The Way The Light Just Catches
Painting. It was a hobby he'd discovered after the war. Maybe nothing he ever painted was good, but the beautiful colours and the blooming pictures acted as a release from both the physical and mental scars the war had left on him. His paintings were hung around the drawing room of Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. The room acted as a showroom, where he enjoyed showing people around when they dropped in.
"I've never seen things so beautiful, Harry," Hermione breathed as he showed her around. Helped by Andromeda Tonks, Harry had recently begun changing the décor of the house to something a little more cheery. Kreacher had helped, cleaning up decades of mess. The walls in the drawing room had recently been changed to a warm yellow that made one feel cheery just looking at it.
"Thanks, it's just a hobby," Harry said, feeling a little awkward about admiring his own work. Hermione paused in front of a painting of seven figures in white robes on a black background.
"This one's new," she said. "I haven't seen it before."
"I call it 'The Seven Deadly Sins'," Harry whispered. He took her hand and helped her to trace the figures. "Lust." He indicated the figure of a criminally beautiful young woman with gleaming red eyes, beckoning with a single taloned finger. "Gluttony." He used Hermione's finger to trace the doughy features of a rotund man clutching a baguette in each hand. "Greed." This was a tall, thin man with an obsessive expression, sifting gold coins through long, bone-white fingers. "Sloth." This was a woman with closed eyes and a slumped body, as if she was sleeping. "Wrath." A woman with red eyes and hair, her mouth open in an endless shriek of anger. "Envy." A man with long fingers reaching out to grasp something beyond the frame of the painting and an envious look. "And, finally, Pride." The man in question stood straight-backed, chin up, looking disdainfully down at the viewer. Hermione giggled as she recognised the Greek nose, grey eyes and white-blonde hair of Draco Malfoy.
"It's incredible," she breathed. Her fingers were entwined with Harry's as she turned to face him. A small voice in the back of his mind that sounded uncannily like Sirius whispered Kiss the girl. But she disentangled their fingers and moved off to admire another painting. The moment was gone, in the past. Opportunity had knocked and run away.
He looked up from the spot where Hermione's lips had been and saw her standing in front of a small painting. Her lips were turned down and a frown crossed her face as she took it in. Harry walked over and groaned internally as he saw the painting with a leaf-green background. Pink blossom poured down from the top of the painting onto the red-headed, brown-eyed girl smiling alluringly over her left shoulder. Her back was to the painter but the way the expanse of white skin continued to the bottom of the canvas and beyond made it clear she had posed naked.
"When did you paint this?" she asked, her voice determinedly level.
"A few months ago, I don't really remember," Harry said dismissively, desperately hoping she would change the subject. "I often have people sit for me. Look." He turned Hermione to the wall that was filled solely with paintings of those he knew. He realised he had made a mistake too late. Hermione's eyes passed quickly over paintings of men he knew and focused on the women. He watched her expression as she scrutinised first a painting that depicted Lavender Brown as a mermaid, her waterfall of blonde hair the only thing concealing her upper body and secondly a painting of Romilda Vane releasing a falcon into the air, wearing only a thin black veil wrapped around her curvy body, a veil that barely concealed human modesty. Obviously the painting of Fleur Delacour depicted as one of those crimson lipstick wearing 'scarlet women' in Muggle soap operas that prance around wearing hardly anything was too much for her. She ran from the room and Harry, mentally slapping himself for being such an idiot, he followed her.
He caught up with her in the kitchen and was shocked to see tears in her fiery eyes. She pulled away from him when he grabbed her wrist, begging her with his eyes and actions to listen, to understand that they were only pictures, that it had meant nothing to him.
"Do the partners of those girls know?" she asked, her voice shaking with rage or misery, Harry couldn't tell which. "Do they know that their girls posed virtually naked for you, that they sat there for hours looking like they wanted to jump your bones?"
"Yes," Harry replied in a matter-of-fact way. "I did them as gifts and kept copies as a record."
"I bet you sit and look at them late at night," Hermione hissed scathingly. "I bet you stare at them, drool over them and wish you had those girls next to you."
"Frankly, I don't," Harry said, a note of anger creeping into his voice. "The only girl I want next to me hasn't posed for me." Why had he said that?
"But there was that picture of Ginny…" Hermione began, then realisation flickered in her eyes. "Oh."
"Hermione, will you sit for me?" Harry asked. Hermione considered.
"Why not," she said. "Will I have to be that naked?"
"At least as naked." Had he really just said that? Hermione had turned bright red and from the heat on his cheeks he had too.
"Will sexy lingerie be acceptable?" Hermione asked, her tone wobbly as if she was trying not to laugh…or cry.
"Whatever you want," Harry forced himself to say. "One fifteen tomorrow. Bye." He let Kreacher usher Hermione out while he tried to untangle the conversation. He'd said horribly suggestive things that would only lead Hermione on. He didn't feel anything for her. He wished more than ever than Sirius and Lupin were still alive. They had been so great with giving advice on girls.
Actually, I'm still here said the voice in his head, the voice that sounded like Sirius, that voice that had earlier encouraged him to kiss Hermione. Snuffles at your service. You know what I think. I think subconsciously you really like Hermione and that's why you said those things.
"No, shut up!" Harry shouted, realising how crazy it was to shout at an imagined voice. "I don't love Hermione and I don't know why I asked her to sit for me as naked as those girls!"
Going to tell her she should wear a veil like that Vane girl said the voice. Going to ask her to do a little strip tease for you, were you?
"Stop it, I wasn't!" Harry shouted, clutching his head and running up to his room, slamming the door so hard the whole house shook. He sat down on the hard floorboards with his back on his bed frame, trying to understand the events that had just passed.
She's available said the voice. Did you know she threw in the towel with Ron because she likes someone else? That someone is you, Harry.
"Will you be quiet!" Harry shouted, slapping himself on the forehead. He looked up and saw that he had frightened Kreacher, as the elf backed hastily out of the door. Harry was touched when he saw the bowl of French onion soup Kreacher had left, knowing that it was Harry's favourite. He slurped the soup defiantly, remembering how Hermione had always told him off for it. Tomorrow he'd show her that he didn't care about her one little bit. Smiling to himself, he summoned Kreacher. The elf appeared immediately, looking inquiring.
"Kreacher, I need you to collect everything that might be debris after a romantic lunch that led to bedroom antics," Harry said. "Please set it up in the drawing room before one fifteen tomorrow." Though the elf looked confused at the strangeness of the request, he nodded and vanished, no doubt to seek out some candles and confetti. Harry smiled gleefully to himself and owled Romilda, offering her use of his home to be with Zabini tomorrow. Her answer was instantaneous: Can't wait.
The next morning Harry put his plan into action. He gave both Zabini and Romilda gold coins like the DA had used all those years ago. He would use them to communicate to them when it was safe to exit the room they would be in and left Kreacher at their disposal for food and other home comforts. He surveyed the drawing room. Kreacher had outdone himself. The dirty plates, half-melted candles and other debris of a romantic lunch spilled out onto the landing and a trail of discarded clothes led up the stairs to Harry's room. The wireless was on a station that played back-to-back love songs. Everything was set.
Romilda cast a critical look at Harry. She turned up the collar of his white shirt and crumpled it with her little hands, ruffled his hair until it stuck straight up in the air, kissed his cheek leaving a lipstick mark there and used her make-up bag to make marks all over his clothes and face that indicated he'd been with a girl. He smiled at her and promised the smirking Zabini another painting as thanks. He showed them the room and left them to it. He looked out of the window, saw Hermione and sprinted down the stairs to get her before she woke Mrs Black, remembering at the last moment to spray on the cologne Romilda had brought him, saying it was 'simply divine!'.
Hermione looked him up and down when he opened the door and her excited smile changed to a look of dismay as she took in the crumpled, make-up covered clothes, lipstick-stained face and ruffled hair. Her eyes filled with tears as she went into the drawing room and took in the leftover romantic dinner, the love song issuing out of the wireless and her eyes followed the trail of clothes up to Harry's door. Harry experienced a twinge of regret. Hermione was his best friend, why was he trying to hurt her? But he'd begun now, he'd have to remain strong.
"What should I wear?" she asked.
"What you've got on," Harry said, surveying the baggy clothes that smothered her figure. "I'd hate for you to appear immodest against your will." He placed a fresh canvas on his easel and took out his paints before ordering Hermione to sit on the most uncomfortable stool in the house against the background of the other paintings he'd done of half-naked beauties. Every minute he came up with a complaint - something silly about the way she was sitting or the hair in her eyes. He sent a message to Romilda: It's time. They heard the door open and shut and footsteps on the stairs. Harry watched Hermione's reaction as Romilda walked in, her eyes ringed with black, her hair ruffled and out of place, her lips red and swollen and clad only in a small pink towel that was slipping down as she hugged Harry.
"Darling, that was absolutely wonder-" she began to say, but stopped abruptly when she saw Hermione. "Oh, hello, Hermione, long time, no see! Sorry for interrupting, but Harry and I were lunching together." She giggled enchantingly. "It was the best lunch I've had in ages. Well, if you don't mind, darling, I'm going back to bed. I must be fresh for you when you're done with Granger." The suggestive tone in her voice belied her angelic smile. She kissed Harry and wiggled her fingers at Hermione before going back up the stairs.
"Where were we?" Harry asked, turning back to his canvas. Hermione's face was determinedly still but her lips were quivering. She looked at Harry and promptly dissolved into tears. Leaping up, sending the easel flying, Harry ran to her, quickly sending a message to Zabini and Romilda to Get out of here.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" he asked, trying to put an arm around her but jumping back as she slapped him off.
"What do you think is wrong?" she whispered, a note of anger in her voice. "You ask me here to come and pose for you and I thought you cared about me when all time you were having it off with that tart!" She covered her face with her heads and her shoulders shook with sobs. Harry took a deep breath. He'd have to tell her.
"Yesterday, after you left, a little voice in my head was telling me I liked you as more than a friend," he began. "So I stupidly decided to show you I don't care about you. I sent Kreacher out to get all the stuff and invited Romilda to use this house to be with Zabini if she helped me. I'm so sorry, Hermione."
"You like me as more than a friend?" Hermione whispered incredulously, a spark of hope in both her eyes and her voice.
"Of course I do," Harry said, putting an arm around her. Tell her you love her the voice advised. "I love you, Hermione." Hermione gasped and looked at him with wide, hopeful eyes. This time, when Sirius advised him to Kiss the girl,Harry didn't ignore him. Hermione was the single word written in his heart as he dragged off her baggy T-shirt. In a flash Kreacher had appeared and Vanished the romantic debris before nodding with a quietly satisfied look in his protuberant eyes and leaving.
"I love you," he said as they parted, both gasping for breath. Hermione looked at him with a 'well, duh!' look in her eyes.
"I love you," she said, her voice very matter-of-fact. They kissed again and this time stumbled up the stairs leaving a trail of clothes behind until they reached the hastily vacated bedroom and tumbled onto the bed.
Harry awoke hours later feeling refreshed and entirely at peace with the world for the first time in months. He raised himself up on his elbows to look at the woman sleeping beside him. He'd had terrible judgement allowing them to partake in bedroom antics on the first 'date' - but he didn't regret it. Hermione looked so peaceful, the scarlet blanket that always rested on the bed wrapped around her hips, a smile on her face even in sleep. Harry smoothed a lock of hair back from her forehead and smiled when she murmured something in her sleep that sounded like 'I love you'.
"Will you pose for me?" he asked when she awoke. "As you are." Hermione smiled and nodded. Harry had just begun to set up his equipment when there was a knock at the door.
"Is Master and Mistress wanting breakfast?" Kreacher asked, stepping in bearing a tray of toast and tea. Both nodded eagerly and Kreacher placed the tray on a side table before leaving.
A few months later, Hermione persuaded Harry to exhibit some of his work in an art show to be held at Hogwarts. She helped him choose and send the paintings to be shown. A woman's touch helped around the dark house and soon all the rooms were re-painted in various cheerful colours. Only the rooms of Sirius and Regulus remained untouched except from righting the furniture and dusting. Harry wanted people still to remember the brave men who had given their lives to help bring down Lord Voldemort.
Both Ron and George had complained bitterly when their mother had dragged them away from work at the shop to go with her to an art exhibition at Hogwarts.
"It's a exhibition of the work of amateur artists," she said enthusiastically. "Non-professionals who seek not to sell their work but to have it admired are hanging their best works there for all to see."
"Sounds fascinating, Mum," George said, with an exaggerated yawn. Mrs Weasley frowned at him and stalked towards the carriages waiting to transport people to the castle.
"You always told Alicia you liked art," Ron said accusingly as he and George started walking towards a carriage. George rolled his eyes.
"I love art," he said. "When it's somewhere else and I don't have to trudge around for hours admiring it."
George seemed to change his mind when they walked in and came face-to-face with a painting of a very pretty brunette lying on her front, smiling lovingly at the artist and wearing nothing at all. Ron cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Now, this is my kind of art," George said. "But that brunette seems familiar."
"Merlin, it's Hermione!" Ron yelped, attracting the attention of a group of middle-aged witches near by. "Check who painted it." George looked at the spidery black writing in the bottom corner.
"It says 'My 'Mione, by H.J.P.'," George announced.
"H.J.P?" Ron mused. "Merlin's pants! H.J.P…Harry James Potter!" George whistled.
"He obviously got a leg over. Lucky bastard," he said. "Wonder where he is." Ron, on the other hand, was shaking with fury and stormed away to find Hermione.
He located her laughing with Lavender Brown and Romilda Vane, of all people to find her with. His heart wrenched as she saw how beautiful she looked, in a clinging scarlet dress that matched her lips, her legs elongated by the hem that ended several inches above her knees and sky-high heels. Her hair was glossy and straightened, her eyes glittering with happiness. In Ron's eyes, she'd never looked so beautiful. Lavender and Romilda backed off when they saw him coming towards them.
"What were you talking about with those two?" Ron asked Hermione, his voice shaking with fury.
"We were comparing stories of when Harry painted us," Hermione said. "I'm presuming you've seen the painting he did of me."
"Yes, I've seen the painting," Ron said, clenching his fists to stop himself from lashing out at Hermione. "You looked lovely."
"I know, isn't it brilliant," Hermione laughed, laying a hand on his arm to emphasize her point. He experienced a dreadful pain in his heart as he remembered when she used to touch him with such love. It hadn't been that long ago. "Harry's a genius!" Hermione continued, moving away from him and sipping her glass of champagne. "I've never seen myself look so beautiful. I'd swear he airbrushed me, but he says that's the exact way he saw me."
"Of course it is, you're beautiful, Hermione," Ron said. He mentally kicked himself for letting the comment slip out as Hermione looked shocked. The fact that she looked shocked at receiving a compliment from him stabbed yet another needle into his heart.
"Harry was so sweet," Hermione said. "So kind and loving." As she sighed longingly something inside Ron simply snapped.
"Why did you go to bed with him?" he shouted at her, catching the attention of everyone stood within a five metre radius of him and Hermione. "Why?"
"Because I love him and he loves me," Hermione replied, simply and quietly. "It was natural."
"What about me?" Ron shouted, hurt that she would say that. "We only broke up a few months ago, Hermione, and you're already in another relationship!"
"We weren't in a relationship," Hermione explained patiently. "I wasn't expecting to go to bed with him, it just…happened."
"Well, that's even worse!" Ron shouted, anger showing in his eyes and face. "You acted like some sort of scarlet woman!" A gale of giggles from Ginny made Hermione's mouth twitch. It was too much for Ron. He raised his wand. Ginny, looking frightened, raised hers and the wand flew out of Ron's hand into Ginny's.
Angrier than ever, Ron raised a hand to hit the woman who stood in front of him, shaking with fear, the woman who had mercilessly not just broken his heart, but ripped it out and stamped on it before throwing into the flames. Someone ran out of the crowd and lunged at him, knocking him to the ground before starting to punch the living daylights out of him.
"Fight, fight, fight, fight!" someone shouted, and within seconds half the crowd had taken up the chant. People were screaming. Suddenly George appeared and he was dragging Ron off of the other man, pulling him away and Hermione and Ginny's combined effort was needed to hold back Harry, who struggled violently.
"Lemme get at him, the bastard!" he snarled as Hermione and Ginny were joined by Lavender and Romilda to stop Harry from lunging at Ron again. Hermione was crying, tears spilling down her cheeks as she stepped between the men.
"Stop it!" she screamed. "You're grown men and you're fighting like children. You're best friends! Don't fight over anything, never mind me! Ron, I'm sorry, but I love Harry and nothing is ever going to change that. You don't have to like it or understand it, but please accept it."
"Aww," someone in the crowd said as both men stopped struggling. Ron bowed his head so he wouldn't see Harry kiss Hermione in a way that conveyed both an apology and everlasting love. Ginny gave Ron his wand back and hugged both Harry and Hermione.
"Ron'll probably get Loony Lovegood now," she giggled. "She's the only one of 'Potter's Six' still single." All three let their eyes slide over to the girl in the psychedelic halterneck dress drifting dreamily on the edge of the crowd. Hermione smiled.
"You're probably right," she said. Harry put an arm around her.
"Will you move in with me?" he asked.
"Of course, we were pretty much unofficially living together anyway," she said. Ginny grinned.
"You two are so romantic you make me want to puke," she said, running away before either of them got their hands on her.
"What she said about Potter's Six got me thinking," Harry said. "I want to paint the five of you."
"A self portrait too," Hermione said. "Then we can hang them up and have Potter's Six in the house forever as happy couples in their twenties." Harry kissed the top of her head.
"I'd like that," he whispered, with a smile that was just for her.
Yes, some OOC behaviour in there, but I've made a promise to try and write every pairing I can think of. Harry/Hermione was next on my list.