RP: No Pink, Frilly, or Anatomically Incorrect Hearts-- check.
Date:February 14, 2005
Character(s): Hermione Granger, Roger Davies
Location: ....around.
Status: Private
Summary: Roger spends Valentine's Day with Hermione.
Completion: Complete
As he stood in front of his mirror in trousers and tucked-in shirt, Roger did up his tie. Then undid it, then tied it again.
"Ah, bugger it." He loosened the tie and yanked it ( Read more... )
Roger wasn't like Harry and Ron. For weeks, she'd considered him such, but she now had to admit that her feelings weren't strictly platonic at all. She'd acknowledged the attraction, of course, but the messy emotional part was something she honestly tried to avoid thinking about right now. Cowardly, but easier when she was dating two men and not wanting things to become even more complicated.
She studied Roger for several moments before she determined that she'd accept the ring, even if a part of her felt like she shouldn't due to the cost. She put the box on the bench between them and reached up to unclasp the silver chain she almost always wore. The locket fell between her breasts, so most people didn't even notice it and she often forgot she had it on. Once she had unclasped it, she removed the ring from the box and slid it onto the chain.
"I don't like things on my hands," she explained softly, "so this will be the best way to wear it." She leaned up to kiss his cheek before she put the necklace back on. "Thank you, Roger."
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He reached around and put his arms about her neck, taking the necklace from her to clasp it himself. He found himself fiddling with it a bit. "Bugger," he said softly in frustration. After a moment, he finally got it done with a satisfied little smile. Because he wanted to feel her skin, he let his fingers trail the back of her neck and along her shoulders before pulling back.
He grinned. He'd been nervous about all that. "So," he said, "You have a choice. I have a little something I'd like to do with you. You might think it's silly, but it's something else I've been thinking about since London. We can do it here, or back at my house. It'll work either place. You pick."
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She could feel the locket and the ring resting between her breasts, mementos from her grandmother as well as a sign of a great friendship. It felt right, in a way, considering that Harry and Ron were in the locket and now the ring from Roger had joined her boys. "Thank you," she murmured when he straightened, looking at him with slightly wide eyes when he touched her shoulders with a gentle caress.
At his words, she couldn't resist a mischievous smile. The awkward moment of before effortlessly moved into a teasing mood. "Now, really, Davies. Just because I've accepted your ring doesn't mean you get to suggest depraved acts to me," she said primly. She reached up to brush her fingers through his hair and added, "Especially not lewd behavior outdoors where anyone could see. The very idea!"
She laughed softly. "Seriously, what do you have in mind? It might be silly, true, but you've already taken me to an arcade, so it couldn't be much worse," she said with a teasing smile.
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He raised a brow, then frowned in mock frustration. "See, I thought that's how it worked," he murmured teasingly. "You know; ring first, then various acts of debauchery and depravity. Merlin, Hermione; what does it take?"
She moved her fingers through his hair and he took her wrist, kissing the inside of it. "Hermione, Hermione, Hermione," he sighed, meeting her tease-for-tease. "There's something to be said for outdoor lewdness. As for the audience, well, that's what wards are for."
He held onto her hand. "You're right about the arcade. I suppose a bit of poetry could hardly be worse." Raising his eyebrows, he watched her face. "How about a lesson? We can go back to my house by the fire and I can convince you it's not just a bunch of rot. Or we can do it right here." He waggled his eyebrows in keeping with their joke.
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She dragged her fingers along his cheek and jaw when he kissed her wrist, moving slightly closer to him unconsciously. "Is there?" she asked curiously. "I mean, uh, I'd not like an audience regardless of how proper or improper the acts."
"Poetry?" She smiled when she saw the sheepish smile on his lips followed by the playful leer and eyebrow waggling. "While there are benefits to doing it here by the river, where I can listen to the stream along with the presumably boring old poetry," she teased, "I think a warm fire might be most welcome. However, I'm open for doing it wherever you prefer so long as I have my wine and can lie against you while you read."
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He reveled in how her hands felt on his face for a moment, then focused on her question, noting that it sounded more curious than joking. "There is," was all he said, blushing a bit. He dropped the subject, leaning down to kiss her lips once, twice. Then a third time before he sat back.
"Wine and poetry? Your wish is my command." He picked up the bottle, and with a flick of his wand packed up the basket. He tugged her to her feet and pulled her to him. "Hang on," he whispered in her ear as he popped them to his porch.
He led her inside and to his sofa like before. "Just sit. I'll get everything ready."
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She was thinking about his comment and his blush when he leaned forward to kiss her. By the second kiss, she was kissing him back and when he pulled back from the third, she nipped lightly at his bottom lip.
After she stood up, he pulled her close and she wrapped her arms around him. The familiar tingle of Apparition surrounded them, and then they were on his porch. She followed him inside and sat down, removing her boots automatically.
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She kissed him back, and he smiled against her lips before pulling back. It surprised him when she nipped at his lip, and it made his breath catch. His fingers tightened on her hand.
Once they were in his house, Roger started the fire and poured their wine while Hermione got settled on the sofa. If he turned to watch her and dripped a bit of wine onto the table, it couldn't be helped. He took out the poetry anthology he'd brought in the picnic basket and moved to join her. She took the wine he handed her and he sat back against the cushions with her.
"Now," he said, "how to convince you that poetry isn't silly," he murmured, flipping through the pages to find a suitable one. "What do you think? Should I go deep and heavy? Or should I take another shot at romance?"
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"I never said that poetry was silly," she denied. "I just said that I didn't have any particular use for it. There's a difference. I know that some people really enjoy it and probably hate informative non-fiction texts, which I tend to read for pleasure."
"Choose one of your favorites," she told him before she took another drink of wine and watched the flames of the fire.
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"Ah, this one's called 'Somewhere I have never traveled," he began. He was a little nervous, he realised. Not many people knew he was into this stuff. But this was comfortable, and he felt unguarded with her. Which, he thought with a small smile, was what this poem was about, anyway.
"Somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: In your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot touch because they are too near. Your slightest look will easily unclose me; Though I have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself, as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose."
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When he finishd, she frowned thoughtfully. "What does it mean?" she asked. She looked up at him curiously. "Explain it, please."
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"Like fingers," he said, making a fist as he echoed the poem. "And this woman, the woman in the poem? When he's around her, it feels like she's opening him up, from the inside. 'Petal by petal'." He opened his fingers and looked down at her. "That's um. Just my interpretation."
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"I suppose I understand the analogy of closing himself off by comparing that to a fist, but why petals instead of fingers? Is it just because he wants to use spring and the mention of a flower? Why wouldn't he just say it closed himself off like a rosebud, for instance, and then petal by petal makes more sense," she decided.
She glanced at him and trailed off. "Sorry. Uh, I guess you can see why I've never much taken to poetry," she murmured, certain she was annoying him by trying to understand the poem when it was obviously not intended to be literal.
"The meaning behind it...that's really nice," she added. "That he's found someone who can make him feel that way after closing himself off like that."
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"Well," he began, trailing a finger down her cheek, "by somewhere he's never traveled, I think he means that the feelings he gets around her are different from what he's ever felt before, and it scares him, but thrills him all the same.
"And, er, when he says that she encloses him, I don't think it's the same way that she's unclosing him, later on. I know he uses language that's a bit strange. It's kind of what he's known for. That and the sort of mixed-metaphor, like with the petals and the fingers. But anyway. I like that one," he finished quietly. "It sort of spoke to me, when I first read it."
"Don't apologise," he murmured with a faint smile. "You've told me that you didn't take well to it, before. But I thought I'd try to show you why I like it. If you want, we could keep going, and I could try another."
"Yeah, the meaning behind it is what I look for in poems. They're not often explicit in their meaning, though they definitely can be sometimes."
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"Is that what it's supposed to do, speak to you?" she asked softly, wondering when he'd first read that one. From what she'd been able to piece together from his past, it had most likely been years ago, which meant it reminded him of the woman he'd lost. That was probably why it was so special to him. And here she was analyzing it and trying to understand petal-fingers when he was sharing something that meant a lot to him with her.
"It's a lovely poem in term of meaning, even if the petals and fingers thing was distracting," she said, leaning up to kiss his jaw before she rested her cheek on his shoulder. "Try another, and I'll attempt to not be so literal minded this time."
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"I think it speaks to you, yeah," Roger said, "when you find one that you can relate to, or inspires you. I'm glad I found poetry, even if it was by accident. I got into it mainly out of boredom, during the war. Passed quite a few hours with it and no one to talk to."
He smiled. "Okay, another one," he said, happy that she was at least humouring him as he flipped to a random page. When he landed on the one by Neruda, he paused, but decided to just go with it. "Ah, this one's... a little bit more literal, anyway." He cleared his throat. "I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets."
He shifted, going with it, and looked down at her, tipping up her chin gently and laying his lips on hers briefly before he continued. "Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps." He murmured it against her mouth as he kissed her again softly.
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