Thresholds

"SURPRISE!" more than two dozen voices both male and female yelled the moment she stepped into the Three Broomsticks, the booming voice of Hagrid drowning out all others. Standing behind the gathered group of people the happy half-giant held his arms outstretched to his sides, looking as if he were about to crush them all in one uncompromisingly heartfelt hug. He didn't, though. But he could have.

Above their heads, written right into the air in continuously bursting sparks of red and golden light it read 'Happy 18th Birthday, Hermione!' and the whole interior of the pub was richly decorated all over, with balloons and streamers in all colors and the whole palette of birthday party clichés that everybody knew Hermione was so fond of.

"Nyeah," she then awkwardly managed in response to this most surprising of surprises, forcing a somewhat constrained smile onto her lips while nervously scanning the faces of all those in front of her.

Besides Hagrid and Madam Rosmerta there were all of her seventh year housemates, and also Ginny and her current boyfriend – whatever his name was – from sixth year in addition to that. From Ravenclaw there were Luna, of course, and also Parvati's twin sister Padma, Declan MacManus and his girlfriend Siobhan. From Hufflepuff, Ernie Macmillan, Hannah Abbott, Justin Finch-Fletchley and Susan Bones had come. Then there were also Angelina Johnson – George's girlfriend –, Katie Bell and Alicia Spinnet, as well as Lee Jordan. For Hermione, the most surprising thing – besides the sheer number of people, that is – was noticing that there was also a Greengrass girl from Slytherin amongst them, but before she could even begin to really wonder about that, Fred and George, the industrious orchestrators of the whole affair, stepped forward and looked at her suspiciously.

"You don't look half as surprised as a surprise party demands of the surprised person to be surprised," George critically observed, and his twin brother's narrowed eyes switched to Ron, who stood next to Hermione after having entered behind her with an air of innocence about him.

"You lousy telltale!" Fred accused him bluntly.

"Back off, bro!" Ron protested on the spot. "It wasn't me!"

"Oh, really?" George challenged him doubtfully.

"Then who was it?" Fred demanded to know.

"You want me to sell out the sellout you just accused me of being?" their younger brother asked them with one eyebrow raised.

"Thereby making the sellout of you we already knew you were all along," said George.

"And thus letting us be right after all," added Fred.

"Clearly a win-win kind of situation," George remarked.

"For us and us," Fred concluded.

"Okay, Weasley-overload," Hermione interrupted their up-tempo exchange with her palms raised to each side of her head.

George grinned broadly at her. "I see somebody wants to get the party started, huh?" he said, wiggling his eyebrows at her.

"Badly," Hermione answered flatly.

"Oh, come on, you incorrigible party pooper," said Fred, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her towards the much dreaded center of attention. And then, practically shouting to address everyone in the pub at once, added, "Let's get this party started, folks! This fine lady can't wait to rock the house!"

And his twin brother joined him in yelling, "There are piles of presents, barrels of Butterbeer, flagons of Firewhiskey, more pumpkin pie than you can puke, half the inventory of Honeydukes and some special extras from our very own selection at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes – free of charge for your convenience! Safety not guaranteed."

"Free beer for all!" Fred shouted right after that, then added under his breath, "The last one sober pays."

Madam Rosmerta buried her face in her hands at that, probably beginning to doubt that agreeing to host a party organized by Fred and George Weasley had been the best of ideas and wondering if her beloved establishment would still be all that established after this night.

Within seconds Hermione found herself right in the middle of it all, shaking hands and braving hugs from more people than she usually preferred to touch within a whole year, all of them congratulating her with smiles and laughter and all kinds of niceties. Naturally, her charming female housemates – with Lavender Brown leading the way – were right in their element. While putting on a fake smile the likes of which had rarely been seen from her, Hermione couldn't help but think that whoever was responsible for this year's guest list should really be the first person to be cut from next year's guest list.

But not all was lost, since she actually liked most of those who were there. But to her, even nice people could get too much to take when surrounding her in large numbers, so she was somewhat trapped between not wanting to be impolite and the increasing need to go hide under some table and read a nice book until it was all over, which – understandably, if regrettably – might not have been looked at as the most appropriate behavior for the presentee.

When the human throng around her finally dispersed a little and she found some space to breathe, she noticed the pile of presents George had referred to, and its sheer enormity took her breath right away again.

"This is too much, guys," she said, helplessly looking around. "This is all too much."

"Wait till you see all the crap inside," Fred told her good-naturedly. "It really looks better when it's all neatly wrapped up like that."

"Besides," added George, "there's also a bunch of presents that arrived per mail just this morning. From your parents and some great uncle Milton or something, Lupin and Tonks and half the Order, the rest of our family with the smallest one probably being from Percy…"

"Still," Hermione insisted. "It's just too much."

"But we wanted to honor your Muggle heritage and traditions," George explained, and Hermione knitted her eyebrows in confusion.

"And what traditions would that be, exactly?" she asked warily. "Excessive consumerism and boundless hedonism?"

"Sure sounds like a party to me," said Fred with a shrug. "But isn't there a thing called sweet eighteen or something in your culture?"

Hermione pursed her lips. "First of all," she said, "that's more of a North American kind of thing. And secondly, it's sixteen. Not eighteen."

"What?" George exlaimed, rather shocked. "Are you telling us we're two years late? Damn, we should've invited more people."

And thus the party went its way, with groups of people occupying either some of the tables or the stools at the bar, or just standing around somewhere: chatting, drinking, laughing and trying their luck with some of those special extras from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Others actually used the additional space that having the Three Broomsticks mostly to themselves tonight brought with it to dance boisterously to flute, pipe and fiddle, Seamus fulfilling the function of a DJ and putting on good, old Irish folk for the most part. One of the advantages amongst wizarding culture was that not all their tastes had gone down the tubes yet.

Madam Rosmerta, of course, did her usual thing, although tonight she had Neville and Hannah voluntarily doing most of the work behind the bar. Fred and George went hither and thither, causing laughter wherever they deemed it lacking. At one table wizarding board games were played while Luna seemed to have a lot of fun chasing after balloons. At some point, her eyes fixed on the balloon she kept pushing into the air ahead of her with her fingertips, she bumped straight into Ron, who managed to keep his balance while also holding on to Luna, who otherwise would probably have fallen flat to the ground. Clumsily she steadied herself and then stared up at Ron, who looked right back at her with a crooked smile.

Hermione, leaning against a wooden pillar, was watching the scene amusedly from a distance when someone approached her, taking her attention away from this peculiar incident. It was not the person who would actually have been more interesting than Ron's and Luna's chance encounter.

"Hey, Hermione," Cormac McLaggen greeted her with a toothy grin, which Hermione reciprocated by pursing her lips into something that might or might not have resembled a smile. "Nice party."

She nodded, her lips still tightly pressed together. At least now she knew that Ron most definitely had not been responsible for the guest list, which was a pity, really, considering he would probably have been more suitable for that task than leading her to Hogsmeade for no apparent reason, which had been even more subtle than his way of getting her to go to the bridge earlier that day. One just couldn't help but love the bloke. A fact that Luna seemed to come rather close to finding out about right now…

"Eighteen, huh?" Cormac then said, forcing Hermione to tear her eyes away from her two friends again, who still remained right in front of each other and had by all appearance begun exchanging a few words. "Same as me," added Cormac.

And that was pretty much the sum of all they had in common. The bloke really knew how to work his angles.

"It sure feels totally different from seventeen," Hermione remarked ironically.

"Tell me about it," Cormac readily agreed, entirely oblivious to all the irony in the world. "I mean, don't get me wrong, seventeen can be tough, but at eighteen… it's like real life actually starts, you know? The serious stuff. It's rough-and-tumble, believe me."

Hermione, squinting her eyes, did something between nodding and shaking her head, unsure of where exactly to go with it. "Right," she reluctantly chose to agree at least superficially.

"It's, like, when there's been an accident," Cormac continued with no small amount of self-importance, apparently further encouraged by Hermione's most enthusiastic response, "and you just know that you gotta do something… because nobody else can, you know? Because… you know."

Hermione looked a bit muddled, to say the least, squinting even as her eyebrows were halfway up her forehead. "What about paramedics or mediwizards?"

"Hm?" Cormac made just as if he hadn't heard her at all, taking a sip from his bottle of Butterbeer.

"People who are actually trained to help with medical emergencies?"

"Oh, right. Sure, sure," he answered, and Hermione wondered if he was maybe having a conversation of his own inside his head, although in its own way that would perhaps be giving him too much credit as well... "Anyway, I just wanted to congratulate you more privately. You know, away from the kids and the rumpus and all that. I need the quiet sometimes, you know? To think and… and really get some thoughts done, you know? It's hard sometimes."

"Indubitably," Hermione concisely agreed, taking a sip from her glass as a disturbingly suicidal part of her seemed to wish that her pumpkin juice were poisoned right now. Then her rational voice told her that it would be more sensible to wish that Cormac's Butterbeer were poisoned. And then her moral voice told her that neither would be fine as well. Sadly, before any other voices inside her head could speak up, Cormac did.

"So, listen," is what he said, "you and me, I'm thinking we got something going here, you know? I can tell you're different from the rest and I totally dig all that deep stuff you're all about. It's, like, totally mature. And I see that connection between us, you know? Like last year it was there and now it's still there. Gotta mean something, right? Surely you see that, too."

"I'm not quite sure I do, actually," Hermione replied carefully, inconspicuously searching her surroundings for possible assistance – or maybe an emergency exit.

"Come on," said Cormac with a smug smile on his pretty face. "You got a real opportunity here."

Self-control and composure were Hermione's mantra of the moment. Surely Cormac would not want to become the accident only he alone could help with.

"I can't tell you just how tempted I am right now to do something I would probably regret in the morning," she told him calmly. "But I won't."

"Why not?" he asked, mistaking her meaning for the wrong kind of innuendo – as expected. "There isn't someone else, is there?"

Just as her mind assembled her usual routine answer to all questions of that kind in what was a reflex that had been nurtured by truth over many years now, her eyes, while lazily scanning the room, were caught by a pair of emerald green amongst the crowd, intercepting her thought before it ever reached her lips.

"Actually," she heard herself absentmindedly say, brown still locked with green, "I believe there is."

Cormac looked mildly surprised at that and for once was attentive enough to follow her eyes. "Who, Potter? So the rumors are true?" he queried, then shrugged his shoulders. "Is it serious?"

A barely audible sigh escaped Hermione's lips. "It could never be anything but," she then answered decisively. "Excuse me."

And without so much as deigning him another look, Hermione stepped away from a somewhat disgruntled Cormac, drawn straight towards the eyes that held her in their spell.

"I need your help."

Hermione stopped short, her vision suddenly blocked by a striped sweater. She looked up in irritation, and whatever expression she had on her face apparently served to make Ron retreat a step to what he deemed a safer distance, while somewhere behind them Cormac McLaggen was already looking for somebody else to enlighten with his profound insights into the hardships of human existence.

"Whoa!" Ron said with his hands raised in front of him. "Maybe not."

When he was just about to turn around on the spot, Hermione came to her senses and shook the frustration from her bones, telling him to wait – which he apprehensively complied with like a fugitive who just got told to freeze! by his armed pursuer. Seeing the look on his face Hermione couldn't help but chuckle.

"I'm sorry," she was quick to say, "You just caught me on the hop, that's all. What do you need my help with?"

Ron hesitated for a moment, eying her skeptically. "Well," he slowly answered, "I just wanted to talk to you about something."

"Then let's," she said, motioning towards the table next to them where Hagrid sat with a huge mug of ale in front of him. While Ron moved past her and sat down next to the half-giant with his back towards Hermione, she threw a quick glance over her shoulder before following him, seeking those green eyes amongst the crowd to no avail. With a sigh she took her seat across from Ron and looked at him expectantly. When he didn't show any sign of even the slightest intention to speak up, she tried to encourage him with as little impatience as possible.

"Spill it out, Ron!" she urged him accordingly.

"Well," he replied with some hesitation, fidgeting around with his hands while Hagrid watched him from the side with a tipsy sort of half-attentive mirth. "You see, something just happened."

"You mean how Luna bumped into you and then you caught her in your arms and then you guys had a little moment there?" Hermione was quick to get ahead of him, and seeing his flabbergasted expression she simply added, "I saw you."

"Oh," he said to that. "Right. Okay. So, uh, what do you think I should do?"

"About what?"

"About Luna."

"What about Luna?"

"You're making me nervous," Ron complained. "Why are you in such a rush? If you gotta go to the loo or something, don't let me keep you."

Hermione gave off a dramatic sigh. "To pee or not to pee," she mused, deeply philosophical. "Seriously, though. It's fine. And it's not the loo you kept me from. So please, by all means, continue."

Ron needed a moment to gather his thoughts. "It was just that kind of a moment, I guess," he then began, staring blankly at the table. "I mean, nothing really happened. But now I find myself wondering if I would like something to happen, if you take my meaning."

"It's quite impossible not to," Hermione had him know. "So where's the problem?"

"Well, I just don't think I've really thought about her like that before," he explained. "I always liked her in a general sense and I suppose I thought she could be pretty pretty, but… she's also… well, Luna, you know?"

"Uh-huh," she replied knowingly. "And now what?"

When Ron just kept playing with the sleeves of his sweater and strictly avoided looking at her, she added, "You want me to tell you what to do, don't you?"

Immediately he looked up at her with a glint of hope in his eyes. "A little, maybe?"

Hermione rolled her eyes at him with a smile curling up her the corners of her mouth.

"I won't make these decisions for you, Ron," she told him, not so much sternly as just sincerely.

"Will you at least tell me if you know anything about how she thinks about me?" he asked pleadingly. "Or if she does at all?"

"Oh, so that's how it's going to be," Hermione declared with a hint of disapproval in her voice. "You want to know your chances before doing anything."

"Rejection's never nice," Ron meekly replied, drawing invisible circles on the scuffed tabletop.

"Are you interested in her, or not?" Hermione asked him straightforwardly.

"I… I dunno," he stammered, "but it seemed like she kinda fancied me, so—"

"You either are or you aren't, Ronald," she admonished him irritably. "If you want to be an opportunistic arse about these things, don't be it with a friend of mine. Now one might very easily imagine to find Luna cruising across North America in a Volkswagen van with a psychedelic paintjob, celebrating free love, LSD and STDs, but I can tell you that she is surprisingly old-fashioned about these things – if that's what you want to call it – and while I want nothing but the best for you, I don't want her to get hurt either. So don't play any games. You are either interested in her as an actual person or just in the idea of getting laid by whomever is willing to do the deed. For the latter you might as well get back together with Lavender."

Ron turned to Hagrid in desperate search for help, but the half-giant merely shrugged his massive shoulders, said, "Yep, that's wha' she'll do t'yeh," and took a large gulp of ale. "By the way, 'mione," he continued afterwards, "I've finished me letter jus' this afternoon. I actually got it with me, if yer wan' ter have a look, maybe. 'Course it still has ter be translated."

"Sure," she said, taking another inconspicuous glance or two around the room, yet finding neither a pair of green eyes nor that familiar mess of raven black hair. "Let me see."

With Ron watching the exchange with a rather befuddled expression, Hagrid handed over a crumpled piece of parchment to Hermione, who straightened it as much as she could on the table in front of her before proceeding to decipher the scribbly lines of text thereon, Hagrid watching her anxiously for the whole duration. Once finished, she raised her head and regarded her semi-gigantic friend with an appreciative look.

"That's really nice, Hagrid," she told him cordially. "Honestly. It's poignant, it's sincere. It's adorably clumsy. It's perfect."

"I jus' tried ter do as yeh told me," he mumbled abashedly, his cheeks flushed pink to match his nose. "T'be me an' all that."

"And that's exactly what makes it so great," Hermione proudly stated. "I tell you what. I'll translate this over the weekend and then you'll be able to send it on its way first thing on Monday. We can always come back to your French lessons at a later point. Right now, I think, the lady just has to read this. Maybe we'll send her both versions."

With the impossible seemingly happening, Hagrid's cheeks turned an even deeper shade of pink at that, although he now looked just as touched and happy as he looked embarrassed and drunk. "Thank yeh, Hermione," he said, his eyes glistening wetly. "Really. I don't know wha' else t'say. Thank yeh an' happy birthday!"

And to that he raised his enormous mug and then took another mighty gulp of his definitely not nonalcoholic beverage. For once, however, he wasn't all that insufferable even though he was already a little more than a little bit drunk.

"Yeah, well," Ron suddenly piped up, "while that's all mighty fine and precious… what about me? I still don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do here."

"I believe you still have a question to answer," Hermione told him coolly, her vagrant eyes once more flickering around the pub.

"Well, I don't know, okay?" he answered with some frustration. "I just don't know her well enough. And yes, the fact that she seemed to be interested in me got me thinking about it. But that doesn't mean I want to take advantage of her. At least not after you told me not to. I might not know if I see us as girlfriend-boyfriend material, but what I do know is that I would like to find out. Is that so bad?"

Hermione scrutinized him intently for a few seconds and Ron seemed to shrink a little under her gaze, until at last her features softened and her gaze warmed up.

"No," she said. "It's not. Actually, it's perfectly fine. I know you have a good heart, Ron. It just seems that you have to be reminded of it sometimes. If you want to find out how you feel about Luna and how she feels about you, then I would strongly suggest you stop wasting your time talking to me and get back to her. She might just be waiting over there. Especially considering, as you might be interested to know, she once said that you are the most lovable bumbling berk of a boy she has ever met."

Ron didn't exactly break into jubilation at that and instead looked at her with a clueless expression, unsure of what to make of that particular revelation.

"She said that very dreamily," Hermione therefore added. "It's a good thing. Trust me."

Then her eyes involuntarily switched to a distant point just over Ron's right shoulder, and that tingling sensation came back over her when she saw the person she had been searching for the entire time open the entrance door and step outside into the dark – gone without even seeing her. Ron, taking notice, looked over his shoulder to see what she was suddenly looking so perplexed for and immediately turned around again.

"Where's he going?" Hermione voiced her inner turmoil. "And why would he just leave? He hasn't even talked to me yet and we barely saw each other."

"Probably just going for some fresh air," Ron answered, casually shrugging his shoulders.

For a moment Hermione remained silent, although the way she bit her lower lip while the index finger of her right hand tapped incessantly on the table betrayed her troubled mind quite plainly.

"I should go after him," she finally stated. "Just to make sure he's okay, I mean."

Ron risked a quick glance at his watch as inconspicuously as he could, which of course made it look very suspicious. Hermione, however, was so preoccupied that she hardly noticed anything around her at all.

"Now that you mention it," he then said conversationally, reaching into the back pocket of his pants, "I have something for you."

That, at the very least, got him Hermione's attention, who looked at him with her eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement as he handed her a plain white envelope.

"What is it?" she asked.

"A plain white envelope," Ron answered, earning a scowl from Hermione.

"And who is it from?" she asked, otherwise ignoring his banter. "You?"

Ron merely shrugged his shoulders once more.

"You are one smooth criminal today," she told him, shaking her head while beginning to open the envelope with nimble fingers, careful not to rip the paper. Within seconds she held a piece of parchment in her hands, folded once right in the middle. When she folded it out her brow furrowed even more. She turned the parchment to its other side and then around again, until finally she looked up at Ron with an expression on her face that – to his barely concealed delight – was as clueless as he had ever seen her.

"This is blank," she stated almost – almost! – obtusely, so confused that she didn't even find the energy to scoff at Ron's most annoying glee.

"I think you're supposed to look harder," he advised her. "You know, all that magic stuff we're all about."

Now she at least glared at him for a second before turning her attention back to the parchment. "Fine," she grumbled, proceeding to stare at the piece of paper once again, empty as it was and still remained. After a few seconds of staring at the indescribably interesting surface structure of the paper, hardly blinking at all, a sigh escaped her lips as her patience faltered. Just when she was about to complain, she forced herself to keep her focus instead. And sure enough, after another moment of intense staring, black ink began to appear on the surface. Thin lines at first, but quick to expand, slowly but surely taking the shape of neatly italicized letters, until finally it read:

To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle.

The words took their time to really sink in and reach Hermione's conscious mind, her innermost self, and while they did a strange sensation overwhelmed her from within with increasing intensity, just as if everything that made up who she was shifted somehow and yet remained in place and perfect stillness.

"So who's it from?" she then heard Ron ask as if from some great distance. "You recognize the handwriting?"

Slowly coming back to the here and now, Hermione still did not take her eyes away from the writing. "No, it's not his own," she then said most pensively, her voice soft and subdued. "But I do recognize its meaning."

Only then she raised her head and glanced at Ron and Hagrid in turn, who watched her with looks of eager expectancy. Under different circumstances she might have laughed at the expressions on their faces, but right now her mind was racing so fast only her heart seemed able to challenge it and situational humor wasn't exactly on the forefront of her mental faculties.

"I need to go," she suddenly declared, her eyes flickering back and forth between anywhere and elsewhere.

She rose from her chair abruptly and its wooden legs gave a sharp creaking noise as they scratched over the floor beneath. Thereafter she seemed frozen still for a moment.

"Right," she then said with a nod, and nobody – including Hermione – could tell who exactly she was talking to, or what about.

When she was just halfway through her first step, Ron spoke up with his eyebrows raised. "You'll want to take that with you," he imparted to her, reaching over and pushing the discarded piece of parchment nearer to her end of the table with a fingertip. When she looked quizzically first at the letter and then at him, a sly smile played around one corner of his lips as he said, "Trust me."

After no more than a second of hesitation, Hermione gingerly grabbed the parchment and with one last look at Ron and Hagrid – half sheepish, half suspicious – turned and left, heading straight for the exit with the two men's eyes following her. Once the door fell shut behind her, the both of them turned back to the table again in unintentional simultaneity.

"So," said Ron. "Whaddaya think, big guy? Will they finally work it all out this time?"

"Well," answered Hagrid, taking his time to relish another gulp of his favorite ale in the world, which seemed rather appropriate right now, "if those two don't, I don't think there's any hope for the rest o' us."

<3<3<3<3<3

Stepping out into the night, the first thought that came to Hermione's mind was that it probably hadn't been the best of ideas to leave her coat behind. The sun was long gone by now and it hadn't exactly been warm to begin with at any time during the day, and while it was far from freezing it wasn't what she would call comfortable either. Her priorities, however, were of a different nature in that moment, so she let the door to the Three Broomsticks fall shut behind her as she stepped into the main street of Hogsmeade: sparsely lit by a few street lamps here and there and the warm light coming from the pub and a few other buildings, though most windows were dark at this time of day.

She looked from left to right and back again, her eyes only beginning to adjust to her darker surroundings, yet she was still quite sure that there was not a single person to be seen for the whole length of the street that she could see in either direction. Stepping into the middle of the cobblestone street, she found herself indecisive, torn between the two ways she could chose and frustrated that she didn't have even the slightest hint of information to base her decision on. The only thing she could do was to choose randomly, and that was something she was really not fond of by any stretch of the imagination.

Where could he have gone? Evidently he hadn't just gone out to catch a breath of fresh air, since the air was quite fresh right where she was, as she was unable not to notice with a slight chill crawling up her arms, which she then crossed in front of her chest. Maybe she should have just gone back inside to wait for him to return. He would, wouldn't he? Surely he wouldn't just leave without speaking a word to her? But where then had he so suddenly gone off to – and at this time? Where, if not just back to the castle? She couldn't exactly hold it against him if he had just had enough of the party. He could have taken her with him, though.

Heaving a sigh of frustration she let her arms drop to her sides again, and only when the piece of paper slipped from her hand and dropped to the ground with the faintest of thuds did she realize that she had had it with her the whole time. Swiftly she scooped it right up again, and when she unfolded it she was surprised to find it empty once more. On a rather silly impulse she shook the parchment a little, as if that would bring the letters back. Why had Ron told her to take it with her, anyway? It wasn't exactly helping.

Lost in thought she kept her eyes on its surface, although she was hardly aware of where she was looking, until after a few seconds something in her field of vision changed and her eyes quickly refocused. And indeed, black ink began to reappear on the paper, just in the same fashion as it had before. Only this time – as it quickly became clear even before the writing was finished – the resulting message was different:

Follow that pretty nose of yours, then!

That left her even more muddled than the previous one, and for more than one reason. Its meaning wasn't half as clear to her even though it was twice as explicit a sentence, and having her nose called pretty was quite a thing to process for itself. Absentmindedly she slowly went up and down the bridge of her nose with her index finger until she realized what she was doing and then abruptly stopped, even though there was no one around to give her a justifiably quizzical look. She cleared her throat a little nonetheless.

Then she looked around once more, but this time – wittingly or not – she sniffed the air, thereby testing if the message could possibly be meant in a literal way and feeling rather silly for it. Whatever she could have hoped to smell, the cool air was fresh and invigorating, but altogether free of any discernible scent. So much for the use of her pretty nose.

Usually not quite that quick to quail, Hermione felt a sense of helplessness come over her, and closing her eyes with a sigh she let her head drop and remained like that for little while, concentrating on her soft and steady breathing and the quiet sounds of the night, the busy hubbub from the Three Broomsticks reaching her only faintly out here.

When she opened her eyes again with the intention of trying another glance at the letter she still held in her hand, she caught a glimpse of something strange from the corner of her eye – a bluish light on the ground right next to her – and instead turned to look at whatever it might be. Contrary to any expectations she could have possibly had, the source turned out to be the outline of a single foot, glowing brightly on the ground all in blue. While still quite puzzling in and of itself, this at least appeared to be rather unambiguous in its meaning.

Looking around to see if anyone had taken notice of this peculiar sight in the middle of the otherwise barely illuminated street, she found that, in fact, no one seemed to care. Knowing a thing or two about magic, she inferred that maybe she was the only one who could actually see the glowing footprint. But at any rate, there didn't really seem to be anything left to do but one thing, so she did what the footprint suggested to her and tentatively stepped right into it with her own left foot, surprised to find that it fit quite perfectly with only a little of the blue light still visible as it emerged from under her shoe.

At first relieved when nothing happened, then elated when another footprint appeared slightly ahead of the first one, thinking of her nose she whispered to herself, "Figuratively, then," and gingerly put her right foot onto this newly formed shape, equally glowing as the first one. With every step she took a new print appeared in front of the previous one and the faster she began to walk as her confidence increased, the faster the footprints were to appear, the glowing trail she left behind her slowly fading into nothingness. Following what seemed very much to be her own footsteps, Hermione couldn't help but feel like she was walking a path she unknowingly had already travelled.

Along the main street she followed the trail, passing by the quirky houses of Hogsmeade: the closed shops and the homes of those that lived their lives here, far away from Muggle civilization. A few windows here and there were still warmly lit in yellow and orange, but Hermione was too busy following the glowing footsteps through the night to catch many glimpses of anything else. So focused was she on the ground that she only noticed how the trail had just lead her off its main path, around a lamp post and then right back into the middle of the street for no apparent reason when she was already halfway around the lamp. Shaking her head with a chuckle, she continued undeterred.

Shortly after that absurd detour, Hermione – walking rather swiftly by now – actually ended up overstepping the footprints, when at some point they made a bend into an alleyway that in a different town might have had an ominous quality about it, yet here in Hogsmeade made no one even think twice. And so it was without hesitation that Hermione made a few steps backwards and then turned to get back onto the footprints, following them right through the alley and out again on the other side. There the cobblestone ended in line with the last houses, the road continuing in a less orderly and muddier fashion with wooden fences to both its sides and the view opening up before her, which of course she hardly noticed at all with her eyes fixed on the ground.

Then came a crossroads, where the luminous footprints led her to the left and even without seeing the corresponding sign she suddenly became aware of where they seemed to be headed, even though it had been many years since she had walked this path herself. Walking in the pitch black shadows of the trees that stood on either side, their boughs reaching over the narrow pathway and meeting in the middle above it, the bluely glowing footprints were now the only thing she could see as they led her through the darkness towards one single spot of light that soon appeared at the far end of the road.

Hermione wasn't exactly eager on telling anyone, but she actually was a little relieved when she was finally leaving the shadows of the trees behind and stepped into the cone of light surrounding the lamp post. Rationality only goes so far against humanity's most primal fear.

With a slight hop she stepped onto the wooden planks, and still following the trail of footprints took a right turn and walked past two of Hogsmeade's boathouses and then, turning left, in between the second and the third. After a few meters she stepped out from the shadows, the wide lake opening up before her under the starry night sky with the castle looming high above on the rocky cliffs on the opposite shore, many of its uncounted windows alit with candlelight; a sight eyes forever wondered to behold, as if walking through a waking dream in awe and disbelief.

No longer than a few seconds did Hermione remain enchanted, however, before she become aware of one single oil lamp burning near the end of one of the multiple jetties reaching out over the calm, dark water. Next to it lay a single boat, swaying softly up and down on the gentle waves. And then there was one human figure, kneeling on the planks with its back to her, by all appearance quite busy with something.

Drawn towards it quite instinctively, Hermione walked the last few meters across the softly creaking planks without paying much attention to the footprints anymore, and when she finally took one last turn to the right and stepped onto the very jetty she had fixed her eyes on, the last two footprints vanished beneath her feet, their blue glow fading away and leaving no trace behind.

Hermione remained still for a moment and took one deep breath before going on, slowly approaching the very, very mysterious person ahead of her.

"What are you doing there?" she asked him with a bemused smile, coming to a halt a few steps away from him.

He calmly turned around, making Hermione wonder if once more he had recognized her by her walk. Was she entirely incapable of startling him at least a little?

"Well," he answered, gesturing to his unfinished work with his hand, "right now I'm trying to loosen this ridiculous knot Hagrid apparently meant to keep this boat tied to this bloody bollard with until the earth gets swallowed by the sun eventually."

Hermione arched an eyebrow at him. "Don't you have your wand with you?"

"Yeah, uh," he began, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, "I think that only made it worse, actually."

Hermione's eyebrow went a little higher at that, then she gestured towards his wand. "Would you mind letting me try?"

Shrugging his shoulders Harry stood up and pulled out his wand he kept in a thin leather holster at the right side of his belt and handed it to Hermione, who pointed it directly at the knot without losing any time or words and no more than a second later, with a flimsy, buzzing string of white light emerging from the tip of the wand and winding its way through the rope, said knot was no more.

Feigning indignation Harry took his wand back from Hermione, who already held it dutifully towards him, and rolling his eyes mumbled, "Magic is so lazy."

With a smile Hermione replied, "Lazy wasn't exactly the first word to come to my mind when I received your letter and then followed a trail of glowing footprints through the streets of Hogsmeade, around a lamp post, then out of town and finally… here."

"I won't lie," he said, "I did have some help with that and as always my very first impulse was actually to come to you, only then realizing that you were the one person I couldn't ask in this case, so I instead went to Professor Flitwick about that footprint thing. I'm glad it all worked out, even though I had originally planned to be ready on your arrival."

"Ready for what?" she asked somewhat nervously, her eyes flickering to the boat and then back to him.

"Well," said Harry, then turned and casually hopped into the small wooden vessel with one swift motion, easily keeping his balance – for what is a boat when you are used to flying around on a broomstick? Then he turned around to face her, stretched out his right hand towards her and said, "For you."

Hermione felt a lump in her throat as she gulped ever so slightly. "I have only been on a boat once before," she told him, skeptically eying what seemed to her to be a pretty wobbly incarnation of its kind, not exactly inspiring the greatest confidence. "Not including that one time in Disneyland."

Harry gave a quiet chuckle, smiling warmly at her. "I'm perfectly aware of that," he said. "Now come on, it'll be fine. You rode a flying Hippogriff once, didn't you? How bad can an ordinary boat possibly be?"

"Well," she hesitantly answered, not quite convinced yet, "I was only able to do that because you were with me."

Harry cocked his head to the side, his smile now of the plainly amused kind. "I'm not quite sure I was entirely clear on this," he said, "but I wasn't exactly planning on waving you goodbye from the jetty while you take a leisurely cruise around the lake. I was kind of hoping that you'd let me join you, you know?"

Smiling shyly Hermione took one deep breath, then cautiously stepped to the edge of the planks, held out her left hand to reach for his right and then slowly stepped into the boat with her right foot, flinching a little when the vessel wavered slightly under the weight shift. Harry was quick to support her with both his arms and only let go of her when she safely sat at the stern, looking just a little lost as she apprehensively eyed her surroundings that now consisted of a bit of wood and a lot of water.

Stowing the rope inside the boat near a pile of a multitude of things in the bow and then proceeding to grab one of the oars, Harry was just about to push them away from the jetty when he noticed how timid she looked and stopped short.

"Hey," he spoke to her softly, "you made it sound like a good memory."

Hermione merely looked at him, not quite following for once, so he elaborated, "Six years ago. The boat trip to Hogwarts. The lake, the stars and the lights of the castle?" He motioned around as he mentioned each individual element, then looked back at her. "You didn't mention anything about cowering in fear on the verge of a panic attack."

"Yes, well," Hermione answered sheepishly, "the tale sounds much nicer when I omit a few unnecessary details."

A chuckle escaped Harry's lips, yet he quickly stifled it. "Seriously, though," he said, mostly composed. "We can abort this at any time. Putting you through any kind of ordeal wasn't exactly my intention."

"No, no, no," Hermione was quick to wave him off. "I'm fine. Honestly. I'll just have to adjust a little, that's all. I usually prefer to keep my feet on solid ground. But I can swim, you know?"

"Off we go, then?" he asked, just to make sure.

"Aye, aye," she confirmed with a smile, and Harry finally proceeded to push them away from the jetty.

Then, facing Hermione, he sat down with both oars in his hands and began turning them around so that she ended up facing the distant cliffs where Hogwarts reached into the night sky. He was glad to see plain wonder quickly banish all anxiety from her features. After a moment of simply taking in the breathtaking view she became aware of his eyes on her, and she looked at him in amused suspicion in turn as he slowly rowed them further onto the lake and away from the shore.

"You have really thought this through, haven't you?"

"I might have spent a moment or two contemplating the idea," he confessed with a nonchalant shrug.

"Some preparation obviously went into this," she observed with a look around the boat. "How did you do all this in so little time?"

"Well, actually," he revealed with some reluctance, "this wasn't exactly a last minute kind of thing." When Hermione gave him a quizzical look, clearly expecting further explanation, he continued, "I, uh, I had my mind pretty much set on doing it on Wednesday."

"Wednesday?" she asked, clearly surprised. So much had happened this week that Wednesday felt like half a lifetime ago.

"Yes. The idea came to me while brushing my teeth that morning. You know, after having left your… I mean, after having gone back to my… you know."

"Right," Hermione hastily affirmed.

"Yeah," said Harry, eager to skip the clumsy moment. "So, then I asked Hagrid about the boats yesterday—"

"Oh!" she exclaimed, excited as always when something suddenly made sense. "So that's what you were doing at Hagrid's place!"

"Precisely," he confirmed. "Originally, though, I was planning for this to be a little event for the three of us. You, me and Ron, I mean. Because, as you said yourself that night, the three of us will probably always stick together one way or the other."

"Why the change of plans?"

Harry hesitated for a moment before answering, "It is a pretty small boat."

"Of course," Hermione agreed amusedly, thinking of half the dozen people one could have easily fit into it in addition to Harry and herself.

"He was actually the one to suggest that my idea might be suited more for, uh, two people," he went on to explain. "And hoping that he wasn't actually referring to himself and me, I agreed. So after our manipulated encounter on the bridge I went straight to Flitwick to ask him how to accomplish these magical footprints and then I went to Hogsmeade directly after that to get it all done in time. And thus a plan came together."

"So it was a little last minute after all," she assessed.

"Half and half," he granted with a lopsided smile.

"And you learned how to do those footprints in, what, an hour?" she asked him.

"More like thirty minutes. Not to brag or anything," Harry replied, obviously bragging though clearly humorously so.

Hermione nodded in acknowledgment. "Consider me impressed."

"À propos," said he, "what do you think about your not so surprising surprise party that I kind of ruined on the bridge?"

"Well," answered Hermione, "as it turns out, attending a party is not quite the same as planning one, and I have to admit I prefer the latter. Let that not be mistaken for a lack of appreciation, though. It's a very nice gesture and I could honestly imagine much worse."

"You do have a vivid imagination, however," he remarked, just a bit suggestively.

"Oh, downright wanton," she replied, a bit more suggestively. "But I don't believe I'm the only one in this boat to whom that applies."

"Well, it's—" Harry pleasantly began, then stopped short and pensively narrowed his eyes. "Wait, were we just flirting? We were, weren't we?"

"Maybe," she allowed in perfect innocence.

"A-ha!" he happily exclaimed, putting the oars back into the water with a more excited splash on this turn, apparently rather pleased with himself. "I'm getting the hang of this."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," she told him, shaking her head with an amused expression.

"Why not?" he asked with a pout, which elicited a short chuckle from Hermione.

"When you are busier with celebrating your successful identification of an ongoing flirt," she explained, "rather than actually getting on with it, you aren't exactly on the fast lane of becoming a master of the art."

"Well," he answered with a sly smile and a voice that meant business, "we can always pick it right up again."

"Oh, stop it," she jokingly waved him off. "You'll make our boat sink in shame."

After sharing a pleasant laugh, they both fell quiet for a while as Harry calmly rowed on and on in slow and controlled circular motions, the boathouses quite a distance behind them by now and the castle coming ever nearer, and contrary to the one in Disneyland its actual size did not turn out to be a disappointing case of false advertising and childish imagination.

For a few minutes they both enjoyed the comfortable silence, the only sounds to be heard being the gentle ripples of water against the boat and the soft splashes of the oars. The slightest of winds calmly blew the cool night air across the placid lake, shimmering in the silvery light of the stars and the moon above.

"Are you cold?" Harry eventually asked her.

"A little, maybe," she admitted.

"I hope you won't accuse me of dubious intentions," he said, letting go of the oars and reaching behind him, "but I actually brought some blankets and pillows. Just in case anyone would like to be comfortable, you know? I also stole a few cookies and some pumpkin juice from the party. And I brought a flask of warm tea as well, since I thought you might prefer that."

Turning around with a red woolen blanket in his hands he found Hermione staring at him with both her eyebrows raised, making him stop in mid-motion.

"If I had known we were moving in together I would have brought my letter box," she said, hardly succeeding in suppressing the smile that forced its way onto her lips.

After taking a moment to properly stick out his tongue at her he reached over and put the blanket over her shoulders, which she gratefully held on to with both her hands to wrap it closer around herself.

"Thank you," she whispered.

Smiling at her, Harry leaned back and was just about to grab the oars again, when – after looking from side to side – he said, "Actually, I think we're there."

Hermione followed his eyes and looked around herself, mentally assessing that they were, in fact, still surrounded by a lot of water.

"Where?" she asked accordingly.

"In the middle of the lake," Harry replied naturally, once more looking first to the left and then to the right, then added with a shrug, "Or near enough, anyhow."

"Huh," made Hermione. "You do realize we could have made the boat move without you working the oars, though, don't you?"

"Well," he answered, "if you ask me, there are some things in life magic cannot make any more magical than they already are. Like with love potions, for example, or that spell that produces a birdsong even when there are no actual birds around. Or some good old-fashioned manual labor you want to show off with in front of the girl you're trying to woo."

"Oh, so that's what you were trying to do the whole time?" she asked playfully, ignoring the warmth she felt in her cheeks as the most immediate response to his outspokenness. "Did that start before or after you began appearing in my bed?"

"Well, you know me," he said in unsurpassable nonchalance. "I like to get right to business. I just gotta have things the moment I want them. So when I see a girl I like, I get to know her inside out and play the friend zone a little and then bam! – six years later I got her right where I want her."

"Like, in a boat with cookies and pumpkin juice?"

"Exactly," he said, pretending to be as conceited as it gets. "Works every time."

Once their mutually enjoyed laughter subsided, Harry asked her as casually as he could manage, "Would you mind if I made this a little more comfortable for us now?"

"Is that part of your routine, too?" she asked in return, grinning even while raising a playfully skeptical eyebrow at him.

"Of course," he answered, standing up and lifting the wooden plank he had been sitting on, then putting it away to the side. After that he grabbed another blanket from the pile of things in the bow and spread it out between him and Hermione, then touched the fabric with the tip of his wand. A second later the blanket abruptly inflated to something with a striking resemblance to a mattress, a few inches thick and filling the whole width of the boat.

"Well," Harry remarked, evidently rather surprised by the result himself, "now I really couldn't blame you if you were to get the wrong ideas. The emergency exit is right behind you, by the way."

"Oh, don't worry," she told him with a giggle. "I'm merely beginning to doubt that those ideas would be all that wrong to begin with."

"Excellent," said Harry, proceeding to grab a few more pillows and blankets from behind him to then spread them out on what now looked very much like a boat-shaped bed. Having done that he sat down right in the middle of it and looked up at Hermione with what was unbeknownst to him a most charming smile. "Voilà!" he said, presenting his work with a gesture of his hands. "Care to join me?"

Utterly unable to wipe the smile off her face and equally unwilling to resist, Hermione slid down from her seat to sit on the mattress-turned blanket with her legs crossed beneath her. For a few seconds they merely looked at each other, until the intensity of their locked gaze suddenly struck them both at the same time, and embarrassed they quickly turned to look somewhere else instead.

For a while they just sat there in mutually appreciated silence, listening to the wind, the water and the beating of their hearts, gazing up at the strikingly clear night sky alit with a billion suns that gazed right back at them from inconceivable distances with magnificent indifference.

"Beautiful," it escaped Hermione's lips in the softest of whispers, and Harry quietly agreed even though it was not the sky his eyes were set on while he spoke.

They remained like that for a few more seconds, until Hermione spoke up, "So, uhm," and at last she lowered her head, although she ended up looking at her hands rather than Harry, "I actually came looking for you because I wanted to talk to you."

"You did?" he asked, genuinely surprised.

"Yes," she affirmed. "I saw you leaving the Broomsticks and then wondered why you would just go without having spoken a single word to me. I wasn't angry or anything, just confused. And maybe just a tad worried."

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that," he said sincerely. "As you now know it was all part of the plan, and I was late to begin with since that thing with the magical trail turned out to be a lot trickier than I had anticipated, especially since I wanted the footprints to look more like your sexy feet rather than my boring shoeprints."

"I see," Hermione replied, pursing her lips to suppress a giggle that tickled in her throat. Then she softly cleared said throat before saying, "So, anyway, after receiving your letter I… I realized there was something I really needed to tell you."

"Hmmm," Harry thoughtfully made, putting an index finger to his chin. "While I am very curious to know what exactly that might be, could we maybe get to your birthday presents first?"

She gave him a questioning look. "I was under the impression that we were kind of in the middle of it."

"Oh, sure," he said with a look around the boat. "But surely you wouldn't expect me to fob you off with a cheap boat trip around the lake and then be done with it? Nah, I also got you this right here."

And with that Harry handed her a flat, black paper box. Somewhat befuddled enough even before gingerly opening it, Hermione was downright baffled when she held its contents dangling in the air in her outstretched hands: a black, tightly cut tank top with a conspicuously low neckline, adorned with a magically flickering flame on the front – glowing, nonetheless. When her confusion didn't seem to lessen even after blankly staring at it for a few seconds, Harry stepped in to assist her and explained, "Since you have such a hard time remembering how hot you are."

And then, to his heart's relief, she finally laughed just as he had hoped she would.

"Good gracious!" she exhaled once she was able to catch a breath. "I hope you are aware I'm never going to wear this in public. Not in Muggle public for obvious reasons, but not in wizarding circles either, for reasons that shouldn't actually be any less obvious."

"Oh, that's okay," he assured her casually. "I'll be totally fine with being the only one to see you in that."

"Uh-huh," Hermione warily said. "Well, it surely is quite something else next to all the gift coupons for Flourish & Blotts, Foyles or Blackwell's I always receive in heaps. Not that I don't like those, but they certainly do not glow quite so… tawdrily."

"Yep," Harry agreed, nodding contentedly as Hermione neatly folded the little fabric that was actually there to be folded and put it back into the box.

"I can only assume this was the highlight and centerpiece of the night," Hermione concluded with some amusement. "So we might as well call it a day."

"I won't lie," said Harry, letting his head drop a little for dramatic effect, "it's humanly impossible to top that. But be that as it may, it's still not everything I got. Maybe I should have better planned the order of presentation, though. So, uh, please adjust your expectations accordingly and note that I got this weeks ago."

"I'm effervescent with apathy."

"Perfect," he said, again reaching behind him and retrieving a small package wrapped in green cloth. From the touch alone Hermione instantly knew what it was, the remaining question – of course – being which one it was. Harry, obviously aware of her quick realization, commented, "I couldn't have one of your birthdays passing by without giving you at least one book. It would just feel wrong, no matter how many coupons you get."

He watched her intently while she unwrapped it, careful as always with her nimble fingers, and he had to restrain himself from telling her how elegant he thought her hands were, thinking that sexy feet and pretty noses had probably been enough signs of obsession to take for one day.

When Hermione finally held a 1968 first edition of The Last Unicorn in her hands, she looked up at him in disbelieving astonishment. "This was my first favorite book," she breathed.

"I know," he said, smiling brightly at her.

"My grandfather read it to me just months before he died," she went on, her voice most fragile as she stared at the book in her hands. "And it was exactly this edition, but the book was lost and never found again after his death. It was already so old, so battered and worn when he read it to me. Just like he himself, I suppose, although I didn't know about his illness and probably would not have understood even if I had."

"I know that too," he said very softly as he felt his heart aching for her.

"I still remember its smell to this day," she whispered, and then she opened the book in the middle and raised it up to her nose. "It smelled very much like this, just mingled with a little grandpa."

When eventually she lowered the book into her lap and slowly raised her head to look at him again, the sight of her face with two tears running down her cheeks from her glistening eyes had a multitude of effects on Harry, and most confusingly all at the same time. His breath was taken away by how beautiful she looked with her face cast in silvery light and shades of blue, and his heart seemed to break simply for the fact that she was weeping, and in his mind he wondered if this had been one of those awful ideas that turn out to be so much better in theory than in practice. His confused contemplation, however, was decisively cut short when he suddenly found himself caught in a fierce hug as Hermione flung her arms around him as if her life depended on it.

"Thank you, Harry," she breathed with a sob, her head resting on his shoulder. "Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me." And then she sighed, and to Harry's puzzlement it sounded a little annoyed. "Ugh, what a stupid thing to say," she admonished herself. "Of course you know what this means to me. That's exactly why you gave it to me."

Harry couldn't help but chuckle at that, and he was relieved to hear her join him. After a while of remaining in their tight embrace and savoring the comfort of their closeness, they both leaned back a little, although they ended up sitting much closer to one another than they had before, their legs still touching. As Hermione wiped the wet traces of her tears from her face with the sleeves of her shirt, Harry, still a little unsure of himself, asked her, "It wasn't a bad gift, was it?"

"What?" Hermione asked in return, genuinely incredulous. "Of course not! How could you even think that?"

"Well, I wasn't exactly planning on making you cry on your birthday," he replied a bit ruefully.

Hermione exhaled a sigh and looked at him affectionately, which he of course missed entirely since he was too busy with staring down at his hands. Noticing that, Hermione reached out and gently put her own left hand over his right, and he looked up at her in surprise.

"There are some tears we can count ourselves lucky to shed," she told him softly, and then – as her lips curled up into a smile – she added, "Trust me, it was one of the best gifts I have ever received, worth so much beyond its probably substantial price tag I have yet to reprimand you for. In fact, it's second only to this gloriously garish top right here."

"You are still hoping that flame on there will eventually burn the bloody thing to ashes, aren't you?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione innocently answered as her middle finger began to teasingly wander about his palm, which – unbeknownst to her – gave Harry goosebumps. "I suppose it could be kind of funny under certain circumstances."

Gulping Harry said, "If you go on like that I'll have to go straight for a dive in the cold water."

"Do I really have that kind of effect on you?" she asked him, and now it was his turn to sigh.

"Hermione, how many more tacky shirts will it take for you to finally believe me?" he asked her, half annoyed and half amused. "You really seem to have no idea just what kind of effects you have on me."

"I'm sorry," she answered. "I still have a hard time wrapping my head around all these new… things. And I just don't generally see myself like that."

"Well, I do, and you'd better believe that," he told her emphatically. "And I'm sorry to say, but I see our friendship in serious jeopardy if we can't agree that you are nothing short of a dish."

At that she giggled, unaware that even the sounds she made had their particular effects on Harry. "I guess I'll just have to take your word for it, then."

"You do that," he softly said with a smile, and afterwards they again were quiet for a while, yet not without communication as their hands remained in touch, tentatively exploring, tenderly caressing. Fingers slowly travelled along the lines and shapes of their counterparts, met and intertwined, went on and around and elsewhere found their way back to each other.

"Hermione?" Harry eventually spoke in a near-whisper, his gaze still kept by the connection of their hands.

She looked at him in silence for a moment, her frightened heart wide open, racing with tempestuous hope and anticipation as it dared to glimpse the things that might come next, until there was nothing left to do but say with one last act of will, "Yes?"

"I… I need you to know that I do not take anything you said on the bridge lightly. In fact, I've wrestled with many of those thoughts myself over the course of this week. It's not like I don't think about these things at all, you know?" And then, with a coy smile he teasingly added, "It's just that, at some point, I tend to actually come to some sort of conclusion…"

For that he earned a deserved, albeit playful slap on the leg.

"Seriously, though," he continued. "I understand your doubts and your worries, I really do. And I would even agree with them all if it weren't for one simple fact."

He looked directly at her then, and she met his eyes unwaveringly.

"We can't go back, Hermione," he said. "We've already crossed the threshold. The door is wide open and we can't just close it and forget what we glimpsed inside. It's too much, too big, too deep. You said so yourself. We can't pretend. We can't ignore these thoughts and feelings, these new sensations that have awoken inside of us. We can't just go back to being blind and stupid. Our friendship has already changed. It has already begun to grow into something else. And we can't undo that. And frankly, I don't see why we should even want to.

"Yes, there are risks. Of course there are. I don't profess to know the future and I'm not naïve enough to believe there will be no challenges along the way. I wouldn't go into this expecting us to be perfect bliss and harmony all the time. I would fully expect us to be tested. I would expect fights and tears and broken things. But I also find myself unable to imagine that we wouldn't work our way through it each and every single time, because that's just who we are. How we've always been.

"Would we be taking a gamble? Maybe. But isn't that what everybody does? You either take the leap or you don't, but you don't take the leap because you know what will happen. You take it because you see a vision of something that is worth taking any risk for. In these matters there is no certainty. Never and for no one. There is only your own heart to cling to and the chance for something great and wonderful, and you either seize it or you let it slip. And the way I see it, we are actually far ahead of the game. I mean, so many people are married, have kids and are just one more breakdown away from calling their lawyer even before knowing each other half as well as we already do.

"But we know, Hermione. We might not know what we're getting into, but we do know who we would be getting into it with. I know you better than I know myself and you know me best of all. I cannot look at this as anything but the best thing that ever happened to me. To have been lucky enough to meet you under these most improbable of circumstances. Lucky enough to become your friend and have you in my life to cherish. And then to be lucky enough to… to fall in love with you, Hermione Jane Granger. My best friend. To realize what you really mean to me. That's a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. And I would never forgive myself for not trying everything to make it real.

"I don't want to be with you because others seem to expect it. I don't want to be with you out of convenience. I don't want to be with you because we're a good team. I need you, yes. That has been abundantly clear for six years now. Six years I wouldn't even have survived if it weren't for you. But I don't love you because I need you; I need you because I love you.

"And when I say that… it's more than just words. It's not an empty phrase. It's not a reflex and it's not a fancy way for hormones to speak up in the name of procreation. It's not a fleeting thing, not merely an impulse born from an ephemeral emotion. When I say that I love you, I mean exactly that. I love you for who you really are, and I know it. Because I know you. I don't just love the way you see me, or the way you make me look. I don't love my own reflection in your eyes. I love you, and only you. Everything you are.

"And honestly? I don't believe that's the news of the week. That is not what has changed. My eyes may have been opened, yet what they see has been there all along – right in front of them. The only thing that has changed is… is that I can't stop thinking about you. That I can't stop wondering how your lips would feel on mine. That I can't stop pondering if your skin would feel as soft as it looks. That I can't stop yearning to be near you, with nothing left between us.

"I just… I want to be with you, Hermione. In every possible way two human beings can be together. And yes, if we were to fail and break apart, I honestly don't know what would remain of us. But the thing is, I just don't see us failing. I can't. I think this is it. This is our chance. You and I against whatever the world might throw our way. The only way for us to fail is to deny it. The chance for something great is there for the taking, but we still have to reach for it with our own hands and we can only do that together."

His stream of words left a silence so complete that time seemed to have stopped, yet their two hearts were the clocks that reminded them of life with every beat. When Hermione lowered her head, something inside of him faltered for one agonizing second, until he felt something touch his left hand and he looked down as well to find that now both his hands were intertwined with hers. And then, quite simultaneously, they both looked up again and their eyes met with absolute immediacy.

And Hermione softly whispered, "Then let's."

And both their eager hearts were drumming wildly as they slowly leaned into each other, their eyes either gazing into the depths they were ineluctably drawn to or flickering down towards the pair of lips their own longed so much to touch, parting ever so slightly in trembling anticipation. With only inches left between them their eyes locked one last time, and whatever veil had once been between them was there no more. There now was nothing but devotion as they surrendered to each other utterly and completely, and their eyes fell shut as their lips most tenderly met, giving in, giving up to a force far too strong to resist as it surged through the cores of their very being, unifying them.

Soon their hands went each their way, seeking to touch necks and cheeks and run through hair, travel down spines and up the length of arms, wrap around a slender waist and hold on to shoulders wide. As their lips and tongues increased in boldness and in hunger, their kiss intensified as Harry gave in to Hermione's body pushing against his own, and he slowly let himself drop onto his back with her on top of him.

Besotted and enthralled by every sound and touch, inebriated with each other's scent and taste, their sensual frenzy continued for minutes upon minutes without restraint or respite as waves of pure emotion kept washing over them, engulfing them completely, an insatiable celebration of an affection that only now found itself set loose.

Until, of course, their lungs began to protest, and even though that in turn made every other part of their heated bodies protest vigorously, without air to go on even their greedy lips had to yield to necessity eventually, and so their first kiss came to an end, leaving an echo in every fiber of their being and an imprint on their young hearts.

Lying right next to each other they both were panting for breath.

"If I had known this was what we were missing out on—" Hermione breathed, huffing and puffing.

"Yeah," Harry wholeheartedly agreed, smiling dreamily. "I'd say we have a lot of catching up to do."

Hermione chuckled as much as her lungs allowed. "I'm looking forward to it."

For a minute or so they let their bodies calm down, or recharge, as both of them quietly preferred to call it.

"By the way, what did you want to tell me?" he asked when this distant memory from the mundane life before their kiss came to him and he found the breath to speak more properly again.

"Oh," Hermione replied a bit woozily, her breathing more composed by now, but still having trouble catching a coherent thought. "Just to forget everything I told you on the bridge."

And then she looked up at him, and he looked right back at her with a mixture of amusement and puzzlement on his features.

"Seriously?" he asked her. "That's what you came here to tell me?"

Without breaking their gaze she nodded, then softly, tentatively whispered, "And… and maybe that I… that I want you… that I need you… that I love you."

For a moment he looked overwhelmed, lost in the emotional currents that surged through him. Then, however, his lips turned into a lopsided, somewhat mischievous smile as he tenderly caressed her cheek with his thumb, and he said, "Well, I suppose that would've worked too."

And then his lips closed around hers once more, and she received him readily, eagerly, as a soft moan escaped her throat only to get lost somewhere amidst the unbridled dance their tongues were quick to resume, and everything around them seemed to melt away into something infinite, with the both of them at the combusting center of it all: the fierce eruption of an ardent desire finally unveiled, at last unleashed. Two young souls embarking on a passionate discovery of lands uncharted, unknowingly – in their unreflecting relish of the moment – making memories that would last them for a lifetime.

And when at last, yet not without reluctance, their lips parted in blissful numbness and exhaustion, they lay together entangled and entwined, breathing heavily as their delirious hearts – beating side by side in unison – calmed only slowly. Yet so tired they were, and so perfectly their bodies fit together, that neither of them, relieved of all conscious thought, was aware of how they gradually, gently drifted off into a deep and dreamless sleep, adrift in the middle of the lake under the starlit night sky, caring not for whatever shores the waters might eventually take them to.

And in this September night neither of them teleported anywhere, for they already were exactly where they both belonged.