The first thing he felt when he came to was the warm washcloth on his face. He was definitely in the infirmary. Harry fearfully took off the cloth, ready to slam it back on if Madame Pomfrey was anywhere nearby.
Harry breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that he was alone. He reached out to the side table for his glasses and almost fumbled them when the image of his 80-year old Transfiguration professor popped into his head.
He fought it down. Why was repression never around when he needed it? He decided that what he saw before he passed out was the second most horrific, traumatizing sight of his life. The first one being Voldemort pulling his naked, scaly self out of the cauldron. Okay, he was going to be sick now.
It was a very good thing that the spell was gender-specific and only applied to females. If he had been forced to see Snape or Dumbledore in their skivvies, he'd have to kill himself.
After he settled his stomach, he decided that he got a much needed kick in the pants. Harry Potter may be many things, but he was a man of morals! Except when it suited him to lie, cheat, and steal, of course.
Harry sighed again. He was just too sarcastic for his own good.
But first things first. He walked over the fireplace that was used for emergency calls and transport. He threw some Floo powder in then stuck his head into the opening and said forcefully, "Fred and George Weasley. Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes!"
His head swirled around like water circling a drain and when his vision cleared, he saw the faces of two redheaded twins staring back at him. He could also see the dozens of underdressed women walking past the store window behind them, which served as a visible reminder of the reason for his anger.
"Harry! See anything interesting lately?" Fred asked with a wink.
"If by interesting, you mean sickening then yeah. I wound up in the infirmary because I saw Professor McGonagall in her undergarments. She's like my grandmother, you morons!" Harry realized that he might be overreacting just a tad, but he was too incensed to care.
"Ouch," Fred winced in sympathy. "That is seriously unfunny."
"Oh, I don't know. I think she looks pretty good for her age," George said. "Mature and all that. Those breasts aren't just for show, you know. They've been through the long haul!"
"You scare me sometimes, brother."
"And you disappoint me with your ageism," George replied solemnly.
"While I normally enjoy the comedy stylings of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, I'd just like to know when this stupid dust will wear off," Harry said through gritted teeth.
The identical expressions of surprise directed at him did not comfort him.
"It should have worn off by now, shouldn't it?" Harry asked with a sinking feeling.
"It was only a five minute dose," Fred replied slowly. He turned to George and asked, "Do you think we put in too much Vanishing potion?"
George shook his head. "No, I was very careful about that. I think the modified Evanesco spell is not melding together sufficiently with the Revealer ink. Maybe if we put in some Invisibility cloak threads...?"
"No, that would just make his clothes appear to vanish. What we have to do is cancel out the ocular Disillusionment spell..."
As the twins continued trading magical jargon, Harry realized that while the twins goofed off almost all the time they were actually very smart in their own right. But he had to shake his head as well, finally understanding Mrs. Weasley's frustration. All this work for a stupid joke!
Then a horrible, sickening thought occurred to him.
"I'm not going to be seeing the 11 and 12 year old girls in their underwear, am I?" Harry asked fearfully.
It would be bad enough if he was discovered as a voyeur!
He could see the headlines now:
Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived to be Lecherous!
Not your average wizard, not your average pervert!
Turn to page 5 for more on his pedophiling ways!
And the press would eat him alive:
A reporter: Is it true you sleep in a dormitory at Hogwarts?
Harry: Yeah...
Reporter: So you admit that you sleep with boys!
Harry: What? No!
Reporter: Do you like pop music?
Harry: A little bit.
Reporter: So you and Michael Jackson have been having a secret love affair? Is there no end to your perversity, Potter?
Harry: Get away from me!
Reporter: And is it true that you own a Firebolt in order to compensate for your inadequacies in other areas?
(Harry attacks the reporter)
Reporter: He's molesting me! Get him off me! Get him off me!
Harry shuddered and thanked whatever gods there were that the seventh-year classes were in a different part of the school from the other years.
"Of course you won't!" Fred replied indignantly, breaking Harry out of his imaginings. "We may have forgotten to put an upper age limit on the spell, but we certainly put a lower one in. Sixteen and over females only. We don't want any sickos around here!"
"Just the run-of-the-mill perverts and dirty old men," George added helpfully.
Harry's emotions bounced between intense relief and anger then settled on the latter.
"Can you help me or not?" Harry demanded.
"Give us a few days," George replied absent-mindedly as he scribbled on a notepad.
"A few days for what?" a female voice asked.
Harry turned his disembodied head toward the voice. "Hermione!"
Floating next to him on the green flames was Hermione's bushy-hair covered head. She smiled at him. "I've been calling your name for the last five minutes and I finally decided to just pop in. I hope I'm not interrupting anything."
There was a curious glint in Fred's eyes. He said, "Harry was just telling us about his sight problem."
"I was hoping that they could update my prescription and get me some new frames, so I'd look better for my speech," Harry said quickly. "And I told them if they could do it by the weekend, I'd pay them triple the asking price. Well, thanks a lot guys. See you later!"
He pulled his head out hoping that since he was the caller that would break the connection. There was no such luck. Hermione's headless body was still kneeled in front of the fireplace.
Hermione's semi-nude body...
Harry swallowed hard and tried to look away. He had only gotten a glimpse back in his room and he hadn't realized exactly how beautiful his best friend was. She was no supermodel, but there was just something about her that kept him from blinking.
He didn't understand it. He had gawked at numerous girls in the hallways and none of them had made him feel all hot and tingly like this.
"Harry?"
"Aahh!" Harry yelled as he jumped up and banged his head on the top of the fireplace.
"Harry!" Hermione cried. She quickly pulled out her wand and performed a Healing spell.
Harry felt the forming bump on his head reverse itself and shrink. He said in a garbled voice, "Thanks. Er, the twins didn't say anything weird, did they?"
"Not more than usual." Hermione gave him a stern look. "I want to know what's going on with you! I almost had a heart attack when you fainted in class. Madame Pomfrey says there's nothing physically wrong with you though."
"Well, she would know, right?" Harry said, relieved that no one knew about his little problem.
Hermione glared at him. "I think I want a second opinion. Why are you acting so funny?"
"It's just stress," Harry replied trying to look anywhere but at her. He wondered where he was getting the blood to be blushing so much. "I'm just feeling strange that Voldemort isn't around any more. It's thrown me off-balance, that's all." He gave off a laugh that sounded forced even to him.
"Harry, please look at me," Hermione said patiently.
Looking at her was the problem! Then Harry had a brilliant idea. He took off his glasses.
Ah, now Hermione was blurry. Blurry Hermione was no threat to him. Blurry, shapely Hermione that was showing tantalizingly slender legs that weren't quite in focus so it was like he was seeing them through a veil...
Damn it, this was worse!
"Harry..." Hermione said in a dangerous tone.
Harry could sense the girl was frowning at him. Before she could say anything, he jumped to his feet and said, "I better talk to McGonagall and get the homework. You know how important homework is!"
"But you could just ask me..."
Harry ignored her as he tried to run out of the room. He banged his shin on a bedpost, stumbled into a wall, and fell down the stairs before he remembered to put his glasses back on.
This blasted spell was going to kill him!
~*~
Harry snuck back into the infirmary after Hermione left and spent the rest of the day holed up there. Since Hermione wasn't an idiot, she must have been waiting for him to come to her because Dobby told him that she didn't leave the Tower except to go on patrol. She apparently wasn't looking for him.
He was a bit put out at that until he realized that she had already asked him twice what was going on with him and had probably come to the conclusion that he wasn't going to tell her until he was good and ready. Unfortunately for her, that might be never because he wasn't going to tell her about this!
Harry had to give George and Fred credit for one thing. He wasn't worried about his speech any longer.
Why was he reacting the way he was around Hermione? Okay, maybe he was attracted to her. He could admit that. But he was attracted to lots of girls. Cho may have been the only one he had a crush on, but that didn't mean he never noticed anyone else. But it didn't mean anything when he thought a girl was pretty.
So it was just a physical thing, and the reason it was so strong with Hermione was because he knew her so well and it was embarrassing. That must be it, he decided, ignoring the fact that if it were merely a matter of embarrassment, he wouldn't be having such a strong urge to look at her over and over again.
After a long and sleepless night, he got up in time for breakfast. He had to endure a five minute lecture about the need for proper rest later from Madame Pomfrey, which he used as an excuse to stare firmly at his feet, before he could leave the infirmary.
Harry wasn't too worried that his friends would be mad at him. Ron had the Marauder's Map and could be trusted not only not to reveal where he was hiding, but also to tell Hermione if something happened to him.
Harry walked slowly through the castle and noticed that with some surprise that the parade of nearly naked girls weren't nearly as affecting as they were the day before. He supposed that one got desensitized to the situation after a while. It was like walking at the beach, he reflected. One didn't spend the whole time ogling every woman in sight.
It was still a nice sight to look at and admire, but it was like looking at pretty paintings. Yes, very splendid, but nothing to get terribly excited over. Oh, there were some girls he goggled at on his way to the Great Hall, but they were the type of girls he would have goggled at even if they had all their clothes on. Okay, now that sounded perverted.
This must mean that he probably also got over his Hermione-inspired seizures, Harry thought excitedly. That idea instantly died when he saw Hermione eating breakfast in a sky blue bra and panty set that accentuated her curves wonderfully.
So much for getting over it, Harry thought in an almost hysterical tone.
"Are you looking at something interesting?"
"You could say that," Harry replied hollowly. He dimly recognized the voice as Luna's, the girl who wore butterbeer cap necklaces. Might as well get this over with, he thought, looking over. There was nothing that could surprise him.
Except for the fact that Luna Lovegood apparently didn't believe in wearing underwear.
He would not make a natural blonde joke. No, he would not, Harry repeated to himself like a mantra. Fixing his eyes on a spot two inches above the Ravenclaw's head, he asked, "Is there something I can do for you, Luna?"
Luna shrugged. "I was just wondering why you were staring so intently at Hermione."
"What makes you think I was staring at her?" Harry asked in what he hoped was an indifferent manner.
"I guess you figured it out then," Luna replied, seemingly ignoring his question.
Harry genuinely liked Luna, but he always had the sense of being three steps behind whenever he talked to her. "Figured out what exactly?"
"You like Hermione," Luna stated simply.
"I like Hermione," Harry repeated faintly.
Luna bobbed her head happily. "I knew that was it. You got that faraway, goofy look you get when you stare at her. But it was deeper this time like you were seeing something you never saw before. It was very nice speaking to you, Harry."
She left just as abruptly as she appeared, leaving Harry staring slack-jawed after her.
"I do not look goofy!" Harry finally called after her. Belatedly, he realized he was in a room filled with hundreds of people who were now looking at him.
But for some reason, that didn't matter and he wandered over to his seating spot in a daze. The students collectively shrugged and got back to what they were doing. Hermione gave him a concerned glance from across the table, but happily, she didn't start questioning him. She simply smiled then returned to her conversation with Ginny.
"Good to see you, mate," Ron said from an already full mouth. "Hermione was making me nuts, asking me to look at the Map every five minutes to make sure you were safe. And if she wasn't doing that, she was trying to steal the damn thing." His voice was filled with both amusement and annoyance.
Harry smiled weakly at the other boy, but his thoughts were too jumbled for him to be good company. Luna had to be mistaken. It wouldn't be the first time after all. He liked Hermione as a friend and that was all. This bizarre physical attraction he was feeling toward his best friend didn't indicate an emotional attraction of any kind. He still felt that Cho Chang was pretty and he certainly didn't want anything to do with her relationship-wise.
But if he found both Cho and Hermione attractive, but it was only the latter that was making him feel flushed and driving him crazy then there must be some difference in his feelings toward them. It was only logical, said Harry's inner voice.
Harry told his traitorous inner voice which sounded suspiciously familiar to be quiet. Besides, Hermione was not driving him crazy. He had better self-control than that! And he would prove it.
"Hermione, could you pass me the syrup?" Harry asked, spearing a pancake with his fork.
Hermione looked up in surprise then said, "Oh, no problem."
Mind over matter, Harry told himself with satisfaction. He didn't feel tongue-tied or shaky at all. He gleefully took a gulp of orange juice.
Hermione picked up the syrup bottle then leaned over across the table to pass it to him. A totally innocent gesture if not for her lack of a blouse.
Harry choked on his juice.
He coughed and sputtered and to add insult to injury, Ron smacked him hard in the back driving all the air out of his lungs.
"Harry! Are you alright?" Hermione asked, reaching out to turn Harry's face toward her so she could check for herself.
Harry stared into her worried brown eyes and felt her slender, caring fingers on his face, and he was suddenly filled with a warmth that had nothing to do with hormones.
"Yeah, I think I'm alright," Harry replied hoarsely. "Perfectly fine."
And the funny thing was that it was true. He was covered in orange juice and he could feel a bruise already forming on his back, but he had never felt better.
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