Anything more than the truth would be too much.

Robert Frost

"Does Harry love me?" I repeated, this time to the empty room. The pressures of this seemingly never ending night finally pushed me over the edge and I was talking aloud to myself. I had begun pacing in front of the fire with my hair streaming into my face and obscuring my view of the world.

"There is no possible way. I'm Hermione. I am the friend, the confidant. I am the bushy haired, orthodontia needing, book worm turned slightly less obnoxious professor. I am the friend, the girl next door. Guys do not fall in love with girls like me. I am the one he goes to to get advice about how to get the girl. I'm not the girl he wants to get."

"Yes you are."

Those last three words did not come from my mouth.

"You are my friend. You are my confidant. You were slightly bushy haired and perhaps in need of orthodontia work and most assuredly a book worm. You are slightly less obnoxious and a wonderful professor. You are my friend. You are the girl who lives in the room next to me. Guys do not fall in love with girls like you. But I hope, after all, that somewhere along the way, I've managed to become more than a guy. You are the one I would normally go to get advice from about the girl. You are the girl I want. You are the woman this man has fallen in love with, Hermione."

There is only so much a woman can take before all hope of rational, coherent, unemotional thought leaves her. I officially passed that level somewhere around the word, "Yes." I collapse, in the most inelegant heap upon the floor. Huge tears spring from eyes and continue at an utterly appalling rate with no hope for any abatement. I am crying so hard I have trouble breathing and begin to hiccup. In the small part of my mind which was recording this for the next time someone asked me what my most embarrassing moment was, I registered that my eyes must be all red and puffy as they get when I cry, my hair was a mixture of a nest and the fine style it was before, any my pajama top did not match my bottoms.

When you see those movies where the heroine meets the hero's declaration of love in a state worthy of a fashion magazine photo shoot, it's utter and complete rubbish. I have never been particularly graceful and it seems that when falling in love I must continue that pattern. Love is messy and a declaration of love is no less tidy. Here I sit; more like piled in a stack, on the floor by the hearth in mismatched plaid flannel and Mickey Mouse slippers with running make up and completely destroyed hair while the love of my life makes the most romantic statement a man could make.

To prove my point and make me feel ever so slightly better, Harry was standing just as disheveled and unsure as me. No longer in his dress robes, he was wearing a pair of old, torn jeans, one of Mrs. Weasley's famous sweaters (with an H as he was family), and his hair completely standing on end. His glasses sat crooked on his face and he kept fidgeting, not knowing what the meaning of my rather unique reaction is.

I finally realize that the tears and hiccups are not going to stop any time soon so verbalization is not going to help the poor boy out. From my awkward position on the floor I simply reach a hand up to him. He thinks I need help standing up, wrong he is. Only due to his surprise, I am able to pull him down next to me on the floor. He winces as his knees hit the stone. I have not seen him this discomfited since we were teenagers. He kneels next to me as I continue to cry and hiccup. Finally I take both his arms in my hands and wrap them around me as I allow these never ending tears to run their course.

Still a bit inept, but quickly catching on, Harry pulls me tight against his chest and holds me. He rocks back a bit so that he can sit and not kneel. Once adjusted, he pulls me onto his lap and rocks me as the tears begin to slow and my breath returns to normal. As my hysteria trails into silence, we both sit there, wondering.

"Hermione, I am not entirely sure what that …" Harry searches for a word to describe my little moment that will not result in me becoming upset again. A word could apparently not be found. He continued, "Was all about. I meant what I said. I don't know how it happened or when it happened or why. All I know is somewhere you went from being my best friend who happened to be a girl to being the girl I loved who happened to be my best friend."

The same small part of me that recognized the extreme level of embarrassment a few moments ago recognized that here was Harry being extremely eloquent, poetic, and honest on the same night that Ronald Weasley completely understood a relationship issue. At some point I would have to further examine this phenomenon.

"Mione, might you, even just a bit, care for me in the same way?" he asks.

How can he even wonder? Here he sits with his arms around me and my head tucked in the crook of his neck and shoulder. I pulled him to me. I responded to that life altering kiss.

Oh, but I did run away after that kiss. I have been his friend for fourteen years. Lest we forget, he is male and I am female and the male of the species rarely understand the workings of the female.

Harry looks a bit green. Given that we are in a darkened room in front of a fireplace, he must really be green. Why? Oh, I have been rambling to myself instead of answering him.

"Oh, Harry, there's more than just a bit," I say in his ear as I hug him with as much strength as I can muster. "Somewhere along the way, I managed to fall in love with you, too."

If this were one of those romance novels that I must admit even I have read, this is the point in the evening where we would commence snogging each other senseless as the students say. However, let me repeat, life and love are not in the neat packages found in films and books. We simply sat there together. We simply held each other and our fresh understanding.

"Harry, my bum is a bit chilly from sitting on the stone. Can we move to the sofa?" I ask around an hour later.

He laughs. Taking an entirely unromantic moment, created by me, Harry turns it into one by simply lifting me up and carrying me over to the sofa. He sits down with me still in his arms, arranges himself, and then puts me down next to him. His arms wind around me to hold me tight on the rather narrow furniture, not that I mind. Our position is now fairly reminiscent of how I found Ron and Anne.

"Did you know Ron has a girlfriend?" I ask Harry.

"What!" he exclaims and I feel the air rush out of him.

"After I ran tonight, I went to the flat. He was there with this girl, Anne. Apparently she's a muggle raised by an aunt who is a witch," I pause and smirk. "She is an actress…In musicals."

"Oh that explains it. I knew there had to be a reason why our Ron suddenly became a fan of West Side Story, Guys and Dolls, and South Pacific."

"They were watching Oliver!" I continue.

I feel the rumble of his laugh before I hear it. I can most definitely get used to this.

"He is never going to let me forget that he was right, twice." I was not going to tell Harry all about my conversation with Ron quite yet. It was not necessary. A yawn escaped from me. "How am I ever going to manage to teach my classes tomorrow morning?"

"You can't fall asleep on me yet. Don't worry, if that note on your table there is like the one that was in my rooms, all Transfiguration, DADA, and Charms classes are cancelled. Minerva said something about Peeves causing problems. Besides, we have some serious matters to discuss," Harry solemnly states.

I tense for a moment. What is he talking about?

"There are three young first years wreaking havoc on the lives of the much older, wiser, and more mischievous professors. They also had help. There is Marauder blood in me, Mione, such a deed as this evening requires a payback prank. Since you are part of what can only be considered the second generation of Marauders, all apologies to Fred and George, you must have some in put into the retribution," Harry continued.

I laugh.

"I love how I felt your laugh bubble up," Harry says. Merlin, we even love the same things about each other. "The other issue is who else is involved. It has to be someone with some considerable magical ability, knowledge of the Room of Requirement…"

I must admit to tuning out a bit what Harry is going on about as my mind is now functioning again and turning over the problem at hand. The other person or person must be knowledgeable about the Room of Requirement and able to cause food to appear in it. That person or another had to have the ability to transfigure our robes from our normal robes to formal attire. Our classes for tomorrow are cancelled.

"Harry, isn't it a bit of a coincident that the day after all of this happened that our two classes happened to be cancelled? And the only other class is the one professor Minerva could simply say class is canceled and the professor would not question her? And that our robes were transfigured?" I ask Harry.

Slowly he begins to see where this line of thought is going. "Mione, are you saying…"

"Yes, Harry, I think our own Minerva McGonagall has entered into the scheming of our first years."

"Blimey!" Harry states. Why do he and Ron use that word? What exactly does it mean? There are so many other words that would better describe his thoughts and he uses, "blimey."

"That does not quite cover it all. There's still the matter of the food. Growing up with a mum who can really cook well, I know the difference between transfigured, charmed, or conjured food and real food. That meal tonight was prepared in a kitchen and not with a regular spell."

"I would bet the entire content of my vault at Gringott's that our favorite little house elf is in on this. He has been surprisingly absent from my chambers the last few weeks and next to me, his loyalty would be Minerva. He has to be in on this too!"

"Harry, I think we have our five perpetrators. Miranda, Anthony, Nicholas, Minerva, and Dobby. Now the question remains, what are we going to do with them?" I ask with a coy expression.

"That will be answered in a moment, for now, you look simply too charming to escape without being kissed," he states as he leans in and softly kisses me. That kiss, unlike our previous two does not abruptly end, but rather lengthens and deepens. Several minutes pass as we familiarize ourselves a bit more with each other and explore our recently acquired abilities to leave each other senseless. After several minutes when the world seemed to stop existing outside of the small sofa and when the need to breathe made us pull apart, I put my head back down on Harry's chest.

"I will definitely be able to get used to this," I say.

"I agree," he says.

"I didn't realize I said that out loud," I murmur.

"You've said many things out loud tonight that I don't think you intended to. Yet, I find myself immensely grateful for those slips of your lovely lips," here he quickly brushed my lips with his. "I sincerely hope the pattern will continue."

"If my talking aloud without knowledge of it will result in such kisses from you, Professor Potter, I can assure you the pattern will become a habit quite quickly."

Here I was silenced by another kiss. Then we resume the silence and the enjoyment of the moment.

Then the Marauder blood returns, "So what are we going to do about those impish meddlers?" I can't believe he just called Minerva 'impish.'

I must have some Marauder blood in me, because I smirk with deviousness worthy of Padfoot and a plan founded on some ingenious thought worthy of Moony. With my own Prongs here before me, this was going to be priceless.