Disclaimer: Everything in this fic belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, blah, blah, blah. You know the drill.
Author's Note: So HBP didn't go the way we wanted. That's alright, because now we fanfic authors get to come up with ways to fix that. I originally planned on trashing this, but my beta, Nitya, wouldn't let me. Meany! =P It's far too rushed, so don't say that I didn't warn you. Rated PG for a couple bad words, just to be safe.
She Knows Me Better
The Burrow was full of life. Every member of the Weasley family-and those who were bound to join the Weasley family-was sitting around the dinner table just as Mrs. Weasley placed the last dish on the table.
"Tuck in everyone!" Mrs. Weasley said cheerfully as she sat down.
Harry Potter grinned. No one in the world cooked better than Mrs. Weasley. Harry may not have been an official Weasley, but he was pretty damn close to being one. After he defeated Voldemort just three short weeks ago, he and Ginny Weasley had gotten back together after one long year apart-one long year that Harry had spent in the company of his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, as they searched for Voldemort's Horcruxes. They had found them and destroyed them. Then Harry had gone on alone to face Voldemort. It had been one horrendous battle, but Harry had done it. He triumphed over the Dark Lord, fulfilling the prophecy that had tainted his life.
Ron sat at the table, dishing up. He was sullen and quiet. Harry knew exactly why. Three weeks ago, amidst the celebrations of Voldemort's demise, Ron had asked Hermione out on a date. And she had flat out rejected him. She claimed that while she had once fancied Ron, the past year had been highly enlightening in concerns to her feelings. She said that she couldn't possibly be with someone whom she bickered with and that she had been mistaken into believing that she could because of her own personal fears of "never being desired."
Harry thought that was completely bullocks. Hermione may not have been the most beautiful girl around, but she was certainly pretty enough. She was certainly desirable.
Privately, she had told Harry that getting into a relationship with Ron would have been the "easy way out" and that neither she nor Ron deserved it. She had no intentions on settling for him.
Therefore, even though Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had extended to her an invitation to join the family tonight for dinner, Hermione had not shown up. Not yet, at least.
Harry wished that she would come. She was his best friend and he wanted her there, to celebrate.
And suddenly, his wish was granted.
Ginny was starting to load his plate with food when the door opened and Hermione, bushy hair and all, stepped inside meekly.
"Hermione!" Mr. Weasley greeted jovially.
"Hello, Hermione," Mrs. Weasley said coolly. She was none too happy with Hermione since she refused to go on a date with Ron. It was obvious that Mr. Weasley had put his foot down for once in order to give Hermione an invitation.
"Mrs. Weasley," Hermione greeted quietly.
"Come in. Sit down," Mr. Weasley said.
"Yeah, right here, Hermione," George said, scooting over so that there was room between him and Harry.
Harry took out his wand and conjured a chair for her. "Yeah," he agreed. "Room for one more."
"Hello, George," she said, sitting down. "Hello, Harry." She leaned forward to greet the redhead beside him. "Ginny."
"Hello, Hermione," she said, continuing to dish up Harry's plate.
Hermione glanced down at his plate. "Er-Harry? I thought you didn't like asparagus?"
"What?" He glanced down to see the five long asparagus spears Ginny had put on his plate. "Well, no, not really," he said, causing his girlfriend to blush.
Mrs. Weasley handed her a plate. "Here," she said, taking the plate and dishing up a small pile of mashed potatoes before switching plates with him. "Better?"
"Much. Could you-" But Hermione was already passing him Mrs. Weasley's homemade gravy. He chuckled. "Thanks, Hermione."
"You're welcome," she replied as she took the nearest salt shaker and passed it to him. He accepted it with an amused grin.
Beside him, Ginny bristled. "You don't have to help him tuck in, Hermione," she said. "I can do that."
"Well, quite frankly, Harry's a big boy now and doesn't need anybody's help," Hermione answered. "I was just being polite."
Fred was snickering from across the table. "Ginny's just mad that Hermione corrected her."
"I am not!" Ginny hissed fiercely.
"I didn't correct her," Hermione said. "I was simply asking Harry if he suddenly found a liking for asparagus."
Ginny's eyes narrowed. "Making me look stupid in the process."
Hermione put her fork down. She looked from Ginny to Harry and then, surprisingly, to Ron, whose face was very red as he glared back at her. She sighed. She turned to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley with a forced smile on her face. "Thank you for the invitation, but I see that I've worn out my welcome. I'm smart enough to realize that I'm no longer part of this big happy family-and really was never part of it-so I'll bid all of you farewell and leave." She stood up and gazed down at Harry. "I'll see you Monday, right?"
He stared at her, flabbergasted. "Er-yeah…"
"Good." Without another word, she disapparated with a loud CRACK.
Ginny glared at him. "She'll see you Monday?"
"Yes," Harry said. "We both have Auror training."
"Auror training," she repeated. "I thought that you had decided not to become an Auror."
"Yeah, I had, until Hermione reminded me why I wanted to become an Auror in the first place," he told her. "Voldemort may be gone, but his followers aren't." He frowned when all of them cringed. It annoyed him to no end that they still couldn't handle his name. Hermione could. She was the only person he could have a serious conversation with on Voldemort.
He set his napkin on the table, along with his fork. "You know, suddenly I'm not very hungry. I've got a flat with boxes in it that need unpacking. Mrs. Weasley, I'm sorry I can't stick around to eat this lovely meal." He stood up. "I'll drop by tomorrow." He leaned down and kissed the top of Ginny's head. "See you." Then he apparated.
But he didn't apparate to his new flat. Instead, he apparated into an alley near a flat that Hermione's parents had just helped her rent. He stepped onto the pavement and looked up to see if a light was on in her flat. To his immense relief, there was.
Quietly, he walked into the building, up the stairs and to her door. Sighing, he knocked and waited a beat for Hermione to answer. He felt her look out her peephole at him before she opened the door and leaned against it. "You didn't need to come after me."
"Need, no. Wanted to, yes. Can I come in?"
She stepped out of the doorway, admitting him. "I bet Ginny didn't take that too well, your leaving dinner."
"She'll get over it." He walked over to her new couch and sat down. "She knows we're friends. She knows that I-"
"Can't stand it when I'm angry or sad," Hermione finished for him, sitting down too.
"How did you know I was going to say that?" he asked in astonishment.
She smiled ever so slightly. "I can see it in your eyes. You can't hide much from me, Harry."
"You know me all too well," he agreed, grinning. Then it faded. "I'm sorry dinner went so horribly."
She shrugged. "I don't belong there anymore, Harry. Not since I broke Ron's heart." She massaged her forehead. "I would never have belonged there in the first place if it weren't for you."
"Me? How is this my-"
"I didn't mean that this is your fault, Harry. I meant that if it weren't for you, I would have never become friends with Ron. I wouldn't have even considered it. But when you and him came to rescue me from that troll, everything changed. And I know it was you who convinced him to find me."
"He was extremely worried about the troll," he said.
"I don't blame him, but you still thought of me and dragged him with you."
He laughed. "I didn't drag him. He came willingly."
"That's because he's loyal, Harry. He wasn't about to ditch his best friend."
His emotions darkened. "He ditched me fourth year. He didn't believe me. He thought that I was a liar." He looked into her eyes. "You were the only one who did actually believe me."
"I knew better. I knew by the look on your face that you never put your name in that goblet," she said.
"Although you did sort of ditch me sixth year."
She looked highly affronted. "I didn't ditch you! I was worried about you…and a tad jealous."
"A tad?"
She rolled her eyes. "Okay, very jealous. You know that I'm not used to being shown up like that. And I was angry because I knew it wasn't you who was truly making those miraculous potions. Although I can't really scold you for cheating, because I did the same thing for Ron during the Quidditch tryouts that year."
"You really did fancy him then, didn't you?"
She frowned. "If you had asked me that a few months ago, I would have said yes. But now…now I'm not so sure."
He gave her a confused look. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that I don't think I fancied him as much as I thought I did," she told him, not looking at him. She placed her finger on the arm of the couch and began tracing figure eights into the fabric. "I fancied him a little-sure. He's handsome. But I guess I thought that all our bickering meant something…something more. I felt a pang of jealousy when he started snogging Lavender. But I later realized that the reason why I felt that was because I privately wished that I had someone to be with and it didn't necessarily have to be Ron. I realized then that a large part of me didn't want it to be Ron, but someone else. Someone that I had been trying to get over."
He was surprised and captivated by her words. He leaned closer to her. "Who?" he asked. "Krum?"
She shook her head. "No, not him."
"Then who?"
She looked physically pained by her answer. "I…I can't tell you."
He reared back in his seat, alarmed. "What do you mean? We can always tell each other everything!"
"Not this, Harry. Not this." She looked down at the hands she had placed in her lap. "I'm sorry."
"Why?" he asked her. "Why not?"
She frowned. "Because I can't. I don't want to ruin anything."
"Ruin what?"
"I don't want to ruin something that makes him happy," she said fiercely. "He deserves a bit of happiness after all he's been through. It wouldn't be fair if I tried to spoil it for my own selfish reasons. And if I tried and he found out, he would never forgive me. Too much to risk."
Harry had no idea who she was talking about, but he felt a stab of jealousy in his heart and in his gut. Why though? "But what if this bloke fancies you as much as you seem to fancy him?"
She laughed then, a chuckle that filled the room. "Oh, believe me, he doesn't."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because he has a girlfriend, Harry."
He frowned. "Oh."
"It'll never be," she said sadly. "And I knew it before. I got tired of waiting. So I focused instead on Ron. But now I know that I can't settle for Ron. I'd never forgive myself."
"And yet you won't go after the man you really want?"
"No."
"Well that doesn't make a whole bloody lot of sense."
She gave him a cross look. "My happiness is nothing compared to his."
"It shouldn't be. Why do you care more about this bloke than yourself?"
"Because he's my bloody best friend!" she cried, and then her eyes went wide when she realized what she had just said.
Harry was taken aback. She wasn't talking about some person that Harry had never met. She was talking about him. He stood up. "I-er-"
"Go," she whispered. "I know you want to leave, so just go."
She was right. He did want to leave-to run. And he did just that. He walked out of her flat and back down to the alley where he disapparated.
*****
When he entered his new flat, he had quite the surprise waiting for him. Sitting on one of his boxes was the fuming redhead that he called his girlfriend.
"Ginny-"
"Unpacking, were you?" she snarled. "I came here not five minutes after you left and found the place empty. Where the hell did you go?"
He scowled. He was not in the mood for this, not after what had transpired at Hermione's. "I went to see how Hermione was doing."
"You couldn't have waited until you two saw each other on Monday?" she asked.
"Quite frankly, no. And since when is it a bloody crime to go visit your friend?" he snapped back.
She stood up, folding her arms over her chest in the process. "You couldn't stay with your girlfriend for dinner because you had to make sure that your friend was feeling okay, especially after she insulted me?"
He stared at her. "Since when did Hermione become 'my friend'? I thought that she was your friend too?"
"She hasn't been much of my friend since my fifth year when we started dating!" Ginny replied angrily.
"Why not? What, were you jealous of her or something?"
"She was berating you!"
"She's Hermione! She does that from time to time. She was concerned about me!"
"Lovely! Good for her! But she can stop being concerned because now I'm the one who's supposed to be concerned about you whenever you're in danger," she said.
There was a moment's pause. "You're quite territorial. And you obviously don't like sharing."
"You want me to share my boyfriend with her?"
He gave a growl in frustration. "What am I to you? A bloody object? Some prize that you've won?"
"Don't you dare say that! You're Harry Potter and I care about you! I know you better than anybody."
No, you don't, Harry thought. Hermione does. She knows me better. "Really? Then why were you putting asparagus on my plate?"
She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. When she finally did speak, she murmured, "It was a mistake."
He looked at her, long and hard. He didn't like the person she had become since they had gotten back together. He didn't like it one bit. Then he thought about Hermione's outburst in her flat and wondered how he could have been so stupid? Ginny may have been pretty and a great Quidditch player, but she wasn't everything he was looking for. Why was he settling for her when he could have someone who was so much more? Someone who truly knew him and fancied him not because he was the Harry Potter, like Ginny did when he first met her, but because he was just Harry, and that was okay to her.
"It was a mistake," he said finally, slowly. "It was a mistake for us to get back together."
She looked startled. "What?"
He shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry, Ginny, but you don't know me. Not like Hermione does."
Anger flashed on her face. "What?" she asked, more deadly this time.
"It's over," he said. "I still want to be a part of that big happy family of yours, but not through marriage or anything like that. I want to be part of it as a friend, but if that cannot be, then so be it. Hermione knows me better and she's the one I should be with."
She screamed in anger when Harry turned around and left, throwing one of his boxes at the door just as it closed.
*****
When Harry left, he never imagined that he would return to Hermione's flat that day. But there he was, standing in front of her door and knocking again.
She looked through the peephole and opened the door. "Harry? What-" But her words were cut off when he crushed his lips to hers. She moaned slightly, deepening the kiss. Finally they broke apart, gasping for air. "Harry-I don't understand."
He stepped in and closed the door. "It's not Ginny who makes me happy-it's you. It's you, Hermione. You know me better than anyone else and I love you for it."
"You what?"
He grinned. "I love you," he murmured, and captured her lips once again.
"I can't believe this is happening," she said. "Oh, Harry-I love you too."
"I know," he replied, "and that makes me the happiest man on earth." Then, with a smile on both of their faces, he kissed her again. For Harry, there was no mistake this time, and he knew that Hermione knew it.