Day Six
Hermione woke just before her alarm on Monday, as usual. She was in a good mood. She had her week at work all planned out, while her evenings were free to spend diving into the new stack of books she'd picked out in the hour Ginny had allotted her in a bookshop while they were shopping on Saturday. And now she had a calendar to open.
She practically skipped to her living room and opened the sixth little door to reveal...ballet tickets. Specifically, tickets to The Nutcracker, the same ballet she used to attend every year with her parents.
Hermione took a deep breath. Harry, a man, had bought her tickets to the ballet without being asked. Now that she was holding them in her hands, she remembered that he had asked her to leave this Saturday night- which was the date of the show- open with some vague excuses about seeing a movie, plans which he had never confirmed, but she had dutifully set the night aside anyway.
There were two tickets. She supposed he wouldn't expect her to go alone, but did he intend to go with her?
Hermione had thought about what Ginny had said. She had been hyper aware of it as they spent the evening together on Saturday, as well as every time he paid her the least amount of attention on Sunday, which was often. That broom ride had been all sorts of wonderful and confusing in a way that was telling.
But she'd yet to come to any firm conclusions, which she told herself she was okay with, because this was a major decision. She would be a fool to rush it. She needed to be responsible, as she always had been, he counted on her for that.
But now she was holding in her hands literal tickets to the perfect date and it was making her brain whirl. What did this mean? Did it mean anything at all? He'd been remarkably thoughtful thus far, but nothing beyond best friend behavior, at least nothing that was obviously skewed towards the romantic. But this could be a date. Or it could just be tickets.
Did she want him to expect to come along? Did she want him to leave it up to her? What if he flat out told her not to bring him? She couldn't pretend the last option wouldn't hurt.
Then there was the matter of this really being too much this time. Too much. And there were still eighteen more days to go of these little- or not so little, as today suggested- surprises. At this rate she was going to fall in love with him whether she liked it or not. If he had been trying to design a way to demonstrate that he was perfect for her, he couldn't have done a better job.
But the thing was, she didn't think he'd set out to do that at all. He just wanted to make her happy. He didn't have any ulterior motives, which made it better, or worse, depending on how she looked at it. She sighed, carefully placed the tickets back inside the calendar for safekeeping and went to prepare breakfast and get ready for work.
Her heart didn't stop pounding all morning. She gave up and left for lunch early, which normally would have made her angry that her perfectly planned week was already behind schedule, but she couldn't possibly be mad at Harry over this.
Ron greeted her cheerfully when she entered their office, the reason for his good mood obvious in the form of an entire basket of chocolate frogs perched on the front of his desk, which she took to mean that he had a new girlfriend, or at least a new admirer. She would have to ask Harry about that later. Ron still got cagey and defensive talking about other women with her. But she didn't want to be ignorant when he inevitably started talking about whoever she was.
She returned his greeting and turned to Harry. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" She gestured with her chin out the door, she knew this would garner all sorts of questions from Ron, but she would worry about that later. She'd burst if she waited any longer.
"Sure," he said, though he was frowning. He quickly stood and made his way over to her, lightly grasping her arm once he reached her.
She pulled him outside and towards the lifts, away from where everybody was working, out of the Auror Department entirely. Once they'd passed the lifts, she finally stopped and took a deep breath, gathering herself.
"What's wrong?" He asked, brows furrowed.
"Nothing," she barely got the word out before the last thing that she wanted to happen, happened. She started to cry. Harry hated it when she cried.
He hesitated only a moment before he took her into his arms, and she didn't need to look to know that he was glancing around, hoping that nobody was watching them. That only made her cry even harder, because she didn't want to cause a scene. That would be embarrassing enough for her, but mostly she didn't want to make Harry self-conscious or the subject of gossip, as he all too often was. And if they were seen like this, it would be all over the Ministry within hours.
"Hey," he murmured quietly, "whatever it is, we can fix it."
He sounded so concerned and his sincere promise only made her cry harder.
"Shh," he soothed, his hands drifting up and down her back but his movements were hesitant, and she knew it was not because he was nervous about holding her, but because he wanted to make this better and didn't know how to go about it.
And that little sign of self doubt was enough for Hermione. She turned her face into his chest, breathed him in and willed herself to pull it together. "I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
It was the kindest lie she'd ever been told, because she knew that internally, he was completely freaking out, but he was hiding it in favor of taking care of her. "No, it's not," she shook her head against his chest, "there's really nothing wrong, and I'm sorry I scared you, and I'm sorry I did this at work too, but I couldn't wait to talk to you, it was distracting me."
"What?"
She dried her eyes and craned her neck to look at him without having to step away. "It's just, you bought me tickets to The Nutcracker."
His eyes went wide with horror. "That made you cry?!"
"No, no!" She rubbed his chest and grimaced, when she realized she was going to have to contradict herself. "Well yes, but not because I was upset! Because it was so thoughtful. But it really is too much this time."
"Why?" He asked, like what she'd just said was utterly ridiculous.
"Because those tickets are expensive, Harry! And because it just means so much to me."
"But that's why I wanted to do it, because I knew that it was special to you," he said, still in that tone that suggested she was being absurd. As if he wasn't holding her heart in his hands.
Which is why she was so emotional, because she couldn't explain this to him without revealing something she wasn't ready to reveal. And she was afraid that he didn't understand what a wonderful thing he had done, and that it really didn't mean anything except for one friend treating another to a nice night out.
When she didn't say anything he spoke again. "And I can afford them, Hermione, you know this. My inheritance is just sitting there, I don't need to live off of it, so why can't I use it to do something for you? I'm sure that's the kind of thing my parents would want me to do with it."
Now, that was just playing dirty, and she was certain he knew it, but she also thought he absolutely believed what he was saying.
"That's not the point," she responded quietly, eyes trained on the floor.
"What is the point then?"
"I- I don't know."
He shook her gently and she finally looked up at him.
His jaw was set. "Well I'm not taking them back."
She knew there would be no arguing with him, though she'd already decided before this conversation started that she wouldn't flat out refuse them. Harry could be very sensitive about being allowed to share what he had with the people he cared about, and if people in question refused he took it as a rejection. It was yet another hold over from the Durselys.
"And I know that you're not busy on Saturday," he added.
"Well yes, somebody saw to that," she smiled at him, doing her best to make it look genuine, and trying to lighten the mood, "and I really want them, they're excellent seats, so I'm not going to give them back, don't worry about that. Were you planning on coming with me or…" that was the best she'd come up with, to leave the question open ended, but she hoped that the tone of her voice would provide him enough hints to suggest that she wanted to spend the evening with him.
"I can," he responded slowly, "if that's what you want. But if you'd prefer to take a real date, I understand. I just want you to have fun."
She automatically wrinkled her nose at his choice of the term 'real' date, which was yet another indicator of how she really felt about him. "I want to go with you," she admitted. "But you do know that this is the ballet right? That means music and dancing with no words for like two hours," she continued, still trying to add levity to the conversation.
"Yes, I know, I did my research, I have a good example," he moved one hand from her back to her waist and squeezed her playfully. "And I'm interested to see why it makes you so happy, so I'd like to go, if there isn't anybody else you'd rather take."
"Nobody," she promised fervently, and she wondered if he could hear it in her voice, she bit her lip and looked away.
"Okay good. But in that case I have something else to tell you, but I'm scared it's going to upset you again."
"I wasn't upset," she insisted.
"Okay, emotional," he corrected.
"I'll do my best to stem the waterworks," she said dryly.
He pursed his lips and shifted from one foot to the other, which made her very nervous. Harry had stood in front of Voldemort and displayed less nerves. Then again, he'd always been afraid of all the wrong things.
"I actually have two more tickets. I thought, well you said that you used to go every year with your parents, but I didn't want to invite them without talking to you, and I didn't want to ruin the surprise."
He looked at her, probably trying to gauge her reaction, but she could only stare back, eyes growing wide.
"So," he continued, I just bought an extra pair and I figured I could just sell them if you didn't want to ask them, or we could just invite some friends. We could see how much Ron really wants to impress this new witch of his," he smiled at her hopefully.
She knew that the last part of the offer was a joke, but she was too busy blinking rapidly, desperately trying to hold back her tears in order to keep her word to him, to even attempt a laugh. He had no idea, no idea what it meant to her that he was trying to resurrect this precious tradition that had been yet another casualty of discovering that she was a witch. Another piece of her childhood she thought was lost forever. She took several deep breaths and looked up to meet his eyes. "You thought of my parents?"
He nodded, obviously unsure.
"Harry," she gasped, "thank you so much. I can't believe you did that."
"I just wanted to make you happy."
She and Crookshanks were going to be having a very long, one-sided conversation later as she tried to wrap her mind and her heart around these developments. She had to look away from him and take several more deep breaths. "Damn it, Ginny," she growled to herself.
"What?" He laughed.
"Nothing," she said quickly. "I'll ask my parents today after work. But if they can come, I want you to let me pay you for their tickets. I wouldn't feel right otherwise." Truth be told, she didn't know how her parents were going to react to this, but she couldn't not invite them when he already had the tickets, couldn't not try, but whatever their reaction, she felt strongly that she needed to pay the literal price.
She met his eyes again, but this time she held them, and whatever he read on her face made him nod. "Okay, I guess I can live with that, if it's so important to you."
"And if they're busy, I think I'd prefer if it was just us, okay?"
His face broke into a grin. "I think that sounds perfect." He quickly sobered. "One more thing."
Forget nice being nice or thoughtful, he was definitely trying to kill her.
"What's that?"
"I made dinner reservations. The reservation is for four, so your parents are welcome to come to that too, or it can be just us and I can change the reservation, or I can cancel it altogether," he rushed to explain.
She closed her eyes. "Maybe just us for dinner? We can meet them at the theatre if they're available." She couldn't look at him, she was afraid he would read everything in her eyes.
"Yeah, that sounds perfect too."