Senses
Taste:
His children range opposite him like stair steps: three heads, two dark, one ginger; two bent contentedly over strawberry ice cream, one pointedly looking as unhappy as possible. Harry shifts uncomfortably on the aluminum picnic bench, grateful for his Charm-tinted glasses, as the sun mercilessly glares off of the table's shiny surface. He squints down the pathway that leads to the reptile and avian houses, and wonders how much longer they must stay at the zoo to be able to call it a day. He stifles a sigh, and shoves the tip end of his own ice cream cone into his mouth, crunching it satisfactorily and enjoying the way the half-melted ice cream oozes through the cracks. The nutty flavor of the cone helps temper the almost cloying sweetness of the cream.
James is spooning the last liquid dregs from his cup, having made the decision that an ice cream cone was beneath his dignity and maturity. He tosses his utensil and container into a nearby waste bin without looking, and leans across his brother to playfully tug his sister's pigtail.
"Mind your cone, Lil," he admonishes her. She is not fast enough for the warm afternoon, and her cone is dripping copiously over her already sticky hand. Albus nudges against James in irritation, and James leans in again just to annoy him further. "What's your problem anyway?"
Al's pointed look across the table is telling. Harry sighs, and swallows the remnants of his cone too quickly; the jagged edges go down his throat almost painfully. He stifles the urge to cough.
"What should we go see next?" he asks, determined to keep up the facade of a happy family outing, even as he feels a headache tightening its grip around his temples.
"C'mon, Lily," Al says, as if Harry has not spoken at all. "Let's have a look at the snakes." The taunt is not at all subtle, delivered with the heavy-handed cruelty of a wounded almost-teenager, but it still stings. Lily appears oblivious to the undercurrents of tension, and, standing, happily takes her brother's hand.
"We'll be right behind you," Harry says, but drops his head forward into his hands, as soon as his two younger children have passed out of sight around a bend in the walkway.
"Al's being a prat," James points out the obvious. "But he'll get over it."
"Have you?" Harry asks him suddenly.
James does not answer right away, but after a moment of pondering, his head cocked slightly to the side, his dark hair a brushstroke across his forehead, he responds with an expansive shrug. "I - I dunno, Dad. I reckon I'd change it all back, if I could, but it's-it's not like …"
"Not like what?"
"Not…like I didn't see it coming," James says hesitantly, then drops his eyes. Harry reaches for Lily's mostly empty cup of lemonade, more for something to do than because of any real thirst. He slurps noisily through the straw, but the drink is bitter and unsatisfying after the sugary ice cream.
"H-how?" is all Harry can get out.
"I don't know. `M not sure it's anything I would have noticed if things had just kept on going, but you - you started looking … twitchy. At the photo ops and things. Like you wanted nothing more than to bolt for the nearest exit and never look back."
Harry is mildly surprised at his son's perceptiveness. It feels odd to be talking to him like he is an equal, even as Harry is aware that James is on the cusp of adulthood.
"I'm sorry, son. I can't help feeling that I've done you… and your brother and sister… a disservice, that perhaps I should have - "
"I want you to be happy, Dad. You've done so much… for everyone - and never asked anything for yourself. Al will come round…eventually."
Harry sighs, and tosses Lily's cup into the bin as well.
"I wish I was as sure of that as you seem to be." He hopes that any propensity for holding grudges that his younger son might have will not be a direct reflection of the Potions Master for whom he was named. "He seems to utterly hate the sight of me."
"He's twelve," James says, and the fond nostalgic tone in his voice, as he looks back from all of three years away, amuses Harry. "All twelve year olds think their parents are at least hopelessly out of touch, if not deliberately stupid."
Harry ponders what James is saying. He could understand Al's behavior if `being twelve' were all it was. He and Ron could commiserate over the melodrama and overreaction that go part and parcel with raising teenagers. He sighs, allowing himself to briefly wonder if he and Ron will ever commiserate about anything again.
His best friend had launched one prompt Howler at him, after the news rippled with lightning-quickness through various Weasley channels, and Harry has not heard from him since, a time stretching to nearly six months now. Harry is still not sure whether or not he is relieved or dejected by this, but he does know that the absence of the Weasley clan has punctured something inside him, something that sends a poison dart of pain through him from time to time, generally when he least expects it.
He has not dared to seek out Hermione. He tells himself that he is not capable of analyzing anything involving his other best friend at this time. The times his mind skirts close to thoughts of her, he pictures her in her comfy pajamas and he can practically taste the bittersweet warmth of the coffee she poured for him on Christmas Eve. In this direction, there is danger, he reminds himself.
"Dad? Can I - can I ask you … something?" James jolts him out of his introspection, and the worried tone fully snags his attention. He raises his brows expectantly, and waits. "You … you won't get mad or anything, will you?"
"For asking me a question?" Harry's tone almost laughs off the prospect. "You know you can always - "
"Did you cheat on Mum?" James shoves the words out quickly, before Harry can finish his sentence. For a moment of silence, broken only by distant birdcalls somewhere down the footpath, Harry is not sure he has heard his son correctly.
"What? Where did you hear that?" Harry sputters, belatedly realizing that he has not actually answered James' query.
"Richard had a copy of the Prophet… you know, the day after the - the story broke, and it - it said - well, something in that direction, and I - "
"James, I took my marriage vows very seriously. I did not cheat on your mother, and I never would have."
Relief floods James' face so quickly that Harry feels horribly guilty. The attitude of nonchalance has obviously been carefully crafted by his son, but inside is a boy just as undone by the divorce as Al. Thankfully, Lily seems largely unaffected, too young to realize the ramifications, perhaps, and too grateful for any time that she has with him to harbor grudges.
A thought occurs to Harry, and he poses his own tentative question.
"Has your mother said - ?"
"No - it was strictly that article, obviously rubbish. Mum is - she's - " James face betrays the struggle for proper words. "She's trying to take the high road. And she's keeping herself busy."
Harry thinks of Ginny, with her lithe figure, perfectly manicured nails, and hair aflame, ordering the house-elves about, making sure her shoes match her handbag, dashing off to this engagement or that.
"She's always been good at that," he remarks, half to himself. His tone almost makes it out of bitterness, but not quite. He supposes that he is not really `taking the high road', and he darts an apologetic look at James.
"I think - I think she misses you." James is tentative, but Harry can hear the unfurling, little-boy dream in his voice. "I wish - I wish that - " His shoulders droop. "I know it's stupid, but sometimes I still hope…"
"James…" Harry sighs. He supposes he can understand - he certainly has had no real desire to get involved with anyone, and he can see how a child might hope that this is a temporary situation, some kind of colossal misunderstanding that might eventually work itself out. Even though his situation is no longer an estrangement - the ink on the divorce parchment has been dry long since - he can appreciate the feeble lost-cause kind of hope that seems to spring eternal, despite evidence to the contrary.
And it's not that he has no inclination to date anyone, he thinks ruefully, but that the one whom he might be inclined to approach is as untouchable as the moon - as Diana the huntress herself.
"You've - you've fought before…" his oldest son offers. Harry leans on one elbow to cup his son's shoulder lightly with his other hand. A small insect drifts down to sample a sticky patch of strawberry ice cream that Lily has dripped.
"This is - this is not one of those times," he says gently. "Your mother and I are over. But we're always going to be linked… through you and your sister and brother. And we want to work together to raise you - just as we always have." His words sound stilted, and he reflects that `working together' should be a term used somewhat loosely. He has not seen Ginny since the day the divorce was finalized, and they have generally corresponded through assistants and solicitors. He has been cut off from nearly everyone that ever used to matter to him, and something of his loneliness shows on his face. His son notices.
"It doesn't - it doesn't seem fair," James admits, belying his earlier words and letting his true feelings glimmer through the cracks in his confident demeanor, and then flushes slightly at the unintended petulance in his voice. He peers up at his father through the dark fringe of his bangs. He has Ginny's eyes, rimmed by Harry's long lashes, and Ginny's jaw line, set rather mulishly at the moment.
"Son, you'll find that life isn't - " Harry does not get the chance to finish the aphorism.
"You're the hero, right?" James plunges ahead, his voice raised slightly with emotion. "You saved the day; you get the girl. Everyone lives happily ever after, right? Isn't that how it's supposed to go?"
Yes, but there were two girls at the end, son, Harry thinks. What happens to happily ever after, if the hero chooses the wrong one?
***
Harry arrives back at his flat, exhausted physically and emotionally. He tosses his jacket over the arm of the sofa, and eyes his flat dispassionately. It is all black and ivory, stainless steel and sleek, clean lines: the personification of the wealthy, working bachelor. He has had neither the time nor the inclination to add any personal touches, save a couple of framed pictures of his children.
They seem to hate the place, of course. James and Lily tread lightly throughout, as one would when one is a guest in someone's home. They clearly have not begun to come to terms with the fact that, while `their' home is no longer `his' home, `his' home is sometimes `theirs'. Al makes himself almost too comfortable, sulking all the while, as if hoping that poor behavior will get him sent home. Harry has been sorely tempted at times, but has never done so - partially because he believes that it is what Al wants, and partially because he feels that Al's rudeness is something he has brought on himself, a penance he must pay.
He is still hot and thirsty from the trip to the zoo, and he moves immediately into the kitchen, reaching into a cabinet for the decanter of Firewhiskey and a glass. He dashes the liquor across ice cubes, and quaffs it quickly, appreciating the way it numbs his tongue and burns down his throat into his stomach. He tosses the ice in the sink, and drinks the next glass neat, as he opens the refrigerator, which is mostly empty save for a jar of mustard, olives, and a half-loaf of nearly stale bread.
He recalls a pair of steaks in the freezer, and pulls them out, casting a Defrosting Charm on them, as he decides to slow the drinking down and switch to butterbeer. A singularly good Marinating Charm later - he'd learned it from Molly Weasley, and this brings him a pang of sadness - and the steaks are on the broiler. He has finished his first bottle of butterbeer, Banishing it to the bin, and Summons a new one from the refrigerator without looking, as he pokes at the steaks with a fork.
Shattering glass startles him, as a fine mist of buttery liquid sprays his glasses and shirt-front. He has misjudged the trajectory, and the bottle has crashed into a small support column that separates the kitchen from the sitting area. He curses to himself, as he removes his glasses and attempts to clean them.
At the same time, his front door bursts open, revealing a concerned Hermione Granger, who is halfway through the room before she realizes that she has entered without so much as a by-your-leave.
"Harry, are you all right? I heard glass breaking." She offers as an explanation.
"Misaimed Accio," he replies succinctly. "Fancy seeing you here." The tone is light, teasing, when in truth, he cannot believe that she is actually here, despite what his senses are telling him.
"I was just in the neighborhood," she murmurs inanely, pretending not to know that Apparation has made that an obsolete reason for visiting.
There is more silence, not awkward exactly, but tentative, broken only by the sound of sizzling meat.
"That smells good," Hermione remarks, at the same time that he says,
"There are two steaks on. D'you want to stay for dinner?" She laughs at their congruity, and he blinks at her, surprised at himself for so casually offering a meal. And why shouldn't it be casual, he wonders, we're best friends, have been for years.
Hermione does not answer right away, but has occupied herself by perusing his refrigerator.
"This is a disgrace," she says. "Your icebox is empty, but your liquor cabinet is full." She is dancing the fine line between teasing and serious.
"I've had a rough year," he says bluntly, darting a disgruntled look at her.
"Haven't we all?" Her tone is cryptic. "I'll be right back." She pops away with a suddenness that recalls their erstwhile comfort around each other. Harry tends the steaks, and tries to think of how he will carry on a normal conversation with her. He probably made his feelings about her laughably clear at Christmas, even though they are still somewhat nebulously defined to him, and now they are both… free - he hesitates to even think the word - in the eyes of the world, but not in the eyes of the Weasleys, or of their children. Indeed, to those parties, they may never been seen so. Their position seems dangerous, their status tenuous, and he eyes the precipice dubiously.
When Hermione arrives again, Harry has cleaned up the broken glass and the spill, and the steaks are ready. She drops a canvas tote bag on the countertop, and begins fishing items out of it.
"I can go grocery shopping," he reminds her.
"I know you can," she returns, just as snippily. But you don't is implied, but unspoken. "I didn't go to the market. I just popped back home and nicked a few things." She withdraws the fixings for a salad, buttered rolls ready to be heated, and what looks like some kind of cream-topped dessert.
"You don't need to go to all this - is that Molly's vinaigrette?" He loses his train of thought as she removes a small ceramic, cork-stoppered carafe. She smiles at him conspiratorially, seeming to highlight their ex-Weasley status.
"I saved the last bit, and reverse-engineered it. I think I came pretty close."
"I can't wait to try it." His comment leaves his mouth in a completely innocent way, but it lands oddly in the room, and they both flush. Hermione clears her throat, and turns to set the table. Harry shifts his weight from foot to foot, and turns to retrieve a bottle of wine from the well-stocked cabinet.
When they are seated at the small round dining table, wine poured and food served, Hermione broaches the topic of how his children are doing. Bring up the divorce, he thinks ruefully, a sure way to head off the possibility of a burgeoning…well, anything. He is genuinely unsure whether to be irritated or grateful.
He sighs in response. "I don't know. Lily's all right, I suppose. James acts like he's fine, but today, I find out that he's secretly holding out hope that Ginny and I will get back together. And Al … Al has made it his personal mission to make my life as difficult as possible." He smiles in a c'est la vie kind of way. "How about yours?"
"They're doing pretty well, all things considered," she replies, taking a sip of her wine before continuing. Harry finds himself wondering how the red liquid would taste on her lips, and mentally shakes himself away from such thoughts. "They weren't as… blindsided… as yours were, I think. Ron and I - we - we fought a lot, Harry. More than you even knew. Rose and Hugo were upset, of course, but … in a way, I think they were almost relieved. Ron is - Ron is somewhat more tolerable in smaller doses." Her smile is bitter over the rim of her goblet.
"How is Ron?" He asks; the ache of missing his friend is not unlike the pain of a missing limb, he thinks. He takes another bite of his steak, which he has not really enjoyed, despite the meat being tender and perfectly seasoned.
Hermione knows that he is referring to Ron, as he pertains to his and Ginny's divorce, without Harry having to say so.
"He was pretty angry at first. Ginny was in a bad way, and that upset him even more. He sent that Howler." She seems almost sheepish. "I told him not to, but you know he doesn't often listen to me. He just - just doesn't mention you much. He seems sad, but matter of fact about it, almost like you've died quite some time ago or something. He sees the kids pretty often, and he has sought me out once or twice, but - "
"Sought you out for what?" The words stomp clumsily over the rest of Hermione's sentence, and Harry is mortified.
She colors slightly, but laughs at him, sipping her wine with twinkling eyes.
"Not for that. Honestly, Harry! He just wanted to talk, to … reminisce, of all things. I think it was sort of his awkward way of reaching out… a cease-fire between us, as it were."
Harry reflects that he'd like to crawl under the table and die, but instead, he stabs chunks of tomato and cucumber from his salad, and crunches on them vindictively. The vinaigrette explodes with tangy flavor on his tongue, and he lets out a groan of satisfaction.
"Hermione, this is marvelous!"
She squirms a bit under his praise, but demurs.
"It's probably not exactly - "
"When have you ever not been able to do something you set your mind to? It's delicious, Hermione, the best I've ever had. Molly Weasley wishes she could make something that tastes this good." His praise is, perhaps, over-effusive, but he means every word, and is quite startled when he finds Hermione's eyes filling with tears.
"Did I say something wrong?" She half-laughs at the look of vague horror on his face, and then he understands. Ron has obviously compared her with his mother - possibly during the entirety of their marriage - and she has always been found lacking, always come up short. He feels a wave of disgust rising within him, and it is similar to the feeling he had when she admitted Ron's cheating to him.
"He was a fool, Hermione, if he never realized what - " He reaches out to touch her hand, as he speaks, intent on offering comfort, support, but the moment the pads of his fingers make contact with the back of her hand, he loses his words completely. He is surprised that he does not actually see a blue arc of electricity shoot from skin to skin. Hermione's lips part, as she hisses air in through her teeth, and she instinctively withdraws her hand, as if his touch has seared her. The abrupt action knocks over her goblet, which topples onto the floor and shatters. The wine creates a bloody wound across the ivory tile.
"Dammit," Hermione swears weakly. He gets out of his chair, and squats down to pick up the glass, over her mumbled sounds of protest. He does not know why he feels compelled to clean up the Muggle way, but perhaps it is merely to be closer to her. His hand rests on the edge of her chair to support himself.
"Harry - "
"It's not a big deal, Hermione. I've got other glasses," he replies laconically, thinking she is still talking about the spill. The tinkle of glass is almost musical, as he gathers it up and sets it in his empty bread plate.
"Harry, I don't know what to do." That arrests his attention, and he looks up at her. For Hermione Granger, any admission beginning with I don't know is a feat in itself. She doesn't even have to specify; he knows to what she is referring.
"Neither do I." His voice is rough with emotion in the near total silence of the room. His knees give out and sink down to the floor. He is grateful that he has not knelt on any glass, but he can feel the wine seeping through the knees of his trousers. "But I know us. I trust in us. I always have."
Hermione's lips tremble, as he reaches up with his other hand to caress one wayward strand of her hair from her face. "Yeah…" Her voice is a wobbly almost-whisper, and her breath catches in her throat at his touch.
The distance between them closes, as he inclines his head upward and she leans down simultaneously. Harry's heart is pounding; his blood is roaring in his ears. He feels as ridiculous and giddy as a schoolboy, half-disbelieving that now - in his late thirties - he is going to do something he has never done before. He is going to kiss Hermione Granger.
The kiss is hesitant at first, but her lips are pliable and his are hungry. After a moment, her ardor rises to match his, and he discovers that the commingled essences of wine and vinaigrette are vastly different on her tongue than they are on his own. He draws her closer, and his fingers snag in her wild curls. The salt of her tears makes him slow down; his mouth moves over hers more tenderly, as if he can soothe away years of insecurity and fears of inadequacy.
"Harry…" Or does she say hurry? The word is an almost inaudible intake of air. He pulls back and drinks in the sight of her: her tear-wet cheeks, her well-moistened mouth, the way desire and apprehension war in her dark eyes. Desire… for him… his blood is like quicksilver in his veins, like lightning, like fire. He feels as if he has collided into her at Quidditch-flight speed and propelled them both over that precipice. He is drowning in her gaze, and he knows that there can be no going back - not for them.
The knock at the door startles both of them. Harry curses under his breath, and Hermione's fork clatters across her plate when her hand collides with its handle. The sharp sound has the effect of casting a Freezing Charm over the entire tableau.
"Who in the hell…?" He mutters, as he braces one hand on the table to get to his feet. He straightens his glasses, rakes one hand through his hair, and tries to regulate his breathing as he moves toward the flat's entry. He feels as if the imprint of Hermione's mouth is branded on his.
Ron is at the door.
Harry immediately arrests the door's motion, and tries to stand in the half-meter gap, leaning on the edge of the door with one elbow crooked near the top of his head. Ron's stance is mostly relaxed, and his ears are their normal hue, so Harry figures his erstwhile best friend is, at least, not spoiling for any kind of a fight… yet, he thinks.
"Ron?!" His voice is too loud and sounds exuberant rather than surprised. He winces at the way it almost thunders through the room; he is overdoing it. Ron crinkles his eyebrows at him in puzzlement.
"You blocked me from your Floo," is all he says, although more as a statement of fact than in accusation. Harry lifts one shoulder.
"Instinct of self-preservation."
"Could you blame me?"
"Maybe a little." The pointed reference to their Christmas Eve conversation makes it Ron's turn to flinch.
"All right, I'm perfectly willing to admit that neither of us are saints here. Can I just come in and - " He stops and rises up on his toes, as something over Harry's shoulder catches his eye. In another instant, he has brushed Harry out of his way, and fully entered the flat. Harry turns, and takes in the entire scene the way Ron would: the table set for two, the steak, the wine, Hermione looking thoroughly kissed and now - Harry sees - horribly guilty.
"Hermione?" Ron says, squinting at her as if she is someone he thinks he might have known once.
"Ron," Hermione says primly, as she stands, clasping her hands in front of her and moistening her lips anxiously.
"So, this is how it is." Ron's voice is almost natural, conversational, but Harry can see the banked fire flickering in the depths of his eyes.
"This is nothing, Ronald," Hermione says. Harry thinks that she would be somewhat more convincing if her voice were in its usual octave.
"It doesn't look like nothing." He still sounds normal, and it is making Harry nervous.
"She stopped by, and I invited her to stay," he offers.
"For what?" Ron's eyebrows rise to his hairline. The innuendo drips from the edges of his voice.
"For dinner." Harry's mounting indignation hones his voice into something sharp. Ron is taking this … this fledgling thing between him and Hermione and … sullying it, turning it into something secret and sordid and… He is only doing what everyone is going to do, thinking what everyone is going to think when - if - this ever comes out. But he is Ron, their Ron, and there was once a day where he wouldn't have been one of the maddened horde, cavorting with unholy glee once the hero has toppled from his pedestal. Perhaps those days are gone forever.
"How long has this been going on?" Ron's ire is starting to make itself known. Harry cocks an eyebrow at him.
"About an hour?" There is more truth to the statement than Ron knows; it has indeed been about that long since Hermione and Harry finally ceased dealing with hypotheticals and possibilities, when she came crashing through his door. Ron is assuming that Harry is insisting on referring to the meal, and gives him a dirty look.
"Were you - " he turns to Hermione now, and gestures between her and Harry, " - while we were still married? After all the grief you gave me about that one… indiscretion with Cecilia?"
"One indiscretion?" Hermione sort of screeches, while Harry says,
"You slept with my assistant?!"
"I'd say this trumps that, wouldn't you, Harry?"
"We haven't done anything, Ron! Do you really think Harry or I would have done that to you, to Ginny?" Hermione is pacing in small circles, her voice approaching ultra-sonic levels. Harry notices absently that the wine on the floor is beginning to congeal.
"I thought I knew both of you, but I was obviously wrong," Ron says nastily. "Do you really think that the divorces mean things are over? Things will never be over long enough for the two of you to be together? Can you imagine Mum, Dad… Ginny ever accepting this? The kids? First cousins, now step-siblings? It's ludicrous, it's - it's like something out of a bad novel. The press will have a field day!"
Harry lets his eyes slide shut in weariness. Ron is verbalizing all of his own fears in one long, sputtering tirade. He can't even argue any of Ron's points, because he is horribly afraid that Ron is right; even though, in mentioning step-children, Ron is putting the carriage far ahead of the thestral.
"So you get to do what you want, right, Ron? Yes, Hugo told me about your letting that harpy from Hogsmeade `sleep over'. You can go out and start looking for what makes you happy, but I can't - I can't?" For the first time since he walked in, Ron looks more uncertain than angry.
"I didn't say that, Hermione. I - I just - "
Hermione takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. Then she does something that surprises several years off of Harry's life. She takes a handful of steps, closing the gap between them, and tucks herself beneath his arm, wrapping that hand where her waist flares out to become her hip, and leaning onto his shoulder. He tenses up at the contact, and is more or less waiting for Ron to hit him, but he does not move away from her.
"And what if Harry makes me happy, Ron? What if Harry is what I want? What then?"
"The kids'll - "
"I'm not asking about the children right now, Ron. I'm asking about you. If I'm standing here telling you that this is the way things are, are you going to be able to handle that?"
Harry is letting his cheek lean against the top of Hermione's head before he even realizes he's doing it. He is thinking of the way she felt and the way she tasted, and he wishes heartily that Ron would leave - indeed, that he had never come at all. Ron's eyes are darting back and forth between them, hands fisted into his pockets, looking for all the world like he is trying to process something that is unexpectedly upside down or backwards.
"No," he finally says. "I - I - no, I can't. The two of you… together? Like that? Out of nowhere? If-if it were anyone else, I - but, no." He almost looks apologetic, but doesn't quite achieve it. "And Ginny - Ginny will - " He seems at a loss to describe exactly how terrible Ginny's reaction will be. "Nobody will believe that you weren't fooling around with each other before all this, nobody."
Harry is still holding himself stiffly and uncomfortably, but slants a look down at Hermione's defiant profile, and suddenly wants nothing more than to snog her senseless. He looks up to meet Ron's eyes, and the odd look on his best mate's face tells him that something of that desire is showing in his face.
Hermione hitches a jagged breath, and lays her hand on Harry's, interlacing their fingers. He can tell from her stance that she is girding up everything within her that is Gryffindor.
"It won't matter what anyone else says or thinks," she proclaims. "Because we know the truth."
Ron's face is shuttered from them; he looks tired, weary, almost lost, as if the world as he knows it has suddenly revealed itself to be altogether different. Harry thinks that it might have been easier if Ron had hit him, or yelled, or thrown things. He finds himself musing with trepidation about what Ginny will do, what Arthur and Molly Weasley will do, what Al and James and Lily will do.
Ron heaves a sigh, his shoulders lowering as if the weight on them is too much to bear. Harry wonders if a hypocrite is worse than a traitor.
"I'll be at the Burrow, if anyone needs me." Ron's voice is not threatening, but the promise is implied. Ron will be keeping no secrets. Hermione's soft,
"Oh God," is lost amid the slamming of the door.
And they stand there, still touching, feelings newly realized and radically augmented, the memory of her kiss, her taste - heady and tart - still fresh in his mind, locked in the knowledge that - for good or ill - nothing will ever be the same again.
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