4 April 1996
Fred didn't know what to expect as he ascended the stairs to the balcony he and Hermione had discovered the week prior. Her note had been incredibly vague, really just a time and place, but the manner in which she'd relayed it to him held a cryptic sort of gravitas that their normal rendezvouses lacked.
He knew she'd been a little on edge since the conversation about their physical relationship, and even more so following the DA debacle, but he really hoped this wasn't her way of breaking things off with him. Though he hadn't really gotten that impression. And even so, if being with her meant taking a vow of celibacy, he'd do it in a heartbeat. Admittedly he'd be a little crestfallen, but he'd still do it.
Reaching the landing and swinging the door open, he was equally unnerved and comforted to find that this clearly wasn't a break-up at all. Or, if it was, it was the most romantic one he'd ever heard of in his life.
The balcony had been rather lavishly bedecked in pillows and blankets, the entire surface area obscured, and warming charms wrapped around it to form a barrier against the chilled April air. Then, floating in perhaps a dozen small glass jars, there were small bursts of bluebell flames encircling it, adding to the warmth and casting soft, flickering light over the entire affair.
None of that was the thing he saw first, though. As they were want to do, Fred's eyes immediately fell on Hermione, standing in the center of it all and leaning against the railing, facing away from him and looking up at the dark silhouette of the mountains. She knew he was there because she glanced backward over her shoulder and smiled.
Fred shrugged his outer robes off and kicked them into a heap beside the door, rolling up his cuffs as he crossed to stand beside her.
"Hello darling," he said, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind. She tipped her head to the side and he pressed his lips in a trail from the base of her neck up to her ear. He noticed her hair was pinned back rather elaborately and she was wearing something around her eyes that glittered and caught the light dancing around them. The effect was rather pretty, but then Fred always thought she looked stunning. He was the very definition of a partial party.
"Mmm," Hermione hummed in greeting, leaning back against his chest. "You're late."
"Only a couple minutes; I didn't want to lug my bag up here. You look breathtaking by the way," he relayed, pulling away to better take in her face, which was tipped up to him. "What's the occasion?"
"Do I need an occasion to look nice?" She asked, arching a brow.
"Nope," he said, popping his lips a little on the P as he grinned at her. "Believe it or not, I'll take just about any opportunity to snog my beautiful, clandestine girlfriend in such a profligate and secluded setting. Sure beats the broom cupboard on the third floor; I think I still have a knot on the back of my head from that shelf the other day."
She laughed and turned around to face him. He expected her to snake her arms around his neck, as she had a number of times in the past, but instead she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him away a step. He looked at her in question, but before he could get a word out, she lifted her hands slowly, pointedly, to the top button of her robes and he fell utterly and completely mute.
"I was actually thinking," Hermione said, leisurely beginning to unhook the buttons, "that, since my plans for your birthday last week ended up spoiled," another button, "this might be an ideal time to make it up to you," another, "and try some of that 'other stuff' that you mentioned a while back."
His breath came more quickly when, four buttons down, the expected white of her blouse, which she normally wore beneath her robes, didn't appeared. All he could see was an endless expanse of smooth skin, starting at her throat and continuing onward.
Moving her hands down, she unfastened one, then another, over and over again until they were all undone and the garment hung open just a sliver. It wasn't until the last one that he noticed her hands were trembling a little.
Fred wanted to say something about it, make sure that she was sure about whatever it was she was planning for them to do, but he was ashamed to admit that any sound, reasonable thought flew from his mind when she pulled her robes fully open and let them fall to the ground and pool around her feet.
oOoOoOo
No number of warming charms could protect against the gooseflesh that broke out across Hermione's body when she dropped her robes. Not because they were poorly executed, nor because it was particularly frigid outside, but because they had nothing to do with her environment. They did, however, have everything to do with the look on Fred's face as his eyes raked over her body, as well as the nerves that were making her hands shake and her stomach flip-flop.
She'd worn the red bra that Parvati and Lavender had wholeheartedly approved of, pairing it with knickers of the same dark ruby colour and black stockings. Her hair was pinned back and her makeup, she had to admit, had been expertly executed by Lavender. She didn't feel entirely like herself, though.
Just be confident. The sexiest thing in the world is when a woman is completely confident.
Viciously stuffing down the tensions that were swooping back and forth in her head, Hermione rotated slowly on the spot and, though she heard what sounded like a sort of wheezing sound, Fred remained wide-eyed and silent.
When she'd completely revolved to face him again, she paused for a second and then exclaimed, a little bit frazzled, "Well?"
He jumped like he'd been stuck with a straight pin.
"Bleeding – holy – Hermione, you look – and you're wearing –"
"Keep going, I'm sure there's a full sentence in there somewhere."
He let out a half-groan, half-laugh and ran his hand through his hair, setting it to stand on end a bit.
"What on earth was the original plan if this is the backup?"
"I'd had Dobby set up a picnic on the astronomy tower after the DA meeting last week, which obviously turned into a complete disaster."
"I can't believe you're making me say this, but I kind of feel like I owe Umbridge now."
Hermione laughed and the knot in her stomach loosened the smallest amount.
Fred took a step closer. She thought he'd be more fixated on her body, adorned and displayed as it was, but his eyes, for the most part, stayed on her face after his initial inspection.
"Can I – I mean, is it alright if I touch you?"
"Kind of the point, isn't it?"
He brought a hand up and slid it along the bare skin of her waist, warm and gentle. His thumb circled lightly, the same as it always did on the back of her hand, and she shivered.
"Are you cold?" he asked, concerned.
She shook her head. "No."
Confidence. Okay, she could do this.
She raised her own hands to the knot on his tie and loosened it until just the tail of the short end was sticking out and then slipped it out from beneath his collar and over his head. Then she went to work unbuttoning his shirt, sliding the little ivory disks through the fabric one by one until it hung open over a plain, white undershirt.
He assisted her in divesting himself of it, removing his hand from her waist briefly in order to shrug it off and add it to the ground with her robes. She stepped back and her bum hit the wide balcony railing. It was a bit chilled, but within seconds she was otherwise occupied and couldn't have cared less.
Fred wrapped an arm around her waist and another around the back of her thigh and easily hoisted her so she was perched on the edge with him standing between her parted knees. She was taller this way, almost eye level and he ducked down, placing a searing kiss on her lips. She sighed, tightening her legs around his middle and pulling him in closer.
After a moment he shifted away from her mouth and instead tracked along her jaw, down her throat, and across her collarbone. He paused briefly before lowering further and beginning to place feather-light kisses across the tops of her breasts, spilling over the confines of her bra. And, just like that, they were officially in unexplored territory.
As if on instinct, she placed one hand on the back of his head, nails raking lightly through his copper hair, and he groaned into her cleavage. Emboldened, she reached down and tugged at the hem of his shirt. The odds of her successfully removing it on her own in their current position were slim to none, but he caught on and stepped back, stretching a hand over his shoulder to tug it off.
He'd filled out a bit more since she'd seen him over the summer and, unlike on that occasion, she didn't shy from ogling at all. Quite the opposite.
"Wow," she huffed, chewing the edge of her lip and feeling a tad inadequate. He laughed, a little self-consciously it seemed, but stepped back to her.
"Want to move this down there?"
Hermione nodded, preparing to clamor off the railing, but he scooped her up before she could. His hips had been a little below hers in their previous position but now, with her legs wrapped around his waist, she could feel against her inner thigh that her lingerie had had the intended effect.
He slowly knelt among the blankets she'd conjured before carefully laying her backward onto a small pile of pillows while he hovered over her.
Her nerves flared again, but she did her best to ignore them.
"Can we switch? This is your birthday celebration after all."
Her question appeared to catch him a little off guard, but he nodded and climbed off of her, laying on the pillow beside her for a second before she rolled on top so she was straddling his thighs.
She lowered herself and placed a kiss beneath his jaw, near his ear, and was rewarded with a shiver and a quiet noise in the back of his throat.
All she could think about was skin. There was so much exposed skin. Pale and freckled and impossibly warm where it made contact with her own. She couldn't wrap her mind around it.
Trailing her own mouth in half-open kisses, she traced down his chest slowly, sweeping back and forth in a lazy non-pattern. When she reached his ribs, which were rising and falling rapidly, she slid down a little further and propped on one forearm beside his stomach while her other hand came to rest on his belt buckle. She started to pull at it.
She could do this.
It was just a belt buckle.
She'd undone her own belt buckle loads of times.
She could do this.
She could do this.
She could – could –
She couldn't do this.
The further along she got the more her hands shook and the less assured she felt. It wasn't Fred, it wasn't anything to do with Fred at all, it was her. She felt like a fraud.
His eyes had been shut, but the second her breathing started to waiver they flicked open, and he quickly sat up. She was rapidly approaching panic mode and he could tell, lust having entirely drained from his face and been replaced with alarm.
She continued to fumble with the waist of his trousers while her vision blurred.
"Whoa, Hermione, stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop." He reached to the side and grabbed a small fleece, threw it around her shoulders, and then tipped her face toward him. She was still sitting astride his knees and he took her hands in his, moving them gently backward. "Hey, look at me. Look at me, right here. Breathe. Just breathe. You're alright."
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I – it's not –" her eyes stung and her cheeks felt like they were on fire. A swell of shame and embarrassment and insecurity washed over her like a tidal wave, tugging her out to sea.
"Okay, take a few deep breaths, and then tell me what's wrong."
She latched onto the calm timbre of his voice like it was a life preserver that had been thrown to her and shut her eyes. A moment passed and in it, Fred stayed entirely silent; he'd begun running his thumb in familiar, soothing circles along the back of her palm.
Hermione finally looked at him again, pulling the blanket around her shoulders a little tighter. He raised his eyebrows in question and, in a flurry of words, she tried to explain the tangle of thoughts and doubts in her head.
"It's not you. Not at all. I really want to – I'm more than ready to – take that step, but I can't… like this… this isn't me." She looked haplessly down at the red bra and gestured vaguely to her hair and her face. "I'm not some skilled seductress that wears red lingerie and elaborate updos and smoky eyes. I'm awkward and my hair is unruly and I'm so stuck in my own head sometimes that it's really, just truly pathetic."
He looked like he was going to interject but she put her hand up and plowed onward.
"And I'm not accustomed to being out of my depth; I research everything and learn everything before I do anything, but I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to be this. And I want to learn but I also wanted to make this special because it's your sort-of birthday and I love you and you deserve the world and –"
She immediately stopped talking when she realised what she'd said, pressing her fingertips to her lips. Fred's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open with a comical pop. If someone were to ask a caricature artist to draw his interpretation of the word 'surprised,' it would be the expression on display in front of her at that moment.
Rather than questioning, though, Fred swatted the shocked sentiment back at her and started laughing. It began as a quiet chuckle and escalated until his shoulders were shaking and he had to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye.
"You're – you're laughing at me!" she accused indignantly, in disbelief.
"No," he clarified, apparently trying to suppress his amusement in light of her response. He wasn't doing a very good job of it. "I'm laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation we've somehow landed in."
"Oh, brilliant. I'm only absurd, that's loads better." With that, she moved past indignant to insulted. He shook his head rapidly.
"No. Not in the slightest. Bugger, this isn't coming out right… Look, I just don't need this, Hermione. I don't need any of this." He gestured to the surrounding area and the stupid lingerie, now partially obscured by the blanket. "You could have come here wearing a burlap sack with ink-stains on your fingers and quill tucked into your hair and you'd have been just as sexy to me. More, even."
She laughed and sniffled a little. Burlap sack notwithstanding, that was how she spent most of her time.
"I just wanted it to be special," she repeated, a little less self-conscious this time and more annoyed with the mess she'd managed to build up in her mind. He shook his head again and reached for her, pulling her forward into a warm, if logistically awkward hug. Her cheek rested against the side of his neck and she wrapped the blanket around his shoulders as well as her own in a cocoon that encased the both of them.
He finally leaned back, and she dropped her forehead against his.
"It's special no matter what," he reassured quietly. "Every single moment that we spend together is unbelievably special to me. You are the most beautiful, neurotic, intelligent, frustrating, funny, fearless witch that I have ever met in my life. I am hopelessly in love with you, and nothing you can do or wear is going to change that. Confidence, experience, all the rest of that will just come with practice and time."
She'd hardly heard that last bit, her heart having leapt into her throat. "You love me?" she blurted. Now she was the one with astonishment etched on her face.
He nodded like it should have been obvious, and his eyebrows drew together. "Did you think I didn't? Hermione, I've been in love with you for ages. You can ask George, if you don't believe me. He's so tired of hearing about it, he's ready to smother me in my sleep."
The look on his face was warm enough to melt a glacier. He meant it. He really meant it. Even after she'd managed to cock everything up. She bit her lip and thought hard for a moment. It was still well over an hour until curfew.
"Help me with these," she abruptly entreated, reaching up and beginning to extract the pins from her hair. Fred paused for a moment before he started to nimbly remove them from the curls on the left side of her head while she did the right. One by one the ringlets sprang forward, as if annoyed they'd been suppressed in the first place.
When the last one was tossed to the side near their discarded clothing, she lunged and grabbed the wand from her robes, sitting back on Fred's legs while he reclined on his hands and watched her curiously. Recalling the pronunciation Parvati had explained earlier, she muttered "mundet" and made a circle around her face.
She hadn't realized how different the makeup had made her skin feel until it wasn't there anymore.
Fred smiled at her then and reached a hand out, playfully tussling her curls a bit.
"Okay, now shut your eyes."
"Yes ma'am," he teased, doing as she said.
Hermione climbed off his lap and went to the pile of clothing near the railing. Glancing back to make sure he wasn't peeking she unhooked her bra and tossed it to the side, snatching his rumpled oxford and donning it, leaving the top few buttons undone. She stripped off the stockings as well. The knickers stayed, though they were covered by the hem of the shirt anyway.
She returned and sat next to him. "Alright, you can look again."
Fred blinked his eyes open and his amused expression split into a full-out grin upon seeing her, crinkling the corners of his eyes. "There's my girl."
She smiled back and relaxed completely.
Confidence, she heard again in her head and inwardly scoffed. Well, it was certainly easier to be confident when her boobs weren't hoisted up to her ears and she wasn't terrified to touch her own face.
"Can we start over?"
He nodded and she crawled back into his lap, dipping her head so that her hair swung to one side and kissing him gently on the lips. Earlier he'd been nervous to touch her, like she might break, but it seemed that apprehension was gone too.
One hand traced along her thigh, cupping her bum, while the other looped around her waist and held her to him. Her hands explored too, skimming the muscles of his back and tracing the contours of his exposed biceps.
She pressed lightly on his shoulders and he leaned back, stuffing a pillow under his head as he did it. Rather than jumping straight for his trousers as she had before, she shifted to lay propped along his side, her breath hitching when the hand that had been on her thigh slid beneath the hem of the shirt, skimming across her lower abdomen.
Fred paused and she nodded in encouragement. His hand moved up a bit more and his fingertips brushed the underside of her naked breast. Something inside her clenched and she pressed her thighs together in a futile attempt to relieve the pressure.
He moved from kissing her mouth to her throat and, glancing down, she saw the front of his trousers were stretched outward. Without even thinking about it, she placed her hand over him and lightly squeezed.
A hiss slipped from between his teeth as he palmed her chest.
Hermione shifted to lean over him once again and, with more conviction than she'd felt all night, undid the buttons on his shirt for the second time until it hung open and fell over her shoulders. Her nipples were hard, and Fred shook his head a little as he took her in.
"I can't believe you're mine," he muttered disbelievingly, swallowing hard. She smiled and reached for his belt buckle, unhooking it and pulling it loose with relative ease this time. He sat up and shoved his trousers down, kicking off his shoes as well so he was laying in just a pair of noticeably tented blue checkered shorts.
She climbed to straddle him and rocked forward, thighs bracketing his hips, then dropped down to kiss below his ear at the same time she fished a hand between them to touch him through the last bit of remaining fabric.
"I am, you know," she whispered. She pulled back and looked at him, into those impossibly blue eyes. "Yours."
Something flashed across his face, but she didn't have time to dwell. He rolled to the side so she was under him. The unbuttoned shirt hanging open, more an accessory at that point, as his lips closed around her nipple and her hips pitched forward.
"Fred," she whimpered wantonly, feeling his tongue flick over her. Her exclamation only fueled him. One arm was still tucked beneath her neck, but the other hand reached down between her thighs and applied the slightest pressure in just the place she'd been longing to feel it.
"Fuck, you're wet," he breathed, tearing his mouth away from her chest with a shocked expression and she snickered. He wasn't wrong; the scrap of cotton set in the lace underwear was practically sodden.
She reached down and took his hand, lifting it up to the band of her knickers, and slipped just the tips of his fingers beneath the fabric. He wavered for a second and then slid his hand down, through the neatly trimmed thatch of dark curls, to trace along her center.
He ducked back to her breasts, the other one this time, and wrapped his lips around its peak just as he dipped a finger into her. He groaned and she laughed, though she quieted with a gasp when he dragged that finger back up and circled it around her clit.
Her hips bucked up again and her nails dug into his shoulder.
Perhaps it was recency bias, but somehow his fingers felt better than her own. A little clumsy, and obviously not as familiar with the terrain, but the sheer vulnerability of letting him be the one to touch her, to make her feel that way, had her practically wheezing.
She tried to focus enough to stroke him, but the angle wasn't right, and he was so captivated by the sounds she was making she couldn't tell if it was having any effect. Finally, he pushed two fingers into her, using the heel of his palm to continue rubbing, and she gave up with a frustrated sigh.
Fred chuckled, teeth grazing her nipple.
"You first," he said with a wry smile. He wouldn't have to wait long – she was coiling like a spring.
"Down a bit," she instructed without thinking, lost in a fog of adolescent hedonism. He obliged, clearly not above taking direction, and shifted his hand. Within a couple minutes she tipped over the edge. Thankful that she'd added a silencing charm to those keeping them warm, she cried out and spasmed around his fingers, rolling her hips up and arching her back off the ground.
When she came back down, still shivering a bit, she opened her eyes to find Fred with his hand still in her knickers, staring at her like she'd just hung the moon.
"Never mind," he said, shaking his head vigorously. "Forget about me, I want to do that again."
"Nuh uh," she said, laughing and wiggling out from under him. "Your turn."
She was still nervous, but it was a different sort of nervous than it had been earlier. Excited rather than anxious.
He rolled over onto his back and Hermione propped on one elbow again. She wrapped her hand around him through his shorts and his breath faltered. A couple light strokes and he was flushed, rocking against her ever so slightly.
She hesitated for a moment before asking, "Would you be willing to take them off?"
He met her gaze, assessing for a split second, and nodded. She leaned back as he hooked his thumbs through the elastic and lifted his hips, pushing his boxer shorts down past his thighs and kicking them toward his already-discarded trousers.
Parvati was clearly suffering from some sort of lesbian partiality, because seeing him stretched out naked under her was just about the most arousing thing she could imagine.
The copper hair that began at his navel continued downward into a shock of dark ginger curls surrounding his erection. Which, though sizable, wasn't actually very intimidating at all, and certainly the furthest thing from repulsive. Flobberworms be damned.
She must have stared a second too long because he shifted a little nervously. Looking back up at his face she saw traces of the same vulnerability she'd felt herself not fifteen minutes earlier and her heart ached a little. Hermione didn't know the exact details of his sexual history, only that he was a virgin, but she knew this was his first time doing this with her and, like he'd said, that made it special by default.
She shifted up and caught his mouth in a searing kiss, parting his lips and sliding her tongue against his. The tension in his shoulders eased a bit and she took the opportunity to place a hand on him.
The skin was smooth and warm, softer than she'd imagined, but she applied the lightest pressure and felt a contradictory hardness beneath it. He groaned deep in his throat and she pulled back. She didn't move her hand on him yet, but she didn't take it away either.
He quirked his brows at her in question and she licked her lips.
"Teach me," she intreated quietly. He realised what she meant immediately and let out a sharp exhale, clearly not having ever received such a request. She looked pointedly at his left hand, resting on her side, and then back to her right where it was still wrapped around him. "Teach me."
Slowly, Fred removed his hand from her hip and placed it over hers, large enough that it was almost completely covered. And then he moved it, gliding his hand, and hers beneath it, down and back up the length of his shaft. Her mind was momentarily commandeered with the image of him doing this in the shower, or in his bed with the curtains drawn and, if it were even possible, she became more aroused at the thought. It wasn't the time though; she'd had her turn and Hermione was nothing if not equitable.
She leaned down to kiss him and, as she did so, he repeated the motion.
"Like this?" She tried the movement on her own, his hand resting lightly on top, guiding rather than driving.
"Yes," he breathed shakily, before adding hesitantly, "Maybe a little tighter?" She adjusted and did it again to a sound of approval. "Just like that." Settling into what she hoped was an appropriate rhythm, he took his hand off and used it to gently caress her breast instead.
Keeping her attention on what she was doing, she eventually saw a translucent bead of moisture escape from the tip and paused. Curiously, she stopped, collected it on her finger and placed it between her lips, depositing it on her tongue.
Fred was staring at her apprehensively, frozen in place like he'd been petrified. It was salty, and perhaps a bit bitter, but certainly not unpleasant.
"Can I try something?" she asked, turning to look at him in question. It didn't seem as though it needed to be explicitly stated what she wanted to try.
"Sure," he croaked, dropping his head back onto the pillow and looking up at the stars. The muscles in his neck flexed. "But, um, to be honest, I – I don't know how much longer I'm going to last here."
"I just want to see what it's like," she explained matter-of-factly, shuffling down his body to kneel between his thighs.
"Afraid I can't give you any pointers about that," he joked weakly, propping on his elbows to look at her. "I'll, uh, let you know if I'm going to…"
She nodded and smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring way, and he relaxed backward again, muttering something under his breath about Merlin and his infinite wisdom. She put her hand back where it had been, stroking twice the way he'd demonstrated, before she leaned down and tentatively ran her tongue across the tip of him. A shudder rolled through him.
Emboldened, she ducked her head, curls falling to the side, and pressed her tongue to a flat expanse of skin at the base and dragged it slowly upward, mimicking the motion and pressure that she'd made with her hand.
His fingers clenched into fists around the blankets at his sides.
"Hermione," Fred groaned helplessly.
Well, she thought, here goes nothing. When she reached the tip again, she opened her mouth and took him inside it. She was careful of her teeth, but she kept her lips tight and dragged her tongue slowly back and forth along the underside of him.
She couldn't fit it all, not by a long shot, but her hand was still wrapped beneath where her mouth stopped, and she hoped that it worked as a suitable supplement.
Rather naively, she expected it to taste different than the rest of him, but it really didn't. Other than the faintest trace of salty bitterness that she'd discerned earlier, it wasn't any different than the skin on his throat or his chest.
She pulled up, moving her hand as well, and then slid back down, careful not to go too far and choke herself. She did it again. Then again.
Fred was panting at that point, the muscles in his abdomen visibly tightening and his hips rocking with her, despite ostensible attempts to stay still.
"Fuck – I'm – I can't – I'm going to –"
She got the message and released him from her mouth. Though the idea of swallowing was intriguing, and more than a little arousing, this had already been a big night for firsts.
She kept working her hand over him, easier now that a fair amount of saliva had been added to the mix, and she crawled back up beside him just in time to feel the first warm spurt on her fist, landing on his upper abdomen.
The sounds he made would be seared in her memory for the rest of time, but she was utterly torn about where to look. Watching him come was one thing, sexy and sinful, but the expression on his face as he did so, eyes shut and lips parted, was just short of extraordinary.
As he finished, twitching in her palm, she leaned down and kissed him again, collecting an exhausted, spent sigh.
She then flopped onto her back next to him and reached for her discarded wand, conjuring a towel and wiping her hand on it before extending it to him. He accepted it gratefully and went to work cleaning up his stomach and chest while she relaxed onto the pillows behind them. When he was finished, she vanished it and he grabbed a blanket, tugging it over them and slipping an arm beneath her waist to pull her against his chest.
"Is it… is it always like that?" She asked after a pause, turning to look up at him. He was examining the sky above them in apparent thought, but he shook his head sharply.
"In my very limited experience? No. Not even close."
Feeling more than a little gratified, she nodded. There were a few beats of silence.
"So, what was it that you said about practicing?"
oOoOoOo
A/N: Because this was a two-for-one post, the next chapter won't be up until 8/10.
If you haven't done so already, go take the extra time to read one of my other fics.
(Or have a glass of wine and watch the Olympics. Idk, I'm not your keeper.)