found himself absent-mindedly closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep when he felt a small soft bump on his shoulder. Looking down, he came across Hermione, still sitting, staring starry-eyed at the screen, but she had sunk down onto Harry’s shoulder with a contented sigh. Harry’s butterflies practically screamed at him.

After a short while of not really watching the film, more enjoying the feel of Hermione leant against him arm, he took a chance, and on the pretence of moving his arm to flex it, it being dead from her weight. She looked up at him indignantly, then, to Harry’s utter delight, she sighed and lay her head on his chest, bringing her slender arms around to hug him round the middle.

‘YES!’ thought Harry.

This left him with no choice but to put his arm around her. He rested his arm around her shoulders, and began to ‘absent-mindedly’ play with a piece of her soft velvety hair. He thought he spotted a small smile playing on her rosy lips at this, and carried on, smiling broadly.

As much as Harry found the film boring, he had no desire for it to end. He very much would like to lie there with Hermione resting on his chest all day, boring film or no boring film. But soon the film finished and as the credits began to roll, Hermione shifted in her position and sat up.

‘I thought that was really good, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah…’ Harry replied, not thinking of the film.

She smiled and almost unwillingly, it seemed, got up and moved over to the T.V again. Where she had left him, Harry felt a sudden cold and a bitter disappointment. She wouldn’t sit like that again.

But to his complete surprise and his stomach’s terror, she came back and sat even closer to Harry, hugging him tighter and looking up at him.

‘You gotta look after me in this film,’ she said with a nervous smile. ‘It’s a scary film, and I always get scared in those.’

Harry nodded and shot a warm smile back at her. ‘Ok,’ he said, trying to keep his voice even. ‘I’ll try my best.’

‘Good.’ she replied, beaming. She settled her head right down his chest and entwined her fingers and feet with his own. Harry brought a comforting arm around her and laid his head happily on her soft brown ringlets.

Oh, he could definitely get used to this.

This film was much more interesting to Harry then the last one, Harry cold actually follow the plot. He became completely engrossed in it, the sky outside falling into a veil of darkness, making it seem more spookier. Just when he noticed this and wondered what the time was, there came a loud piercing shriek from the video, causing Harry to jump, and Hermione to emit a loud whimper and bury her face in Harry’s stomach. He hoped that she wouldn’t feel the butterflies.

After the film was over, they continued to lay there for a while, too lazy and cost to move. It wasn’t until Harry glanced half-heartedly at the time, were they forced to move, by Harry jumping up and sending Hermione flying forwards.

‘12 o’clock!’ He mentally scolded himself for letting the time go by so quickly. ‘The trains to Little Whinging stop at 12! I can’t get home!’ His Uncle was going to kill him.

‘Harry, calm down!’ she grabbed his hands to stop him from becoming frantic. ‘just phone your uncle and say that you can stay here. You can sleep on the couch.’

This prospect only gave Harry’s butterflies more turmoil, but with a thankful nod, he agreed.

Chapter 4 - A night to remember (I know what you’re thinking, but this is gonna stay a PG fic :P)

After an erratic phone call home to his Uncle, which he was sure Hermione had heard every word of his Uncles threats to flay him alive when he got home, he found that Uncle Vernon was more bothered about being woken up in the middle of the night, rather than Harry’s well-being.

He put the phone down and looked glumly at Hermione.

‘I think he’s okay with it,’ he mumbled miserably. ‘But I’m sure you heard anyway.’

She gave him a sympathetic smile and softly patted the couch next to her, gesturing for him to sit down beside her. His butterflies were about ready to jump out of his stomach at so much close contact with Hermione, but since the phone call they had subsided to make room for Misery to take its rightful place.

‘I’m sorry, Harry.’ She was looking at him with a weird expression on her face. Pity? Harry hated pity, but for some reason he wouldn’t mind if it was from her. He stared at her questioningly. Why was she apologizing?

‘I’m sorry you had to go through all that last year, and you still have to go back to that horrible place.’ She was looking down, seemingly very interested in her hands.

‘It’s okay,’ he told her, knowing full well that it wasn’t , and he hated it. ‘It’s not your fault is it? Anyway, now that I know why I have to go there, for - for my safety, it just makes it a little more bearable.’

At these words Hermione looked up at him, a questioning eyebrow raised.

‘Your safety?’

Harry paused. He had not shared what Dumbledore had told him about the prophecy with anyone, thinking that it would be too painful to share. But now, as he sat here with Hermione and after the day they had with so much close contact and being so happy, he felt as though he could tell her, as if he wanted to tell her. So he did.

------------------------

After an hour of Hermiones frequent sobs as Harry told her about the prophecy, and what it meant , how his life must end or include murder, they resorted to sitting motionless, hugging each other tightly. It was only when Harry noticed the time, did he finally decide to move.

Gently lifting Hermione’s arms from him, he expected her to look up. She didn’t he took it as a sign that she was fast asleep. He softly laid her down on the sofa, and brushed a few stray locks of smooth chestnut hair from her face. Even with her tear-stained cheeks, Harry could not stop thinking how beautiful she was. He trailed a finger over her cheek, her skin feeling soft and velvety, and softly stroked it absent-mindedly. She smiled in her sleep, and leaned her cheek into Harry’s touch. He also smiled at this.

‘Boy, you got it bad.’

That damn voice back again. Was it normal to keep hearing voices?

‘What do you mean?’ He asked it wearily

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t figured it out yet.’

‘Figured what out?’

‘My god, you’re dimmer than I thought.’

‘Huh?’

‘Hmm, let’s see,’ Once again it was sarcastic and harsh. ‘Would you be sitting here stroking Ron or Ginny’s cheek? Or hugging her while watching soppy movies?’

Harry did not answer.

‘Like I said before,’ the Nasty voice carried on ‘If I didn’t know better, Harry Potter, I’d say you were in love.’

The butterflies in Harry’s stomach intensified so fast that Harry nearly urged. Looking down at Hermiones face, he smiled. He could not argue otherwise, he couldn’t. He loved her.

‘All right,’ he told the voice in his head. ‘ You win.’

But the voice had already gone.

Harry spent the night sitting there beside Hermione, as if protecting her from some unknown force. He was only faintly aware, due to lack of sleep, that his hand had glided towards hers and locked his strong fingers around her slender ones, and he also did not notice, that she had tenderly squeezed them back.

He looked around at her just as the sun filtered through the pale pink curtains, sunlight spilling across her face, enlightening her graceful features. She was still asleep, looking more and more beautiful as the sun rose. Absent-mindedly, he bent over to kiss her softly on the forehead.

To his great surprise, as he pulled reluctantly away from her, he felt her pulling him back. He stared blankly at her, she was staring back, their noses but an inch from each other. Harry could feel her warm breath floating delicately on his lips, and as he parted them to run his tongue over them, Hermione pulled him right on top of her and seized his lips and a sweet kiss.

Fireworks were going off on Harry’s head. Hermione was kissing him! Why the hell wasn’t he kissing her back?

He began to move his lips a little, kissing her back. Kisses were never this good with Cho.

A hand unconsciously went up to cup her cheek, as she pulled him closer towards her. He vaguely noticed that he was directly on top of her, but she seemingly didn’t care that much as she laid a hand on his back. He laid one of his on her small petite waist, and took a sharp intake of breath, , the butterflies were stabbing him with daggers from the inside. Hermione must have felt that he didn’t want this, as she broke the kiss and looked breathlessly up at him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I-I didn’t… I-I mean… I-I just-’

But Harry smiled, and cut smoothly across her.

‘There you go again, apologizing when you haven’t done anything wrong.’

She gaped at him for a split-second, as if hardly daring to believe him. Then face split into that earth-shattering smile, and she let out a nervous laugh.

Harry laughed with her, mostly out of relief. He had hoped she wouldn’t suddenly come to her senses and say she didn’t mean it. He now hoped he wouldn’t scare her off by saying-

‘I love you.’

Harry blinked at her. She was looking sheepishly to the side, her beautiful smooth face, neck and shoulders blushing a brilliant strawberry red. His brain seemed to seemed to have failed, due to the dragging pain in his stomach. The butterflies were showing no mercy. He tried to answer her, but due to his overwhelming happiness, all that came out was a stutter.

‘I- I- I…’

She shut your eyes, tears threatening to fill up the chocolate pools behind the eyelids. She was embarrassed. She had spilled out her secret to him, and he had just said nothing.

‘It’s okay if- if you don’t love me. I- I just thought-’

She was cut off by Harry’s lips, he had pressed his mouth onto hers in a desperate bid to tell her how he felt about her. He poured all emotion into this kiss, he had to make her understanding, she had to know.

He broke away and gasped at her, she gasped back. She was smiling, and it was then Harry knew she understood. He was expecting the butterflies to be eating him from the inside, but noticed that the butterflies had disappeared and had taken their daggers and raging bulls with them, there being a new feeling in it’s place. Love.