Impressive Instant
"And I'd give up forever to touch you
'Cause I know you can feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now
And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
'Cause sooner or later is over
I just don't want to miss you tonight"
~Goo Goo Dolls
Grimmauld Place was a much more awful place to be in these days. There was a certain feeling about the house that made Harry feel he didn't really want to be there. It had nothing to do with the people around or with whatever happened around - for he really appreciated the fact that Hermione was there with him instead of being with her parents, and that Ron... well hadn't had a choice as the whole Weasley family was in there too -. It had everything to do with the house.
Harry had never had a good summer in his life, but he was sure this was going to beat all the others. There were the feelings of guilt and incompetence, of a self-consciousness that he had never had before. A feeling that he was a deaf and blind git. And a feeling that that one brown eyed girl who knew it better than anyone, was not going to tell him anymore that he was.
As if that wasn't good enough, his feelings, along with the usual nightmares, had only intensified the moment he arrived at Grimmauld Place; and all of that, only made the house a worst place to be.
Nevertheless, when Harry awoke that morning after his arrival at Number Twelve, for some reason he will never be able to explain, the house felt a lot warmer that it had felt the day before.
He didn't realise Ron wasn't in bed until he had found himself walking down the stairs and the entrance and the living room, to find them absolutely deserted. He entered the kitchen, convincing himself he was dreaming, but then, he spotted her.
Brown bushy hair that was long until her midsection. Carrying herself in that Hermione way that she had, which could only be appreciated when she left down her thousand books. There she was; making his eyes open wide at the mere sight of her, making his mind understand he wasn't dreaming. There she was: Hermione, making toast. She turned around the moment she heard the door, though Harry had a feeling she had rather "felt" the door open. She spared him a look a couple of seconds before she broke into a broad smile, her brown eyes twinkling in the morning light coming through the window.
Harry had, for a moment, a vivid memory of her welcoming him to the house the day before. Brown eyes shining, not with happiness but with tears. Her whole body pressed to his in such a tight embrace that he knew he was going to be breathless. A need to hold her closer than it was possibly... a complete lack of care for the lack of breath. Her muffled sobs that he could hear from where her face was hidden in his neck. A breathless whisper "It's going to be better now, I promise". And it was then, and only there, more than twelve hours later, that Harry contemplated the fact that he had absolutely no idea which one of them had spoken those words. He was ready to start pondering about the subject, but then, her voice brought him back to the kitchen.
"Morning!" she said brightly. "I was thinking about waking you up, I've been waiting for you."
"Where's everybody else?" he said in response, shaking his head as if to shake himself back into reality.
"The Order's up in a meeting, and Ron left to Diagon Alley with the twins."
"He left?" Harry asked looking at the pile of toast she had made.
"Yes, he wanted to wake you up, but Mrs Weasley told him not to," she replied her voice clearly a lot less happy. Harry shook his head again and realised he not been nice at all to her. She's been waiting for you, you asshole and making you breakfast... what an idiot! Honestly! He smiled, he was now getting used to hearing her voice inside his head.
He raised his gaze to look at her and found she wasn't smiling anymore.
"You've been making me breakfast?"
"Yes I have," she said rather coolly. "Are you hungry?"
"Yes thanks," he replied feeling a little guilty. "Look, I'm sorry I was that rude. I... didn't mean to. It's a little disconcerting being back here, I'm sorry."
"That's ok," she replied not looking at him, but serving a pile of toast, a bottle with jam and a bowl with butter. She then raised her eyes and looked at him, and he felt that loving compassion that he knew he had come to associate only with her. "Don't apologise anymore, I understand, that's fine." She touched his arm for a second, holding her hand firmly, then she leaned in and kissed his cheek. "Juice, tea or coffee?" she asked him, her voice slowly warming up again.
"Pumpkin Juice?" said Harry.
"Me too," she smiled and turned to the sink. "Want to talk about it?"
He didn't need to ask what it was that she wanted to talk about, he knew perfectly well. And thought he had been unwilling to talk about it in June; once he found himself alone again in Privet Drive, he had felt a terrible urge to speak to her. Somehow, some unexplainable how, when he looked around and knew she wasn't around, he longed for her. He longed to have her, just to look at her and... talk. It wasn't about talking to someone, it was all about talking to her. He would have given anything for only five minutes of talk with her, and now he had her there, waiting for him to open up.
The only thing he took the time to consider was the fact that he was glad it was her who had brought up the subject.
"Sure," he said as she placed a jar of Pumpkin Juice and two glasses in the table. She placed a covered plate in the table before sitting facing him. "What's in there?" he asked absently.
"Pumpkin Pie," she said quickly, paying the matter no further attention. "Look, it's fine if you don't want to talk, I'd always would -"
"I said sure," he repeated cutting her off.
Hermione suddenly stopped what she was doing and raised her head to look at him, her eyes opened up in surprise.
"You did?" she asked looking at him. "Really?"
"Yes, I want to speak to you. Have for a while now," he took a deep breath as he motioned to uncover the Pumpkin Pie. Immediately, he started to feel as the knot in his throat he was getting used to, slowly began to tie. "I want you to know -" He trailed off not being able to cope with the knot. He glared down at his hand still clutched over the covered bowl.
He won't dare to look in her eyes, he felt himself hesitate, and attempted to gather his strength again. He concentrated his stare on his hand covering the pie, and was still looking at it, when another hand, a much more beautiful and tinier hand, took his tightly. His eyes followed the hand until he met her face and his eyes locked with hers. She squeezed his hand slightly. And even if he couldn't explain why or how, he was sure he could feel the knot in his throat untied slightly.
"The prophecy," he said and she squeezed his hand again as he looked down at their hands over the table. "It never broke."
She jumped slightly in her chair and laid her back against the headboard, but she didn't let go of his hand.
"Oh... I thought-" she began, but he cut her off.
"The record of the prophecy broke, not the prophecy, nor did its meaning," he looked up at her and the encouraging force he felt everytime she squeezed his hand and that look in her eyes, allowed him to keep on speaking.
All of a sudden, he found himself telling Hermione everything he had heard from Dumbledore last June; much more freely than he thought he would. It was as if he had kept this snitch inside of him all along and, the moment he allowed the first bit to come out, the snitch had flew away.
He tried hard to keep looking at her hand over his instead of looking at her face. Though at times, along the story, he found it impossible not to look in her eyes before continuing.
Nevertheless, whenever she gasped or opened her mouth in disbelief to cover it with her free hand a second later, he made sure he was looking at their hands over the table. Actually, he made sure he was looking at anywhere but at her.
"So, by making it short," he said when he had finished with what Dumbledore had told him. "It's a thing out of two: either he murders me or I murder him. All because he chose me." He breathed. "Got a mark on my forehead," he said angrily leaning back in his chair looking at their hands. In the middle of the insane fury he was feeling, he marveled at the protective way her hand was covering his. And through his anger and frustration, he wanted to point this out but couldn't find a proper way to do that within his English, so he remained quiet.
He didn't hesitate for a second, without a further thought, he turned his hand upwards and closed it over hers, intertwining his fingers with hers.
The silence in the room could have been tasted. Neither one of them seemed to remember the breakfast that she had made for them, and that was now laying cold between them. He broke the silence when he couldn't take its depth anymore.
"You've wondered why was I acting different since June, and it's not like I'm doing it on purpose. Only... I've always felt different from everybody else, but having a mark changed it all." He looked at her. "Don't you see? I'm not just a different person; I feel like a different specimen." He knew what she saw in him at the moment; the urge to point this out to her and how painful it was all over his face. If it had been anyone else, he was sure he would have been ashamed to admit how painful it was, but this was Hermione. Never with Hermione. She was his Hermione, not saying a word but completely understanding: always, his Hermione.
"I don't feel like a person anymore," he said. "I feel my life is already taken. I can't choose what I want to do, because if I even take the chance to choose, I'll be murdered," a visible wave of fear was spread on her face, but she remained silent. Harry knew it was taking her a great effort to do so, but she was doing it to allow him to pour it all out to her. And he was glad she was. He was happier than he could ever attempt to say.
"I don't feel like I have the slightest bit of power over my own life. Do you understand it Hermione?" he squeezed her hand tightly under his, turning to look at the window and feeling a cloud of water starting to block his view. "If I don't kill him, he kills me, and many more after me. But the thing is that I don't know if I can kill him... because I don't know if I really want to," he closed his eyes to stop the tears and she squeezed his hand.
"I feel guilty, 'cause there's a part of me telling me I should want to kill him. Telling me that he's the reason I've no parents. Telling me that's because of him Sirius is dead and Neville's parents insane, and you were hurt... And yet, I don't feel like it's within me to kill him... I don't know if I want to be a murderer," he opened his eyes to look at her, and what he found was way beyond his wildest dreams.
She was crying.
And it touched him so greatly that, even in his future years he will never be able to explain why that had happened. It wasn't the fact that she was crying, it was the way she was crying that touched him. The most deep hurt and concern could be seen in her face. Enormous tears kept falling out of her eyes and down her cheeks, leaving a wet trace all along her temples and the hand she was using to cover her mouth. And yet, she was immersed in the greatest of silences.
It wasn't at all like when Cho cried, which by the way, he found annoying. He had always had a feeling the reason Cho cried was to be noticed. Hermione, he knew that it was beyond him why it was so touching, but the sight of her crying with authentic hurt, gave him a tickling feeling that held his heart hard against his chest, as if his chest wasn't big enough to keep his heart inside.
It was much too honest to have Hermione crying in front of him, it was much too different. It was much too confidential, so much personal... it was intimate.
It surprised Harry that he thought of that word. He had never shared anything personal with anyone; he had never felt intimate with anyone in his life, ever. Until there had been her, and everything about the two of them was nothing but that: intimate.
Finding himself pouring all his feelings out to her, to see her, crying his own hurt and fears as if they were hers; there was only one word for it: intimate.
And it was this feeling, of being intimate with someone for the first time in his life, of being intimate with her, that blocked his throat and made him incapable of speak. It took him a while to find his voice again, before he could say what he still needed to pour out.
"It's not my fault that I've been so cold since June," he managed to say finally. "But I just keep thinking, telling myself that Cedric died because of me, Sirius died because of me, and just for moments I thought you had... too... and just the bare thought of losing you is enough to..." he hesitated trying to find words to say what had felt to believe her dead. He remembered his terror when begging to whatever heavens there were "Please don't let her be death".
Not being able to think straight, he had not dared to look at her, though he had squeezed her shoulder tight as if wanting to hold her life beside him. Suddenly all the fear he remembered poured out of him before he could stop it. He didn't bear the thought that they had almost killed her.
"It's all because I'm the bloody boy who lived, the stupid idiot with the save people thing," he yelled making such a hard pressure in her hand that he was surprised she hadn't tried to let go. "Because I'm the specimen that's got to save their bloody messed up world for them." He lowered his gaze but before he could even fix it anywhere he heard her moving from her spot, her fingers still held firmly to his own.
He was barely aware of what she was doing when she moved his chair to kneel facing him. She took hold of his chin with her hand to make him direct his gaze at her. He found her eyes behind the tears and a serious expression in her face.
"Now you listen to me Harry Potter," she said, tears still streaming out of her eyes but with all the Hermione determination he had grown to admire. "You know, deep inside, that when I said that I didn't mean what you just said," he looked back at her amazed. The last time he had heard Hermione speak like that to anyone, Draco Malfoy had been at the receiving end of it, and she had slapped him in the face right afterwards. "I don't care if you've convinced yourself otherwise Harry, but to me, you are just as human as you were the day I met you."
" Hermione...I, don't you see-"
"See what, Harry, for goodness sake?" she stopped him. "Just the fact that you can feel and that you're pouring it all out to me makes you a human," she said her voice softening. She let go of his chin and began to rub his cheek. "Harry do you trust me?"
"Hermione what are you -"
"Do you?"
"Of course I do!" he said feeling outraged at the fact she had even doubted it.
"Then believe me you're just as human as I am," she stated firmly all tears gone form her face. It took Harry a while to realize he was rubbing her temple, but when he realized it he found he was getting increasingly comfortable with it.
"It's just I..." he hesitated, trying to define his feelings. "I'm not scared of dying... I just don't want to!"
"Harry," she whispered, taking his face in her hand, and giving his hand a tight squeeze. "You're not going to die, I'm sure! Something within my heart tells me so." Hermione sighed and smiled a little smile. "And I trust it, I believe it's true, because I believe in you!" she said as she went back to stroke his temple.
Something he couldn't quite define about the way they were softly caressing each other's faces was too cozy to want to move his gaze from her eyes, let alone his hand from her temple. It was something way beyond just right. But he wasn't able to put what it was into words so he muttered the only word that came to his mind could fit at the moment; even when it wasn't everything he had wanted to say.
"Thank you" he whispered.
"Harry, Oh Harry!" she whispered back. She let go of his hand and before he could complain she had thrown her arms around him and was resting her face in the crook of his neck. "You don't need to thank me anything," she whispered between sobs.
As hard as it was for him to believe, he found himself holding her back and hiding his own face in her hair.
Then like a flash he could suddenly see it, like a movie inside his head, he remembered her clearly, hugging him for the first time. "You're a great wizard... Me? Books and cleverness, there are more important things..." her shining face as she run to him and ended hugging him at second year "You solved it! I knew you would!" Then he saw an image of Hermione rummaging into her clothes and pulling out the time turner. "Come here Harry!" Then her face smiling back at him just after he crossed the portrait hole "I brought you this, want to go for a walk?" and her smile at him after the first task. "Harry you were brilliant! ... You really were!" and her frenzy when he first arrived to London "It's just outrageous... They can't expel you, they just can't," he smiled to himself
"You always make everything look better," he heard himself saying. "You're an angel, you know that?"
She retreated from their embrace and looked at him, a smile beginning in her lips.
"Me?" she said. Smiling openly and shaking her head slightly she spoke. "Nah, I'm just doing my job," she whispered. Harry remained looking at her, his mind still hitting him unexpectedly with flashbacks.
He remembered her voice again "What if he's just trying to get you to the Department...? She had been right. He had a saving people thing and that was how Voldemort had tricked him in there. "Harry I'm begging you, please!" And she had been right.
She had been right and he didn't tell her that.
"You were right," he said. "When you though it was a trap," he said, not letting go of her but keeping her close to him. "You were right,"
"You know I wish I hadn't," she said locking her gaze with his.
"And I wish I had believed you," he said heavily.
"You didn't know -"
"I don't want to see you hurt, Hermione," he said moving one of his hands form her back to her face. "I could not stand it,"
"Harry, nothing's going to happen... -"
"Hermione I just couldn't," he said getting closer to her. "I mean... I...er... I need you!"
"Harry... I don't know what to say," she said closer to him. He could still see water in her eyes.
"Say you'll never leave me," he begged her. "Hermione please...-"
"I couldn't," she said and he was so close to her he could feel her hot breath. "I need you too,"
Harry then sighed and took her face in his hand.
"I'm serious. What are we doing?" Hermione frowned slightly and what Harry said next, he was sure had not passed through his brain for approval, it had gone straightforward, from his heart and out of his mouth. "I'm talking about us," he said, and, the moment he said the words, he knew they were the right ones. "Life's too short, what are we doing?"
Hermione looked at him for a moment, her face exactly like his, showing all the honesty of her words. "I don't know,"
And when it happened, it happened very fast. Because next thing he knew he had his lips against hers and it was just the best feeling he had ever had.
He had thrown his arms around her and was pressing her hard against him. The taste of her mouth inside his was not allowing him to think straight. A part of him was yelling at him, demanding to know the reason he was kissing his best friend in the world, and why was he enjoying it so much. Meanwhile the other part was telling him it was too good to even pretend to find a reason to do it. The feeling of her lips against his was not awkward, as it had been with Cho, but welcoming and familiar.
And when she moaned slightly and opened her mouth so that he was able to enter her mouth entirely; he felt he could kiss her until all breath was drawn away from him. He couldn't help but remembering her voice one last time. "Of course you're not"
And he smiled against her mouth, happy enough she didn't think he was a bad kisser. The way she kissed him back told him so.
"Sing my song
It's what I feel
Come and sing, man
This is real
From my soul
Coming and hear
I can feel
My senses, dear
Yeah, we'll shine like stars in the summer nights
We'll shine like stars in a real mind
One heart
One heart
One heart"
~U2
Please note:
"When it happened, it happened very fast" is from Lori's STNE
The last line I know someone used it before but I can't quite make who; so just to note is not mine.
The line "I'm not scared of dying, I just don't want to" is from Robbie Williams.
"You're an angel, you know that?" "Nah, I'm just doing my job" is from Sex and the City
"What are we doing? I'm talking about us. Life's too short, what are we doing?" " I don't know" is also from Sex and the City
As some people knows, I have this thing for quotes, so if I used any that's not mine without the credit, I apologize, just let me know.