A Christmas Snog

It was Christmas Eve and Hermione and Harry were walking home from the coffee house where they had been listening to a local band perform a Christmas concert. Harry had come to spend the holidays with the Grangers. Hermione was depressed. Viktor had been at the coffee house with his current girlfriend, Angelica.

Viktor Krum had been Hermione's first boyfriend and, even though he was not always as considerate and caring as she thought he should be, and there had been rumors once or twice about him fooling around with other girls (but that had been several months ago), she was convinced that he was the love of her life. And then Fleur Delacour came in and, with a wink and a flip of her silver hair, stole him away. Hermione felt certain that the fragments left of her shattered heart could never be reassembled in anything resembling a life-giving device again.

Since he and Fleur had broken up just a week after they had started dating, Viktor had been through girlfriends like an alcoholic through his beer. With his current behavior, and after finding out that the rumors while they had been dating had all been true, Hermione was forced to admit that Viktor was a cad. Unfortunately, this did not cure her broken heart.

It had been pure torture for her to sit there and watch Viktor and Angelica nuzzle each other. Luckily, Harry had noticed and had suggested they leave. Harry was like that. He always seemed so attuned to her feelings. Maybe it was because they'd been spending so much time together lately. Harry's girlfriend, Luna, had given him the boot about the same time that Viktor had left her, so the two spurned lovers had clung to each other for comfort and sympathy.

If there was one thing Hermione was thankful for about hers and Viktor's break-up, it was that it had brought her so much closer to Harry. They had been friends for seven years now, but she had always felt that Ron and Harry were the real best friends. Now Ron was always off snogging his girlfriend Padma Patil, so it was just her and Harry. She couldn't imagine a better friend than Harry and she didn't want to imagine what it would have been like for her after her breakup without him there for support.

As she walked along, dejected, hands in her pockets, head down, mind cluttered with bitter thoughts about Viktor and Angelica, Harry threw his arm around her shoulders and gave her a little squeeze. He didn't say anything, but he didn't need to. She knew that he understood and empathized with her, and that was enough. They walked that way, in silence, the rest of the way to her house, where he would leave her and walk the next two blocks to the hotel where he was staying alone.

Harry stopped under the streetlight in front of her house and, putting his hands on her shoulders, turned her to face him. Looking straight into her eyes he said, very seriously, "You know, right, that Viktor's a total jerk-off and in no way did he ever deserve you?"

Hermione was having a hard time concentrating on what Harry was saying because she had just noticed what startling green eyes he had. They were beautiful, really.

"You're a wonderful person, the most amazing person I know, and if Viktor doesn't see that, then he is even more of a complete block-head than I would have ever given him credit for." After saying this Harry dropped his hands from her shoulders and shoved them instead into his pockets.

For awhile he did not say anything more, but Hermione could tell he was not finished so she just stood there and admired the contrast of the delicate white snow flakes in his messy black curls while she waited for him to say whatever it was that he seemed to be having so much trouble getting out. He had been staring intently at the sidewalk but finally he looked back up into her eyes and said simply, "I've loved you since the first time I saw you." Then he turned around and started walking toward his hotel. Before he could leave the little circle of light and be swallowed (forever?) by the dark, Hermione stopped him.

"Wait!" He turned back, a wary look in those green, green eyes. "I love you too."

The words were out before Hermione could stop them and even before she could realize what she had said, but once said Hermione found, with some surprise, that she had never spoken a truer thing in her life. And then he was holding her and Hermione found that her heart was whole again. The parts had been welded back together with a love so much stronger that it was as if it had never been broken in the first place, except that now it beat with more strength than ever before.

His lips met hers hesitantly at first, almost scared, like she was a figment of his imagination that would vanish at the first touch of his lips. With just that soft kiss, light began to pour into a dark void inside Hermione that she had never even known existed. Suddenly feeling a burning need to fill that void she returned his kiss with a passion she had not known she possessed.

Harry eagerly increased the intensity of the kiss and fireworks of desire exploded somewhere in the region of Hermione's stomach. She nibbled gently on his bottom lip and his lips parted obediently, allowing their tongues to perform an intricate dance of passion. When that was no longer enough, she moved her hands from where they had been clasped desperately around his neck and unbuttoned his coat then began to explore for the first time the lean muscles of his abdomen through his thin t-shirt. As she slid her hands up over his chest and to his shoulders she felt Harry's arms tighten spasmodically around her.

They had somehow ended up next to the lamppost and Harry leaned against it, grabbing her waist and pulling her so tightly to him that their bodies seemed to meld into one. His fingers slid up under her sweater to run delicately up the skin of her back sending shivers of pure ecstasy coursing through her body. Her legs seemed to evaporate from under her but Harry's strong arms were there to hold her up. Then he lowered her gently onto ground under him and they made passionate love-angels in the snow.