Just...

Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to JKR, unfortunately.

Author’s Note: Part 1 of a 4 part series of drabbles/one-shots I’ve written. Rated NC-17 just for the last 2 parts. Enjoy!

Just Friends

The door to the Great Hall opened and Harry heard a trumpet fanfare followed by Rufus Scrimgeour’s voice magnified with the Sonorous Charm announcing, “Harry Potter! Ron Weasley! Hermione Granger!”

Ron and Hermione both turned to look at Harry in surprise.

He grinned at them. “What? He refused to back down on making a formal announcement of my entrance so I told him, fine but he had to announce you two as well.”

Ron grinned. “Brilliant.”

Hermione was flushed and looked uncomfortable but smiled at Harry.

“Come on, let’s get this over with,” he said and as one, the three of them walked through the door and into the Great Hall as the entire room exploded with cheers.

At a signal from Scrimgeour, a huge banner was unfurled to hang over the front of the Great Hall, spelling out “Thank you” in twinkling lights.

The rest of the Great Hall was decorated in flags of alternating Gryffindor red and gold. Harry glanced up at them and then groaned to himself. Someone—Scrimgeour, he guessed—had altered the red flags and included a lightning-bolt on them.

He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to this, but he had.

It had been a few days after they’d all been released from the Hogwarts Infirmary and had been staying in Grimmauld Place, again, while looking for a flat for the three of them to move into.

He had had a surprise visitor one morning, none other than Minister of Magic Scrimgeour.

Scrimgeour had looked rather uncomfortable, an odd combination of hearty congratulation and embarrassment, and after several long-winded speeches of thanks to Harry for the great debt they owed him for defeating You Know Who, he had blurted out that, as a gesture of thanks and support and by way of apology for everything the Ministry had (and hadn’t) done, the Ministry wanted to host a huge gala in his honor.

Harry’s first instinct had been to refuse flatly but Hermione had interceded and shocked him by proceeding to accept the offer.

He had turned to her after Scrimgeour had left, all smiles and promising to be in touch shortly about the details. “Are you mad? Why did you say yes so he can trumpet about my victory as if he’d master-minded the whole thing?”

“Harry, think about it. He won’t claim he master-minded it all because he knows you’d contradict him. He just wants to show his support by throwing this party for you and you should let him.”

“Why?” he’d grumbled. “I’m not inclined to do Scrimgeour any favors.”

“It’s not about him, Harry. You should do it for the rest of us. As a symbol, to the rest of the wizarding world, that they don’t have to be afraid anymore. They know Voldemort’s gone but it hasn’t really sunk in yet. Give them this party and it’ll be a sign to the world that they can relax and the war is really and truly over.” She had paused and squeezed his hand briefly. “It’s what you should do, as a gesture.”

He had given in, seeing the logic in her reasoning. And besides, with Hermione looking at him in that way that always made him feel as if he really was a hero, the way she’d looked at him when she’d told him so many years ago, “You’re a great wizard”—he couldn’t disappoint her.

Now, a month later, standing in the Great Hall, he almost wished he’d refused.

“Oh Harry, we’re so proud of you!” He allowed Mrs. Weasley to nearly maul him with her motherly concern and pride and smiled as he shook Mr. Weasley’s hand.

He grinned at Bill and smiled at Fleur who kissed his cheek and then kissed Ron’s cheek, making Ron turn scarlet.

And then it was Ginny’s turn.

He felt himself flush and knew he probably looked as uncomfortable as he felt. “Hi Ginny,” he said in a voice that tried too hard to be normal.

“Harry.” And then before he could blink, Ginny had thrown her arms around him and stood up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

He stiffened with shock, his arms staying by his side as he more endured Ginny’s embrace than returned it.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said softly as she pulled back.

He managed a slight smile. “Thanks.”

There was a brief pause as he looked at Ginny, realizing fully, for the first time, that he really didn’t have any feelings for Ginny, beyond the friendly and brotherly. Not anymore. He hadn’t seen her in so long until just before the final battle and hardly after that and somehow in the last year, when he’d been so busy worrying about the horcruxes and Voldemort, whatever feelings he had once had for Ginny had simply faded away. He didn’t love her, want her, miss her really. He was fond of her, cared about her in a “She’s-a-Weasley” sort of way, but that was it. He and Ginny were just friends now. Just friends—and that was all.

The silence was broken by Mrs. Weasley giving a broken sniff and turning to Mr. Weasley who put his arm around her with a half-apologetic glance at Harry who nodded in understanding.

And they were all silent for a minute as they thought about Charlie, the one who wasn’t there that day, who hadn’t survived the war.

The silence was broken by a small series of what sounded like explosions as, true to form, Fred and George appeared next to him.

“Harry, good to see you!” Fred exclaimed as if he hadn’t seen Harry in ages and as if the last time he’d seen Harry hadn’t been just the other day.

Harry grinned at the twins. At least they never changed.

“Good show, mate,” George said, shaking Harry’s hand with vigor as his twin moved on to greet Ginny with a teasing “You look great, Gin, almost like a girl!”

And then the evening rather blurred into one long round of forcing smiles and shaking hands and enduring congratulations and thanks and, in general, just being treated like a celebrity.

He lost track of the Weasleys and everyone as Scrimgeour had descended on them immediately afterwards and claimed him insisting he meet with the French Minister of Magic come especially just to meet Harry and then what he could have sworn was every witch and wizard who worked in the Ministry and then some.

Finally, it was over and people stopped lining up to meet him although he could see that many were still watching him—some gawking at him.

He sighed and went to find Ron.

He sensed her presence before she spoke and smiled automatically, relaxing, the tension he always felt when knowing people were watching him leaving him.

“Having a nice time?”

He glanced at her, his evening brightening at the very sight of her smile—it seemed she’d smiled too rarely this past year. “Would it be very ungrateful of me to say no?”

“They mean well, you know, Harry,” she told him quietly.

“I know. I just wish--” he paused and when she looked at him curiously, finished the thought, “I just wish they would stop acting like I did it alone.”

He stopped walking to meet her eyes seriously. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” he told her honestly. “You know that, right?”

Hermione smiled, and her eyes said, thanks.

And he smiled too and for the moment, he was happy.

He was always simply- content, he realized- when he was with Hermione—as if deep inside him, some part of his soul relaxed when he was with her, felt comfortable as if he were lounging in a favorite couch, as if he was home whenever he was with her…

He was suddenly reminded of a question that had been asked by Doris Wilcott, a reporter from the Daily Prophet, in the one interview he had finally consented to give after the final battle.

“And now, Mr. Potter, I just have to ask about your love life. Are you currently seeing anyone?”

He had squirmed a little and colored but answered honestly, “No, I’m not.”

She had looked surprised—which had surprised him. What, they thought he’d had time to snog while trying to defeat Voldemort?

“But what about Miss Granger? You’ve spent the last year with her and seem very close.”

“Hermione? We’re just-- friends. Best friends. Hermione and Ron have always been my best friends.”

He was jerked back to the present by the sound of Hermione laughing at something Ron said to her and focused on her smile, feeling his lips curve in automatic response.

Just friends.

And watching Hermione smile, he had a fleeting thought, as insubstantial as a puff of smoke that vanished right before he could truly grasp it: just friends—for now…

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

Disclaimer: See Part 1.

Author’s Note: And now comes the smut. ;-) The NC-17 stuff is ahead so please don’t read on if you’re under-age.

For oh_honestleigh and sbeegee- the authors of some of the hottest H/Hr smut I’ve read, and for Shannon. *hugs*

Enjoy!

Just Lust

Hermione Granger had made up her mind.

Life was too short to wait forever for a certain endearingly-oblivious boy with messy black hair and green eyes to wake up and realize that she had much-more-than-friendly feelings for him and that she was not his sister or his best friend’s girlfriend or anything that would make her off-limits in any way.

She was 19 years old today and had dated a total of two boys and had slept with neither of them because, somehow, deep inside her, at first unconsciously and then consciously, she had wanted him to be her first… Plus she hadn’t been particularly attracted to Viktor and Ron, well, Ron was just Ron and something about the two of them together just never seemed to work because half the time when they were snogging, it was because they’d been arguing and the only time they didn’t fight was when they snogged.

But that had been a year ago since she and Ron had broken up and in the meantime, she’d been preoccupied with helping Harry defeat Voldemort.

And now—now, when they were free and sharing a flat together in London with Ron helping Fred and George out when he wasn’t off trying out for Quidditch teams and she was training to be a Healer for St. Mungo’s and Harry was being bombarded with job offers and accepting none of them—now she had decided to act.

She didn’t think she could stand living in the same flat with him much longer unless she did something. Seeing him so often, lounging around in the living room when she got home, stumbling out of his room in the mornings bleary-eyed with rumpled hair, coming out of the shower with only a towel wrapped around his waist… Great God but seeing him in only a towel…

So she had to act—or the next time she saw him after his shower she might just do something insane and grab him, drag him into her bedroom and… Discover what his body looked like without the towel…

But deciding to act and actually doing it were two very different things.

In the common light of common day, in all the mundane tasks of the week and in their flat, she couldn’t drum up the courage to just walk up to Harry and say, “Fancy a shag?” or something.

If she couldn’t have his love, she’d settle for lust. At least at first. It was how to make him lust after her that was the hard part. She knew him, knew how he thought of her; she was just Hermione, his best friend, and while he knew she was a girl and didn’t think she was ugly, he also didn’t really think of her in anything approaching a sensual way, didn’t think of her body or of anything below her neck, really.

Which was why she’d agreed (to Ron and Ginny’s amazement) to go out to a club on her birthday wearing a skin-tight top that left very little to the imagination and a skirt that, while not being very short or very tight, was still shorter and tighter than anything she would normally have worn.

Harry’s jaw had visibly slackened when he first saw her but he’d shut his mouth and refused to comment, although she could see a muscle ticking in his jaw. Since then he’d made something of a point of refusing to look directly at her.

She stifled the instinctive pang of hurt—was she that unpleasant to look at?—and downed two shots of something (she didn’t know what it was that Fred handed her with a sly grin but drank it anyway, another thing she would normally not have done) to provide some artificial courage.

And then set off.

She found Harry standing slightly off to the side-lines at the bar and looped her arms around his neck, smiling up at him. “Dance with me, Harry,” she said softly, tugging him to the edge of the dance floor.

He swallowed, keeping his eyes carefully on her face. “Uh- Hermione- I don’t--”

Just then, before he could finish what he was going to say (conveniently, as she could feel all her insecurities and her rational mind begin to break through her determination), someone jostled her from behind, pushing her off-balance and stumbling straight into Harry.

She was pressed against him from chest down, her breasts flattened against his chest, as her arms tightened around his neck in an instinctive move to keep from falling further.

He steadied her with his hands on her waist, his breath strangling in his throat.

“Let’s dance,” she said again, not giving him a chance to push her away and she could see the moment he gave in, his hands staying on her waist, as they began to move to the music.

She knew he wasn’t the best dancer in the world and neither was she, but here, when it was too crowded to move much and too dim to see that well, it didn’t matter and all that mattered was that he was here, dancing with her.

Then the music changed, became slower, more sensuous.

She hid a smile and moved in closer to Harry, resting her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes to breathe in the familiar scent of him—and all the while, she moved, her body molding to his, fitting against his as if she belonged there with him.

Slowly, sinuously, she swayed with him, pressed against him, so closely that she could feel every muscle of his body as he moved with her, so closely it would have been impossible to fit even a sickle in between their bodies…

She could feel the reaction in his body, could sense the tension and maybe it was the alcohol or the music or the lighting or the atmosphere but whatever it was, she felt renewed confidence.

This was it. It was time to move Operation Lust onto another level.

Deliberately, she raised her head and tugged his head down and kissed him. Not a chaste, close-mouthed kiss, not a kiss that could in any way be described as one between platonic friends, but fully. Her tongue slid along his lips and inside his mouth, exploring the depths of it, learning the taste of him…

He had stiffened against her, his entire body stilling in surprise, but then—she felt a surge of triumph mixed in with her growing arousal—his head tilted, his lips softened, and then he was the one kissing her. His hands had tightened on her waist, then slid around her to bring her even closer to him and then one hand slid down her back in a long, slow caress to cup her bottom and bring her arching against him, against the tell-tale hardness in his trousers.

And the passion she’d only dreamed might exist between the two of them exploded.

Her fingers tangled themselves in his hair and she was vaguely aware of a muffled moan only to belatedly realize it had come from her own throat and had been muffled by his mouth.

Ohgodohgodohgod, ohyes, ohgod, yesyesyes…

He was the first one to break the kiss, breathing hard, staring at her in the dimness of the club with wide eyes as if he’d never seen her before.

And she didn’t know which one of them made the first move but it didn’t matter because his hand was holding hers and they were grabbing their cloaks and had left the club.

Her eyes met his just once when they were outside—he cupped her face and kissed her again, hard, on the mouth, his tongue thrusting inside and finishing the job he’d started before in the club, reducing what remained of her brain to incoherent wanting.

They didn’t need to talk after he ended the kiss.

She closed her eyes and Apparated back to their flat, struggling to pull out her key when he appeared beside her and opened the door with a simple “Alohamora.” She had the fleeting thought, the convenience of wandless magic, and then he was kissing her again and she forgot to think about anything except that his lips were on hers, his tongue caressing hers and, somewhere in the back of her mind with the last remaining bit of coherence, finally…

They were stumbling inside her bedroom (it was closer than his—and had the added advantage of being on the opposite side of the flat from Ron’s) before she knew it.

Her hands were wandering all over his chest and shoulders and his back, exploring and discovering all the muscles she knew he’d developed sometime in the last year and more, feeling the way he tensed at her touch and loving it.

And then she was falling backwards onto her bed with him on top of her, her skirt riding up to her hips as his leg pushed her legs apart.

His lips left hers to scatter kisses and lick and suck and nuzzle their way down her jaw and to her neck. She threw her head back, her mouth opening on a soundless gasp, as fire streaked through her from where his lips touched her skin, adding to the wetness she could feel between her legs.

His hands palmed, then cupped her breasts through the thin fabric of her shirt and his breath was hot against her skin as he breathed, “My God, Hermione…” and he might have tried to say something else but it was lost in the pants of his breath as he pushed down her top and her bra to lave first one nipple then the other, kissing, sucking, arousing…

Her hands had slipped inside his shirt, then tugged it off him in one motion, before setting to work on his trousers. She had thought she might tease him a little through the cloth but the lust raging through her body promptly made her change her mind. Every inch of her body was on fire, screaming more, need, want, must have, all directed at having Harry’s naked skin against hers.

She had wanted to incite lust in him; she hadn’t quite counted on the full extent of her lust for him.

Her fingers were clumsy with haste and he helped her, quickly shoving his trousers and his boxers down and off his legs, freeing his erection.

The breath caught in her throat at the sight of him, arousal mingled with a distinct sense of triumph—he’s aroused because of me; I made him look like that—and she reached, her fingers first lightly tracing along the hot, hard length of him. He shuddered, his hands falling away from where they’d been caressing her breasts.

And then she moved to kneel in front of him on her bed, obeying an impulse she couldn’t deny—she wanted to feel this, wanted to experience this—and she wanted, oh she wanted, to give him this… She kissed him on impulse, her lips lightly touching that part of his body she was only now discovering—he groaned—she took him in her mouth, experimentally—his hands fisted in her hair and his hips jerked—she licked, sucked lightly, her mouth moving over him… He pulled away from her with a strangled moan. “Wait.”

It was the work of a moment for him to tear her shirt and bra off her and slide her skirt, her knickers and her nylons down her legs, leaving her as naked as he was.

And she didn’t have time for even a moment of self-consciousness because the moment she was naked, he was on top of her, kissing her again.

One hand was kneading her breast while the other slid down her body to cup the spot between her legs, his fingers caressing the wet, swollen flesh and then moving to caress the sensitive skin of her thighs.

She jerked, crying out involuntarily, her mind beginning to fly apart at the seams at the pleasure roaring through her.

He thrust forward, entering her in one smooth stroke and she gasped, stiffening, and stifled a cry of surprise against the bare skin of his shoulder. He stopped, though she could sense the effort it took him to do so in the way his muscles tensed beneath her hands. And she kissed him again, willing herself to relax as she acclimated to the feel of him inside her, stretching her, filling her…

This was Harry and this was what she’d wanted…

His hands moved back to her breasts, lightly squeezing her nipples between his fingers, before he flattened his hands—his beautiful, wonderful hands—on her again, sending further streaks of lightning through her already-sensitized body.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, urging him to move, and he did with a strangled groan in which she thought she could hear the beginnings of her name.

Yes, this was what she’d wanted. He was filling all of her, completing her in ways she’d never known she’d been missing… She’d been empty and this, him, inside her, was what she’d been waiting for her entire life…

And then she forgot to think, the entire world dissolving around her and narrowing down to only her and him, as their lips melded, tongues tangled, hands touched, caressed, gripped, their bodies merged and came together, driven by a primal force and need, driven to give, driven to take, driven to be one. The force was frightening, thrilling, utterly compelling.

And then she shattered, fractured—so fast, so intensely she saw rapture like a starburst on the insides of her eyelids.

He followed her in another moment, pushed over the edge by the feeling of her moist warmth clenching around him, exploding inside her body with a cry that was ripped from his throat.

He collapsed on top of her, gasping for breath, and just lay there, slowly becoming aware of her breasts pressed against his chest and that he was probably crushing her.

He rolled over to his side, slipping out of her body, not looking at her as the return of sanity made him realize what he’d done and with whom and feel the first stab of doubt and not a little fear.

She curled up next to him, one hand settling on his chest, and her eyes closed, her breathing becoming deep and regular.

And he knew he should stay awake, should try to figure out what had just happened and why and what this would mean for them, but the lassitude filling his body was overwhelming, the warmth of her and the comfort of her bed too tempting. He would just close his eyes and sleep for a little while…

Hermione came awake slowly to the realization that her pillow was warmer and harder than usual—because Harry’s shoulder was serving as her pillow.

The memories of what had happened- the success of Operation Lust- had her eyes flying open, consciousness returning in a hurry.

Harry was still sleeping, looking oddly younger and more vulnerable without his glasses, his face wiped clean of any expression.

She let her eyes wander from his familiar features down his body—the body she’d explored and just begun to know a few hours ago, feeling a smile curve her lips.

She had rather suspected it and now she knew it. Harry was truly a wonderful shag.

Not that she had anything to compare it with. Her relationships with Viktor and Ron had never even gotten close to shagging and she’d almost begun to wonder if she were at all lacking in that department—when she’d realized that her reaction to the sight of Harry was not at all cold and quite evidence enough that whatever had been missing from her relationships before would most certainly not be missing in a relationship with Harry. He only had to smile at her for her heart to beat faster and those times when he would stretch, his shirt rising to show a strip of skin, her blood pressure and her temperature would rise with it.

To say nothing of the fact that he looked—positively delicious, for lack of another term, when he was only wrapped in a towel.

She sensed his return to consciousness in the way his breathing hitched slightly, becoming less deep and regular. She held her breath until, slowly, almost reluctantly, his eyes opened and looked straight into hers.

They were clouded with some confusion and uncertainty.

“Good morning,” she said softly.

The sound of her voice seemed to jerk him into full consciousness and he stiffened, his eyes widening as he looked at her with some apprehension and a dawning regret.

He swallowed and then spoke. “Um—Hermione—I—what happens to us now?”

“Does anything need to happen?”

He gaped at her. “We- we had sex!” he blurted out, his cheeks turning scarlet.

She stifled a smile. (Harry could be so cute when he was flustered.) “I wanted you. You wanted me. We’re both adults and neither of us is seeing anyone else.” She kept her voice matter-of-fact as if she were listing grocery items. “Why does it need to be complicated?”

“We’re friends!”

“We can still be friends—just friends who happen to have shagged.”

When he looked like he was going to say something more, she cut him off with her lips, kissing him, her tongue sliding inside his mouth to tease his.

She could feel his response both in his kiss and in the growing hardness against her thigh—and sensed the weakening of his resistance as he gave in to the physical attraction between them.

She finally broke the kiss to whisper against his mouth, “Stop thinking so much.”

She felt rather than saw his smile, felt his small, breathless laugh at her saying those words to him, when he’d always been the one to say it to her.

“That’s my line,” he told her quietly before he kissed her again, rolling them over until he was on top of her.

His hands set out to caress all the curves of her body, learning her, before his lips followed, leaving a damp trail of kisses down her body.

She gasped, her fingers tangling in his hair, clutching him to her.

And let the lust wrap around and through them, sweeping them away to the same passion-filled world they’d visited the night before—a world that seemed, somehow, to belong to them alone.

The universe narrowed down until there was only him and her, in a tangle of arms and legs and skin against skin, lips and teeth and tongues arousing, teasing, tasting, hands grasping, caressing greedily.

Until he was buried inside her so deeply she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.

She looked up at him as he stared down at her, losing herself in the deep green of his eyes, and knew a fleeting moment of clarity. This was what she’d wanted. She’d wanted to know what it felt like to have him above her, inside her, filling her.

She drew him back down to kiss him, offering him her lips, her body, her heart, her very soul—as he began to move.

She met him thrust for thrust, her cries mingling with his gasps.

Until the world exploded around them.

She cried out, her fingers digging into his skin as she convulsed around him.

He thrust one last time and spilled himself inside her with a shout.

She opened her eyes just in time to see the way his jaw locked, the look halfway between agony and ecstasy cross his features. She welcomed him, as one of his hands found hers, holding it in an almost-punishing grip as he rode out his orgasm. This, too, was what she’d wanted—to know what he looked like when he came and know that she had brought him there.

He rolled off of her, breathing hard. “Holy God,” he breathed, the words barely intelligible through his pants.

She managed a slight smile up at the ceiling at the realization that he was still holding her hand.

Then there was only the sound of their breathing in the room as they both lay there, side by side in her bed.

She didn’t know how long it was before she gathered the will and the energy to move, getting up off the bed.

She felt a blush color her cheeks in spite of herself at the sight of their clothes scattered all over the room, wherever they’d landed, along with his glasses (she couldn’t remember who’d taken them off him or when).

She slipped into her robe, pausing for a fleeting moment to enjoy the sight of Harry lying in her bed, watching her with an odd expression she’d never seen before in his eyes, before leaving for the restroom.

When she returned, Harry was half-dressed.

He dropped a quick kiss on her temple before he left her room and she thought how—odd—it was that despite his earlier discomfort, somehow now there was no lingering awkwardness, some shades of embarrassment admittedly but no real awkwardness.

Until Ron stumbled out of his room a little while later when they were sitting at the kitchen table and asked with deliberate nonchalance, “Did you two sleep well?”

Harry choked on air, turning red.

Hermione felt herself blushing almost in spite of herself. She’d known that Ron would know that she and Harry had shagged but hadn’t reflected on it beyond that.

“Er- I- uh--” Harry began and then stopped, his mouth closing and then opening again, at a complete loss for words.

Ron permitted his smirk to grow into a grin as he poured himself some pumpkin juice, but then decided to give Harry a break. (Besides, aside from asking how it was—and he couldn’t ask that and certainly would not with Hermione anywhere within hexing distance—he couldn’t think of anything to say.)

So he dispelled the charged atmosphere by asking—as if it were any other Sunday morning, “What are your plans for today?”

Hermione gathered her wits and answered with equal ease, “I’m having lunch with my parents and then spending the afternoon with my mum.”

And somehow with those words, they could interact normally again as a trio of friends and flat-mates.

Normally, except for the minor point that Harry steadfastly avoided looking at Hermione as much as possible and flinched away from even the most casual contact.

But even that wore off as Hermione and Ron both studiously avoided reacting to it.

Harry relaxed a little, pushing the thought of the last night and ‘It was just a shag, just lust’ to the very perimeters of his consciousness.

Disclaimer: See Part 1.

Author’s Note: The 4^th (and last) part of the ‘Just…’ series. Where Harry wakes up to the truth.

With a little bit of R/Lu- for Marie_j_granger.

Thank you, everyone, for reading and reviewing this fic! Enjoy!

Just Love

Harry threw himself onto the couch with a sigh, glad for once that he was alone in the flat.

He didn’t want Ron around—and he certainly did not want Hermione around, distracting him with her presence. Not that her absence kept her from his thoughts. She was somehow always on his mind now.

He thought back to the past week since Hermione’s birthday, or more specifically, what had happened the night of Hermione’s birthday.

He felt heat go through his body at the bare thought of that night, and the morning after. Great ghost but who would have thought that Hermione could do that… That she’d be so- hot in bed…

He could still see in his mind the way she’d looked when she’d been beneath him that night, flushed with passion and wanting, remembered the way it had felt to be inside her…

He had resolved not to shag Hermione again- at least until he figured out just what was going on between them- but then she’d just smiled at him the night after that and then when she’d bent to kiss his cheek goodnight later on, he’d caught a hint of her fragrance, the scent of her lotion and her shampoo and the scent that was uniquely hers—and he’d immediately forgotten his resolve.

He’d caught her arm before she could leave and half-led, half-followed her into her room where, the moment the door was closed, he’d promptly trapped her against it and kissed her the way he’d told himself he shouldn’t kiss her again, hard, possessively. Kissed her because he couldn’t not kiss her again, couldn’t not want her again with an urgency that amazed him.

She’d wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back with a passion he’d only just discovered in her—and he’d been lost.

Lost to his raging arousal and his new-found, irresistible lust for her…

Just lust…

Or was it?

He hadn’t felt entirely comfortable with the idea of lusting after Hermione but he had pushed any doubts to the back of his mind and just let his body feel, given in to the undeniable compulsion to touch her, to be inside her.

Only he couldn’t anymore.

Just lust—the simplicity of it was appealing. If he could tell himself it was only lust that was driving this new facet of his relationship with her, he could keep it confined to only the sex and not think about how it would change his familiar, comforting—and necessary—friendship with her.

But it had just gotten messier than that.

He was confused now, lost, felt rather adrift in some strange new world.

He wondered what would happen if this lust between them ever died—but could not imagine it ever happening. He could never get tired of her passion, her responsiveness, her occasional boldness, how beautiful she looked when she was naked on her bed and aroused, wanting him… He wondered what would happen if either he or Hermione got involved with anyone else; but he couldn’t imagine himself even having eyes to notice any other woman in the world with Hermione in his life… He felt a surge of sharp and instinctive protest at the thought of Hermione with anyone else, hot rebellion boiling up inside him until he rather thought he could hex the unknown and hypothetical bloke who even dared to touch Hermione. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t—he couldn’t bear the thought of any other man ever getting to see Hermione naked, getting to experience the passion of her. She was his.

Only—she wasn’t.

And that was the problem.

Just lust—but that had gotten complicated.

He wished he could talk to someone about this, about his confusion—but he couldn’t.

If it involved anyone else, he might talk to Ron—but this was Hermione and he couldn’t talk about Hermione with Ron.

But what threw him off-balance the most was the realization that, above all, the one person he really wanted to talk to about his uncertainties and his doubts and his questions was—Hermione herself. He wanted to talk to Hermione; she’d always been the one he turned to when he was confused about girls before. She was the person he instinctively wanted to confide in, the person he trusted the most.

He tried to picture himself talking to Hermione about his confusion involving her—“I’m shagging you and, uh, now I- I’m confused.” He shuddered at the very thought.

But what did that mean- that he automatically wanted to turn to Hermione with his confusion?

Hermione was his best friend; he trusted her, respected her, enjoyed her company—and he wanted her. Wanted her with a sort of irresistible attraction which he’d never really felt before. He was, he sometimes thought, rapidly becoming addicted to her.

Just lust. Somehow he doubted it.

Hermione smiled when she got back to the flat and saw Harry. “I’m home,” she announced unnecessarily.

Her smile faltered slightly when he didn’t return her smile.

“We- uh- we need to talk,” he said.

“Sure. What is it?”

He hesitated and looked uncertain and then grabbed her hand and pulled her into his bedroom.

“Harry- what-” she began as she entered his room but then found her words cut off with his mouth as he kissed her, his hands sliding into her hair.

He kissed her as if he wanted to possess her, claim her, mark her as his own.

She arched against him, pressing her body to his, making a small sound in the back of her throat. God, she loved it when he kissed her as if he could never get enough of her, when he kissed her as if he couldn’t have waited another minute before he touched her again.

She could feel the heat rising in her body and knew he felt it too judging from the growing hardness she could feel against her.

Her hands wandered down his chest, pulling his shirt out of his trousers and sliding her hands up the bare skin of his stomach and chest in a deliberately tantalizing caress.

He gasped and then tore his mouth from hers, pushing her away from him with his hands on her shoulders. “Wait, we can’t,” he managed to get out.

She slid her hand down his chest to press against his arousal. “Why not?” she asked rather breathily, smiling what could only be described as a sensuous smile, the sort of smile she’d never thought she would ever be able to give him.

He groaned at her touch, jerking away, before staring at her, confusion, hesitation, uncertainty all passing over his face, and then he finally managed to say, “I can’t do this anymore.”

She flinched, her smile fading, trying desperately to hide her hurt. She had hoped for so much, had thought her plan was succeeding…

“But why?” she asked and then inwardly winced at the thread of hurt in her voice which she couldn’t help. “It- it’s just lust…”

His grip tightened on her shoulders. “No, Hermione, it’s not—it’s— I think I’m in love with you!” he burst out.

And then stopped, his eyes widening. Yes, that was what was complicating this. This wasn’t just lust, wasn’t just physical—this was Hermione and he cared about her as well as lusted after her. It could never be just lust with her.

It wasn’t lust; it was love. He was in love with her.

“I’m in love with you,” he repeated.

She was just staring at him, her eyes wide, and he continued on. “I don’t—I want this to be more than just friends shagging because they want to or something like that. I love you—and I- I want this to mean something to you too.”

He finished and there was a long moment of silence in which he could practically hear his heart beginning to crack just a little.

He stared at her, vulnerability and a wavering hope in his eyes—and then before he could blink, she had thrown herself at him, flattening her body against his, with enough force that it propelled him backwards until they both landed on his bed.

He lay there beneath her, blinking up at her in surprise, opening his mouth to speak but she cut him off with her lips, kissing him with all the love and passion she felt. “Oh Harry, you dear, daft idiot! Why do you think I seduced you on my birthday, for the fun of it? I did it because I’ve been in love with you for what seems like forever and I wanted you to start seeing me as a woman and not just as your best friend.”

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “You’re in love with me? You planned what happened the night of your birthday?”

She colored. “Yes,” she admitted rather nervously.

He blinked again and then smiled up at her, a half-teasing, half-tender sort of smile which he’d never given her (or anyone) before. “I knew there was a reason I loved you.”

And when he slid his hands into her hair to bring her lips down to his, they were both smiling.

~*~

He had always known he admired and respected Hermione for her brains and her kindness, and he loved how she understood him and loved how loyal she was.

He had never known before that he also loved Hermione’s body—she was gorgeous. The clothes she tended to wear didn’t do her form justice. And now he’d realized that the sight of her naked could take his breath away—as well as reduce his brain to mush, aroused and lustful mush at that.

She was naked now, lying on his bed, and looking up at him with her cheeks flushed and a look in her eyes he’d only seen in the past week, the one that made his skin hot just seeing it. God, how on earth did he ever get so lucky to have Hermione in his bed after she’d just told him she was in love with him?

Hermione stared up at Harry, feeling added wetness between her legs just from the way Harry was looking at her—to say nothing of the sight of him with no clothes on. She had, she thought, been living her whole life, longing to be looked at by someone—no, by Harry—in just such a way, as if she were more precious, more desirable than his soul. As if he’d willingly trade his soul to be able to touch her, be inside her…

He crawled up onto his bed, straddling her, his hands going to her breasts, caressing them, kneading them, before he replaced his hands with his mouth, taking first one nipple then the other into his mouth and lightly sucking it, loving how she gasped and squirmed and clutched his head to her.

Oh he loved her responsiveness…

“Harry,” she gasped, gathering the last bits of coherent thought, “shouldn’t you put a Silencing Charm on your room?”

He groaned but then moved one hand, his head lifting, as he waved his hand in the direction of the door, muttering the words of the Silencing Charm and then locking his door for good measure, before returning his attention to her breasts.

Her fingers tugged lightly at his hair and he lifted his head, moving up her body to kiss her, his tongue plunging into her mouth to engage in a playfully erotic duel with her tongue.

He kissed her as he would happily kiss her for the rest of his life, kissed her with enough force to possibly bruise her lips but at the moment neither of them cared, because she kissed him back, her legs wrapping around his hips to bring his body even closer to hers.

His lips finally left hers to nip and nuzzle their way down her jaw and then her neck, pausing to kiss and then lick the little hollow on her throat which he’d discovered was incredibly sensitive and she moaned his name.

He wanted to kiss every inch of her skin, discover every single erogenous spot on her body, show her with his lips and hands and tongue how much he loved her and wanted her…

And he set out to do just that.

He trailed his lips down her body, leaving a damp trail of kisses interspersed with soft, whispered words that spilled from his lips along her skin, words about how beautiful she was, how he loved to see her body like this, how she was his…

Her hips jerked slightly when he finally reached the core of her, his hands stroking, caressing the soft skin of her thighs before his tongue touched the hot wetness of her, licking and sucking and teasing and tasting— worshipping her body with his mouth. She screamed as her body exploded, bolts of sheer pleasure shooting through her every nerve, leaving her trembling with the force of her orgasm.

He slid back up her body, kissing her again, so she could taste herself on his lips and tongue, an oddly arousing thing.

She tore her lips away from his with a gasp and began to move her hands from where they’d been caressing his shoulders and back down to where his arousal jutted but he caught her hands in his.

“No,” he told her when she looked up at him. “This time, it’s just for you. To make up for the night of your birthday when you did everything for me,” he added softly.

She opened her lips to respond that she hadn’t—and she certainly had enjoyed every second of it—but he kissed her again, preventing her words and effectively making her forget what she’d been about to say.

His hands wandered over her body, stroking, caressing, arousing until she thought she might go mad with desire and pleasure.

“Harry, please,” she gasped—and he responded to the plea in her voice by adjusting his hips and sliding home.

She gasped again from the feeling of him buried inside her and then wrapped her arms around him, her legs around his hips, urging him to move.

And he did, sliding almost all the way out and then in again, at first with as much deliberate slowness as he could manage, until she bucked up against him, clenching her muscles around him and he began to move faster.

He brought her mouth back to his, his tongue matching the rhythm of his hips in thrusting inside her mouth, until he felt her convulse around him, her fingers digging into his back, and her lips left his on a cry.

He opened his eyes, wanting to see her as she came, wanting to see the expression on her face and glory in the knowledge that he’d given her that moment of ecstasy.

The sight of her, the sound of her, the feel of her, it was all nectar to his soul—and further fueled his own arousal, pushing him over the edge.

He thrust inside her one last time, exploding inside her, with her name on his lips and the image of her face in his mind…

And then collapsed on top of her, his arms automatically drawing her close to him as he half-rolled, half-fell onto his side, feeling as limp as if Lockhart had once again removed all his bones, only this time his head was swimming with pleasure.

She nestled closer to him, fitting against him perfectly as if her body had been made with his in mind and vice versa.

She brushed her lips against his bare shoulder and he felt her smile against his skin.

Summoning an inordinate amount of energy, he lifted his head slightly to look at her. “Why are you smiling, love?” The endearment slipped from his lips with amazing ease considering he’d never said it before and would probably have been embarrassed to say it to anyone else, but then he’d never really loved anyone else and calling Hermione ‘love’ seemed somehow as natural as calling her by her name.

She shifted her head on his shoulder to meet his eyes. “Just because I’m happy.” And he could see the truth of her words in her eyes, which were brighter than he could ever remember seeing them.

His lips curved into a slight smile in response. “I’m happy too,” he said quietly, tightening his arms around her and brushing his lips against her forehead.

I’m happy too. He felt the impact of those simple words to his very heart, suddenly wondering when he’d last felt this sort of simple, deep joy—and realized he couldn’t remember ever having felt this way.

But he was happy now, with a happiness that filled him and also calmed him, as if his entire soul stilled, was at peace, knowing that, for the moment at least, he wanted nothing more.

He settled his head back on his pillow, as he sensed rather than heard a small, contented sigh slip from Hermione’s lips as she nestled closer to him.

And he wondered how it had taken so long for him to realize that this- that she- was all he wanted, needed, in his life. That he loved her. It felt so right, so natural, as if this had been where he’d always belonged, as if he’d been subconsciously waiting for this for years now—how could it have taken so long?

Hermione had known, he knew that now. He felt a small smile curve his lips. His Hermione always knew…

Hermione’s breathing had become deep and regular, her weight against him a little heavier as she relaxed into him.

With a wave of one hand, he turned off the lights in his room and let darkness sink in.

He looked down to where he knew Hermione’s face was, though he couldn’t see it in the darkness, picturing her sleeping face.

“I love you,” he whispered, though he knew she wouldn’t hear it but just wanting to say the words again (he loved her and she loved him—how amazing and yet natural was that?).

And then he settled back and let himself slide into sleep.

He awoke some time later to a still-dark room when he heard the sound of Ron coming in to the flat.

“Harry? Hermione?”

He heard Ron call out from outside and could almost picture Ron glancing at Hermione’s dark room and his closed door and shrugging to himself.

A slight movement of her hand resting on his chest and a change in the rhythm of her breathing alerted him that Hermione had woken up too, to Ron’s voice.

“Ron’s back,” he told her unnecessarily, his voice quiet.

“What time is it?”

He glanced over at the clock on the nightstand, squinting to make out the glowing numbers. “It’s a little after 1 in the morning.”

He sensed rather than saw her smile, heard it in her voice, as she said, “Ron’s date with Luna must have gone well.”

He smiled too, responding both to the amusement in her tone and her words. “Yes. I’ll have to ask him about it in the morning.”

“I’m glad. She’s always fancied him, I think, even way back in 5^th year at Hogwarts.”

He glanced down at her even though he couldn’t see her. “She fancied him in 5^th year? How do you know?”

“Oh I guessed. From the way she laughed at his jokes, the way she made herself that roaring Gryffindor lion hat for the Quidditch games, her singing ‘Weasley is Our King’, the way she called him Ronald.”

“Luna calling him Ronald was a sign that she fancied him? How do you figure that?”

“I thought it was her way of letting him know that she thought he was different, more fanciable, than other girls thought. Her way of being the different girl in his life; calling him ‘Ronald’ when no one else did was sort of like claiming that ‘Ronald’ was hers while Ron was the person everyone else knew.”

His jaw dropped slightly despite his lying on his back. “Do girls really put that much thought into what version of a fellow’s name to use?” He shook his head slightly. “I’ll never understand girls.”

“You understand me well enough.” Her voice softened slightly from her normal conversational, almost-bantering tone which she had been using, to become almost tender.

His tone softened in response. “That’s because you’re you—and you’re different.”

And when his lips found hers, they were smiling.

~*~

It was the next morning that the truly amazing thing—at least in Hermione’s mind—occurred.

They were having breakfast, Ron having just woken up and come out of his room.

Hermione got up to pour herself more tea.

Harry glanced at Hermione and then at Ron and made a quick decision. He had told her he loved her, knew she believed him, but there was one thing more…

“Hermione, love, will you get me the jam while you’re up?”

The silence that ensued was almost palpable.

Hermione, standing at the counter, had stilled for a moment before turning to look at Harry, a silent question in her eyes which he answered with a look. She smiled, warmth blossoming in her heart.

Ron stared at Harry as if Harry had just announced a plan to move to Antarctica. “What did you just call her?”

Harry ignored Ron to smile quickly at Hermione as she handed him the jar of jam. “Thanks, love.”

Hermione ducked her head to stare into her mug of tea, suddenly sure the look on her face would be a ridiculously happy one which she would rather Ron not see since she was sure it looked goofy. Who would ever have thought that just one word could make her melt so completely?

Ron glanced between Harry and Hermione, as comprehension about what had really happened between them to change their relationship dawned. It wasn’t just shagging. They were in love…

And Harry had just taken the opportunity to tell him so, in no uncertain terms, without actually, well, telling him so.

He knew it—and one look at his best friends’ faces confirmed it, if he’d ever had any doubt.

Harry wasn’t the sort of person to use endearments. He simply didn’t. Never having grown up in a household which used them- other than the ridiculous ones with which Aunt Petunia had called Dudley- he simply didn’t use them.

Hermione did, occasionally, had been known to call both of them ‘dear’ sometimes, the term so obviously used without thought that neither of them had ever commented on it.

Ron had grown up in a household where endearments were used- often in fact, especially by his Mum- but he didn’t use them because he never felt comfortable saying them.

So Harry calling Hermione ‘love’ had been very deliberate.

And looking at Harry, Ron couldn’t doubt that Harry meant it (besides which Harry would never have said it if he weren’t absolutely sure of it).

Harry and Hermione were in love.

And, though he’d never stopped to think about it before, would have sworn if anyone had asked him even two weeks ago, that Harry and Hermione were just best friends, the thought that flitted through his mind was: well, of course…

Of course…

As if somehow, unconsciously, he’d already thought it was bound to happen. As if he’d already accepted that it was meant to be.

Harry and Hermione in love? What could be more natural?

~The End~