Drowning

Summary:

After all the cute little moments between Harry and Hermione, things finally come to a head.

Author’s Note: Meaningless fluff. Enjoy!

Hermione turned over in her bed blinking her eyes, trying to get them to focus. It was getting harder to get up in the morning, worrying about what might happen that day between her and Harry that couldn’t be shrugged off as an “accident.” Lately, her and Harry had been spending a lot of time together, and it was becoming hard for her to hide how much she loved him. She had loved him since the end of their first year…at first it was only a small tickle in her stomach when they were around each other, a young girl’s crush, but now, years later, it had grown to much more. They were both 16 now, and she was beginning to think it was hopeless.

She suddenly heard her bed curtains be yanked open, and she was blinded by the daylight, blinking furiously and groaning as she looked at who had pulled her curtain back. Lavender stood next to her bed, hands on her hips, a tired and angry look on her face.

“What?” Hermione asked, shielding her eyes.

“What do you mean ‘what?’! Harry’s been pounding on our door for the past ten minutes, yelling for YOU to get up. So get your ass up so he’ll shut up and we can go back to sleep.” It was a Sunday, and everyone had been enjoying sleeping in.

“Sorry,” Hermione groaned, getting up and pulling her robes on over her pajamas. She went to the door, cracking it to see Harry, fully dressed, his eyes bright and a huge smile on his face.

“Good morning,” he said.

“What do you want?” she asked tiredly. He looked a little guilty, realizing he’d woken her up when she had been happily asleep.

“Well, there’s a foot of snow on the ground, and its beautiful outside, and uh, I was wondering if you’d like to come out and play in it.”

“Play in it?” she asked skeptically.

“Oh c’mon Hermione, you can skip one hour of studying and come have some fun,” he said, smiling that smile that made her melt whenever she saw it. She looked at him a moment, and then grumbled that she’d be down in ten minutes. He smiled wider somehow, and then turned to go down to the common room.

She appeared fifteen minutes later, hair flowing behind her along with her winter robes. He looked up from the arm chair he was sitting in and stood, motioning for her to follow him out of the common room door. She did, and a few minutes later they were outside. Everywhere that could be seen was white, and the snow piled halfway up Hermione’s calves. He ran out ahead of her, crunching his boots heavily into the snow. Just like a little kid, she thought, smiling to herself. She looked down at the snow in front of her, reached down and wrote her name in it. Then glancing up to see that Harry was some distance away from her, she added his name under hers and was about to add a plus sign when she felt a snowball hit her in the shoulder, and heard Harry laughing loudly. She looked up, her eyes wide, and scowled at him. He was laughing and holding his sides, his cheeks pink from the cold. God he’s adorable . . . she thought.

“You’ll get it for that, Potter!” she yelled, making her own snowball and chucking it at him. He dodged it, although barely, and bent down to make another one. She was already making her second as well, and they watched each other, laughing, racing to finish their own snowball first. He finished his and threw it at her, hitting her arm. She looked up at him, glaring playfully, and threw hers. It hit him square in the chest as he came rushing towards her, unaffected by the snowball, and reached out for her. He wrapped an arm around her waist and dragged her to the ground, both laughing uncontrollably. They landed in the snow with her on her back underneath him, and he could feel her breath on his face as they both kept laughing. He put his hands into the snow on both sides of her and pushed himself up a few inches from her body, and looked down at her.

He looked over her, taking in all of her features. Her hair was flailed out around her head, its color shining beautifully in the sun against the white of the snow. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold and from laughing, making her seen even more perfect. Her eyes were sparkling up at him, happiness shining through the worry that usually clouded them. And then there was her smile. That smile, he thought. That smile that makes everything right.

Both of their laughter subsided then, and she let out a small sigh under his welcome weight. It felt so wonderful to her that she felt as though she was melting right there in the snow. They looked deep into each other’s eyes, and she looked upon with him with a love that ran through every fiber of her being. Moments that took an eternity to pass crawled by, before Hermione slowly removed her glove from one of her hands, and reached up tentatively to his face.

Her fingers found a lock of his hair and gently brushed it away from his eyes, her fingers leaving his skin feeling on fire in their wake. His eyes involuntarily slipped closed as her fingertips trailed lower toward his jaw line, before coming to rest beneath his chin. His eyes flitted open to see her brown eyes boring into his.

“Harry . . . ” she whispered, her voice barely audible as she sighed his name.

“Hermione,” he said, reaching up to take her hand in his.

Harry suddenly lifted himself up and pulled her to her feet as well. She stood next to him, unable to speak, a scowl threatening to overtake her face.

“We’d better go,” he said shakily, and turned toward the school. Disappointment flooded her heart as she slowly followed a few feet behind him, stomping the snow angrily.

*~*~*

“Where are you going, Hermione?” asked Ron, catching up with her in the hallway. She kept her back to him and kept walking, her head down.

“Hermione?” he asked, reaching out and placing his hand on her elbow. She finally stopped and turned to him.

“Oh, sorry Ron, I was just heading towards the library,” she said, keeping her eyes on the ground. Ron was about to nod in agreement when he noticed she wasn’t carrying any books.

“Hermione, are you okay?” he asked, his voice full of concern.

“Yeah, I’m just a little stressed over finals, that’s all.”

“Okay. See you at dinner then,” he said, but before he could finish she was already walking away from him. He looked after her and then heard someone behind him.

“Hey Ron, have you seen Hermione?” asked Harry.

“Yeah, she just said she was going to the library, but she just went down the left hall and the library’s to the right, so I don’t know really. But she seemed upset about something . . . something besides finals if that’s possible.”

Harry looked down the hall and took off after her, peeking around the corner just in time to see Hermione enter a classroom. What’s she doing in a classroom? Its Sunday. Harry thought to himself and he approached the door she had gone in. He pulled the door open quickly and slipped inside. He heard Hermione gasp as he entered and closed the door behind him.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. She turned her back towards Harry, trying to hide the tears she was wiping from her face.

“I . . . uh . . . Ron said you went this way.” He finally got out.

“Can you just leave? I’m sorry I just really need to study,” she blurted out suddenly, hoping that he would buy it.

“Hermione, this is a first year classroom. And you don’t even have books with you.” She lowered her head, knowing that she was caught.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing Harry, I just have something going on that . . . I just don’t know how to deal with it,” she said, heading for the door. She opened it a few inches when Harry’s hand came from over her shoulder and pushed it closed again. She turned around, leaning against the door, feeling defeated. He placed his other arm on the other side of her, cornering her. She finally looked up at him, her eyes sad, his eyes worried and pleading for her to tell him.

“Hermione please . . . we’re best friends. You know I care about you. You can tell me.” She turned to the side, refusing to look at him. His words stung at her heart, and it almost hurt for her to breath. He’ll never realized how I wish he cared for me… she thought.

“Is it Ron?” he asked quietly. Please say no Hermione… He’d always feared that she loved Ron, and that he would someday have to watch as his best friend loved the girl that he had loved for so long.

“No,” she said, sniffling.

“Someone else? Mione, please tell me,” he pleaded, unable to stand seeing her unhappy. He moved closer to her, into her space, and placed one hand on her shoulder. The connection was electric.

She looked up at him, her eyes glittering with tears, her heart about to break into a million pieces.

He looked down to her, his face paling. A sudden, sick sense of realization overcame him. There was a long, pregnant silence before he finally managed to speak.

“Is it me?” he asked, his voice pained. Her eyes told him the answer. His heart shattered, his hands dropping to his sides. She let out a sob and pulled the door open, and fled from the room, leaving him standing there, unable to move, drowning.

Later that evening, as soon as the rest of his roommates had fallen asleep, Harry threw off his sheets to reveal himself still fully clothed, and reached under his bed for his invisibility cloak. He quickly threw it over his winter robes and headed out the door and saw exactly what he had expected, and hoped, to see.

Hermione sat alone in a chair near the fire, staring off into the flames, a book laying forgotten in her lap. He quietly crept down to the bottom of the stairs and sat in the chair next to hers, only feet away from her. She sat there for only a few minutes more before standing and pulling her robes tightly around her. She walked to the bottom of the stairs and listened. After a moment she seemed satisfied that everyone was asleep, and left the tower through the portal.

He followed her through the dark, deserted halls of the school. She seemed to have a set destination, weaving through passageways and sneaking through the shadows in the main hallways. She disappeared around one corner and he was about to follow when she came running back towards him, fear crossing her face.

“Who’s there?” he heard Filch yell, and listened as he heard footsteps getting closer. Harry stepped sideways, purposefully right into Hermione’s path. Just before she collided with him he opened the cloak, spreading it as if it were wings, and enveloped her in his arms, and they both disappeared as the fabric fell over them. She let out a small gasp but he held onto her.

“Shh,” he breathed in her ear, and felt her relax in his arms. They both looked up as Filch rounded the corner, eyes gleaming.

“Where are you?” he asked, looking up and down the corridor before taking off down the hall, passing them without hesitation. When they were sure he was gone, Hermione twisted in Harry’s arms to look at him. She mouthed “thank you” to him, and then her face turned inquisitive, and he leaned close to her ear.

“I was following you. I’m sorry Hermione. Its just that after today I –“ she cut him off before he could finish.

“Let’s go somewhere and talk,” she said, and motioned her head towards where she was originally headed. He followed her, holding the cloak over her head. She led him through numerous passageways before finally approaching a stairwell with a door at the top.

“This is it,” she whispered, and pushed the door open after unlocking it with a spell. They passed through the door and found themselves on the roof, a wonderful view of the snow lined lake greeting them.

“Wow, how’d you find this place?” he asked her.

“I was wondering around one day and kind of stumbled upon it. I’ve been coming up here a lot, just to think, you know?” she replied, shedding the cloak and sitting near the edge of the roof, gazing out at the white wonderland that seemed to stretch on forever. He walked slowly to her side and sat next to her, laying the cloak within easy reach. They sat in silence for a long time, Hermione watching the scenery, Harry watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“I’m sorry about earlier Harry . . . I’m not mad at you.” She finally said, and she could sense Harry let out a sigh of relief.

“I was so worried. I couldn’t eat at dinner, and Ron was talking and I couldn’t pay attention to him, and –“ he began rambling, but she placed her hand lightly on his knee, and his head snapped toward her. She was smiling at him, and he smiled back at her, wild relief running through him. She turned back towards the lake, placing her hand back in her lap, as Harry leaned back on his arms.

“Hermione, were you really upset because of school?” he asked finally, still feeling the need to know.

“No, not really, just stuff with life and friends,” she said, instantly wishing she hadn’t mentioned the part about friends.

“Is it Ron? You can trust me if something’s going on Mione,” he said, looking to her eagerly for an answer.

“No, not Ron,” she replied, refusing to look at him. How dense could you be, Harry? she thought.

“Do you like him?” he asked.

“Harry! No way . . . I mean, I love him as a friend, but nothing more than that.” She said, shaking her head. There was another long silence.

“Is it me?” he asked, remembering the look on her face in the classroom. He looked down at his shoes, his heart sinking in fear again. Suddenly he felt her hand on top of his, and he lifted his head to look at her. She was smiling again . . . that smile . . .

“No Harry, of course not,” she said. “I was just being stupid. Just one of those days, you know?” she said, and he smiled back at her. She instantly lost herself in his eyes, those green eyes that were filled with endless adoration and something else as well. Could it be . . . need?

“I’m really glad Hermione, because you and Ron are so important to me. I’d never want to do anything to hurt you.”

“I know.” She said comfortingly. They both laughed quietly, pulling each other into a hug. Hermione sighed at how his arms felt around her, she felt warm even though it was freezing outside. Harry took a deep breath, taking in the smell of her hair and the feel of her body close to his. She began to pull away from him but he held onto her, his cheek caressing hers. Its now or never, he thought. Hermione, please forgive me . . .

He brushed his cheek against hers and turned, placing the lightest, most loving kiss he could on her temple. She breathed in sharply, surprised and overwhelmed by warmth, and found herself unable to move.

“Harry . . . “ she whispered quietly, followed by a sigh as he placed another kiss on her cheek. She shuddered under his touch and he pulled away quickly.

“I’m sorry Hermione,” he said, panicked by her reaction.

“Its okay,” she said quietly. He began to back away from her when she turned to face him, reaching out her hand to cup his cheek. He froze, and then leaned his face into her touch. He looked up at her, seeing a flame burning behind her eyes that he had never seen before.

“Herm-“ he started, but she pulled herself to him, her lips finding his. He breathed in deeply as he realized what was happening, and slowly kissed her back. She wrapped her arms around his neck as he pulled her closer to him, his hands snaking into her hair. Hermione . . .

He brought his hands to her face, holding her cheeks in his hands as he pulled back to look at her. Her eyes were sparkling, and he felt more loved than he had ever felt before in his life.

“Hermione . . . I . . . uh . . . “ He stammered, suddenly unable to form sentences.

“I love you Harry,” she said suddenly, unable to hold it in any longer. He smiled broadly, and reached up to brush a stray hair from her face. He opened his mouth to reply, but no words came. A shadow crossed her face. He didn’t say it back . . . what have I done? She thought.

He suddenly stood up, looking down at her sitting, surrounded by snow, more beautiful than ever. He only saw the surprise in her eyes for a brief second before smiling and moving to the edge of the roof, and spread his arms out to his side.

“I love Hermione! I love her!” he shouted from the rooftop, a boyish playfulness coming over him. He turned back to her and they laughed together as she pulled him back down to her, kissing him again. They laughed between kisses, holding each other close.

“I love you Hermione.”

“And I love you.”