AN: This one is a tiny bit spicy. Like tabasco spicy. But it's the first of many :D
Hope you enjoy!
Harry:
"Apparently it's some sort of…multi-layered magical test."
Hermione stared at him a moment, while Ron just frowned at him.
"What does that mean, exactly," she eventually asked.
"Haven't a clue. Daphne said she didn't know."
Without a word, Hermione pushed herself off the bed and began to rummage around in her closet. Which she had clearly expanded to fit an entire library of books.
Because of course she had.
"I don't remember there being a task quite like that," she said, her voice muffled as she stuck her head into the closet.
After a couple of thuds and some quiet swearing, she pulled a massive bookmarked tome out and rejoined Ron on the bed.
"I'll look through again but I think-"
"How do we know she's telling the truth?"
Hermione stopped mid-page flip and looked up at Ron in surprise.
"I've been friendly with Daphne for years. She wouldn't lie about this," she said, matching Ron's frown with one of her own.
Ron's face had begun the evening pinched and stressed, but still mostly relaxed. Now, his lips were drawn into a line and Harry watched as the muscles of his jaw flexed.
Ron could be as stubborn as an iron wall when he put his mind to it, and that mulish temper flared as Hermione — in her specific, Hermione way — ran headlong into it.
"I'm sure she just wanted to help," she said, looking back down at the book. "She's always-"
"I don't care!"
Ron's near-shout left Hermione sitting back and blinking in surprise.
"How in the hell am I supposed to win this thing if the two of you don't give me the chance to do anything?"
"Hey now," he snapped, earning himself a glare from Ron and a glance of brow-knitted concern from Hermione, "I was just trying to help. You're an idiot if you think the other champions aren't using every angle they can get to their advantage."
"So what?" Ron shot back. "I'm supposed to sit on my arse and let the tournament be handled for me because that's what they're doing? You want to do the task for me too?"
"Ron-" Hermione reached a hand out but hesitated when his attention snapped back to her.
"Testing my spellwork, quizzing me on magical creature theory, making me read loads of news articles about old tournaments," he said, listing each one off on an angry finger. "What am I supposed to do, just show up on the day and do what you tell me?"
The shock slid off Hermione's face ahead of a slow wave of her own anger. "I'm sorry if your total lack of concern for the upcoming tasks made me worry!"
She dropped the massive book onto the bed between them where it bounced and fell open to one of the hundreds of bookmarked pages.
"Just because I'm not freaking out every minute of every day like you doesn't mean I'm not trying!"
"You're trying?! Trying to what? To spend every waking hour flirting and distracting me instead of helping me figure out how to keep you safe?"
The don't-think-about-it wall groaned under the pressure.
"Sorry for trying to finally enjoy time with my girlfriend."
"You can enjoy yourself when you've finally figured out-"
"I have!"
Ron's shout silenced the cabins around them and Harry slipped his wand from his pocket and muffled the walls of the room to keep any more outbursts contained.
Hermione's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'you have?'"
"I knew it was a dumb test before Harry went and found out from his new girlfriend."
"She's not my-"
"Shut up, Harry."
He'd heard that tone from Hermione often enough over the years to know it was better to just sit back. Ideally he'd have made a discreet exit, but that wasn't quite as easy in a tiny room.
"How did you know it was a test?" she asked, her ire fading a little.
"Bribed the Durmstrang champion."
"With what?"
"With money. Obviously."
Hermione's mouth clamped shut and she frowned down at the book between them.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
More than the uncomfortable touch upon the physical aspect of their relationship, the sudden shift in the air between them propelled Harry from the room, awkwardness be damned.
"I've got to go," he muttered, barely earning himself a nod from his friends.
Just as well. Midnight wasn't too far away.
He glanced at the clock on Hermione's desk as he left.
Apparently midnight was just a few minutes away.
With a wave of his wand, he disillusioned himself and hurried down the Gryffindor hallway towards the door.
Fortunately, Slughorn was on watch duty. If the charm failed, Harry doubted the slimy man would say two words before pretending he hadn't seen a thing. Even so, he waited until Slughorn was almost at the end of the Hufflepuff hall to push open the door and slip out into the night.
Fortunately, the path was short and empty and the few minutes was plenty of time to jog around the side of the school and through an archway that opened directly into the fountain courtyard.
He found her leaning against the edge of the fountain, her head tilted back to look at the stars.
Some stupid impulse in his head wanted to capture the moment; made him wish he were an artist, or a poet, or someone equally more expressive than he.
What had half a lifetime of danger equipped him with? Maybe she'd be like all the other simple girls who were impressed by the light and grace of his patronus.
He hoped not.
She was in the middle of standing up from where she had been sitting on the edge of the fountain when he dropped the charm.
In response, she jumped and stifled a noise of surprise, then glared at him.
"You're late."
"Barely."
She glanced up to where the moon shone through the open-roofed top of the courtyard and shrugged.
"Barely late is still late. I don't like having my time wasted."
"Noted," he said, talking a few steps closer; close enough to see her shimmering mirror-like lipstick that caught the moonlight.
Her shoulders relaxed and she nodded, not moving until he was just a step away.
She hadn't just changed her lipstick. Her shirt was a pale blue that looked far softer than the crisp white she had been wearing at dinner. It too was unbuttoned at the top and offered a view that made him stiffen his neck in an attempt to avoid obvious staring.
She wore the same dark skirt as before, but now with leggings similar to those she'd worn when he'd last been staring at her next to this fountain.
Talking too, but mostly staring.
When the low breeze pushed its way down into the courtyard, he caught another breath of her perfume.
Which flower was it?
Maybe it was a bunch of them mixed together?
Maybe…he should have dressed up a little more. More than his simple jeans and white t-shirt, anyway.
Before the year-long hunt, he'd not exactly cared about outfits or fashion, certainly not like Dean did. The man had at least twenty different shirts.
After…well, so long as it was clean, he was happy.
"I know I'm the one who asked you to meet me, but a little effort would be appreciated."
Her voice pulled him back to the present, even as it tried to steal his imagination. All the spark and spar was still there, ready to rise if necessary, but it was soft too.
He focused on her eyes; close enough to see the flecks of darker color in her irises.
"Done staring?"
"You're the one who wore shiny lipstick, you tell me."
"I happen to like nice lipsticks," she said, a small smile lifting her silvery lips before she took a step back and returned to her seat on the fountain's edge and motioned for him to join her.
"I've noticed."
She leaned back, propping herself up by putting her hands on the edge of the ornate lip, her fingers dipping into the water. She glanced over at him, then up to the stars.
"You're candid tonight."
He mimicked her position. "Straightforward, remember?"
"When you want to be, it seems."
When she didn't say anything further, he dug into his memory for something to talk about. She hadn't said what…this…was, but something inside him was compelled to know more.
Something besides the parts of him that were compelled by the way her skirt fell around her crossed legs and the way the position of her shoulders pulled her shirt open a little further.
Of the many background facts of his life — Hogwarts was most often a little too cold, asking Hermione about what she was reading was a half-hour commitment minimum, Dumbledore had been a bit strange just like Professor McGonagall was a bit strict — he'd known that Daphne had been pretty. She always had been since he'd been old enough to think the word 'pretty' could be used by boys, and that it was almost always used to describe girls.
Cho had been cute. Ginny too.
But now Daphne was…his mind couldn't produce a proper word through the storm she blew through his thoughts.
It could produce plenty of improper words.
"Why'd you come?" she asked, not breaking her staring contest with the stars.
He followed her gaze, trying to pick out Canis Major as he thought.
"Why'd you ask me?"
She shifted next to him, lowering her gaze to look at him.
"That's not an answer," she said. "But it's like I said. I'm curious."
Spotting his constellation, he turned his attention back to her. "There's a lot to be curious about. What specifically caught your attention?"
Her silver lips turned up in a smile that grew larger when she saw his gaze flick down to look.
"Mostly your humility, if I had to pick something."
"My life is super weird," he said, shrugging. "It's less of a brag and more of an unfortunate fact."
She shifted, drawing herself a fraction closer to him; a small enough fraction that he couldn't decide whether it was on purpose or not.
"You're just…not at all what I expected," she muttered, the tease absent from her voice. Her brow furrowed and she searched his eyes as if they could provide the answer.
"So you've said," he said with a grin that made her frown even more. "What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Maybe a bit more of the awkward boy I've seen wandering the halls for years. Probably at least some of the infuriating stubbornness that drives Hermione so high up the wall."
"She's one to talk."
That earned him a soft laugh. "Very true."
As the burbling of the fountain filled the silence that grew between them, he dug for something more to say.
"She said you're better than her at Astronomy. That's quite a feat."
Her head whipped around with enough force to send her hair whirling over her shoulder.
"No she didn't."
"I promise she did. Something about…tempus…temporal…"
"Temporal displacement?"
"That's the one."
She shook her head while an expression of shock wandered its way across her beautiful features.
"I can't believe she admitted it," she murmured. "I'm never going to let her live this down."
"My blood is on your hands."
She grinned at him, then shook her head. "You would not believe the amount I've heard about you and 'Ronald.'"
"All good, I'm sure."
"Did you really break up with Cho because she cried too much?"
Harry sucked in a breath through his teeth. "She even mentioned that, did she?"
"Just a rumor," Daphne said, reaching up to pat his shoulder with a hand that was entirely too warm. "Thanks for confirming it though."
"We're all sort of dumb when we're younger."
She hummed a quiet agreement. "Young crushes can be strangely complicated."
"That's true."
She turned and looked at him for a long moment before shrugging her shoulders.
"Actually, I-" she stopped and sat bolt upright, staring down one of the dark paths into the school. After a moment, the sound of footsteps and quiet conversation floated out into the courtyard, growing louder by the moment.
She rose and grabbed his wrist in one fluid motion, dragging him down the arched path that led back outside the school.
A distinct Scottish voice drifted around the corner just in time for Daphne to yank him into a narrow alcove behind one of the large pillars holding up the arched path.
"I believe you, Horace, but it would be helpful if we knew who left, or how many left, or anything at all beyond the fact that you heard the door close when you weren't looking."
Experience said the Headmistress was both tired, and very near the end of her sizable fuse. If they were caught out…well, leveraging the defeat of a dark wizard only got him so far.
Daphne's grip on his wrist tightened as the footsteps became audible; tapping on the cobbled path as they neared the archway. Harry used his free hand to grab his wand from his pocket, but stopped and frowned at Daphne as she furiously shook her head.
'Disillusion,' he mouthed.
'Too loud.'
'I can-'
The silent words froze on his lips as a bulky form rounded the corner and almost ran into Daphne, who stared silently up at Slughorn, her silvery lips drawn into a thin line.
His beady eyes shifted with all the speed and purpose of a lethargic worm from Daphne, over to Harry.
Slow, anxious gears turned behind the potion-master's wide eyes.
"Horace?"
"Mm? So sorry, Minerva. I thought I'd heard something," he said, turning away. "Perhaps we should go back and see if Filius has seen anyone trying to sneak back in."
"I'll go back and check," McGonagall said, her voice getting fainter after each word. "Keep looking, but not for too much longer."
Slughorn chuckled a fragile chuckle. "It's always possible I made a mistake. These old ears of mine aren't what they used to be."
"Perhaps, but we should check regardless."
"Of course, of course."
The voices had been gone for almost a full minute before Daphne finally shifted, her shoulder brushing his chest as she turned in the cramped alcove.
"What in the hell was that?" she whispered.
Harry packaged away the burning hatred and the memories that were chained to it.
"It's a very long story."
Her perfect brows drew together and she pursed silvery lips that were now muted in the shadow of the alcove.
"Noted," she finally murmured, then blew out a long, shaky breath that tickled the skin of his neck.
Even in the near darkness her eyes were bright and focused exclusively on him, despite their discovery. Her attention washed across his skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake and slowly dousing the fire of his anger.
She said nothing while she examined his face, his lips, then chest as she placed a hand on the same spot she had after their 'tour.'
"So different," she whispered.
Her hand slid to the side and over the ridge of a muscle that he had been happy to note hadn't faded since they had stopped needing to crawl through mud and climb up cliffs in an effort to escape the snatchers.
A year on the run had done a number on his body.
At least it was a good number.
Her hand stopped on the ridge of his collar bone and she bit her lip, her eyes darting up to meet his gaze.
He took a fraction of a step forward, and in the tiny space, it was enough to push her hand up to his shoulder and press her chest lightly into his. The pads of her fingers pressed into his skin as she skimmed along the back of his neck.
Unable — or unwilling — to break the tether between them, he lifted his hand. And without space between them to brush at her cheek or slide it around her waist, he pressed his palm into the pillar behind her, soaking in the way her eyes darkened then fluttered closed in the moment before he leaned himself forward.
He expected a battle; some sort of back and forth.
But she melted into him in a wave that flooded across his senses. Her fingers curled tight around the back of his neck when he nipped at her bottom lip, and her chest pressed against him as the heat of her soaked into his skin.
She was so soft. The scent of her perfume filled the air.
Her tongue brushed his lip and he answered, pulling a moan-filled breath from her throat.
Inside him, deep beyond her flowery scent and the overwhelming touch of her lips, beyond the aching press of her chest against him and beyond the sparks flaring between them, something came alight.
It crashed through him with a wave of desire that pulsed all the way down to his fingertips and pushed desperate fire into their kiss. He moved his free hand to her waist and pulled her bottom lip through his teeth.
The shudder beneath his hands was like oxygen.
Her hand against his neck pulled him harder against her mouth and her other snaked its way beneath his shirt to the muscles beneath.
He felt her freeze when her fingers brushed across his abdomen, sending heated tingles down below his waist.
Her hand went flat against his stomach and she pushed him backwards, moving with him as his back hit against the stone behind him.
She broke the kiss then, sucking in a breath and tilted her head to expose the flushed skin of her neck. He trailed needy kisses and soft bites down her jawline and to the sensitive skin of her neck until he reached down to her collarbone and her fingers squeezed tight against his neck and stomach.
The band of her skirt hid the hem of her top and he slid his hand across the plane of her stomach, drinking in the feel of it trembling beneath his touch. He snaked two fingers through the opening between buttons and popped open on with a quick press of his thumb.
Her gasp filled the alcove when he pulled the skin of her neck into his mouth while he slid his hand into her shirt to the smooth skin of her stomach.
"Harry."
If the feel of her was oxygen, his name spoken on shaky breath was gasoline. He curled his hand around her waist, the bump of her ribs and edge of her bra brushing against his thumb.
"Harry!"
Rather than a breathy moan, it was a hiss, and she pulled her hand from his shirt and pushed him back, forcing him to step back and away from the addictive electricity she radiated beneath his touch.
"More people are coming," she whispered, fingers flying to her middle and redoing the button he had so expertly flicked open.
He watched for a moment, savoring the glimpse of pale skin he caught of her stomach.
Tugging the top of her shirt straight with one hand, she flicked him in the chest with the other.
"Wake up. We have to go."
Nodding, he pulled his wand from his pocket, grabbed her hand with his free one, then cast the disillusionment charm over them both and muffled their feet.
They slid out of the alcove on silent footsteps just in time for a pair of Beauxbatons teachers to walk into the courtyard. With little more than a whisper, they passed out the archway and hurried towards the big mechanical phoenix.
"How are we going to get in?" she whispered.
"Did you not have a plan when you asked me out tonight?"
"I didn't expect you to get caught leaving."
He slowed as they rounded the back, and found Slughorn sitting next to the door in a large, cushioned armchair, fast asleep.
"What…" Daphne began, but stopped when he squeezed her hand and pulled her towards the door.
The door closed behind them with a faint click. Once he was sure there wasn't a professor waiting inside to catch them, he let the disillusionment charm fade, exposing Daphne and herher smudged silvery lipstick and the faint trail of red marks down her neck.
Disheveled or not, pure curiosity burned behind her eyes.
He grinned. "See you tomorrow night?"
A smile that conjured images of far more than gentle caresses on smooth skin settled on her lips.
"If you want to wait that long, that's fine with me."
Before he could answer, she turned and walked down the Slytherin hall with a sway of her hips that could only be intentional and designed to keep him up dreaming about it.
Which it did.
His fingers buzzed with the phantom feel of her skin beneath them as he stripped down and got into bed. Hhis mind took great pleasure in reminding him that she had been pressed against his now bare chest less than an hour before.
That once-quiet thing inside him bloomed, wondering how, exactly, her skin would feel against his.
The knock on his door jerking him awake was the only indicator that he'd gotten any sleep at all. Groggy thoughts muddled their way through his head as he rolled over, hoping the noise had been a dream.
"Harry, get up! You're going to miss breakfast." Hermione's voice accompanied yet another irritating knock.
With a long groan, he rolled out of bed and pulled some clothes from his closet, kicking the ones on the floor from the night before into the corner. He grabbed his wand and glasses from the desk and yanked open the door to reveal Hermione, her hand held up in the air for another knock.
She let it fall, grimacing.
"You look terrible," she said, then frowned. "What's on your face? You look like you've been kissing your mirror."
He spun, leaning over to look at the small mirror each cabin had above its desk.
Hermione's description was, unfortunately, apt. The silvery lipstick he'd forgotten to wipe off covered his lips. Not even close to the shimmering reflectiveness Daphne had, but very, very noticeable.
Trying to ignore the way Hermione craned her neck from the doorway to look, he cleaned his face with a quick wave of his wand.
"And that was…" she asked as he followed her from his cabin and into the wave of students heading to breakfast.
"Where's Ron?"
The playful light faded from her eyes and she stared at the ground. "He was already gone when I got up. He's pretty angry."
"Because we wanted to help?"
"Because we were coddling him."
"Finding out what the task was is coddling him?"
Hermione shrugged, stopping when they reached the line to get through the door. "I think he's probably got a point but was too upset to articulate it well. You know how he is."
A group of Hufflepuffs joined the line just ahead of a few Slytherin stragglers, among whom was, of course, Daphne.
Where he felt as though he'd slept a handful of minutes, she seemed as though she'd had a full night's rest with an extra two hours to get ready. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and held by a dark blue bow that matched her skirt. Her shirt was properly buttoned and her silvery lipstick was back in perfect place.
His muscles tensed when he heard Hermione make a noise next to him, and he turned to find the widest grin he'd ever seen on her face directed right at Daphne, who narrowed her eyes in confusion, then glanced over at Harry.
'Sorry,' he mouthed.
She stared for a moment, then shrugged, returning to a conversation with a Pansy.
"You and Daphne?" Hermione whispered once they were outside and out of earshot of any nearby gossip-hounds.
"Mind your business."
"I didn't know you two were dating."
"Whatever we are, I don't think it's that," he said, fighting the overwhelming urge to look over his shoulder at Daphne. When he glanced over at Hermione, her cheeks and ears had turned an almost luminous red.
"Well, whatever it is, I'm sure it's none of my business," she said, eyes fixed squarely on the path in front of them.
It was strangely comforting to know Hermione had her own version of the don't-think-about-it wall.
Now all he had to figure out was how to help Ron without upsetting him, and when he could sneak away with Daphne again.
Maybe not exactly in that order.