The Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1) (Hermione x Male Reader)

Ch. 16: The Egg

On the train ride back, Hermione sat next to me. I glanced at my bracelet, which was still green.

"Okay, Hermione, what is it?" I asked, as I pointed to the bracelet. "This thing has been green since we left the mall."

She looked into my eyes for a moment, seeming to ponder something, before taking a deep breath.

"It's just... when we were watching the movie and I laid my head on your shoulder, it gave me this feeling I couldn't really explain," she began as her face started to turn red, and I was listening intently, wondering if it was the same feeling I had. "I didn't want it to be over. For the first time in a long time, I wasn't thinking about studying or the situation at Hogwarts, or about anything really. Except us, in that moment."

That definitely sounded like exactly how it felt for me. And I wasn't too stupid to know what that feeling was. It was care. A deep care for someone you share a connection with. It was love. But as soon as the thought crossed my mind, I thought about everything else. What if hers isn't exactly the same and instead, it's just the friendship type of care? Plus, what if I told her how I felt and it somehow ruined our friendship? And we were both still very young to be having these feelings. Maybe it was too soon to even feel that way. But then again, what if I took that chance and it worked out? In the end, I decided to just let her know I had the same feeling, but not label it as love or anything that would be too obvious how deeply that care went.

"I felt that, too 'Mione," I said as she blushed a bit more at the sound of the nickname and smiled at my response, which I returned.

She hugged me, and I hugged back, but when she was pulling out of the hug, this time she stopped with her hands resting on my shoulders as she stared into my eyes, seeming to ponder something. I felt my face start to heat up, but I didn't look away. The feeling returned, and she smiled again, seeming to get the same feeling. I couldn't help but smile back.

"If this is what I think it is," she said, seeming to not want to say it outright any more than I did, but she knew that I knew what she meant. "What do you want to do?"

I just stared at her, frozen in shock. She was basically asking me out, but just not directly. She seemed just as unsure about this whole thing as me.

"Maybe... maybe we should just stay 'friends' for now. Not make anything official, but explore the idea and see where it takes us," I said, a bit more confidently than I thought possible.

She smiled more at this, my response giving her confirmation I knew what she meant.

"Sounds good to me," she said, her smile not wavering.

As the train ride back went on, we started talking as normal, but our movements and body language were a slight bit more... intimate than usual. Nothing major, of course. Just the simple sitting a bit closer than usual, slight hand brushes that could pass for accidental, but were, to us, obviously intentional. Things like that. We arrived back at Hogwarts and made our way into the Great Hall where we spotted Ron and Harry. We made our way to them. As we got to them, they both looked at us.

"You two seem suspiciously happy," Ron said as we took a seat, not realizing how much we were smiling.

Hermione and I gave each other a knowing look, Harry just raising an eyebrow as we both couldn't help but laugh.

"What'd I miss? Was there a joke? I don't get it," Ron said, and we both turned to him.

"It's nothing, Ron. Don't worry about it," I said as he still eyed us suspiciously, but shrugged as we began talking about what had happened at Hogwarts during Christmas break.

Harry informed us about everything that happened. The invisibility cloak he had gotten for Christmas, his failed attempt at looking for more information on Nicholas Flamel in the restricted section, Snape's interrogation of Quirrell, and the discovery of the Mirror of Erised, which Dumbledore moved after Harry was caught visiting on multiple occasions. Luckily, Dumbledore didn't punish him. I couldn't blame him too much, though, as he explained that the mirror showed him his parents. Apparently, the mirror showed someone's deepest desire. The thing they want most. I began to ponder what I would've seen in the mirror, but shook the thought from my head.