A/N: So for those of you who read my Tumblr, you know that I was unable to post a chapter last week. And, if you checked back yesterday, you got a little sneak peak of what was in store for this little devil :] I finished it on Saturday and sent it to my lovely new beta, Vincent! I want to thank him endlessly for his efforts, making this chapter even better than it was before (if I do say so myself). So buckle your seatbelts, kids. It's going to be a bumpy, URST-y ride.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter would only be mine if I moved to England, invented a cloning device, replicated JKR, and took all the money for myself. Not that I'm planning that or anything…
Enjoy!
-
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair
Dear Joe Bloggs,
I know we haven't written each other in a while, but I need to talk to someone about this new-erm, friend-person-type-thing that I have. I've hated him for years and now all of a sudden, we're on a regular talking basis. It started a few weeks ago when he found me in a compromising position (don't ask). All of a sudden he wanted to make amends and fix everything between the two of us. We have a history, you see. Long story short, he pretty much made my life a living hell for six years. I still haven't forgiven him for what he's done, obviously, but that doesn't stop me from talking to him as if he were my best friend. Despite my earlier feelings of resentment towards him, he still somehow manages to make me laugh. I really don't know what to do. You're the only one I trust to give me good advice. Seeing as you have no idea who I am, you have no chance of being biased. All I need to know is if I should keep this new relationship between the two of us friendly, or just tell him to back off. The past cannot be changed, and that's what I've been hanging onto for all these years. But now that he's acting this way towards me, I don't know whether to be suspicious or happy that he's finally acquired a sensitivity chip.
Love,
Anonymous.
Dear Anonymous,
It sounds to me that you have a case of what I like to call, Conscience Takeover. Let me guess, you have internal battles with yourself whenever the two of you talk. You want to say one thing, but your other half that's still hanging onto your bumpy past wants to tell him to bugger off. There's only one solution for a problem like this: follow your instincts. I would say "follow your heart," but that's horribly cheesy, isn't it? The fact is that you still have repressed feelings of hate or something similar towards him. Now, from an outside person's perspective, it would seem that he's getting a bit ahead of himself if he thinks he can get a pistol like you to even come close to considering him a friend. But as a victim of the same type of situation, I have to admire his bravery. Even if he's doing it for wrong reasons, it takes a lot of guts to try and make amends with someone you've been `programmed' to hate, so to speak. Since I don't know the guy personally, I unfortunately can't tell you what his true intentions are. I think you should give him a shot though. If you've hated him for this long, what's giving him a chance going to do? You've got nothing to lose. Just go to it head on and get to know the bloke. If it turns out I'm wrong, you have full liberty to kick both him and me in the bollocks.
Love,
Joe Bloggs
And that is how I started spending more time with one Harry Potter. I thought it easier to go to Joe about this than Sue or my mum. He was an outsider, someone who knew nothing about our past or who we were. Plus, he didn't have the questions "Oh, you're talking about a boy? What's his name? How old is he? Do you like him?" programmed into his brain, unlike some people I knew. If I told him my name was Hermione Granger and that for a long while I wanted to single handedly tear Harry Potter's balls off, I wouldn't get the same kind of advice. I would most likely earn a place in St. Mungo's with some other mentally unstable witches and wizards. It's a good thing I'm clever and know to think ahead or who knows where I would be right now.
Back to the point, Joe's advice actually worked. Not that I doubted it, but I was a bit iffy about `getting to know' him. Can you really blame me, though? If you thought for a minute that I was going to jump into his arms and announce to the world that we were going to be best mates for life, you need a trip to the loony bin even more than I do. It takes a while to mend a past like ours. The only thing that stopped me from changing my mind was that he kept coming back. He never wavered, never gave up, never tried anything funny. For the last few weeks, it was just the two of us, which came as a relief because when I was around him. In the past I was used to dealing with two people: him and his ego. His enormous head was still there, but not as engorged as I thought it was. No pun intended.
Cue the cheesy montage track; you're about to enter a play-by-play.
It had been a killer few weeks to say the least. If there was one thing Harry Potter was not, it was a quitter. He had taken every opportunity he could wrap his hands around and used it to spend time with me, to make amends. And though I don't want to admit it-it was kind of working. We hadn't gotten into an argument since he turned on suck-up mode and left behind his asshole tendencies. Even the small stuff he was doing helped. Here, let me think of some examples to help you better understand what I'm talking about.
During our patrols together, we wouldn't just look out for horny school kids, we would talk. Not like the kind of conversation we had our first time patrolling the corridors, but actual exchanging of words that had no anger or frustration laced in them. It was a relief, actually, to not yell at him. I never noticed it before, but my voice had grown hoarse from all of the yelling I had done. It was a good thing I wasn't a singer or something or else I would be really screwed.
He had taken to sitting next me during some meals. I didn't notice until I felt someone glaring at me that he left behind his usual posse to voluntarily be in my company. Weasley shot glares that could cut through bullet-proof glass at the two of us on the days Harry chose to sit next to me. But it wasn't like it was an everyday occurrence, maybe a few times a week, at breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It's funny because… hang on, are you even listening? What the hell do you think I-oh. I know what you're thinking so hard about. No, you didn't hear me wrong, I just called him Harry. I kind of have to now. About a week after we started being around each other more, he made me swear on Hogwarts: a History that I would call him Harry both consciously and unconsciously. He looked completely serious when he said he would burn the book, so I don't doubt for a second that he would follow through. So take a few minutes to let that sink in and I'll continue talking.
Are you done now? Okay, good.
As I was saying, Weasley never seemed happy that Harry and I were talking. He was the one who wanted to protect Harry from fame seeking leeches, I know, but it still seemed stupid to shoot daggers at two people who are trying to hold a conversation. In time, I learned to ignore him. It wasn't too difficult, seeing as Harry and I could never go two minutes without talking about something. I honestly had never thought I could talk to someone so much in person, but I guess there's a first time for everything. Who knew that the first person I connected with would be him?
When professors began to pile coursework on us before winter holidays, Harry had come to me for help. Yeah, I know, it's shocking. I was a bit awestruck when he asked in the first place, mouth agape and everything. He snapped me out of it though, quite literally. He bonked me lightly on the head with his Potions textbook and soon after we got down to business. He had struggles in both Potions and History of Magic for the most part. He told me that any subject where you aren't required to perform magic equals lack of concentration from his end. I taught him that the key to performing magic is understanding it. If you don't know how it works fully, you might misuse it. Most wizards in history tried to look past this and ended up blowing their fingers off or worse, a fact he should have picked up in History of Magic. The same goes with Potions; if you don't know why certain ingredients go well together, you'll never make a fully functional composite. He seemed to take well to my advice, because on the last exams for both classes he got perfect scores (a fact Professor Snape still hasn't fully grasped).
But with end-of-term exams, came winter holidays. I had elected to stay behind once again to get some much needed relaxation time. Harry, on the other hand, was going with Weasley back to his house to spend some time with their family. In one of our more deep conversations he confessed that the Weasley's have been the closest thing to family he's ever known. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. I may get annoyed with my parents on occasion, but that doesn't mean I'm not thankful. I couldn't imagine a life where they weren't there.
The scene as saw him off at Hogsmeade Station was like something out of a book. The snow was falling in thick flakes, piling atop the roofs and concrete that made it look like we were surrounded by marshmallows. The train was blowing gray puffs of smoke that lingered in the air, the wind blowing them around in tiny swirls. I had given Harry a hug goodbye, a first for the two of us. It was short, yet lingering in some ways. He pulled back with a sad smile and touched the bridge of my nose lightly with his finger in a playful gesture. His cold skin made me flinch.
"Have a good holiday, Hermione." He said softly.
I smiled back at him and replied in all sincerity, "You too, Harry."
Then he was gone, finally listening to Weasley's calls to get aboard the train before it left. Was it bad that I let my eyes linger on him as he left? No, of course not it was just reality setting in, that's all. This would be the first time we were going to be apart since we started getting along. It hurt a bit, that's all. I'd never watched a friend-person-type-thing walk away before. I was simply observing and calculating so a feeling like this wouldn't sneak up on me again. What exactly this feeling was, I'm not sure. But that was what the analyzing was for. Or that was the excuse I was making. You never know with a mind like mine. All I knew was that my stomach had never felt as though it were being squeezed by the hand of a giant.
A week had gone by since then. I bet now he was off somewhere with one of the Weasley's, playing Quidditch in their backyard pitch he'd told me about. The temperature was nearly in the negatives, but I knew that wouldn't keep him from getting on his broom and flying about. You know boys and their toys. I was perfectly content curled up by the fireplace with my book. Crookshanks was off somewhere chasing mice. Now that I had free time, I had taken my favorite cat out and about the castle, even showing him the Room of Requirement. It wasn't much of a shock when I opened the door to find hills of cat nip and fuzzy enchanted toys filling the room. Speaking of the magical chamber, I had made quite a few trips in and out lately when I got especially bored and was in need of a place to think, only venturing in there when I was sure I needed it. Like I said before, if the room was ever overused, it would lose its magic. In fact, the room was the entire reason I had written Joe in the first place. The night after Harry and I had our little picnic, I ventured there in search of an answer to the billion questions running about my head. I knew the room couldn't tell me anything, but it was worth a shot. After three trips past the wall and an open mind, I opened the door to see a desk decorated with a bunch of parchment and a single quill. I took the hint and began to write.
Now, a week later, I feel like one of those film cliché's, sitting here like this with an open book. Here I was, alone in an empty common room with only my frisky cat to keep me company, when my newly deemed acquaintance was off having a great time with his self appointed family. I didn't mind, though, because the one thing I needed to do to accomplish the cheesy setting was moon over some guy. Oh, wait. Damn it, never mind. Thanks a heap, Joe; you've turned me into a pathetic movie heroine. All I needed now was a hot kissing scene and we were in business. I laughed at that. Like I would get any action cooped up in this tower like some kind of Rapunzel, save the overly long blonde locks.
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.
I felt the cushion beside me move and turned to see Crookshanks' beady eyes gazing at me with the "I'm hungry" look. I sighed and put down my book before heading up to get some cat nip out of my trunk. I never gave him food unless it was mealtime. He had been putting on some weight lately and had trouble climbing the stairs. He had always been pudgy but not to the point where he was out of shape. The cat nip was buried beneath my box of letters from Joe so he couldn't get into it. Think I'm paranoid? You haven't seen Crookshanks when he hasn't been fed-he goes berserk. Smart cat plus unlocked trunk equals bad things, let me tell you. I had to buy three new pairs of socks after he found his stash of nip inside of a few pairs of extra winter hosiery.
I pulled out the bag and took a small helping out before closing the trunk and heading for the door, but something stopped me before I could walk any further. In the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something shiny. Nothing in my room had ever shined before, so it was enough to get me to turn abruptly around. Upon my bed was a box encased in silver and gold wrappings, tiny snowflakes letting off the occasional twinkle from their random places around the pattern. I stepped cautiously towards the package and saw a note tied to it by a white ribbon. Setting the cat nip down, I let curiosity override my better judgment.
I untied the note gingerly and unfolded it. Written in black ink were the words, Your Welcome. That was it, just two words, eleven letters. I was thoroughly confused, as the handwriting looked to be charmed, the writing moving slightly to give me a hint. Whoever had sent me this package obviously didn't want to be known, which made me nervous. I looked back at the shiny wrappings and bit my lip. To open or not to open, that was the question. Eeny, meeny, miny, mo…
Before I could think any different, I tore open the package and found a plain white box. It wasn't taped, so I removed the lid and moved aside the tissue paper. What was hidden beneath took my breath away, literally. I couldn't find the will to inhale. It was only when I began to see stars that I could bring myself to take in oxygen. There, folded carefully onto itself, was the dress I had fallen in love with in Hogsmeade. The very same one I saw myself walking into the ball with, Joe's eyes on me like a hungry tiger. It was here. I reached out to touch it, convinced it must have been a hologram or charm of some kind, but my hand came into contact with the same fabric that had felt so amazing on my skin.
"Oh Merlin." I said in a whimper.
Whoever bought me this dress must have seen me try it on. There was no way anyone else could simply pick out a dress and send it to me at random. But who would do such a thing? No one was there in the store with me other than the saleslady, and she certainly doesn't give away dresses for free, or else she'd have no business. And then it hit me-I had felt someone's eyes on me when I was at the mirrors, but when I turned, there was no one there. My paranoia had actually been right about something. Someone had been watching me through the shop window, and whoever it was saw that I was unable to pay for it and took it upon themselves to spend an enormous amount of galleons on it. Again, the question remained: who?
I let my hand trail down the fabric and shook my head. This was ridiculous, what was I thinking? I couldn't just accept the dress when I didn't know who sent it to me in the first place. I remember how expensive it was. Whoever gave me this dress was either both filthy rich and a natural do-gooder, or had other motives that weren't so innocent.
Stop thinking too much! My mind screamed. You've got the dress of your dreams right in front of you. What's with all the suspicion?
Well, the more logical side of my brain answered, for one, you have no idea who it's from.
So? What's that got to do with anything?
It could be cursed, torn, hexed, the wrong size… the list is endless, really.
But it's here, right now. You never thought in a million years that you would be able to wear it after seeing the price. And now, when luck is finally on your side, and someone decided that you were going to be their good deed of the day, you come up with a billion reasons why not to accept it. Live a little, Granger!
Yeah, but-
Enough with the `but's. Just picture that scene again. You, descending the staircase like a scene out of Cinderella, all glittery and pretty while everyone turns their head to look at you. You feel heat rise up in your cheeks when you reach the floor and see Joe standing there waiting for you, his eyes penetrating through his plain black mask. He takes your hand, you dance, you kiss. It's the perfect night-and all that you need to do to make it a reality is accept that dress.
That seems a little obscene. How do you know that that's how it's going to end up if I just let all of these superstitious go and take the dress?
I don't. But it'll be closer to that picture than if you turn your back to an opportunity like this one. Chicken out or go?
I let out a frustrated groan, stopping the internal battle of my conscience. Is it sad that I'm not even worrying about two voices in my head going at it? Never mind, don't answer that. I had enough on my plate already. I tore my eyes from the dress and put the top back on. If I couldn't make up my mind now, I would just put it away for later. There was still a good week and a half before the dance, so I had plenty of time to decide later. I placed it at the bottom of my nearly empty wooden wardrobe and shut the door. Putting it away made it better. Easier.
I let out a sigh and picked up the catnip from my bed, bunching it up in my fist. I shot one last fleeting glance at the wardrobe as I neared my open doorway, letting my brain start up again with mushy romantic pictures of the ball. As soon as I got to the part where Joe was about to kiss me, I heard a loud noise come from downstairs. My heart leapt into my throat at the disturbance and I rushed down the stone staircase without a second though, convincing myself along the way that it was just Crookshanks playing with the table lamp again.
But as I reached the carpet, I stopped in an abrupt halt and dropped two things: the catnip clutched so tightly in my hand, and my jaw. There, looking as though he had been drained of about three nights of sleep, was Harry. He had on a pair of jeans with newly torn holes. The only reason I could tell was that on the places where skin was revealed, there were purple bruises covering most of the area. The same went for his red, long sleeved Gryffindor Quidditch tee-shirt, which looked like it had been attacked by a chicken claw. His face was covered in stitches and he had a black rim forming around his left eye. All resignation left me as I blurted the first think that came to mind.
"Oh Harry. What happened to you?"
I don't know why that statement came out, but it worked perfectly. His head craned to look at me and I saw the tiredness in his eyes. "It's a long story."
I shook my head. "Nonsense," I said, grabbing his hand. I led him over to the couch, mindful of his injuries. "You're going to sit right here and tell me exactly what happened."
He sighed, knowing that arguing was a moot point. He adjusted his position on the couch so that he could face me better and I mirrored him. "I went flying and…"
"Wait, hold that thought." I interrupted as I spotted a trickle of blood falling down from one of the stitches on his cheek. "You're bleeding."
"What?" He asked, raising a hand up to his cheek to wipe it off.
I caught his hand with mine and shoved it into his lap. "Don't touch it. That might make it worse. Hold on a second, alright? Don't move."
He nodded and I made my way upstairs. I opened the bathroom door and grabbed the tin waste bin I had emptied earlier that day and a washcloth. Then going to my room, I took my wand out from its place on my bedside table, heading back downstairs as quickly as I could. I saw Harry still sitting in the same place and circled around to check if he had smeared the blood away. He didn't.
I sat back down and filled the bin with a quick Aguamenti. I tested the temperature and mumbled a quick heating charm to make sure Harry didn't jump off the couch as though he had been hit with an iceberg. I instructed him to turn his head to me as I dipped the washcloth in the water. He obeyed and I began to dab the wound with the cloth.
"So tell me all about how you got these stitches." I said calmly.
"Well as I said before, I was flying. It wasn't for Quidditch or anything; I just wanted to be alone for a while, to think about things. I was about twenty or thirty feet above the ground, circling the pitch, when I lost control. You could say I let my mind wander a bit. I didn't realize I had also been steering outside of the path I had been circling and was above a thicket of thorns. I pulled the broom up just in time to stop a head injury, but I still have a few cuts and bruises from the collision."
I snorted. "To put it lightly."
He smiled for a moment and returned to his tale. "Charlie, one of Ron's brothers, found me about an hour after they realized I wasn't in the house. I was semi-conscious at that point, so I could hear Mrs. Weasley screaming in terror. She thought I had been attacked by rogue Death Eaters or something. Charlie explained that he saw my broom with me and guessed that I had crashed. She panicked nonetheless and rushed me to St. Mungo's. I fell asleep as soon as we got there and somehow I got transferred to the hospital wing here. Madame Pomfrey fixed me up well enough, aside from one stitch apparently."
I chuckled and rinsed the wash cloth out as I finished up tenderly cleaning his wound.
"I've been in there for about two days, sleeping it off. I was released about ten minutes ago and came straight here. I haven't even dared to look at my reflection. I must look a wreck."
"It's not too bad." I said. "You just look like you wrestled a miniature dragon is all."
"I really need to stop getting mixed up with those things. They're horrible for my image."
"And health…"
"Oh yeah, and my health."
I rolled my eyes and dropped the bloody cloth into the water, now finished with my impromptu cleaning job. I had managed to clean the blood off before it had time to dry and hadn't unwound any of the stitches. For someone who had no nursing experience whatsoever, I had to admire my job. It looked like the blood that had been leaking was caused by a small opening in his wound. I was surprised it wasn't still leaking, to be honest. But as soon as I pulled up to look him back in the eyes, I saw a slight glimmer from the wound. I wrote it off as nothing and kept talking.
"And there you go." I said brightly. "All finished."
"Thanks, Hermione. You didn't need to do that."
"I couldn't have you bleed to death, now could I?"
"Oh, you're right. Hermione, you are a saint for saving my head."
I punched him on his shoulder and saw him flinch in pain. I immediately regretted my reaction and began apologizing. "I'm so sorry."
"It's fine."
It was obvious he was lying by the way his teeth were still tightly clenched. "Bollocks."
He snorted. "Well look what we have here… Hermione Granger cursing."
I let a shy smile creep up. "Shut up."
I shook my head a few times and brought it up only after the embarrassing pink tinge to my cheeks was gone. Well that was a first. He made me blush. But all thoughts of any small thing like that quickly drained from my mind as I caught him staring at me, his green eyes a few shades darker than they had been a moment before. Although I'm not entirely sure why, I couldn't tear my eyes away. It was like he was hypnotizing me.
Holy crap.
We stayed like that for a while, just staring at each other. I could feel the mood change from innocent to, well, not-so-innocent. It was like our eyes were glued or something. We only broke contact to blink and nothing else. You would think that a moment like this would make me nervous. Well, it did, a little. I'd never thought that two people could just stare at each other without talking for so long.
I saw him lift a hand to my cheek, his lightly calloused hands warm against my already heated skin. I let my eyes flicker to his hand for a moment before meeting his eyes again. If I didn't know any better I'd say he was closer than he was a moment ago. Oh, he was getting closer! I knew where this was heading and knew I had to stop it before it got dangerous.
"Harry, wait."
My voice came out breathy, a fact I wasn't expecting. He stopped suddenly and a guilty look passed over his features as he turned his eyes from mine, but his hand remained where it was.
His voice was husky. "Sorry, I just…"
"Yeah."
I don't know how, but my eyes had unconsciously dropped to his lips. They looked slightly chapped. He must have realized that I was staring, because his tongue came out and he licked his lips. I felt my heart begin to increase in rate as the air around us returned to a dangerous territory. We were playing with fire, and sooner or later, someone was going to get burned.
I blinked a few times and removed my gaze from his lips. Harry's eyes had returned to the same dark green as a few moments ago. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried my best to remain calm. It wasn't easy. In fact, it wasn't even close to easy. It was like trying to keep the positive and negative ends of a magnet from attracting. So, in other words, I was doomed.
After a few more moments of silence, the magnets gave up on trying to avoid attraction. I let out a small mumble of "We can't… do… this…" before the magnates collided.
I tried to stop myself, but Harry swooped in and captured my lips with his, silencing any thoughts I had otherwise. They felt like two soft petals as they moved against mine slowly. It felt good. Really good. His hand moved from my cheek to cradle the back of my neck. I put my arms around his shoulders out of reflex to make sure the feeling, and Harry, didn't go away. When we were like this, it was if the world around us ceased to exit. Like nothing mattered. His hands trailed to my waist as he pulled me closer to him. Our clothes bodies collided as I felt his tongue touch the seam of my lips. I opened my mouth to him. Our tongues melted together in a sensual dance and I took a deep breath through my nose.
I had never felt anything quite like this before. Nothing could compare to this moment.
Our mouths continued to devour each other as I felt Harry pull me onto him lap as if I weighed no more than a feather. I pulled back for a moment to regain my breath and heard his heavy breathing sync with mine. My eyes had drifted closed at some point and I didn't want to open them, or more specifically, I couldn't find the will to. If I did, this would all became real instead of just a moment. I pressed my lips back against his and we continued our dance. What started off as tender, soft kisses soon became more heated as I began to rock my hips against him in rhythm with our tongues. It was pure instinct. I never thought instinct could make me feel so alive, so empowered.
We were floating on our own cloud, unaware of the reality around us. But moments like this can never last when you're in the heat of the moment, treading on unfamiliar territory. As soon as I felt his arousal press against my inner thigh, my eyes opened and I saw the situation for what it really was. It was Harry and I on the couch, Harry and I snogging, Harry and I moving against each other as if we were about to-oh Merlin.
I pulled back, breathless and foggy of mind. His eyes were still closed as I stared at him, his cheeks flushed. As I took a moment to scan his face, I saw the wounds once more. What had started out as a moment of comfort had somehow turned into a moment of, dare I say it, lust.
Harry's eyes drifted open as his breathing returned to normal. His hands were still on my hips, and mine around his shoulder blades. Our bodies were becoming stiff with realization and I began to tug away from him, wanting to get away before I snapped.
His grip tightened on my waist as he whispered. "Hermione, please…"
"Let go of me." I said calmly. His arms grew limp and I unraveled from his embrace. I steadied myself on the arm of a nearby chair as I stood. My feet began to pace the room, not knowing what to do. I looked back over at him to see him bowing his head like a boy who had just earned a time-out. I started to wonder why he looked so ashamed when it hit me-the promise.
"You promised." I whispered. His back stiffened and I breathed in heavily, getting more air into my brain. "You-you promised not to try anything."
"I know." He said weakly.
"But we just… we just-"
"Kissed?"
I nodded meekly. "Yeah, yeah we did." I paused for a moment, trying to make sense of it all. "Why? Why did you do it?"
He lifted his head to look at me oddly. "Me? You were just as much of a participant as I was."
I frowned. "Well you made the first move before I stopped you."
"So?"
"So if you didn't do that, we would be in this situation to begin with."
"That's bollocks," He said defiantly. "It was bound to be one of us. I know you felt the electricity. It was like two-umm… two…" He began to snap his fingers, in search of an answer.
"Magnets?" I supplied out of reflex.
He snapped a final time and pointed at me. "Yes, magnets! It was like two magnets trying to resist each other's field."
I knew he was right, but that doesn't mean I was happy about it. "Not even a month ago I swore to hate you, and then just as we were becoming friends, this happens and ruins everything."
He stood and I had to back up a few inches to avoid colliding with him. "It doesn't have to, Hermione."
"Are you suggesting we forget about this, then?"
"Of course not! It's just… I know that our relationship hasn't been the best, but we can't let one slip up ruin everything that I-that we've been working for."
"And what's that?"
He took a step closer and I remained where I was, knowing he wouldn't do anything rash. "Us."
I narrowed my eyes. "I'm not sure I get what you mean."
"Hermione, why do you think I initiated this whole thing?" I didn't answer, simply because I had no idea. "I was sick of the fighting, sick of the hatred. I wanted to get to know you, the real you. Turns out that you're not so bad."
I smiled shyly. "You're not so bad yourself."
He nodded slowly. "And that's the thing. After talking things out, we've sort of grown an attachment. What happened just now was chemical, a technicality."
"So you're saying that we kissed because of a technicality?"
"No! I-I didn't mean that. I kissed you because I wanted to, Hermione, not because it was in the stars or something."
I let out a breath and felt my face heat up again. "Harry I-I don't know what to say."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Then don't say anything. I'm not expecting anything from you, Hermione. But now you know. I don't do things just because I'm told to, contrary to popular belief."
I licked my lips and met his eyes for the first time since we pulled apart. They were back to their normal emerald green shade. "So where do we go from here?"
"Wherever you want it, too, sweet cheeks."
I collapsed into the chair nearest to me and allowed my body to relax. I heard Harry take up his former place on the couch. I tried my best not to let my brain go into overdrive as we sat there in silence. But there was one thing that pushed its way through my conscience thoughts. Throughout that entire escapade, I had completely forgotten about Joe. I tried not to let it show on my face, but unfortunately with Harry's perceptiveness, I stood no chance.
"What's wrong?" I didn't answer him, avoiding his eyes. "Ohh I get it. There's someone else."
I snapped my neck over to him. "How did you-"
"Male intuition."
I sighed and slumped further into the chair. "I'm sorry."
"So who's the guy?"
"Pardon?"
"You heard me." He said with a smile. "Who's the lucky guy?"
I bit my lip, inwardly deciding whether or not to tell him anything. Honestly, my brain still wasn't in the right of mind yet, so it wasn't a good idea to be making a decision in the first place. Plus, Harry and I had only been getting closer for a few weeks. I hadn't even told my mum yet. The only person who knew was Sue. Plus the fact that my feelings towards Joe had never really been expressed aloud in the first place, let alone in the presence of someone who thought I was a worthy snogging partner.
I looked over at Harry to see him watching me expectantly. I sighed and made up my mind.
"His name is Joe…"
-->