All Tied Up

cheering charm

Rating: G
Genres: Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 5
Published: 05/01/2005
Last Updated: 05/01/2005
Status: completed

This is my response to Challenge #25 from Pumpkinpie.org's New Year's Even Fest. "For some reason or another, Harry and Hermione are forced to spend the evening bound by a three foot rope (magically bound of course), which puts quite a cramp in their plans with other people." So light and fluffy it's embarassing.

Chapters

1. All Tied Up

1. All Tied Up

This is my response to Challenge #25 for www.pumpkinpie.org ‘s New Years Eve Fest:

For some reason or another, Harry and Hermione are forced to spend the evening bound by a three foot rope (magically bound of course), which puts quite a cramp in their plans with other people.

I’m not particularly fond of this piece. It’s light, fluffy and totally not me. But, hey hopefully it will entertain you. And, fyi, the title is different here than over at Pumpkin Pie.

Do I really need to do the disclaimer? No one thinks that I own these characters or am making any money from this, right? Good.

All Tied Up

by cheering charm

**

January 1, 1998

I’ve decided that I should give people more credit, especially Harry.

It isn’t that I really think I’m the cleverest in the room, but most of the time I am. This sounds horribly arrogant, which is why it will only be written here, in my journal, and never said aloud. Last night it was shown that I am, in some subjects, terribly obtuse.

Here is what happened.

“Don’t you think you should get ready?” I asked Harry when I walked into the drawing room. I wasn’t really looking at him. Instead I was trying to poke the stem of my earring through the hole in my ear and having trouble trying to visualize where exactly the bloody hole was. When I finally did look at him after I’d achieved my goal, he was looking at me with a very strange expression, indeed. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were rather glazed. I immediately knew what was wrong.

“You don’t like it, do you?”

“Like what?” he asked after a moment of silence.

“My outfit. It is a a bit out there for me, isn’t it?”

Which is precisely why I bought the outfit, truth be told. I was apprehensive about it, but it’s very flattering on me and I decided to go out on a limb. And honestly, most people would look at what I was wearing and say, “That’s going out on a limb?” because it is still rather conservative. Basically, it is a woman’s tuxedo with a twist. Instead of lapels the “V” of the jacket and the cuffs of the sleeve are lined with black feathers like you would find on a boa. You aren’t supposed to wear a shirt, so the neckline plunges down rather far, exposing more cleavage than I knew I had. But it was disguised nicely by the feathers, so I didn’t feel exposed. But looking down…let’s just say I had quite a view. The trousers and jacket were tailored so that I looked much slimmer than I am in reality.

I knew I looked good, but I was concerned about my friends’ reactions. I didn’t really want to be gawked at all night. The look Harry gave me wasn’t reassuring.

“I wanted to branch out a bit,” I continued. “You hate it, don’t you?”

“No,” he coughed out. “You look, er…nice,” he said blushing and he began to twirl a strand of rope in his hand.

You may think that “you look nice” is not much of a compliment, but coming from Harry it was downright glowing. As much as I love him, he will never be known for his eloquence.

I then proceeded to quiz him on when he planned to get ready, what he was wearing, if Ron went to Luna’s, and then I informed him that Seamus was coming to pick me up at 10:00 (Harry was meeting his mystery date at the party). It was 9:30.

“Plenty of time,” he said.

Three very irritating words to a girl like me.

Nevertheless, I swallowed my irritation and we continued our small talk. He asked me if I had achieved my resolutions from the year ending.

“I don’t do resolutions, I set goals,” I told him in what I’m sure was a haughty voice. To be polite, I asked if he had achieved his; he said he had achieved all but one. I was more concerned about being on time so I wasn’t really listening. I was looking at my watch instead. He was still fussing with the rope, twirling it around, tying and untying it in knots and generally annoying me.

“What’s with the rope?”

Harry shrugged. “Found it.”

“Where?”

“Diagon Alley.”

“You are playing with a random piece of rope you found in Diagon Alley?”

“Actually, it was Knockturn Alley. But, yeah.”

You can imagine what this did to me. I proceed to berate him for picking up something that he knew nothing about, outside of a shopping district known to cater to the dark arts, no less.

Merlin, I can be a bitch. When he wouldn’t hand the rope over I grabbed for it and we began a tug of war. He was having a grand time by the look on his face. I was not. I stood up and gave the rope a big tug, pulling Harry out of his seat.

“Harry, you are being ridiculous. Give me the bloody rope!”

“Why do you want it so bad?” he said with a grin.

“Because it might wrap around your neck and strangle you, that’s why!”

“No, it won’t!” he said giving it a tug.

“How do you know?” I said tugging back.

“It just seems like a nice piece of rope.”

“Harry, give it to me,” I said, tugging it as hard as I could, which turned out to be a mistake.

The rope began to grow. My fears were confirmed as I watched three feet of rope grow and begin snaking its way around my arm, around my back and around toward Harry. His rope was snaking around him and coming toward me. Panic and fear overtook me. All sorts of images of our impending strangulation raced through my mind. I don’t really know how it happened, but the next thing I knew, Harry and I were bound, face to face, from our hips to shoulders in magical rope.

To say I was angry is an understatement. I’m not even going to write down the words I said and the names I called Harry. He kept telling me to calm down, that we’d figure out the counter charm, blah, blah, blah. I do remember this:

“To figure out the counter charm we have to KNOW WHAT THE CHARM WAS IN THE FIRST PLACE! A nice piece of rope. How bloody thick can you get?!”

I feel bad about that in retrospect, since I was yelling in his face, which was just inches from mine. I’m sure that I sprayed spit all over him. Eh, he deserved it. You’ll see why in a bit.

I began moving around trying to free us and the rope tightened around us.

“Be still, Hermione,” Harry said.

“Be still,” I huffed. “That’s the best you can do? At least I’m trying to get us out of this.”

“By squirming around?” he asked bemused.

“I didn’t know it was going to tighten around us.”

“Common sense should’ve told you that.”

Now I was good and angry, and he knew it.

“Overreacting isn’t going to help us,” Harry said in a calm voice. That should’ve been my first clue but I was so wound up that it went right over my head.

“Okay, fine,” I said, still stung by the implication that I wasn’t using common sense. I racked my brain and came up with what I thought was a great idea.

“Apparation.”

“What?” Harry asked.

“I’ll apparate into another room. Problem solved.”

“So then the rope will just tighten around me alone. That doesn’t sound very fair.”

“Well, this is all your fault.”

“My fault? You are the one that insisted on taking it away. If you would have left it alone we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe it is a timed charm and it just so happened to kick in when I was tugging on it.”

He gave me a withering look. I admit it was lame reasoning. I knew it was partly my fault, but I wasn’t about to take the blame.

“Right. Here I go.”

“Where are you apparating to?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“Because I’m angry with you, that’s why.”

“I can’t believe how you are overreacting to this.”

“I can’t believe how calm you are!”

“I can think of worse situations to be in.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. Just try to apparate,” he snapped.

I closed my eyes and concentrated on my room a floor above us. When the tingling sensation associated with apparation didn’t come, I knew it wasn’t going to work. With my eyes still closed I said, “I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“Yep.”

“Bloody hell.”

I sighed and opened my eyes. “Plan B.”

“What’s Plan B?” Harry asked.

“No clue.”

We stood in the middle of the drawing room in silence. I was staring at the Noble and Ancient House of Black tapestry behind Harry trying to think of what in the world to do. “Where is your wand?” I asked as my eyes settled on the burn hole where Sirius’s name used to be.

“Er…sorry?”

“Your wand,” I asked, looking at him. “Where is it?”

“Over there,” he said, crooking his head in the direction of the coffee table. “Why?”

“We need a wand to perform spells and mine is upstairs.”

“Hermione, in case you haven’t noticed, our hands are bound, too.”

“Yes, I know, but my left arm is bent up between us, see?” I said, wiggling my fingers in hello. “I think I can pull it out.”

“Won’t the ropes tighten if you move?”

“Probably, but I don’t have any other ideas, do you?”

“No.”

It took more effort than I thought, but I was finally able to pull my arm out. The only problem was that, because the rope was bound high on our shoulders I wasn’t able to put my arm down to my side like I had hoped.

“Bloody hell,” I said, my arm standing straight up in the air as if I was ready to answer a question in Transfiguration.

Harry was trying to hold back laughter, which just irritated me even more. “Stop laughing, Harry. It’s not funny.”

“It’s pretty funny.”

“No, it’s not,” I said, looking up at my arm. I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror over the fireplace and laughed.

“Okay, you’re right. It is funny.”

There really is nothing better than watching Harry laugh. Maybe it’s because so much of his life has been decidedly unfunny, but when he truly laughs it lights up the room.

“When did you get so tall?” he asked the laughter still in his eyes. He had a point. I was now eye level with him.

“It’s the shoes,” I replied. “Four inch heels.”

Harry’s eyes widened. “How can you walk in those?”

“Oh, they’re not stiletto heels or anything. They’re much more comfortable than I thought they would be.”

“I don’t know if I like you being as tall as I am,” Harry said.

“I do,” I replied.

It was about this time that my arm started tingling from being held straight up in the air. I couldn’t put it down to my side, so I dropped it forward and draped it around Harry’s neck. He looked shocked for a split second and I quickly said, “It was going numb. Hope you don’t mind.”

Then he gave me this look and said, “Not at all.”

I resumed staring at the tapestry. I was trying to think of what in the world we could do to get out of this mess. Nothing came to mind.

“At least Seamus will be here soon. Maybe he can help us,” I said, looking at Harry, who wasn’t looking over my shoulder as I assumed.

“What are you looking at?” I asked.

His head snapped up. Guilty green eyes met mine. “Nothing,” he said with a nervous laugh.

I looked down and gasped when I remembered what I was wearing. There for anyone close enough to see, and Harry certainly qualified, was the plunging neckline of my ‘out on a limb’ outfit.

“Harry Potter, you were looking down my shirt!” I felt the heat rush across my face and down my neck. I just knew that I was about to break out in hives, as I’m wont to do when I get nervous. It wasn’t until then that the full impact of the situation hit me: I was bound, very tightly, to Harry. His body was pressed against mine from shoulder to hip. His face was eye level and inches away from mine, a face that was turning a very deep shade of red.

“I’m sorry, Hermione. I didn’t mean to. Really.”

I didn’t know what to say. I turned my head to the side, too embarrassed to look at him. I guess he took this as an angry gesture because the next thing I knew he was whispering a contrite apology in my ear. “I’m really sorry, Hermione,” he said softly. “I was looking at the feathers and…well…my eyes just followed them down.”

I knew Harry wasn’t some sort of perve like Malfoy, who had a way of looking at you as if he knew what you looked like starkers. So I knew that his peek was unintentional. But there had been a second before I caught him that I saw the look on his face. His mouth had been slightly open in astonishment and his eyes didn’t have the usual, protective look of a best friend.

“You look very pretty tonight,” he whispered. This comment brought me back to the present and my head snapped around to face him. He averted his gaze, but not before I saw that he’d been staring at my lips.

All of the emotions and feelings that had surfaced periodically during our years at Hogwarts, and that I had tamped down each time because of Ron, Voldemort, Ginny, Cho, the Prophecy, logic and reason, rose to the surface and began waltzing around in my stomach. I stared at him, and it was his turn to look away in embarrassment. The realization that he wanted to kiss me hit me like a sledgehammer to my heart. What 19 year-old boy wouldn’t be thinking about that sort of thing after getting the glimpse Harry just got? Not to mention the fact that we were trussed up together, every inch of our bodies touching. I could only imagine what it was doing to him.

But therein lay the problem. I thought his reaction was due to him being a bloke and not because it was me. He’d never shown interest in me before. Therefore, logic dictated that any interest he was showing had nothing to do with buried feelings for me. Right?

Panic began to set in. I wanted to kiss him but didn’t want to do it if it was only a ‘hormonal’ thing for him. I wanted more. No, not marriage or anything, but I didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship on a randy snog. But what if I couldn’t help myself? I was now staring at his lips, in particular the corner of his mouth for some reason. It was mesmerizing.

I don’t know how long I stood there staring at the side of his mouth, but the sight of his full lips startled me out of my reverie. He’d turned to face me, staring at me eye to eye, and I began to regret the four-inch heels. I felt very exposed, as if he knew that I was enthralled with the corner of his mouth.

“Harry,” I began, with no idea what I was going to say. Maybe it was my mind’s way of telling my body to move forward and kiss him….

“See that bloke there?”

“Him?”

“Yes, Harry.”

“What about him?”

“Kiss him.”

“Harry?”

“Harry…,” I said again as we both began the slow journey forward.

DING-DONG.

“Seamus!” I yelled, jerking my head back and startling Harry. “WE’RE IN HERE!” I yelled over my shoulder.

“He can’t hear you,” Harry murmured. “Remember? One of the protections Sirius’s father put on the house was soundproofing.”

“Right,” I said, looking at Harry’s disappointed face. “Right,” I repeated as the door chimed again. “Should we try to walk over there and open the door?”

“No.” He stared at me for a moment. “The door is unlocked. He’ll walk in when we don’t answer. And I don’t particularly want to fall on my arse in the process.”

“Right.”

My emotions were all over the place. Relief at the thought of being rescued from the bindings and Harry’s kiss were what drove me to yell out for Seamus. Regret began loping around my heart as I saw the disappointed look on Harry’s face and realized that I didn’t want to be rescued from kissing him. Elation when Harry refused to walk to the door – the idea that he might want to pick up where we left off if Seamus went away – was followed immediately by despair when Harry said the door was unlocked and I thought that he wanted to be rescued, as well.

So we waited for Seamus to open the front door and call to us. Minutes passed. The door didn’t chime again. Seamus didn’t call out. “I guess he thought we left without him,” I said.

“I guess,” Harry agreed.

Now I really didn’t want to look at Harry. Embarrassment at my breathy voice, (“Harry…Harry…”) from minutes earlier made the blush return to my face and neck. For the first time I could remember, I was uncomfortable in Harry’s presence. I was aware that he was male and I was female, a concept that I’d always known, of course, but the differences between us took on an entirely new significance considering what almost happened moments earlier. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to look at Harry the same way again, no matter what happened. Despite being bound together, that slight movement toward each other had created a chasm between whom we had been before and who we were now. The admission of attraction, however vague, had changed us.

I struggled for something to say to return us to the sure footing of our previous friendship. My mind grasped on an offhand comment he’d made before the rope took on a life of its own.

“Tell me about the resolutions you made last year,” I said, my words running over each other in their haste.

He jumped at the sound of my voice. I wasn’t the only one lost in thought, it appeared. “Oh,” he said. He thought for a moment. “I didn’t think you believed in resolutions.”

“I just prefer to call them goals. ‘Resolutions’ sounds so weak, like ‘I’ll try to do this, but if I don’t, I’m not fussed.’ Goals on the other hand are concrete.”

Harry nodded his head as if contemplating what I said. “For instance,” I continued. “I want to lose weight; that’s a resolution. I want to lose 10 pounds; that’s a goal. People set resolutions really with no intention of following through with them. The things people follow through with are goals.”

“You reckon so?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s just my opinion.”

“What were your goals for this year?”

“To get Outstanding on my NEWTS, to get a job with the Ministry, to do everything I could to help you beat Voldemort….”

“That’s a resolution, based on your definition. It isn’t specific enough.”

I thought for a moment, the uncomfortable atmosphere from earlier disappearing under the weight of a good mental challenge. “You’re probably right. But when I set the goal, I didn’t know what would be necessary to help you. When I figured that out, I did it.” Harry lifted one eyebrow and shrugged a shoulder in reluctant agreement. “So, what were your resolutions?”

“To defeat Voldemort. To stay alive. To finish Hogwarts. To never see the Dursleys again. You know, the typical resolutions for a 17 year-old.”

“You did all those things, although I suppose there is a chance you could see the Dursleys again.”

“Not likely.”

“So, what was the resolution you didn’t achieve?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“It’s like a birthday wish. If I tell, it won’t come true.”

I scoffed. “You are the one who controls whether or not it comes true.”

He mumbled something that I couldn’t hear. When I asked him what he said, he replied, “Nothing.”

I could feel him looking at me, although I was staring yet again at the Black Family Tapestry. I resisted the urge to say “What?” because I really didn’t want to know what he was thinking. My stomach was fluttering again; this time due to the fact that I’d just noticed that he smelled really good.

“So, according to you, ‘stop being a coward and tell a girl you fancy her’ is a resolution because it is too general.”

My stomach plummeted to my toes. “Er…”

“Whereas, ‘kiss Hermione’ is a goal because it is specific, concrete,” he whispered, his voice catching nervously on the last word.

How my stomach was doing flip-flops while residing in my feet, I don’t know, but it was. It was a weird sensation, let me tell you. “Um,” I started, trying to convince myself that he was just using this as an example. “Yes, goals are more specific. Right.”

He was still looking at me and I couldn’t resist, though lord knows I tried. I turned my eyes to his.

Big mistake.

Now it was his turn for the whispery name chant. We leaned forward (not that we had far to go) but those few inches seemed to take forever. My head tilted to the right, my eyes closed, my toes tingled in anticipation, my heart beat wildly in my chest, I could feel Harry’s feathery breath on my cheek…

The slamming door startled us apart, our eyes opened in shock as our best friend called out, “HARRY! HERMIONE! Where the bloody hell are you?”

I wasn’t going to call out this time. First, I knew that Ron would come in here eventually, and second, I wanted Harry to know that, this time, I didn’t want to be rescued. Apparently, neither did he. Ron had walked all the way into the Drawing Room, followed by Luna, before Harry said a word.

“There you are,” Ron started. “What the…why are you tied up together?”

Harry dragged his eyes to Ron. “I had a piece of rope that Hermione wanted. We fought for it. It took on a life of its own.”

Ron studied us for a minute. Luna was standing beside him; her eyebrows arched, making her protuberant eyes appear to bulge more than normal. “Interesting,” Ron said. “Why haven’t you gotten loose?” he asked, with a smirk.

“We can’t reach my wand, for one thing,” Harry said. “Hermione’s is upstairs.”

“I’ll go get it,” Luna offered and retreated from the room.

“Even so, I can’t move my arm anywhere but here,” I said, my arm draped around Harry’s neck, “or here,” I continued, raising it straight up. “Plus, we don’t have any idea how to reverse the charm.”

“Where did the rope come from, Harry?”

“Dunno.”

“You don’t know?” Ron said.

“Here,” Luna said, returning with my wand. “Oh,” she said, cottoning on to the fact that it would do me no good when she saw my arm straight up in the air. She shrugged and tossed my wand on the sofa.

“Harry found the rope in Diagon Alley, outside of Knockturn Alley,” I said.

Ron’s eyes widened in shock. He opened his mouth to say something when his expression changed. He looked at Harry and said, “Oh,” as if he’d just realized something important.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” said Ron quickly. “I’ll go get Fred and George. If anyone can figure this out, it’s those two. Let’s go, Luna,” he said, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her out the door.

We could hear their murmuring conversation as they opened and closed the front door behind them. Harry looked at my arm still raised above our heads and said, “I think you can put your arm down, now.”

“Right.” I draped my arm over his shoulder, acutely aware of how intimate the gesture was now. Before I even had time to smile at him, his lips were on mine. It was so short that I hardly had time to register that it happened, much less close my eyes. “Sorry,” he said, his voice and eyes telegraphing his nervousness.

“For what?” I said, staring at his lips again.

“For this. Being tied up. For kissing you.”

“Why should you apologize for kissing me?”

He gave his shoulder a half shrug and looked away. “You probably didn’t want me to.”

I was glad my arm was free. I grabbed the back of his head and turned him to face me (and realized subconsciously that his hair was very soft). “Yes, I did, Harry.”

“Really?” he asked, his eyes lighting up. I nodded in response. “Brilliant,” he whispered in awe.

The next kiss was long enough to remember. It started out sweet and soft and turned into sensual before we even opened our mouths to each other. Merlin, he has great lips. And they just fit. There was none of the slobbery mess so typical of first kisses. It tickled when he ran his tongue across my lips and I chuckled, partly from that and partly from the giddiness I felt kissing him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, the nervousness returning to his eyes, along with a little bit of fear.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. It just tickled a bit.”

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” I whispered as I pulled his head down to mine. I hope I never forget how it felt when our tongues roamed around each other’s mouths for the first time. Merlin, the explosions that were going off in my body! I felt weightless, like a balloon floating in the air, tethered to the ground by a fine string. When he cupped my face in his hands and ran his thumbs lightly across my jaw, I melted.

“Wait,” I said, pulling away from him. I looked down and saw that the rope that had bound us for nearly an hour was in a puddle around our feet. “The rope. It’s gone,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Yeah,” Harry said ignoring the rope and pulling me back to him for another kiss. The mystery of the rope was too intriguing for me to keep my mind on snogging Harry, so I pulled away again.

“What happened? Why did it release us?”

Understanding that I wouldn’t stop until I had some sort of answer, he replied, “I don’t know. Maybe we stopped thinking about it. Put our mind on something else?” he offered.

“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced.

“Come here,” Harry said, holding my hand and stepping over the rope.

“Where are we going?” I asked, a bit nervous.

“Here,” Harry said, sitting on the sofa. “I’m tired of standing.”

I moved to sit next to him. “Nope,” he said, pulling me into his lap.

“I’m going to crush you,” I said, not wanting to put my full weight on his legs.

“I doubt that.”

You can imagine that this position encouraged some serious snogging, the likes of which I’d never done before. Thirty minutes had passed before I even thought about the fact that Fred and George hadn’t arrived.

Harry looked sheepish when I mentioned it to him. “They aren’t coming,” he said, looking down at our intertwined hands.

“Why not?”

“Erm…well…you know that unresolved resolution of mine?”

“Yeah…,” I said, a tiny sliver of dread creeping into my elated heart.

“Well, you see…you were it.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You. Kissing you. Telling you that I fancy you.”

I furrowed my brows. “What does that have to do with Fred and George?”

Harry coughed. “They know that I wanted to talk to you tonight. So they won’t come.”

“But what if we were still wrapped up in that rope? They wouldn’t just leave us here.”

“The rope came from their shop.”

It took me a moment but when I realized what was going on, I shot up off the sofa.

“You planned this?!”

He nodded his head, his eyes fixed on his empty hands.

“What about your mystery date?” I asked.

“You.”

“And Seamus?”

Harry nodded.

“Ron didn’t know or he wouldn’t have come to find us.”

“No. He couldn’t have kept it a secret.”

“How long have you been planning this?”

“A couple of weeks.” He looked up at me. “I’m sorry.”

I stared at his sad sack expression, his body language telling me that he expected me to walk out the door in anger, his eyes pleading with me to stay. I was torn between being furious and flattered. It is quite the ego boost that he put so much effort, energy, thought and time into his little charade. But then again, it was all a bit convoluted when it could’ve been so easy.

I plopped down on the sofa beside him. “Why didn’t you just tell me you fancied me? Ask me out on a date or something?”

“I thought you’d give some ‘can’t ruin our friendship’ excuse like and say no.”

This is where I realized what a clever little boy he really is. He knew exactly what I would say, in truth, what I’d been telling myself for years whenever ‘those feelings’ flared up inside me. He knew himself well enough to create a situation that would force him to push the issue. And, he knew me well enough that I would fall for the nice piece of rope ploy. Yes, Harry is a clever little boy.

“You’re probably right. I’ve been telling myself that for years because lets face it, you’ve never showed any more than brotherly interest in me before now.”

“Yes, well neither have you,” he replied. “Sisterly, that is.” He took my hand in his and ran his thumb across my knuckles. “Years?” he asked.

“What?” I said, staring at the rope on the floor and wondering how it worked.

“You said you’d been telling yourself that for years. What did you mean by that?”

“Oh,” I said. “Well,” I coughed to clear my voice, embarrassed with the revelation. “I’ve wondered about it before. But there were always lots of little reasons not to let the idea grow.”

“And now? Are there any reasons?”

I was staring at his lips again. “None that I can think of.”

He gave me a very cute lopsided smile. “Good.” He leaned forward, smile still on his face, getting ready to kiss me again.

I leaned back before he reached my mouth. “So how did it work? What broke the charm?”

He paused, lips pursed and replied, “Kissing.”

“But it didn’t release after the first kiss.”

“Serious kissing,” he said, sitting back and blushing. “When you felt…it.”

I rested my chin on my chest and looked at him out the top of my eyes. “It? Do you mean your tongue?”

He was blushing even harder now. “No,” he said, clearing his throat. He looked at me and pulled my hand up to cover his heart. “It,” he whispered.

“Oh,” I said and my heart did a somersault. Interesting that my insides were doing gymnastics when I’ve not ever been all that coordinated. “That.” I stared at our hands and I could feel his heart beating. It’s beating for me, I thought.

“Are you angry?” he asked.

I tore my eyes away from our hands and replied, “No.” His sigh of relief was audible. “But promise me one thing.”

“What?”

“Next time, just talk to me. It will be much easier.”

His mouth turned up in a lopsided grin. “But where is the fun in that?”

We never made it to the party. We stayed up snogging and talking until all hours of the night. Okay, we did more snogging than talking. We’ve known each other for 8 years; there isn’t much we need to talk about. And what we don’t know, we’re learning…slowly.

Now it is 5:30 in the morning and I’ve been writing for two hours when I was supposed to be asleep. Harry and I are spending the day together tomorrow, our first as a couple. He was the one that mentioned the ‘girlfriend’ term. It was so cute; he was so shy about it. It just makes me love him even more.

Wait. Did I say ‘love’? I meant it makes him that much more endearing. I could fall in love with him, easily. I probably already am. But I don’t want to label it yet. I want to go through all of the new relationship giddiness before I start declaring undying love. I don’t even know if that is what he feels, so I might totally be jumping the gun. Nevertheless, it is going to be a great year. I can feel it.