Stare
They'd been out here too long, swapping the Horcrux necklace between them. Harry was wearing it now, grumbling inconsequentially about something as he rummaged about the tent for a clean jumper.
Across from her, at the table, Ron flinched as he moved his healing arm too quickly, attempting to scratch his several day old stubble whilst spooning soup into his mouth with his good arm.
Stubble...
Hermione lowered her own spoon and licked her lips.
God, when had he become... a man? Not to say it was the first time she'd felt this sort of... attraction for him. No, she'd hidden a blush many times before, but it was different now.
They were alone, out here.
With the lantern light striking his jaw this way, she could make out each individual copper hair, peppering his cream-white skin like the freckles across his cheeks and nose. She had an incredible urge to reach across the table and run her hand along his scruffy face, down the curve of his jaw to his chin, and-
He was chewing his bottom lip. He stopped, abruptly. And why did it suddenly feel as though her ears were on fire?
Her eyes slid up...
...directly meeting his, staring right back at her.
Her first impulse was to quickly look away. But...
His left eyebrow twitched. Surely, it was an imperceptible gesture to anyone. Anyone who wasn't staring, inches away, across a narrow table by flickering lantern light. Staring into him.
He was asking her a question. No. He was daring her. Oh, go on. She couldn't stop now.
Her lips parted as he held her gaze. So, he wouldn't be the first to look away? Then neither would she...
Her heart began to pound, fingernails digging into the underside of the wooden tabletop. His eyes were so... What, exactly? Words failed her as she blinked, refusing to dart her eyes away even for a moment.
What the hell was he thinking, right now? She'd have emptied her Gringotts vault just to know- to read his mind. He sniffed very lightly, and had the corner of his mouth twitched? She couldn't risk looking down to find out for sure. Couldn't leave the anxiety of maintaining eye contact, her heart pounding wildly in her throat, and her breath coming in hitches between her tingling lips.
His eyelashes were so pale, reflecting the glow of the lantern, patterned shadows along his lids and brows. And were his eyes a bit wider now? Could he honestly feel exactly the way she did, nervous and excited and confused and trapped and... perfect? She squeezed her legs tightly together, and wondered how they would ever leave this moment.
How could they?
Both of his brows raised a minuscule fraction. She narrowed her eyes nearly unnoticeably in return.
He noticed. His smile reached his eyes, and she felt her grip on the table slacken as muscles turned to jelly.
He'd never smiled at her that way before.
She wanted to lunge across the table and snog him- sod Harry. She wanted to run her hands through his too-long hair and down his neck and-
Harry dropped something with a crash, and they jumped, Ron's gaze flying away from her to see what had happened.
"Mate?" he called out, hoarsely.
"Ah," Harry dismissed, tugging on his jumper. "Bloody books."
Ron turned back to Hermione with half a grin... which slid smoothly into the closest thing to an apology she had ever seen cross his face.
She shrugged, before she could think. And then, his foot was tapping her ankle, beneath the table. And damn her blush as he licked his lips and ran a nervous hand through his hair.
"I'll do the washing," he said, only for her. And as she watched him stand and gather their dishes, splinched arm carefully protected from further injury, she found that she couldn't quite swallow away the lump in her throat.
She couldn't quite tell herself to go back to normal- to casual friendship and circling cautiously around something more.
She had seen something new. Something gorgeous- protected before, but unguarded for her now. Why had he shown it to her?
He lightly cleared his throat, and she met his eyes again, somehow on the verge of nonsensical tears.
It was only for a moment, their eyes once again meeting, his own angled down and dark from such a distance. But it was enough to know he understood. There were no words to explain. Only knowing, somehow.
This was different. This was important.