Harry Potter and the Cupid's Ring Ch.2 (Harry Potter)

A/N: Still no lemons in this chapter, but it should be in the next one.

Summary: Harry tests just how accurate the ring is, starting with Hermione. He should have remembered that she was no fool, making his actions all too suspicious. In the end, it was still the best decision he had ever made.

Only after a good night’s sleep did Harry realize that he was making far too many assumptions. The red aura around Hermione didn’t necessarily mean she was in love with him. It could just mean whatever the maker of the ring wanted it to be. Since Harry never had a hint that Hermione was in love with him, the color red might even be lower in rank than pink. After all, Ginny was the one he expected to have the most affection for him, and she only had a pink aura, not red.

Harry pointedly ignored the spike of disappointment at that possibility. He stood in front of a mirror for much longer than usual, wanting to ensure he looked his best, even though the school robes limited what could be done. While Harry was trying to futilely tame his messy hair, Ron walked up next to him.

“What’re you messing with your hair for?”

Harry wondered if the Potter family had some sort of trait that demanded unnameable hair and sighed before giving up.

“No reason. Just wanted to try something different for a change.”

Ron looked at him dubiously, “Looks the same to me, mate.”

“Yeah,” Harry glared, “I know.”

With a shrug, Ron followed an irritable Harry down the stairs to the common room. The redhead waited impatiently for Hermione to arrive so they could leave to get some breakfast. Still, Harry was more than happy to just look around.

He already had the ring on his finger to see what other girls’ auras looked like with a closer view. Harry was glad he knew what to look for since the faint pink auras around some of the girls could be passed off as a trick of light. None of them came close to what he saw around Ginny yesterday, and even compared to Cho, it was still lacking. Harry was curious to see that none of the girls had a color different than pink. It still didn’t tell much about what Hermione’s aura meant.

As if he had a premonition, Harry’s eyes locked onto the entrance of the girl’s dormitory and soon saw it open to reveal Hermione. She was rummaging at something in her bag while walking down the stairs. Harry suddenly realized that he found Hermione adorable when she frowned in concentration and froze in shock at that revelation.

Since when was Hermione adorable? Studious, sure. Loyal? Of course! But adorable?

Hermione had already been standing in front of Harry and Ron for a few seconds when she saw that Harry was just as absentminded as he was yesterday. She silently looked at Ron for an answer, but he was too oblivious to see what she was asking. Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Should we go to the great hall? Or stand here and do nothing for a few more minutes?”

When Harry didn’t respond, Ron couldn’t take it anymore and said, “I’ll save you two seats. You can fix whatever mood Harry’s in, Hermione.”

Hermione ignored the redhead and tapped Harry’s face lightly, “You in there, Harry?”

“Huh?” Harry blurted stupidly and quickly looked away with a blush. He knew he had to act normal, but it was near impossible with his thoughts.

Hermione wasn’t a stupid girl. She had seen this behavior before from Harry, so she mentally checked off the list in her head and came to a conclusion. Harry was thinking about a girl he had a crush on. The first girl that came to Hermione’s mind was Cho, but Harry seemed a little desensitized to the Ravenclaw after that kiss in the Room of Requirements. She gave him a stink-eye for a few seconds before deciding it wasn’t her business.

“If we don’t get going, Ron’s going to clean out the table.”

“Ah, right,” Harry nodded, “Er, we should get going then.”

Hermione rolled her eyes at having to experience Harry moping around until he asked out whichever girl this was. Since she was walking in front of him, Hermione never noticed Harry sneaking glances at her and his eyes wandering where they never had before. If she bothered to turn around to catch Harry’s eyes on her arse, Hermione would have figured out she was the girl he was distracted by.

[Break]

Harry fidgeted in his seat while he looked at Hermione’s curly hair as she concentrated on her assignment. They were in her favorite place in the castle, and while Harry usually preferred not to be in the library for too long, he made an exception today to sit with Hermione for longer. The excuse he used this was to find out what the red aura means, but Harry knew he was falling for his best female friend.

Hermione caught him a few times and asked if he needed help on something, but always got a quick shake of the head as an answer. She accepted this a couple times before she got irritated at the constant distraction and snapped the book she was reading shut.

“That’s enough!” Harry flinched at Hermione suddenly standing up, “We need to talk, Harry. Follow me.”

Harry scratched the back of his head and wondered what had gotten into her. Nonetheless, he packed up and followed Hermione out of the library until they stopped in a hallway with nobody else around.

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

Harry’s eyes bulged, “What? What do you mean?”

“Oh, honestly,” Hermione sighed, “Do you think I’m that thick-headed? You’ve been distracted and acting like a love-struck fool since yesterday. Who is it this time? Staring at me won’t….”

Hermione broke off her sentence and stared wide-eyed at Harry. To Harry’s surprise, the red aura around her solidified a little to become more visible and almost opaque. When this happened with Ginny, it was because of something he had said, but Hermione just rambled until this happened.

“It’s me.”

Harry frowned and asked cautiously, “You?”

“The reason you’re acting so weird. It’s so obvious! I mean, you’ve been looking at me like a wizard that won the lottery.”

Harry’s face paled and wondered how the tables were turned on him. He was trying to be sneaky and find out if Hermione was in love with him, but he didn’t consider how sappy he must have looked while staring at the brunette.

“What?!” That didn’t mean Harry wouldn’t try to deny it, “Don’t be ridiculous, Hermione. You must be imagining things.”

When the red aura around Hermione dimmed even more than it was initially, Harry panicked and blurted out, “Or maybe you might have a point. What if you are the reason?”

If Harry wasn’t convinced about what the red aura around Hermione meant, then what happened next explained everything. The faint red aura turned solid as Hermione’s face lit up with a beautiful smile. Harry froze as he tried to process what it meant, but before he could get too far, Hermione’s brown eyes got closer and closer until he could see flecks of gold before she closed them and her lips touched his.

Harry’s arms went around Hermione’s lower back to loosely hold her against him as his lips moved against hers in a soft kiss he never wanted to end. When Hermione pulled away a few minutes later, Harry thought she never looked more beautiful.

“…Wow.”

Hermione giggled and copied him, “Yeah… wow.”

“What brought that on?”

“You just told me you like me,” Hermione rolled her eyes, “And I told you I feel the same.”

“Ah,” Harry said with a stupid smile, “Brilliant. So, uh, you don’t like Ron then?”

Hermione leaned back in shock and wondered why he thought that. “Ron? We’d be an inch from murdering each other if we got together. Did he say something to you?”

“Er, no? I thought it was obvious with how you two acted after the yule ball. That was jealousy, right?”

Hermione stared blankly at Harry’s face before giggling. She patted his cheek patronizingly, “I didn’t think anyone could be so wrong, but here you are.”

Harry was slightly offended, “Hey! I knew you loved me, so I can’t be that bad!”

Hermione narrowed her eyes as she stared at him. She truly loved Harry, but Hermione felt she did an excellent job of hiding it. After all, she had felt that way since the third year and had time to practice keeping it from showing. Hermione then noticed the ring that Harry was nervously playing with. She remembered him saying that he got it from his Gringotts vault and didn’t pay it too much attention. Still, even a simpleton would have realized something was wrong with that story after taking a closer look at it.

“Where did you get that ring again, Harry?”

Harry stiffened and tried to remember what he told her, “From Gringotts?”

Hermione hummed in thought and stayed silent for a minute before saying, “I know that’s not true, but I’ll let you keep your secret for now.”

Harry relaxed, and his eyes went back to her pink lips. They had the perfect amount of natural pout that made him want to kiss it away. “I really want to kiss you again.”

Hermione gave him a lopsided smirk and said, “What’s stopping you?”

This time, it was Harry pulling Hermione into a kiss. Their lips molded together before Harry cautiously licked at Hermione’s lips, asking permission to be let in. She did so immediately, and their tongues met for the first time as they groaned into each other’s mouths. The newly formed couple would have sloppily kissed the day away if Hermione wasn’t hyperaware of the time.

She broke off the kiss reluctantly after a while and blushed when strands of saliva connected their lips after separating. Hermione quickly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand to clean up the mess before saying, “We need to get to class. There’s plenty of time to continue this afterward.”

Harry nodded and let her drag him to class. So the red aura definitely meant that the girl loved him. He smiled with satisfaction as his gaze started wandering again as he stared at Hermione from behind.

[Break]

“So… you and Hermione?”

Harry pretended not to see the conflicted look in Ron’s eyes as he nodded, “Yeah, it happened yesterday.”

“What about Cho? You were going on about her for a bit.”

“Cho’s nice, but she isn’t Hermione.”

Harry inwardly scoffed at choosing someone that had such little affection for him. It might not be fair to Cho since Harry didn’t really give her a fair chance, but neither did he expect to like Hermione as much as he did.

“That’s… great.” Ron’s tone suggested that it was the opposite of that, but Harry would take what he could get. Even though Hermione claimed that getting together with Ron made no sense to her, it was apparent that Ron didn’t feel the same.

“Yea,” Harry said with a smile, “It’s been great so far.” He tilted his head toward where Hermione and Ginny were sitting and asked, “You want to join us to do classwork? Might as well get it over with so we can relax later.”

Ron grimaced, “I rather not, mate.”

“Suit yourself,” Harry shrugged, leaving to join Hermione and Ginny.

Hermione leaned over to give him a short kiss when he sat down, revealing how easy it was for her to deal with the change in their relationship. The new couple still blushed at doing that in view of everyone, but Hermione had decided that practice makes perfect. Harry was sure she was applying that phrase for activities that weren’t meant for it, but he didn’t have any complaints about it.

Harry turned to greet Ginny, but his mouth refused to work when he saw her. The pink aura around the redhead had solidified and was turning a faint red color at the edges. As far as Harry understood, kissing Hermione in front of Ginny should have made the pink aura dimmer, not strengthen to the point of upgrading to red.

“Hey, Harry.” Ginny greeted with a bright blush while looking between him and Hermione.

Harry’s mind was filled with question marks as he wondered if Ginny had regressed into the girl that worshipped him. He couldn’t see why else there would be such an aura around her. Harry found that very unlikely, especially when Ginny was so different a few days ago. It was then that he noticed a faint pink line, something almost invisible, connecting Ginny to Hermione.

Harry was alarmed when he saw something other than just the auras around girls interested in him. Maybe this pink line was why Ginny was suddenly about to fall in love with him? But if it was, why was it connected to Hermione?

Harry cleared his throat and said, “Hi, Ginny. Sorry for the PDA. Hermione can’t get enough of me.” It felt odd saying that as if he was trying to show off, but Harry wanted to see if Ginny had any reaction to it.

He ignored that slap Hermione gave to his shoulder and watched the blush deepen on Ginny’s face. More importantly, the pink line connecting her to Hermione got slightly darker.

What in the name of Merlin’s saggy balls was happening??