You may recognize the part where Harry and Hermione dance from my one-shot fan fic of the same name…
Chapter Four
Something Borrowed
HARRY
As twilight descended upon the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, the Weasley and Delacour families and a handful of friends, filed into the backyard. They sat, chatting amicably, as they waited for the ceremony to begin.
Five stories up, Fred and George -- the self-proclaimed Men of Honor -- were leaning out the fifth story window, showering the guests with petals treated with "a dusting of a daydream charm, with a smidgen of an elixir to induce euphoria thrown in for good measure," while Ron and Harry struggled to keep from laughing.
"This should make things interesting," George said, by way of explanation. He grinned guiltily.
"And this is only stage one," Fred added. "If we spike the drinks-"
Someone rapped on the door. "May we come in? Are you decent?"
Fred swore and ducked out of sight behind the curtains as George hurriedly hid the rest of the evidence. "I think they caught us! It's all in good fun, but try explaining that to Mum…"
"Or Angelina…she wouldn't approve of this particular jape…women," George added with a sly grin. "Go on, Ron, tell them it's okay to come in. Fred and I can't honestly say we're ever `decent' in the true sense of the word -- least of all when we're preparing to pull off the wedding heist of the century."
"It's okay!" Ron yelled.
Harry looked up from fumbling with his necktie as Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks entered.
"Wotcher, Harry."
"Harry, I was wondering if we-" Lupin indicated Tonks and himself, "-could have a word before the wedding gets underway?"
"Erm, sure," Harry replied, tugging off his badly-knotted tie and tossing it aside.
"Perhaps a walk would clear the senses," Lupin said; Harry couldn't help but notice how scripted this all sounded.
"A little fresh air never hurt anyone," Tonks chipped in with a smile. "I hear the forest is lovely this time of year."
They walked in silence for awhile, quickly leaving the wedding party behind. As the three slipped into the shadowy forest, the opening notes of a wedding march struck up.
"Harry, there's no point in putting this off any longer. Dumbledore's passing necessitates that a new Secretkeeper be found for Grimmauld Place," Lupin said, clenching his hands together convulsively.
"I'll do it," Harry said swiftly.
"No. No, that's the last thing we want. It's too dangerous-"
"Too dangerous!" Harry spluttered, taken aback. "How could being Secretkeeper put me in any more danger than I already am in?!"
Lupin's brow furrowed in concern. "That's not funny, Harry."
"Too close to reality, I suppose," Harry retorted, unable to keep bitterness from edging into his voice.
Tonks gave an impatient "tuh!" and said, "What we need is someone they won't expect. Someone who could pass under their radar, so to speak. Someone like…well, me."
"You?"
She smiled. "I don't see why not."
Harry gaped at her; Lupin stood aside, looking grave.
"Would you rather Ron or Hermione?" she asked brazenly.
"No," Harry said stoically. He felt a great weight settling in the pit of his stomach. How could he ask anyone to fill the dangerous position of Secretkeeper, when it was liable to cost them their lives?
"So it's decided, then."
"Why not - why not - someone else? Someone - I dunno - older?"
"Harry, Nymphadora is here. She is willing to take up this burden," Lupin said woodenly.
"I know, Professor, but I don't understand-"
"Time is of the essence, Harry. Besides, no one would suspect Nymphadora," he said in that same hollow voice; Harry suspected that it pained Lupin greatly to offer her up for such a dangerous post. "With her aunts - Narcissa and Bellatrix - being who they are, why would the Death Eaters think to suspect Nymphadora? In their minds, she comes from good Wizarding stock, on her mother's side, at least. She is as good as family. No one would think of her."
Tonks smiled bracingly. "If we hurry, we can seal the enchantment before the wedding is over - before anyone misses us. Do you trust me, Harry?"
He nodded stiffly, impressed by her courage and overwhelmed by the difficult times looming ahead for all of them.
♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
HERMIONE
"And so, it is my pleasure to present to you - Mr. and Mrs. Bill Weasley!"
The five-piece ensemble struck up a merry number and Hermione rose alongside the rest of the crowd to applaud the newlyweds, but even amidst the ruckus, she was scanning the crowd for some sign of Harry. It simply wasn't like him to skive off the wedding - not when he'd been looking forward to it as the one bright spot on a horizon that had never looked darker…but Ron had reassured her that he was fine. Hermione swallowed hard and wished she could believe him.
At long last, a pair of aged warlocks parted and she spied Harry, lurking beside the punch. In her haste to reach him she was intercepted -
"Ron, just a minute-" she said, trying vainly to slip past him.
"Please, Hermione, just - just stand still-" he said.
And then he did the unthinkable.
He kissed her.
He - Ronald Weasley - had slung an arm around her waist, tipped her back, and kissed her full on the mouth. It was a hard fact to get her mind around.
For the briefest moment, they were suspended there, in a parody of a lovers' stance, until Hermione's teetering high heels gave way and they crashed to the ground in a tangle of taffeta.
"AHOY!" came the telltale cry, heralding the imminent arrival of Fred, George, and a vat of butterbeer, which they wasted no time in dumping over the heads of the embarrassed "couple." Drenched from head-to-toe, Hermione Granger gathered up the little dignity she could muster and fled to the Burrow, leaving Ron to contend with his troublesome brothers.
Feeling very tired and not particularly amorous, she slipped out of her shoes and poured a half-cup of butterbeer out of the heel. She sighed and made a tricky wave with her wand, so that the water was siphoned out of the fold of her dress. She didn't have the patience to do damage control on her hair, which had been brought down from its elegant chignon by the torrents of butterbeer. She readjusted the wreath of laurels atop her curls and smoothed out her silky green gown.
She sighed brokenly. Poor, poor Ron.
He had no idea.
She leaned against the weathered door frame, trying to collect her thoughts. After months, her hard work was finally beginning to pay off. Shouldn't I feel like I've accomplished something? she wondered dispiritedly. You see, Hermione Granger had just seen Phase One through to its logical completion. The First Kiss.
Had she felt anything at all?
She buried her face in her hands. The First Kiss had been lost in the aftershocks.
Had it been so mediocre? So unremarkable?
Coolly methodical was what it had been. She knew that much to be true.
* * * * *
HARRY
Long before the confetti had settled and the spirits run dry, the Weasley-Delacour wedding was written off as a roaring success. The bride was inexpressibly beautiful, the groom handsome beneath his mask of scars, the host family gracious far beyond their modest means, and the visitors quaintly foreign in their ways.
Fred and George went through the receiving line four times each, making increasingly outlandish statements in honeyed, well-wishing tones and finally culminating with "Lord Voldemort sends his compliments," to which the blushing bride said "'ow lovely," and the flush-faced Molly Weasley "how sweet of you to say so," and the groom "it's about time!" And so it continued down the line until a highly affronted Madame Delacour caught onto their little joke and cuffed them over the heads with her parasol.
Harry Potter laughed half-heartedly before the gravity of his impossible quest sank back in, reaffirming itself in his very being. In the awkward silence left by his stifled guffaw, his eyes roamed over the crowd, taking in Mad-Eye Moody, who was nursing a drink from his hipflask, and a buoyant-spirited Monsieur Delacour (who proclaimed, with a sweeping bow, that "Young Monsieur Weasley" was the "second happiest man in the world"), and the swarming mass of revelers.
"Looking for Ginny?" The twins had appeared on either side of him, massaging their aching temples but looking just as keen on wreaking havoc as ever.
"No-no. Really," he added, taking in the disbelieving looks on their faces.
"Ah-I see. You're not looking for Ginny." Fred winked and nudged Harry in the ribs.
"Fred and I aren't looking for trouble either," George interjected.
"She's right over there, mate. She's posing for pictures with the rest of the wedding party."
"Erm, okay. Thanks, George - er, Fred."
He veered off in her direction before Fred could say another word, but swung a sharp right angle once he'd passed the punchbowl and found himself face-to-face with Hermione Granger. She was standing in the doorway looking very pretty, with brown curls tumbling down her shoulders and an endearingly melancholy look about her.
"Will you dance with me?" he sputtered, not quite sure what had made him say it. His mind darted to Fred and George's prank, but he knew that whatever had made him say that was anything but manufactured. Daydream charms and euphoric elixirs had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
She smiled - a sliver of a smile but a smile nonetheless - and he felt the craziest sensation of indescribable gratefulness, for that smile and that tender look in her eyes.
"Strange year, wasn't it?" he said, taking her hand and guiding her onto the improvised dance floor as the goblin orchestra struck up a soulful number.
"I want to apologize, Harry, for everything I did - or, didn't - do last year," she said softly, staring down at their gracefully entwining feet, going through the movements of a stately sarabande. "I should have trusted you. You deserved better." Her eyes drifted reluctantly to Ginny, who chose that particular moment to readjust the straps of her glittering confection of bridesmaid's dress and cast a simpering smile in Harry's direction.
Hermione's cheeks flushed, embarrassed for the both of them, and she stepped back, letting her arms fall limply
to her sides.
"We shouldn't be doing this. Dancing," she said flatly, as though there was any question of what they were doing with their arms around each other, swaying slowly in the middle of the Weasley's garden paddock.
"Hermione-why?" But he felt it too…the creeping notion that he was - that they were - cheating. He quickly dismissed the notion as nonsense. "Hermione-it's a wedding. People dance. Ginny understands."
"Does she?" Hermione murmured, and Harry found himself wondering the same thing as Hermione allowed him to pull her back into an andante triple time. Could Ginny Weasley ever grasp at the truths Harry himself was only beginning to uncover?
"She knows we'll always be - friends," he said haltingly.
"Yes, how could I forget?" She forged a brave smile that didn't quite reach her downcast eyes and he knew instinctively that he had said exactly the wrong thing. He'd never exactly been smooth-talking, least of all around pretty girls. Hermione is a pretty girl. He seized on this tangent -
"You're beautiful," Harry said swiftly. Too forward. "I mean, tonight," he amended. "You look beautiful tonight - always."
Her fingers scrunched up against the nape of his neck in unspoken gratitude as they revolved slowly on the spot. Each lilting step carried them farther and farther away from the celebratory fray until the singing and strains of a half-dozen minute violins faded to naught but a whisper in the leaves. He thought guiltily about Ginny and Ron and famous Weasley tempers and tried -- somewhat feebly -- to reassure himself that they weren't doing anything objectionable. Just dancing. Hadn't he caught a glimpse of Nymphadora Tonks and Charlie Weasley, dancing close with Remus Lupin off to the side and not minding one bit?
It's over, Ginny and me, he told himself firmly and calling Ron's words to mind, he thought, I'm a free agent. And it's Hermione. Just Hermione. Buck-toothed, bushy-haired, insufferableknowitallHermione.
It was fine logic…except for the fact that she was no longer buck-toothed, and that he found nothing whatsoever repulsive about her uncontrollable mane of hair and that he had never found her know-it-all-ness insufferable and that she was on the verge of becoming so much more. It all made sense in a way that raging hormones and mindless snogging never could…
"Can I get you something to drink?" he asked, thinking that he ought to get himself a foaming tankard of firewhiskey to have on hand as an excuse in case they were caught. Drinking was, after all, permissible. Forgivable. Something they could laugh away over the hard months to come. Dancing with your best friend's wished-for girl was not.
Before Hermione could answer, a coldly amused voice interrupted them --
"Warm weather we're having, don't you agree?"
Ginny Weasley was leaning against one of the ancient apple trees, fanning herself with a wedding program and wearing a poisonous smile.
Hermione leapt back as though struck by a current of electricity. Before Ginny had a chance to elaborate - and before Harry had a chance to ask her to stay - she had shied away into the shadows once more.
"Now where were we?"
"I was just asking you to dance," Harry said, mechanically. But even as Ginny Weasley stole back his attention and promenaded him back to the rest of the merrymakers and the overflowing fountains of second-rate gin, he knew something else was beginning.
* * * * * * *
Hermione Granger perched in the windowsill of Ron's fifth-story bedroom, drawing her knees to her chest and trying not to pay too much mind to the squelching, slopping something housed in the weedy aquarium at her side. It required Herculean effort to keep from crying as peals of laughter and strains of music filtered up from the garden below.
She'd loved Harry since their fourth year and had denied her affections since the advent of her sixth. She'd almost died, after all, she thought defensively, hugging her knees. Love and stubborn devotion had all but carried her to an early grave.
And so she did what she had always done in times of trouble; she'd devised (and implemented) a plan during those sweltering summer months after her fifth year. I was sixteen years old. I nearly died, she reminded herself for the hundredth time. Most importantly, she had failed Harry - had failed him when he needed her most. It was only natural that she should shy from his side and seek another path.
In short, it was a plan that was easier to plot than to carry out, for she'd never been a good actress, particularly not when emotions were concerned, but it all depended on this, on her being able to distance herself. She loved him enough to let him go, at least in theory.
Love was easier to shoo away when one held the object of one's affections at arm's length, or so she'd found…but at the end of their sixth year, distance had almost got them killed.
An ironic laugh escaped her lips.
Falling in love with Harry had been downright illogical and irrational, not to mention dangerous, foolhardy, and completely…unavoidable. Falling for Ron, on the other hand, was a methodical process -- a gradual immersion until attaining him became her obsession. He was safe and predictable - in short, he was not liable to run off and get himself killed.
Being Ronald Weasley's girlfriend - if that was indeed what she was now - meant holding her breath every time the Slytherins flew the Quaffle down to his end of the Pitch, rooting for the Chudley Cannons when she'd rather just curl up with a book, and putting up with the antics of his five brothers, but all those petty concerns paled when compared to the inevitable stressors that would come with being Harry's girl.
From her vantage point, she could just make out the silhouettes of the partygoers: Mr. and Mrs. Weasley slow-dancing to a Celestina Warbeck ditty, Monsieur Delacour polishing off one final flute of champagne, Madame Delacour rocking her white Bichon Friese as though it were an infant whilst Gabrielle sat languidly by her side, and Ron - poor, poor Ron - still wringing butterbeer out of his old moth-eaten dress robes. Fred and George fired off a volley of fireworks, casting the world into sharp relief and Ginny Weasley - ever the opportunist - seized the moment to throw her arms around Harry's neck and plant a haphazard kiss on his forehead. Unless it was a trick of the light, he seemed to pull away from her, slightly.
Stop it, she told herself firmly. You're imagining things.
And with a final sigh of resignation, she slipped out of her dress robes and into a nightgown and settled into bed, hoping that she could feign sleep when Ginny returned. Tonight, she knew she wouldn't be able to bear to hear tell of Ginny's glee - not when it came at such a painful price.
* * * * *
*sniffles* Poor Herm-own-ninny.
* * * * *
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When Tonks asks "Are you decent?" she means, "Are you dressed?" Just thought I should clear that up for those of you who aren't familiar with that phrase.
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