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: By the way, for purposes of this story, assume that the Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts proceeded as per canon, on the second Saturday of the term. The Quidditch practice referred to in this chapter, therefore, includes all of the characters and characteristics assigned to the '95-'96 Gryffindor Quidditch team by JKR.
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Hermione left Professor McGonagall's office deep in thought. The quiet of the deserted stone corridors was a relief. It allowed her to sort through the wild thoughts in her head, and compose herself to see Harry again. It would hardly help the situation for her to leap into his arms in the middle of the Great Hall, but she could at least see him smiling at her, which would most certainly improve her day.
When she entered the Great Hall, Hermione's eyes automatically sought Harry and Ron as they always had. This time, however, there was a different weight to the emotion she felt when she found them—sitting together, if a bit stiffly—and it took her by surprise. She was glad to have someone to sit with, as usual, and relieved that they weren't deep in some conversation with the other Gryffindor boys that would leave her out of the loop, like when they talked about Quidditch endlessly. But there was a significant change in the timbre of her relief at finding them. Perhaps it was glee that she had not invented Harry in her lonely mind, or that seeing him physically taking part in their daily lives affirmed what was happening between them was real, even if all the others saw was friendship. She found an unfamiliar lightness in her step as soon as she could positively identify where Harry was. It was as though the connection that had loosely bound them throughout the day had suddenly pulled taut, and she now had no choice but to be nearer to him.
Taking care not to skip to the Gryffindor table, Hermione approached them, and, placing her book bag in the small space between them, claimed her seat. Both boys looked up in slight surprise, but moved to make room for her between them. She was glad they were sitting together, but suspected that it was just an act. They would have said something to stop her otherwise, she reasoned, and confirmed her belief as they shot her small, yet grateful smiles. Other than a quick smile in response to each of them, she didn't intend to spend time talking to either of them. In Ron's case, it was because he had asked her not to mention anything about his fight with Harry, and that was really all she wanted to ask him. As for not speaking to Harry, she was concerned that she would not be able to keep the joy she felt would surely burst out of her chest from showing on her face. Beaming at him without cease would likely cause suspicion from on-lookers. Instead, she focused her attention on something else.
"Hello, Ginny," she exclaimed brightly.
Ginny, who had been staring off into the distance with a dazed expression, started at the sound of her name.
"Oh, hello," she replied vaguely. "Had a good day so far?"
"Well enough," Hermione agreed amiably, sliding into the space the boys had had no choice but to make for her. There were regularly full tables during weekday lunches, with no late sleepers or evening detentions to detract from the number of dining students, so the place they had made was fairly tight. This was alright with both Harry and Hermione, as it allowed for them to touch from knee to hip without questionable motives. "We have the afternoon off today. I suppose we'll work on some homework and such."
"We have Quidditch practice tonight," Ron replied flatly, without looking up at any of them.
Hermione turned to Harry with a slightly crestfallen face. "Sorry," he mouthed. Out loud, he said, "Yes, the first of the season. I expect we'll only get a couple of hours in. We've got a whole new team this year, after all, so we'll have to get used to each others' playing styles." He turned to Ginny to add, "I want to spend some time with just the Chasers during practice and find out what their strategy is, so you can all work together as a single, cohesive unit. I've never played the position, so I'd like you to head that up. Is that alright?"
"Of course," Ginny replied, now fully involved in the conversation. "How will you handle the Beaters, then? We haven't got Fred and George anymore. They won't know what they're doing."
"That's true," Harry mused, now fully in team captain mode. "I don't know what they expect me to do without my full Weasley team," he joked, glancing briefly at Ron, who smiled before scowling very deeply, as if to make up for his slip.
Ginny noticed the tension between Ron and Harry, and added, "Ron used to play Beater sometimes when we were younger. Before Fred and George started here, they wanted to be Chasers."
"You were the Beater more often than I was," Ron muttered, blushing.
"Yes, but if I'm working with the other Chasers, and there's no one to do drills with you, you can be working with the Beaters." She stopped suddenly and looked at Harry, blushing too. "Sorry, I don't mean to take your job."
Harry chuckled. "It's quite alright. I don't know what I'm doing, remember? I appreciate all the help I can get." He shot a look at Ron to see if he understood the significance of his words, but Ron was still pointedly ignoring him. "So," he said, turning back to Ginny, "tell me everything I need to know about chasing."
Hermione was slightly disappointed that the subject had once again turned to Quidditch, so she took a small bowl of a dark brown onion soup and began nibbling at it with some crusty bread. As the conversation continued, however, she began paying more attention than usual to what was being said, owing in large part to how soothing she suddenly found Harry's voice as he responded in genuine interest to Ginny's explanation of the finer points of chasing. She had never realized before how many academic theories like probability and geometry went into playing the wizarding sport. It turned out that there were several common positions for the Chasers to fly in, and all of them had their own advantages and disadvantages.
Hermione had grown up seeing football all around the country, but Quidditch was even more difficult to master, as there was the vertical element that could not exist in earth-bound Muggle sports. The more she listened, the more she remembered seeing some of the positions that Ginny was explaining Harry, and recognized how some were more appropriate in certain situations. Most of them focused on two Chasers defending the one with the Quaffle, but there were many other strategic reasons for the way they flew. Ron even jumped in on the conversation, though Hermione noticed he was careful not to speak directly to Harry, making all of his comments to Ginny instead, though the information he offered was all relevant to Harry's plan for the team.
Harry seemed to notice this too, livening up his conversation, though also pointedly not saying anything that would force Ron to respond to him specifically. She was glad to see that the two of them were finding common ground and getting along, even if in an indirect way. It showed promise that perhaps they could once again all be the friends they had been. Glancing over at Harry, Hermione smiled to herself lightly. Perhaps not quite the same, after all, she thought to herself. She still could not escape the sensation that she just wasn't close enough to Harry to be satisfied, and the itch to touch him was maddening.
Ron and Ginny began arguing casually about the defensive significance of synchronized Chasers versus a well-practiced Keeper, but Harry stopped listening, because he was suddenly distracted by a tickling warmth on the inside of his wrist. He didn't have to look down to find out what it was, because he could see Hermione's golden-brown hair in his peripheral vision as she bent over her book bag to hide the fact that her fingertips were tracing small circles on the sensitive skin of his forearm. His eyes closed involuntarily for a moment before remembering his surroundings. He briefly covered her thin fingers with his own, running his thumb gently up the side of her index finger. She shuddered delicately at the electric charge that seemed to dart through them. Smiling to himself, he dropped his hand beneath the table to meet Hermione's.
In that moment, neither wanted anything more than to be able to hold hands and eat lunch with their friends in the middle of the crowded Great Hall, without caring who might see. This not being an option, they contented themselves to brush the backs of their hands against one another. Harry was in awe at the softness of Hermione's skin, and wondered briefly if his own chapped knuckles were hurting her. Thinking of this, he flexed his fingers unconsciously to test the state of his skin, finding Hermione's fingers in the process. She seemed to take this as an invitation—which was just fine with Harry—and entwined her fingers around the first knuckles of his hand, not daring for a more intimate touch than that.
Hermione was too keyed up from the drama of the morning hours to eat much, so she ate mostly the bread and the rich broth from her soup, occasionally sipping pumpkin juice. She also limited how much she ate to avoid drawing attention to the fact that she was using her left hand while she gently held her fingers between Harry's. She noticed him shifting his weight to conceal their hands and relaxed into the feeling. It was perhaps an awkward sort of grip, but it was certainly better than nothing, she thought. She felt Harry's thumb again sweeping over what little skin he could access, and could not think of a more effective way to warm up from the winter chill already creeping through the castle. She sighed contentedly into her soup bowl, pretending to be enjoying the satisfying nature of hot soup on a winter's day, hoping he would know better.
Harry did know better, and in an effort not to show his leaping heart to those around him, he tuned back into the conversation in time to catch Ron and Ginny turning to him expectantly, as though waiting for his decision to settle the matter they had been discussing. The only trouble was, Harry had not been paying attention for several minutes as he'd been distracting himself with Hermione's gentle hands.
"Erm, sorry, what?" he asked stupidly.
"We were wondering if you wanted us to all split up tonight. I can work with the Chasers, Ron can make sure the Beaters aren't hurting themselves, and you can supervise everything," Ginny repeated good-naturedly. "Since it's the first practice and all. You already know how well Ron plays, so not drilling the Keeper probably wouldn't be the end of the world, and it'll let you see how the rest of the team works together."
"And I was wondering," Ron cut in, shooting a dirty look at his little sister, "if you wanted to work with the Beaters, so I can practice with the new Chasers, since I don't know their styles yet."
This put Harry in an uncomfortable spot. On the one hand, he wanted to keep Ron from being more angry at him than necessary—which, he thought bitterly, was obviously not at all—but on the other hand, he agreed more with Ginny's strategy for practice, given that working the grouped positions together would be of more benefit to the team as a whole in the long run. He found himself mourning the fact that she would only be able to be the Gryffindor team's captain in her seventh year. She seemed to know much better than he what should be done. As the Seeker, Harry had rarely been a part of team drills, spending more time instead high above the action, looking for the Snitch, even during skirmish matches.
"Actually," he countered democratically, "I was thinking we'd start off with some ground drills, and then see where we can go from there."
"Ground drills? What, like running and push-ups?" Ron protested loudly. "What's the point of that, first night on the field?"
Harry opened his mouth to retort hotly, but was interrupted, surprisingly, by Hermione.
"Oh, honestly, Ron, it's not as though riding a broomstick isn't hard work. You do have to be in shape you know," she burst, parroting Harry's words from the night before.
Ron, Ginny, and Harry all looked at her in shock, having never heard her participate in a conversation about Quidditch before. Harry squeezed her fingers between his for just a moment to show that he understood what she was doing, and was grateful for it. She blushed faintly before adding to the others, "Don't look at me like that. I am aware of the things going on around me, even when they don't particularly interest me. Any athlete needs discipline. And Ron," she added, trying to remove the dark look of betrayal from his face, "I've seen some of the things you do, when you stretch nearly off your broom to save a Quaffle. That takes physical discipline. Why would you practice as a half-strength team, if you want to end up as a team at full strength? I think Harry's right to have you do ground drills for practices." As soon as the last words were out of her mouth, Hermione regretted having added them.
"Of course you do," Ron muttered, his momentary cheer at her praise long gone. He pushed his plate away violently, and grabbed his bag to storm out of the Great Hall.
Hermione watched him go in shock and embarrassment. She turned to Harry and Ginny, stammering, "I—I—I didn't mean to make him mad, I was just—"
"We know," Ginny said, watching her brother go. "He's just a jealous idiot."
Harry and Hermione looked at her in surprise. "What do you mean?" Harry asked her slowly.
"Isn't it obvious? You two haven't been exactly hiding it," Ginny replied casually without looking at either of them. They didn't look at one another, but Hermione could feel the shake in his fingers as he waited for Ginny to tell them that she knew. "I mean, we've all been playing Quidditch for as long as we could ride a broom, and I think he thinks that—well, that he should have been made Captain, instead of you, Harry." She sighed heavily, looking again at his retreating back. "I'm sorry my brother's such an idiot. He shouldn't have hit you this morning, either. I just don't understand why you're trying so hard to pretend you're not fighting."
He gingerly touched the mark on his face, following Ginny's gaze to the doors of the Great Hall, but Ron was already gone. Hermione moved away from him, too, which hurt until he realized that without Ron there, there was no reason for them to sit so close. He missed the touch the instant it was gone, but knew they shouldn't risk it for something so small, no matter how satisfying it had been to be in contact with her.
"Harry, is this yours?" Hermione asked him suddenly. He turned to see her holding the rolled parchment Ron had given him. "I must have knocked it off the table when I sat down."
"Thanks," he replied, taking the parchment and looking at it sourly before thrusting it into his bag. That was the last thing he had wanted to remember. "Was she angry?" he asked her.
"Not really," she said thoughtfully. "She actually didn't seem very surprised. I suppose she'll give you a detention, nonetheless. Oh!" she exclaimed in surprise. "Will you have to cancel Quidditch practice tonight?"
"I hope not, but I don't know that I can really avoid it if she gives me detention. It's not like I can ask her to switch it to a more convenient time." He stretched back on the wooden bench, looking absentmindedly around the Great Hall. His eyes fell on Malfoy and his cronies at the Slytherin table. Malfoy sat facing the Gryffindor table, and noticed Harry eyeing him almost immediately. He sneered openly at Harry, his gaze flashing to Hermione, and then Ginny sitting near him, and Harry felt a blazing need to protect the pair of them from Malfoy's dark leanings. He knew that people like Malfoy were the very tip of the iceberg of threats to his friends and family, but hadn't felt it quite so keenly before Malfoy's father had openly regained his status in Lord Voldemort's inner circle of Death Eaters. He'd always been an annoying little git, but he'd never seemed to pose any real threat to anyone. Before he could say anything or respond to Malfoy's ugly look, Malfoy stood up and left the hall, leaving his followers behind.
Ginny excused herself to finish studying for an exam and left quickly. The Great Hall was beginning to empty as students moved on to their afternoon classes, but Harry wasn't ready to leave for McGonagall's office just yet. Not when he could spend a few more minutes talking to Hermione.
"What did Professor Lupin want?" she asked, eating with her right hand again.
"Um, he—" But he was interrupted by a singularly feminine hand landing on his shoulder.
"Quidditch practice tonight, Harry?" He followed the hand up the arm leading to the face of Demelza Robins, one of his new Chasers.
"Yes, at six-thirty," Harry replied, still surprised by the suddenness of the interruption.
"Excellent," she said, winking brightly. She turned to Hermione, her face rather harder than necessary. "Nice to see you…Gangrene, isn't it?"
"Granger," Harry replied through gritted teeth. He had heard Demelza and Romilda Vane talking about him a few days previously, and understood that Demelza shared in Romilda's crush on him. "Hermione Granger."
Hermione felt her spirits lift as he jumped to her defense, but noticed his dark mood nonetheless. "As founded as your worries are outside of Hogwarts, I rather think I'm more in danger here than anywhere else," she whispered once the other girl had walked away.
Harry grinned without looking at her, so that onlookers might think he had just thought of something funny. He was trying very hard to manage his need to be near Hermione, and thought that he was actually doing quite well for as much as he wanted to take her by the hand and run to the nearest broom cupboard.
"So what did Lupin want?"
"Oh, he just wanted to let me know that—" Harry paused to clear his throat uncomfortably. "To let me know that I can talk to him about anything I needed to. He seemed to be awfully aware of—well, of things that have been going on. And I talked to him for a while about Sirius and my dad."
"James and Sirius?" she repeated. "What about them?"
Harry blushed deeply and fidgeted in his seat, checking for anyone around them before answering, but they were mostly alone at their section of the Gryffindor table. "About—I mean, if Sirius had ever—not that it was really the same at all, it turned out, but—"
"But what, Harry?"
"If Sirius ever got mad when my mum and dad got together at school," he finally muttered, still not looking at her. Not until he heard an indelicately hidden giggle, that was. "What are you laughing at?"
Hermione tried to cover her smile, but there was nothing for it. "Professor McGonagall kept me behind to tell me the same thing. Maybe we haven't been so subtle to the professors' eyes?"
"Well, they've had a few generations of student to watch and learn the signs, I suppose," Harry responded, chuckling. "Anyway, I should get up to McGonagall's office to schedule the detention for tonight."
"Would you like me to walk with you?" she offered casually.
Harry glanced around the nearly empty hall. "For a while. As far as the path goes to Gryffindor Tower, okay?"
Hermione nodded. "Okay."
They stood up from the table, bumping elbows in the process. Neither commented on it, but the same electric tingle seemed to race through them. As they moved out of the Great Hall, they didn't say anything, but strolled along in companionable silence. Harry appreciated that, unlike other girls he knew, Hermione didn't always feel the need to fill the silence with meaningless words.
On the third floor, they took a shortcut down a completely deserted corridor. Every classroom door was closed, except for one, halfway down the hall, that was cracked open to reveal a darkened room. Harry pondered this room as they approached it, twisting his head this way and that to see if anyone was coming down the corridor from either direction.
"Harry, what on earth are—"
"Shh," Harry whispered, placing a hand on her waist and steering her to the far side of the hall, where the open door beckoned. He stopped them for a moment outside the door, listening for sounds both from the room beyond and the corridor behind them. When he was satisfied that no one was going to stumble upon them, Harry splayed his fingers against the door and pushed it open gently.
As the door opened with a faint creak, Hermione realized his intent and giggled mischievously. She allowed him to guide her into the room with a hand on the small of her back. They glanced back quickly into the hallway once more before closing the door quietly behind them.
"Lumos." The light of Harry's wand showed them that they were in a standard classroom, with four rows of five desks each lined up before them and an instructor's desk at the opposite end. He began moving up the rows toward the large desk and crooked a finger at her to join him.
"You should be practicing your nonverbal spells," Hermione scolded automatically, moving toward him.
He looked across the room at her incredulously, raised an eyebrow, and his wand went out at once. Hermione found herself blind in the utter darkness, her eyes not used to night vision like Harry's were. She felt her way gingerly to the desk, but by the time she'd gotten there, he had moved. "Harry?" she whispered. "Harry, where are you?"
She heard a dark chuckle from her right. Hermione gasped and turned to face him just as he pulled her into his arms, his strong hands finding her face easily in the dark and drawing her up into his embrace. Harry was much more comfortable in the dark than Hermione was. He supposed part of it came from his many night prowlings in the castle, and perhaps a bit just because he was a bloke and was supposed to be comfortable with that sort of thing. Whatever it was, he felt braver here in the nondescript room than he had in the library or the common room the night before. They were places he knew, places that had been used for certain functions in his life over the years, and snogging was generally not one of them.
As a result, his embrace was tighter than ever, and Hermione could feel a tinge of desperation to it, as though he wanted to put as much fervor into his kisses as possible, to tide them both over until the next time they would be able to sneak away. He was unafraid to explore her mouth with his tongue, and kept his broad hands at her neck and waist, holding her entire body as close to his as possible, and she felt deep in her stomach the first flutterings of true desire. She gasped at the realization, drawing his dark, spicy flavor into her lungs, which only served to torment her more. She pulled away, breathing too heavily for comfort.
"Are you alright?" Harry asked in concern. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"No, it's—it's nothing like that," she whispered breathlessly. "I only—I mean it's just that I—oh, Harry."
She had no words to tell him what he was doing to her, and instead wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face back down to meet hers. Her fingers played in his hair, and she tugged lightly on the shorter hairs at the nape of his neck, eliciting a gentle sigh and a shudder that moved through his whole body. Knowing that she could affect him this way, knowing that he wanted her, at least a little, did things to Hermione that she knew in her heart could never be undone. For the first time in her life, she wanted someone in the simplest, most basic way, as a woman wants a man.
This sudden realization nearly sent her to her knees in shock. She kept one hand on the back of his neck to steady herself, and dragged the other across the well-worn fabric of his dress shirt. Her fingers touched the rougher fabric of his Gryffindor-striped tie at the same time that he moved both his hands to cup her face. The intimacy of that single caress, the adoration he showed her in that moment sent shudders through her, and she gripped his tie as hard as she could to keep from collapsing. He seemed to understand her trouble standing and turned to lift her gently onto the desk.
When they finally had to pull away to breathe, Hermione fell back on her hands, leaning on the desk for support. Harry leaned down over her, resting his forehead against the smooth indent above her collarbone. Their breathing matched pace as it slowed considerably, though the charged atmosphere did not dissipate. Harry still stood between her knees, and one of her ankles had taken it upon itself to hook around the back of his leg.
He gazed down at her, and was sure that the dreamy expression on her face was mirrored on his own. He smiled and nudged her cheekbone with the tip of his nose. She tilted her head to the side in response, and he placed a row of delicate kisses along her jaw. She shivered again, the skin of her neck and throat tingling madly, as though asking to be given attention as well. It seemed that every nerve in her body was alight and waiting for his next touch, however insignificant it may be. She was glad for the darkness of the room as she blushed from the wild images she was seeing in her fevered mind. As his lips made contact with the curve of her neck for the first time, she gasped, once again twisting her hand into his dark locks, holding his face to her skin. Her other hand found purchase against the muscled edge of his shoulder and proceeded to roam his upper body wherever she could reach.
The sounds of breathing and wet kisses filled the air for several minutes, punctuated by gasps and sighs, and names whispered in the dark. Harry couldn't believe the things that were happening here, in this anonymous classroom with Hermione. To know that she wanted to be his girlfriend had been dream enough, but now she was in his arms, clinging to him as though she would never let him go. He wondered briefly—as any teenage boy is likely to do in such circumstances—if she would allow him to try to go further. He quickly pushed the idea from his mind, trusting that Hermione would be upset if he brought up something like that so soon, and besides, even if she said yes, he'd have no idea what to do. It was far too enjoyable to just be standing here snogging and holding one another to risk ruining it for something so one-dimensional.
For a few precious minutes, both forgot about the dangers lurking outside the room. Harry was not concerned for her safety, though he did worry that she might be uncomfortable, and she didn't bother herself with the details of pretending not to be involved in front of the other students, or what she could do to help Harry and Ron patch things up. Neither thought about Ron at all, as a matter of fact, or Lord Voldemort, his Death Eaters, Dumbledore's frequent absences from the castle, or even their constantly growing loads of nearly impossible homework. For a short while, they were able to just be.
Then, without warning, Harry pulled away, covering Hermione's mouth with his hand and shushing her insistently. She had to consciously bring herself back to rational thinking. The first thing she noticed was that her skirt had hiked up nearly to the tops of her thighs during their embrace, and she jumped off the desk, hurrying to straighten it, because the second thing she noticed was that there was a voice coming down the corridor outside, and a pair of hurried footsteps growing louder with each passing second.
"I'm telling you, love, there's never a class in here."
"Get behind me," Harry hissed, and Hermione was just short enough that she could bend her face against the curve of his spine and be hidden. He had just composed himself enough to pull out his wand when the door opened and light flooded the room. Compared to the previous darkness, the dim torchlight in the passage outside was blinding, and Hermione could feel Harry wince.
"Didn't know this room was tak—Potter?" Hermione could recognize the lazy drawling voice, even if she couldn't see its rat-faced owner.
"Malfoy," Harry replied coolly.
"Who've you got back there?" he asked in mocking amusement. "The Mudblood, no doubt?"
"Oh, just one of your old girlfriends," Harry shot back. "She got tired of the same old thing, you see. Just didn't want to hurt your feelings." He shrugged casually. "You know how they are."
"Typical," Malfoy shot back. "Everyone's hero, taking sloppy seconds in a dark classroom."
His eyes had adjusted to the light enough for Harry to notice that Draco was holding someone's hand. She had a pale arm, with slender fingers, but that was all Harry could see, as she was standing beyond the width of the door.
"Too embarrassed to be seen with a ferret like him?" Harry called out, knowing she would be able to hear him. "I don't blame you."
Harry had crossed the line, and he knew it, but Malfoy was already being pulled away by the silent owner of the pale hand. Perhaps she really was embarrassed to be caught trying to do exactly what he'd just been caught doing, and even though whoever it was had chosen to associate herself with Malfoy, he felt a bit bad for saying something to her without even knowing who she was.
Malfoy closed the door with a sharp bang and a last scathing look. The room fell back into darkness.
Harry breathed out, long and slow, before turning back to Hermione. "That was close," he muttered, angry at himself for having taken such a chance by bringing them into the room in the first place.
But Hermione was having none of his guilt. She sought him out in the dark, trying to pull him back into her arms for more.
"Insatiable, are you?" he whispered teasingly.
"Perhaps."
"I like that."
"Me too."
"We should go, before someone else catches us for real," he whispered regretfully.
She whined at this, and it was too adorable for him not to give in to what she wanted. He leaned down to kiss her gently. He tried to keep it chaste this time, but the passion was still there, bubbling palpably beneath the surface. He held her chin as they kissed, his other hand smoothing her hair gently. Their encounter had lasted only a few minutes, but it had changed something about the way they saw one another. No longer just schoolmates or fellow Gryffindors, they had formed something together, that could not be complete without its other half.
They pulled apart, stroking each other's faces in awe of what had happened. "We should leave separately," Harry whispered, resting his forehead against hers, "so no one suspects we were here together."
"Alright," Hermione agreed, though separating for any reason was the last thing she wanted to do.
Harry left first, lighting his wand to show the path to the door, and pausing for any signs of movement outside before he opened it. He turned back to her. "When I leave," he instructed, "count to at least one hundred, then go, okay?" Hermione nodded, already looking desolate without him beside her. Harry's pride swelled to massive heights seeing how badly she wanted him, and knowing that she was his. "And if anyone stops you…?" he prompted.
"I'll tell them I was practicing nonverbal spells in here. I know, I know," she said, grinning at him. "Just go. I'll see you at dinner?"
"Sooner, I hope."
Hermione hopped back onto the desk, counting slowly. She rubbed her arms, trying to regain some of the heat she had lost when Harry moved away. Her mind was flying, now that she had full control of her senses again. The way she had reacted to his touch had thrown her completely off-balance. She idly lit and doused her wand without speaking a word, wandering if it had been a hundred counts yet. Sighing, she leaned onto her hands again, letting the light from her wand throw a distorted shadow against the far wall.
The frantic desire still coursing through her body was too much, too real, too unfamiliar for her to know how to cope with. Half-formed fantasies fluttered behind her eyelids as she unthinkingly brought her knees together, rubbing her thighs up and down. There was some small piece of her that knew this could bring her a measure of relief, though she didn't know quite what that would mean. Hermione was not a stupid girl; she knew what she wanted and what she was seeking to fulfill that aching need. She had not, however, known what it was to feel this way, and hadn't been prepared for the all-consuming heat that came with what they had just shared. She wondered why Harry had seemed so unaffected by their encounter, worried it had been something she had done wrong.
With a frustrated groan, Hermione strode decidedly to the door and slipped into the hall beyond. If she was going to be miserable without Harry, she could just as well do it in the comfort of her own house common room.
~%%~
Harry pressed himself flat against the wall to the side of the door as he cracked it slightly. He could see no one coming down the immediate portion of the hall in the direction from which they had come, but had to rely on his hearing to tell him that the corridor was empty the other way. He glanced back at Hermione, smiling briefly before silently putting out his wand. He snapped around the corner and took off down the hallway as though he had not just come out of a supposedly empty classroom. Harry had seen the look of malcontent on Hermione's face, and wished he could do something about it, but it had been too risky for them to stay in that room any longer. Knowing Malfoy, he would have tipped off Filch as soon as he left, especially after Harry had baited him so.
As soon as Harry had rounded the corner out of the corridor, he rushed the rest of the path to make it to Professor McGonagall's office as quickly as he could, not wanting to push his luck by making her wait for him to arrive twice in one day. He arrived minutes after leaving Hermione, out of breath, to find her sitting behind her desk as always.
"Potter," she began brusquely as he approached, and Harry braced for the lecture. "You certainly took your time getting here." Harry muttered an apology. "Now, as your Transfiguration teacher, I am obligated to give you detention for missing my class this morning. It was rude and completely unacceptable."
So he was going to have to cancel Quidditch practice, then. Even the Gryffindor Head of House would not let Quidditch practices keep her from giving the team captain detention. Harry hung his head, ready to hear his punishment.
"However," she continued in a tone that made him look up in hope, "as your Head of House, I feel further obligated to instruct my house's Quidditch Captain that certain expectations have been laid out by you and your teammates over the past five years. I hope that allowing you to write lines on your own time will both teach you your lesson and give you ample time to whip your new team into shape?"
Harry was stunned. Not only had Professor McGonagall never assigned him lines—at Hogwarts, as he had learned early on, there were far more effective punishments to deter rule-breaking than a sore quill hand—but she had never let someone off so easily for skiving off her classes.
"Well?" she prompted curtly. "Is that acceptable, or shall I schedule a more traditional detention this evening to—"
"No, no!" he protested hurriedly. "I mean, uh—thank you, Professor. That will certainly help out the team a lot. If we cancelled tonight's practice, I don't know when we'd meet before we play Ravenclaw next weekend." That wasn't strictly true, as they had practices scheduled that weekend and throughout the week, but he wanted to make sure McGonagall understood how much she was helping the team, not just him personally.
"Now," McGonagall said, pulling a scrap of parchment from a drawer and scribbling on it quickly, "obviously sending you to do lines yourself requires a bit of trust on my part. So to make up for the leniency of the punishment itself, I am assigning you three hundred lines of, "I will arrive to class on time and prepared," to be on my desk by Monday morning. The weekend should give you plenty of time to complete the lines, as well as all of your other obligations." She handed Harry the scrap of parchment, which had the line to be copied written once upon it. "Also, I will appreciate it that you won't tell anyone else about this arrangement. I don't need to hear any complaints about special treatment. Are we clear?"
"Three hundred lines by Monday morning, and don't flash it around," Harry repeated back, grinning.
"Very good, Potter," she nodded in approval. "You may go."
Harry turned to leave, thrilled that his punishment had been so light and convenient.
"Oh, and Potter?"
"Yes, Professor McGonagall?"
"I do hope you take Remus Lupin up on his offer." There was a glint in her eye that made Harry wonder how many members of the faculty were keeping an eye on him this year. "I know that what you're going through right now is difficult, on a number of levels, but you're going to have to rely on others as much as yourself if you plan on making it through intact."
"Yes, Professor McGonagall," Harry replied. "Thank you, ma'am."
The faculty of Hogwarts had always seemed to know a bit more than they led on, and after having spent time with them as near-peers in business for the Order, Harry knew that they were also more aware than most of Dumbledore's plans for him. As he returned to Gryffindor Tower with the scrap of parchment folded in his pocket, he couldn't help but wonder if all of this attention really had anything to do with his love life, or if they were trying to warn him of a danger that had not yet surfaced.
~%%~
A/N: I like sneaky fluff. I also like people getting caught. In case you hadn't noticed, this fic is getting a bit…um…steamy. I don't plan on things being graphic (no 4-letter sex words, anyway), but there will be adult situations. If this is a problem for you, or you are not old enough in your area to read such material, please discontinue reading! I am a full advocate of sexual relations between consenting adults, and apparently, Hermione is too.
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 12 came from wiccanbeliever, who didn't leave a particularly funny or amusing review, but did point out that I spelled Remus Lupin's name wrong fourteen times. Thank you so much for pointing out such an obvious (and embarrassing!) error. I hope no one resists the urge to point out inaccuracies or canon errors while reading my story!
Rock on, keep reading, and as always, review!
cj596