Disclaimer: The Potterverse belongs to JKR. I'm just borrowing them for a bit. I've also borrowed some of Pablo Neruda's poems. These are excerpts from the English translations of "Sonnet XI" and "Don't Go Far Off."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:
All he wanted was her.
If anything, that was more true when he woke. Even in what Harry liked to think of as his "potion-addled state," Hermione brought him a kind of peace. Not the pretend-normal peace that he had had with Ginny, but the kind brought about by the knowledge that whatever else he had to face, he would not be alone.
Harry was stubborn, and privately he was convinced that those who stood with him would either leave or die. Somehow that did not apply to Ron and Hermione, maybe because the three of them had been through a lot already. As Hermione had once said, they'd had time to turn back, more time than anyone. But they'd chosen not to.
The brave, bookish girl exemplified that determination. That she had stayed even when he had turned on her - well that was proof enough for anyone. The irony was, now that Harry had finally told her what she meant to him, it seemed like events were conspiring to take her away.
Almost immediately after their talk, Lupin called them together. The members of the Order testing Faveure's potion needed assistance. Of course Hermione had left to help.
Harry hadn't seen her since. The first evening - trying to sleep knowing she was nowhere within reach - was awful. But when he woke to a second day without her, there was an emptiness in him so immense that it left a physical ache in his chest.
With Hermione gone, though, so was the main reason to restrain him. Once Lupin extracted the boy's promise not to leave Grimmauld, the professor left for some hours to attend to his own affairs. The older wizard did not tell his charge of the spells that barred the exits. Harry would find that out for himself if he tried to break his promise.
The arrangement suddenly left Harry on his own. He prepared and ate brunch, showered, and spent his free time prowling the house, stalking through the rooms restlessly like a big hungry cat. He found himself once in Hermione's room, but discovered that being surrounded by so many of her things only made her absence harder to bear.
Finally, the young wizard wandered into the library. The girl's quill and parchment were still on the large table, positioned carefully next to an equally neat stack of books. He ran a finger over the feathered quill fondly. Typical Hermione.
He didn't want to disturb her research, and in his current state he had no taste for books of magic. So he turned towards the shelves, and discovered, to his surprise, some volumes that didn't appear to be as old or as worn as the rest.
He picked one out. Muggle books?! Here? Finding a muggle book in the Black family library was like finding a steak in a vegan's fridge.
Someone must've left these. Harry couldn't imagine Sirius having much interest in muggle books, although his godfather had spent his last few days holed up in Grimmauld. But for some reason the books looked vaguely familiar.
Intrigued, the boy opened one. Oh bugger, poetry. Harry rolled his eyes. Why couldn't it've been something interesting, like a good murder mystery? He was about to put it back, when a line caught his attention. His eyes widened and before he knew it he was pulling another volume off the shelf.
Hours later, a brown-haired witch, indistinguishable in dress from the muggles walking along the street, apparated nearby. She strode into the gloomy house that held no barriers for her.
Hermione was tired, and not merely in the physical sense. The Order members refining Faveure's potion were brilliant, but they were not aware of the specifics of Harry's condition. That was where she had proven useful. Without giving too much away, she made sure they had the necessary details.
It was another singular display of Professor Lupin's kindness and tact. This was his way of telling her that the choice was now hers. She could tell or hold back as much of the tale as she thought best.
In the end, she chose as Lupin had and for much the same reason. Because the other members of the Order would not understand. The other wizards and witches weren't like Dumbledore or Lupin or the Weasleys; they had only a passing acquaintance with the Boy Who Lived. While intellectually they might accept that Harry had acted under duress because of the Solvamus, they had no clear idea what kind of person he was to begin with. Hermione would not let their first insight into Harry be his near-betrayal of her.
Her only real complaint was how long the process was taking. As precious hours passed, Hermione found herself increasingly consumed by her worry for Harry. She had actually dreamt last night that she had returned to Grimmauld too late, that he was already insane.
Lupin had passed by briefly in the morning and reassured her that that wasn't the case. Maybe the treatment with the pensieve had helped, or maybe it was something as simple as it wasn't time yet. By the professor's count, they still had two days, maybe two nights.
Two days. Two nights. Hermione walked into the house with the thought drumming in her head. She called out. When she got no answer she automatically headed towards the library ... and was startled to find Harry there.
The raven-haired teenager was sprawled on a small couch. He appeared to be dozing. His glasses rested on a couple of open books perched haphazardly on a low center table in front of him.
She sighed in relief. At least if the books were any indication he wasn't mad yet. Curiously, she approached to peer at the slim volumes. Maybe Harry decided to look into the Horcruxes himself.
She blinked. That can't be right. She leaned down. Nope, it wasn't her imagination. Poetry?! Harry? Although the bespectacled wizard was more widely-read than Ron, he had never shown much patience with verse unless there was a spell involved. Hermione scanned the open page.
I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.
She flushed and picked the book up, carefully dislodging Harry's glasses onto the table. She was so absorbed, so bemused by the idea of Harry reading poetry, that she did not notice him stir behind her.
Harry could barely believe at first that the girl whose absence haunted him was actually here, inches away from him. Although her back was turned, he could easily imagine her puzzled expression as she bent over the books he'd taken. Her eyes, he thought, would be the color of warm honey.
Suddenly, fiercely, he wanted those eyes on him. He murmured her name.
She turned her head towards him. Maybe it was because she was tired, or maybe it was the sheer relief of seeing him after imagining the worst. For whatever reason, Hermione was not in the least nervous when she found herself trading a brief silent gaze with the boy who at this time was both her closest friend and an unpredictable stranger.
For a moment, it was as if she were seeing him for the first time. Harry wasn't handsome, in the same way that she wasn't strictly pretty, but the years were turning him into a striking individual. He contemplated her under moody lashes, his irises a deep dark green as he rose from the couch.
Hermione turned back towards the books, staying in place as Harry stood behind her. She straightened, but did not shift away, when he moved so close that the line of body pressed against hers. Hermione could feel the warmth radiating off of him as he peered over her shoulder at the slim hardbound that still lay open in her hand.
Harry couldn't possibly know what part she'd been reading, but he continued where she left off. "I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails ..." he intoned in a sleep-roughened voice. His breath tickled the tip of her ear. "I'm glad you're home, Hermione."
Something about the way he said home made the young witch's heart beat faster. She had to remind herself that this wasn't home, no matter how long she stayed. Not even if unplottable Grimmauld had become one of the few places where she felt safe. Casting for a way to change the mood, she murmured, "Poetry, Harry?"
"It helps." He moved to take the book, but Hermione wouldn't let him.
She held it up, her finger on the page. "It ... helps?" she asked, one eyebrow raised high.
"It just does." Harry shrugged defensively. "You have no idea what it's like, having all this shite in my head and not being able to put it into words. I don't know how to explain how I feel, but somehow this bloke does. So yeah, it helps."
"Hey, I'm not making fun of you," she said. "It's just that you never seemed interested. Sonnet XI ... Neruda's a good poet, isn't he?"
"You know him? You've read this stuff?" Harry looked stunned.
For some reason, his obvious surprise annoyed her. "Why is that so shocking?" she asked. "I'm a bookworm, remember? Last time I checked this," she waved the tome around, "was a book."
"Yeah, but it's not your kind of book." The second the words were out, Harry realized he was in trouble. "I mean, er, it's not about spells and school and Hogwarts: A History ..."
Too late. "What does that mean?" Hermione turned around, her eyes narrowed. "Just who do you think left those books here? How many muggle-borns do you know have access to the Black family library?"
That was why they looked familiar! He could picture the slim volumes now, one or two squeezed in among the pile of books Hermione was always lugging around. "These are yours?" But that meant ... He swallowed. "You read them when we were at Hogwarts?"
The girl nodded, too irritated now to notice the new intensity in his face. "Of course. Or on the train, to pass the time. Any chance I get, actually."
Harry shut his eyes. How many times had he seen Hermione absorbed in a book? How many times had she sat down mere inches from him, chewing her lip as she read? How often had Ron and he rolled their eyes, utterly sure that their friend was burying herself in something mind-numbingly boring? And all the time she'd been filling her head with words like these, words that spoke of wanting and loving, longing and loss?
It was a revelation. Unlike the rest of Hogwarts, he'd always known that Hermione was passionate underneath that sensible exterior. He'd seen it in the way she threw herself in her causes. But how had he missed the fact that she had a sensual side as well? The thought - the sheer possibility - that she might open that part of herself to him filled him with elation. What else don't I know about her?
For her part, Hermione was still wrapped up in her indignation. Dry, dusty scholarly tomes - did they really think that that was all there was to her?
"Shall I prove it?" she asked dryly as she put the book down. Hermione had never made an effort to memorize any of the poems she'd come across, but she had read them so many times over the past years that the words just came to her:
"Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep."
At the start she was angry, almost strident, but as she went on her voice softened in obedience to Neruda's longing words.
"Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my heart."
Hermione sighed. Her annoyance receded as the poem brought forward other memories. "I read that over and over, the first time I left Hogwarts for the summer. That bit about the trains reminded me of school. Hogwarts opened a new world to me, showed me that magic was real, that I wasn't alone. Then they told us we weren't allowed to do magic outside. Leaving Hogwarts for the first time felt like leaving magic behind."
Her remembered sadness was so real, so poignant, that Harry instinctively moved to comfort her. "Hey, it's alright," he said, hugging her. "Those rules don't apply to us anymore, anyway."
The eminently practicable way he said it made Hermione laugh. "I knew there was a bright side to fighting Voldemort."
Harry waggled his eyebrows. "What do you think I'm in it for?"
The sheer absurdity of it got her laughing again, and soon he joined her. It was such a release, sharing a laugh together, that they just gave into it. By the time they came to a stop, they were both teary-eyed and breathless.
And then, of course, Harry didn't want to let her go. His arms were loose around her, but they remained there. Hermione was still flushed from laughing, her lips curved in a mirthful smile. At this moment, there was nothing in the world more precious to him.
Their eyes met again. Harry inclined his head infinitesimally closer.
Hermione went still, but the trace of a smile did not leave her lips.
He bent his head and kissed her cautiously, more slowly than he had ever kissed anyone in his life. The pent-up need of the last two days surged inside him but he determinedly kept it at bay. She's giving you a chance. Don't ruin it. Oh Merlin. Her mouth was incredibly soft, her breath warm and sweet. And when her lips moved tentatively against his for the first time, he thought he would die.
His hands shifted from her back. Harry stepped back and tugged gently at her wrists, and to his amazement Hermione followed his lead until he felt the couch hit the back of his legs. He sank into the couch and pulled her down with him, holding her with his eyes.
When she was beside him, he cupped her face. "I really missed you," he said thickly. Then he kissed her again.
Hermione had no idea what possessed her, but she let him. She put the constant anxiety of the last two days aside. Right now, being surrounded by Harry's warmth was just what she needed.
Encouraged by her response, Harry began to tease. He nibbled the fullness of her lower lip before dropping kisses on her chin, her jaw, the smoothness of her cheek. One hand curved around her neck while the other buried itself in the curls of her hair. When he returned to her lips, he pulled her closer until their torsos were touching.
The young witch made a sound as he sucked on her lower lip. He was pressing harder now, his lips more insistent. Slowly they parted and the tip of his tongue brushed against the seam of her lips.
She knew what he wanted. What astonished her was she wanted it, too. But just as she began to open up to him, they both heard a sound that made them freeze.
It was the call of "Harry? Hermione?" and the sound of a stout wooden door swinging shut. Professor Lupin had returned.
Harry swore. After one last swift kiss, he retrieved his glasses and retreated as far from her as the couch would allow.
Hermione strove to compose herself. She ran one hand quickly through her hair. Without a mirror it was all she could do. Suddenly feeling the need for cover, she grabbed one of the books and pretended to read from it.
"There you are." Lupin strode into the room and dropped tiredly into an armchair. If he was surprised to see them together, he didn't let on. He addressed the girl first. "I passed by the potions people again, but they told me you'd gone ahead. Have you told Harry the good news?"
She cleared her throat. "I was just about to," she answered, carefully averting her eyes from the boy. "Harry, the potion is almost ready. They had to make some adjustments; after so long Monsieur Faveure wasn't too precise on the measurements of an ingredient or two. It should be ready tonight. Will they bring it here, professor?"
"I might fetch it myself," Lupin said casually. He wanted to keep the people to see Harry in his current condition to a minimum. He met Hermione's eyes briefly, and saw that she understood that. "I'm sure between the two of us, we can administer the potion."
The young witch inclined her head. "From what I understand, there's nothing special that needs to be done. Harry just needs to drink the potion." It was the aftermath she was worried about.
As if he'd heard her, the older man nodded. "Just in case, I'll have some people standing by." He grimaced. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have my own potions I need to see to." He did not notice the hard stare Harry threw at him as he exited the room.
Hermione smoothed her jeans nervously and stood. "I guess I'll go, too. See you later, Harry."
She got as far as the shelves, before she felt Harry's hand snake around her wrist. Before she knew it, her back was to the shelf and he was kissing her hungrily.
For a moment Hermione was swept up in his warmth again. This time she could feel the entire length of his body pressed against hers. Merlin, the leanness of him! "Harry," she groaned. "Wait. We can't." Her hands, trapped between their bodies, reluctantly pushed him away.
Harry was breathing hard. It took all of his willpower to stop. He spoke for the first time since Lupin's arrival. "What's going on between you and Lupin?" he growled.
She gaped at him. "What?"
"You were trading looks with him, Hermione! Is that why you want me to stop? Because you don't want him to see us?"
"Are you crazy? Me and Professor Lupin?!"
When she said it like that ... Harry raked his hand through his hair. "I ... sorry. It's just, this wordless stuff ... it's something you do with me. Ron sometimes," he admitted reluctantly, "but mostly me."
"You're jealous," she realized, amazed.
"In this state? Constantly." His smile was rueful.
She shook her head at him, like he was a nine-year-old. "Patience, Harry. We're nearly there. In a few hours you'll be free." Hermione prayed that that was true. "You know better than anyone that Professor Lupin's a good man. He only has your interest at heart. I wish I could convince you of that."
"You can."
"How?"
"Kiss me," he said seriously.
Hermione looked at him searchingly. Her first instinct was to say no, and his face told her that he was expecting that. But there was a bit of wild hope mixed in there, too. "Close your eyes, Harry. Arms at your sides, okay?"
He did. She turned them, so that he was the one with his back to the shelves now. He felt her supple hand on his cheek, guiding his head down. His heart thudded as he felt the first soft brush of her lips on his.
And then Hermione was kissing him. Not just letting him kiss her or returning his kiss, but taking the lead now, tormenting him with her warm, wet mouth. He kissed her back with a vengeance, but she would not give up the lead.
Harry's hands fisted at his sides. He was desperate to hold her, raging to take this further. In another second he would have given in.
Somehow she sensed that he was near his limit. She withdrew and by the time Harry opened his eyes, Hermione was standing a couple of feet away.
"Do you believe me now?"
"Hermione ..."
She ducked his gaze, bit her lip. Suddenly the bossy girl was a picture of uncertainty. "I missed you, too, Harry." Then, swiftly, before he could say anything, she left.
A/N: I'm constantly amazed by the number of people who review each chapter. Thanks, everyone! A special thanks to those who've been reviewing "anonymously" since I haven't been able to reply to a lot of them. This chapter didn't quite go where it was supposed to. It was supposed to be about Harry taking Faveure's potion. Imagine my surprise when I ended up writing a snog-fest. Must be that phase of the moon or something. ;) Not as heated as some would like, but considering that there was only going to be the one kiss at first, that's an improvement right? Any complaints about delaying the potion stuff to the next chapter? :D So how do you think the story's going so far?