Getting Over It

Thank you so much to my reviewers, sorry it's taken so long to update again, I've had a load to do with the end of the term but I'm on my holidays now so hopefully I should have a little more time to write –
queenofdiamonds1,
Celi,
illyria-light,
yellowrosesinateacup
Morena-Forever,
AngelPrncss07
superspunky7

A/N – Very sorry about the shortness of this one but I didn't want to put anything else with it so and there's only so much I could have included, I promise the next one will be longer! Thank you for reading, don't forget to review it feeds my ego and it's being kind of starved at the moment.
A/N2 – Thank you to illyria-light for becoming my beta reader and making this story at least make sense.

Chapter 11
Not Friends

Two months from when Hermione was offered her job Christmas and New Years had come and gone, and she was starting work on her new nursery. Millie had returned to Hogwarts for the spring term and Oliver was still living with them as the 'small' leak in the pipes turned out to be a huge problem and they had to rip out the whole of the water system and start again. She didn't mind that thought; in fact, it was quite useful as it meant that she could stay late working on designing the room and not worry about having to pick up Sam. Although she did miss not spending as much time with her children, Millie being at school and Sam making friends while she worked, it was still a struggle to keep everything on time.

The room was getting on wonderfully; there were a few tasks that she would have to get a builder in for before she could start to decorate, and these tasks could take a few months, so she was keen on getting them done quite quickly as the nursery was now due to start in April, just four months away. Many children had already put their names down for places, so Hermione felt the pressure of living up to expectations and deadlines. Even though she was not used to it, Hermione found it all quite fun. She was a highly practical person and now she was getting a paycheck and was a lot less stressed.

This particular night, however, Hermione decided that she would take the evening off to relax and spend some time at home. With a loud crack she apparated home, landing on the sofa. Unfortunately, the spot she had chosen was where Oliver had just sat with a glass of lemonade in his hand. They both let out startled yelps as she landed and Hermione jumped off him quickly, but not before he had had time to spill his drink all over her.

"Oh Merlin! Oliver I'm sorry I didn't expect you to be there." Hermione blushed as she turned to face him.

"Don't worry about it Hermione, can't be helped. Although maybe next time you could just apparate into the hall." Oliver smiled looking pointedly at the ceiling.

"What are you looking at?"

"Nothing." He answered a little too quickly.

"Then why are you looking up there?" She asked and looked up to see if there was anything actually of any interest that he could have been looking at.

"Because my drink made your top turn see-through." He blushed and Hermione looked down to see that her white shirt was stuck to her body and you could in fact see her pink lacy bra quite clearly through it. She too blushed and hurried out of the room.

--

A clean and dry shirt later, she rejoined Oliver downstairs who was helping Sam with homework, very basic magic of making sparks appear from his wand. After fourteen attempts he finally made a tiny little fizzle, maybe not yet a spark but progress that he was excited about, and happy as Oliver decided that they should call it a day, as he too was worn out. She sat and watched them for a little while before going into the kitchen prepare dinner.

"Oh you don't need to make me anything," Oliver said as he walked into the room.

"Why not?" Hermione asked as she stopped stirring the pan of pasta sauce with her wand.

"I've got a date." He grinned and puffed his chest out proudly.

"Oh." Hermione said rather half-heartedly, "That's great. Who is it?"

"A single mum from school. I think what I said to you when I was drunk was right; I'd rather have a ready made kid than have to go through all the pregnancy debacle. How the heck did you do it?" He chuckled and walked from the room remembering how mortified he had been when Hermione had recounted the events of his birthday party to him.

Hermione leaned against the counter and heaved a great sigh. An odd feeling in the pit of her stomach bubbled up and she frowned as she tried to work out what it was. Jealousy? No it couldn't be! Why would she be jealous? After all, she only saw Oliver as a friend.

--

"Don't wait up!" He called as he left the house at seven that evening to go to meet Stephy Greenwood.

Hermione was getting Sam to brush his teeth at the time so didn't hear him leave until the door slammed. The feeling came back, but she refused to acknowledge it and instead focused on getting her son ready.

Oliver was looking forward to the evening. Stephy was a striking red head with crystal blue eyes, she had a child in the year above the one that Oliver taught, so he had met her at a parents evening. Her son had been running down the hallways making a lot of noise and Oliver had scolded him. Stephy had then come over to see what was going on. One thing led to another and they had made a date.

Unfortunately, as they sat at their table to eat their meals, it became increasingly more obvious that Oliver was paying absolutely no attention to the lovely woman sitting opposite him. Finally Stephy decided she had had enough and walked out, leaving Oliver embarrassed and with the bill.

--

At eleven thirty, the door opened quietly and Oliver crept in. He was tiptoeing across the living room trying to be as quiet as possible so as not to wake anybody up when Hermione spoke.

"You're home early."

He jumped and spun around to where she sat on the sofa, head rested against the arm and her legs curled up, feet burrowed underneath one of the cushions to keep them warm.

"Jeeze 'Mione you scared the life out of me; I didn't see you there." He gasped trying to slow down his now rapidly beating heart.

"So how come your back at this time?" Hermione asked, trying to keep the hop out of her voice. She knew it was wrong to think like that but she really couldn't do anything about it; she was attracted to Oliver Wood and didn't like the idea of him dating anyone else one little bit.

"You want the honest truth?" He asked, hoping she'd say no and he wouldn't actually have to tell her.

"Yeah, spill the beans. I want all the juicy gossip." Hermione smiled, patting the sofa cushion besides her signalling him to sit down before he spoke so she wouldn't have to crane her neck to hold a conversation.

He did so quickly, but it took him a while before he actually started to speak; he had to gather his thoughts first and put them in order. "Okay, well, don't freak out because I could have happily gone on not telling you this," he said and Hermione nodded eagerly, wanting him to continue.

"I came home so early because all the time I was sat there with my date I couldn't get you out of my head, so she got annoyed and walked out. I don't blame her really. In fact, I think I may have called her Hermione a few times. Yeah, if I were her I would hate me as much about now." His cheeks tinged red as he looked up to gage her reaction to this piece of information that he had just given her, hoping that she wouldn't be too angry.

But anger was far from the face he saw looking back at him: one of happiness, confusion and sadness all rolled into one un-identifiable emotion shown instead.

"Merlin, Oliver, what is wrong with us? What are we, really?" Hermione sighed and buried her face into the palms of her hand.

"We're friends, Hermione," Oliver said, but it came out as more of a hopeful question than a firm statement.

"No we're not. Friends don't go on dates and think of their friends when they should be thinking of the person that they are with, the one they should be attracted to. Friends don't spend the whole night thinking what the other would be doing on the date, what they would be talking about and how they would look, how good they would look. We're not friends Oliver, not by a long shot."

"Then what are we? We're not in a relationship, we know too much about each other to be mere acquaintances, so where does that leave us?" He asked desperately not wanting whatever they had to end between them.

"I guess we're just… us." Hermione sighed when she could think of no word.

Neither person spoke for a long time; they simply sat and thought about that that had been said, where it left them and what they would do about it.

"I don't think I like this 'us' very much," Oliver said finally breaking the thin silence.

"Me neither," she whispered back.

"So what do we do now?"

Oliver moved forward and slowly took Hermione's hand in his. Standing up, he pulled her, very genteelly up with him so she was in front of him. Letting go of her small, soft hand he moved his to cup her cheek, looking into her eyes every few seconds as though asking for permission to do what he was doing. When no protest was made, he inched his head closer until their lips touched for the second time. One of her arms rested on his back, pushing him into her and her other hand ran through his hair and over his neck.

But this kiss was so much more than just a kiss; this was the opening of something new and fearful for both of them. This was something that they both wanted and yet both were petrified of at the same time.

They pulled away and looked into each other's eyes: deep ocean blue gazing into chocolate brown. An identical satisfied smile spread across the couples' lips.

"You know what, Hermione?" he whispered as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to his body.

"What?" She smiled as he kissed her neck.

"I think I can live with being not friends as long as we can keep on doing this."

"I have no plan to stop," she whispered back as she lent in for another kiss.