Title: In the Liquor Cabinet
Author: Amethyst Jackson
Author E-mail: AmethystJacksonhotmail.com
Summary: Crookshanks is missing, and Harry and Hermione, as you might have
guessed, are in a liquor cabinet. Written for the hphgficathon community on Livejournal.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: All things Harry Potter belong to JK Rowling, her
publishers, Warner Bros., yadayadayada. I'm not making any money off this; don't sue
me, please.
Notes: Thanks to Grace and Airiviel for being
wonderful betas as usual.
Harry was starving. He wondered what was for dinner and if Hermione would show
up tonight. She'd missed dinner several times that month, studying for NEWTs. Perhaps he should save something for her...
"Harry!"
It was the object of his thoughts, coming up from the dungeons. Her hair was
frizzier than he'd seen it in awhile, and upon closer evaluation, Harry
realized that she had been crying.
"What's the matter?"
"Crookshanks! Crabbe and Goyle stole him." She paused to
scowl. "Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall are both in London,
on Order business, so Snape, of all people, is in charge, and I just
went to tell him about it, and he told me I was being silly and that
Crookshanks was just lost and would turn up eventually, and he insulted me a
few times, and now I don't know what to do!" Hermione seemed to pause for
dramatic effect before adding, "Bloody bastards."
Harry blinked. He'd never, in the six years that he'd known her, heard Hermione
swear, nor had he heard her form such a long sentence. She must have been extremely
upset. He would have liked to kill Crabbe, Goyle, and Snape simultaneously, but
since that wasn't much of an option, he would have to settle for rescuing
Crookshanks.
"Come on," he said, grabbing her by the wrist and heading for the
dungeons.
"What - Harry - where are we go-?"
"We're going to get your cat back," he announced, cutting her sentence
short.
"Wait, Harry - we can't go into the Slytherin dormitories!" she
cried, stopping abruptly, which left Harry with no choice but to halt as well.
"Yes, we can. We have the password."
Hermione scowled at him. "Harry, that's abusing our power, and you know
it! The Head Boy and Girl are given the house passwords for emergencies only!"
Harry started walking again, dragging her along. "This is an
emergency. Your cat is in danger."
"Harry, we can't! Do you know how much trouble we could get into? We'll lose
our positions!"
"They've got Crookshanks, Hermione," Harry said quietly, "And considering what
their fathers do to humans, I would hate to see what they do to a cat."
Harry could tell she was caving as she fidgeted, frowning at him. "I
suppose you're right…and if the teachers aren't going to help, it's up to
us…but shouldn't we at least get the Invisibility Cloak?"
"Why bother? Everyone's at dinner - we'll just go get Crookshanks and
leave."
Harry could feel slight resistance on Hermione's part as he led her to the
statue that marked the entrance to the Slytherin common room. Somewhere deep
within his brain, he knew that he was being slightly irrational and that it
would have been a very good idea to get the Invisibility Cloak or at least take
the Marauder's Map, but he felt strangely impulsive – or at least more so than
usual. He couldn't help wondering if his behavior had more to do with Hermione
than her cat.
They reached the statue, putting a stop to his ruminations, and Harry gave the
password (bobotuber pus). Harry entered first, and Hermione followed
much more reluctantly. Luckily, the room was totally deserted.
"I've never been in here before," Hermione whispered, looking around
with wide eyes at the chains hanging from the ceilings.
"Consider yourself lucky," Harry replied
dryly.
"I never thought it would be so dreary. You would think they might at
least try to make it look halfway normal. It looks like a typical storybook
villain's lair in here...." Her eyes stopped on something. "There are
the stairs to the dormitories. Which do you think is the boys'?"
Harry glanced at the stairs. "Well, I could run up one, and if it doesn't
throw me off, I imagine that would be it."
Hermione shook her head. "No, we don't want to do that. The stairs are so
noisy when they turn into a slide like that - anyone that might be upstairs
would hear it. I suppose I'll just have to go up one and find out."
Hermione didn't appear very happy with the idea - in fact, she looked quite
terrified.
"I can't let you go up alone," Harry said, fixing a wary eye on the
staircases. "You wouldn't think they would try to do us real harm, since
we're at Hogwarts, but you never know - you shouldn't go up without someone to
watch your back, just in case someone is up there that decided to skip
dinner."
Hermione was about to reply, but she snapped her mouth shut suddenly, eyebrows
flying up into her bangs. "Do you hear that?! They're coming back from
dinner!"
"Damn," Harry said, which he thought summed things up quite
nicely.
"Quick, in here!" she whispered, a frantic hiss, and she tugged him
into a cabinet, the door falling closed behind them. The cabinet was slightly
taller than they were, but seemed to be half shelving and half wardrobe within,
leaving them less space than expected. It was extremely cramped, and Harry
thought it smelled like brandy.
Slytherins were pouring in, talking. Over Hermione's heavy breathing, Harry
immediately heard the voice of Draco Malfoy, snobbish as ever above the rest.
"Great job with the cat," he was saying. "When are we going to
kill it?"
Harry heard Hermione give a small whimper, and he put an arm around her. He was
going to slaughter Malfoy when they got out.
"Well...we would," said Crabbe. "But, um, we...lost it."
The silence following this revelation was so pronounced that Harry could hear
the furious expression forming on Malfoy's face as
Hermione slumped against him with relief.
"And just how did this happen?" he asked quietly.
"We - we were trying to bring it here," said Crabbe nervously,
"b-but its claws were really sharp, and...."
"You let it GO?" Malfoy said, voice rising in a crescendo. "You idiots! Why didn't you tell me before
dinner?"
"We... wanted to eat," Goyle said. His tone was more than a little
sheepish.
"And you wouldn't have let us…you'd have made us find the cat first,"
Crabbe elaborated somewhat pathetically.
"Thank goodness he's part kneazle,"
Hermione murmured into his shoulder. Harry wasn't quite sure what she meant by
that, but thought it best to ask about it later.
Draco continued to berate Crabbe and Goyle, and Hermione relaxed into him,
seeming to have realized at the same time he had that they would be trapped in
the cabinet for awhile. He wanted to be annoyed that she was using him as a
human cushion, but for some odd reason, he was rather enjoying it.
Well, it wasn't that odd, all things considered. He'd been actively
ignoring many things about his best friend in the past few years, knowing
exactly what the consequences of acknowledging those things might be. Alas,
Hermione had become a woman, and a very attractive one. He knew this, but
dwelling on that fact was dangerous, and he never allowed himself to. Their
friendship was too important to risk on a few teenage fantasies. Even if his
feelings for her became deeper than that, it wouldn't be worth it to put her in
danger because of it. She was already in harm's way as his friend; as anything
more, the risk would double.
At the moment, however, he was having a very hard time escaping those long-repressed
thoughts. In the darkness, with her pressed closely against him, how could
he ignore them? He was seventeen, for Merlin's sake, and she was a warm, soft, beautiful
girl.
Cut it out, Potter, he told himself, she's off-limits.
But why? another
part of his brain whined.
Harry found that he couldn't answer that question. At the first hint of
feelings of more than friendship toward Hermione, he'd automatically told
himself that she was forbidden, but was she really?
Naturally, there was the chance that Hermione did not and would not ever return
his feelings, and there was also the chance that, if she found out about his,
she would be too uncomfortable to speak to him again.... Then again, she might
be calm and understanding as usual and do her best to treat him as she always
had.
And what if she did return his feelings? Would that outweigh every risk? Ever
since his real life had begun at Hogwarts, she had been his everything - his
friend, his sister, his mother, his protector – his
salvation. Who, then, could possibly replace her? Who was he better suited to
spend the rest of his life with?
He looked down at her. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness just enough to
make out her thick curls against the dark paneling of the cabinet. She seemed
to sense his gaze and looked up at him, smiling. At that moment, the logic
didn't matter. He'd gone and fallen in love with her, and no amount of denial
would change that, no matter how risky it was.
Good one, Potter. Might as well dig your grave now.
Almost incapable of stopping himself, he leaned in and kissed her. She gasped,
but the sound was muffled between them, and then, miraculously, she kissed him
back. That confirmed it; everything he'd been feeling was right.
…Unfortunately, they'd both managed to forget where they were and neglected to
listen to what was going on outside the cabinet.
"Screw Transfiguration; I need a drink," said Draco Malfoy, and he
went to pay a visit to the secret stash of liquor hidden in the old, smelly
cabinet across the room.
Harry felt rather than heard the cabinet doors open, and as he jerked away from
Hermione, a startled, "What the...?" met his ears. He turned, face burning, to see a very puzzled Draco Malfoy.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Practicing CPR," Hermione snapped, stepping out of the cabinet. She
ignored the confused expression on Malfoy's face and
continued, "We came for my cat, but evidently, he was smarter than your
goons over there."
Draco glared. "You're not allowed in here unless there's an emergency,
Granger."
"And you're not allowed to have alcohol on school grounds,
Malfoy," Harry countered, having seen the bottles on his way out of the
cabinet. In hindsight, the smell ought to have been his first clue. "So I
suggest you keep quiet about this, or Dumbledore will be hearing about the
liquor and your plot to kill Hermione's cat."
"Bloody Gryffindors," Draco grumbled.
"Get your Mudblood out of here, will you,
Potter? The place is starting to smell."
Harry whipped out his wand and stepped in front of Hermione, shielding her.
"If you so much as look at Hermione like that again, Malfoy, I
swear, I won't hesitate to put you in the hospital wing for a week."
"You'd never have the nerve, Potter."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Want to find out?"
Draco didn't respond, and they left the common room amidst dead silence, Harry
casting dark glances over his shoulder as they went.
Once outside, Hermione promptly smacked him across the back of the head.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"You could have gotten us into real trouble, Harry!" she cried.
"I told you we should have gotten the Cloak, but did you listen?
No! You never do!"
"Well, it's not like you refused to come with me!"
"And what was I suppose to do? Send you off into danger alone again? I've
done that too many times as it is, thanks! And, you know, Harry, out of all the
times you could have chosen to finally kiss me, you just had to pick that
one, didn't you? Like it couldn't wait -"
"You weren't exactly stopping me! And what do you mean, finally?
Have you -" Any anger he might have felt suddenly dissipated, replaced
with thorough confusion. "Have you been waiting for me to?"
Hermione blushed. "Well, I wasn't exactly waiting for it, but I
wanted you to."
Harry blinked. "You did?"
"You're so daft when it comes to girls, Harry. I can't believe you never
picked up on it," Hermione said, starting down the hallway.
"Why didn't you ever say anything?" Harry questioned, following her.
"What was I supposed to say? 'Gee, Harry, I like
you as more than a friend, want to go make out?' Besides, you had so much to
deal with, and I didn't think you were quite ready to handle something like
that. I didn't want to lose you."
Harry had to admit to himself that she was right, as usual. He hadn't been
ready. He offered her an unsure smile. "That's different now,
though."
She smiled back. "Yes, I suppose it is."
Harry took her hand. "Come on. Let's find your cat."
- Fin
