A/N: I can't believe DEV inspired me more than anything I've come up with in the past few months. Hopefully this is what I need to get back on track!

Dancing in the Dark

"C'mon, Harry," Hermione pleaded. "It's just dancing. What could possibly go wrong?"

Harry pretended to think for a moment, then flatly said, "Oh I don't know...I could make a complete and utter fool of myself, that's what."

Hermione frowned at him. "But you danced just fine at the Yule Ball."

Harry sighed. "That was six years ago, Hermione, and even with how easy the steps were I'm pretty sure I crushed Parvati's foot five or six times."

Hermione wasn't one to give up easily, though. "I asked Ron, but he said he didn't have the time. You're not going to make me do this alone, are you?" she asked, trying to guilt him.

Harry saw right through it, though. "Not going to work, Hermione," he said in a tone that brooked no argument. Then he added, "And of course Ron doesn't have the time to take a dancing class with you when he's dating Luna. They go out every night. I doubt you even asked him"

Hermione sighed, finally seeing that she was fighting a lost cause (especially since Harry saw right through her lie). She put a piece of paper on Harry's coffee table and said, "Well, if you change your mind, I would really appreciate having a dance partner to practice with."

Harry made no move for the paper, staring at her pointedly, at which point she finally took the cue and stepped back into the fireplace, floo powder in hand. She was whisked back to her house, and Harry let out a sigh of relief. He had no idea what was going with Hermione lately.

When she had first broken up with Ron fourteen months ago, she had been a shut-in, having no desire to ever leave her house or do anything productive besides work even though she and Ron had broken up on good terms. The two of them had to practically drag her out of her house to get her to go somewhere.

The past three months had seen a complete turn in that aspect of her personality, however. Every night, she was over at Harry's wanting to do something with him. Generally he went along with it because it wasn't something he disliked like dancing, and he generally had a good time. In fact, this was the first night in three weeks that he wasn't going to be spending time with Hermione. She had signed up for a dance course, which she was trying her hardest to pressure him into. Because she was now taking the class and he wasn't, he now had a bit of free time on his hands.

He rubbed his hands together eagerly, thinking to himself that he should do something he generally wouldn't do when Hermione was around.

And he drew up a blank.

He frowned and glanced around his lounge, which he was currently sitting in, only to find nothing to keep him occupied. He had already read the few books that were sitting on the shelf, had seen his entire collection of DVD's, and knew there was nothing airing on the television that he was particularly interested in watching.

Then what was there to do?

He couldn't go drinking, since that was just boring by himself and he had no desire to get completely wasted with Seamus and Dean. It was too dark to do anything outside, like play Quidditch, which would have also been difficult to do by himself. In fact, practically everything he thought he might do would only be fun if he was with somebody.

And that somebody was always Hermione, who knew how to have fun with him at a level he was comfortable with.

Of course, he thought to himself, a small smile playing on his lips. I'm not spending time with her for the first time in weeks and I end up thinking about her.

What about her made her such a perfect companion? Hell, he couldn't even imagine having as much fun with Ron as much as he would have had with Hermione (especially since Ron was a bit too energetic at times for Harry to handle). She was just so...so...perfect.

As Harry caught his line of thinking, he felt his face quickly redden.

What was he doing? He needed to think of something to do!

He quickly stood up, trying to take Hermione out of his mind before she completely took it over and made him realize what he was fearing. He couldn't be in love with her! She was his best friend! He would never do anything that would make her uncomfortable to be around her, because that would mean she wouldn't want to see him anymore. And Harry didn't want to know what it felt like to be on the outs with the woman he loved.

Ah, crap. There it goes, he thought to himself, covering his hands with his eyes as he let out a groan of frustration. He just admitted it to himself. He had admitted that he was in love with his best friend. This definitely wasn't good. How was he supposed to keep a straight face around her anymore?

He had been in love with her even before now, that much he knew, but there was something about actually admitting it to himself that threw him off. While he was perfectly fine around Hermione before, he had a bad feeling that this admission would make things weird between them.

Not because he would tell her, heavens no! That would just be folly. There was absolutely no chance she was in love with him anyway. For one, he wasn't even her type, if he was to go off of the one man she had dated in her life. Though he and Ron were best mates, they were in no way alike. In fact, in many ways Ron was on the complete opposite end of the spectrum than him. Ron went out and partied every night (before he was with Luna, at least) and tended to be the life of every one of those parties.

On the other hand, Harry rarely left his house to do anything that was considered social. His idea of a fun night was a strong black cup of coffee, a hearty, healthy dinner, and a good book.

He smiled sadly as he sat down again, cradling his head in his hands, fisting his hair in frustration. What was he doing, falling in love with the one woman he knew would never love him? Was he some sort of masochist, doing this to himself?

He looked to his left, where Hermione had left the flyer for the dance class. He chuckled to himself when he saw what type of dancing it was, considering it seemed like something nobody but himself would expect Hermione to be into. It was commercial dance, which was the type done in media along the lines of music videos and commercials.

She never really told anybody, but there was one time that Harry had dropped by on Hermione unannounced only to hear music blasting from her bedroom. He had snuck up to the door and peeked in to find Hermione cleaning, doing her best to dance along with the pop music that was playing. He had thought she was pretty good, especially since she had a pretty natural feel for rhythm and flow, but she apparently thought she just wasn't good enough for her own tastes.

Harry could honestly admit he was looking forward to seeing the results of her education, then sighed to himself as he came to another realization. Now that he knew he was in love with this miraculous woman, he would have to learn at least a little bit so he could have more conversation points with her.

He had no intention of going to any type of class no matter what the situation was, but figured he could learn what he wanted on the internet so he could have sufficient knowledge when her class ended in a month.

Stretching really quickly, Harry took one more sip of his coffee, sighed, and headed into his bedroom, where his laptop was.

This was going to be one interesting and exhausting month.

1 Month Later

Hermione smiled happily to herself as she walked out of her last dance class, humming one of her favorite songs to herself.

The reason she was so happy had almost nothing to do with the fact that she had just finished her class. Harry had invited her over for dinner, which would never bring anything other than a smile to her face. She had waited for the longest time to get close to him, and though there were several interruptions and attempts to train herself to think otherwise and fall in love with somebody else, she had recently been presented her chance.

Harry had broken up with Ginny several weeks after Ron had ended it with her, and the two of them were single. It had taken awhile for Hermione to build enough confidence to face him without showing her hand, and even then it had taken longer to gain even more confidence to pursue him more directly.

While she had really wanted to take this dancing class, she was sad that it had cut into her time with Harry. She had been spending time with him nearly every day for quite awhile leading up to the class, and found that the month-long separation had been more difficult than she had thought it was going to be. Sure, she had had days off, but she was generally too tired on them to do anything with Harry.

The only bright spot she could think of in all of this is that it seemed Harry had missed her in return if he was inviting her over on the night she finished to celebrate.

First off, though, Hermione had to go shower. She was in no way presentable, considering she had just spent the past hour and a half dancing and sweating in clothes that were not all too flattering.

So she went home and showered, brushed her teeth, checked to make sure she looked good, put on just a dab of makeup to add that little bit of sensuality, smiled to herself, and apparated to Harry's front door.

She took a few calming breaths, her heart racing in her chest. She was nervous about seeing him again after a month, and was afraid she would melt into his arms and do something that she would regret.

She shook those thoughts from her mind, though, and knocked on the door. All nervousness escaped her thoughts when the door swung open fluidly at her first knock, inviting her into a pitch-black house.

"Harry?" she called, confused, still standing on the doorstep.

Had he forgotten? Had he already gone to sleep? Was he out?

But no, that wasn't like him. He was a man of his word, and he had said he wanted to spend time with her tonight. If he had said he wanted to spend time with her, he would be ready to spend time with her.

Fear suddenly mixed with her confusion. Had something happened to him?

She took a step inside of the house, calling with just a tiny hint of desperation, "Harry?!"

The door slammed behind her, making her jump and whip around to look at it. When silence settled again, Hermione found that her heart was beating a staccato against her ribcage and that she could see absolutely nothing. She tried to take her wand out and light it with a spell, only to find that her wand was gone.

She turned around and now actually frantically called out, "Harry?! Where are you?"

She reached a hand out carefully, less familiar with Harry's apartment than she thought she was, and took an unsure step into the room. She was practically defenseless except for the fact that she had taken several hand-to-hand combat classes and knew that she could take on a large portion of the muggle population in physical fights, even in the dark.

She jumped a bit when her fingers brushed up against something that she knew didn't belong there, and was surprised to find that what she touched was a bit warm. Now really confused, she tentatively asked, "Harry?"

There was no response except that an arm came around her waist. She yelped as the arm pulled her in close to the owner's body, and Hermione felt her face flush when she took in Harry's intoxicating scent. She had no idea if it was some sort of deodorant or cologne Harry used, but she knew it would take Hermione much longer than a month to forget such a scent.

As soon as Harry pulled her to him and had laced their fingers together for one of their hands, a song started. And it wasn't just any song. It was a song that Harry would never, ever, ever listen to.

It was In the Dark by DEV.

The only thing that kept her from laughing was that Harry was slowly moving along with the intro, truly taking Hermione by surprise. He was dancing like he knew what he was doing. And as she began moving along with him, she realized that Harry, who had never even considered learning how to dance, knew what he was doing.

They hit the drop and their speed increased to match the tempo, no words passing between them as they danced, moving in tandem despite having no vision of their partner. Hermione had thought for a moment that this was just a fluke, but there was nobody who could dance so well without any type of sight unless they had taken courses on how to dance properly.

Pushing that thought aside for the moment, Hermione allowed herself to get lost in dancing with the man she loved, even if the song was a bit sexual. It was a good thing it was so dark, or it would have been impossible for Harry to miss the blush that was staining her cheeks. He was moving with her perfectly, twirling her and inserting some of his own personal style into the dance that she found easy to move along with.

To be honest, she was really impressed.

When the song began fading, the lights slowly began lighting up. Hermione, who was panting, was looking up at Harry, who was holding her in his arms in a half-dip, looking into her eyes intently. The look sent shivers down her spine, and that look combined with the meaning of the song made her whole body heat up.

Then Harry grinned at her. "So do I pass, Professor Granger?"

He slowly let her go, the air intensely cool against her hot skin where he had been holding her, and she took a moment to gather herself before smiling back at him. "I hope you're satisfied with an 'O'," she said. Then she laughed, unable to stop it. "Where did you learn to dance like that? That was amazing!"

"Ah," Harry said a bit sheepishly. "Well, I looked up exactly what you would be doing and thought I might just give a bit of it a try myself. I didn't really intend to learn so much when I first began, but something about this type of dancing is just so invigorating and had me thirsting to know more about it."

Now Hermione really laughed. "Oh, look at how embarrassed you get when you're forced to admit that you actually enjoy dancing," she said teasingly.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied. "You were right and I was wrong. I should have taken that class with you."

Hermione's smile turned into her smug, self-satisfied one until the question that had plagued her since they started dancing came to the front of her mind again. "Where in the world did you ever hear that song, by the way? And how did you know that I liked it?" he asked.

Now it was Harry's turn to laugh. "You don't remember when I caught you dancing to this like a maniac in your room a while back?" he asked.

Hermione thought about it for a moment, then shook her head disbelievingly. "Only you would remember something as insignificant as that for so long," she said.

"Is it really insignificant?" Harry shot back in return, a serious look on his face.

Slightly confused by the serious tone he had suddenly taken, Hermione blinked at him, taken a bit off-guard. "How would it be significant?" she finally asked after thinking about his question for a moment.

Harry shrugged, averting his eyes from hers. "Well, it was a side of you that only I got to see," he said, scratching the back of his neck, still looking away. "If that's not significant, then I don't know what is."

Hermione was slightly surprised at the words that came from Harry's mouth. She hadn't been expecting something so...profound. Was there anything she could say that was more profound than that?"

Finding sudden confidence in herself, Hermione boldly asked, "Do you know what would be even more significant?"

She was proud to say that her voice didn't waver even one bit.

Harry looked up at her intently, and she lightly smiled at him and said, "It would be even more significant if you were to tell me that you want to see that side of me more."

Blushes immediately crept up both of their faces, Hermione's heart pounding in her chest. She had no idea she would be indirectly confessing her feelings to Harry tonight, but the setting and mood were far too perfect to let this opportunity pass. She should have paid even more attention to how she looked!

Harry gained confidence of his own and stated, "Well, it would be a real shame if I let something so significant pass me by, wouldn't it?"

Hermione could do nothing but nod in disbelief, her eyes locked on Harry's as he brought his face closer to hers, the intensity of his gaze locking her in place. Just when she thought he was about to kiss her, Harry kept going until his lips were at her ear, his hands around her wrists. "I'd be honored if you'd let me see more sides of you that nobody else gets to see," he said, smiling.

Hermione nodded again, her cheek brushing against Harry's, happy tears making her vision blur. This was turning out to be the perfect night.

Harry pulled back, a smile dancing in his eyes and pulling at the corners of his lips, and Hermione couldn't help but go on her tiptoes and press her lips against his, stunning him this time.

His shock lasted only a moment, however, before his arms found their way around her and pulled her in close, allowing her to truly melt against him as they kissed each other for all they were worth.

When they broke apart, both flushed, Hermione smiled at him happily and said, "Now I really think you should have taken those dancing lessons with me."

Harry chuckled, but said, "I have a better idea. How about we take relationship lessons? I heard there's an opening for the girlfriend slot for one Mr. Potter."

Hermione smiled warmly at him, intertwining their fingers as she did so. "Well it just so happens that I have a boyfriend slot available," Hermione replied playfully.

Harry kissed her again before leading her to the table, where there was an excellent dinner already laid out and waiting to be eaten.

As they sat down, a sudden thought hit Hermione. "By the way, Harry, do you have any idea what that song is about?" she asked curiously.

Harry shrugged. "Didn't really listen to the lyrics all too closely, but I think it has something to do with a woman and her lover dancing together in the dark just like we did," he said.

Hermione couldn't help the laugh that came bursting forth. Though Harry's naivety was so cute and endearing, it was also quite humorous.

Oh, she would have fun explaining to him exactly what the lyrics were about once they were finished eating.

For now, though, she was content in eating her excellently-prepared meal, sure that both she and Harry were headed on the right track. And maybe, just maybe, the two of them would be able to dance in the dark again at some point, just to remind themselves of what exactly brought them to where they were.

Happiness.

A/N: Well, I wrote that one in record time. Most of that was probably due to the fact that it is now six in the morning and I want to have this up right now even though I haven't slept yet!

Credit for Dancing in the Dark belongs solely to DEV, who I must thank for reminding me how much fun it is to write when the creative juices are flowing! And yes, it's really weird for me to be saying this considering I don't even like pop!

Anywho, thank you so so much for reading my story, and if you feel inclined I would be honored if you would leave a review as well!