Chapter Two: Feelings Uncovered
I accompanied Ron downstairs to the common room where Hermione was seated in her usual chair by the fire reading her Charms book; Crookshanks nestled in between her body and the chair. She looked up and greeted us with a beaming smile. I smiled back, not feeling the tiny butterflies storming around in my stomach at the sight of her face so alight. These recent feelings for my best friend were troubling me slightly. I had never looked upon Hermione as I am now. Before she was just my best friend, the book worm, but now…
I sat down in the chair directly next to her on her left side. While she studied her Charms book, I studied her face. What was once a child's face had grown and matured into a beautiful young woman's face. Her entire face had slendered, the baby fat leaving it, and her eyes were even more beautiful than I remember, pools of melted milk chocolate. Her hair had once been an unmanageable mess, but now it was a fortress that I wouldn't mind getting lost in.
Realizing that I was staring at my best friend in a way that I never have before I immediately turned my head away towards Ron, who was also staring at her, but not the way that I had been. No, he was staring at her because she was studying on a weekend, something Ron had no concept about.
"Hermione, why is you feel that you have to study every minute of every bloody day?" Ron said, irritation evident in his voice. He just couldn't understand that Hermione had to be better than everyone at everything.
She merely smiled and continued reading her book. Looking for an excuse to stop looking at her, I picked up the Quidditch magazine that basically lives on the table and began flipping through the pages. I had already looked through this magazine a million times, so it wasn't doing a brilliant job of taking my mind off Hermione. I decided to chance a look at her, she was most likely still reading and wouldn't catch me when I did take a peak. To my surprise, she was looking at me also. I must have made my surprise noticeable because she smiled slightly and went back to her reading. I don't know what these feelings are, but Hermione had awoken something in me that I didn't know was there until quite recently.
The heat from the fire and the comfort of the chair were making me suddenly feel quite tired and my eyelids became heavy. My head lolled forward and rested on my chest and my hands went slack dropping the magazine onto the floor. I could hear some shuffling and then the weight of Ron sitting next to me abruptly vanished and I awoke with a start. I glanced around to catch Ron retreating up to the dormitory and Hermione still sitting on her chair, though Crookshanks was now curled up on the rug next to the fire. Her book was lying in her lap and she was looking at me again with an indescribable look on her face.
"Harry…" she started. I sat up giving her my full attention. "…Will you tell me what was wrong with you today?"
I smiled and sighed. "Its nothing to worry about, I'm over it."
"Are you sure? It wasn't anything I did right?" worry crossing her beautiful face.
I leaned forward making sure she got the gist of what I was saying.
"No 'Mione you didn't do anything wrong…you couldn't ever do anything wrong" I added at the end. I was surprised with myself for saying that. What was going on with me?
She smiled, lighting up the entire room. Suddenly she stood up and stretched a little bit, making odd little noises that had me grinning.
"Well I'm off to bed…" She made a move towards the stairs. "…Coming?"
I stood up and also stretched, and walked over to her. She stopped me before I walked up the stairs and put her hand on my face.
"You know Harry, you have beautiful eyes, I don't think I have ever told you that before."
I could feel a blush rising into my cheeks and tried very hard to make it disappear. I smiled in return. The compliment had left me flabbergasted. All of a sudden she put her arm around my waist and in sync we began walking up the stairs together.
At the divide between the boys and girls dorms we stopped. I didn't want to let her go. I wanted to just walk back down to the common room with her and spend the entire night talking and staring at her. This was odd, I wasn't sure if I liked it very much.
In between my incoherent thoughts Hermione spoke.
"Well, g'night Harry"
Snapping out of my trance I looked down at her, and pulled her into a hug. She felt wonderful in my arms. Like we were molded to fit one another, it was definitely a feeling I could get used to. I put my chin on the top of her head and we stood there in silence for what seemed like forever before I finally placed a small kiss on the top of her head then reluctantly let her.
She turned from me and walked to the door, but before opening to disappear into the girls dormitories she turned, her hair swirling with her head and looked at me. I looked into her eyes, which was a big mistake. I didn't know what to do, I was lost in the abyss that were her eyes, they were so beautiful. Finally my eyes broke away from hers due to a loud snort from Ron behind the door I was standing in front of. I couldn't think of anything else to say to her, other than… " G'night Hermione, I will see you in the morning."
I walked in and shut the door, knowing she was still looking at where I had just been seconds before. I lay against the door feeling ashamed of myself for lying to her just then, because I knew I would see her sooner than the next morning. The fact that she had recently been plaguing my dreams every night had determined that.