All I wanted to do was to prove that her list was irrational and unfounded and now I'm watching her go out the door. Except my eyes are traveling across her body and – oh my God. I'm staring at my best friend's ass.

Did I ever do this before? But you've known her forever, I remind myself.

I will admit that when we first met, I hadno romantic interest in her whatsoever, but in a matter of a few days it had all changed completely. Or maybe not. Ever since we graduated from Hogwarts, I've had this silly habit of flirting with her. We've always laughed it off…but what if it wasn't quite so silly after all?

Why was I so confused? Was she this confused? Of course not, she's never really shown interest in me… has she? Everyone else seems to think so. Am I blind? Is she? The Harry and Hermione sideshow, ladies and gentlemen.

Once we decided that it was practical for the two of us to share a place near Diagon Alley –both of us would be out on our own for the first time and we thought we might as well do it together– I bid myself to not think about Hermione that way, even though all around us speculation was rampant about the nature of our relationship.

I sigh and head upstairs to get ready for the day.

. . . .




The day turns out to be as unproductive and unfocused as the one before it. I spend the time spacing out during interviews and accidentally implying that I in fact have a disfigured rump area from riding a broom so much. I cannot concentrate. Her face is always there. And her hair. Her legs. Her breasts. The silk that is her skin. By the time the session ends, I'm ready to jump out of my own skin. When Taryn, a cute blonde who works at the studio, invites me to come out with everyone for a drink, I only agree to go so that I won't think about Hermione for five minutes.

I shouldn't be thinking these things.

I'm not a drinker really, despite constant taunting from Ron and the guys. But Taryn buys me a drink and I take a few sips to be polite.

"Will you be back tomorrow?" she asks me, flashing a blindingly white smile at me and leaning forward across the bar to retrieve her own drink from the new bartender at Three Broomsticks.

It's not my fault that she's almost spilling out of her top. She's right in my line of vision. What am I supposed to do, close my eyes?

I do. "So they tell me, they want to go over next season's free agents." I answer her and then open my eyes to settle on her face.

She's smiling, certainly aware of her "assets".

"I'm happy to hear that," she coos.

What am I doing? Number five looms before my eyes in bold print. You are a shameless flirt.

"I should go," I tell Taryn and her lips settle into a pout.

"So early? Why?"

"I have to get home."

"To your roommate?" she asks.

"How do you know I have a roommate?" I ask her. We had just met today. She gives me a look.

"Oh." Damn the reporters.

Taryn leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. "Is she really just your roommate?"

How do I answer that?

"Yeah," I nod, and can't help but notice the glumness in my voice. I hope Taryn doesn't.

She arches one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

"So then, what's the rush?" She puts her hand on my arm and trails a manicured nail across my skin.

There are reasons, I think. A whole list, even. Funny though, I can't think of a single one right now.

. . . .




By the time I get home, I'm not thinking about much of anything. Somehow, Taryn managed to convince me that I should finish that drink. And then another. One more, come on, it'll loosen you up, she told me.

She got me out onto the dance floor and even though I'm pretty sure I didn't discover my lost rhythm, we enjoyed ourselves enough that Taryn accompanied me home and I got a closer look at that cleavage. Everyone on my street did, unless maybe the Dark Mark was scrawled on my front door behind us and that's what everybody was looking at.

Taryn is giggling, and her hand is already working on the buttons along my shirt so that I fumble into the house and laugh along with her.

"Wait," I tell her and she presses me against the door, her hands seeking out everything.

We bang heads accidentally. In our state, we find this incredibly hilarious and she clings to me as she tries to catch her breath.

The door opens and I look up at Hermione.

"I couldn't open the door," I tell her by way of explanation as Taryn breaks into another round of laughter.

"Apparently."

"I had a bit much to drink," I tell her, slurring my words and reaching for something to steady me.

"It would seem."

She starts to move away from the door.

"Wait, we have company!" I call after her and she turns and looks coolly at the two of us. "This is, uhhhh, ummm...."

"Taryn" Taryn offers.

Hermione purses her lips. "Great, Taryn," she says.

The warm air from the house hits me and the room starts to spin.

"Next time, make sure you have a better hold on the doorknob of the DOOR," Hermione tells me and starts up the stairs.

Oh, shit.

"Herm-ee-o!" I try to call her name, but its too complicated for me to pronounce at the moment. She shakes her head and continues up the stairs.

Taryn comes up behind me and runs her hands down my back, pulling the ends of my shirt out of my pants.

"Three's a crowd," she tells me and leans into me, pulling my hands up to run the length of her body.

Hermione's door slams shut.

It's enough to sober me momentarily and I pull away from Taryn.

"You should go."

"Why? The night is young."

Her tongue darts along the skin of my neck and I close my eyes.

"Tara, I don't think I should do this."

"Taryn," she corrects me. "Just roommates, huh?" She shrugs. "Your loss."

It takes only a moment for her to gather her things and I'm alone once more.

As much as I want to, there's no way I can make it up those stairs tonight.

*


Cute and blonde. Do they come any other way?

I hear the front door slam shut and assume she's left, because he's making a ruckus stumbling around the couches. Somebody should help him upstairs so he's closer to the bathroom. I don't know why I should care anyway.

But I do.

I want nothing more than toswitch on the wireless and drown everything out with some music, loud enough to drown out the noises he's making and then revel in his hangover tomorrow morning. But he cleaned the house and he made me breakfast, so I feel indebted.

What if I'd kissed him this morning? Would he have brought her home?

There must be something seriously wrong with me. I must be warped for even thinking this way. He obviously had one thing on mind when they walked through the door and it wasn't me. Which really shouldn't matter.

But it does.

. . . .




"Hermyy, I don't feel so good." He moans when I finally decide to be an adult and go downstairs, some 20 minutes later.

"I can see that. Can you make it upstairs?"

He shakes his head slowly, and I take a deep breath, then get up and head for the bucket in the hallway. I'm certain he'll need it at some point and I'm most definitely not in the mood for cleaning up the floor after him. I also grab a couple of bottles of water and implore him to drink as much as he can. Unfortunately, there was no potion for hangovers or whatever he was expiriencing. There was a potion to decrease nausea, though. I'd fetch that in a minute.

"Gotta pee." He groans.

What can I do but help him to the bathroom. I still have my pride and anger intact, and don't go in there with him. So what if he hits his stupid head on the porcelain bowl? I stay in the hallway, leaning my back against the wall, softly hitting my head over and over in the hope my fuzzy mind clears up. No such luck, as he comes out, looking particularly miserable. I hand him the potion and he downs it eagerly.

"You should lie down." I state the obvious and drag him back to the living room where he sprawls on the couch, lying down on his stomach, his head hanging off slightly.

I sit next to him for a second, afraid he'll fall off. His eyes are droopy, and he slurs out some form of apology my way.

"I suck. Like Malfoy. You wanna hit me? You should hit me."

"I'm not going to hit you, Harry."

"Can you stay with me tonight to make sure I don't die?" He whines.

"You're not going to die. I'm going to bed."

"I was thinking about you all day..." He says and then attempts to look up at me. I cannot he believe he is telling me such a bold-faced lie. I refrain from slapping him because he is sick.

"God, Harry, that's just insulting. Go to sleep."

I turn on my heels and he mutters something else but I'm steaming and don't want to hear any of it.

I can't believe him. Did he think it would be a grand gesture, a compliment to me to claim I was occupying his thoughts for hours on end? Am I supposed to feel grateful that he'd afford me a fraction of his attention?

I'm not going to cry about this. That would be the final humiliation to end a peachy evening. I. Will. Not. Cry.

. . . .




The next morning, we have a very brief encounter in the bathroom. He looks like shit and is popping some muggle aspirin in his mouth like they're Bertie Botts. I've overslept and am late, and he seemingly respects that because he slinks down to his room and lets me get dressed. On my way out, I hear him in the kitchen, and for a split second, I wonder if he's making me breakfast again, but I never find out because I just yell out a goodbye and close the door before he's had a chance to reply.

This whole thing is probably my fault for writing that stupid list in the first place. Of course, I blame him for last night, although I'm not sure why. It's his house too, he can bring whomever he wants home. I'm not his mother and I'm not his sister, that much he's made crystal clear, so it's really not my business whom he decides to fraternize with.

I decide to tell him so and at the end of the day, walk back into our house with a sense of purpose.

As soon as I open the door, a pleasant smell of home cooking hits me. Teriyaki sauce. I find him by the stove, looking infinitely better, and well, alive.

"Hi?" I say, tentatively.

"Oh, Hermione, you're home. I bought a wok."

"A wo - Why?"

"So I can make you dinner. Stir fry. Do you want it with chicken or shrimp? I bought both, wasn't sure which you preferred. Or if you want, we can just have it vegetarian."

"Harry, this has got to stop." I say and put down my bag on the counter.

"What? I'm just cooking."

"This list thing is insane and it's stupid and I'm sorry I ever wrote it out! I want you to stop, just stop, stop running around with a bottle of Mr. Clean on the spill you made worse because you can't use cleaning charms. And stop putting those blue tablets in the toilet bowl after turning the water green by trying to curse away the dirt. And stop getting up at dawn to prove you can fry an egg."

He very slowly puts down the wooden spoon he was using and moves the wok off to the side, then turns to face me.

"Is this about last night? I'm sorry. I was drunk, it was stupid."

He said he was sorry.

"I just want you to stop, please."

"Why?"

"Because this is just sick. It's sick and it's insulting to me. You spend all this time doing these things, and then I start wondering and worse yet, I think about what you said and what you meant and how you touched me. I shouldn't care how you touch me. I thought about those things and then you bring the very next girl home and it's wrong and dishonest and so please, don't do it anymore, because it's not fair or right."

"I didn't mean to upset you. I shouldn't have brought her here." He whispers that last part.

"Look, it's fine, it doesn't matter. Why don't you let me finish dinner, and then we can go pick up a movie or something?"

"I'll finish this."

"Fine." I sigh and turn to go.

"I don't want that girl."

"She has a name, Harry. And you did want her, at least for a while, because if I hadn't been home, you know what would have happened."

"Yeah, because it was her face that I saw all day, right? When I closed my eyes and opened them, it wasn't her, believe me."

I don't know how to reply. My thoughts meandered back to him all day too, so I don't think he's making it up. I think he mistakes my silence for acquiescence, because with the next thing he says to me, he's going for broke.

"I wanted you. I want you." He corrects himself, red faced.

"You have a funny way of showing it." I shoot back.

"It doesn't make it any less true."

"You need to figure out why you think that way, Harry. Maybe it's some sort of need you have to have fulfilled, maybe you miss tliving with he Weasleys or Lupin or everyone else and I'm the closest you have or maybe you've gotten so used to being the centre of attention that you want to be the Sun around which I revolve every day or maybe you've always wondered what it would be like to really, really touch me and you want to satisfy that curiosity once and then move on. Because you only think you want me and you only think that now and again and then you put it out of your mind and I'm just plain old Hermione again and you come home in the middle of the night with a woman." I take a breath. "You don't want me, you never have."