Disclaimer: I own Harry Potter. I am also President of the United States and Queen of England. I know, I know. be insanely jealous. (but not really.)
Rating: um...PG-13.
She was a drug. Harry swore to it.
Intoxicating, dangerous, and wildly addictive. With her hair spread out across his pillow, the bushy tendrils magnificent against the sheet, she drove him towards the point of desperate need. There was no going back as he lay his cheek on her breast, panting hotly as his breathing attempted to return to normal.
One of her small hands, fingernails bare, was twining through his thick hair, calming him down. Her other hand laid curled by her face, the muscles lax and fluid, her body sated from completion. His green eyes stared at the small limb, sleepily hypnotized by the love line that ran through her palm.
Lifting his own hand to lay against hers, he stared at the difference between their fingers. Her small digits fell somewhere between his middle and top knuckle; almost an inch and a half smaller. Shifting his legs around, it came to his attention that with his head pillowed on her torso, her toes just barely tickled his mid-shin.
He didn't remember getting taller than her. Couldn't recall the exact moment they stopped being the same height, and couldn't exactly determine the moment she had stopped speaking to him. Perhaps it was fifth year, or sixth. He couldn't recall.
000
It bothered him to realize one day, watching as she sat next to Seamus and Neville, that she was pulling away from him. It had felt like he was being hit over the head with a rather heavy object, just noticing that she had barely even spoken a word to him since seventh year had begun, following the defeat of Voldemort.
It was, of course, mid-April by that time, and he was mentally kicking himself for not having noticed before. Eight bloody months had passed, and he'd let her slip from his fingers without so much as an attempt to stop her from going away.
She was laughing at something that Seamus said, and it made Harry's stomach clench. Really, he thought, what did Seamus ever do for her? Did he ever save her life or…or be there for her?
He paused, staring down at his eggs. Did you? His hand tightened around his fork; he could still remember how, during the final fight, Hermione had almost died.
Died.
Because of him.
Maverick Sempton, a crazed Death Eater that none of them had faced before, had been positively foaming at the mouth when Voldemort was defeated. In his irrational anger, he launched a curse at Harry…
And missed.
Hermione, instead, ran in front of her best friend and took the blunt of the curse, and all Harry could do was watch as Hermione choked and grasped at two invisible hands around her neck, dark bruises forming on her pale skin. Dark splotches began to appear on her jumper and trousers, cuts forming underneath the clothes on her skin, the blood oozing out of them quickly as her eyes rolled into the back of her head.
By the time her hands had fallen away limply, Moody and Lupin had already cast two powerful stunning charms towards Sempton, rendering the man unconscious.
Harry, in turn, stayed in the Hospital Wing for nine days straight, waiting for Hermione to pleasejustplease wake up. Nine days, spent thinking over years of their friendship and all the things she'd ever done for him. Nine days of realizing that he was madly in love with his best friend.
Well. Bugger.
And when she did wake up….
Well. Nothing was different. They were Harry, Hermione, and Ron; three best friends embarking on their Seventh Year of school. They had each other all the time, albeit being their final year and all they saw each other less and less.
Which was why, he supposed, he never saw Hermione anymore. Her separation from him and Ron had been so gradual, so natural that he had never thought twice about it.
But now that he did, he came to the startling conclusion that he hadn't had a real conversation with her in over three months.
Now, Easter Holidays were beginning, students saying farewell to their friends as they went home for the week. This was his chance.
Standing, he gathered his robes around himself and made his way over to her. "Hum…Hermione?"
She started, blinking up at him with those impossibly beautiful brown eyes. "Yes?"
"Can I, er….that is….can we talk?"
She blinked, cocking an eyebrow as she stood. "I don't see why not."
Her gave a short nod, his eyes flickering towards the doors to the Great Hall. Turning, he began to walk out, and she soon joined him at his side.
"Erm…do you mind if we go to your room?" he asked nervously. "Head Girl and all. Privacy…and…yeah."
"No, it's no problem," she said, waving him off.
"Great. Um…great."
They endured another ten minutes of awkward silence, before finally reaching her quarters. "Buttersquash," Hermione said, and the portrait to her room swung open, and they stepped inside.
She turned to face him, eyebrow raised once more and hands on her hips. "So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?"
He opened his mouth, fully intending to say something, but found that instead all he could do was stare at her. Stare at the freckles that lined her face, the way the light reflected off of her eyes, and the way her hair looked so utterly…touchable in the firelight.
"Harry?"
"I haven't seen you," he blurted suddenly. "We haven't…we haven't talked in forever, Hermione. Three months."
She laughed. "Is that all? Merlin, Harry, I thought this was something serious."
He blinked at her, feeling rather stupid. "But you've been avoiding me. I haven't seen you all year, Hermione. You don't speak to me or sit next to me in any of our classes anymore, and I hardly ever see you at lunch, and…"
She attempted to restrain her smile. "I'm training to be a Healer, Harry. I'm not taking the same courses you are. And the ones you and I both take, we take at different times. And at lunch, I tutor fifth years for their O.W.L.s; Dobby sends food up to my rooms."
He blinked at her again. "But…I haven't….what?"
"Oh, Harry," she sighed. "Jumped to conclusions, have you? Honestly, did you really think I'd-mmph!"
She was abruptly cut off, however, when Harry (overwhelmed by relief) smashed his lips onto hers. Melting against him, she pressed her lips against his as his hands gripped her waist. Slanting their mouths together, they kissed heatedly for a few seconds before she pulled away.
"Har….Merlin, Harry! What…oh, my….what brought th-this on?"
His lips attacked her neck hungrily. "Thought you hated me," he mumbled, suckling on her skin. "Hadn't seen you…talked to you….Gods, Hermione…"
"Harry, you know that I'd never—mmph!"
He kissed her again, backing her up against the wall of the Common Room, one of his large hands drifting to grab hold of the back of her thigh. Lifting her leg around his waist, he pressed his hips against hers, growing harder as she moaned against his lips.
"No," she whispered, pulling away.
He pulled away, hurt shining in his eyes. His fingers loosened their grip on her leg, ready to let it slide to the ground. Her hand grabbed onto his, keeping her leg in place. Kissing him softly, she said, "Not here. Bedroom might be more comfortable."
Trust Hermione to be sensible even in this situation.
000
He couldn't survive without her. Three months of separation had done this to him; made him crave her in a way he'd never wanted anyone before. Her lips, her smile, her taste, her touch, her feel, her eyes…
Everything about her was addictive.
She was a drug. Harry swore to it.
Finis