Picture In My Pocket

...a chapter in which someone is still fairly naked.

"What was that about?" Hermione demanded, rounding on Bill. Her eyes inadvertently dropped a bit lower than his face(somewhere in the general area of his hips), and she yelped and turned away again, her face blushing a furious scarlet.

Bill chuckled, making no move to put any clothes on. "We'll call it payback for nagging me earlier."

"I was not nagging you, I was-" Hermione started, so frustrated that she quite forgot he was naked and turned to look at him again. She made another startled noise and turned away again.

"You don't have to look away, you know," Bill said lazily, leaning against the sink and crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm not shy."

Hermione sputtered, completely unable to come up with any retort.

"Besides," Bill added, an undertone of merriment in his deep voice, "you know you want to look."

"I do not!" Hermione screeched, whirling around to glare at him indignantly. He was grinning at her, and his grin only widened when her eyes unfailingly trailed down his chest, stomach, and landed on his crotch.

"I'd tell you to get a picture because it would last longer, but it seems you've already gotten one," Bill teased, his eyes sparkling. He shifted his weight, leaning his upper body towards Hermione so that her eyes lifted back up to his face.

Bill rather thought that she was going to pass out from all the blood that was pooling in her cheeks, but part of him really liked the way that she looked. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated, and he could practically feel the heat rolling off of her in waves. His sense of smell was going haywire, completely overwhelmed by the hormones raging through her body. Her lips were parted slightly as she prepared to speak, probably to tell him off for messing with her.

For her part, Hermione was having trouble forming any sort of coherent thought. Everything in her body was entirely too aware of Bill, of how close he was, of how warm he was, of how his eyes were dark and dancing and amused. She struggled to pay attention to what he was saying to her, but the most she could manage was feeling the deep rumble of his voice rolling through her chest.

Bill took a step toward her, his tall, lean body now only centimeters from hers. Hermione's eyes widened even more, but she couldn't make herself step away.

"W-what are you doing?" she stammered, looking up into his face with something like terror. The look on her face made something in him snap and roar to life, some part of him that should have been stifled by that potion she'd given him earlier.

Well fuck that, then.

His lips crashed onto hers, his hands tangling into her hair and dragging her up against his body. Hermione tried very hard to protest, but when she lifted her hands to his chest to push him away she became very distracted by the way his smooth muscles rippled beneath her fingers. His breath was hot against her mouth, and he was insistent, pushing his tongue against her lips, forcing her mouth open with a groan and tasting every inch of her that he could reach.

Hermione wasn't thinking clearly at all when she allowed her hands to skim over his body, running down his naked back and then around his hips to trace down the trail of ginger hair that started below his belly button and ran down, down, down to the point where-

Bill hissed, tearing his mouth away from hers and glaring at her with dark, turbulent eyes, his lips pulled back from his teeth in an aggressive snarl. Hermione's pulse was pounding in her ears, and she froze, her fingertips barely touching the hollow between his hips. She waited, barely breathing, for Bill to give some kind of sign that he wasn't going to tear her head off.

They stood there for ages it seemed, Hermione slowly regaining her senses as Bill fought some sort of internal struggle that she couldn't fathom. His eyes slowly lightened to a color much nearer his natural blue, and he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. She relaxed, her hand rising to rest over his heart as she tried to calm herself.

"Sorry again," he murmured, feeling her pulse racing beneath his fingers where they rested lightly on her neck. "You keep surprising me is all," he breathed, closing his eyes and pushing back the wolf that was fighting him tooth and nail, telling him to continue what he'd been doing before, to force her to continue what she had been about to do.

Hermione laughed shakily, barely able to process what he was saying.

"What the hell is happening here?" two voices demanded from the doorway, and Hermione whirled to see Ginny and, once again, Ron staring wide-eyed into the bathroom. Honestly, he never learned.

Bill's arms once again circled her stomach, pulling her back against his bare front.

"Hermione's been taking care of this cut on my neck," he said evenly, gesturing to the newest scar on his body. Ron seemed to think that was quite enough information for him because he immediately turned and headed back downstairs. Ginny, however, was staring pointedly at Hermione.

"Mum wants to talk to you," Ginny said, her eyes not leaving Hermione's.

"Right," Hermione said, swallowing hard and moving to follow Ginny down to the kitchen. Bill tightened his arms again, leaning down to whisper into her ear before she left, "I'd like to talk to you, too, in a bit."

"Put clothes on, please," she said in a small, almost naturally bossy tone before sprinting out of the bathroom and down the stairs. Bill grinned again, glancing at himself in the mirror and liking what he saw for the first time in years.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I got a record amount for that last chapter, and in a record amount of time! It was almost as if you all sensed that I already had this one written, waiting in the wings for all that positive feedback. Hmmmm. Ah, well. Sorry again about how short my chapters are- that's just how my brain works.