The Fire Within

The End

A/N: THE FINAL CHAPTER! Thanks so much for the support of the story, it's been truly amazing! If you guys liked this story and want more like it, please let me know. I will be updating my old stories, and if there is enough interest, I will be writing a sequel to this.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money off of this. The quote is from Kahlil Gibran.

Upon seeing an angry Granger chatting with an even angrier Weasley, I decided to go over and see what the fuss was about. "Is there a problem?" I demanded, glaring vehemently at the redhead.

"No!" He snapped, turning to glare at me. I was a few inches taller than him, allowing me to gaze down at him. It honestly made me feel a bit superior.

"Good," I said, as calmly as I could possibly muster with that idiot. "Wanna dance?" I asked as I turned towards my beautiful date.

"But you just got us drinks!" She said. "Just imagine how hard the house elv-"

"Here Weasley. Make yourself useful and hold these," I shoved the two glass into Weasley's hands and glided back onto the dance floor with Granger wrapped up in my arms. We started dancing to the Weird Sisters and only left the floor at least an hour later. The music had just completely overtaken us. We finally left the dance floor and grabbed the two drinks that I saw Weasley put on a nearby table. I muttered a few spells to make sure he hadn't done anything to them and handed one to my thirsty and panting partner. We slowly walked out into the enchanted gardens and sat hidden in some bushes.

"What a night!" She sighed, her face flushed from the hot dance floor. I nodded, letting out a sigh into the nice and cool garden.

"Yeah. It's just hard to think that it's all going to be over tomorrow, you know?" I asked her. She nodded in agreement and placed a hand over mine.

"But it doesn't mean that the memory's won't last forever," She said, smiling up at me.

"You're ri-" I got cut off by someone snapping through branches and tumbling down upon us. It was Fleur Delacour and some boy snogging. When they fell upon us, they looked slightly startled but the got quickly got up. Without apologizing or anything they just ran away to another bench where the continued their... activities. Lucky for us, our drinks had already been finished. Otherwise, it surely would have ruined both of our outfits.

Granger and I glanced at each other a little awkwardly after seeing such a display of affection. We'd never kissed like that just yet, and never in front of others. I cleared my throat and was about to say something when the bells started chiming. We both jumped, startled, and then started laughing. We were way too tense. It was nice to get that laugh out. I silently counted the chimes and found out it was eleven o'clock. Had three hours really already gone by!?

"Want to dance?" Granger asked me. I gazed over at her and marveled how nicely the lights glittered around and illuminated her.

"Anything you want Hermione, anything," I said. She blushed and stood up. We slowly made our way back to the Great Hall. There were far fewer couples there now and I was glad. We dropped our glasses off at a nearby table and walked onto the dance floor. There was a slow song playing. So I wrapped my arms around her waist and she wrapped hers around my neck. We started slowly swaying to the music. I hummed along with the song and Hermione smiled shyly at me.

"What?" I asked as I raised an eyebrow.

"You're cute when you hum like that," She whispered in my ear. This was it.

I bent my head down and leaned slightly forward. Hermione's eyes grew big as she realized what I was doing. Luckily, she didn't back away but leaned forward herself. Our lips met in the middle and I heard people gasp around us. They all knew we were together, but, we had never kissed in public before. I closed my eyes and slowly deepened the kiss. It was a sweet kiss, nothing near a snog, but that didn't matter. It was perfect, she was perfect. She just lit a fire within me. And this fire within was not about to be ruined by anyone.