Did myself a favor and finally listened to the Amelie OBC. The result? This fanfic!
Stay
I never expected to be this scared of the door. But after what just happened, I don't think I ever want to open it.
"Hermione," Harry calls from the other side. "Open the door. Let me in. We have to talk about this."
"N-no." I clear my throat. "We don't have to talk about anything."
"Hermione, I just kissed you and you ran to up to your flat without another word," Harry replies. "I think there's plenty to talk about."
"We can talk like this."
"No, we can't." He breathes deeply. "Do you want me to go?"
I don't say anything. I hear a shuffle outside my door. I don't want him to leave.
"Please," I mutter.
"Please what?" I nearly jump. I thought he already left.
"Stay."
"I don't want to leave either," he says. "But you won't let me in."
I say nothing.
"Hermione, I can't stay outside forever," he says from the other side.
"Stay where you are." I say. "What do you want me to say?"
"Okay," Harry says. "We can do this calmly and rationally. Hermione I know you have questions. You can ask first."
My head starts racing a mile a minute with a hundred different questions. I sit down and drown the voices. I make the questions arrange themselves in the queue, and ask everyone else to leave.
"Tell me what just happened," I say. My lungs hurt and I'm catching my breath, but I'm not sure if that's because of the running or because of something else. At this point I'm not sure what's real and what's not.
"Today is your birthday," Harry says calmly. "I picked you up from your apartment earlier tonight and took you to a nice garden."
I am wearing a red silk dress. My feet hurt because of my heels. He might be telling the truth.
"We had a nice dinner. Just the two of us. After dinner, we returned to your flat."
I am not hungry. I do not remember being with anyone else but Harry in the last few hours. He is telling the truth.
"I kissed you. And I told you that I love you."
This is where everything gets blurry. There is a piercing pain in my chest. My arms are crawling with goosebumps. I can't feel my face.
It was all true.
"You stared at me for five seconds. Then you ran up to your flat. And here we are."
I remember now. He's not lying.
"Can I come in?"
"I'll make you count to one hundred, and then you can come in."
"Hermione we can't end the night like this," he says. "Just open the door. I promise I won't enter without your permission."
I breathe and do one thing with each breath.
Breathe. I take off my right shoe.
Breathe. I take off my left shoe.
Breathe. I stand up.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
I open the door. No turning back now.
"If you move, I'll only move further away," I warn him.
As promised he doesn't move an inch. I see him standing no more than three feet away from me. I saw him no less than five minutes ago but it feels like years since.
He looks at me and waits. I must look like a sweaty mess. Hair all over the place and make up running on my face but he doesn't flinch.
"Why are you not leaving?" I ask.
"Because I love you."
I let his answer hang in the air. Hearing him say it the first time sent my heart racing. Hearing him say it the second time made everything stop.
Including my breathing.
"Hermione, why are you not breathing?" he asks. He coaches me back into it, letting his chest visibly rise and fall with each breath he takes. This happens a lot when I panic.
"Why did you run?" he asks.
"Because we were too close."
"Why won't you let me in?" he asks again.
I think about his question for a long time. There are too many feelings that I can't express. I like him where he is. There is a safe distance between us. I can't ask him to leave because he might not want to return. I can't ask him to come closer because he may want to leave.
"Zeno's Paradox," I finally answer.
I learned about Zeno's Paradox as a child, and it has proven itself in my life more than once. I found my parents in Australia after the war, but I only had a week with my father before he passed. I nearly got into the Ministry Legal Track but I was too sick to attend the interview and now I have to wait one year more. Ron ran away with another woman the night before our wedding and I know that he's the happiest he's ever been.
Everything I push away never returns. Everything I hold onto keeps on letting go.
Everything was always just out of my reach.
"What if I told you that I solved Zeno's Paradox?"
How could he have solved a paradox?
"Go on," I reply.
"There is a boat on the sea with a destination in mind. The boat travels halfway to the destination, so there is halfway to go. It travels another halfway, but there is still halfway to go. And so on."
"No matter how close the boat gets, there is always halfway to go," I supply.
"Whatever or whomever the boat is trying to meet, it can go out to the sea and meet the boat halfway," he says.
I never thought of that. Then again, no one ever offered to solve Zeno's Paradox.
"I take a step," he says, carefully taking one step forward. "You take a step."
I take one step forward.
"I take another step," he says, stepping into my door. "And so on."
We are as close together as when he kissed me. I feel his breath and I nearly hear his heart beating.
"I will always meet you halfway, Hermione."
I breathe. And then I kiss him.