Disclaimer: I don't own HP or any of these characters. That belongs to JKR, Scholastic Books, Warner Brothers, etc. This is just something to pass the time while waiting for the next book.
Part I : A Morning Surprise
Harry had never felt so good in his life. His limbs felt a bit heavy but that was just fine as he did not want to move from the bed. He was utterly content just lying there.
Then his mind started working. He wasn't alone in bed. There was someone with him—a someone whose waist he was embracing and whose hair smelled of cinnamon.
There was only one girl he knew that smelled like cinnamon. Her eyes matched that sweet and spicy scent. Harry knew very well how she smelled considering that he had known her for almost a decade. and for the longest time, she had been the girl closest to his heart.
Harry opened his eyes to confirm what he thought. His worst fears were realized as he glanced briefly at the girl slumbering at his side.
He had slept with Hermione Granger.
"Fuck!" Harry cursed as he tried to disentangle himself and get out of bed. What the hell had he been thinking! Or rather, it was pretty damn obvious that he had been thinking with the wrong head. With that thought, he finally managed to extract himself out of bed without waking Hermione up. He sat on the edge of the bed and then turned around to look at her.
God, she was so beautiful.
Harry couldn't ever remember falling in love with her. He had literally woken up one morning during their seventh year to the realization that he did love her. He loved her so much that the sheer intensity of it scared him. Waking up that morning to that fact had been bad enough. Eating breakfast that morning had been the worst memory of his life. Harry had constantly stared at Hermione, hoping for some hint that she felt more than just mere friendship for him.
That hint had never come.
It had not come that morning or that evening. He had watched Hermione vigilantly for several weeks but she never seemed to think of him in that way at all. In the end, he had decided to put his feelings aside and date other girls. However, he seemed unable to get her out of his mind. She spent so much time with him, even after Hogwarts, that it had been impossible for him to move on. Sometimes Harry suspected that he loved her too well to ever move on.
Despite his feelings for her, he still could not believe that he had completely screwed up and slept with her. He knew that Hermione had wanted to wait till marriage. Now thanks to him, she wouldn't get that chance.
His memory, although a bit blurry, told him that she had been more than willing. In fact, if he remembered correctly, she had kissed him first. That didn't matter. He couldn't escape the blame using that excuse. He had known at the time that she had more to drink than what was good for her.
Unfortunately, the same could have been said of him. If he had not been drinking, Harry had no doubt that he would have been able to control himself and push her away for her own sake. But no, he just had to have one drink too many and when she had come on to him—he hadn't been able to resist. He had dreamed so long about having her that he didn't stop her. Harry did not know how exactly they had managed to work their way back to his place but the memory of everything they did together was burned into his head. He wished desperately that they would do it all again.
That wasn't likely. It was hard to imagine that Hermione would be happy with last night. In fact, given her views about sex before marriage, he couldn't blame her if she was completely upset at him for the events of last night.
Harry just hoped that she wouldn't hate him for too long. It was hard enough to keep breathing knowing that she didn't love him like he loved her. Harry didn't think that he could live with the knowledge that she hated him and did not want a single thing to do with him.
At the very least, he wouldn't die of suspense. Hermione was now stirring and he would soon enough know what she thought about last night.
*****
Hermione woke up from her dream, feeling completely sated. For the first time in her life, she felt complete. She did not know what exactly had happened, but whatever it was, it had to be a good thing.
But as the dullness of sleep crept from her mind, she felt bereft, as if a part of her had been ripped off. Something precious was missing and she felt so alone.
That's when she woke up. And with that, memories of last night came to her, brilliantly bright and surprisingly sweet.
That sensation lasted only for a moment before Hermione started cursing her luck. Whatever had possessed her to drink so much! She knew perfectly well that too much alcohol could cause a person to lose their inhibitions. And she knew just as well that losing her inhibitions around Harry Potter was a bad thing to do.
Hermione's feelings for Harry had went far beyond friendship for quite some time now. It all started with a small crush she had during their fourth year. She must have sounded like a complete idiot the way she always talked about him. Somewhere along the way, however, her feelings had grown from that small crush into something much bigger. Hermione had thought that it was just a crush and eventually go away. She had never been more wrong in her entire life. It didn't go away—it grew until it became something entirely new. Sometime during the middle of the fifth year, she had finally admitted to herself what she had been suspecting for a couple months. She was completely in love with Harry.
She knew everything about him—she often knew what he was going to say before he opened his mouth. She always was able to gauge his mood and all too often during school his moods had been awfully blue. She could not watch him go through his troubles without doing something to help. The problem was, the more time she spent with him, the more she came to love him. That would never do seeing as he didn't have the same feelings for her.
Instead, Hermione had watched Harry go through a succession of girlfriends. There had been a brief relationship with Cho Chang, the first girl he had ever noticed. She could have told him that would not have worked out considering their history together. After that, Harry had somehow managed to move on to Lavender Brown. Those months had been unbearable, with Lavender constantly crowing about what she and Harry had done. At least Hermione thought Cho was a sweet girl who would have been good for Harry. Hermione did not have any charitable thoughts towards her materialistic and gossipy roommate. Then there came a couple dates with Ginny, who had been so ecstatic. The list went on and on but never did her name appear on it.
That had hurt so much. Hermione suspected that her heart would never recover from the wounds inflicted during those years. Each and every time she saw Harry with another girl, she just wanted to cry. In the end, she had decided to keep her feelings buried where no one would ever see them. Hermione fancied that only Crookshanks knew about what she felt and she could not escape that revelation. Crookshanks had been her only comfort on those occasions when she wound up softly crying alone in her room. Aside from her cat, however, no one knew. If she could not have the one she loved, then she damn well could at least keep her pride.
Except it looked like she would no longer have even that. Her memory was all too clear about who had initiated everything. She had kissed him first. Of course he had responded—he probably could not help himself considering how many drinks he had had. His reaction was probably instinctive. Hermione was willing to bet that even now Harry was regretting what they had done last night.
After all, why else would he have left the bed and left her all alone?
There was nothing that she could do. She would just have to face the day and pray that Harry wouldn't hate her. It had hurt when she realized that he would never consider her as anything more than a friend. She didn't want to think about what sort of pain she would be in if he decided to end their friendship then and there.
With that thought, Hermione opened her eyes to face her fate.
Author's note—Yes I know. The whole morning after scenario
has been a bit overused in many fandoms. That being said, I don't
recall it every applying to the H/Hr relationship and so I went ahead and
wrote this damn thing, especially considering that this plot bunny was
being very persistent. *sigh* I would love to know what you
think about this one, good or bad. Since you've already read so far,
could you please do me the favor of leaving a review as well? Thanks.