A/N - I gotta to say, you guys are amazing. You understand what I'm trying to do here (show flawed characters in a situation where clarity is lacking and their slow journey as to how they finally arrive in the place I envision them to be after). Thank you so much for your patience. I know you need it with such short chapters.

Chapter 44 - Sunburn and Fringe

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"I don't want you to leave."

Harry sighed, the rucksack he held feeling heavier by the minute. "I can't stay."

Hermione crossed her arms over her chest, leaning a shoulder against the wall so as to continue to block him in. "Then I'll leave. You need to be somewhere safe; Grimmauld Place is perfect for that. I guess I could go to the Burrow for a few days..." she ended thoughtfully.

"You mean to Ron," he said without thinking.

He could tell that she was more than a little annoyed when he mentioned their best friend's name. She had spent a good part of half an hour trying to explain to him that it had nothing to do with anyone else, only to have him blurt out Ron's name the first chance he had. Harry wasn't about to apologise for it. No matter what she said, he knew that Ron had tried to stake his claim on her; how was he supposed to forget that?

"This has nothing to do with Ron," Hermione said slowly, her voice controlled, yet forceful.

"So you said."

"Harry," she said tiredly. "I'm not with Ron right now; you know that."

"But you will be."

"I never said that."

He simply stared at her before shifting the rucksack that rested on his shoulder. "I should go."

But once again, she blocked him. "What do you need to hear to convince you that I'm not lying? That I honestly don't know how I feel?"

"I don't know," Harry said in annoyance. "All I know is, what you said doesn't make sense. If you don't feel anything, why can't you just say it-?"

"I can't." Hermione looked at him, almost pleading with him to understand. "I don't know how I feel."

He narrowed his gaze at her. "Bollocks. You know and you're not being honest about it."

"I am being completely honest."

Harry simply shook his head in disbelief, walking past her easily.

"I'm not lying about this, Harry."

He ignored her pleading tone, feeling the need to get away. He didn't want her pity. The whole world had always pitied him and he had never liked it; he didn't fancy getting lied to because of that same bloody reason.

"I felt something, alright?" He stopped suddenly, just before he reached the door. "When you kissed me, I felt something. I don't know what it was, and I've never felt it before, but it was there."

Reluctantly, Harry turned to face her, wondering if she was making it all up so he wouldn't leave. But she didn't look like she was lying. She looked scared and exposed and completely different from the Hermione who was always sure of herself.

He knew he should have kept his mouth shut, but as usual, his need to get everything out in the open overpowered his sense. "What about when you kissed Ron?"

She seemed thrown by the question. "I don't know," she said sincerely. "At the time there was so much going on-"

"And yet you kissed him."

She looked at him incredulously. "You can't be upset with me for that."

"I'm not." He said in frustration. "I just...I don't understand."

"Neither do I."

"But that's the thing, isn't it? You know everything. You're supposed to tell me when I need something for a sunburn, or when a girl in my class likes me, or what we should do next when someone is trying to kill me. You've always known everything, Hermione."

Her expression said clearly how hopeless she probably felt. "I don't know what you want from me."

Harry's jaw twitched in frustration. "I want you to tell me the truth. If you see yourself more with Ron-"

"I didn't-"

"-then I'll back off," he said quickly, interrupting what he was sure was going to be some form of denial. "I'll forget this whole thing ever happened. And I will let the two of you be." He eyed her expectantly. "That's all I want; the truth."

She looked away from him. "So you can easily forget all of this, then?"

Harry shifted nervously. "If you want me to."

"You don't mean that," she said slowly, her gaze eying him critically.

He hesitated. "Maybe not."

A short, sarcastic laugh escaped her. "Merlin, we're in a right pickle, aren't we? I kissed Ron, you kissed me, and I don't know what I'm doing. I feel too old for this."

Reluctantly, his own lips twisted in amusement. "Technically, we're not even twenty."

Hermione snorted, her laugh too infectious to ignore. "You're right. I suppose we were too busy fighting the good fight to actually pay attention to all of this."

He looked at her seriously then. "And now that we are?"

Her grin fell almost instantly, a glint of determination appearing in her eye. "Stay, Harry. Let us help you. In the grand scheme of things... this is nothing." She gave him a meaningful look. "You know that."

He somehow knew that that wasn't the only reason. "You want to buy yourself some time."

She smiled affectionately at him. "You know me so well."

Harry glanced at the front door of Grimmauld Place, the need to simply run towards it overwhelming him. "What makes you think I'll give it?"

She stepped forward, her hand lightly brushing his away before she grabbed the strap on his shoulder and pulled it away from him, letting the rucksack fall to the floor. "Because, Harry Potter," she said in that logical tone he knew so well, "you and I are first and foremost friends." She lugged at the bag and tossed the strap over her own shoulder. She then met his gaze, one hand rising to brush away a few dark strands that had fallen into his eyes. "And friends do anything for each other."

With a final, albeit grateful smile, Hermione went back into the kitchen with his rucksack in tow.

Harry couldn't help but wonder...Why couldn't he say 'no' to her?

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