#100daysofrhr

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100 Days of R/Hr: Day 25

Prompt: Ron is a little spoon.

Prompted by: @queenbqueenbb

—

The sun was setting on the waves outside Shell Cottage, and she was laughing. He reckoned he hadn’t heard her laugh like that in months. They were sitting in the sand, and she’d leaned her head against his shoulder, shaking with mirth. He’d made a joke he was already forgetting, too wrapped up in this moment to care. Just then, it could have all been over, they could have been there on holiday instead.

He wanted to put his arm around her. He was strangely confident that she wouldn’t mind, but it still look him a few stretched seconds of overthinking to finally do it.

She immediately leaned further against him, the moment his hand touched her shoulder. They stayed that way for several heart-pounding minutes. He could have stayed for days-

A salty breeze blew her hair across his face, tickling his nose and mouth, and he reached up to move it. She lifted her head from his shoulder, smiling.

“Sorry,” she said, but he shook his head, grinning back.

Now, they didn’t even need a reason - everything was light and amusing. She stared into his eyes, a soft flush across her cheeks, and she laughed once more, unable to hold it in, even with her lips pressed together.

“Supper!” called a French voice from behind them, but neither turned to look back.

“Do you want to go in?” he asked quietly.

“Not yet,” she sighed. “It’s nice out here.” She was looking at the sea again, pink and orange reflecting off the surface.

“Yeah,” he agreed. He was looking at her.

—

She was too alert to rest, lying wide awake on her bed and obsessing over the way he’d held her hand all the way back inside for supper. She smiled broadly, not caring how silly she must look to the dark, quiet room. And she wanted to see him again. It was well past midnight, and everyone was surely asleep, but she slid out of bed and quietly crossed the room, opening the door with a glance back to be sure she hadn’t disturbed Luna before slipping out into the hall.

As she came down the stairs, she could hear Harry’s soft snores, and she held her breath, hopeful she wouldn’t wake the others. Not for the first time, she wished there was someplace she could go with Ron to be alone…

She quickly spotted him lying on the floor, his shaggy ginger head, sleeping bag tugged down to his waist, back toward her. Bubbly excitement filled her stomach, and she tiptoed closer, kneeling when she reached him. She’d come this far, she reasoned, and she could tell how warm his body would be, radiating so close to her.

Carefully, she stretched out on her side, behind him. Scooted closer. Tentatively draped her arm over his side-

“Hermione?!” he started, way too loud.

“Shh, you’ll wake Harry and Dean,” she whispered frantically, shivering from the sudden arrival of nerves. She hadn’t gone too far… had she? The first night they’d been here, he’d slept in her bed. The circumstances had been… different, but-

As if to reassure her against the thoughts he couldn’t know she’d been having, he reached down and held onto her arm, tugging her closer so the front of her body pressed along the back of his. And as she leaned into their closeness, she found her face so near to the back of his neck that her lips brushed his hair when she spoke.

“You’re so warm.”

He shivered immediately, contradicting her words, and when his fingers twitched on her arm, she sensed he’d reacted to her breath on his skin… This thought lodged heavily, and she could think of nothing else. Could he really be as affected by her as she was by him?

God, he felt amazing. She breathed as quietly and as deeply as she could, trying not to get too carried away… to obsess on the fact that, aside from the night he’d thought she might die, they’d never been this close before.

“I’m not complaining,” he whispered, “but what are you doing down here?”

She shrugged against his back, aware that she had no good reason to name. I missed you seemed to stick permanently in her throat.

“What are you doing down here?” she teased instead, smiling.

“I was trying to sleep, cheers,” he whispered back, clearly grinning, too.

“So sorry for disturbing you,” she hissed sarcastically, beginning to move her arm away. He snatched her hand to stop her, weaved their fingers together, and held on even tighter than before as she briefly shook with giddy, silent laughter.

His thumb brushed across her knuckles, and she tried to calm down. He was holding her hand against his chest, and this wasn’t the sort of thing you did with a friend.

What was wrong with her, really? This wasn’t the first time she’d had such a thought… as far back as his brother’s wedding and the way he’d ducked his head over the top of hers while they’d danced. Earlier still, if she was being honest. How much longer did she have to wait to convince herself that this was safe? That the something he felt for her wasn’t just friendship, anymore?

Was it easier when she wasn’t looking at his face? She closed her eyes and tried to picture his expression, but her hand moved absentmindedly under his, and he flinched. She realised a second later, as she opened her eyes, that she’d accidentally tickled him. She did it again.

“Oi!” he whispered loudly.

“Shhhh!” she giggled, trying and failing to do it a third time. He was holding on too tight for her to move, and before she’d figured out what he was doing, he’d hauled her hand up to his face. He locked his forearm over hers and held her knuckles against his mouth.

Her heart thumped boldly behind her ribs.

“Cut it out,” he mumbled against her fingers, evidently smiling again from the amused tone of his raspy whisper.

She swallowed and tilted her head just enough forward that she could feel the skin of his neck through his hair.

“Fine,” she whispered back, her lips touching him as she spoke.

His body tensed for a moment before his hand slackened on hers, sliding down to her wrist.

A metre away, Harry’s snoring abruptly cut off… then resumed.

They remained motionless and silent for what had to have been a full minute after that.

“Ron?” she whispered to his neck.

“Yeah?” he answered immediately.

She struggled with what she wanted to say next, finally forming three words.

“This is nice.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I’ll go back up soon, before someone wakes up.”

“Not too soon…” he muttered, linking his fingers with hers again, and she couldn’t be certain, but she felt his lips brush across her fingers like the faintest hint of a kiss.

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Guys, guess what, you will never believe this, but...

...I started working on today’s 100daysofrhr prompt and...

It immediately escalated and has gotten completely out of hand.

Yes, this is a sarcastic post.

🙈

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For your R/Hr 100 days prompts, if you need one, Count on Me by NEEDTOBREATHE. Gives me some intense Romione feels

Loving all these song prompts! Added to the list, thanks! ❤️

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100 Days of R/Hr: Day 19

Prompt: "...Ready for it?" by Taylor Swift - "In the middle of the night, in my dreams, you should see the things we do, baby..."

Prompted by: @catherineanne512

At the serious risk of writing one too many DH tent fics (omg I’m so obsessed, I need an intervention), here is this. Thank you for the prompts so far! Hope you enjoy x

She was so bloody cold.

The trees all around her were frosted with glassy ice, frozen stark still and haunting. Her toes were numb inside her boots, and the lining had worn down and torn, creating an uncomfortable ridge of ripped fabric, awkwardly pushing against the centre of the bottom of her right foot.

She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. She could hear Ron moving around inside the tent, and she didn’t want to even question how she knew for sure it was him, just from the sounds he made. But he was supposed to relieve her from watch soon, so she could count on that.

She was too cold to speak to him.

She was too cold to breathe.

He emerged sooner than expected, damn ginger stubble and eyelashes like the curving crystal limbs of the trees around her.

“Hey.” His gruff, sleepy voice made her muscles tense in a fierce effort not to respond.

She managed the faintest nod before brushing past him to go inside, and oh how she wished she hadn’t seen that look of sad longing cross his face as she’d let him down. Maybe he wanted to hear her voice tonight as much as she ironically ached for his. He wasn’t the one being silent.

She ignored Harry’s light snoring in his bunk, and she stripped off her jumper, put on two of Ron’s instead, and tugged his wool cap over her head, shivering as she crawled into her bed. She’d been wearing his clothes for two weeks, and he hadn’t mentioned it. She sighed heavily, yanking her blankets up to her neck and curling onto her side, closing her eyes.

It really was a bad idea to make her bunk and her bloody skin smell like him, intoxicating her dreams, making her feel his fingers on her body in the deepest realms of sleep. She’d forgiven him, clearly… the way she let him touch her in her fantasies…

To be fair, she’d been doing that for years. Only… only maybe not quite like this. Maybe not with such a burning flame, so much skin… his naked body meshed to hers, his hand between her legs. Blame it on the cold, on desperation, she thought… on being madly in love with him.

She sighed again, gathering his long jumper sleeves over her hands to warm them. Nights were too long, days too short, and the ten year plan she’d envisioned at age twelve had had two startling amendments over the years - considering how his last name sounded, after her own, around age fifteen, and the possibility of freezing to death, while a war raged on far away from them, making her reconsider that being hacked off with him for abandoning her didn’t have to mean he couldn’t share her bed at night...

Abandoning her. When had she become selfish enough to make everything he did somehow… about her? Maybe it was the way he’d apologised again, in the dark, while Harry was sleeping, telling her he’d never meant to hurt her, never wanted to leave her…

Somewhere between anger, love and lust, she’d drifted off to sleep. What felt like seconds later, a rustling sound woke her too quickly, pulse flying away, adrenaline coursing through her limbs.

She flipped over so fast, reflexes on high alert, and suddenly his wrist was in her tight fist as she yanked him down. He gasped and leaned over her bed, throwing out his free hand to the opposite side of her head, palm shaking with his weight and the nearly visible tension between them. His face was inches from her own, his wide blue eyes locked on hers.

The rate of her already compromised breathing seemed to triple, chest heaving as she stared up at him. He wasn’t moving away. His body was so, so warm. He blinked, and she felt her heart catch in her throat.

“What are you doing?!” she whispered harshly.

“Looking for my hat,” he hissed back, gaze flicking up to her head.

She frantically let go of him, as if just realising what she had done… as if a bucket of ice water had been tipped over her head.

She watched his neck move as he swallowed, taking his bloody time about getting up, shifting his hand by her head, fingers brushing through her hair as he sat up on the edge of her bed. She sat up, too, tugging off his hat and sharply holding it out for him to take.

“You can have it,” he said, somewhat weakly, gaze stuck on her outstretched hand.

She briefly imagined how he might react if she jumped on his lap and snogged him… She cleared her throat, dropping his hat to her bed and protectively crossing her arms over her chest, recalling that she was wearing two more of his things, and surely he could see it, even in the dark, now that her blankets had fallen down to her lap.

“No,” she shot back. “It’s yours. You were looking for it. You should take it.”

“Didn’t know you had it or I wouldn’t‘ve-“

“What difference does that make?”

She glared at him, but the pretense melted as his eyes grew sad, creased at the corners.

“Why’re we fighting?” he asked. “It’s a bloody hat.”

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, and where was all this rage coming from? She’d just had his open mouth on her neck in her dreams.

“I’ve got your jumpers on, as well,” she said, ignoring his question.

Hands shaking, she crossed her arms in front of her body and tugged them both off in one go, static clinging and frizzing her hair to set a new record. She threw the jumpers at him, watching him wince as they struck his arm. Not from the physical impact, of course. Something else.

Sad eyes, parted lips, a fearful gaze that wouldn’t meet her own sharp stare.

He really wouldn’t look at her, even as she silently screamed for him to.

“What can I do to fix us?” His words were so soft, so timid, so gorgeous.

The cutting response she’d have given before was that he could do nothing. But that was so far from the truth that it felt like so much more than a lie to imagine saying it aloud.

Sitting in only her vest, she was suddenly freezing again. Her body twitched as she tried not to shiver.

He noticed. She saw the moment he did, and he finally looked at her.

“I’ll do anything you want to get you back,” he whispered, and she wasn’t going to be able to keep herself from crying, much longer.

“I don’t know what to say to you.”

This was the best truth she could offer, because she had many, many endless thoughts, desires, imagining how he’d feel, what he might do. She had many feelings of pain and sadness, hunger and an aching loneliness. But he had those things, too. He’d suffered, only in another way, one she’d been too hurt to risk trying to understand. And he was suffering now, locked in hell. Did it matter so much to him, what she thought, how she looked at him, that he’d do anything? Anything?

“That’s okay,” he said, and it took her a minute to pair his response with what she’d said before. “Don’t have to say anything. Keep the hat and the jumpers. You’re freezing.”

He moved to get up, and all instincts collided as she scrambled to her knees and grabbed ahold of his arm, gasping at her own desperation. His eyes flashed to hers, and she sucked in an unsteady breath through her parted lips.

“You’ll do anything?” she barely whispered, and he swallowed, nodding.

“Anything. What d’you need?”

“Don’t give up.”

She watched him press his lips together as he tried not to cry. God, she could see the relief flowing through him as he nodded.

“Would never,” he choked out, trying to smile.

Her hand loosened on his arm, but she slid her fingers down over his jumper sleeve. He was so close, and he wasn’t looking away from her now.

She was supposedly brave, though she’d felt far from it recently, and perhaps it was simply time to prove it to herself again. She leaned forward, tilting her head and resting her cheek on his shoulder. His hand flew up, as if he had lost control over… control. He flattened his palm to her bare shoulder blade and dropped his face to her hair. She breathed in deeply, closing her eyes as she rubbed her cheek against scratchy wool.

“Bloody hell, you really are cold.”

“Not so much now,” she mumbled, draping her arm out across his stomach, clenching her fingers in the opposite side of his jumper.

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100 Days of R/Hr: Day 18

Prompt: “Fields of Gold” by Sting

Prompted by: @handsomekazoobagins

I’m not exactly sure what about the song inspired this particular fic, aside from the title and instrumentation, which gave me a little vision of fields, glowing in the sun, whooshing past a train window. Hope you enjoy what I’ve done with the prompt! x

Oh! And let me just dedicate “improper use of shared furniture” to the English Muffins 😂

She was jarred abruptly awake as her head bobbed uncomfortably against the train window to her right. Smoke was billowing by and clouding her view, but, as she fully woke, she realised - the last thing she’d seen had been those endless, golden fields rolling past as they’d crossed through the countryside, mesmerising her to sleep. And now, the Hogwarts Express was rolling to a stop, noisy crowds were just outside on the platform, and she was home.

She gasped and stood, tugging open her window to lean out, even as the train continued its slow movement, loud whistle blowing to announce their arrival. But there were too many people, and she couldn’t see him. At Christmas, she’d been wide awake and sitting on the edge of her seat, and she’d spotted him almost immediately, his ginger head several inches above anyone else around him. But now, she could hardly see the floor of the platform from the crowds, and as she glanced down the length of the train, she watched many other students waving toward their families out their own windows. She knew he’d been out late for work the night before, which actually accounted for her being so tired today. She’d stayed up hoping he would floo when he got in, but he hadn’t, and she’d fitfully gone to bed, setting her alarm for a bit earlier than necessary.

The first few hours on the train had been filled with anxious anticipation, and her stomach had been rapidly fluttering with butterflies since breakfast. It was always a bit like this, seeing him after a long time apart, but it was much, much worse today. This was it. This was closing the final chapter of their time apart. They’d made it through the last time she’d had to say goodbye to him on this platform, the last time she’d had to hug him too tight and breathe deeply and hope he would stay safe and that she would be able to properly distract herself from his absence by getting lost in books and lessons.

As she scanned forward again, she spotted her parents, and she waved, smiling. She was happy to see them, of course, but she felt a bit like she might throw up if she tried to speak.

Just then, Ginny burst into the compartment behind her. Hermione withdrew her head from the window and turned around.

“Oh, good, you’re awake. I waited too long to change out of my robes, but you were asleep when I left to do it. Let’s go, yeah?”

“Did you see-

“Ron?” Ginny smirked. “Nah, I was in the loo. But he’ll be here. Come on!”

Hermione reached for her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and grasped the handle of her trunk to drag it out of the compartment. Following Ginny, she awkwardly turned the corner from her compartment to the main corridor, shifting her trunk around behind her… until a hand closed around hers on the handle and she gasped, turning around so quickly that her hair slapped whoever was behind her across the chest.

Ron was smirking down at her, his long fingers squeezing her hand.

“Found you,” he said.

“Ron!”

She reached out to grab his shirt in her free hand, tugging him closer, but her trunk was in the way, and all she could do was rest her forehead on his chest for a second as he spread a large hand across her back.

“What are you doing?” she laughed, as she lifted her head to gaze up at him. “The train’s still moving.”

“Stopped now,” he informed her, glancing out the window through the nearest compartment. “Just didn’t want to wait any longer, so I hopped on.”

“I was looking for you when we arrived, but I couldn’t find you.”

“Hermione!” Ginny called from the opposite end of the corridor. “What are you- oh.”

Hermione glanced over her shoulder at Ginny who grinned at her and shook her head.

“Couldn’t wait another minute, Ron?”

“No,” he called back, smiling as his sister rolled her eyes.

“Let’s get out of here,” Hermione suggested, and he let go of her to reach up and snatch her bag from her shoulder. “What are you-”

“Never got the chance to carry your bag around at school,” he explained, ears going slightly pink.

“And it’s been bothering you, has it?” she teased him, though she felt those butterflies begin to dance around quite frantically again.

“What if it has? Go on. I’ve got this, too,” he said, swiping her hand out of the way of her trunk and taking hold of it himself.

She studied him for a second longer before turning around, empty-handed, and leading them off the train. They were almost immediately bombarded by Mr and Mrs Weasley, Harry, and Hermione’s parents, who had all gathered together by the door when they’d spotted Ginny. Hermione was tugged between hugs and hellos, losing Ron behind her, and as happy as she was to see them all, she was feeling quite ready to be done with this part of the day and arrive at the part where she was unpacking her things at Grimmauld Place… directly into Ron’s room.

But everyone was discussing plans, and the night seemed to be expanding away from getting Ron alone for long enough to even say a proper hello.

“Let’s eat. I’m starved,” Ginny suggested, holding Harry’s hand.

“How about that pub we went to last summer, Hermione?” her mother suggested. “We all liked it well enough, and it’s not far-“

“Wait,” she interrupted, knowing she was about to do something rash but finding it hard to care.

She pushed back through her family and approached Ron, aiming her wand at her trunk and vanishing it away to his room, doing the same for her bag as he raised a brow down at her. But before he could speak, she grasped his hand tightly and dragged him back through her surprised looking family, blushing at Mrs Weasley’s smile, and they disappeared into the crowds.

“Hermione, what-“ but he was interrupted by someone’s shoulder brushing against his arm, and she dragged him further along, ducking into the dark shadows behind a wide, stone column, one leg of an archway that led to a solid brick wall.

She finally dropped his hand and whipped around, reaching up to hold his face in both hands, pulling him down to kiss her. She watched his eyes go wide for a second, just before she closed her own eyes and leaned into the soft pressure of his mouth on hers. But it took him no time at all to catch up, moaning against her lips and sliding his hands up her back to pull her closer against him.

Within seconds, what she had thought would be a quick kiss out of sight of their families turned into teeth grazing bottom lips and tongues meeting as he pushed her backward against the dark wall. As her body hit the solid surface, she felt the pressure of his chest against hers so much more completely, and she pushed up on the tips of her toes to align his hips with hers, tightly wrapping her arms around his neck. One of his hands scraped down between her back and the wall until his fingers were digging over the swell of her arse, and he bent his knees slightly, tilting his head so his nose bumped hers as he switched sides to kiss her again, hardly taking in one full breath in between.

She forced herself to remember they were only barely hidden in a public place, and they absolutely could not shag right there on the platform.

“Ron,” she muttered into his mouth.

“Mmmm?” he moaned back, sucking her upper lip between both of his.

She almost laughed, giddiness rising up from her belly at the idea of them having a full conversation without their mouths ever completely separating. But she took a desperate measure as he ground his hips into her, biting his lip a bit harder than she normally would have.

“Oi!” But he backed only half an inch away from her, eyes heavy-lidded with desire as she dropped down to her heels again and slid her hands along the sides of his neck.

“Have to stop before I shag you in public.”

“Fucking hell…” he panted, dropping his forehead to the wall over her shoulder.

“Do you think our parents will be offended if we tell them I’m too tired for dinner, and we go right home?”

“God. I’m not hungry anymore anyway.”

“You aren’t?”

“Not for actual food…”

She laughed as she brushed her thumbs over his cheeks, watching his eyes flutter shut with pleasure.

“Well, pull yourself together,” she said with a grin. “We have to go back and tell them, at least.” His eyes popped open, but he was grinning back.

“Oi, who dragged who back here to snog because she couldn’t wait?”

“Oh, you were fine with another three hours without-“

He cut her off by kissing her again, weaving a hand up into her hair. She felt her body melt against the wall, trapped and hidden by his strong body, one of his hands moving to her waist to briefly dip under her shirt and run his fingers up the bare skin of her side. She shivered as he pulled his mouth away from hers again.

“No, I wasn’t.” She blinked, slowly recalling the question she’d just asked him. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

She linked her fingers with his and started to move away from the wall, but he paused.

“Actually, give me a second,” he groaned. “Just don’t touch me.”

She bit her bottom lip, trying not to laugh. It really wasn’t fair how much easier it usually was for her to recover in public, considering she had nothing physical to hide aside from swollen lips… He closed his eyes and took a couple of calming breaths, but he kept holding her hand.

“Right,” he said, opening his eyes again and gesturing toward the crowded platform behind her.

They made their way back to where they had unceremoniously left their bewildered families, only to find Harry and Ginny standing there alone.

“You’re not coming with us, am I right?” Ginny asked in a rhetorical sounding way, not even waiting for either of them to speak.

“I did fall asleep on the train,” Hermione tried weakly. “I’m pretty tired…”

Harry failed to hide his smirk and short laugh, which he playfully turned into a cough.

“Which obviously explains why you’re both blushing Gryffindor scarlet and why Hermione’s hair’s a complete mess,” Ginny grinned.

“More than usual?” Ron teased, and she squeezed his hand too tight, watching him wince.

“Go on,” Harry said, still smirking at them, “but I expect silencing charms to be thoroughly tested before I get home.”

Ron laughed and leaned down to speak directly into Hermione’s ear, making her shiver again with the low raspiness of his voice.

“Harry’s got some rules about improper use of shared furniture…”

“Oh, God, you’re disgusting,” Ginny groaned, having clearly heard Ron’s failed attempt to speak quietly.

“Come on,” Harry suggested, gesturing for Ginny to follow him. “We’ll explain to your parents but you owe me dinner.”

“Deal,” Ron called after him, and Hermione linked her arm with his, leaning her head against his shoulder as they walked toward the back of the platform to Apparate home.

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100 Days of R/Hr: Day 17

Prompt: "Josie” by Blink 182

Prompted by: @goldythegeek

Here I am, finally back at these again. This is yesterday’s prompt, but I was out too late to post last night. Also,  I’m changing my pen name to TM “this spiraled out of control” Blue… Hope you enjoy! x

She was sitting in the middle of his bed, flipping distractedly through the Quidditch magazine he’d left open on his bedside table, having long ago finished the book she’d brought up with her. It wasn’t that she was worried, exactly… except that she was bloody worried. Fine.

She sighed and roughly turned to the next page, revealing a colourful advertisement for leather gloves and knee pads. Players that she assumed Ron would recognise zoomed around in their uniforms, in the background. She’d really picked the worst possible diversion, given her vague-at-best interest in Quidditch…

She closed her eyes and rubbed them with the heels of her palms, hoping to convince herself not to do something rash like leave the Burrow at two o’clock in the morning, by herself, to look for Ron. He’d gone out with his brothers, she had to remind herself. They were all together and everything was fine.

But… was it?

The night after Voldemort’s death, they’d been so exhausted and relieved to have won that they’d slept together in his old Gryffindor dormitory bed, holding onto each other, for a solid ten hours. But, after that, chaos had crept back in around them. There were the funerals, the repairs, the arrests… and then, the sporadic violence as Aurors began to locate Death Eaters who had disappeared in the aftermath of the final battle. She didn’t know when she’d feel that it was safe enough to bring her parents home. In fact, she only really knew one thing for sure. Ron actually loved her back. Really. He’d even told her first. And they’d hardly spent ten waking minutes out of each other’s presence since.

Until tonight.

Alright. She wasn’t worried. She was terrified. Irrationally, ridiculously, overwhelmingly-

A sudden series of loud thumps crescendoing up the stairs made her gasp and clutch her wand in a tight fist. But then, as she held her breath, the door swung roughly open to reveal an incredibly disheveled looking Ron, who stumbled inside, not even noticing her presence as he slammed his door shut again and paused at the foot of his bed, half-sitting, half-falling into it, before giving up and flopping down onto his back. His abrupt movements jostled his magazine out of Hermione’s lap, and she was forced to bend a knee out of the way of his head, just before the back of his skull would have crashed down hard.

He flinched, startled, and he finally spotted her, tilting his head back to gaze deliriously up at her shocked face.

“Oh! Hi.”

“What happened to you?!” Her heart was thumping madly in her chest at his sudden appearance, and she’d not quite reached the point where she could lean into feeling relieved.

“You’re in my room.” He attempted a smile, face upside down from her perspective.

“Well spotted.”

“What’r’you doin’-“

“You were gone for seven hours.”

She noticed that her hands were shaking, but there wasn’t much to do about it now. Apparently her pent up nerves had physically caught up with her. As long as she didn’t cry, maybe he wouldn’t realise...

“Was I really?”

She couldn’t respond, for fear that her voice would sound too shrill to understand at this point.

He shifted, and his shoulder crinkled his abandoned magazine. Squinting in a way that might have been considered comical to her under slightly different circumstances, he reached up to see what he’d crushed. Holding the magazine in the air above his face, he raised an eyebrow and tilted his head back again to find her eyes.

“Y’really must’ve been bored.”

He almost smirked.

“Not bored!” She’d tried, but she really couldn’t help shouting now, watching him wince with surprise. “You say you’re going for dinner, so I think you’ll be gone two or three hours, and then you come back in the middle of the night, drunk! I thought for sure something horrible had happened!”

“Woah.”

He dropped the magazine and twisted around, scrambling to sit on his knees, facing her. His eyes darted a bit, but the teasing, carefree sort of attitude he’d had when he’d spotted her had instantly vanished, even as she noticed him sway and re-balance just slightly.

“You were worried?” he asked quietly.

“Two people were badly injured by raving Death Eaters in London yesterday. No, I wasn’t worried at all.”

“Shit. M’sorry. Bill kept takin’ us t’more pubs.”

And just like that, hearing his brother’s name, she felt her fear subside somewhat to make way for a bit of shame. His family was grieving, they’d lost Fred a week ago, and here she was, shouting at him. It wasn’t entirely safe to be out right now, but she sensed that her fear was a bit disproportionate to the actual danger he’d been in. How could she explain the way she’d tethered herself to him so completely without sounding insane? One week. It had only been one bloody week since she’d kissed him.

But, in reality, the kiss had changed little about how she’d already been feeling for years. It had only made it public, given her the answers to questions she’d never been brave enough to ask him… things they both should have said long ago.

“You’re right, though,” he added in a scratchy voice. “Would’ve been worried, too, if you’d gone out that long. Didn’t think about it. M’really sorry.”

“Just send your Patronus or something, next time,” she sniffed.

“Thas a good idea,” he slurred, reminding her that she was face to face with a Ron she’d never seen before… a very drunk Ron.

He shifted a bit closer to her, and she suspected he was waiting to be sure it was safe before he would touch her. She’d inflicted a fair amount of injuries on him in their complicated history…

“I know you need to be with your family right now. I’m just on edge with everything we went though, everything still happening, and-“

“You’re my family, too.”

His eyes weren’t leaving hers, and there were several ways she could take his words, all of which made her stomach flutter and her cheeks warm  considerably. For so many years, he’d made her feel like she belonged, and maybe she’d even taken that for granted. Harry had been viewed as a son to Ron’s parents, and now she was starting to see how he had given her just as meaningful of a place here. She’d been an outsider with a non-magic family, and she’d certainly not been famous or important. So the only reason he had to do what he’d done was because of how much he’d always cared about her. She recalled him holding her hand at Grimmauld Place, seriously offering to teach her his family tree...

She couldn’t think of words to follow his lovely sentence, so she looked down and reached out to take his hand instead. His long fingers weaved between hers, and she could see his face relax as she looked back up to meet his eyes.

“Just can’t let anything happen to you,” she said softly.

“Nah, m’fine.” He paused and narrowed his eyes slightly. “You okay?”

He suddenly looked so adorably concerned, and she couldn’t stop her lips from twitching.

“Well, yes,” she said, committing to a smile. “I’ve just been sitting here all night, haven’t I.”

“Have you? Where’s e’rybody else?”

“Your parents went to stay the night with Mrs Tonks and Teddy, remember? Ginny’s been in bed for ages, and Harry’s presumably sleeping in Percy’s, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he went back down to Ginny’s, once he saw me come up here…”

He blinked slowly at her.

“Are y’staying in my room?”

She sniffed and averted her eyes from his gaze.

“Do you want me-“

“Yeah,” he laughed over her, swaying slightly again as she pressed her lips together.

“Not planning to sleep in your shoes and jeans, are you?”

“Mm no.”

He ran his thumb across the back of her hand, and she was momentarily distracted from her original mission. Clearing her throat, she managed to extricate her fingers from his and slide off his bed to stand next to him. He tried to follow her, but as he straightened his knees, he leaned heavily to the left, and she grabbed ahold of his bicep as he caught himself with a fist on the edge of his mattress.

He shook his head and squinted at her.

“Fuck, I’m drunk.”

“I know.”

He sat back down on the edge of his bed and half-smiled sheepishly up at her.

“Didn’mean to.”

“How many pubs did you go to?”

“Dunno.”

“Oh, that’s a good sign!” She knelt in front of him and reached for his right foot. “How did you even get home like this?”

He was staring distractedly down at her hands untying his shoelaces.

“Hm? Oh. Charlie.”

“He Apparated drunk?”

She tugged the first shoe off and moved to his left foot.

“He’s prob’ly not drunk.”

“Where is he now?”

The second shoe thudded to the floor.

“Twins’ room.” He paused and exhaled heavily. “George’s room. Shit.”

“Ron…”

“M’fine,” he said, roughly wiping his watery eyes with the back of his hand.

She scooted closer to him, on her knees, so her hips were against his shins.

“You don’t have to be fine,” she said in a small voice, feeling her own eyes water a bit.

He stared at her for a long, silent moment, and she was desperate to know what he was thinking. But then he reached out and slid his left hand back along her jaw.

“Yer too good f’me, y’know.”

“Don’t ever say that again,” she said immediately, glaring at him before lifting her own hand to hold his wrist, keeping his palm there against her face.

“Why?”

“Because it’s rubbish, and you know it. And you know I think it is.”

His fingers spread at her jaw joint, moving up over her ear, into her hair.

“Need me to prove it?” she added, keeping her eyes fixed on his and raising her brows.

“Maybe,” he laughed, reaching up with his right hand to mirror his left.

“Come here.”

He ducked down the few inches necessary to kiss her, meshing his parted lips with hers as she shut her eyes and moaned lightly into his mouth. She slid her fingers down his forearms, up the curve of his elbows to his biceps, and then he pulled away just a bit, dazed.

“You taste like whisky,” she whispered, slowly opening her eyes.

“Sorry,” he grinned back.

She shook her head, but he dropped his hands from her face, and she leaned slightly away, chewing her bottom lip for a second in contemplation, but she’d seen him in only his boxers before, so… Was her plan now really so different? It was fine…

“Lie down.”

He raised a brow, but his eyelids were slowly slipping shut, making for a slightly ridiculous combination.

“Just do it,” she laughed softly, and he smiled as he tilted sideways and shifted up until his head was on his pillow and he was lying on his back. She got up off the floor and climbed over his legs to straddle his thighs, and his nearly completely shut eyes popped open again.

“What…” His hands hovered a few inches away from either side of her waist.

“Not sleeping in your jeans, right?” she reminded him, and she hoped he couldn’t see her flushing in the dark as he watched her reaching for his jeans button.

“Right,” he said, in a low, raspy sort of voice that made her hands shake a bit.

She moved on to his zipper and quickly pulled it down, reaching for the belt loops at his hips and tugging, and she began to crawl backward down his legs. When she arrived at his shins, she climbed off him, and he helped her finish the job by shifting his legs around and kicking his jeans off his ankles.

“Hot up here, innit?” And before she could respond, he sat halfway up and reached over his shoulder to yank his shirt roughly off over his head, flinging it to the floor and collapsing to his back again.

Her eyes roamed down his almost naked body, and she realised how hot it really was in his room, quite immediately.

“Not sleeping in your jeans, are you?” he said in a low voice.

She caught his eyes, and he grinned at her. But, rather than playfully scold him, which came more naturally to her, she licked her lips and climbed out of his bed.

“No, I’m not,” she said, forcing herself not to look back over at him while she unbuttoned, unzipped, and tugged off her own jeans, stepping out of them as they pooled at her ankles.

Standing in only her vest and knickers, she chanced a glance at him, as she approached his bed again, and she found him lying on his side, facing her, glassy eyes staring up at her, lips parted slightly. She cleared her throat again and climbed over him to settle on her side, closest to the wall. Scooting up behind him, she watched him turn his head until she could see his profile.

“Ermynee-“

”Is this okay?” she whispered, suddenly a bit self-conscious as her legs tucked up behind his.

“Yeah, ‘course.” He reached back and loosely held onto her bare thigh for a second, and she closed her eyes. “Thank you.”

“For what?” She opened her eyes again to stare at the wisps of ginger hair curling at the base of his neck.

“Bloody hell, room’s spinning.”

“Ron-“

“You’re just… m’sorry I scared you.”

She draped her arm over his waist, brushing her fingers down his stomach. He shivered with pleasure and reached to take her hand in his, pulling it up higher.

“Don’t ever leave me,” he mumbled, pressing her fingers to his lips.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” she said, smiling as she rested her cheek against his bare back.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 12

Prompt: tiny apartment

Prompted by: LilyMay77

For the record, my canon is pretty much that they moved in together at the end of her 7th year at Hogwarts (either with Harry or just on their own), but let’s go with this for fun today. Hope you enjoy! x

It had actually been sort of an awful week. Not only had the Aurors failed to make any real progress on their current case, but Hermione had been so busy with reports that she hadn’t been able to visit when he’d had a few free hours in Inverness on Tuesday. Now, it was late Friday- no, Saturday morning, really… and he could at least feel relieved that he’d not had to stay in that dusty old cabin with four other blokes sleeping on bedrolls in the same room through the weekend as well.

He’d just started turning the key in the lock of his flat door when he heard… a cat meowing?

Pausing to listen, he was sure it was coming from inside his flat, which made him a lot more curious than nervous. For a moment, he almost convinced himself he was delirious from lack of sleep and had been trying to unlock the wrong door. But the key turned the rest of the way quite easily, and he stuffed it into his pocket, removing his wand and opening the door cautiously.

“Crookshanks?”

A fluffy ball of orange fur stared up at him, and he lifted a brow, realising that Hermione must have been here recently, though it was strange for her to bring her cat along and then leave him behind, unless…

He took off his coat and turned to toss it in the vague direction of the sofa when his eyes landed on the coffee table, and he grinned. It was absolutely covered in books, stacked several deep and filling every inch of space aside from one small corner that housed an empty tea cup and saucer. As he looked closer, he noticed that an avalanche of books continued to the floor, torn scraps of parchment stuck randomly between the pages as place holders. His old orange patchwork blanket was lying in a heap on the far sofa cushion, twisted with a navy wool jumper that he recognised as his own, though he’d definitely not left them there last Sunday as he’d vacated his flat for his assignment. As he moved toward the short hall that led to his bedroom, he spotted Hermione’s trainers sitting neatly behind the sofa, solidifying his suspicion.

He’d been conflicted, when he’d arrived at the Ministry an hour ago, about really preferring to go directly to her parents’ house to see her, but he didn’t want to wake anyone after midnight. Now that he was home, this was far better. He held his breath as he pushed open his half-closed bedroom door.

She was lying in the middle of his bed, on her side, sound asleep. Her hair was fanning out over his pillow, half-obscuring her face, and one of her feet was sticking out from the end of his twisted sheets and blankets. His heart lodged in his throat as he stared at her in the dark, and he wondered why he hadn’t asked her to just move in with him before. Maybe because he hadn’t known this… whatever he could call the fact that she had been evidently living at his flat while he was gone.

He was so torn between wanting her to know he was there and not wanting to wake her, but he tried not to make a sound as he walked slowly further into his room, wondering if he ought to kip on the sofa at least until she did wake up. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t shared his bed on plenty of occasions when she had stayed over with him before, but she rarely slept all the way through the night, and she was currently sprawled in the dead centre of the bed, making it hard for him to imagine climbing in with her without disturbing her.

As he navigated toward his chest of drawers for a change of clothes, he spotted her jeans on the floor and smiled wider, continuing in his discoveries by locating her folded jumper on the arm of the chair by the window and yet another large book on his bedside table. He managed to almost silently extract boxers and a clean shirt from a drawer before leaving the room again and turning right to enter his small loo, closing the door behind him so the sound of the sink wouldn’t bother her.

No longer very surprised at this point, he grinned at her toothbrush inside the cup he used as a holder, her hairbrush on the edge of the sink, and… bloody hell, another book. He’d just stripped off his clothes to pile on the floor, put on his clean pants and brushed his teeth when he heard her soft, tentative voice.

“Ron?”

He opened the door and grinned out at her, taking in her flushed face and embarrassed expression… noting that she was only wearing one of his flannel shirts… and possibly knickers underneath, though he could use his imagination-

“I didn’t expect you back til Sunday.”

“Nice to see you, too,” he teased, abandoning the loo and the clean shirt he hadn’t put on yet to move closer toward her, but he hesitated at the way she bit her lip apologetically.

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

She grimaced and tucked a thick clump of messy, sleep-tousled hair behind her ear.

“I’d planned to clean up and go home tomorrow.”

“I told you you could stay whenever you wanted,” he reminded her. “S’why you’ve got a key.”

“I know… but I didn’t ask if I could be here all week, and I’ve sort of made a mess of your flat, and my things are everywhere, and I didn’t want you to see it like this,” she rambled, looking even more flustered.

“Oh yeah, because I’m an incredibly tidy person, myself…” he said sarcastically.

“That’s not the point,” she sighed.

He suspected she had narrowly avoided rolling her eyes, even though she was still giving off the impression of mild shame that he’d found her here. His lips twitched, but he knew he still had some work to do to reassure her of how absolutely fine it was that she was here.

“I should have asked you,” she concluded.

“You never need to ask. But would you have told me you stayed, if I hadn’t come back til Sunday?”

Guilt filled her features again, and she didn’t really have to answer.

“Hang on,” he said, slowly. “Have you done this before?”

She closed her eyes tightly, for a second, and when she opened them again, she almost whimpered her next words.

“I’m sorry.”

His stomach was fluttering wonderfully as he shook his head.

“Stop that. Hermione, you can move in if you want. I don’t care.”

“You…” she started, wide eyes staring up at him, arms crossed over her chest. “What?”

“I’m really glad you’re here. I was worried about waking everybody up if I showed up at your parents’ house. And, to be honest, I loved finding all your shit here… even Crookshanks.”

She chewed her bottom lip for a second in contemplation.

“You don’t want me to live here. You’d never have time alone-”

“Don’t want time alone.”

“But…” Her eyes darted between his, as if looking for some sign of hesitation. Good luck, he thought. She wouldn’t find any. “I don’t think you realise how much stuff I have, and your flat is tiny.”

“I’ve been in your room plenty…”

She licked her bottom lip, and he tried mostly unsuccessfully to hold back a grin.

“Have you looked under the bed?” she asked, shyly.

“Why? Is it all just books under there? Just put ‘em under my bed then. I think mine’s bigger than yours, anyway.”

She exhaled sharply through her nose, still staring sceptically up at him.

“Point is, you could move in tomorrow, and no I don’t need time to think about it, and no I don’t give a damn how much stuff you put in every room because, if you did move in, it would be your flat, too.”

She blinked rapidly for a second, and he realised her eyes were watering.

“You’ve always wanted your own space, Ron. You said so when you left the Burrow…”

“I didn’t mean away from you. Just didn’t fancy living in my old room after… y’know, the war and being on our own.”

“But now you have your own flat and furniture and- and everything. That has to matter to you.”

It was starting to make sense, now. He blinked at her, realising he’d somehow miscommunicated something rather important.

“You’ve really thought, for almost a year, that I needed to be here alone?”

“I don’t know,” she said, tightening her arms across her chest. “You never said. And I know how important it always was to you growing up to have something that really belonged only to you.”

“Yeah, alright. I see why you thought- I should have explained better. There’s no real difference between something that’s mine and something that’s ours, yeah? I haven’t thought of it like that since… yeah, prob’ly since the tent, honestly.”

“Since the tent?” Her eyes widened, and she started breathing between slightly parted lips. He shrugged, smiling.

“Reckon it was you keeping a lot of our stuff together in your bag, and… I dunno, I liked it. Made me feel like we were sort of living together. I mean we were, technically, but not like that.”

She swallowed and took a small step closer.

“I felt like that, too. That’s exactly why I did it,” she admitted.

The left corner of his mouth lifted up into a lopsided grin.

“I’m really glad you’re back early. Missed you so much,” she sniffed.

“C’mere.”

She took a step toward him, and he cupped her face in his hands, ducking to kiss her. She rested her palms on his bare chest, stood up on her toes to reach him better, and he skimmed his hands slowly down the front of her body, between them, shivering as she let a low groan vibrate into his mouth. He held her hips for a moment, and then his hands found their way inside the back of the flannel she was wearing, fingers spreading over her bare skin and bringing her closer as she looped her arms around his neck.

She finally pulled away a bit, gasping in a breath, but her glistening eyes were gazing back into his, and he tightened his arms around her waist, picking her up as she squealed with surprise.

“Missed you, too,” he said in a low rumble, against her ear, before burying his face in her hair for a second and lowering her back to the floor, smiling.

He released her only to take her hand and lead her back to the bedroom, happily noticing her bracelet and elastic hair band looped over the bed post as he climbed in and tugged her close, quickly replacing all the rest of the pronouns in his head from his to theirs.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 16

Prompt: Hermione’s 19th birthday

Prompted by: ObsessedRHShipper

So, I don’t know what happened, but life encroached on me from all angles, and I have barely proofread this, I wrote most of it at delirious hours of the night, and there could very well be all sorts of odd mistakes (and I normal just naturally Britpick myself fairly okay as I’m writing, but I have less faith in myself than usual because I haven’t had time to be thorough, so please feel free to call me on it if I screwed up)... and I definitely left in a really dirty thing that I questioned just before I typed it and then intentionally didn’t go back to read it again so I wouldn’t chicken out of leaving it there, but it’s just so subtle that you might miss it anyway...

But that brings me to the warning about this containing SMUT.

Also, I hate Tumblr. Formatting a gigantic chunk of copy-pasted text is HELL, and who knows what this will look like on the app, and just... yeah. I did my best, guys. *sobbing*

I am existing on coffee and very few hours of sleep right now, but I’m just so relieved that I am finally able to celebrate Hermione’s birthday, four days late, and move on with life!! :D

Hope you enjoy this (way longer than a drabble) fic! x

"...fucking bollocks..." Hermione dropped the quill she was holding, eyes darting to the tall, diamond-paned window to her right. Moonlight reflected off the glass, and she noticed, for the first time that evening, that a chilly draft was wafting through the crack, where someone had evidently left the latch undone. But she was entirely alone in the library at this hour…

She really had heard him. Or had she finally gone mad? She reached for her wand, barely breathing.

"Bloody hell-" "Ron?!" she hissed, standing abruptly from her table and moving closer to the window, in her socks. There was a long, silent pause. And then, a bright blue eye appeared in the crack between the window and its frame. "Hey." She jumped back as she gasped, clutching her wand in a white-knuckled fist. "What are you doing?!" she whispered fiercely, moving forward again as she comprehended his actual presence, jaw dropping. "Happy... -shit!" He struggled with something, and then his palm slapped suddenly to the window, swinging it inward. "Right," he said, revealing his full body, standing in the brambly bushes outside the sill. "Happy birthday." He grinned at her, jeans caught in several places on large thorns, hair swept far to the side across his forehead, arm raised above his head to keep the window open, which pulled his green jumper up his body on that same side, revealing a strip of pale skin and the black elastic of his pants above his belt.

She stared at the sight before her for a moment, speechless. And then, she burst out laughing, pocketing her wand, eyes watering as she darted forward, throwing her arms around his neck and nearly tumbling out through the window altogether. He steadied her by tightly wrapping his left arm around her waist and leaning forward to keep them from overbalancing into the shrubbery. "I can't believe you're here," she mumbled happily against his neck. He took in a deep breath, nose buried in her hair. And he must have gotten distracted, because the window began to swing slowly shut. Hand seizing at her back, he lifted his head and pushed forward again. "Sorry!" she whispered urgently, removing her arms from around his neck and balancing fully back on her own feet again. "No one else's in here, yeah?" he asked, glancing past her into the dark library. "No, l’m alone. Ginny got me permission from Madame Pince to be here all night, on my own, as a birthday present, and I-”

But she broke off, eyes widening. "She knew!" Ron shrugged, his smile slowly spreading. "You planned this out so I'd be the only one here when you arrived, didn't you!" "Maybe..." With a terrible ripping noise, he yanked his right leg free from thorns, hoisted himself through the open window, and tugged his left leg to follow, wincing. He reached around and shut the window, latching it and smirking down at her. "Only you would consider an all night pass to the library the best birthday present ever." "No," she said, smiling shyly back at him, "this is the best birthday present ever." She glanced down his body and slowly returned her eyes to his, fighting a strong urge to flush crimson. His expression had turned quite dreamy, candlelight flickering in his pupils. "I know it's only been three weeks, but I've, uh, missed you a good bit more than I've admitted," he said, quietly. She nodded, sniffing. "Me too."

They stared at each other for a moment, in silence, before he cleared his throat.

"What do you want to do now?" He toed off his trainers and picked them up, walking past her to stow them under her table.

"What do you mean?"

“Well… we've reached the end of the part that I’d planned out…”

She pressed her lips together, amused.

“So, we can do whatever you want,” he continued, as he stood to his full height again. “I can revise an essay, or copy down notes, or read a section of the library aloud..." Eyes widening, she coughed lightly, caught between laughing at his list and thinking it was far more brilliant sounding than she probably should admit.

"No one's coming back tonight. Madame Pince left and locked me in ages ago..." she explained, licking her lips.

"Right," he said, before clearing his scratchy throat. She'd been mentally plotting an excuse about his torn jeans and the possibility of minor injuries from his run-in with the foliage outside, but the longer she stood a metre away from him, heart pounding, the less it mattered whether or not she was completely obvious about it. He'd shown up, at midnight, without a plan. He'd definitely been expecting her to take advantage of him... one way or another.

“So…” he urged, staring almost shyly down at her. "Oh, forget this," she sighed, moving forward. She tilted her head back as she approached him, and he gazed down at her, so close to touching... but not quite. He lifted one eyebrow, the corner of his mouth… and then, his hands reached up and cupped her face, and he ducked to kiss her. She sighed out relief, flowing between his parted lips as his hands moved down, past her shoulders, fingers spreading wide as he slid them down her back, left hand pressing to the arch above her arse, forcing her stomach flat against his as his left hand suddenly moved back up to tangle in her hair. She reached up under the back of his jumper and shirt, shivering at the wonderful feeling of his warm, bare skin against her hands. His tongue ran between her lips, and she felt his hands trembling against her. She puffed out a tiny squeak, attempting to remain on her toes to reach him. But her right leg lifted off the ground as his teeth lightly nibbled her bottom lip, and she needed to be much, much closer to him. Wrapping her heel around his calf, she forced their hips together, eliciting a shuddering groan from him in response… He pulled his lips impossibly slowly away from hers, panting lightly and clenching his eyes shut as she grabbed a hold of one of his back belt loops, fingers splaying so half her hand was resting over the top of his arse, holding him quite still... and quite close. She breathed in a sort of ragged series of gasps as he copied her motion, sliding the hand at her back down, down, over the rounded swell of her own arse. Two breaths later, he slid his hand back up, under her shirt, stopping at her bra, and she brushed her nose against his as she dropped her foot from his calf and moved back enough to focus on his eyes as he opened them. He slid his left hand out of her hair, down along her collarbone, until the tip of his index finger was trailing the collar of her shirt, feathering to her top button. She tilted her head back and exhaled slowly, eyes locked on his as he moved his right hand to join his left, working the first button free… then the second, the third... And then, he stopped, taking a step back... and he dropped to his knees in front of her. “Ron, what…” she laughed, in a fluttery, nervous sort of way. Three weeks apart really was feeling like an eternity, and a part of her was drowning in that same excited anxiousness that had traveled with her for at least the first half of the summer.

Looking down at him, she held her breath for a moment, his head level with her breasts, which were currently heaving against her bra. He quickly unbuttoned her last three buttons, opening her shirt, eyes raking over her body, raising her temperature…

Pressing his lips lightly to the skin just below her bra, he looked up and met her eyes, shadows streaking across his face, in contrast to the lantern light that splashed in his eyes and fringe. She was caught staring back at him, unable to look away. It was mental, really, knowing that he loved her, like everything suddenly looked so much different. Or did it? Was it only her perspective that had changed? He had looked at her so many different ways, over the years before, conveying a wealth of hidden emotions she was either too afraid to risk believing or had simply not viewed correctly.

He kissed her stomach, open-mouthed, as his hands spread wider over her sides. His nose caught on the bottom edge of her bra, and he pulled back.

“We’re doing this in the Hogwarts library,” he grinned, and she recalled him mentioning a particular fantasy about this, to which she had concurred… only she’d never expected to actually do it. Her heart was pounding, fear of being caught somewhere pulsing in the back of her mind. But he was right there. Was she honestly supposed to tell him to stop?

“Come on,” she suggested, tugging him gently by the hair and smiling. “We can go deeper into the shelves at least so we’ll have time to stop if someone does come back…” She cleared her throat, and he stood.

“What?”

“I keep thinking I'm someone who doesn't break rules, don't I, but how often has that actually been true? Just because I'm clever about how to do it doesn't mean we aren't still breaking them…”

He stared at her in contemplation for a moment before grinning.

“That's a good point…”

She took his hand, tugging him further back into the stacks, away from the windows, well out of view of the front doors. When she stopped and turned to face him, he was staring at her with a strange sort of expression she couldn't place.

“What?” she asked him, quietly.

“Hm? Nothing,” he smiled back, running a hand through his hair to move it off his forehead. The result was an amusing puff of ginger at the top of his head before his fringe slowly fell down again. She gave up questioning the way he was obviously hiding something from her, opting instead to focus on the way her stomach flipped with happiness, familiarity. Sometimes he was just so perfectly who she wanted that she was overwhelmed, all over again. And why was it always the most ridiculous things, like his hair, or the lopsided curve of his mouth just now as he grinned at her?

She took his hand again and walked two steps further backward before tugging him down to sit on the floor, hidden by high rows of books, dark shadows washing over them, far away from the nearest lit lantern. Wrapping her hands around his forearms, she pulled him in closer until his mouth was on hers again, one of his hands finding her bare side under the shirt she was still half-wearing. His tongue ran between her lips, and her body tensed with pleasure before she couldn’t help herself and was climbing into his lap, widening her legs to push her half-bare chest against his, recalling that he was still fully dressed. Pushing up on her knees, she dragged her mouth away from his, panting slightly as her hands slid up his neck to hold his face.

Sighing shakily, she scrambled at the back of his jumper, half clawing it up his body. He reached back to help, tugging the collar at the base of his neck. And they managed to pull it over his head, messy ginger hair emerging with a static fizz as she dropped the jumper to the floor and returned immediately to his mouth. His body was so warm through his thin, cotton shirt, and a part of her was hardly comprehending how far she was really letting this go, in the middle of the bloody library, but the rest of her was too consumed by what they were doing to care.

Feeling his erection through his jeans, she rubbed herself against him, arching slightly into his chest as he groaned, vibrations moving up from the back of his throat. His hands shot down to hold her hips, but she did it again, causing him to rip his mouth away from hers, wrap an arm around her waist tightly, and lean backward. For a moment, she was thrown off guard by his movement, his elbow supporting his weight as he dropped to his back. But then, he rolled sideways and flipped them over so she was lying on her back on the thick rug in the centre of the aisle, his body covering hers as he leaned over her and sucked on her neck. She gasped and tilted her head further back to give him better access, parting her thighs and bending her knees so his body fit perfectly between her legs. She angled her hips against him and arched closer, but instead of his usual move of reciprocating and pressing down into her, he slid his mouth down her neck, down between her breasts, and sat up between her knees.

She wanted to call him back down on top of her… until his long fingers pinched her nipples through her thin, cotton bra. She closed her eyes, tiny squeaky sounds emanating from her parted lips, but she was too distracted by sensation to feel embarrassed. She’d nearly moved past this anyway, realising a while back that he loved the sounds she made, which, at the time he’d admitted it, really only made her blush a deeper shade of burgundy…

As his hands moved down, she cracked open her eyes, but then his fingertips were sliding up her bare torso to the bottom edge of her bra, and it was incredibly fortunate both that she was wearing the sort of bra that clasped in the front and that he had become familiar with it over the summer, because he made quick work of it and peeled the cups off to either side to expose her chest. She ran her hands up his denim-covered thighs, and he sucked in a breath through his nose, reaching down to loosely hold her wrists in both hands as he stared. And then, leaning forward, her chilled skin was warmed by his hot breath... preceding his lips, which attached to the bottom swell of her right breast, open-mouthed and working his way up as she clenched a fist in his hair. His tongue flicked out as he reached her nipple, and she trembled as he stretched out between her legs again, supporting himself on his forearms.

“Ron,” she whispered, too constricted by her skirt and knickers and hoping he could somehow understand what she wanted, all from the way she’d said his name.

He figured out enough to start with, anyway, reaching up under her skirt and hooking a finger over the elastic of her knickers, pulling them down as he climbed out from between her legs to rid her of them completely. Now, he was absolutely overdressed. But, rather than rectify it for her, he repositioned himself between her legs, glided his hands up her bare thighs and back down… She opened her mouth to ask him to come closer, but he spoke before she could free the words.

"Hermione..." Sensing his hesitation, she froze and held his gaze. "What's wrong?" "I love you." Her heart seized, fluttering at his voice around the words she hadn't heard in nearly three weeks.

“That's what's wrong?” she whispered.

"Hell, no. Nothing's wrong. Just... wanted you to know, in case you forgot." "I love you, too," she smiled. "Brilliant,” and he grinned, ducking and kissing his way down her stomach, lifting her skirt again as his head dropped between her legs.

Her instinctive reaction was to gasp and flinch at his sudden contact with her extremely sensitive skin. But she knew he must be used to this by now, because his response was to tug her legs over his shoulders and spread his hands across her hips and use more tongue…

She lifted her gaze to the ceiling high above, heavily book-laden shelves rising on either side of them, but she had to clench her eyes shut as his hands moved up her body again to cover her breasts. She felt his teeth graze across her, and she really couldn't take it any more.

Reaching down, she gripped his biceps and pulled. He lifted his head to acknowledge her briefly before attaching his mouth to her inner thigh. Moaning her frustration, she raked her nails across his skin, and he lightly bit her before dragging his open mouth up the crease between her thigh and hip.

“Ron,” she whispered, his head bobbing on her stomach as she shifted under him.

He was ignoring her insistent suggestions, and she was more than a little ready for him to be naked and covering her whole body...

“What are you doing?” she sighed, half-frustrated and half-confused. He lifted his head again.

“What’d’you mean?” His hand froze on her chest, and he blinked up at her.

“You're way down there.”

“I was trying to, y’know… just do stuff for you.”

She finally noticed how red his cheeks and ears were and how rapid his breathing had become. This was a completely absurd turn of events. He was restraining himself because he thought this was what she wanted?

“What?” was the only word she could manage, as she pushed up onto her elbows to see him properly.

“It's your birthday,” he said in a deep, raspy voice.

“I'm aware.”

He shrugged, evidently deeming that statement enough to explain himself.

“But I want you to come up here,” she said.

He licked his lips, and his forehead creased.

“Just thought it might be nice if I, dunno, only did stuff for you.”

She was too filled with lust to accurately think this through, but a part of her was momentarily horrified before she settled in the knowledge that he couldn't possibly-

“There's no way you think I only have sex with you for your benefit.”

“No,” he laughed. “I know you like it-”

“Like it?!”

The countless times she had instigated shagging him throughout the summer flashed through her memory.

“Yeah, alright,” he smirked.

But she was piecing things together a bit, some distant part of her also finding it comical to be having this sort of conversation with him still lying between her legs, her shirt completely open.

“Because it's my birthday, you think you're being selfish?”

He hesitated for a second before shrugging again.

“That’s-” but she cut herself off, realising the truth. “No, I'm not surprised, actually. That’s so like you…”

His flushed ears may have darkened a shade, but it was impossible to tell for sure in the dim light. She suddenly knew what she wanted to express, but she had no idea how.

“I can't explain it properly, but… everything's better when you like it, too…”

He must have comprehended the gist, because his gaze softened considerably.

“To be fair, this is bloody amazing already, and I was liking it just fine…” His lips twitched toward an amused grin. “Reckon this is why blokes buy girls jewelry…”

She laughed, shaking her head.

“...which I may have also done,” he added, just a bit shyly, and her eyebrows shot up.

“You didn’t.”

“I know it's not that creative,” he said, as he pushed her leg off his shoulder and crawled up to lie on his side next to her, “but I've never really bought you a proper gift-”

“Perfume,” she said quickly, and he half rolled his eyes.

“Dunno if that counts.”

“Of course it counts.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head, smiling as she turned onto her side to face him.

“You really bought me jewelry?” she asked, in a small voice. She was never one to care about romantic gifts, but something about him buying her a very specifically non-practical thing made her lightheaded.

“Yeah,” and he opened his eyes, staring across at her. “But I hid the box in my trainer when I took them off at your table. Didn't want to forget about it in my pocket and crush it.”

“Oh my God, I'm so curious.”

She'd probably have abandoned their previous activities completely for long enough to find out what he'd bought her if he'd still had it within easy reaching distance...

“I’d lower your expectations if I were you,” he said. “It's not that amazing…”

But he truly could never understand that it didn't have to be extravagant or clever. It was amazing simply because it came from him. Whatever it was, she already loved it and would probably never take it off...

“I’d go look now, but I'm not properly dressed for standing in front of windows…” She chewed her bottom lip as he grinned, eyes flicking down and back up to her face.

“Speaking of that, reckon this is the longest conversation we've ever had while you've been half naked…”

“So, maybe we should stop talking…”

She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek, and he grinned in that slightly deliriously happy way that made her feel like her heart was going to explode. He sat halfway up on his forearm to move closer, and she hooked her arm around his neck and pulled him down to kiss her again.

Within seconds, her hands were under his shirt, and she was relieved that he was no longer resisting at all as she gathered thin cotton in her fists, working it up his sides. He finally sat up completely to rip the shirt over his head and toss it behind him. A hazy thought about how oddly endearing she found the way he always threw his clothes aside at random tried to formulate, but he attached his mouth to the sensitive skin in front of her ear, dragging his parted lips down the curve of her neck, and all coherence vanished. She wrapped a leg around his waist and pulled him further on top of her, instantly overcome by the feeling of his naked upper body pressing down on hers.

As his mouth covered hers again, she reached down to help with his belt, the sounds of metal and leather floating between the inconsistently spaced noises of kissing and shaky moans. Her body felt suddenly far too warm, yet she would happily stay underneath him like this for approximately forever… especially now that his fingers were moving between her legs. She shuddered against his lips, and he lifted his head to swallow and breathe. He may have been about to speak, but she interrupted his train of thought completely by pushing down his pants and wrapping her small fingers around him. His eyes snapped shut for a second, until he slowly regained the use of his voice.

“S’not been long enough now that this’ll hurt you again, y’think?” he slurred, in a slightly drunk sounding way, and he opened his eyes again.

“No,” she said, fibbing slightly, as she really didn't know the answer to his question, but she didn't want to give him a single reason to hold back.

As she stared up into his eyes, he removed his wet fingers from between her legs and tapped the back of her hand with his knuckles. She let go of him, he replaced her hand with his own, and she felt her stomach flip with a silent understanding of why he'd done what he'd done, mounting to wonderfully nervous anticipation of what he would do next.

As he ducked to kiss her again, he braced himself more heavily on his free arm, which she noticed was trembling slightly, just before his lips dragged back away from hers enough for him to suck in a sharp breath as he slid inside her. He muttered a series of mostly unintelligible curse words as she arched tighter to his chest and bent her knee higher up his hip, moaning airily with each exhale. She'd almost forgotten exactly how good it felt. He seemed to be having a similar problem as his now-free right hand searched for hers, gripping tightly once they found each other, threading their fingers together as he attempted a rhythm while simultaneously trying to kiss her, which resulted in his open mouth skipping from the corner of hers to her cheek.

Her skirt was bunched at her waist, and her knuckles were somewhat painfully pressing into the floor with the weight inflicted down from his palm, but it was all so perfect that she realised she might actually cry if she didn't get it under control quickly. It had happened twice before, just before the end, and she'd had a difficult time explaining to him that he was worrying about absolutely nothing and that she was only crying from the sheer overwhelm of building up to something for years, finally having it, and it being better than she could have ever imagined.

She didn't want to spend a single second watching him worry again, so she closed her eyes and breathing unsteadily through her mouth and focused on every physical feeling as her nerves built strongly between her legs, shocks of mounting tension low in her abdomen, and his teeth scraped pleasurably across her jaw as he finally released her hand to half-claw at the rug as he finished a few seconds after she did. She only realised she was holding her breath when she felt his hot, shaky exhale against her neck and her legs dropped like jelly to the floor.

The tip of his nose rubbed adorably against her ear before he slid most of the way off of her, left arm still half-draped across her stomach, hand dangling over her hip. She wiggled her trapped left arm out from under him so she could reach up and rake her fingers through his hair. He lazily blinked at her and smiled.

“Sort of doesn't seem fair,” he mumbled against her shoulder, “since this is exactly what I want for my birthday.”

“I can buy you jewelry, too.”

He laughed and snuggled the tiniest bit closer to her before shifting around in frustration.

“Jeans are all twisted…” he muttered, releasing her and standing up.

She watched with slightly glazed eyes as he straightened his pants and zipped his jeans before giving up on the belt and yanking it out to join his jumper and shirt on the floor. But before he could settle next to her again, she sat up and clasped her bra shut, remembering something.

“What were you hiding earlier?”

“Huh?”

He sat in front of her, confused, and she licked her bottom lip, knowing it must not be terribly important if her question hadn't been enough to remind him.

“You had a strange look, like you were thinking about something serious, and you didn't explain it.”

“Oh.” He scratched his ear and shrugged. “Wasn't hiding anything. Just felt like a prat.”

“Why?”

“Dunno. Sometimes it's just sort of… hard to believe you're real. I know that sounds mental…”

He shrugged and gave her a lopsided grin. It took her a second to catch her breath again to speak.

“No. I feel the same way about you,” she said in a small voice, smiling back.

He scooted closer and took her hand, and she found it incredibly endearing that he kept his eyes down on their clasped fingers, like he could still find a way to be shy after what they'd just done.

“How long can you stay?” she asked, at a near-whisper.

“As long as you want. Or… until Madame Pince comes and chucks me out…” He grinned at her again, but she was reminded, for a second, of how much trouble they could get into if they were caught.

“I could actually get expelled…”

“Nah, if we get dressed, reckon I could easily convince anyone this was my fault and you had nothing to do with it… which is true.”

“Got to get dressed, anyway, so I can see what you bought me!”

An excited little flutter danced in her stomach at the way his ears reddened a bit as he let go of her hand to find his shirt.

An hour later, she was leaning back against the corner juncture between two tall bookshelves, clothed in his jumper and her skirt, the thin, silver chain of a necklace visible as it angled over her collarbone before it vanished beneath his jumper collar. He was sitting cross-legged in front of her, one of her bare feet in his lap and the other in his hands as he worked his fingers almost absentmindedly up and down the arch, eliciting the occasional small sigh of pleasure from her, in between words. They were in the middle of an argument over whether or not Ron had ever returned the library’s copy of Quidditch Through the Ages after he borrowed it for the fourth or fifth time, in 1993, and to say that she'd never had a better birthday would be a serious understatement.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 14

Prompt: “Talk Too Much” by COIN

Prompted by: @hello-blue-roses

So, this one sort of came out of nowhere. I had never imagined this taking place at this point in DH before today, but thanks, song prompt! It borderline doesn’t fit into canon, but I read the RoR / Room of Hidden Things scene over again in the book, and you could possibly stretch the timeline while Harry’s separated from them + getting accosted by Malfoy to include time for this to go down. It was also the last place for them to have a very brief acknowledgement of their status before Fred dies :(

Hope you enjoy! x

They were rummaging through piles of junk, rusted old bottles and sconces, torn books, furniture missing a leg… The Room of Hidden Things seemed to stretch on endlessly before them, and they had separated from Harry to cover more ground. At least they had a plan and Harry had seen the diadem before, Ron reminded himself, as Hermione reached up to push a small stack of filthy, wooden boxes to the side to see what was behind them.

“Ron… I’m sorry,” she sniffed, not looking at him, “f-for, you know, kissing you like that.”

These weren’t the words he wanted to hear after the best few moments of his life, but he hadn’t entirely ruled out this possibility, so he managed to answer her, trying to stay at least partially distracted by their search.

“S’alright-”

“It was a bad time to- but I just don’t care about that anymore.”

She shifted stacks of torn parchment atop a small mound of what basically amounted to trash, sighing.

“Yeah, I-”

“But those fangs could have killed us,” she interrupted again, “and I don’t know what’s wrong with me… why I’ve got to find the worst possible moment for everything. We were living in a tent for months, then all those weeks with your brother and Fleur…”

He couldn’t really bring himself to admit that he hadn’t even thought about the fangs, completely oblivious to the potential for one of them to stab through a leg in her haste to throw herself against him. He waited in silence for another moment, correctly suspecting that she hadn’t finished talking yet.

“I just wasn’t thinking,” she sighed again. “Sorry.”

He busied himself with a shuffle through a small collection of scorched cauldrons until he sensed that she was actually done this time, and he scratched the words out through his raw throat, more worried about leaving her to feel like she owed him anything than he was focused on the way his heart was sinking to the pit of his stomach, wondering why she thought she needed to be sorry in the first place… that maybe she’d made a mistake.

“I get it. We might die. You just… did something spontaneous.”

“What?” she half-whispered, moving toward him before he could comprehend what she was doing.

Her eyes flashed over to his, and a strange sort of deep gaze penetrated him, like she could read his mind. Perhaps he wasn’t hiding it well at all, too distracted with their task, aisles and aisles of endless rubbish, with the sounds of distant fighting echoing through the stone walls. But he tried to hold on to the way her lips had felt, her arms around his neck, rather than showing her how scared he was that she’d done something she didn’t really mean, in the middle of a war…

She pushed him back against a crumbling column, and, for a second, he tensed, thinking it might collapse under their sudden weight. Her hand was on his chest, which he tried not to focus on as she almost glared up at him.

“You think that’s why I did it?”

He licked his bottom lip, at a loss for what to say. He didn’t know what the correct words were, and he was too full of adrenaline and dust to think straight.

“Well, it’s not,” she answered for him.

“But you just said… Look, I’d understand, if it was.”

He thought back over her apology, not quite ready to commit to believing he might have missed something. The important thing was that they had to focus on the bloody Horcruxes, and she really had picked a terrible time to snog him and then say she was sorry for it…

“We can talk later, when all this is over, if- if we survive,” he said. “But it doesn’t matter right now.”

“Doesn’t matter?”

“I just mean… bloody hell. Honestly, if we are gonna die, I’d rather just think you wanted to do it ‘cause you-” He broke off and cleared his throat. “Y’know, that you’d have done it whether or not we were in this shit right now. I should just tell you, anyway, that I’m fucking glad you did it. I mean, you know me. I’m not sure I’ve done that great a job hiding it lately, but I’ve fanc-”

Her fist tightened in his shirt and she tugged him toward her, kissing him again. It took him several seconds to comprehend what was happening before he gripped the back of her neck with his right hand and kissed her back. She pressed her body all along the front of his, standing up on her toes to reach him. And then, too soon, it was over. He opened his eyes and blinked down at her flushed face.

“I didn’t want to say the wrong thing again and confuse you,” she whispered, trying to excuse herself. “And, we’ve got a Horcrux to find.”

He was finding it hard to remember how to breathe, but she’d immediately pointed out, without needing to explain in words, that all his doubts about how she felt were entirely self-driven. Her apology now looked like something different. They could have spent months together, if they’d just done this before, when they’d had an endless stretch of quiet nights together in a tent, weeks of safety at Bill and Fleur’s. Now, they’d managed two effing kisses, and he might not live to see the sunrise.

“That’s twice you’ve done that now. Isn’t it my turn?”

“I can’t believe you thought it was just spontaneous.”

“We were in the middle of a conversation. Both times, actually.”

“But does it still count as spontaneous if I’ve been wanting to do it for about three years now?”

He felt his lips twitching, the dread that had lodged in his stomach earlier had completely dissipated, and he was pretty sure his arms were coated in goosebumps. They really ought to be searching for the damn diadem…

“Diadem, snake, Voldemort, Prefect’s Bath,” she said quietly, clearly agreeing with his unspoken words, reluctantly letting go of him and backing up a small step.

His grin spread slowly across his face as she shyly chewed her lip and abruptly turned around, rummaging through old jewelry boxes as they could finally hear Harry moving on the other side of the aisle again. Ron walked up behind her to reach a tray of silver goblets over her head. Evidently surprised by his proximity, she turned around under his arm, gazing up at him. He kept his eyes on the silver he was looking through as he felt her watching him.

“Not up there,” he said.

He reckoned they should both really stop taking so much and start just doing what they actually wanted to do. So far, that had worked out far superior to all the overthinking and jealousy they’d gone through for years. And he was free, knowing she returned the feelings that, for him, had grown to surpass love, even.

"We have to win," she said.

"We will," he answered, and she ducked under his arm to break free, opening cabinet doors across the aisle and peering inside.

“Not here either.”

They might not have time to put words to everything it meant, but he wasn’t even sure if they really needed them, anymore. He took hold of her hand and ran his thumb across her knuckles, encouraged by the way she smiled, determinedly tugged him further down the aisle to keep on looking.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 13

Prompt: homework

Prompted by: giulialuna90

Hope you enjoy! x

They were sequestered at their usual table at the library, the one that sat halfway submerged in a cluster of shelves, so that the smell of old, dusty texts permeated the air. He knew it was her favourite spot, because not only did they basically have the whole back right corner of the library to themselves, but she could get lost in the books and not have to speak to another soul for hours at a time if she didn’t want to. Today, however, she evidently wanted to… at least to him, because Harry had left over an hour ago, and she was currently in the midst of an overly detailed explanation of how to properly store potions that required temperature adjustments during long brewing cycles.

He had gotten scary good at being both completely invested in staring at her and simultaneously hearing and at least partially comprehending every word she said. He reckoned he should probably get started on his essay, while she was in the middle of rattling off far more than enough material to cobble together for a passing grade, but, if he was being honest, he just really didn’t want to look down at his parchment and miss the way her frustrated fingers tucked frizzy curls behind her ears, the way her tongue darted out to the corner of her mouth when she paused between monologues-

“Ron, are you even listening?”

“‘Course.”

“Then what was I just saying?” She narrowed her eyes at him, and he was far too cocky about being able to supply the answer he knew she sincerely doubted he could give.

“You’d just finished explaining how bulbadox juice has got to be stored in a cool place to keep from spoiling.”

She blinked at him, and he felt a bubble of delighted satisfaction rise up, trying not to smirk.

“Alright, fine,” she said. “That was lucky.”

“Not lucky. I was paying attention.”

“Well.” She cleared her throat. “Good,” and she resumed with a list of ingredients that could withstand heat for an extended period without breaking down.

What he couldn’t do, however, was both comprehend her discourse and simultaneously remind himself that he’d had to snog Lavender and get himself poisoned to grow up. At least that second part had ended in Hermione speaking to him again, though his mind immediately drifted to the nasty words he’d said to her and how he was nearly certain he’d made her cry on more than one occasion since mid-autumn.

He forced himself to focus back on the present, the smooth curve of her neck, soft pink of her lips… listening intently again. His eyes drifted to the way she brushed her hair back over her shoulder, lingering on her partially exposed collarbone where her jumper had slid to the side-

“There’s no way you heard the last thing I said, but you’ve got to include it in your essay or it’ll be incomplete.”

His eyes snapped to hers.

“Why d’you keep thinking I’m not listening?”

She licked her bottom lip, and he forced himself not to glance down.

“Because you're…” she sighed, “thinking.”

“How can you tell?”

“You were staring.”

He couldn’t stop his eyes from widening, and his temperature jumped up a noticeable number of degrees.

“Huh?” All he could do was play dumb, he reckoned. Hopefully she’d buy it, because he was so not ready to face-

“You were looking at something over my shoulder, seemed like.”

Relief flooded him, but he was surprised to realise it was mingled with unmistakeable disappointment. Maybe a part of him actually did want her to catch him… bloody hell.

“Oh,” he said, realising she was still waiting for him to answer her. “Well, I swear I heard you. Go on.”

She glanced suspiciously over her own shoulder, anyway. But, finding nothing there aside from the edge of the nearest shelf, she cleared her throat, eyed him cryptically, and returned to her lecture.

He tried, for a few moments, to focus only on her words, but he slowly gave it up. What could he do about the fact that he found it utterly adorable the way she wrinkled her nose when she was trying hard to recall something, or the fact that he often intentionally sat closer to her than necessary on the common room sofa under the pretense of reading something off the book that was resting across her lap? It had gone just about as far as it could, by now, and the next step, though really only a marginal shift of his hand into hers, was possibly going to strangle him before he got around to it…

“Am I forcing you to study?” she questioned softly, quite abruptly interrupting her own commentary on why the transparency of various potion vials was often overlooked, yet very important…

She’d never, in his clear memories, at least, asked something like this, so it threw him off. Of course she was forcing him to study - she nearly always was, if he was doing it in the first place - but (maybe somewhat surprisingly) he couldn’t think of a single place he’d rather be at the moment, as long as she was still sitting next to him.

“I won’t be offended if you want to stop,” she added, looking like she might actually feel quite guilty for keeping him here.

“No, it’s uh… nice to have the help. Let’s keep going. This thing’s due in a week, yeah? So, we’d better hurry…” He grinned at her, delighted when she twitched her lips into a small smile back.

“Just because you like to do everything last minute…” she muttered, but she was still smiling as she flipped a few pages forward in the book closest to her.

He waited for her review of the past two months of Potions material to resume, but she didn’t speak for a good long while, and he was beginning to finally feel too self-conscious not to busy himself with some other activity when she finally looked back up at him.

“Would you like to go back to the common room and play chess?”

“Nah, I’ll stay here with you and finish-”

“I meant with me,” she clarified, and he was quite sure her cheeks had flushed a few shades deeper pink. “I’ll go back with you.”

Surprised, he considered how long it had been since they’d last done something just for fun, together. He wished he could recall the exact day, what they’d been doing, but it was too far back…

“I know I’m not very good at chess,” she continued, clearly shy all of a sudden and backtracking, “but maybe you could explain what I’m doing wrong and how to be better-

“Yeah,” he interrupted, sensing her hesitation growing, “sounds brilliant.”

She studied him for a second before smiling.

“But we can work on the essay again later, if you want,” he concluded, pausing before completely abandoning his blank parchment to make sure she knew he was sincere.

She smiled a bit wider and nodded.

“Tomorrow?” She swallowed and didn’t give him time to answer, embarrassment further colouring her cheeks. “I mean… if you aren’t doing something else-”

“I’m not. Tomorrow’s great.”

And the next day was hers, too, he thought. And also the next day… How had he gone for months without her? Well, he’d just have to make up for that, starting right now.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 15

Prompt: “I Won’t Give Up” by Jason Mraz

Prompted by: @marauderswho

So I actually came up with this just after reading the lyrics when I wasn’t able to actually listen to the song in the moment. Once the fic was written, I went back and listened to the song. I think it’s mostly based on a few pieces of the whole and maybe not the theme of the song overall, but I hope you enjoy it! x

He walked slowly toward the beach, contemplating how long it had been since he’d seen so many stars so clearly in the night sky. This was actually quite ironic, because he’d spent months living in a tent, sitting night watches outside, so far away from the nearest town. But he hadn’t taken notice then, existing inside his own head or focused too intently on the tree line in case they had been discovered.

Now, he approached Hermione’s small form, where she was sitting in the sand, her body lit only by moon and starlight. She was wearing a black cotton t-shirt that was several sizes too large for her small frame, which he knew to be because of her injuries, still healing after Malfoy Manor, even though she hadn’t said it. It had been almost three days, but his hands would still shake when he was alone in the shower, or when he’d wake up from a cold nightmare with silent dread filling his body.

She turned and glanced suddenly over her shoulder, and he wasn’t sure what had alerted her to his presence. The waves ahead were shifting in and out against the shore, a mesmerising sound in the dark, and he hadn’t been able to hear his own footsteps, bare feet through sand.

“Hey,” he said, now that she’d noticed him, and she watched him as he sat in the sand beside her.

Her legs were nearly bare in a small pair of cotton shorts, and it was quite chilly out, sea breeze blowing her hair into little frizzy tornados over her shoulders, but she didn’t seem to mind. His jumper and jeans suddenly felt stifling in comparison.

“You didn’t eat much at dinner,” he pointed out, almost hating his own voice as he heard the words aloud. Even he had gone through a stretch of lost appetite, when he’d arrived here after leaving them… and he hadn’t been bloody tortured.

She studied his face, and he decided to try and look apologetic, relieved when she smiled softly.

“Wasn’t very hungry,” she said.

He nodded and turned his attention to the sea straight ahead. He wanted to do everything to help her, but he was more often lost than not. He knew there was no switch to flick to make it better, as much as he knew another part of him was desperately, endlessly, searching for it. But, all of a sudden, he felt her hand on his leg, moving over his forearm, fingers inching toward his hand. He met her halfway, fingers lacing together to rest on his knee. And when he risked looking over at her again, she was staring back, glassy eyes holding his gaze.

“How do you feel?” he asked in a scratchy, surprisingly emotional voice. She swallowed, and the reflection of starlight in her eyes intensified as they watered.

He was once again immediately sorry he had spoken, and he squeezed her hand, feeling overwhelmed. But she gripped his hand back before letting go and clearing her throat.

“Better,” she said in a shaky voice, “but… I’m going to have a scar.”

He glanced at her neck, the tiny remaining line across her skin from where Bellatrix’s blade had cut her, but she shook her head.

“Not there.” She hesitated only for a second as he watched her curiously, and then she reached up to the loose collar of the shirt she was wearing, looped a finger over the edge, and tugged it down the centre of her chest, exposing her breastbone all the way down to the bottom of her ribs.

It really wasn’t the right time to notice how much skin she had revealed to him, how beautiful the gentle curves of her body were, how she had a small mole just at the left edge of where her shirt was overlapping the swell of her breast… It wasn’t the right time at all to want to touch her himself, to run his fingertips down the open V of bare skin she was showing him.

Or was it?

Her eyes had welled with tears to the point that if she blinked too hard, he suspected they would fall. Did she think this made her somehow less? The scar was there, but he was having trouble actually focusing on it, seeing more of her than he had ever seen before, alone. And when he did try to see her scar more clearly, he was filled only with rage, something he didn’t want right now. The only thing he could do to tame it was to flip it around so it made him want to wrap his arms around her and hold onto her and stay here forever.

“I shouldn’t c-care,” she sniffed. “It really doesn’t matter. I’m alive. But-”

She licked her bottom lip and let go of her shirt, but it didn’t retreat to her neck, gaping open slightly from being stretched.

“It’s just all I can see, when I look in the mirror,” she nearly whispered, eyes darting away from him to stare out at the waves again.

“It’s not all I saw,” he said, throat quite dry.

She turned back to him, surprised, and he noticed the fresh tear track running down her left cheek.

“You’re just saying that.” But her eyes were darting between his, and she so clearly wanted to believe him.

“No, I’m not,” he said roughly, clenching his fist slightly in the sand… not entirely sure what he was admitting to, but hoping she understood enough to realise how achingly sincere he was.

His gaze danced down to the shadowy gap between her shirt and her chest, flicking back up to her face so fast when he realised what he was doing. His ears burned, but she didn’t seem at all bothered. In fact, she shifted a bit closer to him, until her leg was resting against his.

“I’m trying to be strong, for Harry,” she explained, in a tiny, cracking voice, “but I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You’d be fine-” he started to say, because she was strong, and brilliant, and amazing, and… beautiful, even with a scar she hated. He loved every part of her, half-desperate to let her know. But she stopped him with a hand wrapped tightly around his wrist.

“You have no idea how much safer I felt, the night you came back. I couldn’t tell you then because it hurt too much when you left, but I need you. Harry needs you, too.”

He wanted to apologise again, but she flinched and let go of him, reaching up to touch her scar very gently with her fingertips.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked, worried.

“Once in a while, but not much,” she answered, chest moving heavily as she breathed in and out. She flattened her palm to her chest, half over bare skin, half over her wrinkled shirt.

He realised he was going to do it after he’d already started moving. He covered her hand with his much larger one, watching as her lips parted and her eyes fluttered shut.

“I need you, too,” he began, her eyes still lightly shut as she listened. “If you…” But he couldn’t bring himself to say any of the words that came to mind for the impossible possibility that she could ever die. “…left, I don’t think I could do this shit anymore.”

She finally opened her eyes, and he slid his hand slowly off of hers so his fingertips brushed her knuckles before he lost contact.

“I don’t want to think about what’s coming,” she said, so quietly, “or what we have to do next. I just want to stay here with you.”

And he finally noticed that his assumption earlier - that sitting outside in the cold wasn’t really bothering her - had been false. Her bare legs were coated in gooseflesh, and she was lightly shivering now. She moved the slightest bit closer again, and he had to show her it was alright.

“Then, let’s stay here,” he whispered.

He lifted his hand back up to her shoulder, moving slowly up along her collarbone toward the side of her neck, just barely stopping short. But it was enough, and she slid her legs over his, leaning forward so his hand slipped behind her neck and her head came to rest on his shoulder. His fingers got lost in her hair before he remembered to breathe, and he wrapped his arm fully around her back, holding her tight, partially on his lap, wondering why he didn’t do this more often… every day, even.

She bent her knees slightly, drawing her body even closer in toward his warmth, and he bravely lowered his free hand to her leg, heating her skin with his touch before draping his whole forearm across her thighs and dropping his cheek to her forehead. He knew they both knew they had no choice, that they would face what would come, heading straight into the fire. But, right now, they could do exactly what she’d told him she wanted. They could stay here, together, and he’d move only when they had to, not one second before.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 11

Prompt: Gingers are beautiful

I don’t know why Tumblr keeps deleting the gif when I add it to this post. Guess you’ll have to click the link to see the gif prompt grrrr...

Prompted by: @mozstermoments

They’d been lying in the grass for such a long time, just talking, and she couldn’t remember falling asleep. But, as she opened her eyes, the world settled around her with a peaceful, evening breeze, and his hand was in hers, fingers woven and lightly clasped as he kept on dreaming. Tall blades of overgrown grass tickled her cheek as she turned onto her side to stare at the gentle lines of his face.

She’d seen him so many times before, of course, a constant in her life from the age of twelve, really. But it was different now. The way they’d been as children seemed a distant memory, in some ways, only an echoing wave of words and awkwardness still leftover. Now, they were adults. They’d survived more than she cared to think about. And the distance from that first kiss til now, though merely a few days time, had fully closed the gap between unresolved longing and becoming close enough to feel like part of the same person. She had no way to explain it, but as she continued to gaze across the dandelions and weeds of the Burrow’s stretching fields, the butterflies in her stomach moved over to make room for belonging.

His hair brushed across his forehead in the breeze, low golden light glinting in copper and a few strands of that deeper shade of ginger that she couldn’t name. It was just him, really. There was no other word for it.

She carefully extracted her hand from his and pushed up to her elbow, resting her cheek on her palm to get a better view of him, hovering halfway over his face. She had a growing urge to trace his nose, his jaw, his lips, with her fingertips… but he was so peaceful, in sleep, and she didn’t want to disturb him. His eyelids were nearly see-through, tiny blue and purple veins in milky white, but they were tinged red from soft crying, earlier, and she couldn’t drag him back there, drifting her gaze to his parted lips, his gentle inhale, exhale…

He’d shaved a few days ago, but golden stubble was already dotting his jaw and cheeks and chin, and she licked her lips absentmindedly as her flowing gaze drew patterns between his freckles, obscured a bit underneath. She dipped her head the tiniest bit closer, and she could feel his breath, hear it even over the sounds of nature around them, and her eyes were drawn further down to his chest as it rose and fell.

She’d spent a lot of time wondering why they had waited so long to be like this, to reach a place where if he opened his eyes, just now, her cheeks might flush a tender pink, but she wouldn’t look away. But, the fact that they had survived strongly reverberated inside, pushing down the what ifs.

The craving to touch his face intensified as his hair blew more forcefully at the top of his head, sun setting low on the horizon, and melting amber light flamed through ginger, giving the impression that he might have caught fire. She smiled, imagining his blue eyes flashing with intensity, and she knew so many ways to see them that way, now. Anger and loyalty had been the biggest culprits, springing up in a row with her or a confrontation with someone else. But now she could see it when he simply looked at her, when she spoke emotional words of truth that she’d been hiding, and he said them back.

The sun had nearly set completely when she finally watched him stirring, the tiniest tilt of his head, rolling eyes behind his lids before they slowly cracked open. And she didn’t move or blink for as long as she could manage, waiting as he focused on her, corners of his mouth turning upward, eyes going so soft and somehow euphoric, contrasting immediately with the blaze still brightly gleaming in his hair.

“Hey,” he said, in an impossibly scratchy voice, and she swallowed back the shiver she felt begin in the pit of her stomach and rise.

“Hi.”

Up above, sunset was brilliantly spreading deep pink and orange across soft strips of low cloud, and a part of her wanted to stay here forever, but another part longed for the safe confines of his room, ready for the night to arrive, the quiet way he would hold her, speaking in raspy, slurred phrases.

He reached up, and she was momentarily surprised to feel his hand on the side of her neck, thumb extending up over her jaw. But then she leaned into his touch, heavily resting on his palm. She wasn’t going to wait any longer to do the things she wanted, not only knowing that he wanted them, too, but knowing that it was all that truly mattered. He was all…

And the silhouetted profiles of their faces closed a shutter over the last remaining sparks of daylight as she lowered her lips to his.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 3

Prompt: “How long before your broken heart starts giving in?”

Prompted by: @screamfan1234

Someone recently mentioned that maybe I make Hermione cry too much. Well, oops, because this is a cry fest, right here... I finally wrote something that more closely resembles drabble length, which really came from me thinking that I have them talk, a lot, and, for this particular prompt, I felt like silence was more meaningful. I hope you enjoy it! x

A year ago, he’d have assumed he'd never be faced with this particular problem… but it was becoming almost impossible not to hold her hand.

He’d known it wouldn't be easy. He’d known she might not forgive him enough to want him again… if he could call what they’d had before he'd left anything more than fear and loneliness. Of course he could, from his side, he was bloody in love with her. But-

It was already February. It had been months, and they didn't seem to be any closer to moving forward on their mission than they had been after their near-miss at Lovegood’s. But, she still went to bed without a goodnight, more often than not. She sat close enough on the sofa, as she read for hours, that he could have touched her without moving anything except his right hand. Her left hand would rest on the cushion between them, she'd tuck her feet up, and her toes would almost brush his leg.

He could keep holding off, for her, but a part of him was too desperate to know if this was for good to keep waiting, with nothing, and he was starting to question what he might actually do, if she'd only find him, alone, in the dark…

He felt like someone wandering, lost, in the desert, unable to see all the way to the possibility of a green horizon. If he could just have one tiny drink, he could walk for days more.

Sometimes, he could convince himself that she'd been watching him, too closely, for longer than normal, as he'd been slouched over maps, preoccupied with attempting to make something edible for dinner… lying in his bunk, half-asleep, fringe in his eyes, vision further obscured by the murky dark. But, tonight, Harry was on watch, and her back was toward him as he climbed into his bed. He lay there in silence for what had to have been nearly half an hour before he heard anything unusual.

It started with the occasional light sniff, as if she was catching cold. But, gradually, her breathing changed, tiny hitches at the start of each inhale.

“Ermynee?” he whispered, to the dark.

She sucked in a much sharper breath, and he turned over, onto his side, to face her, squinting as she rustled around under her blankets, tugging them higher until they covered her all the way up to her neck.

“Go to s-sleep,” she whispered back, but he was already sliding his legs over the edge of his bed to sit up.

“You okay?” he asked, and why could he feel his heart pounding so forcefully in his ears? It was such a simple question. He shouldn't be so nervous.

She remained speechless, but he could hear her shivering. He wished he could leave it, go to sleep and forget it. But, of course, he couldn't do that.

“Can you just… say something? Doesn't have to be true.”

There was another long silence before she let out a muffled sob and turned further away, to bury her face in her pillow, shaking.

Sod it. He stood, crossed to her bed and sat on the edge, depressing her mattress as she tensed with surprise.

“If you don't tell me to leave, I'm going to sit here until I decide you're okay.”

She continued to shake lightly as she tried to hide how much she was crying. He was close enough, though, that there was nothing she could do to hide from him. He waited for what felt like a lifetime, before he very slowly laid his hand on her back.

Strangely, she didn't pull away or tell him off. In fact, he could feel her breathing returning to something vaguely stable. And then, once he'd thought she might have actually calmed down enough to be falling asleep, she turned over to her back, and he moved his hand out of her way. She sniffed and wiped her wrist under her eyes to dry them.

Her lips parted, and he almost held his breath to make sure he would hear every word if she'd decided to explain. But, she said nothing, eyes locking onto his in the dark. They were stuck in a gaze so heavy with longing that he involuntarily clenched her blanket in a tight fist.

She hadn't touched him, since he'd come back, aside from when she'd attacked him the night he'd returned, or those times she'd had to grab a hold of him when they needed to Apparate. But, now, she reached for his hand, her cold fingers attempting to hold on to his as he loosened his grip on her blanket and reacted with a sigh, clutching her hand fiercely back.

This was more than a tiny drink. He was gulping down a rushing river.

And then, all at once, she dropped his hand and sat up so quickly that he winced with surprise, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her still-tear-damp face against the side of his head, through his shaggy hair. His arms flew around her waist, and he tugged her much closer, so her body was aligned all along the front of his, her knees bending to tuck up behind his back.

“I could never tell you to leave,” she whispered.

He didn't know it was going to happen until it already was. At first, he was only shaking, and then, hot tears were rolling silently down his face.

The full scope of his reality hit him hard, and her nails dug into his shoulder blades. He told her he was sorry again in every stroke of his fingers through her tangled hair. She forgave him when her nose brushed his neck, again when her lips barely touched his ear. And he held onto her for so long that he stopped being able to discern her heartbeat from his own.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 9

Prompt: "To Build a Home” by The Cinematic Orchestra (ft. Patrick Wilson)

Prompted by: @herrmionejgranger​

Here we are, finally catching up to Sunday's prompt! AHH!

So, I have a weird (optional) hand canon, which is more just because of my obsession with hurt/comfort and less because I actually think this is how things went down, but I've been leaning a lot recently on the idea that Hermione's parents didn't come back from Australia, and, though she had been so independent for so long, this really crushes her because, before, it was her choice to be that way, and now it's like they're choosing to leave her on her own. So, Ron helps her through this a lot, even though he has his whole family around him, and he was closer to them than she was to hers, so he didn't develop quite the same independence, but he does that for her, without really thinking about it. In a way, this makes a lot of sense, because he’s a real family sharer, you know? Like Harry was part of the family almost instantly. Hermione was, too, but in a very different way, until much later.

Long explanation. Sorry. 

TL;DR - Ron is my favorite, here are 3K words about that. Hope you enjoy! x

Ron had just finally walked through the door to Grimmauld Place after way too long a day at training. He had taken one arm out of his cloak, thinking of all the leftover food from the previous night's takeaway that he was going to consume, when Ginny's Patronus materialised by the coat rack.

Ron, come to Hogwarts if you can. Not an emergency.

The silvery horse in front of him galloped in a circle before vanishing.

Ron's arm immediately stuffed itself back into his cloak sleeve. He'd never really gone to Hogwarts on a whim. Visits were planned around invitations to school events like Quidditch trials and matches or Hogsmeade weekends. But he wasn't about to waste time worrying about the details of exactly how he was going to get through at half eleven on a Friday night. Ginny must have some sort of plan to have asked him to come. And the words "not an emergency" weren't registering very deep.

With a short, scribbled note to Harry to explain his disappearance, he headed back out into the crisp, February night.

She had found her way to a dark corner of the castle, hidden behind a tapestry. No one ever came by here, and she suspected the only other people who even knew it was here were Ron and Harry, who, of course, weren't going to be popping by any time soon.

She'd received a owl at dinner, transferred from Muggle post, and the words were burned into the backs of her eyelids, apparently, because she couldn't think of anything else. She'd managed to hold back for a couple of hours, but she could no longer ignore the growing void inside, reminding her how alone she was, how far away her parents were… that they weren't coming home. They’d chosen to stay in Australia, but she hadn't given up hope that they might change their minds. Give them time, she'd thought. They'd been through a lot. But, now, that hope was gone.

We've sold the house in London.

It still struck her as an impossible reality, but it was true, and she was here. And Ron was at Grimmauld Place, with Harry. God, she missed him. It seemed that every time she became consumed with loneliness over her parents, she would quickly think of Ron, and, tonight, with her mother's letter crumpled in her hand, she couldn't catch her breath. She had come here to hide, knees clutched to her chest, and she was running out of tears to shed, eyes burning, head throbbing, and a numb sort of misery washing over her in increasingly powerful waves.

There was a scrape of trainers down the corridor, on the other side from her hiding place, and she held her breath, waiting for whoever it was to please go away. But the sounds increased, and was that Ginny's voice?

Her eyes scanned up to stare at the dark, opaque tapestry a metre in front of her. And then-

"Hermione?" Ginny called, leaving no time for a reply before her hand pulled back the tapestry to reveal herself... and Ron, standing on the other side.

"Ron?!” Hermione cried, hardly believing he was right there.

He passed Ginny and crouched on the floor in front of her, and Ginny dropped the tapestry back in place, hiding them again.

"Hey."

He placed a tentative hand on her knee, and she stared back into his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered.

"Ginny sent her Patronus. She thought maybe-"

He paused and shrugged.

"-maybe you'd want me to come see you."

"I have no idea how she knew I was upset, but oh my God, I'm glad you're here."

She gripped his hand tightly, and he gave her a sad smile in return.

"What's going on?" he asked, softly.

"My parents," she sighed, sucking in a breath as she held back another sob. "My parents sold their house."

He stared for a moment, looking puzzled, and she realised her mistake.

“Our house,” she corrected, “in London. It's g-gone. They aren't coming back…”

She held up the parchment, half crushed in her fist, allowing him to take it from her. He shifted to sit closer, opening the letter. As his eyes darted across the page, she could picture all the words written there as he was silently reading them…

Hermione,

We've sold the house in London. Your father thought you should have a portion of the sale, so we've made a deposit into your savings account. The rest of your belongings will be transferred to our storage room in Surrey, and we'll leave a key in your safe deposit box at the bank. As always, visit any time. We're staying in the house in Adelaide for now.

Love, Mum

“Well,” Ron began, clearing his throat, “she sounds a bit more positive toward you than last time, at least.”

“Ron, she sold our house!”

She knew it wasn't fair to shout at him. She could tell by the way his forehead creased that he was trying very hard to hide his true reaction, hoping to avoid making her feel any worse. But it wouldn't make a difference, and underneath what she felt about her parents, she really was so relieved to see him.

“I know. I'm sorry…” he said, eyes softening.

“I really thought they might still change their minds and come home,” she sniffed, wiping tears from under her eyes as they fell.

He shifted even closer, so his legs were bent up by her back and his elbow was resting on her knee. His free hand pulled one of hers into his lap, and he ran his fingertips up and down her palm before threading their fingers and meeting her eyes.

“They should have talked to you before they did it,” he said, quietly.

“It's my fault. I sent them away to begin with.”

“You know what I'm gonna say to that.”

“I did it for them, to save them, I know,” she said, managing a small smile as her eyes blurred with tears again. “But now…”

She closed her eyes for a second and gripped his hand tighter.

“I don't even have a home, anymore. Aside from Hogwarts and holidays with your family, I've lived there my whole life, Ron.”

“Yeah,” he said, a bit hoarsely.

He might have been about to say more, but her thoughts shifted suddenly back to the details of his appearance.

“How'd you even get in here this late?”

“Ginny met me at the gates to let me through,” he explained.

“And she knew I was up here?”

“Nah, this was about the tenth place we checked,” he said, tugging the corner of his mouth up precisely enough to be considered a lopsided smile.

She sighed and ducked her forehead to his forearm, his elbow still resting on her knee. He brushed his thumb across her knuckles before dropping her hand to run his fingers through her hair.

“I owe Ginny,” she muttered.

“No way,” Ron countered. “Already told her she's still working off the Viktor Krum thing… She'll have to sneak me into Hogwarts a few more times to even us out.”

In spite of everything, Hermione actually heard herself laugh, and she was once again so relieved to have him next to her.

“What are you doing to make us even for that, then?”

“Dunno. What’d’you want?”

She turned her head to the side, cheek against his forearm, so she could see his face through a frizzy tangle of her hair.

“Sneak into Hogwarts a few more times,” she suggested, softly.

“Done.”

She stared at him quietly, for a while, calmed by the feeling of his hand continuing to play with her hair. But there was still a dark shadow, looming over her.

“It just doesn't seem real,” she said. “Don't know why I kept hoping they'd…” She paused, closed her eyes again. “And now I've got to figure out what to do when I leave here.”

Though she couldn't see him, she could feel a sort of tension emanating from him before he spoke.

“I've got some ideas on that,” he said, in a low voice.

She opened her eyes and lifted her head, and his hand dropped to the side of her neck.

“Like what?”

Her heart was beating a bit faster than she could make sense of, just yet.

“You could move in with me and Harry,” he suggested. “Or… we could get our own place, if you want…”

He licked his bottom lip nervously, but she felt suddenly so much lighter. Smiling, she laid her arm across his, fingertips on his knuckles.

“Really?”

“Yeah,” he smiled back, evidently encouraged by her positive response. “I know it's not the same, and it's not what you wanted, but-”

“It’s definitely what I want. I hadn't thought living with you was on the table back when I was planning to go home after Hogwarts…”

“Well…” he shrugged, “I just hadn't got around to mentioning it.”

“You aren't just offering because I don't have anywhere to go?” Her voice was a bit higher pitched than she would have liked, but she was mostly over the idea of being embarrassed around him. Mostly.

“Not at all, but you can pretend I'm being that generous, if you want,” he grinned.

“I’d much rather you not be, honestly…”

His hand moved against the side of her neck, and her eyelids fluttered for a moment. Her head was still throbbing and her eyes were burning, and all she wanted was to crawl into a cozy bed and fall asleep next to him.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I'm so glad you're here.”

“Love you, too,” he said, just before he closed the gap and kissed her.

It was so soft and gentle, and her hands moved together to his cheeks, warmth spreading through her as she felt his familiar stubble, her bottom lip between his. It was over too soon, but then he was wrapping an arm around her and she was half-sitting in his lap as she realised her tears were back again, damn them.

She clutched his shirt, her head on his shoulder, until finally, her eyes popped open.

“Oh, my books!”

She felt him inhale before he spoke.

“What?”

“My parents emptied the house, which means they've moved the rest of my books, and they’re all crammed in that horrible, damp storage room!”

“Oh. I could go rescue them, bring them back to Grimmauld Place and keep them in my room til you graduate-”

“Seriously?” She lifted her head from his shoulder to stare at him in awe.

“Yeah,” he shrugged, slightly puzzled by her reaction. “Why the hell not? I've got extra space.”

“You never have any idea when you're being bloody amazing, do you?”

She kissed him again before he could respond, but he caught up quickly and spread his hand up the back of her head, tangling in her hair.

Slowly pulling apart, moments later, she gazed at him and considered that her tears had finally stopped…

“Is it just me saying the word ‘books’?” he teased, grinning as she rolled her eyes playfully.

“Oh, but the key to the storage room,” she said, expression changing to disappointed as she remembered. “It's in a safe deposit box, and you won't be able to get it.”

“You can't just… let them know to expect me?”

“Doesn't work like that. It's like a Gringotts vault, aside from the dragons…”

He smiled at her joke but then returned to an expression of contemplation, trying to work out the problem…

“Hang on. This is a Muggle bank, yeah? And you realise I'm a wizard?”

“What, are you going to Polyjuice into me and then-”

He raised a brow, and she realised it was an actual solution, though slightly insane.

“Can't promise I won't have a look while I'm changing clothes,” he smirked, and she smacked his arm.

“That's a lot of work for you just to save my books…”

“Nah, sounds like a normal Tuesday afternoon when you think about our lives so far, y’know?”

She laid her head on his shoulder again, breathing more steadily than she had all evening as his arm tightened around her. She thought about the shore, near her parents’ new house in Australia, and the evenings she had spent there with him, in silence. He'd held her, just like this, and she'd realised not only did she love him more than she'd thought was possible to love anyone, but that she was going to spend the rest of her life with him, as long as he never changed his mind. Fortunately, she'd been nearly convinced that he felt the same way, and his suggestion to live together in a few months was going to be a bright spot at the end of everything else.

She closed her eyes and listened to the steady sounds of his own breathing as she drifted farther and farther away from Hogwarts and crumpled letters from Australia…

When she opened her eyes again, she was surrounded by maroon and gold and flickering candlelight. Slowly regaining awareness, she realised she was lying on the common room sofa with a very cozy blanket over her, and she remembered she'd just been sitting on the floor behind a tapestry with-

“Hey.”

He was sitting on the floor, leaning against the sofa, holding an open book.

“What…” she started, trying to piece together how she'd gotten here and how long she must have slept.

“Yeah, you fell asleep, so I brought you back here. Ginny gave me the password earlier. Almost forgot I couldn't take you up to your room." He smirked as she blinked at him. “Would've been a fun way to wake up, sliding down the stairs with me…”

“No way you carried me…”

“Why? Wasn't that far, and you weigh close to nothing.”

“Liar,” and she sat halfway up to investigate the book in his lap.

“Want me to prove it?” he suggested, closing the book, evidently unaware of her query, and crawling to his knees, shoving an arm under her. She laughed too loudly for the common room after midnight and wriggled away from him, but he tightened his grip and tugged her to the edge of the sofa.

“Stop!” she shrieked. He gently covered her mouth with his hand, laughing, and her eyebrows shot up, suddenly aware of how loud she was being.

“Wanna get me kicked out?” he whispered, now being overly cautious, but still smiling. She shook her head, and he removed his hand, releasing her waist and sitting back on the floor.

She pressed her lips together, eyes slightly widened, and he grinned, abandoning his retreat and sitting right back up on his knees again to kiss her. She gripped his shirt and closed her eyes, kissing him back until his lips parted from hers very slowly.

“Sorry,” he whispered against her mouth before he settled back again, leaving a hand on her arm. She stared at him for several dazed seconds before remembering.

“Oh, what book were you reading?”

“Hm? Oh, right.”

He reached over to where he'd dropped it to the floor and picked it up again to show her.

“Fell out of your bag when I picked you up.”

She shook her head at him in mock offense, and he shrugged.

“Anyway, I didn't want to leave just yet, but I was bored as hell and couldn't risk falling asleep, so…”

“So, that's what it takes for you to read.”

He hit her leg lightly with her own book, but she grabbed it and turned it to see what it was.

“You're reading a Muggle fiction book?”

“Same question to you,” he said, raising a brow. “Have you run out of material in the Hogwarts library?”

“Shut up. I do occasionally read fiction… occasionally.”

“Right, so what's this one about? You woke up before I got past the first page.”

“I should make you wait to find out…”

She stretched out on the sofa, face level with his shoulder as he leaned back again and opened the book to the first page.

“Ron?” she said, in a very quiet voice.

“Hm?”

“My mum used to read this to me, but I didn’t care for it when I was little. I would get bored and want to read something else. When we went back to the house, after Australia, I thought I’d try it again, but I haven’t started it yet. I wasn’t really fair to it, the first time… and I think Mum really… really loved this one.”

He turned to fully face her, resting his arm against the sofa and still holding onto the book, open across his knees. And, as she gazed back at him, eyes watering a bit again, he took her hand and cleared his throat. "Chapter one..."

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 10

Prompt: Morning bliss

Prompted by: fairgirl on FFN

So, a depressing piece of information is that THIS is actually Sunday’s prompt, which means I’m still four behind!! Send help.

At least I managed to drabble this one! To my FFN friend who requested this one, I don’t know your Tumblr username, so if you see this, let me know! Otherwise, I’ll be cross posting to FFN soon. Hope you enjoy! x

He was aware of someone in the room with him before he was fully awake, and, as he opened his eyes, all he could see, at first, were hers, staring back at him.

He'd left his door partly open, the night before, in case anyone needed him. It was their first day home, and it was more than a little bit strange that the war was over and he was back in his old bed… Now, early morning light was glowing through his window, behind her, and he considered, for a short second, that he was almost completely naked, wearing only his pants, and uncovered, lying on his stomach. She licked her lips in a nervous sort of way, and his eyes darted down, before he could help himself.

"Hi," she whispered.

She was sitting on the floor next to his bed, and his right cheek was pressed against his pillow, making their faces level across a brief expanse of narrow mattress.

"Hey."

He considered sitting up to acknowledge her properly, but he was too mesmerised by her gaze.

"You alright?" she asked, gently.

A part of him was and another part might not be, possibly not for a good, long while. But, he wanted to focus, just now, on the first part... on her.

"Yeah. You?"

She swallowed and nodded, eyes never leaving his.

"Your door was open," she added, as if needing the excuse to be here.

"I know."

He moved his hand between their faces, reaching out for a long, twisted curl of her hair. He rubbed it between his thumb and index finger, and she broke eye contact to glance down at his hand.

"I couldn't really sleep," she said, eyes fixed on his fingers.

"You've been up all night?"

Her silence was enough of an answer, and he considered the bridges he probably should have crossed after dinner, the night before, rather than leaving them til the morning after a stretch of dark, sleepless hours. Not that he thought he could fix it. But... maybe they could help each other, anyway. She could have stayed with him, if she’d wanted.

Plus, there was that giant fact that he just wanted to be with her, as often as she would let him.

He dropped his hand back to his bed, contemplating what came next, but then her fingertips were on his knuckles, and she lowered her chin to the edge of his mattress, eyes on his again. He wanted to kiss her, so badly. He'd only managed to do it once, the previous afternoon, and they'd been interrupted by his sister as she'd tried to find a quiet place to talk to Harry.

“I'm not bothering you, am I?” she asked in a small, tentative voice. And he realised just how long he must have been lying there, thinking.

“Course not,” he said, and he pushed over to his side, still facing her, mentally hesitating only for a second again at his current state of undress. She didn't seem to mind, and, in fact…

His eyes flicked to the bit of bed between them, and she sat up further on her knees… and, bloody hell, she was wearing a tiny, thin vest under a dressing gown that might as well have been made of tissue paper...

Two excuses popped into his mind, but he immediately discounted the first option, of her maybe being cold and needing warming up, because it was near one million degrees in his room, at the moment… And the second excuse had to be discarded as well, because he suspected it would be obviously redundant to imply that maybe she needed comforting, if she wasn't okay. Her eyes were dry, and her expression was a mingled combination of curiosity and nervousness.

It was too early to think of more options, so he cleared his throat and went straight to the point.

“Wanna come up here?”

She left exactly zero seconds between his question and her climbing up into his bed. She shifted around for a moment, and the obvious answer to the problem of where to put their limbs was to line them up with her back to his chest. He actively willed himself not to think about how small her pyjama shorts were and how much of his skin was pressed against hers, and he draped an arm over her waist before he could mentally talk himself out of it.

It was like clicking in the final piece to a jigsaw puzzle or calling out a checkmate. He could only hope she felt the same way, because it had become immediately impossible to imagine ever lying in a bed again without an arm around her.

She ran her fingers over his knuckles and snuggled further back against him… which would have been brilliant, except now he had to think about there really not being sufficient layers between them to hide anything at all… only, he could remind himself, she didn't seem to care. Her vest had ridden slightly up her torso, and he felt a bit of bare stomach against his forearm. There was no going back, if this was the sort of morning it was possible to have.

“I closed your door,” she whispered, and he grinned into her hair, letting his eyes slip shut.

He tugged her just a bit tighter against him, she tangled their fingers together, and he refused to believe her words meant anything aside from the fact that she'd planned to stay for as long as he wanted her to stay, which, he hoped she knew, was something in the neighbourhood of one full lifetime.

[trademarkblue]

100 Days of R/Hr: Day 2

Prompt: “I Want To Know What Love Is” by Foreigner

Prompted by: @polawerth​

In the spirit of non-traditional prompt responses, here’s this. It’s 6th year, it’s PG-13 for language, and that’s about all I can say without spoiling it. This whole thing pretty much materialized, fully formed, upon my second listen to the song prompt. I hope you enjoy it! x

She looked a bit uncomfortable at the mere thought of being left alone to stand there while he went for drinks, and he eyed her, sceptically. “Why?”

A light flush crept across her cheeks, and she tugged his sleeve to get him moving with her toward a long table on the adjacent wall.

“I’d just rather not give Cormac an opening to come and chat with me, if you really want to know.”

“What?” This was an unexpected turn, and he felt mild annoyance rising on her behalf. “Has he been bothering you?”

“He asked me to come to this party with him,” she said, “and I really wasn’t sure, for a few weeks there, if you were still planning on accepting my invite. But, of course, I turned him down, and… he wasn’t thrilled.”

Ron felt an odd mixture of pleasure and regret at this news - firstly, that she had turned down another offer for him, and, secondly, that she had questioned his intentions because of how he had treated her. He really ought to explain himself. But, as soon as the subject matter that would have to be covered resurfaced in his mind, he felt his stomach flip over sickeningly, and he suspected there was no way in hell he was going to be able to bring that up out of nowhere. They had arrived at the drinks table, and he snatched up a tankard of mead for her before taking one for himself. “Thanks,” she said, rather brightly, as she took his offered drink, and they quickly headed off through a thick cluster of guests to find another relatively secluded spot at the back of the room. “Can you see Harry?” Hermione asked, relying on Ron’s height, towering above more than half the crowd, to spot him. He craned his neck and glanced around. “Yeah,” he laughed. “He’s with Luna and… pretty sure that’s a vampire trying to chat him up.”

“Well,” Hermione said, attempting but failing to hide her amusement, “I don’t think he’d rescue us right away if our fates were reversed, do you?”

“No,” Ron agreed. “In fact, we had quite a few laughs at Quidditch practice about you shut up here with Slughorn’s mates.”

“Oh, brilliant!”

Ron grinned through the next few sips of his drink. “It’s a bit hot in here, don’t you think?” Hermione asked, and she took another sip of her own mead. “Yeah,” Ron agreed, “but I reckon this room isn’t meant to hold this many people, not to mention… How many drinks have we had?”

Hermione raised her eyebrows in alarm. “I hadn’t thought about that,” she said. “We could go outside to the corridor for a minute and get some air,” he suggested. “I don’t think anyone will miss us… Well, they won’t miss me, anyway.”

“Would you really rather be in Harry’s position?” she asked, sceptically, as she dropped her half-empty tankard onto the next floating tray.

“Definitely not,” Ron said, feeling sorry that he had let an edge of resentment creep into his tone. He really didn’t mean it, he considered. She was right. He was better off not being stuck in here all night with a line of people waiting to prod him about his personal life. “Let’s go, then,” and she led the way across the room toward the doors. The moment she opened them, a gust of wonderfully cool air wafted across their faces.

The corridor was deserted, lit only by evenly spaced sconces. Ron tugged the door shut behind them, and they were instantly surrounded by comforting silence. He followed her halfway down the corridor, until she stopped in the shadowy space between two flickering candles, leaning back against the wall and sighing. “Boys are so lucky, sometimes,” she said, and she reached down to remove the shoes she’d been wearing that had made her several inches taller than he was accustomed to. “At least your shoes don’t cut off circulation to your toes after an hour.”

He winced in what he considered to be a supportive way, before the reality of their isolation in the dark crept up on him. Of course he had been alone with her before, but never quite like this. Friends, he reminded himself. She had asked him to the party as friends. Then why was his heart beating so fast? He tried to blame the four tankards of mead he had consumed, and he could even blame the three she had had on the way her eyes met his for a bit longer than was typical. And, yes, maybe he had never encountered quite this combination of nerves and alcohol, but he surprised himself when he suddenly opened his mouth to speak.

“I’m… really sorry,” he muttered. She blinked at him, shoes held together in her left hand as she pushed slightly away from the wall, moving the tiniest bit closer. “What for?”

“You know what for,” he said, in a low voice, barely refraining from sighing. “I could guess,” she admitted, softly, “but I’d rather you say, so I don’t make a mistake.”

He ran a slightly shaking hand through his hair, looking away from her. “I know you only asked me here because you’re my friend, and you felt sorry for me being left out. I do appreciate it, and I shouldn't’ve-”

“What do you mean? That’s not why I asked you.”

His eyebrows shot up with alarm, and he could see her cheeks colour a deeper shade of red before she tore her gaze away from him and sighed.

“It’s not?“ he asked, tentatively.

"Nevermind,” she dismissed, shakily. “We can go back to the party now. But I don’t think either of us should have anymore to drink.”

She stepped away from him, turning to head back down the corridor. “Wait!” He stopped her in her tracks between the next two sconces, lightly grabbing ahold of her wrist. “Why did you ask me, then?”

Her eyes flashed to his, desperately. “Do I have to say it? I did the asking, isn’t that enough? You were supposed to figure it out.”

“Figure out what?” He was really pushing his luck.

“Don’t be thick, Ron,” she groaned. He couldn’t leave it this way, not with her right there… with the way she was looking at him. He suspected she’d rather melt straight through the floor than have to say what he was begging to hear. He could do this. He could be sodding brave, for once.

“I want you to have asked me as more than a friend,” he said, hardly believing he had actually managed to scrape the words out through his suddenly scratchy throat.

Everything about her expression changed, and he knew, immediately, that he’d said the right thing. “You do?” she whispered, a small smile spreading across her face. “Yeah,” he said, roughly, realising he was still holding on to her wrist. She took a step closer. He did the same thing. She licked her bottom lip, and his eyes were suddenly glued to her mouth. She leaned her head back the tiniest bit as she moved in close enough that her dress robes brushed the front of his.

He ducked his head, trying to ignore the part of his brain that was screaming, that couldn’t let him believe this was happening. They were so close now, he could feel her hot breath on his mouth.

“I’ve never done this before,” he admitted, at a near whisper.

“I hoped you hadn’t,” she smiled, and she stood up higher on her bare toes.

He was suddenly panicking. There was no way he could compare to what she knew from before, and he felt idiotically compelled to let her know. They were a breath apart when he spoke again. Damn his nerves. “But, you have.”

Her nails dug sharply into his bicep as she gasped and moved back from him. Shit, shit, shit. Why couldn’t he have kept his bloody mouth shut? Why couldn’t he have just forgotten it like he kept telling himself, over and over again, that he already had done? “What do you mean?! How…” she squeaked, words failing her.

“I’m sorry!” he shouted, quickly, ears suddenly burning. “It doesn’t matter. Ginny told me, but she was just being a git, because I found her snogging Dean, and-” “Is that why you’ve been a prat to me these last few weeks?!” she cut over him, horrified.

“Yes,” he admitted, bitterly. She whimpered with frustration, closing her eyes for a second.

“But, it doesn’t matter, anymore,” he lied, “and, I’m here with you now, aren’t I?”

It wasn’t even just about desperation over possibly losing his chance to kiss her tonight, anymore. Now, he was just hoping with all he had that they could fix it, right now, and he wouldn’t have to spend another stretch of unbearable weeks fighting with her. They had come too far to go back, hadn’t they? Blimey, he could only hope she agreed. “You know why I never told you, don’t you?” she asked, sniffing, and he suspected she was on the absolute verge of frustrated tears. “Because I was afraid you’d get upset and do something irrational!”

“Spot on,” he said, darkly, feeling another wave of remorse and self-pity washing toward him. “I asked you here because you’re exactly who I want to be here with,” she said, a bit shrilly. “Do you understand?”

He did understand, though he was still struggling to believe his luck, that she honestly felt even a fraction of how he felt about her. And, to think that, lately, he’d been so fiercely avoiding confronting his own feelings, that he’d nearly ruined it. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I know.” A long silence stretched between them, and he couldn’t remember holding eye contact with her for this long, ever before. She took a tiny step closer. “Do you want to go back to the party?” she asked in a small voice, and he had a strong suspicion that she was really hoping his answer would be no. He shook his head, and her smile returned, very slowly. He took his own step closer, and she had to tilt her head back again to go on looking up at him. He could do it, he thought. They’d just been so close, moments ago. He only had to lean forward, just a bit, lift his hand to the side of her neck, watch as her eyes fluttered shut-

Ron!

She couldn’t be speaking. Her lips were an inch away from his own, and he could feel a warm exhale as she gripped the collar of his shirt. Ron!!

His eyes shot open, and reality came crashing back as he met her fearful gaze, lantern light flickering in her pupils. He was in the hospital wing. He had been poisoned. He’d ditched the bloody party and never explained to her. And he’d been snogging Lavender Brown. “You were having a dream, or something,” Hermione said, softly, dropping slightly away from him to resume her seat in the chair at his bedside. “At first I thought maybe you were in pain…”

“No,” he tried to reassure her, but his voice was quite hoarse, and he wasn’t as convincing as he would have liked to have been. But she nodded, once, and all he could do for the next few seconds was be thankful for what he did have, at least. He might have fucked up, but she was here. And, he had to admit, he preferred the fantasy dreams to the cold nightmares where he thought he would die without making things right. He coughed, and he could feel her concerned gaze lingering on him as he reached for the glass of water on his bedside table. He took a long drink and looked at her again. “How long have you been here?” he asked her. She shrugged, darting her eyes away from him. She’d been by to see him four times since he’d woken here, two days ago. It was really quite a lot more than he deserved, he reckoned. He owed her something, however small, whatever he could manage. But, he knew, from spotting the time on the clock across the room, that she was here far past visiting hours, and he could hear Madame Pomfrey moving around in her office, likely heading toward him any second to administer a series of revolting potions… surely to send Hermione to bed with a stern scolding. Whatever he wanted to say, it had to be now, and it had to be quick. “Wish I’d gone to Slughorn’s with you.” Her wide eyes flashed back to meet his, shocked. “I know you only asked me as a friend, but it would’ve been better than everything else I did, anyway. I’m just…  sorry, by the way. I don’t say it very much, and I should probably start.” As he had predicted, Madame Pomfrey emerged at that moment, tutting loudly in Hermione’s direction as she approached Ron’s bed. “After hours!” she hissed as loud as she dared, so as not to wake the two other students who were softly snoring in their beds across the room. “Miss Granger, what are you doing?!” “Sorry, Madame Pomfrey,” Hermione said, looking quite flustered as she stood quickly, her chair scraping loudly across the floor and causing Madame Pomphrey to glare at her firmly.

But Madame Pomfrey’s expression changed to exasperation as she patted down her apron, evidently searching for something.

“I forgot your sleeping potion,” she said to Ron, eyes flashing back to Hermione. “I really don’t need it,” Ron started, but Madame Pomfrey cut across him as if she hadn’t heard him. “Miss Granger, why are you still here?” “I’m going,” Hermione said, hurriedly, taking a small step backward, looking incredibly conflicted as Madame Pomfrey nodded sharply. “Good, because if you’re not gone when I return, I’ll have to recommend detention,” and she whipped around to hurry back to her office. Hermione looked quite frozen to her spot, and Ron could hear her breathing unevenly, finally returning her gaze to meet his, a softness settling in that he was quite surprised to see. But, Madame Pomfrey was quick, and he could already hear the crescendo of her returning footsteps. “You should know,” Hermione managed, in a slightly strangled whisper, “I didn’t just ask you as a friend.” And, without leaving time for his reply, she turned quickly around and headed for the door, wrenching it open and slipping outside, shutting it again with a slightly echoing boom. As her words rang in his ears, a grin spread across his face, and the light feeling he recalled from his dream rushed back over him, not even to be diminished by the three whole spoonfuls of absolutely disgusting potion that Madame Pomfrey forced him to drink, because he’d almost died, three days ago. Worth it.