Summary: Luna's latest odd present has rather strong effects on Ron and Hermione. Warning: Some of the language used in this can be explicit. If you don't like hearing about the less than pure thoughts of teenagers, don't read.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of J. K. Rowling's intellectual property, especially but not limited to the world of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and Luna Lovegood.
Luna Lovegood sat on the window seat in her dormitory. She seemed to be playing with several oddly shaped dolls, though her vacant expression made. Her father had procured them for her: Gnomish Idols, dolls used by the Gnumblies to help humanity make decision, he claimed. To anyone well versed in Muggle culture, such as Hermione, the true nature of the dolls would be quite apparent. They looked a bit like frighteningly accurate voodoo dolls, one with bushy brown hair, and the other with a mass of red. Humming, she absentmindedly mimicked the two dolls kissing.
Across the castle, in Gryffindor tower, Ron and Harry were attempting to work through a mound of homework that they had allowed to grow over the passing weeks. Hermione, finished ahead of time as always, watched them absentmindedly, humming "Weasley is Our King". She was spending most of her time staring at Ron, whose wild red hair glowing in the lamplight. She was biting her lip in concentration, trying to figure out how many freckles he had. It was hard, as Ron was constantly glancing at notes she had helpfully provided.
A small tug made her jump. She looked around. She had almost felt as if someone had pinched the back of her jeans and tugged them. Absurd. Though the idea of someone reaching behind and grabbing her arse, especially if it was a certain redhead, did not entirely displease her. She felt her cheeks redden.
Ron turned to her, oblivious to the very dirty thoughts spreading into her head. "Hey, 'mione. Is this the correct ingredient list for the Elixir of Ignorance?"
Hermione bent in, smelling him. As she checked the ingredients Ron had written in, she thought about how thankful she was that Ron was as oblivious to her deepest thoughts as someone who had taken the potion.
"Yes, Ron. Everything's correct, though I think Slughorn would prefer if you described why holly is the key ingredient."
"Yeah?" he asked.
Hermione smiled and bent even closer. She did not notice Ron's entire body prickle with goose bumps, or that he shifted as the cloth of his dirty jeans moved noticeably. She was very close to him, able to feel his warmth. "The holly is the ingredient which affects how powerful the potion is. A small sprig and the imbiber simply ignore certain obvious things. A large one, and the imbiber is barely conscious. A rhino could run by and he would barely notice." She might as well have been taking a little bit of it herself, as she brushed his jeans exactly where he was trying to fight the erection without even noticing it. He turned around quickly to avoid attracting her attention.
He turned again to grab a replacement inkbottle, and at that moment a powerful tug overcame her and she was pushed forward into Ron, who had been given a similar push. Their lips touched awkwardly before they both fell out of their chairs, Hermione on top of Ron. Both turned bright red. His somewhat-contained hardness sprung out again, making him cringe. He could feel the tip dangerously close to Hermione's leg. If she moved, she would feel it. What would she think if she knew he got hard thinking about her? Would she be angry?
Hermione, to her credit, was too busy thinking about how Ron must think she had thrown herself at him, and how awkward it was, having her on top of him, breasts pressing down on his chest. And the kiss! It had been something she had always wanted, but not like this. She moved a little, once again oblivious to the stiff bump right next to her leg, though her thigh brushed it.
Hastily, the two got off each other, each one giving off the heat of a small sun from their bright red faces.
"Sorry, 'mione." Ron said sheepishly. "Dunno what happened. This bloody chair tipped."
"It's alright, Ron." She replied, flustered, feeling very hot all of a sudden.
Harry had been watching this exchange with a slight smirk on his face. He, of course, had noticed how embarrassed they were. It was frighteningly obvious, so much so that he thought at times that both were under the effects of a very strong Ignorance potion.
Luna hummed a few more words of the song. She had left the Ron and Hermione dolls on top of each other, but now had picked them up again. Daddy said the Gnumblies were responsible for coincidences and good accidents. She played with them some more, now imagining to herself the two finally doing something about their feelings.
Hermione was still helping Ron after Harry had gone to bed. It had become very stuffy, all of a sudden. Both of them hadn't stopped blushing, and as Hermione had been too busy watching the floor to try to get her mind off Ron, she hadn't noticed that the reason for his slowness had more to do with constantly glancing at her than the difficulty of the essay.
Ron moved his arm over, in the process knocking over a bottle of ink onto Hermione. Cursing fluently, he saw it had made a great stain over her blouse, seeping partially down her skin. He tried to banish the thoughts as he apologized profusely.
Hermione felt a chill as the ink dripped down her skin. It was a curious sensation, not unpleasant. An image of ice cubes entered her mind and left as she suppressed it. "It looks like it was the Unsmudgable Ink, Ron. We can't just clean it off; it will have to be magically removed by those poor elves." Despite how much she liked the blouse, the idea of having to take it off did not give Hermione the kind of displeasure it would have, especially now that she was alone with Ron. "I'm going to have to take it off or this ink will keep dripping on me."
Ron gulped. "You can't just go upstairs and change?"
"No, Parvati and Lavender are asleep. I wouldn't want to wake them. You have something I could borrow, right?"
Ron pulled off the Weasley sweater he wore and handed it to her. She pulled the blouse over her head, exposing her bra, stained with ink. He gulped and started to think about punching Dean Thomas. His eyes closed, he managed to think about it for exactly three seconds before the old, forbidden ideas about dripping liquid returned.
When he opened them again, Hermione was dressed in his jumper, her stained clothing lying off to the side. He tried to concentrate on his essay as the thought of Hermione wearing his sweater without a bra came to him. She was his best mate! It was wrong to think of her like this.
Hermione, at the same time, was thinking about his sweater as well. It was very warm and smelled intoxicatingly like Ron. She felt incredibly embarrassed about having not gone upstairs and changed. Ron was focusing very hard on his essay, oblivious to her terrible inner struggle, though the lamplight made it almost seem like he was blushing. He couldn't be. That little bump in his pants was just the denim curving. She knew Ron thought she was the most annoying person in the world. There was no way he could think of her as anything but his friend, right?
Ron, of course, was having an identical struggle. She was his best friend, Hermione. She argued with him so often that their friendship was more of a stalemate between disagreements, right? He did admit that he liked it when she was argumentative. She was so pretty when she was passionate. He almost enjoyed infuriating her, not that he wanted her to get angry with him.
Despite all of his efforts to quell it, he couldn't get little Ronnie to subside. It didn't help that his mind had retreated into thoughts of what the cloth of the sweater must be doing to her…he caught himself as he almost wrote the word on the paper. Shit.
Luna's Ron and Hermione walked along normally, albeit without Harry. They were arguing. She made Hermione jump up and down to show it. Doll Ron suddenly kissed her, pressing her up against the wall. She giggled as the dolls finally did what the real Ron and Hermione, for all their combined bravery and smarts, were just too scared to do.
Ron was finally done with his essay. Hermione had fallen asleep in the chair. Glancing at her, he packed up the essay and shook her knee. Nothing. She was fast asleep. He whispered in her ear. "Hermione." Nothing. She was conked out. He shook her gently but firmly. She only barely stirred. "R-ron?" she asked dreamily.
He flushed. She vas very close to him. "I'm going up to bed, 'mione. You should go up too."
Yawning, he watched her. She didn't seem to have heard him. He sighed, his skin matching his face. He would have to carry her. It wouldn't do to have her found the next morning without a bra, in his sweater. He reached under her legs and back, and picked her up, utilizing his muscles from Quidditch.
Hermione was sure she was dreaming. Ron had just picked her up and was carrying her, like a hero in a Muggle movie, across the room. She looked up at him, feeling his warm heart beating fast. In his comfortable sweater, she was very hot, very content. He was carrying her towards the girl's dormitory. Obviously in this dream it didn't matter that boys weren't allowed up there, especially with girls.
Ron took a step on the stairs. They didn't flatten. He took several more, and nothing happened. However, at the eighth step, his legs fell out from under him. Crying out, he slid down the slide with Hermione in his arms. When finally reached the bottom, sprawled out with her, he was dazed. He didn't know what to do. He was about to try to get her to wake up, because he couldn't carry her, when she suddenly reached up and pulled him down, giving him a kiss right on the lips. He couldn't believe it.
Hermione realized that the whole point of the dream was for them to end up on top of each other. It was a very realistic dream; no doubt one conjured from her vivid imagination. Smiling, she kissed Ron for being such a gentleman. Just as she suspected, he looked shocked but not unhappy. In fact, she felt his tongue a few seconds later.
It hit her then that this was not a dream about the same time as she felt the realness and warmness of his tongue tickling her own. She would have shot up, apologizing, if her thoughts had not been captivated by the fact that Ron Weasley was kissing her back! She was paralyzed with shock. Finally, when he had stopped, he got up, kissing her on the head. She wanted to jump up and do all sorts of things to him, but she was still too amazed to move. She had been sure he thought her a bossy know-it-all.
"Good night, Hermione. I love you." He said to the clearly dreaming girl. He did not know what made him do it. Obviously she was sleeping, dreaming that someone like Krum or McLaggen or even Harry was kissing her. Certainly not Ron, pale and red-haired Weasley.
Hermione's spell was broken by his words. She leapt up with energy she didn't know she had, and tackled him. He asked, surprised, " 'mione, what are yo-" but was interrupted as she rolled him over and began to kiss him fiercely, her open eyes making it obvious that she knew who she was kissing. When finally they both came up for air, he looked at her in shock. "What was that?" he asked.
"You said you love me?" Hermione asked, breathless. She couldn't believe it, nor that she had just had an experience infinitely better than any of the many ones Fred and George's Daydream Charms could provide.
"I do love you…but…" he stammered. It was very hard to speak. Little Ron was painful and her breasts were pressing into his chest in the way that made everything very hot.
"But what?" she asked with a hint of worry. Maybe he hadn't meant it like that. She had been so stupid to jump to conclusions. What if it was too awkward now for them to be friends? What if she lost him forever?
"But I never thought you liked me. I thought you were in love with Harry or Krum or McLaggen!"
Hermione hit him playfully. "Ron, I love you, but honestly…" she was regaining feeling. "You're incredibly thick sometimes!"
Ron, if anything, found her words more of a turn-on than anything else. "What do you mean?"
"Honestly, Ron…" she said in that exasperated tone that made him feel so warm. "Harry hasn't stopped staring at Ginny since this summer! I love him like a brother, but not only is he so focused on your sister that he barely even notices I'm here when she's in the room…but I've never thought of him as anything but a friend. Same with Krum…I mean, he liked me, but it turns out he just wanted a friend who didn't talk to him because he was famous."
The fact that they had carried on this conversation while Hermione was on top of him, with his hardness bulging into her thigh and her breasts compressed against his chest, hadn't seemed to bother them until now. Climbing off Ron, Hermione stared at him like she had never been brave enough to do before. Ron's eyes were locked on to her, taking in every part of her that he thought was beautiful as if he hadn't really seen any of them before.
Ron, in typical form, yawned loudly, breaking the spell. Hermione beamed up at him and he grinned back. With a very long and extended kiss, they bid each other adieu. There was plenty of time to catch up on the months, maybe even years, that they had been too boneheaded to recognize they were missing.
Luna, blushing, put down the dolls. She walked over to her bed, turning off the light. There was other magic to work, but it could wait until tomorrow.