Here it is: the (somewhat) eagerly awaited second half of Why Witch Weekly Should Not Be Left Lying Around (aka A New Twist on 20 Questions)
Enjoy. Just review when you're done.
Part Two
"Break," said Hermione, standing up, putting her hands on her hips and arching her back. "Ow, I'm so sore." Eyes widened, Harry watched as she swept, back still backward arched, from the left to right. Then she straightened. "Much better. Harry, you want to get that water?"
Thirty minutes later Harry was back on the couch, a glass of water on the coffee table, and waiting for Hermione. When they'd taken their break, Harry had gone off for a glass of water, only to find Luna and Ron, hair and robes scorched, Apparating in.
"What the bloody hell happened to you?" asked Harry, reaching into the cabinet containing the drinking glasses.
"Don't let Hermione hear you swearing," warned Ron. "And you want to know what happened? A few Muggles caught us about to Disapparate, and were convinced that we were a gift from the gods. Before I could react, then were shoving needles into our arms, and when we come to they're about to throw us off the bloody volcano!"
Examining their burnt clothing, Harry replied dryly, "I suppose they succeeded?"
"Don't even start with me, mate," warned Ron.
Raising an eloquent eyebrow, Harry filled up his glass and took a long swill. "So what are you and Hermione up to?" asked Ron, shooting Luna a 'covert' glance.
"Some quiz thing in Witch Weekly," said Harry nonchalantly, leaving his best friend and his wife to find his answer in the obscure comment.
"Like 'Where Should We Snog Next'?" shot back Ron, a dash of hope and desperation in his voice.
Before Harry could deliver an equally scathing reply, Hermione appeared in the doorway. She was clutching a sheet of parchment in her hand, worry scrawled across her face.
"Harry, this just came in for you."
He grabbed it out of her hand, and scanned the empty sheet. He flipped it over, then flipped it back in time to see the ink begin to appear. Identity Sensing Charm. Standard Auror procedure, really.
Harry – Dougal's just been brought in. We need some paperwork signed. Know it's your day off – one sheet and you can go back to whatever you were doing.
-Shaklebolt
Harry groaned.
"They just brought back in Marcus Dougal. Shaklebolt needs me to sign his arrest warrant. I'll pop in, and be back," he told Hermione. He passed her to get to the fireplace in the living room, and was quickly gone.
Now it was thirty minutes since they had originally adjourned.
When he'd returned to their flat, Ron and Luna were gone, and the shower had been running. "Hermione!" he shouted, brushed ash off his jeans.
The water turned off with its usual shriek, and then a soft answer of, "Give me a minute or two, Harry!"
He went in the kitchen to get another glass of water, and as he was returning heard the thump of Hermione's feet as she passed through the living room to get to her bedroom at the other side of the flat.
Harry settled down to wait, figuring for Hermione to take at least another twenty minutes to get dressed, and was surprised when, the moment he sat, her bedroom door burst open, and there she was.
Her normally bushy hair, now wet, hung almost straight down her back. Scrubbed cheeks gave her pale complexion a bright blush.
She'd put on some sweatpants, gray, and a loose blue shirt that was large enough to fall off one of her shoulders. It was his, he realized, that, according to Luna, wasn't his color.
Guessing what he was thinking from the way he was looking at her, Hermione shrugged. "I kept it because I figured that since you spent twelve galleons on the thing it might as well get used."
It looks a hell of a lot better on you than it could ever look on me.
"I don't mind," managed Harry.
She moved to the couch, unconsciously waving her wand to move a coaster under Harry's sweating glass. "Alright, my turn to ask?"
"Yep."
There was a slight pause as Hermione and Harry settled into new positions, Hermione's bare feet across his lap; her head leant on the arm of the couch.
She shuffled through the magazine, finally finding the page colored deep purple, words written in white ink.
"When was the last time I was really, really mad?"
Having prepared for this, Harry immediately had an answer. "Wednesday. Some bloke at my office started to lecture you about house elves when you came by to pick me up for lunch. I thought you were going to break his arm."
"It's not my fault he was an ignorant . . . idiot," muttered Hermione. "What's my all-time greatest fear?" she continued in a louder voice.
"Thunderstorms."
"Here I was, thinking you were oblivious. How'd you know?"
"Well, maybe the fact that you refuse to go out when it's raining? And you curl up on the couch with hot chocolate, like you used to at Hogwarts." She frowned, folding up the skin between her eyebrows.
"How do you know that I sit here and drink hot chocolate?"
"So you thought that your cup floats off to the kitchen, washes itself, and that afghan will automatically cover you up when you fall asleep out here?"
She blushed.
"Moving on – next question. What's my favorite kind of weather?"
"Anything that doesn't have lightening?" joked Harry. At her withering glance he replied, "Clear and sunny. Not too cool, not too warm. Perfect."
Suddenly Hermione found herself unable to meet the intense green eyes burning a hole in the back of the magazine. Swallowing almost audibly, she read the next question.
"What would I rather choose . . . falling in love or doing well in school?"
"Falling in love."
"Yeah," smiled Hermione, lowering the magazine. She realized her mistake when her eyes met Harry's and were unable to look away. "What's the point of school if you don't have love to make it bearable?" she asked softly.
Harry blinked, and the connection was broken. Swallowing again, she shifted her eyes to the page. "My first kiss was . . ."
"Victor Krum."
It was immediate.
And wrong.
"Nope."
"Impossible," replied Harry confidently. "Anyone else Ron and I would've known about."
"Egotist. And you wouldn't know about it if I didn't know you two when it happened." Harry's eyebrows rose into his lengthy bangs.
"Tell."
"Neanderthal. And it was in my first year of primary school. His name was Brian Andrews and he kissed me because I had the Tonka Truck that he wanted. Surprisingly, our relationship didn't last."
He's an idiot.
"Surprisingly. Please continue."
"What's the most spontaneous thing I've ever done?"
"Hermione, spontaneous? Who wrote this thing?" She smacked him, perhaps a little harder than necessary, on the arm with the open magazine. "Sorry. Sorry."
The clock over the mantle ticked away.
"I've got it. Throwing your tea cup at Ginny when she said she was engaged to Draco Malfoy." Hermione blushed and nodded.
"That was hilarious," added Harry. "Seeing the look on her face, with that boulder outstretched, as she watched the blue china cup arch towards her. How many stitches did she have?"
"Fifteen," mumbled Hermione. "I still feel awful about that."
"She married the bloke, didn't she? Gave up her family for him." Hermione didn't tell Harry that she thought that Ginny and the Ferret were in love. He wouldn't appreciate it.
"What food constitutes my perfect meal?"
"Pumpkin juice, grilled chicken, roasted potatoes and hot chocolate."
"Wrong."
"Dammit. That makes how many?"
"Two. And the truth is spaghetti and meatballs a la Harry, with a really nice bottle of red wine and cream puffs from Délicieux," said Hermione, mentioning Fleur Weasley's bakery. "We never have them that often, because Fleur has to import them from France, and customs is awful about dairy, but when she can smuggle them through . . . mmmmm."
"You like my spaghetti?" asked Harry incredulously. "You always roll your eyes when I make it, and when we get wine you only take one glass."
"It's to preserve the perfection. Spaghetti is only good with red wine and cream puffs, and red wine is only good with spaghetti and cream puffs. Same for cream puffs."
"You have a holy trinity of the food going on there?" teased Harry.
"The only way," replied Hermione. "What charm do I use most often?"
"Hmmmm . . . difficult, but not impossible. Proprex."
"Wrong! Twice in a row . . . Harry, my how you have changed."
Harry looked outraged. "How could I have gotten that one wrong?" Hermione began to regret her outburst, because it meant that she would have to supply the right answer. "So what's it really?"
"Enleve Reveo."
"A dream remover?" asked Harry. "Why would you . . ."
Neither wanted to go there.
"How many children do I want to have?" It was spoken quickly.
"As many as you can." Harry blurted out the answer without thinking, and he cringed as he expected her to say he was wrong.
"Yeah," she said softly.
The mood had subtly shifted without either of them noticing, and now there was a buzz on the air that hadn't been there before. Hermione's voice had softened slightly.
"What will their names be?"
"You like Aurora, Lily, Isabella, and Audrey for girls. William, Nicholas, Ian and Peter for boys." Hermione couldn't remember mentioning a few of them . . . yet he knew.
What's going on here?
"Right on all counts."
All of this talk about children had deepened the air around them. But the next question lightened it enough for them to smile.
"What's my favorite piece of clothing?"
Harry had thought that it was the pink sweater that her mother had gotten her two Christmases ago, but now, watching her in his shirt, he knew that he wasn't right.
"That shirt."
Hermione had been staring determinedly at the magazine through the small bout of tension. Now, shocked that he hadn't guessed the pink sweater, she made a mistake and looked up. Her mouth went dry. All she could do was nod, and take a deep swill of Harry's cup of water.
"Floo Powder, Portkey or broom?" she asked hoarsely.
"Floo," he said, still meeting her eyes.
"What's my dream job, even if I—"
"Advocating house elf rights."
"How many times have we downed a Butterbeer together?"
"Seven hundred and thirteen. Thanks for that, by the way." His little joke, an attempt to break the tension that raised the hair on the back of his neck, didn't work.
"What quidditch position am I most qualified for, even if I hate—"
"Chaser."
"What's my favorite hex of choice?" She shot out the questions desperately, trying to block what she could sense by filling up the silence with words.
"Ement Peaux."
"If I could be any Animagus form, what would I be?"
"Tiger."
The silence was still creeping in, no matter how hard she pushed it back.
"Is there something in my room I hide from everyone, and if so, what is it?" When she finished asking, she spared a glance upward, and realized that Harry had shifted just a little bit closer.
"There's a red velvet diary under your bed," he said, but it was really more of a whisper.
"What's my favorite thing about you?"
"My eyes."
The final question. It loomed before her, and she knew that once she asked it, something was going to change. Which was illogical, because there was no way that a question could change her relationship with Harry.
But she knew it would.
"Do I have any birthmarks, and if so, where?" Now she was whispering.
She closed the magazine, and this time looked up longer than just a glance. Harry was close, closer than she was sure he'd ever been.
"Right . . . here," he breathed against her lips, and brushed a calloused thumb against her neck, right where her pulse thudded rapidly.
Then she tilted her chin and his lips pressed against hers, begging that she forget that the man kissing her like this was Harry Potter, best friend.
And because she thought that for a moment, time stopped, she kissed him back, opened her lips to let his tongue sweep against hers, and the leather couch below her dropped away because she was floating in nothingness. Which, although it felt a bit like leather, was quite a nice feeling.
The magazine was tossed aside, and she interlaced her fingers on the back of his neck to pull him closer.
Then time started again, and the clock over the mantle began to chime seven o'clock.
The deep chimes threaded between them, created an almost visible barrier, and Hermione pulled away. "We shouldn't be doing this," she said, cliché to the extreme.
She shook her head to clear the haze that had been created when Harry's lips had been pressed against hers. She also unwound her arms, and tried to wriggled out from under Harry, because staying in this position wouldn't give her objection much standing ground.
He pressed his hands against the couch on either side of her head, and she was forced to stare into those brilliant green eyes.
"I really don't give a fuck," he replied, and this time she didn't smack him for swearing, because she was too busy kissing him.
Finally they pulled apart, completely voluntarily this time.
"What is this?" she asked. "What just happened here?"
"It's called kissing," replied Harry easily. "When a man happens to like a wom–"
"I know what kissing is," she said crossly. "I meant . . . why."
"I love you."
"What! Harry, you can't just walk around telling people you love them." She attempted to get up off the couch.
"I'm not telling 'people'. I'm telling Hermione. For who it's true."
"Whom. And how do you know it's true?"
"Because I've felt this way for a long time, I think."
"You think." Angrily, she pushed off the arm keeping her on the couch, and made to get up.
"What about you? How do you feel about this?"
She fell back against the couch, defeated.
"I'm not sure. It's all so complicated. I've always loved you, in a sisterly sense, but something changed, after Ron got married. I . . . felt differently."
"How do you feel?"
"I love you too," she said in a small voice.
Smiling triumphantly, Harry kissed her again. He was stopped, however, by her hand across his lips.
"What'd we get?" asked Hermione, breathing heavily.
"Huh?" replied Harry intelligently, ever the observant one.
"On the quiz. What'd we get?" Not waiting for him to check, she reached onto the floor, pulled up the magazine, and flipped to the answers, all of which was done lethargically. "Let's see . . . we both got three wrong, so we're . . . 'Just Friends Isn't Going to Work With Us. While that little title may fool your friends, we see a relationship when it's going on under our noses. If you aren't already snogging each other senseless, you should be.' Hmm."
Harry gently placed butterfly kisses on her collarbone, and the magazine dropped from boneless fingers. "I think they have the right idea."
"Harry!" she said. "What about if Ron and . . . mmm . . ."
"Methinks," observed Harry, "that the lady doth protest too much."
"Oh," decided Hermione. "Protesting's overrated."
Finis.
AHHHH! Done!
Okay, and I SWEAR that I will get a new TOPC up soon. Also, I expect to put Chapter Four of TF up this weekend.
Just stay with me, okay. I really got bitten badly by this plot bunny (does anybody know if they sell plot-bunny repellent? Because I'd like some for my birthday)
And a note to Jamie (yes, you. I know you know I know you know who I'm talking about): did you get the play back?
REVIEW, because you all love me.