Disclaimer: Don't own them.
Short one-shot, femslash. Hermione and Ginny find solace and love in eachother during the war. Slightly AU. Set during Ootp.
It's moments like these, when they're hidden away from the rest of the world, that Hermione begins to understand, just a little, about war. War is brutal, war is unforgiving. But most of all, she thinks that war might just be what brought her and Ginny together in the first place. And so, in that aspect, war is also beautiful.
"Harry's getting restless." Ginny remarks, readjusting herself against Hermione's knees. They are in a small den on the top floor of Grimmauld Place, a secret place, their place. Mrs. Weasley had somehow skipped this room during her massive cleaning campaign. Not that Hermione and Ginny mind, of course, it gives them a complete liberty to decorate as they want to. Some impressive coloring charms, a few bean bags and one Holyhead Harpies poster later, and the girls have their own area, their own place where they can just be.
"I know. He...well, he's dangerous when he's restless. I won't be surprised when Lupin and Dumbledore will have to rush off in the middle of the night to rescue him from whatever travesty he's gotten himself into." Hermione runs her fingers--small, and stained with ink--through Ginny's breathtaking ruby locks. Hermione loves the way the light from the candles hanging in their brackets on the wall shines through Ginny's hair, giving the allusion that there are small strands of delicate gold strung around the halo of her head.
"It will be over soon. The war, I mean." Ginny says, looking up at Hermione. The frizzy-haired, brunette girl above her has come to mean comfort, has come to mean home. In Hermione she has found that certain something that makes her stomache flutter, that makes her mouth dry and her lips itch.
"And when it is, we'll lose this." Hermione gestures around them, though she doesn't mean the den. After the war, Harry will finally settle down, and when that happened, he was sure to want to do that with Ginny. They'd get married, have loads of red-haried children, and Hermione would be expected to follow the same suite with Ronald. The thought of sharing with Ron what she's shared with Ginny makes her cringe.
"No...we'll never lose this." Ginny sits up, and turns to face Hermione. Slowly, deliberately, she brings her lips to Hermione's, and they are lost for a moment in the now. This war has forced them, day in and day out, to think about, to plan for, the future. There were no guarantees for tomorrow, no answers to the questions teenagers like themselves wanted to ask. But in this small attic room, in the arms of the girl who is precious, of the girl who is more lovely and clever than anybody she's ever met, Ginny realizes that war, though damning and epic, also means love.
And Hermione realizes that not knowing the answers for once isn't such a bad thing afterall.
