Official Fine Print: Nope. Not mine. The brainchildren of the mighty pen of JK Rowling. Just playing with them.
Fixing Harry
Chapter 8
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He checked on her twice that night, just to make sure everything was okay and she hadn't slipped into a coma or anything. He could just imagine that owl. Erm, Ron, don't know quite how to tell you this, but I've I broken Hermione this time…
He was such a bloody useless git.
Both times her breathing was even and regular. She appeared peaceful enough, her face calm and her sleep seemingly untroubled. It occurred to him as he watched her the second time how much of what he truly recognized as Hermione was in her expressions; the swift play of impatience, amusement and worry across her face, the blaze of her curiosity on the trail of some elusive idea. Stripped of her consciousness he thought she looked different, unfamiliar. Girlish.
Well, perhaps not so much girlish as… his mind grappled with what exactly to call her. Woman seemed impossible, this was Hermione after all, but girl no longer seemed to fit. He'd had a foreshadowing of that little epiphany tonight in the kitchen while looking at Emily's booklist.
Harry had never paid any real attention to anyone younger than Ginny; the successive classes following their own at Hogwarts were but a dim impingement on his brain in the halls. Don't trip over the sprogs. He hadn't wanted to know them well or closely; he was not nurturing by nature - having never exactly been nurtured himself - and they were small, vulnerable. Voldemort fodder, if he didn't do his job right.
Watching Emily tonight, taking in her excitement and wonder at what awaited her at the school had brought him full circle. He was both grateful that things had turned out so that she could carry on the tradition of going, and amazed that he and Ron and Hermione could have ever been as naively hopeful, as expectant and unwittingly brave, really, when you considered the possibilities of Hogwarts. Not that he'd had a clue, but Ron and Hermione must have. He remembered so clearly the kindly accepting ginger haired boy with his hand-me-down rat, and the officious bushy haired girl who'd reparoed his glasses and told him she'd read about him in a book. He'd glanced from Emily to Hermione, probably apologizing for confessing his boredom in History of Magic, and his brain had suddenly accepted what his eyes must have been seeing all along.
She was a girl no more, at least not in the sense that Emily was. Hermione was done now with school but uncertain yet of life's path ahead, poised and teetering on a brink just like Harry. Unlike Harry's grim horizons, however, he could see life spread before her like a vista; University, research, writing, apprenticeship, love, marriage, motherhood. She could have any of it, all of it. She was only a year or two younger than his own mum must have been when Harry was born.
And yet somehow the ever indomitable Hermione appeared almost vulnerable to him in that brief moment of realization. As purposeful a chick as she had always been in Hogwarts' nest, defending him last year had cost her the chance to fly with the others and she seemed uncertain now about setting off on her own, as if something was still holding her back. He knew that it was his fault, that she had given up her chance at Head Girl and her final year of classes to help him. The honorary degrees they'd been given had been a gift for Ron - Molly was over the moon about his - and a surprise for Harry, but Hermione could have wowed the world with her N.E.W.T. scores, he was sure of it, and an honorary degree hardly did her justice. His heart was heavy with the knowledge of what helping him had cost her.
For all that most of that weight was guilt he understood that at least some part of it was possessiveness. He didn't really want to lose her now, didn't want her to go on ahead wherever she was going without him. Even now it was her voice that spoke for his conscience inside his head, her belief in him that had so often sent him on when he faltered. What would he be without Hermione?
He should back away from the bed, turn away and never look back. He should leave her and Ron to get on with their lives untouched by whatever grim hand of fortune or fate still beckoned for him. He knew he should. He just didn't want to; something about her beckoned to him also, something that had always made him want to hang on hopefully one more day, one more hour. One more minute by agonized minute during the seemingly endless cruciatus frenzy when Voldemort had finally cornered him.
He couldn't place what it was. All he knew was that he was completely without jealousy or regret that Ron was trying out for a place on a real Quidditch team without him, but he was curiously uncomfortable whenever Hermione talked of possibilities that would take her beyond the realm of daily contact. And curiously beyond uncomfortable when Ron had made his revelation in the bath tub that morning. He could still feel the surge of whatever it was that had coursed through him and exploded the loo, but when he tried to slow it down and examine the root cause of it the discomfort almost made him nauseous and dizzy.
Harry exhaled softly, trying to blow away his thoughts and clear his brain. He turned from her bedside, fairly certain by now she did not in fact need him for any practical medical reason and he was simply gawking pathetically at her without being able to provide the slightest plausible reason should she wake. His bare foot stepped on something with corners as he did and he resisted the urge to relieve the sharp pain with a curse. The object, when retrieved from the floor, proved to be a small book with a plain unmarked cover. A journal or notebook, undoubtedly Hermione's. He set in on the night table and retreated to his own room and empty bed.
Where he tossed. And turned. And squirmed. And finally threw the covers off again in exasperation and made his way to the kitchen for a drink. He'd been perpetually dehydrated somehow ever since that night and nothing seemed to quench his thirst. The most satisfying thing he'd found so far was lemonade, and he'd taken to keeping a spell-chilled pitcher ready at all times. He poured himself a glass and drank it thirstily, then poured a second and took it to the table.
He lit the candle with a wave of his hand, remembering with a smile how Dumbledore had always awed him with the casualness of his wandless magic. It was a bloody good thing the burns from Voldemort's wand seemed not to negate Harry's ability to coax out magic from his hands, or he'd be up a creek for sure.
He wondered how defeating Grindelwald had effected Dumbledore's magic and what the Headmaster would make of his current predicament. No one had seemed to second guess him his power. Professor McGonagall had invited Harry to visit her any time; perhaps he should take her up on it and ask the Headmaster's portrait his opinion of events.
Harry lowered his aching frame into the chair, feeling ages older than seventeen. The doxy bite likely wasn't helping anything, anti-venom or no. His palms were losing the faint tingling that meant the numbing charms were working and had started to hurt again, which meant in turn it was past time to change the padding. He set his glass down, meaning to go and get fresh ones, when his fingers brushed a slip of paper on the table and he saw it was Ginny's note.
Great. Just what he needed.
He knew he should open and read it, but the very thought drained him somehow. He took up the grocery-list quill that lived on the window sill and began doodling absently on the back, trying to work up the desire to find out what she wanted.
He had no idea how much time had passed when he became aware of the feeling of being watched; he looked up to see Hermione standing quite still in the doorway.
"Sorry, Harry. I just didn't want to risk startling you again," she said softly, moving now that she was sure he saw her. She settled into the chair across from him. "I went to check on you on my way back from the loo and you weren't in your room."
"Amazing we managed not to run smack into each other in the hall. I checked on you at least twice to make sure you hadn't stopped breathing or fallen into a coma," he admitted. "How do you feel?"
"I'm fine, Harry," she told him. "Honestly." Her eyes seemed to be watching him quite closely, as if searching for something. He lay down the quill, feeling awkward but uncertain exactly why.
"What did Ginny have to say?"
"I don't know," he admitted sheepishly. "Didn't look yet. I was just… thinking."
She took in the fierce, twisting dragons looping back on each other with slavering jaws that now covered the whole exterior of the note. "Oh so romantically, I see."
He winced, but when he met her eyes again they were wide and she appeared flustered.
"Oh, Harry, that was… I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that… I'm just not awake yet is the thing. Mouth moving, brain sleeping," she said apologetically.
It seemed the perfect opening for what he'd been thinking, though, so he took the bit in his teeth and ran with it.
"Hermione, I… I don't love Ginny," he said with a rush. "I know you want me to, and that once he got over his initial disgust at the idea Ron saw its advantages, but I just don't. I'm fond of her, I care about her happiness and safety in a she's-a-Weasley sort of way, but I can't make myself love her, even for you. I've tried."
It was perhaps the most difficult and honest thing he'd had to say since killing Voldemort. It seemed clear he was going to have to deal with the consequences of being alive now; at least this was one decision he felt sure of.
"I'm sorry, Harry. That's a shame, because I know she…" Hermione's voice trailed off and her eyes narrowed, a distinct change from her previous 'oops, did I say that out loud?' expression. "What do you mean 'you can't make yourself love her even for me'?"
"I know that it would tie things up neatly for everyone if I did. One big happy Weasley family and all. I also know that I'm an idiot about anything to do with love and I'm always on the wrong page of the script when it comes to what girls want to hear, but I do know that I don't feel what I'm supposed to about Ginny and I'd never make her happy no matter how hard I tried. Maybe I can't, maybe I'll never be right for anyone. Maybe I'm just defective or screwed up from being raised by the Dursleys. I'm sorry if you and Ron feel like you have to watch over me now before you can be happy together, because you really don't. You guys have done so much for me and I don't want to be…I'm not your responsibility."
Hermione's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment, as if she were about to begin and then abandoned twenty different responses. To Harry's abject horror her eyes began instead to fill with tears.
Okay, so he was a total idiot. But how could he have known telling Hermione he didn't love Ginny would actually make her cry? It was like there was a whole secret language somewhere, and it proved his point perfectly. He was less than useless when it came to this sort of thing.
He watched her tears as they pooled against her lower eyelids, crested and overflowed. Her eyes were made for exasperation and fury and determination; they seemed entirely foreign magnified by tears. Hermione didn't cry. Not often, anyway. Anxiety filled him; he could not stand for her to be hurt or disappointed in him, he owed her so much. His heart seemed to contract, his head to pound.
So this time, when there was a sharp crack and the note between them burst into bright blue flames, he was neither entirely unsurprised, nor unprepared. They both pushed back hurriedly from the table and Harry did a quick smothering charm. Wafts of black ash fluttered in the air like the residue of an unheard firework; he actually checked the ceiling to make sure it was intact. It was while he was still looking up that he suddenly realized his arms were full of girl, woman, witch. Whatever she was now, she was no longer actively crying. She was warm, soft and trembling faintly against him, both familiar and utterly unknown. As soon as he looked down at her - but long before his brain could even remotely begin to process what his nerve endings were telling him - her lips found his.
Wait, this was Hermione. This was Hermione? Good lord, this was Hermione?
As the shock fell away Harry felt a hundred things at once that he'd never even imagined in regard to her. She fit against him as if she'd been for no one else, and every inch of him that touched her seemed to flare with heat and harden to confirm the fact. Hermione. Kissing her was neither wet in any unpleasant way, despite her earlier tears, nor uncomfortable, nor - despite Ron's insinuations - lacking in any possible way he could conceive of. And then one of them relaxed their mouths ever so slightly and the other pressed ever so slightly harder in response. His breath was coming sharper and faster through his nose and then stopped for a moment altogether because her arms had come around him, holding him as if she had no intention of letting go.
All he could think was yes.
Of course, that was also the answer to 'wait a minute, isn't she your best mate's girl?'
So what the hell was he thinking yes about?
He stiffened, and Hermione's lips slipped from his even as her hands slipped likewise from around his shoulders.
They slid down to his hips and rested there uncertainly. Her lingering touch was almost more than he could take and he felt himself breathing hard and wrestling for control of his thoughts.
It came to him suddenly then that she must pity him; it was a pity kiss, an I'm so sorry you're a freak kiss. She was comforting him, she had long done that, but the line had been crossed by his own pathetic urges rather than any desire on her part. She'd chosen; she loved Ron.
It hadn't felt like pity to him, but then he'd never once imagined that physical contact with another could feel like a completion of himself rather than yet another thing to live up to. For a single moment he'd felt light, almost happy… and the cost to get him there had been the pity of his best friend, his other best friend's girl. He was less than pathetic. He wished desperately that he could just disappear, cease to be. He'd never work out a place of his own in this world, he was never meant to survive Voldemort's death…
As if in answer he felt himself start to waver, almost to… dissolve. Great. How Harry was that? Thanks for the pity kiss, Hermione, mind if I pass out on you now?
Only he didn't feel dizzy or unclear; on the contrary everything felt sharper, clearer, more intense even as his body seemed to grow ever more insubstantial by the second. Only when Hermione's hands seemed to literally pass through his hips and fall away did he realize that what he was feeling was truly happening as he felt it.
He heard his name, recognized the tugging call of it, but it appeared to come from two places, somewhere close and another farther on. One was ethereal, calm, beckoning and offering at the same time. The other was sheer human panic, laced with love and fear.
Hermione.
"Harry… Harry! Harry, please."
Pleading. Hermione, pleading. He could not turn away from that; it was perhaps the one thing left he could not fail to heed.
Coming back was different from fading away; it hurt. He was left cold, shaking and sore as if he'd been pushed through a sieve and reassembled. Her hands must have been clutching at him after he'd felt them fall away, for it was almost as if she pulled them out of him this time, passing through solid bone and skin to catch hold of him with a strength born of desperation. He reeled slightly and staggered against her, and then he realized she was kissing him again. He could almost taste her fear of losing him, a palpable tang passed from her to him through the sweet softness of her mouth against his. Gods, what was he thinking?
It was his turn to try and reassure her, to make some sort of amends for responding to her kiss, pity or not, with whatever the hell it was he'd almost done. He'd never been any good with words, but he suddenly felt as if he knew how to use the rest of him to say exactly what he felt. He took hold of her, began to lift her against him, felt himself veering between the sofa next door or his bed down the hall…
And stopped cold again. Hermione, idiot! Her-mi-on-e. Get a grip.
He pulled back again, heard his own ragged breathing still working against hers.
"What was that?" she gasped out, eyes burning into him.
"That was me, finally hitting bottom," he forced back. "I'm sor…"
"If you say sorry," she told him, "I'll have to hex you. And right now I'm sure that I could do it without a wand as well."
One look at her and he could hardly doubt it.
"I don't mean the kiss, Harry. We both know perfectly well what that was, and we can talk about it in a minute. I mean that thing you did, the fading thing. You got this… this look on your face, I can't even find the right words to describe it, and you started to insubstantiate. Harry, my hands passed right though you. Like a ghost, only… not. It was different, but it still wasn't right. What did you do?"
"I wished I could disappear," he heard himself whisper obediently, although he'd had no intention of telling her that part. "I just wanted to stop being. Hermione, you have no idea… I…"
"Trust me, Harry, I was having every idea you were," she said, and he saw a blush rise again in her unnaturally pale cheeks. "Come with me."
She lead him into the front room by the hand, motioned for him to sit on the sofa and then sat herself on the other end, a single safe, squashy cushion between them. She closed her eyes for a moment and seemed to take a deep breath, letting it out through her nose.
"Harry, Elspeth suggested something to me last night that really made me think. She pointed out that your whole nervous system was affected by Voldemort's cruciatus attacks and that there might be a pattern to the way you were losing control of your magic. She also pointed out, though, that it was still consistent with things that happened before that night. She seemed to think that you were unconsciously defending me each time. And I think she might be right."
Defending Hermione? He would, certainly. Consciously, so he supposed subconsciously it was possible as well. But…?
"Hermione, don't get me wrong. I'd defend you to the death, you know that, but you weren't in any real danger at the Order of Merlin thing, or the day I blew out the windows or Fred and George's sink," he pointed out.
"Not in danger, no. But what else was going on?"
He tried to bring his mind back to each incident, looking for a pattern that involved Hermione. She'd been there for each; that much was surely true. Still, there'd been no real danger at all, except for him.
The Order of Merlin thing had thankfully not happened until almost the end. Harry had still been rather ill at this point, but the Ministry had urged the Wizengamot to act quickly for the sake of public confidence, and he'd had little choice but to attend; how could he not watch Hermione and Ron receive recognition long overdue them by the very Order that had decorated Dumbledore? He'd made it through the interminable speeches by various ancient wizards and officials. He'd watched with pleasure as Professors McGonagall and Flitwick and Sprout received special commendations for bravery in protecting their students, as Bill and Arthur Weasley were noted and commended for their efforts to defend Hogsmeade (the Aurors had obviously had their own awards; Tonks and Kingsley had both received useless insignia for uniforms they seldom wore, and far more welcome pay rises).
He had felt so very grateful to be alive to see Ron receive his award, to watch his face flush with pride and see him soak in the admiration for his efforts he'd so long deserved. Hermione had been uncharacteristically quiet as she awaited her turn and Harry'd reckoned she was rehearsing her acceptance; he wondered if it would be house elves or an end to blood prejudice that won out as the issue if the night. Ron had evidently thought the same thing, but while Harry had been looking forward to her remarks, Ron took another tack. Returning from the podium himself, he'd taken one look at her and begged in a whisper, "for Merlin's sake Hermione, can you let this one night just be about me doing something right? Forget about the bloody house elves or I'll be hearing about nothing else for months."
Harry remembered well the way her face had fallen, how her eyes had shuttered themselves with her curt and silent nod. She'd accepted her award graciously with a sparely worded response, and sat down again within moments.
He'd understood Ron's feelings, because he knew Ron so well and felt in many ways responsible for some of his long-delayed chance to shine. Still, he could not help but feel the hurt in Hermione's response, too. He knew her equally well, well enough to know on how many levels Ron had failed her in that moment. His turn to rise had come too soon after hers; his mind had still been abuzz with his friends' discord. He'd hoped to make a point about the Wizengamot ignoring Remus' enormous sacrifices to the cause and how much he'd managed to contribute despite the not insignificant burden of being a werewolf, when it happened. He'd ducked his head, received the medal around his neck, turned toward the audience and raised his hand to quell their polite applause… and seen tears running down Hermione's lowered face.
The artfully designed and carefully decorated ice sculptures that adorned every table had promptly exploded. Violently. Shards of ice had shot everywhere, with the major casualty being the hollowed pumpkins filled with soup that were likewise scattered every several places at each table. Scalding pumpkin soup and flying slivers of ice attacked the crown with a vengeance. He'd been left gaping, horrified, and the only target of suspicion for a gaffe of that magnitude - a fact he'd confirmed by muttering an all too audible 'sorry' before he'd fled.
"I don't understand," he said now. "I think I remember everything that happened at the Order of Merlin thing, for example, but how does it relate to my protecting you? If anything, it would have been my fault if you were hurt."
"I was angry with Ron because of him trying to tell me what to say that night. The morning the windows broke Ron had just accused you of siding with me in an argument. Just before the twins' faucet exploded Ron made a joke about empty-headed girls admiring him. Harry, do you like it when Ron and I argue?"
"No," he said honestly. "But you always have done, since the very beginning. It didn't seem to bother you that much after awhile though, and you always came back for more, so I just kind of assumed that you guys liked doing it, that it was part of the way you um… you know. Got together."
She sighed softly. "Do you think we make a good couple?"
He paused, the instinctive 'yes, of course' frozen on his lips. His heart was beating faster again, and he felt the telltale twitching of his magic like an angry cat's tail within him.
"No," he said slowly, feeling a traitor but honest at last. "I know he loves you, Hermione, but I don't get… I wish… I just think that you shouldn't have to put up with so much from one another to be together. I hate when he makes fun of your ideas, but I know where he's coming from sometimes when he feels stupid around you. There are times when he says things that just make me think he's never going to understand you, it's painful to be there because I know it's going to upset you the minute he says it. But that's just me being a third wheel, I know it. I understand there's stuff between you that has nothing to do with me and it doesn't matter if anyone else understands it."
He waited for the relief that should have sprung from finally expressing his opinion about them, but nothing came.
"That's just it," she said sadly. "There should be something behind it all, but there isn't. There never has been. I always thought of you as my safe one and Ron as the one the sparks would fly with. It never worked out that way, and I never even came close to feeling with him what I did just now with you. Maybe it's everything we've been through and almost losing you to Voldemort, maybe it's growing up a bit. I don't know. But just now, when you started to disappear… that was my very worst dream coming true right before my eyes. Harry, I can't bear to keep on living a lie because I don't want to hurt Ron's feelings. I don't think Ron is hugely happy with me either, and maybe he's not breaking off with me for the same reasons."
Her eyes lifted from the corded edge of the pillow her fingers had been worrying as she confessed and bore into him with weight of all she had said. "I still feel safe with you, but I don't think I want you to be my safe one anymore. And if Elspeth is right in her theory about why your magic is letting loose, I thought that you might feel something for me, too."
Harry sat very still on his end of the couch and stared at her.
"D'you mean you and me? That you actually want to be with me?" Words failed him and his brain flailed.
Ron would kill him… but Ron wanted a Megan Jones on the side because he thought Hermione didn't want to… Sweet Merlin, what exactly did Ron want? That had felt like a pretty damn passionate kiss to Harry, not that he had anything that counted to go by… And didn't it matter what Hermione wanted as well? He remembered the feel of her in his arms and his pulse flared again, along with something else he didn't want to think about too closely. Gods above but it had felt wonderful, so right even when he had known it was wrong. How brilliant could it be if they were actually allowed…
Or how about digging his mind out of his pants and thinking about what she was really asking him? This was Hermione, after all, and she had just taken a huge and clearly uncomfortable risk, laying bare her feelings before him, uncertain still of his reaction. He owed her an answer, and if he managed to overlook the likelihood of Ron's towering rage when he confessed to him what he was about to confess to her, he actually had the potential to have something good to him for the first time since Hagrid told him he was a wizard.
"I don't know what my magic's thinking," he said slowly, trying to feel his way through the minefield before him, "but I'm pretty sure that I'm feeling a lot more than I'm supposed to for you right now. And I've loved you as much as I know how to for ages now, so it isn't just, erm, that. I thought you felt sorry for me before; it's why I wanted to disappear. I couldn't bear for you to pity me for surviving Voldemort just to have all this happen and I thought you were holding things off with Ron because I was in the way."
The sun was coming up now, but the windows in the room they were in faced west and the light was soft and dim. Hermione was propped against the arm of the sofa, her knees drawn up to her chest and her arms wound round them tightly. Her chin rested atop one knee and her eyes continued to survey him seriously. For the first time in a long while Harry didn't feel like dodging their observation, as if measuring up to her standards now could change the whole of his life. Instinct told him he should do something; that despite having spoken the last words there was still something more she needed from him. She'd gone out on a limb for him, kissed him twice. The least he could do show her what he'd learned from that.
He gathered the last of his courage and shifted forward on to his aching knees, half crawling the distance between them until he was flush against the barricade of her drawn up legs. He reached out tentatively and stroked the back of her clasped hands with his fingertips, his eyes never leaving hers. She frowned slightly, seemingly torn, and then unclasped them. Her arms fell away from her raised knees. He took it as a lowering of defenses and leaned over them and kissed her, gently and questioningly, little more than a brush of her lips with his. She exhaled softly, eyes closing and lips parting; another barrier relinquished. Forearms braced on the sofa arm behind her, he let his fingers slip through the silky mass of her hair behind her neck before kissing her again, more confidently this time. Her hands removed his glasses; he vaguely heard them hit the floor but was too preoccupied now with the entrancing way her tongue felt beneath his to care. Without them an instinctive tilt of his head realigned their questing lips and brought them closer still. Her hands slid to his shoulders, to his neck, to his cheeks, brushing softly across his ears and then twining into his hair there and urging him closer still.
It was brilliant, amazing, and he was just wishing it would never end when her knees fell apart beneath his chest and he could feel suddenly feel her heart racing his through his own skin and it was all way too much for him to handle. He sucked in a needed lungful of air in a shuddering gasp and pulled back. She came with him, entwined, but her eyes flew open and met his again, dark and still serious and so familiar it almost hurt.
What was he doing? He knew with certainty now that they could both be so much more to each other than he'd ever even known how to want, but what else did he have to offer her? He could love her more than Ron, he was achingly positive of that, but his life prospects now were uncertain at best, nothing you could in good conscience share with someone that could have so much more with almost anyone else.
"You're doing it again," she said. "Thinking. Stop."
"Hermione," he heard himself respond, and tried desperately to pull his scattered thoughts together. "I have to stop now, and trust me; it's not what I'm thinking you should be worried about."
"You see what I mean, though," she said. "Or maybe not? Am I making a fool of myself? Was it like that with Ginny…"
He couldn't bear that comparison, or for her even to think it. He stilled her lips with his fingers and shook his head.
"No. And don't. Let's not…no matter what happens, lets keep this between you and me, not bring them into it. I'll tell you this; I knew I was bad news for Ginny and I broke it off with her to keep her safe, but I could never make myself do the same for you. I know you can take care of yourself better than I ever could, it's not that. I just don't think I could bear to lose you, no matter what was between us. You've been my best friend forever, Hermione. What if I screw this up? What if it turns out like…"
"It won't," she said firmly. Being practical Hermione, however, she had a Plan B. "Still, let's promise each other right now that if it doesn't work out between us, we'll forgive each other everything and never forget why we were friends to begin with."
"If we can do that in a way that doesn't involve anything more intense than pinky-swearing, you're on," he told her. She was for all intents and purposes sitting in his lap now, and he knew she could feel what he was talking about. Harry hoped that his magic was the only thing he didn't have total control of at the moment, but he didn't have much to go on there, either.
"That will do for now," she said with a flushed little grin he found made him feel suddenly incredibly possessive. He'd never mentally connected Hermione with flushed little grins and hungry eyes, and he clung to Ron's complaints from the day before to reassure himself that she couldn't have given him that look too often, if at all.
"But I think before we say anything to Ron or anyone else, we should do the unbreakable vow."
He felt a reflexive wave of panic at that; but managed to catch himself before he said anything stupid. If it meant they'd stay friends even if Ron beat the snot out of him and Ginny bat bogeyed wizard photos of them in the Gryffindor common room for all to see, what was there to fear? He might be rubbish at the mere notion of commitment, but he knew that he would never have reason to second guess her friendship, ever.
He only wished he could offer her the same.
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