Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling and her publishers, and I'm just borrowing the characters for my own fun.
AN: Nothing much to say about this. The idea just popped in my head, and I just had to write it down. I imagine this happens in an alternate universe after the fifth year.
Reposted, because I had Charlie's name wrong (I can't believe I didn't notice that while I proofread this). Thanks for an attentive reviewer for noticing that.
Harry Potter hated boring days, and this was turning out to be one of them.
Not that there was anything wrong with Hermione's company, and she was actually much more even opponent in Wizard's Chess than Ron – he actually beat her at it sometimes – but he just didn't like being cooped up at the Grimmauld Place, especially as the Weasleys were on a trip in Romania, visiting Charlie and doing some Order business on the way. Him and Hermione weren't still accepted at the Order meetings either, and as a result he found himself spending most of his days alone with Hermione.
So far, this day had been the most boring yet, as there didn't seem to be much for them to do anymore. He had already finished all his summer homework, and the two had already spent so much time playing Wizard's Chess and other games that they couldn't really think of anything to do. So, he had mostly just lounged around her, as she worked on some extra homework assignments, until she had suggested that they could go to the attic and see if there was anything of interest in there – when the house had been cleaned of all the dark objects, a lot of things had also been moved up to the attic, to make more room for the Order members, and there was bound to be something at least remotely interesting in there.
And so Harry found himself at the attic, going through heaps of old magical paintings, lots of furniture and even more random clutter of all kinds; he had even noticed what looked like a lute there, and he somehow couldn't imagine lute being played in the house that had used to seep dark magic and an air of evilness.
As he continued sifting through all the flotsam and jetsam, looking for something interesting, he found a small jewel-box that had been thrown haphazardly inside a trunk. It was coated with some smooth, dark-blue fabric, and he thought that the jewel box felt very nice in his hand. He popped the box open, and inside it was a pair of identical looking rings that were seemingly made of platinum, and there was also a diamond embedded in both of the rings.
"Hermione, look at this," he called to Hermione, who was some distance from him.
She slowly made her way through the clutter towards him, bumping her foot on something on the way, but when she saw what he had in his hands, she looked pleasantly surprised.
"Wedding rings!" she exclaimed. "Or at least they seem to be," she added a bit more uncertainly, as she sat down next to him, looking at the rings closer.
Harry hadn't actually thought of the function of the rings, but it made sense for them to be wedding rings, since there was an identical pair of them. He took out one of the rings to examine it closer, but when Hermione reached her left hand for the other one, he took a hold of her hand and looked at her with a wide grin.
"Oh, fair maiden, with this ring I shall wed thee, Hermione Jane Granger," he said in a sing-song voice, all the while grinning at her, and he made to put the ring on her ring finger.
She laughed at his antics for a short moment, but then she pulled her hand back from him. "I'm sorry, my prince, you are very handsome and gentle, but this maiden wont be swayed to marriage so easily," she replied dramatically, managing a straight face.
"Oh, but I'm also well-versed in poetry," Harry replied in a confident, prince-charming voice, and he stopped to think for a second, coming up with an improvised poem. "Your eyes shine like stars, your smile is... more beautiful than the sunrise, and your hair is like... a birch-tree," he started reciting seriously, but then they both snorted simultaneously at the end.
"What?" she snorted out. "A birch-tree," she said, amused, but also slightly indignant.
"Well, aren't trees considered beautiful by some?" he defended his poem.
She rolled her eyes, but then she sobered again. "Oh, my prince, thou art so well-spoken too. I may not refuse your request for my hand any more," she replied, again in a dramatic voice, as she offered her left hand to him.
He managed to hold a straight face for a moment, but when he pushed the ring on her finger, he finally snorted. "Oh, that was so stupid," he said with a wide smile.
She smiled in amusement too, but she also shook her head a bit. "Oh, we're not done yet. You still don't have your ring," she said lightly, and she took the other ring from the jewel box.
"How did you say it?" she said thoughtfully, as she took his left hand. "Oh, right... with this ring I shall wed thee, Harry James Potter," she proclaimed and looked at him with a love-sick expression that had him start laughing, and then she cracked too and joined him.
"You're right... that was stupid," she said between laughs.
After they were finished laughing, they lapsed to a silence, both still amused by their impromptu drama.
"Hermione Jane Potter," he said thoughtfully in a very quiet voice.
"What?" she asked surprised, thinking that she must have misheard him.
"Oh, nothing," he said quickly and blushed when he realized that he had spoken aloud. "Erm, I just realized that we'd have the same initials, if we, er, got married," he said after she still looked at him questioningly, and he blushed an even deeper red.
"Oh," she said, surprised, and her cheeks got a hint of pink on them too. "Yes, we would, if I took your last name," she said quite uncomfortably, and they lapsed to a very awkward silence.
"But that'd never happen, right?" she said and tried to laugh a bit to break the tension, but it came out forced and didn't really achieve anything.
"Uhm, but it would be possible, wouldn't it?" he asked her uncertainly, not really knowing what possessed him to say it, and she looked at him quite surprised. "It's not like we're awful together, or anything like that," he reasoned and he suddenly became aware of just how closely they were sitting.
"Well, I guess it would be possible, if you aren't bothered by my... bossiness and..." she started saying, but trailed of when she noticed him staring at her oddly. Something in the way he looked at her made her stop, and unconsciously her tongue came out to wet her lips, that were left slightly parted after her having spoken.
When he noticed her tongue darting out, his gaze dropped to her mouth, and her lips in particular, and for a split second he just stared at them, as he noticed how soft they looked and how they glistened a bit as a result of her having wetted them. Then he looked back to her eyes, and very slowly he started inching his head towards hers, and as she didn't protest in anyway, he closed the last bit of distance between them and pressed his lips softly against hers, and he started kissing her gently. Their eyes closed, and she responded to the tentative kiss the best she could.
A moment later he pulled back and, opening his eyes, he looked a bit anxiously at her, but there was just a soft smile on her face, and the fears that had suddenly surged in him left, and he smiled too.
"You're one of those who like birches, I mean trees, aren't you?" she asked him, stumbling a bit with the words.
His smile widened. "I like trees, and birches are my favourites," he said to her softly.
She continued smiling, but turned a bit more serious. "I guess that means we need to have a talk," she suggested.
"Yeah, I guess we do," he replied, feeling at the same time reluctant and very willing to have that talk. "But there are a couple of things we should do first," he told her.
"Like what?" she asked and furrowed her eyebrows in puzzlement.
"Like put the rings back?" he suggested.
"Oh," she said surprised, clearly having forgotten about them. "I guess it isn't quite the time for that yet," she continued and blushed, as she pulled the ring off her finger.
"No, it really isn't," he replied with a nervous chuckle, and he took his ring off too, and they put them back in the jewel-box.
"What was the other thing?" she asked while he put the jewel-box back to the trunk he had taken it from.
"This," he replied with an amused smile and then he kissed her again.
Perhaps boring days weren't so bad after all, he found himself thinking, before he was lost in the bliss of the moment.