Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I had the writing skills or imagination of JK Rowling there would be no need for student loans.
Summary: She was furious again, hands on hips, thick hair spread wild. He was terrified.
Rating: K+/PG
Author's Note: I've always wanted to write this fic and suddenly the beginning came to me. It was all downhill from there.
Furious
She was furious again, hands on hips, thick hair spread wild. He was terrified.
He knew there was something very important that he had forgotten. A birthday perhaps? A compliment on her latest outfit? His hand ran through fiery red hair. Women were such a mystery, and this one was a mystery with a ticking time bomb attached to it. She was like a sphinx. Unfortunately he was never even considered for Ravenclaw.
He shifted uncomfortably. How long could she keep this up? Her voice got shriller and shriller, using his full name whenever she pointed a finger at him, even his middle name. He cringed when she used the middle name; it's how he knew he had done something terribly wrong.
It wasn't their first fight. She was expressive when angry and he just didn't know how to keep his mouth shut. And there it went, the reason. He hadn't apologized after spilling pumpkin juice on her essay that morning. She had worked so hard on that essay. Why hadn't he just apologised? It would have been so much more simple than standing here, in the Gryffindor common room, hearing his middle name in front of half the House.
She was beautiful when she yelled like that. He knew that it would get him in trouble, but he stopped paying attention to her words and took the opportunity to admire her appearance. She was gorgeous to begin with, he thought, but passion made her irresistible. He wanted to kiss her, but knew he couldn't, not without risking the dissolution of a precarious friendship.
He was sure he saw staticky lightning forming in her hair as it stood on end. Her face was flushed, her faint freckles fading beneath the overpowering pink. Would it ever end? He both longed for and dreaded the moment when she would calm down. He didn't dare apologise now. It would be too little too late, and besides that it would make her lose the radiant quality she had at the moment.
His friend entered through the portrait hole, gave one sympathetic glance, then bolted upstairs to the dormitory. Some help, he thought. There was no end in sight. Somehow she had produced a wand. A word slipped through and caught his attention. The middle name again. Then:
"You're not even listening to me, are you? I can't believe it; you're such a prat!"
"Molly, please, I didn't mean…"
"Who cares what you meant to do or not, Arthur? I'm tired of you acting like you have no manners. Your mother taught you better!"
"Don't bring my mother into this, Molly."
"Fine, I won't bring anyone into it. In fact, I'm done. I'm heading upstairs."
The kiss came before he could stop it, before he even knew what he was doing. One minute they were standing several feet apart, the next he was catching her on her way to the dorm and pulling her dangerously close.
*******
She froze. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen, in the heat of the moment. There had been moments before when she had thought it would be possible. So many moments would have been preferable to this. It was terribly romantic, but she wondered whether romantic was necessarily good, or if this was even appropriate.
He seemed oblivious to her brief freeze, lifting her feet off the ground as he held her as tightly as possible. She couldn't catch her breath. She didn't really want to. Forgetting her worries, she gave in. After all the fights, all the times when she had seen him with pink ears, either cowering before her anger or, more often, returning it with quick and thoughtless remarks, their passion was finally directed towards something… wonderful.
He broke apart first when they heard their friend's voice, and she questioned her boldness at making the first move.
"Well it's now or never, isn't it?" said Ron. Hermione beamed.
*******
She beamed as she watched her son enter the kitchen hand in hand with his friend. The war was over, rebuilding had begun, and she recognized the blush on their faces as new love. She had known it was coming perhaps before they had; their fights were legendary, spread through the household with the twins' teasing. She had witnessed a couple herself, staying at Headquarters with them both one summer. The parallel was so obvious. She wondered if she had ever looked as furious when yelling at Arthur as Hermione looked when yelling at Ron.
Author's Note II: If you can't tell whose point of view each part is from, it goes Arthur, then Hermione, then Molly. Part two takes place in DH. The other two parts are not included in canon.