Title: Confessions
A/N: Post-War, fluffy oneshot. H/Hr. Awesome betareading as always by the wonderful ParticleAccelerator.
Reviews rock – if you like this, please let me know.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the storyline
xoxox
Hermione concentrated very, very hard, and after a second was able to slot the key home and unlock the door of her flat. She giggled at her cleverness. "I did it!" she exclaimed turning triumphantly to find Harry looking at her with forced patience. "You didn't have to walk me home if you were going to be such a grump about it," she said cocking her head to one side. He was totally killing her buzz.
"How else would you have gotten here?" he asked pointedly.
She ignored him and traipsed through her apartment as only a drunk can traipse. She turned on the stereo and Donna Summers' "Son of a Preacher Man" burst through the speakers. Hermione dropped her head back and began to sway in time to the beat, her eyes closed, fingers keeping time against the air.
"Dance with me, Harry," she smiled, her eyes slits.
"You're drunk, and I have to get up in the morning," he answered, turning the music down so that her neighbors wouldn't complain.
Her body slumped in mid-air as she executed a full-body eye roll in reply. "Fine," she told him. "Don't dance with me. Like I care." She left the living room and walked to her room, flipping the light on without breaking stride. Immediately she opened her top drawer and threw a lacy black thong onto her bed. "I always lay out my clothes for tomorrow the night before," she told Harry before adding a silky black bra and a pair of shear stockings.
Harry blinked, then nodded and tried to play it cool. This was Hermione. She was drunk and doing un-Hermione-like things, but in the end, this was Hermione. He tore his eyes away from the underwear and stockings (how on earth would he ever get the images out of his head?) and crossed his arms warily.
Hermione moved to her closet and pulled out a plain old conservative black skirt, a plain old black turtleneck sweater, and a pair of low-healed black leather pumps. She hung them all on the closet door with the underwear and stockings and then, with satisfaction, she said, "Ready for bed, then," before lifting her brown cotton top and doffing it onto the floor.
"Is it hot in here?" she asked, slurring as she unzipped and dropped her jeans to her ankles. She stood wearing the sexiest red bra and panty set he'd ever imagined. How had he never known that she wore this kind of stuff under her stuffy work and play clothes? This was a side of Hermione that he had perhaps fantasized about, but never allowed himself to image could really exist. He definitely felt hot, but instead of replying he said, "Where are your pajamas, Hermione?" She'd kicked off her shoes and wriggled out of the jeans.
"Right here," she replied innocently as she reached behind her, unsnapped the red bra and let it drop to her feet. Dry. Harry's mouth went dry as she giggled again and slipped between the sheets of her neatly made bed.
The sight of her breasts, full and lush with hard, pebbly nipples, would go with him to the grave.
She now lay, head on pillow, sheet to chin, and said, eyelashes batting madly, "Harry, would you come here please?"
This went way beyond friendship. He and Ron at the bar tonight had drawn straws to see who would walk their old friend home and who would get to stay and continue the party. When Harry had lost at the straws, he'd had no inkling that he'd be in store for this!
Reluctantly, he went to the bed, bent over her, balancing one fist on either of her sides and said, "What is it you great, bloody lush?" He was trying to lighten the mood. He hoped, prayed, that she wouldn't remember her indiscretion, but if she did, she might also remember him telling her she was drunk. The acknowledgement was considered a pass, a onetime-only-get-out-of-jail-free card. You were drunk? Then of course it was okay for you to strip down to nothing and then get into bed while making me as rock hard as I've ever been in my entire life.
She did not seem to register his mock-insult, though. Instead, she ran her hands lightly up his arms and said, oblivious of the sheet falling to her belly, "Usually I'm too nervous and scared of the outcome, but tonight I just don't care, and I don't care about tomorrow, either," she added defiantly, as if Tomorrow had somehow maybe mentioned that this was a very bad idea.
"I love you, Harry Potter and I don't care anymore if you know it." "Son of a Preacher Man" reached the end and the DJ switched to the old R & B classic "Let's Stay Together". "I don't care anymore because being your friend is important to me, but you have no idea how hard it is to be in love with your best friend. It's all I think about and that can't be healthy. So I'm telling you, right now, that I love you." She smiled, seemingly very pleased with herself, noticed the sheet had fallen and reached for it, blushing delicately. "I know I've had a few drinks tonight, Harry, but that should only really count toward one thing."
"What's that?" Harry said, staring at her, totally dumbfounded.
"Don't think I want to throw our friendship away. It's taken me almost fifteen years and six shots of firewhiskey to be able to tell you this. I don't do it lightly. If you don't feel the same way, which you don't look like you do," her voice faltered for the first time here, "we can just chalk it up to a bad night of drinks. Okay?"
Harry straightened up and stared at her, waiting for her to tell him that she was joking.
Instead of doing this she said, all traces of a smile gone, "I understand." Her voice had wobbled a bit and she was rolling over, her eyes bright.
"Wait, Hermione, don't do this."
"It's okay," she said, voice choking. "I get it. You don't feel the same way. I've made a terrible mistake and a fool of myself."
The truth of this hit her like daggers and she felt sick. God, how could she be so stupid? Why had she listened to Luna and Ginny? "Just take the next opportunity that comes along where you two are alone and tell him," they'd said. Well they were alone and the liquid confidence she'd consumed earlier was helping her along considerably. And she'd just blurted it out, exactly the way they'd told to her to, but not the way she'd always pictured it in her mind. The look of shock and pity on his face made her want to throw up. How could she have been so stupid? How?
Gathering his courage, Harry touched her shoulder and said, "Please, Hermione. You threw a lot at me in a short period of time. Let me adjust."
She stiffened but didn't push him away. Harry's head was spinning from the drinks he'd consumed that night, too, but he concentrated on this. This was very important. "Look, we're friends yes, but…well…I can't say I've never thought about you like that." He climbed into bed with her, on top of the covers and stroked her arm. "To be perfectly honest, you've rather lived up to the tarty underwear I always pictured you in."
"What?" she said, a little horrified.
"Did you think I was a saint? You're incredibly hot, Hermione, or had you not noticed?"
She was silent again. "Look the point is, I worship the ground you walk on, okay? I live and die for you. Being 'just friends' wasn't my idea perfection, but I never had the guts to say anything, either. Why on earth would you want me, after all? You're bloody brilliant! The cleverest witch of our age. You've helped me out of more scrapes and near-death experiences that I care to remember. Why on earth would Hermione Granger want me?" These last words were almost a whisper.
Hermione had turned around to face him and eyed him solemnly. Her hair was a wild mess and she reached up to touch his face saying, "How could I not want you?"
Harry kissed her then and she made a fist in his dark hair, pulling his glasses off with her other hand, opening her mouth and thanking the gods for firewhiskey.