Beneath the Surf: HERMIONE

The ocean below me rolled and crashed in a violent battle with itself. I hummed and watched the waves tumble and turn in the foamy darkness until they were impossible to tell apart from each other. Sea breeze blew harshly on my face, accompanied by pinprick sharp sprays from the angry waters howling in my ears like wind from the turbines of an aircraft preparing for takeoff. I long abandoned tucking hair behind my ears and settled instead on keeping my eyes closed and dangling my legs off the sharp drop. The wetness was up to my thighs, making my pants darker and darker despite having rolled them up as high as they would go. My toes curled against the chill but I didn't pull my feet back onto solid ground just yet. I wondered how long it would be until my nail polish washed off and I couldn't feel my legs anymore.

I must have only been there once or twice and I had to have been at most seven or eight at the time, but I knew it was way before this war. Way before the battles and the mysteries and death that came all wrapped up in my Hogwarts letter. There were no ghosts or sadness or haunting shadows. Just a little girl with big dreams and her family. Together. Those were the good days, the calm before the storm you could say, when dad came home by six every night and mum kept her obsessive cleaning to a minimum. I was still small enough to ride on his shoulders when we played in the shallow end. He taught me how to surf here. Haven't picked up a board since.

I dug into my bottomless beaded bag and pulled out The Tales of Beedle the Bard to take my mind off things it should've never been on in the first place. I wasn't too good with all this reminiscing stuff lately, considering the fact that I'd never be seeing my parents again if I was in my right mind. As far as they knew, I didn't even exist. Never had, and never will.

Lying back against the rock, I continued humming tunelessly. Water soaked through my jumper, but it wasn't like it wasn't already damp to begin with. Regardless of the salt on my tongue and in my eyes and lying sticky on my skin, this was a nice change from the forests and marshes we camped in before.

After casting a waterproofing charm on the book, I flipped through its pages trying to recall why I had underlined some things but not others. This puzzling enigma was left for me in Dumbledore's will. Harry was given the Sword of Gryffindor (though we haven't the slightest idea where it was) and the first snitch he'd ever caught. Ron got a deluminator, a useful device that could take away light and give it back just as easily. And me, I got a children's book. I mean, honestly? By that point I'd read through it a thousand times trying to pick out what could possibly be the significance of it and thus far, all I've found is a strange symbol on the inside cover and cartoonish doodles in the corners of pages 15 and 3.

I stared at the odd figure in deep thought. It definitely did not look like anything I had come across in Ancient Runes. I would've remembered something so infuriatingly perplexing. Because of that, I'd come to the conclusion that it wasn't a rune at all. Or at least, I couldn't find anything in my copy of Spellman's Syllabary to suggest that it was. But then was it a clue? A piece of the puzzle? Most likely a scribble left by some kid but maybe, just maybe–

"Are you mad?" A voice snapped, effectively cutting off my inner soliloquy. I could barely hear it over the rush of the water.

I flung my head back to come face to feet with a pair of sandy toes, whilst tucking the book back into my bag. Harry outstretched his hand and I grabbed onto the lifeline I didn't quite need just yet. The quick way he pulled me would suggest quite the contrary. If my bare feet hadn't slipped a bit on the wet rock on my way up, I probably would have laughed at the concern plastered all over the face he made peering over the summit. I didn't bother looking, since all I'd see was a thirty-foot drop with a lot of churning ocean at its bottom. Instead, I held him like I'm sure he expected me to, like he honestly was saving me from some dastardly spill. I still couldn't get enough of how neatly we molded together.

"Were you trying to kill yourself?" he asked. I grinned.

"What, and leave you to save the world all on your own?"

I grabbed his wrist and began pulling him away from the cliff edge before he fainted from the sight of it. A wave crashed up against the rock and splashed water down our retreating backs to remind me that beaches weren't only around for spontaneous family getaways in the summertime sunshine. It really was cold out. "Finished with those security charms?"

He nodded. "All one hundred of them. Can we go back inside now? You know, where it's warm and dry and not covered in sand?"

"I want to show you something first."

He sighed heavily, which came out sounding odd because he shivered at the same time.

"You're going to catch a cold," he started. It would have been the start of a good case, but my rebuttal of "Don't care" dismantled his opening statement.

"Well I'm going to catch a cold." Harry said, pulling in the direction of the tent we had just passed. "How about we just grab a cuppa? I'll even read you the most boring passage of the most boring tome you can find."

In response I pulled a towel out of my bag, tossed it over his head, and continued to plod through the sand. "Lazy," I muttered.

The sky was scarcely lit with dark purples and blues that swirled in pink clouds. I could make out a flare of light at the base of a mountain on a faraway shore and the bright beam from a lighthouse on a nearby islet. I pulled Harry along, purposely kicking up sand and pocketing interesting shells as we went. Pebbles dug into the soles of my feet but didn't make me turn around for shoes stored in the tent that was getting smaller and smaller by the minute. I caught Harry staring with half a smile on his face. He stumbled a bit when he noticed that I was watching him watching me.

"What?" I asked. His eyes twinkled brightly in the dawn with his crooked glasses only slightly obscuring their view. I thought over several spells that would get rid of the spectacles on his nose but remembered that he seemed to like them.

"Nothing," he said. He put an arm around my shoulders and planted a kiss on my cheek that bloomed into a bright, lurid blush. The giddiness that followed made me feel about half my age. "You just surprise me sometimes."

"In a good way, I'm guessing."

"Of course." He glanced up and stopped walking. "What a beautiful dead end you've lead us to."

He was right, and wrong at the same time.

"Ends are only as dead as you make them out to be," I said, whilst running up to the group of large rocks and latching my fingers on the nearest one. "Where's your imagination, Mr. Potter?"

I heard something that suspiciously sounded like "Back at the tent." I reckoned that we wouldn't be back there for a while as I began climbing the slope, one hand over the other. One foot, next foot, one hand, next hand, one foot…

"Well, are you coming?" I tossed over my shoulder. He begrudgingly followed my lead, probably figuring that he had come this far and he might as well keep going. I pretended that it was more than that, that he was going along with it because he was ensnared in the mystery and the secrecy I tried to layer over this minor excursion.

'Perhaps minor wasn't the right word,' I thought after a bit. It was easy going at the beginning, but the rocks eventually got larger and smoother, making it more and more difficult to get a good grip on them. I was starting to sweat from exertion and the mind-numbing repetition. "Like the view from down there?" I called whilst shaking my arse for effect. I wasn't daft enough to think he wasn't starting at it already. Besides, I hadn't heard from him in a while and was checking that he was still with me. Harry's answering laugh was just above the volume of the waves.

I lost my head in the merriment, and my balance, as a particularly vengeful rock dug into my foot. Unsurprisingly, I slipped.

I whispered my prayers and waited for my body to hit the rocks on its way down, since my soul already departed out of pure fright. My eyes were still clenched tight when I noticed… I wasn't falling at all! A warm hand was…ahem…holding firmly onto my aforementioned arse. I had blushed more in the past week than I had my entire life, I reckoned.

"Saved your life."

"Shut up, pervert." I continued up until I reached a wide ledge and started scurrying across the embankment with my hands against the rough stone walls behind me to steady myself. I heard Harry grumble something about it being too early for this but I kept going until I rounded a sharp corner. The ledge got especially thin.

"Be careful." I heard from the other side.

"Who do you think is the expert here?"

"Says the one who just slipped a minute ago," he called. He had a fair point, and so I didn't have a response. By then I was already over that obstacle anyway.

The slope on the other side of the wall wasn't as sharp, so getting down was easier than going up.

Water lapped at my toes. I rubbed my dirty hands on my pants to get rid of the grit embedded in my palms. Harry appeared next to me a few moments later.

"Why, pray tell, did we just scale a cliff?"

"We could've swum around it but then it wouldn't have been as fun," I replied. I surveyed the small enclosure with a critical eye. The plot we stood on was barracked by high cliffs. Giant slabs of rocks jutted out from the water, taking the brunt of the waves and making the surf relatively calm. A sea star sluggishly crawled under wet sand and I could make out tiny fishes darting about in the shallow water.

"We're here," I declared.

"And where exactly is 'Here'?" he asked. He was rubbing his arms and looking only slightly peeved.

Instead of an answer (which was right in front of him), I started walking. Wind cooled the sweat on my face and sand squelched pleasantly between my toes. The soles of my feet felt sore and painful though. I should've gone to the tent for shoes after all. I pondered the odds of shoes, or even just some bandages, being in the bag for the trip back. Bottomlessness considered, the odds were pretty good.

Harry kept pace and soon enough we were standing at the mouth of a small cave. The face of it was dark with lines of browns and reds. Grabbing the towel from around his shoulders, I ducked down to my knees and took a closer look. Its insides were just high enough so that I could kneel but not stand, which was all right by me. I laid down on the familiar sand with the towel between me and the grains that molded to the shape of my body.

I beckoned Harry inside. He looked skeptical but crawled in anyhow. It was a tight squeeze, and our feet poked through the gap. Eventually we stopped shifting and just rested next to each other and stared at the low ceiling.

"Is this what you wanted to show me?" he asked. I couldn't blame him for his lack of enthusiasm. The place wasn't like how I remembered it. Not in the slightest. My secret pirate cove had become just a small, cramped hollow in the wall. I kept looking around, expecting something to stand out, but nothing did. No more hidden treasure or daring adventures, just sand, stone, and an unrelenting chill. Maybe this place is just how I left it, and I was the one that got older and forgot how to dream. Where was my imagination?

"I wanted to share it with you." I smiled, hoping he'd mirror the expression. He didn't and just looked back at the ceiling that he might bump his head into if he sat up too fast.

"It's nice."

He didn't mean it but at least he tried to sound like he did. After that he seemed preoccupied with himself, much like I was when half of me was hanging off the edge of the continent earlier. His glassy gaze hinted that whatever he was looking at was far, far away from here. Maybe even at the edge of this world.

I was just starting to drift off when the beads on my bag made soft clinking noises, reminding me that I had something to discuss with my stoic partner in peace. When I sat up and folded my legs under me, he didn't prop himself up on his elbows, or blink, or even move at all until I said, "I've found something that you might want to have a look at."

When he started looking at the page without reaching for the book I held out, I placed it on the ground so that we could both lean over it. The cave was alight with the orange glow of the sunrise.

"Look at this symbol," I said, pointing to the top of the sheet.

Harry stared at it and then looked back up at me with a lost expression, all whilst saying, "I never took Ancient Runes. I can't even begin to…"

"I know, but I don't think it's a rune." Merlin, I could make out every detail on his face, from the barely noticeable freckles on his nose to the way his lips quirked down some when the gears in his head were turning faster than he could keep up with. I wanted to reach out and touch him again, just to make sure this was real and he was really there. That he was really mine. "I-I can't find anything in the Syllabary about it."

I coughed to clear my throat.

"So what d'you think it is?" he asked. I folded the corner of the towel to expose a bit of sand.

"Well at first I thought it was a picture of an eye but I'm not so sure anymore." I traced a large triangle in the sand and drew a circle in its centre. "See, it's triangular and here's its pupil in the middle."

Sand lodged under my nail but continued drawing the symbol without pause. Harry's eyes watched my finger with unbridled curiosity. For some reason, it got my heart pounding the way nearly falling down the pile of boulders hadn't. "And there's a line down the centre. Like this."

I continued, "It's been inked into the page so it wasn't part of the book at publishing, and that means someone drew it. Think about it, Harry. Have you ever seen it before?"

He turned back to the figure in the sand, and began scrawling his own scribble as he mulled over mine. "Isn't it…wasn't that the same symbol Luna's dad was wearing 'round his neck at the wedding!"

His sentence started out as a question but rose in volume until it was a full blown exclamation. I beamed broadly at his discovery and replied, "That's what I thought too."

He was sitting up completely now and the tiny enclosure was buzzing with excitement. He looked like a little kid that got to open his gifts the day before Christmas. "It's got to be Grindelwald's mark! It has to be! It…"

I waited for Harry to acknowledge my bewildered look.

"Krum…he told me…"

"Told you what?" I asked. I couldn't keep the urgency out of my voice as I pressed him for more answers. Sensing my impatience, he curved his lips into a smirk and took a dramatic pause.

"Finally something that the Great Hermione doesn't know." He said teasingly. "Does that make me the smartest –" I whacked him, urging him to continue. "Okay, okay. At Bill and Fleur's wedding, Krum told me that there was a symbol carved into a wall at Durmstrang. And he thinks Grindelwald put it there."

"That's… odd. If it's a symbol of, and I'm just guessing here, dark magic, then why is it in a children's book? You'd think Scrimgeour would've recognized that before handing it to me. He is the Minister after all."

Harry simply shrugged in response.

HARRY

I was ecstatic. There was something solid that we could work on. Finally, we had an actual, concrete lead. It was so simple that I expected a handwritten note from Dumbledore himself on the dedications page, berating us for taking this long. I flipped through the rest of the book excitedly trying to find anything else we could use, but of course I was going too fast to see much of anything.

"We've got to visit Luna's dad. He's bound to know about this! Have I told you that you're brilliant? Absolutely amazing." I got to the back cover and slammed it shut, deciding instead to look at the person who continues to make this and all manners of fantastic happenings possible. "When was the last time I…"

I frowned and trailed off for the umpteenth time. Hermione, Master Researcher and Avid Figure-Stuff-Out Extraordinaire didn't seem happy that we had just, well, figured stuff out. If you asked me, she didn't seem excited at all by this turn of events.

Hermione wasn't talking or smiling or even looking right at me. She was staring instead at the corner of sand she exposed a few minutes ago and wringing her fingers together in what looked suspiciously like nervousness. Nervous for what, I couldn't guess. She should be elated, exhilarated, ecstatic, and any other e-word that meant the same. She should be over the moon and then some. I was about to tell her so when I followed her gaze to the symbol and found that it changed its neat geometric form.

"Lie down."

I had seen her deliberate, precise penmanship on enough Transfiguration essays and Potions notes to know it when I saw it. The one thing I didn't know was when she had time to write without me noticing. Actually, I also don't know what was with the suddenness of it all, but I did understand the direction. Just a short, two-word command. Easy. I've heard orders all my life. Although I sat there thinking about how simple it would be and how little time it would take, I didn't move. On a subatomic level though, I was oscillating between all the things those two words could really mean. But I sat still. Maybe I was waiting for more elaboration, or another invitation. Or maybe I was waiting for my brain to start being a brain again.

I looked up to find her eyes smouldering at me under her long eyelashes, daring me to…to do what exactly?

With a huff, she jerked the book out of my hands and tossed it somewhere behind her.

"It might seem like we have all day for this," she began.

"What? – Oopmf." She shoved me down, hard, and climbed on top of me like she had done it dozens of times before, which, for the record, she absolutely had not. I was pretty sure she felt my heart racing when she steadied herself with a hand on my chest.

"But we don't."

I was pinned between her thighs as she pulled an elastic from her pocket and did her best to tame her wild bushy mane. I wanted to ask what we "don't", because I couldn't remember what she was talking about or how she casted a heating charm on the cave without pulling her wand out because believe me I was already warm enough.

Before I could demand an explanation, we were kissing. And not just the lips-touching type of kissing you see in the movies. It was the lip-biting, hair-tugging, molesting-my-mouth type, the kind that made you forget what day it was or when was the last time you breathed so hard. Her hands slipped under my shirt and ran across my stomach and chest, making my skin danced wherever she went. I groaned into her mouth when she rubbed a nipple and flicked it with her fingertips. I was still confused and she was still not explaining anything but hey, I wasn't complaining. There's nothing not to like about a gorgeous girl snogging you for no obvious reason besides that it was Tuesday and she damn well felt like it.

She kissed down my neck and I latched onto her shoulder but she kept going down and down and down. She tasted like sea salt and sweat and –

"Oh, Merlin. Right there."

A feeling was twisting in my lower abdomen, alerting me that my lower half was well aware of what was going on even if I wasn't. It didn't slip her notice, as most things didn't.

"Is this for me?" she whispered, wide-eyed like it was some sort of a surprise. I said yes, completely at a lost on what else I was supposed to do. I could feel heat radiating from her centre and into mine. It drove me wild.

Who was this girl and what did she do with Hermione Granger?

My mind was a lust-filled haze where the only thing that existed were her hands, hips, and tongue. She shimmied down my body and settled between my legs. I propped myself up on my elbows, heart thumping loudly in my head and mouth and throat. Her hands started working the zipper of my trousers. She had my prick out before I could blink twice.

"Bet I can make you finish before the sun reaches the top of that mountain."

I'd be damned if I didn't hear her say that.

'Was this actually happening?', I asked no one and everyone and anyone in between. I couldn't tell. I honestly couldn't tell. If it was real, and her fingers really were tugging and her mouth really was lapping up what came out, then this was a stark contrast to the barrage of nightmares I had gotten used to. I was sure I'd wake up the next second and find myself in bed with a very, very embarrassing situation.

"Merlin," I hissed, eyes clenched tight. I forced them open a moment later, because I wasn't about to miss a single millisecond of this, this warm, tight, most incredible thing I'd ever felt. I was a quivering mess. My fingers laced themselves in her hair, steering her along the best I could with my unsteady grip. She didn't seem to need any sort of guidance anyway. I couldn't help but notice that her chipped, faded fingernail paint was an electric blue.

That was when she broke through her gag reflex and swallowed me whole. Our eyes locked, mine blazing in astonishment and hers in triumph. I was so close to the finish line that when she flexed her throat muscles and hummed, I had no choice but to cross it. Even though I was the one with my toes curling in on themselves and back arching off the towel with the force of it, she was clearly the one that won.

Hermione pulled away from me coughing. I barely noticed on account of my eyes rolling to the back of my head. By the time my brain cells were semi-functioning again, she was grinning slyly, and I could make out the evidence of this unbelievable morning rolling down her chin. I was still trying to catch my breath when she cupped my face and kissed me, making sure to swirl her tongue whilst she did. I could taste myself, bitter and salty. I wanted to say something but nothing came to mind. The sun peeked over the mountain in the distance.

She slid next to me and I wrapped an arm around her middle, still star-struck and shaking.

"Look up," She said. And through the struggle to keep my eyes open, I did.

The ceiling was alive with a purple glimmer. Someone must have turned on a million tiny flickering bulbs at the same time. They lit up the entire roof.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" she asked. I looked at her next to me and smiled.

"Yeah, you are."