A/N: From the chapter title alone you can see where this is going, can't you? I apologise for the nonsense you made read further on, though I will not for some of Hermione's dialogue, it was hilarious to write. Again, I reiterate that I don't know when I will be able to post the next chapter to this or my other story, but I will try.
Disclaimer: Checked with lawyer, still hers, so don't sue.
*~***~*
Ogden's Helping Hand
Surely a first for him, Harry managed to make it to the pub this time. And what was more, he was actually facilitating
the reason Hermione was having a good time.
Of all the inventions and innovations provided by magic, Hermione had to say (and she couldn't believe that she was doing it at that) by far the best was Ogden's old brew, that wonderful thing: firewhiskey. Really, the stuff was award worthy. In fact, if she was in charge of it, she would hand good ol' Oggie the Order of Merlin, First Class as soon as she saw him. He thoroughly deserved it.
For the first time in… well, she couldn't really think of when at the moment, but she could say a long time, she felt absolutely stress free. No more silly worries about lesson plans and unruly students and poor lonely Paisley who was now happily on vacation with her family again. No more nonsense about missing Harry when he was right there or wondering about Ron or trying to sort through the mess she called her life. One tall glass of firewhiskey, no chasers to prove a point, and Hermione was more relaxed than she had ever dared to be.
Oh how dangerous was that.
She had arrived at the pub alone again; Harry had something else to 'take care of' and had left the Weasley luncheon early. Again the others had managed to cover their disappointment with bright smiles and warm greetings as she made the way to the table. And again Hermione had pretended that she was not at all bothered by Harry's behaviour, though this time it was made distinctly difficult by his revelation in the hospital.
But just as Seamus and Dean began to coax Neville into a silly drinking game, and Ginny-newly returned from Malfoy Manor, and apparently unharmed-Lavender and Parvati all rolled their eyes with Hermione, a round of impromptu applause broke out at the entrance of the pub. At once she looked up, and couldn't believe her eyes.
He was there, Harry was actually there.
At last out of his work robes in what was surely the first time in days he wore a set of clean dark green ones over a khaki and red-striped polo-neck t-shirt and dark blue jeans. His hair had been recently washed, and occasionally droplets of water dripped onto his shoulders and back. He looked completely ruggedly handsome, and many a witch between him and their table stood in his path as he approached with the hopes that he might notice them and have a seat.
He didn't, just continued straight to his friends who stared at him with more surprise than Hermione thought they would have. And then not entirely sure why, she stood up and called to the bartender, "One bottle of Firewhiskey please, sir!"
Harry, halfway to them and nervously shrugging off the patrons slowly swarming him, and all at the table, looked at her in shock. The mortification came sweeping in, but she couldn't back down, they had all heard her, and so she quickly turned it into a joke, "Well of course, Harry's actually made it this time. This calls for a celebration."
That did the trick. The others burst out laughing, and Harry, once he finally stood with them, said, "Cheeky today, are we?"
She gave her bravest smile, which quickly vanished as the bottle appeared before them.
Oh, what had she been thinking?
She could not clearly recall now though, how she had managed to get the first drink of the black, gently smoking liquid. It might have involved something with Seamus and Neville… or maybe Dean and the Creevey brothers… or even Ginny and the other women, but somehow she ended up summoning a tall glass, no chasers and poured herself a drink. She could recall though, the looks of awe and alarm she had received when she informed them that she needed nothing else, not even a Cooling Charm with it.
Someone had tried to plead reason, maybe Seamus or Harry. No, not Harry, he just stared at her until he could take it no more and tried to take the glass away. She smacked his hand off, no, she had to do it. She wanted to do it.
Someone else had tried to lift her away from the table. It was probably Dean, he had declared that as a Ministry official he could not sit by and watch while she hurt herself. She smacked him too, or maybe it was Harry and then the two of them ended up in a rather childish mock fight right there in the middle of the aisle with a crowd of patrons cheering.
She rolled her eyes, sighed, and took a first big gulp.
Oh the pain. She remembered that perfectly. It felt as if someone had poured a can of petrol down her throat and set it ablaze. And this liquid fire had been let loose in a throat in which her tonsils had been forcibly removed by a mad surgeon with no anaesthetic and utensils soaked in freshly-squeezed lime only moments before. She choked immediately.
She coughed and gagged and coughed again until her eyes watered and some nutter beside her began thumping her back as if she had been choking. When she made to snap at them no sound came out of her mouth but her breath was so hot it felt like she was breathing flames. Harry forced a glass of ice-cold water in her hands, Ginny suggested that they give her some room… but suddenly it was all over. The pain in her throat vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and save for the slight burning in her chest she felt fine… and thirsty for more.
They had to fight her for the glass then, but she eventually tipped it into her mouth and after another painful episode, where she felt on the brink of a seizure, she grinned.
The bottle mysteriously vanished from the table at once.
It was too late though. Just as she had been, had come to be that night those few years ago, before rushing off to what they had all felt their deaths, she was drunk. And it was truly the most wonderful experience. Why ever had she thought she would never do this again? What a clichéd, Miss Goody-Two Shoes, swotty, by-the-book thing to say. Frankly, she was sure she had just discovered her new favourite pastime.
But for some reason, Harry didn't seem to be enjoying it with her.
As a matter of fact, while the others had all shook their heads and given up on her and gone back to their own conversations and drinks-butterbeers this time-he was just staring her. She interacted in the conversation as much as she could (though it was not all that coherent) she ordered herself a bit of butterbeer to wash out a wave of nausea that had come over, (another bad idea, in retrospect, as this seemed to stir the potency of the firewhiskey) she even apologised profusely for her behaviour at one point, but still Harry just sat there, staring. It was beginning to get annoying really.
She was doing her best to ignore him then, who was he to tell her that she couldn't enjoy a little social drinking now and then? If she could recall correctly he was the one who had smuggled the firewhiskey from the Black house's secret wine cellar and had suggested a "going-away party" of sorts.
Or it could have been Ron; again, her memory was a little haywire at the moment. She couldn't be sure but the firewhiskey may have scorched a few brain cells on its way through her system.
But still, how dare he try to give her that holier-than-thou, I-can't-believe-you-did-that, what-the-hell-is-this-all-about look?
Finally though, she could take it no more, and asked, "What? Why are you staring at?"
His brow furrowed as he took a moment to puzzle over what she had just said, and then he stood abruptly. The others all turned to him too, as did a few other patrons who had been spying nearby, but he ignored them, seized her arm and said, "We're leaving, now."
"What?" she asked, and yanked her arm away from him.
"I think we need to talk," he told her.
"What fur?" she slurred, glaring at him and rubbing her arm. His grip had been unnecessarily strong.
"You're drunk," he replied.
She turned to the others and scoffed, "I know that."
"Good," he said, and grabbed her arm again and forced her upright.
Colin, who had the unfortunate position of being between them, could only slump back as Harry proceeded to force his way out of the booth, pushing her before him. She tried to protest again, but Harry ignored all her attempts at it until they were outside. Still dressed in the outfit from this morning, which was not entirely suitable to the chilly night air, she shivered slightly. Harry barely noticed.
Once they were out of the pub he forced her to face him and demanded, "What the hell are you on?"
She did not know why, she just said it, "Firewhiskey, and you?"
A man heading into the pub behind them laughed, Hermione was sure she saw something like a camera's flash, and she swayed and stumbled into Harry. He pulled her to him, gave her a moment to steady herself and immediately Disapparated them to the flat.
*~*~*
He would be lying to himself if he didn't say that he hadn't been expecting her to do it the second they appeared in their living room. With a loud "Thwack!" and a moment of temporary blindness after the blow landed, she had slapped him. His cheek reddened immediately, but he ignored the painful residual stinging as he tightened his grip on her arm and said, "What the hell are you playing at? How could you do that? Why did you do that?"
But Hermione pulled away from him, seemingly mortified at what she had just done.
In another lifetime he would have noted this reaction, filed it somehow and stored it away in the back of his mind for later perusal. Another time when she was less drunk and he less angry and wonder what it meant. Could it be, like in his delusions, she couldn't believe that she had just hit the man she loved? Or as it probably really was that she was just horrified that she had struck her best friend for saving her from public humiliation?
But not today, not now… now he just couldn't believe what had just happened in the pub?
Had that really just happened in the pub? Since when did Hermione take up drinking, and especially firewhiskey?
He came out of his thoughts though, when she started speaking, coming over to him from somewhere with an ointment-laced cloth and whispering softly, "I am so sorry, Harry. So very sorry, I don't know what came over me… I… oh goodness…. Does it hurt…?"
"What do you think?" he snapped, angrily, jerking away from her reach.
Her hands remained outstretched to him for a moment, but then she dropped them and said, surprisingly sullenly, "I said I was sorry."
It was then that he realised that she was still drunk. She was swaying slightly where she stood, the smell of alcohol was strong on her breath and though when she looked up at him she was glaring the effect was slightly lost as her gaze was unfocused. He drew his wand, tried to think of a suitable spell for the situation and then tried to cast it on her.
Tried, of course, was the operative word, for just as quickly she deflected it (surprisingly good, her reflexes, though she was drunk) and said, "Don't… I'll sleep it off."
"I need you sober, we have to talk," he insisted, still wondering slightly at how quickly she had drawn her wand.
"What do we have to talk about? Why do we even need to talk? We went to the pub, I got drunk. It's what people do when they go to the pubs, it's what you said we were going to do." she replied.
"It's not what you do," he told her.
"How the hell do you know that? How the hell do you know that I don't drink? I drank with you and Ron! We were-I'm sorry, you were joking about that this morning, weren't you? Don't tell me that what I do or don't do!" she snapped.
She swore now, too?
"It's not what you do!" he nearly roared back.
Hedwig started from her perch and hooted angrily at them. Something dropped heavily to the floor in one of the bedrooms and suddenly Crookshanks appeared in the doorway, glaring at them both. Hermione took advantage of the distraction to throw the cloth she had brought at Harry and storm away. He grabbed her hand and pulled her back.
She stood fast though, but could go no further and refused to look back. He was forced to speak to her bushy mane instead, "What's happened to us, Hermione? What's wrong, what's going on here? I know something's wrong, I can see it on your face, in your eyes. You don't drink, you seem forever angry at me and today with Ron… you sounded so upset before you realised I was there and when you discovered me after that you were just angry. What did I do?"
"Not everything's about you," she said, coldly.
"I have a feeling that this is," he told her and pulled her round to face him.
She glared at him, furious, and tried to push him away but he wouldn't let her. Instead he told her, "Something is wrong with us, Hermione. We used to be so close, we used to be able to have a normal conversation, and all of sudden we can't. I know something is up, I just want to know what it is, help me… tell me what it is!"
For a moment longer she fought him, and then she stopped and said, "Oh what the hell, if it's bothering you so much…."
And then she kissed him.
The phrase "taken by complete and utter surprise" would be understating what he felt when all of sudden he felt her lips on his and her free arm slip round his neck to draw him into it. And "it" was, well, to quote another much-used phrase, was nothing like he had ever had before.
Instead of wet and guilty, like Cho's, or confident and playful like Ginny's, or even nervous, questioning and yet hopeful like hers had been when first they became a couple, this was filled with pain. And not because she had almost bitten his lip or that the firewhiskey on her breath was still strong, but because that was what she was feeling. Like people sometimes do, she had put her emotions into it and all that came from her was painful: anger, loneliness, hurt and disappointment. He couldn't believe that she was feeling that way.
But before he could pull away from her she managed to convey one last emotion that was surely the work of the alcohol in her blood. Oh it had been there before, sometimes during the war when they were alone in Grimmauld Place he had felt it, and they had played with it, grazing their fingers along the shimmering surface of its dangerously deep pool but never quite taking the dip. That last night before he had faced Voldemort they had very nearly fallen in, and if it weren't for Tonks stumbling into the room they very surely would have. And here tonight it was back again, forcing him to jerk out of her kiss before she pulled him in with her: it was lust.
He stepped away from her and out of her reach with a hand to his mouth surprised. All thoughts on why she had kissed him in the first place replaced with wonder at her feelings and the extent to which they were. He knew he was in love with her; it was why he had not immediately pulled away when she kissed him. But did she, could she…?
No, she was drunk, it was the firewhiskey in her and as much as he hated to think it, she might have kissed Seamus, Dean, Neville or even one of the Creevey brothers the same if they had made a move at her.
He pointed his wand at her again and said, "I'm sorry but I-"
"Expelliarmus!" she said and his wand flew out of his hand. He couldn't believe how loosely he had been holding it.
"I'll sleep it off," she repeated, angrily. "You were right, this is about you. This has everything to do with you. I loved you and you just-just…. I think I'm going to bed now, I may have just made a fool of myself twice for the night and I want to enjoy the luxury of the alcohol-induced amnesia tomorrow a little sooner."
She turned and walked away, brushing past even Crookshanks without a word and then a moment later he heard the door to her room close. He was left standing staring at the spot she had just been standing in, the lingering taste of her alcohol-laced breath on his lips and a million thoughts racing through his head. It was as if she had Confunded him, but when Crookshanks glared at him, he hurried after her.
"Hermione, Hermione wait…" he called, nearly tripping over the cat as he stumbled from the room.
Through her door she called back, though it sounded dangerously like a groan, "What do you want? Go away!"
"I'm not going anywhere, we haven't finished talking," he replied.
"Yes we have," she said, and then he heard something strange. Just as her protest ended he heard what he thought was a glass bottle dropping onto the carpet.
"Hermione… Hermione, are you alright in there?" he asked, coming to the door and putting his ear against it to listen.
"Quite fine, thank you. I just realised that I may have sobered a bit with our argument and need to get back to where I was before for the amnesia to fully kick in. The sound you just heard was one of the bottles from my secret stash," she replied, dryly.
But Harry was alarmed, and with a quick "Alohomora!" forced his way after her… only to find her standing in the middle of the room in her bathrobe clutching a bottle of what looked like shower gel.
Embarrassed he tried to back out, but Hermione was before him in an instant and raging, "Well then, that does it, what are you waiting for, talk! You dragged me out of the pub to do it; you forced your way in here to do it! So do it! Talk! We can do anything you want!"
"Maybe when you're done with your bath…" he said and tried to back away.
"No Harry, you wanted to talk, so let's talk. But you already know what the problem is so I can't see the importance of this conversation… nevertheless, we will have it. What do you want to know? What do you want to say? What do you want from me?" she demanded.
He didn't know how to begin to tell her that he didn't quite know what that really was. He had only started chasing her after Crookshanks glared at him, which, when he thought about it, was a rather dumb thing to do. He was a cat-well, part-Kneazle-but he still had the body of an ugly, fat little cat and he should have known better.
Hermione though, had an idea, "No wait, don't bother, I know."
And she dropped the bottle and kissed him again.
Now, that was not it. If there was anyone to admit that to, apart from her, he needed to be clear on that one little thing, he did not come here to kiss her. He had come into this room because he had thought she was getting drunk again and that he needed to talk. She had not been, but she was still drunk and oh how much had lust replaced the pain from before. Of their own volition his hands went round her back and drew her into him and his mouth opened to hers and he let her force him back into the door and….
He pulled away again, or rather, pushed her off and grabbed at the door knob behind him.
Hermione dropped onto the bed and sighed; "Now I really need that drink, I'm going to remember this tomorrow… three times…. I'm practically throwing myself at you and… you know what, I'm going for a shower."
Harry started from the door at once and said, "No, wait…."
"For what…? The problem should be clear to you by now, I loved you… I love you, and you rejected me. You pushed me away to live free of getting hurt, but you know what, you hurt me more that way. After Ron got hurt you say nothing's wrong but you make sure that there's my father and your Auror training between us. You move in here and you live like a tenant. You claim that we're going to have this wonderful summer and then you keep rushing off. What am I waiting for, huh? I'm twenty-two, maybe when I'm forty I'll start pining after you again, pretending that I don't love you so that we could live in this flat and wait for Ron to wake up. I mean, Luna's the mother of Ron's child, she was his fiancée and she's moving on with her life wonderfully. There is nothing tying me to you so what am I waiting for, why should I wait?" she asked.
When he couldn't immediately answer, she turned and walked away, "Fine then… but you should know that it's a good thing that I'm pissed right now, or else I would have never told you a thing. I might have just left. Good for me too then…."
Before she was at the bathroom door he was across the room, and when he got to her he forced her to face him and kissed her again. She was understandably surprised, and tried to force him away, but he began to whisper, "I love you, I love you too, I love you…."
She stopped fighting, and he was only partially sure it was because she did not quite believe what she was hearing… but then she began to return his kisses. And with such urgency, such want, such need that it scared him… but he would not pull away.
He knew it was wrong, he knew that he should be the stronger one because she was intoxicated and not thinking clearly, but he couldn't stop. He tried, he really honestly tried, putting his hands onto her shoulders and forcing her to look at him, to understand that this could not go on, that he was only trying to convey a message like she did…. But when he saw her eyes, they were no longer unfocused, she was staring at him as if he was the only thing she could see, that she wanted, that she needed to see…. And then she smiled a bright, happy relieved smile that she followed up with a deep, passionate kiss like she had never given him before or he thought it possible she would.
And suddenly they were at Grimmauld Place again, two teenagers alone in the house too young to understand or care for the implications of what they were about to do… and this time, when the pool presented itself, dark and warm and deep, nothing stopped them from falling into it.
She loved him, he loved her, and they both knew it.
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