Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize.

A/N: I've read the latest interview that supports a Harmonist view. I cannot recall ever feeling quite so vindicated. This is a result of that. Nearly 3 years in the making; though 3 years ago, I only had a few paragraphs.

Someone posted a comment on a message board speculating about JKR going back and fixing the last two books. I'd settle for a revised last book. It would be a heck of a money spinner, I would think. I'd buy a revised Harmony supportive last book.

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"He tried to kiss me, you know. On our last date."

Harry's head shot up and he stared at the woman next to him. His mouth was hanging slightly open.

"He held my hand, he puckered up, closed his eyes and what should have been one of the greatest moments in my life… what should have been vindication… simply… wasn't."

Harry's face was cold, his eyes downcast and his expression carefully schooled so as not to divulge even a hint of emotion.

"I felt like I was being unfaithful… like I was cheating on someone with him… I can't really explain it, but it felt wrong."

Still stuck on that last thought of Hermione – his Hermione - kissing Ron, he completely missed the disgusted look on her face.

"I've thought about it and thought about it." She closed her eyes. "It feels like I'm running around in circles or spinning my wheels trying to figure out why." She rested her elbows on her legs and massaged her forehead with the palms of her hands. "I had gone in so sure of myself. I had my goal set and I was fully prepared to do whatever it took to reach that goal…" She sighed.

"And so you kissed him?"

"You…" She began. She turned to look at Harry, her brows drawn together. "You weren't listening to a word I said, were you?"

He had the good graces to look abashed. "Sorry, got stuck thinking about something you said earlier on; didn't quite catch everything after that."

"Yes, I noticed. The kissing part?"

Eyes going emotionally dead again as his mind conjured up the image, he spoke in a tone clearly devoid of nuance or inflection, "Yes, the kissing part."

"It's a little difficult to get romantic with a boy when the instant he tries to kiss you, you get a really good look at him and find yourself absolutely disgusted."

"So, did you enjoy it?" Harry asked in the same monotone way.

Hermione's palm met her forehead with a fleshy squelch. "No, Harry, no, I did not." She looked at the boy… no, young man, beside her and quirked an ironic smile. "It's terribly difficult to work up any emotion other than revulsion when you realize the boy you've set your sights on is actually a disgusting, foul, hygienically challenged coward. Any emotion, real or imagined that painted him in a positive light was essentially exorcised when he tried to kiss me. I say 'tried' because he failed." Harry still seemed to not have the plot. Frustrated at her failure to achieve meaningful communication with her young man, she reached over and took Harry's upper arms in her hands. She shook him, quite energetically until he asked, "Wa-w-why arrrre youuu s-sh-shaking m-me?"

But Harry's question didn't cause her to cease her frenetic attempt to commandeer his focus, no; instead it emboldened her to up the power. "I'm trying to convey my feelings to you, but you appear to insist on losing focus whenever I reach the part relevant to you – to us."

"I-I-I'm li-li-listening!"

"I did NOT kiss him. He tried to kiss me, but FAILED. His lips met my hand and I tried to politely tell him that I'd made a terrible mistake and that we would be better off friends. He wouldn't take no for an answer, so when he tried to put his arms on me, his body odor, foul breath, disgusting teeth and greasy hair overcame me and I vomited all over him. His ardor sufficiently quashed, I bid him farewell and told him he needed a shower in the worst possible way."

"You didn't kiss him?" Harry was able to blurt out since Hermione had finally stopped shaking him. Not a moment too soon he felt or his eyeballs might have become dislodged.

"I vomited on your best friend and you're still fixating on whether I did or did not kiss your aforementioned best friend? Please don't tell me nargles really do exist and that they have a particularly vicious sense of humor."

"What was that about vomit?"

"That's IT! I've had enough!" She reached over, both hands on his shoulders like living shoulder pads and pulled Harry into a kiss.

Harry, instead of freezing up like a deer in headlamps as she had expected, turned out to be positively animalistic as one hand went into her hair and another fondled her bum. She was pulled to him by his strong arms and pressed into him as her soft, supple body perfectly molded into his hard firmness. Speaking of hard and firm, she could tell Harry was working himself up into a glorious state.

"Hmm…" He moaned into her mouth, the vibrations traveling intimately into her and making her squirm. God, she was getting hot, it was like she wanted every part of him to touch ever part of her. She'd thought learning she was magical had been a rush, but now, it failed utterly in comparison to knowing that Harry Potter liked. Not only liked, but if his actions were any indication, then he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Waves of heat seemed to be rushing from every part that touched him. How could she have not realized how perfect they were for each other? How could she have been so wrong with that other… thing?"

He pulled back for air, and if Hermione's arms hadn't been busy; she might have been in a position to protest. As it was, she let out a mewling sound of protest that she inanely wondered if it was at all related to the polyjuice incident.

"Hermione, I really, really like you. I mean, I think that, well, I… umm, kind of, think… I love you." He said into two very hurried breaths.

It was to be expected. She kissed him chastely on the lips. More of a peck, really. "Oh, Harry. I think I love you, too."

Sighing in relief, admitting this secret he'd been holding in for years out of respect for his friendship with WhatsHisName, god, he was an idiot for not acting sooner.

"It's like something just clicked, you know. I know now that I belong with you, like everything was being put to right."

Ah, perhaps it was better he waited, after all. "There's one other thing I want to ask you… Would you... he didn't quite know how to phrase the question.

"Oh, yes! Harry, yes! A thousand times, yes!"

Harry looked stunned for a moment before he shook his head… a curious motion since his legs were intertwined with hers and something hard rhythmically brushed quite maddeningly with something incredibly soft. "You realize I was trying to propose, right?"

That took her breath away quite as thoroughly but not as painfully as a bludgeoning curse to the abdomen. She coughed out of reflex. "Ahem, well, no. I didn't quite expect that so soon. I had anticipated you asking me to become your girlfriend or perhaps lose my virginity to you, either of which or both I am quite happily prepared to do on extremely short notice." She paused to let this sink in. "Marriage, well, while I am not opposed to the idea in concept, I am completely unprepared for in practice. And while I have always been quite happy to have my life in your hands and would equally happily follow you to the gates of hell, I find myself hesitant to say yes at such an early juncture."

"So… ask you again later?" Harry guessed since it was a rather long bit of exposition.

"Yes, and it's customary to have a ring for the girl when proposing."

"I've got the ring." He pulled out a ring box and opened it to reveal a beautiful diamond ring; emerald cut and emerald baguettes.

"Harry…" she said as her voice hitched. "That is a really nice ring."

"Yes, I hoped you'd like it."

Tearing her gaze away from the most perfect ring she had ever seen, she asked "Why do you have a ring that's exactly what I always wanted?"

"You talk in your sleep." He said before adding, "Sometimes…"

"I-wait-I what?"

"Fourth year, we were sitting together in front of the fireplace discussing ways to keep me from becoming extra crispy and I suspect you hadn't been sleeping well. You fell asleep and had the cutest little ink smudge on your face."

"Harry!" She said in mock annoyance.

"What? Can't I think my girlfriend does cute things?"

"Continue," she conceded.

"I cleaned up the ink, but as I was cleaning you up, you mumbled about emeralds and cuts and baguettes and such. It took some time, but I finally determined you were talking about a ring." He held the box up to cover one of his eyes, the diamond take the place of his emerald eye. "And here we are."

"Yes and here we are." She replied solemnly, which was somewhat odd since they were essentially randy teenagers pressed against each other in varying states of undress. They hadn't been boyfriend and girlfriend for even an hour and here they were talking about marriage. Life was strange that way, especially for Harry Potter and those around him.

The silence becoming a bit too serious, Hermione threaded her arms between his and wrapped around his body to rest on his back. Flexing her hips and pulling his down onto her, she dragged his body, sensitive bits and all sensually across her own body. The ring, hastily pocketed, was safely tucked away and the equivalent of fireworks was going off in Harry's nerve-endings. "Hermione…." He moaned her name.

"Now, here's how I envision things unfolding. I want you to propose to me properly, ring and all, down on one knee just after I've woken up in a bed we've shared together while wearing a wonderfully smug look on my face; the sort of look one gets when they've just been made love to for hours and now feel completely satisfied and sore in all the right places."

"So, a just-been-shagged-like-your-life-depended-on-it face?"

"In so many words."

A genuine look of cluelessness appeared on his face. "How am I supposed to arrange that?"

"The same way you achieve anything worthwhile in life, Harry." She winked at him.

"And how is that?"

"Practice…" She licked his ear.

Normally, it is impossible to apparate within Hogwarts castle. Normally, Hermione Granger would not hesitate to point that out to the woefully uninformed. Now, as Harry somehow did what was normally impossible to deposit them bereft of clothes, in a perfect bed, in what could only be the Room of Requirements, she had not even the faintest inclination to protest on the impossibility of what had just occurred. In fact, she was grateful. Smiling at her with perfectly pearly teeth and a hint of minty toothpaste, she sighed, then shuddered, and finally moaned all the while thinking that everything was just perfect.

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In a place where tired metaphors go to die, a set of four wheels rolled along happily.