Disclaimer: Nothing but the plot of this story is mine.
What's the what?: This is 2 years after DH. Ron and Hermione = never happened. Ginny and Harry = never happened. Although, it has been pointed out to me that these cannon couples might have just run their natural courses and not withstood the tests of time. Think what you will. Whatever floats your boat. Harry plays Quidditch professionally. That's all that you need to know.
Sorry if this seems sort of rushed.
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When Harry first kisses her, there's confusion. Well, beyond the confusion, there's nerves and some ringing voice asking her why she isn't responding properly, but mostly, there's confusion.
And, it's funny how five seconds can change everything.
One minute, they're walking down the street towards Ron's flat (where Ginny, George, Luna, and Neville are waiting for the firewhiskey they'd been sent to fetch), and the next, Harry's turning to her, and pressing their lips together.
It's also pretty funny how, even when it's caught off guard, her mind still snags all of the tiny moments and separates them from the whole picture, so, when she thinks back on it, there are about six actual moments.
Moment one (he sets down the bag of firewhiskey and grabs her neck from the back, pulling her to him gently), moment two (his lips are actually on hers and she sighs into his mouth and thinks of sunshine and puzzle pieces, thankful the streets are empty), moment three (she's kissing him back, hands flying into his hair in an attempt to claim all of him at once), moment four (he's pushing her back against the wall of a building and kissing her harder, hands moving to cup her face in the way every girl dreams of, but no guy actually does), moment five (she's gasping into the open air as his lips move down her neck and onto her collarbone, and she's sighing at the loss of contact when he begins to pull away) and moment six (he pulls completely away, flushed and breathless and picks up the bag, and starts off again after winking at her and saying, "Think about it.")
Think about it.
Like she could think of anything else.
Sighing, Hermione shuts off her bedroom light and forces herself not to think of Harry that way. She's known him for 9 years. He's like a brother to her and she shouldn't feel this way about someone who's like a brother to her.
Denial doesn't describe it exactly, but it does the job just fine.
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It's raining and Hermione hates herself for forgetting her umbrella. Ron gave her his jacket when the rain started falling, but the hood is already quite drenched. She looks sideways at her companion who is yelling and cheering like a mad person, and shakes her head. It makes sense that he is completely oblivious to the turmoil she's going through.
"Yeah! Go, Harry! Way to go, Potter! You can do it!" If she had never before experienced difficulty hearing, she's pretty sure it will be the last day she'll be able to say so.
"He's so cute!" she heard a girl a few rows below shout to her friend.
"Who?" her friend asked as Hermione scouted them out with her eyes.
"Harry Potter, of course! He's the Seeker!"
"Isn't he?"
She shakes her head and clenches her teeth. These girls don't know him. Not like she does, anyway. All they know is that he's famous (for more than one reason) and pleasantly easy on the eyes. Closing her eyes against the downpour she calms herself. When she opens them, her eyes are immediately drawn to Harry who is suspended less than one hundred yards from where she's standing.
His eyes meet hers and he smiles and waves at her. She just grins, sure that if she tried to raise her arms in Ron's baggy and soaked sweater, she'd find them too heavy.
"Did you see that?" the annoying girl from before yelled.
"See what?" her friend asks in an equally obnoxious voice.
"Harry Potter waved at me!"
Part of her wants to go down there and start an old-fashioned girl fight at this, but she's glad when she remains calm. They don't even know him, she reminds herself. Just a name and a deed. That's all they know. They don't know how soft his hair is…or how enchanting he smells…how soft his lips are….They don't know what it's like to be pushed up against a wall by him and kissed…
She shakes her head again, trying her hardest to clear it of all Harry-related thoughts (which is harder than it seems because him and Ron are all that she has anymore).
"I'm soaked!" she practically yells in Ron's ear over the roaring of the storm above them.
He looks at her and grins at the sight of her messily wet hair and his baggy sweater practically swallowing her. "But you look adorable!" he says in a joking voice so she can't tell he's serious. "Too bad Harry's not around to see it!"
Before she can ask him what he means, he's cheering loudly for Harry again, who, it would seem, spotted the Snitch.
Sighing again, she looks back over the muddy Quidditch pitch and wonders when her life spun out of control. Two nights ago, her mind whispers in a voice that sort of sounds like Snape. Against a cold, stone wall. That isn't what she needs right now, so she tells the voice to kindly shut up and thinks of nothing.
A complete meltdown isn't quite the phrase to describe the situation, but it's a start.
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She doesn't expect Harry to come find her at the victory party—especially when Draco is inside the Weasley's kitchen, giving a boisterously drunken speech about him. Not wanting to hear this, she'd hidden herself away in Ron's room, flipping through a photo album from over the years. Just as she's hitting the puberty years of Ron's life, Harry pushes open the door gently and steps inside.
"There you are," he says in a cheerful voice.
"Here I am." She looks away and tries not to think about how cute he looks in Ron's Chudley Cannons t-shirt with his hair still damp from the match.
"Why are you up here by yourself?" he asks and comes to sit beside her on the bed.
"No reason."
"Hermione, it's you. Sorry to tell you this, but I've known you for 9 years. Of course there's a reason."
"There is no reason. Really."
"Please, Hermione." She looks up at this and hates the sadness in his eyes, because she put it there. "Talk to me. Please. That's all I'm asking."
"There's nothing to talk about," she says with a little hesitation.
"Yes there is." He stands up and starts pacing the length of the room, his socks making soft padding noises on the hardwood floor. "I know what I did the other day was…unexpected, but think about it. Was it really that unexpected? Have we really been friends this long and you've never once thought about me that way?" He stops pacing and looks at her expectantly.
It only takes her a few moments to reach a conclusion. This isn't unexpected. It's been a long time coming and it was bound to happen at some point, especially after all they'd been through. She had just never thought about it happening like this before. Then again, when you're best friends with the boy who saved the world—on more than one occasion—not everything goes as planned. "I'm sorry, Harry, it's just…you confuse me and I hate it. I've never had a problem that I couldn't solve eventually and you just…defy all of that. For the past 9 years I've just been the best friend, but now…you've given me this whole other option and it's so…different from everything I've ever known that…"
Hermione's face is red when she trails off, but she still refuses to look at him. "Hermione, stop," he says calmly and takes a step towards her. And it's then that she figures out the rest of it; Harry gets it. He knew what he was doing on that street two days ago. He understood what it meant, what it offered, what it changed. He got it.
Harry kneels down in front of her then and looks directly at her. "Hermione, just stop trying to get everything under control. Sometimes, life doesn't go as expected." He tips her head up and looks at her with a loose grin. "If I ask you to do something, will you do it? After all we've been through, will you do it for me?" She hesitates before nodding slowly. "Let go," he tells her once she's given her silent answer. "Don't think about the past or the future or the repercussions. Forget it all and just let go."
Her eyes fill with tears as her heart fills up with something so powerful, she's never felt it before (hope, calm, peace and love). "But…something bad could happen….what if something bad happens?"
He shakes his head and grins at her. "Maybe something good will happen."
And she smiles when he closes the distance between them and kisses her softly. She lets him control it for a moment before taking the wheel and pulling him tighter against herself, mouth moving in a rhythm that matches their rapidly beating hearts. She kisses him and lets go and—instead of thinking about sunshine and puzzle pieces—she thinks of love and completion.
Perfection isn't quite the word that should be used to describe the moment, but it's the one that comes first to mind.
fin
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Sorry about not updating some of my other stories. As far as Stretching the Truth goes, I'm trying to figure out what writing style I want to go with and, thus, have been re-writing it like crazy. Again, sorry about that. I hope to have it updated by the end of the week.