Plenty That He Doesn't Know At All
He finds her in the first unlocked classroom he tries, finds her perched on the teacher's desk, her posture rigid and her expression unreadable. "Oh, hello, Harry," she says in a brittle voice. "I was just practicing." A swarm of brightly twittering canaries flies in circles around her head, calling to mind a (very feathery) model of the solar system.*
"Yeah… they're-er-really good," he mutters, doing a poor job covering up the fact that he has no idea what to say to her. He wonders whether there's the slightest chance she hadn't noticed Ron, that she had merely left the room because the party was a little too rowdy-
-there isn't.
"Ron seems to be enjoying the celebrations."
"Er… does he?"
"Don't pretend you didn't see him," she snaps. "He wasn't exactly hiding it, was he?"
"Hermione, look-" he says, hoping that giving his mouth a two-word advantage will somehow jumpstart his brain, give him something to say after `Hermione, look-' but nothing's coming to mind. He realizes then that he knows precious little about her life before it collided with his own. He doesn't know how to reach her now. In fact, there must be plenty that he doesn't know at all. He doesn't even know her parents' first names. Doctors, the both of them. Dentists to be precise, but beyond that…? He doesn't know what they thought of sending their only child off to a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry either, doesn't even know what Hermione's own first thoughts on the subject were, if she hemmed and hawed or threw herself into this particular venture with the same dogged determination she devotes to all aspects of her life. Doesn't even know who her first kiss was-
He stops himself abruptly-don't go there-and puts his hand on her knee-steadying himself as much as comforting her-and he thinks, with a rare burst of clarity, that he's not okay with being her second choice, if, indeed, Ron Weasley is her first.
Her eyes are swimming with tears and she's blinking fast to keep them at bay, waving her hand in front of her eyes and complaining about all the dust in the air. And she says she's sorry, really, that he has enough on his plate already and she doesn't want to burden him-to bother him.
He wants to do something about those tears, wants to find the words that will stem the steady flow of them now. "Look," he begins again, rather lamely, yes, but at least he's talking. He tells her it's certainly no bother finding himself cloistered here with her, away from the party punch (strong stuff, that party punch) and noise. All that noise. He needs a moment of quiet now and then. And he thinks that lightning doesn't strike twice-that this is The Girl, The Only Girl-and screw Ron-
And he says he doesn't know why it's taken him this long to say it-to see it-but he needs her the most and loves her the best.
She stares at him uncomprehendingly. It's the first time in his life that she hasn't been in perfect communion with his thoughts, the one time she isn't able to divine exactly what he needs and why. And there's that voice in the back of his head that hisses you will lose everything** and he can't lose her-he can't-and says so, abruptly, preempting any response she might try to make, any excuses or I'm sorrys, or oh Harrys. He says that he can't lose her and those panic-stricken moments (how long was everything hanging in the balance?, he wonders-he wonders even now, months later, and has no answer) when he thought she-when she'd been struck down-those moments (or hours or days or entire lifetimes-it had certainly felt like an eternity) before Neville had detected a pulse, those moments he thought he'd gone and lost her for good- "-I've never been so scared of anything in my entire life, Hermione-" and that if he thought-if he were to-if she wasn't in his life anymore-and not only not in his life, but not his-expressly his-. He stops and swallows hard as her wide brown eyes rise to meet his. He doesn't want to be too late, he doesn't want to miss It: his chance. And is there a chance? Has there ever been?
*The first few paragraphs are taken almost (but not quite) word for word from Chapter Fourteen of HBP.
**Loved the way Voldemort delivered that line in Order of the Phoenix. "Harry Potter, you will lose… everything."
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