Clichés, Kisses and Killing

Clichés, Kisses and Killing.

Chapter 2: An Unknown Oblivion.

Confused,

What did I say, what did you do?

How did I fall in love with you?

'How Did I Fall In Love With You?' - Backstreet Boys.

Hermione followed Harry down the stone hall to the classroom he had made sure was empty. It was quite late at night. Not late enough to lose points for, but late enough to arouse suspicions if anyone saw them.

"Harry, are you sure this is empty?"

"Completely sure." He smiled reassuringly at her. "The timetable said it has been empty since lunchtime."

"Okay." Hermione followed Harry in when he opened the door and said 'Lumos' almost lazily. "Shit!" she shrieked when she saw who was already in there.

"What in the name of hell are you doing in here?" Harry barked. Hermione stared in shock at the sight before her. When they had walked into the classroom, they had walked in on Ginny Weasley getting hot and heavy with none other than Draco Malfoy. He had her pinned against the wall, their hands entwined above her head and their mouths attached. Harry's eyebrows had hit his hairline, and Hermione's weren't far behind.

"Malfoy? Care to explain?" He leaned lazily against the wall and smirked.

"Not really, Potter." Ginny was staring at Harry and Hermione, looking nervous. Draco reached out and took her hand, giving her a small smile by way of trying to calm her down.

"Harry, Hermione," she stuttered. "You won't tell Ron, will you?" Behind her, Draco rolled his eyes.

"Ginny, we won't tell Ron, but you'll have to eventually."

"Why, thank you, Potter, I've been trying to get that message through for weeks."

"Weeks!" shrieked Hermione.

"Yes," Draco answered smoothly. "Since her birthday party, in fact." Hermione and Harry froze. "It seems as though it was a very interesting night." Draco didn't mean anything by his words, but Hermione was shaking anyway.

"Whatever, Malfoy, just get out of the classroom, you should be in the Slytherin common room. And Ginny, get back to Gryffindor, you shouldn't be out at all at this time."

"What about you?" drawled Draco.

"Head Girl and Boy privileges. Now off you go."

"But, Hermione-?"

"Go, Ginny! Or I'll take points from Gryffindor." Ginny frowned but hurried away with Draco anyway.

"Herm, that was mean."

"I don't care. She shouldn't be mucking about with him, he's bad news."

"He just got to you. Anyway, are we going to have this talk or what?" Hermione nodded and settled herself in a chair. Harry took one and sat it so it was facing her. "I'll just put some sound charms up." He quickly cast them so no one could hear what they were talking about, and then he looked expectantly at Hermione.

"We need to set some ground rules. Firstly, we do not talk about this, Harry, not after tonight. This is it." He nodded his agreement. "Secondly, we don't bring it up when we argue. Not at all. If we argue ever again, we don't bring this up to embarrass each other or get even. You can do anything else, but this is too much of a sore point." Harry nodded again.

"Herm, we are alright together and we work well together, so you have to stop feeling guilty about it. Ron will never find out, and if you love him, get back with him. And I won't mention it ever again."

"I don't love him."

"What?" Harry was genuinely shocked. He had assumed she still adored Ron, despite their many arguments.

"I don't love him like that anymore. He's sweet and I love him as my best friend but I cannot bring myself to think of him like that ever again. I've just got it all out of my system, I guess." Harry was still frowning.

"So, you feel about him like you feel about me then?" Hermione hesitated for a fraction of a second.

"Yeah, I guess it's something like that." Harry looked away, frowning, and Hermione did the same. "It's a little different now."

"What is?"

"The way I feel about you." Harry nodded like he understood and Hermione closed her eyes for a moment.

"Hermione?" She looked up at him. "How do feel about me?"

"I don't know right now. It's all confused and tied up." She shook her head at her inarticulateness and looked down. Harry reached across and lifted her head up with a gentle tug with his right hand.

"How do you think you feel?"

"Confused," she said without thinking. "I don't know what to think sometimes, and I worry that I should feel something else." Harry looked baffled for a second and then his face cleared and he slid out of seat and onto his knees, directly in front of Hermione. He leaned upwards and touched his lips to hers, leaning his hands on either side of the chair. Hermione gasped and he pulled away, frowning.

"Herm-?" He didn't get to finish because she leaned forward and met his lips with hers. She kissed him gently at first and then slid onto the floor next to him, their pumping hearts urging them to become more passionate. Harry was the one to break it off, pulling away reluctantly from Hermione's kisses.

"What does this mean?"

"Right now? It means that you should be quiet and live for the moment, Harry. It means you should kiss me again." Harry smiled and did as she said, jumping off the edge of his known world and into an unknown oblivion.

Hermione walked into her room and, smiling dreamily, and closed the door behind her and leant on it. Her heart was jumping and her lips were throbbing, but she didn't care. And she didn't care that she had just done exactly what she had made herself promise not to do. She didn't care whether everything went wrong and Harry ran off to join the circus. Because now he knew how she felt, and nothing could go wrong. Except for everything to do with Ron, her brain piped up. She blanked out those thoughts and continued to smile. She couldn't wait to talk to Harry again, and she only had to wait until the morning. Pulling on her nightclothes and climbing into bed, Hermione was still grinning like a schoolgirl in love when she fell asleep. Which, she decided when she thought about it later, was quite true.

*~*~*~*~*

Harry wandered into the Great Hall the following morning and sat down between Ron and Hermione. Ginny was sitting across the table from him and he couldn't give a monkey's arse that she kept giving him and Hermione nervous glances, all he cared about was the fact that he was sitting next to Hermione, and her thigh was pressing warmly against his as they sat and talked. When Harry ran his hand lightly across hers as he reached for the pumpkin juice, she gave him a secret smile and he returned it easily, pouring himself a large glass of the icy cold juice.

"How did it go with you and Hermione last night?"

"What?" Hermione yelped. Ron looked puzzled.

"You and Harry were sorting out the new passwords for the towers, I thought." Hermione relaxed.

"Oh, right. Sorry, I'm jumpy today. Yeah, we got it all sorted." She relaxed back in her seat and elbowed Harry gently as he sniggered at her. Hermione looked up as crowds of owls swooped down from the ceiling of the Great Hall and Hedwig arrived with a letter from Sirius and a letter from Remus for Harry. Hermione's Daily Prophet fell in her lap and she unrolled it immediately. Ginny was opening a large package that contained a late birthday present from one of her distant relatives. Ron was peering at it from his position on the other side of the table. Ginny grinned widely as an array of little presents fell out of the brown paper and Hermione gasped at exactly the same time.

"What is it?" Harry peered over her shoulder as she stared at the newspaper in shock.

"Azkaban. Someone has broken out of Azkaban." Ron looked over at Hermione quickly and frowned.

"No one can break out of Azkaban. Well, except..." He let himself trail off and Harry nodded absentmindedly, still peering over Hermione's shoulder.

"Who is it?"

"It's a woman called Morienda Enfero. She was serving a sentence for passing secrets during Voldemort's rise to power. She was in there when he fell from power; she's been there ever since. The guards don't know how she got out but they seem pretty adamant that she must have had help because none of the guards saw anything." Hermione looked up at Harry. "They say that it was just like she vanished. Like she just became thin air." Harry frowned, followed in quick suit by Ron and Ginny.

"But that's impossible. No one can vaporise out of Azkaban," reasoned Harry. "Even 'Snuffles' had a big complicated plan. That's not just improbable, that's completely impossible, there are more wards around that place than...well, there are a lot." Harry looked up at the others, and noticed Ginny's weird, almost frightened stare across the Hall. Harry turned around and saw immediately what she was staring at. Draco Malfoy was sitting down, surrounded by his little evildoers' club, and they were reading The Daily Prophet. And they weren't looking frightened and they weren't looking shocked. In fact, they looked quite happy, and Draco was grinning all over his pale, pointy little face.

Hermione knocked on the dormitory door and heard the muffled 'come in' before opening the door and going in, followed by Harry. Ginny was lying face down on her bed, her red hair spread around her head and her robes discarded on the floor. Harry cleared his throat and she looked up suddenly.

"Hermione? Harry? What are you doing here?" She was feigning surprise, but she dropped the act pretty quickly. "Oh, wait, never mind, I already know. And I know Draco looked all evil and mean today, and you don't need to tell me that I'm making the biggest mistake of my life." She flopped her head back down. Hermione sat down on the other bed in the room and looked at her younger friend.

"I think we do need to tell you, Ginny, because you still haven't decided for good that he isn't for you."

"How do you know that?" Her voice was muffled.

"Because you're lying face down on your bed cursing the world and wishing that Harry and I weren't here so you could go on debating with yourself whether or not you really believe that Malfoy is evil." Ginny looked up this time.

"You're good."

"I'm not Head Girl for nothing," Hermione said with a wry smile. "Now, we can't tell you what to do, but we can advise you. And right now, I advise you to drop Malfoy like a hot potato, because if you like someone who is on a different side from you, you're a weakness to your side, and you're a weakness to yourself. And we all know that there are two sides in our world at the moment."

"Gee, this is enlightening," Ginny answered dully.

"Ginny, we don't enjoy lecturing." Harry's voice was stern. "We really don't," he said to her sceptical look. "Well, okay, it is kind of fun, but when it's this serious, it isn't."

"Hermione, Harry, I love you both dearly, and I really want to be friends with you still. But the fact is, I can't choose how I feel, and sometimes the way you feel about someone can get in the way of your life. It can ruin friendships, it can ruin your grip on your freedom, and it can ruin you. I don't know if you two know what that feels like, I doubt it because you're both a little predictable when it comes to relationships, but I'll still plead this to you. I can't help it if I feel this way about Draco, and something inside me doesn't want to help it." Ginny's eyes were begging them. "Do you understand what feeling this way is like? Do you understand how all consuming this feeling is? Do you know what it's like to have something so special, and to not be able to tell anyone for fear of hurting everyone you love? Do you know what it's like to want something so badly and know it's forbidden? Do you understand that you don't choose love, it chooses you?"

And neither Harry nor Hermione could think up a decent answer to that.

*~*~*~*~*

Harry sat back on his bed and stared at Hermione, a little half-smile on his face as she straightened her robes and ran her fingers over her hair to calm it down. She smiled back at him and sat back against the wooden end of his bed, sighing heavily.

"So, now that I've said good luck for your Quidditch match, I think I should go." She didn't move an inch and Harry's smile widened.

"I'm not sure I fully understood what you were saying, Herm, maybe you should run it by me again."

"I really can't, Harry, I really, really, have to get back downstairs, because Lavender will want to speak to me."

"Are you making that up, Miss Granger?" Hermione squirmed.

"Okay, I made it up. But we need to be more careful, Harry, or people will know what is going on."

"I'm not sure right now why that is a bad thing."

"It's a bad thing for people to find out because we won't be taken seriously in our work, people will tease and disrespect us about it, and we'll hurt Ron." Harry sighed and nodded resignedly.

"As much as I hate to say this, Herm, you're right."

"What do you mean, 'I'm right'?" Harry frowned. "You should be dismissing all my excuses, Harry! You should be begging, nay, pleading, for me to stay and kiss you some more." Harry smiled.

"I just thought that if you really wanted to kiss me, you would. After all, I trust your judgement so much, and I trust you to make the right decision." He smiled sensibly at her and she raised her eyebrows, crossing her arms as she did so. "However, if you feel the need to ravish me senseless and fling your luscious body in my direction for some serious cuddling, then by all means do." With a small shriek, she flung herself at him and kissed his mouth softly.

"You are incredible, Mr Potter. There's definitely no one like you, and there definitely never will be."

"How sweet." Harry rolled over so she was lying underneath him and kissed her slowly, savouring every moment they would have together before he had to go and play in the Quidditch match against Ravenclaw. Hermione's arms were wrapped around his neck and they were deepening their kisses when the knock on the door rang through their minds and Hermione pushed Harry off with a small squeak. Harry rolled off her and on to the floor, rifling around in his cupboard as he yelled 'come in' and Hermione stood up quickly, smoothing down her robes and hair again. The door opened and Harry sat up at the same moment.

"Got it!" He looked triumphant and Hermione smiled happily, answering him quickly.

"Great, Harry, you finally found it!" Ginny smiled at them from her new position in the doorway and Harry looked over at her, looking surprised.

"Ginny, hello. What are you doing here?" He hoped to God that she couldn't hear the frantic beating of his heart, which he felt could almost come through the front of his robes.

"Just came to warn you that you've got just over half an hour, Captain Potter." Her words held a cynical twang and he raised an eyebrow.

"Thanks, Ginny, I'll be down in half a minute. Just when I've finished sorting out this with Hermione."

"Sure, I'll see you in a bit." She disappeared down the circular stone staircase and when her footsteps could no longer be heard, Harry started to breathe again. "Christ, Herm, that was close." She nodded and made towards the door.

"Thanks for the quick cover, Harry, you're a genius."

"I know." He stood up and walked around his bed to face her, holding out the piece of parchment, he had waved about to divert suspicion. "You do actually need this, Herm, it's the prefect bathroom schedule for the weekends, I worked it all out, it'll be fine." Hermione nodded and took it from him.

"I should go now. I have to get a good seat. Good luck, Harry, catch the Snitch for me." He smiled.

"And if that isn't incentive, what is?" Hermione went towards the door again and Harry cut her off, his right hand slammed onto the door in front of her face. She looked at him, surprised, and he grinned. Grabbing her shoulders, Harry pushed her against the door and kissed her heatedly until his heart nearly burst out of his mouth.

"Good luck," she whispered. And then she was gone, jogging down the stone steps to the common room, leaving Harry to grin like a maniac on his own.

*~*~*~*~*

"Right, people, this should be a good game. Ravenclaw are matched to us, but they haven't got their main Seeker playing, so we should walk this." Harry turned to see Ron leafing through a copy of 'Quidditch Supplies Weekly' and he snatched it away, throwing it into the bin. "This doesn't mean we should become complacent, team, because complacency leads to-"

"Loss," they chorused dully.

"We know, Harry, you say it all the time," Ginny muttered.

"Yes, but do you ever listen?" He turned around again to see Ron inching towards the bin and he struck out with his broom to stop Ron's hand reaching the magazine. Ron sat back down in silence. "Last week in practice, I caught two members of the team, who shall remain nameless, comparing Chocolate Frog cards." Harry glared in the direction of the two sheepish-looking second-years on the team, Jason Chang (a cousin of Cho's) and Dominic Loneman. "This isn't acceptable, because we are the best team in the school and we cannot get complacent!" He slapped his hand down on the table next to him, and Emmeline, a Chaser in her fourth year, winced, looking up from filing her nails. Harry glared again and she smiled sweetly, waving the file for him to continue. "In fact, the only one who appears to be training as hard as all the rest of you should be is Colin." Harry pointed in the direction of Colin Creevey, who, after getting over his Harry Potter obsession, had become a fantastic Chaser. The remaining five members of the team stared evilly at Colin and his proud smile dropped.

"Potter, five minutes," Madam Hooch said, sticking her head around the door.

"Thanks, Madam Hooch," he answered with a smile. Harry turned back to his team and the smiled had already dropped. "Now, listen to me. We have a brilliant team. We have a Keeper who almost never lets a ball get past him, unless he's staring at a pretty girl; two Beaters who have the best hitting arms I've seen in a long time." He looked in the direction of Ginny and Jarrid and Ginny smiled, waving her arm in an embarrassed gesture. "And we have three fantastic Chasers, who have one of the best Quaffle-possession records in the entire of Hogwarts history. And then there's me. I can look for that little gold ball, guys, but I can't play the game like you can. You are the main players, I just have to catch a silly ball." Ginny frowned.

"Don't be silly, Harry, you're the best Seeker Hogwarts has ever seen, and you're our captain, you don't just have to catch a ball. Believe us, we need you so much." Harry smiled slightly.

"Thanks, Gin." She shrugged and the team hauled themselves to their feet. "Okay, guys, let's play." He turned around and opened the changing room door, taking them out onto the pitch. The roar was outstanding, as always, and Harry felt the familiar rush of adrenaline as he saw everyone watching. He stared up at the Gryffindor end of the pitch and saw Hermione huddled there, next to Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, her hair tied up and under a red woollen hat. She smiled at them all and he grinned at her. They walked to the middle of the pitch and Harry shook hands with the pretty, dark-haired girl who had just become head of the Ravenclaw team.

With a long blow of Madam Hooch's whistle, they soared up into the air. Harry felt the cold air cut into his cheekbones as he flew higher than everyone else and then steadied his Firebolt to look at the game below. Ginny had just hit a Bludger at one of the Ravenclaw Chasers and she was pelting down the field after another Bludger to try and block another Ravenclaw from getting the Quaffle. Colin suddenly had the ball and he was racing down the field and throwing it through the hoop. The stands blew up at one end and the roar of the Gryffindors was amazing.

That was when Harry hazarded a look over his shoulder at Hermione, and saw she was sneering at Draco Malfoy, who was standing in the row below her, a tiny spot of green in a sea of red, and was sneering back. He said something and Harry saw her face redden, despite the cold, and Lavender shouted something angrily.

Malfoy's face twisted into a bitter little smile and he pulled out his wand. Hermione was saying something to him, and Harry could see Malfoy was getting more and more furious. Harry, without a glance at the match, turned his Firebolt round and pelted down the pitch. He could see Malfoy's hand on his wand and he knew what was happening. He pushed his broom to go as fast as it could and the cold made it feel as though the skin was being ripped off his cheeks. The words were being formed by Malfoy's thin little lips and Harry sped up the stands, amid gasps from the crowd, and screeched to a halt in front of Hermione just as a blast of green light issued from the end of Malfoy's wand and hit him square in the stomach.

And the last things he heard as he drifted into unconsciousness were Lavender screaming obscenities at Draco Malfoy, Seamus Finnigan hollering 'Gryffindor sc-! What the hell is going on?' and Hermione muttering something he didn't understand in his ear.

*~*~*~*<>*~*~*~*

Chapter Three coming right up!!! If you want it, you know you've just got to press the green button, or the green word anyway, or, if you're being pedantic, the... Oh, never mind. Please just review - it warms my heart. Plus, if you don't I'll leave soppy little messages like that at the end of EVERY chapter. Hee hee. Hope you liked it.

Also, I have tried to find song lyrics that match this story, and there will be some at the beginning of every chapter. I hope it's obvious to everyone which part of each chapter they refer to.

Thank you to everyone who had reviewed so far, it is truly brilliant to hear everyone's opinions of what I'm doing, even if you don't like it. Big shout out to the people who tell me exactly what they do and don't like!!!!

To Tamz: Thanks for all the e-mails, the long reviews, and the advice, I really appreciate it. And you are so mine and Camilla's favourite joint reviewer!!!!

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