Summary: "Are we really here?" Your breath so close to her face makes her hair flutter against her forehead. You bring your lips to it. She smiles, which you love. "Yeah." Post-DH RHr one-shot, sweet and light.
AN (1): Recommended listening: "Stay Young, Go Dancing" by Death Cab for Cutie and "Across the Universe" by Fiona Apple.
AN (2): Well, who else is a little freaked out, incredibly excited, and terribly sad that the LAST HP MOVIE EVER comes out in, like, 27 hours? Because I am, just a little, you know. Annnyyways, I got in a lovely car accident yesterday, so I figured I'd write a cute little RHr one-shot to cheer myself up. (Featuring a drunk!Hermione, too, which is the best thing to write, ever.) So... happy movie-going, everyone, and please review!
Stay Young, Go Dancing
To dance is to be yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power on earth and it is yours for the taking.
-Agnes DeMille
You have no idea how you made it, you're so exhausted. You, literally, have nothing left, and it almost surprises you to find yourself in your old dorm, your face pressed into the familiarity of the pillow.
There's blood - yours and others' - covering you, and dirt and plenty of tears, but you're so tired all you want to do is sleep. But then you close your eyes and see Fr... your brother. You see Hermione after Malfoy Manor. You see Dobby. You see Tonks and Lupin and Colin and...
A creak at the doorframe lurches you gratefully from, from that, and you don't look up. You know it's her, because you can tell the way her footsteps sound that it wouldn't be anyone else.
She silently and quickly walks towards your bed, and you watch her, bathed in moonlight, and wonder if she's really there.
She looks hesitant, but you put your arm out, and she seems to understand that it's all you can manage at the moment, and you're sure she's just as exhausted. She collapses next to you on the mattress, her hair tickling your face and her skin just as dirty as yours. You realize with something that feels like a punch to your stomach that her blood's covering her skin, that maybe she's hurt worse than she's letting on.
"You should go to the hospital wing," you whisper, even though it takes a ridiculous amount of energy - she matters.
She sighs, her eyes half-shut. "'m okay," she mumbles.
You take her in, her bruised cheeks and eyelids sliding closed. She has cuts all over her face; when she bites her lip she winces. Her clothes are torn; she's too thin and you know about plenty of scars that you can't see.
But she's never been more beautiful, more perfect.
You scoot closer because you have to make sure she's real, she's not dead. When you touch her skin, when you feel it, you think maybe you've died instead because you're on fire and that's probably what your heaven would be.
"Are we really here?" Your breath so close to her face makes her hair flutter against her forehead. You bring your lips to it.
She smiles, which you love. "Yeah."
"You're alive." It comes out as a statement, even though sometimes it's really a question.
She moves her head onto your chest, lifting an arm and putting it next to her nose, and you're certain she can hear your heart jackhammering away beneath your ribs.
"So are you."
You pull her closer, and you're not surprised to find that she fits perfectly. She sighs into your collarbone.
"Why'd we wait seven years to do this?" she mumbles.
You feel yourself laugh - a real laugh - and it feels incredible. You shrug because there's really no answer you can think of - it feels so right now that you're not sure either. "We have forever now, though," you tell her softly.
You feel her smile against your skin. Which is maybe the best thing ever. "I think I'd like that."
...
You wish she wouldn't bite her bottom lip when she reads, because it's so damn cute and you just want to take her into your arms and never, never ever, let her go. You want it to be your teeth against her lip, your tongue saying everything against hers that you could never express out loud.
She scrunches up her nose at some words on the page, and you desperately wish that she wouldn't do that either - it reminds you of when she'd smile, her real Hermione smile, and her eyes would get small and her nose would crinkle and, Merlin, it's sexy.
Her little fingers run against the edge of the page, softly, lovingly.
"Hermione?" you whisper, inching closer on the couch. You look around to make sure none of your family's in the near vicinity - you've been back at The Burrow for about a week now after the funerals - but they, blessedly, are all outside.
She hums noncommittally.
"Hermione Granger." You twirl a curl of her hair around one of your fingers and she looks up expectantly.
"Can I kiss you now?" you murmur.
She smiles, which you love.
"I think I'd like that."
...
She laughs like it's the funniest thing in the world, even though her head is bleeding.
"Merlin, Hermione," you grumble, helping her up from the floor of your bedroom.
You fumble around for your shirt, discarded long ago on the bed, and find it, pressing it to the thin gash on her forehead.
"I fell out of the bed!" she shouts, giggling uncontrollably, throwing her head back in a true Hermione laugh, which makes it awfully hard for you to hold the shirt on.
You wonder fleetingly what ever made you think that getting Hermione Jean Granger - your brilliant, naive, innocent, loud girlfriend - to drink the strongest firewhiskey you could locate was remotely a good idea.
But then she stumbles against you with a squeal as you try to stop her forehead from bleeding all over everything, and you remember the most incredible sex, before she tried to get out of your bed to go to the bathroom and nearly brained herself on the nightstand.
Harry stumbles in from his room - you share a flat and it's times like this when you pretty much hate it - his glasses crooked on his face.
He takes in Hermione in your pajama pants and you with nothing on, and he promptly covers his eyes and runs out of the room, a string of words that would make you proud to be his friend flying from his mouth.
Hermione gets very serious all of a sudden, looking at you, slurring the word language silently, then looking at herself. There's blood running into one of her eyes and you desperately need to get her into some clothes and to St. Mungo's, because she can't have a scar from you getting her drunk, but then she starts laughing again, doubling over and gasping, "Harry - Potter - just - just - saw..."
You find yourself laughing too, imagining Harry's completely horrified face again and again. You finally get it together enough to take a few breathes, though Hermione's still laughing like a madwoman.
"'Mione," you gasp, "you need to get dressed. I need to help you get dressed."
She looks confused, though a goofy smile is still stretching her face amazingly and damn it, her nose is crinkled, but she lets you help her into a pair of jeans, a bra, and a jumper. You throw on some jeans and a T-shirt, and you try to get her head to stop bleeding again.
You grab your wand, shouting, "We're going to St. Mungo's, Harry!" before taking Hermione safely into your arms.
"Hermione," you tell her, and she stops giggling long enough to glance up at you, "we're going to St. Mungo's. You hurt yourself."
She looks confused but much too happy to fight you, so you clutch her tight and Apparate perfectly (something about having her with you makes you good at it).
You get directed to the proper floor and wait for a few minutes inside a small room for a Healer, and Hermione gradually stops laughing, leaning against your shoulder. You see her eyes start to close and you smile, kissing right by the cut on her forehead.
She's asleep in about three seconds, you think, after that, beautifully peaceful and young and happy. You think back to when you'd imagined - all those times - Hermione falling asleep on your shoulder, her soft hair, her small ear that stuck out just enough to be the cutest thing ever. You remember when you'd laid at night and imagined what people would think of you two, when you'd be together. They'd probably never know that the beautiful girl sleeping on your shoulder - perfectly messy from sex and very, very drunk - had, just a year ago, been tortured until she'd almost died. That she'd had to modify her parents' memories so much that they hadn't even known she'd existed, much less that she was their daughter. That she'd gone without a proper meal for a year, that she has so many scars they outnumber the years she's been alive.
That she'd saved each and every one of their lives.
You glance back at how she's still smiling in her sleep, which you love. You tuck some hair behind her ear and kiss the top of her head, leaning yours against it afterward.
There's a knock on the door, and you straighten up as a tired-looking Healer comes in. She smiles when she sees Hermione soundly asleep on your shoulder.
"Can you tell me what happened?" she asks very quietly.
"We, uh," you feel your ears get red, "we got, well, drunk, and my girlfriend," (it fills you with immense happiness to say this aloud), "fell trying to," you clear your throat, "get out of bed."
The Healer smiles, trying not to laugh. "Well, I can heal that without even waking her up."
"Really?"
"Absolutely," she nods, taking out what you know to be Essence of Dittany and dabbing a little onto the cut. It heals nearly instantly, and you're beyond relieved to know that Hermione won't have another scar. (She has too many already.)
"Thank you," you say, and the Healer smiles.
"You're Ron Weasley?"
You nod, thinking she probably just knew it from the form you'd had to fill out.
"And that's Hermione Granger?" She gestures towards Hermione.
"Yeah, yeah, that's Hermione."
She looks incredibly thankful in that moment, her eyes filling with tears. "I can't - I've heard..."
You shake your head. "We're - it's not.."
She cuts you off, looking at Hermione when she says, "Thank you for everything."
You nod. "You're welcome."
She smooths Hermione's hair from her forehead. You know that she's thinking Hermione's too young, too young and too beautiful to have gone through anything anyone's heard from your time on the run, because you think it all the time, too.
"I'll let you get home and get some rest," the Healer says.
You smile, taking Hermione into your arms. She smiles a little and sighs, bringing her face into your shirt, but she stays asleep. It's the second time you've carried her while she's been unconscious, and much, much, much better than the first. You get outside the Apparation boundary and Disapparate with a pop, making it perfectly into your flat's sitting room. She doesn't even budge, her eyes happily shut.
You put her on the bed and try not to think that you've done something much too similar to this before, but then she laughs a little in her sleep, and you look around and make sure you're here, with her, in your flat. You get her jumper off and then her pants, taking her bra off last, then take your clothes off, climbing in bed behind her, wrapping her up because she's all you want.
"I love you, Hermione Granger," you whisper into her hair.
She tugs you closer in her sleep and you swear she heard you.
...
She looks at you skeptically.
"C'mon," you coax. "Since when has me leading you been a bad idea?"
She laughs then. "Oh, um, just about a million times, I'd say."
You roll your eyes. "Trust me on this one, 'Mione."
She smiles, which you love more than probably anything in the world. Well, at least anything that involves a clothed Hermione.
You take her hand and, with a pop, you're with her on the most perfect beach ever. It reminds you of the cliffs overlooking Shell Cottage, the waves crashing against the shore in the gentlest pounding ever.
It's raining (you'd had Harry and Ginny check for you just a few minutes ago), but it's warm rain, cleansing and vivid. You know Hermione loves the rain.
There's a break in the clouds and the sun is setting and it turns everything orange, which makes you smile and is definitely more than you could've ever planned for.
Hermione's standing there, and she takes a few steps forward, her arms outstretched. She's silhouetted against the swirl of clouds and orange tinted waves and you can hear her crying, her tiny shoulders shaking with sobs.
You walk slowly behind her, and you're sure she's crying because there's just too many things she feels at once, just too many emotions and thoughts, even in that great big brain of hers.
"She's going to be..." you pause, putting your arms around you as she leans into you, and you think of Hermione at eleven. "She's going to be beautiful, Hermione. And brilliant, and scary and funny and more brave than anyone, ever."
She sniffles and turns around, flinging her arms around you and pressing her face to your chest. "I'm going to be a mom," she whispers reverently, worshipping the word.
You smile, kissing the top of her head.
She backs up with a grin, the gentle soaking her hair to her forehead. "I love you, Ronald Weasley."
You kiss her mouth gently. "I love you, too." You fight the tears, but they fall, too, and you think of all of the moments you've held her. Think of all the moments you've calmed her down after a panic attack or a nightmare (and all of the moments she's done the same). You think of your kisses and every time she's fallen asleep on your shoulder, her little snore when her nose would get stuffy. You think of the scars criss-crossing her back, the word carved into the soft skin of her wrist, the huge slash across her chest from an unspoken curse. You remember all of the times you'd made her cry, and the thousands of more times when you'd dried her tears.
You think of her crinkle-nosed smile.
"Dance with me," you whisper, and in the space between two heartbeats, it's there.
You twirl around and it feels like you're closing your eyes and talking to the world in the simplest, most important way ever, thanking it for the woman in your arms and the little girl safe in her womb, cursing it for the reason that that same wonderful, beautiful woman had to go through so much pain to get to this point.
"Are we really here?" Your breath so close to her face makes her hair flutter against her forehead. You bring your lips to it.
She smiles, which you love. "Yeah."
And you feel her pulse and her scar as you hold her wrist, and her heart's beating and her breath is warm against your chest. You know she's real.
It's the most beautiful thing you've ever felt, when Rose - your Rosie - kicks against your fingers.
You dance, that entire night.
Because you must. Because you can.
"She's going to look like you," you tell her.
She smiles, which you love. "I think I'd like that."
AN: Leave a review? Please? And enjoy HP7.2, everyone! :D