Ron
He'd sort of been vaguely aware that Hermione was a bit off colour; he'd assumed it was just battle fatigue. He certainly didn't feel great.
They'd all been whisked away to a muggle conference centre hotel somewhere near the seaside, though which seaside he couldn't say. After healing, and showers, they'd emerged, clad in institutional flannelette pijamas to eat dinner and mill about in the lounge area, speaking in platitudes and trying to work out what to say, or whether to say anything at all.
He felt sort of dead himself.
He couldn't at all think about Fred.
He didn't know what to do about George.
He tried to focus on the positive, and found himself loudly declaring that it was really over this time, and there might be a few little skirmishes, but basically, they'd won. He heard himself make a list with Harry of all the Death Eaters known to have survived, and he heard himself making impressed comments about Ginny and Neville and the DA in general, and saying that the wizarding world better look out because they'd all been tested in fire and were poker hot and ready for action.
He heard himself say a lot of crap.
It filled the air, it fuelled the lumbering conversation, it gave the spell-shocked survivors something to hang words off, gave them some way to connect to each other when everyone felt peculiarly alone.
Hermione grew quieter and quieter, but it wasn't until they were all heading up to the rooms, and Ginny had taken his key card, saying there was no way he was going to be sharing a room with her boyfriend, when he had literally just died, that he realised it was more than that.
She barely murmured a goodnight to Harry and Ginny, and the minute the door closed she half ran the few metres to their room, key card held out in a death grip in front of her.
He limped after her and caught the door, baffled.
"Hermione?"
Retching sounds greeted him as he stepped into the hotel room. She'd slammed the lights on, and the room was spotlessly white, two queen size beds covered in pillows of different sizes, stacked into decorative triangular shapes against the headboards. It was very posh, and even though he'd been in the other identical hotel room earlier to shower, he still felt a little overwhelmed by the crisp whiteness of it all. He stepped into the doorway of the equally white bathroom and hovered.
"Erm… are you ok?" he offered feebly.
Hermione was kneeling on the white, white tiles, holding her hair in strange bunches to get it out of the way as she threw up into the toilet.
He limped over to sit on the edge of the bath and reached out to help with her wild masses of hair.
His brain still seemed to be in some kind of idiotic, automatic conversation mode.
"What is it, morning sickness?" he heard himself ask, flippant and quippy.
"Don't be daft," she said caustically, spitting into the toilet, and trying not to be sick again, "We haven't had sex, how on earth could I be pregnant."
For a whole second, Ron accepted it as completely rational.
Then the world came rushing back in, and his brain kicked into gear. He realised both what she had said and what it suggested, and in another moment he had come full circle through feeling stunned, pleased, terrified, and back to stunned. He blinked, and made a quick decision.
"Good point," he said, "So what's up?"
Hermione's response was to vomit violently into the bowl.
He found it was actually quite hard to keep hold of her hair; it kept escaping through his fingers and he had to reposition them constantly.
"Never mind," he told himself out loud, "Could be that real food doesn't agree with you after all that rot we've been eating. Or maybe spell damage, that can make you sick," he paused to grab an escaping clump of hair, "Though if it's spell damage we need to get you back to the healer pronto,"
Hermione resurfaced and reached for the loo roll. She wiped the sick off her face and paused, leaning her arms on the toilet seat, clearly still queasy and weak. Ron peered anxiously at her.
"It's not spell damage," she said after a moment. The colour was starting to come back into her face. "It's shock. Or relief. Or panic. I'm fine." She knelt back a bit and stared down at the tiles.
Ron just watched her for a minute. She seemed to be collecting her strength. He thought it peculiar that he could almost see her do it. As though she was somehow drawing on the air around her, sucking energy in towards her. It seemed vaguely mental, but he found himself willing her some of his energy, through his hands, still enmeshed in her chaotic hair.
"Thanks," she said, after a shaky breath, "I think all that talk about how it's all over just got to me,"
"Oh," Ron said, not understanding, "Sorry,"
She shook her head.
"I'm appalled,"
He raised an eyebrow. She looked up at him.
"People died," she said simply, "And I'm just so relieved. It feels wrong to be so desperately grateful."
"That it wasn't you?" he asked, suddenly feeling bubbling, panicky nausea himself, at the thought of losing her.
She gazed at him.
"Something like that," she said eventually, and he felt strongly that it wasn't her own life she was so grateful for.
He blinked at her.
"There's more pyjamas in the cupboard." He said, "Have another shower. I might have one too, actually. Dunno how I managed to get your vomit on my sleeve," he held out the offending cuff for her inspection, "Might've been your hair. Sorry about that."
She gave a weak huff of laughter.
"My ghastly hair is definitely not your fault."
"I like your hair," he objected.
She quirked a cynical eyebrow at him.
"I do," he insisted, "It's kind of…"
"Feral?" she offered, "Revolting? Unkempt?"
Ron grinned at her.
"Don't provoke it. It might go nuts and attack you,"
"Oh for- go away!"
He chuckled as she closed the door behind him.
He took his pyjama top off and scrunch-folded it carefully so the sick was wrapped up in the centre of the ball of fabric. He looked about for somewhere to put it, failed, and banished it in the direction of what he hoped was the laundry. He bethought himself of the cupboard full of pyjamas, and banished a small set to the bench beside the sink for Hermione when she was done in the shower.
Then he sat down on one of the white desk chairs beside the white desk and had a careful think. He was feeling very tired, all of a sudden, and his healing leg was throbbing hotly. It could have been just the end of a very long day, at the end of a very long year, at the end of a very long and turbulent time, but he couldn't help feeling that maybe he had somehow given Hermione some of his energy. He didn't seem to have very much left at all now.
He rubbed his eyes and tried to think about what she'd accidentally said, in that moment of irritation. He felt quite pleased that he'd been able to swallow his shock long enough to realise she needed to be able to just be sick rather than be forced into what he assumed would have been an awkward and complicated discussion. An awkward and complicated discussion was on the cards though; he could hardly let something that momentous go through to the keeper. That thought was immediately tailed by the realisation that he could. He didn't really need to say anything. At least, not yet.
If, as he suspected, she'd snapped back at him without thinking, he had heard the unvarnished truth. He felt a jolt of relief again, at the thought that in Hermione's mind, he was somehow inextricably bound up with the idea of sex.
A multitude of fantasies flooded impatiently into his head, and he shook himself free of them to concentrate. He wasn't ready for that, and besides, she hadn't said it on purpose.
Perhaps she hadn't even noticed herself.
He frowned.
If she had realised, would she want to talk about it? Merlin, if he'd said something like that he'd've wanted to vanish on the spot.
So don't mention it then.
But what if… what if it turned out he'd misheard, or she'd meant 'we' in a more general way, like 'none of us' instead of 'you and me together'… it could be a worse misunderstanding than any they'd ever had before…
Even as he thought it, he dismissed it. He hadn't misheard, and the way she'd said it, scathingly, as though he should absolutely have known morning sickness was out of the question, made it seem impossible she could have meant anything else.
He massaged his achy knees to distract from the pain in his shin and waited for her to finish her shower.
Hermione
Hermione sat on the edge of one of the white, white beds, tied her hair back in a plait, and ordered room service. Lots of thick toast with butter and marmite. She ordered jam as well, because he liked jam, and she couldn't remember ever seeing him near food and not eating it.
Unless it was corned beef.
She replayed what had happened in her head as she filled the kettle from the tiny tea-and-coffee-station sink.
It had been so overwhelming. The rush of relief, seeing him, talking, animated, waving his long arms around. Hugging people. Back slapping, congratulating. So goddamn alive. Even that limp, from where he'd broken his leg again. It all just made it more real.
He was alive.
And that rush of relief was followed by a flood of guilt and horror, because so many people had died, and all she could think about was how glad she was that it hadn't been him. And with every flood of guilt came the peculiar feeling that her desperation for him to survive had cost other people their lives.
It was rubbish, of course. It wasn't that her love for him had somehow protected him. Or that in loving him she'd somehow failed to protect other people. It didn't work like that.
In the moment, though, that horrible blend of relief and guilt had hit her hard, and the first proper meal she'd had in months had refused to stay down.
It was horribly unfair of him to have been so ridiculously glib while she was so horrendously sick.
Really it was his fault she'd said it.
He hadn't noticed though… or at least, he'd pretended not to notice.
If he hadn't noticed, she shouldn't mention it.
And if he had noticed…
It seemed strange that he wouldn't have challenged it straight away...
So perhaps he hadn't noticed…
Or perhaps he's not remotely interested in you like that.
Hermione winced against her own self-doubt, and opened two individually wrapped teabags while she waited for the kettle to boil. She'd seen enough to know he fancied her. And even if she hadn't seen it, Harry had told her about the locket. Well, not told, implied. He wouldn't actually say, couldn't betray Ron's trust like that, but she'd pushed and pushed until he'd given her enough cryptic clues to have honestly not told her anything, while still having revealed enough to stop her pestering Ron about it.
If he hadn't noticed, best say nothing. If he had noticed… well, then it was his turn.
She got up to answer the knock at the door, and collected the tray of hot toast, feeling pleased that the smell made her hungry rather than queasy.
She put the tray down on the bed and began buttering toast.
The exhaustion was seeping in properly now, her mind drifting past the sounds of the shower, and the scraping of the butterknife on the rough surface of the toast.
He'd had his hands in her hair.
He'd actually done something useful when she'd needed him.
He hadn't made a fuss.
She found herself smiling.
He'd shaken off that kickable puppy dog quality somewhere along the line...
No, that wasn't true. It was still there, lurking in the background, but when he was taking centre stage, playing the fool, keeping people talking with banter and exaggeration… even when he was serious, focused on strategy and making an impassioned case for a particular course of action… it was as though he forgot about it.
She supposed in a way they were all like that. Desperate to be liked, uncertain of themselves, over confident where they shouldn't be, and hesitant when the situation called for audacity. She thought about Harry, indiscriminately charging off hell for leather at the mere hint of danger, and Neville, stepping into the role of General and thriving.
Ron had been right when he'd said they'd all been tried and tested.
But it wasn't everything.
She turned the battle over in her head, the escapes, the close calls, the endless survival in the tent. Alive.
Still alive.
She felt a steely quality in herself when she thought about Death Eaters. Part of her knew she could duel to incapacitate, because she had, so she could do it again. It was a curious kind of confidence.
She thought about Ron's hands in her hair.
Seeing her throw up was one thing; that was an ordinary revolting thing, and didn't bother her much.
But to think of him seeing her naked… she flushed with self-consciousness.
It wasn't that she didn't like her body; she barely thought about it at all.
If I'm honest with myself, she thought, it's not just the love thing. I want him to want me the way I want him… and that's where being well-read, and capable, and intelligent make no difference at all…
She hugged herself anxiously, and the bathroom door opened, delivering him damp and steaming.
She would say nothing, pretend it had never happened, and let time help her forget.
Ron
She was sitting on the covers beside a tray of half-buttered toast, her shoulders hunched defensively, her face unguardedly anxious.
She does know what she said.
He felt a battery of conflicted emotions rise, seeing her so vulnerable.
She was so strong, so powerful, the force of her personality filled spaces, dominated and demanded respect. He hated seeing her cowed and anxious… but he loved being allowed to see into her mind a little. It made him feel special, to be allowed to see her like this.
He felt… proud of her. And bizarrely pleased with himself. As though, after all this time feeling slightly inadequate beside her blinding brilliance, he could sit back and just admire and celebrate her. He felt a rush of affection, and thought that maybe, after all, he did belong with her.
Because surely that was what she needed, wasn't it? Someone who wasn't intimidated by her genius?
He poured hot water into the waiting cups, and searched for milk in the tiny fridge. He was pleased he'd remembered the name for the little white cupboard that kept things cold.
"We've all gone wrong, developmentally," she announced, straightening up now that she had found a conclusion to whatever thoughts had been troubling her.
He fished the teabags out of the cups and put them in the little white bin.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we're adapted to living in a warzone. I don't know how to put on makeup for a job interview, or- or how to complete a tax return," she started scraping marmite over a piece of the buttered toast, "We've been trying to kill a psychopath while most teens are off experimenting and working out how to live in the world." She took a bite, and waved the toast around, gesturing, "I mean, what do we do now? Have you any idea what to do next? We've been so preoccupied, we're now appallingly underprepared for normal life. Do you even have a bank account?"
"Er… I don't have any money…" He thought of the dragon. "Plus, I think I hate banks."
She nodded in sympathy, already moving on to the next thought.
"And what about the psychological aspect? I mean, poor Harry, raised by those horrible muggles, introduced to the magical world as a celebrity at a young age," she paused to take another bite, completely distracted now by her train of thought, and not at all attending to what she was eating. Ron found he was smiling a little. Back to normal. "Is it any wonder he promptly developed a hero complex? And did anyone take responsibility for him? It was left to us to try to manage him, and that's a lot to expect from two untrained teenagers, especially given he had a horcrux embedded in him. It's not as though we were even studying psychology at Hogwarts," He passed her a cup of tea and she nodded her thanks as she continued. "What is he supposed to do now that the villain has been defeated?"
Ron chuckled.
"I think he's got his heart set on being an Auror like his dad,"
"Yes, exactly. But is that really a wise choice? Or is that just the only option he can see? Is there any responsible adult in his life able to point out that he's a worthwhile person in his own right, regardless of heroic acts? I mean, he could do anything. We could all do anything." She met his gaze now, her eyes almost pleading.
What do we do now?
He sat down on the bed beside her and reached for the pot of jam.
"I'm not sure there is such a thing as a responsible adult," he said slowly, "If you look at all the adults we know, they all did dumb shit. Dumbledore being the classic example; you really don't get more respectable and old wisdom-y than Dumbledore, and he still massively messed up."
"That's true," she disappeared into thought again. "Even Lupin, who I always thought was well grounded, made some spectacularly idiotic decisions."
"Eh, she got him in the end," Ron said lightly, skimming over their deaths to think about the people instead. "Just got used to seeing himself as undesirable, I think."
She was regarding him thoughtfully now.
"There's a kind of vanity in that," she said carefully, "Thinking you're worthless is its own form of indulgence,"
Ouch, thought Ron, was that directed at me? And after I'd been all insightful and everything.
"I think it's what I admire so much in Luna," she said, and he knew she hadn't been thinking of him, not really, "She'd not at all self-indulgent,"
"Bloody oblivious," he said, shoving half a piece of jammy toast in his mouth.
She was twisting an escaped strand of hair between her fingers.
"She isn't though, not really. She knows she's flaky and strange, but she doesn't ham it up to be stranger than she is. She just sort of… It's like, she's aware of how she is, and accepts it. I think that must be quite a gift."
"Lonely,"
"Yes." She looked up at him again, "I suppose you never really know what you mean to someone until you see your face painted on their bedroom ceiling,"
Ron snorted.
"So what are you going to do?" he asked, stretching out his healing leg and trying to ignore the impulse to rub it. It hurt, but in an itchy way now, like it had bugs crawling inside.
She blinked at him.
"I haven't the foggiest clue," she said, "I suppose I'll go back to Hogwarts while I figure it out."
Ron regarded her for a moment, and finished another piece of toast.
"Wanna know what I think?"
She smiled at him over the top of her mug.
"Go on then,"
He reached for the jam pot again.
"I think one thing that's always set you apart from the rest of us is that you found something you're brilliant at really young,"
"School? I suppose I could teach-"
He shook his head impatiently.
"No that's not what I mean. You love research. You don't think you do, because you've had to do it, for school, and for saving the world and all that, but it's like… it's like second nature for you. You have this crazy lust for knowledge and a brain that wants to solve problems. It's like you soak up all the information you can get your hands on and immediately search for patterns and connections. Now," he paused and took a swig of tea, "You could go into all kinds of applied fields- heck, you could become an Auror and spend all your time saving Harry's arse, and you'd be brilliant at it, but the problems you'd be solving would be…"
He searched for the right word.
"Small? It's like You-Know-Who. He needed vanquishing, but he was just one horrible person plus Death Eaters. So you could use your genius brain to keep vanquishing evil dickheads, which is a worthy cause, don't get me wrong, but…" he frowned. "In the history of the world, there's always been evil dickheads. Get rid of one, another one grows in its place. But if you look at, like, the way we value a single human life, or advances in healing, or shit, anything really, some of the biggest, most effective, positive changes have come from solving large-scale problems that have far reaching effects." She was frowning at him now. He clearly wasn't explaining well. Damn. "So, like, memory charms," he said, mentally kicking himself for picking such a touchy subject, even though it was a reasonable example.
"Say you managed to work out how to cure memory damage from obliviation. As well as your parents, think of all the countless other people who've been obliviated. Better yet, imagine being able to fine tune memory charms to the point where you could give victims control over what they remember. From what I've heard it sounds like Neville's parents weren't obliviated; they lost their minds in self-defence. What if you could give them control over their memories, obliterate the ones that made them bonkers, resuscitate the rest, and give them choices about what they remember." She was still frowning. "Think of the possibilities when it comes to witnesses giving evidence against people who've done unspeakable things to them. They could choose to remember for the trial, and then choose to forget."
Her frown deepened, and he thought for a second he'd upset her.
"I looked into it last year before I… well. I think muggle neuroscience might have some of the answers, actually. Magic doesn't pay any attention to the science, it just creates short cuts. So, somewhere along the line, we've worked out how to block or delete memories, in a sort of…" she searched for the word, "Subjective kind of way. And it works, it's just that, it did occur to me that if you framed it objectively, and used muggle knowledge to supplement the magical, it might be possible to better understand exactly what happens when a person is obliviated, and from there how to fine tune the process, or how to reverse- what? Why are you laughing?"
"Any other centuries old dilemmas you want to solve this evening?" He twinkled at her, and she blushed.
"So… you think I should be an academic?"
He turned the word over in his head. It wasn't… enough.
"I think you should be whatever you want to be, and let the world run to catch up. Announce your latest project and watch people trip over themselves to give you funding and support."
She bit her lip, and her shoulders came up again. Vulnerable. Anxious.
"I don't think I'm gutsy enough to do that," she confessed, "Who am I to- to be so…?"
She waved her hand about vaguely and he grinned at her.
"Who are you to defeat a dark lord? Who are you to save people's lives and liberate house elves? Who are you to break into the ministry and wreak havoc? I think if we've learnt anything from Hogwarts it's that you can race off to find trouble and deal with it, while everyone else sits around worrying."
She was blushing again.
"We didn't really go looking for-"
"Harry bloody did," he pointed out, "Look, all I'm saying is, you're in a unique position to be able to call the shots, and have your life now the way you want it. Maybe it doesn't quite pan out that way, but isn't it… I dunno, foolish? Not to see what would happen if you walked into the Daily Prophet offices in say, a couple of years' time, with your famous, famous name, and stellar reputation, and announced you were looking for backing for a major research project?"
She stared at him for a long time.
"Fuck." She said finally.
Ron's eyebrows shot up.
She gave a reluctant half smile.
"That really scares me." She said, moving the tray over to the desk and scourgifying the mugs. "All I see is my mistakes, and all the things I've stuffed up. And it's not like I don't know I'm quite good at research… it's just…" she drummed her fingertips against the desktop. "You're right. But I don't think I could just bolt up, by myself and…" she drifted off, staring at him.
"You asking me to lend my famous name to your worthy cause and come along to back you up?"
She blushed again.
"Worse, I'm afraid. I was thinking you'd be very good at public relations and project management and… well, strategizing something like this. By myself I might've thought of applying for a research grant… it would never have occurred to me to just… pick a topic and use the fame to win funding. But it seems to me you've had enough time in a supporting role,"
He raised an eyebrow at her, curious.
"If Harry thinks he's the hero of the piece, you've got 'sidekick' stamped on your brain in indelible ink," she said dryly, "You're brilliant in your own way, but you're so used to playing second fiddle it's like you can't see what you could be if you just stepped out of the shadows."
He paused and thought about it for a minute. Then he grinned and got up to pinch the jam jar again. He put the lid on tightly and popped it into the little beaded bag on the night stand.
"Just in case," he said by way of explanation for the jam. "How about this then. Let's pretend for a crazy moment that I am as brilliant as you say. Now, I find myself a research genius," he waved a gracious hand to acknowledge her, "Provide a bit of encouragement, make some generic statements to the media about innovation and the value of research and changing the world, go to fancy parties to eat fancy food and convince snooty rich people to donate, and the rest of the time just sit back and let you get on with it. I'd look like an absolute saint for promoting all the very worthy work you do, without having to do much at all except drink champagne and smile at the camera."
She stared at him.
"Would… would you be happy doing that?"
"No idea," he said truthfully, "If I was good at it, then yeah, probably. Tell you what, I'll be director, you be head researcher of our little company, and whenever you get too stressed out I'll declare a holiday, send everyone home, and take you somewhere nice."
"Everyone?"
He waved a hand cavalierly.
"Underlings. You know, junior researchers, and senior researchers, and other staff; all the people who report to you."
"But…"
"You need minions. If you picked obliviation as a first project, you'd need a muggle neuroscientist on the team at least. You'll need a bunch of people who can run about and cross-reference stuff for you, and like, call up other researchers and book meetings and shit."
She was staring at him again.
"How do you do that?"
"What?"
"Keep… making it bigger," she said in a rush, "I've only just adjusted to the idea of demanding funding, and you're turning it into some kind of hybrid magic-muggle research institution!"
"The Granger Institute," he said, as he wandered back to the bathroom to brush his teeth, feeling suddenly like he'd been the secret centre of their adventures all along, "I like it."
Hermione
Hermione pressed her fingers to her eyes in disbelief. He was making her head spin. She trailed after him to brush her teeth as well, and found he was catching her eyes in the mirror.
Something had changed.
In the course of that conversation, something had changed.
"Can we revisit this idea later?" she asked through a mouthful of toothpaste.
"Yup," he said, rinsing his toothbrush, "Might have to give me a few months or so to be horribly depressed first though. Shock has to wear off some time."
Her chest hurt in that familiar way.
"What can I do?"
He fidgeted with the snowy hand towel.
Wrong question maybe? But she wanted to know. Needed to know. If only she could get him to articulate-
"Don't let me be alone too much," he said reluctantly. "I can get really black when I'm by myself a lot,"
She tried not to think about that time without him on the run. She nodded and followed him back out of the bathroom.
"We got toast crumbs and jam all over the covers," he said, pointing accusingly at the bed.
"Someone did, at any rate,"
"We could just sleep in the other one," he suggested.
"Good point," she said, realising too late that she was mimicking his earlier response, and ignoring the magical solution to a few toast crumbs.
He caught her eye briefly, and she thought she saw startled amusement there, before he tamped down the lid on his emotions and carried on as though this was a thing they always did.
"Do you have a side preference?"
"No,"
"Brilliant, I'll take this side then."
He slipped in between the sheets and stretched out, his healing leg hanging over the side as though he couldn't bring himself to put it under the weight of the covers. He caught her worried glance and pulled a face.
"It's really flipping itchy and hot. It's a good sign, but if feels like I've got lava ants crawling in my leg."
"No such thing as lava ants," she said, climbing in beside him.
"Sure there are, they live in volcanoes," He had his eyes shut and was stretching his arm out lazily wide across the bed.
She stared at him for a second. Was he hogging all the space, or inviting her in for a hug?
He kept his eyes closed, and arms wide, and kept prattling about imaginary lava ants.
His ears were a tiny bit pink.
Right.
She tucked herself in under his armpit, and rested her head on his flannelette chest, unable to supress a smile, when he pulled her in closer, shifting for comfort.
"Utter nonsense," she said, interrupting his monologue about the magical properties of lava ants. "You're making this up,"
"Well, maybe, but it's better than thinking about things,"
She realised she'd ruined it.
"Sorry,"
He turned out the light, and they lapsed into silence, the beat of his heart and the rise of his breath filling her senses. She felt the exhaustion start to sweep in again, that heavy feeling on her eyelids, the dull ache of over tiredness in her head. His fingers fidgeted with her sleeve, and found the end of her plait, toying with it, painting letters and shapes and patterns on her shoulder.
"Tell me something," he said suddenly.
"What?"
"I don't know. Anything. I didn't mean to, but I'm starting to think about- and I don't want to. Not yet."
She found herself yawning, sliding her leg up to overlap his good one, slipping her hand over his torso and cuddling up close.
"What do you want to know?"
"Dunno. Something you've never told anyone before."
Is he fishing for something particular?
He seemed to have vanished her hair tie, and the plait was unravelling between his long fingers as his hand worked its way up towards her head.
Something unimportant, that I've never told anyone…
"I've always liked you," she said sleepily, "It's why I was so upset when you said I was a nightmare,"
He was stroking her hair now. It seemed to be putting her to sleep.
"I liked you too," he said, his fingers weaving into her hair and rubbing her scalp. She leant her head into his hand, like a cat, and felt him smile beside her, "Think I have a weakness for smart, bossy women. McGonnagall's my favourite teacher."
She chuckled, thinking that McGonnagall had always seemed to have a soft spot for him too. He was lazily massaging her head, playing with her hair absentmindedly, and she could feel sleep creeping over her. But she'd started explaining, and it was bugging her, the knowledge that unless she spelled it out for him, he wouldn't understand.
"Harry was famous, which was interesting, but he'd grown up with muggles, so it wasn't that different," she said, "But you were a real wizard, you know, a proper one, and you were just so laid back and cool, and everything about you just sort of said that magic was normal and-" she yawned and shifted out of his arms to relieve the crick in her neck, "And I thought maybe you might think I was normal too. I'd had a pretty miserable time at muggle school, with all the accidental magic. Mostly the other kids only sat with me to get help with their schoolwork,"
He'd rolled onto his side to face her, the bad leg tucked under the covers carefully. She reached for him in the dark, not wanting to let him think she'd shifted away because she didn't want him close. She ran her hand over his shoulder and down his arm, dragging his hand over her own shoulder and back to her hair.
He'd said he liked it.
"So all those times you made me feel a complete twit in class…"
"I thought if I could help you, you might like me,"
He gave a little huff of laughter.
"I thought you thought I was dim,"
"No," she yawned again, "I thought magic was so ordinary to you that you weren't really trying,"
"I was really trying," he said ruefully, "Tragic,"
His hand was roaming again, stroking down her hair to find her shoulder blade, fingertips skimming along her spine. She ran her hand over his chest and under his arm, dimly aware of how bold and careless she was being. Tiredness washed through her in waves.
Some primitive part of her brain was noticing him though. The shape, and warmth, and smell, and feel of him. She sighed, and heard it sound sort of… content.
She hadn't meant to do that.
He was holding her closer now.
Interesting.
"So why me? Why not Malfoy, or one of the other pureblood kids?"
She tried to force her tired mind to think about it.
"Malfoy? Don't be daft. I don't know about the others though; I just liked you. You were funny and relaxed, and you'd taken Harry under your wing, and you were just sort of cool about it. Like it didn't phase you in the slightest that he was famous."
"Well, he was a weedy little blighter, wasn't he,"
"Yes, but that's not relevant,"
"I dunno," he said, the rumble of his voice right beside her, "If he'd been a snazzy dresser or built like a troll it might've bothered me,"
"Yes, well, I didn't know that, did I? You made it seem like no big deal, you had this massive family reputation in the school, everyone kind of looked to you for explanations on wizarding world stuff… did you even notice that most of the kids at Hogwarts weren't pureblood?"
He was yawning now, and she could feel that his heartbeat had started to slow.
"What's pureblood got to do with anything?" he asked sleepily.
"Ask Malfoy," she said, "He'd tell you."
"Slimy git," His default response.
His fingers were back in her hair, smoothing and rubbing, massaging her scalp. She felt heavy, like sleep was literally dragging her down into the mattress, pressing her into his arms, sinking her head into the pillow.
"I've never belonged anywhere. I guess I thought that if you accepted me… then I must be ok. I think…" she yawned again, noticing vaguely that her brain was fighting to stay awake, "I think I still want that…"
His heartbeat seemed very loud. Or strong. She wasn't sure how she was feeling it, but it was all around her, clear insistent.
Alive.
The tip of his nose nudged hers, and she opened her eyes again. She could just see the glint of his in the darkness.
"All right then," he said slowly, "If it means that much to you…" His breath on her face, his thumb rubbing softly on her temple… It was deliriously dizzying. "I'll pinch some paint off Luna,"
"What?"
"Giant portrait of your face on my bedroom ceiling coming up,"
"Don't be…" she trailed off, realising too late that the nonsense was another distraction, like lava ants, or research institutes, or lists of escaped Death Eaters.
"Daft?" he offered. She couldn't bring herself to reply. "Hermione?"
What was there to say?
She nudged his nose with hers, gently, the way he had done before.
He let out a slow breath.
"Yeah ok," he murmured. "You know, I told myself I was just going to ignore it, so you know, the timing's all wrong, and I'm still adjusting to the idea that it's not all one-sided, but unless I'm misreading this horribly, then it seems like maybe you do actually feel-"
His pulse was everywhere; a heartbeat in her head, all around her, overwhelming. His body was hot, rolling waves of heat, and she felt the cold of all those nights in the tent just vanish as though they'd never been. His nose was rubbing up against hers, his breath and mumbling nonsense feather-light against her lips.
A little shiver of electricity shot through her.
He's nervous. He's talking himself into it.
She smiled, letting her lips catch against his.
"- and you know it's funny you should say that because I always felt like I wasn't good enough, and I guess that's kinda the same, like-"
"Do I need to borrow some paint off Luna too?"
A little puff of laughter, and he kissed her.
She had a moment where it was warm and strange, and then the heat poured through her and she was melting, like honey in the sun, melting, drifting… gone.