4. Hermione Knows

Later that evening, Harry finally found Hermione.

She was in the hospital wing, of all places, where he went after dinner to go visit Ron. She was trying, in an increasingly loud voice, to get Ron to stop playing with his healing hand. Harry cringed inwardly; he could hear what she was saying all the way from the other end of the wing.

"Ronald Weasley, stop that this instant! Madam Pomfrey said that it won't heal unless you leave it alone; do you want to spend another day in here?"

The bones of Ron's hand had apparently not hardened all the way yet, and he was amusing himself greatly by testing the limits of the new flexibility of his appendage. Ron just grinned wickedly and bent his hand back further so that it touched his arm, and then let go so that it sprung back with and odd thwack.

"But look what it can do; isn't that brilliant? I should tell Fred and George about this stuff, they'd love it…" Privately, Harry didn't blame Ron for wanting to miss another day of classes, but he knew better than to get between the two of them when they got into an argument.

"Hi Ron, Hermione," he said, coming up to the bed.

The pair of them looked around toward Harry in mild surprise, having been too wrapped up in their argument to notice his approach.

"Sorry for not coming to see you earlier, mate; no one even told me you were in here until this afternoon," he said to Ron.

"Oh, don't worry about it; I'm fine. Mum owled me some stuff last night so I wouldn't get bored –" here he gestured toward a precipitous pile of sweets and Quidditch magazines on the table next to his bed "- and Madam Pomfrey said that it'll heal as good as new, it just takes time. Doesn't even hurt anymore," he said, making an anatomically impossible hand gesture to prove his point. Well, anatomically impossible for anyone possessing bones of the regular rigidity, that is.

"Great, glad to hear it…" said Harry, but now that he had found Hermione, his mind was already turning toward more serious matters – like the current Malfoy Situation, for one. Malfoy had resumed his incomprehensible habit of smiling every time he saw Harry, even though they hadn't had any more classes together that day. Harry was getting more and more unsettled - what was he up to? Harry was sure he was up to something sinister.

He tapped Hermione on the shoulder, and she turned around, still glaring crossly. "Hermione, can I have a private word?" That phrase certainly seemed to be getting a lot of use today. "If you're not busy, I mean." She let out an artfully heavy sigh and shot Ron a death glare.

"Sure; I was just leaving here anyway, because clearly nothing I say makes any difference. Let's go." She turned briskly and headed toward the exit without looking back.

"Hope you get better soon, Ron," said Harry, winking. Ron grinned back and flapped his hand around in Harry's general direction. "I'll come by and visit you sometime tomorrow, ok?" said Harry, who had more realistic expectations of the length of Ron's hospital stay. Ron nodded agreeably and turned back to the Quidditch magazine lying open across his lap, and Harry hurried to follow Hermione out of the wing.

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"So, suppose you were a bloke, Hermione," said Harry seriously, once they had reached the Gryffindor common room and ensconced themselves in a couch near the fire.

"Okay, go on," said Hermione, looking more than happy to be taking part in a conversation that did not start off with something along the lines of "Would you mind checking my Transfigurations homework before I turn it in?"

"Right, and you get snogged by this other bloke, ok?" Harry continued, earnestly.

Hermione looked amused, but Harry was really counting on her serious help. "Well, what do you do?" This was no laughing matter!

Hermione looked taken aback. "That's it? That's the whole situation? 'Suppose I'm a bloke who gets snogged by another bloke, what do I do then?'"

"Yeah," said Harry, dumbfounded. What else could she possibly need to know about his situation?

"This isn't about being gay, is it Harry?" her eyes flashed a warning. "Because I keep telling you, it's totally natural, and nothing to be ashamed of!"

"Yeah, I know, you've told me a thousand times. And I keep saying that I'm totally ok with it, every time. And anyway, I'm not gay, I'm bisexual."

She still didn't look totally convinced, however, so Harry added, "I just said it was a bloke because they're different than girls, you know, with this kind of stuff. And anyway, who said this was about me?"

"Okay, fair enough. Not that I actually do know, personally…" Hermione still looked a bit skeptical, but she inclined her head, granting his point.

"Great," said Harry. "So, what would you do?" He waited with bated breath for the words of wisdom to fall from her lips.

Hermione rolled her eyes again. "I can't go on just that information, Harry; don't be ridiculous. Do you – I mean do I – fancy this other bloke?"

Harry considered. At last he said, "You've never thought of him in that way before," which, translated to Harry's situation, meant 'you've hated his guts as long as you've known him.'

"Hmmm," said Hermione, sorting this piece of information away for later use. "Well, did I enjoy kissing him?"

Harry hastily avoided having to think about the answer to that one, and instead took her question in the more literal sense.

"Say, you were so taken by surprise when he did it, that you, um, didn't really kiss back." Or, that you punched him in the face. Which certainly wasn't kissing back, whatever else it was.

"Okay…." the amused look had returned to Hermione's face. "And that's all that happened? I didn't see him at meals, or anything, supposedly?"

Harry thought she was taking this whole hypothetical situation thing way too far – how much other information did she need, honestly? But he went along with her anyway; it was her business if she felt like pretending all that other stuff mattered.

"So say you see him in class and stuff, and he keeps smiling at you for no good reason," Harry admitted. "Even though you don't smile back or anything; he just does it totally on his own, like." Or even though you're practicing your Glare From Hell on him.

Hermione grinned. "Ooo, should I be supposing that this bloke has a nice smile?"

"How would I know??" exclaimed Harry, on edge. "This is a hypothetical situation, isn't it? I don't care what you imagine his smile being like!"

Not nice, that was for sure…what did you call it when something made you catch your breath out of surprise every time you saw it – out of surprise that it was there, first of all, and then that it was directed at you, of all people? 'Breathtaking?' Argh, no! Harry shuddered internally – this was why it was almost always a bad idea to analyze one's feelings. Better to leave well enough alone, and not try to understand things after they had already happened.

Hermione raised one eyebrow, as if to ask what else Harry was keeping from her about her supposed relations with the other bloke. Harry gave in. He hadn't really planned on sharing everything, but if it would help her make a better decision…

"Well, say you see him a few days later, and ask him why he went and snogged you in the first place, and he says he thought you said you wanted him to do it all along, and that otherwise he never would have done anything." And then gets all up in your personal space with his secretly gold-flecked gray eyes, and his warm breath touching your skin when he talks, and his lean body just a hair's breadth away …

Hermione looked like she was trying to keep herself from laughing. Harry blushed and fervently hoped that none of his private monolog had accidentally become public. Why on earth was he remembering those things anyway? It had to be because this had been a stressful day…yeah, that usually explained everything.

"Well," said Hermione, deciding that she had heard all the details Harry was prepared to share, "I would say that this other bloke seems like a pretty good catch – nice, cheerful, gentlemanly, and clearly interested…" Hermione smiled dreamily and her gaze became far away.

Harry couldn't believe his ears. "What did you say?!"

"I said he seems like a pretty good catch –"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it the first time," Harry said, dazed, not wanting to hear the litany of Malfoy's supposed good traits for a second time. He gulped and went in for the big question, hoping she wouldn't answer it as he feared she would. "Yeah, but, what would you do?"

Hermione's eyes got that faraway look again. "Well, first of all, I'd start thinking of him 'that way' right away; I don't see how I can't have already started, to tell you the truth, if he's doing all this. And the next time I saw him, I'd go over and apologize for being so slow on the uptake, blame it on the fact that his advances were so unexpected that it took me a while to get used to the idea, and then snog the living daylights out of him." She finished with a satisfied nod in Harry's direction, as though to say and that's what I think about that! Then, as though it was an afterthought, she added sagely, "It might turn out to be nothing more than a physical attraction, but it's definitely worth giving him a chance at any rate. You never know until you try!"

"Um, well, thanks, Hermione…" This was not the kind of advice Harry had been looking for; it helped him not the slightest bit in this situation. At least he had lost nothing by asking. Well, no - there was the small detail that now Hermione knew most of the particulars of his situation with Malfoy, even if she still didn't know who it was.

He had already tried and failed to carry out Ron's plan; and Hermione's so-called plan was just untenable - there was no way he was giving that a try. There was no one else he could really ask, who would give advice Harry even remotely wanted to hear - or who would want to listen to his problems in the first place. Having exhausted all his potential sources for advice, he had no where else to turn but himself, now. He would work some solution out...sometime.

Harry snapped out of his reassessment of the situation when he realized that Hermione was talking again.

"And now are we done supposing? Because all this has made me start wishing I had someone who was interested in me like that, and since I clearly don't, I'd rather not dwell on it."

She cocked her head to the side. "Although if this bloke happens to lose interest in you, for whatever reason, please do point him in my direction." She smirked mischievously at Harry.

"I never said it was me!" said Harry, indignant. "How do you know that I'm not talking about a friend, or out of purely academic interest, or something?"

"Oh, of course, simple slip of the tongue," said Hermione, in tones dripping with insincerity.

"Well, thanks anyway; I think I'll just go up to bed now…" Harry gathered up his things, and sidled toward the stairs to his dorm, hoping to escape any other disturbing suggestions from his friend.

"Good night, Harry!" called Hermione after him, and then added, in tones of highest irony, "Sweet dreams!"

Damn that girl! She could obviously tell that the situation was something that bothered Harry, and instead of helping him forget it like any true friend would, she had gone straight for the jugular. Sweet dreams, indeed. Even if he had had a chance of getting his mind of Malfoy before, now he wasn't going to be able to think about anything else. He would probably end up having worse dreams than last night.

With a heavy sigh, he arranged his yet-uncompleted homework in a pile on his bedside table, and gave in to the idea of another disturbing, sleepless night.

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Harry woke up very early that morning. He had been dreaming, but this one had had nothing at all to do with Quidditch. The last thing he remembered was the sensation of being pinned to the ground under Malfoy, who was kissing him with an agonizing slowness. Dreams weren't supposed to feel this real, were they? He could feel the weight of Malfoy's body on top of his, and his hair tickling Harry's forehead, and the softness of his lips…

Just as Harry felt a tongue against brush his lips, the dream had ended. Damn! Just when it was getting to the good part! Then Harry realized that that meant he had been enjoying the dream, which was not acceptable. No, it was good that it had ended where it did, before things got any worse...

Or was it? Harry flipped over restlessly in his bed, with the futile hope that staring at the opposite set of bed curtains would help him gain a clearer perspective. How could it be wrong to let oneself enjoy a dream? After all, the whole point of the thing was that it was purely imaginary, right? So that meant that nothing in the dream was real in any way – not his feelings, not Malfoy, not the sensations – wait, maybe he could grant that the sensations had some bearing on waking life. That part had been pretty good.

Harry considered this new revelation carefully. So if dream-Malfoy had nothing at all to do with real Malfoy, then it didn't matter if he ended up snogging Malfoy in his dreams, nor did it matter how much he enjoyed it. Dream-Malfoy was nothing more than a figment of his imagination, and could just as easily have looked like someone else entirely. It was purely coincidental that his dreams had chosen to show him Malfoy.

And his feelings toward dream-Malfoy obviously had nothing to do with his feelings toward Malfoy in real life. Obviously. He would never even think about kissing Malfoy in real life; the very idea was disgusting. Why? Well, it didn't matter why…he just wouldn't think about it, and he would ignore real-life Malfoy from now on, and everything would be fine.

Thus comforted, he rolled over again and fell back to sleep, hoping to catch another hour or two of sleep before he had to wake up for breakfast. And he wouldn't mind if he happened to start dreaming again...after all, he had plenty of time; it was still very early.

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