Night-Treasures by Glori Phiverpoff Rating: PG13 Ship: Harry & Hermione Canon: Books 1 - 6 Genre: Romance Status: Complete Length: 2,725 words in 1 chapter Published: 30 Aug 2008 Last updated: 30 Aug 2008 Dreams, storms and late-night fridge-raids. "...it's another of my little night-treasures, the things I've been discovering about you when you don't know I'm looking." From the Unofficial Portkey Archive: https://portkey-archive.org/story/8190/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Night-Treasures Night-Treasures by Glori Phiverpoff ~+~ Rating: PG-13 Category: Romance (Fluff!Alert) Summary: Dreams, storms and late-night fridge-raids. "...it's another of my little night-treasures, the things I've been discovering about you when you don't know I'm looking." DISCLAIMER: Come on JKR, don't sue me. Yes, I don’t own these characters: I borrowed them without permission, but it's a great way to publicise your stuff. Besides, I'm not making any money off of this. And let’s face it: they’re having a lot more fun than in your universe. So there. A/N: This is what happens when it gets rainy and I read Pablo Neruda’s work. I get all antsy and poetic-like and... well, end up writing rain stories. Hope you folks like this one. ~+~ "The night turns on its invisible wheels, and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber." Pablo Neruda, 'Sonnet 81' ~+~ It's half-past three in the morning and though it's hot as hell, you're drifting so deep in sleep you don't even stir when I slip out of bed. I pad out to the kitchen, enjoying the feel of the cool tiles beneath my bare feet, and wander around restlessly, poking about in your fridge, snatching a quick bite of the left-over fruit salad you must have had for breakfast yesterday morning. It tastes of the kiss I snatched in the elevator as we made our way to the LDA; delicious, fleeting, stolen. You responded in kind for a moment, before pulling away, admonishing me "Not here." It was more than worth it, though. Hmmm...a fat grape, popping open in my mouth in a spurt of sweet juice...a chunk of pineapple, fibrous and slick on my tongue...a cube of mango, meltingly good. I take a swig of orange juice straight from the carton, since you're not up to catch me doing it. It's sour, acidic, tart enough to make my mouth plead for something else to follow. Let's see... I poke my finger into a tub of plain yogurt, and pop in into my mouth...cool, sweet but slightly tangy. Perfect. I put everything back where I found it, covering my tracks. It's not that I think you'd mind me raiding your refrigerator...it's simply that these nights we spend together are still such a new occurrence that I feel a little like an intruder, as though I've let myself into the wrong flat. It's strange, this path between being best friends and something else. Sometimes I feel so... I don't know. I'm probably just being stupid. Last time I was here, my night time wanderings took me to the bathroom, where I ended up furtively sniffing several of the assorted lotions and concoctions on your shelves. I think I had the idea that, by cataloguing each one, I'd be able to identify the components of your particular scent, the one I have filed away under 'Hermione' in my memory. It's strange, the way people respond to particular things. The smell of, say, pumpkin pie, can be enough to make one man gag and another man smile, depending on what emotional tags they've attached to it. When I catch a faint trace of your own personal fragrance, on my clothes, in my flat...I sometimes have to stop for a moment, wait for all the memories it brings to the surface to let me go. I'm still no nearer understanding what makes it up, though, despite my bathroom explorations. It's intriguing, in an odd way, to be loose in your home after dark. I wander around the kitchen, continuing my investigation. I read the notes you've left yourself on the refrigerator: cryptic little reminders. 'Green robes'. 'Mum says tell Dad 24th'. 'Stephan haircut Fri'. It's like intercepting a coded radio broadcast, when the reception keeps coming and going. I run a hand over these pieces of your days and move on. I put the dry dishes away, as quietly as possible, trying to avoid any clatters of metal and china. I'm proud of the fact I know where everything should go. Perhaps I actually paid attention all the times that Ron and I came to visit before. It seems to indicate some degree of acceptance, of having gained a little more access to this part of your life. I move into the living room, gliding between the furnishings in the dark, carefully following the mental map that tells me to step left or get an end-table in the knee... step right to avoid crashing into your couch. For a second I remember you earlier, rising from the couch, face flushed, lips slightly swollen with kisses, going to close the blinds. You turned to me, flashed me a quick, lightning-bright smile and told me, "Let's not give the neighbours a floorshow, Harry." Then you came back to stand over me, extended a hand and led me out... Then the vision wavers, disappears, and I'm left in darkness again, weaving round the furniture. That I have your flat mapped out this well is another thing to take comfort from. I have paid attention. I’m no intruder in here. I go to the window and peer out through the slats of the blinds, looking up and down the quiet street. All is as it should be...the only thing moving is a cat that runs across the blacktop and disappears between the buildings opposite, a quick streak of white, silent and streamlined. I finish making the rounds, having checked that your windows and door are locked up tight. I know you locked up after we finished dinner, and that your wards are quite strong, but it makes me feel better to be sure. I like the comforting illusion that by securing the flat, ensuring no one breaches these four walls, I can keep you safe. What can I say? I'm still a bit paranoid like that. I walk back past one of your many bookshelves, past your fireplace, pausing to brush my fingers over the photographs on the mantlepiece. Your family...your mum and dad, a brace of cousins, your grandparents, all of them blessing your living room with their broad smiles. There's a picture of the Weasleys too, charmed to be as mobile as the other ones. There's a couple of pictures of the three of us, of course, just after the war. Oh. And there's a new one. One that hadn't been there in my last visit. A picture of us together. I didn’t know someone had taken it... We surely look happy there. It's when I see things like this that I wonder why it took us so long to see the truth. Were we afraid of tempting fate? Of asking too much of the universe after all we'd been through? Well, fate has brought us here and I, for once, am grateful for it. Sidestepping your TV, brushing past a large potted plant your mum gave you, "to give the place a bit of life, dear"... Merlin, but she doesn't know just how much life there is contained within these walls. I read somewhere that a person's home is the face they present to the world: we feather the nest with what we treasure, what makes us feel secure, warm. After darkness falls, though, I think that face changes subtly. This is what fascinates me, takes me on my little secret voyages of exploration. All the shadows fall in different places, the way a person's features can look like those of a stranger when cast in shadow, or when sleeping. I love studying the changed face of your flat at night, in much the same way that I love watching your face when it's transformed by sleep. That, of course, would be my new favourite thing to do. Poking around your place in the dead of night really comes a poor second to watching you sleep. So I flick the light off in the kitchen, and shuffle back down the hallway towards your bedroom. Damn, it's hot. Summer. The city's been sitting under an oppressive blanket of damp, sticky heat for weeks now. It thunders every day, regular as clockwork: once around lunchtime, once mid-afternoon, if it's especially humid, and once around six. Walking anywhere is out: once you leave the air-conditioned comfort of a building, moving through the air is like swimming fully-clothed. You've been a little on edge every day, your weather sense keeping you wound up until each storm breaks. It might thunder yet before dawn, I think. Pausing beside a window, I slide it open and stick my head out. I start sweating instantly in the still air. Thunderheads, puffy and stacked up high, are massed on the horizon, their inner depths flashing with lightning. Yeah, this has to break sometime tonight. I pull my head back into what is, by comparison, the blessed cool of your flat and shut the window. I try to make as little noise as possible slipping back into the room, letting the door swish gently shut over the rug. You shift a little this time, turning onto your side and murmuring something in your sleep. It might be a name...then again, it might not. The second time I spent the night here in your bed, I woke up to find you curled up against my chest, muttering about books and cheese. I haven't told you you talk in your sleep...it's another of my little night-treasures, the things I've been discovering about you when you don't know I'm looking. It's overwhelming sometimes. I thought I knew everything about you, but I still have all these new things to learn. I settle in the chair in the corner of the room, leaning back and stretching my legs out, sprawling in an attempt to cool off a little by having as little contact between my bare skin and the chair as possible. You turn again, flinging one restless arm out as somewhere far off, thunder growls. I can smell it now, taste it on the air, the metallic tang, like fresh blood, of impending rain. I wait, watching over you in the still of the night. We were sleeping under a sheet to ward off goose-bumps from the chill of your AC unit. Damned thing's been on the fritz all week though, and right now the air inside is as humid and still as that outside. We really need to get that permission to cast a massive cooling charm in here. You've kicked the thin cotton down the bed, tangling it up around your legs, so that it drapes over your hips, skimming over the slight roundedness of your stomach as you lie on your side. The effect, in the dim light filtering in from the hallway, is to make you look like a perfectly carved bas-relief. I give thanks for a brief moment to whichever deity inspired me to start leaving that one light on when I stay the night. You think it's on so I can find my way to the bathroom in the dark. That's wholly unnecessary by now after all my night-time wanderings...not that you know that. Not that I'll tell you. I know that the sole reason for that light's existence is to let me watch you like this, your skin painted by washes of soft light, interspersed with cool shadows. Your skin glistens with a thin sheen of sweat. I have to tamp down the urge to run my tongue over it, to taste the salt pooled in that little hollow at the base of your throat, to let my lips wander up the curve of your neck. Your hair's damp and mussed, its curls reasserting themselves in the humid air. Tomorrow you'll curse under your breath as you try to straighten it out: I've been witness to that little ritual more than once. From my ring-side seat, I can just about make out the rapid flitting of your eyes back and forth under your eyelids as you drift in dreams. I feel light-headed, as though your dreams are scenting the air, creeping out from your body to twine in smoky tendrils around me. We don't talk about our dreams much—mine are still rarely the material of pleasant daytime conversations, and yours are your private kingdom, your secret garden. I don't ask and you don't tell. If I asked, though, would you speak to me of crescent moons, of dark rivers and whispering forests? Sitting here, I can't doubt that your dreams are less than magical. I feel dizzy. Perhaps it's just the heat. You let out a gentle sigh and turn in the bed again, one arm ending up stretched across the empty space I occupied a little while ago. Now the planes of your back are exposed to me, the creamy sweep of your skin, sprinkled with the little beauty spots you hate and I adore. I trace the curve of your spine with my eyes, down towards the gentle flare of your hips, as earlier tonight I traced that line with my fingertips...a moment of stillness in the beautiful chaos of our lovemaking. Did I say watching you sleep was my new favourite thing to do? I lied. Snooping around your house in the middle of the night ranks third, watching you sleep takes the silver, but making love to you...that's pure gold. Thunder detonates above us suddenly, sounding like the sky cracking in two just above our heads. The eerie, cold flare of lightning illuminates the whole room for a split second, creating odd shadows, etching the scene onto my reflexively closed eyelids. As I open my eyes again, the rain begins to fall, a sudden cascade of water, falling in rivers down the windowpane, and you are raised up on one elbow, gazing at me from under sleep-heavy lids. "Harry? Wha'...?" "Just sitting, thinking..." I say, giving you one of the wide grins I know you secretly love, so that you'll know nothing is wrong. "Mmm. S'raining?" Your voice is warmed and slowed by sleep, your words slurred together as you struggle to keep your eyes open. "Uh-huh. It's cooler already... you feel it?" "Mmmph. S'nice. C'me back to bed..." You sink back against the pillows as I crawl back into bed beside you, letting your eyelids slip shut as I curl up around you, fitting myself carefully to the length of your body. In the rain-cooled air, skin on skin is once again a comfortable proposition, thank Merlin. I plant a feather-light kiss on the salty skin at the nape of your neck, settling my head so that my nose is buried in your messy hair. My right hand comes to rest on the dip of your waist, fingers splaying over the pale curve of skin, and your left comes up to rest over it, fingers tangling with mine. Perfect. "Hermione?" "Mmm?" "What were you dreaming about?" I can't see the tiny smile spread across your mouth, but I know it's there: I can hear it in your voice. "You." I hold my breath for a long second, wondering if you realise just what you've admitted. Probably not: you're more than half-way back to sleep already, all your guards down. "Yeah?" "Mmm-hmm. You'n me...rain...nice. G'back t'sleep." "'Night, Hermione," I whisper, even though in the space of a heartbeat your breathing has fallen back into the regular rhythms of sleep. I hold on to you, listening to the rain as it begins to fall more softly. It must be warm rain, blood-warm...we could run outside like this, wearing just a bed-sheet, and feel no chill from it. It makes your room, your home, your street, a secret world, and I feel suddenly sure that in your dream kingdom, it only ever rains like this, kind rain, quiet. I want to go there with you someday, Hermione. I pull you closer still, holding on, as if your dreams might seep out of you and sink into me, pass through my skin and creep into my heart while I sleep. I can only hope. ~+~ "The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny. Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all." Pablo Neruda, 'Sonnet 81' ~+~ A/N: Told ya... Pure cavity-inducing stuff. Don't expect anything like this from me again. It's not my usual cup of tea. Reviews are good for the soul ;)