Musings Upon Parchment
by: Ladymage Samiko

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If this were a romance novel, you'd be handsome as well as tall and dark. Your hair would be flowing instead of lank, your shoulders broad instead of narrow. Your nose would be 'noble' or 'aristocratic'—'Roman', if they were pushing it—your eyes fathomless. As it is, well, the former is beaky and the latter flat—and too close to the former. Your skin would be deemed olive, or perhaps alabaster, not sallow. And when you darkened with rage, you wouldn't turn that rather ghastly mottled colour. Though I admit, your hands… let us say they are remarkably talented. And your, hm, most personal attributes? More than adequate. Not a bad trade-off, I imagine. Given that this isn't a romance novel.

If this were a romance novel, you would be dashing and charming (once I'd got past your irascible mask, of course) and always manage to say exactly the right thing to make me fall in love with you. Eventually. You would think me beautiful, beyond compare to any other woman (whether or not it were true) and tell me so. Depending on the novel, you'd admire my mind as well, my independence, my idealism… oh, anything and everything about me. Even my flaws would merely make me charming or unique or memorable(as opposed to insufferable, I suppose). I'd simply hope we weren't in the sort of Regency novel where you'd call me a 'spirited filly'.

As it is, you're taciturn in the morning, grumpy at lunchtime, and impossible when you return in the evening. You're snarky and rude, make no bones about my unpardonable pedantry, insult my friends, threaten my cat, and sulk for weeks on end. You scream and rant and rave when you feel justified and refuse to apologise when you aren't. You're a supercilious bastard at the best of times, and I've yet to hear you say those three important words without attempting to qualify them with a number of caveats. (You won't even say 'please' or 'thank you' without even more caveats, and God help us if you ever actually say 'I'm sorry.') I wonder if getting you drunk might help. At the very least, you would be beautifully hung over the next day and perhaps not so prone to multisyllabic insults. (Though with my luck, you'd be the sort that never has hangovers. Then again, I wonder if anyone would be able to tell the difference?)

And yet you still manage to say something useful when I'm feeling at my worst. And Merlin knows how much I'd miss those three a.m. conversations on anything and everything. I get the idea that if you were dashing and charming, et cetera, you wouldn't be half so interesting to talk to. (Oh, and I must remember that I need to discuss with you the possibilities concerning the adjustments to the Wales Preserve wards.)

If this were a romance novel, we'd have been tearing up the sheets by page one hundred. We would have made mad, passionate love, either in my bedchamber or in a beautiful, exotic location. You would have whispered sweet nothings in my ear, driven insane with desire by my beauty, charm, and wit. We would have been occupied for hours. Well, ten pages, anyway. To start.

I still can't believe it took me five years to convince you I was no longer thirteen. Nor the series of disasters that preceded our attempts to find someplace halfway private. Not to mention my hair getting caught in those damned buttons of yours. Though that scene might have made it onto page forty of the novel, at the point when we are denying our feelings and have to avoid the embarassment of being caught in a perfectly innocent, yet easily misconstrued situation. (To this day, Neville still won't look me in the eye.) And I don't remember any words between us, except perhaps various inarticulate demands for 'more'—or maybe it was 'harder'? I wasn't exactly coherent—or cogent—at the time. And that wall was bloody freezing. Not to mention the floor after you dropped me.

And then for Molly Weasley to find us! Talk about a farce. Ah, well. We haven't done so badly since then. Well, since I managed to overcome your inhibitions that said farce instilled.

If this were a romance, you would have taken me out to dinner and purchased expensive gifts. Or at least purloined a bouquet of flowers.

I do not consider Hogwarts fare an appropriate dinner. Nor is a pound of kinroot, however sorely needed, an expensive gift. Nor do mandrakes count as flowers. Would it kill you to buy my a bloody box of chocs? Really, would it? I mean, do you have an allergy or an aversion or a phobia? Did Voldemort (yes, I said his name; get over it) torture you with animated, flesh-eating truffles? You know I don't consider myself trite, but… well… I do like a bit of Godiva now and then and, honestly, I'm tired of buying them for myself. It's depressing when I know I have a perfectly good lover who ought to be doing it for me. After all, I buy you those gummy bat-things that you like. And it's not like I'm asking you to go down the 'feminine products' aisle at the store. But never mind, I am being clichéd; perhaps you should ask me to a DE reunion or buy me a potions set instead just to steady my mind. (Though I do like chocolate. Just saying.)

Or maybe you should simply find a new dungeon for our games this weekend. That would work. As… stimulating… as you are, I do know every crack and chip in the blocks above our headboard. Some new cracks and chips—not to mention new toys or arrangements—would be quite welcome.

Do you know, now that I think of it, if this were a romance novel, we wouldn't be allowed our dungeon. We should be limited to rather ordinary places and methods. Like the bedroom. Or the bathroom. Or a hotel suite. And maybe the forest. No dungeons. And probably not the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. Nor that little place on the Knockturn Alley corner.

Merlin forbid. Circe and Nimue forbid, too.

But do set aside a few pounds for a box of sweets, would you, please?

If this were a romance novel, we'd have reached the epilogue by now, one with happily-ever-after and very likely three children. As it is, we're still muddling through life, in all its messy configurations. We both get happy (not that you ever admit it) and sad (not that you admit that, either) and angry and petty and considerate and content. You shriek about my cat's hair (and mine) all over your robes. I nit-pick about the way you disorder my bookshelves. (You do it deliberately, don't you?) We even go to bed angry—though never unsatisfied, I have to say. And I can't help but think of the way you smile at me when you wake up. Or the way you tease me about saving the world—before offering suggestions to help me go about it. And I think of those nights we spend leaning against opposite armrests on the couch, reading, with our legs stretched out along the cushions, sometimes entangled, sometimes just touching foot to thigh. That slightly exasperated look that tells me you want to at least finish your chapter when I trail my foot along your inner thigh in a silent request. And that ever-so-slightly pained look you have when the situation is reversed. The feel of you brushing my hair, the sound of your voice as you read to me. Those funny little grunting noises you make when I message your back. That odd reddish-brown colour you've turned just now after reading that. (Just be glad I haven't given this to the Owl Post to deliver to you at High Table in the Great Hall. And that's what you get for reading parchments on my desk in any case.)

If this were a romance novel, you wouldn't be your snarky, snarly, brilliant, unwaveringly steadfast self. We wouldn't have the thousand-and-one moments we've had of love and lust and anger and hurt. I woudn't have changed in the thousand-and-one ways I have since we began. You'd never have known the thousand-and-one differences I brought to your life. We'd never have the thousand-and-three experiences we're going to have over the years.

I'm so glad this isn't a romance novel.

Though I still want that box of chocs.

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Hermione Granger
Spinner's End
August 6, 20xx

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AN - Just a little something that was on my HD that I finally managed to finish up. I hope it was enjoyable! A little word offering in the review box would be lovely, an it please thee. Thank you, Lm. S.