A/N: This was my first submission to the Romione Fluff Fest on Tumblr this year.
Prompt(s): The Grangers' house, Friday evening + they get caught in the rain
I was heavily inspired by the song "Summertime Clothes" by Animal Collective, so if you love music, check out the song before you read the fic! Hope you enjoy x
She was home.
The word felt oddly unfamiliar, as she sat in the middle of her childhood bed, her dim desk lamp splashing electric warmth across the room, when she'd grown so used to the flickering of lantern light. If she was being honest, this soft blue room full of books and scattered, disused items from her younger days hadn't felt like home in years. There was no specific moment in her past that she could call up as the turning point, merely that she had drifted further and further away from things that had actually never fit quite right anyway, like a part of her had been born with the knowledge that she belonged somewhere else.
Down a long, dark hallway, her parents slept soundly, and she found quiet relief at least in knowing that they were back, exactly where they belonged. But she still couldn't sleep. She'd had trouble since the Manor, she thought… further back, maybe… as far as those desperate, lonely nights in the tent when Ron had been gone. And, to make things even more complicated, after that first night at Hogwarts, two weeks in his bed at the Burrow, and three weeks sharing a hotel room in Australia, she'd gotten terribly used to his warm body lying next to her.
She wondered if he felt the same way tonight, tucked up in his bed. A part of her really wanted to go right now and find out… But it had only been three days since they'd come back. Perhaps she just needed to give it more time, and he hadn't said anything-
A tapping sound on her window startled her out of her thoughts, and she gasped, clutching her wand.
"Hermione?"
His raspy whisper was so recognisable, even through thick glass and curtains, and she grinned… but only for a second, before a wave of panic washed over her. What would he be doing here this late at night? She lowered her wand and quickly approached, tugging back the curtains and opening the window with a loud scrape.
"Ron, what's going on-" But then she froze. His head was floating in midair, and she blinked at him, speechless.
"Hey!" He shifted around, and she suddenly made sense of what she was seeing. He was hovering on his broom, wrapped in Harry's invisibility cloak.
"Are you alright?" she asked, but his slightly shy, lopsided smile was putting her at ease… even as her stomach flipped over delightfully.
"Yeah! Sorry, I'm just… can I come in?"
"Oh! Yes, of course…"
She moved back and watched as he gripped the frame of the window and pulled himself through, shrugging off the cloak as his trainers thudded down on the floor. He winced and gave her an apologetic grimace at all the noise he was making, but she simply smiled in return.
"What are you doing here?"
"Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd check on you." He sniffed, flushed lightly, and shrugged. But, as she stared at him, the logistics of his arrival slowly dawned on her.
"You couldn't have flown the whole way so fast…"
"Nah, Apparated under the cloak to the back garden, then flew up."
He tousled his hair, and she sighed, relieved. Somehow, the room around her instantly felt more familiar and safe, with him in it.
"I'm really glad you're here," she said, softly.
"Yeah?"
"I couldn't sleep either."
He nodded as he toed off his trainers, and she moved behind him to close the window.
It was almost stiflingly hot, and she became a bit more aware now of how little she was wearing, short shorts and a thin vest. Funny, she hadn't noticed it nearly so much when she was fifteen. Sixteen, maybe, when she'd been lying outside in summer clothes with Ginny and her heart had beat faster as she'd heard him walking through the grass toward her… She probably shouldn't care now - he'd seen her fully naked - but she embraced the nervous warmth that spread through her body, almost clinging to it. It made things real, between them, an unbelievably welcome change from their insecurities, unresolved tension, and misunderstandings.
She sat on the edge of her bed, but, rather than join her, he sat on the floor in front of her.
"How's your family and Harry?" she asked, immediately regretting her silence-filling words. She'd just seen them all the previous day…
"Alright. It's been quiet, actually, now that George is with Bill and Charlie and Percy have gone home. Reckon I owe Harry something for the cloak tonight. He was asleep, but I left him a note so he wouldn't miss it."
He tucked his knees up and rested his forearms across them.
"What about your parents?"
"Fine. Still a bit… I don't know… uncomfortable, I guess. But…" She shrugged, and he nodded again, shifting positions for the second time as he turned and stretched out to lie on his back on the rug.
He bent his arm up, underneath his head, and, from her angle above him, she could easily admire the milky, freckled skin of his bicep, her gaze moving down the length of his body, his thin torso and low-riding jeans, ankles crossing as he exhaled.
"You know you can come over any time you want," she said quietly, watching his expression closely as he turned to look up at her, eyes meeting hers.
He smiled, and she felt her stomach flip, extending her leg to poke his arm with her bare toes.
"Maybe I will… I miss you, actually," he sniffed, and she left her foot resting on his arm, really wishing he'd come up and sit next to her. Her heart had lodged in her throat at his words, but she swallowed and managed to reply.
"I miss you, too."
He licked his bottom lip, and she could have sworn his expression reflected a bit of surprised awe, which she found to be much too late coming. He should be sure, by now, that she loved him. She'd told him enough times. Only… she could reflect on the fact that her own reaction any time he'd say how he felt was achingly similar, as if it would take a lifetime to get over the fact that the only person she'd ever wanted to say those words to her was actually the one saying them now.
Removing his arm from behind his head, he wrapped it around her calves and rested his cheek on her foot. She smiled again, eyes never leaving his as he sighed.
"What should we do?" she nearly whispered. "I'm really not that tired…"
"Me either."
He dropped her legs and sat halfway up, leaning on his hand, resting his chin on her knee, and she moved her hand to his hair, combing her fingers through it and watching as he fluttered his eyes shut at her touch.
"We could go for a walk," he mumbled, after a while.
She laughed, her hand moving off his head to rest on his shoulder as he opened his eyes.
"At midnight?" she questioned.
"Why not? It's hot in here."
"Hot outside, too," she pointed out, logically.
He sat up fully and tousled his hair again.
"I'm just sort of… dunno, restless, I guess…"
"I'd noticed," she said, thinking back to how many times he'd changed position in the few short minutes he'd been here.
"Sorry," he said, meeting her eyes and smiling again.
"What's going on?" she asked, trying not to sound too worried.
"Mm, nothing. Still not used to being home, maybe."
She could certainly relate, only she hadn't fully realised he felt the same way.
"Before you got here, I was just thinking how strange it feels to be back in my old room."
"Yeah, exactly."
She watched him run his hand across his stubbly jaw, and then she stood.
"Let's go. Maybe we'll get tired if we walk for a while."
By the end of the first block, her hand brushed against his, so he took it, and she couldn't help remembering times just like this on Prefect's rounds, fingers bumping his knuckles, but feeling him shyly pull away. A year and a half ago felt like almost a lifetime, especially as he turned to smile down at her, not even blushing.
"It's so strange being here with you…" she said, as she threaded her fingers into his.
"Why?" She might have detected just a hint of nervousness in his tone.
"Well… it's my parents' neighbourhood, and I've never- well, you know, had my boyfriend over before."
She felt his hand tense and then relax in her grip, and he slowed his pace almost to a stop.
"Say that again."
"What?" She glanced sideways to look up at him, and he grinned down at her.
"What you just called me."
She laughed and shook her head, feeling her temperature rise as she blushed, and they resumed walking.
"Until someone invents a better word for it, that's what you are," she said.
"Better word?"
"It's just so… normal." She wrinkled her nose, contemplating how shallow it felt now, thinking back to girls at school talking about their boyfriends...
"Normal might not be a bad thing. We haven't had a lot of normal."
"But it's… I don't know how to explain it. Sounds average. You're not just-" She paused to sigh. "You're my best friend, too."
"Yeah… I know what you mean."
They turned left at the next road, leaving rows of houses for a long block of closed shops, street lamps splashing the sidewalk with intermittent soft circles of light. The road was completely deserted at this time of night, and though she knew they were probably safe, she caught Ron absentmindedly reaching back to touch his wand where she knew he had it tucked into his back pocket.
"I might leave the Burrow," he said, out of nowhere, stopping in the darkness between the next two lamps. She turned to face him, but he let go of her hand, and she gazed up into his eyes.
"Really?"
"Yeah. Reckon Harry and I might see how Grimmauld Place held up… He thought we could stay there again, at least for a while…"
She almost instantly felt relieved. As much as she loved the Burrow, things were different now. The idea of being alone, together, was too appealing. Her room at her parents' house suddenly felt even more distant.
"Would it be alright if I took some things over there, too?"
"Yeah! You want to?"
"I know I should be here for my parents, but I don't want to be away from you, either…"
"Bring a trunk over. Stay whenever you want."
She took a step closer and slid her hands around his waist to his back, leaning forward to rest her cheek on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and they stayed like that for quite a long time, his warm breath against the top of her head, his heart beating strongly against her ear.
At last, they pulled apart. Off in the distance, they could hear the sounds of a few cars on a road, wind blowing through the neighborhood trees. The uncommon humidity of the night was causing her vest to stick lightly to her back, and a street lamp buzzed as its bulb flickered for a moment.
There was a place, deep within her, that jolted with awareness, hairs on the back of her neck prickling almost unnoticeably, but she still recognised this feeling. A pattern of cautious, anticipatory days had grown to fill her subconscious, and she somehow expected the surface of the water to break, the danger to find them, wherever they were. Nervous thoughts with nowhere to go often plagued sleepless nights, but when they were together, she somehow let them go. And his would fade, too. She'd see his creased forehead relax when she'd smile at him, feel the way the tension in his body smoothed out, no longer rough at the edges, something nearly peaceful.
He reached up to twist a finger around a long curl before looping his arm around her neck and drawing her close, and she had been so lost in his gaze that she gasped, startled, as his other arm wrapped low around her waist. She reached up to grasp the front of his shirt in a shaking fist, between them, just as his lips met hers.
She sighed a moan of relief between their joined mouths, delighting in the way he always reacted to her as if they could build on each other's sounds and tiny touches infinitely, blindingly racing together. As his lips slid between hers, it began to slowly rain, a random sprinkling of large drops against her face and shoulders at first.
But then, all of a sudden, it was pouring.
She was soaked through in an instant, in so little clothing, and he laughed against her mouth before pulling an inch back and grinning. He slid his hands up to hold her face, and she watched the rain flowing off the end of his fringe.
"Well," he said, "hope you wanted to take a shower."
She grinned and brushed her thumb down his nose, wiping away a rolling drop of rain. And then, she just wanted him to know how important he was, some way to tell him when the words weren't enough. Nothing she could do was going to be nearly enough anyway, but she stood up on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes, pressing her face half against his collarbone, forehead on the side of his neck as he ducked his head over hers, weaving a hand into her wet hair.
"Come back and stay," she said, lips against his shirt collar.
"Your parents-"
"I don't care. We'll lock the door."
He pressed something like a lingering kiss against the top of her head before they pulled apart. Smiling euphorically down at her, he brushed his thumb across her lower lip, and she took his hand again to walk back through the glowing streets, lamps reflecting off wet tarmac.
Minutes later, locked in her room, they stripped off their wet clothes and pushed her blanket to the floor, climbing into her bed between thin, tangling sheets. His hands covered her skin, settling anxious nerves and igniting the ones that seemed to come to life, only for him. She twisted her fingers into his wet hair as he kissed down the side of her neck, and her right hand smoothed down his bare chest, setting her breath to the rhythm of his strongly beating heart.