The One Where Harry and Hermione Are Locked in a Closet by Madame_Meow

Standard disclaimer applied

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"It's locked," Hermione groaned, pulling hard at the handle of the door.

"I know." Harry muttered, surveying the tiny room from the spot where he lay on the floor. Neville, Dean, Seamus and Ron had just thrown him into a broom closet, and Hermione joined him not long after. I'll kill them for this, he thought.

Hermione sat down next to Harry and pulled her feet up to her chest. "Why couldn't I have remembered to bring my wand? I could have opened the door easily."

Harry shrugged. "I s'pose that's why they chose to lock us in here at night. They knew we wouldn't have our wands with us."

"Why'd they do it, though?" Hermione asked, perplexed.

Harry silently thanked Merlin that it was dark in here; otherwise Hermione would have noticed the blush creeping across his cheeks. He simply shrugged again, rather unhelpfully at that. Then he asked, "How'd Neville, Ron, Dean and Seamus get you out of your dorm? Boys can't go up the girls' staircase."

"They didn't." Hermione replied. "It was Parvati and Lavender. They must have been plotting together." They both chuckled a bit, and then Hermione asked, "What do they expect to come out of this now that we're locked in here together?"

~~~~~~

Harry was still blushing as he remembered playing Truth or Dare with his roommates one night in Gryffindor Tower. A rather silly thing to do, seeing as this was something muggle girls usually played. But they were feeling wide-awake after eating dozens of chocolate frogs in celebration of Seamus's seventeenth birthday, so they had to have something to do.

It had started off with mostly dares; Ron had to sing the Hogwarts song in front of the common room while doing his best impersonation of Umbridge. For some odd reason, Dean refused to tell anybody whom it was that he liked, so he had to run around the common room in a dress. And poor Neville had to ask Lavender to teach him how to dance and endure twenty minutes of "Neville, move your foot to the right".

But when Neville had dared Harry to ask Dumbledore on a date, it was going a bit far, so he went with Truth.

"Who do you like?" he had asked innocently enough. But Harry didn't want to share this with anybody. It was personally and he knew Dean and Seamus would tell everybody.

But after swearing them all to secrecy, Harry had mumbled, "Hermione." ~~~~~~

So here they were, locked in a closet together, in some way to make Harry confess his feelings. Obviously the boys hadn't kept their promises to keep Harry's confession a secret; they had told Parvati and Lavender. Harry would get them back for this...

"Earth to Harry." Hermione was waving her hand in Harry's face. "You back, then?" Harry nodded dumbly, to which Hermione laughed and said, "I lost you for a minute there."

Harry nodded again, blushing crimson. "Sorry about that," he mumbled.

"It's no problem. Do you think there's any way out of here?"

Harry surveyed the closed space once more before responding. "No, I think we'll have to wait for them to open it up." He took a deep breath, wondering how long they were going to be in here for. Stupid boys, he thought. They should know by now that I'm very claustrophobic.

"So what do you want to do to pass the time?" Hermione seemed a bit uncomfortable with the increasing silence.

"I don't know. I guess we can just... talk." Harry wasn't used to this type of thing. He had never been forced to talk to Hermione, and he felt incredibly ridiculous now that he didn’t have anything to talk about.

Hermione nodded but didn’t say anything. Clearly she didn’t have anything to talk about, either. Harry decided to start a topic. “So how’s everything going with S.P.E.W.?” Even as he said the words he knew he sounded very stupid.

“Not well, I’ve given up on that, actually.” Harry looked at her skeptically, so Hermione hastily added, “It’s true! I decided that the house elves really didn’t want any help, and so I’ve decided to do something else to help them.”

“Oh? What would that be?” Harry wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“I’m researching ways to help Abused House Elves, or A.H.E. for short.” Harry had to suppress a snort here. “Remember how Dobby was abused by the Malfoys?” Harry nodded. “Well I’m trying to create a self-help hotline for the A.H.E.”

At this, Harry couldn’t hide his laughter any more. “It’s not funny!” Hermione said indignantly, but Harry could tell that she was smiling even in the dark.

“No, no, you’re right,” he continued to snigger. “It’s not- not funny at all.” While he was trying to catch his breath, Hermione was thinking of a way to change topics and make him uncomfortable; a form of payback, in her opinion.

“So what ever happened with Cho?” This worked exactly as she had wanted. Harry immediately stopped chuckling and blushed.

“Well, er,” he stammered. “It didn’t work out.” Hermione had already known this part, but being a girl, Harry had never given her the details.

“Oh? How so?”

Harry blushed even more. “She just sort of freaked out and wanted to talk about Cedric. She wasn’t right for me anyway.”

“So do you have your eye on anybody else?” Oh Merlin, it was the dreaded question. “I don’t mean to pry into your personal life or anything,” Hermione paused to let out a small laugh, “but I think maybe I can help.”

“Er, no thanks, Hermione, that won’t be necessary.” Harry was blushing scarlet by now, and his breathing was increased. He only hoped Hermione hadn’t noticed. Before she could open her mouth, Harry said hastily, “What about you? Do you like anybody?”

Hermione didn’t seem to be nearly as phased by this question as Harry was. “Well, after Viktor, I haven’t really had the time for a relationship at all. If I did it would have to be somebody I’m close to, because I don’t have any opportunities to go and meet someone.”

Harry nodded in understanding, but he felt a flutter in his stomach at these words. He couldn’t help but think that maybe, just maybe he stood a chance. But he quickly brushed this thought off.

Suddenly, Harry felt the room lurch backwards and Hermione tumbled on top of him. “Huh?” She sounded scared.

“Damn, this closet must be enchanted.”

“What makes you think that?” Hermione laughed.

- But Harry was completely serious. He remembered that, while Dean and Seamus were trying to force him into this closet before Hermione’s arrival, Seamus had whispered something in his ear. “If you don’t make a move on her, this closet will do it for you.”

Dean was glaring at Seamus, probably feeling left out because he didn’t know what had been whispered. “What was that about?” He had asked, feigning indifference. But that was all Harry had heard before being thrown into the closet. -

Hermione continued to look at Harry curiously, so he said, “Just something Seamus said.” Luckily, Hermione dropped it at that.

Harry was very aware that, despite the fact that Hermione had gotten off of him after she fell, she was still leaning against him, undoubtedly afraid she might fall again. These reservations were not for nothing, as after a moment of silence, the closet wall to Harry’s right knocked him in the shoulder and pushed him into Hermione. This caused them to topple over and Harry found himself leaning over her, where she lay on the floor.

“I’m sorry!” Harry whispered quickly. “Are you alright?”

Hermione rubbed the back of her head and responded in a friendly tone. “Yes, I think so.” She seemed to think this closet was somewhat humorous, quite the contrary of what Harry thought about it. Hermione had started to sit up, so Harry made to back away from her. Unfortunately - or fortunately, depending on how you look at it - he discovered that he couldn’t. There was a large bucket that had fallen behind him, and it was blocking his way from moving backwards.

The good new was he had an excuse to stay close to Hermione. The bad news was that it was extremely cramped. Hermione was sitting up to the best of her ability below Harry, and she shifted back a bit so Harry was leaning over her legs.

“Well this is comfortable,” she joked. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Harry replied. He noticed that Hermione was still rubbing her head. “Here, let me take a look at that.” Before Harry knew what he was doing, he found himself leaning over Hermione and running his fingers through her hair.

He took a deep breath and whispered, “Does that hurt?”

“No, it feels nice.” Hermione was smiling and Harry could feel her breath on the side of his face. He felt himself blush and silently prayed that Hermione hadn’t noticed. When he finally leaned back, Hermione was looking at him strangely.

“Are you o-” he began, but before he could finish, Hermione had her lips pressed against his. He didn’t respond right away, but upon realizing what was happening, Harry overcame his shock and kissed her back. Her lips were soft, he noted, and she seemed almost shy about kissing him. After a moment, she pulled back uncertainly.

“I’m sorry, Harry, I don’t know what came over me…”

Harry put his hand on her face and heard her gasp slightly. He leaned in and kissed her again, this time more passionately. For a moment, Harry felt like he was in Heaven. He never wanted this moment to end…

“Say cheese!” Harry heard the click of a camera and pulled away from Hermione quickly. They both looked towards the door, blushing and out of breath, to see their fellow sixth years grinning at them from the doorway.

“Took you long enough,” Parvati grinned. “I thought you’d never tell each other how you felt.”

Harry was embarrassed, but he felt more happy than anything. He glanced at Hermione and saw that she was smiling shyly at him. She looked away after a moment and said, “So can we come out now?”

Ron laughed and said, “Are you sure you want to?” But he helped his two best friends out of the broom closet nonetheless. ~~~~~~

Later that night, as Harry was laying in bed reflecting on everything that had happened, he heard his curtains moving. He quietly slid them open to see Ron grinning at him. Casting a Silencing charm in case anybody else woke up, Ron sat on the end of Harry’s bed holding out some chocolate frogs.

“All and all, that worked out pretty well, didn’t it?” Ron asked, grinning.

“Yeah, I guess I should thank you.” Harry was laughing a bit.

“We gotta do it again,” Ron smiled. Upon seeing the look on Harry’s face, he explained hastily, “Not to you, mate, but to…” he brought his voice to a low whisper, just in case. “Dean and Seamus.”

Harry started choking on his chocolate frog. When he finally managed to swallow it, he gasped, “What?”

“They obviously have a thing for each other.” Ron said. “Dean’s always so jealous when Seamus is around other guys.”

“I didn’t even know they were gay!” Harry laughed. This certainly was news to him.

“Well, I stole- I mean, found their journals. They write about each other a lot.”

Harry’s eyes were wide with skepticism. “You sure about that?”

“Not one hundred percent, but we’ll find out, won’t we, mate?” Harry nodded, to which Ron said, “Well, I’m pretty tired. We’ll talk more in the morning."

He got rid of the Silencing charm and smiled at Harry. “Pleasant dreams.”

~~~~~~

A/N: Well I really hope you liked it. I always like to have a bit of slash in my stories, but if you don’t like Dean and Seamus as a couple, I left that for you to figure out. Please review!