pulled closer
Winter had stretched past its usual thawing point. The cold was fierce enough that it seeped through the protective charms and into the castle, somehow managed to filter into the comfy couch. She burrowed closer to him, borrowed some of the warmth he seemed to store in spades.
"Er," said Ron, remaining very still as he went about clearing his throat. "Your head's on my shoulder, you know."
He had not meant to say that, Hermione reckoned, her lips twitching with the guess. She smiled fully a second later, when confirmation that Ron had just blurted out the first thing that popped into his brain materialized in the form of a blush that warmed her face where it made contact with the expanse of naked skin between Ron's neck and shoulders.
Into his hot blush, she whispered, "I know." Carefully, slyly, she did something that made him gasp, – "and this is me, taking your hand."
"I know," he answered. He sounded raspy, like he needed water or something. Hermione felt her blood thrill in the wake of his reaction.
Completely daft and impossible (obviously), but, as she kept close to Ron, Hermione could have almost sworn she could hear every whisper as each snowflake touched down on the fluffy ground all around the tower. Her senses were on overdrive, full with the clean, masculine scent coming off of Ron, delighted by the firm roughness of his palm against hers, driven to distraction by how his huge hand enveloped her smaller one. And then –oh, then he sort of… guided their hands to his side so that they were dangling between his knees.
It was lovely.
Ron cleared his throat again and Hermione waited, thinking it very important that they both have a part in what she'd bravely started.
He squeezed her fingers gently. "… Can I?" he asked, his breath brushing against the top of her head.
Looking up, Hermione nodded. "Yes." Please.
It was funny and he'd probably tease her to Pluto and back if he knew, but in those couple of seconds before their lips brushed together, Hermione thought. More specifically: she thought about the Christmas before this last one, and how she'd seen Ron under the mistletoe, and how she'd inwardly battled over joining him under it or not, and how, in the end, she'd said to herself, 'oh, I better not'…
Her mind emptied when Ron finally got to kissing her, his full lips soft but the quality of his kiss too surprisingly deft, too surprisingly certain and knowing. She whimpered when he guided her lips apart, her whole being hyper alive as he deepened their mouth-to-mouth, the feel of it suitably blazing like most everything Ron was to her. Moving her free limb so that she could cup to the back of his neck, Hermione pulled him in impossibly closer, so past happy when she could make out the hint of his smile against her even as he started framing her face, so past happy because this felt like they were smoldering whatever threads of trepidation she might have once allowed herself to consider.
~oOo~