Title: Someone Else
Author: luckdragon
Rating: oh… PG, most likely
Summary: All Hermione wants to do is study. (A little fluff. A little snog. A little mystery.)
Disclaimer: I don't own them. If you do, it's not worth suing anyone over – trust me, the lawyer's fees will be far more than you'll get in return.
Author's Note: Hi all! This is the first piece of HP fanfic I've ever written (although I currently have more in production), which I affectionately call my "practice piece" because it's nothing deep, nothing earth-shattering, nothing lengthy, just a little something I threw together. I'll warn everyone now – I wrote it in somewhat of a mystery style, so I'm not going to announce the ship right off the bat. If you're afraid that this might not turn out to be your cup of tea, please turn back now. And don't flame me in the long run, because I'm warning you now. (For those of you who know exactly how this will turn out because I've directed you here from elsewhere… hope you enjoy this anyway!) With that said, I'll end this insanely long author's note and move along to the Prologue…
She is surprised to discover what Someone Else's Lips feel like.
Particularly in connection with her own, that is.
She doesn't know what she was expecting. Well, certainly, she wasn't expecting this… now… or ever, really. Or had she? Of course she's wondered about it, in general terms at the very least. Been curious. Wanted to learn.
Usually, she learns with a certain solid academic enthusiasm. Although she has broken many others, she follows the rules of this particular game, switching gears in rapid-fire order until she is devouring knowledge like so many chocolate frogs. She starts the search broad, ends it narrow – from thumbing through indexes to gleaning every bit of information from a few sentences. How she ended up here, researching an entirely different lesson, was completely antithetical. Her brain and body had screamed as she swung unevenly from indignation to anger, to shock, and finally to this blissful confusion (with a quick U-turn and pit stop somewhere near desire). She was torn from certainty (extremely focused on being disgruntled) into a nebula (swirled confusion and pleasure).
Someone Else's Lips are much warmer than she would have expected. They are more mobile, variable. You couldn't chart or plot them if you tried. There is nothing analytical about this.
She has the most curious sensation of becoming completely unmoored, as the kissing progresses past what she foolishly assumed would be its logical conclusion. (Maybe she doesn't know as much as she thinks she does?) Perhaps it would be different, she thinks fleetingly, if he were at least holding onto me.
Instead, he is leaning over her desk, over her chair. She is halfway out of the latter, her knees beginning to ache and give. This means that they are touching in no place other than the obvious. His lean hands are braced firmly on the sides of her desk, and hers are clutched along the edge nearest her body. She wants to move, because this position is awkward and excruciating, but this moment (or has it been several moments now?) is far too tenuous.
But this is coward's talk, and she knows it. Her reflexive, vulnerable, instinctual reaction is embarrassing her down to her last proud nerve – but, she must admit, this is without a doubt one of the most exhilarating moments of her life thus far, and she doesn't know anything other than this somewhat clumsy course of action.
She does. She could stop him. Slap him. Run off. Storm off, more like it. Or, she could, as she is doing now, muster all her courage and place a hand behind his neck. She feels dizzy, and she needs something to hang onto that allows her to either flex or straighten her painful knees. She might also, if she is willing to admit it, be delightfully drowning and actually want to touch him.
This proves to be the right strategy.
He must know full well by now what he is doing.
But he doesn't stop, and instead, with movements she can't begin to comprehend because she feels so addled, he sweeps both himself and her around the edge of the desk. Her chair tumbles to the ground. His arms lock around her. She realizes that she can feel his hipbones, the insides of his elbows, so many parts of him.
So now she also knows what Someone Else's Arms feel like clutching at her back, as well as… oh Merlin… Someone Else's Tongue.
How on earth… how on earth did she get here?