Disclaimer: I don't own HP or anything related to it.
Author's Note: Just a little fic to start off the New Year. I meant to have posted this earlier but RL got in the way. Wishing you all a very happy, harmonious 2011!
His New Year's Resolution
Harry didn't know what was wrong with him.
Or rather, he knew exactly what was wrong with him but could not understand why he was suddenly having this problem.
Why, after years of knowing Hermione, seeing her nearly every day, and never once seeing her as anything other than just-his-best-friend-almost-like-a-sister Hermione, he was suddenly having this problem.
It was crazy. And wrong. And… impossible. Hermione was his best friend-only his best friend-and that was all he wanted her to be.
It had started on Christmas, where they'd gone to the Burrow, as they always did. And he'd given Hermione his usual hug and friendly kiss on the cheek-something he'd done a hundred times before-but somehow, that time had been different. He'd turned his head to kiss her cheek and he'd felt a light puff of air from her breath against his neck and-and he'd wanted her. Desire, hot and fierce and sudden, had pulsed through him and he'd suddenly wanted to touch his lips to her neck, to breathe in her scent, to-well, he'd suddenly gone insane. That was all there was to it.
He'd hidden it, of course, tried to forget about it, dismiss it as a fleeting moment of insanity-except it refused to be forgotten.
Later, he'd heard her laugh at something George had said and he'd turned to look at her-his gaze pulled towards her-and something about the sight of her had just stunned him. She was… she was… stunning, beautiful… Her eyes had been bright with amusement and her face had been slightly flushed from laughter and her lips had been visibly moist from her drink and… And he'd wanted her. His suddenly-crazed mind had wondered if this was something like what she would look like, flushed with passion, and in that moment, he'd wanted her more than he'd wanted his next breath. Wanted to know what she would look like, sound like, feel like, taste like…
Taste like! Hermione!
He was going mad. Lusting after Hermione. Hermione! He could not, he should not, he would not think about her like that. She was his best friend; more than that, he needed her to be his best friend. He knew that, knew that there was nothing in the world more important to him than his friendship with Hermione-and with Ron too-and he never wanted it to change.
No. He couldn't, he wouldn't, think about Hermione like that.
Except… he couldn't seem to stop thinking about Hermione like that.
She didn't even have to do anything and he thought about her like that.
Watching her eat was a seduction in itself-how, he didn't know-watching her drink only made him fiercely envy her cup. He saw her wearing a jumper as she was curled up on the couch reading, and found his eyes tracing the curve of her waist, visible even through the loose jumper. He saw her bend over to pick up her bag or to find something in the refrigerator and his mouth went dry.
He could-and did-picture her naked. He knew her slenderness, the curve of her hips, the length of her legs, her breasts…
He was going mad.
New Year's Eve-and the hug he'd had to give her-had nearly been the death of him, maddeningly, terribly conscious of the feel of her breasts pressed against his chest, the warmth of her body against him, the scent of-
He cut off the memory firmly. He had to stop this. He could not think about Hermione like this.
It would be his New Year's resolution: stop wanting Hermione. Stop wanting her, stop thinking about her like that, stop fantasizing about her, stop dreaming about her.
New Year's was the perfect time to make a change, even if the change in question wasn't starting anything new so much as it was going back to the past. Yes, that was exactly what he was going to do. Stop wanting Hermione.
It should be easy. After all, he'd known Hermione for so many years and never thought about her like that before. He just needed to go back to that old comfortable way of thinking about Hermione. Go back to thinking about Hermione the same way he thought about Ron.
How hard could it be? This would be one New Year's resolution he was determined to keep, one resolution he was sure he could keep. Really.
He didn't notice the shape of her lips or the fact that her lower lip was slightly fuller than her upper lip. Her habit of biting her lip when she was concentrating on something that only drew attention to the luscious shape of her lips meant nothing to him.
He didn't notice the curves of her figure. And he didn't find himself comparing the figures of every other woman he saw to Hermione's, only to find them all lacking in some way-too skinny or too plump or overly chest-y or too flat-chested or… Or too… not-Hermione… Not that he thought of that.
He didn't notice the way her skin almost seemed to glow in the mornings and at nights when her face had been freshly washed.
He didn't notice when she licked her lips to get some lingering drops of pasta sauce or a dab of chocolate.
He didn't notice every time she touched him, every careless touch on his arm or his shoulder-but had she always touched him so often? He didn't notice and he certainly did not react when she occasionally brushed her hand over his hair when she passed by; it was a thoughtless caress and he knew she meant nothing by it. It was just her way. And all her little touches meant nothing to him.
He did not notice. He did not want her. He did not react.
And if he told himself that enough, maybe it would actually become true.
He tried not to notice anything about Hermione's physical appearance-how had he never realized she was so beautiful before?-but then he had to notice the dark shadows appearing under her eyes and the fact that she looked paler than usual and her lips looked thinner than usual because of how she pressed her lips together in her tension.
A new patient had been brought in to St. Mungo's in critical condition and, although the boy was now better and entirely out of danger, Hermione had still not managed to figure out exactly what had caused his symptoms in the first place. And that-the unknown in something so important-was what was keeping Hermione up now.
Harry watched Hermione, frowning, as all thoughts of his New Year's resolution slipped from his mind, drowned out by his own concern. Not because she looked anything less than perfect, but because he could see how tired she was.
Ron had, of course, long since gone to bed but Hermione was still at the desk in the corner of the room that served as her office and showed no sign of stopping. He knew that she'd stayed up working until after he'd gone to bed for the past week and, in spite of the late hours she'd been keeping, she'd been up and at her desk by the time he'd awoken every morning too. Which, knowing Hermione, meant that she hadn't slept more than 4 hours in any of those nights.
Hermione yawned and that was it. He closed the copy of Quidditch Weekly that he'd been pretending to read.
"Go to bed, Hermione. You're exhausted and you're beginning to look a little haggard."
Hermione looked up at him with a somewhat wan smile. "You're such a flatterer, Harry."
"I mean it." He stood up, crossing the room to close the books she had open on her desk and to tug the treatise she'd been reading out of her hand. "You need to get some rest."
Hermione made a futile grab for the treatise and then, failing that, re-opened up one of her books. "Come on, Harry, you know I can't yet."
"You can. You said yourself he's doing fine now. You, on the other hand, are not. Go get some rest."
He went back to his seat, throwing the treatise he'd confiscated from her down on the small table beside the couch. He knew better than to say much more, knew better than to try to pressure Hermione further.
And he knew he'd won when she gave a little sigh and stood up, moving around her desk.
"Thanks, Harry, for looking out for me." She bent to drop a light kiss on his hair. "Goodnight."
He reached up to grasp her hand on an impulse. "I just don't like to see you looking so tired." He brought her hand up to his lips, kissing her palm in a quick, affectionate gesture-or at least, he meant for it to be a quick, affectionate gesture.
But his eyes met hers at that moment and he both heard and felt her slight intake of breath in reaction and he froze, his lips still touching her palm.
He stopped breathing, stopped moving-could not move, really-for one fraught moment as the very air seemed to change around them, becoming thick with heat and awareness and desire. Mutual desire. She wanted him.
Hermione wanted him.
He could see it in the way her eyes flared and then darkened, see it in the way her breath caught, see it in the deepening color in her cheeks-but more than that, he could feel it, sense it, the bone-deep, instinctive knowledge of a visceral, purely physical attraction.
It was… amazing… incredible… And knowing she wanted him too made his own tamped-down desire flare up with a fierceness that almost strangled him.
Softly, her fingers curved around his cheek in a subtle caress. His grip on her wrist tightened almost imperceptibly as he pressed another kiss into her palm, this one slow and lingering, before he moved on, his lips leaving a trail of soft kisses up her palm until he reached the sensitive skin of the inside of her wrist.
Slowly, deliberately, his eyes not leaving hers, he touched his tongue to her wrist where he could feel her pulse fluttering.
And she gasped, just one word, his name, the sound, soft as it was, shattering the silence between them. Just his name, but his name as he'd never heard it, in that breathy tone that spoke of arousal-and he was lost.
He stood, his eyes not leaving hers, closing the distance between them until their breaths mingled, until he was so close he could see the flecks of gold and amber and mahogany in her eyes, until he was so close he could breathe in the familiar scent of her, a mixture of the lightly floral scent of her shampoo and her lotion, the smell of parchment and ink, and something else that was just her…
And then he kissed her, his lips touching hers for the first time-and his mind exploded. He'd had some thought that their first kiss should be gentle, tender even, but the moment his lips touched hers, the word 'gentle' disappeared from his vocabulary. His fingers slid into her hair as he kissed her with all the passion and all the desire he'd been trying to suppress for the past days and weeks, all the sheer want he'd been trying to deny he felt. And she kissed him back, her tongue tangling with his, as she pressed her body against him.
How they managed to stumble into her bedroom, he never knew, but somehow they did, still kissing. They separated only long enough to shed their clothes with feverish haste until they were naked and then they were on her bed.
And he gave up kissing her for the moment in favor of looking at her instead, exploring her body with his eyes and then his hands and then, finally, his lips too. There had been no words between them until then, but now he found words spilling out as he kissed and caressed her skin. "You're beautiful… so beautiful… more than I imagined even… Hermione…" Until there were no more words and only feelings, sensations…
And she touched him too, exploring him with her own hands. And the odd thought drifted into his mind and then out again, that she was learning his body as she already knew his mind, and so was he…
And then it dissolved into a blur of caresses and kisses, of skin against skin, of gasps and moans, and she was under him, around him, surrounding him, until nothing and no one else in the universe existed but for her… Until she convulsed and cried out and he shuddered and spilled himself inside her…
He only just managed to summon the coherence to realize he was still slumped over her, probably crushing her, and managed to roll over, onto his back, feeling her settle snugly against him.
And then he let himself drift lazily on the sea of utter satiation, peace and exhaustion settling over them both.
He returned to full consciousness slowly to realize that the sound of Hermione's breathing had become deep and even, her body a solid weight against his side. He shifted a little, careful not to jostle Hermione, turning his head just enough so he could see her face, see the lingering signs of the tiredness from the past few days. And felt a quick pang of concern, mingled in with relief that she was sleeping now, the concern that had really started all this and led them here.
And he knew he was well and truly lost, well and truly hers-and always would be. Not because he wanted her and couldn't imagine not wanting her-so much for his ill-fated New Year's resolution-but because he cared about her. Cared about her so that his concern over her tiredness had completely slipped past the boundaries he'd put up against his sudden, unwanted physical reaction to her; cared about her with a depth and an intensity that he could not resist, could not fight, even if he wanted to.
He was hers… because he loved her… And somehow, the thought, the realization, didn't surprise him, didn't even feel like a realization at all but only an acknowledgement of something he'd already known, somewhere in the most secret corner of his mind and heart, where he hadn't even been aware of it.
His New Year's resolution drifted into his mind again, almost amusing him now with its utter impossibility. Stop wanting Hermione-as if he could! As if he even wanted to!
Slowly, carefully, so as not to disturb Hermione, he tugged her blankets up over them, turning off her light with a quick wave of his hand, and then he settled beside her, pausing only to drop the lightest of kisses on her cheek.
He would, he thought idly, have to amend his New Year's resolution, from "stop wanting Hermione" to "never stop wanting Hermione." And that was one resolution he knew he would keep, for this new year and every year for the rest of his life.
Never stop wanting Hermione.
I won't. I'll always want her, always love her.
And the thought was a vow.