A/N : Wrote this one a few years ago for another fandom but I felt like reworking it to fit Ron and Hermione. T-rated for minor suggestive adult themes...
Disclaimer : I do not own Harry Potter.
"I love you" Ron whispers in her ear.
She raises her head from its resting point on his chest, so their eyes can meet. Her heart, so full of love for this boy, this man, skips a beat. She takes a couple of seconds to relish on the sight in front of her and observes him. Both their gazes travel from mouths to eyes. And like that, he kisses her. The kiss is chaste, yet it is the most intimate they've shared so far, less driven by urgency and desperation, rather driven by comfort and tenderness. Her hand comes to cup his face. And when the kiss ends, she lets her thumb travel along the delicate lines of his mouth.
A second, to take it all in and let the moment overwhelm her memory.
A second that speaks volumes for years of frustrations.
A second passes before she decides to kiss him back. It's deeper, filled with desire and need for one another.
...
They made love.
And as she lays next to him, his bare torso against her purposely still covered chest and arms, she can't help but contemplate that she is living the bests after the worst moments of her life. Like the yin and the yang, opposites but heavily linked.
She feels his slow and asleep deep breathing everywhere.
The movements of his chest against her back.
The soft releases of breathes on her neck.
And for the first time in weeks, years really, she feels herself pleasantly falling into slumber and welcomes it.
...
Like every night since it happened, the nightmare comes.
Actually harder, stronger and more detailed each times. It hits her in waves and with such force that she feels like she's trying to escape a sinking boat with no possible getaway.
The nightmare is the same. Flashes of memories. Of what she's been through while being held down. Sensations. The harshness of the curse running through her veins, the burning of the knife as it cut through her forearm. A face. The face of her torturer, leaving her powerless on the hard floor. This time, she can hold longer, fight stronger. There's something she can do to change things, she tells herself. But like each nights, she cannot make a move to try to save herself faster and reduce the sharp pain in her body and her mind. Then, suddenly, she sees two bodies on the floor next to her. She stills. She knows that's not what happened, but she cannot stop the dread from unveiling itself within her core.
Harry.
Ron.
Both are laying lifelessly barely meters away from her. She couldn't stay strong enough, she couldn't save them. It's over, she failed.
Like every nights, that's when the nightmare stop and she wakes up shaking.
As much comfort Ron's body did to her earlier, helping her to fall asleep. Right now it is almost unbearable. His chest is like fire on her already burning back. His breathing, so soothing earlier, digs into her skin like a lacerate blade. She needs to free herself, she needs to breathe.
She doesn't know if he was already awoken by her shaking body, or if she's waking him up as she leaves his embrace, but right now, she is unable to process that piece of information.
She feels his hand on her hip, trying to hold her in his arms. A gesture of comfort, she thinks, but she can't and leaves anyway.
As she paces the room, trying to calm down, she hears him sighs.
She knows he is awake now. Watching her. She also knows that he won't interrupt her, himself fighting his own battle.
He is riding a vicious circle. Hating himself - for not reaching to her faster, for leaving her in the middle of their hunt - he is overflowed by guilt.
She sits by the window. Moonlight having this strange effect of soothing her. Her face is deliberately at the hidden from Ron's sight, and she silently starts to cry.
She cries for those they couldn't save during the battle.
She cries for her parents she had to left behind, memoryless.
She cries for Harry, and what he had to go through since he was just a baby and not even old enough to understand what fate had put heavily on his shoulders.
She cries for Ron, only barely able to imagine his grief for loosing a brother, and how he's been trying to put on a brave face the last few weeks.
Finally, she cries for what has been done to her, and she is once again transported back to that hard cold stone floor at Malfoy Manor.
She is so lost in her thoughts that she doesn't hear him getting up and coming by her side.
She is trembling, the striking reality of her nightmare hitting her like a bomb.
When he reaches for her, suddenly bringing her thoughts back to the present, she can't cease her nervous body and jumps, startled by his tender touch.
"You okay?"
He knows the answer, but ask anyway.
She's not.
.