Title: Anvils in the Rain

Category: Romance/Humour

Rating: PG-13

Summary: What happens when it starts raining ANVILS in the Hogwarts’ corridors, and Hermione gets struck on the head? OBHWF, right? Wrong! A (hopefully) humorous and fluffy one-shot, written in response to *that* interview, for all those who believe Harry and Hermione are meant to be together in spite of the anvils and the incredible perfection that is Ginny Weasley.

Disclaimer: It’s all JKR’s, which I suppose is a good thing. I don’t want the literature police coming after me for character assassination.

A/N: This is my first fanfic, so please be gentle with reviews!

*****

Anvils in the Rain

It was late, but Harry Potter could not sleep. His day had been a stupendous cocktail of the most dramatic realisations, and as he lay there, a pensieve’s worth of thoughts made sleep about as achievable as teaching Grawp to tap-dance. Something momentous had happened, something so incredible that Harry could hardly contain the excitement swelling in his chest.

He had fallen in love.

Harry chuckled as he recalled the preceding catalogue of disasters that left no hint of Cupid’s imminent arrival. In fact, a mind-numbing meeting to discuss the Halloween Ball and a Ginny Weasley-induced train-wreck of a Quidditch practice had almost convinced him to give up for the day when Cupid’s arrow struck. That afternoon, thanks to one of the most ludicrous objects imaginable, Harry Potter realised he was in love with Hermione Granger.

It all started when Ron filled his butterbeer with a goblet-sized portion of felix felicis. He would not explain quite why he was taking so much of the now infamous potion, but Harry did not need Hermione Granger’s brain to realise that Ron was about to profess his love for their bushy-haired best friend, and he was looking for the kind of shot in the arm that only magic could provide.

Unfortunately for Harry, the upshot of Ron taking the blasted potion was that he could no longer spend time with Hermione, for whenever he would so much as glance in her direction, it would start raining anvils! At first, Harry found the whole situation rather amusing, but that all changed when one of the anvils had struck Hermione on the forehead.

At that moment, Harry had been paralysed with unmitigated panic. An icy shiver as cold as the arctic winter had slithered down his spine, a terrible acidic burning had risen in his throat, and the muscles in his legs had shaken uncontrollably as she lay lifeless on the corridor floor.

It had happened before in the Department of Mysteries, but this time, as he waited by Hermione’s bedside for the smallest flicker of life, he had plenty of time to ponder why he always lost control when she was hurt. And to his horror, he realised there was only one possible answer.

He was in love with her.

Harry got out of bed, having finally given up on sleep, and padded downstairs to the Common Room. He came to an abrupt halt when he realised the room was not empty. Hermione was sat alone by the fire, reading in her favourite armchair. Harry’s eyes were drawn once again to her forehead, the imprint of the anvil’s logo, made up of five initials, still illuminated prominently in the fire light - ‘OBHWF’.

Harry took a moment to savour Hermione as she sat there, oblivious to his presence. The soft fire light sparkled like precious diamonds in her bushy brown hair, and the flames glinted in her chocolate-brown eyes, which were swollen and puffy as if she had been crying.

Harry was absolutely bewitched by her. She was more beautiful than any veela, and he was absolutely gobsmacked that he had not noticed it before. That anvil had opened his eyes to how stupid he had been the previous year, chasing after something superficial with Ginny Weasley when true love had been staring him in the face. And she was staring him in the face….

“Harry!”

Harry was so startled he jumped off the bottom step and landed on the Common Room floor. Somewhere in the middle of his reverie, Hermione had noticed him standing there, staring at her like she was a priceless art sculpture. Except no artist could ever do justice to his Hermione.

“What were you staring at?”

“Nothing,” he gasped, squirming like Dudley when Aunt Petunia caught him with his hand in the biscuit tin.

“Liar.”

“I wasn’t staring at anything.”

“I know you were staring Harry. I’m not stupid. I can see it all over your face.”

“See what on my face?” he asked, brushing his blushing cheeks manically. He had hoped his newly-realised adoration would not be so transparent.

“I know what you think of me. I heard what Ginny said.”

The monster in Harry’s chest swelled with an unquenchable fury as he recalled Ginny’s callous reaction on Hermione’s return to the Common Room. Quite what ‘OBHWF’ stood for had been a hot topic of conversation among the Gryffindors, and Ginny, being the most brilliantly-funny witch of her age, said it probably meant One Boring Hideous Waste of Flesh. The rest of Gryffindor Tower fainted with laughter on hearing her bile-filled jibe, but Harry was incandescent with rage. How had he ever liked this callous doxy? Only he had seen a mortified Hermione running off to her dormitory in shame, tears pouring out of her eyes and her hand covering her forehead.

“Ignore her, Hermione, she’s not so great herself. You should have seen her at Quidditch today, trying this new strategy. I tried telling her, but she thinks she can do anything after that ridiculous England call-up. She ended up ploughing straight into the Quidditch pitch at top speed. Completely ruined the rest of practice.”

“So that explains what Hagrid was doing earlier,” Hermione mused, her eyes flashing with barely-concealed delight.

“Well he had to fill in the hole somehow, and Buckbeak’s Hippogriff dung was the only thing to hand I suppose.”

Hermione giggled. “I always knew Buckbeak would be important in the grand scheme of things. Why wasn’t Ginny injured though?”

“Oh, you know the script. She’s not allowed to be anything other than flawless these days. She just climbed out of the hole and dusted herself off.”

“Yeah, and I bet her oh-so-perfect hair was still glinting in that perfect halo of light that lights up her perfectly angelic face.”

Harry was taken aback by the bitterness in Hermione’s voice, and he suddenly realised why she was sitting alone in the dead of night, looking so beautifully dishevelled. She had obviously taken Ginny’s joke to heart.

“I hope you didn’t - ”

“I’m not deaf, Harry. I heard that joke earlier, when she said I was hideous. And I could see it in your eyes a minute ago. You agree with her…”

Harry’s incredulous laughter cut her off. He could not help himself. Not only was the idea of hideous Hermione completely ridiculous, but she also had absolutely no idea what he had been thinking. And she was supposed to be the smartest witch at Hogwarts.

“Stop laughing at me, Harry. It’s not funny!”

“Look at me, Hermione.”

Hermione refused to look up. She had suddenly become fascinated with a loose thread in the fabric of the armchair. He asked her to look at him again, and when she refused, Harry made his way across the room and knelt down in front of her.

“Look at me, Hermione,” he said softly, tenderly placing a finger under her chin and tilting her head up. Harry’s heart plummeted when he saw unshed tears in her eyes.

“You could never be hideous, Hermione. Never.”

“You’re just saying that because it’s me.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are Harry,” she said, nodding her head vigorously. “I was nothing special to look at in the first place. And I know you, and the girls you go for. Fleur Delacour, Cho Chang, Ginny Weasley, each and every one of them with their perfect hair and perfect teeth and…”

“You’re worth a thousand of every one of them,” Harry whispered fiercely, his eyes so full of naked adoration that Hermione blushed.

She could not help but be touched by his sincerity. The truth was that Ginny had touched her rawest nerve. When Hermione looked at herself in the mirror, she still saw the buck-toothed, bushy-haired bookworm that would never get a boyfriend staring back, and it did wonders for her confidence to see the honesty in Harry’s eyes, which continued to gaze at her reverentially.

“Thanks, Harry,” she said, smiling slightly. “You’re going to make quite the devoted boyfriend one day. All the girls are already queuing up to be your date for the Halloween Ball you know.”

“Oh yeah, that,” Harry spat despondently, resisting the urge to ask whether she would be joining the queue. “It’s worse than the Yule Ball. I had this group of Ravenclaws surround me in the corridor today, all rubbing up against me and telling me I could catch their Golden Snitch any time. It was awful.”

“Oh yes, Harry,” Hermione replied, rolling her eyes, “I’m sure it must have been absolutely dreadful for you!”

“Well I suppose it’s the price I’ve got to pay for being roguishly handsome,” he said with a grin.

“Or it could be the fact that you’re Witch Weekly’s Most Eligible Bachelor!”

“Perhaps, or…. WHAT?!?!”

Hermione smirked at the look of horror on Harry’s face.

“Harry, where have you been?! Lavender and Parvati think Christmas has come early just being in the same house as you! The things they’ve told me they want to do to you. And the questions! Honestly!”

“And what exactly have you told them?”

“Only the truth, Harry,” Hermione winked conspiratorially, her eyes dancing with mirth.

“You better not have told them anything bad about me, Hermione, or I’ll…..I’ll…”

“What will you do, Potter?” she challenged, leaning forward on her elbows as the corners of her mouth twitched with delight.

Harry’s face went blank for a moment before an unnerving gleam filled his emerald green eyes.

“This!” he exclaimed, grabbing her around the waist and tickling her mercilessly.

“Stop it Harry! Get off me! Not there, anywhere but there!”

After their two-minute tickle-fest, Harry and Hermione were left lying in a heap on the Common Room floor. The only sound filling the room was the crackling of the fire, which continued to bathe them in a soft golden hue. Suddenly, Harry jumped to his feet and sank into Hermione’s chair, a clear challenge in his eyes. This time, Hermione did not bite.

“I won’t fight you for it, Harry. I’m too tired.”

She climbed laboriously to her feet and stretched, giving Harry a ringside view of Hermione’s body, which was silhouetted against the light. Harry gulped audibly. He had not really noticed until then that Hermione was wearing the most tantalising pair of pyjamas he had ever seen. The flimsiest of white pyjama tops became almost transparent in the firelight, affording Harry a view that sent his temperature soaring, and the tiniest pair of pink pyjama shorts had him lamenting Hogwarts’ failure to introduce compulsory figure-hugging pants for every witch. 

He was still getting used to the fact that he loved Hermione, but Merlin’s ghost, where had that body come from?! It took every ounce of willpower not to grab her and do all sorts of unspeakable things to her. But as soon as these glorious fantasies filled his imagination like a red-hot tidal wave, Harry suddenly became very aware that he himself was only wearing boxer shorts, and a potentially very embarrassing situation was developing in a place-that-must-not-be-named. Blushing scarlet, he pulled his legs up instinctively, but Hermione chose that moment to do the one thing he did not want.

“Well, if you’re going to sit there, you won’t mind if I sit on your lap, will you?”

She said this like it was the most natural thing in the world, clearly unaware of the effect she was having on him. Hermione had sat in his lap on more occasions than he could count, but that was when they were wearing clothes, no more than best friends, and his blood flow had not taken a rather apparent detour south….

Ignoring his obvious discomfort, Hermione dropped into Harry’s lap and curled into a foetal position, her hair falling around his face as she put her head on his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck. Harry thought he had died and gone to heaven.

“What are you grinning at?” Hermione asked him, yawning absently.

“Nothing,” he replied much too abruptly, causing the blood to flow to his cheeks.

Much better my cheeks than anywhere else, he thought.

“Yes you were, Harry, you looked like Hagrid would if you told him Norbert was coming back.”

“Well, if you must know, I was thinking about this girl I want to take to the ball. She’s beautiful.”

Harry was too intoxicated by the smell of Hermione’s hair and the feel of her body to notice her tense slightly.

“Anyone I know?” she asked in a would-be casual voice.

“Yeah, you know her quite well,” Harry said non-committally.

Hermione sighed wearily.

“Well you should just ask her then. I’m sure she’ll say yes. She’ll be a very lucky girl.”

“Yeah, well, I am Witch Weekly’s Most Eligible Bachelor,” he replied, wiggling his eyebrows, making Hermione giggle.

“Honestly, Harry. There are plenty of things I could tell those girls that would put them off you for life, and then you’d be left alone with little old me.”

“Yes I would,” he whispered solemnly, “like it always has been and always will be. Hermione, I’ve never really had the chance to tell you…. When I thought I’d lost you in the Department of Mysteries, and then when that anvil hit you today…. I don’t know what I’d do…”

“Well, you’re not going to lose me, are you? You’re stuck with me whether you like it or not, Potter,” she said, poking her finger into his naked chest playfully.

“I know Hermione, but I’ve already lost my mum and dad, and Sirius, and Dumbledore. You’re the only thing I’ve got left to live for….. and Ron, of course,” he added hastily. “I won’t let you die. Voldemort will have to go through me first.”

He had tightened his hold on her almost imperceptibly, but Hermione revelled in feeling Harry’s heart beat against her chest.

“Listen, Harry. I’m not some damsel in distress you know, so don’t you go all noble on me and try and hide me away. I’m not Ginny. I’d never let you walk away without me by your side. And I don’t need some knight in shining armour to protect me from the evils of the world.”

“But if you did, would you choose me?” he whispered teasingly into her ear, his warm breath sending shivers down her spine.

“Well, I would offer Neville the job,” she said impishly, “seeing as you and him are the only real heroes around here, but I suppose if he was too busy, you’d do.”

Hermione laughed at the look of incredulity on Harry’s face.

“So I’m not enough of a hero for you now?” Harry pouted.

“Boys and their egos! Honestly! Of course you are, Harry, you’ve always been my hero.”

“And you’ve always been mine. You’re the only one who knows what I’m really like.”

 “Yes, Harry, and you should be grateful for that too. We wouldn’t want to shatter the heroic image those fan girls have of you now, would we? Honestly, sending you Valentine’s messages without ever even speaking to you. How pathetic.”

“Ginny did that.”

“Yes,” she replied, her lips curling triumphantly, “Who did you think I was talking about?!”

They both collapsed with laughter. Harry savoured the feeling of her lying in his arms, totally at ease in their shared intimacy. She was the most wonderful girl he had ever met. He looked at her again, and was elated to see her beautiful eyes sparkling with joy.

“How was the chocolate by the way?” Hermione asked.

“What chocolate?”

“You know, when that anvil nearly hit Ginny and she just caught it and transfigured it into a bar of chocolate. I thought she gave it to you.”

“Oh, she did. I fed it to Buckbeak.”

“And there was me thinking the way to your heart was through chocolate. That’s what she thinks you know.”

“Yeah well that shows you how much she knows. I can’t stand transfigured chocolate. It’s nice to look at I suppose, but there’s no real substance to it and it’s absolutely vile on the inside.”

“A lot like Ginny then!” Hermione said delightedly.

“Hermione!” Harry replied in mock outrage, although after what had happened earlier, he had to admit she had a point.

Hermione merely laughed at his reaction and snuggled into his arms again. These were the moments that Harry loved, just the two of them sitting alone, talking about anything and everything. He could not imagine ever feeling more comfortable with another person in his life, and he knew that he would never trust anyone more than he did Hermione. She was the lifebelt he clung to when his life was falling apart, and he now regretted the way they had drifted apart the previous year. He vowed to himself that he would never allow that to happen again.

“Never change Hermione.”

“I won’t. Thanks, Harry, you’re a good friend.”

“You’re my best friend…. But don’t tell Ron!” he said, winking at her.

“Your secret’s safe with me. And listen Harry. Just ask Pansy to the ball. I’m sure she’ll say yes. It is Pansy you want to ask, isn’t it?

“I did consider Pansy, yeah,” Harry said, smirking, “but I thought I’d go for someone slightly prettier than Grawp!”

Hermione chuckled. “Well it must be Lavender then.”

“She’s pretty, but no. And Ron would kill me.”

“She’ll be devastated. It’s not Cho Chang is it?”

Harry laughed at the bitterness with which she spat out his ex-girlfriend’s name.

“Definitely not.”

“Well that only leaves one girl. Despite her shocking chocolate-making abilities, you still fancy Ginny don’t you? How could anyone not love the angelic charms of Ginny Weasley?”

“It’s not Ginny, I never loved her,” Harry said softly, and Hermione felt her heart soar. Until today, she never would have believed it.

“But you’ve been following her round like some performing lapdog all year! All the boys have!”

“Let’s just say I’ve realised how delusional I was,” he said ruefully.

“But she’s perfect. Perfect hair…”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect teeth….”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect body….”

“Yeah.”

“Brilliant at Quidditch….”

“Yeah.”

“Completely flawless….”

“Yeah, completely flawless and perfect in every way, except for one thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“She’s not you.”

Harry immediately clamped his hand over his mouth, but he realised at the same time that it was true. No other girl could ever match up to Hermione, no matter how perfect they were. Nobody was as perfect as Hermione.

“Harry? Did you just….”

“Hermione, the girl I want to take to the ball is you. Things didn’t work out with Ginny and Cho for one simple reason, and it was nothing to do with Voldemort.”

“What?”

“I was always comparing them to the girl who has been to hell and back with me. The girl who has held my hand and stared death in the face with me. The girl who has been my rock and my guide in every step of my life. Hermione, how could Ginny Weasley and Cho Chang ever possibly compare to you?”

Hermione gazed at him disbelievingly, tears streaming down her face. She felt like a human volcano that was about to erupt with happiness. There had been a time in the not too distant past when she thought Ron would be the one to hold her and serenade her like this, but those feelings had long since ebbed away, his enjoyment of Ginny’s joke the final nail in an already well-sealed coffin. And as she lay there with Harry, wrapped up in his arms, she knew in her heart that this was where she belonged.

“Oh Harry!” she shrieked, squeezing him with a renewed gusto that pushed the air out of his lungs. “All these years, I’ve loved you so much. You have no idea how much it killed me to see you with Cho and Ginny. I tried to stop loving you. I even tried to fancy Ron. And then last year I thought I’d lost him as well! But it’s always been you Harry. Always. I just never thought you’d ever love me!”

“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to realise it, Hermione. And over something as stupid as a bloody anvil!”

Hermione’s laugh was like Phoenix song to Harry. He could not believe she actually loved him back. He felt drunk with happiness.

“Harry, nothing was going to get in the way of us. Not Cho, not Ginny, not Ron, not Voldemort, and certainly not something as ridiculous as an anvil. We’ve been defying the anvils of this world for the last six years, and we’ll keep on defying them until we can live in peace. To hell with the anvils, and to hell with OBHWF, whatever it means!”

Harry laughed. “Do you know what I think it means?”

“Be careful how you answer that Potter! I might love you but that doesn’t mean I won’t hex you!”

Harry knew he would never get tired of hearing that Hermione loved him.

“I think it stands for One Beautiful Heavenly Wonderful Friend.”

Hermione just stared at him, her eyes glazing over.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“I think you should kiss me now.”

The moment their lips touched, Harry knew he would never kiss another girl for as long as he lived. He could not imagine ever feeling so much passion, tenderness, love, trust and completeness with anyone except Hermione. Kissing Hermione took him to another world. A world not even Ginny Weasley could take him to. A world where Voldemort and Horcruxes did not matter. A world where he felt loved. A world where he could be himself. And he was holding that world in the palms of his hands. Hermione Granger was his world and gave him that world, and for the first time in his life, Harry Potter was truly happy. And it was all thanks to the anvils.