@signetrings another 'observe' meme inspired drabble you didn't ask for
HER FINGERTIP FOLLOWS THE PATH OF A LITTLE RIVULET OF WATER AS IT TRICKLES OVER HIS SHOULDER. It dips briefly into the hollow created by his collarbone, pooling before spilling over and continuing its journey downwards. Hermione traces alongside it down his chest, and while the water doesn't run over his nipple, her fingertip does, and she smiles as his breath hitches in that way she doesn't even think he could stop if he occluded.
He sways just enough that the tiny dribble becomes a torrent, his back no longer completely shielding her from the force of the shower water and she scrunches her nose as it bounces off his shoulder and sprays her in a fine mist.
"Later," Hermione promises, ignoring that she can feel him half hard against her belly. "We can't hog the shower forever, even if it is your birthday."
"I disagree, Granger. If anything, this is the perfect time to hog the shower. Rest of them be damned. They know how to cast a scourgify."
The eye roll she gives him is monumental, shoving against his chest lightly though it only succeeds in her copping more water to the face. "Duck down, will you?" she reaches past him for her shampoo, the scent of vanilla and orange blossom filling the air as she pops it open and squeezes a healthy amount into her hands (more and more these days Hermione finds he smells like her and she smells like him). "I'm pampering you. You're being pampered," because it's his birthday and they're stuck in this awful house surrounded by a half dozen people he doesn't much like with another undercover mission he'll be going on the day after tomorrow, but for now, it's just them in the warm comfort of the shower.
And if she pretends hard enough, Hermione can believe there is no war.
They reconnected after school somehow. Or maybe in the final year of school. Forced to work together on an assignment, maybe. They hated it at first, of course. Said many awful, hurtful things. Constantly at each other's throats. Then slowly it became better. He finds himself attracted to her fiery attitude and her mean streak, to the way she loves so deeply despite herself and always fights to see the good in people. And she sees that he has moved beyond the horrible things he was taught were true growing up. She sees that below his acerbic facade, he's loyal and he's affectionate, and he sees all the parts of herself she loathes and loves them anyway. And then they confess, they fall in love, they graduate, they buy a flat together. Somewhere that kisses the seam between muggle or wizard worlds. A little flat with more books than flat surfaces to put them on and a cozy fireplace that Crookshanks sits in front of every evening. And right now, it's the morning of his twentieth birthday and she's pampering him in their shower before she'll make him pancakes with extra syrup for breakfast to appease his sweet tooth.
If she pretends, she can believe all of that, just for a few moments.
Hermione reaches up, massaging the shampoo into his hair, wiping the suds from his forehead before it can fall into his eyes, the motion smoothing back his hair in a way that's reminiscent of when he was eleven years old. He'd sneered at her then. Now he watches. Looking at her like she's the very centre of his universe; the sun to his collection of stars. She watches him back. Smiles as she gently guides his head back, directing the water to wash the foamy shampoo from his hair. He swallows, his Adam's apple pronounced as it bobs due to the angle of his neck, eyes never leaving her for a second, pouty lips just slightly parted. One hand is settled on her waist, the other her ribs, thumb stroking back and forth, brushing the underside of her breast.
"Oh, fuck it," she huffs, defeated, but she's giggling as they meet in the middle and he scoops her towards him, pulling her beneath the stream of water as they kiss.
Hermione and Ron burst through the door to the eighth-year common room, late to Draco’s birthday party. Pansy seemed to relax when she saw them. “Did you finish?” she whispered. Hermione didn’t answer, but she and Ron looked pleased.
Pansy had decorated the room; there were magical balloons dancing across the ceiling, charmed sparklers letting off arrays of tiny fireworks, and tables loaded with snacks and drinks. Seamus and Dean sat on a sofa chatting with Theo and Padma; Neville was dancing with Susan; Blaise and Parvati were Sonorused on a makeshift stage, performing wizard karaoke. Harry and Draco stood by the food, laughing and drinking Firewhiskey.
No one had wanted a party on May 2, but the end of the school year deserved some commemoration. At the beginning of the year, things had been tense. In the first week, Pansy and Hermione hexed each other, Neville stood up to Blaise, and Harry and Draco came to blows (with fists). But that seemed like ages ago, and now they were all a bit sad about leaving. Draco turning 19 three days before their last day of Hogwarts was a perfect excuse to celebrate and also to drown their apprehension about the future in Firewhiskey and loud music.
“Granger and Mr Granger have arrived with the entertainment!” Pansy yelled, quieting the room with her natural authority. “Gather round.”
Blaise and Parvati were reluctant to interrupt their rendition of TLC’s “No Scrubs” (Muggle music had become quite the hit in the eighth-year common room), but everyone else gathered willingly.
“Alright,” Hermione said with her Head Girl voice, “this game is called Enchanted Forest. Have any of you ever played it?” She looked around, but no one answered. “It’s easy to learn. Most games rely on luck or skill. This game relies, also, on magical compatibility between partners. When it’s your turn, you pick a card and follow the instructions. The goal is to have the most points after five rounds.”
“Are you sure this game isn’t boring?” Seamus said. “Do the cards say to do things like strip naked or take shots?”
Draco raised an eyebrow and looked at Harry. It had been a few weeks since Pansy and Hermione had started seeming chummy, but it had gotten no less unnerving.
“The first thing we do is activate the charm that chooses partners,” Hermione said. “I think it’s a randomization spell.” She opened the black box in front of her and a game board sailed to the table. A swirl of purple sparks rose from the board into the air, surrounding the group and landing briefly on each person. Then, with a bang, the sparks erupted into a sparkly purple haze. Neville and Parvati jumped.
When the air cleared, each person looked at their wrist, which was circled a sparkling magical rope that extended outwards.
Hermione held up her wrist. “You’re attached to your partner.”
Seamus whooped. “Not boring after all! Didn’t know you were into that kind of thing, Hermione.”
Ron threw a pillow at him.
The group shuffled around, finding their partners. With a shimmering black rope, Draco was attached to Harry.
“Rotten luck, Potter,” he drawled.
Harry smiled. “I’ve had worse luck.” His cheeks seemed flushed.
Hermione was attached to Ron. (“Random my arse,” Dean grumbled, heading to his partner—Padma.)
“We’ll go first to demonstrate,” Hermione said. “Your best chance of winning is not magical strength but rather how well your magic combines. The magical connection that the game put on you means that you have to cast together, or else your magic won’t work.”
Ron picked up a card. On it was an illustration of an ogre. Above the game board, a shimmering apparition of an ogre, almost like a Muggle hologram, hovered over the board.
Hermione whispered in Ron’s ear. Ron whispered back. Hermione counted to three. They each raised their wands and waved. The ogre stumbled a bit, then disappeared.
“What spell did you do?” Theo asked.
“Not telling, mate; we want to win the game,” Ron said, “Figure it out yourself.”
Blaise and Neville were next, attached with a magical orange rope. Their card brought a vision of a hag over the board. After a whispered consultation, they yelled, “Evanesco!” Absolutely nothing happened. Blaise and Neville looked at each other.
“Not as easy as it looks,” Hermione said smugly. “You can take three tries; you get more points if you win with fewer tries.” Blaise and Neville didn’t so much as ruffle the hag’s hair on their second and third tries. She snickered at them and disappeared after they lost.
Dean and Padma managed to beat a troll on their third turn; Parvati and Seamus lost to a merman; Pansy and Justin lost to a centaur.
While Terry and Susan put their heads together to strategize about how best to beat a giant, Draco whispered to Harry, “Why isn’t Pansy upset that she lost? I have played countless games with her and she is the sorest loser I’ve ever met.”
Harry whispered back with a smile, “Dunno, maybe she’s content to blame Fitch-Fletchley?”
“You’ve clearly not met Pansy. She should’ve hexed him, knowing her.”
Susan and Terry beat the giant on their second try, and it was Harry and Draco’s turn.
“Ok birthday boy,” Ron teased, “let’s see what you’ve got.”
Harry turned over a card. A huge dragon appeared over the board, roaring and sending an apparition of fire towards them.
“Should we try to Stun it?” Harry whispered.
“No, you can’t Stun dragons, you imbecile. Didn’t you fight one for real once? How did Stunning work then?”
“Fuck you,” Harry breathed with a smile. “What’s your suggestion then?”
“Well we can’t do your signature move, because there’s nothing to Disarm from him.”
“Draco.”
“Ok, ok. We could try to implode it?”
“Merlin, you scare me sometimes,” Harry whispered. “What do you mean?”
The whispering continued for another minute, with the dragon sending large plumes of fire across the room—disconcerting even if it was an apparition. Pansy looked at Draco and Harry, deep in conversation, then turned to wink at Hermione and Ron.
Finally Draco and Harry raised their wands. Harry, without seeming to think about why he was doing it or whether it was appropriate, grabbed Draco’s hand. The black magical rope encircling their wrists shortened with the movement and became thicker. They cast at the dragon.
The magic leaving their wands was visible. A shimmering stream of light, similar to the look of the band connecting their wrists, shot out of their wands. Harry stumbled backward with the force of it, hitting Draco’s shoulder.
Everyone in the room watched in silence as the spell hit the dragon, which instantly enlarged until its head hit the ceiling. Then the dragon crouched in on itself, almost like it had a stomachache, before it burst into a million sparkling pieces that filled the room with a blinding light.
When the light cleared, Hermione’s hand covered her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. Ron’s mouth gaped open like a fish. Pansy had fallen backward onto a chair, and the smug look on her face almost hid the surprise in her eyes.
Draco turned to look at Harry with a pale face. Harry looked back, dumfounded.
“Well,” Seamus piped up into the silence, “I guess their magic is compatible.”
Harry looked over at Seamus and burst into a brilliant smile. He turned back to Draco, grabbed Draco’s shoulders, and tugged him forward for a kiss. Draco, still shocked, jumped a bit, but within a second wrapped his arms around Harry’s back and kissed him back deeply.
“Did you know that could even happen?” Ron whispered to Hermione.
“Merlin, no,” she whispered back. “I just spelled it to respond to the level of the magical compatibility, and spelled the partner band to combine the partners’ magic so you’d have to work together to cast anything at all. I never thought it could do something like that. I thought what we did was sort of best case scenario.”
Harry stumbled backwards, hitting the side of the sofa. Draco reached up and grabbed Harry’s face. Draco pulled away for a second and Harry smiled. Draco smiled back, a big, genuine smile that didn’t often grace his aristocratic face, and kissed Harry again. Glittery black sparks flew out of the band surrounding their wrists.
Neville coughed awkwardly. “Um, whose turn is it?”
“Oh, honey,” Pansy drawled, looking distastefully at the band connecting her to Justin. “We’re done here.” She waved her wand and the game packed itself into the box, breaking the magical connections between the partners. “Happy birthday, Draco,” she said with a bawdy smile.
Draco and Harry, preoccupied, didn’t notice the band disappear from their wrists with a shower of sparks.
