Close Isn't Close Enough: HARRY
It was making fun of me.
The locket I tossed into the orange flames sat there making fun of me even as fiery tendrils licked its metal casing. It wouldn't burn, I knew. But I wanted to throw it in the fire anyway for whatever small bit of satisfaction that would bring. It had been making fun of the both of us for only Merlin knew how long, and it deserved this symbolic punishment.
The only other sound I could hear were tree branches scratching on the tent like a dog whimpering to be let in. I attempted to block out the world as I stared at the contained inferno, because I'd rather not break the silence we had fallen into. Instead, I busied myself by reading Mystical Artifacts and their Origins. Mind, I was using the term 'reading' rather loosely here. My halfhearted skimming was about as fun as you'd imagine. I was never one for this sort of thing and normally I wouldn't have given the book more than a glance, but the situation I found myself in that night was not normal by any stretch of the word. I already suspected that Helga Hufflepuff's Cup was on the list of things we ought to find. And that bloody snake, Nagini. But beyond that was beyond me, which is why the book and I were fast friends. I narrowed down the other Horcrux to something from Ravenclaw or Gryffindor and if I was right for once, Voldemort wasn't being very creative. If I was wrong, and the other object was something mundane like a bottle cap or a galleon, then we were further back than square one.
My hair and clothes were still half-wet from the snow I tracked in but at least the rest of me was half-dry by comparison. I tried to pretend I'd been sitting there the entire time and that nothing had happened besides me and the fire getting acquainted. It would've been easy enough, but the scattered clothes, books and glassware spoke a different story, one that I'd rather not have retold any time in the near future. Contrary to Hermione's unofficial motto, some books should stay closed. Forever.
An icy feeling settled in my stomach at the thought of her, contradicting the glorious idea that I simply had an elaborate, fanciful daydream that I was only just waking up from. Wishing it away was useless, I supposed. Wishing had done a whole lot of nothing thus far. Somewhere, somehow I knew that no matter how long I sat still, the numbness wouldn't thaw as easily as the late-November snowflakes stuck to my jacket.
I unzipped it and tossed it somewhere, leaving me in a trademark Weasley jumper with a giant, golden H lovingly sewed into the fabric. The hideously red thing brought back memories. Great memories mostly but also exasperating ones of an angry redhead that was observant and intensely suspicious. Rightly so, evidently.
One would ask why I wore the old jumper in the first place. Well honestly, it was warm.
I remembered the day like it was yesterday. It might have been yesterday too – I could hardly tell anymore. There was a lot of yelling and finger pointing that ended in Ron leaving and Hermione crying and me stuck between running after him or offering her my shoulder. It didn't take long to make that choice since Ron had a habit of making her fall apart, though he wouldn't know it. Last time it was because he ran off with Lavender. This time he just, well, ran off, and left a damsel in more distress than I'd ever seen. She didn't need my saving, as a girl like her can think her way through anything. I couldn't resist trying though. Saving is apparently what I do.
I shook my head, certain that she wouldn't appreciate the princess analogy. In the event that she could read minds, which wasn't too farfetched since she could read everything else, I saved myself from the whack that was sure to come. Or at least I thought I did. I tensed for it, because suddenly she was right behind me having a staring contest with my back, and winning. I almost resigned myself to another argument, but instead she pressed a cup of tea into my hands.
My digits mechanically closed around the handle before I took a big gulp of Earl Grey. I muttered something that I hoped sounded like a thanks and proceeded with ignoring her, but did a shoddy job of that at best. Try as I might to focus on the hot liquid scorching my throat instead of her eyes burning a hole in the side of my face, my efforts were for naught.
"Harry," she started, trying to call my attention. She already had it whether I wanted her to or not. "It was the Locket."
"Some of it was you."
"Not most of it."
"But some of it," I said. My voice was barely above a hum but my words were clear. Each one stung. "If you felt like that you could have just told me."
I steeled my voice in an attempt to maintain control of the situation. Wishful thinking, I reckoned. My resolve dithered when she got in front of me and blocked my view of the fire. Still, I couldn't bring myself to look at her and chose instead to try my hand at interpreting the tea leaves swirling at the bottom of my cup. It seemed like a great time to take up the skill. Professor Trelawney would have be proud.
Unsurprisingly, all I saw was a mess. Which, I guess, wasn't wrong.
"The Horcrux must have magnified my emotions somehow." She turned back to look at it, perhaps to make sure it wasn't up to anything else. "I couldn't control what I was saying."
"I figured as much," I replied. "But Cruciatus?"
It was the only unforgivable that ever stuck. You'd think with the type of pain it caused I wouldn't remember how it felt. But I did. I remembered Voldemort pointing his wand at me, and I remembered forgetting everything –the graveyard, Cedric, the Dark Lord himself– but the white hot pain, like needles invading every pore, knifes in every inch of skin.
Perhaps she was thinking of it too since she took a long time to get herself together. I already told her not to apologize but if she insisted, I thought I'd make it easier on her by giving her somewhere to start.
"You wanted to hurt me."
"I said I didn't mean to. I honestly didn't," She replied quickly. "The necklace –"
"– didn't make things up on its own. If you want to leave don't stay on my account." I couldn't have made it clearer. I didn't know I had to. The damsel was not trapped in a tower and I wasn't the dragon keeping her there.
When I looked up, I wish I hadn't. The internal battle waging in her head as she debated my statement was loud. I blanched, unable to believe that she was actually thinking about what I thought were just empty words. I almost started asking her not to, to please reconsider, before she finally said, "Of course I'll stay."
"Of course," she repeated. "But we need to talk."
"I should've known," I replied, raising the mug she handed me earlier. I took another sip. "It's always tea."
That got a smile out of her, which got a smile out of me.
"Have I done something to upset you, besides the losing my mind bit?" she asked. I misplaced the smile somewhere. Forgetful me, I hadn't the slightest clue where it went. I stayed quiet, hoping that she'd suggest an answer that I could agree to like she usually did. Know-It-All-Granger let me down and sharply turned my head to face her.
"Look at me. And tell me why you haven't looked at me properly since." Her volume decreased so drastically at the end that I barely heard her. I found myself staring directly into her deep pools of brown. My skin tingled under the pads of her fingers and I found myself taking shallow breaths. A fight or flight response, both options a means to an end.
The fire's orange glow reflected off wet trails that crisscrossed and converged on her cheeks. I could almost make out the teeth marks from her worrying her bottom lip. More tears welled up in those eyes of hers and without even thinking about it, I reached up and smeared them away with my thumb. I didn't know when she started crying but no one should be allowed to make her so upset. Especially not me.
"Ron's my best mate. Yours too," I said, adding the last bit as an afterthought. She seemed taken aback by the direction I was going in but I kept at it anyway. Was it so hard to believe that the only reason I couldn't bring myself to recall that morning was because of a wall? A very temperamental human wall who also happened to be my friend? "Haven't done wrong by him yet, and I'm not sure about starting now."
Hermione blinked owlishly as if the answer to everything was obvious.
"He left, Harry. I'd call that doing wrong by us."
"It was the Locket," I said. That seemed to strike a nerve, considering the circumstances.
"It can't make up what wasn't already there," she replied, echoing me. "The stress got to him before then. Changed him. Ron and I weren't as close as we used to be."
"Since when? I spent all of sixth year trying to get you two together because you were too stupid to talk like normal people." I said, as if that explains it. She grinned sheepishly.
"And whilst you we doing that… Harry, can I tell you something?"
"Sure," I thought she was already telling me something.
"I don't know." She admitted. She glanced down, eyes closed. It was as much a revelation to herself as it was to me. "I don't actually know."
"And that's okay." I said. She looked up. "Because I don't know what you're talking about."
"You're going to make me say it, aren't you?"
That sounded like a brilliant idea.
"Say what?"
I felt her drift a bit nearer. Blood pounded loudly in my ears. I couldn't help my grin, nor did I want to.
"That I think I got closer to you instead."
She was something else, that Hermione. Ron didn't deserve her and neither did I.
"Closer, you say?"
"Much closer," she whispered, draping her arms over my shoulders. I was captive, and captivated. We've been close like this before. Well, not like this, but you know what I mean. Huddled under the Invisibility Cloak in the Restricted Section looking for a book she just had to have. Late night sessions in the Common Room after I begged her to help me study for a test the next day that I hadn't reviewed for. Sitting on marble staircases just talking about this thing or that. Even now she smelt like crushed almonds, milk chocolate, and overdue library books. Someone should bottle the fragrance and sell it as a patented Confundus. I made a mental note to tell Fred and George all about it.
"What's so wrong in seeing where this takes us?" she asked, stroking the back of my neck. Her scent, combined with the softness of her breasts against my chest and proximity of her face and my face and the fact that we weren't snogging right then was enough to sway me if I needed swaying in the first place.
"All's fair in love and war," I replied. With that, our lips meet with a hesitant "Hello again". Hers were as warm and soft as they looked. Her fingers were carding through my hair when she pulled away abruptly.
"And Ginny?"
"We ended ages ago," I said as a matter-of-fact. Didn't she know that? Whether or not she did, Hermione's face lit up in a smug sort of smile. It charmed me, the way she could feel smug about something like that. It made me want to get into that head of hers and see how long her affections lingered in the background. I should check mine as well.
"Glad to hear it." Her breath tickled temptingly on my face and I wondered why we were still talking. Her body heat was solid, delicious. I couldn't recall when my hands got on her hips but she didn't seem to mind. I squeezed tentatively and searched for anything that would tell me that this was too much too soon. I met no resistance, and so I mapped out the mountainous curves and easy slopes of her landscape. By the time I got back up to her face, all I could do was nod, having forgotten what she was asking or if she had asked anything at all.
She pulled me back to earth with a kiss so good she must've learnt it in a book.
It didn't seem so bad, what was happening. Why would it be any different from what we were doing for each other before, which was just being there? If this is what being there meant now, and it wasn't hurting anyone, then I didn't mind the wet sounds our mouths made, or the way her hands explored me as much as mine explored her. She said it herself: close quarters and all that. This is what happens when close isn't close enough.
She tensed and I felt more so than heard a low moan in her mouth.
"Well somebody's sensitive, aren't they?" I murmured. My voice was thick with want that I never knew I could feel. I hardly recognized it. She chuckled and I continued trying to find different ways to make her make that sound again.
Some of her words from before were still niggling at the back of my head. Maybe we'd discuss them some other time but honestly, I had enough of talking for one day.