A/N: This is all your fault, you know. You, and you, and…you. Your fault(s). Entirely. And collectively. Or whatever. I'd wanted this to be a one-shot, and then you all came along, insisting that it couldn't stand alone, and planted these absurd ideas in my head that wouldn't go away until I'd written Harry's POV.
And now that I'm here… It's not enough. So. I fully intend on adding a third and final (underline, underline, underline) narrative bit on…I don't know. Events happening afterward and whatnot. To satisfy those of you who actually care, as well as myself. I suppose.
Oh. Right. And. Just because I forgot to add it, before…
Disclaimer: If JKR was writing this…well. She wouldn't be. Because it's DELUSIONAL. (And I don't care.)
Feedback's always appreciated… *grin*
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Hermione.
What the bloody hell is going on?
I don't understand how you can just kiss someone and then -
The library? The library?! After something like that? I know you love reading, but -
I'm confused.
You've always told me to mind my own business, you know. "If Dumbledore wanted you to know what Fluffy was guarding in the third floor corridor, he'd have told you, Harry," you said in first year. "Don't go looking for Sirius Black, Harry," in third.
You'll be happy to know that I was damn well minding my own business last night.
I was. In fact, I'd spent the entire day preceding doing just that.
I woke up at half past seven to the ever-lovely strains of indistinguishable mumbling and moaning coming from behind Seamus' bed-curtains.
Didn't get involved in that one (though I'd've liked to have used the opportunity to empty the water basin next to my four-poster).
During lunch, when Ron was inhaling food so fast that, for a moment, I feared for his safety, I didn't snatch the fork from his grasp as this `Hero's Complex' you speak of so often seemingly entitled. Nor did I move the tripe out of his reach so as to prevent him from choking to death (though that might possibly have been because fish innards and I don't get on well, and I wanted him to finish it off himself before you forced the platter in its entirety down my throat, blathering about the merits of proteins and vitamins in a nutritious diet).
Clearly, I refrained from interfering in other's affairs there, and Ron was perfectly happy (the pig).
It wasn't until later that things took a turn for the worst.
They started out innocently enough. All I wanted was to ask you a question about the currency mint in Bristol. When the galleon was first introduced, how it affected commerce in the Wizarding community over the following century, what the direct impacts on trade were, and so on. Nothing even remotely related to ghosts…or Binns…or that History of Magic assignment that's due tomorrow that I'm completely capable of doing on my own. At all. In the slightest.
But that's beside the point.
The point was that I pulled you aside nicely - politely, even - and was resolutely minding my own business (said business having nothing to do with getting better marks, mind), when you went and -
When you went, and -
Merlin, I can't even put it down on paper.
I should've known that something was wrong. Er, well. Not wrong, necessarily, but…odd. Different. Usually, when I talk to you, you look me straight in the eye. When I ask questions that pertain don't pertain to schoolwork, you get this funny little furrow in your brow, as if you're trying to visualize the spell or potion ingredients, and your eyes get all squinty, and you bite your lip in concentration.
You were chewing on that lip rather ferociously last night, I must say, but I felt like… I felt like you weren't truly paying attention. Like your mind was elsewhere, and I swear - I swear - you kept looking at someone over my shoulder.
Though, now that I think on it, I was standing in front of a wall. Hmm…
Anyway, that's irrelevant.
I started speaking nonsense after a few moments, actually, just to see if you were listening. (You weren't.)
It was halfway through such a monologue on unicorns, paperclips, and the various advantages of fat muggles who eat donuts for a living when I laughed at the sheer stupidity of it all (and probably a bit at what I may have misconstrued to be wit). I must have startled you because you jumped, looked at me, your mouth forming that little `O,' and proceeded to do one of the most unexpected, surprising, wonderful things, of my entire life.
…I was minding my own business.
Until you threw your arms around my neck and kissed me.
Or, well. Technically, I suppose `shoved me into a wall, threw your arms around my neck and kissed me,' would be the proper phrasing. I've got a lump on my head the size of a Remembrall to prove it.
But that's neither here nor there. What is is that we -
I don't think -
You can't just -
For Merlin's sake. If you thought I'd `mind my own business' after that, Hermione, you really aren't as smart as I've given you credit for.
In first year, when you hugged me after the Logic Puzzle? Told me I was a `great Wizard'? I minded my own business, then. Patted you awkwardly on the back, and mumbled something about not being as good as all that.
At the end of fourth year, on the platform, when you kissed my cheek? If blushing can be considered keeping to oneself, then I did an excellent job.
But this time…this time… I don't know. When we were younger, I was embarrassed, and didn't think of possible reactions, or what to do, or if I wanted to do anything at all… We were friends. Best friends. You were the girl I could call if I needed help, who I could always talk to, no matter what else was happening, who saw me as Harry; not the `Boy Who Lived,' not the `Chosen One,' just…Harry.
And you still are. You do all of those things, even now. I still feel completely comfortable in your presence, I still come to you before anyone else; you're still the sodding voice in my head…
But…something's changed since we were eleven. Even in the three years since we were fourteen.
When you kissed me last night…well. I certainly wasn't thinking of your study skills. I wasn't thinking of your marks, and I wasn't thinking that as "platonic friends," we shouldn't have been snogging in the first place.
I wasn't thinking much of anything, really, which was odd, but at the same time…predictable, somehow. There were no doubts, no worries, no questions necessary; only the feel of your lips on mine, my hands tangled in your hair, the scent of…whatever it is that makes you smell so nice.
It was right.
We were right.
Are.
Together.
But then you left, and I - I didn't know what to think. I still don't.
I haven't gotten much sleep, since. Any at all, really. At a quarter past three, I gave up hope of rest and came here, to the common room.
It's nearly six o'clock, now. And I honestly don't know where the time's gone, or why it's taken me so long to get this down; it's hardly four feet of parchment.
I just - I wonder. Why you felt it necessary to pull away. Why you made excuses for it. Why you avoided eye contact and didn't say anything on your way up to the girls' dorm later on.
Do you regret it?
I don't.
But I worry. I don't want us to stop speaking to each other; I don't want things to be awkward, and I sure as hell don't want to look at you every day, see your face, and remember the expression it had before…or after… What it was like… I don't want to spend the rest of my life pondering where it all went wrong, because truthfully, neither of us knows when this will all be over. Voldemort's still out there, and I… I want to take advantage of the time I have. Surely you must understa -
Merlin, there you are. You're coming this way. Maybe I can -
Oh, hell. I'm throwing this into the fire.
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