Seeing Blind - Ch. 1
Summary: After years of wasting their time, Harry and Hermione make a promise to swear off blind dates, forever this time. A pair of meddling friends are determined to change their minds -- and help them see each other in a different light.
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It was Friday night, and Hermione was sitting on her couch in her favorite holey pajamas, reading the latest copy of Potioneers Monthly. It had become a bit of a habit for her. She came home from her job in the Department of International Magical Cooperation, changed into her most comfortable clothes, and settled in with the newest academic publication that caught her eye. Part of her thought it was a bit sad, really, but it beat the alternative. Hermione was single, and she had zero faith in the current dating scene. She occasionally let a friend set her up with someone, but that rarely ended well. So she’d created her own weekend rituals, things to keep her mind busy and her heart content. Well, content enough.
She was engrossed in an article about the mutable properties of lacewing flies when her Floo roared to life.
“Shit—Hermione?” a frantic voice hissed through the flames. “Hermione? Are you still awake?”
She dashed across the room and crashed to her knees in front of the fireplace. “What’s wrong, Harry?”
Even blurred by the embers, she could tell his responding grin was a bit sheepish. “Uh, nothing’s wrong, not really. I was just wondering if you were awake, and I didn’t realize what time it was until after I’d already started the call, and I didn’t want to wake you if you’d already gone to bed—”
“Let me rephrase then: What’s going on, Harry?” she asked, unamused.
His smile twisted into a grimace. “Would you mind coming over for a little while? I had a shit night, and I don’t want to end the day that way.”
“Of course,” she said immediately. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Hermione quickly changed into more presentable loungewear and Apparated to the living room of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place. Harry was sprawled across the warm leather sofa, his tie hanging loose around his neck. His shoes had been toed off and allowed to fall haphazardly beneath him, and his dark hair stuck up at all angles, as though a hand had been run through it many times. The image was a bit forlorn but not unfamiliar to Hermione. The open bottle of firewhiskey on the table and the empty tumbler dangling from his fingers, however, sent her eyebrows rocketing upward. “It really was a shit night, huh?”
“Shit week, really.” Harry grunted as he sat up. “I had a rough few days revising with this Auror class. They’ve got a Stealth final next week, then a few more tests before the final practical exam. Ron thought he was helping ‘relieve some of my stress’ by setting me up on a blind date.”
Hermione groaned and collapsed on the sofa with him. “Not Ron and his blind dates. You know, last time he set me up with a reserve Beater for the Arrows. The guy never took his eyes off my chest—not once the whole night!”
“This girl wasn’t any better,” Harry lamented. “She kept dropping little hints, asking all these probing questions about my investment portfolio, the Potter estate, ‘wondering’ how big the diamonds in my cufflinks were.” He allowed himself a little chuckle. “You should have seen the way she snatched her hand back when I told her they were fake.”
“But they’re not,” Hermione said with a frown. “I bought you those last year for your birthday.”
Harry shrugged. “I know that, and you know that. But I wanted to see how she would react. She practically ran out the door after she finished her glass of wine.”
“God, where does Ron meet these girls?”
“I guess that’s Quidditch fangirls for you. On the bright side, at least I didn’t have to suffer through dessert, too.”
Hermione threw her head back and laughed. “I think I can take care of that one. Want to put on a movie and eat ice cream straight from the carton?”
Harry grinned. “Most definitely. How would you feel about The Maltese Falcon?”
She stood up and headed for the kitchen. “That sounds perfect. You go upstairs and change, and I’ll grab the ice cream.”
Hermione was popping the DVD into place when Harry came back into the living room, clad in comfortable sweats and carrying a thick blanket. “Did you remember to get two spoons?”
She grabbed the pair of spoons from on top of the carton beside her and waved them at him.
“Stupid question,” he muttered, settling under the blanket and then lifting it to let her crawl under too.
Hermione passed him a spoon and then clinked her own against it. “Here’s to dumping a crappy blind date for Bogart and Butter Pecan.”
“Ugh, you picked this flavor, didn’t you?”
“I won the coin toss!”
“You always win the coin toss,” he grumbled, popping the lid off the carton anyway. “And I’m quitting blind dates. For good.”
Hermione rolled her eyes. “You said that last time, and the time before that, and the time before that. So did I.”
“And look where that’s gotten us!” he cried.
She tilted her head in capitulation—she never wanted a repeat of her last blind date.
Harry sighed deeply. “I’m perfectly content with my life as it is. I don’t need to go on a date just for the sake of going on a date. Next time, I want it to be because I like the person. I want to go out knowing there’s a good chance I’ll enjoy myself.”
“You’re right,” Hermione said, sitting up straight. “Why should we continue to subject ourselves to hours of sub-par social interaction for the sole purpose of going on a date? We’re perfectly fine as single people.”
“Hear hear!”
She held up her utensil as if it were a champagne flute. “Here’s to the end of crappy blind dates.”
They clinked their spoons together and tucked into the slightly melted tub of ice cream.
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