Disclaimer: See the first part of this series.
Author's Note: Don't we all love denial!Harry?
Just a Kiss
When it happened, it happened fast.
It was an accident and afterwards, he could never quite explain how it happened.
They were alone in their flat, Ron being away on try-outs for Puddlemere United, and Hermione bent to kiss his cheek as she occasionally did when saying goodnight.
And he opened his mouth to say something, turning his head at that moment, and instead of meeting his cheek, her lips touched his slightly parted ones.
He kissed her-or she kissed him.
And somehow, his brain was too sluggish to react and he automatically closed his eyes and the kiss lasted for a few seconds, his tongue just touching her lips that softened and parted…
Her hands came up to touch his hair…
Oh my God, what am I doing? I'm kissing Hermione!
I can't kiss Hermione.
Sanity returned in that moment and he tore himself away, not letting himself think about the warmth of her, the taste of her still lingering on his lips, the way his heart was beating.
"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "I- it was an accident."
He was almost afraid to look at her. Please, oh please, don't let this do anything to our friendship. I couldn't stand it if anything changed between us; I need her friendship too much…
He held his breath, feeling rather as if the fate of his entire life hung in the balance at that moment.
She managed a twitch of her lips that was almost a smile. "It's okay, Harry. It was just a kiss between friends. Good night."
She left to go to her room and he sat there, wondering why he was oddly, irrationally-disappointed?-at her answer.
She could shrug it off as "just a kiss"; why did he somehow have the feeling that it had been something much more, much bigger than that?
Just a kiss…
Kissing Cho had been just a kiss and he'd fancied Cho then…
Kissing Ginny had been just a kiss and he'd fancied her too…
Kissing Hermione-that hadn't been 'just' anything.
He couldn't believe it had been "just a kiss"-not when his heart was still beating abnormally fast, not when he could still feel the warmth of her lips against his, the touch of her hands on his hair…
He shook his head to clear it. He was thinking insane thoughts.
It had to be just a kiss-because the alternative was unthinkable. This was Hermione; he couldn't kiss Hermione; best friends didn't kiss each other.
He deliberately forced the memory of the kiss from his mind, tried to forget it, thought he had forgotten it.
Until the next morning.
Hermione smiled at him as she did every morning, sipping her usual cup of tea as he poured himself some pumpkin juice.
And he nearly poured the juice onto the counter and not into his glass in staring at her lips as they just touched the rim of her mug.
Lucky mug.
He blinked, deliberately returning his attention to his pumpkin juice, pouring it into his glass and then putting the juice back into the fridge, every movement measured and purposeful.
"I was thinking of going to Flourish & Blotts later this afternoon. Do you want to come with?" Hermione asked as she was getting ready to leave later that morning.
He opened his mouth to refuse-the less time he spent in Hermione's presence the better given his current mental wanderings-but instead heard himself say, "Sure."
She smiled brightly at him. "Great. How about we meet at The Leaky Cauldron around 4?"
He managed a smile. "I'll see you there." He was amazed at how normal his voice sounded even when he was busy mentally calling himself names for his stupidity in agreeing to spend the afternoon with her.
Idiot, idiot, idiot!
Insane idiot, at that. Absolutely barking mad.
He spent the day telling himself the morning had been a temporary reaction to an unusual event. He could stop this; he had to stop this.
Unfortunately, telling himself so was less than effective as he found when they stopped for an ice cream at the newly re-opened Florean Fortescue's.
He looked up from his own ice cream to see Hermione lick a dab of ice cream off her upper lip.
He closed his eyes and only opened them again to stare down at his melting ice cream as if it were speaking to him and telling him something fascinating.
No, no, no, no, no…
He refused to think about Hermione in that way, refused to think about kissing Hermione-he couldn't…
That day had been the first-and the worst.
He found that he got better at not being quite so distracted by Hermione and her lips as time went on-or as he got more settled into his new insanity…
Hours could go by when he didn't look at her mouth or think of her as anything other than his best friend-always punctuated by moments when he would look at her and couldn't think of anything but kissing her, remembering the warmth of her lips, the taste of her…
It had just been a kiss-a relatively short and chaste kiss, barely more than a platonic kiss-but he found that, at least where Hermione was concerned, a kiss could not be just a kiss, not for him…
And he refused to think about what that might mean.
The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes