AN: This is from a challenge on portkey... honestly, though, for my first venture into H/Hr, I think I could have done much better. But there's always time for that, right? :p
-FINDING A CURE-
by Ellie
He tried ignoring the symptoms for a while now... how he'd get a little lightheaded whenever she was near, how his mouth would go dry and he couldn't figure out quite what to say when he'd attempt to talk to her.
He knew that it only added up to one thing:
He was allergic to Hermione.
He decided that he would try to stay away from her as much as possible. It must've been just a seasonal sort of thing, it was no big deal; she would stop affecting him like this soon enough.
But staying away from Hermione didn't prove as easy as he thought it would, for it was only until then that he realized how much time he would spend with her... sitting next to eachother in classes, their study sessions (that she, of course, created and enforced upon both him and Ron), and just the general things that they would do.
The problem was that the more they ended up talking to eachother alone, the worse these symptoms of his became.
Soon enough, he was starting to feel feverish whenever she'd touch him, like he was sitting too close to a fire... and would quickly come up with an excuse to leave.
It didn't take long for her to call him on it.
"Harry," she asked one night in the common room when he had fake-yawned and told her that he was feeling quite sleepy, "why have you been acting so strangely around me lately?"
He panicked slightly, but quickly pulled himself back together. "What are you talking about?" He quicky replied, hoping she wouldn't catch the small squeak that happened to come out at the end of his lie.
"It's just," she stood up from the couch and started walking closer to him, who was still poised and ready to leave the common room, "every time we're alone, or just talking, you seem to just disappear."
She looked hurt, dismissed. It hurt him as well, to know that he was making her feel like that, but he couldn't just tell her what was going on. She would think he was crazy.
"I... it's nothing personal, 'Mione," he glanced at her, the hurt look only deepening more. He felt his mouth go dry again, and choked out "I can't talk about it right now."
She sighed. "Does it have to do with me?"
"No," he replied too fast. And it didn't take her any time at all to know that he was lying.
She stammered out a sarcastic "Good night, Harry" before quickly exiting the common room, leaving Harry all alone.
As soon as she was out of his sight, he felt himself becoming even more lightheaded.
The effects were becoming more permanent...
And she was angry at him.
-----
The next morning, he tried sitting down across from Hermione at breakfast, trying his best to ignore the now amplified allgeric effects she unknowingly held on him.
She didn't say a word and neither did he, leaving Ron quite confused.
"What's going on with you two?" he asked for the billionth time, getting yet another "Nothing!" response from both of them.
Harry kept glancing over at her, desperately wanting to say something, but his mouth kept going dry whenever he thought he had something to say. He took a drink of water, and blurted out "Can I talk to you, alone?"
She seemed surprised that he had decided to say something to her, and hesitated for a moment before deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt, and nodded her head.
"You two better work this out," Ron muttered, as they both stood up from the Gryffindor table.
Harry led her out to the hall, and turned towards her. "I'm sorry about last night," he managed to say.
She let a hint of a smile form on her face, and reached her hand out to touch his arm... but as quickly as this motion had happened, he felt himself warm up immensly and jumped back.
Her smile disappeared. "Harry, what's going on? Why are you doing this?"
"It's... it's nothing," he stammered again, "nevermind."
She shook her head, and went back to the Great Hall, leaving him alone once again.
Soon enough, though, he was joined by a curious Ron.
"Why's Hermione so angry with you?" he asked, as they made their way to their common room.
"We sort of had a small argument," Harry replied, hoping there wouldn't be much follow-up on Ron's part.
But, of course, there was. "Over what?"
"It was nothing."
"Well, it must've been something-"
"No," Harry cut him off, "I just didn't want to talk to her about... something."
"You know you can talk to me, mate," Ron replied as they arrived at the Fat Lady.
Harry muttered the passwordto the portrait, and the Fat Lady sighed and swung open.
They walked through the hole into the Common Room, and Harry tried to decide whether or not to tell Ron what exactly was going on with Hermione.
"Ok," Harry paused, glancing around to make sure they were alone. "Do you swear that you won't tell her?"
"Yeah," Ron replied. "Just tell me."
Harry sighed. "Ok, I think... I think I'm allergic to Hermione."
Ron let out a stifled laugh. "What?" he asked. "Did I hear that right?"
Harry nodded. Ron let out another laugh.
"You're messing with me," he paused, the laughter disappearing from his face. "No, seriously, what's going on, Harry?"
Harry was annoyed at the fact that he wouldn't believe him, but continued on. "I'm dead serious, Ron... like... I keep getting all warm whenever I'm near her, and I can't think clearly, my mouth goes all dry... I know this all sounds crazy, but it's only when I'm around her! And some of it lasts... I don't know what to do about it..."
Ron had to hold back the biggest laugh of his life.
Harry could be really dense sometimes.
"Um," Ron managed to say, still trying to hold back his laughter. "Maybe... you should actually talk to Hermione about it. Tell her your, um," he tried to conjure up some hideously sad images in his head to keep himself from laughing at the fact that Harry didn't realize he falling for someone, "symptoms. She's good with finding a... cure."
Harry paused. "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, yeah. I'm quite sure."
-----
Hermione was still very angry with him for blowing her off when he had caught up to her in the hall.
"I don't want to talk to you right now, Harry," she said, trying to walk past him.
"Imallergitoyou!" he blurted out. His face flushed and his heartbeat quickened.
"What?" she asked, stopping.
"I'm... allergic to you."
She just shook her head, "Knock it off, Harry."
He grabbed her arm as she started trying to walk away again, and had the biggest urge to just pull her close to him and kiss the daylights out of her.
He shook this image out of his head, he couldn't believe that the symptoms were causing him to feel that way about his best friend.
"I'm being serious!" He pleaded. "I'm very serious!"
She sighed and rolled her eyes, waiting for an explanation.
"Hermione, I... it's just that whenever you're close, I just... things start happening."
"Like what?" She didn't sound at all convinced.
He let go of her arm. "I just get... feverish. And cotton-mouthed. And really... nervous... like, lightheaded."
Her mouth opened, and afer a moment, she muttered "Oh."
"And... and I just..."
All of a sudden he brought his hands out to cup her cheeks, and quickly pulled her towards him and met her lips in a soft, quick kiss, then let go of her.
He pulled away, embarassed that he had done something so rash...
But he felt... better.
"Why did you do that?" she asked, dumbfounded.
"I... I came to you to try to find a cure, and I think I found it."
Before she could respond, he kissed her again, not pulling away and tell he felt her kiss back.
Guess it wasn't allergies, he thought, deepening the kiss. Just 'Mione...
FIN