Chapter 12

Three days had passed since the ball, and they had been the longest, foggiest days of Hermione's life. It was Tuesday morning and Hermione had woken from a restless sleep full of strange and unfamiliar dreams filled with forbidden desires. She couldn't figure out what she was feeling. Every time she closed her eyes she saw two green staring back at her. She had been snogging Ron the night before and in the middle of a heated make out session had pulled back and asked him if he had shaved recently. Ron had looked at her puzzled and chuckled insisting he couldn't even grow a beard yet and she had wanted to curse herself right then and there. The absence of the stubbly hairs scraping at her chin was constantly toying with her mind and she caught herself craving the strange sensation. Of course she knew she didn't just want to kiss somebody with a beard, that would be strange and quite an odd fetish, but she knew something wasn't right, for in the last three days there was never a moment when Harry Potter was far from her mind.

She stared out the window of Ginny's room as she listened to her friend breathe steadily and she glanced over at the clock on the bedside table. It was a few minutes before seven and the sun was barely peeking over the horizon.

She sighed deeply as she ran a hand through her morning hair tied back into a messy ponytail. She didn't understand what was going on and her mind had never been so scrambled in her life. Hermione liked order, she liked to know everything, be sure of everything, and as of three days ago Harry Potter had flipped her world upside down. It wasn't just the fact that Harry had kissed her, it was the fact that she had kissed him back… or rather attacked him back.

She knew she needed to talk to Harry and she knew she needed to do it before the Weasley household awoke. So she swallowed her fear and anxiety and quietly dressed, pulling on a pair of jeans and a light sweatshirt and before she could convince herself otherwise she cleared her mind and disappeared from Ginny Weasley's room.

The Forest of Dean was eerily familiar and the memory of that night screamed at her as she appeared in the dim light of the morning. She had apparated a few hundred yards from where Harry was. She wanted to compose herself before she confronted him and her stomach churned with every step she took towards the camp. The tent got bigger and bigger and she walked briskly hugging her chest. It was odd being here during the summer. The last time the trees had been bare and there were leaves crunching under her feet. Now the only sound Hermione heard was her own padding against the dirt.

The campsite was quiet, the faint remains of the fire crackled in the stones and the tent was still with silence. A pair of beat up black trainers sat neatly outside the tent and a pair of jeans and a few flannels were hanging from the clothesline strung up between two low hanging branches. She felt almost intrusive as she walked quietly around the campsite and she absent mindedly reached forward and pulled at the sleeve of one of his shirts. She pressed her nose in the fabric and inhaled the rich scent of mint and burning firewood. The smell comforted her as it had become so familiar in the months she had spent in the woods with Harry and Ron, but she had never identified the smell with Harry, until now.

She pulled back and bit her lip nervously as she tip toed towards the tent. The anticipation was killing her and she cleared her throat quietly as she breathed out softly, "Harry?"

There was no response and again tentatively she called, "Harry?"

The tent stay still and quiet and she wondered how heavily he could be sleeping. She pulled back the flap and was transported back in time and the familiarity stunned her for a minute. She understood why Harry had been staying here. This tent was the only safety that they had known during those months of unease. And to go back to the Burrow or Grimmauld Place and just pick up where they had left off, it was impossible. She finally realized how he was feeling. Harry had thought he was going to die, prepared for it, and embraced it selflessly. He had said his goodbyes and prepared for the end, but the ending never came. Instead he was bombarded with this new beginning and no real understanding of how to handle it.

She stepped forward and allowed flap to sway shut behind her. She slowly inched forward taking in her surroundings. There was the table, the chairs, that bloody radio that Ron had listened to obsessively every night and the place actually felt strange without the static in the background. The beds were all the same, two done up and one empty, the blanket s scattered and she realized that Harry wasn't here. She sat down on the edge of his bed and opened an album that was stuffed loosely under the pillow. There was a picture of his parents, dancing happily, a picture of Sirius a devilish gleam in his dark eyes, and various ones of Harry and his family as a baby. As she flipped through the pages a small snapshot fell from the back of the book and she picked it up off the wooden landing and her breath caught in her throat. It was a picture of her from sixth year and she was laughing clutching her stomach. She looked at the picture and sighed sticking it back in the album placing it neatly under the pillow.

A sudden sound of footsteps made her heart skip a few beats and she panicked recklessly grabbing Harry's invisibility cloak off the nearby countertop she flung it around her just as the flap to the tent opened.

Harry had woken with the dawn and immediately felt unease. It had been three days since that night and his sleeps had been as restless as ever his mind filled with a guilty conscience. He hadn't even bothered to put his glasses on and he headed down to the river for a morning swim and he shivered slightly as he prodded the flowing water with his toe. He peeled off his t-shirt and jeans and allowed the water to consume him as he dove off a large rock into the steady stream. He shook his hair as he surfaced and stretched his arms over his head as the cool water relaxed his knotted muscles.

It had been a strange few days for Harry and he had been grateful for the solitude of the forest for it would have been torturous to have been within 40 feet of Hermione.

He had kissed her… and then only hours later not only he had kissed her again, but she had kissed him back. Hermione Granger had wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him furiously, and he had loved it. Harry had loved every second of it. For the first time in that moment he had felt truly… right. But Harry hated himself for loving it. He hated himself for craving her and needing her so much. Not only was she his best friend, but Ron had been in love with Hermione for years. She was all Ron had talked about at Hogwarts the only thing that he had wanted that Harry didn't have, and now Ron had her. Now the one thing Ron had that Harry didn't was the only thing he wanted. He would give up everything, if it promised Hermione, and that feeling terrified him.

Harry knew it wasn't supposed to be this way. In the fairy tale ending of his life it would've been Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny till death do them part. Both couples would've both grown up, gotten married had beautiful families and met at Platform 9 ¾ every year to send their vivacious children off to Hogwarts. It made perfect sense, but at the same time in a fairy tale ending Fred wouldn't have died, Sirius would still be here, and Voldemort would've disappeared seventeen years ago.

Harry sighed wiping his face and reached for the nearby towel hanging on a tree limb. He quickly dried himself and pulled on his jeans for the walk back to the tent. The last thing he wanted was to be found naked by some perverted snatcher lingering in the forest, or be seen by some muggle.

Hermione held her breath her heart beating in her head as Harry slid through the flap of the tent. What the hell was she thinking coming here? Sure she had fully intended on confronting him, but now she was standing like a pathetic coward under and invisibility cloak trying not to breathe.

She watched as he walked across the tent into the foyer scratching his head yawning, it was strange to her, staring at him as he didn't know she was here, thinking he was alone and she wondered how many times he had watched her from behind the cloak. It surprised her how attractive she found him, there was a stoic solitude about him and she didn't know why, but it intrigued her. She swallowed dryly as he reached up to pull on a t-shirt and his lean back muscles rippled with the motion sending a shiver down her spine, and she scolded herself wondering how on earth she ever missed it.

She continued to stare as he dressed and put his glasses on, brushed his teeth in the nearby basin, attempted to comb through his hair with his fingers giving up after a few minutes. She was fascinated. She had known Harry Potter for almost eight years and all she could think about was how she wanted to know him, or know him better at that. She wanted to figure out what had happened in the tent those nights so many months ago. What had happened during those weeks that they were alone, what had changed?

His next action made her stomach knot up. Harry reached under his pillow pulling out his photo album and skimmed through the pages skipping quickly over Sirius and his parents. He stopped on the page Hermione had been at not some odd minutes ago and pulled out the snapshot of her. He held it gently in his coarse fingers and after a minute of looking at it he shoved it in his back pocket exiting the tent.

Hermione stumbled backwards into a nearby chair and pulled the robe off of her. Talking to Harry had seemed like such a good idea this morning, and now she knew she would choke if she came face to face with him. So when she heard the crack of apparation fill the air a moment later a feeling of relief and disappointment flooded over her and she stumbled out of the tent knowing there would be nobody there to greet her. Once again the question hung in the air, where had Harry Potter gone?