Everything you recognise belongs to JKR and Ure. This is a rip-off or an adaptation, to please myself, of Ure's gentle bawdy frolic 'You win some, you lose some'. You have been duly warned.
Chapter 12 Have a pomegranate
He had been wanting her even before his diabolical pursuits of experience. He hadn't known back then, having thought that she hadn't been interested. Then he had been worrying away at 'the rest of the rubbish': enticing hang-up Sally-Ann to go back to his room, coaxing indecisive Mandy to stay, humouring fastidious Cho to go way with him for one night, braving the lion's den to be eaten by insatiable Daphne. From the girls, he had wanted just the One Thing (was it unreasonable?). It was a good job (or too bad), come to think of it, he hadn't made it. Or he would be in an even worse muddle with Hermione. If there was one thing he was sure of, it was that from Hermione he wanted many things.
He'd like her to spend time with him. He'd like her to talk to him even in her monologues. He'd like her to listen to him (she understood things, she made his conversation easy). He'd like her to argue with him although he lost more than he won. He'd like her to tell him off when he was reckless. He'd like her to laugh at him: he didn't mind. He'd like her to save him when he was a boy in distress (why not!). He'd like her to walk with him, their shoulders touching (occasionally). He'd like her to play charades with him: kissing him under the tree. He'd like her to swim with him (She had to wear bathing suit). He'd like her to look at him, warm and comforting (sometimes cool or demanding). He'd like her to beam at him with her dewy eyes and shining face. He'd like her to soothe him when he was angry or in pain. He'd like her to hug him (tightly, or knocking him flat!).
Hermione was one in a million. He'd like to watch her (she's a sight: bushy hair in French plait). He'd like to smile at her. He'd like to keep her safe. He'd like to keep her all to himself. He'd like to hold her. He'd like to smell her. He'd like to indulge her. He'd like to spoil her. He'd like to touch her (not too much in case she didn't like it). She's warm. She's soft. She's heart-stirring.
He wanted her. Did she want him? She had wanted him to go home with her. She had wanted to be sure He had not got engaged. She had been jealous of Terry. She had wanted to make Harry jealous (She succeeded. Wasn't she clever?). What did she want from him? What was he allowed to do to her? What was he going to do? He couldn't decide. He desired her. He wouldn't like to scare her. He wouldn't like to be the 'little randy sod'. He couldn't imagine she'd like it. No, he dared not let himself pant after her (as if he hadn't been!).
He agonised long and hard before finally telephoning Hermione and inviting her round for dinner. Even if what Terry said were true (and grudgingly he had to admitted that Terry did some times seem to know what he was talking about) Harry still couldn't bring himself to approach Hermione in quite the same cavalier spirit as he would Sally-Ann and Mandy. Sally-Ann and Mandy could take pot luck: for Hermione a special effort had to be made. (He remembered that on the only previous occasion she had come round he had purposely, as an act of defiance, left the bed unmade and the floor strewn with clothes. He coloured, now, for his own uncouthness.)
On Friday, in his lunch break, he went shopping in the store. 'And what we have here?' said Terry, 'Candles, already? Paper serviettes - bottle of vino. Are you by any chance entertaining royalty?'
He could hardly have gone to any more pains (or zeal?). Immediately on his return from training he tidied up the room, making Terry's bed as well as his own, thrusting odd garments, willy nilly, out of sight into the first drawer or cupboard that came to hand. Couldn't he do it all with just a swish of his wand? Easily. But, doing it by hand would blow off some of his steam (he hoped). He removed the dust of ages from window ledges and mantelshelf with the help of his wand (literally, thankfully) and an old pair of socks.
After cleaning the room he had a quick shower, dressed himself in clean clothes and spent five minutes in front of the mirror attacking his hair, an operation he was not normally bothering with (any point with such stubborn hair?). He toyed with the idea to scraping off what had by now become an unmistakable shadow on his chin and cheeks, but finally decided against it. He wouldn't want to appear too green (Wouldn't the stubble look distinguished in the candlelight?). He turned his attention instead to laying the table.
In the centre of the table, he stuck a candle in a cider bottle, the other candles he stood about the room in saucers. When they were all alight, the effect was quite like something out of the Prick's clever French films which he insisted they all watch (Terry ought to get together with the Prick, they'd probably go down a treat with each other). There was a faint fresh aroma from the candle smokes: the smell of genuine bluebell wood.
He had told Hermione to get there for eight o'clock. At half past seven, he went down the road to fetch dinner. It hadn't been easy deciding what to have. He didn't compete with artichokes or avocados (no point in trying) but he certainly wanted to impress. He finally settled down for Chinese (He liked the cruisine himself); and just to show he not only listened to what she said but actually took note of it he ordered nothing but vegetable stir-fries and tofu dishes. They plainly thought he was mad (or stingy!) but they came up with the goods: he trotted back home with a selection of five different, colourful vegetable stir-fries and a couple of tofu dishes, remembering, on the way, to stop off for a bottle of chilli sauce (Hermione liked her food hot, he hoped she'd liked something else hot as well.) for flavouring and a few of pomegranates for afterwards.
Hermione arrived precisely on the dot of eight o'clock. She was wearing a little cornsilk-coloured dress similar to the dress she had worn to the party and had her hair braided in a French plait. She'd taken doing it that way quite a lot just lately: he couldn't help wondering if by any chance the Gawker had expressed a liking for it or not. (That gawker!)
He led her upstairs to his candlelit cavern. Gratifyingly, the first thing she said as they entered was, 'Harry! It smells like bluebell wood!' and she beamed at him with pleasure. She even liked the candle light in the cider bottle.
He didn't tell her that they had Terry's cider bottle to thank; he thought the less said about Terry the better. As it happened, it was Hermione herself who mentioned him.
'Is Terry out?' she said. She said it cautiously, as if half expecting he might be hiding somewhere in a cupboard. 'Or is he --'
'Out,' said Harry. 'Feel like some music?'
He sorted through the CDs in search of something suitable. There wasn't very much. Those slurpy dirty ballads were plainly out of the question, and so was the angry and aggressive stuff. No one wanted angry and aggressive music with Chinese food or the girl who came to dine. They played a CD full of light nature sounds of the sea and birds, one of her favourites.
The wine he had chosen was also one of her favourites (Wasn't it a good thing to dine your best friend? You knew what's her favourite). 'And nothing but vegetables,' he said. (Wasn't he anxious for approval?)
'Yes, and you see --' she gazed at him, earnestly, across the table - 'we don't actually miss not having meat, do we? I mean, if you didn't know you wouldn't have noticed. Or would you, do you think?'
At that moment he wouldn't have noticed what he was eating. It had just come to his attention that under the little cornsilk dress, all openwork and lacy, she wasn't wearing any bra (No, the dress wasn't of fish-net style. No. But You could tell one was not wearing a bra without actually seeing the flesh, couldn't you?). Not that she really needed one - at least, not for the purposes of control. At the same time, no one could have called her flat-chested. Definitely not (He should know! Hadn't he hugged her enough by now? And he's not a monk).
'Would you?' said Hermione.
'Would I --' For just a second, such was the state of his mind, he thought she was putting to him the question that Ron often used to put (when Hermione was not with them), ogling after some passing female, 'I would … would you?' (Ron asked.)
Then he realised. 'Oh!' he said. 'No. No, I don't expect I would.'
'That's what I keep telling Auntie Loveday. She keeps trying to force pork chops and things down me, and … it's not necessary. You don't need it.' (Hadn't she a hang-up about meat and vegetarian food? He found he didn't mind Hermione having hang-ups. On the contrary, he thought that's very reasonable and sensible of her. Was he hopeless?)
'That's right,' said Harry. 'You don't.' He wondered what she meant by not wearing a bra. He wondered if he dared to ask her. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to treat her as the object of his wants. (She was the object of his affection, that he was sure. And he had been thinking of her as the object of his wants. But actually acted it?) All very well Terry saying she was only flesh and blood, but there was flesh and blood and there was flesh and blood. Hermione just wasn't the same as all the others of the female population. He did want her. He was even more stirred up now.
'You can get all the protein you need,' she was saying, 'out of vegetables.'
'But then of course,' said Harry, 'man cannot live by the potato alone.'
She looked at him and giggled (Hermione's giggling never was of stupidity. It did things to him. It caused funny feelings on his body).
'I'm not suggesting we live on potatoes,' she said.
'Ah. That's all right, then. I mean --'
What did he mean?
He knew what he meant; it was just a question of finding the words to put it in. (So much for the easy conversations with Hermione.)
'I mean … there are other things in life.'
'Oh, yes,' said Hermione. 'Eating is only a functional necessity.'
That wasn't what he meant. (It was like explaining queer to Hebe, now.)
'There are some muggle scientists,' said Hermione, 'who are researching on nutrient pills as an alternative to food. If they were proved successful, then we wouldn't have to bother sitting down to meals at all.'
This wasn't very promising. He obviously wasn't expressing himself forcibly enough (or she was really made of 'sugar and spice', completely devoid of blood and flesh).
'What I mean --' He pushed his hair back out of his eyes, giving himself time to think. 'What I mean is, there's still a lot of the beast in us.' (He hoped he wouldn't have to resort to the zoo again.)
'Oh, well, of course! But that's what civilisation's all about, isn't it? Suppressing mere animal instincts in favour of more humanised ones.' (Must she think with only her brilliant brain, expansive knowledge, and cool logic? Where was her flesh and blood?)
'Except we can't suppress them all,' he said. 'Otherwise humanity would just come to a full stop.' Unless she wanted to start doing it entirely by the test tubes or cloning. But then, if that was the case, she surely wouldn't be wearing a little cornsilk dress full of tiny holes without any bra underneath? He cheered up.
Hermione stared at him. Then the pinkness was rolling back over her soft complexion and her tender skin exposed by the little dress. He caught the glimmering lights in her soft brown eyes before she cast them down to her plate (At last!).
'Have a pomegranate' he said, 'I've washed, carved and broken them open… can't get more civilised than that.'
Actually, as he quickly discovered, you could: it helped if you had nut pickers. They had to resort to fingers and occasionally squatted little jets of the juice on each other. (Pomegranate juice!)
Hermione was kneeling on the floor by the CD player, looking at the CD that had been Mandy's favourite.
'I don't think you'd like that one,' he said.
'Why not?' (Obviously she didn't know what's inside.)
'I just don't think you would.' It wasn't the sort of atmosphere he wanted to create: it didn't go with the candlelight and the bluebell wood aroma, or with the girl he had always wanted. Firmly, he took it away from her. What was needed was something beautiful and romantic, but knowing Terry that was probably too much to hope for.
'Let's have this one,' said Hermione.
He peered at it.
'Joachin Rodrigo - Concierto de Aranjuez?' (Lucky he knew Spaniard pronounced 'j' as English 'h'.)
With misgivings, he put it on. He still had unhappy memories, from the Dursleys, of being forced to listen to Beethoven.
'Is it any good?'
'It's great. The second movement's beautifully sad,' said Hermione. 'Honestly … I could die to it.' (Wasn't she quirky? Somehow, Hermione's quirkiness did things to him too and made him yield to her. Hopeless!)
He didn't want her to die to it; he wanted her to get turned on by it. He didn't see how anyone could get turned on by a sad concerto.
'D'you want to come and sit on the bed?' he said. 'It's more comfortable there.'