Stupid

Time, time, time is a waste.

Morning found Hermione in her bed, wearing her tank top and jeans. She rolled onto her knees, her face buried in her pillow still, trying to hide her red eyes from the bright, dawning sun. She heard the pop of a toaster in the kitchen and lurched up hungrily. At this, her head swam with an intensity she had never felt before, and she had to sit for a good five minutes before she was able to rise again.

Hermione entered the kitchen, wondering why her head ached so badly and why she felt so ill. The sun was shining brightly throughout the room, illuminating the white of the counters and the glossy wooden floors. The pale cream curtains whipped around in the breeze. It smelled like things that were almost burnt, like morning dew. Harry was making toast; Ron was nowhere to be seen.

It was then that she thought, I don´t remember last night.

Terror coursed through her veins as she stood transfixed in the middle of the kitchen. Vaguely, shadowy images fazed in and out of her understanding.

Alcohol.

Red tile.

Strong hands.

Heat on a wet face.

Sweetest taste.

Green eyes.

Hermione´s gaze flashed to the back of Harry´s head. He was leaning over the counter with his back to her, buttering the bread. He had not yet noticed her. She watched him for a moment, noting the grace with which he moved. She could see the muscles stretching under his shirt as he reached for the juice to pour into a glass. What elegance, she thought with half of a sigh.

Another part of her was thoroughly frightened of him. She was unsure, hesitant to even open her mouth. What had passed last night? Hermione has the sneaking suspicion that he had been somehow involved, and she feared to ask what it was that she had done or said to him. She felt as curious and desperate as she was afraid. Harry, where did I leave my reason last night?

"Harry?" Hermione asked, startling him. He gave a slight jump before turning and giving her his haunted, award-winning smile. His glasses were perched on his nose, and through the glass she saw the emerald orbs watching her, laughing, cheery, glad to see her. Chills ran up and down her back for more reasons than one.

"Good morning, Hermione," Harry said. He turned back to continue his task, but Hermione interrupted him.

"Harry, was I drunk last night?" she whispered, half-terrified. Part of her already knew the answer. She could partway taste it in the back of her throat, which disgusted her.

His face fell. The smile vanished, clattering to the wooden floor. The happy moment was broken.

Harry swallowed hard, and it almost seemed like it was an effort for him to speak. He shifted towards her. His eyes were flashing like twin green traffic lights, radiant and strong. But they did not signal for her to go. They held back secrets, and truths, and the passing of time.

Harry could see all the emotions bubbling behind her chestnut eyes; he saw a black shame had begun to burn like a sick flame in her cheeks. He wanted it to go away, to wash away that mark of guilt; but he didn´t want to open his mouth up and let the wrong words slip out, just as she had let all her secrets become loose the night before.

Harry wanted to forget it had all ever happened, because, though her words had fulfilled his dreams, she never meant to say them.

"Yes," he told her briefly before his eyes flitted away. "Yes, you were."

Harry fidgeted as Hermione took a few shuffling steps towards him, her eyes pinned to him so that he could not move. Feverishly he wished to turn back to his job so that he did not have to answer her questions, but one was coming.

Hermione asked, "Were you there?"

He only nodded, his gaze on the floor. Hermione leaned against the counter next to him, her eyes still frightened. "Harry, what happened? What did I do? I don´t remember - I don´t know what happened at all."

Harry looked to his right, away from her. The windows were spread open, the curtains flung back and billowing like twin sails under a morning´s white sun. He seemed to be following the paths of clouds in the morning´s blue sky. "I found you in a bar. You were really wasted, Hermione. You kept saying - stupid things. I took you home, put you to bed. That´s all," he commented shyly.

"That´s all?" she repeated dully, half-relieved, half-convinced he was hiding something.

"Yeah," Harry said. He glanced at her, giving a faint smile. "Don´t worry about it, Hermione." He gave his attention back to the toast on the counter, seemingly nonchalant. But by the listlessness in his eyes, Hermione knew that she ought to worry.

Hermione noticed that he spread a clean knife on the toast pointlessly, mindlessly, as if he were smearing air on the piece of bread. He was not paying attention. His hands weren´t as steady as usual.

"Harry, what did I say? What did I do?" Hermione feared for the worst. She clenched her fists, willing for the courage and strength to hear him out.

Harry cleared his throat a little. "You said a lot of things that I - I don´t think you meant," he said with his voice crisp and emotionless.

Hermione paused to swallow the biggest knot she had ever felt in her throat. "Harry, I deserve to know what I said," she said with a dangerous tone rising to her voice.

"It was nothing," Harry commented in the same distant voice. "Just stupid nonsense."

Sternly, Hermione remarked, "If it was only nonsense, you should be able to tell me." Hermione huffed characteristically, putting her hands on her hips in a motherly sort of fashion.

Harry set down the knife and turned away from her. He walked to the open window on the other side of the room. Hermione followed him like his worshipper, her lips small and frail.

The wind tossed Harry´s hair easily and he squinted in the light, not knowing what to say. You shouldn´t have asked me, Hermione. You don´t want to know. You´re just going to get upset and run off to your bedroom, embarrassed that you even said it, and you won´t be able to look me straight in the face for days. And once you do, you´ll just apologize, and say you didn´t mean it, but - Hermione, I want you to mean it.

He was unable to look her in the face. "You said you were in love with me," he confessed finally.

Hermione bit her lip to keep from screaming. She was stupid, she was careless, she was worthless, she was-

"You didn´t mean it, did you?" Harry asked, interrupting her thoughts. He still had his back to her. The breeze ruffled the folds of his shirt. "Because at first I thought you did, and I - and we-"

Harry stopped abruptly, squinting at a bloody sun. I want you to mean it, Hermione. There was a long moment of silence, and Hermione was about to prompt him forward in an anxious manner when Harry finished his thought. "And it hurt that it wasn´t true." Harry wrung his hands together.

Hurt? Harry, are you trying to say that you want me to be in love with you? Does that mean that you love me? Don´t think that I don´t love you, Harry Potter! Because I may not have meant to let my secret slip, but I would hate myself to know I hurt you.

Hermione grabbed his shoulder and made him turn back to her, yanking him very forcefully. "Who says it´s not true, Harry?" she suggested.

He gulped hard. "You´re right. Who´s to say-?" But before he could finish his sentence, Hermione brought her mouth upon his like a starving animal, pulling him down to her. It was sudden, and jerky, and hardly romantic, but it was worth it.

The kiss was tense at first, as Harry had not been expecting it. Soon enough, Hermione found herself nearly overwhelmed by the power he wielded against her mouth. His hands were in her half-tangled hair, running along the bare skin of her shoulders, fiddling with the straps of the tank top. Harry backed her up away from the window. He was her barrier against the wind. Hermione shivered against his waking fingertips and drank in sheer, silky skin, feeling the tautness of his sleepy lips against her.

Harry had backed her up into the counter, somehow, and he crushed Hermione between it and himself, ravaging her with his tongue, assailing her with more passion than he had ever used at once. She drew her fingers through his hair in a tantalizingly slow motion. His glasses fell off and bumped their noses on the way down to the floor.

Hermione felt stupid, incredibly dumb, as drunk as she had been the night before. She was raw and unconditional, her rationale slithering into oblivion´s pit. All that was remaining was heat and passion and unbridled lust. Her brain had left her, reasons blurring together, but this time she was not tumbling into some rotting pit of decay in the middle of a slummy bar. She was losing her mind to the feel of Harry Potter´s lips against her own, and she did not want to know if she ever wanted it back again.

Kiss, taste, feed, hunger, insanity-

"Good morning! Having each other for breakfast, I see?" said an all-too chipper voice from behind Harry. They broke apart with an almost dizzying velocity. Ron grinned and picked up a slice of toast. "Well, in that case, I think I´ll have some of this." He lifted it and nodded at them.

"Ron! I - we - we can explain-!" Hermione stuttered, her entire body trembling from the intensity of what she had just experienced.

Harry looked at her, and blushed pink. Ron was laughing at the table, dripping juice on the tablecloth like his usual self, and it was perfect and homey and she didn´t think she wanted to be anywhere else aside from right there with Harry´s hand brushing her neckline, thinking that she maybe had found the love of her life. It was so childish and sweet and happy. If this simple sort of life was ignorant bliss, she wanted it alone.

Ron made a loud shushing noise and waved his toast at them like it were some flimsy sort of one-winged bird. "Don´t mind me. Continue."

Hermione decided she wouldn´t disobey that command, and so she leaned in to meet Harry Potter once again.

End.