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Harry was tired of hiding out. He was tired of war. He was tired of eating nothing but oatmeal since they couldn’t go out to the market. All in all, he was tired of almost everything, except for Hermione Granger, who he was stuck with in this tiny flat in Chelsea while she taught him how to mix his own Vivificus Potion.

Harry was also tired of potions.

“Touch it and I’ll kill you,” Snape had said while trying to teach him this very same potion last week. “If you go near it before it’s completed, it’ll be completely worthless, and then where will we be, Potter, hmm?”

But Harry had buggered it up, as usual, and Snape had howled and bitched at him until Hagrid had had to drag him away to scream at McGonagall about her incompetent protegee. Harry could almost still hear him slamming the door to his bedroom, mid-rant, back at Grimmauld Place.

So Hermione was teaching him instead, in a different safe house in Muggle territory, so that Snape would have a week to cool down.

One thing Harry was not tired of was the feeling of her hand brushing his every so often. Nor, for some reason, was he tired of her teaching him, because that meant he could watch her without having to have an excuse, especially the way her hair fell over her shoulders and across her face.

It was at a critical juncture in the procedure that a car door slammed outside, making both him and Hermione jump. Magical bomb blasts and wands cracking sounded dreadfully similar to certain makes of car doors (namely cheap French models), and so Harry found himself on the floor with Hermione in his arms, for some reason.

He wasn’t entirely sure how she’d gotten there.

They were quiet for a few moments, long ones. Then Hermione said, “‘There is so much silence between the words.’”

“What?” Harry was confused. He hadn’t said anything. In truth, he’d been too busy hoping that he wouldn’t do anything stupid, like accidentally touch her breasts or something.

Hermione’s lips quirked in a tiny half-smile. “You didn’t say anything, I was wondering if you were all right.” She made no move to get up.

Harry enjoyed looking at that smile. He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he couldn’t resist leaning in and kissing said lips. It was convenient—they were, after all, right there--but he was still surprised when she started kissing him back, tasting of the vanilla sugar she’d put on her oatmeal that morning (she hadn’t said where she’d gotten it, but she’d offered him some and it was fantastic).

It was later, when they had straightened their clothes and returned to the business at hand, that Harry had ventured to say, “It’s odd the way things work out sometimes, isn’t it?”

Hermione merely smiled in response, mixing in some newt scales.

FIN