After returning home from a long, awkward dinner discussing a potential holiday with her least favorite relatives, the last thing Hermione wanted to do was socialize in any way, shape or form. So naturally, she trudged upstairs to her bedroom, and immediately called Harry to ask if he wanted to come over. After all the time she had spent with Harry at school, he felt like family, but without all of the expectations and pressure.
Hermione sighed as she picked up her phone and dialed her best friend's number by heart. It only took a week or two for her to memorize it, their frequent late night conversations were the only thing keeping her from going mad over summer break. Hogwarts was more like her home than the house she was raised in, her bedroom still decorated with all of her favorite things from the muggle world before Hogwarts. And yet, none of it mattered to her anymore. Her life at home had turned into an annual countdown to first term.
"Hello?" questioned the voice on the other side of the receiver impatiently.
"Oh, sorry Harry, it's me. I was just thinking about how i'm going to rip out my hair if I have to sit in this drywall prison any longer," responded Hermione with an obviously sarcastic tone, and while he laughed, Harry could sense it really was getting to her more than she let on.
"I was wondering if you feel like coming over, I've been itching to get an outside opinion on all this transfiguration homework, I just can't seem to figure it out." she continued.
"Umm, sure, let me finish these dishes and i'll be over in a bit." Harry uttered, explaining all the clattering in the background Hermione was hearing.
After break started, Harry had moved out of the Dursley's home, away from his evil aunt and uncle who used questionable parenting practices to say the least, into the Longbottom home. Dumbledore had made these arrangements as a result of the Dursley's increasingly cruel treatment towards Harry after his third year at Hogwarts.
Conveniently, Neville and his grandmother Augusta lived within walking distance of Hermione, which Dumbledore had claimed was a complete coincidence, with a poor attempt at suppressing a knowing smile. So of course all three of them spent every possible moment together, after Harry and Neville had completed the seemingly endless chores that the massive house Neville's parents had left him kept them busy with. In spite of that, Harry never complained once about the work as most others, including Neville, almost certainly would have. He would have swept all of Hogsmeade with a toothbrush to get away from those people.
Hermione heard the line go dead and excitedly pulled out her homework parchment, organizing it on her desk into piles sorted by subject and length. While she did care about the homework, it meant nothing to her compared to seeing Harry. He always brought her happiness and comfort when she needed it most. She loved Ron and Neville to pieces, but it just wasn't the same. Harry was a boy with maturity beyond his 13 years, and while she knew they were both young and had lots to learn, she recognized a handsome, loyal wizard when she saw one. Just thinking about being in Harry's arms made her heart flutter and a smile form on her flushed face.
Suddenly, Hermione was pulled from her thoughts as she heard the familiar chime of the doorbell ringing, and in a blink of an eye she was flying down the stairs ready to greet him. Once she reached the living room, she thrust open the door and embraced Harry, who happened to still be carrying his books and parchment, with one of her signature bear hugs before he could even think to say hello.
"I missed you too!" said Harry, with a slight chuckle at his best friend's tendency to forego traditional greetings in favor of a more direct, physical approach.
"Took you long enough to get here," Hermione said with playful annoyance and a smile, lightly slapping his arm.
For a moment Hermione forgot they were standing outside, with her parents looking on at them in astonishment at the commotion their daughter had made. Everything in the world other than Harry's warm embrace seemed to melt away, none of it could even begin to compete with this young wizard. She began to wonder how on earth she could live without him when annoyingly, he pulled away from her to greet her parents.
Hermione sighed internally, realizing she could create an opportunity for at least one more hug later. Even though she had to have given him thousands of them over the years, and several this week already, his hugs never got old for her in the slightest. In the meantime however, she steered Harry upstairs after a brief conversation with her parents. Once the two of them arrived in her bedroom, they started work on their essays, but quickly got stuck on some quite frankly unanswerable questions with the textbooks they had on hand. Minutes later, Hermione's owl was sent off with a letter to professor McGonagall, and the two best friends set out to decide what they would do next.
After a few of Harry's ideas were shot down, and he refused to read one of Hermione's massive history text books "for the fun of it", they settled on a film. Armed with popcorn, a few blankets and a Jurassic Park VHS tape, they made themselves comfortable on Hermione's futon. Secretly, films were Hermione's favorite activity with Harry because she could enjoy being alone with him for extended periods of time, but she would never openly admit that, especially not to him.
As soon as the supper he had cooked for him and Neville was finished, Harry took everything back to the kitchen and offered to take Neville's turn doing dishes if he would do his share if laundry later that night. He liked doing nice things like this for his friends, but it was blatantly obvious that he had an ulterior motive. Neville agreed, seeing as dishes were practically his worst nightmare, and Harry immediately set to work. The sink was also conveniently stationed by the phone, where he could answer the call be expected right away. Harry knew that she had a particularly uncomfortable dinner with family that night, and that she probably would be feeling down, so it was very likely Hermione would want to see him. Sure enough that call came, and Harry did the fastest round of dishes of his life, admittedly leaving the dishes cleanliness in question.
Immediately after, he ran up to his room, and hastily put on his shoes without bothering to tie them. Harry grabbed every piece of parchment and every textbook in sight, making sure everything he needed was with him. Closing his door hard in his rush, he shouted across the hall telling Neville where he'd be since Augusta was having supper with friends in Diagon Alley. Without waiting for a response, Harry bursted out the front door into the warm, summer evening breeze.
As he briskly walked to Hermione's house, he recalled the first time he saw that big clump of frizzy brown hair on the Hogwarts Express, and couldn't help but smile. It took no more than an hour for her to gain his total respect, using magic to fix his broken glasses before they had even arrived at the school. From that moment, in spite of her know-it-all attitude on the surface, Harry Potter knew that girl was special.