Chapter Seven - Hermione Makes Out Like a Bandit
Harry lay awake in his bed at the top of Gryffindor Tower for most of the night. He couldn't quite seem to figure out just what in the bloody hell was going on with Hermione. It had been nearly five days since her odd flight from their last lesson, and she hadn't really behaved any less peculiarly. A kiss on his cheek whenever she entered or left the room (assuming there was no one to see her do so) had become her habit. She would give him these feather-light kisses and, though it had taken some getting used to on his part, receiving kisses on the cheek from him didn't seem to bother her either. But when he'd attempted, only twice, to take her lips, Hermione had practically run away in her haste to circumvent his efforts. Harry knew he hadn't done so very badly in kissing that she needed to run away, and, after all, this whole field research lark had been her idea in the first place.
Much as he tried, tossing within his bed, Harry just couldn't figure out what he'd done to scare her off. Admitting defeat to his insomnia, Harry rose from his bed, heaved his dressing gown over his shoulders and strode out of Gryffindor Tower. Perhaps a patrol of the castle would help clear his head.
*****
Hermione stalked down the halls near the kitchen, munching on the ripe pear she had obtained from the house elves. They'd finally started warming up to her, after all the excitement from S.P.E.W. had died down. The fact that she'd stopped knitting caps most likely helped as well, come to think of it. She chewed thoughtfully, a yawn escaping every now and then. She'd been having trouble sleeping ever since her meeting with Harry on Sunday, and she was getting quite sick of this foolishness. The crush she'd had on Harry her first three years of school had long since left her, when it became obvious that Harry's tastes had run elsewhere. Ever the pragmatist, Hermione had reasoned that it made no sense to waste her time and emotions on someone who had no interest in her, and as such, had felt free to turn to Viktor, Cormac (on whatever shallow a level), and eventually Ron. So this recent distraction with Harry not only unsettled but annoyed her as well.
Her pace didn't slow any as she moved through the lower floors of the castle. It was nearly 2 am, so she knew that she wouldn't run into anyone else in the darkened classrooms, but habit and nervous energy had her lighting her wand tip and checking to keep herself busy.
The slap of her fuzzy slippers, she didn't bother to with actual shoes on these patrols because of the lack of company, against the stone floor seemed to echo against the walls as loud as cannon fire. She shouldn't be this skittish around him, that's all there was to it. She was fine with proximity now, but when his lips neared hers, she lost all sense of composure. Well, she told herself sternly, I'll just have to buck up and get through it. When there's so much left to go, being afraid of kissing Harry is just plain silly.
As if her thoughts had activated a Summoning Charm on the subject, Harry rounded the far corner of the fourth floor corridor and froze in front of the History of Magic classroom. He stared back at her for a moment before closing the distance between them, face set with determination.
"Hermione," Harry started.
"Hello there, Harry," she chirped before he could continue. "You're up awfully late, aren't you? Couldn't sleep? I thought I heard a noise earlier and thought I might as well get up and investigate."
"Hermione," he said again, only this time with such conviction in his voice that Hermione's words trailed into nothing.
"What's going on, Hermione?" Harry blurted out. "You've been giving me kisses as if it's the most natural thing in the world to do. For God's sake, you're acting as if shagging me - or planning to, anyhow - is all in a day's work; but somehow, my trying to kiss you properly is so very bad I'd think you'd placed an Imperturbable Charm on your lips. What've I done?"
Hermione sighed. "You haven't done anything. I'm scared," she said in a very small voice.
Harry laughed, earning him an unpleasant scowl from Hermione. "Scared of what, exactly? You don't expect me to believe that load of bollocks a few weeks ago that you've never kissed anyone before me, do you?"
Hermione blushed and smiled indulgently. "Well, the plain truth is, you didn't let me finish. I suppose it was a bit of an exaggeration to say I'd never kissed anyone. It never got that far with Ron, but Viktor had given me a few pecks on the lips every now and then. But we hadn't … we never …" Hermione trailed off, making a few absent gestures; when it was clear Harry didn't follow what she was alluding to, Hermione stuck out her tongue to illustrate.
"Ah," Harry said, nodding but coloring through the cheeks also. Then his face darkened. "What about McLaggen, that bloody prig-headed dope?"
Hermione laughed outright. "Never. Not for lack of trying though, he did give it lots of effort."
Harry nodded and chuckled. "Which would explain why, when I bumped into you at Slughorn's party last Christmas, you looked as if you'd just been mauled by a Blast-Ended Skrewt."
Hermione laughed again, nodding as she giggled. "Awfully insistent, he was. Never got very far, but he certainly gave it his best."
They laughed for a moment more, the sounds of their voices loud in the empty halls, before each fell to silence. The pair turned to walk together down the corridors, and it was another minute or two before Harry spoke again.
"So if it's not necessarily inexperience, Hermione, what's the problem?"
Hermione sighed loudly and picked at the cord of her dressing gown. "I don't know, Harry; it's just …"
"Odd," Harry said, his lit wand tip scanning the darkened corners and reflecting off the windows as they passed.
Hermione nodded. "It is. I mean, you're my best friend. I never considered, when I first suggested this, that whatever we do could change all that."
Harry nodded, and this seemed to unsettle Hermione even further.
Her voice was horribly small when she finally managed to force it through her throat. "It won't ruin our friendship, will it Harry?"
Harry stopped walking and turned to her. Hermione's face was pinched with worry, and though he couldn't pin his finger on what else it could be, some other meaning floated in Hermione's eyes. "No, Hermione," he said firmly, "it won't ruin our friendship. We won't let it."
She smiled and continued walking, but he could still sense her nervousness.
"If we ever feel like something's going to go wrong, we can always stop," he offered in what he hoped was a calm and helpful voice. She merely nodded.
"Our friendship is very, very important to me, Harry," she said quietly. "I won't do anything to harm it. Not ever."
Unable to determine quite why, Harry smiled. He stopped walking again and took her hand. Without thinking about the possible reactions, Harry placed her palm against his chest, laid his hand over hers and leaned towards her. Hermione closed her eyes as Harry moved in to take her lips, and when they met, Harry felt nothing but warmth and pressure there; no fear. As their lips worked against each other gently, Hermione gently brought up Harry's other hand, placed it over her heart, and laid her hand against his.
When they broke the kiss, Harry smiled. "Nor will I, Hermione. Nor will I."
*****
Sunday night crept up on Hermione so quickly that she didn't even have time to be nervous about her meeting with Harry until it was practically upon her. The two days between their late-night encounter and their next appointment had flown by under a haze of essays and Quidditch. When Sunday finally surfaced it found Hermione at a back table in the library, surrounded by a halo of scattered papers covered with cramped notes, various open rune books and a stack of unused parchment rolls. Hermione was bent so low over the parchment as her quill scratched away that Harry had to tap her on the back of the head twice to get her attention.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," Harry said eventually, when Hermione looked up at him, blinking into the lit sconces behind his head.
Hermione smiled up into Harry's face for a moment but when he said nothing more, bent her head back to her work. After a few moments of silence unbroken except for the rustle of paper, Harry sat down across from Hermione and cleared away a small stack of notes to lean on the table and gaze over at her.
"What?" she said at length, not raising her eyes from her essay.
"You don't have the slightest interest in what I came here for?" Harry answered, unfazed.
Hermione sighed. "I can only assume that you've come to ask for help on the Transfiguration essay that's due next week, but as you can see, I've only made it as far as my Ancient Runes essay."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "That's not what I came for."
"Oh?" Hermione mumbled, obviously not really listening.
After a moment, Harry smiled. "Hermione, what day is it?"
"Don't be silly," Hermione snapped as she raised her head to re-ink her quill and moved back to her essay. "Of course, it's Sun-"
Harry smiled as she stopped mid-word and looked up into Harry's face. Dawning comprehension painted her face, quickly followed by a light blush.
"-day," she finished. "It's Sunday."
"Yes, it is."
"And you came because it's the day for our lessons."
"Yes, I did."
"And I forgot."
"So it would seem," Harry finished, smirking.
A tick of nervousness twitched her fingers, then the corner of her mouth as her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. "Yes," Hermione said, unsteadily. "Yes, our lesson. Er … I'll just clean up and then head to the room. Would you give me a mo'?"
Harry nodded and stood. As he moved away from the table, he noticed that he hadn't heard any noises of Hermione cleaning up. When he was behind a bookcase and thought it safe to peek, Harry snuck a look back to where she had been sitting. Curiously, Hermione was ramrod straight in her chair, eyes closed, apparently taking deep cleansing breaths. Her right hand fluttered over her heart. Harry felt a spring in his step as he walked to the Room of Requirement, quite unable to account for the smile he wore and the light tune that escaped his lips in a whistle.
*****
All right, he could admit it: Harry was nervous. Something about this whole situation still got under his skin and made his whole being itch with a detail out of place, something unseen that wasn't right and he just couldn't pin point what it was. But it was there, like a splinter in his brain, and Hermione certainly wasn't helping matters. She was the one who had suggested this whole field research thing, and just when he was starting to feel marginally comfortable (if not with the idea of things to come, at least with the here and now of it) she started twitching as if she'd been under some spastic curse gone wrong. He could barely get near her without seeing that tick of fear in her eyes, that slight jump whenever he came close. She was battling and it made him jumpy.
Hermione fought the nervousness in her throat and smiled at Harry when he inquired how she wanted to start the lesson. After the way things had nearly gone out of her control last time, Hermione decided that she'd like to keep things at the small tea table instead of reclining on the couch. She reasoned to herself that this would keep things properly scholarly and restrained and would not permit for wild flights of hormonal action that would accelerate them past the lessons she had planned out so carefully. So there they sat, on adjacent sides of the small square table, smiling nervously at each other and fidgeting.
"Well," Hermione said eventually, "perhaps we'll just start out easily with what we covered last time and build from there?"
Harry looked a little pale, but his face was impatient as he nodded. "Sure. If that's what you'd like to do."
Hermione nodded but couldn't will herself to speak further.
"Would you like to start or would you like me to?"
As Hermione floundered for a moment, Harry took a deep breath and circumvented her. He leaned over, closing the gap between them across the table corner. Hermione squeaked slightly in surprise. Harry's bottom lip was trapped slightly between hers; her mouth had fallen open in a wordless exclamation at his sudden action and she had come down upon his lip when she closed her mouth suddenly. Harry smiled. For a moment, Hermione was frozen, but the movement of Harry's lips on hers melted the ice that had suddenly captured her mind.
And then all that existed was Harry. She let her eyelids drop shut and she leaned across the table into his lips. A vague signal to her brain registered that the corner of the table edge pressed uncomfortably into her stomach, but it was the slither of Harry's palm across her neck that took precedence, and the smell of his skin that bounced around inside her skull as his lips worked softly against hers. Something in him seemed to hum with just a tiny bit of fear as she pressed her lips harder against his, but Hermione could not reason why. She could not have told herself to reason out why even had she wanted to, which at this moment she was not so sure she did. And then it happened: that screaming alarm of panic as Harry opened his lips and brushed his tongue lightly across her bottom lip.
"What?" Harry said heavily as he pulled away from her.
Hermione babbled.
"Out with it, Hermione," he said, sitting up and looking cross. "What's wrong?"
"Don't be silly," was all she could manage.
"Don't try that on me, Granger," he said gruffly, poking an accusing finger into her collarbone. "You clam up the instant I kiss you and then look as if you want to scream like an uncovered Mandrake when it gets close to anything more than just lips. May I remind you that this was your idea?!"
"I don't clam up, it's just-"
"Oh, please. You're the one who was determined to do this in the first place and now you're too petrified to hardly touch me?"
Harry's face was a bit pink with frustration and Hermione could feel herself biting her lip, knowing she was showing her nervousness. It was time to own up to it. "Well, I guess I just don't where to go next and it scares me a bit."
Harry, despite a small blush, smiled and laughed, sounding only the slightest bit uncomfortable. "I know it isn't your usual style to let go of control-" Hermione scowled at this, "-but perhaps I should teach this lesson?"
Panic screamed in Hermione again. No! her mind wailed, you'll lose control over everything you've fought to keep down for three years; no good can come of that! She firmly told her mind to shut up.
"Okay," she said and smiled through her fear.
Harry stood and held out a hand to her. "I know this probably isn't what you intended but trying this sitting at a table as if it were a desk project just isn't going to work. Come and sit."
Despite herself, Hermione took the proffered hand and allowed him to lead her over to the fainting couch in the secluded corner. Hermione sat down in the middle of the couch and Harry reclined against the curved back. For a moment they merely sat and looked at each other before Harry jumped up again. The partitioned area where the couch resided was much darker than the rest of the room and it seemed that the ambiance was a bit too much pressure even for Harry. He flung back the drapes and sectioned off the area and used his wand to light the sconce on the wall over Hermione's head. When he finally sat down again, the corner was awash in orange flickering light.
"There," Harry said as he perched on the edge of the couch again.
"There," Hermione said and smiled.
"Well." Harry cleared his throat.
"Yes."
Harry took a deep breath. Here we go, Harry; another lesson you feel unprepared to teach. He leaned in and took her lips.
Hermione was still a little stiff when their lips touched and Harry could hear her hands fidgeting in her lap, but Harry smiled against her kiss when he realized she wasn't panting panicked breaths anymore. As he angled his head to move his nose out of the way of hers, he made it a point that this lesson would not end until he rediscovered the girl who had, at their first meeting, been completely enraptured and lost in his touch. Harry was nothing if not a man who could obtain a goal.
Hermione felt her heart leap as Harry's hands came around her. She could barely keep track of what he was doing. She knew he only had two hands, but it seemed like more as one arm wound around the small of her back and the other around her shoulders, drawing her ever closer. Hermione felt herself quiver as Harry's tongue threaded into her mouth. Panic flooded into her not because she could feel the gentle acceleration of the kiss but because she was completely uncertain of where to proceed from here. All the books she had read hadn't told her how to stop her pounding heart long enough to concentrate on kissing back. Harry began a gentle kneading pressure at the back of Hermione's neck and she felt herself relax against him.
It's not so hard, she told herself, just follow Harry's lead. Tentatively, she slid her tongue against his. The slippery slither of his tongue against hers set her blood racing in a way she hadn't imagined. He was still holding her close to his chest and she could hear the swift thudding of his heart as she pushed her tongue against his. Her hands gripped him tighter, threading her fingers further into the mop of unruly waves. She smiled against him as she realized that the more she relaxed, the more naturally she picked up the tone from his kiss.
Harry nearly burst out laughing. It seemed like just a tad of subterfuge, trapping her against him like that, but it certainly accomplished his goal: where she couldn't flee, she couldn't circumvent his efforts. And it had worked. He had slipped his tongue past her lips while she seemed too busy puzzling at the location of his arms. She had frozen solid for those first few seconds where he had managed to deepen the kiss, but she seemed to be relaxing into him now.
Harry still realized, somewhere in the back of his mind, that this whole situation was ridiculously odd and that he really shouldn't be so intent on kissing Hermione of all people; but as she slowly thawed in his arms and the first light movements of her tongue came against his, Harry found himself inexplicably electrified. He would never imagined that pressing Hermione to his chest and opening her lips with his tongue would be quite so oddly charged or that he would enjoy it so much. He never would have imagined that he'd be so pleased at being her first real kiss. Harry angled his head and slipped his tongue deeper into her mouth.
If nothing else, Harry could never remark that Hermione was not a fast learner. He raised a hand to her chin now, brushing against her skin as her jaw undulated slowly, moving to accommodate the motions of her tongue. Now that she seemed to have gotten used to the idea of kissing him with her tongue, he could feel her tenderly but inquisitively exploring every part of his mouth. She leaned forward into him, causing him to lean back slightly to make room as she tilted her head further and pushed her tongue deep into his mouth. He felt her lick out at the soft flesh of the top of his mouth and graze across his teeth, tangling with his tongue as she moved. He could feel his pulse begin to race and was shocked to notice his head descending into a quick (but certainly not unpleasant) tailspin. Hermione was arching up against him and threading her fingers tighter into his hair; Harry found his breath coming out in pants as he fought not only to keep up with her suddenly frenzied pace, but also to keep a grip on his self-control. When she began rocking against him, her chest heaving as her tongue battled with his, Harry shook as his arms pulled her back.
"I think," he said, stopping to pant out a breath or two, "that we should rest for a minute or two. We've got the general idea now."
Hermione smiled, but he could see that her breaths were also coming fast and heavy. He watched her sidelong out of his eye as she sat back against the couch. Watching her breath slow, Harry felt the need to get up and move about the room.
"Again?" Hermione said as he made his way back to the couch. She inched closer to him as he sat.
Harry felt his heart drop into his stomach, but he nodded anyway. He felt his tongue unconsciously flick out to wet his lips as Hermione moved closer. This was going to be harder than he had thought previously.
*****
Hermione couldn't help the racing of her heart. Tangled around Harry for going on two hours now, she finally felt she was really getting the hang of this snogging lark. Harry certainly seemed to be enjoying himself and she'd be lying foolishly if she said she wasn't as well. Though her heart seemed to be pounding as if she'd spent the last two hours running for her life, her body felt electrified. She felt hooked on the jolt of excitement coursing through her veins every time she took Harry's lips. She was fighting to keep down the three-year-old crush that threatened to break free every time she neared him, but when she reminded herself that he only saw this as a learning experience, she found herself sufficiently able to merely revel in the feel of his lips on hers, his tongue at her teeth and his fingers fisting in her hair.
*****
Harry once again had to push away from Hermione, for perhaps the sixth time this evening. "It's getting late," he said without preamble, again trying to gain his breath. "Maybe we should stop for tonight."
Hermione sighed a little bit but nodded and smiled. "Yes, I'd say that 10:30 is very respectable for this lesson's length. I feel we accomplished a lot."
"Especially considering we started at 7:15," Harry said.
"I take it you don't feel we need to meet again later this week, to perfect things?" Hermione asked. Her heart was jumping just a tiny bit, waiting to see his reaction. Stupid though she knew the rationale to be, a dismissal for another meeting this week would feel a lot like rejection.
Harry felt his heart jump from where it had resided in his knees while they kissed up into his sinuses without much travel time. He felt himself blush heavily. He knew what he should say, but what he wanted to say seemed to be something completely different. "Well," he started carefully, "I don't suppose there's any reason not to practice. After all, kissing is really the building block of the rest of it, isn't it?"
Hermione fought to control her smile and the huge dive her stomach had just taken. He wanted to kiss her again. "Absolutely. Perhaps we should just play it by ear and decide on a daily basis if we feel we need more practice?"
Harry was speaking before his brain had even thought about what was coming out. "Well, daily practice would make us much better at it."
Hermione nodded. She picked up her bags of books and papers and strode towards the door. "Coming?" she asked back to Harry, who was still perched on the end of the chaise lounger.
"Not just yet; I'll just see you tomorrow morning at breakfast, all right?"
Hermione nodded again, smiled, and he could hear her start to hum tunelessly as she walked out the door. As soon as she had gone, Harry flopped out full length on the couch as his pulse slowed and his blood stopped rushing in his ears. Kissing her had been nothing like what he'd thought kissing Hermione Granger would be like. He recalled that terrified soaring feeling of falling off his broom from 50 feet off the ground in his third year and likened it to whatever it was that had just happened. Except that he couldn't keep the smile off his face. And this was just the beginning.
He was in very big trouble.
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