"Symbiosis" (1/?)
By MmeFleiss
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
AN: Thanks again to Jenn over at AFFBetaReaders for going over this for me. Any mistakes left are mine. Since this is a work in progress, earlier chapters might be edited as the story goes along for the sake of flow. If this or the fact that it will take a while for each subsequent part to come out bothers you, I suggest you wait until it's finished. I really am quite slow. ^^;
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"[Hermione] is the most brilliant of the three and they need her. Harry needs her badly." - JKR from a June 30, 2000 interview
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The first time his lips touched hers, they sat trapped between two Death Eater camps, damp limestone digging against their backs while they huddled at a well-hidden cave like defenseless animals. Harry wasn't even quite sure whether he'd meant it merely as a way to gain her silence or as a release for his excess of nerves; just that one minute he was listening to her suddenly-too-loud breathing as a patrol wandered past the opening and the next his mouth was covering hers.
Despite his original platonic intent, the first contact of their lips was anything but. It didn't take long before his hands tangled around her bushy curls, only the need for silence preventing him from moaning aloud as she left a damp trail of openmouthed kisses down his neck. She watched him with the same intensity he'd only seen before devoted to schoolwork. Her small hands under his black t-shirt rasped deliciously against the sparse hairs on his chest, committing every dip and curve to memory as if they would somehow prove to be the key to some complex Arithmancy equation. He couldn't wait to test her.
By the time Hermione began to nibble lightly on his collarbone, all coherent thought were on a blissful respite and he pulled her closer until she was straddling his lap. The memory of her damp heat pressed against him still had the power to embarrass him at the most inopportune moments years later. Harry could only be thankful of the Ministry's anal retentiveness in forcing Aurors in training to wear the pristine white combat robes despite the dizzying desert heat.
Before Harry knew it, he was trying to find reasons to kiss her again. The smallest reminder of how much his life was no longer his own sent him more than once to corner her into one of Grimmauld Place's abandoned rooms; letting the magic of her pliant mouth against his replace his ever-present worry of living up to everyone's expectations with the much preferable sort of thoughts a regular teenaged boy ought to worry about whilst snogging a pretty girl. Sometimes, when they were too tired or whenever their kisses would taper off, they would talk about things not related to the War. It amazed Harry just how little he really knew this person he'd long considered his best friend, and for the first time he learned all about the little things he never thought to ask before such as her favorite color (Pink, can you believe it?) or how her parents met (They bumped into each other at Trafalgar Square while mum was heading out of the National Gallery. She accidentally pushed dad into the fountain).
But apart from those moments of shared insanity, Harry and Hermione never acted any differently around each other. He still got on her nerves over his tendency to take his frustrations out on Ron and her, and he occasionally still had to resist the urge to shake her for nagging Ron and him for their less-than-mature behavior even when it sometimes felt as if it was one of the few things left keeping him sane.
So perhaps, not surprisingly, the last of their snogging sessions occurred just as abruptly as it began. He sought her out amidst the confusion during what turned out to be the week of the final battle. The Order unit they'd joined not long after separate efforts from the light side proved too ineffective was being sent out as reinforcements to help break the siege in Azkaban, so he found her easily enough shrinking her rations in the kitchen with a group of former DA members.
"All right, mate?" Ron inquired with a hearty pat on the back that Harry was sure rearranged a vital organ or two.
"I really wish I could go with all of you."
"Can't be helped when you're still recovering from the last fight. That was a right nasty hex you got from Nott," Susan Bones said with a shy smile before seeming to realize who she was so casually chatting with. She turned a bright red and continued packing without another glance at him.
"Nonetheless," Hermione added, her voice oozing with the disapproval none of his other peers would dare direct at him, "it was hardly necessary to charm both his legs broken and then force him to eat a sweet that would turn him into a dancing frog."
Ron let out something that suspiciously sounded like a snort before Hermione's redirected glare transformed it into an odd-sounding cough. "Don't listen to that spoilsport, Harry. We all thought it was bloody brilliant."
"Ron!"
Harry winced in sympathy as Hermione started in on their redheaded best friend about cruel and unusual punishment. Having received the exact same lecture from both Hermione and Lupin the week before, Harry took pity on Ron and waited until she paused to take a breath before interrupting with, "I think I saw one of your brothers looking for you earlier."
"Right! I, uh, promised Charlie that I'd… help him pack."
"Surely, you don't think I'm gullible enough to fall for such an obvious lie," Hermione said as they watched their lanky best friend lope off towards the dining room.
"How else was I supposed to steal you away?"
She rolled her eyes but made no comment as she followed him in search for a place with some privacy, a nearly impossible task when it felt like the majority of those fighting for the light side were crammed inside number twelve. They didn't touch or even look at each other as they strolled down the manor's numerous hallways, stopping only occasionally to peer behind unlocked silent doorways without any luck.
In fact, it wasn't until they reached the last door leading to the unused attic that they found a room that didn't contain at least one person skulking about. Having been a space basically ignored by its occupants, Harry was unsurprised to find no available candle to light the place; instead, they relied on what moonlight penetrated the dusty windows to make their way past the threadbare furniture and the precarious towers of sealed boxes towards one of the panes overlooking the front yard.
Despite being the brightest part of the room, the majority of her features continued to be enshrouded in shadows, with only her watchful amber eyes standing out in clear relief. Harry's lips quirked upwards as he brushed back one of the ever-escaping bushy tendrils from Hermione's messy bun before cupping her face between his hands and tilting it up to meet his. "Be careful, all right?"
"Always," she murmured before wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him close.
"I'll be very annoyed if you break that promise," Harry told her before he bent down and kissed her, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips before she yielded to his unspoken demand. Hermione's mouth was hot and tasted of the treacle pudding Mrs. Weasley had baked for dessert. Her tongue glibly danced around his, making him frustrated and more than little determined to best her at her own game.
Harry was just about to come in for the kill when she grabbed his bum and pressed his erection to the maddening softness of her stomach, causing him to break the lip lock with a startled gasp since he'd never expected such a move from Hermione who until that moment neither outright rejected nor encouraged his advances.
"You cheater," he mumbled before raising her right hand up to his face, his thumb rubbing concentric circles around her knuckles while his mouth grazed the sensitive pulse point beneath her palm. Hermione inhaled sharply, but otherwise continued to watch him with narrowed eyes; however, after a minute or so with Harry showing no inclination to do anything more, the stiff set of her shoulders began to loosen as she began to melt under his touch.
Within the space of a heartbeat, Harry had her lifted up onto the windowsill so that the damp apex of her thighs was pressed directly onto his cock. "I guess it takes one to know one," Hermione said before she wrapped her legs around his waist, urging him even closer despite the layers of clothes that still separated them from exploring completely new territory.
Harry growled and held both of her hands above her head to keep them from testing his already strained control even further, his expression almost feral as he leaned back down to capture her lips once more. "Don't close your eyes," he demanded sometime later when he noticed hers beginning to slide shut. "I want you to remember that it's me who can make you feel like this."
"N-Not during the fighting, I hope," she somehow managed to joke in between gasps. The ensuing chuckle was quickly cut short as Harry moved his head down to leave an openmouthed kiss on the hard nub protruding from her left breast, never breaking eye contact as his swirling tongue left an unmistakable damp patch on her thin cotton shirt.
By the time some semblance of sanity returned, her top was lost somewhere in the murky recesses behind him and his trousers were half unbuttoned. Hermione's bright eyes remained focused on his, though half-closed with desire.
Harry backed away despite instinct dictating that he answer her unvoiced invitation. His hands shook as he forcefully detached himself from her haunting stare, wanting and yet dreading the look of understanding that they'd always been able to convey to each other without speaking.
There was nothing like that intrusion of reality to make Harry feel like the biggest wanker to walk the earth. This was Hermione, the one person who always let him seize whatever he needed from her and never asked for anything but his friendship in return. She deserved better than clandestine kisses in the dark; a meeting of lips that had nothing to do with engaged feelings and everything to do with forgetting. He knew that, but still he continued to pursue the momentary salvation of her kiss.
Harry let out a quiet snort of self-disgust as he fumbled around for the last, stubborn button on his shirt. It was a good thing that Voldemort long ago stopped using Legilimency on him. What a boost in morale it would be to find one's foe to be beyond pathetic. "Let me walk you to your room."
Hermione nodded with averted eyes before summoning her ruined shirt and getting dressed. Within a few seconds, she was no less mussed than if they'd really spent the last twenty minutes just talking, a fact which annoyed him for some reason. He led her back to the room she shared with Hannah Abbott without another word; the last moment alone between the two not-quite-lovers before all hell broke loose.
End (1/?)
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