A/N: Just a short Harmony drabble I wrote one afternoon.
No made is made of this and all rights belong to JKR.
A bear hug to my beta niffizzle whom I convinced Harmony is a really god ship with this one. Thank you for your support!
She blamed him. Him alone.
She blamed Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Conquered, the bloody Head Auror for distracting her from the Minister of Magic's speech.
Hermione had no idea what the topic of Kingsley's words even was.
From the moment Harry had entered the room, she could barely take her eyes off of him.
How could he do that to her? He was her best friend, after all!
Granted, he didn't know about the emotions he stirred by showing up like this.
His purple Auror uniform was difficult to bear on a normal day, but this… addition to his body was more than destructive to her self-control.
A tattoo was visible, just barely. The ink jet black with a shimmer, a shadow of dark blue, snuggling against the curve of his neck and peeking up from over his collar.
What the symbol was, she didn't know. The piece visible could be a plant, a rune, or maybe a simple pattern?
All she did know was that she wanted to touch it. Caress it and see if her touch caused goosebumps. Lick it and hear if she'd evoke some kind of noises from his throat. She wanted to kiss it and trace the entire form.
Hermione felt her pulse quicken and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to regain control of her feelings.
She had known he had gotten a few tattoos over the last few years. It had started with an owl, a nod to Hedwig, just a few weeks after Harry and Ginny had broken their engagement. Hermione had written it off as a way to define himself. Then, a phoenix had followed, a dragon, a snitch. All of them were hidden beneath his clothes, not because he was embarrassed by them, but because they were special, private to him.
But he had never been shy to expose them to her. Or any one of his friends.
Hermione had seen them on the hot summer days when he threw off his shirt, having become hot and sweaty on the Burrow's Quidditch pitch.
She had touched them when she healed his wounds and bruises, patching him back together after a rough mission.
She had even made fun of him, accusing him to distract those attracted to the male sex when a librarian had accidentally vanished parts of his uniform during the obligatory basic training for all Ministry workers.
All in all, Hermione was acutely aware of how sexy Harry was, and the tattoos were only unfairly adding to it.
But Hermione, being the loyal friend she was, never mentioned the attraction she felt towards Harry, started by the wings of the owl, getting worse with the snitch, steadily progressing with the dragon - and now bordering on impossible with whatever the black ink symbolised and was now open to the public.
But she had to control herself.
This friendship, no matter what she was feeling, was too important to her that she would risk it over some stupid hormones.
She looked at his face, leaving the seductive tattoo where it was, and immediately felt a comforting warmth wash over her.
The familiarity of the laugh lines next to his expressive lips, the strong eyebrows she knew he could let dance to amuse Ron's baby daughter, the warm green of his eyes.
Eyes that now focused on her.
Hermione made a small, gasping noise. Immediately, the warmth was gone, and she felt exposed, caught, unable to look away.
From the corner of her vision, she could see his finger trailing around his collar, loosening it, never breaking eye-contact. The green was spellbinding, the intensity of his gaze shocking her.
What was he doing to her? He had never looked at her like this. Like he wanted to show her all of him in a situation lacking all decorum of friendship or professionalism.
Harry then winked at her, inclining his head a fraction, toward his hand, where his finger was now exposing his tattoo even more.
She gave in to the temptation, the thrill of toeing the line of friendship, the warning hum in the back of her mind.
A gasp escaped her again, louder this time, so much that she had to cover it with a half-cough.
Vine.
A vine raked over Harry's skin, intricate, enchanting.
As enchanting as the wood of a vine wood wand.
Her wand.
Hermione had no idea how she survived the rest of the meeting. She only remembered Harry's eyes on her, the tension in her body, the galloping sound of her heartbeat.
But what she did remember, in every single detail, was how Harry took her hand after the meeting, giving some excuse to Kingsley, and Apparated them to her house.
Hermione recalled, for the next several decades, how Harry whispered against her lips, "Finally. I thought you'd never understand my messages. Somehow telling you that I want you." He nipped at the side of her neck, making her moan. "Brightest witch of her age. In everything but love."
She slapped him, playfully.
And then continued undressing him.
Caressed every single tattoo.
Made him shiver when she kissed the vine. Made him groan when she licked the rune on his hip. Made him hiss when she engulfed his length with her mouth.
Hermione blamed Harry Potter, him alone, that her heart melted when he confessed his love to her after they finished.
The Wizard Who Owned Her Heart.