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Biding My Time: Our Way	By : watchyerback Category: Harry Potter > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 9795 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Disclaimer:
JKR owns the players and the stage. I'm just fiddling with the
scenery.

CHAPTER
NINE:

Hermione had
emerged from Harry’s room looking pale and troubled. She
had told Ron about the pensieve, but not that she had used it to
enter Harry’s dreams. Aside from sheer embarrassment, Ron
would be livid if he knew just how graphic those dreams were.

And yet that
wasn’t what caused Hermione to hurry to her room, lock the door
and run a long, nervous shower. It was only when she was
shakily dressing again that she realized the wetness on her cheeks
wasn’t water but tears. She sat up on her bed, hugging
her knees, and stared out into space.

I was unconscious
for over an hour.

The realization
had sent her heart thrumming with fear. An hour!
Insensible and alone with a boy whose every hormonal impulse had been
boosted by not just one, but two magical artifacts. Had he
... did he after all?

Aside from
checking herself, Hermione had cast every spell she could think of to
make sure. As far as she and magic could tell, she was ...
intact.

It didn’t
make sense. Harry had gone through all that trouble. Why
would he stop right when she was defenseless?

Before touching
the pensieve, Hermione had braced herself for the slew of rape
fantasies she was sure she was about to witness. But however
disturbing Harry’s dreams were, she was forced to admit that
they weren’t exactly that. Though unwilling at first, by
the end the dream witch always gave her tacit or even active
consent. In one fantasy, Harry had even had her take the
initiative.

In my dreams
you always gave me a chance.

When Harry had
said that, she had dismissed it as bitterly and easily as his sudden
protestations of love. Now it was starting to sink in that
maybe he’d been telling the truth.

Which meant that
somewhere in there, fighting the potion with every breath in his
body, was the boy she had always cared for deeply.

Out of nowhere
came a memory - the three of them, younger, standing side by side.
They were at Hogwarts for what was nearly the last day of school,
watching the Beauxbaxton and Durmstrang students depart. They
stood over a stone balustrade just high enough for their hands to
rest on. She had taken the boys’ hands – she had
felt inexplicably sad and apprehensive that day - Harry’s in
her right and Ron’s in her left. To her surprise Ron
hadn’t shied away, hadn’t even glanced at her. But
Harry had looked down when he felt her hand, smiled at her briefly in
that sweet way he sometimes had, and grasped her fingers firmly in
his before turning his attention back to the flying coach and the
underwater ship.

It was that
boy Hermione fretted over and wanted the best for, and for any of
that to happen he had to live. In the solitude of her room, she
could admit that what Lupin had hinted at was true - she had never
thought herself in love with Harry, certainly not in the same
prickly, maddening way she loved Ron, but she did love him. To
keep Harry safe and alive, she would stand between him and Voldemort
any day.

But not like
this! Life-threatening danger she was ready for, but this -
this filth the Dark Lord had thrown their way wasn’t
something she was sure she could deal with.

What do I do
now?

================

“Harry.”

The young wizard
stirred. Befuddled and groggy, he opened his eyes and
automatically groped for his glasses. “Yeah?” he
asked sleepily. For a second he couldn’t remember where
he was. Had he been knocked out by a bludger? Or is it
time to go somewhere? He’d lost count of the number
of times he’d woken up to Hermione’s voice ...

Then it all came
rushing back. His eyes shot open and he scrambled back from the
figure sitting by his bed so quickly that he almost fell off.
“Hermione!” he croaked in shock.

Whatever
trepidation the girl had been feeling at talking to Harry vanished.
His funny awkward panic was so much a part of the person she’d
grown up with that it made her relax her guard. For the tiniest
bit. “Tonks is just outside,” she informed him
warningly. “We need to talk.”

Her face was
serious and puzzled, and so utterly familiar at that moment that
Harry could almost believe that the last few days hadn’t
happened. “O – okay.”

“That
night, what happened while I was out?”

Harry turned pale
at her words.

“I was
unconscious for a long time, wasn’t I?” she probed.
“Just tell me, Harry.”

He obviously
didn’t want to. He’d been relieved when he first
realized that no one had figured out how much time he had spent with
Hermione before Lupin and Tonks had found them. He had hoped
that it would stay that way. Hermione hated him enough as it
was.

But the witch’s
expression was intractable. “I carried you upstairs.
I ... kissed you,” Harry confessed in a shaky voice. He
had trouble meeting her hard hazel gaze. “I - I touched
you.”

She stiffened.
“What did you do?”

Finally,
haltingly, he told her.

The Gryffindor
captain carried his unconscious burden carefully up the stairs.
When he reached his bedroom he laid her down gently on the bed.
His heart beat furiously the whole time. He was sure that at
any moment Hermione would wake and hex him senseless, but through it
all she didn’t stir. Only her steady breathing assured
him that she was alright.

He sat on the
edge of the bed and for several minutes he just watched her as he had
done many times before. The difference between then and now lay
in how hungrily his eyes roved over her.

The young
wizard didn’t know how long he stayed that way, fighting the
urge to touch her. He felt that it was different, more
dishonest somehow, to touch her now than when they’d been on
the couch. He couldn’t say why. It wasn’t
trepidation; Hermione would already be blazingly angry with him for
what he’d done so far.

She’s
going to be furious when she wakes. He grinned at the thought
but it quickly faltered. The step he had taken tonight, even if
he stopped right now, changed everything. “What am I
doing?” he mused as he reached out to brush a stray lock of
hair from her face.

Once there his
fingers could not resist straying and curling against her cheek.
He traced the familiar lines of her face until he was running his
thumb over the curve of her lips. I’ve never touched her
lips before, he marveled. I’ve held her hand, hugged her,
taken her arm, patted her shoulder. Touched her in the little
ways allowed between a boy and a girl who were best friends.

Suddenly it
wasn’t enough. “Wake up, Hermione,” he
whispered as he bent down to taste her again.

He couldn’t
believe how impossibly soft her lips felt. The kisses he had
stolen downstairs had been fast and awkward. This time he could
savor the sensation and marvel at how sweetly her breath mingled with
his. He’d imagined kissing her for so long. Mostly
he squelched the idea as soon as he could, but the first time it had
taken him unawares. They were alone in the woods and thirteen, and he
was suddenly absurdly conscious of the fact that he was a boy and she
a girl and there was no one around but a distracted hippogriff.
He had gripped his hands tightly to keep himself from moving.
Then they had started to talk, and after that they were simply
friends again.

This time he
felt like nothing could keep him away from her. He pressed his
lips to hers again, more firmly this time. Before he knew it he
was lying down beside her. One hand buried itself in her hair
and tilted her face up to meet his kisses. The other snaked its
way down the smooth column of her neck.

He didn’t
know how long he spent like this, but eventually the one-sided kisses
weren’t enough. He wanted to know the body he’d
been dreaming of for days.

His lips
trailed down her neck while his hands traced each intriguing curve
through her clothes. He flattened his palms when they met the
bare bits of skin revealed by her disarrayed clothing.

For awhile he
avoided her blouse-covered breasts. A last twinge of conscience
made him pause before he gave up and ran his palms over them. Once.
Twice. On the third pass, he stopped. Already half-hard,
the teenager stiffened to almost full arousal as he cupped her
breasts. In his mind he imagined Hermione baring them to him,
encouraging him to touch them. He carefully rubbed her breasts
until he could feel her nipples starting to poke at his palms through
her blouse and bra.

He wondered
what it would be like if she touched him. The thought
was irresistible. With trembling hands he grabbed her left hand
and brought it to his aching groin. If he closed his eyes it
was easy, so easy, to pretend that she was awake and moving her hand
over his length.

“Oh
yeah, like that,” he groaned, as his right hand tightened over
hers and her fingers rubbed harder against him through the cloth of
his trousers. He returned his left hand to her breasts.
He started to knead them, specially the right one which was easier to
reach. Soon he was squeezing her breast in time to the movement
of their entwined hands below, not always gently. The twin
rhythm was driving him mad ...

Until Hermione
made a sound and stirred. Startled, Harry scrambled off the
bed. While he stood there, breathing hard and watching her
awaken, he realized that the door to his room was still open.

The young
wizard walked over and closed it. And that was it, the point
when Harry knew he couldn’t or wouldn’t hold back.
He wanted her and this was his only chance. To the devil with
the consequences.

By the time he
finished, Hermione had her arms unconsciously wrapped around herself
protectively. In some ways what Harry had told her was both
better and worse than the images she’d been torturing herself
with.

“How could
you do that to me?” she finally managed. There was a
world of hurt and shock in her words.

“I’m
sorry. I wish I could take it back,” Harry answered in a
self-loathing undertone. As remorseful as he was, he couldn’t
deny the stirring in his groin. His fingers tightened on the
sheets as they tingled with the memory of what it felt like to touch
her, the pliant softness of her skin. “If I had known
what those dreams would lead to, what I’d do to you ...”
he trailed off miserably. What sort of monster am I turning
into?!

He struggled to
clear his head. “Lupin told me about the drug in my
system.” For the first time since Hermione had entered
the room, Harry looked directly at her. She was astonished at
the fury pouring from his sharp green eyes. “I will find
Snape, and when I do he’ll PAY! I’ll do whatever it
takes,” he snarled through gritted teeth. “I’ll
take both him and Voldemort down, and I don’t care if I have to
die to do it!”

Hermione had seen
her friend in this kind of rage only a few times before.
Despite everything that had happened, the glittering hate in his eyes
disturbed her. Only, this time she was angry too. “For
what they did to you, they deserve it.”

“For what
they made me do to you.” The raven-haired boy
shook his head. “It doesn’t matter so much if it’s
me, do you understand? They’ve been after me from the
first and I guess after all these years I’m used to it.
But this, this happened only because you and Ron are the people I
care about most. And Snape knows it, damn him.”

And there it was,
the opening Hermione had been looking for. “What does
Snape know, Harry?” she asked slowly, knowing he couldn’t
refuse to answer her, not now.

His gaze dropped
again. “It was when he was supposed to be training me in
Occlumency. Snape kept darting in and out of my head, daring me
to stop him. He found some memories of you and suddenly he
stopped. He did that sneer of his and said he wondered how ‘Ms.
Granger would feel if she knew.’ I was indignant. I
thought of course a friendless git like him wouldn’t understand
our friendship.”

“What
memories?” she pressed.

“Just
memories.” He continued reluctantly, “Us running
away from Lupin when he turned werewolf, watching you dance at the
Yule Ball, that night when you patiently and tirelessly made sure I
learned the Accio spell, the time we argued because you
insisted I teach Defense Against the Dark Arts since I knew what it
was like to face Voldemort ...” Stop hedging, Potter.
She deserves the whole truth. “Other times.
When you hugged me or took my arm while we were walking, or squeezed
my hand. Some of those the first times anyone touched me like
that ... I mean, affectionately,” he explained quickly as
her eyes widened. “With the Dursleys it was always ...”
he trailed off as a feeling rose in him, a certainty that he wanted
that from her again. That, and if possible, more.

He tried to fight
the emotion down but it was so much harder now. “I’m
sorry,” he repeated.

“It was
Voldemort and Snape,” Hermione spat out. But she sounded
too much like she was trying to convince herself too.

“It was
me.” Harry swallowed as her eyes snapped up to meet his.
“In the end, it was me. I’ve wondered and I ... I
wanted ...”

“This is
the Solvamus talking.” There was a cold warning in
her voice.

“Please
don’t think I would’ve ever hurt you if those things
hadn’t been in me,” he said, pleading. “But
Lupin explained how the potion works. I’m responsible
because in the end it was my feelings that -”

“STOP.”
Hermione got to her feet so fast that her chair scraped back.
Tears glimmered in her eyes, but there was fury also. “You
should’ve told me!” she burst out angrily. “All
this time I thought we were just friends and I was safe with you.
I would’ve - I should’ve been more careful!” she
cried.

Her last words
caught Harry’s attention. “You should’ve been
more ...? Hermione, don’t tell me that you think this is
somehow your fault!” He was absolutely incredulous.

“Maybe.
I mean, I’m a girl, aren’t I?” she asked
caustically. “I’m supposed to watch myself around
blokes. I’m not supposed to go around hugging them and
hanging around them alone ...”

“That’s
just plain idiotic!” Harry cut in, sounding argumentative for
the first time in days. “You never acted that way around
other blokes. Just us and that’s because we were your
friends, your best mates! We’ve known each other since we
were kids and we’d been through so much. You treated us
like we were your brothers or something. If we started feeling
different, then that was our lookout wasn’t it?” He
sounded genuinely indignant and even mad.

Hermione was so
surprised at his outburst that for a second she couldn’t think
of anything to say.

The boy raked a
hand through his hair. “Look, I know I should’ve
told you, but I honestly thought I had it under control. I
didn’t want things to get awkward between us and I didn’t
want to lose your friendship just because of some stupid impulse.
Then it got obvious that you and Ron ... then Ginny came along and I
really liked her, and I thought I was past it ...” He
took a deep breath. “So it’s not your bloody
fault! Don’t ever let me hear you say that again.”

The girl stared
at him. Now that Harry had mentioned Ginny, she couldn’t
resist asking, “And Cho? I’m not trying to pry,”
she added quickly, “but it is hard to understand.”

“I liked
her,” he confessed, a red tinge in his cheeks. “Maybe
not as much as Ginny because it never got that far, but it just
didn’t work out. With Cedric hanging over us we should’ve
known that it wouldn’t,” he said matter-of-factly.
“A lot later I realized that I kept getting thrown off because
I was unconsciously expecting her to act more like you. I mean, I’ve
seen you cry and get scared, but in the end you pulled yourself
together and did what you thought needed doing. I was young. I
couldn’t understand why, if she liked me, she’d break
into tears over Cedric even when she was with me.”

“Harry,
that’s not fair,” Hermione couldn’t help saying
with a touch of reproach. “It must’ve been
unimaginably hard to deal with. If it had been Cedric who’d
returned alive with your body, I would’ve ...” She
shuddered.

“So you do
care for me a little.” Harry couldn’t help sounding
pleased.

She looked at him
steadily, and for a second he thought he’d gone too far.
Finally she responded, “I always have. Don’t
pretend you don’t know that.” She brought a hand to
her forehead. “Dammit, Harry, what are we going to do with
you?”

It was as if they
were back to being friends, discussing their next move in the face of
another crisis. With his throat tight, he answered, “There’s
nothing you can do. Just go. Leave this house,” he
forced himself to say.

“What?”

“It’s
not safe for you here. The potion’s still in me. I
can feel it working.” He gave a humorless laugh.
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’m clutching the
sheets, trying to stop myself from grabbing you.”

Hermione nodded
and stepped away. She did not miss the way Harry twitched as
she made to leave the room, but in the end he stayed where he was.

She did not look
back.

=============

After a restless
night mulling things over and over, a drawn-looking Hermione met with
Lupin and Tonks in the library. She scanned the room.
“Ron?” she asked.

“I asked
him to keep watch,” the former professor replied.
“Harry’s asleep now, but seeing how easily he’s
been slipping past our binding spells, it’s probably better to
have someone on guard. So long as Ron doesn’t try to kill
him again, Harry should be in good hands.”

Despite his
attempt at levity, Lupin was shooting her an odd look. Being
more familiar with the trio than most, he knew how unusual it was for
one of them to be deliberately kept in the dark. He did not
understand why Hermione had sent him an owl in the middle of the
night asking him to keep Ron occupied while the three of them met.

As if she’d
heard his unspoken question, the young witch said, “I need to
talk this over first. If I’m wrong then Ron doesn’t
need to know about this. Ever,” she declared, her eyes
flashing.

Lupin and Tonks
exchanged glances and waited.

Hermione sank
down into a chair across from them and fiddled with a quill
nervously. “Professor, Tonks told me the two of you got
here at ten?”

The lycanthrope
briefly considered. “Around that time, yes.”

“Harry fed
me a drug that made me unconscious,” she stated flatly.
This came as no surprise, because they had called in Madame Pomfrey
to check her that night. The next part, though, was something
only she and Harry knew. “I only woke up a few minutes
before you arrived.”

The girl’s
earlier request to speak to Harry alone suddenly made horrific sense
to the Auror. “Are you telling us that Harry ...?
Hermione got here a lot earlier, Remus,” she explained to the
confused man. “She could’ve been out for a long
time before we arrived.”

The older man
looked alarmed as everything clicked into place. Dear Merlin,
with the Solvamus and the augmenter both working on him, the
half-crazed teenager must have -- “Hermione,” he
choked, “I’m so sorry.”

“No,
no!” the focus of his sympathies cut in hastily. “He
didn’t - I’m not, I wasn’t,” she stammered.
Oh brilliant, Granger. She took a deep breath and
continued more steadily, “Harry had me completely at his mercy
... but he didn’t do anything much until I woke up.”
That wasn’t quite true, but Hermione didn’t want to be
the one to tell them that Harry had groped her for the better part of
an hour before she regained consciousness.

“I
think,” she tried again, “that I may have found a flaw.
There might be a way to save Harry.”

She could see
that they didn’t understand what she was talking about.
“You have to give them this much, it was a really fiendishly
clever plan. Harry hurts me and kills himself, or one of us
does it for him. Or he goes mad trying to resist the Solvamus.
Any which way it happens, Voldemort wins.” She laid it out as
objectively as if she were speaking about a particularly vexing
problem in Arithmancy. “It almost worked; it still
might. But it’s possible that they made a mistake.”

The two adults
leaned forward with bright relief etched on their faces. At
that moment, Hermione knew that what she’d been right in her
suspicions. The Order had not found a way to save the boy who
might be their only hope against Voldemort.

“The plan
is founded on Harry ... forcing himself on me,” she started
again. She shied away from the word rape. She raised her
face towards them, and they were alarmed to see that her eyes were
brimming with tears. “If you take that element out ... if
– if I were willing ...”

Strangely, it was
Lupin who immediately rejected the idea. “No.”
Such sacrifices should not be necessary, he thought, not
from children. What kind of victory would it be if it was
founded on sacrifices like these?

Tonks was shaking
her head. “Hermione -”

“Wait.”
The young witch held up a hand that barely trembled. “Think
it through. It doesn’t make sense. You were the
ones who said that no one’s ever resisted the Solvamus.
You add the augmenter to that and you can see why the Death Eaters
thought Harry would break down in hours. Professor, you say
that he was able to fight it for so long because he has uncommon
self-control. That may be, but I can’t believe Harry’s
that different from those wizards who were targeted so long ago.
Trust me, he does get angry and he can get pretty impulsive.”

“I’ve
been mulling it over for days and there’s just one logical
explanation. The augmenter boosted the Solvamus, yes,
but I think it hindered it, too.”

“Explain
that.” Despite her shock, Tonks found herself leaning
forward curiously.

“Historically,
the augmenter works on love and lust. I was unconscious and
helpless for at least an hour. If all Harry wanted was THAT,
why wait for me to wake?”

“You mean
Harry really cares for you, and the augmenter boosted that?”
the Auror said.

Unlike before,
Hermione didn’t try to deny it. “He does,”
she answered with a certainty that hadn’t been there before.
“The three of us have been through too much for us not to.
So Harry hid what he felt because he chose our friendship over his
feelings. For much the same reason, we’ve stuck to his
side despite the danger to ourselves and our families. Harry
didn’t ask us to. He never had to.”

She pressed on.
She wanted to make her point while they were still listening.
“That’s where they miscalculated. Maybe Pr –
Snape,” she corrected herself. After everything he’d
done, the potions master had lost all right to the honorific. “Maybe
he did sense that Harry was on some level attracted to me.
Harry told me Snape had access to his mind when he was being trained
in Occlumency,” she informed them. “But that
attraction didn’t cancel out the fact that we genuinely care
for each other, too.”

“Harry’s
been able to fight the Solvamus because the feelings he has
for me were boosted along with that attraction. Which means that the
way to save him,” Hermione steeled herself but her voice still
shook, “is to give him what he wants. It won’t be
r-rape, and Harry won’t kill himself when the potion wears
off.”

“Absolutely
not!” Lupin exclaimed.

“Professor,
when we first spoke, you told me we had seven days. By tomorrow
there will only be five. Does anybody even know for sure that
there is an antidote?” Her hunch that the Order was
facing a blank wall in their search for Harry’s cure was
confirmed by the stricken look on their faces.

The pink-haired
Auror regarded the young witch uneasily. She had the feeling
that the girl hadn’t come up with this idea on impulse.
“You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?”

Hermione lowered
her gaze. “I saw the flaw within hours of what Professor
Lupin told me, but I knew I couldn’t do it. But when I
saw Harry’s dreams ... There’s no right and wrong in
dreams, no need to hold back,” she explained. “You
can give in to every secret impulse because it’s not real.
But Harry’s dreams weren’t ... As disturbing as they
were, they weren’t what I feared or expected.” She
flushed at the memory of what she’d seen.

“That’s
why he had to wait for me to wake up,” she concluded.
“Because he was gambling that his dreams could come true.
Harry ... Harry wants to win me.”

Lupin was shaking
his head. “Even if you’re right, do you realize
what you’re suggesting? I remember how scared you were
when we broke into that room.”

“Remus,”
the Auror said reproachfully. One glance at Hermione's face showed
how hard it was for her to talk about this at all, much less discuss
it with a man, and a former professor at that.

“But Tonks,
she has to understand --”

“I think
she already does,” Tonks answered quietly. “Give us a few
minutes alone please.”

The wizard pushed
his chair back. “Hermione,” he tried one last time, “I
know you’re worried about Harry, but this really isn't
necessary. There has to be another way.”

Once
the library door shut behind him, the pink-haired woman didn’t
waste any time. “I think your plan’s brilliant and very
brave, but Remus has a point. Do you have any idea what you’re
getting into?”

The
young witch bit her lip. “If I do this, the potion will wear
off. It won’t kill him and ... Ron won’t because
it’s my decision. That leaves Harry. So long as he’s
convinced that it wasn’t,” once more she hesitated over
the word to use, “non-consensual --”

“Which
means,” Tonks interrupted softly, “that it shouldn’t
be.” She let her words linger. “You said it
yourself. The key to your plan is for you to be willing. Not
pretending,” she stressed, “but truly willing.
There’s a huge difference.”

Hermione’s
eyes went wide. “You mean ...?”

The Auror nodded.
“I have a feeling that when that potion wears off all that boy
will see is how he drugged one of his best friends and pawed her
until she was in tears, and how he tried to steal her away from the
bloke who might as well be his brother. So unless you can show him
otherwise, it won’t be Ron's reaction we’ll have to worry
about,” she continued grimly. “Whether it’s right
then or days or months after, Harry won’t be able to live with
himself.”

This
update took a ridiculously long time for a whole slew of reasons.
The good news is the next chapter should be up faster, maybe in one
or two weeks. Btw, more reviews may lead to a faster update.

tabitoo:
Here you go. I'm really sorry it took so long. Well the story's got
to end sometime but don't worry, it won't happen soon. I'm sure
Harry was happy he got to keep that dream, too. =) Whoa, that's
quite a compliment! Thank you! I'm just trying to make this fic as
good as I can. Hope it's working.

Avanell:
Thanks! This should answer some of your questions. As for what'd
happen if Hermione touched the augmenter and looked at Ron, you might
find out soon. =) I'm trying to write it in so it might happen a
couple of chapters down the road.

Spectator
Beholder: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it, specially the dream
episodes! I'm a bit nervous about the high expectations but I'll do
what I can. Ron might normally be understanding about stuff like
this but I doubt that applies when Hermione's involved.

NEW AUTHOR'S NOTE: While AFF was down, I posted this story on another site (not sure I can say which site here, but if you look at the reviews someone mentioned it). The story posted on that site goes according to the plot as originally planned. I've had an idea or two since then that takes the story in a different direction. That's what's going to happen to the story posted here. =) To avoid confusion, I've altered the title slightly. From here on in, there will be some differences between the chapters posted there and here. I'll try to have an update to this version up in a week or two.
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Biding My Time: Our Way