14. Taste
He blows his candles and kisses her, his mouth already full of chocolate cake.
Harry rolls his eyes and looks away as he mumbles once more something about rules.
"Are you ever going to look me in the eyes?" Hermione asks Harry annoyingly.
"It's bad enough that I... heard, what I heard… I'm trying not to picture it. And this, right now," he gestures toward them, entwined and sharing a chair, "is not helping."
"Honestly Harry, you act as if you've never had sex before," Hermione sighs shifting uncomfortably in his laps as she takes another scoop of ice cream. It's the first time Ron heard her say that word in front of anyone else but him. He's in awe.
Harry is not. And he turns toward Ron, a slight unease to his voice.
"What have you done to my sister?"
"Nothing that you haven't done to mine!" And he tries to push the thought of Harry and Ginny and sex, far far away to the back of his mind, but he can't. "Ginny is seventeen!"
"Yes and of age! What were you doing when you were seventeen?"
"Saving your sorry ass," Ron snorts.
Harry looks at Ron in shock and then burst out laughing, Ron follows instantly. It feels good to laugh about this. Ron hears Hermione sniffles and turns her face towards him.
"Are you crying?"
"No!"
"You are!"
"I just miss you okay?" she finally elaborates, choking back a sob. "Both of you! Hogwarts isn't the same without you two to fuss about."
Harry stands to hug her and she falls into his arms easily.
"Oh come, you have your books and N.E.W.T.s to think about, you're better off without us to look after," Harry tells her comfortingly.
Ron grabs her hand and she looks at him over Harry's shoulder, eyes shining with tears. It dawns on him how far they've come in just a year.
A year ago, he didn't had cake, they were stuck in the middle of the forest and she wasn't talking to him. Or almost not talking to him. She did read him his favourite childhood story, a small offering of ceasefire in the middle of anger and hurt, for his birthday.
"I should go," she states reluctantly.
He doesn't want her to leave. Ever.
Harry kisses her temple and quits the room. Ron opens his arms and buries his nose in her hair as soon as she hugs her body to his.
"And you should go see your mum," she whispers against his heart.
"It's night already, she won't have waited for me."
"Give her some credit, it's your birthday and she didn't know where you were last year. She'll want to see you today. Go."
"When will I see you again?"
"There's a Quidditch game, Ravenclaw against Gryffindor, in three weeks. Come and watch your sister play." She kisses him and pushes him into the chimney hearth with a sad smile.
He can still taste the mix of vanilla ice cream, chocolate cake and something her, when he arrives at the Burrow.
He wants to kiss her every day.
A/N : Another companion piece of Sound, Smell and Sight. Or as I call it, Ron's birthday cheesefest ;-)
