Completed: 3/17/05 4:32 PM

Posted: 3/25/05 7:27

A/N: Okay is this not fluff! I think so... Maybe not sugar-sweet-happy fluff, but fluff nonetheless. I actually thought this addition was a sweet interaction between the two. 'Sides I had to write this when I got to my room and it was hurricane-ing out – I work with what I'm given.

"So much for the perfect vacation."

They were finally in Cozumel – the most beautiful island in the Gulf, with its beaches of pristine white sand and its gleaming turquoise waters stretching out into the cloudless sky...

And it was raining.

Harry was devastated at the rotten turn of events and it showed in the slump of his shoulders as he carelessly dropped the dripping suitcases onto the bed and effectively ruining the comforter. He and Hermione had finally gotten the vacation they'd wanted (and needed); though, granted, it was only for three days, but that made this sudden downpour all the more depressing. A third of their vacation was now going to be spent in the confines of their smoke-permeated hotel room.

"I hate rain," he grumbled flopping wetly down upon the bed without care and stubbornly putting his back to the balcony.

He was then shocked and a little disgruntled when Hermione came in laughing. Her hair, that had been painstakingly and time-consumingly styled into perfect doll-like ringlets (especially for the occasion) was now a mess. It clung to her rouged cheeks and forehead and strands were caught in the rain-sticky lines of her lashes. Whatever wasn't matted down had resisted its styling in the Mexican humidity and now stuck out in ever direction; bushy and dripping.

"You're being silly over nothing, Harry." Her laughter was brash and uninhibited; one of the things he liked about her.

Much to his dismay and with a total disregard for his petulant tantrum, the young woman strode to the balcony – sandals squelching wetly across the tile – and flung open the sliding glass doors. Rain immediately poured in, splattering across the floor, and bringing with it a torrent of wind.

"You're upset over nothing," she insisted, and leaned out over the railing, the buffeting palm trees so close she could touch them if she tried. "Come see! It's beautiful."

"But it's raining!" He said morosely – and he'd boasted to Ron of coming back all bronzed and lean.

She laughed again, shoulders cocooned in soaked cotton shaking with the force of her mirth. Rain snaked down the side of her nose and along her ears, filling the indent of her mouth with beaded droplets and dangling them off her chin so that whenever she spoke she tasted the rain and shook it loose upon the drenched balcony where a few more drops made little difference.

"Perhaps I like being wet," she told him.

Harry gave her an odd look, having grudgingly rolled onto his side to watch her.

"Who cares if it's raining," she said in answer to the face. "We're here, finally getting a break, and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it. But most importantly, I want to spend this vacation with you..."

Harry was already standing by the time she offered out her hand, and he made short work of locking their fingers together even as the rain threatened to blind him; flattening his hair down over his glasses.

"See?" Hermione said, pulling him down onto the lounge chair beside her. "A little water never hurt anyone."

"Well, it's not 'a little' water," Harry started sarcastically. "But you're right, and I want to spend every moment I can with you."

Hermione smiled at his chivalrous gesture; lifting their joined hands to place a kiss on the back of her palm, and her giggling slightly as his lips slipped across the rain water beaded on her skin. She pulled his arms about her, not for warmth, for the rain and the wind made clammy both their skins, but for the comfort only gained through such an intimate embrace. Together they sat, watching the rain-soaked island ride out the storm – they too sympathizing and joining the island, letting the weather do with them what it would – and Hermione began to murmur words only her lover could hear before the wind swept them away.

"The rain has a beauty all its own," she explained. "It allows the sun to warm whatever it may touch with its reach and turn all beneath a golden sparkle; and for its leniency, humans and animals alike now see only the beauty in the light of that star. They look upon the storm as the anti-sun, a terrible thing that has come to wash away the shine and blot out the glow."

Her voice was rhythmic and soothing in its passion. It rose and fell with the pattering of the rain and the swell of the gusts, lulling Harry into a near tranquil state. The pads of his fingers traced idle pictures along the bare, goosepimpled flesh of her arms making her shiver under the caresses.

"You aren't sad this tempest has been bloody loosed upon our god-given day of rest," he pointed out.

"That is because, when the gale rages and the thunder claps and the downpour pounds, I listen. It is a song, like that of a sunny day, but with a faster, staccato rhythm – the kind that makes your stomach twist and your feet ache to dance."

And as he listened to Hermione speak, he did listen. And he heard the music. He would wait for her to finish, and when there were no more wise words for her to impart he would make sure they danced together. For now, he pressed a kiss to her flesh – where the roots of her hair met the skin of her neck – lips landing purposefully atop the steadily pulsing vein just below the surface. The steady motion made his mouth vibrate and tingle; even her blood was flowing to the beat of the storm.

"See how alive the fronds of the palm tree look? The rain makes them gleam and quenches their thirst after baking so long in the sun. They are the color of your eyes," she laughed and her body thrummed against his. "

"The sand that was so blinding in the glare is now a familiar tan; so much easier upon the eyes. It reminds me of the spiral of cream into my coffee, or the color of your skin after my kisses." As if to prove herself, she tilted her head back, only managing to kiss the scruffy underside of his jaw.

"And what of the ocean, love?"

Hermione looked out across the beach and through the near heart-shaped hole in the palm foliage. "I admit that the glittering turquoise of the sea in the sunlight never ceases to be beautiful in my mind, but there is also a darker radiance in the tumultuous waters as we see them now."

They had carried the pattern this far, so Harry had to ask. "And what analogy do you have for this one?"

Hermione was quiet for a long time in his arms. The wind carried away each breath, so only the solid beating of her heart betrayed that she was not made of stone. "I think..." she said slowly; words a faint whisper. "If we each truly have our own 'auras'...that yours would be like this ocean, always caught in the heart of a squall."

Harry was shocked. Hermione had never been one to believe in such trivialities of fancy; such divination ideals. She'd always been the level-headed, if passionate, one who saw things exactly as they were. Not even magic was a mystery to her; she'd broken it down to its component and discovered the scientific fathoms that caused it to exist. If she was now defecting from her usual mannerisms it was something that demanded automatic and total attention. He urged her to continue.

"You can still see the bright turquoise," she started again, at his urging, but hesitant. "But it's a bit darker now, overcast by the gray clouds hanging ominously above and the stain of the darker waters farther out spreading through it. I worry about the War's affect on you more than the thing itself," her voice was painfully soft. "The waters are disturbed, choppy, and unsettled. See how the waves break so high upon the shore?"

She pointed out to where the white-capped waters were encroaching upon the rain-laden sand, but Harry's eyes were fixed on her.

"You're reaching," she whispered. "Always reaching...trying to gain just one more foot of land; to get higher up the beach. I believe that your ocean will never regain its sun-sparkling color until this War is seen to its end. I worry how heavy the rain weighs down your heart..."

Harry tightened his grip around her and she reciprocated in kind. It was rare for her to speak so metaphorically, but the passion in her words was the same. Her worry and her fear for him were very real. "I thought you liked the rain..." said he.

"It is beautiful to me because I see you in it, and you are beautiful." Her simply stated words brought a smile to Harry's face.

"I thought it was the man's job to do the complimenting," he teased lightly, hoping to lighten the atmosphere.

It worked and he succeeded in producing another valuable peal of laughter from his lover. Hermione wrapped her arms around one of his and kissed his elbow. The rain had stopped, but the wind was still as strong as ever and so Harry had to move his lips to her ear to speak.

"I think you're right about me," he murmured. "But there's something you've forgotten."

Hermione tilted her head up at him, looking adorably like an inquiring avian. He allowed her to shift in the chair so that she was sitting curled between his knees looking up at him. He leaned forward, brushing his cheek along hers in the course of moving his lips close to her ear. Raindrops caught in her eyelashes hit his cheeks as she blinked and the soft lines fluttered across his skin.

"When I'm with you," he whispered. "My ocean has its sunshine..."