Seduced

Disclaimer: All things HP belong to JKR; I only borrow for fun.

Author’s Note: Written for simons_flower, who requested a drabble of Hermione tending Harry’s Auror training-inflicted bruises. And, well, what was supposed to be a drabble grew into this… What can I say, I amaze myself with my own verbosity sometimes. Enjoy!

Seduced

Hermione took one look at Harry as he entered the flat they shared with Ron. “Oh, Harry, you look awful!”

His lips quirked into a tired smile. “Thank you. Always the flatterer, I see, Hermione.”

She made a tsk-ing sound. “As if you need me to flatter you. Now, come on and sit down. Where are you hurt?”

As she spoke, she had summoned the Bruise-Healing Ointment and now studied him with concerned eyes.

Harry sat down rather gingerly, the faintest grimace crossing his face as he did so. “I’m fine, really, Hermione. You don’t need to turn into Mrs. Weasley.”

Predictably, she didn’t listen to his characteristic denial. “Don’t give me that, Harry. Take off your shirt.”

He threw her a half-smirk. “Why, Hermione, I didn’t know you felt that way,” he teased, although his bantering words were belied by the weariness he couldn’t keep out of his voice.

She flushed but refused to be side-tracked. “Harry,” was all she said but her tone conveyed a wealth of warning.

And Harry gave in to the inevitable, not without some relief, for in spite of his words, he really was sore all over. He felt like he’d been used as a giant’s punching bag. Wincing a little at the movement, he lifted his shirt up off over his head.

Hermione sucked in her breath sharply for the moment more distracted by the masses of ugly blue and purple bruises forming on his chest and over his back than by the fact that she was looking at Harry’s bare chest.

She didn’t say anything, only reached for the ointment, but her silence was quite eloquent enough, at least to Harry who knew her so well and could read her silences almost as easily as he could read her expressions.

“At least I’m not dead,” he quipped rather lamely.

She threw him a look that told him clearly she was not amused as she spread the ointment onto the bruises on his chest and his shoulder. Her touch was gentle and skillful and the ointment cool against his skin and Harry felt himself relaxing into her touch, feeling the tension from the past hours of Auror training dissipating.

“Turn around so I can do your back,” Hermione said, her tone softer.

He obeyed as she began her ministrations to his back.

His eyes fell shut as he felt the soreness leave his muscles.

Her hands were gentle, careful not to pain him as she slowly, methodically rubbed the ointment over the bruised areas before murmuring the Bruise Healing Charm.

Maybe it was something about the contrast of her warm hands to the cool ointment, combined with the gentleness of her touch but whatever it was, he felt a sudden streak of arousal arrow through him, his body hardening.

He must have groaned or made some other noise because she paused, providing him with a moment of relief.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked, her voice filled with so much concern, his heart warmed.

“No, it was nothing,” he blurted out, trying to sound normal.

And she resumed her actions and Harry experienced a new kind of torture.

Her hands were touching his back and shoulders and it was so easy—too easy—to imagine the light touch of her fingers on other parts of his body, the part of his body that was hard and aching for her…

He cut off his thoughts ruthlessly, refusing to let his wayward imaginings go any further. This was Hermione, for heaven’s sake! He couldn’t think like this about Hermione!

Only—he couldn’t stop either.

God, it was as if once the door to having sensual thoughts about Hermione had been opened, he couldn’t shut it again.

And her hands were still touching him, rubbing gentle circles into his skin, almost massaging away the stiffness—even as the touch of her hands stoked the fire inside him even higher.

He could only be immensely thankful that he was sitting down and that his shirt was over his lap, saving him some intense embarrassment.

He escaped as soon as he could, assuring Hermione he felt fine, as good as new, and then retreating to his bedroom to try to convince himself that this newfound lust for her would go away, was only a one-time thing.

But it was only a matter of days before his delusion was shown up for what it was.

He got back to their flat after another long, hard day of Auror training and again, she insisted on tending his bruises and again, he had to resort to clutching his shirt over his lap like it was body armor, which in some senses it was.

He wasn’t even sure why he found Hermione’s ministrations so arousing but somehow, for some reason, he did. And every time it happened, he was realizing just how fine the line was between healing and seduction.

Not that Hermione meant to be seductive with the gentle touches that sometimes almost seemed like caresses, he knew she didn’t. But she didn’t need to try to seduce him. Everything she did seduced him now, somehow, never more so than when she was making his hurts and soreness vanish.

But it wasn’t only her touch, the tenderness of it, the gentleness of her hands, that seduced him. It was how much she cared…

It was in how she was always ready to greet him, always prepared to help him, no matter how late he came home from Auror training. It was in how he would come home to their flat in the late hours before dawn, feeling ready to simply collapse into his bed and sleep for the next century or so, and he would find her asleep on the sofa waiting for him.

It was in how he felt when he came home late another night to see that the living room of their flat was empty, the stab of sharp disappointment even as he told himself he was glad to know that she’d be getting some more rest. He told himself that but he hadn’t been able to deny that he suddenly felt infinitely more tired, infinitely more discouraged. And he hadn’t been able to help the surge of gladness (along with other, more heated and rather less welcome feelings) when he’d gone into his bedroom to see her curled up on the chair, having dozed off. (Luckily for his sanity, that night had been one of his bruise-free ones so he’d been able to simply nudge her awake and insist she go to sleep in her own room. He didn’t want to bet on his self-control if she had touched his bare skin with his bed right there, tantalizing him, making him think of all the things he’d like to do to her and with her on his bed…)

He’d realized that night, though, just how much he’d come to rely on her, on knowing she’d be there to greet him. It had nothing to do with how she made his physical hurts and soreness vanish; he felt the same even on those nights when he came home unbruised. She was the smile he looked forward to seeing at the end of every day; she was the conversation he looked forward to having, no matter how little they actually said.

And, ever more frequently, she was the girl in his increasingly heated dreams.

~*~

Hermione was never sure exactly how she realized that Harry’s reaction to her healing touch on the various bruises and other injuries he came home with, was not only relief from pain and was not in the least platonic.

Perhaps it was the tension that always seemed to grip him when she touched him, a tension that was out of proportion to any slight twinges of pain she might cause in her first moments of touching sensitive and bruised places. (She knew Harry and, sadly, she knew, too, that he had gotten too inured to pain to react so much to the relatively mild injuries he received in Auror training.) Perhaps it was the tight grip he always kept on his shirt on the nights she made him take it off so she could properly tend to his bruises. Perhaps it was the odd timbre of his voice sometimes when he thanked her and told her he was feeling as good as new before he urged her to go to bed.

And perhaps, after all, more than all those things, it was simply the age-old awareness of a woman in response to the desire of the man she loves…

But whatever it was, Hermione knew he wanted her, knew it even before the glimpse she had of the bulge in his trousers.

And though she’d never have thought she had it in her, she deliberately set out to seduce him, wanting him to want her more so he wouldn’t fight his feelings.

It was surprisingly easy, she found, for her touches to gentle and become more like caresses, for her fingers to linger on his skin lightly even when the bruise had faded and disappeared, for her hands to stray in feather-light brushes against his skin that hovered on the border between what was acceptable between friends and what was not. It was easy—so easy—she found to let her eyes look at the bare skin of his chest and back, not as a patient but as a man and the man she wanted. So easy to let her eyes caress his body and feel a flare of heat inside her body. So very easy to imagine what his hands would feel like on her body…

It was a heady feeling, knowing he wanted her, knowing she could arouse him even before she really tried to do so…

There was no aphrodisiac in the world like knowing that the man she loved and wanted, desired her too (unless it was discovering that he loved her too). She didn’t know if he loved her in that way, rather doubted it, but for now, desire was enough. Desire—and acting on his desires—would be enough…

~*~

Harry was dying.

He was dying and she was killing him.

He kept his eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if loss of sight would somehow make it easier to endure this torture, his teeth gritted and his jaw set.

And always, always, he clung to one thought above all else (even above the futile grasping at distractions, trying to think of something- like Hagrid in swim trunks, the Giant Squid, of McGonagall, anything to lessen his arousal), the one thought that kept him from giving in to the raging, insistent needs of his body was that she didn’t mean it. She didn’t mean for her touches to be arousing; they were simply part of her friendship, her affectionate concern for him. She was tending his bruises, easing his injuries, as she would want to do. And to assume anything, to act on his body’s insane wants, would be taking advantage of her friendship, possibly even ruin their friendship. She didn’t mean it; she didn’t want him in that way; that wasn’t what this was about.

The thought helped. A little. Enough that it allowed him to endure the delicious torment of her touch passively—at least as passively as possible when every touch fanned the flames a little higher, when every night made him want her a little more.

Tonight was the worst. His aches and pains had been more intense, the bruising more extensive, as today had been the first mock ambush and had consisted of him defending himself alone against everyone else in a mock battle. There had been no one else to defend his back and because of that, he had gotten more beaten up than usual, had exerted himself that much more. He had “survived” the battle, done well enough that even Hestia Jones had unbent enough to say, gruffly, “Well done, Potter,” which, for her, amounted to the highest of praise. But now that the adrenaline had worn off, he was absolutely exhausted and sore in muscles he hadn’t even known he had.

Or at least, he had been, up until a few minutes ago.

Now, those other, more prosaic pains, the bruises, were diminishing, the lingering stiffness leaving him, and he was subject to another, different kind of ache…

Her hands flitted in light circles over the heated, hyper-sensitized skin of his back as she worked the ointment into his skin. He could feel the cool creaminess of the ointment as she spread it over his shoulder blades and in between before she rubbed the ointment in, her hands moving in gentle, rhythmic circles and idle patterns.

He gritted his teeth, his entire body stiffening. Oh God… He felt a light flutter of air against his skin, her breath, as she moved fractionally closer to him, going over his bruises with the same thoroughness and attention to detail which she’d once used in their papers at Hogwarts. He could even picture the look of concentration on her face, the faint line between her brows—and amazingly, he hardened even more (which he wouldn’t have thought possible) at that mental picture of her. His increasingly-active imagination could so easily picture that same look on her face as she touched other parts of his body, learning the part of his body that was positively dying for her attention…

He was going to die. And then he was going to hell for even thinking of Hermione in this way when all she wanted was to make his bruises and other aches and pains go away. When all she was doing was being a caring friend, he was busily constructing erotic fantasies about her.

Her hands brushed his side and he flinched. He couldn’t help it. “Sorry,” he gasped. “Ticklish,” he lied hastily. He didn’t dare look at her for fear of what she might see in his eyes. Instead he kept his eyes closed as the worst part of his torture began.

She moved around to the front, turning her attention to the scattered purple marks on his chest (not as many or as extensive as those on his back, thank heaven, but still…)

Hermione paused for a fleeting second before she dipped her fingers into the ointment to spread it onto Harry’s chest. Familiar heat flashed through her body to pool between her legs as she looked at him. The bruises aside, he was still lovely, the muscles on his chest and stomach clearly defined.

Her frankly lustful gaze traced down the lithe muscles of his shoulders down his arms to where his hands were clenched on his thighs, gripping his shirt protectively over what she knew was there, the evidence of his desire, his grip so tight his knuckles were whitening.

She had under-estimated his self-control, that self-control which he’d learned the hard way in the past year, especially, the control that had allowed him to channel all the power inside him and unleash it only when he needed it, to defeat Voldemort for good. She had under-estimated his will. And looking at him now, seeing the strain on his expression (he looked as if he were in pain, which she supposed he was), she made a quick decision. Subtlety was over-rated. And she wanted him too much to wait.

She loved knowing she could arouse him like this, the knowledge calling forth some primal, feminine instinct deep inside her that gave her the impetus to continue on, to be bolder than she would ever have thought possible, to be a seductress…

She kneaded the ointment into the bruised spots on his chest lightly, deliberately letting the tips of her fingers brush against his flat, male nipples as if by accident.

He let out a sharp hiss of breath.

She moved closer to him, letting her breath fan over the bare skin of his chest, knowing he felt it in the flicker of added tension that crossed his face.

Then, with a last murmured charm, the last of his bruises were healed. And it was time for seduction to begin in earnest.

She kept her hands on his chest, didn’t stop the small, idle circles her palms were making on his skin as if to work the last lingering dabs of ointment into his skin.

“Is there anywhere else that hurts?” she breathed into his ear—and it was amazingly easy to make her voice low and husky with desire, just thinking of one part of his body that she knew was aching now. “I can help you with this too,” she added and, deliberately, let her hand fall to touch the hardness of his body through the covering of his shirt and his trousers.

That did it.

His eyes flew open as he gave a strangled gasp, one of his hands reaching out with lightning-like swiftness to grasp her wrist and pull her hand away from his body. (He wasn’t a Seeker for nothing, not that he’d ever have imagined his reflexes would be put to use for this.) “Hermione, what—” he managed to choke out.

She felt her lips curving into a small smile, tinged with pure, feminine satisfaction. “Did you think I didn’t know? That I wouldn’t notice?”

Put like that, it sounded like the height of stupidity on his part.

He blinked, gaping at her, his mind reeling as the entire world seemed to tilt off its normal axis, his belief that Hermione’s touches were purely motivated by friendly (and platonic) concern exposed as the mistake—the delusion?—it was.

Now, looking at her as he’d never dared to look at her before in all the previous nights of her torturing him, he saw the intent in her eyes. More, he saw the flicker of desire in her eyes, the flush of arousal on her cheeks. Desire for him. A tidal wave of lust, even stronger than anything he’d felt so far, slammed into him at the sight. She wanted him.

“You knew. You’ve meant to make me crazy,” he blurted out rather inanely.

“Yes,” she admitted. “For a couple weeks now.”

In some small corner of his mind, he filed that information away, dimly realizing what it meant. She hadn’t been trying to arouse him at first; that had all been him… There was something important about that, something that was niggling at the back of his brain, but right now, with all the blood in his body pooled in his groin, he couldn’t grasp it. Couldn’t even bring himself to care, really.

All he knew, all he needed to know right then, was that he wanted her and she wanted him too.

With a swift tug on the wrist he was still holding in one hand, he pulled her down until she was sitting on his lap and then he kissed her.

And any awkwardness or hesitation or uncertainty that might otherwise have accompanied a first kiss was (fortunately) done away with, incinerated by the sheer heat and the passion of it. His passion for her and her passion for him.

There was no tenderness in the kiss, not then. It was, from the first, a hard, heated thing, a lush, lustful tangle of lips and tongues.

She shifted over him until she was straddling him, the feel of her brushing against his erection wrenching a groan from him.

And this position gave him greater access to her, to slide his arms around her until her still-clothed breasts were flattened against his chest, the material of her shirt lightly abrasive against his sensitized nipples.

His hands flattened themselves on her back, before sliding lower to grasp and tug the hem of her shirt out of the waist of her pyjama bottoms, and then he slid his hands inside to touch the smooth, bare skin of her back. His hands stroked, caressed, explored, moving in small circles in imitation of the way she’d touched his back.

She shivered and he felt the prickle of arousal make her skin even hotter to his touch than it already was.

He wanted to keep touching her, wanted to see her, wanted to keep kissing her like this forever. He wanted, he wanted, he wanted…

He pulled her shirt up and they finally broke the kiss just long enough for him to lift the shirt up over her head. His hands went straight to the clasp of her bra, unhooking it and sliding it off her arms in one smooth motion, leaving her upper body completely bared to his gaze—as he was already bared to hers.

In some small corner of her mind, she vaguely thought that perhaps she should feel uncomfortable at having him stare at her, at being bared to the gaze of any man for the first time, but somehow, she couldn’t. It seemed like the most right, natural thing in the world that Harry should see and touch every last inch of her. His eyes raked over her glowing skin and she knew a thrill that had nothing—or nearly nothing—to do with arousal at the almost fierce possessiveness in his expression. She doubted he was aware of it but she was—oh, she was… And she wanted it. She wanted to belong to him; she already did belong to him but she wanted more now. She wanted him to know that she belonged to him… and she wanted him to want her to belong to him…

He stared, drinking in the sight of her, glorying in the sight of her small, round breasts peaked with pink nipples, already hard and darkened with her arousal.

“God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed as he reached for her, his hands cupping, gently squeezing, as she moaned, her back arching and pushing herself further into his hands.

He replaced his hand with his mouth, his lips fastening to one nipple, suckling it and then laving it with his tongue. Her hands flew to his hair, her fingers tangling, clutching him to her (not that he had any intention of stopping his attentions).

“Oh God… Oh Harry…” she gasped, making him smile against her skin, before he moved on to her other breast, leaving a trail of damp kisses along the way.

There was a joy in this, he realized dimly, not only because arousing her was also arousing him, but because there was a joy in knowing he could do this to her. A wisp of a thought floated through his mind—he wanted to be the only man who could do this to her, wanted her to be his-- before it was overtaken, drowned out by the surge of molten heat in his veins.

She moaned and pressed herself against him in an instinctive motion and he groaned, his mouth falling away from her chest as he fought to get himself under control and not simply spill himself inside his trousers.

He felt her hands flatten on his chest, heard her husky whisper in his ear, “I want to touch you now.”

A half-laugh escaped him. She wanted to touch him? Hadn’t that been what started this in the first place, her touching him? “You already have.”

She smiled slowly, sensuously, an age-old knowledge glimmering in her eyes. “Not like this,” she said and then she lowered her lips to his skin.

Her lips followed the paths which her hands had already traced over his chest, leaving a damp trail of kisses that positively scorched his already over-heated skin.

There was none of the healer in her touch this time; she was only the seducer now.

And he was well and truly seduced. Seduced by her…

She shifted off his body but before he could even think to protest or to wonder, any thoughts he had died a swift death as he felt her hands on his trousers, opening them and pushing them down freeing his aching erection. He gasped, his hips rocking instinctively and that was enough for her to slide his trousers the rest of the way off his legs, taking his boxers with them.

“I told you I could help you with this,” she said and then she closed her hand around the hot, hard length of him.

He should have died. How he didn’t simply explode, spontaneously combust, from her touch, was a mystery he never understood.

But clearly, he was destined for more torment.

And it was torment. All the torture he’d felt before from Hermione’s touch was nothing compared to this exquisite agony. He’d imagined this, her hand touching him, so many times before but this beat any fantasy he’d ever had and then some.

Her small hand was so hot on his body as her fingers feathered, stroked, explored the aching length of him.

And just when he thought he couldn’t possibly take any more, she replaced her hand with her mouth, enclosing him in liquid heat.

He cried out, the sound wrenched from the depths of his being, as his head rolled back, his hands frantically, futilely scrabbling for something to grip on the couch and finding nothing so he fisted his hands, pressing them into the couch, his nails digging into his palms. Oh God oh God oh God…

He had no idea how long it was—it could have been days, years even—before he knew he couldn’t take this anymore and he somehow managed to push her away.

“No more. I can’t take--” he gasped out. And he opened his eyes to see her face, the delighted, primal satisfaction of a woman knowing the sensual power she could wield over a man, and for a moment, he could only gape at her, seeing not just Hermione, his best friend and the girl—the woman—he wanted so much it hurt, but the seductress, the siren, she’d become.

His hands were clumsy, awkward with the madness of his lust, as he fumbled to push her pyjama bottoms off. Another time, he thought hazily, another time, he would do it slower, take his pleasure in seeing every inch of her body revealed to him—but right now, he couldn’t. He was no more capable of slowing down and taking his time than he was of sprouting wings and flying. He pushed her pyjama bottoms and her knickers off her legs almost roughly in his haste and need, but she didn’t mind. Indeed, she helped him and she was the one to discard them hastily before she returned her hands to touch him, her hands hard, greedy, as they stroked and caressed his shoulders and his back before tangling her fingers in his hair and bringing his mouth back to hers.

He kissed her hard, his tongue surging into her mouth, even as he somehow managed to turn, tug, until she was lying on her back beneath him on the couch.

His hands were everywhere at once, it seemed, touching, caressing, stroking every inch of her body, claiming her with his hands even as it felt like he was claiming her with his mouth. Until his hands ventured to the most secret part of her body, the part of her body that was wet and weeping for him. He slipped one finger inside her—she cried out, her hips arching with enough force to lift him as well.

She was gasping, she was whimpering. “Harry, please…”

And even as she said the words, he felt her hands move between their bodies, touching him, searching, seeking…

With a groan, he gave her what she wanted—what he wanted as well. And pushed himself inside her in one swift movement.

She cried out, stiffening beneath him, her nails digging into his shoulders.

He stopped, letting his forehead rest against hers for a moment. “Are you all right?” he managed to get out, his voice sounding unrecognizable to his own ears, so strained was it.

He felt her small nod before he heard her soft whisper, “Yes,” and with the word, he felt her body relax fractionally, easing around him, accepting him.

Harry kissed her again, gently, and now his kiss held all the tenderness which his first one hadn’t—and that, more than anything, served to ease the pain of his intrusion, pushing it away in a wave of emotion and desire as well.

She tightened her muscles around him and with a groan, which was swallowed by her lips, he pulled out a little before pushing back in, his body setting a rhythm which her body recognized, knew in some instinctual way, and met, responded to. His thrusts quickened gradually, as desire rose, fresh and increasingly urgent, the fires of passion reclaiming them both.

The heat was growing, spreading, consuming her entire body and his as well. She was supremely, completely conscious with every nerve in her body of the inexpressible, stunning intimacy of it, of feeling his body inside her, of his hips rocking against hers, of his lips and tongue melding with hers as much as his body was. Conscious of the way his breath came in short gasps, matching with hers, her heart thundering in her ears, arousal pulsing, building, in her body…

Until it all built to an unspeakable, dizzying glory, ecstasy shattering in her, searing her every nerve-ending.

With a last groan that shuddered from the depths of his being, he spilled himself inside her, finding a mind-blowing release and then feeling himself falling into the void of satiated desire where nothing existed but him and her.

He collapsed on top of her, his lips brushing idle kisses against her hair and her face, not out of any conscious decision to do so but more out of some instinct of tenderness. The lust, the need, that had driven him so far had been sated and in its place was left only tenderness.

Gently, moving slowly because moving at all required an inordinate amount of effort in his currently boneless state, he shifted them both until he was lying beneath her and she was resting on top of him, his arm holding her.

How long they lay there, as their breathing slowly returned to normal, as the sweat of exertion dried on their bodies, he didn’t know, nor did he care. He could have happily stayed like that, with Hermione’s warm weight nestled on top of him, for years.

He felt her soft sigh of breath flutter against his shoulder and something about it tugged his mind back into something resembling coherence.

“You wanted this too,” he finally murmured, somewhat nonsensically, given everything.

He sensed her slight smile. “Mmm…” It was a deeply contented sound, almost a purr, and it was as much of an answer as he needed.

Like a thief in the night, the vague thoughts he’d had on realizing that she had actually been trying to seduce him—but not at first, that his reaction to her those first few nights was solely his doing—stole back into his mind, tugging a realization in their wake.

It wasn’t that she had been trying to seduce him; that wasn’t what had started this. From the beginning, it hadn’t been her trying to seduce him; it had simply been him, being seduced. Not so much by her touch—although, yes, her touch had definitely seduced him—but simply by her. Seduced by her kindness and by her devotion—seduced by all those things he already knew of her, that made her his best friend.

And that was what had made these last minutes- hours?- of addicting pleasure different, more than just the end result of seduction. It had been, he thought, a possession. Not only of him possessing her (although he certainly hoped that had been part of it) but of her possessing him. She had become, somehow, in those long, endless moments of sensuality, when the universe had narrowed down to him and her, his goddess, the keeper of his soul—and he could do nothing but worship her with his hands and his mouth and his body.

It had started purely and simply as a seduction of his body, but it had become a seduction of his mind and his heart, his very soul.

And he had been seduced.

What he didn’t know—what he needed to know—was whether she felt the same way. Had this only been physical lust for her? He didn’t think she could have given herself to him like this if it were; he knew she cared about him as a friend—but now what was he to her? Was he still only her best friend—with benefits now?

His heart constricted at the thought. Maybe with anyone else, he might be satisfied with that. (Not that he could imagine ever wanting any other girl again. He wanted only her…) He was a normal boy after all—and if the sex was always this hot, then he’d be hard-pressed to complain. But not with her, never with her.

He could never be happy with only her body, only lust. He wanted it all, wanted all of her, her body, her mind, and her heart…

“Why?” he asked, and he knew that she would somehow understand the one word question for all it meant, knew she would understand what he was asking. Why she wanted him, why she had tried to seduce him, why she had chosen him to be her first…

She was silent for such a long time he almost began to wonder if she’d drifted off to sleep—or maybe that she simply didn’t want to answer his question. But then, finally, she did. “Because,” she breathed very softly, “I love you.”

And those three words filled all the empty spaces in his heart, which he hadn’t even known, until now, were empty.

He tightened his arms around her, brushing his lips against her hair. But all he said at that moment—all he could think to say somehow-- was, rather stupidly, “We’d better go to bed.” (He had no desire to move but then, he’d realized that if they didn’t, they’d still be lying here naked when Ron woke up in the morning—and that would not do. If for no other reason than because he didn’t want Ron- or anyone else besides him- seeing Hermione’s body.)

He felt an insane sensation of loss as she slowly sat up, moving off of his body with palpable reluctance. And it took an inordinate amount of effort to do the same, to pick up his glasses from where they’d fallen, and gather up his discarded clothes.

For a fleeting moment after she had gathered up her clothes, he sensed her hesitation but then he reached for her hand. “Stay with me.”

And he saw her answer in her eyes as they both silently made their way into his bedroom, where he closed the door firmly behind them. In silence, too, they slid into his bed together, Harry curling his body around hers as she nestled in close to him. And he knew a brief moment of almost incredulous happiness as he realized, fully, that this was what he’d dreamed of so often in these past weeks since that first night: him and her naked in his bed.

On that thought, he felt peace, as well as contentment, settling over him like a blanket, as his earlier exhaustion—which had been pushed aside first by lust and then by emotion—returned.

He felt her relax against him, her breathing becoming even, as she too approached sleep.

And at the last moment before he joined her in dreams, he breathed, “I love you, Hermione.”

And knew she heard him in the way her hand moved in a lazy caress over his heart, in the way she snuggled even closer to him.

Then, finally, he slept, knowing that he would, as always, dream of her.

~The End~