Title: The Fine Line part 1 of 5
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters:Hermione/Ron
Prompt: 18 - Black
Word Count: 1297
Rating: T
Summary: Ron/Hermione missing moment. Another night together at Grimmauld place, Hermione asks to sleep with Ron to ward off more nightmares and Ron is happy to oblige.
Author's Notes: This was going to be a one-shot but it was so long I couldn't even hand the idea of proof reading all 10,000+ words so I opted to split it up each time there is a pov switch. I'll post them as I finish proofing them. I think this is they shortest one, but you have to start somewhere yo!
The Fine Line
part 1 of 5
Hermione paced the room nervously feeling the smooth worn wood cold beneath her bare feet. She was at a complete loss as to what to do. She had experienced one of the best moments of her nights last night when Ron had crawled into bed with her after the terrifying nightmares. The memory of the warmth of his touch sent her heart racing. She wanted it again. She had to have it again. It would be completely unbearable to just lay feet away from him when all she wanted to do repeat the previous night.
They had a system, an undiscussed routine. When they went to bed each night they entered their shared room in number 12 Grimmauld place, Ron would grab his pajamas and head into the bathroom across the hall to change. Hermione stayed in the room and changed as quickly as she could and settled into bed with a book before Ron returned. Her current pacing was already a departure from tradition.
She had dressed ridiculously slowly hoping Ron would come back before she was finished. Not that she specifically wanted to give him a show, though she had played around with the idea in her mind a little. It was more that her bed terrified her now. The thought of crawling into the cold fabric all by herself brought back visions of the nightmares she'd only fought off the previous night by his warm skin next to her. A constant reassurances that he was whole and safe. That he was not laying lifeless on the floor or writhing in agony, begging for his own death under the arduous torture.
It was the mixing of these desires that overwhelmed her. She knew she could handle just fear on it's own, and she was well practiced at resisting her body's longing ache for Ron, but the combination of both was too much. To know with absolute certainty how gentle his caresses would be, the chills it would cascading down her body and calming her every fear just by the warm breath he released on to her neck, it made sleeping alone just feet from him an unbearable possibility.
So instead of crawling into her own bed she was walking back and forth, her head swimming with half finished sentences each sounding more ridiculous then the last one. She needed a plan, something that didn't seem like she was trying to get him into bed with her, which was exactly what she was doing. She knew it was foolish and that if ever pressed upon the matter she would outrightly refuse to admit it but she'd put on the most alluring thing she could sleep in that was still her regular nightwear.
A thin cotton vest that had shrunk a little due to her lack of laundry experience. Ron was a breast man, she had caught him more than once ogling other girls as well as herself and felt this would be more to his liking than the over sized T-shirt from the previous night. She preferred to sleep in the long shirt because then she could go with out pants. Tonight she wore over sized shorts, too large for her small frame so she rolled the elastic hem several times making them short on her thigh and low on her hips.
Her last item had been an insistence on her last shopping trip with her mother. Knowing she wouldn't see her mother for a long time, if she ever saw her again Hermione broke with tradition and let her mother drag her from store to store without her usual complaint or the constant annoyed sigh. They'd purchased her gown for the wedding and her mother had insisted on matching knickers as well. It had been humiliating to walk through a lingerie store with the woman who'd given her life and listening to comments about what sort of things her own father was partial too. It took all the love she held for her mother not to give into her base desire which was to put her foot down that her knicker situation was perfectly adequate and she was ready to leave.
Instead she stayed, smiling as sincerely as possible as her mother managed to find a pair of sheer lace panties the exact shade of the dress they purchased. Hermione wondered momentarily if all the fashion designers and fabrication companies had quarterly meetings to match up the shades just so as a conspiracy to get you to buy everything. As she considered this her considerably too joyous mother brought her back to reality by picked up a scrap of fabric so little it might have once been a real pair of knickers but had been tossed into a paper shredder and this was just the satin remains ready for a proper burial. Mum had giggled at Hermione's horrified expression and responded by shaking the little bit of fabric side to side excitedly.
It had taken all her will power not to barrel out of the store right then but she just smiled and nodded as her mother talked about VPL's. Didn't her mother know school robes didn't bring up any VPL situations. The offensive underthings had too been tossed onto the ever growing pile she held in her hands. She hadn't meant to bring them really but felt she had to, just to prevent the horrified look on Molly Weasley's face if she ever went through that trunk she'd left at the burrow and while she'd considered vanishing them she just felt it would be wrong to do such a thing to one of the last gifts her mother had given her. How in the world she'd gotten sentimentally attached to a designer pair of barely there knickers was beyond her but it too had ended up in the beaded bag.
She'd had to pull the tag off when she pulled them out of the bag that night, it had felt very odd at first but she fairly quickly grow used to the sensation and anytime she began to feel ridiculous about it she just concentrated on the longing she felt the previous night when Ron fingered the edge of her boring white cotton briefs. She'd wished then she had something more enticing on then the pair of 'granny panny's' as Ginny had dubbed them.
She was brought out of the lingerie reverie by Ron opening the door. He walked in without looking up but stopped in his tracks half way to his bed as he saw her. She felt silly just standing in the middle of the room scantily clad in what she now knew was an obvious attempt to visually tempt him with what was admittedly her bony frame and too skinny ankles. She felt the conflicting desires to dash under the covers to hide her exposed flesh and slam him down on the bed to ravage him. Instead she just stood there saying nothing feeling like a fool. She felt like he could see right through her and her pathetic attempts at seduction. The feeling just got worse and worse as he stood there, froze mid way to his bed still holding his denim's and shirt bundled haphazardly in his arms.
They were silent like that for a moment. She watched him as he looked at her, his eyes studying her, raking over her clumsy figure. If she weren't filled with such mortification she would likely laugh and tell him to stop bobbing his mouth open like a fish. When he spoke his voice startled her.
"Hermione, are those my kegs?"