And The Water Surround Me
Title: And The Water Surround Me [AO3]
Fandoms: Harry Potter
Wordcount: ~550
Rating: G
Summary: Hermione floats. (Solo breathplay kink.)
Notes/Disclaimers: Kink Bingo 2012, “breathplay”. (Click here for card.) Betad, as always, by the lovely
sophia_sol. I don’t own Harry Potter and I’m making no money from this.
Hermione floats.
Nine. Ten. Eleven.
The chlorine stings her eyes, but she keeps them open. The world is blue and green and the light ripples golden around her, very nearly a solid thing. Everything is soft, and blurred, and she imagines she can feel the light brushing gently against her skin, warmer than the cool kiss of the water.
She extends her arms, feels the currents that her movements form. She flutters her hands, forcing her body further downward. Her hair swirls, caught in the eddies, drifting in time to the movement of her limbs.
Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.
It’s not the same in the lake at Hogwarts. She’s tried, but the light is wrong - cold, harsh - and the waves tug and push her. There’s no serenity there, no control, and she emerges tense and shivering. This thing, what the pool water gives her... she can’t find it in the lake.
There’s a sound in her ears, soft but huge. The water sings against her eardrums like a gentle clash of great bells, a distant gust of wind. It’s everywhere, surrounds her. Cradles her in its arms, holds her up.
Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty.
She feels the first twinges of complaint, welcomes the first faint protests from her lungs. Her throat works, but she presses her lips firmly together. Not yet. Not yet.
The water is colder, now, against the heat that rises in her face and chest and groin. Her body wants, desperately - wants so many things. But her mind, as always, rules sovereign over the myriad parts of her being. She bares her teeth in a sudden wild grin, freer here in the refracting golden light, and small bubbles of air escape to twist wildly up into the sky.
Fifty-four. Fifty-five. Fifty-six.
The numbers threaten to blur together, bright spots beginning to dance in her vision. Ruthless, she counts onward. It doesn’t work unless she counts. It doesn’t work unless she knows.
Sixty-one. Sixty-two. Sixty-three.
Ninety-nine. One hundred. One-hundred-and-two.
One-hundred-thirty-two. One-hundred-thirty-three. One-hundred - no.
Her legs jerk, a desperate spasm, and she lets it carry her thrashing to the surface. She expels her breath in a gasp, blowing air and water out in one wild burst, and sucks fresh air in. The sudden rush of oxygen makes her dizzy, giddy. She rides the joy like a breaking wave, doesn’t wrinkle her forehead against the sudden sharp headache that follows. Control and chaos, freedom and constraint, balanced on the knife-blade, and she is almost overcome with it.
In that moment she is radiant.
Unwelcome music reaches her ears, something harsh and modern and hissing with radio static, and she winces. The blast of the A/C is a stinging bite against her damp face. The lifeguard stares at her, eyes bored and lifeless and accusing, drawn from his cozy office by a mad frizzy-haired girl in a frumpy swimsuit out for a swim at the crack of dawn.
The world is entropy, unbalanced. Disorder creeps in around the edges, and she shudders suddenly, a sharp unintended movement. The spots in her vision are fading, and beyond them she sees a world in grayscale, flat and mundane.
The Hogwarts Express leaves tomorrow.
She takes a deep breath. Dives.
Again.
One. Two. Three. crossposted from Dreamwidth |
comments on original post
Fandoms: Harry Potter
Wordcount: ~550
Rating: G
Summary: Hermione floats. (Solo breathplay kink.)
Notes/Disclaimers: Kink Bingo 2012, “breathplay”. (Click here for card.) Betad, as always, by the lovely
sophia_sol. I don’t own Harry Potter and I’m making no money from this.
Hermione floats.
Nine. Ten. Eleven.
The chlorine stings her eyes, but she keeps them open. The world is blue and green and the light ripples golden around her, very nearly a solid thing. Everything is soft, and blurred, and she imagines she can feel the light brushing gently against her skin, warmer than the cool kiss of the water.
She extends her arms, feels the currents that her movements form. She flutters her hands, forcing her body further downward. Her hair swirls, caught in the eddies, drifting in time to the movement of her limbs.
Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.
It’s not the same in the lake at Hogwarts. She’s tried, but the light is wrong - cold, harsh - and the waves tug and push her. There’s no serenity there, no control, and she emerges tense and shivering. This thing, what the pool water gives her... she can’t find it in the lake.
There’s a sound in her ears, soft but huge. The water sings against her eardrums like a gentle clash of great bells, a distant gust of wind. It’s everywhere, surrounds her. Cradles her in its arms, holds her up.
Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty.
She feels the first twinges of complaint, welcomes the first faint protests from her lungs. Her throat works, but she presses her lips firmly together. Not yet. Not yet.
The water is colder, now, against the heat that rises in her face and chest and groin. Her body wants, desperately - wants so many things. But her mind, as always, rules sovereign over the myriad parts of her being. She bares her teeth in a sudden wild grin, freer here in the refracting golden light, and small bubbles of air escape to twist wildly up into the sky.
Fifty-four. Fifty-five. Fifty-six.
The numbers threaten to blur together, bright spots beginning to dance in her vision. Ruthless, she counts onward. It doesn’t work unless she counts. It doesn’t work unless she knows.
Sixty-one. Sixty-two. Sixty-three.
Ninety-nine. One hundred. One-hundred-and-two.
One-hundred-thirty-two. One-hundred-thirty-three. One-hundred - no.
Her legs jerk, a desperate spasm, and she lets it carry her thrashing to the surface. She expels her breath in a gasp, blowing air and water out in one wild burst, and sucks fresh air in. The sudden rush of oxygen makes her dizzy, giddy. She rides the joy like a breaking wave, doesn’t wrinkle her forehead against the sudden sharp headache that follows. Control and chaos, freedom and constraint, balanced on the knife-blade, and she is almost overcome with it.
In that moment she is radiant.
Unwelcome music reaches her ears, something harsh and modern and hissing with radio static, and she winces. The blast of the A/C is a stinging bite against her damp face. The lifeguard stares at her, eyes bored and lifeless and accusing, drawn from his cozy office by a mad frizzy-haired girl in a frumpy swimsuit out for a swim at the crack of dawn.
The world is entropy, unbalanced. Disorder creeps in around the edges, and she shudders suddenly, a sharp unintended movement. The spots in her vision are fading, and beyond them she sees a world in grayscale, flat and mundane.
The Hogwarts Express leaves tomorrow.
She takes a deep breath. Dives.
Again.
One. Two. Three. crossposted from Dreamwidth |
comments on original post