The Best Medicine

Sometimes, I wonder if Harry is a good kisser. I mean, I don't think about it often. But, I'm sitting here trying to study for a test tomorrow, and Ron and Harry are in my kitchen looking for something to eat, and kissing him is all I can think about right now. I don't know why I'm thinking about it right now. He came in with Ron ten minutes ago, like everything was normal, and touched his chin once, just to scratch at it, and his finger brushed against his lips. That was all it took.

I'm not thinking about the potency of bat droppings or the effects of an overdose of eagle feathers in potions. I can't think about that while he's over there, pursing his lips, for goodness' sake.

"Hermione, I think you need to do some shopping, too," Harry says. There he goes again - sticking out his lower lip, like he knows I'm watching. "There's not much in here except for - very old, old food. Please tell me you haven't been eating some of this stuff."

"If you look on the right side, I think there might be some cheese and sliced tomatoes. You could make sandwiches," I offer, trying not to look up at him.

"Hermione, don't you have any meat?" Ron asks. I glance up; he's making a muscle at me. "We're growing men. We've got to get strong and have our protein. Mum said so."

"Beggars can't be choosers," I reply distractedly.

Ron is laughing suddenly. "Would you look at this?" he chuckles, pulling out a bag of very old sliced deli chicken. It has a sickly sort of twinge to it; I suppose it must have been forgotten in the very back of the meat compartment. "Hermione has mold growing in her freezer box. Now that's a first!" He dangles it in the air and swings it in Harry's face, to which Harry frowns and makes faces.

I look up, and scowl. "That freezer is supposed to have an anti-fungal spell on it!" I cry. "Do you mean to say that it's not working? I paid extra for that."

"Well, you can only expect the spells to work so well, Hermione," Harry offers, leaning across my counter and taking the bag of bread into his hand. A curl of hair touches against his glasses, and he runs his fingers across the back of his head. I can't stand myself for being so infatuated.

"I bet you that this bag has been in here for three weeks, if not more," Ron says, coming over and hanging the bag in front of my book. "It's disgusting. Look at it."

I do, but it is Ron that I can't help smiling at; he looks dead serious, as though he had just found arsenic in my cabinet. I laugh, and he breaks the ice that I'm holding inside.

"Oh, Ron, get that out of my face! That is disgusting, you're right, I admit it. Please, could you just throw it away, then, instead of torturing me with it?" I reply, making flapping motions at him with my hands.

Harry is in the corner, having gotten out the cheese and tomatoes, taking out four slices of bread and watching with amusement. Ron, in his usual silly manner, dances around my kitchen with the bag of decomposing chicken. He holds it out from him, and spins, and hums a waltz. Only Ron would dance with old chicken.

"Oh, c'mon, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, Hermione. You might want to write it on your calendar. Catch, Harry," Ron cries, tossing the bag to Harry.

Harry makes a gasp and jumps away from the flying bag. "Ron, no, I don't want it!"

I don't see it, but I hear a very squishy splat noise.

"Get out of my flat, both of you!" I say, rising and pointing to the door. "You can throw that old chicken around outside, if you want, but not in here! I have a test tomorrow, for goodness' sake." I get up and the book falls off my lap.

"Hermione, I kind of think that's Ron's point," Harry offers logically.

I try to glare, even though it's very hard, because glaring isn't the thing I want to do to Harry right now. He takes advantage of my silence and grabs at the sandwiches that he has just made, making a small smile of apology.

"Never mind, then, we'll be off," Ron says. "Nice meeting you, chap," he adds, nudging the bag of chicken on the floor with his socked foot. "Uh-oh, Hermione, I think he's leaking. You might want to clean that up."

"Leaking? Oh, Ron! Get out, before you make any more messes!" I exclaim.

Harry makes puppy-dog eyes at me. "Me, too, Hermione?" he asks, looking innocent.

"Yes, you!You'll - you'll only encourage him," I tell Harry quickly, needing an excuse to get him out of my flat.

He looks at me, defeated, while I usher both him and Ron out of my front door. If Ron is going to play with his food and Harry is going to so much as look at me, I will fail tomorrow's test before I even enter the classroom. I might as well get them both out now, while I have an excuse. I bend over and pick up the disgusting bag of chicken, which is, in fact, leaking some sort of liquid. What a mess! Only boys would make a mess like this.

Sometimes, I wonder how I ended up being best friends with them - with two boys. And I wonder why it is that I feel like I want to kiss one, but not the other. It doesn't make any sense, but - I've figured out recently that things never make sense when you're the only girl in a group of three.

The concept of kissing Ron is very different entirely. He might start laughing somewhere in the middle of it, you would think. Or he would blush, and get very flustered. When you think of trying to kiss Ron, you have to start thinking very seriously, and that's not what Ron's about at all. Ron is a wonderful person, and fun, and good to talk to when you want encouragement, but "serious" is not a word that I associate with him often. Or ever.

Ron was just in my kitchen, dancing around with a bag of moldy deli chicken, for goodness' sake. But, Harry, on the other hand - I could seriously kiss him, and not have to laugh about it afterwards, like it was nothing.

But I have a test tomorrow, anyway. And I ought to study for it, instead of staring into space, wondering why I'm in love with one best friend and not the other, because - a part of me thinks it has to do with more than that, and not just because Ron plays with his food.

~

Tonight, we are at Ron's flat, because he promised to pick up Chinese food for me to pay back for the mess he made. Harry made him do it.

We've already eaten, though. Ron's looking through a magazine and Harry and I are both studying. The leftovers are still sitting out on the table, because we're all too lazy to clean them up. We don't have all of the lights on, and there's a pale sort of glow around the room, like a streetlamp that fades into the corners, and it's just us three in the light, just how it should be.

Ron is in a recliner, and Harry is next to him, with a table and lamp in between them. I am on the couch with a blanket that Ron's mother made him; it's got all the warm, comfortable feeling that usually comes with Mrs. Weasley's knitting.

Ron whistles, and Harry and I look up. "What is it, Ron?" I ask, shifting to see what he's staring at. "Has some new broom come in?" It's a Quidditch Supply Store catalog, I can see.

Ron rolls his eyes and huffs. "Are you kidding? Of course not. It's just - well, the witch modeling this robe is quite a looker, wouldn't you say, Harry?" He turns around the catalog to show off a pretty blond woman with a rather standard Quidditch robe on. "And, well - it is a nice robe, now that you mention it."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, Ron," I mutter, turning back to my textbook. Typical.

"You wouldn't understand, you - girl!" Ron spits back, making a mock glare at me. I roll my eyes, not offended, because I know that no one honestly expects me to be a boy, anyway. "Now, c'mon, Harry, you've got to admit she's got plenty going for her." He tries to hand over the magazine to Harry, but Harry shakes his head and makes a sort of face.

"Oh, I've seen better," Harry says very innocently and halfheartedly, and he turns back to his book, too.

Ron makes an exasperated noise. "Oh, bloody hell, Harry, you're making me look like a swine in comparison," he sighs, and he turns the page, looking back down. Then, I notice, oddly enough, that he looks up, and glances from me to Harry and back again. Then, he dives back into the catalog.

"What?" I ask, suspicious as to what he might be thinking, and partially not wanting to know. "What're you looking at?"

Ron shrugs and gives me another playful scowl, and then turns the unpleasant face onto Harry, too. "Harry," he starts, and I know I ought to prepare for a Ron Speech. "Harry, I can't believe this. You're reading a book instead of taking a peek at a good-looking young witch in a Quidditch magazine. You just turned down girls and Quidditch for a textbook, mate! You're - you're turning into Hermione!"

"Oh, Ron, leave him alone. That's enough," I say urgently, not wanting him to go on, because I'm afraid of what I'll hear him say.

"Seriously, Ron, don't panic," Harry interjects calmly, and I stop worrying. "It's just that - I've seen better, that's all." He gives me a glance and then looks back down at his book again.

Why did he look at me?

Ron looks at me, too, somewhat disgruntled, though only pretending to be so, and then huffs loudly and flips the page loudly again.

~

Friday night rolls around. Both Harry and I have done well enough on our most recent tests, and so Ron has kindly taken myself and Harry out for dinner and drinks to celebrate.

We are walking back up the stairs to our flats, but I doubt we'll end up going to our own flats. In fact, Harry opens up the door to his. Ron hiccups and makes a joke: "You're putting in the wrong end of the key there, Harry! No, really, you are. You're just too drunk to know the difference." We all laugh, even though Harry isn't that intoxicated at all; we're all just a bit tipsy, and everything is a bit funnier right now.

"Abracadabra, lights!" Ron says loudly as we enter. "Why isn't it working?" I'm not really sure if he's joking or not. Perhaps Ron is a little more tipsy than Harry or myself. But Harry gets the lights on, and everything is flooded in a very bright white, and the whole place is crisp and clean, but with little touches of Harry all around it; his old Quidditch robe is folded like a trophy on the shelf, and an old photo album sits on the table in the sitting room, and I can see the Invisibility Cloak sparkling as it hangs in the closet.

Ron takes a seat at the sitting room couch, propping his feet up on the table very naturally. "Your place looks awful clean, Harry," he remarks quietly, looking up at the ceiling. "Much cleaner than it was on Tuesday."

"Well, Seamus and Dean were going to come and see it on Wednesday, but the plans fell through. So I swept for nothing," Harry says, going into the kitchen and getting out three more drinks. I smirk, knowing I really shouldn't have any more to drink, but - for old friends' sake, cheers.

Ron drinks his very quickly and lets out another chirping hiccup. "Hermione," he drawls, "what would you do if I poured this on your head?" He picks up my can and holds it high, as though he might. He chuckles and puts it down before surrendering to a fit of giggles. "And what if it dried there, and you didn't know - and it got all sticky, and you had to cut all your hair out?" He laughs and points at me a bit, obviously imagining me bald.

"Oh, no, Ron! I'd - I'd make you get it out of my hair instead. I wouldn't be able to stand being bald," I say, laughing a little, and petting my hair self-consciously. This makes Ron laugh even harder, though.

Harry raises an eyebrow at me. He's sitting on the counter, sipping his drink, kicking his feet, watching distantly from far, far, far away from me. I look back at him, sitting there, looking very calm with his green eyes just watching, as though he doesn't understand me.

"And what would you do if I - if I put that old chicken in your hair?" Ron says, trying to hide a smile. He lays back on the couch, kicking up his feet on my lap now. "Don't you remember it, that old chicken?" He makes a big yawn and stretches, as though he might fall asleep soon.

"That was really funny. You were so mad - but I couldn't stop laughing after you kicked us out. You can even ask Harry." He yawns again. "Don't you remember, Hermione?" he asks me again, sleepily. His eyelids droop, and I smile, and pat his little freckled cheek, and know that there is something very different about Harry and Ron, whatever that may be.

Ron's shoes are dirty on my skirt. "Yes, Ron, I remember that chicken. But perhaps you should go to bed." I lean over and take his dirty shoes off my lap and put them on the ground. "Sit up, sit up. You'd best get off to bed before you get too tired."

"That was really funny, though," he says, getting a bit quieter. He's silent for a moment, sitting up and putting a hand on my shoulder. He looks over at Harry, who is still swinging his feet. "Hey, Hermione, have you ever thought about dating Harry?"

I stop. Stop.

What?

"Ron, what are you talking about? What does that - Ron, we were talking about that old chicken," I say hurriedly, trying to distract him, trying to make him not think absurd thoughts that maybe he's been thinking about for a while.

He uses my shoulder to help himself stand. "I know, I know. But - I've noticed that you really should date Harry. I mean, it's because - you didn't see him, just now, but he was looking at you. I thought I should tell you," Ron says with his voice slurred. "You could - work out together."

It's the alcohol making my blood run thin like water, and then thick and sluggish like honey, dragging. It's like I can feel my blood pumping through my stomach.

"Ron - you're very tired and you need to go to bed. C'mon. Let's go to bed," I say. I don't look at Harry. I can't. I know he heard, but I don't want to see it in his face. I help him walk to the door. "Do you have your keys, Ron?"

"No, wait, Hermione, I mean -" Ron starts to say, turning back to face me. "Never mind. Forget it, if you don't think so. But - haven't you noticed?" He bends down low and whispers to me, right in my ear, so that Harry can't hear him. "Harry doesn't need any other girl in his life. He needs you."

I would be thrilled to hear that, if I wasn't so afraid.

"Goodnight, Ron," I say, and I open the front door of Harry's flat for him. "Get some rest - can you get into your flat all right?" But he doesn't say anything,and I see him go down the hall and open the door to his own flat, and then he disappears in the darkness.

I close the door to Harry's flat, but I don't turn around, because I don't want to see him, sitting on the counter, looking at me, not knowing what I'm thinking - maybe I should just go, so we can talk about it later, or maybe not at all.

"I guess we know Ron's alcohol limit now," Harry says quietly. So, now he has started the conversation. Now I can't leave.

"I guess we do," I say. I turn around briskly and walk to the couch, with my eyes on the floor. I feel like I'm marching to my own execution; Harry's lights are bright and crisp and shining right through me, it feels like. I feel hot and sweaty under their heat.

I hear the gentle thumping of Harry's feet, swinging and bumping on the counter.

"So, what do you think of that?" he says.

I sit in silence and shrug, not even looking at him. If he knew what I thought, if he knew anything at all, if he wasn't so naïve about absolutely everything, if he knew I was in love with him - would he be able to ask me such a question so casually, as though it was just a joke.

My eyes are fixed to the floor. I hear him push himself off the counter, his feet hitting the floor. I know how he walks. I know his footsteps as they come closer and closer to me. He sits on his own couch, to my right, and the cushion sags under his weight.

"Hermione," he says. I have to look at him, and am surprised to find that my eyes are blurred with tears.

"Why are you crying?" Harry asks me. I can barely see him; his hair is a mess on top of his head and his eyes look a bit glazed from the few drinks he's had.

I wish I knew why I was crying, too. Maybe it's because I'm so confused as to how I feel. I was just convinced, days before, that life was comfortable - being in the kitchen, entering each others' flats freely, sitting on the couch in silence. I had felt so much like I was in love with being Harry's friend.

And then Ron had to come in, and say what he did, and make me think again about how nice it would be to have things be different. To be kissed, to have that romance, and his dark hair all over my hands - isn't that what I want? Isn't that just the piece to finish my puzzle?

But maybe - what about Ron? What about life now, when it's the three of us, always? Would we still be able to sit on the couch, with Ron looking at girls in magazines, and Harry joking and teasing him, and me watching and being the girl that fit in with the boys? If I dated Harry, Ron would come in at awkward moments between me and Harry, and things might get embarrassing and strange. Maybe things wouldn't be the same. And to have things be different would be no less than tragic.

Even when Ron said all those things about Harry needing someone like me, I just kept thinking that things are good now, and that nothing should change, and we'll all have each other.

But it's so hard to want to keep my life the same and to want it to change at the same time.

I'm crying because I don't know what I want. I don't know if I could give up being Harry's best friend to become his girlfriend. I can't explain it, not to him, not to Ron, not to myself. No one knows. No one can know.

When I look at Harry, he looks kind of scared, too. "I don't know," I tell him. "I'm sorry, but - I don't know."

"C'mon," he says softly, and his arms open to me. He takes me in, gently, and holds me close, and hears me sniffle. I let my hands touch across his back, across his worn shirt, but just barely, because I'm afraid. I feel his face against my shoulder and my neck. I can feel him breathing. I can feel him being so close.

"Please don't cry, Hermione," Harry says, and he pulls back to look at me. He holds me steady and makes me look at him with his hands on my shoulders. And he looks absolutely terrified, and so worried, because he doesn't know anything. He never knows anything at all, that stupid, blind, outrageously handsome --

Except, this time, I think he might know something. Because he smiles at me, like he knows what I'm thinking, and he leans in--

Slowly he lowers me back on the couch, and kisses my forehead. I can't believe that Harry Potter is leaning over me, that he kissed me just so gently, and that I can feel his body pressed all against my shoulders and my stomach.

"Whatever it is - it doesn't matter right now. Go to sleep, Hermione. You'll feel better in the morning," he says quietly.

"I'll go to my flat, then," I whisper quietly, wishing so badly that he wasn't so close, and yet glad that he is. But I push against him, meaning to get up. He won't let me move.

"No, just stay here," Harry says, shaking his head at me. "You don't look like you'll make it." Self-conscious, still, despite the flutter of my heart, I reach up to touch my hair.

He's still very close, and I can feel the hotness of his breath on my face - please, I don't know what I want. My body and my heart and my head are all arguing.

"Seriously," he goes on, "you might as well just stay here." He reaches over for a Mrs. Weasley blanket on the adjacent chair and puts it over me. Real naturally, he does it. "Just - go to sleep, Hermione."

Frantically, quickly, I offer, "Maybe I had better go." I look away at the back of the couch, which is right next to my face by this point. There's all these little stitches - little pale gold ones, like miniature pyramids, meant to give it a classy sort of look. I have to remind myself to never, ever again have more than four of those drinks down at the bar at the corner; it makes me weepy.

"Hermione," he says, not wanting to argue, but seeing my distress, "just go to sleep. Rest. Don't worry about it." He stands up, tall like a black statue over me, silhouetted by the white lights of his flat. He looks so frightening, like a place you don't want to go, but you know you have to go to anyway. I sneak a glance at him before looking at the back of the couch once more.

Harry takes a seat in the chair next to the couch, and he is very quiet. I feel like a deer in headlights, except I'm on Harry's couch, frozen solid by something unknown.

A light flicks off. Now, in the darkness, I feel the tears falling silently. I feel myself falling asleep as the alcohol drags through me, but I can still hear Harry breathing in the chair next to me, sighing a little bit, and can feel his eyes watching me, like a cat's in the night.