This Strange New Feeling.
//
It's a foreign feeling, so different from her normal, calm and orderly thoughts. It has no meaning, it has no reason and yet it rages within her, flowing in her bloodstream with an unmatched viciousness, heating up her emotions and making them irrational. It's not like her and she doesn't know what to do. It's tinged with guilt and even though she tries to suppress with everything she can think of, Arithmancy, Transfiguration, Potions, Defence Against The Dark Arts and yet it only rages harder, almost like a caged beast waiting to be set free.
It happens whenever he's around and another girl talks to him. She looks at the way his pale skin flushes, right up to the roots of his orange hair and that emotion, it churns in her stomach. She doesn't know what to do because it's foreign and it will not be cured by something in a book and she just cannot deal with something, whose cure doesn't exist in a book.
She laughs and she talks, her eyes too bright and her laughter too harsh for her own ears but normal to others.
(Cant they see? Cant he see?)
She's not all okay and she definitely isn't fine but he doesn't seem to notice so she laughs a little harder and smiles a little wider -- her skin stretching almost -- to show that it's all okay.
(It isn't though and she finally understands that because it's jealousy it will never be okay, unless he opens his eyes wide.)
//
She wonders if he ever felt the same or if it was just a misguided emotion because she was his friend and Viktor was encroaching upon his territory of making her smile and making her laugh.
To tell the truth, Viktor's jokes didn't mean much to her, they never did feel like the ones he made up for her, just to annoy her and then make her laugh.
Her only solace is that with Lavender, he doesn't talk. So all the jokes are still reserved for her except she won't hear them because she can't bring himself to stand in front of them and look at the picture they present. If you ask her, it could induce instant vomit. But then again, she's a biased insider so maybe you shouldn't.
She wonders what Lavender sees in him because she sure as hell knows that they both don't see the same. She see's the tall, freckly, skinny, pale guy, who's been her best friend, who drives her to distraction and tries to copy her school work, who's sense of loyalty is cannot be fiddled with, whose self-esteem is always at a low place and who needs to know that even if the sun shines out of all his siblings behinds, she still likes him the best and always will.
Oh and she also notices what Lavender notices. She notices his wiry arms and that strange half smile he always sports and yes sometimes, she does notice the pinkness of his lips. But before she noticed all of this, she noticed all the others that Lavender will never understand and never notice.
//
She was here first but it pains her that Lavender got there first. And this feeling it just won't go away. All she can hope for is that she doesn't do anything drastic because she has no control over what jealousy does to her.
And she's not sure which way her jealousy is directed. She's sure she doesn't like Ron that way and so she puts it down to being jealous that Lavender stole her friend. She tells herself that and believes it to because it's the only plausible explanation that makes sense to her.
(She can't put a finger on the feeling that fires up deep inside of her stomach when she sees them kiss though. It's like a boiling pot of something strong, pungent and acidic but she dismisses it as something else.)
//
She's never known a happiness like the kind she feels when he calls her name in his sleep. It proves he's not forgotten her and that he still needs her and he's still her friend.
She's just happy to have her friend back because Harry wont argue like he does and Harry doesn't need constant monitoring like he does and Harry is never clueless like he is and because Harry simply isn't him. And she likes being needed by him, her friend.
She sits by his bedside, holds his hand and brushes back his hair from his pale face.
There's a feeling coursing through her veins and no, this time it's not jealousy. It's happiness, unbridled and unchecked.
For the first time in months, she dosen't hate it and she dosen't herself. Rather, she loves this feeling of flowing happiness.
(He always had a way of making her happy. He made her cry, true. But he could always make her laugh and make her happy.)
//
But she still cant explain away the tingle that runs up her spine whenever he accidentally brushes against her or sits too close to her or leans too close, that she can almost smell, the Old Spice aftershave. She also can't explain the way her body hums whenever he casually throws an arm around her holds her hand.
Maybe it's the chilly weather inside the castle. She'll just dress warmer.
(It still doesn't go away.)
So I saw the movie and squealed at all the R/Hr moments. I'm just attempting to characterize what Hermione feels here and I hope I managed. It's more book compliant cause Hermione muddles through more in the book. :)