Pretend
One Shot
Summary: When you were a child, didn't you ever play pretend? That you were a princess that lived in a castle? That Prince Charming would come and save you when the dragons came? My Prince Charming saved something from the dragons, but it wasn't me. At least I got the castle for real this time...
Disclaimer: Me? Own Harry Potter? Only in my dreams! No, sorry. I'm not the great JKR. I'm sorry I ruined your day.
Author's Note: Ah, my favorite one shot I wrote.
Without friends no one would chose to live, though he has all other goods. Aristotle.
My Prince Charming will come. I know he will. But right now, as I look around the Common Room, with the fire burning down low, I know it won't be right this second. Even though I want him, right this second. Ron is snoring in a corner table, huddled over his books. Of course, I forced him into it, but he's still trying to do it right?
I look down at my paper again. "'How to an Imp into a Goat' By: Hermione Granger." And believe it or not, that's all I have down. I've been working on this single assignment for Hours, and I only have ten words down. This must be some kind of record! The Great Hermione never spends more than four hours on one single paper alone! Some kind of conspiracy must be going on. There is one, in my mind anyway.
There's always a conspiracy going on when I can worry about Harry. God, where is he anyway? He should have been back from his date three hours ago! As soon as I think that, a burning jealously is ripping through me. That always happens whenever I think of Harry dating other girls. See? There it goes again.
The portrait opens and my head snaps up to see who's coming in. It's Harry, and he looked like he's holding... flowers? He's strutting up to me and I just stare, watching him wide eyed.
"Well, how do I look?" He twirls around like a prissy girl and laughs gaily.
"Just fine, Harry." I lie to him. He stops spinning and looks at me strange.
"Did you just call me Harry?" I blink my eyes and see Lavender looking at me. Okay, that might explain why he was twirling and holding flowers.
"Um, no of course not Lav, just playing pretend," She laughed as trying to brush it off.
"It's all right Herm. I know you've been playing pretend for a while." She winks at me before walking away; ignoring the looks, I give her quizzically. She turns back on the stairs to scream and jump up and down, before running up the stairs. Ron jerks awake.
"'Mione, what was that?" I look at him, but all I can see is Harry. I blink crazily and see Ron, rubbing his eyes, and shaking his head to get the sleep out of it.
"It was just Lav, Ron. You look tired. You should go get some sleep." I say with concern. He nods his head sleepily, but then wakes a tad more.
"Not yet Hermione, I still have some homework to do." I smile a small smile and reach up to scruff up his hair playfully when he brings his books over to my table and sits down.
"Tell you what Ron. I'll do your homework, just this once, if you promise me that you will not procrastinate and lose sleeps on homework anymore. Sound good?"
"Are you sure?" He's looking at me wide-awake now, looking confused. I just smile at him again.
"Promise,"
"Pinkie swears?" He holds out his pinkie to me. I grasp it in mine and fold it in.
"Pinkie swears." He smiles at me widely.
"I solemnly swear I will no longer procrastinate and loose sleep over homework." He leans over and hugs me lightly while giving me a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you. Good luck, and have a good night sleep." I nod to him as he smiles back at me while he climbs the stairs to the boys' dormitories. Not two minutes after he went up, I see Harry stumbling down the stairs. I rush to him.
"Are you all right?" He looks up at me sadly.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." I try to believe him this time.
"Okay..." I turn to leave but he calls me back.
"Hermione,"
"Yeah,"
"Could you help me? I sort of have a problem."
"'Course I will. Sit down then." He sits down on the couch in front of me and holds his hands in his hands. I sit patiently and wait until he's ready.
"I dreamt something terrible, you see. And I wish I never saw it. I just saw Seamus and Ron and you die! And I couldn't handle that. I woke in a cold sweat, and I just threw up right there. I can't sleep at night sometimes. It really bother's me."
"Is there anything I could help you with?"
"Could you get me a glass of warm milk? My mum used to do that for me a lot I remember when I was little."
"Sure. You can come with me. Come on." I stand up and walk to him and grasp his hand and haul him to his feet. He's shaking, badly.
I hug him then we walk to the boy's dorm and to his bed. I pull out his cloak and put it over both of us. We shuffle out of the Common Room and down to the Kitchen, where the elves gladly oblige to get him some milk... and cookies too. We sit there and just eat and sip for a while, not talking in a comfortable silence.
While we're walking back up to the Common Room, he stops and hugs me tightly. "Thank you Hermione, that made me feel a lot better."
"I would have always done that for you. You're a great friend of mine." He smiles at me, his emerald eyes a glow as we set off back up to the Common Room, hand in hand. We walk slowly, sleepily, until we reach the portrait.
"Butter yellow," He says and the portrait swings open. We walk to the couches again. "Thank you again."
"It's really no problem." He smiles and let's go of my hand. He walks up to the stairs and stops on the first one.
"Good night, Hermione."
"Good night Harry." He stops and looks at me. I blink hard and stare. "I mean, good night Dean. Sorry, I was just playing pretend."
"It's all right. See you tomorrow." And with that, he disappears up the stairs. I turned when I last heard his footsteps tread into the boys room, and slumped onto the couch. I banged my head on the backboard before I once again picked up my parchment and quill and tried to write my essay.
I didn't have more than one scroll written by the time the portrait swung open again. My head went up a tad, but it was getting too heavy and my eyes were getting too drowsy to lift. But I felt it was he this time. I knew it was him, from even when he's having the worst day ever, he's carrying himself in such a way you know he is grand and someone you don't want to mess with. But his feet were dragging, and it looked like it was a chore just to move.
He sat on the couch next to me and leaned back far, while cracking his neck and fingers. He sighed slightly, and laid his head on my shoulder in exhaustion.
"Harry, come on. I have to finish this." He looked up just to see what the essay is, before taking the quill and parchment right out of my hands and setting them down on the table next to him.
I was opening and closing my mouth, gaping like a fish, when he put his head back down on my shoulder and snuggled closer to me.
"Hermione, I don't know how you do it, but you always get the homework assignments before they assign them. That is probably due in two months." He lifted his head only enough to look into my eyes with his boyish grin and take his glasses off, before wrapping his arms around my waist and snuggling even closer.
"For your information, it is due in two months and three days, but your answer was close enough." I said smugly to him, when I got my breath back. He laughed a little, and I felt his breath race across my skin, and spread goose bumps where it didn't even touch.
"Cold, `Mione?" He asked me sweetly, while taking his arms from my sides and rubbing them down my arms. His hands were warms, and so soft. I could just feel them running across my bare stomach and massaging there way down to-
"Hermione, are you all right?" He was shaking me a little. I snapped out of the trance and looked in his eyes.
"Yes, yes I'm fine." I looked away when I said this, for I didn't want him see that whenever I was around him I was never fine.
"You're lying." He said simply.
"I'm pretending. And thank you for that observation, Captain Obvious." I grinned down at him impishly, and he again, laughed a little.
"You're quite welcome." We fell into a small silence, which was only broken when Harry stood up to go find a blanket.
"How was your date?" I said uncomfortably. He seemed to stiffen when he was bending down to reach the blanket on one of the other couches. He turned around and I saw that his face was hardened a little.
"It was a disaster." The evil best friend in my mind yelled, `SCORE!'
"Why?"
He made me lay down, and then he draped the blankets over both of us once he laid his head in my lap and lay down. I instinctively reached down and twirled some of his ebony hair around my finger. His fingers were running up and down the bottom of my pants leg, and it took him a long time to answer.
"It just, it just didn't feel right. Everything was wrong. I never want to go out with Sally-Anne again. But I don't know how to break it to her. She was a really good girlfriend, sweet, and understanding.
"And she knew how to make me laugh, even if it was only under my breath. I don't know what went wrong though. I mean, it seemed like she just wanted to be with me, Harry Potter, instead of the Boy who lived. And you know I look for that. But I don't know she just didn't compare."
He sighed and pulled the crimson blanket higher up on his body, now covering his torso and some of his neck. He looked funny. He turned in my lap, his face now staring directly at my thigh. He sighed again, and I felt it ripple through out my body.
We didn't talk for a long while; his breath was still running through my system, from my right thigh onward. His breath gradually became rhythmic. I hated to wake him up, but we couldn't just sleep on the couch! People would suspect things! ...And he still had to tell Sally-Anne.
"Harry." I shake him gently. I feel his body moves against mine, and it feels really, well, good, like we fit together. I shake him again. "Harry." I say gently. I get a grunt, and his head snuggles into my thigh.
Then I guess I'll just stop being the pillow. I slowly pulled my leg from his grasp, but he moaned in his sleep and pulled on my leg unexpectedly, catching me by surprise and throwing me off balance. I hit the floor with a satisfying thud. Harry's up immediately by my side.
"Are you okay? I didn't hurt you did I? I didn't mean to! Oh Hermione please forgive me!" He's rambling on, and I don't even know what he's saying. Well, okay I do, mainly because he's speaking Babble-Tongue. It's my native language and all.
"Harry! Calm down! Deep breathes! I'm fine! Just let me sit still for a moment." He nodded reluctantly, and sat on his heels next to me, his eyes sweeping over me, checking for obvious injuries and bruises. I stood up, and Harry stood up with me as well, like my shadow.
"Harry, I'm fine okay? I'm really tired though, I want to go to bed. I'll see you in the morning." I stared at him waiting for the affirmative. He nodded slowly, and yawned really wide, before pecking me on the cheek.
"Night, see you in the morning?"
"The morning,"
"All right, fine. Bye." And he stomped off playfully to the boys' dorms.
I watched him go until he was out of sight. Well, of course I watched until he was out of sight or else I would be able to watch through the walls and see him undress- okay! Let's stop that track of thinking right there.
I trudged up to my bedroom and slowly undressed from my casual clothes into my warm pajamas. A cotton tee-shirt that said `Rocking This Party' with a little ducky in a pink ballet suit spinning around and long plaid flannels bottoms. They were long enough to reach the bottom of my heels. I sat in my bed and pulled the curtains around me, engulfing me into darkness. I pulled the sheets up to my neck, just as Harry did, and fell into a deep sleep.
I woke up at around 3 AM to hear something keep slipping and falling in front of our door. I yanked back the coverings and ambled out of bed. I opened the door and looked down. The stairs were a slide, and I saw a hunched figure at the bottom of the stairs, shaking and sobbing. I slid down carefully, and landed right next to the person. He immediately threw his arms around me and sobbed in my shoulder.
I rubbed his back soothingly, whispering sweet nothings to the person, while their tears seeping through my shirt and dripped down my skin. He finally pulled back and wiped the remaining tears on his shirtsleeve.
"It's okay Harry, you're fine here." He nodded sadly, and looked like he was about to cry again. I held his hand and led him over to the couch.
"I dreamt I was at the Department of Mysteries again. I saw Sirius falls through again, and then I saw Remus and Tonks being killed by Death Eaters! And then I saw you fall again, but this time, you didn't wake up. And Ron was choked to death by the brains, and- and," He stopped talking and had to cry again. I just held him tight and let him cry all that he needed.
"Harry, you know that didn't happen. Yes, Sirius fell through, but he's still here with you." I held my hand over his heart and felt it beating wildly in his chest. I kissed the side of his head and let him cry.
He must have cried for hours that night, and we were sleeping on the couch by the time that everyone was coming down. He had his head rested on my stomach, and I was hugging him extremely tight and close. Ron was the first to come down, so he made sure that we were up before anyone could come down and suspect anything. We both thanked him from saving us from what would be an extremely embarrassing situation. I followed Harry up the stairs to the boys' dorms.
"Harry," I said simply, while finding a good place to sit on his bed. I got a grunt and a curious look, but he kept on looking for some clean clothes in his trunk. I gently got off his bed and removed the clothes from his hands. I led him by his shoulder to his bed. "You have to sleep. You must have only got three hours last night. Lie down, go to sleep."
He tried to get up, but I sat on his torso until he stopped struggling.
"NO. SLEEP. Do it, or I'm not going to help you with your homework." He just stared at me. I laughed at the expression. "Good boy, night. I mean, morning." I said to him getting up and walking out.
Now, to even try and get rid of my urge of all things Harry, I had a date this morning. I know, I know, I couldn't abandon him at a time of need, right? Well, he just really needs to get some rest today, and I need something to do, considering whenever I go to the teachers to get the homework three months in advanced, they won't give it to me anymore. So, a date it is then.
I had a date with Terry Boot. And we were out in Hogsmeade. At the moment, we were drinking Butter beer's in the Three Broomsticks, and we were just talking about nothing really. Study plans, where we want to go in life, when Harry comes bursting in. The whole bar goes silent. But he doesn't notice he just goes straight to me.
I'm again opening and closing my mouth like a fish, and he pulls me in an even tighter hug then the one we had this morning. By the time I had my senses in the right priority, I'm hugging him tight and rocking him slowly, and he has tears flowing again. Of course, I'm the only who can tell they're there, considering they are in my hair. He's that much taller than I am. Everyone is just watching us now, but we don't care, we just need each other for the moment.
When he finally loosened his grip and wiped his eyes, he must have realized where we were, and all the people that were watching us. He sent them all a death glare, and they all shrank back and went back to their drinks. I looked over to Terry, with a pleading look.
"He needs me." I mouthed to him. He nodded and sighed slightly, but smiled.
"It's all right, I understand. It was fun while it lasted though. I wish I had great friendships like you two have." He gave me a small one-armed hug, and left after he pecked me lightly on the cheek. Harry had a protective arm around my middle, and it was a little tighter than comfortable. I giggled to myself, thinking that Harry thinks that Terry is going to turn into Voldemort and Avada Kedavra me.
His grip loosened when Terry was gone from our sight, presumably going to the castle. He said before in our date he really needed to study more. Harry stayed with me all day and all night, ignoring the evil looks that Sally-Anne was giving me. He must have told her...somehow. And I loved him so much right then. But I just couldn't tell him.
After that night, he never came to cry to me anymore. He never did seem to cry. But I could tell I could tell he was pretending. And I felt for him. My heart reached out for him. But I never told him I loved him. All those times I was with him, and all the bravery I had, I couldn't muster enough to tell him that I loved him. I must have been pretending then.
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