Fic, One More Thing, Ron/Hermione, R
Title: One More Thing
Written for napchic at hp_canon_fest
Pairing(s): Ron/Hermione
Word Count: 2896
Rating: Hard R
Summary:The night after the battle, Ron has trouble sorting through everything that happened. Luckily, Hermione knows just what he needs.
Warnings:Canon deaths mentioned. Sexual content
A/N: Dear recipient: when I found myself getting stuck on this thing, I followed your lj to your artwork and that got me right back on track. Seriously, folks, her Rons and Hermiones are beautiful and perfect and heartbreaking and squee-inducing and very, very inspiring. Big thanks to S for the beta!
It was over.
For better or worse, it was done. Exhausted from the fight and the wild swings from devastation to exultation and back again, Ron's head hit the pillow hard. His duty was done, Harry was put to bed, Hermione was seen off at the landing with a kiss on the forehead and an embrace rather more filled with meaning than most of their previous ones. His mum and dad were soothed as best as possible, a clap on the back and a meaningful look had been given to George (not that he noticed), the dead were counted and carted off, and now he was alone with his thoughts.
And that was the trouble, wasn't it?
Harry was lucky. With all he'd been through over the past 36-odd hours, both physically and mentally, his mind just shut down. Or at least that's what Ron supposed, because Harry's even snores made it clear that his mind was not troubling him. Ron was not so lucky. He couldn't get his brain to stop bombarding him with images such as Harry lying limp in Hagrid's arms and Voldemort's serpentine features and green jets of light singing Hermione's hair and his mum using Unforgiveables without hardly blinking and Fred's lifeless eyes.
He couldn't quite get away from the moment that he realized that Harry was dead, and from that point on they were all pretty much guaranteed to die fighting, or the moment that George came running over like someone who was about to get news that would rip his heart from his chest or the moment that Neville seemed destined to burn alive in front of Ron's very eyes, or the moment that Hermione dropped an armload of Basilisk fangs in order to launch herself at him and snog him into a state of terrified bliss.
And that was where his mind kept getting stuck.
Was it wrong to be so focused on that, of all things, on such a day?
But when you'd spent the last five years trying to work out a way to make that very thing happen, how could you not spend at least a few moments trying to process it? Or remembering how bloody brilliant her lips had felt, moving against his, or her tongue, twining around his own, or her tits, pressed up against his chest and her arms practically choking him, they were wrapped around his neck so tightly.
And since those images were so vivid, would a stress-relieving wank be bad form under the circumstances?
And was he a sick bastard for even considering it?
And why did Harry have to snore so loudly? And how had he forgotten that Dean and Seamus always seemed to snore in harmony? Or that Neville talked in his sleep? And for that matter, why did Hermione let him go to bed without even a mention of what had happened? Didn't it mean anything to her? Everything had seemed so clear at the time, but was there a possibility he'd misunderstood things? It wouldn't have been the first time...
He was so lost in his thoughts that he hardly noticed when the curtains parted. Well, he'd noticed, but if anything, he thought that maybe Harry had come in to talk.
But no, it wasn't Harry. It was the last person he ever expected to see climbing into his bed. Hoped, yes, expected, not in a million years.
"Hermione?" He hated how his voice always seemed to crack somewhere in the middle of her name. But seriously, what the hell else was he supposed to say when she was lifting up his covers and sliding beneath them?
Her hip bumped up next to his until he scooted over, and her feet were freezing against his, and her mad hair was tickling his chin and threatening to make its way into his mouth. "Hush, Ron. The last thing we need is for one of these boys to wake up."
"Hermione?" he repeated. "What are you... are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Ronald... just... Muffliato!" she said, waving a wand he hadn't even noticed she was holding.
She looked over at him and grinned. "Well, he may have been a repellent human being, but he wasn't a villain after all, and his spells were rather brilliant...."
"True," he admitted, trying not to think too closely about the fact that Hermione was here, in bed with him, practically starkers (or at least dressed for bed), and that he wasn't (hopefully) dreaming.
He had about a million questions he wanted to ask--most of them some variation of, 'Do you fancy me? Because I fancy you like mad and-'
She didn't seem to be waiting for him to talk, but she wasn't saying anything either. If she was waiting for him to say something about what had happened, she might be waiting for a long time. Eventually, she reached out to touch his face briefly in the semi-darkness, and he briefly considered lighting his wand to see her face better.
Finally, she spoke again. "I just... how are you feeling?"
How was he feeling? Where to begin? "I'm.. uh. Oh. You mean Fred, I reckon."
"Well, no, not just Fred, but... yeah."
"I'm... I'm all right, I suppose. Been better, but... I mean, it could have been a lot worse."
"And it could have been a lot better, too."
"Well, yeah."
"When Harry... when we thought-"
"Yeah, that was bad. Thought we were all done for."
"We all did."
"And it wasn't just that--I mean there were so many times--Mum fighting that that crazy bitch, and I swear, I thought Ginny was going to be hit, and you-"
Ron could feel his eyes prickling and blinked hard, turning away. "I thought, so many times, just when we'd finally-" He risked a look at her and found that her eyes were glittering. Hesitantly, he reached out to touch her hair. Hermione turned into his touch, and Ron felt his chest constrict. She closed her eyes, smiling softly.
"I know."
"I was stupid to waste so much time," he said, and her eyes flew open.
"No," she said. "Not stupid. Cautious, maybe."
"More like scared shitless-"
"As you should have been. This was--is--huge, isn't it? I mean, at least to me, it is-"
Ron nodded. "Hermione. This is everything. I always knew that, and I think you did, too. I just--it took me a while to--I never thought I was good enough. I thought-"
Before he could finish, Hermione had moved, and her mouth was pressed against his, preventing him from continuing. "Not good enough? Now that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Nobody's better than you. Nobody. How you just... oh, god, after Fred, and carrying on, and then the fire--and I was so terrified, but you just... and the fangs, and you knew how important it was to me, and oh, Ron, that stupid tiara. whispering the most horrid things to me - I just kept seeing you hurt or dying, and Harry dying, and me carrying on, on my own, and oh, Ron, it's got to be the three of us, it's always been the three of us, and without you, we just didn't have any heart. No will to go on, it was like we were missing a limb, and-"
The ache that had constricted his chest but a moment before had apparently burst open. Ron found that he couldn't bear to hear another word, nor could he think of a single thing to say in reply, so he stopped her with a kiss, putting everything he was feeling into it.
Hermione sighed, and Ron could felt the tension in her body easing as sort of she melted against him. "It's all right," he said. "We made it and Harry made it and it's going to be better now." Apart from his fucking brother, Ron thought, and gritted his teeth against the pain that stabbed at his chest at the thought. "We're going to be all right," he said., stroking her cheek. "And you're not going to be alone again."
"But, when I go to Australia..."
"You know what I mean," he said. "Besides, I always reckoned I'd go with you."
"Really?"
"Of course. Couldn't risk you getting swept off your feet by some bloody Aussie and never coming back, could I?"
"As if," she said, and Ron suspected that if he could see them, her cheeks might have been pink.
"Besides, I could really get used to doing more of this," he said, and leant in to kiss her again, still finding it hard to wrap his mid around the fact that she was letting him after so many years of mixed signals and missed chances.
And more than letting him, she was kissing him back. Endless wet, hot, mind-drugging kisses that were about a million times better than he possibly could have imagined and almost had him asking where she'd learned to do it. Not that he would have--the last thing he wanted was for her to stop. Her fingers were in his hair and on his neck and on his cheek and it seemed she couldn't get enough of touching him--which while brilliant in the way it felt, was also brilliant because it seemed as if she'd been as desperate to know what he felt like as he'd been to touch her.
Here, that freckle on the side of her neck he'd stared at for hours in Potions Class--he could lick it--tasting her salty skin and feeling her pulse fluttering beneath his tongue. There, her collarbone--his failsafe place to focus on when he was trying to control an erection--he could run his fingers over it, tracing the graceful lines and causing her to shiver.
There, her shoulder--if he just moved the collar of her nightgown over he could press his lips to it, remembering what a shock it had been to see it the first summer she visited, wearing Muggle clothes that had raised his mother's eyebrows and made Ron feel and odd sort of squirming in his stomach. And if he tugged at the ribbon at her neckline, he could stroke the skin just over her rapidly beating heart, his thumb brushing over that absolutely brilliant spot where her collars usually ended and her cleavage began. Bloody hell, he loved that spot.
Her hair was everywhere--spread over his pillow and tickling his cheek and wrapping itself around his fingers. It smelled even better up close than it did from a distance.
Her fingers, more soot-stained than ink-stained today, with the usual calluses on her thumb and forefinger (plus a few more picked up on the road), they were running lightly over his skin, causing him to shiver as she discovered his more sensitive bits. She reached under the hem of his shirt to stroke his backbone, to count each individual rib, to trace a circle around each shoulder blade and slide back down to slip ever-so-slightly under the waistband of his trousers. Yes, please, more of that, he thought, and as he began kissing her neck, he let his thumb begin to venture further down her neckline, supposing that the worst she could do was to tell him to stop. Please don't tell me to stop.
When she didn't, he screwed his eyes shut, said a quick prayer, and made another pass with his hand, letting his palm brush over where he supposed her nipple was in the process. He tried to distract her in the process, taking her earlobe between his lips and sucking softly, and maybe it was that, or maybe he'd actually made contact, but Hermione moaned into his ear, and any chance he'd had of playing it cool pretty much flew out the bed curtains.
"D'you mind?" he whispered into her ear, and in response, she took his hand and placed it on her breast, sighing happily as his hand closed around it.
"Fuck," he exhaled, and Hermione didn't even seem inclined to scold him. Instead, she reached under his trousers to run her fingers over the top of his arse, making him moan into her ear and sending whatever blood was still left to keep his brain working permanently south. She didn't even object when he shifted on her, his erection becoming rather obvious as it pressed against her hip. If anything, she seemed inclined to urge him on, arching up into his tit-filled hand and raising her knees to either side of him.
"Fuck," he repeated. From that angle he could almost pretend that she was naked and he was naked and at any moment he was going to be able to slip inside her. Which was probably too much to hope for, given that before yesterday, kissing Hermione had seemed an impossible dream, but still...
"Mmm," she replied, reaching up to turn his face back towards her, kissing him with her eyes open and her fingertips digging into his arse.
"I love you," he found himself saying, closing his eyes as he willed his body to slow down. At this point, he would be lucky if he didn't come all over his pants, and sooner, rather than later.
Hermione laughed under her breath. "You would tell me now, wouldn't you?"
"Huh?" he said, opened his eyes to find her grinning at him. "I mean, I do, it's not just because..."
Rolling her eyes, Hermione shifted again, pressing up into him as her hand ventured even lower, her thumb moving back and forth over his hipbone, her fingers inching their way down his arse. "Well, I love you too, and I don't mean just because I'm just about ready to soak my knickers."
Just about ready to... "Fuck," Ron repeated a third time as his brain sort of exploded inside his head. Hermione. Wet. Hermione telling him she was wet. Hermione telling him she loved him. Hermione loved him. And she was wet. And she was touching him. And kissing him. And her tit was in his hand, and she seemed to like it. And she loved him. And she was wet. And her legs were wrapped around him, and she was rocking up into him as if maybe rubbing against his cock felt as good to her as it did to him but if she didn't stop soon, he was going to make one hell of a mess. It was almost as though she was trying to make it happen, because she was moaning into his ear and sucking on his neck and reaching between them to grasp his cock through his pyjamas and even reaching beneath them to rub her thumb over the head and oh, bloody, buggering fuck, he was coming all over his stomach and hers, all over her hand, even over the bedclothes.
And still, she didn't stop--she was still rubbing up against him and gasping with desire, or frustration, or possibly annoyance, and finally she just pulled up her nightgown and grabbed his hand, thrusting it between her legs. "Please," she whispered against his ear, and befuddled as he was, he didn't need much explanation. Guidance, though--that he needed, because he was so distracted by all the hot, wet, utterly fucking brilliant flesh under his fingers that he wouldn't have known where to begin. Hermione being Hermione, however, meant that didn't have to be an obstacle because she was right down there with him, her fingers moving over his--almost businesslike, if not for the way that she was whimpering in his ear, shuddering beneath him and then finally crying out his name.
Which had to be pretty much the most powerful feeling on earth, Ron reckoned, especially once she curled up in his arms, tucking her head into his neck. "I really do love you," he said, and he almost thought he could feel her smiling against his skin.
"I sort of worked that out," she replied, reaching under his shirt yet again, stroking his spine, counting his ribs, making him shiver when she reached sensitive spots.
Rolling over onto his back (and taking her with him--gods, was there anything better than a completely pliant Hermione with her leg thrown over him and her head on his chest and her mad hair tickling his nose?) he could feel the tension of the day draining away. The ruined castle, the fact that he'd damn near beaten that fucking werewolf to death, his brother's death, his family's grief, his lost friends, trying to decide what the hell he was going to do with the rest his life--all of those things would still be there in the morning.
But this--this thing that had been making him completely mental for all these years--this was finally settled. He hadn't lost her. Not to death, not to Death Eaters, and not to his own stupidity. For some strange reason, the barmy girl wanted him, of all people.
And if that was true, Ron reckoned he could handle pretty much anything else.
Written for napchic at hp_canon_fest
Pairing(s): Ron/Hermione
Word Count: 2896
Rating: Hard R
Summary:The night after the battle, Ron has trouble sorting through everything that happened. Luckily, Hermione knows just what he needs.
Warnings:Canon deaths mentioned. Sexual content
A/N: Dear recipient: when I found myself getting stuck on this thing, I followed your lj to your artwork and that got me right back on track. Seriously, folks, her Rons and Hermiones are beautiful and perfect and heartbreaking and squee-inducing and very, very inspiring. Big thanks to S for the beta!
It was over.
For better or worse, it was done. Exhausted from the fight and the wild swings from devastation to exultation and back again, Ron's head hit the pillow hard. His duty was done, Harry was put to bed, Hermione was seen off at the landing with a kiss on the forehead and an embrace rather more filled with meaning than most of their previous ones. His mum and dad were soothed as best as possible, a clap on the back and a meaningful look had been given to George (not that he noticed), the dead were counted and carted off, and now he was alone with his thoughts.
And that was the trouble, wasn't it?
Harry was lucky. With all he'd been through over the past 36-odd hours, both physically and mentally, his mind just shut down. Or at least that's what Ron supposed, because Harry's even snores made it clear that his mind was not troubling him. Ron was not so lucky. He couldn't get his brain to stop bombarding him with images such as Harry lying limp in Hagrid's arms and Voldemort's serpentine features and green jets of light singing Hermione's hair and his mum using Unforgiveables without hardly blinking and Fred's lifeless eyes.
He couldn't quite get away from the moment that he realized that Harry was dead, and from that point on they were all pretty much guaranteed to die fighting, or the moment that George came running over like someone who was about to get news that would rip his heart from his chest or the moment that Neville seemed destined to burn alive in front of Ron's very eyes, or the moment that Hermione dropped an armload of Basilisk fangs in order to launch herself at him and snog him into a state of terrified bliss.
And that was where his mind kept getting stuck.
Was it wrong to be so focused on that, of all things, on such a day?
But when you'd spent the last five years trying to work out a way to make that very thing happen, how could you not spend at least a few moments trying to process it? Or remembering how bloody brilliant her lips had felt, moving against his, or her tongue, twining around his own, or her tits, pressed up against his chest and her arms practically choking him, they were wrapped around his neck so tightly.
And since those images were so vivid, would a stress-relieving wank be bad form under the circumstances?
And was he a sick bastard for even considering it?
And why did Harry have to snore so loudly? And how had he forgotten that Dean and Seamus always seemed to snore in harmony? Or that Neville talked in his sleep? And for that matter, why did Hermione let him go to bed without even a mention of what had happened? Didn't it mean anything to her? Everything had seemed so clear at the time, but was there a possibility he'd misunderstood things? It wouldn't have been the first time...
He was so lost in his thoughts that he hardly noticed when the curtains parted. Well, he'd noticed, but if anything, he thought that maybe Harry had come in to talk.
But no, it wasn't Harry. It was the last person he ever expected to see climbing into his bed. Hoped, yes, expected, not in a million years.
"Hermione?" He hated how his voice always seemed to crack somewhere in the middle of her name. But seriously, what the hell else was he supposed to say when she was lifting up his covers and sliding beneath them?
Her hip bumped up next to his until he scooted over, and her feet were freezing against his, and her mad hair was tickling his chin and threatening to make its way into his mouth. "Hush, Ron. The last thing we need is for one of these boys to wake up."
"Hermione?" he repeated. "What are you... are you all right?"
"I'm fine, Ronald... just... Muffliato!" she said, waving a wand he hadn't even noticed she was holding.
She looked over at him and grinned. "Well, he may have been a repellent human being, but he wasn't a villain after all, and his spells were rather brilliant...."
"True," he admitted, trying not to think too closely about the fact that Hermione was here, in bed with him, practically starkers (or at least dressed for bed), and that he wasn't (hopefully) dreaming.
He had about a million questions he wanted to ask--most of them some variation of, 'Do you fancy me? Because I fancy you like mad and-'
She didn't seem to be waiting for him to talk, but she wasn't saying anything either. If she was waiting for him to say something about what had happened, she might be waiting for a long time. Eventually, she reached out to touch his face briefly in the semi-darkness, and he briefly considered lighting his wand to see her face better.
Finally, she spoke again. "I just... how are you feeling?"
How was he feeling? Where to begin? "I'm.. uh. Oh. You mean Fred, I reckon."
"Well, no, not just Fred, but... yeah."
"I'm... I'm all right, I suppose. Been better, but... I mean, it could have been a lot worse."
"And it could have been a lot better, too."
"Well, yeah."
"When Harry... when we thought-"
"Yeah, that was bad. Thought we were all done for."
"We all did."
"And it wasn't just that--I mean there were so many times--Mum fighting that that crazy bitch, and I swear, I thought Ginny was going to be hit, and you-"
Ron could feel his eyes prickling and blinked hard, turning away. "I thought, so many times, just when we'd finally-" He risked a look at her and found that her eyes were glittering. Hesitantly, he reached out to touch her hair. Hermione turned into his touch, and Ron felt his chest constrict. She closed her eyes, smiling softly.
"I know."
"I was stupid to waste so much time," he said, and her eyes flew open.
"No," she said. "Not stupid. Cautious, maybe."
"More like scared shitless-"
"As you should have been. This was--is--huge, isn't it? I mean, at least to me, it is-"
Ron nodded. "Hermione. This is everything. I always knew that, and I think you did, too. I just--it took me a while to--I never thought I was good enough. I thought-"
Before he could finish, Hermione had moved, and her mouth was pressed against his, preventing him from continuing. "Not good enough? Now that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Nobody's better than you. Nobody. How you just... oh, god, after Fred, and carrying on, and then the fire--and I was so terrified, but you just... and the fangs, and you knew how important it was to me, and oh, Ron, that stupid tiara. whispering the most horrid things to me - I just kept seeing you hurt or dying, and Harry dying, and me carrying on, on my own, and oh, Ron, it's got to be the three of us, it's always been the three of us, and without you, we just didn't have any heart. No will to go on, it was like we were missing a limb, and-"
The ache that had constricted his chest but a moment before had apparently burst open. Ron found that he couldn't bear to hear another word, nor could he think of a single thing to say in reply, so he stopped her with a kiss, putting everything he was feeling into it.
Hermione sighed, and Ron could felt the tension in her body easing as sort of she melted against him. "It's all right," he said. "We made it and Harry made it and it's going to be better now." Apart from his fucking brother, Ron thought, and gritted his teeth against the pain that stabbed at his chest at the thought. "We're going to be all right," he said., stroking her cheek. "And you're not going to be alone again."
"But, when I go to Australia..."
"You know what I mean," he said. "Besides, I always reckoned I'd go with you."
"Really?"
"Of course. Couldn't risk you getting swept off your feet by some bloody Aussie and never coming back, could I?"
"As if," she said, and Ron suspected that if he could see them, her cheeks might have been pink.
"Besides, I could really get used to doing more of this," he said, and leant in to kiss her again, still finding it hard to wrap his mid around the fact that she was letting him after so many years of mixed signals and missed chances.
And more than letting him, she was kissing him back. Endless wet, hot, mind-drugging kisses that were about a million times better than he possibly could have imagined and almost had him asking where she'd learned to do it. Not that he would have--the last thing he wanted was for her to stop. Her fingers were in his hair and on his neck and on his cheek and it seemed she couldn't get enough of touching him--which while brilliant in the way it felt, was also brilliant because it seemed as if she'd been as desperate to know what he felt like as he'd been to touch her.
Here, that freckle on the side of her neck he'd stared at for hours in Potions Class--he could lick it--tasting her salty skin and feeling her pulse fluttering beneath his tongue. There, her collarbone--his failsafe place to focus on when he was trying to control an erection--he could run his fingers over it, tracing the graceful lines and causing her to shiver.
There, her shoulder--if he just moved the collar of her nightgown over he could press his lips to it, remembering what a shock it had been to see it the first summer she visited, wearing Muggle clothes that had raised his mother's eyebrows and made Ron feel and odd sort of squirming in his stomach. And if he tugged at the ribbon at her neckline, he could stroke the skin just over her rapidly beating heart, his thumb brushing over that absolutely brilliant spot where her collars usually ended and her cleavage began. Bloody hell, he loved that spot.
Her hair was everywhere--spread over his pillow and tickling his cheek and wrapping itself around his fingers. It smelled even better up close than it did from a distance.
Her fingers, more soot-stained than ink-stained today, with the usual calluses on her thumb and forefinger (plus a few more picked up on the road), they were running lightly over his skin, causing him to shiver as she discovered his more sensitive bits. She reached under the hem of his shirt to stroke his backbone, to count each individual rib, to trace a circle around each shoulder blade and slide back down to slip ever-so-slightly under the waistband of his trousers. Yes, please, more of that, he thought, and as he began kissing her neck, he let his thumb begin to venture further down her neckline, supposing that the worst she could do was to tell him to stop. Please don't tell me to stop.
When she didn't, he screwed his eyes shut, said a quick prayer, and made another pass with his hand, letting his palm brush over where he supposed her nipple was in the process. He tried to distract her in the process, taking her earlobe between his lips and sucking softly, and maybe it was that, or maybe he'd actually made contact, but Hermione moaned into his ear, and any chance he'd had of playing it cool pretty much flew out the bed curtains.
"D'you mind?" he whispered into her ear, and in response, she took his hand and placed it on her breast, sighing happily as his hand closed around it.
"Fuck," he exhaled, and Hermione didn't even seem inclined to scold him. Instead, she reached under his trousers to run her fingers over the top of his arse, making him moan into her ear and sending whatever blood was still left to keep his brain working permanently south. She didn't even object when he shifted on her, his erection becoming rather obvious as it pressed against her hip. If anything, she seemed inclined to urge him on, arching up into his tit-filled hand and raising her knees to either side of him.
"Fuck," he repeated. From that angle he could almost pretend that she was naked and he was naked and at any moment he was going to be able to slip inside her. Which was probably too much to hope for, given that before yesterday, kissing Hermione had seemed an impossible dream, but still...
"Mmm," she replied, reaching up to turn his face back towards her, kissing him with her eyes open and her fingertips digging into his arse.
"I love you," he found himself saying, closing his eyes as he willed his body to slow down. At this point, he would be lucky if he didn't come all over his pants, and sooner, rather than later.
Hermione laughed under her breath. "You would tell me now, wouldn't you?"
"Huh?" he said, opened his eyes to find her grinning at him. "I mean, I do, it's not just because..."
Rolling her eyes, Hermione shifted again, pressing up into him as her hand ventured even lower, her thumb moving back and forth over his hipbone, her fingers inching their way down his arse. "Well, I love you too, and I don't mean just because I'm just about ready to soak my knickers."
Just about ready to... "Fuck," Ron repeated a third time as his brain sort of exploded inside his head. Hermione. Wet. Hermione telling him she was wet. Hermione telling him she loved him. Hermione loved him. And she was wet. And she was touching him. And kissing him. And her tit was in his hand, and she seemed to like it. And she loved him. And she was wet. And her legs were wrapped around him, and she was rocking up into him as if maybe rubbing against his cock felt as good to her as it did to him but if she didn't stop soon, he was going to make one hell of a mess. It was almost as though she was trying to make it happen, because she was moaning into his ear and sucking on his neck and reaching between them to grasp his cock through his pyjamas and even reaching beneath them to rub her thumb over the head and oh, bloody, buggering fuck, he was coming all over his stomach and hers, all over her hand, even over the bedclothes.
And still, she didn't stop--she was still rubbing up against him and gasping with desire, or frustration, or possibly annoyance, and finally she just pulled up her nightgown and grabbed his hand, thrusting it between her legs. "Please," she whispered against his ear, and befuddled as he was, he didn't need much explanation. Guidance, though--that he needed, because he was so distracted by all the hot, wet, utterly fucking brilliant flesh under his fingers that he wouldn't have known where to begin. Hermione being Hermione, however, meant that didn't have to be an obstacle because she was right down there with him, her fingers moving over his--almost businesslike, if not for the way that she was whimpering in his ear, shuddering beneath him and then finally crying out his name.
Which had to be pretty much the most powerful feeling on earth, Ron reckoned, especially once she curled up in his arms, tucking her head into his neck. "I really do love you," he said, and he almost thought he could feel her smiling against his skin.
"I sort of worked that out," she replied, reaching under his shirt yet again, stroking his spine, counting his ribs, making him shiver when she reached sensitive spots.
Rolling over onto his back (and taking her with him--gods, was there anything better than a completely pliant Hermione with her leg thrown over him and her head on his chest and her mad hair tickling his nose?) he could feel the tension of the day draining away. The ruined castle, the fact that he'd damn near beaten that fucking werewolf to death, his brother's death, his family's grief, his lost friends, trying to decide what the hell he was going to do with the rest his life--all of those things would still be there in the morning.
But this--this thing that had been making him completely mental for all these years--this was finally settled. He hadn't lost her. Not to death, not to Death Eaters, and not to his own stupidity. For some strange reason, the barmy girl wanted him, of all people.
And if that was true, Ron reckoned he could handle pretty much anything else.