Title: Wake Up Call
Author: Hazelmist
Ship: Harry/Hermione and a tiny Parvati/Ron
Summary: Hermione has a pounding headache and no recollection. Her pillow's walked off on her and Harry Potter is in her bed with no idea as to how he got there. HHR Oneshot.
Author's Note: I'm new to Portkey but I've been writing H/Hr for years. I wrote this one sometime after HBP came out. Please tell me what you think!
Sunlight streamed in through the open window on that unbearably hot morning in June. Outside the voices of obnoxious children could be heard screaming, and shrieking with laughter at the top of their lungs. The birds were chattering and squabbling over something, singing in shrill voices that struck an ill note, resounding in her pounding head.
Hermione Granger opened one eye. It was a mistake. The light was like fire; painful, blinding, and burning. She groaned and shut her eyes tight. Rolling over, she sought cover in the pillow beside her. The pillow cushioned her head but it was mysteriously…firm. And it was warm, suspiciously warm. Despite the heat of the summer sun, Hermione found that the warmth that radiated from her pillow was quite nice. It smelled funny and wonderful too, like a hint of cologne and… freshly mowed grass, like the Quidditch Pitch. Perhaps it was because of the horrible head ache, but the pillow was more soft and comfortable than she could ever remember it being. Hermione never wanted to leave her bed or her precious pillow. She would've liked to have stayed like that forever.
Unfortunately, her pillow had other ideas.
It moved.
Hermione thought she was imagining it at first, because obviously pillows don't move by themselves. But a moment later, the pillow had moved out from underneath her head.
"Ooomf!" Hermione was stranded, pillowless, in a tangle of sheets, in the middle of her bed. And she was not happy, not happy at all. It was bad enough her head felt like it was going to crack in half, now her pillow had walked off on her.
She stretched out her arms, reaching and groping for the elusive pillow. Her hands couldn't find the pillow, but they did find something else. Hermione frowned, unable to identify the object. She cracked open her eyes, braving the merciless light. She had to blink several times before the blurry image finally came into focus.
"AAAAAHHHHHH!"
Hermione gasped and fell off the bed, taking the sheets with her. But it wasn't her that had emitted the scream. It was her pillow that had screamed, the same pillow that was now peeping over the edge of her bed, looking down at her with wide green eyes and an expression of utmost surprise.
Hermione's pillow, it turned out was actually -
"Harry!" Hermione yelped.
"Hermione?" Harry gave her an incredulous look. "What are you doing here?" he asked, yawning.
"What am I doing here?" she scoffed. "Harry, I think I should be asking you that question!"
"Huh?" Harry asked groggily as he rubbed his eyes.
"Harry you're in MY bed!" Hermione explained to him, since Harry had obviously missed the point entirely.
"Hermione that's ridiculous! I couldn't possibly be in - " Harry finally located his glasses and broke off suddenly. There was a long pause and then Harry laughed nervously, tugging at the bed spread. "Your bed." He pointed at the bed that he was currently lounging in, while Hermione nodded from the floor, verifying the fact.
"But… how?" Harry asked, sitting up slowly.
"Don't get up!" Hermione shrieked.
"What?" Harry stopped suddenly, and then his mouth formed a perfect "O". He sunk back down and again laughed uneasily. "You don't think that we…" Harry stopped here, unable to finish the ridiculous thought that had possibly crossed his mind.
"I'm not sure if we…" Hermione swallowed, and then courageously tackled the ending to that difficult sentence. "…if we slept together…" she stammered.
Hermione looked up at him and blushed furiously. Hastily, she looked away. What if they had slept together? It would change their friendship. She'd never be able to look at him in the same way… She'd never see him as just her best friend anymore… Then again, would that be such a bad thing? Since her failed fling with Ron, Hermione had realized that Ron was the pesky sibling she'd always wanted, but Harry, Harry was something entirely different… He was -
"Hermione!" Harry hissed, snapping her out of her thoughts. "Someone's coming!"
Hermione heard the footsteps then. One of her room mates was running up the steps, coming back to the dormitory.
"HIDE!" she gasped
"Where?" Harry asked, panicking.
Hermione looked around the room, but there wasn't enough time.
"Stay there!" she told him throwing him the sheets.
"But what if she -"
The turning of a doorknob interrupted Harry. Hermione had just enough time to yank the curtains around her bed closed, before her room mate, Parvati Patil entered.
"Hermione Granger!" Parvati shrieked, skipping into the room. "Oh." She looked almost disappointed to see Hermione standing there already awake, as if she had been hoping for the opportunity to rudely interrupt her slumber.
"Good morning," Hermione greeted her with forced enthusiasm.
"Did you sleep well Hermione?" Parvati responded with a sly grin, taking in her disheveled appearance. Hermione followed her eyes and was relieved to find that she was in fact still in her clothes from yesterday. But she was mortified to find that not only was her button down shirt wide open, but that it didn't belong to her. It belonged to… Harry. Hermione blushed and hastily crossed her arms over her chest. Perhaps Parvati wouldn't notice that the shirt was almost as long as her skirt and much too big for her.
"Well, did you?" Parvati asked. "Because you slept through lunch,"
Hermione gaped at Parvati, who took pleasure in Hermione's shock and embarrassment. Hermione Granger had never, ever, slept past ten in her entire life. She grabbed the muggle watch off of her bureau and was horrified to discover that according to its green glowing digits it was half past noon. She realized that the watch was also Harry's.
"I guess I was really tired. I was up studying again for our N.E.W.T.s…" Hermione laughed nervously, but Parvati saw right through her. The girl sat down on Lavender's bed and didn't look like she was going to leave any time soon.
"Oh, really?" Parvati raised an eyebrow.
"Really," Hermione said, suddenly feeling extremely uncomfortable with the look Parvati was giving her. She seemed to be enjoying this way too much.
"Ask Ron, Harry, or Ginny, and they'll tell you that I was studying." Hermione named off the three people that she knew would vouch for her under any circumstance. The truth was that Hermione wasn't thinking clearly enough to be telling such stories and she was telling a big fat lie, one that would not go unnoticed by her gossipy roommate.
"I wouldn't trust anything that Ron, Harry or Ginny said," Parvati said, laying the first trap slowly.
"Why not?" Hermione asked, bristling with anger.
"Well, for one, they weren't there. Ron, Harry, and Ginny were amongst several Gryffindors that decided to partake in an unofficial trip to Hogsmeade to celebrate last night," Parvati informed her.
"What were they celebrating?" Hermione asked, but she already knew. Suddenly, it was all coming back to her.
Ginny, Ron, Harry, Neville, Luna, Seamus, Dean, and several other Hogwarts students had snuck off to Hogsmeade and she had been amongst them. Dean, Seamus, and Ron had somehow convinced the newest addition to the waiting staff at The Three Broomsticks to serve them a round of drinks. Ron apparently was a lot more like his infamous twin brothers than anyone had expected because Hermione now knew what the source of her pounding headache was and why she had a sudden allergy to sunlight and loud noises.
"Hermione our N.E.W.T.S are over," Parvati told her as Hermione reached the same conclusions, gradually piecing together the foggy scenes of last night. "We'll be graduating this weekend, remember?"
"Oh yes, of course! I was just tired. All that studying just caught up to me and I needed to… I need to get dressed! The day's already over!" Hermione oh-so-cleverly changed the subject. She grabbed her clothes and made a beeline for the bathroom. She shut the door, stripped down and turned the water on. Parvati, though, was having fun and was unwilling to let go of this once-in-a-lifetime to embarrass perfect Hermione Granger.
"You wouldn't believe some of the things I heard," Parvati was saying on the other side of the door. "Lavender told me that Ernie told her that Anthony Goldstein told him that Seamus told him that there were drinks going around. That's like so illegal. I told Lav that it had to be a lie because no Hogwarts student would ever partake in such activities."
"Maybe not willingly," Hermione muttered under her breath, making a note to kill Ron Weasley at some point in the near future.
"I heard some other stuff too. Some people tried to tell me that you were there-"
Hermione turned the water up as high as it would go, drowning the next few sentences out. Parvati raised her voice though, so Hermione started to sing. She decided that she could stay here all day, at least until Parvati left.
Oh, Parvati would try and snoop around first. She always did that. She had a keen ear for gossip but most of the stuff she found was -
Harry!
Harry was still in her bed! Hermione shut the water off and was dried and dressed in a matter of seconds.
"That was fast," Parvati looked mildly impressed at the girl's ability to get ready in six seconds flat. She'd been playing with the timer on Hermione's muggle watch that oddly enough looked more like a man's watch… Parvati was trying to figure out what it was doing on Hermione's bureau when Hermione re entered the room and started going through her trunk.
"Oh, my gosh!" Parvati gasped suddenly.
"WHAT!" Hermione jumped several feet into the air. "What?" she demanded as if her life depended on what Parvati was going to say next. After a dramatic pause, during which Hermione was strongly tempted to extract the news physically from the annoying girl, Parvati finally gushed.
"Ginny and Harry are officially broken up!"
Hermione stared at Parvati, blinked and then bit back a laugh.
"Oh, is that all? I mean, oh, how tragic… They've only been broken up for what… A year?" Hermione stifled a giggle with difficulty.
"Well yeah, but they've moved on now," Parvati continued, still acting as if this was big news.
"Of course." Hermione nodded, though she'd known for almost a year that Ginny and Harry had been broken up.
"Ginny was snogging Dean. That's what Lavender said. So, I guess she finally moved on-" Parvati was rambling but Hermione was hardly listening. Dean was not the first guy Ginny had been caught snogging since her break up with Harry and Hermione had a strong feeling that Dean would not be the last.
"And Harry is sleeping with some girl. Of course, no one knows who she is but he disappeared again this morning-"
"What!" Hermione stood up so fast that she nearly slammed the lid of her trunk, which she had been rifling through, on her fingers. "What did you say?"
"Oh, nothing really, just that Seamus said that, well, Lavender told me that Anthony told him that Ernie said that-"
"No, what did you just say?" Hermione asked urgently.
Parvati played stupid, pretending to be puzzled though Hermione had a feeling that she was doing it on purpose and for her own cruel amusement.
"You mean about Ginny and Dean? Right? Isn't that so cute! I told Lav that I knew that they would get back together. Though letting go of Harry is a big deal. I mean, come on, he's like Hogwart's most eligible bachelor-"
"Is he sleeping with someone?" Hermione interrupted, briskly.
"Well, obviously! He's the hottest boy in our school,"
"Who!? Who has he been sleeping with!?" Hermione demanded, brandishing her wand. Parvati shrunk back a bit, her clueless demeanor fading as the wand was poked into the center of her chest.
"How would I know?" Parvati asked, and Hermione knew that she really didn't know.
Sighing, Hermione lowered her wand. The headache was coming back in full force only this time there seemed to be something wrong with her heart as well. There was a sharp pain there, one that refused to go away and had nothing to do with the hangover.
It shouldn't have come as a shock to her. After all, Parvati was right. He was attractive. He was the only one that could tear her eyes away from the lesson and hold them there for hours. But it was his personality that really attracted her to him. She loved her best friend. He made her laugh, he held her tight when she cried, he saved her life so many times that she'd lost track, and he was the only one that she could talk to about anything and everything. She wasn't sure when or how it had happened but at some point during their seven years together she'd fallen in love with Harry Potter.
"That's just the rumor of course," Parvati said, kindly. "I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation as to why Harry's always missing from his bed and comes in disheveled in the wee hours of the morning." She patted Hermione on the back, sympathetically.
Hermione felt tears burning in her eyes but she put on a brave face.
"I don't care what Harry does," she sniffed, but her voice sounded suspiciously ragged. "If he's sleeping with someone then - then…" Hermione trailed off, unable to finish her sentence because she was sure that if she said one more word, she would break into tears.
"Oh, Hermione honey." Parvati wrapped her arm around Hermione, pulling her into a pitying hug. "I'm so sorry," she whispered rubbing Hermione's back. Hermione felt her eyes water and a few hot tears slide down her cheeks. "Just cry and get it all out and then I'll get Ginny and Lavender to help us kill Harry, okay?"
"I don't care…" Hermione repeated, but this time her words were barely audible and choked with a barely suppressed sob.
"Hermione," Parvati sighed. "There's no use in trying to deny it. We all know that you love Harry."
"We're friends," Hermione sobbed. "We're just friends!" she cried, angrily.
"Yes, but you love him more than a friend don't you Hermione," Parvati said sadly, forcing Hermione to look at her. Hermione was a horrible liar. She couldn't lie to Harry, or Parvati, or even herself.
"Yes," she surrendered. She couldn't deny it any longer. Besides it didn't matter anymore. Harry obviously would never feel the same way.
"Yes, I do love Harry," she breathed.
"But I'm just his friend, he doesn't care!" Then she pulled her knees to her chest and started to quietly sob.
Harry couldn't take it anymore. He wrenched open the curtains, walked right past Parvati Patil (who grinned and didn't look the least bit surprised) and went to the sobbing Hermione. He knelt on the floor before her, gently taking her hands in his. Hermione's eyes widened when she saw him but she was frozen and even her ability to speak seemed to have left her.
Harry stared at her for several minutes, but he too seemed not to know what to say. Instead he spoke with his hands, tenderly wiping the tears from her eyes and smoothing the hair from her forehead. The words were in his eyes which silently drank in her blotchy face and watery red eyes, and still found her more beautiful than any other girl.
"Hermione is this true?" he finally asked softly.
Hermione said nothing. Instead she stared down at her hands, which he held so gingerly in his own.
"Is it?" Harry asked again.
Hermione raised her eyes to his.
"Yes," she whispered. "Every word is true."
Harry leaned forward, gently brushing his lips over hers. It lasted mere seconds but it had opened Hermione's eyes to what she now knew she would never be able to give up. She opened her eyes slowly, wishing that it hadn't ended so soon.
"Well, Parvati was wrong about me," Harry began, tucking her hair behind her ears. "I'm not sleeping with anyone and the only ones that I sneak out to see in the wee hours of the morning and late nights is Hedwig or my Firebolt."
Hermione laughed.
"Sometimes though…" he trailed off, stroking her cheek. Hermione leaned into his hand. "Sometimes, I find myself wishing I could come and see you."
Hermione smiled.
He kissed her again and Hermione responded eagerly this time.
Meanwhile, Parvati Patil snuck out of the room to tell the others that their plan had been successfully executed thanks to her own brilliance. She was met with cheers and a sloppy kiss on the cheek from Colin Creevey which she never intended to repeat.
"I meant to ask you Ron," she said turning to the mastermind of their final strategic plans. "How did you get those drinks? And while you're at it, why don't you tell me how you got Harry into Hermione's bed!"
Ron grinned mischievously and recklessly took her by the waist.
"I might tell you on one condition…"
"What's that?" Parvati asked, tilting her head.
Ron puckered up and Parvati giggled.
"All right, all right! Surely one kiss won't hurt," she laughed and then she kissed him.
An hour later Parvati still didn't know the answer but she was still snogging Ron.
A/N: I hope you liked it. Please tell me what you think!
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