Harry's Plea-Chapter 2
Harry winced in pain as Hermione applied the salve to Harry's burnt fingers. A second later he joined her in laughter.
"How can you always laugh at my pain, Hermione?" he asked.
"I'd apologize, but as graceful as you are on a broom, you're like Neville or Tonks with those creatures," she giggled. "You don't hand feed the skrewts when they get that big, Harry."
"I keep forgetting that Grawp can do it `cause they're scared of him," he smiled.
Hermione and Harry got together at least twice a week these days and sometimes every day there in the Hospital Wing. Rarely was it a social call though. Harry came in with a burn, a bite or a laceration often enough for him to have had the fireplace in the hut and the one in the waiting room there connected so he could get back and forth to work from the Hospital Wing.
"Is Viktor coming for your birthday, Hermione?" asked Harry as she applied the salve to the next finger.
"I don't think so, Harry. His Quidditch team has finished all the matches in England and Ireland until the beginning of next year," said Hermione. "It is fun to see him when he comes here though."
"I'll bet it is `Hermy-own-ninny'," said Harry with a smile. "I like him. He's actually kind of good with Grawp."
"Yeah, Viktor's okay. I get tired of him asking me to marry him every time he comes though," complained Hermione.
Harry just smiled. He and Hermione had settled into their friendship better in the last two years. They got together like this often and met in Hogsmeade for drinks a couple times a month. They'd often meet the new person in each other's lives there or laugh about the last one that didn't work out.
"So, if Viktor's not coming and you just kicked Oliver to the curb," he began. "Who's going to escort the gorgeous Hermione Granger to her birthday party tomorrow?" He loved teasing her about being the most eligible witch in England and easily one of the most beautiful.
He watched her face screw up in irritation at his teasing. She made fun of him being the clumsiest Care of Magical Creatures teacher ever and hated when he took the Mickey out of her for having more suitors than there were kinds of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans. Lately though it wasn't as funny because he'd been seeing the Creevey's little sister Dianna.
"I was going to ask you to take me, Harry, but I think Dianna would hurt you worse than the monsters you baby sit if she got wind that there were any possible way you were on a date with someone else," teased Hermione. "God forbid that there might be a red smudge on your cheek from an innocent kiss." She giggled.
Hermione would be twenty-one tomorrow. It seemed impossible that they'd remained friends through all the anguish they'd been through. Hermione had left Hogwarts for over a year before she returned to help Nurse Pomfrey. Harry had suffered greatly as his leg and arm slowly got better. He was so glad when he'd seen her running down from the castle the day she arrived for work. He'd thought she'd forgotten him.
"Do you remember the day you came back here Hermione?" he asked.
"I sure do. I thought the smiles on our faces were going to require surgery to correct," said Hermione.
Hermione had decided to go back to the muggle world after the sadness that had befallen everyone. Her father got her a job working in a plastic surgeon's office while they worked out the details to convert her academic history at Hogwarts into something acceptable in the muggle world. She'd decided to become doctor. The problem was there was too much blood in the muggle world for Hermione. The violence there was in the news every day. She realized after that year that treating people afflicted with the bat-bogey hex or the jelly-legs curse was preferable to knife wounds or the horrific damage done by gunshot wounds. She'd only had to help the doctor once with someone whose face had been discolored by scars from an explosion to realize it wasn't for her.
"I know, but what I couldn't believe was how tall you seemed and well, how gorgeous you'd become," he said shyly. "I didn't even recognize you at first."
"Yeah, I must have laughed for ten minutes when I told you that shrinking charm you'd tried on Grawp while you were wrestling with him had backfired. You couldn't tell because Grawp was so huge to begin with," said Hermione. Harry laughed.
"Never you mind about Dianna, she's gone with Colin to Dublin for the week. He has a photo shoot for the next Quidditch World Cup," said Harry.
Dianna Creevey was just eighteen. He had only met her a few weeks before when Colin brought her to the sorting ceremony. The year after Harry left, the school decided that they should start making yearbooks for students. The loss of so many had inspired a new wave of appreciation among people in the wizard world. The lament was that they'd lost so many without preserving their memory.
But Harry had thought Colin had brought a new girlfriend only later found out that all these years he'd had a squib sister attending an all-girls' school in London. She was pretty and loving. Harry called it loving in public, but the truth was that the description was more on the order of randy or insatiable. If there was one thing Harry had learned since leaving school though it was if a pretty girl was going to throw herself at you, it was often easier to satisfy certain urges with her than it was to look for real love. There was less remorse in breaking it off later.
"So, does she spend the night with you in the hut, Harry?" asked Hermione. "Rumor has it that you guys sort of get the animals howling out there quite often."
He hated it when they started picking on each other in a tone of sexual innuendo. It made him nervous to think of Hermione with someone. He often wondered if there was a direct correlation to the end of his relationships and the guilt she inspired in him by thinking how easy he was to seduce and how much he wanted Hermione to act like a muggle nun.
They weren't involved romantically and that's what bothered him. Why should he care?
"Those are all lies, Hermione," he admitted. "We might get to snogging heavy but the rest of it's a load of rubbish." Harry had not allowed things to go too far with Dianna yet because Colin had a habit of popping up when his sister was alone with Harry. It wasn't that he'd all of a sudden taken a vow of celibacy. He was glad for it too, because if he'd been lying Hermione could tell. They both could tell when the other was covering their tracks. But he'd never ask her directly about her love life. Some things he was just better off not knowing.
"So, do you want to go with me then?" asked Hermione. "The last one was a scream. Yours was fun this summer too." Birthday parties had become all the rage for the Hogwarts staff the past couple years. The older teachers had all taken on mentoring former students to prepare for the future and that meant a lot of young people to party on weekends in Hogsmeade. Birthdays were just another reason for a party.
"You'd better say yes, Harry," said a man's voice from the other end of the ward. "Or, you'll force me to take her."
It was Neville. He'd stayed on for Herbology and brought new plants to the ward every few days. Harry wondered how the three of them could be at Hogwarts and see each other only ten minutes a day once or twice a week. But that was the way life was as you got older he thought. "Oh, now you know you're lying Neville. Ginny would string you up by your lotus blossom if you looked at Hermione the wrong way," said Harry.
Neville turned red knowing Harry was right. Ginny and Neville were the only ones who had maintained any kind of credible relationship among the people Harry had known in school. Neville was quick to swoop in when Harry and Ginny parted ways three years ago. "Yeah, well…"
Hermione laughed--because in typical Neville style, he was at a loss for a comeback when anyone took the Mickey out of him. Neville was funny when you could see the wheels turning and nothing escaping his lips. "Yeah, well at least we're not screwing everyone we meet until the one we really want gets jealous enough to stop us. Heh, hmm."
Harry and Hermione stopped laughing and didn't look at each other but stared at Neville. Somehow they knew that response was a planted one. And, they knew who'd done too. Ginny was notorious for spreading rumors that Harry and Hermione snuck away for trysts in London. The problem for them was they each knew there was a little tension there that made Ginny's claims believable around the Hogwarts campus. "Neville, nice try. But tell Ginny she's wrong…again," said Harry.
"Yeah, tell her she's barking mad. Harry is like my brother and that's it," said Hermione.
"Yeah, if that's the case then you two are sick puppies," said Neville.
"What?" responded Hermione.
"Brothers and sisters don't look at each other like you too and they don't hold hands like you're doing now," he said shaking his head. "I'm not that stupid or blind."
"Well, that's it Harry all fixed up," said Hermione nervously dropping Harry's hand. "Neville, just go back to your business, please."
Neville walked off laughing at the two of them.
"I'm sorry for that, Harry," she said an instant later as Harry's hand banged on the little dressing table beneath it. "I hate it when we have to put up with that stuff. We have so much fun when people don't drop by and make fun of us."
"I know," said Harry with a smile. "Why can't we just be friends in everyone's eyes? They have to make up stories."
Hermione giggled though. "I get a kick out of some of them though. Reports of us doing it on the Astronomy tower on a full moon was a riot."
"How do you let stuff like that go by so easy, Hermione? I'd be livid if I were you," said Harry.
"Harry, there is a Quibbler quality to the stories. Haven't you ever noticed? No one takes them seriously. It's like we're the two celebrities everyone uses to give their own love life a jumpstart," she reasoned.
"Look, there is a boy over there with moss growing behind his ears. Soon he'll look like a Chia-Pet. I have to go. Come to my flat in Hogsmeade at four tomorrow for dinner then we'll go, okay?" she said as she bristled off to help the first-year.
"Sure," said Harry as he watched her walk away.
"Billy, you'll be fine. I'll have you back to class in a jiffy," said Hermione.
"Go, Harry," she said. "Your first afternoon class starts in twenty minutes."
Harry hurried to the floo and threw in the powder, "The Hut." He said.
He looked around his place at the mess he had to clean up at least twice a week. It looked just like his room at the Dursleys' had. He would use something and either put it in the sink or forget about it where it laid. He had to use Scourgify when the clutter got too much.
He thought about what Hermione said. She was right. They were great friends and the stories were outlandish. If the stories were of the variety Ginny spread they were harder to debunk. Harry might have become a bit of a roguish lover by reputation, but he was actually quite the opposite. It was funny how if either a man or a woman was desirable and dated a lot, they had to be getting busy on a regular basis as far as people were concerned. Since his name had been linked to every girl between seventeen and twenty over the past three years it was natural that Hermione's had too.
_-_-_-_-_-_-
Harry was busy the next morning with his duties as the assistant Quidditch coach and practice referee. He was learning quickly just how dangerous flying around without a Beater's stick was. And without anyone watching out for him when the Bludgers took off toward one of the players, he was a sitting duck. If he was between the Bludger and the player is going for, well, he had to move or get hit. He loved it. He was trying to organize a team from old players who still loved the game. He didn't know who they would play, but he wanted desperately to get that excitement back in his life.
He had gone back to the hut fed the animals, brushed Fang and stalked through the Forbidden Forest to find Grawp. Harry often took meals to Grawp out there. Harry wasn't sure, but he thought that somewhere in the forest a village of giants had sprung up and Grawp might be going off there. He knew that giant race still mistrusted wizards and witches. Grawp was the exception not the rule as far as giants went.
Finally, it was three-thirty and Hermione would be ready with dinner right on time. He couldn't be late. She went all out when she cooked. She was quite remarkable he thought. She was easily the best nurse intern on the ward, her potions were outstanding, and she had time to have a love life or a so-called love life.
He walked down the Main Street and saw the small row of apartments at the far end of the block. He stood and stared off toward the Shrieking Shack as he passed it. The memories passed in and out quickly. He missed Ron. He knew it was a blessing that Hermione had not invested her heart in their relationship. She wouldn't have been able to move on. It had only taken weeks to realize that the fantasy of getting together with someone was not always matched by the reality. She had known Ron loved her and she never flatly told him no, but she'd spent many a night with Ginny and him telling of her sadness that one day she'd have to tell him. The way it ended was really hard for her.
Hermione's flat was a tribute to her studies. It looked like an elegant version of a library. She had dressed up her potions charts with lacey fringe and framed them. The bookshelves were hand-crafted and finely detailed. She had pictures of Winky and Dobby on one wall and Crookshanks on another. He always got a kick out of her matchmaking for Dobby and Winky. It had taken a lot of hard work to get Winky to accept her lot in life as a free house-elf. Once she had, the sparks with Dobby had flown instantly.
"Harry, hi," said Hermione with her familiar smile and kiss on the cheek. "It's almost ready."
"Wow, you look nice Hermione. Who are you out to seduce tonight?" asked Harry.
"Well not you, Mr. Playboy," she teased.
"All kidding aside. How do you do it Hermione? I mean you work all week, study, cook and still have time to look good while slaving in the kitchen. I'd get it if you did it all by magic but you don't," said Harry.
"Well I don't have much time for a life now, do I then. That's how. I learned that all these creeps who would try to tear my clothes off before they got to know me weren't worth it. So I focused on the rest of my life," she said.
"Oh, come on, Hermione. You've never spent a lonely Saturday night in the three years I've known you," said Harry.
"How do you know that, Harry?" she asked carrying the bowl of hot carrots to the table. "You just assume that it's not lonely because I'm with someone. Most are really nice guys but they're usually boring. Then at the end of the night, they become boorish with their slimy lines about how beautiful I am and how they wish they could come in."
"Me thinks the lady protests too much," said Harry with a giggle.
"Harry just because you haven't found a pretty girl you wouldn't snog doesn't mean I'm the same way," she said with a smile.
"Yeah well it's easy for you to say no to the girls when they ask you to snog," said Harry with an evil grin.
"Harry that's gross," said Hermione. "Leave it to you to make jokes about stuff like that."
"Well, how do you know that I don't say no?" asked Harry.
"Harry, have you ever met a guy who says they've slept with me?" Harry shook his head no. "Do you think I've met girls who've claimed they've been with you?" He blushed.
"That's what I thought," said Hermione with a smile. "I don't know if they're just trying to scare off the competition or not, but the look on your face just now speaks volumes."
"You know that doesn't mean a damn thing though Hermione. There is not a guy alive, unless it's a muggle, who would dare sully your name in front of me and you know it," said Harry.
Hermione smiled. "Well then, you know I'm not lying because you can always tell."
"Yes, that's true. We never lie to one another and that's nice," said Harry. "But why do you let yourself get lonely?"
"Sex won't replace loneliness Harry. You know that. I want someone around who'll talk with me and take me dancing without it being the `horizontal bop'." She laughed. "I mean I like going to London or Glasgow to the movies. I like taking walks on the grounds."
"Why don't you ever come see me then?" asked Harry. "You know we only talk like this to catch up on each other's lives. We could do this more often and neither of us would be lonely."
"Harry you can't be lonely. You love the fame and the attention you get now," said Hermione. "I don't blame you. If I were a guy our age I might be different. I'm not inviting myself to that zoo you call a home. Plus, if you and the `tart of the week' are snogging there I'll be embarrassed and so will you."
"Hermione we're a lot more alike than you think. When was the last time you heard of a guy turning down a woman's advances unless he had a girlfriend or wife?" he asked. "It's not easy trying to push people away. It's just not the same."
"Oh, rubbish Harry. If you wanted to settle down and find the right girl, you'd find her in no time at all. You'd never be lonely again," said Hermione eating slowly. "You haven't touched a bite of your meal, Harry. Eat."
"Well maybe at twenty I don't want to be tied down permanently," said Harry.
"Now you're lying, Harry. Why do you have a girlfriend now then? Why did you have one over the summer? You keep trying and letting them go. I think you find the snogging and rolling in the hay isn't fulfilling, but you're going for quantity not quality," said Hermione.
Harry ate quietly. The subject died away and they resumed with talking about their work and the fun they were having learning their new jobs. "You know I really like what I'm doing even though I'm terrible at it. I like the looks on the kids' faces when they learn new things."
"You know they like you too, Harry. I always hear good things when you show them wild monsters like Hagrid did. But it's different seeing them one at a time in a cage than trying to raise them," she giggled. "Your snake charming makes them crazy. I can tell for two days afterwards whose seen you do that."
Harry laughed too. He'd taken the approach that learning could take place without endangering the kids. He knew Hagrid's heart was in the right place, he just didn't understand that loving the beasts himself didn't mean everyone else did. He never understood that people liked him because he loved every living creature. That was his legacy. Harry hated his first year or two with Mrs. Grubblyplank. But once he learned to take care of things without wanting to breed them and treat them like pets, he started to realize that they were cool. He couldn't be Hagrid, but he wasn't Grubblyplank either.
"I just want them to have an appreciation for life, Hermione. These creatures are just a way of showing them how to be kind and take care of the world around them."
Hermione smiled. "That's why I do what I do too," she said. "Stop it. We can't talk about it again."
Harry had made her wheel the chair around that day and go back to Hagrid. He had to hug him. He couldn't just say good bye like he were a fellow student going on holiday. But Hagrid had died before they'd gotten back. Sometimes he thought that was why Hermione left. She couldn't bear seeing him force himself through things after that.
"Oh, I know." He said. "Hey, at least I didn't get knocked off my broomstick today," he said
with smile. "I only get hurt when you're working so I have a reason to see you." Hermione smiled. He
wondered if she knew it was true. He liked being around her.
"Yeah, well it doesn't make me feel very good that you could end up `dying to see me'," she said with a straight face that slowly broke into a smile.
"You know, we'll each find someone one day and then we won't be able to do this," said Hermione. "That will be sad."
"Yes, sad indeed," said Harry. He felt like a professor talking like that which made him cringe.
They walked into the party at the Three Broomsticks around seven-thirty. The place erupted in the birthday song and people buying rounds of butterbeer. Neither Harry nor Hermione were particularly big drinkers outside of the butterbeer, but when they got together they often let their hair down and got a little goofy. The party went on for hours and as the guys started getting beer goggles Hermione got more invitations to go home with guys for her birthday present. Harry loved watching her subtly hex them into scratching fits or suddenly have an accident that involved huge stains on the front of their pants. The last one had Harry laughing so hard he couldn't breathe.
"Why would I want to go home with a drunk who pees his pants in public," Hermione said as dark stain grew on the front of the guys pants. Dean, Ginny, Neville and Seamus witnessed it too and joined Harry in laughter.
"Way to show `em Hermione," yelled Seamus. "Stupid git. Harry why didn't you just punch his lights out for talking to her like that."
Harry had held back more times than people knew, but it was more fun to see Hermione humiliate them. That's what was nice. He'd met some very nice people tonight and so had she. With Hogsmeade now the only place to go for fun in the British wizard world, it had become a party spot reminiscent of the ones he'd read about in the London pub district. Not everyone was from Hogwarts. For that reason, there were all kinds of people. They were no longer kids fooling around with the DA. If he hit someone, they might not return it in kind. They might use a hidden wand and that was nearly the same as a gun now in the muggle world.
As he looked around a thought came to him. Maybe she was right. He had become a little lazy. His fame made it easy to have a new and more exciting girlfriend when things got boring. He needed to find a way to slow his life down. He wasn't the playboy people made him out to be, but he wasn't the one-woman man he wanted to be either. "Hermione, why don't you come live with me?"
Hermione looked at him strangely. "I suppose I have to sleep with you or Fang, right? Harry have you had too much to drink?"
"No, not like that. I mean as roommates. Geez, Hermione I thought you knew me better than that?" he said slurring a little. But she wasn't completely sober either.
"There is no way I'm living in that dive with you, Fang, your pet snakes and that huge spider," she said.
"I'm not sure which of us you despise most. Me or the pets?" he said with a smile.
"YOU!" she said with a smile. "Harry, you're drunk and you don't know what you're talking about."
"No, seriously, if I fix the place up and make it somewhere you could call home, would you come live with me and help me? You know you like some of the beasts and stuff as much as I do," he said. "It would kind of be like living on a farm. I know you need your privacy and I do too, but we wouldn't have to be alone and it would be a way for me to settle down and you to get rid of the jerks."
"Harry, people will talk. If you think the stories are bad now. Can you imagine what they'd be like?" asked Hermione. "They'll have me doing things with the animals."
"Oh rubbish, Hermione. That's taking it too far. You're just as drunk as me. You're my friend and I love you. We can get through it," said Harry.
People stopped talking around them to look at him. He wasn't sure what he'd said to make that happen at first. Then he realized what he'd said. He thought maybe they were waiting to see if she kissed him or made him wet his pants. She did neither; she knew what he meant. They were closer than many couples but they weren't lovers. They would take care of each other. "What did I tell you Harry? Look what you've started."
Eventually murmurs around the room started to die down after Hermione started talking to Neville and Ginny. Harry had gone over to talk to Oliver, Fred and George.
When they met back up on their way out, Hermione said, "Harry, what were you thinking to say something in here like that," she said blushingly. "I love you too Harry. We both get along in life because of our friendship. No one will understand, but now there's no harm in it because they think we're doing it anyway. If you fix up the hut and make it livable for a girl, I'll think about it. Privacy, Harry. I don't want to be able to hear you humping some seventh year in the next room."
"Hermione, that's horrible. You know I have to wait until they graduate to give them their present," he said with sarcastic smile and starting to really have trouble focusing.
"You are a sick man, Harry," she said taking his arm. "But we do get carried away when we get drunk, don't we? I'm not sure I'd trust you tonight if we were going back to the hut. That's another reason I need to think about it."
"When have I ever made you feel like that?" asked Harry. He was hurt, but not as much as he was pretending to be. He shivered and licked his lips wishing he had another drink.
"Geez, Harry, could you imagine?" she said walking a little funny.
"No," he lied. "We'd be okay though. Will you think about it?"
"Ask me again when we're sober and I'm not drunk enough to think about taking you to my room?" she giggled. They arrived in front of her flat. "Good night, Harry. Don't go home thinking I'm horrible. We know we have this thing we never talk about going on. And, so do I. We'd have to sort that out first and I'd have to see the place. Give me a hug and be safe going home." He hugged her and gave her their customary peck on the cheek.
"Luv ya Hermione," he said.
"Luv ya too, ya crazy…," she said. "Get out of here before we're both sorry."
Harry walked off stumbling up the road. "Sorry, Harry," said Seamus.
"Whatchoo talkin' about?" slurred Harry. He knew what was happening. Both he and Hermione had slammed a couple of shots after their little chat at the end of the night. He passed out on the road. He heard George and Fred laughing. "We'll get him home, Seamus. We'll sleep on the floor tonight and make sure he's okay."
Harry's head hurt when he looked up at the lights and saw Fred chortle at him. "Harry, first rule of getting laid with your best friend. Don't drink."
"Is nah like tha' Fred," said Harry. "She's my fren'."
"Yeah right, and George is my distant cousin twice removed," said Fred. Harry fell asleep to their laughter.
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