Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or his world. I just play with them sometimes, but I always put them back where I found them.
A/N: Sorry for the delay! Classes just started, and it's been crazy. But I stayed up all night to complete this for you guys, so I'm hoping for some feedback to prove there's still someone reading me!
Please have a look at the forum for One Kiss From You, where I'll address all of your questions, and we can have some general fun discussion of fics!
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It was shortly after sunrise when the young lovers fell into a contented sleep on the deep red sofa, Hermione curled delicately into Harry's side, her head tucked into the curve of his shoulder. She slept soundly, folded into his arms, and still surprised by how strongly he was able to hold her, even in his sleep. It wasn't the four-poster bed she was used to, but there was something safe and warm in sleeping next to Harry that just wasn't there when she and Crookshanks cuddled against the winter nights. Her dreams were serene and calm, innocent fantasies of she and Harry flitting through her mind's eye.
Quite to the contrary, Harry's dreams were once again troubled by the blinding green lights. He didn't understand what these lights were or what they meant, but he was realizing that the green flashes weren't the light of a spell or curse, though what they were, he had no idea.
The dream, innocent in itself, had a tone of foreboding that would not let Harry sleep soundly. For some reason, it made him feel oddly protective of the girl in his arms, and in his sleep, his arms jerked violently, pulling Hermione suddenly out of her pleasant dreams with a surprised whimper.
As she pulled herself into consciousness, confused as to her surroundings, and wondering who on earth was in bed with her, Hermione came to awareness of her surroundings. Slowly, she realized that Harry had pulled her flush against the length of his body, twitching spastically and grunting. At first, Hermione blushed fiercely, suspecting him of dishonorable dreams, but his demeanor was far too defensive for that. Though she was crushed flat against his chest, she could tell that Harry was reacting as though to something dangerous, and if he was asleep as she suspected, to a nightmare of some kind.
"Harry." From her position of limited maneuverability, she shook him lightly, trying to escape the confines of his arms.
As he became slightly more aware of what was happening around him, the focus of Harry's dream moved from the strange, unidentifiable green light to the unknown assailant who was trying to pull a sleeping Hermione away from the meek protection he could offer. In response to this perceived assault, Harry clung even more tightly to Hermione, wrapping his arms as closely as he could manage about her waist and shoulders.
"Harry." She spoke a bit louder, now pressed uncomfortably tight against him. She wriggled enough to be able to press her palms against his side, pushing against him with her relatively small strength. "Harry! Let go of me!"
Her words pulled him out of his strange dream world, and he sat up with a jerk, earning a surprised squeak from Hermione. He stared around for a few moments in confusion, then flopped back against the couch with a sigh of relief, running a hand through his morning hair.
"What time is it?"
"I'm not exactly sure. Early though," she replied, looking at him with worried eyes. "Are you all right, Harry?"
"Er, I think so." The troubling anxiety from his dream was trying to lick its way into his waking conscious. He looked at Hermione for a moment, opened his mouth as though to speak, then thought better of it, snapping his mouth shut and glancing edgily up the staircases and toward the portrait hole, checking for any signs of other people in the common room with them.
"Harry?"
He couldn't name the feeling growing in his chest with each glance at Hermione, but it wasn't a happy one. There was a terror growing inside him, an itching feeling that she wasn't safe, that something bad would happen to her. Harry didn't know what he would ever do if something happened to any of his friends, and with this new role Hermione had suddenly taken in his life, he wasn't sure what he could do to protect her.
"I'm not sure about this."
"About what, Harry?" But even as she spoke, her heart was falling. This repetitive up and down of emotions with Harry was getting very old, very quickly. She wished he would just make up his mind and tell her what he wanted.
"I'm—I'm concerned," he began, looking earnestly up at her from where he lay on the couch. With a sigh, he pulled himself up to be sitting next to her, and pulled her near him, already uncomfortable to not be touching her after spending the night so closely intertwined. Remembering her insecurities when it came to his feelings for her, he added, "And please don't take this the wrong way."
"Harry," she sighed resignedly, "will you please stop teasing and just tell me one way or the other? Do you want to be with me or not?"
"Yes, I do, Hermione," he replied sincerely. "But I don't think we should tell anyone. Well, Ron, obviously, but I don't want anyone else knowing. I'm concerned—"
"Yes, you said that, but why?" she replied icily. Although she trusted he would have a perfectly good reason, she could feel her natural inclination to assume the worst of herself creeping into the forefront of her mind.
"I've got this feeling—and don't ask my where it's coming from, because it's just one of those things—that something bad might happen to you if the wrong person finds out how much you m—finds out about us." Even saying it aloud made it sound so much more stupid. Was he really so arrogant as to think his girlfriend was in constant danger just for being connected to him? "I know it sounds insane, Hermione. But please, please just for now?"
"That's not fair," she mused.
"I know, Hermione, and if you don't want to even bother with me, I'd understand. I wouldn't like it, of course," he added quickly, "but it would be a fair decision for you to make."
"No, that's not what I meant." She grinned impishly at him from where she was settled in his lap. "I meant how unfair it is that any girl here would give her wand hand to be with you, and now that we've got the chance to be together, we can't tell anyone for all the trouble they'd make for me."
Harry laughed with her, hiding his true concern behind his eyes. He wasn't sure how she would react to his confession that he was worried for more than a stray jinx tossed in the corridors. With Voldemort back to his body and eager for revenge, there were far darker forces that might be ready to hunt Harry down through any avenue available, and for Hermione to be discovered as such a weakness to him, to be exploited as his weakness, was completely unacceptable.
So they would have to hide.
"You promise me, Hermione?" he asked earnestly. "No one will know about this? Not even the Gryffindors, and especially not the Slytherins. Please?"
"So we'll act just like always?" She didn't look pleased, and Harry couldn't blame her. The idea of acknowledging their feelings in private and then having to go on as they had before in public was not an attractive one. "Pretending as though nothing's changed?"
"I don't like it either, but—"
"Harry, this is about more than the other girls, isn't it?" She glared demandingly up at him. "You're not just doing this to protect me from jealous students."
"You're too smart for my own good, Hermione," he teased affectionately, hoping it would distract her from her question.
It didn't work, and she continued to stare at him intensely, waiting for his response.
"No, it's not about the other girls," he finally conceded, tucking away a mental not that he would never win an argument against this beautiful girl, not with those intense eyes waiting for him to break under their gaze. He knew that ten times out of ten, he would break, and so he said, "I just have this sense of foreboding. I have enemies, Hermione, and since Voldemort's come back to power, I might have new enemies I don't even know about.
"Harry," she chided lightly. "This is Hogwarts we're talking about. You-Know-Who wouldn't dare set foot here, not with Professor Dumbledore around."
"He had a spy in Hogwarts just last year, Hermione, a teacher! And Quirrell in first year," he reminded her. "It's not impossible for him to have someone watching me, even now. If Voldemort somehow finds out that you mean—mean more to me than the others, I—I—I can't bear to even think how he might use that against me."
"Harry, I—" But he cut her off.
"Hermione, he killed my father first, did you know that?" He was desperate to make her understand, and his sudden change in topic surprised her out of her argument. "He killed my father, to show my mother he was serious about getting me, to try to make her give up. He doesn't understand love, and he can't probably feel it at all, but he knows how to use it against people, and if he can, I know he'll use it against me."
Any retort Hermione might have thought of would have been stilled as he brought up the idea of love. She knew how he meant it, but still. It wasn't the sort of thing a girl heard from a boy their age very often. But Hermione had not been planning any response. The image of a grown Harry, lying dead on the floor was trapped in her mind. She saw herself screaming in grief, carrying a baby in her arms and running from her dark assailant. And she saw Harry, poor baby Harry, crying in the arms of a dead woman.
Hermione jumped when Harry reached up and wiped a tear off her cheek with the pad of his thumb. "I didn't mean to make you cry again."
She shook her head in response, silent tears still falling down her cheeks as she realized what it must have done to his mother, watching her husband die and knowing that she and her baby were next. For the first time, she really appreciated the horror that had started off Harry's life, and she understood his concern for her.
"Alright," she whispered as she gained control of herself. "We won't tell anyone."
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A/N: I am so sorry this took so long, but if it makes you feel any better, I was struck with inspiration at about four this morning, and I made myself get to 1,000 words before going to bed, but then I was on a roll, and I just stuck with it and finished this chapter. Now, I'm trying to decide if I want to go to bed at all, or if I should just stick it out, as it's currently just after seven thirty in the morning. Hopefully you'll all get an update email to start off your day!!!
I promise the next chapter will be up soon, and will have the confrontation with Ron, Lavender and Parvati, and we'll find out how tough it is to pretend not to be with some one. If you thought it was tough for them not to say anything to anyone before they'd told each other, just you wait and see how tough the secret is once a couple people know.
Thanks to all my reviewers from the last chapter, and to everyone who didn't review but still sat patiently waiting for the update email!
The winner of my favorite review line from Chapter 5 came from The Colossus of Enigma, who said: "I think your overbearing lead up to Harry and Hermione hooking up was pulled off most effectively. It wasn't too long, it was just right. You see: Nine chapters is too long, but eight, eight is just right." I'm glad you enjoyed the first eight chapters, and hopefully the overbearing lead up will continue as their relationship progresses to the given rating!
Don't forget, check the forum for One Kiss From You for any and all questions, and just to chat with the author (me!), and make sure you have a Story/Author Alert set, so you can be sure to get that update email!
Rock on, keep reading, and as always, review!
cj596