Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine, which is a shame, because if they were mine, they'd be together by now and I wouldn't have to write silly little fanfics to quench my taste for pumpkin pie.
A/N: I remember reading someone in an interview by JKR that Hermione is just as insecure as the next girl, and I figured I could use that to my advantage. *rubs hands together and cackles* =P
Pretty
Staring blankly out of the window, Harry yawned widely, his homework laying forgotten on his lap. The essay that Snape had set them the previous lesson; 'Mandragora Restorative draughts can be used for which purposes?' was enchantingly nasty to write, and the absence of Hermione didn't help his situation. Hermione was currently in the library, having jumped up from her seat and dashed to catch it before it closed, in need of some sort of Rune Dictionary. Her absence meant that the common room was empty, as the Christmas holidays had started the day before, and only a couple of second years, Hermione and himself were staying; Ron had decided to spend Christmas with his family, and even though Molly had earnestly invited Harry to stay as well, he politely declined. He thought Ron ought to have his family to himself for once.
Deciding that he would abandon his essay until his best friend returned, he threw his work down onto the floor, where it hit the ground with a slap, and continued to gaze out of the window dreamily. The sky over the Hogwarts grounds had turned a dusky sort of blue, and carried with it the crisp, heavy air of winter. The sweeping lawns were covered in a sheet of soft snow, untouched except for the large Hagrid-sized footsteps leading from the castle doors to Hagrid's wooden hut, which smoked cosily from the chimney on top. Smiling wistfully, Harry sighed, feeling decidedly lazy. He was in a happy sort of mood, for no real reason, just sitting cosy in the common room was enough to cheer him up.
However, his reverie was broken by the sound of the portrait hole being hastily swung open and the arrival of Hermione. Harry spun around at the loud disturbance and opened his mouth to speak, but instantly closed it again when he found her crying. Her hair was messed up and her eyes red, as she gave Harry one tearful look, before covering her face with her hands.
"Hermione, what-?"
He trailed off as she hurried over to the girls staircase and rushed up it, flustered and by this time, positively howling. It was all he could do to watch as she disappeared. A second later he heard the dormitory door slam.
He sat in silence following the unusual outburst, listening to the whimpers and sobs coming from upstairs, before heaving himself out of his comfortable seat next to the window and made his way over to the girls staircase. Tentatively, he climbed the first few steps before realising his mistake.
With a clunk, he landed unceremoniously on his front, his chin hitting stone floor, as the steps leading to the girls dormitory slid flat. Before he realised properly what had happened, he hit the common room floor with a loud thud, loud enough to disturb the sobs from the room above. As he sat grumpily on the floor, massaging his very sore back and chin, the door above him opened and he looked up into the face of a watery-eyed, sniffling Hermione.
She stared at him with wide red eyes, tears falling down her cheeks before her mouth split into a shy smile, and she laughed softly, sniffing. He grinned back up at her, immensely pleased that she had stopped crying.
Gracefully, she slid down the steps to land gently beside Harry.
"I take it you tried to get into my dormitory?' She asked, her voice breaking slightly with lingering sadness. He smiled dryly.
"Yeah, well, I wanted to come see what was wrong… damn steps…" He replied, rubbing his chin where it had smacked against the floor.
She laughed softly and they fell into a silence, in which Harry glanced at her. Her smile had faded and she was once again looking upset, her brown hair falling across her face. They were still sitting at the bottom of the steps, and as much as Harry's back was aching, he decided that this wasn't the most comfortable place in the common room that they could be sitting. With a grimace and a little moan, he stood.
"C'mon. Let's go sit over there. Much more comfy than the floor, I should think."
She didn't move, instead her head sank lower as her shoulders began to shake gently. Harry realised with an inward groan that she had resumed her crying, although he realised that it disturbed him slightly to see how upset she was. With a small sigh, he tentatively offered her a hand, which she gazed up at tearfully, her eyes wide.
"C'mon," he repeated, as she took his hand, her own shaking slightly. "We'll sit over there, then you can tell me what's wrong."
He led her over to the sofa, vaguely noticing as they sat down that she had not yet let go of his hand. He figured that she was most likely upset and just wanted to hold it, so he said nothing. It wasn't like he minded it anyway.
She sat across from him, her head facing down and her hands in her lap, still grasping Harry's hand tightly. He looked down at them, intrigued, while she sat sniffling. Finally she spoke, her voice shaky.
"It was nothing, really. I- I just ran into- Dra-Draco Malfoy on the way to the library."
Harry said nothing, in order for Hermione to continue, though it faintly registered in his head that next time he saw Malfoy, he would get him back for making Hermione so upset.
"I don't know why it got me so- so upset this time…" she continued, squeezing Harry's hand tighter. He squeezed back reassuringly. "He… He just said a- a load of the usual stuff, really…"
"Like what? What did he say?"
She sniffed loudly, rubbing her eyes with the back of the hand that wasn't squeezing Harry's hand.
"Oh… you know… just that… I- I have b-bushy hair and that I'm- I'm ugly."
Harry snorted, which made Hermione look up, her eyes wide once more.
"And you believed him? Hermione, you know that anything Malfoy says is complete dragon crap."
"Is it?!" She said, her voice rising hysterically. Harry's own eyes widened slightly in alarm. "Is it really crap? Because if it is, how come no one really likes me?! "
"Don't be silly, Hermione. Of course they do." Harry replied, finding the idea completely absurd. "Me and Ron like you, you know we do. You're our best friend, you know that."
She moaned loudly, and Harry could only look on, confused. He was still vaguely aware of his hand in her lap, wrapped around her own, but was much more worried about stopping Hermione's crying.
"No, No, No! Not like that! I mean like fancy!" She cried, her voice breaking. "And Ron doesn't like me that much… otherwise he wouldn't keep arguing with me all the time." She added as an afterthought.
He could see where she was getting at with the last comment, though he wasn't sure whether that was the reason behind it at all. Of course he knew about Ron and Hermione's constant bickering, but he had come to his own conclusion behind the reasoning of it. He had long ago come to suspect that Ron had more than friendly feelings for Hermione, though whether she reciprocated was beyond him. He had an inkling that she might, however, by the amount of times she rose up to his arguments. Harry figured it was their way of letting out tension.
Thinking quickly, he tried to decide whether to tell Hermione about his suspicions, hoping that they would cheer her up, though if he did, he may be betraying Ron. Weighing up the options quickly in his head, he realised that, if he was honest with himself, he wanted to tell her, firstly to cheer her up, and secondly, because he was curious as to her feelings for Ron. For some reason, the idea of them both dating didn't hold well with him at all.
"Um, Hermione? You know…" He started hesitantly, gently tightening his hold on her hand as she cried softly in front of him. "I don't think that's it at all. I think the- the reason why Ron argues with you is because he likes you. I mean to say… he… likes you, likes you. Fancy."
It sounded strange even in his head, but he put it to the back of his mind. His main concern at the moment was to cheer Hermione up, not sort out weird things in his already messed up head.
"Really?" She said, not really sounding very enthusiastic, to which Harry's stomach gave a strange, guilty lurch. "Huh. I thought he just thought I was annoying…"
"I don't know, but I know that he doesn't not like you."
She sniffed again, her head tilted even further down, and Harry looked at her confused. Did she feel better now? He was no good with crying girls… he was no good with girls in fact and even though Hermione was his best friend, and they knew each other better than anyone else, she was still obviously a girl, which made things harder.
To his horror, she suddenly drew a great shuddering gasp and carried on crying, this time letting go of Harry's hand and bringing her hands up to cup her face again. It was all he could do to look on, helpless, not knowing what to do.
"I-I still don't -th-think-" she hiccupped. "I don't know- I st-still feel -ugly! He was ri-right!"
Panicking now, Harry looked at her wildly, trying to find some way of comforting her. Finally, he did the only thing he could do that would possibly cheer her up and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. She stiffened, and looked up, with good reason, he thought; he rarely gave anyone a hug, he always preferred them to come to him rather than give them.
She looked up at him, her eyes redder and more wet than ever, and gave him a small, shaky and watery smile before burying her head in his chest and wrapping her own arms around his waist, much to his embarrassment. He felt his face burning red, however, it seemed to be cheering her up a little, so he squeezed tighter.
"You-you shouldn't feel ugly, Hermione," he said, his embarrassment causing him to stumble over his words. He vaguely wondered why he was so embarrassed. This was only Hermione. "You-you kn-know you're not. Malfoy d-doesn't know what he's talking about, okay?"
She continued to sniff and whimper slightly as she pulled away from him, and Harry let his arms drop to rest his hands on her shoulders, still blushing furiously. He was glad she had her head facing down so she couldn't see, though it seemed like she still wasn't convinced; he spotted a few stray tears drip past her rosy lips to her smooth chin.
"I-I'm so sorry, Harry…" She whispered, shaking slightly with small sobs. His heart suddenly tightened as he watched her inwardly put herself down. "I-it's just that… I haven't had a proper boyfriend before, only Viktor, and I didn't really like him, I only did because he liked me, and I'm just fed up of not being thought of like the other girls are…"
"Hermione…"
"I'm sorry for taking all this out on you, I know you don't like seeing girls cry…"
She began to sniff and whimper more strongly and brought a hand up to run her fingers along her lips absent-mindedly. Harry watched as her finger ran back and forth across them, the wetness of her tears having moistened them so they looked slightly glossed, and, if he admitted it to himself, pretty. He couldn't understand how Hermione could think she was ugly, though he'd never actually told her that he thought she was pretty, he was sure he had told her before that she wasn't ugly. Maybe that was something he ought to do now. Anything to cheer her up.
"Hermione… Um…" The words stuck in his throat and she looked up, curious yet still obviously sad. He glanced at her deep brown eyes, noticing how the eyelashes fanned out around them, and noticed (maybe it was because they were on the subject?) that they were also very pretty. Shaking his head, he continued shakily in a small voice.
"I- I think you're very pretty."
Her eyes grew wide, much wider than before, and her lips parted, which caused Harry to jump inwardly. He felt very uncomfortable with the whole situation, but he had a vague idea of how to cheer her up. The question was now, could he get away with it with his nerves? Now was a good time to find out, he figured.
Her hand had dropped from her lips now, leaving them exposed and rosy, and Harry gazed at them, steeling himself to lean towards her. He faintly registered her eyes growing wide before he pressed his lips softly to hers, only really a small pressure on her lips, but it qualified as a kiss all the same. Shocked by his own daring, he pressed a little harder and hoped to Merlin that she would kiss back.
At first, she froze, her lips not moving and even though Harry had shut his eyes tightly, he could tell they were wide and shocked. However after a second, he felt her eyelashes flutter closed and she let out a soft moan as she slowly and gently wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, pressing her lips back against his. Letting out the breath he was holding though his nose, butterflies were raging war in Harry's stomach as he brought his own arms up behind her back and rested his hands behind her head, tilting his head slightly as she did the same. Tentatively, their mouths opened to each other at the same moment, and they moved their lips together, savouring the feeling. Shyly, Harry swept his tongue along her bottom lip, and to his surprise, she darted her own in before he had a chance to do anything else.
Their hands were growing more animated as the kiss deepened, Hermione's rubbing up and down Harry's back, sending tingles down his spine as he tangled his fingers in Hermione's soft curly hair, and brought his other arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. Their kisses grew more heated, though the feeling and sincerity of the kiss stayed the same, passionate yet meaningful.
After a few minutes, Harry felt Hermione pulling him closer and he moved as close as he could, before he felt her leaning backwards, bringing him on top of her. He'd never been this far with a girl before and his stomach was churning with nervousness, but he didn't want to stop. He gently climbed over her until he was straddling her waist, her arms around his neck, pulling his face closer to hers. As best as he could while still kissing her, he positioned his beside her head and leaned on them so as not to crush her, while the other moved down towards her body. Though before he touched anything, something clicked on in Harry's head and he suddenly pulled away, still straddling her, but he lifted himself up to lean on his hands, shocked at himself.
"We just made out!"
She was breathless, her cheeks red and her eyes no longer full of tears. Her arms were lying above her head on the sofa cushions and Harry fought back the urge to grab her and start kissing her again.
"Yeah… Is- is that a… bad thing?" She asked, her face and neck glowing, which caused Harry to notice her neck for the first time and how tasty it looked. He inwardly shook himself. This was ridiculous; he couldn't even look at her anymore without wanting to do something far beyond the borders of friendship.
"Well… I don't know," He replied, truthfully. In all honestly, he loved it. Kissing Hermione was definitely not a bad thing, but the circumstances surrounding them were not ideal. Still, he did not get off her. "I- I know really liked it though…"
"Me too." She grinned, somewhat naughtily, making Harry adamant that she was teasing him. "Can… can we carry on?"
"I'd like to. But what would happen if we do?"
She sighed, and looked away from him. "You mean Ron."
He nodded, and she made to get up, so Harry had to reluctantly climb off her. She sat up, as did Harry, but as soon as he was comfortable, she snuggled up beside him, and linked her fingers with Harry's, causing him to grin.
"I know you think that Ron will be upset… but he would have been upset even if this hadn't happened." She said, fiddling dreamily with their intertwined fingers. Apparently all trace of sadness was gone. "I don't like him like that. I never have."
Harry smiled dryly.
"I don't think he'll like the idea that I did this knowing how he felt."
"Well, how do you feel, Harry?"
He gulped. He knew Hermione had probably gathered the fact that he liked her, but if he was honest with himself, he had only figured it out this evening. However, if he was even more honest with himself, he couldn't understand how he hadn't realised it before. Everyone else had seen it, Cho Chang, Viktor Krum, even Rita Skeeter, just not him. It seemed the most obvious thing in the world to him now.
"I- well… You should know how I feel."
"I know you kissed me, Harry. For all I know you only did that to cheer me up." She stiffened slightly and stopped fiddling with their fingers. "You- you didn't, though… did you?" She added uncertainly.
"No! Uh… no." He replied, a little hastily, but it seemed to convince her as she settled herself again and continued her fiddling. "I… uh… I really like you. Really like you. "
To his surprise she let out a little giggle before replying. "I really like you too!"
She turned slightly to face him and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, which made him grin stupidly. She giggled again.
"So, don't you think that Ron, being our best friend, would want us to be happy, even if It's not him I'm with? Don't you think that maybe, if I'm not with him, he'd want me to be with the next best thing, his best friend?"
"You have a fair point."
"I know."
Harry grinned. Everything seemed to be sorting itself out. He would tell Ron when he got back about what happened between he and Hermione, and he hoped that he would understand. He wasn't stupid, Harry thought. He would soon see sense, he did with the Goblet of fire, and hopefully, he would with this.
He looked happily back at Hermione, who was grinning mischievously at him, a glint in her deep brown eyes. He grinned just as naughtily back.
"Now, I do believe we were in the middle of something?"
Harry never did get that Mandragora essay done.