A/N: Uhhhhhh. Here this is. It's shorter than the previous chapters have been because it's mostly just about getting to that one scene at the end… and because I was obsessed with ending it on a specific final moment, which you'll see. The next chapter will probably be longer. Thanks for all the reviews from yesterday's chapter! I'm so glad everyone liked it. You have no idea how delighted it makes me to read those comments and enjoy Ron/Hermione with you all! Hope this one meets your expectations as well! x
Her back was toward him when he woke, and his hand was buried in her hair. It was just nearing dawn, he reckoned, from the hazy light glowing around them, through canvas.
He slowly moved his fingers, feeling her thick curls between them. It was so deliriously comforting to wake up with her this way. He breathed slowly, deeply, seeking some sense of future to grasp onto. He tried to picture their own flat, maybe in London. They were safe, and it was a quiet Sunday morning, and they had no place to be but right there, with each other.
His hand combed absentmindedly through her hair, vision still a bit blurry with sleep, and though he knew he'd have to get up and face reality soon, he gave himself permission to forget it, just for another moment, like taking that first sip of water at the edge of a desert. This was how he got better; this was how they kept going.
He freely let himself think the word, because it didn't matter inside his own head. Her request to keep some words unspoken didn't make them any less real. In fact, sometimes, because of how obsessed with holding back he had become, it almost made it more, somehow.
"What are you thinking about?" she whispered, still facing the canvas wall, and he really hadn't realised she'd been awake.
He considered, for a long moment, how he should answer her. A single word floated up to the surface.
"Soap," he muttered to the back of her neck, through her hair.
Silence engulfed them again, and he fiercely hoped she'd understand, that she'd recall their intense conversation from the bath several days ago. Aside from his brief mistake the previous night, the only solid piece of evidence he'd given her before, when he'd almost slipped up and said the word, was the scent of her soap. Love.
At last, she lightly cleared her throat.
"Soap?" she repeated shakily.
"Yeah."
"Do you… think about soap a lot?"
Bloody hell, she understood. He grinned and closed his eyes.
"Every day."
There was a brief pause, a loud sniff, and she said, "I think about soap a lot, too."
He blinked at the back of her head, overwhelmed for a moment before feeling a wave of brilliance pass through him. Fuck, this might have been the most clever thing he'd ever done. Now they could say it any time, and they'd know what it meant without actually saying it.
She rolled over to face him, looking sleepy but surprised… perhaps a bit pleased, as well. She breathed in deeply, then reached up to hook her fingers over the collar of his t-shirt. He slid his hand up the side of her neck, then brushed his thumb across her cheek and watched as her eyes fluttered shut.
"I was just imagining we didn't have anything to do, so we stayed in bed all day," he said, moving his thumb a second time.
She smiled with her eyes still closed.
"We'll do that, for sure, as soon as we're home."
He thought momentarily of confessing that he'd been thinking of their own home, together. But sleeping so close to her and talking about soap had made him bolder than perhaps he should have been. He trailed his fingertips lightly back down her neck and let go.
She opened her eyes, and everything surrounded them again. The tent, what they were really doing, the impossible weight of it.
"I'll see if Harry needs help," he said, and she nodded sadly as he climbed out of bed.
The day passed as they all seemed to do - slowly, monotonously. By Ron's mid-afternoon forage, he'd come to the conclusion that the quickly drying ground meant they should stay put, where at least they knew they could find something edible for a while. At least until they had another plan, another spark of inspiration.
He repetitively found it too insurmountable lately to think of all the places they hadn't been, focusing instead on recollection. He'd begun to write down bits of conversation he'd overheard, anything that might be useful, what the Snatchers who'd captured him as soon as he'd left had said to each other. Anything.
Hermione was similarly trying to recall memorised passages from books she'd not brought along with them, and he found it more than a little incredible that she could do that… though not too surprising, really, considering how well he knew her.
It did come as a bit of a surprise when Hermione announced her watch was about to begin. He'd completely lost track of how late it had gotten, after supper.
"See you in a few hours?" she muttered to him as she pulled on her cloak.
"Yeah," was all he could say back, because now he had to try and get some sleep, knowing what they had planned for later. Knowing was a bit strong as he still wasn't entirely sure he was clear on what was going to happen, but whatever it was, it would be absolutely brilliant.
He stretched out on her bed, lying on his back with his hand tucked behind his head. He hadn't realised, at first, but Harry was still awake, rolling the snitch around his palms from his own bunk, above Ron's disused one.
Ron watched Harry for a moment, wondering if he should say something, but this was also as close as they had consciously come to facing the reality that Harry knew Ron was sleeping in Hermione's bed. So he closed his eyes instead, hoping sleep would take him quick, if only to pass the time.
"Ron."
Her voice hissed by his ear, and he finally opened his eyes. He'd flipped to his stomach in his sleep, fringe choppily cutting across his eyes to obscure his vision of her where she was crouching on the floor, next to him.
"I couldn't stay awake any longer, and it's your turn."
"Oi, sorry," he said, sitting up. "Haven't been using my alarm."
He ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair as she watched him.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You were mumbling in your sleep."
"Was I? Could you hear what I was saying?"
"Not really." She moved to sit on the bed beside him, yawning.
"Go on to sleep. I'm up." He stood and reached for two jumpers at the foot of his own bed, tugging them on over his head.
"Do you still-" she sniffed "-want me to come outside with you, later?"
He blinked down at her, then raised an incredulous brow.
"Yeah…"
"Alright," she smiled, shyly. "7:30? It'll be nearly sunrise by then."
"Yeah," he said again, apparently the only word he could form at the moment.
She moved to lie down, and he escaped to the loo to breathe. He hadn't forgotten, but hours of sleep had separated him from the knowledge that this was happening, so soon. He scrutinised his reflection, turning right and then left, bracing himself with his hands on the edge of the sink and thinking way too much. Without knowing exactly what her plans were, he wasn't sure how to prepare. Did he need to prepare? Why hadn't he been like this the last time this possibility had been in the air?
What sort of pants was he wearing?
Fuck.
He shook his head - he wasn't going to check - and he brushed his teeth for the second time in six hours. Idiot, he thought. She wasn't going to kiss him…
When at last he went outside, he was assaulted by a frozen gust of wind. At least he'd be distracted somewhat from obsessing over his meeting with Hermione in a few hours by shivering and staring into the dark.
Damn, it was cold. The days had been marginally better here than farther north, but the long nights brought nearly the same sort of miserable bone-chill. Inside the tent, he shared his body heat with another person, and he hardly noticed the icy weather anymore. But outside, alone, he was struck with the affliction of it, longing for a fire he couldn't risk igniting.
His thoughts darted back to Hermione's pleated uniform skirt and her words, from the night before that… because it bloody looked and sounded like she was planning to touch herself in front of him. He forced himself to calm down, flipping his wand over in his hand.
He let out an exaggerated sigh, rolling his shoulders and trying to focus. He had hours to go before she'd join him. He had to think about anything else.
He thought about home. He wondered, for the millionth time, if his family was alright, if the Burrow had survived.
No, this was worse, to think about that. Quidditch. He could think about Quidditch.
It took him approximately two whole minutes for his mind to drift back to Hermione again.
"Goddamn it," he muttered under his breath. He stretched his legs and sat up straighter, playing a game with himself where he averted his eyes from his wristwatch as long as he possibly could.
He was blinking too often by the time he noticed the sky had begun to lighten. And then, she was there, stepping out behind him in her Hogwarts skirt, knee socks, and a blue jumper, holding a blanket.
"Harry's still sound asleep," she said. "Snoring, actually."
"Right. G'morning," he teased, standing and brushing leaves from his flannel pyjamas.
"Where should we go?" she asked timidly. He cleared his dry throat.
"The wards go down that slope on the left, yeah?"
"A bit, yes."
He shrugged, and she began to lead the way. He couldn't help staring at the way the faintly purple, pre-dawn light haloed her head, like a surreal sort of dream. The cold, for so many hours, had made his skin almost feel numb, but it was waking up again now.
They cut through a line of trees and over a slight ridge, stopping with an expansive view of the shadowy valley down the other side of the hill. She found a spot where the ground leveled a bit, not looking directly at him, and spread her blanket out.
"Alright?" she asked, and he nodded, though she must not have seen him, kneeling down on the blanket instead.
He joined her cautiously, heart pounding.
"I don't want to say it," she started, "but we probably shouldn't stay down here for long, just in case."
"You're right," he agreed softly, shifting on his knees somewhat nervously.
"Look, I… I just wanted to be really alone with you."
"I know. Me too."
"You're shaking a bit."
"Sorry," he smiled.
"Hold my hand or something."
He obeyed her immediately, smoothing his fingers over her knuckles. She was shaking, too. She stared down at their hands, loosely clasped together, and he couldn't see her clearly enough in such hazy light, curtains of shadow framing her face from her hair falling over her shoulders.
"Tell me what you want me to do," he instructed, because he really wanted to be sure he understood why they were out here, before he made any guesses.
"We could… lie down in opposite directions, but keep our faces close together."
"Okay."
He reluctantly let go of her hand to do it, both of them lying down on their backs atop the blanket, legs stretched out off opposite edges. He turned to look at her just as she did the same. They were so, so close, but he was distracted by seeing her face upside down. His gaze darted up to her lips, then back down to her eyes.
He nudged his head a tiny bit closer, and his forehead touched the tip of her nose.
"I didn't sleep much, thinking about this," she admitted.
"We don't have to do anything," he whispered. "We could just lay here for a bit, and-"
"You don't want to?"
"Want to what?"
Her eyes shut briefly, and he bent his left arm up to touch her hair with the tips of his fingers.
"I… I imagine it's you," she began, eyes still closed, "when I… when I go to the loo, and… I imagine it's your hands on me, instead of mine."
It was what he'd thought, after all, and he struggled to catch his breath. Her eyes opened, lightening pre-dawn reflecting off them.
"Do you think about me," she asked, "when you-"
"Your hands, your mouth," he slurred, feverishly.
"Ron, I- I…" She trembled and inhaled shakily. "Hold my hand again?" She reached up for him, and he untangled his fingers from her hair to clasp her cold hand once more in his much larger one, between their faces. His vision of her eyes blurred out of focus, but he could easily tell when she arched her back and moved her free hand down…
A gasping breath floated between her parted lips. And she was really going to do it.
"Do you think you could just- just look at my face and not-"
"Yeah, yeah, got it," he muttered immediately, aware of his own hand moving down to the elastic waist of his pyjamas but hesitating.
He could picture everything anyway, the way her hand would look between her legs, a strip of gorgeous bare thigh between her skirt and knee socks. Her uneven breath wafted through the hair on top of his head.
"Are you going to do it, too?" she asked with a strained, airy moan.
"Yeah," he groaned back, and his hand finally slid beneath the waistband of his pyjamas and pants, fingers wrapping tightly. He clenched her hand at the same time, and another gentle gasp ruffled his fringe.
He moved slowly at first, skin burning even in the cold as he stared at her face. A pink streak of light had broken dawn, and it illuminated her jaw and the tip of her nose.
One day, it would be his hand on her, instead of her own. Currently, his hand pumped faster inside his pants.
This was by far the most intimate thing he'd ever done or ever even pictured actually doing with her in the near future. Hermione was staring at him, as she touched herself, as he did the same. He was quickly losing control.
He pressed his lips to her knuckles and resisted closing his eyes, wanting to keep staring back into her eyes til the end. He could tell she must be thinking the same thing, lids heavy then opening wider again. Tiny sounds of pleasure surrounded him, her panting moans and his low vibrating ones. And as the sunrise glinted more acutely off the side of her face, he gave in to mild delirium, from exhaustion, and the last remaining ounce of strength he had flowed out of him, struggling against a strangled groan that searched for her name.
She hadn't stopped, and he could barely keep his eyes open.
"Ron," she whispered, and he dragged her knuckles across his lips, catching his breath. She turned her head away, staring up at the pink and orange streaked sky through barren tree limbs, and her body gave a final, shuddering jolt, hand clenching his, nails digging into his palm.
She was lying there, a tendril of hair across her face, stuck to her parted lips, chest heaving as she recovered.
He couldn't move.
At last, she let go of his hand, squirmed around to adjust her clothing, licked her lips, and furtively glanced at him.
"You can get up. I won't l-look."
He didn't think he'd actually mind if she did…
It took far too much effort to sit up, cast a cleansing charm on himself, and tug his pants and pyjamas back into place. He slouched forward, ran a hand through his hair. He could feel her sitting up behind him, leaves rustling across the ground as a gust of frozen wind blew by.
"Are you-" she started.
"Yeah, safe," he sighed, not even giving a thought for how he'd known what she was asking. He felt her turn around, could sense her eyes on him. She leaned closer, resting her shoulder on his back.
He'd never felt so overwhelmed in all his life. And so exhausted. She touched her cheek to the side of his head.
"Soap," she whispered in his ear, and he closed his eyes.