A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far. Your comments mean a
lot to me!
Disclaimer: Nothing here belongs to me.
***************************************
Late that night, Hermione found herself standing at the counter of an extremely cheap motel in downtown London. She and Ron had waited until his parents had gone to bed before sneaking into her own house via Floo Powder and packing up some of her clothes. Her parents were such heavy sleepers that they hadn't even noticed the visitors. From there, they'd taken the midnight train to London, and now, at half past two in the morning, they were waiting for someone to notice their presence.
"Should we ring this?" Ron asked, not waiting for an opinion before dinging the service bell.
A few moments later, a tired elderly woman appeared. She looked quite cross at having been disturbed, and she looked at the pair of teenagers suspiciously.
"Yes?" Her Cockney accent was evident from the first syllable.
Hermione was suddenly quite nervous. "Uh, we'd like a room... Please."
The old woman studied them with a hard gaze. "How old are you?"
Hermione froze. They wouldn't rent to them unless they were...
"Eighteen," Ron answered immediately. It was a lie, of course. He was two months shy of being eighteen, and Hermione's birthday was still eight months a way.
The lie seemed to satisfy the woman, though, because she shrugged and opened a large book in front of her. "Do you have a credit card?"
"No, ma'am," Hermione stuttered. "But we have cash. Is that okay?"
The desk worker shrugged again. "Whatever. Do you want a single or a double?"
Hermione glanced at the price list and saw the difference in the pricing. Knowing that they would need to stretch the little money that they had as far as it would go, Hermione looked blushingly at Ron before turning back to the desk and mumbling, "Single."
The old lady looked at them disapprovingly and in a rather condescending tone said, "Do you at least have luggage?"
Hermione felt her face flush on instant. But what was the woman supposed to think? They'd shown up at a low-budget motel in the middle of the night and were paying in cash.
Ron, surprisingly, did not turn red. Instead, he glared briefly at the woman. "Yes, as a matter of fact, we do," he said hatefully. "And you can wipe that look off of your face, too. We're married." He grabbed Hermione's hand as if to prove the point.
Hermione, who didn't know what else to do, tried very hard to not look too shocked by the story. In fact, she was actually rather impressed with Ron's ability to lie so straight-faced, though she wasn't quite sure that she should be.
The woman behind the counter studied them for another moment before pursing her lips and giving them a price. Hermione dug into her bag for the Muggle money they'd nicked from her mum's purse on their brief visit to her house earlier. They'd have to wait until tomorrow to cash into the savings account that rested in the bank with her name on it. And that would be all the money they'd have to live on until they could find jobs. The few galleons, sickles, and knuts they could pool between them would do them no good, as neither of them planned on stepping foot into Diagon Alley any time soon. Once she'd counted out the right amount of money, Hermione graciously took the key and prodded Ron in the direction of the room.
It was a horrid little room. The color scheme screamed the fact that it hadn't been redecorated since the mid-sixties, and the coverlet on the bed was tattered and faded. The stench in the air was a mixture of mold and the soured smell of vomit. Hermione didn't even want to think about the things that had gone in that room.
Ron, too, looked quite disgusted. "Talk about a shithold," he muttered ruefully as he tossed his bag onto the floor and glanced around. "Don't reckon we've got too much of a choice, though, do we?"
Hermione shook her head and timidly set her own bag down. "This is all we can afford."
Nodding absently, Ron started stripping. Without hesitation and with seemingly no regard for the girl across the room, he pulled his jumper over his head and started unbuckling the belt of his trousers.
Hermione, after staring at him in shock for several moments, finally managed to verbalize a question. "What are you doing?!"
Ron looked up and didn't even attempt to hide his amusement. He grinned for the first time in days as he finished with the belt and started undoing the button and zipper. "Getting ready for bed," he answered simply. "Don't forget where I grew up, Hermione. Nine people and one bathroom doesn't leave much room for modesty." He pushed the trousers down his legs and kicked them off, leaving himself clad in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.
Hermione immediately began to regret her decision. If she could barely stand to look at Ron in a pair of boxers, then how in the world was she expected to live with him? There was no way in hell she could share a bed with him.
"You should get ready for bed, too," Ron said, breaking her out of her brief reverie. "We've got to get up early."
Hermione nodded vaguely and grabbed her bag, heading for the loo before she could stare at him and make a fool of herself any longer. Once she shut herself into the tiny bathroom, Hermione chanced a glance in the mirror.
She looked horrible.
Her eyes were red and puffy from the crying she'd done over the past few days. The bags under them gave away the fact that she hadn't slept at all since the day she'd been informed of Harry's death. Her cheeks were still flushed from seeing Ron in his underwear. Her hair had never looked more unruly with her curls frizzing and tangling all over the place.
She looked as if she'd been through hell and back. The crazy thing was that she had been.
She was somehow scared that this was only the beginning.
For starters, she was spending the night in, as Ron had so eloquently put it, a "shithole" motel paid for with money she'd stolen from her mother. Her mother, whom she hadn't even bothered to inform that she was leaving- that she was running away.
That's what she was- a teenage runaway.
And she'd run away with the one person in the world she should never have considered. Ronald Weasley. Honestly, was her brain not working at all?
Ron was quite possibly the most irrational person she'd ever met. He never, ever thought before he acted. He was rude, crude, and deliberately crass. Sometimes she felt more as if he were seven than seventeen.
But she was kidding no one but herself if she tried to say that these were the only reasons she should definitely not have run away with Ron.
There was so much... stuff... between them that thinking clearly was quite impossible. They'd fought and bickered since the day they'd met on their first train ride to Hogwarts, but there'd always been so much more there than just their arguments. Hermione wasn't sure when it had started, but she clearly remembered the first time she'd realized it. She'd only been eleven, Ron just barely twelve. The moment Harry had informed her that Ron was going to sacrifice himself on the giant chess board at the end of their first year, a horrible feeling of dread had settled over her ands he had fully realized for the first time that Ron was a whole lot more than "Harry's other best friend," which was what she'd resolved to referring to him as in her mind up until that point.
And that was only the beginning.
Second year had brought about the endless defenses he reserved just for her. The word Mudblood always insulted him more than it did her, but she never tired of watching him stand up for her. Third year had brought their only real fight, but it had also been the first time she'd ever broken down sobbing in his arms. Fourth year had been the real start of it all, with the jealousy and emotions hidden as anger. Fifth year had been one of the worst. Hormones had been raging, and a heated argument had been the cause of their first kiss. Neither of them had been prepared for it, though, and an unspoken agreement had left the kiss unmentioned and supposedly forgotten. But she had never forgotten it; even now, years later, she could still remember the way he'd grabbed her shoulders and pressed his mouth tightly against hers and the way she seemed to melt into him and kissed him back in a way she'd never thought of kissing Viktor Krum. Sixth year had been almost too hard; the awkwardness and tension between them was sometimes so hard to bear that she would purposely avoid the boys just so that she wouldn't have to try and ignore the scary little shocks that seemed to shoot through her whenever Ron was around. She wanted him and he wanted her, but there was too much going on with Voldemort and it had just never been the right time. Just a month after their seventh year had begun, Harry had been taken into hiding, and any and all romantic ideas had seemed completely inappropriate.
They seemed a million times more inappropriate now.
But that didn't change the fact that they'd shared their second kiss on the night that their best friend had been murdered. Or the fact that they had run away together on the night of that best friend's funeral.
And now what was she supposed to do? GO back in there and sleep beside him? Was she supposed to pretend that she hadn't spent more nights than not in the past few years fantasizing about sharing a bed with him? How horrible could she possibly get?
Harry was dead.
Dead. As in buried somewhere six feet underground and never coming back. And all she could think about was the fact that Ron was in the next room wearing nothing but his underwear and that they only had one bed.
Could she be more of an awful person?
Deciding not to dwell on the subject any longer, she resolved to simply not think about it. She could be mature. She'd been denying these feelings for years now; she could certainly continue the little act. After all, what good would acting on these impulses do? They were both far too emotional and neither one of them was thinking clearly; there was no telling what all they might give into if they allowed anything to transpire.
After pulling a comb through her hair, brushing her teeth, and changing into her nightgown, she took a deep breath and went back into the main room. Ron was sitting on the bed sorting through his bag. He looked up when she entered and grinned rather cheekily at her.
"You could have changed out here, you know?" he said teasingly. "We're supposed to be married, aren't we? I think it's perfectly acceptable for us to see each other naked." At this he raised his eyebrows suggestively, and she felt a hot blush creep into her cheeks despite the fact that she knew he was joking.
"Oh, shut up."
Ron grinned again and shrugged. "Besides, it's not like I haven't seen you in your knickers before."
"What?!" she demanded, instantly checking his fact to see if he was serious.
But he simply nodded. "We never told you about that, did we?"
"We?!"
Ron laughed; she hadn't heard him laugh in awhile. "Yeah. Harry was there, too."
Hermione could feel her cheeks about to burn off and she didn't even know the story yet. "Was where, too?" she demanded sternly.
"In your dorm room. Fifth year." Hermione stared disbelievingly at him, so he went on, sniggering briefly at the memory. "Seamus said he would pay ten galleons if anyone could get a naked picture of Lavender for him. Of course, the invisibility cloak made it almost too simple of a task..."
Hermione could hardly believe her ears. She sent him a disgusted look. "I don't even want to hear the rest."
Ron, though, laughed even harder and went on anyway. "So, we borrowed Colin's camera and snuck up to the girls' dormitory, both thinking there was probably n o better way to make ten galleons. Of course, we didn't count on Lavender and Parvati already being asleep and you being the one changing for bed." A sly smile covered his lips, and Hemrione instantly went into a rage.
"So, you just stood there and watched me change clothes?!"
Ron studied her silently for a moment before cocking an eyebrow at her and saying, "Do you have any idea what goes on in a fifteen year old boy's mind? Of course we stood there and watched!" He snickered again, enjoying the humiliating look on her face and obviously wanting to embarrass her even further. "You can't even imagine how many nights that one image got me through."
Hermione didn't know whether to be outraged, disgusted, or strangely flattered. She definitely knew which of the three she was not about to let show. Somehow, though, this joking- no matter how crass- gave her a sense of security and normalness.
Shooting him a short glare, she rolled her eyes and said, "You're so disgusting."
But Ron just smirked. "It wasn't disgusting at the time. That was the closest we'd ever been to a naked woman; it was actually quite impressive."
"I can't believe... And Harry, too?!"
Ron shrugged. "Just because Harry wasn't madly obsessed with you like I was doesn't mean he wasn't a normal fifteen year old male. You have no clue how bad the hormones are at that age."
Well, girls had their own hormonal problems, too, but she didn't mention this to him. She was too caught up on the casual way he'd just admitted to being obsessed with her. It wasn't as if she didn't know, but he'd never been so blatant about it before.
Suddenly hit with a previous part of the conversation, she looked up at him wide-eyed. "Did you take pictures?!"
Ron laughed. "No, but I sure wished we did for a long time afterwards. But no, we were too shocked because, for one, we were expecting Lavender, not you and for two, we definitely weren't prepared for, well, you."
She raised her eyebrows in question, though not entirely sure she wanted the explanation.
He just looked at her for a moment before sighing softly. "Come on, Hermione. You know how loose the Hogwarts robes are; how were we supposed to know that you were hiding that," he motioned at her nightgown-clad body, "under that uniform?"
Hermione had never wished so hard for a dressing gown as she stood feeling extremely exposed and self-conscious.
"Don't be embarrassed," he told her, an infuriating smirk playing on his lips. "It was very nice." His eyes shot down and then back up her body. "It still is."
Blushing a deep crimson, she avoided his eyes and walked to the opposite side of the bed from him and climbed under the cover. She rolled over to face the wall and mumbled a, "Goodnight," in lieu of a response to his 'compliment.'
She felt the bed shift as Ron stood up, and she heard him remove the other pillow from the bed. "Are you going to need this?"
She rolled back in the direction of his voice and saw him holding the extra quilt that had been folded at the foot of the bed.
Instead of answering, she pushed herself into a half-sitting position, propped up with her elbows. "What are you doing?"
Ron looked at her oddly for a moment. "Making a place to sleep." He dropped the pillow onto the floor beside him.
"You're going to sleep on the floor?" She glanced over the side of the bed and then back at him.
Once again, Ron sent her a look that said he was questioning her sanity. Raising a single eyebrow at her, he said, "You don't honestly think I'm stupid enough to attempt sleeping in the same bed with you, do you?" He gave her a very pointed look and said, "Trust me, Hermione, that is not a good idea."
She didn't know what to say.
"Do you need this?" he asked again, holding up the blanket. She shook her head. Ron nodded, turned away, and then looked back at her a moment later. In a rather nervous voice, he said, "Um... Could you pull your gown up a little?" He motioned toward his neck.
Hermione glanced down and immediately saw what the problem was. Flushing furiously, she yanked the gown up and immediately rolled back over, burying her face into the pillow.
"See?" Ron said as if to prove his point. "Definitely not a good idea..."
She didn't say a word as she listened to Ron making a bed for himself. When she didn't hear him moving around anymore, she realized he must have settled in, and she realized that she didn't want him settling in on the floor. A moment later, the room went dark.
"Ron?" she asked timidly into the darkness that now surrounded them.
A delayed moment later, she heard him respond with a deep, "Yeah?"
Suddenly hit with a rather unfounded sense of apprehension, Hermione considered mumbling that she hadn't needed anything. Other feelings took over, though, and she quietly said, "Don't sleep on the floor."
There was another long moment of silence. Hermione didn't know how to interpret it. Finally, she got a reply.
"Hermione, I already told you, it's not a good..."
"Just please," she said firmly. Then, realizing that she must have sounded rather stupid, she tried to cover up her desperateness. "There's no telling what's crawling around on that floor."
Ron sighed softly, and she heard him get up a moment later. The pillow was replaced on the bed, and she felt it shift again as Ron's weight came down on it. Even though her face was toward the wall, she could sense that he was lying as far to the other side of the bed as possible.
Neither of them spoke for a long time until Ron finally broke the silence. "Are you awake?"
Hermione opened her eyes and peered through the darkness at the patterned wallpaper. "Yes," she said softly.
Another silence, and Hermione wondered if that was the extent of the question. Moments later, though, she felt the bed shift yet again. Ron had rolled over and was now lying right behind her. She could feel his breath hitting the space where her hair fanned out onto the pillow, and a rush of emotions shot through her.
In a strangely strained voice, Ron barely managed to whisper. "Would you care if..."
She shook her head slightly, cutting off his question.
And then she felt Ron's arm snake lightly over her waist, and she timidly raised a hand to clasp it into his.
Everything else seemed to matter just a bit less at that moment.
A quiet pair of, "Goodnights" was exchanged before they both relaxed into the situation.
And each of them slept for the first time since the day they'd left Hogwarts for what would be the final time.
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Comments are widely appreciated!
Disclaimer: Nothing here belongs to me.
***************************************
Late that night, Hermione found herself standing at the counter of an extremely cheap motel in downtown London. She and Ron had waited until his parents had gone to bed before sneaking into her own house via Floo Powder and packing up some of her clothes. Her parents were such heavy sleepers that they hadn't even noticed the visitors. From there, they'd taken the midnight train to London, and now, at half past two in the morning, they were waiting for someone to notice their presence.
"Should we ring this?" Ron asked, not waiting for an opinion before dinging the service bell.
A few moments later, a tired elderly woman appeared. She looked quite cross at having been disturbed, and she looked at the pair of teenagers suspiciously.
"Yes?" Her Cockney accent was evident from the first syllable.
Hermione was suddenly quite nervous. "Uh, we'd like a room... Please."
The old woman studied them with a hard gaze. "How old are you?"
Hermione froze. They wouldn't rent to them unless they were...
"Eighteen," Ron answered immediately. It was a lie, of course. He was two months shy of being eighteen, and Hermione's birthday was still eight months a way.
The lie seemed to satisfy the woman, though, because she shrugged and opened a large book in front of her. "Do you have a credit card?"
"No, ma'am," Hermione stuttered. "But we have cash. Is that okay?"
The desk worker shrugged again. "Whatever. Do you want a single or a double?"
Hermione glanced at the price list and saw the difference in the pricing. Knowing that they would need to stretch the little money that they had as far as it would go, Hermione looked blushingly at Ron before turning back to the desk and mumbling, "Single."
The old lady looked at them disapprovingly and in a rather condescending tone said, "Do you at least have luggage?"
Hermione felt her face flush on instant. But what was the woman supposed to think? They'd shown up at a low-budget motel in the middle of the night and were paying in cash.
Ron, surprisingly, did not turn red. Instead, he glared briefly at the woman. "Yes, as a matter of fact, we do," he said hatefully. "And you can wipe that look off of your face, too. We're married." He grabbed Hermione's hand as if to prove the point.
Hermione, who didn't know what else to do, tried very hard to not look too shocked by the story. In fact, she was actually rather impressed with Ron's ability to lie so straight-faced, though she wasn't quite sure that she should be.
The woman behind the counter studied them for another moment before pursing her lips and giving them a price. Hermione dug into her bag for the Muggle money they'd nicked from her mum's purse on their brief visit to her house earlier. They'd have to wait until tomorrow to cash into the savings account that rested in the bank with her name on it. And that would be all the money they'd have to live on until they could find jobs. The few galleons, sickles, and knuts they could pool between them would do them no good, as neither of them planned on stepping foot into Diagon Alley any time soon. Once she'd counted out the right amount of money, Hermione graciously took the key and prodded Ron in the direction of the room.
It was a horrid little room. The color scheme screamed the fact that it hadn't been redecorated since the mid-sixties, and the coverlet on the bed was tattered and faded. The stench in the air was a mixture of mold and the soured smell of vomit. Hermione didn't even want to think about the things that had gone in that room.
Ron, too, looked quite disgusted. "Talk about a shithold," he muttered ruefully as he tossed his bag onto the floor and glanced around. "Don't reckon we've got too much of a choice, though, do we?"
Hermione shook her head and timidly set her own bag down. "This is all we can afford."
Nodding absently, Ron started stripping. Without hesitation and with seemingly no regard for the girl across the room, he pulled his jumper over his head and started unbuckling the belt of his trousers.
Hermione, after staring at him in shock for several moments, finally managed to verbalize a question. "What are you doing?!"
Ron looked up and didn't even attempt to hide his amusement. He grinned for the first time in days as he finished with the belt and started undoing the button and zipper. "Getting ready for bed," he answered simply. "Don't forget where I grew up, Hermione. Nine people and one bathroom doesn't leave much room for modesty." He pushed the trousers down his legs and kicked them off, leaving himself clad in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.
Hermione immediately began to regret her decision. If she could barely stand to look at Ron in a pair of boxers, then how in the world was she expected to live with him? There was no way in hell she could share a bed with him.
"You should get ready for bed, too," Ron said, breaking her out of her brief reverie. "We've got to get up early."
Hermione nodded vaguely and grabbed her bag, heading for the loo before she could stare at him and make a fool of herself any longer. Once she shut herself into the tiny bathroom, Hermione chanced a glance in the mirror.
She looked horrible.
Her eyes were red and puffy from the crying she'd done over the past few days. The bags under them gave away the fact that she hadn't slept at all since the day she'd been informed of Harry's death. Her cheeks were still flushed from seeing Ron in his underwear. Her hair had never looked more unruly with her curls frizzing and tangling all over the place.
She looked as if she'd been through hell and back. The crazy thing was that she had been.
She was somehow scared that this was only the beginning.
For starters, she was spending the night in, as Ron had so eloquently put it, a "shithole" motel paid for with money she'd stolen from her mother. Her mother, whom she hadn't even bothered to inform that she was leaving- that she was running away.
That's what she was- a teenage runaway.
And she'd run away with the one person in the world she should never have considered. Ronald Weasley. Honestly, was her brain not working at all?
Ron was quite possibly the most irrational person she'd ever met. He never, ever thought before he acted. He was rude, crude, and deliberately crass. Sometimes she felt more as if he were seven than seventeen.
But she was kidding no one but herself if she tried to say that these were the only reasons she should definitely not have run away with Ron.
There was so much... stuff... between them that thinking clearly was quite impossible. They'd fought and bickered since the day they'd met on their first train ride to Hogwarts, but there'd always been so much more there than just their arguments. Hermione wasn't sure when it had started, but she clearly remembered the first time she'd realized it. She'd only been eleven, Ron just barely twelve. The moment Harry had informed her that Ron was going to sacrifice himself on the giant chess board at the end of their first year, a horrible feeling of dread had settled over her ands he had fully realized for the first time that Ron was a whole lot more than "Harry's other best friend," which was what she'd resolved to referring to him as in her mind up until that point.
And that was only the beginning.
Second year had brought about the endless defenses he reserved just for her. The word Mudblood always insulted him more than it did her, but she never tired of watching him stand up for her. Third year had brought their only real fight, but it had also been the first time she'd ever broken down sobbing in his arms. Fourth year had been the real start of it all, with the jealousy and emotions hidden as anger. Fifth year had been one of the worst. Hormones had been raging, and a heated argument had been the cause of their first kiss. Neither of them had been prepared for it, though, and an unspoken agreement had left the kiss unmentioned and supposedly forgotten. But she had never forgotten it; even now, years later, she could still remember the way he'd grabbed her shoulders and pressed his mouth tightly against hers and the way she seemed to melt into him and kissed him back in a way she'd never thought of kissing Viktor Krum. Sixth year had been almost too hard; the awkwardness and tension between them was sometimes so hard to bear that she would purposely avoid the boys just so that she wouldn't have to try and ignore the scary little shocks that seemed to shoot through her whenever Ron was around. She wanted him and he wanted her, but there was too much going on with Voldemort and it had just never been the right time. Just a month after their seventh year had begun, Harry had been taken into hiding, and any and all romantic ideas had seemed completely inappropriate.
They seemed a million times more inappropriate now.
But that didn't change the fact that they'd shared their second kiss on the night that their best friend had been murdered. Or the fact that they had run away together on the night of that best friend's funeral.
And now what was she supposed to do? GO back in there and sleep beside him? Was she supposed to pretend that she hadn't spent more nights than not in the past few years fantasizing about sharing a bed with him? How horrible could she possibly get?
Harry was dead.
Dead. As in buried somewhere six feet underground and never coming back. And all she could think about was the fact that Ron was in the next room wearing nothing but his underwear and that they only had one bed.
Could she be more of an awful person?
Deciding not to dwell on the subject any longer, she resolved to simply not think about it. She could be mature. She'd been denying these feelings for years now; she could certainly continue the little act. After all, what good would acting on these impulses do? They were both far too emotional and neither one of them was thinking clearly; there was no telling what all they might give into if they allowed anything to transpire.
After pulling a comb through her hair, brushing her teeth, and changing into her nightgown, she took a deep breath and went back into the main room. Ron was sitting on the bed sorting through his bag. He looked up when she entered and grinned rather cheekily at her.
"You could have changed out here, you know?" he said teasingly. "We're supposed to be married, aren't we? I think it's perfectly acceptable for us to see each other naked." At this he raised his eyebrows suggestively, and she felt a hot blush creep into her cheeks despite the fact that she knew he was joking.
"Oh, shut up."
Ron grinned again and shrugged. "Besides, it's not like I haven't seen you in your knickers before."
"What?!" she demanded, instantly checking his fact to see if he was serious.
But he simply nodded. "We never told you about that, did we?"
"We?!"
Ron laughed; she hadn't heard him laugh in awhile. "Yeah. Harry was there, too."
Hermione could feel her cheeks about to burn off and she didn't even know the story yet. "Was where, too?" she demanded sternly.
"In your dorm room. Fifth year." Hermione stared disbelievingly at him, so he went on, sniggering briefly at the memory. "Seamus said he would pay ten galleons if anyone could get a naked picture of Lavender for him. Of course, the invisibility cloak made it almost too simple of a task..."
Hermione could hardly believe her ears. She sent him a disgusted look. "I don't even want to hear the rest."
Ron, though, laughed even harder and went on anyway. "So, we borrowed Colin's camera and snuck up to the girls' dormitory, both thinking there was probably n o better way to make ten galleons. Of course, we didn't count on Lavender and Parvati already being asleep and you being the one changing for bed." A sly smile covered his lips, and Hemrione instantly went into a rage.
"So, you just stood there and watched me change clothes?!"
Ron studied her silently for a moment before cocking an eyebrow at her and saying, "Do you have any idea what goes on in a fifteen year old boy's mind? Of course we stood there and watched!" He snickered again, enjoying the humiliating look on her face and obviously wanting to embarrass her even further. "You can't even imagine how many nights that one image got me through."
Hermione didn't know whether to be outraged, disgusted, or strangely flattered. She definitely knew which of the three she was not about to let show. Somehow, though, this joking- no matter how crass- gave her a sense of security and normalness.
Shooting him a short glare, she rolled her eyes and said, "You're so disgusting."
But Ron just smirked. "It wasn't disgusting at the time. That was the closest we'd ever been to a naked woman; it was actually quite impressive."
"I can't believe... And Harry, too?!"
Ron shrugged. "Just because Harry wasn't madly obsessed with you like I was doesn't mean he wasn't a normal fifteen year old male. You have no clue how bad the hormones are at that age."
Well, girls had their own hormonal problems, too, but she didn't mention this to him. She was too caught up on the casual way he'd just admitted to being obsessed with her. It wasn't as if she didn't know, but he'd never been so blatant about it before.
Suddenly hit with a previous part of the conversation, she looked up at him wide-eyed. "Did you take pictures?!"
Ron laughed. "No, but I sure wished we did for a long time afterwards. But no, we were too shocked because, for one, we were expecting Lavender, not you and for two, we definitely weren't prepared for, well, you."
She raised her eyebrows in question, though not entirely sure she wanted the explanation.
He just looked at her for a moment before sighing softly. "Come on, Hermione. You know how loose the Hogwarts robes are; how were we supposed to know that you were hiding that," he motioned at her nightgown-clad body, "under that uniform?"
Hermione had never wished so hard for a dressing gown as she stood feeling extremely exposed and self-conscious.
"Don't be embarrassed," he told her, an infuriating smirk playing on his lips. "It was very nice." His eyes shot down and then back up her body. "It still is."
Blushing a deep crimson, she avoided his eyes and walked to the opposite side of the bed from him and climbed under the cover. She rolled over to face the wall and mumbled a, "Goodnight," in lieu of a response to his 'compliment.'
She felt the bed shift as Ron stood up, and she heard him remove the other pillow from the bed. "Are you going to need this?"
She rolled back in the direction of his voice and saw him holding the extra quilt that had been folded at the foot of the bed.
Instead of answering, she pushed herself into a half-sitting position, propped up with her elbows. "What are you doing?"
Ron looked at her oddly for a moment. "Making a place to sleep." He dropped the pillow onto the floor beside him.
"You're going to sleep on the floor?" She glanced over the side of the bed and then back at him.
Once again, Ron sent her a look that said he was questioning her sanity. Raising a single eyebrow at her, he said, "You don't honestly think I'm stupid enough to attempt sleeping in the same bed with you, do you?" He gave her a very pointed look and said, "Trust me, Hermione, that is not a good idea."
She didn't know what to say.
"Do you need this?" he asked again, holding up the blanket. She shook her head. Ron nodded, turned away, and then looked back at her a moment later. In a rather nervous voice, he said, "Um... Could you pull your gown up a little?" He motioned toward his neck.
Hermione glanced down and immediately saw what the problem was. Flushing furiously, she yanked the gown up and immediately rolled back over, burying her face into the pillow.
"See?" Ron said as if to prove his point. "Definitely not a good idea..."
She didn't say a word as she listened to Ron making a bed for himself. When she didn't hear him moving around anymore, she realized he must have settled in, and she realized that she didn't want him settling in on the floor. A moment later, the room went dark.
"Ron?" she asked timidly into the darkness that now surrounded them.
A delayed moment later, she heard him respond with a deep, "Yeah?"
Suddenly hit with a rather unfounded sense of apprehension, Hermione considered mumbling that she hadn't needed anything. Other feelings took over, though, and she quietly said, "Don't sleep on the floor."
There was another long moment of silence. Hermione didn't know how to interpret it. Finally, she got a reply.
"Hermione, I already told you, it's not a good..."
"Just please," she said firmly. Then, realizing that she must have sounded rather stupid, she tried to cover up her desperateness. "There's no telling what's crawling around on that floor."
Ron sighed softly, and she heard him get up a moment later. The pillow was replaced on the bed, and she felt it shift again as Ron's weight came down on it. Even though her face was toward the wall, she could sense that he was lying as far to the other side of the bed as possible.
Neither of them spoke for a long time until Ron finally broke the silence. "Are you awake?"
Hermione opened her eyes and peered through the darkness at the patterned wallpaper. "Yes," she said softly.
Another silence, and Hermione wondered if that was the extent of the question. Moments later, though, she felt the bed shift yet again. Ron had rolled over and was now lying right behind her. She could feel his breath hitting the space where her hair fanned out onto the pillow, and a rush of emotions shot through her.
In a strangely strained voice, Ron barely managed to whisper. "Would you care if..."
She shook her head slightly, cutting off his question.
And then she felt Ron's arm snake lightly over her waist, and she timidly raised a hand to clasp it into his.
Everything else seemed to matter just a bit less at that moment.
A quiet pair of, "Goodnights" was exchanged before they both relaxed into the situation.
And each of them slept for the first time since the day they'd left Hogwarts for what would be the final time.
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