A Winter's Night

madscientist

Rating: NC17
Genres: Drama, Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 6
Published: 25/12/2007
Last Updated: 25/12/2007
Status: completed

Revelations on a stormy early Christmas morning change a great many things.

Chapters

1. untitled

1. untitled

A/N: Merry Christmas to all of you. This is a one shot not set anywhere in particular other than in a more sane universe than canon. Thanks as usual to Lady Starlight for her splendid work on this ficlet and the innumerable plot ideas and amount of time that she has spend deciphering my random scribbles. Yeah, this is rated NC-17...
Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
-Robert A. Heinlein

A Midwinter Night's Dream
NC-17

Grimmauld Place, London, England
25 December 1:45 am

In a large bedroom on the topmost occupied floor of the huge mansion known to its occupants as Grimmauld Place, home to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, a single young woman slept. Her sleep was erratic, broken occasionally by random unknown words that escaped from lips that even in sleep held a touch of worry. A veritable cloud of hair spread out across a pillow, the only bed accessory still actually on the bed, her covers having long since been kicked to the polished hardwood floor under her bed.

In the occasional flash of lighting from the window, part of a freak December thunderstorm, one could find almost every stretch of available wall covered from floor to ceiling with overfilled bookshelves. A large, multistoried cat house was set under the window, with a green-eyed occupant looking out towards the bed. The cat long since learned that his mistress had become far too nocturnally active for his coexistence with her on her bed, like he had done when she was thirteen, after the weight of years, and the corresponding worries of her never-inactive mind.

Hermione Granger groaned as a crackle of thunder awoke her from her fitful sleep and she sat up in the dark bedroom, one hand brushing dark, loose curls from in front of her eyes. A glance to her right as another streak rattled the bay window of her bedroom, the one that Harry had redone just for her during the long months on the trail of the Horcruxes.

Slowly, she brought up her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around them as she shivered in the night as a sense of utter...aloneness filled her soul. It had been over a year since that dark night at Hogwarts when everything had changed for worse, when Dumbledore had died, and her best friend, maybe her only real friend, had set out on a hopeless quest.

The blocks that had been in place on Harry's magic had fallen almost before the sound of Fawkes' lament had faded from the ears, and the potions that had ensnared his heart had fallen soon after, leaving him alone in his misery, trusting no one but her for a long, desperate month.

Even now, the reservations were there in his ever-expressive eyes for those who knew how to look for them, every time he saw a Weasley. It had been the youngest; who had worked with the exiled, now-late ex-Potions and DADA professor to dose Harry with a truly ludicrous dose of Amortentia. The sight of Ron still even occasionally brought the hidden ghosts to Harry's gaze, though that was getting better.

Molly Weasley would never again be like a mother to Harry again, however, due to her role in the plot.

Another crash of charged ions, along with the sound of howling winds, slowly drew Hermione to her feet, and she reached up and back to her pillow, grabbing her wand from under it and slipping into the back of her sleep pants. A few, silent, barefoot steps took her to a seemingly-blank stretch of wall bordered by two tall bookshelves and she walked straight through without a pause.

A timeless instant later, she had padded through the permeable wall into Harry's bedroom, only to frown to herself as she found the bed empty, the covers crumpled. Her bare arms wrapped around herself, and she blinked, vanishing between breaths to reappear in the basement kitchen of the huge house.

A head of scruffy black hair was bent low over a butterbeer...but it was not Harry. Sirius Black, the Lazarus of his time, looked up at her and smiled. A month after Dumbledore's death-not much after Harry's immense magic and the Flushing Draughts Hermione had produced had combined clean him of outside influences-Sirius had appeared on their doorstep.

Hermione did not know that she could have brought Harry out of his funk alone, but Sirius' sudden resurrection had possibly saved the Boy-Who-Lived. Sirius, of course, seemed to think that it was she, much more than him, who had done the deed. Either way, the man who had filled the position of father or at least favorite uncle for Harry was one of her favorite people.

"Hello, lass," he said, smiling the small happy smile of the moderately inebriated. Sirius' eyes tracked her as she paced over the stove, and the ever-hot, ever-full teapot stored there. He watched as Hermione poured a mug and sat down on a chair across from him, bringing her legs up to cross in the chair. "Can't sleep?"

She shrugged and bit her lower lip as she cradled the tea in both hands. One of the thin straps holding her camisole up had fallen down with the movement, but considering it was Sirius, she ignored it. By now, he was almost as much a second father to her, as he was Harry's only. The huge, roaring fire in the kitchen grate combined with the various Warming Charms cast over the elderly house guaranteed that the only cold anyone would experience would be centered in the soul.

"At least I'm not down here getting sotted," Hermione smiled softly and glanced back down to her tea, sighing.

Sirius frowned as the girl that he, frankly, considered the only daughter he would ever have, shrugged again and continued to hold her tea in her hands as if she were trying to divine something from its depths.

He had watched her over the last year, much closer than he had had the opportunity before his journey beyond the Veil, and had watched as she drove herself harder and harder. Under his discrete evaluation, he had watched as she spent every waking moment with her head in a book, or working, learning to fight...to kill, anything that might keep the other subject of Sirius' quiet vigil alive one more day. That and he knew the work kept other thoughts from her head, thoughts that were written across her face as if with a thick quill every time emerald eyes looked away from her.

Of course, Harry, if possible, had driven himself even further, desperately trying to make up for the training that Dumbledore had not had time to give him. To bring forth every hidden talent and flicker of power, to sharpen every skill to a razor's edge, an edge fit to lop off the head of a snake.

Sirius set aside his butterbeer and stood, walking to the fire and holding his hands out to the flames, warming them. Or at least using the excuse to pause for a moment, to stretch out the time when he would say what was on his mind, "You know," he said without turning around, "when I...went away, and then came back, I admit I was a bit...perplexed about a few things, and surprised about a few others. Finding Moony and 'little' cousin Nymphadora playing 'the Professor and the Schoolgirl' up in the Library was a bit...unexpected, I will admit."

He frowned, "Unfortunately, learning that Molly's little spoiled brat potioned Harry...wasn't a surprise, not really, but that you didn't kill the little slag was, Hermione." He looked at her pointedly until she shrugged again.

"She hurt Harry, not me..."

"Bullocks," he replied without any trace of heat. "She took him from you,
Hermione...You should have killed her, or at least beat the shit out of the little skag."

"We are...we've never been..."

"Hermione," Sirius shook his head and crossed the room back to her, placing his hands on her shoulders as he knelt down to her eye level, "for the smartest witch I've ever known, even more than Harry's mother," he shook his head to cut off her instinctive response, "you aren't very bright."

Hermione looked affronted and Sirius fought not to laugh, "The only people that you and Harry are fooling...besides possibly Molly and Ginny, and they are delusional, are yourselves. For Merlin's sake, girl, you have a secret connecting door between your rooms. He spent days getting it just right, asking me this and that and if you would like it...He insisted, not that I was about to naysay him, that you be next to him...he said it made him feel safe."

Sirius stood, and patted her on the shoulder again, before he bent down to plant a soft kiss on her hair, "I am going to head up to bed, it's late for an old dog like myself...Happy Christmas, Hermione." He stopped at the door, "He's in the main parlor, go to him...and I don't expect to see either of you until lunch," he added with a laugh.

A large, shaggy, night-black dog nudged the door open and padded out into the hallway, quickly vanishing from even magically enhanced hearing.

Hermione sat in the suddenly silent kitchen for a few minutes more as she sipped her Earl Grey unenthusiastically. The sound of the cold winter storm outside carried even down to here, far behind eight layers of protective wards, five floors and a few tons of rock and earth down here in one of the basements. Setting aside the mug, she took a deep breath and stood, shivering a touch as her bare feet touched the stone floor.

She took her time as she exited the kitchen and climbed two flights of stairs to the ground floor, walking along a beautifully restored inlaid floor, each foot being automatically, carefully placed in front of the other. Moving in now-instinctive stealth, learned over the course of thousands of hours of training, and dozens of battles and quests.

Small fingers tapped contemplatively on an owl door knob, the serpents long replaced, as she felt ahead, letting the flow of unfettered magic from the single human in front of her wash over her soul in a warm, soft wave. Here in his home, more or less, he was safe, at least for now; he could let his magic at least breathe, instead of holding it tightly as he normally had to do, lest some other powerful magic user detect him.

After a quick breath to settle herself, that and to drive back the images that Sirius' last comment had brought to the surface from where she normally buried them, she entered a room that was velvet shot through with multi-colored jewels. A large spruce sat in one corner, the lights from the tree, along with the flames from a low fire in the corner fireplace, casting the only light in the room.

A thick ribbon of light, visible only in her mind, led towards the large, comfortable couch set facing away from her and towards the fire and cattycornered to the tree. She followed that invisible trail to and around the battered relic of the Gryffindor common room, which Dobby to this day still denied that he had purloined from Hogwarts.

She smiled slightly as she took a long step around the edge of the couch and watched as tired, uncovered emerald eyes looked towards her, filled with a soft green glow as if they were lit from within. The glow seemed to cut off as flat lenses slipped between her gaze and his eyes.

A plate of Christmas crackers and a cold cup of cocoa sat untouched on a coffee table in front of him, visible only in the light from the tree. Brightly colored presents were piled under the tree, even though currently only she, Harry, Sirius, and possibly Tonks and Remus were in the house for Christmas. Ron, who had been with them, was currently back at the Burrow, hidden under a Fidelius charm. Hermione and therefore accordingly at least to him, Harry, were no longer welcome there, at least not according to Molly, despite anything Arthur might say to the contrary on the subject.

She sank onto the couch next to him, bringing her legs up under her as she settled only a few inches away, not bothering to keep the proper distance that she had tried and failed to settle on for the last year. Hermione licked her lips, and glanced over at him, "Care to share the blanket?"

He shrugged, "I guess."

She half-smiled, her bottom lip in her teeth, as spread the blanket down over their laps. "You really should sleep, Harry."

He glanced over, "You too."

She nodded and let her head fall onto his shoulder, "You're warm," Hermione whispered, "not too soft though."

A faint, almost non-existent smile fell over his lips, "I don't know if I feel complimented or insulted," he replied equally as quietly.

Her head settled a bit more, snuggling down into the hollow that seemed custom made for it. She grinned as he made spitting noises, and she reached up to pull her hair to the side, out of his face, "Better?"

"Yeah."

"It was a compliment, Harry, definitely a compliment."

He grinned at her and fell silent once more, letting the quiet sound of her breathing settle over him, as he let his weight fall onto the arm of the couch and hers onto him. It had been weeks since they had let themselves relax such, too many days speeding here or there fighting one of Riddle's minion's while simultaneously trying to decode the riddle of his Horcruxes. Too many days since he had seen her without a wand in hand or a book settled on her lap, and he was loath to disturb her.

"Harry," she asked after a few minutes more, "why do you have a connecting passageway to my room?"

He froze, "Um...I..."

"I think it's nice," she interrupted, "I like have a way to get to you that no one else does."

"I...just wanted to be able to check on you...just in case, not that I'd..."

"I wish you would," Hermione muttered under her breath and shook her head as he stiffened and turned his head in the dim lighting to find her face. "Umm...Harry, why are you down here, really?"

He frowned and reached forward to collect a pair of the Christmas crackers he had grabbed from the large tin that Dobby had prepared, and left out for them to munch on. Hermione stole one from him thoughtlessly, and he falsely scowled, before snorting a laugh as she stuck her tongue out at him. He leaned back into the couch, and contemplatively munched on the cracker, "I never had a Christmas before I escaped the Dursleys, not that I can remember anyway, you know that."

Hermione nodded slowly, dark eyes flashing before she buried the emotion behind practiced walls.

Still, he had seen, and a new warmth filled his chest. "It's ok, Hermione, if I cross paths with them again, the terms will be...slightly different." A brief feline smile, one more at home on that of a lion than an eighteen-year-old man, crossed his lips and passed. He took a breath and grabbed the chocolate, grimacing as he found it almost congealed. A finger of power slipped past at his call and steam rose in slow spirals from the cup. "Back when we were at Hogwarts, I used to slip out at night, it wasn't hard to get past Ron, really, and just sit and stare at it. Back...before, I would sit with my eye to the bottom of the door, and I could just see the lights from my cupboard. I used to dream that I was looking at the lights from my room, in my home with Mum and Dad."

"They never came, Hermione." She turned and rose on her knees as he sighed and kept on, "Vernon and Petunia used to remind me that they were dead. But I still hoped, some part of me knew they were lying, but they weren't lying about that, were they, Hermione?"

She shook her head silently, stopping her traitorous hand as it came up to cup his cheek. It froze there as the world swirled, and she fell forward without moving.

Suddenly, she found herself in a perfectly white house; the carpets, the couch, the table in front of her all immaculately clean. She set the plate of Christmas treats down on the coffee table in front of a boy her age, six or seven or so, but already at least four stone heavier than her. Automatically ducking a practiced swing by the tubby child, she bounced against a pair of short stout legs.

Sharp pain stung her cheek as she tumbled to the ground, "Get your arse back in the kitchen, Boy," Vernon snapped and she scrambled away, crawling away quickly until she was able to stand again, just in time to take another hit.

"I told you to start on those dishes, Boy," Petunia's shrill voice accompanied a sharp sting as she sliced at her legs with the wire part of a flyswatter.

Hermione felt herself flying backwards, only to find herself shaking in Harry's arms, sobbing softly into his shoulder. Distantly she felt it as his lips pressed to the crown of her hair and a tiny part of herself cheered even as the rest quavered in a combination of terror and utter, abject fury.

The lights on the tree started to flash randomly as the wall sconces suddenly flared to life and the fire in the grate roared, flaring up and cycling through a thousand shades of color randomly. Ghostly lightning, sheeted across the ceiling, and crackled in Hermione's long locks, as her hair started to float.

Harry pulled her tighter, as his own eyes lit from within, and he let his own magic free, winding in along the threads of power that he could suddenly see, and slowly curled them back in on themselves, turning them back in until they slowly curled back in towards Hermione, becoming potential once more instead of reality.

Sirius and then Lupin and Tonks sprinted in behind their wands as Harry was slowly smoothing down Hermione's hair, rocking her in his arms. The presents that had floated up, slowly settled to the floor and the flames in the grate died back down, becoming red-gold again, from the bright purple they had been not a breath before.

"What the bloody hell?" Sirius snapped, his voice only holding a bare trace of the butterbeers he had downed earlier. He flicked his wand, righting the tree and setting the fairy lights back to normal.

Tonks stepped around him, and the short negligee she had been wearing lengthened and thickened becoming a modest set of pajamas. "Wotcher, Harry, did..."

"We're fine, Tonks," Hermione said hoarsely without lifting her head to look at them, "Just a bit of a misunderstanding."

Tonks shared a quick look with Lupin as he slipped his wand back into the rear pocket of hastily donned jeans, before she took his hand and started to pull him from the room, "Alright then, we'll just head back to bed," she said dubiously, holding Remus' comments silent with a glance.

Lupin frowned but let his young wife pull him from the room, leaving Sirius there with the two teens. "Are you sure you are alright?" Sirius asked, leaning on the doorjamb as the sconces slowly went out one by one, returning the room to its jeweled dimness.

"We're fine, Padfoot," Harry replied for both of them, and Hermione nodded against Harry's sweatshirt.

Sirius left slowly, looking back as he closed the door silently behind him. Neither of them noticed as Hermione let herself sit back just far enough to find Harry's face, to watch the lights of the tree dance in flat, round panes of his glasses.

"They are going to die, Harry," Hermione whispered in the dead, flat calm of implacability. His hand came up, cupping her cheek and she leaned into it, as he shook his head. "They did that to..."

"It's over, Hermione, they can't touch me any more. The smallest flick of my finger-or yours-and they are paste. They hold no terror for me any longer."

"They hurt you, Harry," she said in a child's voice.

"And you healed me," he breathed back, and watched as a spark of a different magic lit her eyes. "I came to Hogwarts, and I found friends, family...people to love."

"And people who love you," she whispered in return, leaning more into the hand that was cupping her cheek. "Yes, Harry, since about ten minutes after I first met you it seems some days." Rising slowly back up on her knees, she moved until she was kneeling astride his lap, and slowly canted her head to the right, moving until her breath was fogging his lenses. The tip of her tongue flicked out along her lips, "We probably shouldn't do this-"

"Really a bad idea, what with the war and all."

"Yeah...I don't need to distract you." Hermione took a deep breath, and one of her camisole straps fell again, and his eyes flicked downward. "I'm probably just like a sister or something to you, anyway..."

"I don't think I'm supposed to be so grateful that you don't like underwear while sleeping, if you are my sister." Harry forced his eyes back up from the gap in her top to watch as a slow smirk grew.

"See something you like, Harry?"

"Even better than my dreams," Harry said absently before he fell forward the last few millimeters to her. A sudden rush of fire lit his nerves as magic sparkled, dancing visibly along their bodies they glowed as cores instantly, finally blended into a single whole.

She sighed into his lips, letting his tongue slip forward to mate languidly with hers. Her body pressed unto his, suddenly warm beyond any reckoning even as the storm out the large window worsened and a bolt crashed down from the heavens only blocks away.

Pulling back, chests heaving, a long, silent minute passed and Hermione slowly backed up off his lap, standing and pulling him to his feet along with her. She took both of his hands in hers and turned without a word, pulling him forward in space and time, to reemerge without a sound two floors up in the middle of her bedroom.

Crookshanks meowed a loud greeting only to look them over and leap from his cat perch, to pass through the wall into Harry's bedroom.

Hermione watched him go before she let go of Harry's hands and walked across the room to the window. "Honestly, Harry, this isn't for one night," she said looking out the window at the now driving snow, mixed with sleet, "is it?"

He slipped up behind her, and she leaned back into his embrace, as his arms wrapped low around her belly. "No, it's not, not even if the world ended tomorrow."

"God, we're morbid," Hermione muttered just loud enough for him to hear. He snorted and she smiled faintly even though she was still looking away, before her face went neutral, "It wasn't supposed to be like this, Harry, not when I was fourteen and I was praying that you would ask me to the ball...my very own knight who saved me from the troll..."

"Hermione-"

"But you didn't, and then...I think that little piece of me that had hoped for the fairy tale went off to cry in the corner." She spun in his arms, and let her hands creep under the edge of his sweatshirt, pressing small, cool palms to the warm skin of his stomach, pressing against the muscles she felt there. "Then, after Sirius went away...you just weren't yourself, Harry, and I think that I gave up hope just long enough for that little slag to slip in-to let her have enough space to launch her little scheme."

"That was my fault, Hermione, I-"

She shrugged and stepped away, pacing across her room to hop nimbly onto her bed. She sat on it cross-legged, and Harry looked back at her worriedly. "I want you so bad that it hurts, Harry, I have for years. I used to cast Silencing Charms around my bed so Parvati and Lavender didn't hear me cry out your name."

Harry's eyes closed as he sank onto the edge of the bed next to her, "I...Really?"

She smiled slowly, and nodded. Hermione shrugged, "I wanted to be normal in just this, Harry, I wanted to have my Mum and Dad meet us off the train with my hand in yours as I dragged you across the platform to introduce you as my boyfriend. I wanted Daddy to glare and make threatening sounds at you, all the while he was inwardly happy that I found my soulmate...Instead, the last time you met them was when you used your fortune to make them vanish across the sea." She fell forward on her hands and knees and crawled across the bed to him, and climbed back into his lap, "Thank you, Harry," she muttered and kissed him, "they are safe, because of you." She kissed him again, "I didn't have to Obliviate my parents like I though I was going to have to do, to make them safe, because of you."

He pulled back from her, turning his head away, "Because of me they had to leave, Hermione."

She pulled his chin back to her with one hand and used it to shake it from side to side, "No...Love, a madman, who is afraid to die and too cowardly to fight an even battle made them leave, not you. The only fault you have in the matter is being such a better person than him, that he could not stand to let you, us, me live. Me and my parents would have been a target anyway, Harry, every time you have stopped him, has been another year for them and me to live."

"What now then?" Harry asked, stroking her side through the thin cotton of her top, "We don't have to do anything, Hermione, I can..."

She silenced him with another kiss, and smirked at him from an inch away, before she reached up and plucked his glasses from his face, casually flipping them over her shoulder where they curved in mid-flight to land gently on the bedside table. She reached behind her and pulled her wand from her waistband, and flicked it at the base of her stomach.

Hermione gasped and shuddered against him, her breathing suddenly heavy as her eyes fluttered shut. A few seconds passed before she opened nearly black eyes, which were subtly flickering with the emerald flames of his-and possibly her-magic. "Tomorrow," she said quietly and slowly in a husky soprano, as if she had to force every word through a hormonally befuddled mind, "we take out the wall between our rooms to make a suite like Remus and Tonks'-"

"And right now?" he asked, his breath warm on her ear.

She reached down, grabbed the hem of her top and flung it off, before pushing him back onto the bed, still straddling his legs. Eyes danced as she ground into his lap, and fell almost closed as he reacted to her. "We make up for lost time, Harry."

Harry groaned as she slowly rocked into him, sending a wave of fire racing with every move. Reaching up, he tangled his fingers into her hair and pulled her face down to his. His ministrations only served to drive Hermione to move faster on his lap, rocking into him hard enough to make the bed squeak. He grabbed her hips with both hands, stilling her and pulling her into him hard, "C...clothes," he sputtered and she stopped, her chest already starting to heave and she nodded.

She took another breath and pulled back until she could slide to the edge of the bed. She stood and looked over at him as she nibbled the corner of her lip, suddenly nervous. Finding some reassurance in his eyes, where she had thousands of times before, she pulled at the bow in the drawstring of her pants, and let the two strings dangle and swing with her movements. Another faint smile, and she hooked her thumbs in the now loose waistband of the dark red pants, causing a pair of snitches to fly away from her fingers down the fabric, before she slid them down off her hips, and let them fall to the floor.

Harry swallowed as she waved a hand towards the nightstand, and an oil lamp flared up to bathe them in a soft, yellow glow. "God, you're beautiful," he whispered just loud enough for her to hear over the pounding of her heart.

Hermione swallowed heavily, "No, I'm not."

Harry never seemed to move, before he appeared standing in front of her, close enough for his fingers to dance over her heart, "Yes, you are, Hermione." His fingers slowly traced down a thin scar directly over her heart, centered in the valley between her breasts. "Every single bit of you," he smiled softly, crookedly, "from your sometimes insanely wild hair, to your body fit to give a Deacon a heart attack, to you being smarter than anyone else, anywhere, to the fact that are the best thing that has ever happened to me."

She sniffled through a smile, "Y...your turn, Harry." Grabbing the bottom of his shirt, she tugged on it, pulling it up and off and tossing it back over her head into the room. Her eyes traced over his torso, tracking her fingers as she traced a patchwork of scars, the shoulder from a dragon, down along a scar along his right arm, before she traced a series low on his left side, that she knew came from much before he ever left for Hogwarts. A slice from a sword under his ribs on the right, a small, burned scar on the left shoulder, proof that not only Dumbledore had known the flaming whip spell, a few more souvenirs of an entirely too rough life for her taste. "You too," she whispered and kissed him over his heart, before wrapping both arms around him and pressing her chest to his.

Harry reached down and picked her up under her bum, lifting her up and letting her instinctively wrap her legs around his waist. She nuzzled at his neck as he carried her over to the bed without a visible effort, before he set her down on the rumpled sheets, his hand cradling her head.

She crawled backwards somewhat, leaning up on her elbows, and concentrated, pulling on the shared magic that permeated the room, running in, out and around them both. Harry glanced down, as the tie holding his own pajama pants up slowly undid itself, and they started to move downward.

Laughing, Harry grabbed the waistband and pushed them off, letting her see him fully.

Her eyes widened, and the tip of her tongue traced her lips hungrily. Her body heated, her nipples tightening, as her breathing shortened. One hand reached out, taking his and interlacing their fingers to pull him up onto the bed. Her other hand helped to guide him between her legs, as she let them fall to either side. Shivering as the tips of one his hands traced up and down the outside of her leg, she kissed him again.

Harry traced his lips down her cheek, nipping down the column of her neck. She cried out as he reached the scar between her breasts, his tongue tracing the jagged, faded cut, and magic sparkled. Continuing on, a hard nipple disappeared between his lips, and she arched upward into him.

Smirking, Harry slowly kissed his way back up her neck to capture her lips again, as his fingers traced over the front of her leg, to creep up along the inside of her thigh. He stopped an inch shy, "C...Can, I?"

Hermione took a quick breath, "Y...you better." A quiet moan later, her eyes fluttered and rolled back up in her head as his fingers slowly trace along her, exploring where only she had gone before.

"Oh God, Harry," she moaned as he started to slowly, tentatively move his fingers, slipping them over her core. Her hand came down and joined his hand, guiding him as he started to explore further. "T...there." She moved his fingers around a bit, "Right...there." Hermione started to rock against his hand, arching up off the bed, and as she pulled his head down into her shoulder, with a strength that the uninitiated did not imagine she possessed.

Harry's fingers moved faster, and he slowly eased the longest one in, moving it in and out, quicker and quicker as her breathing sped up. A second joined the first and she squealed something, probably his name, only to grow suddenly quiet, as his moving thumb found a small nubbin a bit higher and started to rub it, following distantly remembered stories from the Twins, Sirius, and his roommates.

Soft, mewing sounds started to escape from between slightly parted lips, as Hermione felt a soft, boiling heat continue to build in her belly, growing with every soft movement of his hands. Her free hand came up to slowly pinch her nipples as her reality suddenly intersected with untold numbers of private dreams.

Rivers of molten fire raced outward from her fingers and from her core, racing to the very tips of her and crashing back, like waves against the shoals, building, building higher, combining with every move until, with a final move, she shuddered and froze, vibrating under him as her body clamped down on his fingers painfully. "HARRYYYYY....." she screamed, as her world swirled and collapsed into a vortex of a thousand colors tasted and felt as much as seen.

She came back to herself a moment later, panting heavily and looking up into faintly glowing emerald eyes, eyes filled with concern and love.

"Are...are you alright?"

Smiling languidly, she stroked her fingers over his face, before kissing him, "Never better, Harry...never better." Her eyes opened slightly and fell mostly closed again as she felt him jabbing into her inner thigh. Reaching down she wrapped her fingers around him, marveling at the warmth and feel.

Harry's own breathing sped up, already nearly panting at the very sight of her coming undone under him, coming undone literally at his hand.

A subtle tug and she pulled him towards her, "Please, Harry."

He crept up further, pausing at her entrance, "Are you sure," he whispered painfully, his breathing ragged as he fought to keep from just plunging forward. His entire weight rested on his hands, his eyes resolutely on hers. "Like this, just..."

She smiled slowly, as her knees came up on either side of his hips, before she crossed her legs behind his. Any other time she would have laughed at the sudden expression on his face, but now, she could only feel the need that had been growing for longer than she could face remembering. "Kiss me, Harry," Hermione commanded in a husky whisper, and pulled his face to hers. Her tongue slipped through gapped lips. Legs contracted.

"Oww," Harry muttered as he slid up and along her leg and their hipbones clanked together painfully. "Sorry."

Hermione laughed musically, her fingers still cupping his face before she reached down with the other hand and brushed her fingers over his length. "Let's try that again, Harry. You are really going to have to get better at this." A very quiet sigh escaped her lips and her breathing hitched as she eased the head fully inside her. "Now's when you kiss me again, Harry." His lips descended on hers once more, just as she contracted her legs for a second time.

A quiet scream escaped into his mouth as a sudden, sharp burn flared and then, almost as quickly, started to slowly ebb. Harry remained preternaturally still, the tendons in his neck flaring out with his efforts not to move a millimeter lest he cause her any further pain.

Her lips pulled from his, only a hair, only enough for her to pull a slightly ragged breath into her lungs. "Give me a minute, Harry," she breathed almost inaudibly, leaning up to his ear, the warm wind sending an all-new shiver down every nerve, "You are a bit much to take in...all at once." She nibbled on his pulse, and let her hands stroke up and down his back; short nails drawing light lines from his hips to his shoulder blades and back again.

Kissing him again, she grinned and rocked up into him, "You can move now, Harry."

"Thank God," Harry whispered and started to slowly pull out, moving until he was almost out and then back in, sliding slowly and tentatively back until his hipbones brushed hers. Hermione groaned quietly, and her eyes fluttered, and she rocked back, trying to move with him as he moved in her, surrounded by her warmth.

The very air around them seemed to move, without impetuous, without reason as Hermione forced her eyes to stay open, holding his gaze desperately, even as watched the magic start to fill them. A curious feeling of safety-of home-settled over her soul as she started to fall forward into him.

The warm, roiling boil that had just subsided started to gather once more, as every tentative motion gradually started to coincide, until they were moving in a rough, matched rhythm. Hermione pulled his head down onto her shoulder, and her soft, quiet mews filled his ears and made his heart race as much as the feeling rapidly growing below.

"Oh...Harryyyyy," she moaned, the sound filling the room as the open four-poster started to squeak, and the headboard tapped the wall lightly.

Harry groaned as he felt his stomach begin to tighten, and moved in her faster, following instincts too deeply held to question. "Mionneee," he groaned again, as she raked her nails down his back, most likely leaving marks that he would have later.

A breathless giggle and then a loud gasping moan followed, before she tangled her fingers back into his hair, and kissed him again. "F...faster, H...Harry." She rocked her hips back up against his greedily, breaking their rhythm before Harry managed to find it once more.

Hermione's quiet moans slowly became louder and constant, building along with the sounds of their coupling. Around them, starting at the bed and working outward, books, clothes, and small items started to float, rotating around the bed. Crookshanks' poked his head through the wall and vanished again as he started feel himself float.

None of that was evident to the pair on the bed as their world had collapsed to just the pair of them, moving as one.

"I can't," Harry sputtered, his face tightening as he fought to keep from letting go, even as his stomach tightened further and he felt his spine start to tingle.

Hermione moaned, as her eyes fluttered, before she leaned up, "J...J...u..."

"O.." Harry just nodded, shaking his head to toss dampness out of his eyes. He moved even faster, sending the headboard rapping loudly into the wall, before a long heartbeat later Harry cried out, screaming her name and as he jerked spastically, shaking for a long minute as he let go, before collapsing onto her bonelessly.

A loud series of crashes went unnoticed, as every item that had left the bonds of earth fell back, sending clothes, books, wands, and an entire laundry basket of Hermione's unmentionables scattershot about the room.

Hermione sighed very softly as let him lay there, panting into her damp skin. Their fevered panting was the only sound in the room for a long moment, though to them the thunder of their heartbeats drowned even that out. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the warmth he had spilled into her.

A minute or ten later, Harry found his mind, and kissed her gently, even as he slowly pulled loose of her, and slid his welcome weight from her. She pouted as his warmth escaped her, before she rolled onto her side, and cuddled into his front. "I was fine, Harry, you aren't heavy."

He shrugged, "I remember that next time." He frowned, "You didn't...did you? I..."

"It's alright, Harry," Hermione nibbled on her lower lip as she stoked his face, before she kissed his nose, "I'm just fine, we have a very long time to work on it together."

"I'll...remember that."

"See that you do, Potter," Hermione said softly, before she fell silent, content in lying beside him. A moment later, the bed bounced as Crookshanks leapt back up onto the bed and draped across their feet, obviously deciding that the unnecessary ruckus was done for the moment.

Hermione let a small smirk fall over her lips as she watched Harry looking back at her from only a few millimeters away. Her breath suddenly failed her as she continued to hold his gaze, as a sudden feeling of utter permanence settling over her, over them, like the very granite that held up the house far below her. She nibbled on her lower lip, her eyes moving up and to the left, as her brain began to work, rapidly flashing through a thousand questions and situations, and a few answers.

Finally, the question that had danced across her mind emerged. "Why did we wait, Harry?"

He shrugged, and let his fingers trial up and down her naked back. His fingers paused at the top of her bum and stroked her coccyx, "I don't know, maybe we weren't ready, maybe something or someone was against us, but we are here now..." He grinned and bent forward to kiss her noise, and she giggled, a soft, happy sound that he had seldom heard before but instantly vowed to hear again. "But I know that I wish you had beat it into my mind a lot earlier...you could have asked me to the Yule Ball, I suppose."

She half smiled and pushed him over onto his back, before partially crawling over him to rest her head on his chest. The covers were nearly off the bed, but she did not notice, more than warm enough for now to forgo them at least for now. "You'd think that I would have thought of that."

"I know that fifth year would have been happier, for me at least."

"For both of us," she whispered back, and wrapped one long leg over his hips, settling it between his. She laughed as some half-remembered dream crossed her mind, "Though I'm not sure that Minerva would have approved me sleeping in your bed every night.

"I'm sure Neville, Seamus and Dean would have approved."

"They would have used it as an excuse to sneak up their own girls," Hermione laughed, "not that it mattered, Seamus and Dean did all the time anyway."

"Yeah," Harry sighed, "damn wankers forgot the Silencing Charm half the time. Bloody annoying it was, especially as I didn't get enough sleep as it was."

Hermione nodded, and yawned tiredly, "Remind me to hex them in the morning...or make that the next morning...I'm playing with you when we wake up...."

Harry nodded and bent his head, to kiss her hair, "Sure, Hermione." He left them there as she rapidly fell off to sleep, her breathing slowing further as he continued to stroke the top of her bum, "I love you, Hermione Jane," he muttered even though he knew she was already asleep, and let himself fall off after her.

The soft grey light of an overcast morning filled Hermione's bedroom, slowly prodding her awake from a deep, contented sleep. Her eyes blinked awake tiredly, and she started to move, automatically starting to rise to train and study, when she stopped at a solid weight pressed into her back. A prayer was on her lips as she carefully rolled over, praying that the night before was not a dream, and a long breath that she had not been conscious of holding escaped as she watched the mop of black hair moving in the wind of his own breath.

She flushed as the events of the night before raced back to her, and she glanced down to confirm what the soft draft was already telling her, that she was naked. A wave of two fingers, and a thick quilt floated up from the foot of the bed, covering them both as she burrowed into Harry's front. She would be damned if she were to spend less than every possible moment right here, now that she had her heartfelt wish.

A slightly deeper breath warned her that he was waking and she looked up, just in time to have emerald eyes meet hers. "Hi," he muttered.

"Hi, yourself," she replied back, all at once to her ears, sounding oddly both foolish and utterly profound. Hermione watched the light gather in his eyes, the odd byplay between his magic and that of the sun, "I..." she paused and looked to the side, "We should probably get up...but I don't want to.

"Yeah...I know," Harry sighed, "But the Dobby did such a good job with your bed." She laughed before smiling contently and burrowing her head into his chest. Several minutes passed comfortably before Harry groaned and turned his head, Tempus... A flaming set of numerals drew themselves in the air over her shoulder, to show the time, 10:20am. "We should probably get up."

"I'm sure they have sussed out what we were doing last night, Harry," she chided softly, grinning and snuggling more tightly to him.

"You were kinda loud...who would have thought."

Hermione just grinned into his shoulder before kissing it. She rolled onto her back, and sat up, rolling her back to come upright. She slid from the bed, feeling Harry's eyes on her the whole way, and paced towards her closet, picking up her discarded pajamas and Harry's from last night on the way and tossing them into a hamper set in the corner. It made Dobby happy to have something to do

"We should get dressed, Harry," she said, finding a pair of rather small knickers that she could feel Harry's appreciation of from across the room and pulling them on, giving him a shimmy just because as he pulled on his glasses. She walked back across the room and crawled back onto the bed, to kiss him deeply.

"Aren't you supposed to be shy or something?" Harry asked and she just shrugged.

"We've known each other since we were eleven, Harry," she kissed him again, letting her fingers sift through his hair, "Somehow I feel rather comfortable around you." A quick almost chaste kiss, "Now get your lazy arse out of bed...I want to see what you got me."

"You always were the brains of the outfit," he whispered as she pulled away and crawled back over him to get off the bed once more. Calling after her as she disappeared into her closet, "I'm just going to go get dressed." A moment later, he was getting dressed in his room, just pulling on his jeans when he looked to the blank space of wall at some invisible call and watched as Hermione phased through it.

She was only wearing a pair of loose, well-worn jeans, a pair that he had over the last year or so harbored a secret appreciation for if only for the one small hole just below the curve of her right cheek. Hermione gave him a kiss in passing before vanishing into his own closet. An old hooded sweatshirt with the Gryffindor house logo flew out into his arms before she emerged, pulling on a crimson and gold Quidditch jumper, with as he knew quite well, Potter, lettered in gold across the back over the number nine.

His eyes flicked down her torso, the garment fit her rather loosely, but still a thick, warm sensation filled his belly at the sight. "It looks good on you," he remarked almost absently.

She grinned and took his hand as she stopped next to him, "I don't want there to be any doubt-I thought I should put the writing on the wall so to speak." Her fingers laced into his, "Shall we?"

Harry leapt them down three floors without a word, remerging into the parlor room, which was already occupied with Sirius, Tonks and Remus. The older wizards were snacking from several plates in front of them, since it was only the five of them, plus Dobby, they were not bothering with a formal Christmas lunch.

The three of them looked up at the silent arrival of the two teens and instantly all three noticed the hand tight in Harry's.

Harry gave them a nod as he settled on an unoccupied couch across from the one Remus and Tonks were occupying. Hermione settled more or less in his lap, and he looked to Sirius, as he could already hear the unsaid comment dancing on the front of the older man's mind, "Yes, Padfoot?"

"Took you two long enough, Pup," was all that the Marauder said and returned to his sandwich. He glanced over towards the tree and the pile of presents under it, "I guess we can get to the presents now."

Tonks threw a pillow at him and shared a grin with Hermione, "So when's the wedding?"

Hermione looked over her shoulder at Harry, and rolled her eyes. She ignored the question and flicked her wand, gathering her presents to Harry from under the tree, letting them settle onto the table. "I...I hope you like it," she said, as she handed him the box on top, a long thin one wrapped in red and gold paper.

He opened the package, that she had wrapped with her typical care, and set aside the lid to reveal a long, thin, worked piece of dragonhide, so black that thin blue highlights danced in it. The coat of arms of the Houses of Potter and Gryffindor were worked into it, each seemingly alive in their detail, along with the Potter motto in soft grey lettering, "Illic est haud vita vacuus licentia". Harry pulled it out, along with the various straps and such with it.

Bending down, he kissed her, before laying his hand on the couch next to them, and a three foot piece of shining steel appeared. The inset rubies in the grip of the Sword of Gryffindor twinkled as he slid it into the sheath, and set the now covered blade beneath the edge of the couch. "Thank you, Hermione."

A wave of his hand and a small, flat box appeared, and he handed it to her, even as the faint murmur from Tonks carried to more than human ears as she recognized the box as being from Harriet's, the premier jeweler to Wizarding society.

"Harry, I..." Hermione whispered, having just as much knowledge of the jeweler as Tonks, have spent an occasional wistful moment in Diagon Alley admiring the window displays and daydreaming.

He shrugged and pushed the package back at her, "I uh...I was thinking of giving you something from the vault, but you already have access to all of that," he rambled, "and this was pretty, and-"

"Open the bloody package, girl," Tonks interrupted from across the room, and Hermione spared her a quick, lethal glare.

She sighed and settled back against Harry, even as she felt him shaking nervously behind her. The box opened at her touch and she gasped as the light from the tree gathered and amplified in the facets of a thumbnail-sized teardrop-shaped emerald hanging on a worked, thin platinum chain. "Oh, Harry," she whispered, "you shouldn't have, this had to..."

He just shook his head, and reached into the box, gathering the necklace into his hands. Eyes flickered as her hair lifted itself up and he dropped the chain around her neck, fastening it, and letting the stone fall to rest over her heart. It continued to glow faintly from within, evidence of a magically endued gem. "I don't care. Exactly who else am I supposed to spoil?" he added with a smile.

Any comment she might have had to that was cut off as the fire in the corner flared up and turned and turned green. The flames spiraled in on themselves, and the five wizards drew wands, as a figure appeared in the flames.

A small figure tumbled from the flames, landing in a cloud of soot and ashes on the hearth. She stood and brushed her fingers over long, slightly wavy blonde hair, that lightened slightly as she waved a wand over her head, and soot flew back into the grate as the flames unwound themselves and faded back to red.

The blonde settled small round glasses on a pert nose, in front of silvery grey eyes and skipped over from the fireplace. She hopped once more and fell onto the couch with Harry and Hermione in one motion, resting her head on their laps. "Hello," Luna said brightly, looking up at them, "Happy Christmas."

"I thought you were at the Burrow," Hermione asked, bemused, as Luna made herself more comfortable. The blonde settled her feet on the arm of the couch, as Hermione squirmed in Harry's lap to make room.

Luna cocked her head and squinted at the emerald dangling on the chain from Hermione's neck, she grinned. "See, Harry, I told you that she would like it. How was the sex, Hermione?"

Both Harry and Hermione's faces bloomed a bright red as Tonks' bark-like laugh carried over the air. Behind her, Remus handed Sirius a small, jingling moneybag, with a slight bow.

"It was f...fine," Hermione whispered, half burying her face into Harry's shirt. She visibly steadied herself, and then looked out, smirking faintly, "What about you?" Hermione cocked her head slightly, regaining her keel with every breath, "How did you fare at the Burrow with Molly checking every five minutes to see if anything...untoward was going on in his room?"

Luna sat up and crossed her legs, displaying the animated, green fuzzy slippers that she was wearing with her jeans, that Hermione thought might be a Crumble Horned Snorkack. Shrugging, she licked her lips and reached forward to snatch a Christmas cracker from the coffee table. A loud crunch, "I'm a much better witch than Molly, I used a 'Notice-Me-Not' Charm on Ronnie's door. Between that and the Silencing Charms...and the one to reinforce the bed, we were fine."

"I thought you were staying there?" Harry put in; trying to keep his newly found other half from going green.

"Oh...I punched Ginny," Luna explained with a shrug. "She called my friend a bitch, so I hit her."

Hermione's eyes grew wide, "You didn't have to do that, Luna."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time...at least half of the probabilities were leaning that way." Luna pulled a tiny trunk from her pocket, "I can stay here, can't I, Harry?"

"Umm, sure, Luna."

"Brilliant, Hermione and I can compare techniques. I have this lovely new toy that I just got in to show her. Tonks, you are welcome as well, though I don't think either of us can quite bend our legs that way like you did last night," she added with a soft, almost vacant smile as she looked across the room and Tonks suddenly choked on her tea.

Both black-haired heads snapped to Remus who found a sudden need for some refreshment that was only in the kitchen.

"Oh, Moooonyyyyy," Sirius called after him as he rose to follow his friend into the kitchen, "just what were you doing with my little cousin-" The voices were cut off as the door closed behind them.

Luna shrugged and stood, before vanishing with a nearly silent POP, reappearing, Harry sensed, in the previously empty room next to Harry and Hermione's-Ron's room when he was in residence. Tonks frowned at the sound of a crash from the kitchen and left quickly, headed towards the cacophony.

Hermione watched Tonks leave, staring at the door for a moment, before she stood and pulled Harry to his feet. Gathering his hands in one of hers and pulling him along behind her, as she walked from the room, and slipped down the hallway. She stopped in front of the closed dark oak doors to the library and let go of his hands to run her fingers along the carved inlays of dragons and phoenixes, a pair of lions in one corner, that had replaced the snakes that had been there before.

She pushed one door open and slipped through into her sanctum, not looking back to see if he followed her. No footsteps carried to her ears, but she did not need them to know as the door closed silently behind Harry. Her lower lip rested between her teeth as she walked along the walls, letting her fingers trace the contours of a long shelf of books.

Sometime during that dark, long sixth year, despite his forlorn thoughts about the house, and despite his and Hermione's seeming distance, Harry had commissioned Dobby to redo this room of the house specifically for her. Dobby had, as was his wont, responded with aplomb for his Master Harry Potter, Sir, and the result was nearly the equal of the great library at Hogwarts, if on a somewhat lesser scale.

The room, once filled with dusty, old tomes, almost every one of which was dark or leaning that way, was now light and airy, normally lit with light from two-story, floor to ceiling windows. Tiered shelves filled with books on every conceivable subject filled most of the wall space, with the dark ones, segregated behind a faintly glowing set of wards on one shelf. Comfortable couches facing a roaring fire provided the seating, and a very familiar library table that even now was covered with her work provided the study space.

Hermione glanced back over her shoulder though the dark curtain of her hair, before she stalked to the table. She leaned against it, letting the familiar scars of use under her fingertips sooth her soul her in her place of power, where she was in control of every little bit.

Harry stopped a pace from her, "What's wrong, Hermione?" He frowned faintly as she shrugged, and glanced away to the window, "Did I do..."

She shook her head; sending unbound locks flying as she turned back to him with a wry smile. Pushing aside a pile of paper, an action that might get Ron severely injured-if he had still been allowed into her domain after the great infraction of moving too many of her books this summer to find room for a sandwich-she hopped up backwards onto the table.

Hermione shook her head again and reached out for him, pulling him in to stand between her spread knees. Her arms slipped up to rest on his shoulders, before she kissed him again. Glancing down, she reached up to brush her hair back out of her eyes, before she met his eyes again. She slowly licked her lips, causing Harry to groan, and lean his head on her shoulder.

She started to speak and then smirked before she began to stoke her hands up and down his back, pulling him tighter into her. Her own breathing sped up as she felt him start to react to her, and a wicked impulse slid across suddenly torrid thoughts. "You know, Harry," she breathed in his ear, as she tightened her knees around his hips, "Did I ever tell you how much I love this room." The fingers of one hand dropped to ghost along the top of one of his legs, "All these...books, the smell, the feel of leather under my fingers..." Her breath hitched again, and her chest heaved towards him, "I always wondered what it would be like..."

"W...what was like?" Harry managed to reply, his leg shaking slightly under her feather-light touch, his mouth going dry as the Gobi at high noon.

A sudden thrill caused her heartbeat to spike further as she saw the effects her words had on him, "I had always wondered what it would be like...a slight fantasy of mine..."

"Umm yes?" he asked quickly as she trailed off, and she bit back a urge to giggle.

"Well," Hermione looked to each side, before leaning back enough on one hand to watch his face as her other hand continued to idly stroke his leg, "I used to...occasionally...be studying late...all alone in the very back of the Library where nobody goes except me, and I'd get...lonely."

Harry swallowed heavily, as the one person who could read his every emotion and thought without resorting to Legilimency, just by the look in his eyes, continued to play him like a violin. "T...that's a real shame," he whispered hoarsely.

She nodded, and one of her bare feet started to stroke the back of his calf, "Sometimes, the smell of all those books would just..." Nibbling on her lower lip she glanced down between them, and then back up to him. "Sometimes, I'd wish that you would come back after leaving with Ron or something...say you had forgotten your quill..."

Harry nodded absently, "I do tend to forget things."

"Yeah," she agreed, "Sometimes, I'd just get so...randy," he took a deep breath, and she nodded, "and I'd reach down, with my left hand, slide it up my leg under my skirt and just brush the front of my knickers as I was hoping that you'd come into the room. You never did," she pouted.

"S...sorry."

She seemed not to hear him, as the hand that had been rubbing his leg lifted to brush over her belly, and along the tops of her jeans. "I'd just sigh and start back on my work, usually some stupid essay for McGonagall or something, but my hand would drift back down, and start to rub, just a little harder...just enough to take the edge off."

"Hermione-"

"In my...fantasy, you'd come in the library, silently like you do now, not making a sound, and just stop, watching me. Somehow, I always knew when you walked in, even though you moved like a ghost, and I'd start to rub harder, grinding the cloth into me until it was just...soaked." She leaned back on the table, until she was lying back, propped up by one elbow, and she brushed up the hem of his jersey, that she had chosen this morning just as much for his faint scent that clung to it, as to her other stated reason, to show a taut belly. Her fingers flicked open the button holding her loose jeans closed, and pulled at the fly, letting the buttons holding them closed pop one by one, to expose a thin triangle of red silk, already darkened with her juices.

"Hermione," Harry took a breath, settling himself, "should we?"

She grinned and reached up to pull him down on top of her, kissing him deeply, "Yes, we should," she swallowed and took a deep breath. "If for no other reason that I love you unreasonably and every time you look at me it makes me want to trip you to the floor." Harry froze as she started to reach between them to caress the front of his jeans.

He stood up abruptly, out of her arms and Hermione sat up quickly nearly crying at the sudden move-until she saw the stricken look on his face. "Y...you love me?" Harry muttered and staggered back.

Hermione slipped from the table, and walked over to him, throwing her arms around him tightly and holding on even as his magic flared. She flung one hand towards the door, casting the locking and silencing wards. "Yes, Harry, I do...more than life itself."

"D...don't say that, H...Hermione."

Her eyes widened as a sudden thought slammed like a lightning bolt through her mind, "I'm not going to die, Harry."

He shook his head, and tried to pull away from her again, but even his magic did not move her, just flared around her, knocking several books to the floor, and her papers up into the air to form a rustling cloud in the room. "Y..."

Her own magic flared suddenly, and both of their auras became fully visible, eyes lighting before they blended into one and settled down, seeming to pull back into them both equally. The pair of them staggered together, and Hermione pressed her face into his chest as she clung to him even tighter for a long minute.

"That would have worked with anyone else."

Hermione stepped back and pulled him along to the couches set in front of the fire. Harry did not resist as she pushed him down onto the couch, before she draped herself on top of him, symbolically trapping him there. "I am not anyone else, Harry." She leaned up enough to watch his face as her fingers played with his hair, indulging the urge she had felt since she was twelve or thirteen and had not yet decided what it meant to be so fixated on the boy across from her.

The room was silent for another long minute except for the crackling of the fire as she watched his eyes, reading him like the books she so loved, "It's alright for you to love me...but not the converse?"

He did not answer, for a solid minute, until he broke under her gaze, "Everyone else who's loved me, Mum, Dad, Dumbledore...Sirius just got...lucky. I barely survived losing them, I...I won't survive without you."

"I. Love. You. Harry." Hermione leaned down and kissed him, waiting until he responded to her instinctively and his hand came up to tangle in her hair. She pulled back with a gasp, "Understand? I am not going anywhere without you, nor you without me. We are going to get through this war, together. You are going to have to put up with me for the rest of time if I have to use a Sticking Charm to glue us together permanently."

"I love you too," he murmured, quiet to the point that she had to read his lips to tell but it was enough to cause a smile to bloom, and for her to squirm on top of him. Her squirming increased as his hands slipped down and under the unfastened waistband of her jeans, to stroke her nearly bare arse.

Hermione reached up to grab the heavy Demiguise fur throw that she kept on the top of the couch and pulled it half down. She paused and reached down, to push down on her jeans, slipping them down and kicking them off to the floor next to the couch, before she finished pulling the cover down over them. She snuggled into his chest, faintly purring as Harry petted her head and shoulders almost absently. Intermingling her legs with his, she ground her core into his thigh a few times, and her breathing hitched before she moved her head under his chin. "You are so comfortable," she muttered sleepily, as the stress of the last few minutes caught up to her.

"Tired already?" Harry asked as small hands, hidden by the blanket, started to push up his shirt. "Aren't we supposed to shag now?"

Hermione grinned, even as her eyes fell closed. "We have time, Harry. 'Couple of hundred years of it."

He smiled, watching over her as she fell asleep on him once more, "Yeah, I believe that we will." He kissed her hair and moved slightly under her, grinning as she settled back down against him in her sleep, "All the time in the world."

Merry Christmas.

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