A/N: Hey again!
This is one of the very first pieces I ever wrote, so please excuse any suckage that may have occurred.
Hope you like it!
(Also, please excuse the random 'sdsd' on the first line… I have no clue how that happened.)
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sdsdHarry James Potter, a fourteen-year-old wizard with messy black hair and a lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, sat on the side of his bed and took deep breaths, trying to calm himself. While Harry had many things to be afraid of in his life - the most evil wizard to ever walk the earth, for one - he was not trying to calm himself before or after an attack on his person, a robbery, a murder, or anything of the sort. He was not calming down after having a row with his friend, Ron, who was currently refusing to talk to him because he thought that Harry had entered the Triwizard Tournament and not let him in on the plan. Harry wasn't calming down before or after the first task of the Tournament, either. No, Harry James Potter was about to try to do one of the scariest things he had ever done in his life (so far).
He was about to ask Hermione Granger, his best friend of more than three years, on a date. His first. Her first, too, from what he knew about her. Which was quite a bit.
It had taken Ron's painful silent treatment towards Harry to make Harry realize that he fancied Hermione. She had shown up one morning with a stack of toast for him and had invited him on a walk around the lake, to save him from Ron's icy silence at breakfast. And she had let him talk about his problem with his jealous friend, not trying to defend Ron but not quite agreeing with Harry either, just being fair. He liked that. Hermione was always fair.
After he had finished telling her all of his problems with Ron, they had walked in silence for a little while. And, with one glance at his friend in the oh-so-flattering early morning light, Harry had fallen head over heels in love.
OK, maybe not. That was an exaggeration. But he had noticed how pretty she looked. Never before had he even fathomed thinking about Hermione like that, but it had suddenly not seemed like a bad idea. It might even have seemed like a good idea. He was a boy and she was a girl, after all, and boys fancied girls. That was how it went, right? It was perfectly normal for him to fancy Hermione.
Right?
Harry stood up and headed for the dormitory door. It was time to find Hermione, scary as that was. He wondered how he could fancy her and be terrified by her at the same time. He supposed fancying girls was a confusing business.
He was so deep in thought about how confusing it was to fancy your best friend that he managed to crash right into her at the bottom of the stairs. She had, apparently, been waiting for him. Seeker reflexes intact even after the crash, he managed to catch her before she fell over. Oh, boy, close contact. He couldn't deal with this at this hour of the morning…
"Sorry, Hermione," he mumbled as he righted her. Smooth, Potter, real smooth.
She chuckled, smoothing down the cloak she was wearing. "Well, that'll wake you up in the morning! I was wondering if you fancied another walk, seeing as Ron's not exactly in a terrific mood. It seems the twins put itching powder in his pyjamas, which wouldn't be so bad on its own, but apparently this was one of their special recipes and he's broken out in boils… in rather odd places," she giggled.
There are more important things to fancy than walks. "Sure, I'd like a walk." Harry grinned.
OK, this was a lot earlier than he had expected, but he supposed that a walk around the lake would be a good place to ask her. At least it was somewhat private, minus the giant squid. And he supposed that it would be a funny story to tell her sometime, that he had asked her on a date in the same place that he had realized that he fancied her. That is, assuming that would still want to be friends with him after he asked her, he thought nervously.
He ran back to the boys' dormitory to get his cloak and joined her at the bottom of the stairs, taking care to not crash into her this time.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Yeah," he replied. As I'll ever be, anyway.
The two made their way outside without a word. Harry was growing more nervous by the step. Within seconds he would be alone with her, without anyone but the giant squid to save him from complete and total humiliation.
Well, he thought, I could always chuck myself into the lake. I'm sure the squid wouldn't mind if I shacked up with him for a bit. He hoped that the giant squid was, in fact, male. He didn't think he could handle any more girls in his life at the moment.
Aw, heck, the squid would probably just laugh at him, too.
"Sorry I couldn't manage to get you anything to eat," she said as they got outside. "Ron's in such a temper that I was afraid he'd hex me if I got within ten feet of him, and he'd pulled every available plate of toast to himself. It's a wonder the rest of us didn't starve."
"It's OK," said Harry, "I'm not hungry, anyway." Considering that he thought he might be sick if he ingested anything at the moment, the absence of food was probably a good thing.
"Are you feeling all right?" asked Hermione, sounding concerned. She was always worrying about him, he knew. Most of the time, it made him feel guilty for stressing her, but sometimes it made him feel a little happy, too, knowing that someone cared about him enough to worry.
"I'm fine, just not hungry."
"OK, if you say so."
The two continued their walk around the lake for a while, Hermione making small talk but receiving only small answers from Harry. Conversations died on him. It was a massacre.
"Harry, are you sure you're OK?" she asked when they had gone about halfway around the lake. "You're so quiet this morning."
"Yeah, I'm OK." Just dying from nervousness.
"Dying from nervousness?" asked Hermione. "About what?"
Merlin help him, he'd said that out loud. Sometimes there were drawbacks to keeping secrets around your best friend. You tended to get so comfortable around them that your thoughts just tumbled right out of your mouth, instead of staying in your brain where they belonged.
"Er… Well, I kind of had a question to ask you," said Harry. Now or never.
Hermione stopped, put on a face of ecstasy and threw her hands in the air. "Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes! Of course I'll marry you!"
"Er… what?" Harry asked, extremely confused.
She giggled and let her hands drop to her sides. "Well, you're dying from nervousness about asking me a question. I figured that that was the only question scary enough to make you nervous."
"Er, no. And let's hope nobody else heard you; they'll think you were serious. But you were close when you guessed that question, anyway."
It was Hermione's turned to be confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well, I'm not asking you to marry me, but…" he trailed off, nervously running a hand through his decidedly unruly hair.
"Go on," she prompted.
"I wanted to ask you… if you, er, want to go to Hogsmeade with me next weekend."
Hermione tilted her head to the side questioningly. "I always go to Hogsmeade with you."
How could he have forgotten that? "I, er, didn't mean we'd go like we always do."
"You've completely lost me," said Hermione, looking at the sky and shaking her head.
"Hermione, I, er… I meant on a date," he said quietly, afraid that he might be sick if he spoke too loudly. He had a feeling that tossing the cookies at the moment was probably not a very good idea.
He watched as her cheeks went a little red. "A date?" she asked.
"Yeah," he replied, going a little red as well.
"Huh," she said, "imagine that."
There was a pause as the two resumed their walk.
"Might I ask why?" she inquired a moment or two later.
"Er… For whatever reason boys usually ask girls on dates?" he tried.
"And what is that?" she asked, having a bit of fun pressuring him.
"Er… Because I like you, Hermione. A lot," he said awkwardly.
"I like you too," she said. "Isn't that how friends usually feel about each other?"
"I mean I like you in that, er, other way," he told her, his recently cooled cheeks warming up once again as he turned red.
She turned pink in turn. "Oh. So you fancy me."
"Yeah, that's it," he said. Why had his already-rather-feeble vocabulary skills chosen to fail him at such an important moment? I like you in that other way, Merlin help him…
She didn't say anything.
"So, what do you say?" he asked, nervous again.
She seemed to consider her answer for a moment.
"I say yes," she said finally. Harry felt his heart leap at her words, and his insides set to dancing the conga. So, it turned out that he wouldn't have to go and live with the giant squid after all.
"Because," she continued, "Harry, I, er…" She faltered for a moment.
"Go on," he prompted.
"I… like you in that other way too," she finished sheepishly, looking away from him, but not quickly enough to hide the fact that she was turning red again.
"You do?" he asked in disbelief.
"Yeah."
"So you fancy me?" he asked, repeating her line.
She grinned shyly at him. "I guess I do."
"This doesn't mean we're going to start snogging in broom closets, does it?" he asked, making an attempt to lighten the mood and coax her out of her shyness.
"Not unless you want to," she said, her grin broadening a little.
"I think I might," he admitted, "but not just yet. I mean, you're not even my girlfriend at the moment, we're just going on a date, right?"
"Right."
"Would you… would you want to be my girlfriend?" asked Harry. It was his turn to be shy.
"I think so. We'll see how things go after this little date of ours, won't we?"
"Yeah, we will."
There was a pause before Hermione chuckled.
"Hey, Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"About snogging in broom closets, have you ever even snogged a girl before?"
"No, have you?"
"Harry!"
He chuckled. "Have you ever snogged a boy before, then?"
"No."
"Really? A gorgeous chick like you couldn't find someone to play tonsil Quidditch with?"
"Nope," she said, blushing at his little compliment. "And don't call me a chick."
"All right, all right."
"So, have you ever even kissed a girl before?"
"Nope."
"You don't mean to tell me that the great Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, has never kissed a girl?" asked Hermione in complete disbelief. Or, at least, her acting was good enough to make it seem that way.
"That's exactly what I mean to tell you," Harry said sheepishly.
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I've never kissed a girl either," Hermione chuckled.
"That's so comforting."
"All right, I'll admit that I've never kissed a boy before, either," said Hermione.
Harry sighed. "Jeez. We're a couple of first-years when it comes to romance, aren't we?"
"I guess so."
"But we intend to change that, right?"
She looked shy again. "Yeah."
"I've never known you to be so shy," he commented.
"I've never known you fancied me," she replied.
"Knowing that I fancy you makes you shy?"
"Of course it does, since I fancy you back," she said quietly. "Doesn't that make you a tiny bit shy around me, Mr. Potter?"
"It does," he said, going a little red again.
"I knew it, the great Harry Potter has his weaknesses after all," she said smugly. And I'm one of them, she thought happily. "Hey, we're back," she added.
"So we are," he said, looking at the giant Hogwarts doors. "Too bad. I like our little walks."
"I like them, too. Especially when I get confessions like this out of you."
"Confessions?"
"Oh, like you always spend your nights proclaiming the fact that you fancy me across the rooftops," she said jokingly.
"I will if you want me to, look," he said, cupping his hands around his mouth and taking a deep breath, as though preparing to yell that fact for all to hear.
She pulled his hands down. "I get it, I get it! Merlin, Harry, do you seriously want me to die of embarrassment?"
He pouted. "You're embarrassed because I fancy you?"
"Oh, no…" she said. "It's just, well, if you tell everyone, I'm going to have a hoard of fan girls following me everywhere, asking me if I've snogged you yet. That fact is and will remain private until I decide otherwise."
"As in, until the answer isn't "no" anymore, right?" he asked, eyebrows raised.
She went a little pink. "Maybe, if you think the answer is ever going to be "yes"."
"I most certainly do," he said. "Now, what do you say we go inside and pretend that nothing's different between us until, say, Thursday?"
"Thursday, huh? I can manage that."
And with a final shy glance and grin, the two went back inside with a new and wonderful secret between them. Saturday was not too far off, and Thursday was even closer. Both were a little nervous, but both also knew that this was special. This was just meant to be.