You're so beautiful

The Beginning

It was the morning after detention. Hermione awoke as breakfast was starting, but immediately wished she could fall asleep again. In fact, it would've suited her fine to stay asleep for the rest of the year. Cowering under her blankets, she could hardly bring herself to think of last night. It was awful to imagine her best friend, Harry Potter, and her enemy, Draco Malfoy, were infected with her Aphora Bewitching Potion. What's going to happen now she wondered miserably. Drawing back her hangings, she was about to go face the answer to that question when...

'AH!' she yelped in fright.

Harry was sitting on the floor right next to her bed! Hermione had swung her legs around and practically stepped on him. He was just sitting there, totally relaxed, as if he did it every morning.

'Harry?' she gasped, lifting her legs back up and pulling her night-dress down, fearing she may have flashed him inappropriately. 'How…? Wha - what are you doing here?'

'I don't know,' he said innocently, like he'd stumbled into her room by accident and only realised where he was. 'I guess, I wanted to watch you sleep. Not that I could see you very well...'

What!

'Harry,' Hermione began cautiously, 'why would you want to do that?'

He shrugged, politely confused.

'I don't know, really. I got up and...really wanted to see you. You look good in that nightie, do you always wear it?'

WHAT!

'Oh dear...'

On that note, Hermione rose to her feet. Harry stood too, following her lead. 'Well, Harry, I think it's more befitting we see each other at breakfast, don't you?' she said, spinning him around and angling him towards the open door. 'You're not suppose to be in the girl's dormitories anyway, I don't know how you managed it. You're lucky my roommates have gone to breakfast…'

'But, Hermi - '

'See you downstairs, Harry!' she said in a hurry, pushing him out of the room and shutting the door. Oh god, what have I done to him?


Breakfast with Ron

Arriving at breakfast, Hermione was relieved to find Harry and Malfoy weren't there. Out of interest, she asked Ron where Harry was.

'Well, now that you've decided to talk to us again, he's at a Quidditch meeting,' Ron explained, spooning clumps of porridge into his mouth. 'Syltherin vs. Gryffindor tomorrow, remember?'

'Right, of course.'

With her whole love potion fiasco, Hermione had completely forgotten about the Quidditch match.

'By the way,' said Hermione, pouring some coffee, 'what class do we have first today?'

Ron's spoon dropped to the table with a resounding 'clank'.

'You…you mean, you don't know?'

Hermione glared at him. 'What's that's suppose to mean?'

'What do you mean what's that suppose to mean?' he said, looking at her as though she were from another planet. 'You're the one who learns the class timetable back-to-front! How can you not know what we have first?'

Ron had a point. For Hermione, this was just further confirmation that she was slowly loosing her mind.

'What's our first class, Ron?' she repeated, trying to sound unaffected.

'Potions,' he said at last. 'Hermione, what's up with you lately? You haven't been doing your homework…you don't know what classes we have…you've been on detention, I haven't…it's starting to freak me out!'

But Hermione was too busy worrying about Potions class to acknowledge this latest outburst from Ron. Harry and Malfoy would be at Potions.


First Comes Harry

Potions class could not have been more humiliating!

Hermione and Ron arrived together. Harry and Malfoy came in a late, due to their meeting (Malfoy had a Quidditch meeting for Slytherin, too). Harry sat next to Hermione, and Malfoy sat on the table opposite. Everything was fine at first, nothing out of the ordinary. Snape had his back to everyone, writing up an extensive list of potion ingredients on the blackboard. Hermione copied the list down on some parchment, while using her Potions book as a reference...

And then he did it.

Harry lent over to Hermione's open Potions book and wrote on the corner of the page:

You're so beautiful

Hermione read it, startled, and slowly turned to look at Harry. He was smiling at her, green eyes gazing adoringly. To be precise, he appeared to be in love. With her! But Hermione knew better.

'Ah...Harry?' she said in a hushed voice, so not to disturb the class. 'Shouldn't you be taking notes?'

'I can't,' he whispered, his gaze never faltering. 'I can't stop looking at you...'

Hermione felt a hand cup her knee. She stiffened and removed Harry's hand at once.

'Harry, stop it! Control yourself,' she whispered briskly, feeling her cheeks burn.

'Would you two shut up!' said Ron, butting in. 'You'll get us in trouble again if you're not careful.'

Hermione resumed her note taking, but could hardly concentrate with Harry watching her every move. She hoped that was all he'd do. If he sits there like a doormat, fine! No harm done. But Harry didn't stay like a doormat for long. Without pretence, he swept her hair aside, lunged at her, and pursed his lips onto her bare neck! Hermione was so stunned she toppled backwards off her chair.

There was an explosion of laughter from the class. Snape stopped what he was doing and turned around.

'Miss Granger, I know Potions is a truly enthralling subject, but do try and contain yourself by remaining seated? Ten points off Gryffindor.'

Ron gave Hermione a hand as she collected herself from the floor. Her backside felt very bruised.

'Hermione? Bloody hell, what happened?'

Hermione quickly sat back down, trying to look composed. 'I...fell.'

'Yeah,' Ron laughed, 'I gathered that much!'