Unofficial Portkey Archive

Author's note: - This part contains conversation which changes everything.

One evening, after dinner, Harry, Ron and Hermione were relaxing in the common room, talking with each other. A couple of hours later Harry and Ron left for the bed while Hermione stayed behind to do some reading.

Harry had a nightmare that night.

"No!" Harry screamed and quickly sat up, wiping his forehead. His nightshirt was completely drenched with sweat and he was finding it difficult to breathe properly. He closed his eyes, trying to get rid of the horrid images from the nightmare. At some point in the war, Harry had seen Hermione falling at the battlefield after being hit by a dark curse, thrown at her by Bellatrix Lestrange. For a couple of moments after she fell he had thought that she was gone forever, fortunately she survived. After that Harry was never really able to let go of the feelings he had experienced in those moments. It was a feeling of being stabbed directly through the heart and soul.

Tonight he again saw the same thing in his nightmare except that this time Hermione didn't survive.

Luckily he developed a habit of placing silencing charm around his bed since he started having nightmares, as nobody was disturbed due to his screaming. He checked the time, it was already past midnight. He knew he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, so he left the dormitory and went down to the common room, hoping that no one would be there.

In the common room, he was surprised to see Hermione sitting there on the couch and reading a book.

"Hey" Harry said with soft voice, startling Hermione as he was standing right behind where she was sitting.

"Harry, don't ever do that again." Hermione hissed.

Harry smiled at her sheepishly. "Sorry" he said.

Hermione shook her head. "It's ok." Hermione said with a smile.

Harry sat beside Hermione on the couch.

"So what are you doing up so late? It's past midnight." Harry asked.

"Oh it's nothing, just reading a book." Hermione replied dismissively as she tried to cover the title of the book with her hands.

Harry raised his eyebrows at her, giving her a look which said 'I know you are hiding something'.

Hermione huffed. "Ok fine. It's a romance novel. Mum sent me some romance novels as an early Christmas present. She thinks that I read too many subject books and should start reading some light romance novels as well." Hermione said while rolling her eyes at her Mum's thinking.

"So I thought about reading them so as to find out what exactly these books are like." Hermione finished.

Harry gave her a teasing smile. "Romance novels… Huh?" he said playfully.

Hermione again rolled her eyes at his juvenile attitude.

"Ok enough about me. What are you doing here?" Hermione asked him.

Harry just shrugged his shoulders. "It's always the same reason." He replied in emotionless voice.

"Nightmare?" Hermione asked with concerned voice. Harry merely nodded.

Hermione simply looked at Harry for some time. She wanted to hug him tight and take all his pain and nightmares away.

She closed her book and placed it on the table next to the couch. She motioned Harry to rest his head on her lap. Harry did as was told. He rested his head on Hermione's lap and stretched his legs to the other end of the couch.

Hermione started moving her fingers gently through his messy, yet soft hair. Harry closed his eyes at her, reveling in the feeling of her caring touch. Hermione could feel him getting relaxed.

After a couple of minutes Hermione saw a smile appearing on Harry's face. His eyes were still closed. Harry opened his eyes and looked at Hermione.

"You always know how to make me feel better." Harry said with a smiling languidly at Hermione.

"It's a special talent." Hermione said looking amused. She continued to move her fingers through his hair.

Harry didn't say anything. He simply continued to look at Hermione with warmth filled eyes. He knew he was very fortunate to have her in his life.

They both were lost in their thoughts. After sometime Harry broke the silence.

"Hermione" he called.

"Hmmm…" Hermione replied distractedly.

"Why my relationships with any of my girlfriends didn't last more than a few weeks?" Harry asked curiously.

Hermione looked surprised at his question.

"Don't you know?" She asked with bewilderment.

"I think they are envious of you." Harry said earnestly "Though I don't know why." He added as an afterthought.

Sadness filled Hermione's heart. She knew Harry didn't have non-platonic feelings for her. For him, she was just a best friend, nothing more. So definitely there was nothing for his girlfriends to be jealous of.

"It's obvious Harry. No girl would ever want another girl in her boyfriend's life, even as a best friend. I mean any other girl or woman, except mother and sister. It's very rare when a girl doesn't have any problem with another girl in his boyfriend's life. Also your girlfriends have always been jealous of the close friendship we share." Hermione explained.

"That's complete bullshit. They should know that you are my best friend. With everything we have been through together, how can they expect me to choose between you and them? Of course I will always choose you." Harry said straightforwardly.

Harry took sitting position and looked at Hermione. "You are most important person in my life and others should accept it." Harry said in intense voice.

Hermione closed her eyes for a moment.

`Why are you making it so difficult for me Harry?' Hermione thought sadly.

"Harry your girlfriend would expect you to give more importance to her, as compared to your best friends. She would want you to share your secrets with her. You would have to let her in, in your life. She would expect you to come to her if you have any problem. She would never like it that I, Hermione Granger know more about her boyfriend than she herself knows. She would want to be the most important person in your life." Hermione explained.

"But I always talk to you. I can't talk to anyone else." Harry said helplessly, shrugging his shoulders.

Hermione smiled sadly at him.

"I won't be around forever Harry. Someday you would have to talk to someone else as well." She said looking at Harry with a sad look.

Harry frowned at this. "Why not? I will never let you go anywhere." He said firmly.

Hermione chuckled. "But you won't want me around forever either, Harry." Hermione reasoned.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, looking confused.

Harry looked at Hermione. She looked a bit down. There was a sad look in her eyes. Harry realized that she had this look in her eyes for quite some time now. He didn't understand it before; however, this night he realized what it was. Hermione quickly looked away in other direction to hide her emotions. Once she was able to control her feelings she looked back at Harry and smiled. She took his hand in her own and started caressing it gently.

"Harry someday you would find a girl with whom you will fall in love with. You will want to share everything about yourself with her and not with me. She will make you the happiest person and you would want to make her happy as well. She will be the most important person in your life. She will know you better than anyone else, even me. That's how life works Harry." Hermione finished.

Harry was speechless. Everything Hermione said, it scared him. He didn't want her to be away from him, whether now or in future. She was a major part of his life. No one could replace her.

"So does that mean you won't be a part of my life? Harry asked.

"I will be, but we won't be as close as we are now. And it's not something terrible. Best friends generally grow apart when they get involved with someone else in romantic way. Like you, Ron and I; we have spend most of our time together for last 6 years. But when we will graduate and start working, things would be different. We won't spend majority of our time together. Each of us will have a different life. Ron would be busy with his Quidditch training, you would be in your Auror training and I will be in my training to become a healer. Then we would probably meet on weekends or on get together or for Christmas dinner at the Burrow. It's a natural process." Hermione said with deep understanding in her voice.

Harry became sad. He knew one thing that he didn't want to grow apart from Hermione. He never wanted to lose the closeness they both shared.

Seeing Harry's sad look Hermione squeezed his hand. Harry looked at her.

"You know, it doesn't mean that we won't be best friends anymore. We would always be there for each other." She said.

Harry knew Hermione was right. Most of the things she said made sense. But still he wasn't able to accept that Hermione won't be a permanent and most important part of his life.

"Oh God!" Hermione exclaimed looking at her watch. "It's 2 in the morning, we better get some sleep." She said while standing up and stretching herself. She picked her book and looked back at Harry who was still lost in his thoughts.

"Goodnight Harry" She said.

Harry looked into her chocolate brown eyes. "Goodnight" he said.

Hermione was about to leave when something clicked in his mind. Harry called her again.

"Hermione" Harry said.

"Yeah" Hermione said turning around.

"You said that we would get involved with others in romantic way. Does that mean you will have a boyfriend?" Harry asked.

Hermione looked surprised at his question. She wasn't sure what to answer.

"Umm…yeah, may be." She replied with hesitation in her voice.

Harry frowned at this. "Harry, are you alright?" Hermione asked apprehensively.

"Yeah I am alright. You better go and get some sleep." Harry said gently.

"Okay. Goodnight." Hermione said and left for the girls' dormitory, leaving Harry struggling with his thoughts and emotions.

What surprised Harry the most was that he not one bit liked the idea of Hermione dating someone else. It would mean that her future boyfriend would take most of her time. And that would mean that she would not have much time for Harry. It irked Harry to no end. He just wanted to strangle that bloody future boyfriend of Hermione.

However, he knew he didn't own Hermione to tell her not to date anyone as he wanted her to spend all her time with him and not with any boyfriend.

Harry realized that the conversation with Hermione had opened a whole new can of worms, he didn't know existed.

Days passed but Harry couldn't get the conversation out of his mind. It hurt him physically to know that Hermione would not be with him forever; one day a boy will come in her life and take her away.

Whenever he would see Hermione talking to some other guy, jealousy would flare inside him. He was becoming more and more restless with each passing day.

He started spending most of his time with Hermione. He wouldn't let her spend time with any other boy, except Ron. He knew it was wrong. Hermione was his best friend and he shouldn't try to stop her from spending time with others. Who knows if she was interested in someone? His head told him not to interfere, but his heart wasn't agreeing with it.

Fear of losing Hermione gripped his heart. Sometimes even his nightmares were plagued about Hermione leaving him. He had broken up with Tracey. She was getting onto his nerves about leaving Hermione. It was the first time that Harry broke with someone.

Hermione noticed the change in Harry's behavior. She knew something was bothering him. Whenever she asked him about it, he just waved it off as stress.

In between all these things Harry had started noticing small things about Hermione. Like she always bit he lower lip whenever she was in deep thought, she would always talk to herself remembering the facts while doing her homework or whenever she would smile her eyes would lit up like Christmas tree.

What he realized the most was that he was falling for his best friend, hard and fast and it scared him.

Author's note: - What you think about conversation part? It's not very good but I wrote what I thought was the possibly correct. What you think so far….Read and review. I would like to know what you think about it…..:)

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