Come Together

Come Together

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Chapter Five: Just the Facts

if you ever feel neglected
if you think that all is lost
i'll be counting up my demons, yeah
hoping everything's not lost

-- "Everything's Not Lost," Coldplay

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

His head was pounding, and every beat of his heart sent a fresh ache through his temples, and the light that was threatening to spill from the cracks around the curtains was burning the backs of his eyelids like fire. When he did open his eyes a fresh throb shot through his head and the room was simply not dark enough and he thought fuzzily that whoever invented morning really ought to be smacked around a bit.

He saw fuzzily as well. He couldn't recall why until his hand groped his bedside table out of habit and he remembered his glasses.

Then he remembered something else.

And he peered blearily at the glass of water by his bed, and remembered how it got there, and as he closed his eyes again and jammed a pillow over his pounding head he couldn't stop smiling.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hermione's kitchen was awash in golden morning light, as usual, and Crookshanks was purring and butting his orange head up against her shins, and the kettle was whistling merrily, and this morning Hermione's heart was whistling right along with it.

She'd prided herself over the years on her powers of deduction. Ron was good at strategy, and Harry was as brave as they came, but Hermione knew that she had no match when it came to piecing together bits of information. And this morning she'd come to a rather astounding conclusion, one that had hit her over the head with the force of a Whomping Willow and left her giddy and glowing and most un-Granger-like.

It was a distinct possibility that Harry had feelings for her.

Maybe.

Hermione stirred her tea and gazed out the sun-drenched window and smiled hugely at no one in particular. She was currently replaying a series of scenes in her mind, images set in her memory like burning question marks, tiny interactions that had flitted through her head ever since she'd arrived at Orthagon Alley. The brush of his thumb on her cheek, the lingering gaze he'd given her… I think you look wonderful… the afternoon they'd spent in this very kitchen, laughing and making soup. There had been something there, she'd felt it, she just hadn't been able to believe it. Or she hadn't let herself believe it.

And the dance -- you're perfect --

And then last night.

Could it be that she'd been blind to his feelings because she'd been so terrified of her own?

What she wouldn't give for a Pensieve - but they were so expensive, and terribly hard to come by --

Bustling about the kitchen, cleaning up the last traces of toast and jam and tea, Hermione felt more like herself than she had in ages. Her rationality had finally prevailed, and her reasoning had pointed her towards a conclusion that was making her heart turn small flips every five minutes. What's more, it was a logical conclusion, and definitely not the impulsive wibblings of an irrational witch who had just been kissed.

Well, she had in fact just been kissed. But she was certain that it had not interfered with her judgement in this particular area. She felt sure that she could stand in front of a panel of Hornswoggle professors and prove that Harry had feelings for her, and then go on to illustrate her proof with charts, diagrams, and an annotated timeline.

Of course, she had no idea what to do with this information, but that didn't seem important at the moment. She'd promised to make Harry a batch of Dionysian Potion this morning -- Lord knew he'd be needing it -- and after that --

Hermione didn't have a plan. Just seeing Harry would be enough.

She pulled on jeans and her favorite jumper and stopped to check her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was bushy as usual, but somehow its exuberance seemed to match her mood. She'd set out the ingredients for the potion the night before, in her dazed state, and as she checked them over methodically and piled them into her small portable cauldron -- pewter, size one -- she thought of green eyes and ale and suddenly she couldn't get down the stairs fast enough.

Harry's apartment was much as she'd left it the night before; his bedroom door was closed, and his muddy Quidditch robes were pooled on the floor next to the couch. Heart beating fast, Hermione arranged her ingredients on the kitchen counter and whispered a quick Incendio to light the stove underneath her cauldron. In a few moments the kitchen was filled with the sharp smell of citrus peel and cloves and Sobrietus mint, and Hermione busied herself with shredding tiny pieces of celeriac and adding them to the mixture judiciously as the potion turned from red to green to a rather appealing golden color. All too soon she was standing in front of Harry's closed bedroom door with a mug of steaming liquid and cursing herself for being so bloody quick at brewing potions.

She took a breath, then knocked gently, sliding the door open a crack. Her heart was now pounding in her ears and she almost felt like singing and fainting at the same time. "Harry?"

Silence, then the shift and creak of a mattress. "Mmm?"

Harry's voice was warm and deep and hoarse, thick with sleep. Hermione tried to steady her breathing. "It's me. I've brought you some Dionysian potion."

"Oh, come in." He sounded dazed, pleasantly surprised. "I'm awake. I think."

The Seeker for England's recently victorious National Quidditch team was tangled in a mess of sheets, pillows piled near his head, and he squinted up at her as she slid the door open. His hair was in fantastic disarray, and his eyes were bottle-green and red-rimmed. "Hi," he croaked, wincing as light flooded the room from the open door.

Hermione felt color creeping into her cheeks. "I thought you might, er, want some of this."

Harry's face split into a sheepish smile. "You have no idea," he said, struggling to sit up with a groan. He fumbled for his glasses, his eyes locked on Hermione's: guileless, slightly unfocused, first-year-Harry eyes. He took the steaming mug of potion, and as his hand brushed her fingers Hermione felt something akin to an electric shock at his touch. She nearly shuddered with the force of it.

Harry quickly drained the mug, pressing the hot ceramic to his forehead with a sigh, long fingers wrapped around it as if they were gripping a lifeline. He looked up, breathing deeply. "You're my savior, you know that?"

"Oh honestly, Harry." Hermione perched on the edge of the bed. "You'd have made it yourself if I hadn't done it."

"I doubt I could have found my way to the kitchen this morning without a map," Harry said, his eyes imperceptibly clearer, the rasp in his voice fading. "And you know that potions aren't my forte. Visions of Snape wouldn't have been good for my stomach, anyway."

Hermione laughed, and when she looked back at Harry she saw that he was studying her, his mouth quirked in a peculiar half-smile. "I… er… I hope I didn't do anything too embarrassing last night," he ventured.

Nothing I wouldn't like to do again, Hermione thought, then went pale with the fear that she'd spoken it aloud. She groped for a coherent thought, something casual, something Hermione Granger might be likely to say to her best friend instead of leaning forward to kiss him until she couldn't breathe. "You mean, apart from the naked dancing on the balcony?" she said breezily.

Harry smiled, not missing a beat. "Right, and my recitation of Gilderoy Lockhart's collected works for the patrons of the Leaky Cauldron."

"Oh, apart from that? Let me think." They were both grinning now, ridiculous ear-splitting smiles. "You do recall your lap dance for Millicent Bulstrode?"

"Vaguely. Was I dressed as Neville's grandmother?"

Harry arched an eyebrow at her, and it was all over. Five minutes later Hermione was dabbing at the corners of her eyes, her sides aching, while Harry clutched his stomach helplessly. "Can't laugh," he panted finally. "Too sore from yesterday."

"You were amazing," Hermione said, visions of the red-robed Harry-blur swimming into her mind.

Harry was studying her again. "And how would you know?" he teased.

"I watched this time!"

"Did you?" Harry's eyes were clear fresh green, and she felt that sensation again, the feeling that if she could just lean forward she would fall into him, know what he was thinking, and he was wearing that lopsided Harry grin and maybe he knew what she was thinking too --

"You're going to the World Cup," she murmured, trying to keep a loose hold on reality.

"I am." A brilliant smile was spreading across Harry's face, and he swung his legs over the side of the bed to sit next to her. Damn Snitch boxers. Hermione felt her cheeks tingle with heat, but she was still hopelessly lost in his eyes, and as he moved closer she felt her heartbeat quicken. This is it, this is really happening --

"Hermione, I -- "

A harsh blaring noise made them both jump. It took a moment before Hermione realized it was coming from the living room: the butler's horn. She could make out a voice now, calling through the old brass pipes. "'Allo?"

Harry was scrambling to his feet, an oddly flustered look on his face. "Er -- I should get dressed -- "

"I'll get it." Hermione's voice sounded breathless in her own ears. Dazed, desperately missing the warmth that was Harry beside her, she flew into the living room to call into the horn above the doorway. "Be right down!"

"Oh -- thank you." The voice sounded young, strangely accented. Maybe it's a reporter, Hermione thought, jogging lightly down the stairs, feeling as if she might float away entirely. Harry is going to the World Cup, after all. Maybe -- oh God, maybe someone heard him singing last night -- Rita Skeeter would give her left arm --

When she opened the door Hermione stared, unable to make sense of anything for a moment before realization struck her like a summoned pillow in the Charms classroom.

The girl on the front steps made Risa Talbot look like Argus Filch. She was more fairy-like than real, her young face dominated by wide, ice-blue eyes and a rosy, cupid's-bow mouth. A long sheet of pale, flaxen hair framed her smooth features like a curtain and hung nearly to her waist. She was part Veela, certainly, and very familiar at that -- but this wasn't Fleur Delacour, though she did look extraordinarily like her. This girl was even more beautiful than Fleur, if such a thing was possible.

"Good morning," said the girl, her rosy lips parting in a polite and ethereal smile. "You are…. 'Ermione?"

"Yes," Hermione managed, blinking.

"Gabrielle Delacour. I think we met once, long ago. The Triwizard Tournament… at the lake, at 'Ogwarts…"

"Of course." Hermione goggled at her. Gabrielle Delacour. How had she not recognized her? So beautiful now -- she'd been so young, then -- six or seven at the most -- "How nice to see you again."

"Yes it is," said Gabrielle. "So sorry to disturb you, you must have been up late."

"Oh it's no bother, I was up early." Gabrielle's beauty was so distracting that Hermione found it was a strain to keep up a casual conversation.

"Oh good," Gabrielle said. It was almost as if she sparkled, or gave off some elven kind of light -- "'Arry told me to come see him this morning," she continued, a faint flush rising in her cheeks. "We met last night at a party."

Hermione's spun-sugar mood crashed into pieces with the force of a full-grown mountain troll hitting the tile floor of a lavatory.

"Oh," she said. Gabrielle's lilting words echoed emptily in her head like the tolling of a great cracked bell. ''Arry told me to come see him… told me to come see him... Hermione felt the smile freeze on her face as ice crept through her insides and threatened to stop her breath. "Well, then. Come in, he's upstairs."

And as they walked quietly into the hallway of 231 Orthagon Alley, Hermione felt her life unravel.

All the data Hermione had pieced together, that nebulous patchwork quilt of glances and touches, bits and pieces of conversations -- all of that was falling apart into tangled threads as she climbed the stairs with Gabrielle Delacour. Gabrielle, who presented the simplest and clearest answer of all: Harry had been drunk last night, and he didn't remember a thing he'd said or done with Hermione. Clearly he'd found Gabrielle at a party and something had happened between them… or the promise of something. Harry had been half-asleep and probably didn't even know his own name by the time he got home, by the time Hermione had washed his hair and he'd been in bed mumbling incoherence and reaching up and unknowingly giving her a taste of the sweetest thing she'd ever known.

It was a simple case of cold, hard facts.

Hermione Granger, of all people, should be able to see that.

Harry opened the door of his flat before they'd even knocked. He was holding something in his hand, and though Hermione had been steeling herself to accept the cold, hard facts, it was something else entirely to be confronted with visual proof. Startled tears stung at the corners of her eyes, and she found that she could no longer look at Harry, at the seemingly innocuous object crumpled in his palm. How had she been so stupid?

"Hi, Gabrielle, come in," Harry said, in a strained tone of voice. He was trying to catch Hermione's eye, but Hermione willed herself to look away, to stop falling towards Harry because there would only be hurt and the sickening feeling that she had been wrong, more wrong than she'd ever been before, the brilliant Hermione Granger had been wrong.

She heard rather than saw Harry say a See You Later and his door slid shut, and only then could Hermione look, just once, to see his striped Gryffindor tie knotted around the worn brass doorknob.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Forget the bastard."

Ron Weasley was lying on his mushroom-colored couch, a mug of Hermione's Dionysian Potion clutched in his hand, tossing leftover Canary Creams at Pigwidgeon. Scarlet and white rosettes, scarves, and banners were littered across the floor like confetti; a few bottles of champagne were still lined up on the kitchen counter, some half-open. One rosette was still managing to squeak out "Wood!… Hatfield!… Mason!… Spencer!… Jones!… Jackson!… POTTER!" every twenty minutes or so.

Ron had come upstairs a few hours ago to beg Hermione for a mug of her hangover cure, and, upon seeing her face, had unceremoniously dragged her down to his apartment. "If you don't tell me what's wrong, I'll put you in the Leg-Locker curse until you do, and I will not release you to use the toilet," he'd said, glaring at her as best he could while trying not to look ill. After several other equally absurd threats, she'd finally relented, and now she was slumped in a chair in Ron's flat, a box of Nester's No-Blow Nose Napkins at her side, eyes swollen and bleary. Her head was beginning to ache and she was sinking into a numbness beyond tears, a strange empty uncertainty.

"Ron!"

"I'm telling you, forget him," Ron said vehemently, hitting Pigwidgeon a bit too accurately with a pastry and cringing at the owl's squawk of protest. "He's not worth it, Hermione."

"Ron, I've never felt this way about anyone." Her voice cracked with emotion. "How can I just forget -- "

"'Mione, listen to me. You've done this before. I can't watch you do it a second time." His eyes met hers. "I don't want you to see him again, however hard that might be."

Hermione felt a sob building in her chest. Rare words from Ron, untinged with sarcasm, no joke or wink in his smile. He was right, Hermione thought. For once, Ron is the rational one. Listen to Ron. She reached for another Nose Napkin; it fluttered in front of her face and gave her nose a motherly squeeze before dabbing at her eyes.

Truth be told, Hermione had omitted one detail while explaining the situation to Ron.

She'd never actually mentioned Harry's name.

She'd poured out as much of the story as she could without giving away Harry's identity - no use pretending she wasn't upset, since that was about as believable as one of Professor Trelawney's predictions. She'd met someone, she explained. He was… well-known, in certain circles. A bit famous, in fact. For the past few months she'd begun to think that they had something special, something she'd never felt before. He'd looked at her in a way she couldn't describe, in a way that made her feel like they could almost talk without speaking. Then there had been an incident… and here she fudged the details. He had kissed her… but it might not have been a romantic kiss. She'd gone to see him this morning, and it looked like he was seeing another girl.

No need to say that his name was Harry Potter, and that he happened to be in the flat directly upstairs with said girl, and that just the night before she'd been undressing him and running her hands through his hair and kissing him, or maybe he was kissing her, but there had been kissing and he may or may not have been conscious at the time. She was simply presenting the facts, while leaving out the bits of information that might cause Ron to have heart failure right in his own sitting room.

"I don't understand," Ron said, sitting up and setting down his empty mug as Hermione's Nose Napkin flew gracefully into the wastebin of its own accord. "Hermione, you're a brilliant girl. Smartest person I've ever known. No, wait -- don't say anything." Hermione had begun to protest. "You're one of the nicest people on earth, and you're lovely to look at. Any sane bloke would give his right arm to be with you. And yet you chase after these pompous, self-involved gits who don't give you the time of day because they're famous or important or something." He sighed, raking a hand through his bright hair. "I wish you would tell me who this prat is. Is he another one of your professors from school? This is exactly what happened with David."

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. "Well, like I said, I don't know for sure if he's seeing that other girl -- "

"Don't stick around to find out this time." Ron stood quickly. "Look, I'm going to get Harry. He's much better at talking about this sort of thing than I am -- and you'd better not tell him who this bloke is, because he may really go curse him this time -- "

"No -- wait!" Hermione was on her feet in desperation. "You can't get Harry -- "

Ron raised an eyebrow in puzzlement. "What are you talking about?"

"He's -- I mean -- " Hermione stammered, beginning to recover from a state of sheer panic. "He got back really late last night, Ron," she said, falling into her usual bossy tone. "He played in the World Cup Semifinals yesterday. I mean, really."

Ron was still eyeing her skeptically. "And if I know Harry, he'd wade through a cage of full-grown Blast-Ended Skrewts to see you if he knew you were upset about something."

"Well," Hermione huffed, fumbling for another excuse. Then she had it; not an excuse, but the truth. Her insides felt like ice again. "There's a school tie on his door," she finished, sitting back down. "I think he's… busy."

"Oh, is that it," Ron said blankly, still looking at her in mild confusion. He seemed satisfied by this explanation, however, and sat back down on the sofa. "POTTER!!" squeaked the discarded World Cup rosette, from somewhere near the kitchen. Hermione nearly fell out of her chair.

"You all right?" Ron was staring at her again with a befuddled look.

"Just a little… out of sorts," she managed lamely. It was highly likely that she would end up in St.Mungo's after this incident.

"Poor 'Mione. Come here." Ron held out his arms, and Hermione sat down heavily on the couch next to him and fell weakly into Ron's embrace. "I know just what you need," Ron said, giving her a squeeze. "You need to have some fun. Get out of the flat for a bit." He sat back on the couch. "I'm calling my sister."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Forget the bastard."

Ginny Weasley was sitting in a shiny pink booth at Florean Fortescue's ice cream parlor, sipping a frothy pink soda through a pale green straw which perfectly matched the green barrette in her glossy red hair. It was a Sparkling Soda, and with each sip, multicolored sparks bubbled from the tall glass and drifted into the air around Ginny, floating around her neatly cut bob and landing on her nose, making her look even more freckly than usual.

As usual, Ginny was dressed in a way that made Hermione feel as if she might as well be wearing her bathrobe in comparison. Today it was a pale green cardigan sweater and a matching wool plaid skirt, stockings, and shiny green shoes, with short pale pink wool winter robes trimmed with matching green fur. Some days, Hermione could hardly believe that the shy, quiet little girl who used to tag along after Ron and Harry had become the outgoing, dynamic woman who was Ginny Weasley, Bestselling Author and Advice Columnist. After the runaway success of her first novel, Riddle in the Dark: My Secret Life With You-Know-Who, Ginny had been immediately offered a job at the Daily Prophet after graduating from Hogwarts. She was currently writing a syndicated advice column that appeared in the Prophet and in Witch Weekly, "Ask Ginny: Love and Romance for the Modern Witch."

Knowing Ginny's stellar qualifications for dishing out romantic counsel still didn't make it any less surprising to hear the once soft-spoken redhead voice her opinion on Hermione's current situation.

"Ginny!"

"What?" Ginny took another sip of soda, wrinkling her nose at another flurry of sparks. "I'm just telling you what you need to hear, Hermione. Sometimes it's hard to accept unless someone tells you straight out."

"I know." Hermione prodded at her unfinished banana split. "It's just -- that's exactly what your brother said."

"Did he?" Ginny raised her eyebrows, her freckled face splitting into a wide smile. "My brother, Ron Weasley, gave you the same advice? Maybe I should go into another line of work."

"Oh, don't be silly." Hermione was smiling now, though she still felt shaken, disconnected. "You're both probably right. I just… thought I had everything figured out, you know." She looked down at her melting ice cream, the chocolate leaking into the pumpkin ripple. "I hate being wrong."

"You're not wrong very often," Ginny said matter-of-factly. "Hermione, I don't know this bloke, but I do know what happened to you before, and it sounds like history repeating itself. I remember what you said about David… how you felt about him. You thought he was the real thing. And it turned out he was shagging half the girls in your study session or something."

Hermione nodded. "I know."

"See… I did the same thing," Ginny said, stirring her soda and taking another sip. "I understand completely. I spent most of my time at school following boys around who didn't know I existed, because I was too insecure to pay attention to anyone who actually appreciated me. And I ended up even more insecure, because I just set myself up for disappointment again and again." She blushed slightly and tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. "Well, and sometimes I ended up killing roosters and things."

"That was different!"

"Not really." Ginny twirled her straw. "Tom was just using me because he could, because of my feelings for him. He didn't care if I lived or died."

"Well of course not, Ginny, he was You-Know-Who."

"But still," Ginny protested. "All right, that was a bad example. Harry Potter." At the mention of Harry's name Hermione felt her cheeks burn, but Ginny didn't seem to notice. "I followed Harry around for the better part of six years, and you know he's a lovely guy, and he was always nice to me. A good friend, even. But I wasted all my time pining over him, just like every other girl who had a crush on the famous Boy Who Lived, and I never noticed any of the other boys who were taking a real interest in me." She smiled. "Like Colin."

Colin Creevey was now a photographer for the Daily Prophet, and it seemed that Ginny had finally noticed the eager, enthusiastic year-mate who had stopped tailing Harry Potter years ago and started admiring her instead. Hermione smiled back. She wished Ginny would stop making so much damn sense.

Ginny placed a hand on Hermione's. "Take some time for yourself," she said earnestly. "Enjoy school. Go to the bookstore, or the library. Do whatever it is you like to do best. Forget this prat… like I forgot Harry. Whoever this man is… he's your Harry Potter."

Hermione's mouth went dry. Your Harry Potter. Forget your Harry Potter.

If only Ginny knew.

Forget Harry.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The days were shorter and colder, and the cobblestones of Orthagon Alley were most often black and slicked with rain. Tiny spangled lights hung in the windows of Warburton's Market and Dugbog's Books, and a Christmas tree three times the size of Hagrid was going up in the center of the small park at the end of the street. Delicious smells wafted from Penfold's, the neighborhood bakery: pumpkin pasties, flaming plum puddings, light-as-air fairy cakes dusted with powdered sugar. Smoke curled from the chimneys of the old Alley houses, huddled around the Christmas tree as if warming their hands by a fire.

Yet at this time of year, surrounded by the warmth and light of the approaching holiday season, 231 Orthagon Alley felt as cold and strange as the Potions classroom on a bleak winter day.

Hermione had forgotten Harry Potter.

In his absence was a gaping hole, something that gnawed and ached and never entirely went away. Since that day she'd walked up the stairs with Gabrielle Delacour, she'd made a resolution. A rational, logical resolution. She'd speak to Harry when she had to; she'd visit him enough to maintain their friendship at a respectful distance. She'd be perfectly nice in every way. But she would never let herself fall into his eyes again, never let him get close enough to engulf her senses and fill her head and lungs and heart.

So she'd gone to class, falling into books instead, offering to help in the library, filling her schedule with extra courses until she was on the verge of needing a Time-Turner. Her professors were awed. She'd received an Owl informing her that she'd been chosen to receive top honors at the end-of-term banquet. Yet when she tore open the letter, it felt like she'd been sentenced to Azkaban.

Hermione wasn't the only one who was markedly absent from the cozy brick house. Though she was away from her flat as much as physically possible, it seemed Ron was gone even more than she was. Sometime soon after the World Cup semifinal, he'd disappeared in a blur of work and pub visits and excuses to miss Sunday dinner. Maybe he'd noticed the uncomfortable distance between his two best friends, but it was unlikely, as Hermione guessed that he probably wouldn't have noticed if she invited two hundred house elves to move into the building and start their own sock factory. If someone hadn't been collecting his Daily Prophets and feeding Pigwidgeon, Hermione would have almost suspected Ron of keeping two other flats just for fun.

Harry was home, most likely, but doing what, Hermione didn't know. He had a few practices and team meetings a week, but those were dwindling as the weather grew colder. His lights were usually on.

Late at night, curled in her windowseat, watching rain fall on the cobblestones below, Hermione wondered how they could all live so close together, and feel so far apart.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He stared out the window, watching her disappear into the rain, as he did almost every day. The rain slid from her black cloak... she'd taught him that charm, once… Impervio... and slid down his windowpane, blurring his view as she vanished down the narrow street.

He'd been so close. So close, and yet she'd slipped away, slipped like a drop of water from her cloak, like the rain on his window.

He'd lost her, just as he'd feared. She'd seen too much. He could tell Ron felt the same; Ron had seen it too. He didn't blame either of them.

He could only sit at the window and watch her vanish, day after day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~