A/N: I just wanted to thank those who reviewed. Also if you have any questions feel free to ask. Thanks!
"Isn't it?" she challenges me and attempts to move past me into the house. I reach out and grab her hand, asking her to stay put.
"No." I shake my head and she looks past me into the darkness.
"You don't mean this," she says finally, attempting to laugh.
"Yes," I insist. "I do."
"Why now, Harry? Why do you want to know now? Did you hit a dry spell or something?"
"Come on, Hermione. Do you really think that badly of me?"
"Why shouldn't I?" she asks. "Why should I not come to the conclusion that I'm just the flavour of the week?"
"That's not fair."
"Why are you asking?" she wants to know. "Is it because you're interested in me, or am I just a challenge because maybe I'm the one thing that you can't have?"
"I just wanted to know..."
"Why I'm not screaming your name like all those other girls? Why I don't hang on your every word like the reporters do? Why I have no interest in really playing house with you?"
I blink. Have I gotten that much like...Ron?
"I wouldn't have put it that way, but I guess so."
She shakes her head.
"You really don't want to hear the answer to your question." she sighs.
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."
"I can not do this with you." She pulls her hand away from mine and leaves me there.
* * *
I'm almost grateful for our complicated schedules now. Hermione is still relatively new at her job, and I've been going to several Quidditch events on the off season. Since the rest of the team was still in America, I had to handle things on my own.
Throughout the week, we manage to avoid each other and even the notes on the refrigerator stop. But it produces an awkward silence that seems to grow even though neither of us are in the same room together.
On Friday night, I come home to an empty house and a note scrawled in her handwriting on the table:
Harry,
I'm getting together with the girls this weekend, so you'll have to fend for yourself. There are some frozen dinners for you. Use the heating charm, but don't hold them while you do it. You don't want to relive the whole butter-on-a-burn thing.
I'll see you later.
Hermione.
No "Love Hermione". There is no number where she can be reached and no indication of exactly where she's gone to. I get the hint.
Left to my own devices, I manage to make something somewhat edible for dinner and settle down in front of the television to eat. My mind wanders and the TV soon becomes white noise. We had gotten a TV, since we still thought it was strange how wizards lived without it.
I want – no, I need – to finish that discussion we were having. She said that I wouldn't be happy with her answer but I'm less happy with a non-answer. At least with an answer, I'd know what I was dealing with.
Something else she said is bothering me though and I finally push aside the pasta I made and get to my feet, feeling too antsy to sit here any longer.
I pull on a light jacket and head outside, taking in the golden light that glances off of the other houses in the neighborhood as the sun bids it goodnight. I walk down the block, nodding when my name is called, offering a smile to the woman at the end of the street who made sure to introduce herself one afternoon before Hermione came home.
She calls me over and invites me to come and have some tea with her in the backyard, but I decline her offer and continue to walk without purpose or direction. When I come to the end of the block, I turn back, even though I have no desire to go home to an empty house.
My head feels fuzzy and I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and stare up at my house, our house, and think back on her words.
Do I want her because I can't have her?
Holly, a pretty redhead who lives a block over waves at me as she comes forward, walking her tiny, yappy little dog.
"Hi there, Harry."
"Hi Holly," I say politely, offering her a charming smile.
"Angel thought she'd like to visit the neighbours," she tells me, looking down fondly at the white puffball.
I smile in response.
"She especially likes you," she tells me.
"Oh, that's nice."
"She has good taste," she tries again.
"You're a good teacher," I wink at her and she giggles.
"Angel would really love to take a rest," she says. "And I'm dying of thirst. Invite me in?"
Who am I to say no?
* * *
By the time Holly and Angel depart, we've made a date for tomorrow night and I've stopped worrying about Hermione. But as soon as the house is quiet again, I'm thrown back into my thoughts about the whole sorry situation.
My encounter with Holly only leaves me more confused. It also leaves me annoyed when I realize that Hermione may have a point.
I hate it when that happens.
Still, I reason, I'm thinking about her, aren't I? I don't think Holly would have objected had I invited her to stay. But I didn't.
Why the hell not?
* * *
Last weekend, when he asked me that question, if it had been any other girl, like half the ones living in our neighbourhood, they'd have jumped at the opportunity. They'd have heard the question and seen it as an opening. An in. And they'd have taken advantage of it and the evening would probably have ended differently and they wouldn't be getting their nails done with Lavender and Parvati all weekend rather than sitting at home with him.
She asks me to braid her hair and I'm not that good at it, but I'm still better than her, and it's just for fun, late Saturday night, as she drinks some expensive Dominican rum and offers a shot to me every once in a while.
"Where's Parvati?" I only notice hours later that she's not around.
"Out with her cousin, the one her parents sent to chaperone her on this trip, make sure I'm not getting her drunk. Maybe she's over at your place, making one last ditch effort to nab Harry."
No, that would be Melissa. Or the one with the white poodle, I don't even know her name. I hate these grim little thoughts.
"So, how is it, living with him?"
"Good, we're getting along." Mostly, I think. No need to elaborate.
"Is he still all over you like white on rice?" She laughs and drinks some more.
"Not really. It's weird. Did you think we were going to get together when we moved in?"
"Honestly?"
"No, I want you to tell a flaming lie." I said sarcastically.
"Yeah." She said simply.
"Why?"
"Because everybody has their breaking point."
"It's not like I was waiting for months to jump his bones. God, why does everybody think that? I wasn't pining." I'm frustrated now. The cornrow I'm working on is as straight as the leaning tower of Pisa.
"Even the worst cheater in the world comes home to something. I'm not saying Harry's like that. He's a flirt, but he'd come back to the same person eventually, all the time. He'd have dinner with them and talk late at night and give them all the stuff that got thrown on the first page of Witch Weekly. Then he comes home to you. It was always you, so is it that farfetched?"
I sigh. It isn't and it is.
* * *
I take the long way home on Sunday afternoon. My car. The wireless is too loud and I turn it off and purposely head on to the freeway I know will be most jammed. I'm looking for a trap, a delay.
In many ways, it would have been easier if he'd asked me out that night. I don't know that I would have said yes, and I don't even know if I want to look across the table at him and see Harry the man, rather than Harry the friend. But at least I'd have known his position. Instead, he asks why we're not together as if I was the one who decided, as if I control the weather and the definition of who "we" are.
Part of me is also angry at him for creating the awkward situation we're in. I probably should have stuck around and finished the discussion, but I don't like dealing with the unknown, and when he said it was just a question, he was just curious, I knew I'd walk away.
Eventually, the highway frees up and I'm dawdling up the driveway as I see poodle lady leaving the apartment. Without the poodle. She flashes a smile at me and walks down the street.
I drop my bags by the door and find him in the kitchen.
"I saw Heather leaving." I tell him as I walk around the kitchen looking for some juice.
"Holly."
"Oh."
"We went out to eat."
"That's nice." I say absentmindedly and then go back into the hallway to busy myself with something. Anything.
"Parvati says for you to write her, she got a new owl." I say a little too brightly. So much for easing the tension.
"I didn't really like Holly that much. Actually, I did, but she talks a lot and most of it revolves around shopping for shoes and how her dog can climb all her furniture."
"And that's a good thing?"
"Same thing I was thinking."
I pick my bags up and motion up the stairs. "I have to unpack."
"Hermione, why?"
This time, I know what he's talking about. He is not asking about my unpacking. "Harry, why are you asking me? Like I hold some kind of key to the answer, like I know."
"I know you know because you won't tell me."
"Fine. A lot of reasons. A whole bunch of distinct, real reasons. There."
"Like what?"
"I should name one?"
"You should name all of them!"
"What the hell for? What, you want a comprehensive list? An encyclopedic volume? I don't even know why you've brought it up in the first place. You went out with Heather or Holly or whatever her name is, so obviously you're not sitting here wanting for...anything." What an awkward sentence. That "anything" doesn't fit.
"I'm not going out with her again. And yeah, sure, I want a list."
I look at him incredulous. He's serious.
* * *
I expect I'll get little sleep that night, so I walk over to my desk and snatch up a bit of parchment. I sit in my room for a long time, then I ready my fine point blue quill and start scratching away.
The sheet fills up and I consider numbering my apparent grievances. But that might make it seem like a prioritized list, like # 3 is more valid than # 5, so I give up on that idea.
He's long asleep and I cast an adhesive charm to the parchment and stick the sheet on his door.
He wanted a list, well now he's got one.
