Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or his world. I just play with them sometimes, but I always put them back where I found them.
A/N: Again, check out this fic I'm working on with beccalyse, Eyes Turned Skyward. She is the Alpha to my beta, and she always astounds me with every new chapter of awesome she sends me to read!
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Before Harry could register the pain of being struck, he realized that he was tumbling backwards down the stairs into the common room. While he and Ron had been arguing around their roommates who were sleeping in on their late day, most of the rest of the Gryffindors had gotten out of bed and were milling about the common room in an early morning haze, including Hermione, who had given up on sleep and come downstairs to meet Harry and Ron for breakfast.
When Harry rolled violently out of the staircase, he came to a graceless halt against the leg of a spindly table, upon which sat a large lit candelabra. When Harry had gathered his mind enough to open his eyes, he gasped and immediately covered his face as he saw the flames of the three white candles just inches from his face. Waiting for the heat, he slowly opened one eye to see that the flickering orange flames were actually moving away from him. He sat up in confusion to find Ginny gently placing the candelabra back onto the table with a flick of her wand from where she sat across the room.
A great round of laughter and applause broke out as Harry stood up, brushing himself off. Not sure how to react, he laughed along in good humor, only nodding embarrassedly as he was thoroughly taunted by his fellow students for having fallen down the stairs. As he caught Hermione's concerned glance, it turned to suspicion and then fury as she looked past the place he was standing. He followed her gaze to find Ron moving along the wall toward the portrait hole, scowling deeply at her.
Without really thinking about his reaction, Harry rotated his upper body toward Ron, bending his knees ever so slightly. It was a defensive position, a preparation for counter-attack, a direct response to Ron's apparent malevolence toward Hermione, and all three knew it. Hermione flushed slightly, Harry relaxed his position almost as soon as he'd assumed it, and Ron clenched his fists, stalking out through the portrait hole.
The interaction between the three went unnoticed by most of the other Gryffindors, their backs turned to Ron. Ginny, however, did see his reaction to his two friends, and with a furrowed brow, she looked carefully at Harry's body language and the very careful way in which Hermione did not look at him, though her face flamed in clear awareness of his posture. She wondered what could have caused such a rift in the golden trio, and resolved to find out.
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When Madam Pomfrey asked him later, Harry told her that he had tripped and fallen down the stairs. He was decently sure that she didn't believe him, but as was her custom, she didn't press for a more convincing answer. Harry was more surprised that she'd accepted his request not to heal black eye blossoming on the right side of his face. Wordlessly, she had handed him a smelly pumice to reduce the pain and another spoonful of her lavender headache potion, and when Harry glanced at his reflection in a window on the way to breakfast, he was grateful to see the large purple-blue bruise still there. He wasn't sure why he was hesitant to have it removed magically, but Harry had to admit that a part of him wanted Ron to face what he'd done, and perhaps be a bit ashamed.
With his detour to the hospital wing, Harry was late enough for breakfast that very few people were still in the Great Hall when he finally arrived. A few third years hovered over the Daily Prophet on the near end of the table, but neither Ron nor Hermione were at the breakfast table. Of the few students still eating breakfast, Harry chose Ginny to sit next to. She was reading her Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook with a furrowed brow, but looked up when he took his seat, reaching for eggs and kippers before they vanished back to the kitchens.
"Hello th—what on earth happened to you?" Ginny interrupted her own greeting in shock as she took in the mark on Harry's face.
He grinned sheepishly, which seemed to be the appropriate response. He hadn't thought of what to say before getting down to breakfast, but with Ginny on his right side, there was no way she wouldn't have noticed. "Got in a fight." He didn't know how many details he could give Ginny without her figuring things out. Most people didn't think of her as anything more than the youngest Weasley, but Harry knew her to be much more perceptive than she usually got credit for.
"With Malfoy?" She looked concernedly across the Great Hall to the Slytherin table, but the students who usually sat there had already left for class. "I heard what happened yesterday…are you alright?"
"No, it wasn't Malfoy," Harry assured her. "It was just—just a thing, earlier. No big deal." It was a lame explanation, but Ginny seemed to accept it without question, just as Madam Pomfrey had. She turned the page of her book, returning to her studying.
"Hermione was looking for you earlier," she added casually, after a moment of silence.
Harry was surprised at the jolt in his chest to hear this. Of course, he'd been thinking of Hermione since the moment he'd watched her disappear up the girls' staircase at the crack of dawn, but to think that she'd been missing him as well thrilled him more than he cared to admit even to himself.
"Was she?" He tried to sound casual as he liberally salted his eggs, and he tried to glance at Ginny surreptitiously to see if she was convinced, but his swollen eye made that difficult. "Wonder what she wanted?"
Ginny snorted without looking up at him. "Yeah, alright," she conceded sarcastically. "Well, you'll know soon enough." She answered Harry's questioning gaze with a tilt of her chin toward the doors of the Great Hall.
Harry turned and his mouth went dry watching Hermione walk down the long line of tables. Having worn them every school year for the past four and a half years, Harry had never put much thought into the simple Hogwarts school robes. But watching the heavy fabric of Hermione's black winter robes billow out around the uniform underneath, Harry's breath caught sharply in his throat.
There was nothing immodest or scandalous about the cut of the flannel skirts and white Oxford shirts worn by most of the female residents of Hogwarts, and they were usually covered by the volumes of androgynous black school robes, regardless. But there was something in the way Hermione strode purposefully toward him, something about the silhouette of her form against the framing black robe that sent a warm rush up Harry's cheeks. He'd never quite noticed her shape, but staring at her like a blind man seeing light for the first time, he realized just how beautiful she was. He'd adored her as a friend for years, and then somehow, without noticing, his feelings toward her had changed dramatically in timbre. He had recognized this change weeks, perhaps months before, but the change he had not noticed was that, as he grew taller and Ron grew lankier, Hermione had grown…exquisite.
"Be careful," Ginny whispered to him, jerking him out of his trance. "You're staring."
Her words drew his gaze back to her face, though he remained acutely aware of Hermione's movement in their direction. "I don't know what you mean," he answered quietly, though without much hope of convincing Ron's much more rational sister. "You pointed her out, didn't you? And I only looked to see what you meant." He was talking too much, his brain tried to make him shut up, but he couldn't. It was only Hermione's appearance at Ginny's shoulder that ended his humiliating babbles.
"I've been looking for you," she said sharply, with a hint of acid that threw Harry.
"Oh?" He knew it was stupid, but it was the quickest answer his brain could provide, already astounded as it was by his realization of Hermione's beauty and startled by her suddenly unpleasant demeanor.
"Yes. Would you like to take a walk with me?"
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A/N: Okay, bad, short, bad, awful, stingy, short, crappy chapter, I'm sorry. I'm also sorry for the bad ending and the long time waiting. More sorry, though, am I for taking a 300 level accounting class, economics class, public speaking class, and advertising class in the same semester. *shoots self in face*
I'm getting really sad of not writing, so I'm gonna try really hard to get some new stuff up in the next couple weeks! I keep getting Story Alert emails to my main email account, so I know there are still loyal fans reading, and thanks so much to all of you!
Along with OKFY, I'm also working on the first chapter of a new Draco-based fic currently entitled, "Brother to Dragons." I expect it to be quite a lot darker, but also steamier than OKFY currently is, but the stories will run parallel to one another, so you'll also be getting Malfoy's POV on the whole Harry/Hermione situation!
Thanks to all my reviewers from the last chapter, and to everyone who didn't review but still sat patiently waiting for the update email!
Rock on, keep reading, and as always, review!
cj596