Here was my little contribution to Shellfest, as mentioned by @callieskye in her post here! It’s a bit angsty, but ends on a hopeful note - hope you enjoy and are inspired to write your own #shellfest fic :)
The water was black, black and unrelenting as it surged against him.
The bitter wind whipped in his hair, hazy images from the recent past flitting in front of his eyes. The abrupt, heart-stopping twist of Apparation… his feet churning the sand, the weight of the figure in his arms barely registering… brokenly shouting for help, the pale and frightened faces of his brother and sister-in-law. He must have stumbled up the stairs as he clutched her to his body, placing her on a bed as Bill and Fleur rushed around him.
“Ron, what ‘appened? What ‘appened to ‘er?” Fleur had demanded insistently even as she began to examine her. Ron gripped the sides of his head, blood pounding in his ears.
“Cruciatus, Cruciatus,” he answered wildly. “You’ve got to help her,” he sobbed.
“She is breathing,” Fleur murmured, almost to herself, as she continued to run her wand over Hermione’s prostrate form. “But ‘er pulse is weak. Broken ribs, zhertainly… internal bleeding, maybe ‘er lungs,” she muttered quickly as Ron looked on helplessly. “Bill, ze Skelegrow, the ‘aemapotion, maintenant! ‘Elp me,” she instructed Ron sharply as Bill darted out the door behind him. “Lift her ‘ead and shoulders, gently.” Ron did as he was told, easing her upper body up slightly so that Fleur could remove her blood-soaked jacket. His hands shook as they threaded through her hair, matted and damp but still soft under his fingers. The pads of his fingers dragged along the nape of her neck as he lowered her back down, reluctant to lose contact with her chilled skin.
Fleur had lifted Hermione’s soiled shirt, revealing mottled bruises and angry red welts lacing across her sides and abdomen. Ron distantly heard Fleur suck in her breath, but a dull roaring began to take over his senses as his eyes followed the marks as they disappeared underneath her bunched-up jumper and the waistband of her denims.
“Ron, you must go now,” Fleur said as she bent over Hermione’s torso, wand working quickly. She turned her head to look at him as she realized that he hadn’t moved a muscle. “Out, now!”
“No, no…” he muttered, gripping the brass of the bed frame, “‘m’not leaving her…”
“Ron, zere is no time!” Fleur warned, nerves frayed.
“I CAN’T, I CAN’T!” he exploded, his head pounding in pain.
Suddenly he was moving backwards, jerked off his feet and dragged sharply away from the bedside. If he had been in his right mind he might have wondered if Bill had hexed him, but the eldest Weasley brothers had never needed magic to subdue their younger siblings and Ron was standing outside the closed bedroom door before he fully realized what was happening. He shifted his weight forward to push past his brother, vision blurring around the edges, but Bill already had his wand between them.
“Stop moving, I’m healing you,” he said shortly, murmuring under his breath as he circled his wand around the left side of Ron’s forehead and down to his hands. Ron looked down as he felt a prickling sensation, mildly surprised to see the many cuts left by the unforgiving cellar walls and shards of chandelier before Bill’s spells sealed them.
Bill looked him over sharply. “Your legs…” he started, eyeing his bloody, tattered trousers, but Ron growled and made to push past him again. It didn’t matter, didn’t he realize that none of it mattered….
Bill roughly hooked his arm and forced him back into the corridor.
“Fleur’s doing all she can,” he growled. He gripped Ron’s shoulders, his expression softening. “Look, I know what she means to you, but you have to give her a minute. If you won’t let me help you, at least wash the blood off yourself before you go back in,” he finished, steering him to the doorway of the small bathroom before disappearing down the hall.
The roaring in his head was growing louder as he staggered against the doorway. He caught a glimpse of his own face in the mirror and recoiled at the hunted, helpless expression he wore, backing a few steps down the hall until his hand caught on the newel post. He turned and pitched down the stairs, the treads seeming to fall away under his feet. He barely registered the figures of Luna and Dean standing in the kitchen as he reeled through the entryway and out the door with nothing in his head but thumping white noise and the sound of her screams.
He had lurched down the sandy stretch of shore and plunged into the implacable dark of the ocean.
The water pushed back against him, plastering his hair to his face and stinging his eyes. He tasted salt, and the briny water that he unconsciously swallowed burned his raw throat as he thrashed deeper into the waves.
The image of her body, so small and battered, was seared into his mind. He had seen her unconscious; seen her petrified, lying in a hospital bed recovering from life-threatening curses, but this - this was so much worse, so much more terrifying. Her mind, her brilliant mind… if it was gone he knew, in some deep, unfathomable part of himself, that his would be gone as well. If this most fundamental piece of her was lost to him, to the world, he might as well keep walking, letting the raging waters close over his head and erasing every trace of his cursed existence…
He screamed, for her, for a bloody universe that would let this happen, for a million things he never said and chances he never took until it was too late.
Ron…
The word cut softly through the tumultuous wind and surf and wound its way inside him, stilling his wounded howls. He stopped, chest heaving, afraid to turn. Would he see an apparition, a pale and heartbreaking imitation of her vibrancy? The voice that had called him home in his lowest moments - would it reverberate inside his body when it had left this physical earth?
Finally he twisted to look back at the shore. Behind Shell Cottage it was just beginning to lighten, the sky above the hills painted in pale peach and rose gold, periwinkle fading to deeper blue as the impending dawn pushed back against the inky black of night. His eyes searched the gabled facade, his heart homing in on her window before his conscious mind could place it by logic. A soft glow pulsed steadily behind the curtain.
She was alive, and she couldn’t, would not ever give up. Which meant that he couldn’t, either - his place was at her side, for as long as she would let him.
He wrenched a foot up from the wet, sucking sand and took the first step back toward the house and the whole of his heart.
For the first time he could feel the frigid salt water stinging the slashes on his legs left by the broken glass he knelt in as he pulled her from the wreckage of the chandelier. He swiped the back of his hand over his eyes as he waded to the shallower waters, the rough, gritty cuff of his jacket raking against his skin. His mind quieted and focused as he walked over his own chaotic footprints in the sand back to the blue painted door.
This time the kitchen was empty as he passed through the entryway and strode up the stairs, pausing outside the still-closed door. He knocked softly, not intending to wait for an answer. “Fleur, I’m coming in,” he warned, but the door swung inward before he could twist the handle. His sister-in-law stood framed in the doorway, looking at him appraisingly but not without sympathy. He held her eyes and she seemed satisfied with what she saw there, stepping back into the room to allow Ron to enter.
“She is resting, but she ‘as not come back to ‘erself yet,” Fleur cautioned him in a low voice. “I do not know ‘ow long it will take,” she added, anticipating his question. “Her body ‘as suffered much, you know zis more zan I. ‘Er mind…” Fleur trailed off, glancing behind her to the small figure motionless on the bed. Hermione looked tiny against the broad expanse of soft white linen.
“She won’t,” Ron swore quietly, his voice firm. “It won’t be like that.”
Fleur studied him intently. “She is very strong. We must ‘ope,” she agreed. “Now I must go check on ‘arry and zee ozzers,” she murmured as she slipped out of the room, softly closing the door behind her.
Concern for Harry and his friends flared in his chest, but that and every other thought seemed to fly out of the quiet bedroom at the sight of Hermione. He walked the few steps to her side, hooking a wooden chair from where it sat underneath the window and drawing it up to the bed, angling it so that he was looking back at her face. The indirect early morning light leant a rosy color to her skin, masking the freshly-healed scars and complexion dulled by stress and malnutrition. He watched her chest rise and fall gently as he sat, that minuscule movement a balm to his soul.
He gently enclosed the hand lying on the coverlet between his own rough palms, curling his body forward with a shaky exhale to touch them with his forehead.
“Ron…”
Ron’s head shot up in disbelief. “Hermione! Gods, Hermione,” he choked, emotion crowding his throat. He watched her blink heavily and groan, relief flooding his body.
Her eyes darted around the room in the dim light. “Where…”
“Shell Cottage, Bill’s place,” he explained hurriedly, searching her face for recognition. “Bill and Fleur. She took care of you, after… everything. Are you in pain? I’ll get her, just hang on…”
“Wait!” she croaked, clutching his hand. “Harry?”
“He’s here, he’s OK,” Ron reassured her, hoping to Merlin it was true. “And Dean and Luna and a few others.” He could see her brow furrow as she tried to piece together this new information, and the familiar inquisitive gleam in her eye was enough to make his throat tighten and eyes burn in relief and joy. “I promise I’ll tell you everything, let me just get Fleur so she can look you over.”
Reluctantly he moved to stand, but she squeezed his hand with surprising strength. Her eyes flicked down his body hunched over in the small chair. “You’re soaked,” she said hoarsely, frowning in concern.
“‘M fine,” he reassured her, suppressing an almost hysterical laugh as he realized that he was actually telling the truth. The happiness and gratitude he felt in just talking to her was overwhelming, making him feel lightheaded. “Really.”
She looked at him intently. “Stay, please,” she whispered. The crash of the ocean was a distant thrum in the hushed room. “If we’re really safe here… stay, just a few minutes.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, finding without surprise that he couldn’t refuse any request she made of him. “Yeah, of course.”
To his astonishment she slowly shifted over, rolling onto her side with a grimace. She silenced his protest with a look, holding his gaze with a strange mix of challenge and plea. Unable to believe what she was offering, Ron sat stock still until she finally tugged on their enjoined hands, drawing him closer. Slowly, hesitantly, he slid off the chair and lowered himself onto the space she had left on the bed. He pulled up his sandy, trainer-clad feet and reclined on top of the covers to rest his head facing hers on the pillow.
He was so close to her that he hardly dared breathe, hardly dared believe that he was lying by her side, that she was going to be OK. He watched her close her eyes and lean her forehead forward slightly to touch his, the warmth of her skin bringing tears to his eyes. He lifted a shaky hand and wrapped his free arm around her gently, the fingers of his other hand still tangled with hers and pressed between them. He let his eyes slip shut, and for a few precious moments they lay connected, hearts beating, each drawing strength from the other in the peace of the early morning.
Shell Cottage, Mid-DH, rated for very brief language and vague innuendo.
They were sitting round a lantern-lit dinner, listening to Fleur softly complain about Griphook’s refusal to come down for meals while Luna gave Dean an account of a creature she suspected was inhabiting the sea close by. But all Ron could think about was the person sitting across the table from him, who he’d known since he was eleven, who was the reason he knew what it felt like to be in love.
This wasn’t the first or second or hundredth time it had happened, of course. But it was in the lower count of occasions when he thought he might finally do something about it. Not to mention the note in his pocket, which he should have been casually passing to her, but he was overanalysing it for a while first, instead.
She took a bite of her bread and glanced across the table at him, smiling almost shyly. It was that new smile, the one that made his pulse race. He smiled back, reminding himself that Hermione Granger was one of his two best friends, she knew him better than anyone, possibly even Harry, and that he ought to be able to give her a scribbled note with five words on it without blushing.
He shoved in a mouthful of potatoes and went for it, suspecting that his best moves were often made when he feigned a bit of confidence and just acted. Her smile faltered, and she eyed him suspiciously, but the timing was good, and no one was paying attention to them, so he pressed his palm to the table, with a torn and folded scrap of parchment underneath it, and pushed it across to her. She stared at it for a second before sliding it off her side of the table, to her lap, glancing back up to raise her brows at him as he shrugged and tucked back in to his dinner.
He tried to tune in to something Harry was saying to Bill, but curiosity quickly got the better of him, and he had to watch as she stared down at her lap, clearly reading his note. Yet her expression remained blank, an edge of tension possibly moving in as she sniffed and looked back up to catch his gaze.
He should have been more specific, he reckoned. He was hoping for a curious smile, but now it really dawned on him that of course she had no idea what his reason was, only those five words.
Meet me outside at midnight.
He was standing by the fence at the edge of the cliff, watching the waves foam in the sand down below. He didn’t actually think she wouldn’t come, and maybe that was a positive aspect to the vagueness of his note. On the other hand, he reckoned she’d have come even if he’d explained that it was nothing.
He’d surprised himself - where had that bit of optimism come from? But then he recalled the familiar, chanting words inside his own head. She was his friend. If he knew nothing else, just then… well, he certainly knew that.
The door to Shell Cottage opened behind him, and he turned around to watch her quietly approaching him, through the dark, in her pyjamas.
“What is it?” she asked immediately, voice slightly tense and eyes wide with questions.
“I hope this isn’t disappointing,” he sighed, “but I’ve literally got nothing. Just wanted to see you.”
She stopped walking half a metre away from him, and her expression changed from madly curious to a mixture of amused and relieved.
“We see each other constantly,” she pointed out.
“I know. But we’re up in that room with Griphook most of the time, planning, unless we’re eating or sleeping. And it feels like I haven’t talked to you about anything but bloody Polyjuice potion and Gringotts security for ages.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” she clarified softly, and there was that shy smile again.
He laughed lightly and ran his hand through his hair as she moved closer, leaning against the top of the fence and looking out at the beach below the cliff for a moment.
“So…” she started, glancing sideways at him.
“Yeah… Now that you’re here, I dunno what to talk about,” he confessed, resting his forearms on the fence as well, close enough that he was almost touching her.
“We don’t have to talk.” Her cheeks coloured the prettiest shade of pink, and he was trying to work out if he’d imagined the nervous suggestions buried in her sentence.
“Is that a challenge,” he teased, “who can go the longest without saying anything?”
“Yes, alright,” she laughed back. Then she nervously licked her bottom lip. “But we have to keep looking at each other.”
“Right.”
His single word agreement must have initiated the game, because she turned further toward him and wordlessly stared. He immediately wavered between confidence that he would win this and fear that there was no chance he could withstand the tension.
Well, at least one problem was solved. He didn’t have to worry she’d catch him staring - she’d asked him to do just that. This revelation was instantly quite freeing, and the sharp edges of apprehension sanded away, leaving a sort of lightheaded, giddy feeling as he looked back into her eyes for the longest time in recorded history.
She sniffed and her nose wrinkled adorably, and his lips twitched as he narrowly avoided a fond smile. Her eyes darted between his then, and he was quite sure this was making her as nervous as he’d felt at first.
As an ironic distraction, he let himself fully take in the familiar details of her face - the warm amber of her eyes, the gentle upward curves of her lashes, the arches of her brows. A salty breeze blew down the coast, and a few thick curls of her hair tangled at her neck and brushed her cheeks. She reached up and pushed them back over her shoulder, still staring at him. But her gaze slowly began to descend from his eyes to his cheeks to his jaw, and he was just beginning to wonder if she was breaking the rules when he realised how silly that was. Anyway, she was still looking at him. They’d never specified where they had to look.
He allowed his own gaze to move to her lips, sliding down the curve of her neck as she stepped the tiniest bit closer. She drummed her fingers nervously on the top rail of the fence before looking further down, pausing and breathing quite visibly for a moment. Her chest moved anxiously with two shaky inhales, and then her fingers crawled toward his.
His eyes darted immediately down to where they were suddenly touching. Just the tips of her fingers against his. He stared at her small hand, the warm tone of her skin, darker than his own milky white. But his hand could easily cover hers. He recalled what it had felt like to hold her hand while they’d slept, at Grimmauld Place. He wanted to feel that again. And he bitterly wondered how the hell it had been so long, many months ago now, and yet here they still were.
How was it possible that looking down at her hand this way was actually making his heart hammer faster than it had done when he’d been gazing into her eyes? He had to do something, so he walked his fingers over hers, softly floating across her knuckles. He heard her breath catch as she watched closely, and he stopped when her fingers moved under his. She flipped her hand over and picked his up, then sucked in a breath to speak, narrowly stopping herself in time. He smirked at her, and she bit her bottom lip, shaking her head.
But what she’d been about to say became quickly apparent through her actions as she aligned the palms of their hands, proving how much larger his was. He smiled and curled his fingertips over the tops of hers. They stared in what was becoming a blissfully exciting silence, and everything felt exactly right as she slid her fingers between his, finally looking back up at his face.
He had almost forgotten where he was, the dark shore to his right and the whitewashed house to his left, only in his periphery. He wasn’t going to lose this game, still looking at her, hardly breathing.
Was he imagining it, or could he feel her trembling? He desperately wondered what she was thinking, until she moved suddenly, as if she couldn’t take it for another moment, letting go of his hand and wrapping her arms around his waist, resting her cheek against his chest. His body momentarily tensed… then fully relaxed as he looped his arms around her neck and rested his chin on top of her head, bushy tendrils of her hair tickling his nose.
He couldn’t believe his own thoughts, but he really didn’t want to ruin this. He could kiss her… it probably wouldn’t be that hard to do now. But God, she felt amazing, and his arms were still firmly around her, and he could feel her heart beating against his chest. She made no signs of wanting to move away. In fact, she pulled him closer.
That was when he realised, grinning.
“I think you lost.”
“No, I didn’t,” she whispered back, shifting to lift her head off his chest and shyly smile up at him.
Her arms were still around him, and he really didn’t care about the bloody game.
“I was still looking at your arm,” she explained anyway, glancing at his bicep, very close to her face. He wasn’t letting go first.
“Shit.”
She laughed, flushing lightly as she rested her cheek on his chest again, and he sighed, closing his eyes.
“New game,” he said in a surprisingly scratchy voice. “Longest hug.”
“Get ready to lose again,” she replied, smiling voice muffled in his jumper.
My fellow Romione fic lovers... do you ever get that feeling like there’s not enough new fic? (obviously the answer is yes because we’re insatiable in our lust for R/Hr ) well some of my very favourite people felt exactly the same and we were crushing on Shell Cottage pretty hardcore recently so ... well... this happened...
They’re all completely finished and ready! The author’s are just rolling them out slowly to keep you properly inundated because heaven KNOWS we have zero self control and would consume all of them immediately if given the chance. @remedial-potions has already posted hers but look for titles from @trademarkblue, @wildegreenlight, @aloemilk and @idearlylovealaugh showing up over the next week or two. [NOTE: if these inspire you and you feel like joining in the Shell Cottage feels post your work and I will totally reblog with #shellfest because there can never be too much Shell Cottage ... never.]
Getting set up for Shellfest. #wastateparks #shellfest #camanoislandstatepark #washingtoncoastsavers #coastsavers #hiwalkerphoto #volunteering (at Camano Island State Park)
Even the Army National Guard band is here. #wastateparks #shellfest #armynatuonalguardband #penrosepointsatatepark #hiwalkerphoto (at Penrose Point State Park)
