Never Say Never

ravensblood

Rating: PG13
Genres: Romance, Humor
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 07/03/2004
Last Updated: 07/03/2004
Status: completed

When Harry’s stalked by every pre-menopausal witch in Hogwarts, he enlists the help of one of his oldest friends to help him marry the object of his affection: Minerva McGonagall.

Chapters

1. Never Have I Ever

2. Never Tickle a Sleeping Cat...err, Dragon

3. Never Give Up

4. Never Surrender

5. Never Again

1. Never Have I Ever

Never Say Never
By Alexandra Ravensblood
Rated R for language/explicit sexual themes
Genre: Romance/Comedy

Summary:

When Harry’s stalked by every pre-menopausal witch in Hogwarts, he enlists the help of one of his oldest friends to help him marry the object of his affection: Minerva McGonagall.

For the real Rowena, who walked into my house a week and a half after I started this story and hasn’t left yet.

Disclaimer: Did I mention that I don't own this? I mean, if someone handed me the rights to HP, I wouldn't turn them down, but I don't have them right now, more's the pity. They do however, belong to a nice lady named Jo Ro, who's probably going to sue me for simply writing that...

Part 1/5

Never Have I Ever...

“I think my cat likes your cat,” Harry said sitting down next to Hermione in the Great Hall. “Ro’s been caterwauling ever since she met Crookshanks.”

She pulled her nose out of her book—Advanced Charms for Intermediate Charmers—and smiled. “Does this mean we’re going to be grandparents?”

In between bites of eggs and kippers, Harry shook his head. “No. Far as I can tell, your cat seems to think he’s too good for my cat and is ignoring her. Personally, I think he has a tendre for McGonagall.”

“Are you calling my cat a snob?” she asked, amused.

He grinned. “Hey, if the paw fits...”

“On behalf of my cat, I resent that.”

“No, he resembles that.” But the banter stopped when he noticed something red peeking from beneath the yogurt dish in front of him. “No. No. No!”

Hermione’s gaze followed his to land on the scrap of red material under Harry’s dessert. As Harry backed away from the table, she picked it up and revealed a crotchless red thong. She let out a low whistle.

“Now this is devotion, Harry.”

“What did I do to deserve this?” he whimpered, his head clutched in his hands.

She studied the undergarments, amazed at how little material there was and how amazingly uncomfortable it must be. “I dunno, Harry. Saving the world inspires hero-worship. Not to mention you’re young, rich, handsome...” She eyed the three strings. “Though this must be true love.”

He snatched the underwear from her before she could make any more comments. “If I had known this would happen given Old Voldey my blessings.”

“Poor Harry,” she chuckled. “How many is that this week?”

“It’s the second one today!”

“And it’s only eight-thirty. Which classes have you got?”

He put his head down on the table. “Sixth and seventh-years, all houses. Double class with the seventh-year Ravenclaws and Gryffindors.”

“Your most devoted fan-base. So sorry.” She sounded anything but. For months Hermione had been struggling to rein in her laughter as the sixth and seventh-year girls threw themselves at Harry, tried to trap him in compromising positions, sent him underwear, chocolates, baked him pies, casseroles, and altogether made his life a living nightmare. While most of the staff felt pity for the new professor, she, Snape, McGonagall, and Dumbledore had been waiting for the imminent explosion.

Snape had asked if he could sell tickets and even managed to procure the services of Colin Creevy should an opportunity for pictures arise.

His eyes narrowed. “This isn’t funny, Hermione. I came to teach at Hogwarts to escape the fortune-hunters and hero-worshippers.”

“Of course it’s not funny.”

“Then are you laughing so hard? If you weren’t my best friend, I’d hex you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “No, you’d have hexed Ron ages ago. You’re afraid I’ll retaliate.”

He looked scandalized. “Not so loud! I’m supposed to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Preeminent curse-breaker and demon-hunter. Defender of the Innocent and all that stuff. It’s not good for my reputation if it gets out that I have a deep, well-ingrained fear of our sweet little Charms professor.”

She chuckled, even as she smacked his arm. “Dammit, Harry, say something to your students. You smile and tease them, and they think you love this! You’re going to get slapped with another paternity suit if you don’t put a stop to this.”

He muttered something under his breath that she thought sounded an awful lot like “hard to father children by yourself” but she wasn’t certain.

“Do shut up, Harry. I don’t want to hear about your love life, or lack thereof,” she hissed, hoping that no one overheard them.

Harry just glared at her while shoveling yogurt down his throat.

“I could see if you were twelve doing that, but you’re not. Didn’t you learn any etiquette anywhere?”

Thankfully, he waited until he swallowed before he spoke. “Sure. Probably absorbed it from you. However, I am diligently trying to repulse my fan-club with my disgusting eating habits.”

“You’re an idiot, and only disgusting me. They probably want to reform you. Go teach your class and do try to tell them to leave you alone.”

As he finished—really, it couldn’t be healthy doing that—he gave her a jaunty salute, and she rolled her eyes. Even knowing Harry Potter for fifteen years, she still had the simultaneous urge to laugh and strangle him.

She wondered if she’d ever get over it.

_________

“A dementor is a creature that once guarded Azkaban prison. They feed off the positive emotions of... yes, Miss Gardner?”

She giggled, and he silently groaned. “Well, we all heard that when you were a third year—”

He interrupted her before she could begin extolling his long and glorious virtues, all while twirling the long hair that hovered just above her glorious bosom. “Yes, yes, that was a long time ago, and I was very lucky not to be killed. As I was saying...yes, Miss Hingle?”

The Ravenclaw girl looked up at him with what were unmistakably ‘bedroom eyes’. A number of the boys in the class shifted. “Professor, were you scared?”

Lauren Bacall’s husky tones had never sounded so good on a seventeen-year old. However, it just grated on Harry’s nerves. “Of course I was. I was thirteen,” he gritted out. “Now, as I was saying, the dementors feed off the positive emotions of humans and wizards; after prolonged exposure...” He sighed when he saw another hand in the air. “Yes, Miss Bedford-Browne?”

“Is it true that your Patronus is a stag?” This was asked as Miss Bedford-Browne uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, and then leaned forward to expose the cleavage exposed by her scantily-buttoned cardigan. More boys shifted.

Harry felt his rather strong patience snap. While it had taken ‘til February, he’d felt it fraying for a long time.

The air crackled around him and the green eyes that usually sent the sixth and seventh-year witches into swoons were burning with anger.

“That’s it! If I have one more interruption of any kind, your entire class will receive detention with Mr. Filch, and I will take fifty points from both houses. Is that clear?”

Everyone seemed startled at their laid back professor’s temper. If they’d ever wondered how their mild-mannered teacher managed to defeat the greatest Dark wizard in nearly a century, they didn’t now. “Yes, professor.”

“Good. Wizards exposed to dementors for too long lose their powers...”

___________

Snape shook his head in patent disgust. “That’s it?”

“Apparently,” Hermione said, disappointed. “But I don’t think this is the end. My guess is they think he’s playing hard to get.”

He chuckled softly. “I almost feel sorry for him.” Then he noticed Harry, disheveled and harried, entering the Great Hall for dinner. “I never thought I’d ever feel pity for James Potter’s offspring, but...”

Hermione snorted. “He brought this on himself. If he’d just make an announcement or something, he wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”

Snape sneered at her and she had the strange feeling that she was eleven again. “Miss Granger, that’s just stupid.”

Okay, so she’d acknowledge that, but not to him. “That’s Professor Granger to you.”

He smirked, then snorted when he saw the fear in Harry’s eyes as he sat down at the Head Table. “The great Potter brought down by teenage girls?”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”

“Poor—” Hermione stepped in to prevent herself from being caught in the line of sarcastic fire.

“If everyone doesn’t stop ‘poor Harrying’ me, I’m going to explode.”

Hermione held up her hands in surrender. “Just trying to offer a little sympathy.”

Instead of answering her, he piled his plate with roast turkey, scalloped potatoes, grilled goat cheese, and steamed vegetables. “I need a plan,” he mumbled.

“You need a backbone,” she retorted.

He turned his gaze to hers, and she felt the rumblings of a crush she’d never completely quashed and probably never would. “Would you help me?”

She could fight with him and lose in the end, or she could give in and make it seem like it was her idea. “What’s your goal?”

“For all of the witchfolk to stop seeing me as the Quidditch World Cup trophy. Permanently.”

She made a face. “Then you have three options.”

“Just three?”

“Just three,” she confirmed. How he’d like any of them was anyone’s guess.

“Well?” he asked, shoving some asparagus into his mouth.

“Welllll....first you could become a hermit.”

“No.”

“Thought not. Ok...you could announce you’re gay, but that’d just get all the wizards stirred up.”

“Especially Malfoy,” he added maliciously.

“He’s not gay; he’s been married for a year!”

Harry shrugged. “He’s bidding his time.”

“I’m not discussing this with you. Your last option is marriage, though Merlin, Harry, with the way you eat, it’d be impossible to get someone to tolerate you,” she said, averting her eyes before she was forced to turn him into a pig and insult pig-kind.

“Marriage?”

Frankly, she was surprised that food didn’t shoot out of his mouth.

“Yes, you should get married, if only to scare off the fortune-hunters. But then you’ve got to worry about the home-wreckers...”

His face fell. “My bachelorhood, my poor bachelorhood.”

She rolled her eyes. “What bachelorhood? That implies that you date, socialize, and meet new women.”

“I meet new women...”

“Eleven-year olds don’t count.”

“I go to the Three Broomsticks every other week—”

“As a chaperone! Face it, Harry, you’ve got less of a life than Madam Pince. Dumbledore probably sees more action than you!”

Snape, much to his chagrin, decided to listen in at that moment. “Gods, Granger, I did not need to hear that.” He shuddered. “Excuse me, I need to give some Gryffindors detention to get rid of that unholy thought.”

“See, Hermione, you’re even scaring Snape away,” Harry complained. “Plus, I’ve got this horrible visual running through my mind...”

“Come off it. So, we need to find you a wife. Preferably one not attending Hogwarts as a student.”

“And someone that won’t be easily intimidated by the media or students throwing themselves at me.”

“Someone who commands respect in the wizarding world, as well, as of course, having yours,” Hermione added.

“She has to be kind and like cats—”

“Are you looking for a nanny or a wife?” Hermione smirked. Still, she couldn’t prevent the first stirrings of unease from knotting in her stomach.

A brilliant idea struck Harry. He wondered why he hadn’t seen it sooner. It was perfect. The most wonderful solution to all of his problems and she’d been right in front of him for most of his life.

“Oh no, Harry, I don’t like that look,” Hermione protested.

“She’s the perfect answer. Well-respected, well-liked, loves cats, almost impossible to intimidate, a professor here at Hogwarts, and commands the respect of all the students here.”

Hermione blushed. “Why, Harry—”

“She’s been staring me right in the face since Day One. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.”

She smiled beatifically. “Well, you can be a bit thick sometimes, but—”

“I mean, Professor McGonagall’s absolutely perfect, don’t you think?”

“Pro-pro-professor Mc...Gonagall?”

“Sure you’re all right, Hermione?” he asked, distracted. He was already thinking of where he could find gold and red roses to send to the Deputy Headmistress.

“I...I...I’m fine.” She looked confused, then stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. “Harry, are you all right?”

He smiled reassuringly. “Never better. Do you think she’d like Swiss chocolate?”

To be continued...

2. Never Tickle a Sleeping Cat...err, Dragon

Never Say Never
Part 2/5

Never Tickle a Sleeping Cat...err, Dragon

Harry swallowed. This was the Moment of Truth. The Point of No Return. He crossed his fingers beneath the table linen.

A large spectacled owl flew in through the Great Hall’s windows with the other mail owls, carrying a large bouquet of red and yellow roses. Some of the older Gryffindor girls started preening as the owl flew above their table, but when it stopped at the Head Table, every eye in the room was fixed on the professor getting flowers. Most assumed it would be for Professor Granger—after all, she was young, famous, beautiful, and unattached. But when the bird gracefully dropped the roses before Professor McGonagall, everyone gasped. She stared at the bouquet as if it was a snake.

“If this is a joke,” she began, waving the bouquet like a riding crop at the student body. But then the card slipped out.

“To a beautiful lady, from a secret admirer,” She mouthed.

The frown lines smoothed out, and she smiled a bit girlishly. Harry let out a relieved breath.

“Harry, you should be shot!” Hermione chided.

“What? Even if she turns me down, at least I made her happy for a little while.”

“Harry, you don’t really believe what you say, do you? I should warn you of the dangers of self-delusion. Guilt is a powerful—”

“What you should do is help me.” She sent him a disbelieving look. “Seriously! This would go much smoother if you did.”

She spoke to him in the slow, patient tone one usually used with the mentally ill or irate infants. “So you want me to help you marry a woman who, not only taught us, taught your parents, and probably their parents?”

“Well...yes,” he smiled sheepishly.

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “You choose: Bedlam or St. Mungo’s. You’re obviously further gone than I thought.”

“Please?” He gave her his I’m-irresistible puppy-dog pout.

Hermione glared at him. “Why am I friends with you?”

Harry guessed—strictly speculation, mind you—that McGonagall wouldn’t appreciate poetry. Not that she couldn’t, just that she wouldn’t. More importantly, she’d probably think he was joking.

He wasn’t. He was determined.

Especially since he’d nearly been lured into an alcove with an underdressed Ravenclaw armed with a digital camera and delusions of becoming Mrs. Harry Potter. While the girl had gotten off lightly—thirty points from her House and a week’s detention with anyone but him—this had to stop.

Hence why he was stepping up his campaign. The small trinkets Hermione had approved continued arriving by the spectacled owl, and McGonagall seemed to show a few girlish flutters but not so much curiosity—at least on her part. The rest of the school—and most of the staff—was on tenterhooks. Were they from a professor, like Dumbledore? Or maybe Snape? (The last was a very minor opinion given by a first-year Hufflepuff who was later found in the dungeons crying for his mother around a cake of soap shoved into his mouth.)

Harry knocked on the door to the private chambers of the Charms Professor. Since Professor Flitwick retired two years ago, Professor Vector had become the Ravenclaw Head of House while Hermione received a set of chambers with the rest of the staff. While Harry knew the password to her room “to only be used in the very direst of emergencies,” they both felt that Hogwarts had enough to gossip about with adding the revolving door on their favorite professors’ rooms.

“Who is it?” Hermione’s voice called.

Honestly, how many people visited her at this hour? “Harry.”

“Damn.” He heard a bit of scuffling, then some indignant thumping until finally the door opened with a muttered “Princess Bride.” “Yes?”

He pushed past her. “Did you just say ‘damn’? I could have sworn I heard you say ‘damn’. Why would you say ‘damn’?”

She eyed him warily. “I think you take me for granted, Harry.”

“I never take you for granted,” he announced magnanimously just before relaxing onto her plush green couch and taking a sip from her cup of tea. Manfully, he restrained himself from adding a bit more sugar and cream.

She snatched the cup away. “Then what’s this?”

“What’s what?”

She let out a furious breath. “This, you idiot! It’s midnight and maybe it would have occurred to you that I might like to sleep without the frankly disturbing visual of you romancing Professor McGonagall?”

Harry had expected this. In fact, he was surprised that it hadn’t happened sooner. However, it was useless for her to protest. Throughout the course of their friendship (and their follies), Hermione always made a token protest before she caved into one of his or Ron’s stupid plans. During their terms at Hogwarts, she’d made at least one such protest every year for seven years.

He grinned unexpectedly. Her caving was one of the few things that made her human. He suspected—and had for many years—that Hermione was really as weak-willed as the rest of them.

“Come on, Hermy, don’t be a worrywart. I’m just here for a little advice and a bit of catching up. You’ll be asleep in a half an hour.”

She rolled her eyes dubiously. “Of course we will. A half an hour past five. And stop calling me Hermy!”

Obviously this was going to take drastic measures. “Come on, please?” he whined. “Tomorrow’s Saturday. It’s not like we have to teach or anything.”

“I’ll have you know that I have a tutorial tomorrow with some of my younger students,” she retorted.

“So? I’ve got a dueling club meeting as well as working on lesson plans, being a chaperone for Hogsmeade, and running any number of errands all without being trapped into the sacred bonds of matrimony by a scheming marriage-minded student. But I,” he tried for his most noble expression, “decided to spend my night with my very best friend in the entire world.”

She muttered something under her breath that he pretended not to hear.

“Please, Hermione?” he tried blinking at her in the rapid, entreating way that Ron and Luna’s three-year old Megan used to get her way. It probably didn’t look nearly as endearing on a twenty-six year old man with stubble, but she caved anyway.

“By Merlin, Harry, I really should start charging you for all the trouble you cause me.”

“But you love me anyway, so you won’t.”

She ignored his comment. “So how’s Operation: Minnie going?”

“Stagnant. She’s flattered, but so far, not interested. The one interesting thing is that she has been ridiculously happy, even during her classes. Rhonda Whitticomb in Slytherin told me that she only took five points from a student who didn’t do their homework.”

Hermione nodded, but didn’t look surprised.

“Doesn’t that seem weird to you?” He distinctly remembered being in sixth year and losing fifteen points from Gryffindor when he hadn’t completed his Transfiguration homework. Not to mention his detention with her. Involuntarily, he shuddered.

“Not at all,” Hermione murmured. “Her real live boyfriend, however, is not pleased. Apparently Snape caught Dumbledore bellowing at two students today, neither of whom actually did anything more than walk past his office.”

Harry gasped. “Don’t joke about things like that. It’s disgusting.”

“People have needs, Harry,” she said demurely. But she smiled secretively into her cup.

“You don’t!” Even as the words left his mouth he rushed to stop them. “I mean, I’m sure you do, but that’s just gross. No, wait, I didn’t mean that either!” His eyes beseeched her. “Help me?”

Her expression was a blend of amusement and annoyance. “If you’d shut up, the hole you’re digging might not get deeper.”

A dull red flush crept up his neck and cheeks, and he was having difficulty looking at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

“So what are you going to do now that your future bride is having an affair—and probably a long-standing one at that—with the most powerful wizard on Earth?”

Funny that all he felt was relief. But then that Gryffindor spirit was back. “I’m not giving up until the lady in question has a ring on her finger.”

Immediately, Hermione’s amusement sobered. “Um...Harry? You do realize that Dumbledore might decide to make your life a living hell if he finds out that you’re trying to woo his girlfriend?”

Harry waved off Hermione’s warnings, even as his own instincts agreed with hers. “Hermione, Dumbledore thinks of me like a son. He would never try to harm me.”

“A son with an Oedipal complex. But fair warning, Harry: it’s your funeral.” Then she smiled serenely. “So you’d better not drag the rest of us down with you.”

___________

Dumbledore was Evil.

Harry was amazed that he hadn’t seen it before. But he’d been lulled into complacency by twinkling eyes and lemon drops.

He scratched the red, scaly patch on the inside of his right thigh.

He started wondering if Dumbledore and Tom Riddle were related before he stopped himself. Of course! Lord Voldemort was really a manifestation of Albus Dumbledore—the dark and scary side that hardly anyone aside from Harry really ever saw.

Because eyes that twinkled like that had to be evil. Harry would lay a good chunk of his fortune that Dumbledore’s mother was the inspiration for Rosemary in that Muggle movie Rosemary’s Baby.

The lemon drops were probably evil too. He bet they were some sort of demon candy meant to slowly poison the minds of those who ate them. It probably made people think that the possessor of such candy was a good person.

But he knew now. The blinders had been removed. He couldn’t be fooled anymore. And soon, he’d tell the world. He scratched again.

“Professor Potter?” a timid voice asked.

First the Daily Prophet, then Witch Weekly. If he had to, he’d talk to the Quibbler, but he wasn’t sure if he should get the Muggle papers in on it too—

“Professor Potter?” the voice inquired a bit louder.

“Yes, Mr. Farnum?” Harry asked, a sincere, if vapid, smile on his face.

“Um, sir, are you going to um, teach us anything today? You’ve sort’ve been staring off into space.”

“I have?” Must not let anyone know...must keep it a secret until all of Dumbledore’s wickedness could be revealed. “Sorry about that, class. What did we study last time?”

The third year student cleared his throat importantly. “Boggarts, sir.”

“Right. Boggarts.” He couldn’t teach right now. He had other, more important things on his mind. “Right. Read the next two chapters in your textbook, Dark Creatures and Defending against Them for homework. Class dismissed.”

While the third years were all confused, they were very bright and left posthaste. Since Monday, Professor Potter had been acting strangely, which was to be expected, what with all the accidents. At first they seemed nothing more than harmless pranks, like water over a door, but everyday they escalated in danger from prank to joke to threat. In fact, the happier Professor McGonagall got, the more bad stuff that happened to Professor Potter.

Weird. The connections were too mind-boggling to contemplate.

__________

“Your friend, Miss Granger, is a complete idiot,” Snape remarked over dinner.

“I know. And it’s Professor Granger.” she corrected absently.

“No, no, you don’t understand, Miss Granger. A raving conspiracy theorist lunatic. I just heard him mumbling about Dumbledore being the Dark Lord.”

“I know.”

He paused. “And you’re not concerned?”

“I am. Harry’s gone off the deep end, but Dumbledore has been rather mean to him lately.”

Snape wasn’t certain how to break it to her. “Miss Granger, I really don’t think you understand. Lord Voldemort wasn’t this anti-Dumbledore. Potter’s trying to get a reporter from the Daily Prophet to hear his story.”

She buttered a roll. “Harry did wake up this morning to red ants biting the family jewels, apparently.”

He winced. “Still...he should really just give up and give in.”

Hermione sighed. “He’s a Gryffindor. Harry’s personal motto has always been Never Give Up, Never Surrender.”

“Unless he’s Merlin, he really ought to know when to quit. He’s trying to poach on another man’s preserves.”

“Preserves?” He watched, in morbid fascination, as her hair stood up like a cat’s. Or rather, it seemed like it did. “Did you just call sweet Professor McGonagall ‘preserves’?”

Ah. So this was where Weasley and Potter’s nearly unreasonable fear of Hermione came from. But he was made of sterner stuff. “Yes, I do believe I did.”

“You arrogant, greasy-haired chauvinist!”

He didn’t back down so much because of her name-calling. It was more that she happened to do it while waving her wand with the same swishes and flicks that one usually used to transfigure someone into small, many-legged, easily-squished creature.

Besides, retreat was the better part of valor. Something that Potter ought to learn very, very quickly. “Did I hear you call Professor McGonagall ‘sweet’?”

“Yes.”

“While it was a long time ago, I distinctly remember my Hogwarts years, and I do not recall her being sweet.”

She smiled tightly. “Just because I can’t call you sweet doesn’t mean you have to insult my very favorite professor.”

“You wound me, Miss Granger. And here I thought you had a crush on me.”

Her smile widened mischievously. “Sorry, Sevvie, it was only in fifth year that I found The Voice irresistible. With Umbridge running rampant and all, not to mention those adolescent hormones, how can you fault me?”

That shut him up.

A few minutes later, Harry entered the Great Hall, his eyes darting left and right, searching out danger. His movements were jerky and his left eye twitched every—Hermione timed it—eight seconds. Black hair that never behaved stood up at odd angles and his wand was clutched desperately in one hand while the other held a squirming neon pink object to his chest. And every few moments he scratched the inside of his right thigh.

A number of Harry Potter crushes died the moment his scent filled the room. It was a cross between eau du skunk and sauerkraut and one wondered how he managed to stand it.

There was murder in his eye when he marched up to the Head Table and stared Dumbledore down. Harry turned to the students assembled for dinner and addressed them, raising the pink object.

It was a cat.

“Oh Lord,” Hermione breathed.

“This is my cat, Rowena.” The cat in question let out a plaintive mewl. “She hasn’t done anything to anybody, except maybe the stray mouse. Yet she became the last victim in a vengeful war against me orchestrated by none other than our dear, beloved Headmaster.”

The audience tittered.

Hermione groaned. “Don’t do it, don’t do it.”

“So I stand before you, humble, and”—this time he glared at Dumbledore— “nearly unmanned to honorably”—another glare—“court dear Minerva McGonagall.”

Snape leaned over to whisper to Hermione. “He did it.”

“Dammit, I don’t have the time to train another best friend.”

Professor McGonagall wasn’t sure what to do. She looked at the Headmaster on her right, who was trying to fight back a blush. Then she looked at her former student, who apparently had been the source of her amusement for the past week and a half.

“My dear Minerva, would you be my valentine?”

At least fifteen hearts were broken in that moment, but any number of the older girls would remember it as the most romantic thing they’d ever seen in their entire lives, especially when the poor pink cat mewled too.

“Mr. Potter!” Professor McGonagall looked at him sternly, hoping that her ‘professor tone’ would make him confess the joke, but she caught a hint of that Potter determination and groaned. She was going to make Albus pay for this one.

“Harry, if I were twenty years younger”—someone snickered and she wasn’t sure if it was Albus or Severus, so she glared at both of them—“then I’d take you up on your offer, but you, dear boy, thank you for all the lovely gifts. I knew I should have recognized that scrawl.” She sent a large, sincere smile his way and dearly hoped that this was the end of this very strange courtship.

“I won’t give up until you agree, Minerva.”

She should have remembered that he was even more stubborn than his father. It had to have been Lily’s fault. The girl had been sweetness and light until her back was against the wall, and then she was like a dog with a bone.

Minerva threw her hands up into the air. “All right, Harry, I’ll be your valentine.”

A few of the girls were obviously too caught up in the moment to realize that the world’s Most Eligible Wizard was pursuing a witch who’d left menopause behind when Harry’s parents were in school. They clapped and cheered, all in all forgetting that they were the ones driving him to this insane gesture and that now there was no point to continue working on their Valentine’s Day cards.

But it wasn’t until the enchanted Great Hall started hailing fist-sized chunks that anyone realized how angry Dumbledore was becoming.

“Enough!” he bellowed.

Harry’s sweet, entreating stance changed swiftly to that of Underdog Hero as he braced himself for a fight.

Rowena hissed as Dumbledore stood.

“I’ve tolerated your nonsense for too long, Harry. It’s time you stopped this game of yours.”

Raw energy crackled around them both in primitive, elemental magic that captivated their audience. Most didn’t know who to cheer for: Dumbledore, their omnipotent, omniscient Headmaster; or Professor Potter, the Boy Who Lived and the Man That Triumphed.

The smart ones—and that included Snape and Hermione—didn’t want a battle of wills.

“How did this happen?” Hermione bemoaned.

“I don’t know,” Snape answered. “Something about Potter and more paternity suits.”

“So he’s probably going to duel Dumbledore for McGonagall’s honor?”

Snape looked slightly bemused too. “Yes?”

A black glove materialized in front of Harry, and slapped his cheek, once, then twice. “Name your seconds,” Dumbledore demanded.

Harry’s gaze flickered to Hermione, who looked resigned when she nodded. “Professor Granger.”

Dumbledore smiled grimly. “Severus. When?”

Snape rolled his eyes in patent disgust.

Harry’s green eyes twinkled mischievously. “Now.”

To be continued...

3. Never Give Up

Never Say Never (in case, for some reason, you forgot what you were reading)
Part 3/5

Never Give Up

“When this is over, your life is worthless, do you hear me, Harry?” Hermione hissed, preparing the dueling corridor for a match between two of the world’s most powerful wizards. One who was in love with one woman and one who wasn’t but wanted to marry her anyway.

Snape looked just as furious, talking in agitated whispers—and a bit of arm-waving—to Dumbledore who seemed not to pay attention.

McGonagall looked shocked and awed that two men were going to duel over her. She reckoned that if it hadn’t happened in the first fifty years of her life, why should it be an issue afterwards?

“Yes, Hermione, I hear you. Could you help out Ro? I can’t figure out the counterspell.”

The cat was skulking beneath the dueling corridor, curled near Harry’s legs, but came out warily when she saw Hermione’s friendly hand. Hermione pet her gently, but noticed the pink residue left on her hand afterwards.

“Sorry, Harry, but someone used dye.”

Furious, he yelled down the corridor to Dumbledore’s side. “You dyed my cat pink?”

Dumbledore smiled innocently. “Had to bleach her first.”

“I’ll show you pink, you—” Hermione had to grab him before he did something illegal before the duel. Funny how he showed more anger regarding his cat than the woman he was wooing.

“I can charm her fur back to its normal tortoise-shell, but it’ll take weeks for the dye to come out,” Hermione said soothingly. “The things I do in the name of friendship...”

“Ready?” Snape called out.

“As we’ll ever be,” Hermione replied. Harry had already stripped down to his black jeans and red knit sweater, while Dumbledore wore an old-fashioned costume beneath his robes that had probably seen their heyday when Victoria lived.

Snape stepped forward. “We can conclude this duel without consequence if the challenged party will offer an apology—”

“If he will,” Harry gritted out and scratched his thigh. Dumbledore shook his head.

“—or we can continue until one of the duelists is unable to continue,” he finished.

Both Dumbledore and Harry ascended the corridor’s steps and walked until they met in the middle.

“Why are you doing this Harry?” Dumbledore asked quietly. Those damn pale blue eyes were twinkling at Harry, so he snarled.

“At first it was to escape my demented students. I probably would’ve given up if you hadn’t started trying to kill me.”

“Oh yes, the infamous Evans stubbornness.”

“And now I’m just crazy enough to continue with this. I’m still pissed about the ants and the cat.”

“Bow!” Snape commanded. Hermione looked like she’d rather be anywhere else.

Harry gave a jaunty little bow to Dumbledore’s more formal one, and both walked their ten paces before assuming their poses.

Neither began. Both waited for the other to throw the proverbial first punch.

Rowena let loose a loud caterwaul and Harry remembered that he was the injured party in all of this.

“Confundo!” he shouted.

“Tantallegra!” came Dumbledore’s spell after he’d dodged.

“Protego!”

“Congelo!”

“Expelliarmus!”

Dumbledore put up a shield before waving his left hand without murmuring an incantation. A geyser of water shot from the floor at Harry’s feet, drenching him.

“Oh, so we’re playing it like that, eh?” As Harry spoke, the enchanted ceiling started raining only on Dumbledore.

_____________

“This is taking forever,” Hermione muttered to Snape.

“Duh.”

“Kind of makes you wish they could start pulling Unforgivables out of a hat.”

“Might be the only thing that would tire either of them.”

“Could I start pulling Unforgivables out of my hat? We’re the ones catching the backlash over here,” Hermione complained. The duel had lasted over an hour already and the two hadn’t done much more than demonstrate that they were equally adept at dueling rapidly and defensively. Still, Snape and Hermione had been zinged a couple of times by dodged spells when trying to protect the student body from the mayhem. When a stray Incendio didn’t completely miss Hermione and singed a curl, she’d finally had enough.

“Expelliarmus!” She disarmed Harry first, the spell sending him to the floor. But she didn’t see the lightning bolt headed towards him until his wand was in her hand and she’d started pointing at Dumbledore. “Harry!”

It didn’t occur to her to conjure a wooden block to absorb the energy. It didn’t occur to her to use magic to push him out of the way. All she knew was that Harry was about to be electrocuted, and he was wet, and Dumbledore was going to kill Harry, and she’d disarmed him, and she was going to be an accomplice in the murder of her very best, if rather annoying, friend.

So she ran and pushed him out of the way.

Sort of. He grabbed her and they ended up rolling, but out of danger, and wasn’t that a good thing, because she really didn’t fancy being electrocuted, not even for Harry.

They did, however, roll off of the corridor. Thankfully—for her, at least—she landed on Harry.

“Oomph!”

Harry was surprisingly comfortable. Not really squishy, but not overly hard either. Like a rather firm mattress. “I could stay here for a while.”

“Please don’t,” he squeaked.

Her eyes narrowed until they were tiny slits. “Excuse me? Is this from the man who tonight decided that he needed to duel the most powerful wizard on the planet? Which wouldn’t have been altogether too bad if he hadn’t—against my expressed wishes—dragged me into it with him?”

“I was itchy and my cat’s pink. Actually, I’m still itchy. Would you mind scratching—” Hermione glared at him. “Never mind.”

“Be grateful that’s all you are.” She looked at the char mark on the floor and gave a shudder. “You could be dead! And for what? So that you could avenge a pink cat?”

Harry winced. “It was a matter of honor.”

She propped her elbows up on his chest. “It was a matter of stupidity.”

“I never said the two were mutually exclusive.”

Somewhat satisfied, she got up. If she used his body for unnecessary leverage, he was too much of a gentleman—or too injured—to complain.

One student piped up, “Who won?”

Harry’s lips twisted into a pained smile. “Hermione.”

_________

“Why I’m helping you when your ‘loving maiden’ is scolding your rival—”

“Which he completely deserves. Dishonorable old scoundrel,” Harry muttered.

“—Needless to say, why am I here when she should be kissing your boo-boos?”

He stared at her, disbelieving. “I dunno, maybe because first you hit me with a disarming spell, then you jumped on me, and then you pushed me off a four-foot high platform? I think you owe me.”

“I was trying to save you,” Hermione spat.

“‘With friends like these...’” he quoted.

She helped him limp back to his chambers, her body tucked under his left arm. Madam Pomfrey had staunchly refused to treat any wounds either he or Dumbledore received in their pissing contest. Okay, so Poppy hadn’t said pissing per say...

he said tiredly, and his portrait of a dragon cowering before a veela swung open. Hermione rolled her eyes. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

“That password is completely inappropriate. I don’t know what your problem is with him,” she said primly as she maneuvered him over to an overstuffed sofa that had seen better days.

After he collapsed on the sofa, Harry shrugged. “It’s more of a habit now than anything else. It’s not so much that I have a problem with him as I don’t like him.” He sighed wistfully. “I think it’s a universal truth. I hate Malfoy, and he hates me; this works for us.”

“I wonder about you, Harry Potter.”

He just grinned infuriatingly and pulled her down onto the sofa next to him. “Stop complaining, Hermione. What would you do without me?”

Even as she leaned into him, she started ticking off reasons on her fingers. “I wouldn’t be famous, wouldn’t have faced down a Dark wizard at seventeen, wouldn’t have to coach my dearest friend in the pursuit of our former teacher and Head of House, wouldn’t have lately lost a few curls to ‘friendly fire’ incurred during a pointless duel, wouldn’t spend my dinners commiserating with Snape, for Merlin’s sake, wouldn’t—”

His hand darted out to cover her mouth. “I get the point.”

Hermione—only for a moment, mind you—enjoyed the feeling of his warm, callused hand on her lips. Occasionally, when he managed to get free of the castle, he did a bit of Quidditch training with Oliver Wood’s team, Puddlemere United. It helped keep his long, lean body toned and roped with muscles.

So—again, only for a moment—she savored the spicy flavor of his cologne and the not-so-subtle under-scents of sweat, milk, dyed cat, and skunk? Hastily, she batted away his hand and gagged.

“Is it just me or are you wearing eau de Peppy?”

“Peppy?”

“Le Pew,” she explained.

“Who?”

Hermione sighed. “Right. Deprived youth and all. He’s a cartoon skunk. Ring any bells?”

He flushed under her scrutiny. “Not really. But I understand the implication. Dumbledore was still on his siege.”

She cleared her throat delicately. “As I understand it, you were quote ‘poaching on his preserves’ unquote.”

The amused grin he gave her set her back teeth on edge. “Ah, I see Snape spoke to you.”

“Shut it, Potter. Anyway, why are you on this ‘Dumbledore is evil’ kick?”

He leaned his head back against the sofa and gave a pained smile. “You’ve never woken up to fire ants, have you?”

She winced. “That bad, eh?”

“I started this whole thing to avoid being trapped in an untenable situation. But in the process, I made a teacher who was really wonderful to me happy. I’ll never say that McGonagall was a sweetheart or a pushover, but she always reminded me of the velvet fist in the iron glove.” His eyes softened when he ruffled her hair and earned a glare. “A little bit like you.”

Hermione frowned. “Let me see if I understand this: you want to marry McGonagall because she’s prickly, a trait you associate with me?” She shook her head ruefully. “I’m telling you Harry, you’ve got this Oedipal thing down pat.”

He smoothed down Hermione’s frazzled curls, one in particular that looked slightly burnt. “Thank you, Dr. Freud.”

Even though he smelled of hair dye, skunk, sweat, and milk, she leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulders.

“Life with you is never boring, Harry. First there was Voldemort, last year was a chimaera, not to mention that rather demented witch bent on world domination who wanted you for a consort...”

The gentle hand on her head became a mocking vise around her neck. “You know you love the adventure. If you were just a know-it-all, you’d have been placed in Ravenclaw. But, deep down, you love the uncertainty, the danger.”

“Yeah, Mum says Dad dropped me on the head when I was a baby.”

He laughed and squeezed her until she squealed. “Sorry, Hermy you’re a Gryffindor through and through.”

Every so often, Harry needed to be transfigured into a small, obnoxious dog to stop calling her by that god-awful nickname. “Canis incommode exis—”

“Accio wand!” He glared at her. “Cute.”

“I told you to stop.”

“So strike two involves turning me to Yorkie?”

She smiled evilly. “And strike three involves turning you into a Yorkie then letting Crooky play with his brand new toy.”

“Maybe you should have been in Slytherin.”

Hermione only shook her head. “I dunno, Harry. You keep telling me that I’m a true Gryffindor. If so, then what are you? Because there’s Gryffindor me and there’s Gryffindor you and let me tell you, Potter, you’re scary.”

“I’ll be the first to admit that my ‘Gryffindor bravery’ occasionally transmits itself into supreme idiocy.”

She snuggled into him more deeply. “So long as you know it.”

____________

She’d fallen asleep on him.

Curled up innocently against him and slept in spite of his rather malodorous self. One stray honey brown curl tickled his chin while the rest flew haphazardly in disarray down her back, along the couch, and on his chest. And even though he smelled like and itched like crazy, he couldn’t help smiling.

He liked seeing her hair in disarray. In their days at Hogwarts, her hair was the one thing about her that never quite conformed, a wildfire banked, but waiting to rage. As it got longer and heavier though, the bushiness dissipated, replaced with long waves that obeyed her commands.

But on nights like this one, with her hair turned a burnished gold in the firelight, she became the fire. He imagined her as a pagan goddess of fire, burning mortal men with a single glance. Occasionally, he’d catch himself watching her like this, and he’d want to seize the flame. It wasn’t until he felt his fingers sifting through her hair that he realized that this time he’d tried.

She stirred and lifted her sleep-flushed face from his shoulder. Their noses were only inches apart, but her eyes were still dazed and confused with sleep. “Harry?”

If she were anyone else, even one of his hormonally-possessed students, he might have found himself making his fantasy reality by kissing her. It would have been romantic and impulsive, not to mention easily forgotten.

But she wasn’t anyone else, so he smiled and kissed her gently on the forehead. “Go back to sleep, darling.”

______________

The next morning, she woke up in a bed not hers. As it had happened on any number of occasions since Harry had begun at Hogwarts, she wasn’t overly concerned. What did concern her, however, was the large pink fuzzball sitting on her lungs.

Intelligent green eyes surveyed her warily, deciding whether Hermione was a threat or not. Ordinarily, Hermione would have subjected herself to Rowena’s scrutiny while keeping a straight face, but it was nearly impossible to do while said cat was pink.

Somehow she managed a, “Felis Reversus” in between laughs. Rowena stalked off into the bathroom, where another cat sounded like it was drowning in water.

The sounds finally stopped, along with the shower. “Are you making fun of my cat?”

“Gods, Harry, was that you?” Maybe it wasn’t the nicest early morning hello she’d ever given him, but sweet Saint Ninian, it certainly wasn’t the nicest early morning wake-up call he’d ever given her.

“What?” he shouted back.

“The racket.”

“What racket?”

She paused meaningfully. “Did you kill Crooky? Was that what I heard?”

Harry popped his wet head out of the door, blinking owlishly without his glasses or contacts. “I’ll have you know that was a pretty accurate rendition of La Donna e Mobile.”

“Pavarotti is rolling over in his grave,” she smirked.

Disregarding that he was only wearing a towel, Harry stepped out into his bedroom, hands on his hips. “He’s not dead, you loon, and I wasn’t that bad.”

She knew that she should have made some sort of witty retort. But that was before her brain shut down and the only thing working was her saliva glands. She hoped—dearly hoped—that she wasn’t drooling.

Certainly she’d seen him before without a shirt on. And if she was completely honest, she’d even caught a glimpse of his while trying to wish him good luck in the Quidditch locker room.

However, during those times, he wasn’t dripping wet and looking as nicely muscled as all the empty-headed men in her Under Gear catalog. Nor was his towel slipping ever-so-slightly off his narrow hips.

“Hermione?” He walked towards her, confusion warring with concern on his face.

Forcibly, she snapped herself out of it and brought her gaze up to his face. “Sorry about that. Just thinking about some weird dreams I had.”

He smiled, then readjusted his towel, much to her disappointment. “Good, because you started to look a little funny there.”

She forced a chuckle. “They were, um, very strange dreams.”

BTW: Under Gear is a cute little magazine filled with mostly-dressed empty-headed-looking absolutely beautiful men trying to sell rather ridiculous clothing. All the important bits are quite covered, but I discovered the mag after a friend ordered a tank-top and thought his purple shirt inspired “Girl” and not “Big Strong Manly Ultimate Frisbee Player”.

To Be Continued...

4. Never Surrender

Part 4/5

Never Surrender

Harry’s palms were sweating when breakfast began on Valentine’s Day. For once, his number of valentines didn’t create a swarm of owls reminiscent of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Still, it was only eight-thirty and anything could happen.

Particularly when he considered his own luck.

Surreptitiously, his gaze slid to Dumbledore, who seemed to have one eye trained on Harry and one on the window. While they’d managed an uneasy truce—apparently, Harry wasn’t the only person intimidated by McGonagall—their war was far from over.

Dumbledore’s eyes narrowed as the familiar spectacled owl entered carrying a gold foil wrapped box trimmed with a large red bow. Harry saw the twitch of Dumbledore’s robes as that man probably went for his wand, ready to curse Harry into oblivion, most likely.

The entire hall turned towards the Head Table when the trademark bird swooped in to deliver his gift to Professor McGonagall and Harry held his breath. Three nights before, he’d called reinforcements, and he, Hermione and Ron—by Floo—hacked out an idea for a present that was both sentimental and declared his intentions without being presumptuous. Except now, the urge to give up was starting to seem a little stronger than the urge to continue with the farce.

McGonagall turned towards Harry and gave him a small, wry smile as she opened his gift. But then her face changed drastically into awe and joy as she reached into the box.

All of the students at their tables shifted forward, each face wreathed in expectation.

Harry turned quickly to Hermione, who gave him a secretively triumphant smile. Beneath the table he grabbed her hand and squeezed.

When McGonagall pulled a large tome with carefully tooled dragonhide leather out of the box, many in the student body let out disappointed sighs, including one “A book? You’ve got to be kidding...”

But Professor McGonagall turned shining eyes towards Harry. “Enchantment and Ensorcelling by Onslow Cuckow, a first edition! Done in his own hand! How on earth did you find this? And how did you know that I wanted this?”

Harry let out a deep, relieved sigh big enough to rustle his bangs before he smiled in relief. “A little birdie told me.” He glanced at Hermione but didn’t notice the warming of his smile, or that he still held onto her hand under the table.

___________

“You ought to be grateful, Harold James Potter, that I let you outbid me on a manuscript that I’d been waiting ages for,” Hermione reprimanded.

“I am grateful,” he began in a placating tone and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to hear this. “But I just need you to help me with one last thing...”

“Harry...”

He tugged on her hand playfully. “Come on, Hermione, it’s not a bad thing.”

She slanted a look at him that had him laughing. Today was their only day with the same free lunch period and he was dragging her through the staff quarters when she could be enjoying the endearing attentions of some of her enamored students.

Wait, why was she fighting him on this again?

“,” Harry murmured, pointedly ignoring her when she gave an irritated huff. “Shut up, Hermione.”

She pasted on her most innocent look. “What? Did I say anything?”

His eyes narrowed. “You were thinking it.”

“You know, Harry, all those years fighting against Voldemort and that new stuff with Dumbledore’s addled your brain. You’re so paranoid.”

As he ushered her into his chambers, he replied, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get you.”

“What did you bring me here for? As we speak, I could be in the Great Hall being drooled over by my fourth-year Ravenclaws.”

He grinned crookedly. “And you aren’t thanking me?” Instead of waiting for a reply, he made his way over to a mahogany desk ensconced in a corner of his main room. She watched him hesitate briefly before he opened a drawer and pulled something out. Curiosity overcame her and she wondered what exactly was small enough to fit in a desk that would require her help. She thought that she’d seen something black, velvet, and bearing the unmistakable stamp of a famous jeweler in Diagon Alley before he slipped it into his robes. Was it an engagement ring?

A funny and not very pleasant feeling curled in her stomach and rose like bile in her throat. Did she really want to see this? Horror mingled with regret and—dear God—jealousy and she knew—with more certainty than she’d known anything in her entire life—that she had to leave. Immediately.

Even as she made her excuses to him, she whipped around and began for the portrait.

“Hermione, wait!” Harry called from behind her. His legs were longer and as she got out the “mama” in his password, he’d already wrapped his hand around her arm.

She wouldn’t be hysterical and if she had to hex him so she wouldn’t see the ring and thus be hysterical, so be it. But by Merlin, she wouldn’t be party to this fiasco, not when she was just realizing...

She was not going there.

“Hey! Where’s the fire? thought to look for the hounds of hell nipping at your feet, you were moving so fast.” His crooked grin was still in place, but there was concern in his eyes, so as always, she melted. One would have hoped that as a person spying thirty in the near-ish future she’d have left silly adolescent hormones behind, but no.

Still, it wasn’t like she could tell him that she fancied him. So, instead, she went for dignity. “I realized I’d forgotten to double check the pink flamingos I’m using for my sixth-year class. I need to try out an animation charm on them and...” Dignity did not bear up well with rambling, so she simply shrugged, hoping he’d understand.

He seemed thankful, but she was still determined. And she would hex him if there was a diamond in that box. Nothing painful and nothing he would chase her down for, maybe a stupefying spell would—

“Earth to Hermione?”

She flashed a quick, insincere smile. “Yes?”

“Obviously you’re stuck on the flamingos, so I’ll let you go. But here.” He slapped the black box, which was longer and flatter than she’d expected, into her hands. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

The box was for her? Disbelieving, she opened the box slowly to reveal a large gold oval encrusted with small diamond chips around a sapphire. She touched a finger to it, expecting it to dissolve into thin air like a horrible, ridiculously unfunny Weasley Wizarding Wheezes gag. But the metal and gems were cool and hard beneath her fingertips and would probably last longer than she would.

“Harry...” The words ‘this is too much’ died on her tongue as she found a hinge on the pendant. For a moment, she let the task of opening the locket absorb her complete attention, anything to keep her mind off Harry standing there expectantly. Finally, she gave up when her forefinger kept stabbing her thumb. She tapped the minute lock with her wand and murmured “Alohomora.”

The locket opened on the first notes of a nostalgic nocturne by Chopin but the picture on one side showed fourteen year-old versions of Harry and Ron sticking their tongues out at her picture on the opposite, whom was making a rather rude face in retaliation.

Tears that she hadn’t known she was shedding clogged a surprised laugh. Harry leaned in close, hovering over her shoulder. “We took that during a trip to Hogsmeade, I think. But it gets better. Just tap the locket with your wand and say ‘Memory’ and it changes.”

She turned to look at him, a man who knew her better than anyone else ever had and probably ever would, and she wondered what on earth she was going to do about him. Any man who gave a woman expensive enchanted jewelry was usually thanked with kisses, but this was Harry and some things you just couldn’t do without it coming back to bite you on the bum. Therefore, even as she was mentally slapping her conscience, she closed the lid.

“I can’t accept this.”

“I don’t want it and I’m sure Ron doesn’t either,” he retorted. “And if it makes you feel better, this is proof that I didn’t forget your birthday last year, and I meant to give it as a Christmas present for you, but apparently these things take time to make.”

She nearly dropped it. “What do you mean ‘time to make’?” Delicately snatching the locket from its velvet bed, she took a closer look at it. Etched into the gold, intricate Celtic knots surrounded a lion rearing up on his hind legs, his eyes made of tiny sapphires, his fur created by lines of garnet and ruby. But around the golden rim of the locket, she saw her name engraved with the words ‘to my loveliest friend’.

It wasn’t an easy thing to accomplish, but she’d been rendered speechless. “I—I—I...”

Taking the locket from her numbed fingers, Harry placed the necklace on her neck, the chilled metal making his hands feel almost hot against her skin. Perhaps it was her imagination but when he spoke, his voice seemed lower, huskier than normal.

“You know, I bet Ron that you’d be shocked into silence. He said it couldn’t be done.”

“It’s too much,” she protested, but her heart wasn’t in it.

His fingers, still on the clasp, stopped. “You don’t like it? I can always take it back—”

She grasped the locket as if her life depended on it. “No!” More calmly, “I love it...it’s beautiful.”

Harry chuckled and fastened the clasp. “If it makes you feel better, I’m not getting you a present this year either. Come to think of it, maybe not next year too.”

She turned to face him, delighting in the heavy weight of the locket as she moved. “Thank you.” Twining her arms around his neck, she hugged him tightly. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” To hell with scruples. Even her conscience gave up the fight. So she kissed him. Threw herself at him was probably a more accurate description, but she gave her all for that one meeting of lips. She savored the warm press of her lips against his, nibbled softly at his full lower lip, and inhaled the rich, woodsy scent of him. All the while she told herself, it was to be expected. He should have expected her to kiss him as if they were trapped in a roomful of skunks and he held the last fresh supply of oxygen between his lips.

However, what she hadn’t expected was for Harry’s hands to settle around her waist and pull her closer to him. When he returned her kiss, she felt him smile against her lips. He tasted of sun-ripened strawberries and Swiss chocolate and something elusive that she couldn’t quite name. She decided then and there that it was her mission in life to put a name to that flavor and pulled him closer, taking only a brief moment to nibble at his smile. When one of his hands caressed her spine, she arched closer, willfully scalding herself with his heat.

But when his mouth left hers, she whimpered. His lips teased the corners of her mouth, her flushed cheeks, and the line of her neck until she was fairly certain she would die unless he kissed her properly.

“Harry,” she beseeched. She tried tugging on his collar, valiantly trying to bring his face to hers when he abruptly moved away.

“What was that?”

“Huh?” In a few moments, she’d be articulate. But really, was now the time to want to be articulate?

“Dear God, the bell.”

What was he prattling on about? And why was he dashing off to the bathroom?

And then it hit her. “Third period.” She needed a mirror. When she caught sight of herself in the hall mirror just in front of the portrait entrance, it chuckled.

“Goodness! I think that’s the look they now term ‘delightfully rumpled.’ You might want to tuck your blouse back in your skirt, you know.”

The chignon she’d worn earlier in the day was straggling somewhere below her right ear; her lipstick was smudged, and her cheeks were bright pink. But the worst of the damage was the hickey resting on her left collarbone.

Harry chose that moment to reappear. His hair was mussed, but that was normal. His lips, on the other hand, looked bee-stung, and she felt an overwhelming urge to kiss it and make it worse. For once, couldn’t she be a bad girl and play hooky?

He ran his fingers through his hair impatiently and gave her a look that ignited something hot and deep in her belly. No wonder so many witches were trying to marry him.

She winced. Right. McGonagall. Hermione was almost like the “other woman”. A scarlet woman.

“Before you start over-analyzing what just happened,”—her head whipped up—“we’re going to talk about this later. Meanwhile,” he moved closer and her breath caught. But instead of reaching for her, he removed the pins from her fallen up-do and shook out her hair, then cast a quick concealing charm on her hickey. “That’s the best I can do.”

Still, before he said the password to let them out, he pressed a hard kiss onto her mouth. She was still enjoying it when he dragged them out of his chambers towards the classrooms.

___________

“Ron, I did a bad, bad thing.”

“Oh Lord. Bad as in ‘oops, I forgot to return a book to the library’ or ‘oops, I killed a little old lady?’”

“Is there no middle ground with you?”

“Ok, then bad as in ‘oops, I accidentally shagged one of those hormonally imbalanced students of mine and got them pregnant.’”

Harry eyed his friend warily. “I guess close to that one.”

Ron doubled over in laughter. “At least tell me it wasn’t accidental.”

“I didn’t shag—accidentally or otherwise—anyone. Nor did I immaculately impregnate someone.”

“No more paternity suits? Are you sure about that? I want you to be absolutely certain. I really don’t want to subject myself, again, to hearing about how lame your love-life is when you’re under Veritaserum. You’re a disgrace to single men everywhere.”

“Shut it, Ron. No more paternity suits, I promise.”

Ron rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Then tell me what you did so I can rib you for it.”

“Do I look stupid? Don’t answer that. Go home. I’m not telling you anything.”

But his eyes were darting back and forth. Clearly he needed to tell someone and if he wouldn’t—or, ah ha! couldn’t—tell Hermione, who was only a few doors away, then that something probably involved Hermione.

Ron shook his head sadly. “If I were to take a random, completely uneducated, guess, I’m going to assume you did something to Hermione. Now, since I know you’d never do anything bad to her, intentionally, I’m going to assume you either hurt her feelings or you spent part of the afternoon snogging her. Then again, you might’ve done both. So a smart man would just tell me what he did so I could either beat him up or beat him up badly.”

Harry hung his head. “I gave her the locket. And then she hugged me. But then she kissed me, and I’ve had this on again, off again thing for her for years, and it’s pretty much on again now, so I kissed her back, then the goddamn lunch bell went off, and you’ve got to help me.”

“I love you like a brother, Harry, but there are times in a man’s life when he’s got to look out for his own skin. I could help you in this time of turmoil, but then I’d just get dragged down with you. The last person you dragged into one of your crises was Hermione and look how that turned out! Besides, you are so not my type.” But in spite of his words, Ron started laughing. Whenever he thought the world was a little too dull, and too normal, his best friends in the entire world would always shake things up for him. Them or Megan.

“Get out, Ron. I should’ve asked Dumbledore for advice.”

“No, no, let me do my best friend bit before Hermione Floo’s me. Go talk about it, blah blah blah, and don’t kiss her again until you’ve got everything all worked out, including and especially the McGonagall thing. If I know Hermione, she’s probably thinking that she’s some sort of floozy or some such nonsense. Oh yeah and you should probably break things off with McGonagall before you go further too.”

“Thanks for telling me what I already knew.”

“No problem. Time to get Meggie before she gets into Daddy’s Floo powder again. If there’s one thing she can pronounce clearly, it’s ‘Toy Store.’”

_____________

“He makes me crazy!”

“Yes, well, I’m sure the feeling’s mutual.” Ron was getting dizzy just watching Hermione pace her sitting room.

She whirled around to begin her trek down towards the fireplace. “He gave me this absolutely gorgeous present, and what else was I supposed to do? And he was being so sweet on top of it!”

“So you kissed him. It’s no big deal. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Are you daft? Of course it’s the end of the world. Nothing will ever be the same now!”

They were making his head hurt. “Do you want it to be the same?”

She stopped and seemed to think about it. “No, but what if we’re not compatible?”

“Define ‘compatible.’” Then he thought about it. “No, wait, that’s okay, I’m sure I don’t want to know.”

“What if he’s really a womanizer or something? And he’s Harry bloody Potter. Women everywhere throw themselves at his feet like he’s some sort of pagan altar. I don’t want to have to deal with that on top of womanizing. I’d have to keep him on a leash!”

Now she was just off in the deep end. He conjured a paper bag. “Breathe.”

Surprisingly enough, she took it.

“Listen to me. He’s still Harry and I’m sure the absolute worst habit he’s got is leaving the toilet seat up. Well, that and the whole slug-eating thing, but he says it’s for stamina or something.”

“What?”

“Eh, too easy. I swear, it’s just the toilet seat thing. Besides, you two should sit down and talk about everything before you start planning for later.”

She sat down heavily. “What have we done?”

Ron took pity on her and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it so much. You will be fine. We defeated the Dark Lord. Relationships can’t be nearly as tough.”

_________

“So?”

He grinned. “Our plan’s right on schedule.”

“Good, good.”

“Was there anything else you wished of me?”

Lips curved into a dangerous smile. “No, I think that’s it for now.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Mr. Weasley.”

To be concluded...

5. Never Again

AN: So at last we come to our end! Who was the mystery person in the last chapter? Has Ron turned evil(ish)? Is he Dumbledore’s minion? Is this all apart of Snape’s master plan? Why the McGonagall/Harry ship? And what about Crookshanks and Rowena? Many thanks to my reviewers, who nudged my conscience and freed my writer’s block. Now on with the show! :o)

Part 5/5

Never Again

The next morning found Harry pacing outside of Hermione’s room at the crack of dawn. He was debating whether or not the events of the previous day merited classification as “emergency” or whether they’d taken a step back in their relationship.

He was grateful for the interruption of his over-thinking when a disheveled Hermione, complete with a mis-buttoned dressing-gown emerged from her room.

“Hermione—”

“Harry—”

They both laughed nervously over their gaffe. Harry clenched his jaw. All he really wanted to do was keep the world at bay for a few more days so that they could take the time to figure out the ins and outs of their new relationship.

Was it a relationship?

“You go first,” he said.

Hermione’s eyes went round, and she shook her head. “Not a chance. Whenever the other person says ‘go first’, the person who actually goes first later messes up what the speaker of ‘go first’ wanted to say. Then they get their wires crossed and everything ends rather dreadfully, and I’d rather not have that, thank you.”

Harry looked bewildered. “Were you powdering poppy seeds again?”

She glared at him. Apparently even all of the awkwardness between them couldn’t change a few things. “No.”

“So, I assume this means it’s my turn,” he began. He enveloped her smaller, softer hand in his own and led her to his own chambers. “Lily of the valley.”

Surprise made her smirk. “You changed your password.”

“It was either Malfoy sucks hairy monkey nuts or this.” He led her into the sitting room and sat her down on a settee while he paced the length of the fireplace. “I didn’t sleep at all last night because I wanted everything I said here to be absolutely perfect. But as I talk to you right now, the entire speech is flying out of my head, so if I say something stupid, bear with me, please.”

“Do I want to hear this then?” she chuckled nervously.

He stopped pacing to clasp her face within his palms. “I don’t know if I want to hear it. But it needs to be said.”

Her lips trembled in a falsely cheerful smile. “Maybe you shouldn’t say anything then.”

He pressed a tender kiss to her lips. “Where’s that good old stiff upper lip?”

“In storage.”

Hesitantly, he released her. “I...we...we...we can’t be friends anymore.”

A relieved chuckle escaped her lips. “What? Are we in the sandbox?”

“Hermione...”

“Sorry.”

Harry started his pacing again. While it didn’t necessarily clear his mind, it gave him something better to do than just twiddling his thumbs. “I’ve known you forever. When I came to Hogwarts and found a home, you’ve always been there a part of it. For every important step I’ve ever taken, you’ve been there, encouraging me, chiding me, and helping me. I’ve loved you for years, looked out for you, beat up ex-boyfriends for you—”

Her jaw dropped. “You did what?”

He shrugged helplessly. “What was I supposed to do?”

“We’ll discuss this later, Harry. Go on.”

“And now I find myself—“

Something clicked in Hermione’s brain. “Wait!”

Harry stared at her as if she’d grown an extra head. “Yes?”

“You love me?”

“Hate to break it to you, Hermione, but Ron loves you too. You didn’t think I’d been friends with you for fifteen years because I didn’t know better, did you?”

That something which clicked now deflated. “Oh.”

He threw up his hands, exasperated. “If you’d let me finish...”

“Sorry about that.”

He gave up. Even if he would have remembered his speech, she would probably have stopped him anyway. He plopped onto the settee and tugged her into his arms. “You’re deranged, you know that?”

“I’m not sure I can help it. It’s your fault anyway.”

“Of course.” He rolled his eyes. Why was everything his fault? Daft witch. “Despite this rather convoluted conversation, I intended on telling you that I’m in love with you. Probably have been for years. Then again, it might have also been since last week.”

Love? Love?! She started hyperventilating. Every single song that she’d ever heard with the word ‘love’ in it now played in her head all at once. As a little girl, when she imagined falling in love and living happily ever after, she’d always supposed that it felt like Pop Rocks exploding in caffeinated soda.

Reconciling her imaginings with her actual feelings, though, was a shock. Instead of Pop Rocks, she would have sworn—under oath and with Veritaserum—that an angry herd of hippogriffs had taken flight in her stomach and throat.

“Hermione?” For a few moments, she’d paled so much that Harry thought he’d have to run for Madam Pomfrey. Smoothing one hand up and down her back, drawing meaningless symbols, eased some of his duress, especially when she relaxed into his touch.

“I’m...I’m...”

He grinned broadly. “Twice in two days. Not bad.”

She smacked him. “Of all the horrible things to say!”

He squeezed her tightly, enjoying her soft, warm weight tucked against him. If he could imagine a heaven, it would be this place, with this woman, and absolutely nothing else to vie for their attention. For some reason, he didn’t doubt that she loved him back. While it had been harrowing, telling her that he loved her was one of the easiest things he’d ever done.

“I’m going to need to invest in a bat, aren’t I?” Hermione asked.

“Um, what?”

She sat up on him, smiling so blissfully that he wanted to drag her with him to every single room in the castle and shout “I love this woman!!!” like a very cheesy commercial.

“I said I need to invest in a bat.”

“Why? We have a perfectly good owl and two rather interesting cats. Why are we adding a bat again?”

He was grinning so stupidly that she almost didn’t have the heart to tell him. It’d probably be easier to tattoo to his forehead “Property of Hermione Granger Potter. Hands off or you will be hexed.” Or maybe Hermione Granger-Potter. Hermione Potter. Mrs. Harry Potter.

Good God, she was a walking target. Every witch in England was going to try to kill her. Not to mention all the megalomaniacs. Forget the bat, she needed one of those troll-sized cudgels. Maybe she could train to be a Hit Witch.

Harry’s befuddled daze began to unclear and he noticed the intent way Hermione stared at his forehead. “Um...Hermione?”

“How long does it take to become a Hit Witch?”

“Two years, I believe. Why?”

Her eyes slid away from his. “Protection.”

“From what?” Was she trying to leave Hogwarts for some reason?

“The horde.”

Was she crazy? “Um, what horde, Hermione?”

She gave him a look that said, plainly, that he was an idiot. “Your fan club.”

And suddenly everything became clear. “Ah.”

She hit him. “What kind of answer is ‘ah’?”

“All I said was ‘ah’! What kind of person infers enough to hit another person from such an insignificant word as ‘ah’?”

Though she knew it was immature, she stuck her nose into the air. “It was clearly a loaded ‘ah’.”

Thankfully, the breakfast bell came to his rescue and he dumped her from his lap in his haste. “Sorry about that.”

Rubbing her abused bottom, she glared at him from the floor. “I’m sure.”

Hermione decided that they would simply have to finish this discussion later because right now she was surprised that she could still wish to turn him into an amoeba even through loving him.

He’d have such cute little pseudopods.

_________________

Harry was having a Great Day. One of those days where he actually wouldn’t mind saving the world because the world was such a wonderful place, and wasn’t life wonderful? He didn’t get upset when Belladonna Bedford-Browne accio-ed him—instead of a book during a duel—from across the room. It slid like water off a duck’s back when one of Dumbledore’s leftover pranks—which looked eerily like a Weasley Wizarding Wheeze—temporarily transformed him into an overgrown kookaburra.

And he was still feeling wonderful while he was headed for the library and Crookshanks came by his chambers with a very smelly trout. Crookshanks sported a few charred chunks of fur, so he had to assume that McGonagall’s beau had rebuffed Crooky too.

The large cat stopped just beyond the entryway, poised and waiting for permission. Harry tamped own his amusement and instead adopted a stern, fatherly mien.

“Wherever you take her, I want to see her back in these chambers by”—he was going to say ten but remembered that cats were nocturnal creatures—“one, and not a minute after. And no hanky-panky either. If I see any rogue orange kittens in a couple of months, you’re going to the vet for a nip and tuck.”

Ever an intelligent cat, Crookshanks gave a sullen meow of agreement and Harry stepped out into the hall.

Loudly he whistled as he practically skipped towards the library. He had a kind-of-date with Hermione—okay, so collaborating on a project for their classes wasn’t really a date—and he looked forward to cozying up with her in a small secluded alcove. Maybe if they finished their work quickly they could finish where they left off yesterday.

Grinning at his very teenage thoughts, he clomped into the library, turning the heads of a few students, and Madam Pince glared at him as if he were still a truculent youth. Hermione managed to stifle her laughter but not her smile, and he basked in its warm glow.

“Come on,” she whispered, and they retreated to the Restricted Section. As a student, he’d spend many nights investigating its darkened corners, but with the room well-lit and armed with the authority of professorship, the section was much less foreboding and dangerous. Besides, biting, hell-born books were less scary when one knew effective halting jinxes.

Hermione led them to a small enclave that boasted a roaring fire and crimson brocaded Victorian loveseat before it. A few dozen books rested neatly beside the loveseat while several lay scattered and open on a chestnut coffee table.

He shot her a fulminating glance. This was not going as he’d planned. Honestly, how was he to orchestrate a seduction while her nose was buried in a book? “Is all of this necessary?”

She adopted her snootiest tone and shoved her light reading glasses higher on her nose. “Of course it is. The execution of elemental charms is extremely hazardous and failure to correctly produce said charms can lead to disastrous results.”

If he didn’t know that she was deliberately baiting him, some of his warm fuzzy feelings would have dissipated. As it was, he sent her an equally condescending glare.

“If you feel that your students have been incorrectly instructed on how to cast these complex and dangerous charms, then by all means, we should research the counter-charms and spells. Should I start with Accidental Lightning Strikes and How They Can Happen to You or Drowning in Disbelief: A Wizard’s Guide to Water Charms and Reversals?”

Her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “I know what game you’re playing Harry. Don’t think you can fool me. Read Drowning in Disbelief. I’m sure that once the female half of the class watches you demonstrate the charm, my entire classroom will be underwater with their efforts.”

Harry strove for an innocent look. “How will that be my fault?”

It was only through a feat of will power and supreme restraint that she kept from throwing Accidental Lightning Strikes at his head. “Hence why you’re reading that book. Reversing and correcting spells is—”

“—most of a teacher’s job,” Harry finished, his voice lowering to a cajole. “But we know all of these things. It’s not like I’ve never had practical experience reversing an elemental charm either. I’ve read all these books, probably memorized them. Worse still, I can even tell you that the authors are coming out with new, updated editions in three months because I’ve got advanced copies.”

Calmly, she took off her glasses and put them onto the table. Right now, she was still in control of the situation and she wouldn’t allow this to turn into a teenage snogging session. Catching the heated desire imprinted in Harry’s gaze, she hastily amended that to include no adult shagging sessions either. But while she wanted to be seduced—was in fact, very amenable to being seduced considering her own feelings on the subject—she knew that there were a wealth of issues that needed to be resolved first.

“Harry, I don’t think—”

“Could you stop that? It’s really an annoying habit of yours that I’d hoped we could get rid of.”

Stung, she tried to remember what she’d been doing. Taking off her glasses bothered Harry? “Well, I’m sorry if everyone’s not blind as a dingbat as someone I know, but—”

Harry was bewildered. Now which tangent had the daft witch gone off on? He held up a hand to interrupt her. “I meant thinking. Could we get you to stop thinking? You do entirely too much of it.”

But Hermione’s gorge was up and still rising. “Stop thinking? Harry Potter, have you never seen the idiocy behind most of the plans you’ve concocted in the last fifteen years? To give you credit, they’re not as bad as Ron’s, but honestly, chasing down a fifty foot basilisk with little more than a wand and hope?”

“I was twelve, Hermione.”

“Ok, fine. What about the chimaera? That was last year and do you want to know what your entire plan consisted of?”

He felt a dull red flush creep up his cheekbones. Hermione was going to be some unfortunate little boy’s mother, and she was going to wreak havoc on his poor, ill-thought out delusions of grandeur. Sort of the way she was currently wreaking havoc on that unfortunate future little boy’s father’s ill-planned seduction.

“What are you smiling at? Idiot! I had to Apparate into a forest—with no directions—while you threw ineffectual and mostly irritating elemental charms at a creature quite impervious to them. If you’d only read the enchantment book I’d given you, you could have petrified the chimaera quickly and without being harmed. But noooooo, Harry Potter has to go charging head first into any situation because he’s the bloody Man Who Triumphed Over—”

There was only so much a man could take as he was maligned, impugned, and danced on by a malicious witch. Hermione was a shrew, but she was his shrew. And since he could only think of two ways to silence her—one of which would get him hexed back into his third year—he simply did what any man would have and kissed her.

Really, the things he did for this woman. She should be thanking him, not criticizing him. Especially when he knew an excellent silencing charm that he’d perfected on a caterwauling Crookshanks.

While the kiss started out as a teasing peck, quickly Harry’s good intentions fled with Hermione’s soft moan and the feel of her arms around his neck. She’d been drinking elderberry wine before their meeting and her lips were sweet with their flavor. He couldn’t resist licking her lower lip and tracing the corners of her smile with his tongue. He could feel, more than hear, her husky chuckle as he kissed his way along the curve of her jaw to her earlobe.

Harry murmured nonsense into her ear, but her mind refused to process any of his words as her body focused on the lingering kisses he gave her neck, shuddering when she was lowered fully onto the couch, trapped between him and the cushions. She felt hot and dizzy and would make sure that he felt exactly the same way. Besides, now that she’d seen part of what a mature Harry’s body looked like, she wanted to run her hands and lips along the muscles of his back, chest, legs, thighs, and just look at him and...goodness, she even rambled in her thoughts. Maybe she did need to take Harry’s advice and stop thinking—not that she’d ever tell him that.

Missing the feel of his lips against hers, she slid her body along the length of the loveseat and him, enjoying the way his body enveloped hers, but didn’t crush it. She was tired of preliminaries and gave herself over to a hot, open-mouthed kiss that drowned her senses and left her mind blank but for Harry. Harry, who’d slipped his hands to the undersides of her breasts, and was making her body arch off the loveseat in frustration.

“Ahem.”

Harry first became aware that something wasn’t right when he heard a startled gasp. And then giggling. He pulled away from Hermione’s embrace, quite aware of his hand now settled over her breast and her eyes hazy with passion.

“Mr. Potter!”

Gods, he was sixteen again, caught kissing a girl in the Astronomy Tower. Only this time it was worse...so much worse. As if burned, he snatched his hands away. But he’d miscalculated and the force propelling his hands away from Hermione also propelled his body off the loveseat.

If Fate had been even remotely kind to him, when he hit his head against the table, he would have been knocked unconscious. Or dead. Really, either would have been fine.

“Um, I can explain?”

Professor McGonagall—there again was proof of his nonexistent luck—folded her arms and gave him a look so fraught with disappointment that he felt like asking for detention. “Mr. Potter, I cannot believe that you would engage in conduct so unbecoming of a professor in the middle of the library—”

“Not the middle of the library. Just the restricted section,” he interrupted stupidly. Would he never learn to shut his mouth as his partner in crime was doing? Surreptitiously, he glanced up at her where she sat shamefaced.

McGonagall gave him a look that had quelled greater men than Harry—poor Dumbledore, he mused. “Nevertheless, I do not expect to find two of our professors engaged in behavior more suited to hormonally driven students in a section accessible by any student who possesses a permission form. Members of the faculty are held to a standard of conduct higher than that of the student body. That I brought a student with me makes this... assignation all the more damning.”

It was only then that Harry noticed Belladonna Bedford-Browne standing behind McGonagall, her expression one of rapt attention and bewildered heartbreak. He felt a twinge of guilt, then remembered being summoned across the room and promptly squelched the feeling. In a few hours, she’d forget him and move on to someone her own age. Not only that, but she’d probably also tell all her little friends about it.

Oh. God.

“Go along, Ms. Bedford-Browne. I’ll retrieve your book for you and have it sent to your dorm.” Quietly, she departed. Much too quietly. Harry imagined tomorrow’s headlines on the Daily Prophet: Man Who Triumphed Over He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Seduces Professor in Library; Discovered in Flagrante Delecto by Jilted Love and Student.

“Minerva, you’re not terribly...hurt, are you?” Hermione asked quietly. Once this episode was over, she was going to give Harry Potter a piece of her mind for making her feel like the other woman.

Minerva decided to let them squirm for a moment before smiling secretively. “Honestly, I was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. And one can’t truly be hurt when their plans go accordingly, can they?”

“Plans?” Harry and Hermione asked in unison.

She leveled a stare at them both. “Surely you don’t think that Albus is the only one capable of intrigues, do you? When I realized Potter wasn’t going to see reason and marry you—you are going to marry her, aren’t you?”

“Well, I hadn’t gotten that far...” he broke off when he saw both of their darkening countenances. “Um, uh, but of course. Just haven’t gone to the jeweler yet.”

“Good. Because Potter never does anything by half measures, I realized that when he discovered that he needed to marry if he ever wanted to escape the other marriage-minded witches, he wouldn’t pick the obvious choice—yourself, Hermione. No, he’d would have to be difficult and pick someone else. As strange as it sounds, the only other single woman that Potter’s is comfortable with is myself. I had to hope that you would be of some assistance to him and in the process he would realize that you were actually the perfect choice. But ensuring that he didn’t veer off the right path, I also enlisted the help of Albus and Mr. Weasley. Very simple, if you think about it.”

“Minerva, you’ve spent too much time around Dumbledore.”

She sighed heavily before grinning at them. “I think you might be right.” Walking over to where Harry sat on the ground, she bent to kiss his cheek and whisper something into his ear. Harry turned beet red, but his laughter followed her as she left the restricted section.

Hermione shook her head in awe. “I think the Headmaster could learn something from her.”

“Don’t say that! He’s already a wily old curmudgeon. I’d hate to see him after she’s done with him. He’d be unstoppable.”

“Hm. Then maybe I should take some lessons. If nothing else, for future reference.”

Harry turned to her, shocked. “What future reference?”

She gave him an innocent look. “Why, making sure that you, Potter, are wrapped around my little finger.”

He snorted. “Yeah, like that’s difficult.”

“Are you saying you’re easy?”

“Always knew you were the cleverest witch at Hogwarts.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were easy? I could’ve done this years ago.” She slid to the floor and straddled his hips, kissing a path down his neck as she pushed him to the floor.

“I’m an idiot.” Horror struck him. “Wait! Is the door locked?”

Hermione gave him a smile so full of sensual promise that if he hadn’t already been laying down, he might have fallen down at her feet and cried. “Didn’t you hear the locking charm Minerva put on the door?”

“I knew she was my favorite teacher for a reason.”

But before Hermione leaned down to kiss him, she remembered McGonagall’s parting comment in Harry’s ear. “What did Minerva tell you before she left?”

Harry looked away, unable to meet Hermione’s eyes. But he couldn’t stop the embarrassed blush from rising on his cheeks again. “She told me that even though I had a really cute bum, and was very sweet, she was sorry it didn’t work out between us.” He let what he hoped was a wistful expression cross his face, “But maybe in a different time, or a different place...”

“You’re right, Harry.”

“Huh?”

“You are an idiot.”

“But you love me anyway, right?”

Silence echoed through the room.

“Hermione?”

She only laughed.

“Hermione!”

The End!

End Notes: My idea of a fully grown Harry Potter, sarcastic ass that he is and will later be, was inspired by Julia Quinn's Colin Bridgerton. Hermione, however, was a character created to see how many clichés I could debunk.

With love,
Alexandra