Five

A/N: Once upon a time, there was a very old, out-of-date meme. With osteoporosis and wrinkles and things. I did it. The End.

Disclaimer: THIS IS NOT CANON. I AM NOT J.K. ROWLING. AND I DO NOT CARE. :D

i.

The first is an accident; a brush of the lips when he isn't thinking, when they're already sitting so close together that his brain doesn't see the difference a few more inches will make and his body agrees and he really has no say in the matter whatsoever.

Not even a kiss, really, he tells himself after she's closed her book and gathered her notes and gone off to bed. Mostly because kisses require Intentions, of which there weren't any, but also because they're best friends. And everyone knows that best friends never kiss.

*

ii.

They're at Hogwarts for the second, passing in front of the statue of Boris the Bewildered when she turns to him without warning and says, “You kissed me.”

He stumbles, tripping on a shoestring or words, one of the two, and has the sudden, insane urge to stick his head inside his rucksack and never come out again. Which is really just ridiculous, isn't it, because it won't make her disappear, will make him look like an absolute idiot, and, not to mention, will severely limit his supply of oxygen.

Though death by suffocation is certainly starting to look convenient.

“You kissed me,” she says again, a little louder than before, and points to her mouth as though he doesn't understand.

`I didn't mean it,' he wants to say. `It was an accident,' he tries.

“Er,“ is all that comes out.

She gives him an odd, searching look, the kind that involves eye-flickering over facial features and always leaves him feeling too hot and too cold and far too exposed.

“Hmm,” she says thoughtfully, and then she's pressing herself to him and threading her fingers through his hair and he can't breathe - he can't breathe - and he wonders when he's ever been so completely gone in his life.

“Harry.” Her lips ghost across his own. There's something positively maddening about the way she says his name, and he can't quite put his finger on it, but he finds that he's willing to spend the rest of his life trying if it means more.

“Harry.” Firmer this time, more insistent. “Harry.”

And suddenly he's back in his bed at Grimmauld Place, wide awake, and there's a light tapping and her voice floating through the door. He shakes himself, pads across the room, and opens it.

*

iii.

It's storming on the night of the third. Hard rain, the sort with lightning and thunder that sends small children scurrying into bed with Mum and Dad, and muggle electricity to waver and go out at the most inopportune of moments.

He's fixing himself a sandwich in the kitchen when the house across the street goes dark, making what little moonlight is coming through the clouds seem brighter. It's still in the first few moments following the outage, the silence broken only by the muffled sound of rain on pavement outside, the scraping of his knife against the butter dish and faint footsteps coming down the hall.

“You're up late, aren't you?” Hermione greets him, leaning against the doorjamb and folding her arms.

“Couldn't sleep.” He doesn't look at her.

He can feel her watching him, can feel her eyes burning holes through the back of his neck, and concentrates on getting his sandwich right - ham, then cheese, then ham again.

“Thunder terrified me when I was younger,” she says to fill the space. “Foolish, I know - it's only temperature changes and water vapor and air condensing - but I hated them all the same. My dad never understood, he found them fascinating, but Mum always knew. Even after I started at Hogwarts, she'd bring warm milk and sit with me until I fell asleep.”

“Hmm,” is all he can think to say. What is there to say, really, when he grew up with the Dursleys?

Silence.

“Oh,” she says quietly. “Oh, Harry. I'm sorry.”

He shrugs and trains his gaze on the neighbor's darkened window. “It doesn't bother me.”

“I'm sorry anyhow.” He can hear tentative footsteps in his direction, and then she's reaching around him, taking the knife, and setting it on the counter. “Are you all right? You look exhausted.”

“I'm fine.” He keeps the dreams to himself, and lets her come to her own conclusions.

It's funny how a stupid, accidental kiss can change dynamics. He remembers Cho and those ten seconds under the mistletoe fifth year, how everything was horrid and awkward afterward, and wonders why this is so different. It's worse in a way - they've been skirting around one another for days, having safe conversations about the time and the weather and the `please pass the salt's and nothing more. But on the other hand… On the other hand, there's an obvious lack of tension when Hermione turns his face toward hers and leaves the palm of her hand soft and cool a few moments extra, like they've already breached some invisible barrier. Like they've already gone so far past embarrassment that nothing else can quite compare.

“That's what you always say,” she says. “'I'm fine.' It's okay not to be, you know.”

“I am, though.” He insists. “I've just had a lot on my mind lately. It's been…hard to sleep.”

Her eyes narrow a little, studying him. “Seems to be a trend.”

He doesn't know how it happens, exactly; which of them takes the step forward, whose lips touch whose first. All he knows is that one moment they're in a kind of freeze-frame, her hand at his cheek, and the next she's backed against the counter, and his mouth is on hers, and his mind is screaming at him to stop, please, now, as this cannot possibly end well.

“I'm sorry.” The words are half out before he even has the chance to break away completely. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.” She clears her throat and straightens her top, suddenly businesslike despite the flush in her cheeks.

“No,” he says. He's angry with himself for doing this, angry for being so stupid, for wanting it so pathetically. Angry for a thousand other reasons he's really just too angry to name. “No. It's not. I can't -“

“Harry.” She presses her palm against his jaw again briefly, for no longer than a second, and then takes it away. “It's okay. I'll see you in the morning.”

And then she's gone.

He stands for a moment, there in the kitchen, not quite sure what to do with himself.

By the time he picks up the knife and finishes with his sandwich, the rain's stopped.

*

iv.

The fourth takes him by surprise.

It's quiet in the library, a full kind of quiet, punctuated by Ron's snores from upstairs and crackling as the fire sends sparks out onto the hearth. There's really no point researching, they've looked through these books at least twenty times in the past few weeks, but he can't help feeling that there's something in this stupid old house worth looking for, and he hates to think that they're missing it.

He's just beginning to wonder where Hermione disappeared to when the door opens and she comes stumbling in with an armload of books and parchment.

“I didn't think you'd be down here,” she says, dumping the lot onto the table he's sitting at. A cloud of dust rises into the air.

He sneezes once and shrugs. “Figured I'd double-check a few things.”

She takes in the closed books and crumpled parchment in front of him and smiles a little. “Looks like it's going well.”

“Very funny.”

There's a pause before she sits down across from him and flips through the sheaf of parchment. “I found these in one of the old rooms upstairs. I don't know how much they'll help, but it's something new, right?”

He nods, and pulls a book toward him. The clock ticks for what feels like ten years, but is probably only ten minutes. It occurs to him that neither of them has turned a page for a very long time.

She must notice too, because she suddenly throws down her quill and says, “I think we need to talk.”

There's no point in asking what about. “Okay.”

And then silence.

“I don't know where to start.” She sounds surprised. “I always know where to start, Harry.”

“I know,” he says, because it's true.

“I just don't -” She stops, takes a deep breath, and looks him straight in the eye. “You kissed me.”

He doesn't know whether to laugh or, perhaps, pinch himself, as this is clearly another dream. A rather realistic one, but a dream all the same.

“I kissed you back.”

Pinching doesn't work. He settles for adjusting his glasses and making a strained sort of noise in the back of his throat.

She leans across the table, fingers curling around the nape of his neck, and pulls him closer. He has time to think before this one, and he can't decide how he feels about that, if he likes the pounding it causes in his chest or not. “I kissed you back,” she murmurs again before their breaths mingle and their noses touch and she closes her eyes.

There's something different about the situation now that it's out in the open; something a little more relaxed, not quite so frantic. He doesn't know what to call it, exactly, this brushing of lips and swelling of hearts.

The word right comes to mind.

“Don't be sorry,” she whispers into the space between their mouths when they pull apart.

He doesn't say anything - doesn't think he needs to - only watches her as she returns to her side of the table and opens a book.

It's getting harder and harder to convince himself that they're still just friends.

*

v.

By the fifth, he's given up trying.

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