Warm

Brilliant, Granger. Abso-bloody-lutely brilliant, I told myself as we exited the castle. A stroke of utter genius.

It was early February, and everyone was heading out for the Hogsmeade weekend. Ginny, Harry, and I had decided to walk around the small village together. Ron would have come with us, but he had already agreed to meet Luna, and had already gone before the three of us were ready.

Speaking of getting ready, I obviously wasn't as prepared as I usually was. I saw the sun up in an uncharacteristically blue sky. It was such a contrast to the usual February gray that I mistook these as some signs of warm weather. I had dressed lightly, wearing a loose pair of jeans and a T-shirt. When I met Harry and Ginny in the common room, they had their eyebrows raised.

"Hermione," started Ginny, appraising me. "Don't you think you're dressed a little light?" She and Harry were both wearing their heavy cloaks with Gryffindor scarves and hats. I felt exposed before them, but ignored the feeling.

"Haven't you looked outside? It's not going to be that cold," I said casually. I daringly met Harry's eyes as he gave me a significant glance.

"Are you sure you don't want to get a jacket or something?" Harry pressed, sounding concerned.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. If you must insist." I jogged up the stairs back to my dormitory, and grabbed a jumper. I carried it over my arm as I returned to the common room. "Happy?" I said rhetorically.

Harry shrugged. "No... but that's better what you were going to bring before."

His answer stunned me, especially since I wasn't expecting an answer to begin with. Harry led the way out of the portrait hole. He, Ginny, and I walked together, joking around about various things. Even the topic of Luna and Ron came up in our conversations. To us, it was quite obvious that Luna liked Ron, and that Ron was slowly developing feelings for Luna in return.

We walked out the door after being checked off of Filch's list. And then it hit me. A sharp blast of frigid February air. And to top it off, there was a chilly breeze, too. I ignored it, not wanting to admit that I had been so terribly wrong about the weather. Brilliant, Granger. Abso-bloody-lutely brilliant. A stroke of utter genius.

Harry and Ginny looked at me expectantly, as though they were waiting for me to dash back to the Gryffindor tower for my cloak. But I steeled myself against the cold, not even putting on the jumper. "Shall we go now?" I asked, trying to sound congenial. Harry shrugged, and started plodding down the road, with Ginny and me in tow.

When we entered the town, I realized that I was shivering. I tried to put a stop to it, and was losing the battle. And, to my dismay, Harry and Ginny had obviously noticed, judging by the significant glance that passed between them. I pulled the jumper over my head, looking grumpy. Unfortunately, the jumper that I had grabbed was quite thin, and didn't do much of anything in the way of making me warmer.

Ginny suggested that we go to Three Broomsticks first. I sighed inwardly as relief swept through me. Three Broomsticks was always warm, and a butterbeer always fills the drinker with warmth.

However, when we walked into the pub, I still felt cold. The fire was roaring, as usual. And the place was packed, as usual, with people. But I still felt cold. I muttered, "Why does it have to be so cold?"

Harry looked at me curiously. He must have heard, and I blushed slightly. He had a strange look on his face, as though he could sense what I was feeling. It was like he expected me to complain about the cold. But then he looked away, and ordered three butterbeers, picking up the entire tab.

We, surprisingly, found an empty booth. It was right next to the fireplace. But as I sipped at the butterbeer and the fire roared next to me, I still felt cold. I still felt myself shiver occasionally. Finally, I gave up. "Are either of you two cold?" I asked, admitting that I had been wrong.

Ginny shook her head. "Cold? It's warm to the point of being hot. How can you be cold?" I shrugged, but the cold feeling didn't disappear.

Harry moved to take off his cloak, but I stopped him. "Honestly, Harry, I'm not that cold. And it'd my own fault if I am. You tried to warn me. Don't waste your chivalry on me." He opened his mouth to protest, but I cut him off. "You should have the warmth of your cloak. It's my fault that I'm cold."

Harry shook his head, grinning. "Here," he said, taking off his scarf and his hat, handing them to me. "They should help a bit. And my chivalry wouldn't be wasted on you," he finished, flushing slightly.

I took the scarf hesitantly, but gave Harry the hat back. "No, keep this. You lose 30 percent of your body heat through your head."

He looked incredulous. "But what about you?" he asked, smirking at his own cleverness.

I rolled my eyes and thought for a moment, before countering with, "Well, if I get that cold, I'll just wrap your scarf around my head like a turban." We all laughed at that, and continued on to some other subjects of conversation. I noticed that Harry was occasionally looking at me with that same penetrating gaze.

Once we left Three Broomsticks, the cold surprised me, even though I had been out in it before. Even though it was cold in Three Broomsticks, the cold out here seemed so much more severe in comparison.

We toured among the shops. I bought myself a new eagle feather quill, as my other one was wearing down close to the feather part. I also bought Harry a phoenix feather quill, which he had seemed enchanted with once we had entered the shop.

Whenever we went outside of a shop, I felt Harry move closer to me, like he wanted to give me some of his body heat. As the day progressed, he became more daring and started to wrap his arm around me. In fact, we hadn't separated even when we entered our last store, Honeydukes.

There, I had bought such a large amount of sweets that it might have disowned me from my parents. Harry had had his arm around my waist as I walked around the entire store. I wasn't complaining. Even though I still had the smallest cold feeling inside of me, it was much better than it had been inside of Three Broomsticks.

Once we exited the store, Ginny said, "I told Dean that I'd meet him outside Madam Puddifoot's in about..." She checked her watch. "Five minutes. Mind if I leave?"

"Of course not," Harry and I said at the same time. Ginny looked between us, almost looking stunned. I flushed imperceptibly, suddenly feeling slightly uncomfortable with Harry's arm around my shoulders.

"Well, 'bye then," she said slowly. "I'll see you two later." We nodded, and she turned to walk to the teashop.

Harry looked down at me, appraising me through his glasses. "What do you want to do now?"

I shrugged, tearing my eyes away from his gaze. "Three Broomsticks?"

"Okay," he said, as he slowly started walking back in the direction of the pub. I let him lead me. My feet followed, but my mind was elsewhere. Since when was I comfortable with Harry's arm around me? Since when did we say the same thing at the same time?

We turned into the warm pub, and, miraculously, the same booth that we had had before was empty still. We sat down, and politely refused when Madam Rosmerta offered to sell us a few more butterbeers.

We were having such a lovely conversation. Usually, I never had the chance to have such a conversation with anybody. It was very... insightful, for lack of a better word. Harry was much more philosophical than I had given him credit for.

Eventually, our topic of conversation turned to love. Here, Harry seemed to tense up slightly.

"Harry? Is there something wrong?" I had asked.

He shook his head. "No... there isn't anything wrong. At least, I don't think there's anything wrong." He sighed softly. His eyes met mine. "I suppose that I may be thinking too hard about something."

I quirked my head. "Oh? Well, I suppose that we all do that sometimes."

A silence fell between us. I took the chance to look around the pub, searching for any familiar faces. There were a few of our classmates and teachers, but nobody that we were particularly close to.

I looked back at Harry, and he was looking at me with that same penetrating gaze that he had before. I looked at the table, not wanting to meet the eyes that seemed to see right through me.

"Hermione," Harry said. It wasn't really a question. It was more of a statement. I looked up at him, and met the same penetrating gaze. I willed myself to meet it, and ignore that it felt like he was reading my every thought.

"Yes?" I prompted, trying not to sound nervous or uncomfortable.

"Hermione," he started again. "There's something that I have -- need -- to tell you." He looked away, down at the floor. "It's been bothering me for a while now, but I haven't really had the chance to ask you. And, well, I was kind of afraid. But I guess that now is as good a time as any."

I didn't understand where he was going with this. Was he going to ask me about N.E.W.T. potions, or something like that? Or was he going to ask me about some girl? Seeing as I was one and 'knew how they worked,' this possibility wasn't completely inaccurate

He took in a deep breath. "You see, there's this girl I really like." Yep, it was definitely the girl thing. "But I don't think that she likes me back. Plus, we've come a long way in terms of friendship, so I didn't want to mess that up. But I guess that it's a good thing I'm a Gryffindor. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have been able to do this."

Harry's vivid eyes met mine. He looked so vulnerable and innocent. I had seen that look in his eyes once before. He was an eleven year-old with duct-taped glasses, an illustrious past, and an exciting future, neither of which he knew anything about.

"Hermione," he said, he voice cracking slightly. "The girl is you. And I wanted to know if you'd like to be with me. You know, as a couple." The vulnerable look was still in his eyes.

I swallowed. Well, it was certainly unexpected. Harry Potter, like me? His brainy, background sidekick? Was this some sort of a sick joke? But what if it wasn't a joke? I knew that I had liked him for a while when I had first met him, but was that still there?

Of course it was. I loved the way that the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled. I loved the way his laugh had a deep ringing feel to it. I loved how his brow wrinkled in intense thought when he had a particularly difficult potions essay. I loved how he trusted me and Ron with all of his secrets. I loved everything about the young man before me. Even the vulnerable eleven year-old that still had a place inside of him. Plus, as shallow as it sounds, him being fairly good looking didn't hurt.

I nodded. "Yes." My voice broke too. "I'd... I'd love that."

Harry let out a sigh of relief and grinned broadly. I couldn't help but smile in return. His eyes were practically sparkling, and I couldn't not smile. "Oh, Hermione," he breathed, moving closer to me in the booth.

I felt the warmth of his body near mine, and it warmed me more than the strongest fire ever would. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and lowered his head to mine, our foreheads touching lightly together. "This means so much to me," he breathed. "You mean so much to me, Hermione. You always have. Ever since first year when we rescued you from the troll, you held a special place inside my heart."

His brilliant emerald eyes met my ordinary brown ones. "Hermione, when Dolohov hit you with that spell last year in the Department of Mysteries, I was so afraid that I was going to lose you. I remember wishing that you weren't dead. And when Neville found your pulse, a mind-blowing wave of relief crested through my body. And I knew. Maybe not consciously, but subconsciously, I knew. I knew that if you had a died, a big part of me would have died with you, if not my entire being.

"Over the summer, I did a lot of thinking. And I realized, consciously, that I loved you, as more than a friend. I realized that if you had died, that I would have died right along with you. I realized exactly how much you meant to me. I realized that I loved you, Hermione Granger, my best friend."

His eyes were shining with what seemed to be tears. I knew that my own eyes were brimming with them. I wrapped my arms around him, snuggling against him and letting my head rest against his shoulder. "Does this mean you love me, Harry Potter? That you love your brainy, plain side-kick instead of all of the prettier, more fun, and more entertaining girls out there?"

He looked down at me, incredulous. "Do you mean to tell me that my entire profession of love flew right over your head?" I shook my head, writhing with contained giggles. Harry sighed, trying to sound exasperated, but failing miserably.

"Yes, Hermione Granger, I love you. I love my intelligent, extraordinarily pretty best friend, and girlfriend, instead of all of the less beautiful, unfunny, and astonishingly boring girls out there."

And with that, he captured my lips with his, kissing me softly.

I felt a warm, tingly feeling spread through my body, running down my spine and through every part of my body, down to the last toe.

When Harry kissed me, I felt warm, warmer than I had ever felt before. When Harry kissed me, I realized that I had never been completely warm. All my life, I had been living with a cold, empty space inside of me. When Harry kissed me, that cold, empty space filled with warmth and love. When Harry kissed me, I felt complete.

When Harry kissed me, I was truly warm.