I was first to say “I love you”.
We were at the Black Lake. It was spring. I had my back resting at a tree, a blanket laying under me and a picnic before me. You had asked for a picnic date and I couldn’t refuse your sweet request. I had immediately provided and that Saturday, instead of joining everyone (and their terrible stares and their gossip) in Hogsmeade, we had a picnic by the Lake. We needed that time alone, away from those who called us names. “Death Eater scum. How can a war heroine be with him?” We had had enough.
You were in my arms, laying between my legs, with your head resting on my chest. You were reading a book. Not a wizarding book, not even schoolwork. It was a muggle novel, about a man who lived in his fantasies and thought himself to be a knight. I was reading over your head and you pretended not to know that I was doing that. I knew you knew I was reading because you waited a couple of minutes before turning the page. The book was in Spanish and I was terrible in any language that wasn’t English or French.
My hands were tangled in your curls. I was tugging them and playing with the perfect ringlets. Or I was massaging your scalp and you were humming in pleasure. Such beautiful sounds you were making. You were mesmerizing when you read and you were even more enticing when you read in my arms. Some men are turned on by the naked body of a woman. And there I was, my body overflowing with desire as I had you in my arms, fully dressed in jeans and a sweater, reading Don Quixote in Spanish and translating to me the words I couldn’t understand.
You were, and are, a perfect creature.
I was first to say “I love you”. I stole it from your lips that day.
You were reading in my arms and I was holding you tight, playing with your hair and at some point, you put your book down and turned around to face me. I could swear that your eyes had the colour of amber at that moment and for a second, I was magnetized to their depth. And then my eyes traveled from your eyes to your freckled nose and rosy sun-kissed cheeks. Then I looked at your lips, rosebud and perfect, set in a shy smile that spoke words without voicing them.
“Draco, I…” you said and I stole the words from your lips as I kissed you. And as we tried to even our breaths, I whispered what I had known for an embarrassing long time.
“I love you.”
I was first to say those words. But even after years of blissful marriage, after three children (and two cats and a dog), after grandchildren, after hardships and love that heals the deepest wounds, after years of having you reading in my arms, I’ll never tire of hearing them from your lips, my Hermione.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
