A/N: Written for the Ultimate Battle Competition 2. I was supposed to write a story for my NoTP. (As you can clearly see from my profile, I ship Ron/Hermione to the death, so I thought I might try Harry/Hermione this time around.) Enjoy my first ever Harry/Hermione fic! Hope it's fluffy :)
There was a horrible, awful, disgusting thing on her face.
Hermione grimaced as she poked the pimple that had decided to make her skin its new home. It was bigger than the tip of her wand, and throbbing repulsively. She let out a frustrated groan and lifted herself out of the chair in her study, resolving herself to a hunt for her face cream.
She first checked the medicine cabinet in the kitchen, where they kept the potions and any other Healing kits. While there were many things in the cabinet, none of them quite suited her needs.
Only one person could help her now.
"Harry?"
Hermione pulled her head out of the cabinet, scratching her scalp idly. "Darling, where's my face cream?"
There was no reply, and she sighed irritably, sticking her head back into the medicine cabinet. She searched fruitlessly for the little pink container. "Harry!" she called out again, once again receiving no answer. Pursing her lips, she rooted around in the back of the cabinet, procuring nothing.
She let out another puff of air, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. Pulling herself up, she shut the medicine cabinet and strode out of the kitchen and into the washroom across the hall. She pulled open yet another cabinet, and after her search yielded nothing once more, she shouted, "Harry Potter, where on Merlin's green earth have you put my face cream?!"
Because it had to have been him, you see. No, a clever witch like Hermione would never have misplaced her extremely important face cream. He was the one with the neurotic tendency to organise anything and everthing from the pots and pans to his underwear drawer.
Her temper rising rapidly, Hermione stalked back into the kitchen, picked up her wand, and tried for the twenty-second time to summon the face cream. When nothing came whizzing into the room, she shoved her wand into her back pocket and stormed upstairs, where she knew Harry was taking a nap.
Or was supposed to be, anyway. When she reached their room, she found it empty, the bedsheets suspiciously undisturbed. This led Hermione to two possible conclusions:
One: Harry was cheating on her and had lied about it by pretending he was asleep.
Two: Harry had been kidnapped.
(Now, considering who we are talking about, the second seemed far more likely to Hermione.)
"Harry?" Hermione called out again, a note of panic in her voice. "Harry, answer me right now!"
There was a soft dripping noise and Hermione whirled around. While the room was empty, there was a strip of light coming from underneath the washroom door, and the sound of gently sloshing water.
With her wand out, Hermione advanced carefully toward the door. She took a deep breath, counted to three, and whispered, "Alohomora!"
The lock gave a soft click as it unlocked, and she laid her hand on the handle. Biting her lip hard, she shoved the door open.
There was a squawk of surprise, a gush of water, and an unexpected squeaking noise. Hermione spun around, ready to face the intruder, and instead was caught quite off guard. She stared for a moment, and then burst into laughter.
In front of her, sitting in a bath filled with foam and suds, was the Boy Who Lived, clutching a rubber ducky for dear life.
(It should also be noted that the Boy Who Lived had never been redder in his life.)
"Her – Hermione!" he spluttered, shoving the ducky underneath the mountain of bubbles. "I – I – I thought you were downstairs!"
"Is – is that a – rubber – ducky?" Hermione choked out between giggles, pointing at his submerged hand.
He went redder, if possible.
"It's perfectly normal," he said with a dignified air.
"For a two-year-old."
"Oi!"
She went into another peal of laughter. "I'm – I'm sorry, it's just – ha!"
"Stop laughing at me," said Harry indignantly. "I'll have you know that rubber duckies are very therapeutic."
"Who – ha! – who told you that, Victoire?"
He frowned at her. "I was enjoying a rather nice bath before you barged in here!" he said, folding his arms with as much dignity as he could while his chin was coated in a bubble beard. "What are you doing, anyway?"
"I was trying to make sure you hadn't been kidnapped," said Hermione, grinning as she regained some of her composure. "Glad to see you've been just fine all this time."
"What?" said Harry, sounding mildly intrigued. "Why on earth would I have been kidnapped?"
"Well, let's think," said Hermione, putting a hand to her chin in mock thought. "You weren't answering my calls, the bed hadn't been slept in, everything was very quiet, and, not to mention, you're the enemy of very many Dark wizards who would like nothing more than to see you dead. But other than that, no reason at all!"
He seemed amused. "So when you saw I wasn't in the bed, your first thought was that I'd been kidnapped?"
"Well, no," Hermione admitted. "My first thought was that you were having an affair."
He snorted. "Yeah, right. I pity the girl who gets between you and me."
"Oh?" said Hermione innocently.
"Well, I assume she'd walk away with something vaguely demeaning written across her face in oddly-coloured pustules," said Harry conversationally.
She grinned at him. "You know it."
The only sounds for a moment were the swishing of the bubbles and the soft squeaking of the submerged ducky. Then Hermione said, "So…do you do this every Sunday?"
He smiled sheepishly. "Most of them, yeah."
"And…is there room in there for two?"
His smile turned cheeky. "Climb on in."
She obliged and pulled her clothes off, noticing how Harry was staring at certain parts of her and making a note to use them against him later that night. She slid underneath the warm water, her feet brushing up against his legs, his feet wrapped around her waist.
"You know I'm never going to let you live this down," she told him, smiling slyly.
He sighed, sending a cloud of bubbles her way. "Yes, I'm well aware. But make sure that when you tell Ron, you mention how sexy my bubble beard looked."
She let out a giggle and snuggled closer to him underneath the water, their bodies intertwining.
They were content for a while until Hermione suddenly remembered. "Harry," she said, startling him out of a doze, "you wouldn't happen to know where my face cream is, would you?"
"Face…cream?" he said slowly, his eyebrows furrowing.
"Yes, Harry," said Hermione patiently, as if explaining to a toddler the letters of the alphabet. "My face cream. It's in a little pink pot and it was in the medicine cabinet, last I checked."
"Oh," said Harry suddenly, his face oddly white. "Er…"
"Harry," said Hermione in a controlled voice, "what have you done with my face cream?"
"I, er…" He smiled sheepishly. "I might have accidentally thrown it away?"
She gaped at him. "That cream was worth at least four galleons!"
"I thought it had gone rotten! Was it supposed to be grey?"
"Yes, Harry," said Hermione furiously, "it was supposed to be grey!"
He laughed nervously. "Well, er…you know, if you want to get back at me, you've got a great story to tell!"
She considered this for a moment. "That's true," she said thoughtfully, and he let out a sigh of relief. "I can't wait to tell everyone the story of The Boy Who Lived and His Rubber Ducky!"
He groaned, and she giggled and nestled herself into the crook of his arm, smiling contentedly.
A/N: Well, I have finished my very first Harry/Hermione story, and can safely say that I still ship Ron/Hermione to the death. I respect your opinion if you think Harry and Hermione should have been together, but in my eyes they are and will always be siblings. Hope you liked this fic anyway, and keep reading!