Chapter 5: Wednesday
The sun crept through the blinds of Hermione's window around nine in the morning. Beams of light followed along the carpeted floor, climbed up the bed, and tickled the faces of the sleeping forms surrounded by books. As the light glinted through his lenses, Harry squinted before opening his eyes. His first sight was of Hermione's face. She lay next to him on her side, her hair cascading down her cheek in disheveled tresses. She was awake and looking right at Harry's face. Had she been watching him while he slept? For how long? Light danced over her face, and Harry thought for a second that he could wake up every day for the rest of his life to such a sight.
Harry smiled, forgetting himself, and at that Hermione jerked her head away as if to erase or cover the swoon that clung to her face. She sat up on the bed and faced away from Harry, it looked like she was trying to hide a smile.
"This is becoming a bad habit," Hermione said, no doubt referring to their falling asleep in the same bed. Harry, however, was getting to like it.
"Yeah," Harry managed. "It's a good thing your parents aren't here."
Hermione stood up and whirled around. "What do you mean by that," she said with a smirk.
Harry swallowed his tongue. "Oh. Oh! No, no I didn't mean--that is, I was thinking that--um."
Hermione kept grinning as Harry stumbled over his words.
"They'd think we were up to something . . . is all," Harry finally managed to say.
"Who says we aren't?" Hermione said in a syrupy voice.
Harry's jaw dropped. Hermione left him shocked as she turned and walked coquettishly out the bedroom door.
Fully awake and struck by exhilaration, Harry ran after her. He caught up to Hermione shortly in the hallway and started tickling her mercilessly, fingering her sides and squeezing under her arms. With squeals of shock, and what sounded like delight, Hermione jerked and kicked. She twisted around with searching hands trying desperately to find Harry's sides and retaliate.
Laughing hysterically, Hermione grabbed Harry's arm and started tickling him in return. As he weakened his grip, she bolted out of his hold and sprinted down the hall still laughing.
Hermione was a surprisingly fast runner. By the time Harry made it toward the living room he had lost her around the corner. He peered cautiously over the couch back, thinking she might be hiding beyond the cushions.
Before he knew what hit him, Harry was pushed over the couch from behind. She must have been hiding in the kitchen! Harry tumbled onto the cushions with Hermione toppling over him, tickling him all the way.
Harry let out yelps of laughter, gasping for air as Hermione straddled him, pinning him to the couch. Digging at his armpits, Hermione lowered her head to his, a big grin plastered on her face.
"Gotchya now!" she said, faking a cackle.
When Harry's sides were about to burst he looked up at Hermione wide-eyed and stopped. He realized their noses were almost touching. Hermione must have realized too because she had stopped tickling.
Hermione's cheeks became suddenly florid and she got up off of Harry as smoothly and quickly as she could.
"Sorry," she said, still red. "Guess I got carried away."
"It's okay," Harry said. "I did too."
The two made their way stiffly to the kitchen to get some breakfast.
"You want to head out to the mall afterwards?" Hermione asked.
"Absolutely!" Harry replied, thankful for the shift in focus.
After a twenty minute wait at the bus stop filled with idle chatter, Harry and Hermione headed off to the mall. They went from store to store, though didn't find too much they cared to buy. They didn't have very much money and most of the stores sold clothing line products; neither of them cared for clothes much beyond practical purposes. Harry enjoyed the atmosphere more than anything, and the company. He caught himself several times reaching for Hermione's hand as they walked side-by-side and pulled his arm back sheepishly.
Outside the creamery, enjoying chocolate and strawberry double-scoop ice cream cones, the two sat down to rest. In the middle of their conversation though, an older boy who had brown hair and looked college bound walked up to Hermione, completely ignoring Harry. He said a hey, how's it going? with a smile and oozing tone. Harry's jaw tensed, the stare the guy was giving Hermione made Harry feel a streak of violence that was wholly different from his thoughts about Voldemort.
Fortunately, Hermione responded coldly to the stranger. "Excuse me," she said. "I'm in the middle of a conversation."
"What, is he your boyfriend or something?" The grease in his voice reminded Harry of Professor Snape.
Hermione looked at Harry with a smirk, and without looking up at the guy said simply, "Yes."
This made Harry jolt, and he couldn't help but grin stupidly.
"Whatever," the guy said, giving Harry a dirty look and slinking away.
"Sorry if I embarrassed you," Hermione said to Harry once they were alone again. "I only said that to make that creep leave.
"Oh," suddenly Harry felt a little sad. "It's okay, I didn't mind."
"Oh, good," Hermione replied, beaming.
Hermione got a few more stares as they walked around the mall some more, and they finally decided to leave when she was approached again. Even if he wasn't her boyfriend, Harry thought it was pretty rude for guys to just come right up to Hermione with Harry obviously walking with her.
The two left the mall and got on the bus heading for the library. Harry wasn't sure how to feel about this. He had enough reading last night, even if it did end pleasantly with them falling asleep together. At least at the library he got to choose a book on anything he wanted to rummage through.
When they arrived, Hermione curiously asked Harry if they could split up to find their own books. Confused, but being agreeable by nature, Harry assented and Hermione walked swiftly off, making her way upstairs and disappearing being a random aisle of books. Harry shook his head but just as soon went on his own way. He didn't really know if he wanted to look for anything specifically. A casual look over at a nearby aisle of nonfiction books made up his mind that Hogwarts had a far more impressive and infinitely more interesting library. Still, he attempted a search in order to avoid a crawling sense of dismay that was making its way through the back of his mind. He felt lonely.
Harry decided to forget about the nonfiction section the minute he saw a book on drills-it reminded him unfavorably of his uncle Vernon. He found his way to the fiction section and read a number of dusk jacket inlets from Douglas Adams to Brian Jacques. He tried to read a few pages into Redwall, but the nagging feeling of separateness kept him restless. He was growing so accustomed to Hermione's presence, he realized, that he felt like he was suffocating without her. He wondered what she was doing, what she was reading about.
Discarding Redwall, Harry thought that enough time had passed. He saw no harm in casually finding Hermione and seeing what she found of intrigue. Knowing her, it was bound to be more interesting at the very least. He walked out of the aisles and nonchalantly worked his way upstairs, sure she was still there. It shouldn't take long to find her; the second floor was small, holding only a few rows of books, a series of computer terminals, and an information desk.
After a brief search, it was evident to Harry that Hermione was no longer on the second floor. A tinge of panic crept over him. Where was she? He felt like he was in a pool, and too far below the surface of the water to make it up in time. He inhaled deeply. She probably just went back downstairs while he was looking through the fiction section. Going down the grand spiral staircase, Harry searched from aisle to aisle of the children's section, the young adult's section, the fiction, and still had no luck. Where was she? He had to find her soon.
He made his way quickly through the nonfiction section, walking toward the short huddle of tables in between the stacks near the far wall. Harry breathed a sigh of relief. There was Hermione sitting down and stooping over some book. Harry made his way quickly and quietly over to her desk, being mindful to act casual about everything. When he got close enough to see over her shoulder at the large book opened up in front of her he took a glance. Then froze. Was that--
"Is that a book on sex?" He said before realizing he was talking out loud.
Hermione slammed the book shut the minute she heard him speak one syllable. Standing up, she reeled around with the book clutched tightly in hand.
"What? No! Yes. No!" Her face grew pale. "I--I must have picked up the wrong book." She rushed off past Harry to return the book to its shelf, trying hard to conceal the cover.
All the while Harry stood stunned. He didn't know whether to smirk or blanch. Why was she reading such a book? Did she really find it by accident? Their stay at the library ended there.
"Well," Hermione returned, trying to hide the red in her face and acting as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. "We better head back. It's probably getting close to dark outside."
Harry agreed wordlessly and the two used the last of their meager money to catch a bus back home. When the bus finally rounded the corner and came upon Hermione's neighborhood, Harry got up the courage to grin. Luckily, Hermione didn't appear to see it.
After such a silent ride, Hermione finally spoke up and asked Harry what he had found while at the library. Harry told her all about his short foray into the fiction section as they walked past the houses along Hermione's neighborhood.
"That's neat," Hermione said generically to Harry. "See, 'cause, I was looking for information on witches given in muggle books, and I was looking for books on 'spells' when I guess I picked up that book by mistake." So that was her excuse.
"Someone must have snuck that book in the section I was looking in, because it's not alphabetical, and-" Hermione fumbled through her reasoning as they approached her door. Then she stopped.
Shuffling along the porch was Errol, looking all the more like an old duster. He had a note of parchment in his beak and finally squeaked as Harry and Hermione walked up to him. Dropping the note, Errol made a running hop, failed several times to take flight, then finally caught air halfway across the street.
Harry picked up the letter while Hermione waited. The embarrassment that hung over their heads a second ago disappeared as Harry unfolded the parchment and skimmed the short, clipped paragraph with his eyes.
With an ashen face, he looked up at Hermione and in a half-whispered tone he said, "Ron. . . ."
Author's Note: Greetings. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have reviewed my fanfic so favorably. I appreciate the praise as well as your constructive criticism and plan to take it into account for future chapters. Those who asked for more flashback about the previous summer with the Weasleys won't have to wait long, and to those curious about a possible "intimate" moment . . . well, you'll just have to wait and see. I would also like to thank Goddess Of Camelot for beta reading the more recent chapters and providing me with a number of great suggestions. The progression of the story wouldn't be half as good without her insight. Once again, thank you all.