Marshmallows Roasting on an Open Fire
by Steve, for Vanessa
"It's not hard, you know," Hermione commented offhandedly to Ron as the flustered fifteen year old attempted to start a program on the washing machine at her home. He had started with the buttons, and was now fiddling with the various dials, but so far had had no success in making the machine come to life.
"You do use your wand, don't you?" he asked her, in a moment of what he thought was realisation.
She moved over and twisted the largest dial around about a hundred and forty degrees to the right. A loud clunk ensued as the machine came to life, and Ron stepped back a little way in shock.
"No wand required," she commented brashly, and Ron watched in awe as the clothes began to spin in the tub. To say that he was fascinated by this was a mild understatement; although his father often brought home gadgets of various descriptions, a washing machine of the Muggle style was yet to be added to the list.
He was spending his time this summer with Hermione, as so many fans of theirs had desired in the past. The R/Hr shipper community was growing every day and now that they were fifteen years old, Hermione almost sixteen, five stories about their lives had become public and although the focus was on their friend Harry Potter, many people had gravitated towards the pair becoming a couple romantically.
She trotted off toward an equally-sized machine that Ron had recently learned was called a tumble dryer, and inputted information into its electronic interface, something even more alien to a wizarding family. The device kick-started into life in much the same way as the washing machine, albeit with a little more finesse. Hermione rubbed her hands together with the hope of losing any excess powder that had clung to her hands, and then headed toward the door, Ron still watching the spinning tub incredulously.
"Are you coming?" she said after a moment, smiling as he turned to face her.
"Oh… yeah," he stood up quickly and followed Hermione out of the room, back into her kitchen and then into the living room. All of the rooms were fairly large, and outfitted nicely, with various woods used to cover the walls and a warm, glowing fire in the centre wall of the living room.
Ron stared at the girl for a moment; as in many such moments in the past week, he had double-taken at the sight of Hermione wearing the clothes she really wanted to wear, rather than prescribed school robes, and how here, in private, she allowed her hair to flow in just whatever manner she felt. She clearly didn't feel uncomfortable with her friend, something that pleased him greatly. He tired of their constant fights. They fought in public to avoid giving the shipper community anything concrete, although the fights only served to increase the rumour and speculation. Besides, Hermione gave such a convincing performance that sometimes he thought that she really did hate him.
But since she had brought him into her home, they had been able to truly open up to each other without the fear of anyone hearing them. Although her parents were, naturally, present in the house too, they mostly left Hermione to do as she would, since they both worked as dentists, and they were also used to Hermione's studious nature, which often led her to work in private. The result of both of these influences was that Ron and Hermione were finally alone to build their friendship without interruption.
Surprisingly to Ron, also, she had not insisted that they do any academic work, instead deciding on taking Ron to visit various Muggle attractions. Zoos, museums, the seaside, monuments, and parks had all been on the agenda, and he had found himself enjoying them in her company. There was even a building in Oxford that contained a room that looked very similar to the Infirmary at Hogwarts, although naturally there were no moving paintings or members of the magical community frequenting its walls. At least, none that they could see.
But this evening, it was time to stop and rest, and Hermione had suggested they endulge in a traditional Muggle past-time: roasting marshmallows on an open fire. Since neither one of them liked chestnuts, the marshmallows were a welcome substitution.
She pulled a couple of soft, claret pillows down from the nearest sofa, and placed them in front of the fire. She then knelt down on the rightmost one, and Ron moved to join her as he caught a glimpse of her warm smile again.
She took the bag of marshmallows from the fireplace, and began to claw at the top, attempting to rip open the plastic along the dotted line marked 'Tear Here' but, as was always the way with such perforations, she couldn't break the seals. Eventually, she began to use her nails, but since Hermione's weren't particularly long, no success was afforded her in attacking the bag this way, either.
She turned her head to Ron briefly as she struggled and smiled, before turning back to the bag as her cheeks began to redden a little. She glared at the bag; it was putting a decidedly bitter tone in her mind and to her evening, before she found a pair of soft, but strong, hands covering her own, and gently breaking hers free from the bag.
Ron took the bag from her gently, and pulled sharply at the spine of the bag of marshmallows, causing a sizeable crack to form in the plastic, which he then widened to allow full access to the pink, soft confection inside.
She raised her head, her visage still slightly reddened, and couldn't help smiling as he flashed one of his own back at her pretty face. Although she wasn't yet physically developed into a full-size woman, Ron regarded her as one. She had abilities and capacities that were far beyond her years, and intelligence that he couldn't believe in one so young. And she was beautiful. Her face glowed in the golden light of the fire, and her hair shone too, the lighter brown streaks she wore in it radiating particularly tonight as the flames transposed their tones onto them.
He offered the back bag to her, looking straight into her eyes, his warm smile still working its magic on her. She took it back momentarily, flinching slightly as their hands made the slightest of contact, and then broke apart again as she brought the bag closer to her. The blush all but gone, she took a marshmallow from the bag, and took the skewershe was to use to roast it, skewing the small pink aliment.
As she did so, he took the opportunity to move a little closer to her; her concentration fixed on the task at hand; she didn't notice until she moved to hold the marshmallow in the flickering heat in front of her, when she found a long arm around her, holding the marshmallow skewer from the opposite side, supporting her own arm. She turned her head sharply to the left, and found Ron's face staring back her from merely two inches.
Her look of shock dissapeared when Ron's smile changed to an expression of dissapointment. She looked at him questioningly, and after a moment of hesitation, he nodded slightly, the presence of his arm saying the rest to Hermione. Her eyelids batted about momentarily, before a harsh sound from the fire drew her attention back to the golden flames, Ron's hand still affixed to hers.
"D-don't worry, Hermione," he lingered on the pronunication of her name, "I won't let it burn."
She turned back to him, a strand of her hair falling from its home behind her right ear and swinging in front of her eye, the curls dancing about a little. Ron smiled; he found it adorable, and he slowly raised a finger to her face, pushing the strand back, and wrapping it around her ear gently.
Realising that in so doing he had moved closer to her he backed off a little, this time flushing crimson himself, but Hermione closed the distance he created.
"P-" she gulped, "perhaps… I want you to let it burn." She blushed as furiously as he was now doing, both at what she had just admitted, and at the somewhat clichéd nature of her comment, but since it elicited the smile from him that she had been hoping for, she didn't care how cheesy the comment might have been.
They rested as they were for another twenty seconds, and Hermione lowered her head slightly, before Ron used his free hand to gently raise her chin, and finally, he brought her delicate face closer to his own. She didn't flinch this time, contented to allow him to guide her gently.
Their heads bumped together as the great oak door that separated their home from the unusually bitter weather outside slammed heavily and made them both jump. And both Ron and Hermione inwardly sighed.
Their heads parted, and Ron's arm came back from around Hermione to his side.
"Home is the hunter!" they heard Hermione's father call out to her mother as he took off his jacket, and then booted footsteps as he approached the living room.
His kind and smiling face popped around the door, and looking at Hermione, he said, "Don't let that marshmallow burn, dear."
The marshmallow had already been blackened and reduced.
He then retreated back out and headed into the kitchen. He kissed his wife, and couldn't help himself from smiling continuously.
"What is it?" she asked him, drying a cooking pot with a tea-towel vigourously.
"Pop your head around the living room door when you have a moment." He turned away to fill the kettle with water.
Hermione's mother placed the pot down carefully, and, under the guise of going to the bathroom, she told herself, she passed the open living room door, and glanced in.
Ron and Hermione's hands were intertwined behind them as she held a new marshmallow in the flames.