You Had Me at Occulis Reparo?
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters; they belong to the genius that is JK Rowling. I just needed something to occupy my time for the next week. July 16th cannot get here quickly enough.
Timeline: This occurs the summer after fifth year. All the events of The Order of the Phoenix have occurred. Sirius has left Grimmauld Place to Harry. Harry and the rest of the order members are at headquarters now; this is where our story begins.
Summary: Harry has been very emotional ever since Sirius' death. Can a certain (female) best friend bring him out of his gloom? But what new problems will arise from their relationship?
Chapter 1
Setting: The headquarters of The Order of the Phoenix. Harry has just arrived. Lupin and the Weasley family are the constant parties in the house. Harry has not spoken to anyone since his arrival. He flounced off to a single room on the third floor. Everyone has tried to go up there and speak to him but have had no success. Then Hermione arrives…
Hermione enters the kitchen, the entire Weasley family as well as Lupin is sitting solemn-faced around the kitchen table. Harry's mood has spread to the entire household.
Hermione senses the situation immediately. Ginny has sent her an owl alerting her to Harry's arrival. She has sensed Harry's mood from his unanswered letters to her and Ron. She and Ron had discussed the situation via owl mail and Ron had given up. He was now fed up with Harry's mood and Hermione guessed it was frustration from his inability to do anything for his best friend. Yes, at the end of last year they had faced some rough times in The Ministry of Magic and Ron had a hard time dealing with his own fears and problems, much less to sort Harry's out as well. Ginny has coolly accepted that Harry does not want her help but has accepted his silence as a statement of segregation from The Order and from the group in general. Ginny does not believe that Harry has forgiven them for accompanying him to the Ministry the night that Sirius died. Mrs. Weasley feels oddly useless. Hermione understands him.
She feels that she is the only that has been able to understand, ever. As she walks into the kitchen, she wants to reprimand them for not understanding, for not helping him, for not giving her the strength to tell him that she does. Despite the fact that this is the moment that she has been thinking about for the last six weeks, she dreads the moment she will see him. "Where is he?" She poses the question generally, not looking at anyone in the room. It is Ginny who answers looking up at Hermione. "He's in the room on the third floor." Then she adds: "I don't think he'll talk to you, Hermione. He hasn't spoken to anyone else since he's been here. He's been really pissy lately."
Hermione looks up at the end of this statement mentally chastising Ginny for her lack of understanding, Harry has been through hell. Yet, Ginny has her head down again, playing with her nails. Ron looks up and smiles glumly in salutation, Lupin quietly asks about her summer holiday so far, Mrs. Weasley tells her that supper will be in 10 minutes with a smile. For a minute, the scene is oddly familiar as if the events at the end of last term were non-existent, that this group was living as the magical world had lived for the fourteen years after Voldemort's disappearance, acknowledging what happened but choosing, needing to forget about it, focus on the mundane which has now become the critically important. It is Hermione's automatic movement to the stairs that breaks her train of thought. She makes her way to the third floor and knocks on the last door on the corridor.
"Harry? It's Hermione can I come in please?"
"No."
With his casual dismissal of her request, there is an immediate pain in Hermione's chest. Whoever said that the heart is not the centre of emotion, should try falling in love, she thought. "Harry, please let me come in so we can talk. You need to talk to someone." He again denies her request and she wonders if she matters in the least to him. She couldn't, then why would he push her away? She stands there without saying anything for the remainder of the ten minutes until Mrs. Weasley comes up the stairs with a tray of what looks like roast beef which she leaves outside Harry's door. "Dinner is ready Hermione," she says.
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Chapter 2
Setting: A little after midnight, everyone within the Order of the Phoenix is asleep. Except…
Hermione lies in bed but then figures 3 hours of sitting there staring at the ceiling is not very productive. She puts on a dressing gown, grabs her wand and her copy of the "The Advanced Book of Spells Volume 1" from beneath her nightstand. She creeps by the bed of a sleeping Ginny and makes her way downstairs to the living room to read. Outside the door of the living room, she hears faint sniffles coming from the living room. Curious, but not wanting to be caught spying or prodding, she peers into the doorway, she is surprised to see Harry standing by the window seat staring at a view of muggle London in the wee hours of the morning. From the advantageous view of his profile, she can see that he is crying. Not wanting him to push her away again she, silently makes her way toward him and places her arms around his chest, embracing him from behind. She feels the shock running through him as his head turns immediately to see her. His body tries to follow suit but her tight grip won't allow it. She feels oddly energized; she won't let him get away this time.
He tells her to get off and she loosens her grip but does not let him go. She thinks that with her weakened grip he will break away from her and go back into hiding in that dreadful room but, he doesn't. He seems reluctant to turn his head again even though she had clearly seen his tears the first time. She pleads with the back of his head that he talk to her yet she does not change position. She is oddly reminded of the techniques to be used when greeting a hippogriff. Only when she finally feels him relax in her arms, almost in resignation, does she let him go. He turns to face her and she is proud of him. He has not hid his tears from her; they flow freely down his face.
"I have to talk to you Harry. I need to talk to you. I understand." At his sharp intake of breath she knows she has said something wrong. And then she realizes. Before he starts with his "How could you understand rant?" she holds up her hands. She requests that they place a silencing spell on the room and then he can have it out with her. He looks momentarily stunned, like he has lost the steam behind what he was going to say. She takes this interlude to cast the spell and then, with a furtive glance at him, she settles herself on the loveseat. After a long moment, he joins her. He begins by laying into her about understanding but his speech turns from anger very quickly. Obviously grateful to finally speak about everything, he divulges it all: Dumbledore, the prophecy, Neville, his guilt over Sirius' death, that bloody mirror and even his parents. He speaks about his fears of death, of having a family someday even though he has never experienced love, of being a murderer. He speaks for an hour and at the end of it his voice is unrecognizable, she has tears streaming down her face. He looks up at her, pleading for a reaction, though he does not know which one he seeks. They are both half lying on the sofa. Her hand has found itself in his hair, ruffling the unruly strands with affection.
She reaches out and hugs him, arms around his neck and he leans down into her. He buries his face into her shoulder and she hears the same sniffles that shepherded her into the room. Her hand continues its soothing motion in his hair and the other grasps him around the waist. When the sniffles subside, he looks up at her to see fresh tears in her eyes. These tears break something inside him, some unspoken barrier between them is now gone. His face hovers somewhere between her shoulder and her cheek. He rubs his own cheek against hers, delighting in its softness. For the first time in weeks, he finds his mind empty and he likes the feeling.
Her breath catches in her throat as his skin makes contact with her and she looks down at him as he looks up at her. They are both entranced and time seems to slow. She senses what is about to happen and before she could tell him that she was lost, that she didn't know what she was doing, that she hadn't yet found a detailed enough book on the subject, it happens. Yet as it happens, she finds that her tongue moves of its own accord, that she instinctually matches him and even though she cannot see, she feels what she should do as if she had been kissing her best friend all her life. He breaks away and he smiles at her and self consciously she tells him that she doesn't have the slightest idea what she was doing. He smiles at her and tells her that she should just slow down a bit. Then he kisses her again and she decides that no book could describe the feeling.
Two hours later, the clock strikes half 3 and they stop as they hear one of the floor boards creak. Harry kisses her one last time chastely on the lips and then he stands and pulls her up by the hand. He hugs her and they go upstairs neither speaking. On the second floor Hermione goes to her room door and she looks back. He is there, at the foot of the stairs waiting for her to go in.
Chapter 3
After oversleeping, Hermione has a major freak out in the shower. Those few moments after waking up that morning she had been convinced that last night had been a dream. Then as she thought about it, she realized that she could vaguely feel his tongue in her mouth. She lulls in bed for a while and then Mrs. Weasley knocks on her door and tells her its after 10 and she needs to get up. The heaviness of the water on her skin brings just as heavy doubts. Why had she appeared so naïve last night? Why couldn't she have been cool about the whole thing? What would change in the morning light? Would Harry think that last night was just a fluke that she had made out with him for 2 hours because she felt sorry for him? Did he kiss her because he liked her or just because he was a horny teenage boy? Reluctantly she go out of the shower, got dressed and made her way downstairs for breakfast.
She walked into the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks. Harry was sitting at the table talking and laughing with Lupin and the Weasleys. It was Fred who first acknowledged her presence. "Hey Hermione, look who's finally joined us. You missed the grand apology though. We told him that we understood he's been through a lot, he has." Mrs. Weasley was obviously back in her element, the kitchen table was loaded with three times the normal breakfast ware. Everyone had smiling faces, they no longer had to pretend normalcy. "That's great." She spoke hesitantly, looking at Harry who did not meet her gaze. Over breakfast, Mrs. Weasley informed her that everyone was going into Diagon Alley to purchase their school things. Hermione forced herself into the conversations. In the middle of the discussion three chocolate brown owls swooped down in front of Ron Hermione and Harry. "OWL results!" Hermione exclaimed before tearing into her envelope.
The already joyful breakfast turned into a full out celebration. Hermione achieved O's in everything, Harry had achieved all O's except in Potions (E), Astronomy (E) and Divination (A). Ron had done slightly worse with A's in all the subjects that Harry had not gotten O's in. Hermione was thrilled and relieved but she could not help but notice that Harry had not looked at her through the entire breakfast even though he had congratulated her and she him.
Chapter 4
In Diagon Alley everyone split up. Hermione got her books in Flourish and Blotts and other school stuff and then made her way to Fortescue's ice cream parlor. She was walking past a narrow alley when someone dragged her from behind into the alley. She turned around, wand poised and ready. Harry smiled at her. "One minute you want to kiss me, the next you're pointing a wand at me." "Well its all thanks to you and the D.A.." A flicker of seriousness crossed Harry's face and he almost whispered "I blame myself for starting that thing. If anything had happened to you at the Ministry I could have never forgiven myself." Not knowing how to respond to this profound statement, Hermione remained quiet. Harry, sensing her discomfort wrapped her into a hug. "We should talk. We can't do it here but we can meet at the same time tonight. I just didn't want you to think that, I don't know, that I had forgotten about last night or anything." He scratched his hair nervously and she ran her left hand through it. "Thanks" she whispered and she kissed him on the lips. He grasped her around the waist. "Well I know you're a worrier."