By: Grace (purplemud)
Disclaimers: Standard disclaimers apply. If I owned HP, I'll let you in on what would happen in the final book. (snickers). Oh, and Hermione would be treated better.
Parings: H/Hr ('cause I love my pumpkins!)
Summary: Harry Potter realizes what's his favorite color is and why.
Spoilers: Books 1-5-ish. Not much, really. It's more of an AU anyway.
Note: Would love feedback. Much.
Blue
If someone asked him which color he liked best, Harry Potter would probably say blue. In fact, he might even admit to having quite a fixation with it. But if asked why exactly he loved the color blue, well, he didn't quite now how to answer that.
He just knew that he liked blueness of the sky because it reminded him of Quidditch and how wonderful it feels to be up amongst the cloud, free and without any worry. Or that blue reminded him of Cho's hair. Wherever she was, whatever the time of the day, Cho's hair always looked midnight blue. And of course, there was Ginny's eyes, so startlingly blue some days, he could just sit by her side and stare at her eyes all day long. It wasn't until he saw Hermione the other night furiously writing one of her many essays that he finally found a real reason why he liked the color blue.
Harry knew some girls used fancy colored ink writing their more private letters. Ginny usually wrote him small notes and always signed her name in sparkling green ink. Luna's handwriting in loud, bright orange color guaranteed that everyone's attention was on the Stick Notes that she'd post along the hallways whenever one or two of her things went missing. Lavander insisted on writing everything in varying shades of purple. She actually had the gall to submit a DADA essay written in some scented ink the color of forget-me-nots and Snape had been beyond livid. He took 20 points from all Gryffindor present because he disliked the color purple "as much as I detest the whole lot of you," he had snarled at them, dark blazing eyes looking pointedly at Harry and Ron and then to every other squirming Gryffindor inside the room.
Hermione, on the other hand, well she didn't seem like the sort of girl who'd use any other color except the more standard black ink which was why Harry was relatively surprised when he found her all by her lonesome at the Common Room writing in dark blue ink.
"If that's a DADA essay," Harry said as he unceremoniously plopped himself beside her, nodding towards her ink bottle and her already half-filled parchment, "I doubt if Snape likes blue either."
There was an odd look on Hermione's face as she paused to stare at her own handwriting as though seeing it for the first time. After a few seconds of silence, Hermione shook her head and continued writing, never looking up at him.
"For your information Harry," She began with her usual airs, "since you've very clearly failed to notice it," she added almost as an after thought but with barely suppressed viciousness that Harry actually almost winced, "I've been using blue ink since first year," Hermione continued irritably, "and Professor Snape doesn't seem to mind."
"Really?" Harry frowned at this revelation. He had been borrowing notes from Hermione ever since he could remember. How odd that he hadn't even noticed. "I never noticed." He said voicing his thoughts as he idly picked up Hermione's finished Potions essay that was due three weeks from now. He scanned it with his eyes, trying to remember some of what was written in them.
"Can't say that I'm surprised." Hermioned muttered in reply, letting out a short snort of what Harry could only presume as indignation before promptly snatching the parchment away from him.
"Hey!" Harry started to protest but stopped almost immediately. He looked down at the hunched shoulders of Hermione, the tip of her nose almost touching her parchment. She was writing in an even more frenzied manner and there was something so jerky, so angry about her movements he felt that he should say something – anything at all. He sneaked quick glances at Hermione, whose bushy brown hair was effectively covering her face. "Did you and Ron have another row?" He asked, raising his eyebrows. There could only be one reason why Hermione was acting so tetchy.
"No." Came the curt answer.
"Do we have an exam tomorrow?" He asked, raising his eyebrows, this time feeling a little worried. If it wasn't Ron (and his incredibly tactless mouth) that could get Hermione in such a state it was likely something about schoolwork.
"Oh, Harry!" Hermione said with a sigh, "If you would just use the planner that I gave you and Ron, you would've known that there aren't any scheduled exams until next week!"
Until next week?! That soon! But he hadn't done any studying at all! Harry peered down at Hermione's face, wondering if maybe she'd help him with some of his homework but the question died in his lips as he truly looked at Hermione's tired, hunched form. Harry frowned. "What's the matter Hermione?" He asked, not even noting the change in his voice, which had gone softer, almost gentler.
Hermione tensed for a few seconds before sighing and mumbling: "Nothing."
Well, Harry wasn't going to have that. She was clearly in a state and he liked to know why or who or what made her so… so edgy. He didn't like seeing her shoulders all curled up like that, as though she was trying to disappear into herself. Her little hands were balled up into tight little fists; knuckles slowly turning white.
That must hurt, Harry thought, as he absentmindedly reached out to take one of her hands into his. He expected some sort of resistance but was somewhat glad when Hermione just dropped her quill.
"I'm alright Harry." She said, still not looking at him. "Why don't you go find Ron," she mumbled after a moment, "he had been looking for you since dinner."
That she brushed him off aside, well that started his temper. "You can't be mad at me for not noticing that you've been using blue ink all these years!" Harry cried incredulously.
Hermione stiffened as soon as the words were out of his mouth. She snatched her hand back and started writing once more, although now, Harry could barely make out a word from her usually neat and measured handwriting.
Harry felt as though his head would implode. Girls! He thought savagely, curbing the sudden need to throw up his hand in total, utter surrender. He could never understand them. Even Hermione, who was so much more sensible than most girls, could be quite so… so infuriatingly impossible! "I don't see why…" Harry began through clenched teeth.
"Well, that's just it." Hermione said, practically throwing her quill as she turned her head to glare at him, her brown eyes blazing. "You don't see. Period."
Surprisingly, it registered to Harry that she didn't seem angry at all. There was a sad note in her voice and this confused him even more. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Hermione blinked several times, her breath hitching as the color slowly drained out of her face. "No-nothing." She stammered, quickly turning her head away and making a show of looking for her quill when it was practically right underneath her nose.
Harry wordlessly handed her the quill, watching with great interest as she swallowed hard, pausing for a moment, and staring almost blankly at his offering before mumbling her thanks and promptly resuming with her homework.
He wasn't quite sure where all these was coming from. Lately, if Hermione wasn't telling him to go look for Ron or Neville or Ginny, she was too busy doing something else to just sit with them by the Common Room, like she usually did every night.
Harry didn't like it. He didn't like it one bit. It felt as though she was slowly slipping away from his grasp and if he wasn't careful, one day… well, he didn't know exactly what would happen. A lot of things could happen, that was for sure, especially with Voldemort running around trying to build his own army, planning on doing some serious mass killing, among other things, but one day he would have to fight and then, perhaps even die and he would absolutely hate it if his last dying thoughts were: "I wish I hadn't argued with Hermione that night…"
"Hermione." Harry said, his throat suddenly aching with emotions he couldn't even begin to understand. He really shouldn't think too much about dying, as it wasn't such a happy thought to begin with. Every time he thought of Voldemort a vicious hand would always close down around his throat he could almost feel his oxygen supply being cut off.
He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. He had far more pressing matters to deal with tonight than thoughts of Voldemort and their impending battle. He glanced at Hermione who was still silent, as though she hadn't heart him.
"Hermione." He called again, this time gently nudging her. Harry hated arguing with her. He could never really understand what Ron got off from shouting at her or having Hermione shout back at him. Harry couldn't and would never get use to Hermione looking at him with dark, angry brown eyes. And he hated the fact that they were arguing over something as silly as blue ink. That was more along the lines of what would set Hermione and Ron off into a verbal melee of cosmic proportions.
He wasn't going to be like Ron, though, who stormed off during the more crucial parts of the argument. No. He was going to see the end of this silly little fight even if he had to force Hermione to look at him and shake her senseless. He was about to do just that when Hermione reluctantly turned to face him and for the first time, Harry noticed the light smudges of blue ink on her cheeks.
On parchment, the blue inked looked dull, incredibly quite ordinary but on Hermione's skin… Harry caught a glimpse of Hermione's blue-tipped fingers; her upturned her hand, where a thin blue line marked the flesh of her pale wrist…
On her skin, on Hermione's pale, pale, ivory white skin, the ink was luminescent blue and it looked so thoroughly… inviting.
Suddenly, Harry felt a small tug of… of something inside his chest. Something like hunger.
"Well?" She asked him, lifting her chin a little and meeting his eyes, as though daring him to… to… well, he didn't know what that look meant. He certainly had never seen it in Hermione's eyes before.
It made her look… somewhat vulnerable and that was one word he had never really associated with Hermione. How could a girl as smart as her, who could probably, in less than five seconds flat can come up with a spell that would save everyone's arses, no problem at all, ever be vulnerable?
But there she was, sitting in front of him, Hermione – his Hermione – and she looked so… un-Hermione-like, even though everything about her was so achingly familiar. Even that soft blue streak of ink on her cheeks…
Something seemed to have clicked inside Harry's head and he realized with a start that Hermione almost always have those streaks of blue ink on the inside of her palm, on the tips of her nail, thin fine blue infinite lines on her wrist.
There were blue blotches of ink on her favorite desk at the Common Room (hadn't he mindlessly traced it with his own fingers when Hermione was too busy reading to pay him or Ron any attention?) Sometimes, even her school uniform had small blue-dots and fading tiny blue lines that curved and zigzagged across her clothes.
Whatever Harry had to say, every word he had carefully thought of, they all flew away. There was only the sudden need to run his finger against her cheeks, not to wipe the blue ink clean, but just to let his finger touch the color.
The blueness of the sky, he could always reach out for it, but there was no way for him to ever hold it. And Cho would probably hex him if he tried to run his hands on her hair (which, according to Cho she brushed a hundred times before going to sleep and Harry had never heard anything so silly as that!). He could look at Ginny's blue eyes for days on end, but again, there was no way for him to ever experience touching those blue orbs, no matter how beautiful they were.
But the blue ink on Hermione's cheeks, on her wrist, on the tip of her fingertips… if he just reached out…
Harry blinked as soon his fingers met Hermione's skin. Her skin was soft and smooth and warm to his touch. He gently ran his thumb along her cheeks, watching with great interest as the blue ink faded from her skin.
For a few second, the shock of… of this… whatever this was, stole the air from Harry's lungs. What is going on? he wondered in half-panic as his thumb, on it's own accord, kept on gently drawing small semi-circles against Hermione's skin. He didn't know how exactly it happened, just that suddenly, everything else, everything around them that is, had faded quietly away and there was nothing but Hermione and that darn blue ink on her cheeks.
Harry cleared his throat, "Hermione… let's… let's not fight, ok?" He croaked out, his voice sounding unfamiliar even to his own ears. Strained and lost and soft and gentle all at the same time.
"I… I don't like fighting with you," He admitted and somewhere at the back of Harry's mind alarm bells were ringing, ringing incessantly, madly, getting louder and louder by the minute.
"I'm sorry I never noticed…"
He felt more than heard Hermione whisper his name, her breath dancing against his wrist and he sucked in deep, lungful of air, feeling as though someone had just kicked him in the guts.
If he tilted her head up a little, he'd be able to see her eyes, he'd be able to lean closer, bend his head just a little bit more and he would be able to kiss her.
Whoa. Kiss her? Where did that thought come from?
Quickly replaced by: Don't. Don't. Not now. Not now.
And a small part of him knew exactly what those words meant, that small part of him that he rarely ever listened to, the small part of him that greatly reminded him of… of that scrawny little boy with his head underneath the pillow, waiting in the dark, waiting underneath the cupboard stairs for something… something wonderful to happen.
So much had changed since then and he was different from that boy now, wasn't he? He had found wonderful things: Hogwarts, his friends, Quiddicth – but alongside those, there were also terrible, frightful prophesies, deaths, betrayals and more deaths. But the small boy in him knew that everything wonderful has something terrible on it's other side and if he let himself look into Hermione's eyes now… something wonderful and something terrible would also happen and everything will change and he wasn't quite ready for that yet.
Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.
He pushed all those thoughts aside and concentrated on the sound of Hermione's breathing: slow and steady. This was Hermione, he reminded himself, and he was safe with her.
Harry didn't know just how long exactly his hand had cradled Hermione's face, if he had been mere seconds, or hours, or a whole lifetime. He could feel a familiar, warm tingling in his skin. It felt like… magic… or at least something like the force behind magic: elemental and raw.
He didn't know what it could be but whatever it was, it was abruptly broken when Hermione suddenly spoke up, shattering the silence.
"It's ok." Hermione said and before he knew it, she had pulled away from his touch.
Harry dropped his arm to his lap, the tips of his fingers still burning, warmed by her skin. He stared at her face which was calm and open and friendly – and very Hermione-like. She looked exactly the same way she did when he first met her on the train on their way to Hogwarts. Except now, there was a faint, endearing blush on her cheeks that Harry didn't fail to notice.
"It's ok." She repeated, smiling at him. "It's… it's not your fault. I was just… I was just being so silly!" Hermione said, smiling that odd, sad smile of hers. Harry positively hated that smile. He wished she would smile at him like she used, in the old days, when her smile always reached her eyes, that Hermione Smile that silently told him that everything would be ok. He missed that smile.
Harry watched as Hermione wordlessly gathered her books, wondering all sort of things that he couldn't even grasp as they all zoomed in and out of his head in alarming speed. One moment he was thinking of Hermione's smile, the next he was thinking of her bright, liquid brown eyes and then after that the softness of her skin and after than… well, it always had something to do with Hermione.
He opened his mouth twice only to snap them shut because what was he to say?
Don't go Hermione. Stay with me for a while.
And if she asked why should she stay? What was he supposed to say to that?
Because I miss you.
Right. That would really sound… well, Harry frowned, he didn't know how that would sound to her exactly but it sure sounded a little odd to him. Miss her? Miss her when she's been with him all the time? How could he miss her when she had always been with him?
Except, except… that's not entirely true.
Most of his time he had been spending either with Dumbledore or with Ginny…
Harry shook his head and kept his mouth shut. If he opened his mouth, well, it would be like opening a can of slimy, slithery worms and he rather not. At least not now.
When all of her books were inside her bag, Hermione finally turned to him, sighing softly. "I can't… I can't promise that we'll never, ever fight again," she began and Harry opened his mouth to protest but Hermione went on, "but… but… I do promise that even if we do fight… I'll… I'll always… I'll be your…your," Hermione paused, her throat moving silently, as though she was fighting to get her next words out. He could see her clenching her fist tightly against her side, and again, that sad smile of hers!
"Hermione…"
She took a deep, shaky breath and then: "your friend, Harry, I'll always be your friend." And then, without warning, she slightly bent forward and kissed him lightly on his cheeks. It was almost like the kiss she had given him almost two years ago at King's Cross. Except this time, he could feel himself leaning towards her, could feel the soft, sweet, gentle pressure of her lips against his skin.
Harry almost half turned his head, as though there was something at the end of her kiss that he should catch… something that will surely fly away if he didn't turn fast enough. If he did just that, turned his head just a little more, his own lips would have found Hermione's and… he heard her whispered goodnight and then suddenly, she was gone.
Harry didn't know how long he had sat inside the common room that night. He didn't know how many hours had passed before he could even properly stand up, a little disoriented, as though having waken up from a dream.
He glanced at his hand, finding on his thumb, a smear of blue ink.
And right that instant, Harry knew that every time he'd see the color blue, he'd always be reminded by the softness, the smoothness of Hermione's skin and how she had softly whispered his name like it was something precious to her.
And if anyone should ask him, well, he'd always say he loved the color of blue ink best and he knew exactly why.
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