Unreliable Trio
Hermione
It didn't take long for me to realise that Ron and I had nothing relevant to say to each other. We had agreed to a relationship, we didn't want to talk about the war, Harry and Ginny's relationship was depressingly perfect, and we didn't share any interests. Quidditch and chess vs. Transfiguration and magical creatures' rights--one of us ended up being bored to tears.
Friendship is a better bridge across differences than intimacy, I think. When you're binding your life to another, you need familiar places to hold onto yourself.
In the beginning, sex disguised how badly we fit together. But that intense rush of first passion (when you need to have sex morning and night and you sometimes sneak home for a lunchtime shag and you're not adverse to fucking in an elevator or groping each other with lewd smiles in passing ) bled away into the fabric of day-to-day life.
I was always the more responsible one, right from first-year. Sometimes I wonder if I subconsciously withheld sex as punishment for little things that Ron did. He never seemed to learn... evenings ran like a script eventually, repeating in an endless, exhausting loop.
He lay sprawled on the couch, home for an hour at least already. "Hey, love. What's for dinner?" he whined. He didn't turn his head from the telly to smile at me, didn't stand up to kiss me hello.
"Didn't you defrost anything?" I asked tiredly, heading to the kitchen to dish up the fish and chips I'd bought on the way home.
"You didn't go shopping." My fist curled hard around a fork; the metal dug into my palm hard.
"Dinner's ready," I called, and sat down at the table after pouring two glasses of pumpkin juice. "Dinner!" I called again.
"Coming..."
He ambled in when my plate was half empty and began to shovel food into his mouth so quickly he got the hiccups. "How was your-heeek day?"
"Fine," I answered curtly. "Yours?"
"Eh. Reckon-heeek I should quit the Aurory..."
"And what would you do then?"
He gave me a boyish smile. "You earn enough, love... I could stay home--"
"No."
He shrugged nonchalantly and carried on eating.
Later, as I set the kitchen charms, he squeezed my bum on his way to the fridge. "Howabout a blowjob, eh, luv?"
I tensed and a tight smile pulled my lips into a strained grimace. "No."
He finished drinking pumpkin juice straight from the bottle, rubbing his dick at the same time, and looked at me with big, hurt eyes. "Aww... why not?"
"I have work to do," I said primly and escaped to my home office.
When I slid into bed--the sheets on my side were cold as ice--Ron was asleep with one hand clutching his cock, a wizarding porn magazine splayed on the floor next to the bed.
He was surprised when I left him. Heartbroken, in fact. How clueless can you get?
Severus
Hermione Granger has a big heart. This is not a particularly favourable virtue in my opinion, and let me tell you why: It's a bleeding heart that doesn't discriminate. Centaur, house-elf, war orphan, scarred ex-Death Eater criminal, werewolf? Come one, come all. In fact, the worse your circumstances, the bigger her smile, the stronger her conviction.
She visited at least once a week while I recovered, trying to coax a word from me by talking about this and that article in The Potioneer and giving progress reports on Hogwarts' repairs. I didn't really give a fuck about potions or Hogwarts any longer, but I was too tired to tell her to piss off.
The moment my Healer signed my release papers, Potter had me in handcuffs (looking pathetically apologetic). "We'll get you through the Wizengamot in a week, Severus," he vowed heroically. "It's just a formality."
"It had better be," Hermione said sharply, her hair bristling with indignation. She turned to me and put a nail-bitten hand onto my arm. "I'll be your legal counsel, Mister Snape," she said with a solicitous smile.
My hospital gown fluttered apart, baring my arse to the cold February air that leaked through the open hospital room door. "Might I dress before you haul me off to Azkaban, Potter?"
"Harry, you idiot!" Granger admonished. He shrank about a foot under her withering gaze and backed out of the door sheepishly.
Granger turned to me, smiling triumphantly. I folded my arms and engaged in a staring contest with her. She broke first. Granger's impatient, as well, you see. "What?"
I took great pleasure in speaking to her as if she were still a stupid little first-year. "Get out so that I can get dressed."
She blushed right to the roots of her unkempt hair. "Oh," she mumbled. "Of course."
She didn't see the impropriety in staying right away, you see, because she'd become so involved and invested in my case already.
We managed to get through my trial without bloodshed until the night before the Wizengamot would decide my fate. After a year of convalescence at St Mungo's, my hands still shook slightly when I held my cup and saucer, my voice wavered slightly through newly-healed vocal cords. Granger, avenging heroine, mistook it for nerves and fear. Before I was able to dissuade her of this stupid notion, she was kissing me, pressing close against me.
She was beautiful in the Lumos light as she rode me with her head thrown back and her tight nipples bouncing at eye-level. She frigged herself expertly so that we came together, and she collapsed against my chest and sighed, "I love you, Severus."
Relationships between Cause and Saviour can never work.
Because gratitude has no expiry date, and a Saviour always needs a new Cause. So the poor sod who is the old Cause is left bowing and scraping while his Saviour is fucking the poor, underprivileged werewolf next door.
Ron
You know that scene in Brokeback Mountain when Jack fucks Ennis for the first time? It's dark and fierce with heavy breathing and intense grimaces, fuelled by alcohol and testosterone and lust. Except in my case there was no alcohol to numb the deep, uncomfortable silence that followed, and there wasn't enough room in the broom closet for a manly retreat.
I uncurled my fingers from his softening cock and wiped them on my rucked-up robes. Mortification burned like a brand at the back of my neck, and I turned my face from him, biting my lip hard. I wanted to pull up my underpants, but manoeuvring and bending to do that would bring me face-to-face with his cock. We stood in the heavy dark, hip to hip and sticky with come, listening to George's loud grunting as he fucked his wife on WWW's research workbench.
His breath huffed against my neck, humid and tickling against every nerve. "I wish they'd hurry up." He eased his arm up from between our chests and squinted at his watch. "I need to stir that potion in six minute's time."
I gaped at him, all my writhing emotions knotting in my throat and coming out as a low, strangled wheeze. Not that I wanted anything further with him, but his cold dismissal stung unaccountably.
His black eyes narrowed, and his thin lips twisted into an ugly, derisive smile. "I'm not gay, Weasley."
Indignation and embarrassment expanded like an Engorgio inside my chest. I had to fight against exploding and revealing my inadvertent voyeur status. I wiggled my elbow so that it was digging into his ribs until his smile twisted minutely. "Given that you stole my fiancée, I'd say it makes you bisexual." Old, suppressed anger surged like a tidal wave, destroying months of pretend amicability. "Not that being a two-faced, backstabbing liar is anything new to you."
His long fingers closed around the neck of my robes, and he pulled me closer. His hair brushed against my collarbone as he whispered poisonous truth into my ear, "You, boorish little boy, you drove her away long before she came to me."
I struggled against him in the tight confines of the closet, stepping on his foot and banging my knee against his. Anger thudded against my eardrums, roaring in and and out like the tide. "She didn't stay long, though. Didn't need Divination to know you'd drive her off..."
I was very sorry that I hadn't had time to grab my wand before George and Angelina had come kissing through the door, expecting us to be out for the lunch hour.
He lunged forward, his long teeth bared in a vicious snarl. We grappled clumsily--all angular elbows and pinching fingers and spitting and heavy breathing and... hard cocks pressed against damp skin and teeth scraping and tongues fighting for dominance.
By the time we exited the closet, Angelina and George were gone; Severus' potion long ruined.
Hermione
Severus was my anchor when my life with Ron was disintegrating around me. St Mungo's was a sanctuary, and Severus was peaceful. He'd lie in his hospital bed and listen (listen!) to me with a serene smile on his face. Once, he swore it was the drugs, but I believed that he truly enjoyed my company.
He had been such a strong man before, and his vulnerability was heartbreaking, beautiful.
"What are you going to do once you get out of hospital, Severus?" I sat curled up in a ball in a comfortable armchair next to his bed.
He shrugged elegantly. He couldn't speak yet, so he scrawled a picture of a blocky island fortress surrounded by wild waves on his parchment pad.
I tsked and rolled my eyes. "You are not going to Azkaban. Harry and I have a plan. I promise it'll be all right."
He rolled his eyes and flicked his fingers at me. His hand trembled slightly. He meant me to think it was a dismissal, but I knew that he didn't want to seem scared or vulnerable in front of me again.
I took his hand in mine and squeezed softly. "It'll be fine," I soothed. After his eyes drifted shut, I bent my head and kissed his hand and prayed that I would be able to Save Severus Snape.
Anchors are lovely when the seas are rough and you need a still, stable place to rest. But when the storm has passed and the water is slick and still like glass, an anchor will drag you under, smiling while you breathe water and bright pinpricks of light sparkle behind your eyes.
Once my Triple-S plan worked and he'd been acquitted by the Wizengamot and George had offered him a cushy research job at WWW, Severus iced over and reverted to his previous status of 'complete and utter bastard'.
He resented that I earned more than he did--I think he begrudged every hour I worked overtime, was jealous of every second my attention wasn't focussed on him. I think he got used to being cosseted on my hospital visits.
"You're late," he said idly, his eyes flicking up from his book.
I smiled at him, eager to share my joy. "Yes. It took forever to move to the Beings Department, and the Beasts threw me a wonderful farewell party."
"Ah." He nodded. "I have eaten, but your portion is in the microwave."
My smile faltered. I couldn't figure out if making dinner and eating alone was trumped by the fact that Ron had always waited for me to get home so that we could eat together. I hovered in the kitchen doorway. "So," I said brightly, "at least my clients will be able to talk!"
Severus snorted. "Next thing you'll be hugging werewolves." His lips pulled into a nasty grimace.
I fled to the kitchen, trying not to think about how comforting it would be to hug the burly werewolf next door.
Severus
Avoidance is an artful tactic in a passive-aggressive war. Perhaps I would have admired the maturity of his strategy had it not been levelled at me. Generally, I'd have gone for the subtle art of manipulation, but my quarry was a little obtuse when it came to the oblique. Besides, it's difficult to be manipulative when you're being avoided.
I ambushed him in the store room, stalked on silent feet until I could sense his magical presence winding around my fingers, sinuous like a cat. "Ronald," I drawled.
He turned quickly, dropping an armful of Daydream Charms at his feet (a rain of wishful thinking). "What do you want, Snape?" he demanded, although he'd gone pale as a ghost underneath his freckles.
I licked my lips. "I think you know what I want," I said. I stared at him intently.
He dropped his chin so that his flame-red hair fell across his eyes, blocking any attempt at Legilimency I might have made.
"I'm not gay," Ron said firmly.
He was so transparent I didn't need Legilimency; emotion writhed like an aura around him; he bled his ragged feelings into the very air.
Fear. Denial. Repressed need. Anxiety. Confusion. Lust.
"Fine," I said, pressing my lips together as my expression tried to sour. I shrugged pretend-nonchalance.
"Fine," he said with a belligerent jerk of his chin, and he pushed past me with stiff-set shoulders and compressed lips white-pale with anger.
I pressed my forehead against my palm and breathed in the warm wisps of his aura that lingered. I could still feel the phantom heat of his cock against my fingers, feel the humidity of his ragged breath against my neck, and sense the thud of his pulse against my tongue. I wouldn't have minded a repeat of the 'stupid cupboard incident', as he thought of it, maybe even fucking him in a real bed and taking my time to watch his freckles disappear in a warm suffusion of pleasure, to smell the apple-scented innocence of his hair, to live in the shade of his warmth.
I wanted...
I set my jaw and returned to work. By the time I went home, my teeth were aching.
I knew that Ronald Weasley wanted a peaceful, simple, happy life with a job and a wife and children and friends and Quidditch. He did not want to feel confused and conflicted; he did not want to admit that he was probably bisexual, that the thought of sucking my cock made him harder than Petrificus.
He was hippogriff-stubborn, and I was tired of fighting. And after a lifetime of fighting, I really would have appreciated a little peace, imagined that happiness might rush into the vacuum and overwhelm me.
But there I was... still empty.
In the end, the effort that it would have taken to seduce the unwilling, to change the mindset of a young man determined to continue despising me... well, I didn't have the heart.
Ron
I know what she told everybody when we broke up: "Ron was a lazy lout and an inattentive idiot and he didn't give me what I needed. He paid more attention to Quidditch and drinking with his mates down at the pub than to me!"
Well, that's bullshite, mate, solid gold bullshite. I only ever went to the pub when she was working late. Which was most of the time. And then she'd get home late and get into bed and get pissed off when I'd try to be all romantic.
"God, can't you tell that I'm not in the mood, Ron?" she'd say. She'd shift away from under my hand and mutter about how I had the perceptive capability of a teaspoon.
She expected me to be "more perceptive and considerate", but I still got into shit when I tried to live up to her lofty expectations.
If I picked up Indian on the way home from the Auror Academy, Hermione would whinge about actually being keen on fish and chips that night. So, Merlin's oath, I'd pick up fish and chips and mushy peas the next day and she'd mutter that she's craving Chinese or KFC or fucking pizza.
"I'm so tired of take-aways," she complained, patting her stomach and scowling. "And it's making me fat."
"We could cook dinner together, love," I said, trying to be considerate and helpful. (She was always saying that we needed to find something to do together). I reckoned making food together would be nice, you know. And Bill was always snogging Fleur in their kitchen. It was ridiculously sappy, but dead romantic.
Instead of being happy that I was being considerate and all, she frowned. "Are you saying I'm getting fat?"
So, in the end, it was easier to sit back and let her take over. Because she always did like to be in charge.
I guess I wanted to have that sort of elastic bond that Bill had with Fleur--that easy stretch and give and take. I had loved Hermione for as long as I could remember, and I couldn't recall a time when I hadn't imagined building a life and a family with her.
But she started to erode my dreams with her abrasive attitude after a while, and she made me feel like I'd never live up to her expectations, never be a tall and strong and capable man in her eyes.
I reckon the connection between us was too tightly wound; it snapped and recoiled and it hurt badly when it broke. I was lost for a long time after she left me for Snape. I left the MLE and went to work with George at WWW. I learned to live without fear of reprimand; I grew up.
I thought she was the perfect woman for so long it took me ages to see her fatal flaw. Hermione blamed me for our failed relationship--she couldn't imagine she might be less than perfect.
Fin.