Chapter Six - Loose Lips Sink Canon `Ships
Hermione smiled as she leaned back from the Common Room table. Things had started out a bit awkward, but she was certain they'd gotten over the roughest patch, and that tonight's meeting would go much more smoothly. The content would prove an interesting step towards their final goal. She had already made her lesson plan for the evening, so now all there was to do would be to sit back and observe the results.
"Hermione!" A furious whisper rang through her thoughts.
Hermione looked up towards the end of the table to where Harry was bent over his Potions text, trying to appear as if he were working, but with his head cocked in her direction.
"Yes?" she responded calmly.
He leaned toward her but kept up the pretext of work. "You're impossible to get notice from when you're thinking, you know that?"
Because of the reproach in his voice, Hermione stiffened her chin and glared back. "Yes, Heaven forbid I actually think; especially as it was for your benefit."
Harry's face lit with mischief. "Thinking of writing my Potions essay, were you? Please say you'll put me out of my misery."
Hermione's glare intensified. "No," she said with disdain, "actually, I was planning for tonight's lessons."
"Oh," he said quietly. There was a tick of nervousness in his face and he looked away before nodding. "Tonight then. What time?"
Hermione shrugged. She would have preferred to set a stationary meeting time, but was certain that it would look drastically suspicious to any Gryffindors who didn't already know about their "small study group of friends." And the less that knew about that, the better; anyone who had not been to the meetings and saw Harry and Hermione regularly disappearing might assume that they had less than scholarly interests in mind. And while Hermione could honestly admit that she didn't care in the least - she'd dealt with such rumors during their fourth year from that awful Rita Skeeter - it was an aggravation that neither she nor Harry could really afford at this point.
"The later, the better, I think," Hermione replied at length. She looked around the common room; it was full now, just before dinner, and wouldn't clear of people who could oversee them leaving until much later in the evening. "No need to arouse any unnecessary attention."
"After curfew, then?" Harry said with a grin.
Hermione returned it. "Being Head Girl and Boy certainly does have marked advantages. None of the teachers would stop the two of us out after hours, so I'm sure we'll be safe."
"Indeed we will. Eleven-thirty in the Room of Requirement? That all right?"
Hermione nodded absently. It would be a long night if she didn't even start her lesson with Harry until 11:30, but in the long run, she knew it would be worth it. She began to pack away her school work. There were nearly four hours until she would meet with Harry, but she definitely had some things to accomplish before then. She smiled at Harry, who settled back into his Potions essay, before dashing to the upstairs girls' dormitory. She was going to need to call in reinforcements.
*****
At 10:45, Hermione stood over a sink in the Prefects' Bathroom next to Ginny, a grayish pencil dangling perilously close to her eye, scowling at her reflection. A deep smudge skidded across her lid when she tried to hold her hand steady.
"Less is more, honey," Ginny said with a frustrated huff. "Less is more."
Hermione made a noise in her throat, charmed the smudge away and tried again.
"You know, this is much easier if you just do it with your wand."
"I know, but I want to do it the real way, like my mother taught me," Hermione said. "I never thought I'd actually use that lesson from when I was twelve, I'll tell you that."
"Obviously," Ginny said, smirking. "You're hopeless. Why are you suddenly interested in make-up anyhow? It isn't like you have a fellow, and you're really not so tragic looking that you need to put on make-up just to go to bed."
Hermione grimaced at Ginny's reflection. "Thank you for that overwhelming vote of confidence. It just happens that I have an appointment tonight, and I want to look a little nicer than usual."
"An appointment?" Ginny asked incredulously. "At this hour of night?" And then realization dawned on her face.
Hermione busied herself with applying a sweep of pinkish shadow (that belonged to Ginny) across her eyelids.
"You mean … you're meeting a boy, aren't you? Hermione, you little minx, I never would have imagined!" Ginny shook Hermione's shoulder and giggled. "No wonder you wanted my help to look decent for a change! You're going off to have a snog, aren't you?"
Hermione cleared her throat, suddenly uncomfortable at how close to the mark Ginny had come without knowing it. She made a non-committal noise and straightened up to do something about her hair.
"Who is it then?"
Hermione studiously ignored her and continued fussing with her golden brown tresses. She swept them up off her neck to assess the affect. It would be the most suitable, she thought, so as to keep the unruly strands from getting in the way. Ginny began tugging at her shoulder.
"Come on, after calling me up here to help, you have to tell me! I'm just dying to know who's finally good enough for you!"
Realizing that the ignoring trick wouldn't work (as Ginny's tugs had become impossible to ignore or shrug out of), Hermione took a deep breath and blew it out through pursed lips. "Don't get too excited; it's just Harry."
Ginny froze. "Harry?" she asked dubiously. There was frost in her voice, though she tried hard to tamp it down. "Come on now, you don't really expect me to believe that after all this time, you decided to reopen that old shoebox. Especially given recent events with my brother."
Hermione colored. "No," she said quickly, "and I'd really thank you not to mention that unfortunate crush from a long time ago," she emphasized the words heavily, "ever again. No, it's just our individual study pair meeting tonight."
Ginny nodded, but then looked skeptical. "Then if it's just Harry, why all the fuss?" Wordlessly, Ginny moved behind Hermione to where she had been struggling with her curls and began to sweep the riot of strands up into a loose swirl at the back of her head. "Hermione?" she said when the girl had not responded.
Hermione felt her throat tighten. She didn't really want to admit why she was going through all this, but the two girls had been through enough, shared enough secrets. Ginny deserved to know. "It's for Harry's memories, you see."
"What do you mean?"
"Well," Hermione said and then trailed off, sighing. "This is the first experience either of us has ever had with sex, and you know how dreadful most people say their first sex encounter is. I guess I just supposed that a teenager would have a better chance of remembering fondly if the person they're exploring with is someone pretty to look at. And Harry, of course, is quite lovely, but I… I'm-"
"Oh, Hermione," Ginny said, wrapping her arms around the older girl's shoulders, "you're quite fine-looking, you know?"
Hermione sneered. "High praise, coming from the girl who said she'd come to help so I'd `look decent for a change.'"
"Oh, you know what I mean," she said dismissively. "Besides, it's not as if you're actually sleeping with him or anything ridiculous like that."
"No," Hermione said a touch too quickly. The other girl didn't seem to have noticed.
"So why the fuss?"
Hermione shrugged, but checked her appearance regardless. "What about lipstick then?" she said quietly.
Ginny smiled. "Well, if it were me, I'd charm it on so it wouldn't come off on his face when you snog … but you won't be snogging, so I suppose it doesn't matter."
"Thanks, Gin," Hermione said, purposely forcing a sense of finality into her voice. Ginny, apparently, got the message without it being broadcast and waved to Hermione as she turned to leave.
When the door had swung shut behind the redhead, Hermione picked up her wand and pointed it gingerly at her
lips.
*****
Even in his own mind, Harry hated the cliché that occurred to him, but nevertheless, it still surfaced: in that moment before Hermione's lips touched his own, the air seemed to hum with magic. There was something tangible in that nervous energy in the air and he felt all of his muscles twitch with it in that instant just before she pressed her lips against his. Her lips were soft, softer than he'd have imagined them to be. Once he was certain she wouldn't notice, he opened his eyes to regard her face. Her eyelids fluttered lightly as her breath rushed in, and Harry felt her bottom lip move just the tiniest bit against his. He felt his heartbeat skip just a bit and he felt a strange tingle race the length of his arms (folded uncertainly in his lap). She started pulling back away from the kiss and Harry quickly closed his eyes, unaccountably frightened of what her face might show.
When he opened his eyes, he looked straight back into the warm, cinnamon depths of Hermione's, strangely electrified by the unreadable expression there. She had not pulled away very far, so her face was large, looming across his field of vision. He studied her expression, inexplicably wanting to commit it to memory. She seemed pleasantly dazed. And then, with a crashing thud that was nearly audible, she went back to being the Hermione he had grown up with for seven years.
"Not bad, Harry, not bad. But perhaps this time, I think it would be better if you maybe tilted your head just a tad more to the right, and if you could try and put a bit more pressure with your lips. I think that would yield a bit better results, honestly, in the long run and-"
Hermione continued on this vein for several more minutes, discussing the finer points of kissing, but Harry had stopped listening after a moment or two. From all her bluster, you'd think she was the one who'd had snogging experience, which she'd said she hadn't. Not that Harry's experience had been all that extensive - only two girls, after all, and with Cho it had only happened the once - but he had kissed Ginny quite often and was reasonably sure he'd done a respectable job. She'd never complained, at least. But Harry just sat patiently, nodding his head at whatever Hermione regurgitated from the `reputable sources' that she said she had consulted. He had a suspicion they really were reputable journals of opinion, somehow, and not some Muggle women's magazine or something. And he was reasonably certain that's why it wasn't going as well as she'd like. It was all too clinical.
Eventually, he realized she'd stopped talking and was waiting for him to be ready to try again. Harry sat up straighter and Hermione leaned in towards him. Suddenly inspired, Harry threw up a hand between them and stopped her.
"What's the matter?" she asked, a slightly panicked look just disappearing behind her eyes.
"Nothing," Harry responded, "just let me …"
He trailed off and there was confusion in her eyes, but as Harry reached a hand up to place at her cheek, she closed her mouth over top of whatever question she had been about to voice. He stroked his thumb gently across the low hollow of her face just above her jaw and he could see her breathing quicken just a touch as Harry leaned towards her and stopped with his lips suspended a few millimeters from hers. Her eyelids fluttered shut again, and when her lips dropped open just the tiniest bit and her breath caught in her mouth, Harry instinctively knew that this was the perfect moment. He ran his tongue lightly over his lips before pressing them against hers.
Hermione sighed out a breath against Harry's lips as he kissed her lightly and Harry felt his heartbeat begin to thud swiftly within his chest. His hand slipped past her cheek to gently press against the nape of her neck, pulling Hermione closer to his chest. As they leaned back against the arm of the fainting couch behind Harry, Hermione laced an arm each under Harry's shoulders and around his neck, bringing her chest flush against his. Harry's ears were roaring dully. Their lips moved apart just the tiniest bit as Harry tilted his head in the opposite direction, the tender skin clinging as their mouths opened; Harry tasted her exhaled breath, sweet like the caramel candy she'd had after dinner, before she closed her lips to press again against his.
Hermione's pulse began to race like a thoroughbred stallion just out of the gate at Ascot. She could barely think; her senses were clouding so fast. Given the fact that they'd been so close and quiet for so long last night, just savoring the feel of each other's bodies, she'd assumed that the exhilaration of nearness would have been absent - or, at least, much more manageable. She could see now just how wrong she was, and while her body leapt at the rediscovered euphoria, her mind whirled dizzily. They were merely pressing lips together - or were they? It seemed so much more than merely that - and this was her reaction; how could she ever stand to do more? She felt that she'd be torn apart by sensation. Harry was gently, almost absently, kneading the back of her neck with his hand, and when her body unconsciously pressed itself flat against his chest, she felt nearly sick with pleasant disorientation. And then it happened, and Hermione panicked. When Hermione had pressed into Harry's body, he had taken her at her mark and Hermione felt Harry's tongue trace just slightly across her bottom lip.
Warning! her mind shrieked. She wasn't ready for next week's lesson; not here, not now. Certainly not in this dizzy tailspin she was experience, before she'd prepared herself for what it would be like. She pushed away from Harry with both hands upon his chest, just short of the zeal that would have betrayed panic. She stood up and crossed the room, breathing easier with each inch of space that grew between them.
"Right, I think we've got it," she said quickly. "Don't you?"
Harry opened his mouth, but Hermione charged on without allowing him a chance to answer.
"There's not much to it, closed-mouth kissing, is there? So I don't really think we need any more practice."
Hysteria fought behind her eyes and though Harry saw it plainly, he marveled that she hid it better than usual. She was up and across the room so quickly he didn't even have a chance to stop her. This, he supposed, was most likely her plan, seeing as how she was wittering something at the speed of light and staring down at her bag as she packed away her lesson plan. Harry knew that she'd had at least another half-hour's worth of kissing practice on the schedule. What in the world had her so frightened that she wouldn't even look him in the eye?
"Well," she said, nearly out of breath as she clutched her roll of parchment and backed towards the door, "I think we're done for the night. No need to meet later in the week, don't you think?"
That's all there was to it. She was scared. Harry wanted desperately to push her just a bit and find out why, but he knew somehow that if he did, they'd never get back whatever connection she'd unwittingly allowed out tonight. He nodded his head. For a moment before she left, he saw her fear drop just a bit and something else shone in her eyes. She walked back towards him.
"Perhaps though," her voice was shaky for the first time as she neared him, "we should practice getting used to giving each other just little casual kisses? As a measure of comfort?"
Harry pondered it for a moment and forced a smile overtop of an odd feeling that had suddenly flushed his throat. "I think that would help, yes."
Hermione's body hitched a little bit towards Harry, but she hesitated. Sensing the problem without her even expressing it, Harry closed the gap between them and laid a light, fleeting kiss on her lips and then drew back away from her.
She smiled weakly. "Goodnight, Harry."
Harry watched her turn to leave. "Goodnight, Hermione," he said. When the door clicked behind her, Harry collapsed back down onto the couch and laid a finger to his lips. Whatever had spooked Hermione, Harry was certain he'd find out. Soon enough.
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