A Post Hogwarts Affair Chapter 10

"Hermione," someone was saying. "Hermione!"

I could barely open my eyes, but somewhere in the back of my mind a little bell went off. I knew the speaker… but why would it be…

"Harry?" I asked groggily, succeeding in getting those damn eyelids off my eyes. He was looking at me rather disapprovingly.

"Finally!" he chided, but with a half-smile. I was relieved. It was just something about Harry; I couldn't bear to have him mad or upset at me about anything. It drove me up the wall. Harry and I just had to be on good terms, otherwise, both of us were something awful depressed until we made up (we'd discovered this the hard way, of course. We're just those kinds of people).

At that moment the full force of a full-blown hangover hit me like no other. All I could mutter was "Har—wan" and somehow he understood and performed an anti-hangover charm on me faster than you could say "Hermione was an idiot and got drunk!"

When my vision was back in focus and the dull pounding in my head only a sign of stupidity, not alcohol, I smiled apologetically at Harry. "Sorry darling," I sighed. Only then did last night's events hit me. I had gone home with Ron…what the hell was I doing here with Harry? Speaking of, where were we anyway?

"Um," I began intelligently. "Um…"

"Hermione," Harry said firmly, "you're in deep shit."

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious," I frowned. "Where are we?"

Harry shook his head at me, as if he felt sorry for me. "Hermione, we're in my apartment, and you're in my bed, and it's one-thirty in the afternoon. Anything else you'd like to know before I lecture you?"

I almost didn't want to ask. What was in store for me? What had I done? I felt like I was the student and Harry was…Professor Snape or something. Torturously terrifying! "Er," I finally asked, "um…didn't I go home with um, Ron last night? To…to my own house?"

"Nope. I had to drag you out of Parvati's place. It was tough."

"Tough?" I squeaked. "Why was it… tough?"

"Blimey, Hermione! Do you not remember anything?"

I knew I'd remember the minute Harry would tell me something, but he seemed intent on drawing out the process. He had to do the whole stern-older-brother look even though we never treated each other like siblings! It was beginning to annoy me, but then again, the lack of anything edible for the last…oh who knows how many hours was probably another factor in my suddenly cranky mood.

"I need food," I said sheepishly, even though I knew I'd changed the subject. I wasn't quite sure I needed…well, wanted to know what happened. Why not put it off like everything else I'd ever done in my life (after I graduated…during school I had to get everything done four weeks in advance). I could procrastinate couldn't I? I always procrastinated…why shouldn't a potential-ruining-of-my-life be any different?

Harry griped but told me to hold still while he went down and got me something to eat. "I don't cook," he informed me half-coldly, "but I can get you some cereal or something. You don't really have a choice, I'm afraid."

"Oh, cereal…cereal sounds good to me," I replied, even though in truth I wasn't too fond of cereal (perhaps this was because I had eaten it every single day for four years when I was in college because I refused to learn how to cook).

Five minutes later, I was downstairs, wrapped up in some old tattered robe Harry had lying around the house, sitting at his glass breakfast table (it was gorgeous, the most intricate patterns I'd ever seen—must've cost the poor [who am I kidding] kid a fortune!) and chomping down on some stupid wizard children's cereal, Stix N Snitches. And it was quite literally sticks, shaped like tiny little wands, made of marshmallow, I think, and miniature hard candy shaped like snitches, with little bits of wheat cereal thrown in here and there. I wondered how these kids kept up with their perfect teeth, with all this terrible food that I'd never had as a child—parents were dentists, of course—and then I remembered it was because they had magic. Duh!

Harry finally descended downstairs, showered and dressed, and looking a bit melancholy. "Well," he said, "guess I better inform you of last night's happenings before you leave."

"The time has come," I said exaggeratedly, trying to make light of the situation. Harry grinned for a second but quickly turned it off. I swear the kid's as good as Malfoy. Well, almost.

"So, you got stone drunk with Draco Malfoy, your boss."

"I know that much. I remember…downing shots…vodka, horrid but delicious all at once." It really is, actually—guess it's the buzz. It's not exactly the most pleasant of drinks but I can see where Ron is coming from—speaking of I knew I had to talk to him immediately. As soon as I extracted myself from this mess, of course.

"Yes, well anyway, here's the part where you screwed up…so you're drinking, and he says something stupid like, 'Hermione, tell me about yourself' and you um, tell everything."

I didn't know what to make of Harry's statement. What did he mean 'everything'? Ha, well, I didn't really care if Draco knew what color underwear I was wearing. As long as he didn't see it or anything…oh damn! What if he had?

"Harry," I began nervously, "I didn't by any chance…um…sleepwithimdidI?" I asked all in a rush.

Harry, who was particularly adept that morning at understanding my gibberish, shook his head and laughed bitterly. "You did something a little bit more embarrassing in the long run."

"What?" I sqeaked.

"I told you. You told everything. The stalking. The eavesdropping. The hoping. The talking with Ginny. The horoscopes. The trying to figure out his angle. The checking if he was really out of town. The fucked up relationship with Ron. Your hidden feelings for him. How cute his … derriere was. But that's not the worst part."

Nothing could sum up my emotions at this point. I was aghast, perpetually depressed, and had a sudden want to go drown myself in the nearest lake. Harry had to be kidding, he totally had to be…

"You're joking," I stated weakly, although I knew he was telling the truth. Harry was an awful liar, worse than me even (and that is saying something). "I told him…!"

"Nope. You told Lavender Brown—after you told Draco Malfoy that you'd be right back."

I was confused, tired, and wanting to slap the closest thing to me. "What do you mean?" I moaned. "Wouldn't it be better if I told Lav than if I told Draco?"

"What's up with you today! Obviously it would be loads better to tell Draco because then only he'd know about it. Lavender? Everyone will know about it by six p.m. tonight! Including Draco! And she will exaggerate! And your life will be over! I don't know what the fuck was up with you Hermione! Why'd you overdo it? You have examples shoved down your throat on the horrors of being stone pissed, and yet you choose to drink! I can't believe you. I really can't. Just because a certain fancy of yours offers you a drink are you going to take it! Great morals, Hermione. Just fucking amazing. You make me feel so bloody proud of you. Congratafuckinglations. Oh and did I mention you came onto me last night!"

Harry's rant rang in my ears but the only part I really heard was the last line "you came onto me last night". I came onto him. I came onto him?! I couldn't believe it! What the hell? Suddenly I was furious. I was tired of all this screaming and yelling and on top of totally humiliating myself in front of my horrid boss (or well, soon to be totally humiliated in front of my horrid boss) I had just come onto my best friend? I wasn't even aware of feelings for him! Never mind that, I didn't have…those kinds of feelings for him! Right now I just felt like vomiting all over his awful, ugly table.

"Shut up," I snarled, raising my hand up to wipe the tears that insisted on escaping.

He looked at me.

I hated his stare. For a second we just stared at each other, his eyes blazing green with anger and hopefully remorse (how dare he get away with screaming at me like that!) and my eyes, boring brown fired up with specks of angry black. Oh, I was so pissed!

Both of us were proud, too proud, to break the unnerving silence. Finally I took the initiative and began to speak. "Look…I couldn't have come on to you. You misinterpreted."

In response, he took of his shirt and showed me a soft bite mark on his left shoulder. "A misguided vampire, maybe?" I suggested helpfully, anything to rectify my…deed.

"I don't want to know what else I did," I finally said, the tears leaking through. Damn it, I'd begun to bawl like a big baby.

He sighed. "You ought to know though, so you don't dream up terrible scenarios. You kissed me and… um yeah did that to my shoulder. Nothing else though. I dragged you home, and you… um yeah wanted to do stuff… but fell asleep as soon as I put you in my bed."

"Where did you sleep?" I asked sharply.

"On the sofa. Downstairs."

We both breathed simultaneous sighs of relief. Suddenly he reached over and patted me awkwardly. "It's okay, Hermione," he said sincerely. "Happens to the best of us. And…sorry for blowing up…just…already got one friend that's an alcoholic, you know, and I didn't really want to have two friends in need of dire help."

I smiled and smacked him across the wrist. "You're mean," I scolded playfully. "And I'm awful sorry about last night. That's so embarrassing."

"Ah, that's nothing. Wait till what Lavender does, and then you'll know the true meaning of mortal mortification," he said seriously.

"Harry!" I dropped my head down onto the table. "I'm so screwed…what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"I dunno," he said. "Maybe beg her not to tell."

"You know that wouldn't work," I rejected his answer. "It's not like she can help it. You couldn't trust her with a secret if you gave her all the money in the world. It's just that she can't keep quiet…that's no good."

"Memory modification?" Harry joked. "That's always helpful."

I sighed wistfully. "I wish I could, honestly. It's much easier than anything else. But I'm above that."

"Nah, you're not. You're just as bad as the rest of us. You proved that last night!"

I got up and frowned at Harry. "I've got to leave. I'll figure something out, of course, and I've decided to force Ron to sign up for the Wizarding Alcohol Support Group, WASG. Must go inquire into that, and we'll both be attending the meeting so he doesn't pull a Quidditch lie on me."

Harry grinned. "Sounds amazing. I'll tag along, later, perhaps… Gin won't be there, will she?"

"Probably not. Why?"

"Don't want to run in with her or anything. Things got really serious last night," he said, looking rather unhappy. I wondered if this was another thing that I had had the pleasure of screwing up. Seemed like I'd messed up quite a few more things than I had originally expected.

"What happened?" I asked almost nervously, afraid to hear that the answer would be, 'Well, everything was going alright, until you hit on me last night, Hermione' or 'Oh, yeah, you came onto Gin, scaring her off.' Merlin forbid anything like that had happened! Oh, it wouldn't have! No I wasn't that bad!

"Nothing to do with you," he reassured, sensing my apprehension. "It's just I guess things didn't work out like I expected them to. It's really a shitty relationship anyway. She told me that basically I was a pig and she's now with some stupid ex-Ravenclaw that was a year above us."

I felt sorry for Harry. "Don't worry," I consoled him. "By this time tomorrow I too will have been thrown overboard, right off the Love Boat."

We both had a good laugh. "Love sucks," he said. "Or lust, or like, or dating. Whatever it is. I have no luck in it at all!"

"Neither do I," I responded seriously. "What's the chance I'll ever get with Draco? He's just my boss. He probably hates me."

"He doesn't. He was drunk too, last night," Harry said with a sly grin. Damn the man! He knew how to push my buttons; now I had sudden burning desire to find out what exactly had happened to Draco as well.

"What did he do?" I demanded.

"Not too much. I guess he's one of those rare people that get depressed as hell when they're totally pissed."

I giggled, in spite of myself—damn it! Even when he wasn't here that man could do so much to me!—and begged Harry to continue.

"It was hilarious, actually. Went on and on about life's problems. Wish I'd recorded it somehow, it would be amazing to show that in public, make up for all the torment he caused me during Hogwarts, and beyond—bloody bastard. Sorry Hermione, you may find him all intriguing but I can't stand him. Anyway, yes, it was rather fun to sit and have a chat with the poor bloke."

"Tell me," I demanded excitedly. "Just tell me!"

Harry smiled. "He talked a lot about growing up…he fancied Cho Chang, can you believe it!"

I couldn't. "You're joking. You two fancied the same… the same girl?"

"Yes. Made me repulsed, I thought the only thing he'd ever fancy was a skinned toad. Er, sorry, Hermione. But yes. It was awful, he lamented that I was the one who finally got with her even though it didn't end up working out…I s'pose he's been jealous of me forever because of that."

"Merlin, Harry, that's hilarious. Tell me more," I squealed. Gossiping! It's totally wrong and totally detrimental to one's image and confidence but hell if Lavender was about to tell the whole world about my embarrassing situations, then I might as well enjoy this…while it lasted.

"He also talked about Lucius wanting him to do better than you in school, and how he tried his arse off but was just beneath you, all the time. Really mad about that one, he was. Did you know he was terrified of Muggles as a kid? He was worried they lived in his closets, or something. Like the bogey man!"


Harry and I laughed and laughed. "That's amazing," I said, peaceful for a moment. "It really is. Poor kid. Scared to death of creepy, crawly…muggles!"

For a moment we were silent and then I decided it really was time to leave. "Well, I best be off," I said dejectedly to Harry, "to face my impending doom."

"Sucks to be you," he said easily. "Nah, I'm just kidding Hermione. You know you can always count on me, even though I'd prefer you keep your distance sometimes."

I was glad Harry had turned that into a joke. How degrading it would have been if he'd gone totally serious about it, which I had been really worried about earlier. I picked up my stuff and walked out into the ebullient sunshine, letting the warmth wash over my body. I forgot about everything for a second and then Lavender's laughing face came back to me. As I entered my own house, my brain tried and tried to think of a good idea that didn't involve some important magic, but after a good ten, twenty minutes, that Memory Charm was really sounding good to me.

Damn alcohol, damn myself, damn us all. Next step on the to-do list: sign Ron up, hunt Lavender down and tie her to a tree, and drown myself in some non-alcoholic stupor-inducing beverage. Not too hard, was it?

A/N: I apologize so much for this horridly long wait. I'm so sorry and I bet the chapter wasn't even worth it! Anyway I tried my best, thank you all so much, please review this chapter because I am so depressed right now (I just read JK Rowling's latest Q&A!) For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, basically JK Rowling says, Draco and Hermione end up in book six/seven? NO! She does the whole capital thing too! It was utterly and completely depressing. It's put a real damper on my mood for the story, lol, didn't affect the non-HP aspects of my life though… haha, mostly everything then. But anyway, yeah, and she was also like, the problem is that all the girls fancy Tom Felton, but Draco Malfoy is not Tom Felton!

^to this, I say…I fancy the real Draco, straight from the books (of course Tom Felton is still number one). Does that mean she'll put them together?! It's really very disheartening, that's why I love this ship more than ever now. Well, before the A/N gets longer than the story, I'll leave you with a request to please review the chapter! *oh, and the word 'pissed' can also mean drunk, so when you see it in context with alcohol, that's what it means.