Fic : Unexpected : Hermione/Ron : PG
Title: Unexpected
Author: honey_wheeler
Disclaimer: Not mine, Rowling's.
Pairing: Hermione. Ron.
Rating: PG (if that)
Summary: Ron has a new haircut and it makes Hermione feel funny inside, in the pit of her stomach.
Author's Notes: Inspired a while ago by Rupert's hair during GOF filming. Just a couple of elaborated thoughts.
Ron has a new haircut. He, Fred, and George have declared this "the Summer of the Muggle" and Ron insists on picking her up from the train station in the Ministry-confiscated, beat-up truck that replaced the runaway Ford Anglia, which he has recently learned to drive. Properly, on roads, with no flying whatsoever Mum, I swear. She sees his coin-bright hair floating above the buzzing throng of people on the platform. Weasleys are easy to spot in a crowd.
His bright hair falls in his gentle, sleepy eyes and curls around his collar, only barely concealing the curves of his ears, and makes him look not completely unlike one of the Beatles or maybe a little like an English Sheepdog. Ron has a new haircut and it makes Hermione feel funny inside, in the pit of her stomach. This is unexpected.
He has kindly brought copies of the wizarding world's papers and magazines, in case she's gone without the whole summer. She is absurdly touched. She watches him shift gears and pump the clutch and has to look away, out the window. The clean, spicy, boy-smell of him fills the car and she finds herself wondering if his mouth tastes as red as his hair.
After dinner, she and Harry sit at a picnic table to catch up and watch an impromptu and wildly inaccurate cricket match being waged by the Weasleys on the lawn. George is wearing a mitt and some sort of mask and Ginny scoots a football along with what appears to be a field hockey stick, while Fred employs a full-body tackle to prevent Ron from stealing third base. Hermione tries to watch the game as whole, or at the very least pay individual attention to each Weasley equally, but she finds her eyes drawn again and again to Ron, in his ratty jeans and hooded sweatshirt, and wonders how she never noticed the way his collarbones press against the fabric of his clothes and how his wrists have a notch just below the thumb that creates the perfect place to wrap her hand.
Harry is not usually observant, but he has noticed this. Difficult not to notice, as she trails off in the middle of a sentence when Ron sends the ball careening off the roof of the potting shed and declares it a goal, then proceeds to whoop and holler and take a victory lap around the lawn, both arms above his head, causing his sweatshirt to ride up a ways over the low waistband of his jeans. Harry smiles knowingly at her. She glares defensively.
"It's just--" she starts, and falters.
"I know," he answers, and she realizes he does and they watch together in silence.
"Summer of the Muggle!" Ron crows as he and George celebrate their victory. "If only," Hermione thinks.
*****
She is sitting against a tree, sketchbook in her lap, daydreaming and looking lazily at the sky. The pencil is loose in her grip. The sketching was more of a pretense to get her out of the house, away from the raucous, genial, altogether overwhelming presence of so many people. Sometimes she thinks she envies Ron his family. Other times she wonders.
As if being called by her thoughts, Ron trots up to the base of the tree and tumbles bonelessly, with a peculiar sort of grace, onto the grass, sprawling out on his stomach next to her legs. His index finger presses on the corner of her sketchpad to tilt it to his view.
"Tired of us already?" he asks mildly, as he takes up her pencil and begins doodling on the paper, his elbow resting on her crossed shins, the weight of his forearm pressing the sketchbook into her suddenly twitchy thighs. She doesn't know what to do with her hands.
"There are an awful lot of you," She grins to soften her words. To show that although she means it, she doesn't mean it. He scribbles in silence for a bit.
"Do YOU ever get tired of them?" she asks presently. "Not tired, I guess, but-"
"Yeah, sometimes," he shrugs, as if this is normal, to get tired of your family. As if everyone has so many family members that you're never truly rid of them, whether you might want to be or not. He's never been to Hermione's home, where the stairs creak in the silence and her room often seems cavernous and empty and Crookshanks is the most energy the place has seen in a while.
"Easy to get lost in all the noise." She's not sure which one of them she's referring to. Maybe both of them. She sees that he has drawn an ornate, organic H. For her or Harry? she wonders, then reminds herself it could be for Hogwarts. Or, um, Hot. Or Help me, I'm going mental and I want to shag my best friend. Except that was her.
He just shrugs again and sends curlicues shooting off the crossbar of the H. She's overcome by the urge to touch, to comfort somehow.
"New hair," she says lightly, lifting it up off his temple, testing the slippery feel of it between her thumb and forefinger.
"Yeah, what do you think?" he queries, still not looking up from his scribbles." Mum hates it, so I reckon I'm on the right track." His eyes flash up to hers and crinkle at the edges. Her answering smile is softer, more telling than she intended. Almost involuntarily, she flips her hand and runs her knuckles down the lean plane of his cheek, no longer as soft and rounded as it used to be. She is surprised when his eyelids drop slightly and he leans into her touch like a cat. The funny, fluttery feeling returns, stronger this time, so that her skin seems to shrink on her body and she begins to feel like an overstuffed sofa.
Afraid he'll feel the steady thrum of her pulse in her wrist, afraid she'll give in to impulse and press her fingers against the smooth column of his throat, she drops her hand to her lap. Ron ducks his head and rolls the fabric of her sundress between his fingertips.
Author: honey_wheeler
Disclaimer: Not mine, Rowling's.
Pairing: Hermione. Ron.
Rating: PG (if that)
Summary: Ron has a new haircut and it makes Hermione feel funny inside, in the pit of her stomach.
Author's Notes: Inspired a while ago by Rupert's hair during GOF filming. Just a couple of elaborated thoughts.
Ron has a new haircut. He, Fred, and George have declared this "the Summer of the Muggle" and Ron insists on picking her up from the train station in the Ministry-confiscated, beat-up truck that replaced the runaway Ford Anglia, which he has recently learned to drive. Properly, on roads, with no flying whatsoever Mum, I swear. She sees his coin-bright hair floating above the buzzing throng of people on the platform. Weasleys are easy to spot in a crowd.
His bright hair falls in his gentle, sleepy eyes and curls around his collar, only barely concealing the curves of his ears, and makes him look not completely unlike one of the Beatles or maybe a little like an English Sheepdog. Ron has a new haircut and it makes Hermione feel funny inside, in the pit of her stomach. This is unexpected.
He has kindly brought copies of the wizarding world's papers and magazines, in case she's gone without the whole summer. She is absurdly touched. She watches him shift gears and pump the clutch and has to look away, out the window. The clean, spicy, boy-smell of him fills the car and she finds herself wondering if his mouth tastes as red as his hair.
After dinner, she and Harry sit at a picnic table to catch up and watch an impromptu and wildly inaccurate cricket match being waged by the Weasleys on the lawn. George is wearing a mitt and some sort of mask and Ginny scoots a football along with what appears to be a field hockey stick, while Fred employs a full-body tackle to prevent Ron from stealing third base. Hermione tries to watch the game as whole, or at the very least pay individual attention to each Weasley equally, but she finds her eyes drawn again and again to Ron, in his ratty jeans and hooded sweatshirt, and wonders how she never noticed the way his collarbones press against the fabric of his clothes and how his wrists have a notch just below the thumb that creates the perfect place to wrap her hand.
Harry is not usually observant, but he has noticed this. Difficult not to notice, as she trails off in the middle of a sentence when Ron sends the ball careening off the roof of the potting shed and declares it a goal, then proceeds to whoop and holler and take a victory lap around the lawn, both arms above his head, causing his sweatshirt to ride up a ways over the low waistband of his jeans. Harry smiles knowingly at her. She glares defensively.
"It's just--" she starts, and falters.
"I know," he answers, and she realizes he does and they watch together in silence.
"Summer of the Muggle!" Ron crows as he and George celebrate their victory. "If only," Hermione thinks.
*****
She is sitting against a tree, sketchbook in her lap, daydreaming and looking lazily at the sky. The pencil is loose in her grip. The sketching was more of a pretense to get her out of the house, away from the raucous, genial, altogether overwhelming presence of so many people. Sometimes she thinks she envies Ron his family. Other times she wonders.
As if being called by her thoughts, Ron trots up to the base of the tree and tumbles bonelessly, with a peculiar sort of grace, onto the grass, sprawling out on his stomach next to her legs. His index finger presses on the corner of her sketchpad to tilt it to his view.
"Tired of us already?" he asks mildly, as he takes up her pencil and begins doodling on the paper, his elbow resting on her crossed shins, the weight of his forearm pressing the sketchbook into her suddenly twitchy thighs. She doesn't know what to do with her hands.
"There are an awful lot of you," She grins to soften her words. To show that although she means it, she doesn't mean it. He scribbles in silence for a bit.
"Do YOU ever get tired of them?" she asks presently. "Not tired, I guess, but-"
"Yeah, sometimes," he shrugs, as if this is normal, to get tired of your family. As if everyone has so many family members that you're never truly rid of them, whether you might want to be or not. He's never been to Hermione's home, where the stairs creak in the silence and her room often seems cavernous and empty and Crookshanks is the most energy the place has seen in a while.
"Easy to get lost in all the noise." She's not sure which one of them she's referring to. Maybe both of them. She sees that he has drawn an ornate, organic H. For her or Harry? she wonders, then reminds herself it could be for Hogwarts. Or, um, Hot. Or Help me, I'm going mental and I want to shag my best friend. Except that was her.
He just shrugs again and sends curlicues shooting off the crossbar of the H. She's overcome by the urge to touch, to comfort somehow.
"New hair," she says lightly, lifting it up off his temple, testing the slippery feel of it between her thumb and forefinger.
"Yeah, what do you think?" he queries, still not looking up from his scribbles." Mum hates it, so I reckon I'm on the right track." His eyes flash up to hers and crinkle at the edges. Her answering smile is softer, more telling than she intended. Almost involuntarily, she flips her hand and runs her knuckles down the lean plane of his cheek, no longer as soft and rounded as it used to be. She is surprised when his eyelids drop slightly and he leans into her touch like a cat. The funny, fluttery feeling returns, stronger this time, so that her skin seems to shrink on her body and she begins to feel like an overstuffed sofa.
Afraid he'll feel the steady thrum of her pulse in her wrist, afraid she'll give in to impulse and press her fingers against the smooth column of his throat, she drops her hand to her lap. Ron ducks his head and rolls the fabric of her sundress between his fingertips.