Title: Wondering
Chapter Title: The Dance That Changed Everything
Spoilers: Directly HP & the Deathly Hallows (both parts)
Warnings: Angst, language
Author's Note: This is the only Harry Potter story I've ever written and it's just a drabble I did awhile back for a contest. :) I'd love to see some reviews!
He never wondered before that night what it would be like to be with Hermione. She had always been one of his best friends, a girl he thought of as a sister. He never had any thoughts or feelings to say anything different than that. He hadn't even been thinking that when he held out his hand for Hermione to dance with him. To him, in that second before her hand touched his, he was helping a friend get over the heartbreak that she felt when Ron walked out of the tent. As pissed as he was at Ron, he cared about Hermione's wellbeing. It was never a secret that he would die for his friends, even Ron, and even when he was pissed.
The way his large hand felt curled around hers, the way her smaller body felt pressed against his, moving to the music…he wanted to feel that again. After Ron came back, he wanted to know what it would be like, as horrible as it sounded, for him to leave again so he could dance with Hermione just one more time. He found himself over and over again planning ways to try and make Ron leave the tent so he could do so, but the time never really came up. They had work to do, horcruxes to find and destroy, that even as badly as he wished he could ask her to dance, he knew he couldn't.
Ron was and always would be her dancing partner. There was no room for Harry. Ginny was his girlfriend and he did love her, even if he wondered what Hermione's lips felt like. He never admitted it to himself that he thought about that. Even after Voldemort was destroyed and things went from horrible to amazing, and Harry was able to be with Ginny the way he always wanted to, Hermione was always at the back his mind.
He spent the rest of his life wondering.