Warning for sexual content.
Wash
She loves taking showers together. Shutting the bathroom door and pulling the plastic curtain across so it's just the two of them. No newspapers or radio peddling crap about Harry or Dumbledore or what's obviously happening in the world. No Sirius cracking jokes or Molly looking pleased. No friends to argue about not telling, no rest of the world who won't understand. Being alone with him under the water is enjoyably intimate, and she's sure he must feel it too, because sometimes he'll tell her stuff: about Sirius or his Mum, or something bad that's happened to him, which she doubts he'd bring up if they weren't under the water.
He isn't comfortable with his naked body, but he's better about it in the shower because he's standing up, and because he's doing something, not just standing or lying. She has to pretend not to be eyeing him too closely, though when he's naked she can study his movements better. He's so elegant. She's also much stringier than she'd anticipated. She'd hoped he'd have a bit of muscle on him, but his arms and torso are mostly flat. She doesn't mind. She likes watching water dribble down his face and over his collarbones, down to his shoulders and chest. He looks cute when he's dripping and pale with his wet hair plastered to his face. She's started buying him proper soap and shampoo, since the only stuff he can afford is carbolic soap, which smells like the hospital wing, and awful shampoo that stings the eyes.
She dollops the new shampoo on her hands and slides her fingers into his hair, rubbing circles onto his scalp. He closes his eyes contentedly.
"Do you like that?" she asks. He's quiet during anything physical so she usually has to coax a response out of him.
"Mmm,"
"Tell me,"
"Yes, I like it,"
She rubs lighter, skimming his skull with her fingertips. "Tell me more,"
"It- ah- that feels nice. Good. Very good,"
She moves closer, pressing her body against his, tipping his head back while she washes his hair. His hands wander round her waist, and she runs her fingers down his arm to his stomach, enjoying stroking his skin when it's slick and soapy. In the shower she can touch him all over (apart from his left shoulder, where the bite is. She tries not to look at that). Sometimes she sucks him off. He spends so much time hating his body and what it does to him, that she likes to show him how good she can make it feel. She wants him to feel special. She likes kissing down his chest and stomach and dropping to her knees in front of him. She likes the control of it; intensifying and delaying and his pleasure. But she also likes it when he tells her what he likes; slower, faster, deeper. She likes the way he strokes her hair and fondles her ears, his touch tender. Those are the ways he liked to be touched: gently, slowly, on the ears and neck. Most of all she likes looking up at his face; he's eager and unhinged. Possessiveness and lust purr in her stomach when she thinks proudly that nobody else gets to see him like this. This is just for her. This is all for her.
If he isn't in the mood himself he usually gets her off. He's not an incredible lover but he's very attentive. It's best when they're in his shower, where everything smells of his new soap and she can lean against the cool tiles while he slips his hand under her knee to crook her leg up. Then, he kneels down and runs his lips over her shin and calf, his touch maddeningly light. He can make her come better with his hands than his mouth, so he usually kisses back up her body, getting to his feet as he slips his fingers between her legs. She drapes her arms around his neck and says his name over and over, murmuring at first and then louder, groaning over the sound of the water. Every time, looks pleased and impressed afterwards, as if he's surprised he can do that to her. It's head-spinningly cute.
When they shower at her flat, he ribs her about how many different types of hair product she owns ("What's conditioner?", "What's the difference between hair putty and hair wax?", "I thought mousse was a pudding,") and she doesn't worry so much about wasting his water (he'd brought it up once and she'd barely known what he was talking about. Then she'd felt like she was spoilt because she's never had to worry about things like that). She likes it when they shower at her flat, because he uses the shower gel she buys for herself, and she likes to imagine him smelling it later and thinking of her. She likes to think about him thinking about her. She likes him to smell like her too; like she's claimed him, he belongs to her. The belong to each other now. A few weeks ago she told him he could call her Dora. All her family call her that, and he feels like part of her family. They sleep in his bed together, which she knows he hasn't done with anybody in ages. They're part of each other's worlds. For a while she tried to persuade him to go out together and meet her friends so they could be like normal couple. By now she's mostly given up on that- you have to pick your battles with him, and that was a losing one. Besides, perhaps she doesn't need dates and to bring him to parties to feel normal. Maybe normal is soap and tiles and skin, under the falling water.
He loves taking baths together. He's hopeless at romance, though even if he wasn't he can't afford to take her out to dinner or buy her presents. He never has, although he doesn't feel so guilty about that now because they're saving for the baby. It's due in the middle of April, four and a half months away. Even though Molly has donated a pram, a Moses basket and crateful of baby clothes, there's bound to be more stuff to buy when the baby arrives. They're both working at the moment, but his manager's getting suspicious about his monthly absences, so he'll probably have to leave before the Winter's out. So gifts and posh dinners aren't on the cards. The one romantic thing he reckons he might actually be good at, though, is baths. He goes the whole nine yards: candles, soft music, bath salts of the variety which make the lady behind the shop counter raise her eyebrows to see a man like him buy (his wife likes soaps and shampoos and bath salts. She buys him stuff he didn't realise existed. He's started paying attention to learn what she likes so he can buy similar for her). He waits until Andromeda is in bed or has gone out for the evening, and then he runs the bath, pours in the salts, lights the candles, flicks the radio on and dims the lights. He leads his wife into the bathroom and kisses her softly, takes his clothes off and climbs into the bath. He helps her undress and step in after him. Normally she'd get cross with him for mollycoddling her, but the newly-appeared bump's disorientated her. It's one morph she doesn't seem to have mastered. He's secretly pleased about that because he likes looking after her and he'll take any opportunity she gives him to do it. In the bath, he leans his back against the edge and she leans against his chest. She tangles their feet together and her hands rest over his over the baby.
"Tell us a story," she sometimes says. Us. From the start she's referred to herself and the baby as us, we, our. It used to terrify him, but it doesn't anymore. Perhaps because it's started showing now (last week Molly squealed, "You've popped!" which he reckoned was a mildly worrying expression) so it seems more like a person. Sometimes "us" even refers to the three of them. That isn't terrifying at all. It's wonderful.
There's an unspoken rule that in the bath there's no discussion of the war, or the Order, Harry, Voldemort and Potterwatch. It dominates everybody's conversation these days, so in the bath allows him a brief time to just enjoy being with his wife (there is nothing "just" about his wife). They debate baby names, chat about music or books, or she tells him one of her ridiculous anecdotes to make him laugh. He looks down at her body and feels her weight on top of him and tells her she's beautiful. He used to be awkward about saying that. Well, he was awkward about a lot, but specifically complementing her appearance was an odd area which he preferred not to try to navigate. People describe him as articulate, but she's always been better at expressing emotions. Right from the start she could look him the eye and tell him she loved him, she was angry at him, he was cute, he was wrong. Telling her how he feels back isn't as frightening anymore. She is beautiful. He strokes her wet arms and swelling breasts, kisses her shoulders, laps at her earlobe, and murmurs how thankful he is that they met, how happy she makes him, how excited he is to meet their baby. Sometimes she's nervous about impeding motherhood, and in the bath he listens while she mumbles her anxieties to him. He knows he's a good listener, and he knows how unhelpful vague encouragements like You'll be fine or It'll work itself out are.
She doesn't sleep well at night at the moment, partly because of the pregnancy and partly because she worries about her father. A couple of times she's ended up falling asleep in the bath. He didn't used to be fussed about watching her sleep, but since they don't share a bed anymore it's nice to see her like that. Quiet and still, like she never is awake. Snuggled up to him, her olive skin against his pale chest, both of their bodies wet, her chameleon tattoo eyeing him wryly. He likes watching her wake up, wonder where she is for a moment, then remember, relax and turn round to ask with a sheepish smile, "Did I nod off?". She always looks pleased to see him. She always is pleased to see him and that still boggles his mind, although by now he's stopped questioning it. Now, he is simply grateful that this happened, and that he's found himself in a bathtub with this incredible woman who has given him such life, and holds the life they have created inside her.
