A.N.: Sorry for letting you wait so long :/ Next chapter should be online within a week. Hope you enjoy!
He clutched her hand slightly to his side as they walked, as if to wordlessly hinder her from letting too much distance get between their bodies. He couldn't help it, he felt like there was still so much space, too much cool air separating them as they made their way up the lawn towards Hogwarts. So he dropped her hand, pulling her closer by the waist instead. Hermione immediately responded by lightly letting her head drop to his shoulder. His pace slowed quite reasonably. A wave of gratitude, of contented peace hit Ron, right then, so overwhelmingly that he had to stop in his tracks.
"We should get going.", she mumbled, matter-of-factly, and still she drew nearer and nearer to him as she said it.
Cradling her face in his big, freckled palms, he dipped down and caught her lower lip between both of his, grinning against her mouth when she gasped lightly.
Gosh, would it ever stop feeling like this? He seriously doubted it. Because, really, she'd always be her. She'd always be Hermione Granger, the girl he'd spend so many years desiring and probably even longer loving. This brilliant, crazy, loyal perfection of a girl could never create less than a firework in his every muscle, when he kissed her. This girl would always feel like everything to him.
Had he once called her a nightmare? So, so long ago, as that little boy soon to gain another best friend?
In the back of his mind, Ron felt some memory of that very first day tickling him uncomfortably. But he also was feeling weirdly fond of that silly little boy, that eleven-year old version of himself who had gotten so focused on her and her constant "annoying" presence. In hindsight, he realised that he'd been mostly quite intimidated by her even back then.
Well, she wasn't a nightmare, alright? She was absurdly far from that, in fact. The only nightmares he'd had about her where the ones concerning him losing her, in one way or another. And the other dreams he'd had about her... Well, they were an entirely different story..
Hermione whimpered lightly, in the back of her throat- the amazing sort of desperate moan that would probably kill him, some day, and he noticed how he'd been grazing her upper lip with his tongue for at least a minute, or so...
She pulled back, quite abruptly.
"Ron", she said, staring at his chest in an almost familiar gaze of embarrassment-tinted desire, "We... We need to go somewhere else, I'm head girl, I really shouldn't be seen with you like this.."
For an irrational split-second, old insecurities scratched at Ron's insides, making him wonder whether she possibly could have meant...
"Oh my gosh, no!", she hurried to say, reading his mind without even looking up at him, and her eyes closed as she dropped her forehead to his chest, still lightly clutching his shirt. "Not because... Ron, I want everyone to know about us, of course, I just..-"
"You don't want them to know everything, I get it.", he said, chuckling, and consumed with another jolt of tenderness, he gently lifted her chin up towards his face, looking at her flustered expression. He pressed his closed lips against hers once more, soft and sweet and unhurried this time, and he pulled back before any of them could get too carried away again.
"You lead the way, head girl.", he breathed, watching her beam as she pulled at his fingers and kept on walking.
He was more than a little annoyed at Filch for insisting on such a thorough control for any sort of trick or potion, when all he really wanted to do was to be alone with Hermione as soon as possible. But she abstract-mindedly played with a loose thread of his jumper as Ron answered all of the caretaker's suspicious questions, and he couldn't help but to be glad for the fact that Hogwarts was still (or rather; again) a place of complete safety.
Finally, they were there, climbing up staircase after staircase in order to reach the Room of Requirement, and Ron revelled in how she just had to pull him against a wall several times... Encouraging him to snog her for another few seconds, whenever they were in a particularly deserted part of the castle.
She was probably doing it to distract him, which was definitely working. Not that further distractions were that necessary, it wasn't like he'd break down any second just because of their current location. Maybe it was a former battlefield, this castle. Okay. But it also was a former home. To him and to her and to so many others. Letting his memories of this place get overshadowed by grief would mean letting the dimwits win.
And it was where she slept every night, even now.
Where he could imagine her go through pages of old parchment in the library, and drink tea in the common room, or fall asleep at night behind the dark red curtains of a dormitory bed. This castle wasn't all that scary, wasn't that much of a crime scene, when he could at the same time associate it so well with her.
That corridor – the one where it had happened ,- came and went, with Hermione linking their fingers again and pressing her palm so tightly against his that the pressure felt world-bearing.
"You okay?", she whispered, as they stood in front of the wooden door that had just popped up in front of them. He closed his eyes and nodded, concentrating on only her soft, familiar voice in the shadowy light. "Never better.", he grinned, reaching down to pull at the door handle.
Had he been the one to create the room? Or had she shared his plans here and there? A desperate desire to drown all the other thoughts out except for her was still burning somewhere in his stomach. So perhaps Ron had told the Room what to do. But a small part of him hoped that Hermione had had a certain impact on the outcome of it, as well.
The walls inside were a soft shade of brownish dark red, reminding Ron of Firewhiskey; the bedsheets, that decorated a big bed in the middle of the room with their shiny, orange silk, were already slightly pulled back, like an invitation to crawl under their surface. Candlelight flickered from a lantern on the bed side table. And that was it; no other furniture, no distractions... The door behind them faded away into the wall, unnecessary for now. No escape from doing what they wanted.
Why was this embarrassing, Ron wondered? Why could he feel the tips of his ears heat up and was scratching his neck nervously, after having seen her naked so many times already, and after sleeping with her often enough to lose track on the exact number of times?
Perhaps, it was a bit too obvious now, wasn't it? The room had basically spelled out for them what they craved. The only thing they needed, for now. No food or books or chess game, just a bed.. From an outside perspective, the only purpose of this room was to have sex in it. And it was a room entirely designed by them (or one of them). Really strange, to think of it like that, Ron thought. Also entirely arousing.
They glanced at each other, sideways, before breaking out into laughter at the same time.
"This feels weird..", Hermione mumbled, looking through the room with a grin.
"What does?"
"Just... all of this! Can you remember what it used to be like in here?"
"You mean, in fifth year?"
He sat down on the orange bed-sheets, pulling his shoes off, and distractedly he wondered why the fabric looked so much like his old Cannons-bedsheets at the Burrow.
"Yes, I mean... This room used to be a classroom for us! Harry taught all of us so much stuff in here, and now..."
She looked a bit awe-struck by the realisation of just how amazingly mysterious this castle could be. Or maybe by something else, it was kind of hard to tell. Ron watched her drop to the floor and cross her legs thoughtfully, a few metres away from him... He really wished she'd taken a seat next to him on the bedsheets, instead.
"What do you think happened in this room before?", she wondered aloud. "So many people must have known about it already, and this school is one of the oldest magical buildings in wizard history..."
"I'd rather not think to much about it, to be honest.", Ron told her, grinning. "Imagine people like Zacharias Smith going to the toilet in here, or Winky being drunk in here, or whatever else this room might have seen!"
Also, Crabbe died in here, Ron suddenly remembered, the grin leaving his face in a flash. Hermione saw his quick change in expression before Ron could help it, and of course she somehow managed to read his mind again. At least his weird, frustrating turn in pondering resulted in her coming closer. In a flash, Hermione crawled halfway on top of him, leaving a big portion of her hip and left leg firmly on the matress at his side, but still pleasingly managing to distract him quite thoroughly with the new proximity. She looked into his eyes, her own ones so dark and deep in the dimmed shimmer from the bedside candle, and maybe that perfect shade of chocolate might have swallowed him up entirely, had she not decided to kiss him again. Dozens of sweet, warm pecks of her lips against his, soft and light and still so very filled with concern for him that it made his heart melt a bit. Just as his fingers wove into her messy, curly hair to pull her closer, she looked him over again, arms swung around his neck securely.
"Ron, we can go if you like. I don't mind, really."
"What?! No! I'm fine, seriously!", he hurried to tell her, a small notch of panic creeping into his voice.
"We could go to that corner behind the greenhouses again, instead, Ron.", she offered, twisting a strand of his red hair between her fingers. His entire neck tingled from the sudden sensation. "Or we could...-"
"Hermione, stop.", he murmured, gently, and leaned in again to kiss her through a smile, "I can't wait any longer, and I definitely won't let a jerk like Crabbe steal any amount of time I get to spend with you."
Her eyes blinked back at him as she smiled so wide at this, apparently too engrossed with love too even scold him for talking badly about someone who wasn't alive any more.. Or maybe, she frankly didn't care, either.
Her back was incredibly smooth and soft and warm, as his fingers finally managed to crawl below the many layers of fabric... She let her robes fall to the floor, lifting herself up slightly to move even closer towards Ron's chest in only blouse and skirt and stockings. And well, underwear, probably. He was seriously curious to find out what colour she'd chosen today, seeing as he already knew most (if not all) of the underwear she owned. He'd made entire lists and rankings in his head, laying around sometimes at night when sleep just wouldn't arrive. It was almost an art, wrapping his mind around the fact that she had really let him see so much of her, that she had shared so much with him... After all these years of longing, there had been final satisfaction.
"Please, Ron.", she whispered, as his fingers slipped lightly beneath the brim of her stockings, high on her thighs, "Just... touch me already!"
He chuckled, darkly, his hungry movements quickening at her eager response. His thumbs pulled those incredible black stockings down, revealing centimetre upon centimetre of soft, creamy thigh; knee; calve... His fingers gripped her limbs a little tighter, pulling her more firmly on top of him and making her boldly straddle his hips in the process. More kissing. More sighing and grunting into each others mouths, while her skirt flattened over the point where his calloused palms gripped her bum and pressed her closer.
"I missed this", she whispered, and for a second her rosy cheeks and deep brown eyes blurred into focus again. He pressed her scalp into his neck and kissed her hair, over and over and over again, more sweetly now than passionate.
"Me too", he rasped.
Then, her fingers dove beneath the edge of his jumper, lightly indicating for him to pull it over his head. A few seconds later she pressed herself desperately against his bare chest, while his hands unbuttoned her blouse and loosened her tie in record speed. More barriers gone, more Hermione to stare at and grip to his own body.
His tongue slipped into her mouth again in between kisses, and as she let her hands glide up his back and knead the tight flesh there, he discovered how they had started to grind into each others form. His erection had by now become almost unbearably hard.
"Hermiiione!", he groaned against her neck, as she studied his chest with interest. It almost looked like she marvelled at his Auror-training-infused muscles, so he couldn't help but to flash her a shy smirk. She grinned back, blushing slightly, perhaps, but her eyes lowered shamelessly on the path her fingertips crossed upon his front. They drew patterns around his ribs, his nipples, his belly button.. And then they traced further down south.
Their eyes met again, and she crawled off of him before he could even ask her to. Reluctantly he let the delicious pressure of her body on top of his pass, but only to quickly stand up and get rid of his trousers. She sat a metre apart from him, on the bed, and expectantly eyed his every movement. She didn't seem content with him just removing his trousers, which probably made sense. So he chose to remove his boxers, too. And as he'd done so, she... suddenly crouched in front of him, still in just her school skirt and her bra, her perfect legs bare as she kneeled on them, eye-level with his hip bones... And before Ron could say something or even form another thought, she'd met his sensitive skin with the tip of her index finger, close to the base.
"Fuc-k!", he groaned, his eye-lids snapping shut at the blissful contact, "Hermione!"
He didn't see her grin, since his eyes were still firmly closed, but he could hear it in the way she breathed as she let the gentle movement continue along his shaft. Her ring and middle finger and thumb joined the journey, and soon enough she'd let her entire palm wrap around his manhood, lightly squeezing him and moving up and down. He wasn't entirely aware of the kind of sounds he was producing, but he couldn't really feel embarrassed right now, there was too much pleasure cursing through his nerve system. When he felt her warm breath reach his sensitive flesh though, he had to rip his eyes open..
Would she... Could she possibly intend to...-
"OH GOD, Yeah...!", he growled, as her lips met the tip of him lightly, and this time he could see and hear and feel her happy grin. "Please don't stop now, Hermione", Ron heard himself mutter in pathetic desperation, but she took this as a sign to open her lips and press open-mouth kisses around the sides of him as if she'd never intended to do anything but this today.
"Merlin, Hermione... Just like that...Yes, oh, bloody hell, that's...!"
But the mind-blowing contact of her tongue around him, compared with the effects of several days worth of longing, were too much at this point. With a heavy grunt and a buckle of his knees, Ron came, coating her neck and parts of her chest and feeling her small fingers rub loving circles into the skin of his hips.
He soon enough collapsed on the brightly orange bed-sheets, rolling onto his back. She seemed almost shy as she lay beside him, before he pulled her tightly closer and on top of him. She nuzzled his collarbones with her nose. Everything was so utterly sticky and warm and perfect that it felt kind of surreal.. Her uniquely sweet scent mingled with the smell of the freshly washed linen, and of what they had just done, and he dropped a slow, sensual kiss on her swollen lips, his mouth craving the contact once again.
"I love you so much", he mumbled towards her chin, and for a few minutes (or the rest of his life, really), that knowledge was more than enough in the world.
