Title: Rational
Author: Aeryn
Summary: Flufflet. Hermione considers an unexpected kiss.
Timeframe: Post-OotP; AU for HBP/TDH.
Rating: G
Disclaimer: It's JKR's world, her characters. I'm just rejecting one reality and substituting it with my own. ;) Written pre-HBP/TDH.
She hadn't planned it. Why should she have?
The three of them had been sitting before the fire in Grimmauld Place, and he'd just handed her her Christmas present. A sparkling crystal pendant, that could be charmed to briefly shapeshift into anything - well, anything the general size of the crystal, anyway. She remembered staring open-mouthed at it - she'd expected a book, like he usually got her - then enveloping him in a hug, leaning forward to kiss him gratefully on the cheek.
She didn't remember deciding to follow it up with a grateful peck on the lips as well, only the moment where it actually happened.
She couldn't stop remembering it.
It wasn't the first time her skin had touched his, not by far, and certainly wasn't the most lengthy instance of it either. She'd hugged him more times than she could recall, grabbed his arm or wrist in fear or excitement even more than that. She'd even kissed him on the cheek, several times. It was always easy, familiar - and absolutely vital. It was Harry, that strong pulse beating under her fingers, that steady thumping under her ear, what reminded her Voldemort still hadn't gotten him, the one that drove her to direct every bit of brainpower she possessed toward keeping it from stopping.
And now the memory of it under her lips, even so briefly, was causing her own pulse to thunder in her ears.
There was no rational reason why it should. It was the same basic contact, that brief touch of skin on skin, as a hand on a hand or a hand on the shoulder, or even lips on a cheek. There wasn't any particular reason this particular contact should even warrant rationalizing.
Something about the combination of lips touching lips defied rational classification in that clinical corner of her brain. But Viktor, Ron... those kisses, on the whole longer and certainly less innocent, had seldom seemed worthy of contemplation for long afterwards.
Or perhaps it was the combination of her lips and Harry's lips.
She remembered how soft they were, and smiled despite herself. And felt that smile widen at the memory of the politely surprised expression millimeters from hers when she'd opened her eyes again.
She was definitely in trouble.
-
[end]