flower crowns | drarry

twenty six

twenty six
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"harry? harry, what are you doing?"

hermione's affronted gasp of an exclamation stopped harry in his tracks. a wince pulled at his weary features, and he turned slowly, reluctantly, to face hermione's thinned lips and narrowed eyes.

"...leaving?" he asked, and the furrow between her brows deepened to a concerned trench. she huffed at him, and out of the corner of his fleeting eyes, he saw ron pull an odd face at her blatant displeasure.

"not like that you aren't," she protested, waving a lithe hand in his general direction. she gestured to his attire—or rather his lack of it. an oversized, ratty black sweater passed down to him from dudley, a pair of worn out jeans, and beat up combat boots he'd inherited from sirius. "harry potter, you cannot expect to be warm in that. it's winter, in case you didn't get the memo."

harry shrugged. "i'll be fine. i'm used to being cold."

"that's not reassuring."

"besides, big coats make me look odd." he tried desperately, pleading for just a sliver of mercy, just a faint sign of vulnerability in hermione's iron will. she did not relent.

"odd how?" she breathed in exasperation. ron drew a hand across his neck, silently urging him to keep his mouth shut. but harry had never been good about following orders or taking suggestion.

he pressed on. "they make me look puffy and drowned."

"you look drowned because you hardly eat harry!"

"even still, i look stupid!"

"no, you look like a boy wearing a bloody coat." hermione insisted. in a few long strides she was crossing the room and curling her clenched fingers around the cuffs of his sweater. she wriggled a fingertip through a rapidly growing hole in the sleeve, raising an imploring brow at him. he glanced away.

"mione, don't make me do this." he pleaded, stretching his eyes to their ultimate capacity. she scoffed at him, and ron murmured a quiet, worried, "mate..."

"don't make you do what harry?" she hissed through gritted teeth. her grip on him tightened to an almost painful degree, and suddenly, she was dragging him across the room, back in the direction of the boys dormitory. "don't make you take care of yourself? stop making sure you don't bloody freeze to death? no. no i don't think so. you are not going outside in the dead cold of england in a rag cloth of a sweater, jeans that are basically just thread, and boots. no. no, no, no, i will not stop, i am making you do this, because i care about you harry potter, and i'd sooner throw myself from the astronomy tower than willingly let you walk out this door with nothing!"

harry gaped at her silently, watching in a shock induced daze as she fluttered about, magically summoning a number of winter outerwear—a thick, navy wool coat, fluffy ear muffs, a grey scarf, and a pair of black mittens—and aggressively draping harry in each item until he was bundled up and almost uncomfortably toasty. ron choked on shorts and giggles as hermione nodded to herself and harry stared with his cheek hot and his lips parted. hermione's terrifying motherly instincts would never cease to both frighten him and touch his heart. he sometimes forgot how observant she was, how caring, how he could get nothing past her. he shouldn't have even tried.