Hermione was pacing. Pacing anxiously up and down Harry's dorm room as he sat idly on the edge of his bed with a gentle smile of mild amusement playing about his lips. This had been going on for a good hour and it was getting to the point where, rather than worrying him, Harry was finding Hermione's irrational fretting rather hilarious and slightly adorable.
They were alone in Harry's dormitory, everybody else was in the common room or out on the grounds; soaking up the last few days - post exams - of the glorious summer term before travelling home to see their families, something that was not an unusual situation for Harry nor Hermione. They relished in their time alone, what little they got of it around hiding their relationship from literally everyone else in their year. They hadn't quite yet mustered up the courage to talk about it with anyone thus far.
A soft, shaft of sunlight was filtering gently through the window, illuminating particles of dust in a silky glow as they spiralled through the air and down onto Harry's bed. The dust looked soft and glittery as it twisted and turned through the air; the open window causing an occasional breeze to shift their course to and fro.
Harry was watching the dust with a considerable amount of animation when a hitch in Hermione's erratic voice reminded him that he should probably be listening to her.
" - It's just, it's been weeks, almost months, Harry and I don't feel as though I can hide our relationship from Ronald much longer, I mean, I know he didn't exactly warn us about his sudden infatuation with Lavender and that definitely was a shock to the system, especially considering my feelings for him at the... but that's over now and seeing as he is spending a lot more time with us again, well, I'm finding it increasingly difficult aren't you? Especially now exams are over and we have no reason to avoid each other to study. I just don't know what to do. We need to tell him Harry, now. Do you think we need to tell him?"
He was absent mindedly lifting his hand up and down through the dusty shaft of light and wiggling his fingers, watching the way it split between them before he realised she had asked him a question and snapped his head up to look at her.
"Huh?"
She picked a pillow up from Neville's bed and threw it at him with quite a large amount of force.
"You are not listening to me are you?" She demanded, a little angrily. She crossed her arms across her chest and scowled at him.
"I am Hermione, I promise I am." Harry sucked in a breath, adjusting his glasses after the blow from the pillow knocked them sideways, "it's just you have been ranting on about the same subject for - " he checked his watch, "57 minutes now and I've had my input, I've said all I have to say and you know what my opinion is on the situation." He addressed her calmly and smiled.
She sat down on the bed next to him and took his hand in hers, stroking and squeezing it gently.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry" She sighed, "I just think it's going to be incredibly difficult." Her thumb traced over Harry's softly, "Even more so seeing as, I don't believe Ronald will be happy with the fact that we've been lying to him."
"Well I've told you," Harry said, wrapping his other arm around Hermione's shoulders, "I'll tell him, we're both blokes," he cringed at that lame declaration, "I'm sure it will be fine. We've all been friends for years; I doubt he'll hold a grudge."
Hermione leant her head on his shoulder, sinking into his embrace and allowing the delicious smell of whatever her shampoo was to waft into his nostrils. Harry bent down to kiss the top of her head, breathing in deeply the scent of her hair.
"I could go and find him and tell him now if you like?" He offered.
She shook her head, "no, no. I want to make the most of the final moments we have together before our friendship with Ron is inevitably doomed and we are forced to break up." She chuckled.
"I've always loved your optimism." Harry said, stroking Hermione's hair.
They sat in a beautiful silence for several minutes, enjoying one another's company and the sound of the other's gentle breathing, before Hermione leant up to plant a surprising kiss on the edge of Harry's jaw. He smiled and turned his head to meet her mouth, their lips brushing together quietly, caught in a moment of real magic.
"How long until dinner?" Hermione asked, breaking the kiss. An odd question, Harry thought and an irritating way to ruin the moment.
"Uhh..." He was rather confused; since when did Hermione value her appetite more than him?
She raised her eyebrows, rather suggestively actually – which Harry thought was out of character. (Not that that was a bad thing at all.) "I mean, how long do we have until people start coming up here to get ready?"
"Oh. Right." Harry grinned, checking his watch again, "about a quarter of an hour." He offered, looking at her.
She smiled and leant up to kiss him again, a little eagerly this time. Her arms curled around his neck and pulled him firmly into the kiss, locking their lips together. Smiling beneath her touch, Harry wrapped one arm around her waist and cupped one side of her face with his other hand. He hated to even think something so cheesy, but he genuinely believed that him and Hermione fit together perfectly. Like pieces of a puzzle or something silly like that. He wasn't sure if that was really true, despite the fact that Hermione snuggled into his arms felt perfect, but one thing he was sure about was that kissing her was probably one of his favourite things to do.
Hermione let her hands slide into the unruly, black mess that was Harry's hair and shivered as she felt his arms snake tighter around her waist, gently nudging the material of her shirt upwards as they did so. His skin against hers felt electric and she could feel the rush of colour that spread across her cheeks almost immediately.
She leant deeper into their kiss and, with that, pushed Harry down onto his bed; their bodies falling comfortably against the springy surface.
It still occasionally baffled her that she could feel so strongly for one person, that she could harbour so much need for a single being but those feelings excited her and something about them also caused her heart to react in a similar way – it seemed to flutter relentlessly every time he touched her hand, or face, or waist and every she looked into those soft, green eyes. Completely illogical, she was perfectly aware, but she didn't mind one little bit.
Moments like these always compelled Hermione to contemplate their relationship and how she really felt about Harry, but she came to the same conundrum every time. She loved his intelligence, his humour, his bravery, his integrity, his distance and every aspect of his personality. She loved his eyes, his hair, his arms, his mouth, his nose, his hands and every aspect of his appearance. She loved talking to him, laughing with him, walking with him, eating with him, kissing him, holding his hand. But there was one, huge, badgering question. Did she love him? Yes, of course. Was she in love with him? She had no idea.
Harry's hands, gently lifting the hem of her jumper, stopped her train of thought with an abrupt halt and as she shifted her body away from his – allowing him enough space to remove her jumper – it was as if nothing else in the world mattered and all she wanted was the sensation of Harry's course skin against her own.
He threw her jumper into the corner of the room and pulled her body back down towards his. They looked at each other and grinned before their lips connected once again.
Harry sometimes wondered if he was actually any good at the whole kissing thing. He enjoyed it, without question, but he often worried about whether Hermione was actually having as much fun as he was. The feel of her smile beneath her lips gave him the impression that she was, he just hoped she wasn't actually laughing at him.
Suddenly, the sound of excited chatter and echoing footsteps broke Harry and Hermione's intimate silence with a great force and the two of them sat up quickly.
"Oh God." Hermione whispered, looking at Harry with wide, worried brown eyes. "What are we going to do?" She was looking at her watch, her brow furrowed anxiously. "What if that's Ron? Or even Neville?"
She got up off of the bed and pulled on her jumper hurriedly whilst, somehow, simultaneously smoothing down her wild curls. Harry watched her and smiled; girls really did amaze him.
"Don't worry." He said, standing up too and adjusting his shirt so that it was slightly less skew-whiff, "nobody will think anything of it if we're up here together, everybody knows we're friends." He looked at the door, the voices getting louder. "But let's head out anyway, just to avoid conversation. That way, we only have to cross people on the stairs."
Hermione nodded, still looking worried.
Smiling calmly, Harry approached her and placed both of his hands on either one of her shoulders. "It will be fine, we've escaped by the skin of our teeth this time." He said, before planting a quick kiss against Hermione's soft, plump lips and leading her out through the door.
I wasn't expecting to continue this story into anything more than a cute little one shot but, I just enjoyed writing it so much that when the idea for a second chapter came, I couldn't resist! Enjoy and let me know what you think!
