Disclaimer: All things pertaining to Harry Potter are the property of J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Books/Scholastic Press and Warner Bros. I just like to play with them!
A/N: Thanks again for your reviews! Sorry if some of you found the last chapter a little predictable, but it was how I planned it from the start. I've been in a similar situation and it can be hard to accurately convey the emotions caused by that kind of experience. Hope the next chapter meets your expectations and please review again!
I solemnly swear that I am up to no good...
***
Harry Apparated into the alley next to Lucky's.
It was a few minutes before nine, the time he'd agreed to meet Ron when they'd parted ways earlier after the Cannons match.
It had been a good game with an unexpected victory for the Cannons over the Pride of Portree. Harry had actually won a bet with Ron over the result - in their student days, he would have thought twice about entering into such a wager, but now that Ron was working with George at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, he was earning a good wage and Harry didn't feel so bad about taking his money.
Still, he didn't think Luna would be too impressed - after all, they were supposed to be saving for their wedding and though she was reasonably well paid as deputy editor of The Quibbler, Harry knew that every girl dreamed about the perfect wedding and despite her indifferent attitude to most things feminine, Luna was no exception.
Lucky's was located in Muggle London, and although protected by Muggle-repelling charms, most of its patrons dressed in Muggle clothes. Harry was wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, a dark green t-shirt and a black leather jacket. As usual, his jet black hair had refused any attempt to style it.
Walking out of the alley and around the corner to the entrance, he strolled inside and over to the bar, where Seamus was polishing some glasses.
"Hey, mate," he said with a grin. "Ron not here yet?"
"No," Seamus said. "But, um, someone else is."
Harry followed the direction that Seamus had inclined his head and saw Hermione sitting at the end of the bar, nursing a glass of Firewhiskey.
"Sorry, mate," Seamus said, shrugging apologetically. "But she threatened to hex me bollocks off if I Flooed you and I happen to want to keep me family jewels where they are." He picked up another glass. "By the way, that's her fifth drink in about an hour."
Harry thanked his friend and walked down the bar to where Hermione sat. She looked up when he reached her and he saw that in addition to being red-rimmed, her eyes also had the glassy look of someone who was more than a little drunk.
"Mione, what are you doing here? What happened?"
She didn't answer him and instead picked up her glass and drank the remaining contents.
A number of different scenarios flashed in Harry's head. Hermione wasn't a big drinker so he knew it had to be bad to bring her to this. Had she and Alex had an argument? Had they broken up? And had they - he shuddered at the thought - had they slept together?
"Um, Mione, did you..."
She looked up again. "Catch Alex shagging his whore of an ex in his office? Not exactly what I had planned for this evening but life's full of surprises, isn't it?"
Harry was stunned, immediately feeling the anger course through him and wanting to go and find Alex and cause him an extraordinary amount of pain. But he managed to suppress it - however much he wanted to hurt Alex for what he'd done to Hermione, his best friend needed him, whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not.
He took a seat next to her. "Mione, I'm so sorry..."
She cut him off, her words dripping with sarcasm. "Well, I can hardly blame him. After all men have needs and Alex's clearly weren't being met."
Okay, so he'd always thought there was something not quite right about Alex, but he'd never have said he lacked intelligence. Yet clearly only a stupid man would cheat on someone as amazing as Hermione and for such an utterly pathetic reason as because he wasn't getting his oats.
She signalled to Seamus, holding up her glass to indicate she wanted a refill, but he wisely chose to ignore her, even at the expense of his `family jewels'.
"Damn it!" she said, slamming the glass down. "I want another drink."
"Don't you think you've had enough?"
She glared at him. "No, I haven't had enough, Harry. I haven't had nearly enough. And if Seamus won't serve me then I'll find somewhere that will."
She stood up, wobbling slightly and then stumbled past Harry to the door. Harry jumped up and telling Seamus to give Ron his apologies, he followed Hermione outside, hoping to Merlin that she was going to hail a cab and not try and Apparate - in her present state of drunkenness, she was liable to splinch herself.
But she hadn't done either. Instead he found her in the alley, crouching down, her hand pressed against the wall for balance as she emptied the contents of her stomach. Moving behind her, he took hold of her hair, pulling it out of the way, while his other hand rubbed her back until she began to retch.
Then he helped her to stand up and offered her a tissue to wipe her mouth. She met his eyes and he saw her lip begin to wobble before she burst into tears. He pulled her into his arms and let her sob into his t-shirt as he stroked her hair.
"Shh, it's going to be okay," he whispered. "I promise."
He held her until her tears subsided and she pulled away. When he saw her shiver, he took off his jacket and slipped it onto her shoulders.
"Let's get you home," he said, taking out his wand and preparing to Apparate.
At his words, her eyes widened and she shook her head. "I can't go back there tonight, Harry. All my preparations for…I can't deal with them right now."
"It's okay," Harry said, taking her hand. "You can stay with me."
He waved his wand and they disappeared, reappearing almost instantly in his living room. Taking his jacket off of her, he hung it up and then shepherded her towards the bathroom. Nipping into his bedroom, he returned with a clean pair of boxer shorts and a faded Gryffindor Quidditch t-shirt from his Hogwarts days.
"Feel free to use the shower. You can change into these."
She flashed him a grateful smile, took the clothes and closed the bathroom door.
While he was waiting for her, he fixed himself a coffee and Hermione a cup of her favourite jasmine tea, adding a potion to counteract the effects of any alcohol remaining in her system.
When she emerged from the bathroom, he was sitting on the sofa and she sat down next to him, folding her legs underneath her and hugging a cushion to herself.
He cursed himself silently as his eyes darted to her smooth golden legs. His afternoon at the Cannons match with Ron had taken his mind off of his sudden attraction to his best friend and he'd almost managed to convince himself that it had just been a random episode, a normal male reaction to seeing sexy lingerie.
But looking at her now, he knew that was a lie. He felt downright awful for even pondering it at a time like this, but he just couldn't understand how his regard for Hermione could change so dramatically in such a short space of time. If someone had asked him yesterday, he would have given an objective acknowledgment of her attractiveness as a woman, but asserted that he saw his female best friend as a friend rather than a female.
And now not twenty four hours later, his objectivity had been skewed by the sudden realisation that he could be turned him on by that same best friend - and not just by the thought of her wearing skimpy, sexy lingerie but as she was now fresh from the shower, with no makeup on and wearing his clothes.
To the casual observer, her hair and eyes were an unremarkable brown. But to anyone bothering to look closer, her hair was scattered with natural golden tints which were picked by the light when she moved her head and her eyes had an almost imperceptible ring of gold around the pupils.
Her body was another thing entirely. Though not athletic like Ginny, she was still slender with curves in all the right places and from what he could tell from the numerous times he'd seen her in a swimsuit, her breasts were the perfect size.
Add to that all her other qualities that made her his best friend and he couldn't help but wonder whether, once she'd gotten over Alex' betrayal, they could be more than just friends. Though he'd never even entertained the notion before, he realised then how right it felt - he already loved Hermione as a friend and given that he now found himself attracted to her, it was easy to see how he could fall in love with her.
He suddenly became aware that neither of them had spoken for a couple of minutes and decided he had to curb his thoughts of a potential future with Hermione and focus right now on being her friend.
"So, um, how are you feeling," he asked and then cursed himself for his idiocy. "I'm sorry...stupid question."
"No, I'm okay...I guess," she replied, biting her bottom lip in a way that he knew meant she was trying not to cry. "I just feel so numb, like it's not even real. And then I keep seeing them together in my head and it brings it all home to me." She looked down at her hands. "I just don't know how I could have been so blind."
"Blind? The only one who's blind is that git, for not seeing what he was throwing away."
Hermione shook her head. "I thought everything was going so well between us. I mean, I know in this day and age, eight months might be considered a long time to be in relationship before having sex, but he never tried to pressure me - I thought he really must have loved me to be so content to wait until I was ready."
Part of Harry wished Alex was here right now - his wand hand itched to try out a nice curse on him.
"I guess it was foolish of me to expect any man to remain celibate for so many months."
"Mione, you are not to blame for the fact that he couldn't keep it in his trousers." He took her hand in his and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. "Sex does not define a relationship and if you were...I mean, if I had a beautiful girlfriend who I loved and she told me she wasn't ready to sleep with me then I would wait. I may on occasion get a bit friendly with my right hand, but I wouldn't cheat."
"Not even if..."
"Not ever. No matter what he said, Alex didn't care about you enough to suppress his own selfish needs. He didn't love you and he didn't deserve you - you're worth a hundred of him."
"Thanks, Harry," she said, managing a small smile and finishing the last of her tea. "Um, look, I'm pretty tired...do you mind if I just head to bed?"
"Of course not," Harry said, standing up. "Now I'm afraid that the spare room is still full of boxes, but you can have my bed."
Harry hadn't living in his flat long, having previously shared with Ron before he moved in with Luna following their engagement, and he'd been so busy with work that he hadn't found the time to finish unpacking.
"But where will you sleep?"
"Oh, the sofa's fine for me," he said, smiling as she hovered, seemingly undecided.
"Are you sure?"
"Positive," he replied. "Now go, before my chivalry runs out."
She murmured her thanks and headed down the hall to his room. Trying not to think about her curled up his sheets, he turned on the TV.
Even though he was an inhabitant of the wizarding world, he still embraced certain areas of Muggle life, such as driving a car, using a mobile phone and owning a television.
A typical male, he flicked through the channels until he found one that was showing three back-to-back episodes of an US crime series he sometimes watched.
When the credits began rolling after the last episode ended, he stretched and stood up, turning off the TV, picking up the empty cups and taking them to the kitchen where he loaded them in the dishwasher.
Then tiptoeing down the hall, so as not to wake Hermione, he headed for the bathroom, stripping off his clothes and stepping under the hot shower. After soaping up and shampooing his hair, he turned off the water and towelled himself dry before pulling on a clean pair of boxer shorts, his usual sleeping attire.
Heading back to the living room, he was walking past the door of his bedroom when he heard Hermione's voice from inside.
"Harry?"
He pushed open the door. "Are you okay?"
She sat up in the bed with a sigh. "I can't sleep."
"Do you want me to fix you a potion or something?"
She bit her lip. "No, I…I was wondering whether you could sleep in here with me? I just really don't want to be alone tonight."
She clearly had no idea the effect that her request would have on him. The thought of lying in a bed with her, being so close to her and not being able to touch her would be the worst kind of torture, but he was swayed by his loyalty to his best friend and would do whatever she needed him to do, regardless of whether he wanted to.
Harry cleared his throat. "Um...sure."
He moved to the chest of the drawers and pulled out a t-shirt, slipping it over his head. If he was going to be sleeping in the same bed as Hermione, he needed to minimise the chance of skin-to-skin contact.
Taking off his glasses and setting them on the bedside table, he got into the bed beside her, cursing silently as her scent immediately teased his nostrils and calling upon every ounce of willpower he possessed to stop his body reacting to her proximity. He moved around, trying to get comfortable, eventually settling on his side facing away from her and praying for sleep.
It was going to be a long night.
***
Mischief managed!
Surprised? No, this is not the end! When I originally set out to write this fic, I planned on three chapters, but clearly my muse has other ideas! This is not going to turn into a long story - I don't think I have the energy for that, but there will probably be at least a couple more chapters - we haven't even gotten to the good stuff yet ;o)
Please stick around - I'll try to update soon, though right now, I'm exhausted from trying to finish this chapter so I'm going to bed.
Nox
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