Happy belated birthday, Anne!
Prelude to a Kiss
Harry blamed it on Ron.
Ron blamed it on the firewhiskey.
Hermione knew nothing about it because if she’d been there, Ron would never have said it, firewhiskey or no. But Hermione had gone to bed more than an hour earlier, leaving him and Harry on their own. They were both nursing firewhiskeys-Ron’s fourth and Harry’s third-on top of the wine they’d had with dinner. Their conversation had mostly lapsed into silence, become desultory, and finally ceased altogether. Which happened sometimes when he and Harry drank. Occasionally when they drank, they became louder, rowdy-behaving even more immaturely than they usually did, as Hermione would tartly inform them afterwards. And sometimes when they drank, they grew quieter. Beyond that, Ron had never bothered to analyze why. But then again, Ron had never understood the point of analyzing anything deeply.
At any rate, they sometimes grew quieter and this was one of those times. Harry had been the one to break the silence that had gone on for some time, saying idly, “Say, did Hermione tell you what happened at the Ministry the other day?”
At Ron’s negative, Harry had proceeded to tell a story about a rather comical series of mistakes that had resulted in Harriet Monkford, another member of Hermione’s division, believing that the Division Director had given her a certain new assignment which she had then spent a few hours looking into with no very good grace as it had taken her away from some other urgently pending matters. But finally, the mix-up was cleared and it turned out the Director had meant for Hermione to take on the assignment, much to Harriet’s ill-disguised relief.
Ron let out a brief chuckle. He had met Harriet Monkford a few times at Ministry events and he could imagine the amusing picture of her flustered over a sudden disruption-Harriet was a very competent worker but had a tendency to get flustered if anything deviated in the slightest from her already-set schedule. “Well, it worked out well for Hermione with Harriet having started on the assignment already.”
“Nah. You know what Hermione’s like. She’s going to start from the beginning all over again just to be sure.”
Which was true, now that Ron thought about it. He himself had never understood it and thought Hermione was frankly a little barmy for it. Harry, on the other hand, had sounded almost… proud… and certainly fond.
Plus, as was becoming very familiar to Ron, Harry’s tone had changed-subtly but perceptibly-at the mention of Hermione’s name.
Ron rolled his eyes to himself. He didn’t know for sure but he rather suspected that Harry thought he was being subtle, that no one aside from himself knew how he felt about Hermione. Not that Harry had ever said anything-hence Ron’s reasonable certainty that Harry believed his feelings for Hermione were secret-but Harry wasn’t subtle. Not really. Not to Ron, at least, who, aside from having been best friends with both Harry and Hermione for more than ten years now, also had the benefit of sharing a flat with them and therefore seeing them both every day. More specifically, seeing Harry every day and hearing Harry talk to and about Hermione every day.
Ron suspected Harry’s feelings for Hermione had probably deepened, changed, some little time before Ron had become aware of them. Harry might not be that subtle but Ron was honest enough to admit that he was not the most observant of fellows and anyway, it would never have occurred to him to think that Harry would start to fancy Hermione in that way because, well, this was Harry and Hermione and he’d always believed that Harry thought of Hermione as being more like a sister than anything else.
Except it had become obvious to Ron that Harry definitely did not think of Hermione as a sister.
And honest to Merlin, it was getting bloody annoying. Ron had no idea why Harry hadn’t done anything to indicate that he fancied Hermione. Hermione hadn’t even been on a date with anyone in months and-more significantly-neither had Harry. Ron had no idea what opportunities Hermione might have had for dating but he knew for a fact that Harry had opportunities. He was the bloody Boy Who Lived, the big Hero and all that; if Harry wanted, he could have dated a different girl every night for more than a year-hell, probably more than ten years-without running out of candidates. Harry hated it, Ron knew even if he couldn’t for the life of him understand why, but whatever the reason, Harry did hate it.
And Ron really had no idea why Harry hadn’t done anything to act on his feelings. Ron knew that if he fancied a girl, he could never have waited so long without doing anything about it. Especially as there was nothing that Ron could see getting in the way.
Harry fancied Hermione. To be blunt about it, Harry wanted to kiss Hermione. That was really what had first made Ron aware of Harry’s feelings.
It would have taken him much longer to notice the slight difference in the way Harry spoke to and about Hermione-well, no, that wasn’t true. It was only noticeable when Harry spoke about Hermione rather than to her, actually. When he spoke to Hermione, there wasn’t usually any difference at all, except every once in a while, usually when Harry was worried about Hermione for whatever reason. But when he spoke about Hermione-well, that had gotten obvious to Ron once he’d started noticing it. He didn’t know how to describe it, just that Harry’s tone when he spoke about Hermione was different.
And when combined with the fact that Harry wanted to kiss Hermione-what the difference was became obvious.
And Harry did want to kiss Hermione. Ron had no doubt about that. Ron didn’t pretend to be the most observant or astute of people but he did know Harry-not quite as well as Hermione did but certainly better than anyone else in the world besides Hermione did-and aside from that, he was a bloke too. He could tell when another bloke wanted to kiss a girl. It was in the way Harry’s gaze occasionally dropped down to focus on Hermione’s lips, in the way Harry stared at Hermione.
It had all become very obvious. And very annoying.
He didn’t know what the devil was holding Harry back but frankly, Ron wanted Harry to get over it and just snog Hermione already. Because his staring at Hermione and the way he brought Hermione up in conversation all the bloody time was getting on Ron’s nerves. (It wasn’t new that Harry would talk about Hermione, she was their best friend after all and they did share a flat, but now, well, Harry couldn’t seem to speak more than ten sentences altogether without mentioning Hermione in some way. Ron knew because he’d once-in utter exasperation-counted. And then been horrified at the thought that he’d clearly spent too much time with Hermione to be doing such a thing. But horrifying or not, the fact remained that Harry talked about Hermione all the time now. Ron cared about Hermione as his best friend as much as anyone could but really, there were limits and after more than ten years of friendship, he couldn’t understand what Harry found so endlessly fascinating as to need to mention about Hermione anyway.)
This had been going on for months now but Ron had never said anything. At first because he’d assumed Harry would just get over whatever it was and snog Hermione and while that might be weird at first, he figured they’d all get used to Harry and Hermione being together and that would be that.
Yeah. At this rate, they would all be old and gray before Harry did anything. Or Ron would just snap and hex Harry outright the next time he brought Hermione up in conversation for no bloody reason that Ron could understand.
So really, when put like that, it was clearly his duty as Harry’s best friend who didn’t want anything bad to happen to Harry to step in and save Harry’s bloody life. Or so Ron told himself afterwards. At the time, he didn’t think, the firewhiskey doing its part to ensure that whatever part of his brain usually stepped in to stop his thoughts from turning into spoken words didn’t.
“Why don’t you just kiss Hermione and be done with it?” he blurted out.
Harry had been in the process of taking another drink of firewhiskey and he inhaled sharply and then choked and then sputtered and then coughed and then choked some more.
Ron didn’t even bother to hide his snickering. (What? The faces Harry was making… He would have to be a saint not to laugh and Ron didn’t claim to be a saint.)
“What-” Harry rasped and then cleared his throat, and began again, “What did you say?”
“Why don’t you kiss her?”
Harry was now gaping at Ron, looking rather like a landed fish, Ron thought. “I-you-because I-she’s my best friend!” he finally managed to say.
Ron laughed aloud. “So? She’s my best friend too and I kissed her.”
Harry’s gape collapsed into a frown and Ron quickly added, “When we were at Hogwarts, remember?”
“It’s not the same,” Harry insisted.
“What’s the difference?”
Harry hesitated and then finally resorted to muttering, “It just isn’t the same.”
“Why the bloody hell not?” Ron burst out, his voice rising a little bit.
He saw Harry’s rather panicked glance toward Hermione’s door and he forcibly lowered his tone. “You fancy Hermione, don’t you?”
Harry really looked as if he wanted to deny it. Ron could see it all over his face. But after a minute, Harry just nodded.
“Then why not just kiss her? You’re not dating anyone and Hermione’s not dating anyone. So why don’t you kiss her?”
Harry opened his mouth-to say what, Ron had no idea-and then closed it, opened it again, and then closed it again, looking rather disgruntled. “I just can’t.”
Ron gave Harry a skeptical look. “I know it’s been a while since your last date but if you expect me to believe you’ve forgotten how to snog a girl, I’m not going to believe you.”
“Don’t be an ass,” Harry retorted, although his tone was mild. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Well, what did you mean?” Ron persisted. Really, Harry was remarkably irritating when he got into one of his stubborn modes. Merlin only knew how Hermione put up with it. “Come off it, Harry. You’ve been looking at Hermione as if she were the bloody Quidditch World Cup and the Philosopher’s Stone put together. So why don’t you just kiss her?”
“Because I can’t!” Harry burst out in sudden exasperation. “I can’t risk losing her friendship. I won’t risk losing her friendship!”
“Why would you be risking anything? Hermione and I snogged and we’re still friends even after we broke up.”
Harry made a skeptical sound. “You and Hermione are friends again now but after you broke up, you barely spoke to her for months and you avoided being alone with her as if she had the plague.”
“Well, okay, so it was a little awkward at first,” Ron conceded, “but we got over it eventually.”
“You might be able to barely speak to Hermione for months and be just fine but I can’t.”
And there was something in his tone, quiet as it was-or maybe it was its very quietness-that sobered Ron, realizing that this wasn’t a matter for teasing. “Well, it wasn’t much fun at the time not to be friends with Hermione,” he began cautiously, “but it wasn’t exactly life-threatening either so I don’t see wh-”
“It would be for me,” Harry interrupted bluntly.
Ron blinked and it was his turn to gape at Harry. Had Harry-life-threatening? Really? Harry of all people knew what real, literal, might-not-survive situations were like. And Harry, of all people, didn’t use the term lightly. “You-what-I don’t-what do you mean by that?” he finally managed to ask, less than fluently.
Harry cut his eyes away, focusing on his bottle of firewhiskey with as much single-minded concentration as if he could see the mysteries of the universe in it. “I just… need her, that’s all. I need her friendship. I don’t-I don’t know if I can explain it better than that. She-I just-it’s just… her… I don’t know. I just… need her. I need… her to be my best friend the way she’s always been. And I don’t think-no, I know that I couldn’t do without that.”
For a long minute, Ron just stared at Harry, a little stunned, a part of him now regretting that he’d brought this up in the first place because this-what had started as an impulsive, mostly light-hearted chat about a snog-had now turned into… a talk about something else, something… real and serious enough that a part of him was squirming with automatic, instinctive discomfort. “Merlin, Harry,” he finally found himself blurting out. “You don’t just want to snog Hermione. You… you really care about her, don’t you?”
It wasn’t really a question and even though Ron mentally shied away from even thinking the word, love, in some corner of his mind, he was aware that it was what he really meant when he said that Harry cared about Hermione.
A discomfited expression flitted across Harry’s face as he continued staring at his bottle but then he looked up and met Ron’s eyes. “Yeah,” was all he said quietly. “But I’m her best friend and… and that’s enough.”
“Is it really?”
“Yes. No. Most of the time.”
“Harry…”
“It’s okay, Ron,” Harry interrupted with some force. “Anyway,” he continued, more calmly, “it doesn’t matter because Hermione only thinks of me as a friend.”
Ron snorted before he could think better of it. “Come off it, mate. You’re the bloody Boy Who Lived. Every witch in England under the age of 40 fancies you.”
“Don’t be daft,” Harry retorted and, for the first time, he looked distinctly annoyed. “Hermione’s never cared about any of that rot.”
“Maybe not,” Ron had to concede, “but, look, you-Hermione’s always cared more about you, you know,” he found himself admitting. And, for the first time, he could say the words-think them-without anger or any lingering irritation.
“That’s not-that’s not true.”
“No, it is. You-you really don’t know, do you?” Ron said. “Even when-look, mate, even when Hermione and I were… dating… it was always you-anything to do with you and Hermione would drop everything else. I-we used to get into rows about it,” he finished, more softly.
“It’s not… you can’t… I’m her best friend and… Hermione’s a good friend, you know that.”
“Yeah, she is a good friend but it’s not the same thing. It’s just… you come first with her. You do,” he repeated with more emphasis, and then to drive the point home, admitted-for the first time, could admit this without flinching-“It used to make me bloody jealous.”
“Ron…” Harry sighed.
“It’s okay, mate. I’m over it. I just… you come first for her. D’you really think she doesn’t care about you as more than a friend?”
“Has she… has she said anything?”
Ron gave Harry a sideways look. “No. You know Hermione. Besides, if she was going to talk about anything personal, it’d be with you, wouldn’t it?”
“You’re her best friend too.”
“I know, but I’m the one with the emotional depth of a teaspoon, remember?”
A faint smile crossed Harry’s face at this.
“Seriously, mate, you should try, y’know. Hermione cares about you; she always has. How do you know she doesn’t care about you the way you do her?”
“I… I just…”
Ron sighed and finished off the last of his Firewhiskey. “Just kiss her already, will you, Harry? I’m off to bed. I’m knackered.”
“Night.”
Ron answered with a brief wave of his hand as he disappeared into the loo.
Leaving Harry staring out the window, seeing not the city lights but a kaleidoscope of memories, images, of Hermione.
You come first with her…
Why don’t you kiss her?
Maybe it was the firewhiskey talking but for the first time, his reasons didn’t seem quite so persuasive.
Why don’t you kiss her?
And Harry responded aloud, softly, “Maybe I will.”
~*~
~To be continued...~