After the Fall

“After the Fall”

by MmeFleiss

*~*~*~*~*

Harry chucked the last gnome over the Weasley’s hedge before heading off towards one of the verdant trees situated right by the house. The cool shade was a welcomed relief from the scorching July heat, especially since de-gnoming the garden had taken twice as long thanks to Ron sneaking off to see his bride-to-be.

He had just swiped off a tantalizing-looking apple that somehow managed to escape the siblings' voracious appetites when he heard Hermione's voice float out one of the opened windows: "Is it terrible of me to say that what I miss about him most is having a reliable source for sex?"

Harry froze mid-bite, desperately wondering if Ginny’s laughter was loud enough to conceal the sound of Apparition. As good friends as they were, there were just some things that he tried not to think about in relation to his best mates.

“Not that he was ever very good at it,” Hermione continued, oblivious to the internal squirmings of her very reluctant eavesdropper. “Haven’t you ever fantasized of a situation where your mere presence is enough to drive away all sense of reason?”

“You mean like showing up at his door without anything on underneath your cloak?”

“Yes, or even something as innocuous as having a meal together, which becomes so much more after you do something that turns him on. Before you know it, he’s sending everything crashing onto the floor and pushing you on top of the table. It’s uncomfortable, but you won’t care after he traps your hands above your head and fills you up so completely that you’re practically in tears as you beg him for relief.”

“Oh God.” Harry wasn’t sure if that came out of one of their mouths or his, but Hermione was suddenly parting the strawberry-patterned curtain, and he Apparated out with a loud crack just as she was demanding the name of the intruder.

He barely had time to reorient himself inside Ron’s old room before Mrs. Weasley’s was yelling up the stairs that dinner was ready. He took his time cleaning off the grime from his afternoon’s work, ignoring the disparaging remarks from the mirror about trying to achieve the impossible as he combed out his hair, then slowly making his way down to the overcrowded table.

“Where’s the future Mr. Lovegood?” asked George before he could even sit down.

Harry, relieved at the excuse to avoid Hermione’s curious stare, answered quite readily: “We finished early, so he decided to go off and visit Luna.”

"Oh, that boy," Mrs. Weasley grumbled, passing her husband some of the Yorkshire Pudding. "I warned him that it's bad luck to see the bride so close to the wedding."

"Now, Molly, I don't remember seeing you complaining when we…"

Harry tuned out their banter in case it wandered off into details he'd rather remain in blissful ignorance over and spooned a hunk of kidney pie onto his plate. Having marshaled up as much courage as he was likely going to get, he sneaked a glance to where Hermione was arguing with Fred over his idea of buying a house-elf to help out at their shop—only to choke on his first bite.

Despite a decade of meals, classes, and adventures together; he felt like he was seeing her for the very first time. Hearing her earlier confirmation that she wasn't quite as asexual as he would have liked to believe was bad enough, but to be confronted with the physical evidence of what he'd just been too blinded to see was worse than anything.

Hermione wasn’t pretty. Her nose was a smidge too wide and her hair too wild to fit the conventional mold of beauty, but there was also something undeniably captivating about the way her cheeks would flush whenever she got worked up over something. Even the way her curls brushed against the nape of her neck every time she impatiently shoved aside a particularly stubborn lock was suddenly enough to generate some less-than-platonic thoughts. He began to wonder how in hell he managed to ignore coupling her with the idea of sex when every move she made suddenly revealed themselves to be calculated to drive him over the edge.

He sat up with a start as her arm brushed up against his while reaching over to get the Yorkshire Pudding; he might have remained frozen indefinitely had Bill's youngest not asked: "Uncle Harry, is your cheek hungry, too?"

Face flaming, he wiped the mushy peas off his face and tried his best to ignore the twins who kept glancing at Hermione and elbowing each other with knowing smirks. "I'm feeling a bit ill, so if you’ll all excuse me I think I’ll head off to bed.”

*~*~*~*~*

Hours later, Harry found himself laying on the camp bed with the promise of sleep no closer to being realized. Hermione's fantasy kept replaying in his head, and each time it got more and more lurid until he could no longer differentiate between his wants and hers.

A particularly loud growl from his stomach reminded him of his aborted dinner. He glanced past the snoring Ron and towards the half-eaten apple resting on the bedside table, deciding after another insistent rumble that it would taste better with something a bit heavier.

He’d barely stepped foot inside the kitchen when he found himself face-to-face with the very same woman who’d been haunting his thoughts. Even clad in a cotton nightgown with a cartoon mouse emblazoned across her chest, she still managed to look better than any copy his overworked imagination could conjure. He sat down swiftly before she could catch sight of his rather prominent approval.

Hermione smiled up at him rather distractedly as he took the seat directly opposite her, pushing her uneaten sandwich towards him. “What are you still doing up?”

“Couldn’t sleep. You?”

“Me neither,” she said, her quick glance towards the scrubbed oak table almost imperceptible in the moonlight. “Any particular reason why?”

Harry took his time chewing while he tried to figure out how best to tell her of the decision he’d been grappling with for the past few hours. “I-I guess you can say that I’ve received a bit of a shock lately.” And here he paused, unsure of just how much was appropriate to disclose.

“Go on,” she murmured, giving his hand a well-practiced squeeze of encouragement.

“It was a lot like… well, do you remember the first time you found out about being magical? For the first ten years or so of your life, you take for granted that you’re just like everyone else, and someday you’ll have to worry about things like getting into the right university or whether you should vote Labor just because you happen to prefer reading The Guardian.

“Then one day you get your Hogwarts letter and you find out that you belong to this whole other world that you never even realized existed—and it changes everything. How can you go back to being the same person you were before while knowing that you could be so much more?”

Harry liked to think that his pronouncement had been followed by a pleasantly surprised silence on Hermione’s part, only broken by her stomach growling loudly in reply. A deep blush bloomed on her face while he laughed and pushed the rest of the sandwich forward.

“Oh, I shouldn’t. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I definitely won’t be able to get any sleep if I eat that much.”

“But you can’t exactly sleep either if you’re starving.”

“Just give me that apple in front of you, then,” she said, getting over enough of her earlier embarrassment to smile.

Harry glanced down with some surprise, having forgotten that he’d brought the fruit to the kitchen with him. “But I’ve already taken a bite out of it.”

“So? Do you have some sort of contagious disease that I should be worried about?” Thoughts of other, more pleasurable, ways to check her hypothesis popped into his head; but he mercilessly stomped those ideas down as he decided that it would be much more prudent to just wordlessly hand over the apple instead.

He watched with some amusement as Hermione made quick work of it. “Are you sure you’re not that hungry?”

“Oh, be quiet,” she replied whilst trying to wipe off the trickle of juice dripping down to her chin.

“You missed a spot.” Harry watched as she made another vain attempt to mop it off with her napkin before shaking his head, saying: “Here, let me do it.”

He leaned over to brush away the offending drop. He heard her breath catch as his thumb accidentally swiped up against her lower lip, and when he looked up he found himself trapped by the hunger lurking in her amber gaze.

Harry felt the last of his uncertainty wither away with this newfound knowledge. He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out rough and a full octave lower as he said, “How about we do something else to ensure that we actually get some sleep tonight?” His intention was unmistakable as he gestured towards the table between them.

“So it was you this afternoon.”

He raised his other hand up so that he could fully cup her face. “Does it bother you?”

She shook her head no, her eyes never leaving his. “It’s a rather brilliant idea, really. Numerous scientific studies have proven that sexual intercourse releases sleep-inducing polypeptides that…”

“Hermione, I don’t need to be convinced any further,” he said with a laugh before putting his mouth against hers.

Had Harry been the sort to consider how a first kiss between two childhood friends ought to occur, words like “short” and “tentative” might’ve crossed his mind—but there was no sign of either as their lips melded together, their hands roaming over every inch of heated flesh that they could reach.

He let out an impatient growl as the obstacle between them proved to be too much for the further skin-to-skin contact he craved; and so, without pausing, he pulled her up and over to sit at the edge of the table closest to him.

It was just as well that Mrs. Weasley’s seven children had prompted her to put an Unbreakable Charm on all the cutlery. The resulting noise of shattering ceramics would have likely woken up the entire household and ended something that he wasn’t quite sure he could stop.

Hermione’s legs were wrapped around his waist before her bum even touched the now-messy surface. Both let out a soft groan as their hips came in contact with the very spot they wanted most, and he reveled in the way she shivered when he thrusted instinctively towards the inviting warmth between her legs.

Up close it was easier to spot the dark points of her nipples straining against the thin, white fabric. He leaned down to give each a quick, teasing nip, all the while breathing in the heady combination of laundry detergent mingled with the scent of roses from her soap.

Harry tugged the back of her bushy hair down to expose the pale skin of her throat as he nibbled and licked his way back up. A slight ripping noise echoed throughout the room as he yanked the collar of her nightgown down to expose more of her chest, a move she didn’t seem to mind if the way her nails were leaving vertical scratches down the entire length of his back whilst she arched up against him was any indication.

An unintentionally hard bite beneath her left collarbone made him pause. He watched, horrified, as the spot on her previously unblemished skin began to discolor.

“What’s the matter?” she asked between deep, gulping breaths.

His hands grazed lightly over her new bruise, fervently wishing he’d paid more attention when they learned about healing spells. “I didn’t mean to….”

Hermione smiled and ran her fingers through his sweat-soaked hair. “Oh, Harry, did you forget that I wanted it this way? It can’t be done properly unless you trust your partner enough to surrender all control, and there’s no one I trust more than you.”

He twined his fingers around hers before brushing his lips against the darkening patch of skin. He didn’t know quite why her confirmation of her faith in him should lift his spirits so; he’d known it all along. However, it reinvigorated him into exhibiting even more enthusiasm than before. By the time he reached the sensitive spot behind her left ear, she was writhing around so much that he was practically supporting all of her weight once again. Unfortunately, this also meant that she was exerting an awful lot of pressure on his cock—and while it felt brilliant, it was also guaranteed to end everything before it even properly began.

It was with some reluctance that he disentangled Hermione’s hold on his waist and flipped her over. He pushed her down until her torso was flush against the worn tabletop, shoving aside any barriers that remained between them before plunging into her wet heat.

He started right off with a fast rhythm that left her breathless and grasping the opposite edge until her knuckles turned white. The wood groaned with the force of it, his fingers gripping her hips so hard that he left bruises that matched the ones she so vocally demanded he leave on her chest.

Her continued whimpers and soft pleas were quickly proving to be Harry’s undoing, however. Each entreaty for more left him sweating in an effort to ensure that each thrust wouldn’t be the last. In his desperation, he plunged his fingers past her soaked knickers to rub up against her clit, her moans becoming so loud that he was forced to use his other hand to cover her mouth lest they risk discovery.

He nearly let out a sigh of relief when the combined sensations proved to be too much as Hermione came with a shriek. He followed right on her heels, and he barely had the presence of mind to move to her side afterwards as to not crush her now-limp form.

“I don’t think I’ll be able to wake up for a week after that,” she eventually said after catching her breath.

Harry tried his best to hide his smile as he watched her from the corner of his eye. “That’s a shame. I might suffer from some insomnia again tomorrow after all the excitement of the wedding.”

Hermione’s facial expression became unreadable. “And afterwards?”

He reached for her hand once more and gave it a squeeze. “How about forever?”

The End

*~*~*~*~*

AN: This pwp is the reason that the final chapter of “Fumbling Towards Ecstasy” got delayed. I apologize again for those who were waiting for it, butI really wanted to make sure there was at least one H/Hr fic for last month's erotic_elves challenge (our ship isso sadly underrepresented there, I think). Special thanks to Jenn as always for her speedy beta skills.