Disclaimer: See Ficlet 1.
A/N: Inspired by a manip ladyofshall0t posted on the harryhermione LJ community recently.
Rated R- so skip if you're under age, please!
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To Watch You Sleep
These were the moments she loved best, when she was happiest.
She turned her head to look at him, sleeping peacefully, looking oddly young and vulnerable with his glasses off as he always did. His breathing was deep and regular, reassuring.
These were the moments she loved best. Just watching him sleep…
She loved the other moments too, loved every moment with him-but these were the moments she loved most.
She loved when he kissed her, loved the feel of his lips on hers, the familiar taste of him. Loved to feel his breath tickling her cheek, hear his voice whispering soft words, endearments.
She sometimes was amazed to think that she, Hermione Granger, was actually Harry Potter's girlfriend, his lover-more amazed to think that everyone knew it too.
He slept most nights in her room (and never had she been so thankful that as Head Girl she did have her own room as she'd been since this had begun). This sort of arrangement was normally frowned on, to put it mildly (she knew there had been Head Girls and Boys in the past who'd been sacked and replaced with someone else for having done so much) but McGonagall and the other professors turned a blind eye. Because this was Harry and they all knew. She didn't let herself think that it was also because everyone wondered how much longer he had to live-but sometimes, the thought intruded tainting those moments of happiness and haunting the quiet moments of peace.
They didn't always do anything other than sleep. The nights after his Occlumency lessons, he was usually too drained to do much more than mumble, "Goodnight" before falling asleep immediately.
But there were other moments, too. When he would reach for her and his hands would wander all over her body, petting, caressing, stroking, when his lips and tongue would make her gasp and shiver and cry out… When she would touch him in return, marveling that she, plain bookworm Hermione as she was, could arouse him so much. But then she wasn't just plain bookworm Hermione with him. She was more than that; she was a girl, a woman, and beautiful and sexy and passionate-because it was him and he made her feel like all those things, made her a different person than the one she was every day in public.
She loved the moments when he was moving inside her, filling her, completing her-and she could only hold him that much tighter, kiss him that much more passionately, and know that he, of all the people in this world, really knew her and loved her. Those moments when the rest of the world faded away and nothing mattered but him and her and the wonderful, amazing feeling they shared…
But these were the moments she loved best, the quiet times when he was sleeping beside her. These were the moments she cherished, the moments she missed and thought of during the day.
These moments when she knew he was safe and nothing could happen to him. She didn't even fear the occasional intrusion of Voldemort into his dreams for she knew that while he was beside her, she could wake him and she could help him.
These moments when she could allow herself to forget, for just a little while, of the danger he was in. When she could forget the look she sometimes saw in his eyes, the look that always made tears well up in her eyes-the look that said he didn't expect to survive the final confrontation…
These were the moments she was happiest. Just to watch him sleep and know he was safe and happy and at peace…
Very gently, so as not to disturb him, she ran her fingers through his hair, her finger brushing the scar on his forehead with the most feather-light of touches.
And then she lay back down beside him, her arm around him, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest and the beating of his heart and closed her eyes and allowed herself to relax.
These were the moments she loved- when she could watch him sleep and promise herself and him, in the silence of her heart and soul, that no one and nothing should ever be allowed to separate them if she could help it.
These were the moments she loved best-just to watch him sleep…