The outer office is quiet. Harry’s secretary has already left for the day, and Hermione only saw a couple of people during the walk from her office. It’s taken a lot of patience to wait until the end of the day to confront him, but she didn’t want to make a fuss while she was working. Now, she’s off work, so it’s okay if she ends up hexing him.

She enters his office without knocking and closes the door before she crosses her arms and looks at him. “What did you do to Terry?”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Hermione,” he says dryly as he looks up from the open file on his desk. He looks her over in a way that makes her skin warm. It happens so fast that she’s not sure whether she imagined it or not. He leans back in his chair. “What about Boot?”

Right. Terry. That’s why she’s here. Not to imagine Harry looking at her as if she’s a woman instead of the asexual best friend. “He’s been ignoring me all day. No, it’s not even that. He doesn’t look at me and he runs away whenever our paths cross. I know that you must have done something. He looks terrified whenever someone mentions your name.”

“Let me see if I understand this. You came here to my office to accuse me of doing something to Boot?” Harry smirks in a way that makes her belly tighten before he shakes his head. “Maybe Boot feels embarrassed about flirting with you at work.”

“I saw you talking to him this morning, Harry. He was fine yesterday, so something happened during your talk.” She walks further into his office and sits down across from him. “You’ve been acting weird all week, but you’ve been downright sneaky today.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being sneaky, Hermione. In fact, it comes in handy with my job. Stop acting like I’m suddenly a Slytherin because you’re annoyed that your boy toy isn’t flirting anymore.”

“I’m not treating you like a Slytherin, not that there’s anything wrong with any house. We all usually have traits from each one, after all,” she reminds him. “And he’s not my boy toy! He’s a co-worker who is acting like I’ve got the plague.”

“Oh, of course. We can’t be Gryffindors all the time, after all.” He rolls his eyes at her. “Always trying to be inoffensive.” Then he scowls. “I don’t want to talk about Boot. I’ve been dealing with difficult cases all day and the last thing I need is to be blamed for whatever you think has happened with him. Maybe he’s just embarrassed that you refused to go out with him.”

“I didn’t refuse.” She watches his eyes narrow as his lips curve into a more defined scowl. “I told him that I was flattered by the offer, and I’d have to think about it since we work together.”

“I didn’t do anything to him. I just told him that it wasn’t appropriate for him to force himself on you when you’re in the same sub-department.” Harry isn’t looking at her, which means he’s lying. She knows him well enough to recognize that, and she wants to know what he really told Terry. “Besides, you weren’t going to accept his offer, so he needed to get over it.”

“Who are you to determine what he needs to get over? I might have said yes. Terry is a nice looking man. He’s also smart and interesting.”

“He’s not right for you.” Harry pushes his chair back and stands up in a fluid motion that distracts her for a moment. No man should be able to move that well. He gives her a look that makes her think he can somehow read her mind, which makes her blush as she looks away. This is Harry. Her Harry. Not some attractive man that she can ogle freely. “Want something to drink?”

His question makes her look at him again. He’s taken off his work robes and loosened his tie. It’s difficult to think about a drink when he looks so bloody sexy in his business clothes. She’s becoming more pathetic with every passing day. Since she realized that her feelings for Harry weren’t entirely platonic, something that she suspected years ago but refused to acknowledge until recently, she has wondered if it would end up driving her crazy. She still doesn’t know.

“Drink?” he repeats, looking much too amused for her taste. Before she can answer, he pours a glass of elderflower wine, one of her favorites following a busy day at work.

“He might be right for me,” she finally says, embarrassed that it’s taken her so long to reply. She accepts the glass from him and looks up when he doesn’t let it go.

“He isn’t,” he says sharply. “You can’t date him.”

She frowns at his tone and bristles at his command. She stands up because it’s difficult to argue with him when he’s towering over her chair. “I can do whatever I want, Harry Potter. I’m a grown woman, so I can date Terry if I want. In fact, I think you’ve convinced me that I should say yes.”

“No, you can’t,” he growls. She feels something splash on her legs and hears something shatter as he lets go of her wine glass. Before she can say anything, his fingers are tangled in her hair and his lips are pressed against hers. She tenses for a moment before she grips his shoulders and returns the kiss. When he pulls back from the kiss, he’s breathing hard and his face is flushed. “Forget Boot.”

Her lips are sore, and she thinks that he might have even bitten her during the fierce kisses. She’s confused and uncertain, but she knows that she didn’t imagine the kiss or the way he’s looking at her right now. She should probably be offended by his possessiveness, but she finds it arousing. After trying to figure out what’s happening, she finally gives up and decides to just go with it. She leans up and whispers in his ear, “Boot who?”, before she kisses him again.

End