Author's Note
OMG! I usually like to reply to each of you who review but I'm afraid there's too many and I sadly don't have enough time! So please - consider this your own thank you - I always read my reviews (sometimes twice! *Janie grins*) and I want you to know I appreciate you taking the time to write them.
Now - onto Chapter Three! (Half way to RST folks!)
URST
By JanieB
Chapter Three
The following Saturday was a clear, hot day. Perfect for a pool party. Luna had been unable to come as her father needed her help with his investigation into Twirly Twizzers. (`Don't ask!' begged Ron of his friends.)
Perfect for torture, thought Harry as he did yet another lap of the Granger's new pool. Why hadn't he realised earlier that a pool party meant wearing swimmers. Trunks for boys. Bikinis for girls. And Hermione was a girl. In a bikini. Delightful sort of torture, perhaps, but torture nonetheless…
As he reached the end of the pool he stopped swimming and stood, leaning back against the side of the pool, both his elbows propped on the coping behind him; he appeared to be resting. He was actually taking the opportunity to study Hermione from a distance.
She and Ron were both sitting on the edge of the pool at the opposite end to Harry, their legs dangling in the water. Hermione's parents were inside preparing for the barbeque. Harry could see the two blurred forms at the other end of the pool well enough to know they were chatting as they sat there.
Blurred is good, he told himself. Far less disturbing than the sharp, clear image of Hermione-in-a-bikini that from this day forward was permanently etched into his memory. Which, now that he was dwelling on it, returned to make its umpteenth appearance in his mind's eye very much to the detriment of his composure.
Bloody hell, not again! Harry dropped his head forward, closing his eyes, desperately pushing the tantalising picture aside before - too late.
Just great. Now I'll need to do more laps before I can get out this bloody pool without embarrassing myself. Bloody great. Bloody bikini. Bloody hell.
`Didn't know Harry was so into swimming,' commented Ron at the other end.
`Nor I,' said Hermione. `Actually, I think he's avoiding us.'
`What makes you say that?'
Hermione shrugged. `He just seems to be keeping to himself today. Didn't want to play Marco Polo. He hasn't said anything to you?'
Ron shook his head. `Nope. He seemed fine this morning.'
`I'm sure there's something bothering him. I wonder what it is?' Hermione mused.
Harry could tell her, but of course he wouldn't.
They'd Apparated to the Granger's back garden just after three that afternoon.
After greeting her parents, Hermione had run up to her old room to get changed. Harry and Ron spent a few minutes talking to the Grangers before heading upstairs themselves to get changed in the spare room. As they emerged, towels slung over their shoulders, Hermione came out of her room wearing a very pretty, sheer white, sleeveless shirt over her white bikini, her hair in a thick braid down her back. She was carrying a rolled up beach towel and a tube of sun screen; she smiled happily at the two of them before preceding them down the stairs. Harry was mesmerised. He had been the second she'd emerged from her room. He couldn't take his eyes off her slender form or her very cute bum as he and Ron followed her down the stairs and out through the kitchen to the back garden. Mr and Mrs Granger were lying on their new sun lounges, both wearing hats. Hermione's mum, Harry noticed, was wearing a one-piece costume but still had a slim, attractive, figure. Her dad, since it was discovered six months earlier that he wasn't as "heart healthy" as he should be, had worked hard and his new eating habits and exercise regime had rewarded him with a much slimmer figure.
There were two other sun lounges and Hermione dropped her towel on one, Ron and Harry placing theirs on the other. Ron had already walked to the edge of the pool and dove in as Harry reached up to remove his glasses. He froze in mid-action. Hermione had slipped off the sheer over-shirt and was draping it over the back of the sun lounge. Harry had never seen Hermione in a bikini before or in anything even remotely as brief as this. To his eyes, it seemed to consist of nothing more than triangles and strings. And despite the fact that it seemed to reveal more than it hid, it was driving him crazy knowing what it hid, even without seeing it. Poor Harry. Then his mind was taken off hidden things as he watched Hermione squeeze some sun cream from its tube and began smearing it liberally down her arms and over her shoulders.
`You want some?' asked Hermione, looking up at Harry.
`Some?' repeated Harry stupidly.
`Sun cream. Ron should have some on, too, with his skin.' Harry left his glasses on and dropped to sit on the sun lounge.
`Sure. I don't want to get sun burnt.' And I do want to keep watching you.
Now she was spreading the ubiquitous cream across her chest and down over the exposed parts of her breasts. Harry felt distinctly faint. I'm staring at Hermione's breasts. And I'm getting an erection and I won't be able to stand up. Crap.
Hermione smoothed the cream down her stomach and then bent over to put more on her legs.
Harry wanted to groan - really badly and very loudly. But he couldn't. He could only sit and stare. It was lucky Hermione's parents were busy watching Ron and that Hermione herself was preoccupied with covering herself in sun cream. Then she was sitting beside him, turned a little so that her back was partially towards him; she was holding her hand over her shoulder with the tube of sun cream in it.
`Do my back?'
`Sure,' he said automatically, although since all the blood in his body was now concentrated in one extremely hard place, he didn't know how his brain was working well enough for him to actually speak. He took the tube, noticing it was slippery with cream from Hermione's hands.
I have never been so bloody hard in my life. It hurts. How in the name of Merlin am I going to get out of this?
He squeezed some cream onto his hand and began to rub it into Hermione's shoulders, spreading it down her back…along the curve that was her waist and over the flare of her hips. It was pain and pleasure at the same time.
`Right to the edge of my swimmers, Harry,' said Hermione sounding a little impatient, `otherwise I'll get burnt and your lower back is very vulnerable.'
She wasn't a gorgeous witch. She was a cruel, cruel torturer. Definitely. He was in enormous pain and she was the cause. Aside from the sight of Hermione, he now had to deal with the feel of Hermione. It got worse. Because when he finished, his hand tingling from the last few passes with the cream right to the top edge of her swimmers, as requested, his hand unavoidably grazing her bum, she promptly took the tube of cream back and told him to turn around. Which he did quick smart before she could see the highly visible effect she was having on him. So, the sight of Hermione, the feel of Hermione and now the touch of Hermione. Perfect fodder for huge erections, endless daydreams - and utter frustration. When she'd finished, she'd given him back the cream, `You do the rest, I'll see you in the water,' and Harry had sat there, taking as long as he could to put the wretched stuff on, deliberately not looking at Hermione as he searched desperately for images that would render him able to stand without embarrassing himself and everyone else.
As Hermione dove into the water she was grateful for its coolness. She'd decided during the previous week that all the thoughts of Harry that had been plaguing her were just so much stuff and nonsense. And today she had a chance to prove it. Having Harry put sun cream on her was a perfect opportunity to prove it wouldn't bother her, just as she'd be able to put some on him without it bothering her. Which it didn't. Not really. Well, not much. Well, except - when the hell had Harry developed muscles and things? Why had it feel so good to be rubbing her hand over his back? Why did she wish she could put cream on all over him? As she'd been doing it, she'd looked at his hair and had a sudden urge to run her fingers through it, wanting him to turn around - wanting him to kiss her - wanting him…
Shit! she thought as she broke the surface and began swimming to the other end. The bloody sun cream experiment hadn't helped at all. The Harry thoughts were not going away. In fact, they seemed to be multiplying. Wretched little buggers. But still she stubbornly held on to the belief that this was just some passing aberration - that somehow these rebel thoughts and feelings would somehow magically disappear. It was just a phase. When she reached the other end, she stood, looking back. Harry was still putting sun cream on, painstakingly slowly.
`Wanna race?' said Ron as he emerged from the water beside her.
`What sort?' she asked with a grin.
`Breast stroke.' To his credit, Ron kept a perfectly deadpan expression on his face.
Hermione gasped, then burst out laughing, giving him a gentle shove in reproof.
`Nice pair, Hermione,' he grinned cheekily before ducking under the water and swimming away.
Now that's how it should be with Harry, too - natural and easygoing fun. Only for some reason it wasn't.
Harry finally managed to get from the sun lounge to the swimming pool, Hermione's parents departing shortly afterwards to begin preparations for their barbeque.
Ron had tried to get a game of Marco Polo going, but Harry was reluctant. The prospect of having to touch Hermione or have her touch him was more than he could handle at the moment.
So now here he was, not getting sunburnt thanks to Hermione's sun cream, standing at the one end of the pool while his two best friends sat and chatted at the other.
He dropped his head, staring down through the water at the dual image of his feet and the reflection of the sky above. Then Hermione swam into view, her arms stretched out in front of her as she curved up through the water and emerged directly in front of Harry, water cascading from her. She'd told Ron she was going to find out what was bothering Harry. Harry flattened himself against the side of the pool as much as was humanly possible although while Hermione was wiping water from her face and hair, he couldn't help himself - he was staring at her breasts again. Wet and glistening with water and sun cream and - sweet mother of Merlin! He could see her nipples pushing through the thin, white material of her top. With a superhuman effort, he dragged his eyes upwards to see Hermione looking highly amused, one eyebrow arched, a half smile on her face.
`Nice pair,' she said saucily.
Harry shook his head and stared at her, his mouth dropping open. Had he heard right?
Hermione laughed. `That's what Ron said.'
Well, if Ron had commented on their mutual friend's obvious charms and she was laughing…
Harry grinned at her. `He's dead right. Nicest ever.' Merlin's beard! I can't believe I just said that!
Still laughing, Hermione reached for his arm and pulled. `Come on, Ron's gone to get a beach ball he brought with him. We'll have a game of volley ball before we eat.'
When he returned, Ron used his wand to create a net across the centre of the pool then jumped in with the small beach ball he'd brought with him. They decided Harry was probably going to be the best player with his Seeker reflexes, so Hermione and Ron teamed up against him. Harry didn't mind as this afforded him the best seat in the house when it came to Hermione-watching. This was much safer than Marco Polo.
Mr Granger was rightly proud of his cooking prowess on the barbeque and the three friends declared themselves afraid to return to the water for fear of sinking under the weight of all the food they'd eaten.
Hermione stretched out on the sun lounge, complaining happily at the full state of her stomach. Ron decided to risk another swim (`Just take it easy, though, Ron,' Mrs Granger warned him), while Harry joined Hermione, lying on the sun lounge beside hers.
`Nice way to spend a weekend,' she murmured, smiling across at Harry.
`Agreed,' he answered, deciding to turn on his stomach just in case.
It was just as well, because he inevitably ended up looking over Hermione. She had her eyes closed and he wondered if she was napping. He risked a quick look down the length of her body and when he saw her eyes were still closed he took his time, lingering on the swell of her breasts as they slowly rose and fell in time with her breathing, over her taut, flat stomach and along the lean length of her legs and then all the way back up again - to find two, unreadable brown eyes staring across at him. His eyes widened in shock and they simply stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity but was in fact only seconds. Then Harry muttered, `Sorry,' before burying his face in his arms which were crossed under his head.
`I'll go and give mum and dad a hand to clean up,' said Hermione in a voice that attempted to sound light and normal but was in reality a little too high pitched and breathless.
Harry waited until he heard the screen door close before risking a look around. Ron was walking towards him and sat down, dripping wet, right where Hermione had just been lying.
`What the hell's going on with you two?' he asked, taking his towel from the back of Harry's sun lounge and towelling his hair and face.
Harry looked up at him.
`What're you talking about?' he asked, doing his damnedest to sound puzzled.
Ron froze for a second and stared at him. `You know exactly what I mean, mate.'
As Ron resumed rubbing himself dry Harry pulled himself up to a sitting position.
`Nope. There's nothing going on,' he replied determinedly.
`Yeah, right, but if that's how you want it,' Ron grinned at him, `I think I'll make me a little bet on how long before you and Hermione -'
`Not another word,' said Harry darkly.
Ron laughed outright. `So be it! For now. Come on, let's go see what they're up to inside,' wondering what his chances of getting some pudding would be.
The next morning, as if by magic, Harry and Hermione were able to put the previous day behind them and they had a wonderful day. It was even hotter than the day before and the five of them had numerous games of volley ball with varying combinations of teams since there were an odd number of participants.
When they arrived back home that evening, tired and full but happy and relaxed, it was as though the tension between Harry and Hermione had evaporated.
But not for long, because of course, they were fooling themselves, something they'd both become very good at…
TO BE CONTINUED.
More tomorrow…
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