A/N: Wow! I admit I'm very impressed with the response to this story, and I'll definitely be continuing on with it then. I'll do my best to remain true to the Potterverse as well as The Notebook but before anyone gets their knickers in a twist over Harry's cocky attitude, look at it this way: It's AU! He hasn't had Hermione around since he was 11 to keep him in line, and he's been fully exposed to Ron. My explanation for everyone acting a little different is that Practical Hermione hasn't been there to influence everyone's lives.
PS - A bit of a cliffy at the end, sorry! But really, it's not like you don't know what's going to happen.
Disclaimer: Both Harry Potter and The Notebook do not belong to me. But damn, if they did, I'd be so rich!
<><><><><>
The first few weeks at Hogwarts went well. That is, as well as could be expected I only received one night's detention from McGonagall for `bodily exposing myself to younger students when I should have been setting an example of proper conduct on the Hogwarts Express.' Or so she says, anyway. Personally I thought Hermione deserved a detention for leaving me frozen there with my pants around my ankles, but Professor McGonagall wouldn't hear a negative word against the girl! She made me help copy out a pop quiz that was to be given to the fifth years on their first day back. They were definitely not going to be impressed with that. I certainly wasn't impressed with it, and all I had to do was make copies.
I continued to make a fool out of myself around Hermione, and every seventh year boy except for Ron continued to hate me for it. She still owed me that date, however, and with a Hogsmeade weekend coming up I was more than happy to collect on it.
However, things didn't go so well when I reminded her.
"So what time shall I meet you on Saturday?" I asked her at the breakfast table in the Great Hall.
She quirked an eyebrow at me as she slowly raised her eyes to mine. "For what?"
"Well, you did say that you wanted to go out with me and I did reluctantly agree, and it's a Hogsmeade weekend, so…"
Her face flushed an angry red.
"I wouldn't go out with you if you were the last boy in Hogwarts!" she proclaimed rather loudly.
Ouch. I was hoping she'd take the bait, but apparently I'd bitten off more than I could chew.
"Funny, I seem to recall a certain Miss Granger pleading and saying she really did want to go out with me, even when I stated that she clearly didn't have to if she wasn't willing."
Apparently that was the wrong thing to say, as I found myself on the receiving end of a glare that would have burned a hole through my forehead if it were any more intense.
When she raised her wand and pointed it at my groin, Luna calmly stepped in front of me and said, "That's enough, Hermione." Did I mention how much I love Luna? I would have liked to thank her properly for saving my boys, but I didn't think Ron would much appreciate it.
Maybe she wasn't so mad at me for the train incident after all, though the last few weeks she'd spent more time with Hermione than she had with me. She'd never really left the Ravenclaw table to sit with me for any meals, though occasionally she did it for Ron. Recently she'd taken to accompanying Hermione, though I wasn't entirely sure why.
I shrugged my shoulders at her and said; "See you around eleven, at the front gates."
With a wink and a smile I left the table and headed for the Gryffindor common room. I couldn't help but crack another smile as I heard her sputtering angrily behind me. Oh, she'd be there on Saturday. I knew she would.
When Saturday rolled around I discovered in a most unpleasant way that Hermione really had meant it when she'd said she wouldn't go out with me, even though she'd practically thrown herself at me on the train.
There I was, waiting at the gates after spending an interesting morning trying to tame my unruly hair in an effort to impress her, when I saw her leaving the castle on the arm of none other than Draco Malfoy. Trust me when I say, he didn't even consider sparing my ego as he flashed a brilliant smile at me that seemed to say `She's mine, Potter.'
Hermione didn't even dignify me with an explanation. When she saw me waiting ahead of her while glancing at my watch, she turned to Draco and flashed him a smile that made me more than certain that, had Professor Sprout not been standing at the door seeing us all off, he would have thrown his knickers at her!
Fortunately I was able to save my wounded pride when Luna came bounding up to me with Ron, mere steps ahead of Hermione and Draco. I did my best to grin at the two of them as we made our way into Hogsmeade, but there was a sinking feeling in my stomach that it would take hexing every male student in the school before Hermione would even talk to me again.
"Don't worry, Harry." Luna whispered.
I looked at her, confused. Worry? Why should I worry? It just so happened that the girl I was completely infatuated with was on the arm of none other than Draco Malfoy, the smarmiest git that Hogwarts had ever seen. Malfoy, who was currently behind me and I had no way of keeping an eye on him short of walking backwards to Hogsmeade. No, nothing to worry about. Not at all.
"He's just walking her to Hogsmeade and then he has to meet up with a few friends. She told me this morning."
Somehow that didn't comfort me. It wasn't exactly a quick walk into Hogsmeade, and Malfoy was more than likely to try something.
As much as I wanted to win this girl over, I was not going to sit back and take it when she stomped all over my heart and handed it to me, tied with a pretty bow.
I resisted the urge to Apparate on ahead, internally wanting to spare myself the agony of watching Hermione with the slimy Slytherin, but I didn't think it was the greatest idea. Instead, when we arrived, I split from Ron and Luna with the excuse that they needed couple time.
It had nothing to do with Malfoy and Hermione approaching.
Absolutely nothing.
While they were off gallivanting and doing who knows what, I decided to drown my sorrows with a few butterbeers and a Firewhisky chaser at the hands of Madam Rosmerta. She was the more than competent barmaid at The Three Broomsticks, and clearly a member of the Unofficial Harry Potter Fan Club. Not that I was using that to my advantage or anything. It's not like students aren't allowed Firewhisky on school trips and Madam Rosmerta knows that.
Oh wait. They aren't. And she does know.
Oops.
A few butterbeers and two Firewhisky shots later, Ron came bounding into the bar, his face flushed with excitement.
"Harry, you have to come!" he exclaimed, all but pulling my right arm out of its socket as he tried to drag me out the door.
"Come where?" I asked, wondering if he'd somehow snuck into the Hog's Head and had more to drink than I had.
"Honeydukes has a new ice cream parlour and you have to try it! It's better than Fortescue's!"
Of course, only something edible could get Ron this excited. I figured that another Firewhisky chaser was probably not a good idea, and reluctantly followed Ron from the bar as Rosmerta tried to surreptitiously watch my arse as I left.
The woman's really not that subtle, but I appreciate the sentiment all the same. Besides, I'm legally an adult in the wizarding world now. It's not like she's cradle robbing or anything. She's just looking.
At least, that's what I tell myself. I really hope she's just looking. And not fantasizing or anything, or taking part in the underground Polyjuice circuit and having random blokes Polyjuiced to look like me while she-
Blimey, my imagination runs away with me sometimes. And I love it.
All images of the buxom Madam Rosmerta and a Polyjuiced (or perhaps not, if the opportunity happened to present itself) version of myself quickly vanish as I realize who is waiting for Ron inside Honeydukes.
"Ron! Harry! What a surprise!" says Luna in an extremely fake-surprised voice. There is absolutely no surprise here.
I'm about to turn and leave; that Firewhisky chaser is looking much better, but Ron's having none of it. Nope, no surprise. They planned this.
"Fancy seeing you here! Harry, you remember Hermione, don't you?"
I fixed her with a determined stare that clearly said I wasn't happy. "I remember." I made a mental note to `thank' Ron for his surprise later. He always seems to enjoy kicking me while I'm down.
Hermione apparently was having trouble remembering her manners, and barely managed to stammer out a "Hi."
I stared her down for a moment (I was determined not to let her win), and then turned back to Ron. "So, about that ice cream?"
"Oh, I'm-I'm suddenly not hungry anymore!" he said, causing all three of us to stare at him. Even in her short time at Hogwarts so far, Hermione had clearly been introduced to Ron's excessive eating habits.
"Ron Weasley, not hungry?" I asked him in disbelief. Now there's a sentence I've never heard out of his mouth before.
He shook his head at me. "Nope. Not hungry. I wanted ice cream but suddenly, I don't anymore!"
I rolled my eyes at him. Something tells me he very much wanted his ice cream, but knew that I'd hex him into next week if he made me stay there with him. Which was, of course, precisely what he had been planning on doing.
"Fine, if we're not getting ice cream, then I'm going back to the Quidditch pitch for some flying."
Fit that one into your plans, Weasley! Oh sure, Ron was my best friend, but there was no way I was going to let him pull a fast one on me. True, even though she'd ripped my heart out and shown it to me earlier when she left Hogwarts with Malfoy, I still wanted Hermione Granger. Badly. But I wanted her because of something that I'd done, not because of Ron's insatiable appetite.
Besides, I'd seen earlier in the week how Malfoy had tried to get her up on his broom after the Hufflepuff-Slytherin match. Key word: tried. Nearly transfigured him into a pink ferret on the spot when I heard him boasting that he was the greatest and youngest seeker Hogwarts had seen in a century. Wanker. That's my title. I got onto the Gryffindor house team in my first year on pure talent. The Slytherin pansy's father had to buy his way onto the team with new brooms for all and he couldn't even manage that until second year.
Not that I held a grudge or anything.
"Ooh, that sounds delightful!" Luna exclaimed with a starry look in her eyes. Didn't realize the girl liked to fly so much. Maybe I'd have to talk Ron into taking her up a few times.
"Hey, does anybody want to go along? I'd sure like to, but I have to go and get-" Ron's words started to blur together, and Luna jumped in to save him.
"It sounds like it'd be smashing, doesn't it Hermione? I'm sure you'd like to go."
"Flying?" She didn't look thrilled with the idea. In fact, she looked downright nauseous. And terrified. Bloody panicking, she was. Great. All I do is announce I'm going to leave her alone and the mere mention of the activity I'm about to perform is making her sick.
I've made a right balls-up of this one, I have.
The girls are bickering back and forth, Luna demanding that Hermione give it a shot and Hermione trying to politely decline, all the while looking seasick.
"I'm not going flying!" she finally protested. Hermione turned to Ron with the most pleading eyes I've ever seen. "Help me out here, would you, Ron?"
Ron's eyes widened in panic as he spotted Luna shaking her head out of the corner of his eye. Not knowing what to do, he opted for clutching at his stomach, mumbling something about lunch, and made a mad dash out the door.
"I'd better follow him, before he eats everything Madam Rosmerta puts in front of him."
With that, Luna disappears from Honeydukes as well.
About ten minutes earlier I would have been making some smart comment about just what Rosmerta could offer up to Ron for the purpose of eating, but the expression on Hermione's face quells any thoughts I shouldn't be having.
She looks like she's been backed into a corner and faced with the business end of a Blast-Ended Skrewt.
Suddenly her face changes and she becomes a different person before my eyes. Hermione fixes her stare on me, and blinks.
"Want to tell me what that was all about?"
"What?" I would have sworn she was in on it, some cruel venture to shove my heart in my face again, up until that point.
"One minute Luna and I are having a perfectly good time talking about various magical creatures and enjoying our ice cream, and the next I've been left standing here with you, no other friends in sight, and a thoroughly soggy cone!"
Should've known she'd blame it on me. "Well, don't ask me," I said, walking away from her and out the door of the sweet shop.
I counted down the seconds in my head. Three. Two. One.
"I'll go!"
I turned around to see her tumbling out of the doorway after me, just as I'd suspected she would. Carefully, I rearranged my features in a manner that says `I've no idea what you're on about', and stared at her.
"With you." She said, exasperated. When I didn't appear to be catching on, she reminded me. "Flying."
Now, I know that this girl has been ruthless towards me, but I'm so taken with her that suddenly I don't care. I watched her turn down Malfoy's offer of a romantic broom ride, and here she is practically begging me for the same. I'd have to be the world's biggest prat to change my mind.
"Nope. Don't think so."
Hey, did I ever say I wasn't a prat?
She looked at me, completely confused.
"I would hate for you to get your pretty, clean robes all dirty. I'm pretty adventurous when I fly. Not to mention that stack of books you apparently picked up this morning; those will be far too much luggage for the type of ride I had in mind."
Uh oh. Now there's a look of pure determination on her face. I've really gotten myself into it this time. In what seems like no time at all she's placed an Ever-Cleaning charm on her robes and shrunken her books until they all fit into her pocket.
"Hey, you're the one who asked me out, remember? Hanging precariously by one hand through a magically created hole in the floor of the Hogwarts Express, with your feet scant millimeters from the tracks, as the train was speeding its way across the British countryside to the Hogwarts castle in Scotland? With your two best friends, three boys who'd gladly hex your bollocks off, and the girl you were trying to pursue all watching as you fought for my heart as well as your life?"
Merlin, it sounds dashing when she says it like that.
"Well, here's your chance, Harry Potter. Take it or leave it."
So that's how I found myself, half an hour later, desperately concentrating on manoeuvring my broom about the Quidditch pitch while trying not to be distracted by a delirious and screaming Hermione Granger clutching at me from her position behind me on the broom.
I moved into a quick Wronski Feint, eliciting another scream from the terrified girl behind me.
Never would've figured Hermione Granger for a screamer.
She increased her hold on my waist and I nearly let go of my broom as her fingertips brushed against the zipper of my trousers. I'm sure it was purely unintentional on her part, but that didn't prevent my, erm, `broom' from noticing. Unfortunately she didn't seem to notice at all.
After a few loops and turns (purely to distract my nether regions) that would had any seasoned Quidditch player driving the porcelain Knight bus, so to speak, I was surprised to find Hermione still clinging to me. Even more surprised to find she wasn't yelling at me.
I levelled us out and flicked an autopilot charm at my broom so that it would take lazy circles around the goalposts, and turned to face Hermione.
"Bored?"
It was clearly a joke, I could tell the entire time that she was far from bored by the crescent impressions of her nails in my stomach, but she didn't seem to take it that way.
"Whatever would make you think I was bored? I simply had no idea that it was possible for so much fun to be had in a single afternoon! Is this what you do for fun?"
I did my best to ignore the dripping sarcasm that laced her voice. I hate to admit it, but her comment did get to me a bit. "Well, yeah… I'm the Gryffindor Seeker, it'd be a bit off if I didn't find flying fun, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah, sure." She said dismissively.
Why did I get the feeling that I was about to lose her if I didn't do something witty, and soon?
"Fine then, what do you do for fun?"
Bad move, Potter! I could have said that in a much nicer tone, I'm sure, but I was still smarting from her comment about my flying, and I couldn't help but retaliate.
"For fun?" she snorted. "I'm very busy, so there's not a whole lot of time for fun. I received eleven O.W.L.s when I was attending Beauxbatons, and I'm continuing those courses and taking N.E.W.T.s in all of them. There's Care of Magical Creatures, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, Astronomy, History of Magic, Ancient Runes, Arithmancy, Potions, Spell Creation, and Defence Against the Dark Arts. I'm also the head of an organization, the Society for Promotion of Elfish Welfare. There's not much time for fun, you see."
"Spew?" I laughed. I swear the girl has created a society whose acronym is a clever slang word for vomit.
"S-P-E-W, thank you very much."
Something tells me I didn't earn house points on that one.
"After that, I'm applying to all the upstanding British universities, like Oxford. It's what we want. Having a muggle education as well as a wizarding one is bound to be a benefit."
"We?" I know she has a mighty high opinion of herself, but I wouldn't have suspected her for the type to use the royal `we'.
"Oh, Mum and Daddy. We decide all of the important things together."
"But you get to decide the rest for yourself?"
"You're rather rude, you know that?" she said to me, glaring.
I was sorely tempted to remind her that we were a hundred feet up in the air balancing on a wooden pole and one good shove would send her hurtling to the ground, but I thought better of it. I'd be proving her point if I did that. Still was mighty tempting, though.
I just shrugged, pretending she didn't bother me. "So, you study for fun, do you?"
"Yes."
Okay, normally this admission would have sent me running for the hills. I do not date the studious type of girl. Hell, I've dated Luna! Well, not really dated, I suppose, I did take her to the Yule Ball when I was stuck being a TriWizard Champion, but that was just as friends! My type of girl is more like Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, Cho Chang, or even (Ron would kill me if he knew I said this) Ginny Weasley. Bubbly, fun, flirty, and just plain girly! A girl who flaunts her legs in the uniform skirt, or pulls you into a broom closet for a quick snog. A girl who studies for fun just plain scares the pants off me, and yet I was still staring into her eyes, surprising myself that the one single word she'd just uttered didn't bother me in the least.
"I like to be prepared," she offered in explanation, breaking the silence.
Now that I could understand. I'd spent my entire life in the wizarding world preparing myself to kill dear old Tommy Riddle, AKA Lord Moldyshorts, who seemed to think he was Merlin's gift to the purebloods. I'm still preparing to be honest. I can appreciate the desire to be prepared for any given situation.
"You named all the things you have to do. What do you do for you? For fun? And don't say study because as much as I understand why you enjoy it, it's not fun."
"I-I don't understand." She stammered. Sweet Circe, she's quite cute when she stammers.
"What. Do. You. Do. For. Pleasure." I sounded out each word carefully, and she flushed at the last word.
After a few moments of silence she whispered, "I love to read."
Why was I not surprised? "I said for fun, you know."
"Everybody thinks that I like to read strictly for the purpose of learning, but they're wrong. Yes, I've learned several important lessons from books, but I enjoyed reading them! I feel much more relaxed with a book in my lap and a good cup of tea in my hand than I do after a nap. But my real guilty pleasure-Muggle romance novels." She giggled.
I couldn't help but watch as she rattled on about the joys of reading and literature, and the more interesting novels she partook in her spare time. True, the library's never been my cup of tea, but hearing her talk about it was making me think more seriously about the concept. She looked beautiful as she spoke of what she was passionate about, and the flush in her cheeks made me smile.
"I'm talking too much," she said abruptly, breaking our eye contact.
"Rubbish."
She looked at me nervously. "Anyway. Reading. It's my passion."
"It's good to have a passion," I said stupidly. Surely I could have come up with something better than that, but the way she was nibbling on her bottom lip had reduced me to parroting her words.
Any and all concentration I'd had on my broom's autopilot charm broke just then. Really, it's not the most convenient charm as you have to at least make a conscious effort not to crash into things, but with her caramel eyes wide and trained on me, and her lush, dusty pink lip firmly seated between her teeth, it was all I could do not to kiss her right there.
When the charm broke my broom started hurtling straight forward in the direction it had just been travelling. That was when we collided with the centre hoop of the Quidditch goalposts.
My broom drifted slowly to the ground while we were left hanging by our hands from the bottom of the hoop. Hermione shot me a panicked look. "What now?" she asked. I could tell she was angry with me for letting this happen, but I was in perfect control of the situation. Need I remind everyone that I am perfectly capable of wordless and wandless spell casting? Hermione was at a disadvantage this time, what with hanging on for dear life and all, and there was no way she could cast that spell on me again to stop me. What was that blasted spell, anyway?
"We're going to hang here forever! What if we can't get down?"
"We die." I said, giving her a straight face.
I swear if she hadn't been hanging onto a Quidditch goal hoop nearly seventy-five feet from the ground, she would have smacked me.
The look of anger on her face softened into one of appreciation as she saw my broom returning from the Summoning charm I'd cast. It hovered within my reach as I mounted it, taking delight in the gasp of concern I heard from her as my hands left the hoop.
I swung my broom around to face her, holding out my hand. She accepted it, nearly giggling, as I pulled her back onto the broom with me and we touched down to the ground.
If I'd though I'd made up for that fiasco, I was dead wrong, for seconds later her hand connected with my cheek. Told you she'd smack me.
"I hate flying! And I hate you, Harry Potter!" she seethed, storming away from me back towards the school.
I ran to catch up with her, my hand closed around her wrist, pulling her back to me. She gasped in surprise, and then took my face in hers and kissed me.
<><><><><>
"Hogwarts was indifferent to the tribulations of young love," I say to her, smiling, as she appears to glow in the sunlight. I mark my page in the notebook I am reading from and regard her from behind my spectacles. "Harry and Hermione were brilliantly portraying a boy and girl headed down a long and winding road, with absolutely no thought of consequences in their heads."
"They fell in love, didn't they?" Her eyes are as warm as the day we met.
"Yes, they did." I say; with the tiniest hint of sorrow in my voice that I'm sure she misses. It still hurts that she doesn't remember.
"Good, I like this kind of story." She sighs wistfully, as if she's capable of remembering a day in her youth when she was the damsel in such a fairy tale.
Healer Pomfrey approaches us from the door to the inside of the home, and interrupts our moment on the porch. "How about a walk, it's a lovely day outside?"
She shakes her head. "Not now, young lady. This kind gentleman here is reading me a delightful story, and I have no intention of moving from this spot until I find out how it ends!"
Glad to see I still rate better than Exploding Snap in her mind, anyway.
"Yes, well, you need to get some exercise and some fresh air into you. There's only so much potions can do, you know." The Healer tries again.
"Of course I know!" she says in an almost-snippy tone.
"I'll take her in just a few, I promise." I say to Healer Pomfrey, an apologetic smile on my face. I dearly hope she still is not mad at me for last night.
"I thought she'd never leave." She laughs as the Healer retreats. "No, do go on! I'm dying to know what happens!"
Her enthusiasm is contagious, and I reopen the notebook and continue to read to her.
"After that afternoon at the Quidditch pitch, Harry and Hermione spent every hour humanly possible together. Soon, they were inseparable…"
-->