Happy Holidays, everyone! Hope you all had a wonderful New Year. Apologies for the relative delay of this chapter. The season is always a hectic one and, very unfortunately, two very close family members just passed away this fall. We're on the other side of 2016, however, and writing has proven extremely cathartic. This is a short one, but I will be looking to publish at a faster clip for future chapters. Enjoy!
Red hot heat crackled amidst embers of a fire left untended and alone, swallowed in the dark blue hue of early morning. The silhouette of smoke danced across the front of the tent, painting moving pictures visible from the inside. Harry's sleep filled eyes take in the spectacle wordlessly. They lay in perfect silence, their heartbeats tapping outwards in tandem, almost audible. Hermione's warmth felt as if it had melted his skin, breaking the last physical barrier that existed between the two of them.
Her eyes remained shut, whether she was awake Harry could not tell. Not that it mattered much. The line between conscious and unconscious seemed to have blurred over the past few hours and the pair had alternated between raucous lovemaking and dreamless sleep. With the coming of morning, however, came an eerily familiar sense of disillusionment. Colors that seemed almost too lurid to be real in the heady light of the candles and fire now seemed stripped of their magic. A breath almost too full to be a sigh rose in Harry's chest before being expelled in a gust.
"Be a love and put on the kettle if you're going to keep sighing like that, Harry." Hermione's head didn't move an inch from its position on his chest and he could feel her lips tickle his skin as she spoke.
"Lady or Earl?"
"Dorian."
"Huh?"
"You really need to read more, Harry."
"And you could teach classes on the art of being a broken record."
"S'not my fault you never listen to me…" She yawned and stretched across him, her body moving against his, extending and retracting like a cat's claws.
"Hmph. Accio wand." The slender piece of wood zipped out of the dragonskin holster under his discarded coat and flew across the room to land in his outstretched hand. With a flick of his wrist, a kettle on the portable stove in the corner of the tent danced itself alive and began to fill with water while two bags of tea gracefully settled themselves in a pair of mugs. Hermione looked up and quirked an eyebrow at him, slightly surprised. Harry allowed himself a small smirk.
"Been working on that for a while now, have we?"
"All for the express purpose of impressing you."
"Liar, thief and charlatan." A hand slid down Harry's chest and took shockingly firm hold of a more delicate wand. "Without me, Harry Potter, you'd still have no clue what you wanted." He chuckled deep in his throat.
"Hermione, you really don't understand men if you think you needed to tell me that I wanted to sleep with you." She recoiled ever so slightly and he felt some of her heat begin to cool. "That's not… It was a joke, 'Mione. Just a joke."
"I know."
"Do you?" Her frown softened at the corners of her mouth and she seemed to relax a little. They both sat up, shedding the cloak of their warmth. The two of them lapsed back into silence, this one decidedly more uncomfortable. The sound of the tea kettle shattered their self-conscious contemplation and Harry flicked his wand again, summoning the now steaming mugs. Settling them on a small wooden table beside the bed, he turned back to find Hermione pulling on his discarded button-down shirt. The sight of her in his shirt pulled at something deep inside him, something primal. Lacking adequate words for its description, Harry settled for brushing a thick lock of curly hair behind Hermione's ear.
"How do we…"
"Have this conversation?" He nodded. She rolled her eyes.
"Harry, we've been friends for over a decade. We've saved each other's lives countless times. You've seen me tortured and I watched you die. You've seen me at my absolute worst. On top of all of that, we just shagged each other senseless for the better part of the evening."
"You're saying that like it makes it easier."
"Doesn't it?"
"Not bloody likely."
"Well then, if you're not going to say it, I will." Her hands were softer than they had any right to be considering how hard she worker. Hazel caught green and he knew what she'd say before she'd said it. "I love you, Harry. I'm done with pretending that I can't. To tell you the absolute truth, I've been done for over a month. You asking me to the pub to 'talk'," She smirked. "Was just the last straw."
"I love you, too, 'Mione."
"I know you do, you silly boy."
"So?" Harry gestured around them, pulling away from her gently. "We love each other."
"Seems that way." Hermione reach over Harry, grasping at one the mugs on the bedside table. The motion presented Harry with a view that stripped whatever else he'd been thinking about straight from his mind.
"So how committed are you to continuing to be blasé about this?"
"Don't be sarcastic, Harry. It doesn't suit you." Bergamot scented wisps tickled Harry's nose as he took a sip from his mug.
"Fine. Let's take a page out of your book."
"Meaning?"
"We both state, for the record, what we want. Put everything out in the open."
"Very mature, Harry. I'm impressed."
"You would be." Their rhythm was returning. Harry released some tension in his shoulders that he hadn't realized he'd been holding. He caught Hermione's eyes, inside them shone something novel for their relationship. Their frank acceptance of their shared feelings had unlocked something in her, and from the look she was giving him, he had a distinct feeling that he looked awfully similar. It wasn't reminiscent of the vicious, almost animalistic hunger of the past few hours, but a look of liberation. She looked like someone who'd been carrying a heavy burden for far too long and had finally set it down.
"Well, since you're being so sensible now, I'll go first I suppose." Most of her face was hidden behind the mug, her body turned perpendicular to his with her knees tucked up under her chin. It was just enough of a reminder of her surprising flexibility and athleticism to send his heart north and his blood south. Despite the bravado she'd been affecting since the beginning of the conversation, there was a vulnerability to the posture. 'Go careful, you idiot. She's trying harder than you are.' Harry thought to himself.
"I'm done, Harry. I'm done with all of it. I don't want a single bloody thing. Just…" She made a point of catching his eyes. "Just you." The last wasn't quite a whisper, but it was close.
"'Mione…"
"Don't, Harry. I know what you're about to say and I don't think I could bear to hear it right now." Harry caught his tongue and held it. He knew there'd be time for that later. "Your turn…" Hermione relinquished her two-handed grip on her tea and grabbed a fistful of blanket, pulling it up and over her shoulders.
"I'm done, too, hun." It slipped loose, but the look on her face made it instantly clear it was the good type of mistake. Hermione relaxed her legs, slid over him, deposited her tea upon the table and wrapped her arms around his neck.
"Well, Mister Potter, there is a reward that comes with such a confession of indecent intention."
"Mmmm. Is that so?"
"Indeed…" They crashed against each other like two trains on the same track, limbs writhing like scattered passenger cars. In Harry's, albeit presently limited, analytical mind he knew their coupling would prove almost surely as devastating.