AN: The last installment of my author acceptance celebration! Thanks to those who've been reading and reviewing for four days - you guys are awesome! Enjoy!
You Wear Your Heart on Your Sleeve/Beware the Heart on Mine
Rosy lips part in a lazy sigh as Hermione's glassy brown eyes roll involuntarily behind her heavy eyelids for a moment. She curves her neck in slow circles, noticing too late that the motion only intensifies the disorientation creeping through her system. The surrounding music pounds around her ears, vibrating the wooden floor beneath her, though she can't make out the words. The tall shot glass in her lax hand is empty, as she's consumed any offending alcohol at numerous intervals throughout the night. She can't remember what she's had to drink, how many she's had, or even how she wound up in this very predicament. And, on top of it all, now she has to think - an act that's never been very hard for her before, though now is proving to be an admirable challenge.
"I never," she pauses, a pink tongue slipping from behind her teeth in concentration, "um … I never kissed Parvati."
"Oh, so we're going there?" Harry smirks, filling his own shot glass to the brim with vodka from a bottle on the table between them. "Just for the record, it was a drunk truth or dare game and there was no tongue involved. Other than that, well, then, cheers."
Harry swallows the liquid in one swift movement, his head resting on the chair cushion behind him. He can still feel the lingering burn as the cheap alcohol courses down his throat. The room around him suddenly springs to life, tilting to the right, as the vodka punches him in the stomach. For an elongated minute or two, he's certain he'll vomit - right here, sitting on the floor, back against the plush seat, facing Hermione. He swallows hard, his green eyes trying to focus on something, anything to ground his vertigo-addled mind.
A bare foot becomes clear to Harry's searching vision, but it's not his. Instead, it's inching along his calf, past his knee, and toward his thigh. And it's firmly attached, via bony ankle, to Hermione's jeans-clad leg.
"Oh," Harry breathes, frantically hoping this isn't Hermione's less-than-subtle way of saying it's his turn. "I never …"
He's distracted by a hallucination, it has to be, brought on by potent liquor and long-lost lust that's been pushed to the forefront of his thoughts when Hermione's tongue darts out again, this time to lick her lush lips. Hermione's lithe body pushes away from the couch she's been resting against, fluidly getting on her knees, her hands landing palm-flat on the floor. She crawls forward without hesitation, yet deliberately slow, the drunken stupor masked with a sense of longing, need.
"You've never kissed me," Hermione whispers, her face mere inches from Harry's now, still on her hands and knees.
Harry's slender fingers wrap around Hermione's outstretched neck, bringing their faces closer, lips together in a chaste kiss that tastes of both vodka and heaven. Harry briefly ponders his pattern of drunken, game-inducing kisses until Hermione proves that this encounter isn't about creating a new "I never" by introducing her curious tongue as she curls to sit in Harry's lap.
Harry smiles into the kiss, praying to anyone who'll listen that this never ends. He pauses long enough to catch his breath and purrs, "Fuck the game."