Harry Potter hadn’t known love, not really. He had lots of friends, real friends, but although he supposed he loved Ron, it wasn’t the sort of love which songs are written about. He’d never known what it was like to have a loving mother or father, and he wondered sometimes if he was even capable of recognising love or giving love. How could he? It wasn’t something he’d been taught. He would watch Ron hug Ginny and feel envious of his friend: he didn’t have that. The first person he could remember hugging him was Hermione so many years ago when they were so very young.

He liked to think that he’d become less emotionally cut off since then, and it was due in no small part to Hermione. Since sometime in their Fifth year, she’d been openly affectionate with her best friend, often hugging him or kissing him on the cheek. The Gryffindors were used to seeing Harry and Hermione snuggled on the sofa in front of the fire, Hermione patiently forcing him to do his homework properly instead of just copying it off her. He loved Hermione too: his best friend, confidante and the only girl he’d ever kissed, even if it was just on the cheek.

Harry wasn’t stupid or blind. He knew that there were lots of girls at Hogwarts who’d sacrifice small puppies to go out on a date with him. But he didn’t care about them in that manner, so he would always politely turn down any invitations to Hogsmeade. He preferred going into town with Ron and Hermione anyway. He didn’t understand why the other students were so intent on going out with as many members of the opposite sex as they could. Surely that wasn’t the point? What was the point if one wasn’t in love? He might not have been taught to love by the Dursleys, but he’d worked that one out on his own. He found it hard to just look at girls around school and just think ‘Cor!’. He knew they were attractive of course- he wasn’t blind and he was most definitely seventeen years old. But that knowledge of their beauty seemed detached from his heart. Aside from thinking Lavender, for instance, was particularly pretty, he thought nothing else. He didn’t fancy her and he certainly didn’t love her.

When I give my heart,
It will be completely,
Or I'll never give my heart.

Then he realised why there was such detachment. He was already in love and unable to love anyone else. Hermione. Why had he not noticed before? How could he have been deaf to the choir of voices in his head who sang loudly every time she kissed him good night? How could he have been numb to the sparks that ran up his arm every time he touched her? Then it hit him: He hadn’t been deaf, dumb or blind. He just hadn’t been ready to accept it. Now that he realised, he understood that he’d been in love with her for much longer than anyone might imagine. It went back further than that first kiss in their Fourth year. It went back further than their first walk around the lake and back further than the gift of a Broomstick Servicing Kit. Perhaps it truly went back to that very first hug. Hermione was the girl who taught him affection and love. He loved her. Simple as that. For all his worries that he might never know how to love, it seemed such an easy thing to do. He was in love with Hermione. Simple.

But for now, Hermione’s kisses remained platonic and she was unaware that her best friend loved her. He could wait until she was ready. Because he loved her, he could wait. If it took a year or more, he would wait. He didn’t need or want anybody else, just Hermione. And he would wait for her.

And the moment I can feel that
You feel that way, too,
Is when I'll fall in love with you.

All lyrics from ‘When I Fall In Love’ by Nat ‘King’ Cole. (Words and music: Heyman/Young)