oh, kiss me with your eyelashes tonight

[cleverness]

Maybe Rapture was a mistake.

Hermione Granger was a girl who often looked back on the past for any number of reasons. Although the saying was certainly trite and quite possibly overused, there was truth in the claim that history always repeated itself. While humans had made impossible amounts of progress in the past couple of millennia, human nature sometimes seemed incapable of changing much at all. And it was that same nature of Hermione's own that had her reflecting upon the foolishness of heading down the Rapture. That had her realizing, more than ever, how much more helpless all of them were, not only in deciding where they walked or where they stayed on the island, but even defending one another against threats that wouldn't have been much at all, just months ago. With Rapture still teeming with activity, Hermione practically swearing that she could feel it rumbling still beneath her feet, her heart raced as she and Ron stepped back inside their hut. Her hand tightly gripped his own.

"Harry?" she called out as soon as they entered, never letting go of Ron's grip as the pad of her thumb ran lightly against his hand. After a couple seconds of silence, she turned to Ron with an anxious look, brow furrowed as she leaned in to rest her forehead against his shoulder, feeling her hair drip water down the small of her back. "He hasn't returned yet. Merlin, what if something happens to him?"

Comments

[cleverness]

Perhaps under any other circumstances, Hermione would have noticed the sound of steps as they trailed into the hut. But all other sounds seemed to drown out under her own breath, which grew ragged, uneven, and strained as Ron spoke, his voice close to the shell of her ear. One hand grabbed his shoulder more solidly, the other lingering by his back, and Hermione did her best to rock her hips in time with his, feeling more of the tension slip away as the two seemed to find a rhythm. (Truth be told, it wasn't that enjoyable for her yet, but Hermione knew that certain things required practice, and certainly had expected that this would be one of them.)

But the sound of the door opening immediately snapped her back to attention, and Harry's voice following sent Hermione straight into a state of alarm. "Oh my god, Harry—"

Desperately, she reached out for sheets, for fabric, for anything that could cover the both of them as she slid away and sat, eyes meeting Harry's for a couple of seconds with unspoken apologies. And panic.

Unsurprisingly, Harry didn't linger long, and while normally Hermione might have chased after him, a part of her couldn't help but feel that it wouldn't be exactly helpful right then. So she groaned, face dropping in her hands as her heart still pounded in her ears. "Oh my god."

[deluminate]

Unsurprisingly, Ron hadn't heard the door open either, or the sound of footsteps as they approached, more focused on pretty much everything else: trying to keep his rhythm steady, trying to hold off for another moment or two... at least until Hermione tensed up and called out Harry's name instead of his.

Ron's eyes snapped open and he frowned, about to say something, until he realized Hermione was looking past him and towards the door. She hadn't gotten mixed up or something in the middle of it all, Harry had actually walked in.

"Bloody hell," Ron said, pulling the bedsheet up to his neck, even though Harry had already gone and slammed the door behind him. His heart had been racing before, but in a good way, then. Now, it was only because of sheer and complete bloody panic. Eyes wide, he stared at the closed door for a long, silent moment before he said anything else.

"Do you— do you think he saw?"

[cleverness]

Her cheeks were red, flushed, too warm to be comfortable and her thoughts so dizzying that she thought that she might be sick. The last thing she wanted to believe was that she'd caused this, caused a rift between the three of them which had the potential of growing greater, not because any of them cared for each other any less, but simply because there were certain lines that couldn't be crossed by the three of them at once. Burying her face in her hands again, Hermione heaved a breath, tempted to groan in frustration, but if she didn't know what to do in this situation, chances were Ron didn't either.

"He just stood there for five seconds and then ran in the other direction as fast as he could," Hermione clarified, quickly sliding off the bed and looking for her clothes, strewn as they probably were on the ground. "Of course he saw. I can't believe this, I just— I really can't."