All of the characters of the Harry Potter series and the world which they inhabit belong to J. K. Rowling, and certainly not me.

This is my first fic! The rating is for language and a love scene in the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it!

The afternoon proved a bit warmer than usual for autumn. Hermione stretched and removed her jacket, folding it precisely and laying it carefully across the arm of the chair. It was an old and familiar seat, rather overstuffed but only slightly shabby, and she had been firmly ensconced within for more than an hour. She settled back down, tucking her legs beneath her and opening her book to the exact passage she had been reading.

She tried to immerse herself within the text but something was moving out of the corner of her eye, irritatingly repetitive and insistent. She resolved to ignore it and redoubled her efforts to finish the chapter. The movement grew more frequent and was soon accompanied by tapping. Hermione continued to ignore it, although she was now unable to attend the rather dense text properly and would have to reread that last passage in order to glean the correct context for the following paragraph. She sternly set herself to doing just that.

The tapping increased in volume and insistency, jarring her concentration and finally raising her head from the depths of magical history. She lost no time in locating the source of the tapping, which appeared to be a rather dirty leather boot with frayed laces of indeterminate color. The boot was attached to the lanky young man sprawled along the couch across from her. Its twin, equally dirty and with laces surprisingly intact, though untied, was resting atop a stack of books piled haphazardly across the coffee table.

Ron sat with one arm flung across the back of the couch; his other arm occupied with propping his chin up. His chin appeared to need the support, being weighed down with a prominently pouting lower lip. When he noticed that Hermione had lifted her head, he stretched out his long limbs in every direction with a great sigh.

"C'mon Hermione, you've been reading for hours!" He flopped back onto the couch, once again resting one foot on the pile of books, sending a few more precariously perched tomes tumbling to the floor.

Hermione refrained from protesting that it had not in fact been hours, but a mere 78 minutes of reading. She chose to concentrate on what appeared to be the larger issue.

"I believe that I have asked you rather plainly, Ronald, to cease propping your feet on the furniture."

Ron leveled impossibly blue eyes on the woman who he often thought of as the most maddening creature in the universe.

"Well, it's my flat too, in't it? I expect that I can put my feet wherever I bloody like."

He leaned back against the couch and crossed his arms, satisfied with his argument. Hermione shut her book with a rather dusty sounding smack and uncurled herself from the chair. Her feet, clad only in pristinely white socks, emerged to dangle a few inches off of the floor. She impatiently pushed back a lock of curly brown hair to glare at her adversary.

"While it is true that we share the space, I believe that we agreed upon some rules for living together."

Ron exhaled loudly in disgust. "Rules! You make a bloody religion out of rules, Hermione."

She dropped the book onto the coffee table, leaning forward in her chair until her toes touched the wooden boards of the floor. Her hair, hopelessly disordered on her best days, insisted on obscuring her vision until she indignantly blew it from her face.

"Your language could use some improvement as well. I have had quite enough of your infantile cursing and-"

Ron slashed his hand through the air. "I'm sick of your rules, you're not my Mum, and I'll use any fucking language that I bloody well please!"

Hermione's eyes narrowed at the interruption and her eyebrows, usually gently arched, crashed down furiously at his cursing.

"I would simply enjoy having a decent conversation with you without it deteriorating into gutter speak! You can't seem to string a simple sentence together without resorting to foul language. Honestly, Ronald, it is a detestable habit!"

He scoffed loudly and leveled eyes slitted with anger at her, the blue glinting like hidden jewels beneath heavy lids. He watched her steadily as he slowly lifted his other boot to thump solidly onto the table, sending a few more books tumbling. Hermione let out a shrill squeak of outrage, bristling like a cat. She felt her hair stand out in all directions. Her soft brown eyes became so overwhelmed by angry brows that they seemed ready to disappear entirely. She was no longer bothered by wayward locks of hair, as her vision was suddenly clouded by a red haze. She could barely focus as Ron's lips turned upward in a wide smirk.

Hermione concentrated on her breathing for a moment, reviewing arithmancy problems in her head in order of increasing difficulty until her vision returned to normal. Ron continued to smirk, his act of complacency spurring her fury to new heights.

He actually thought she looked rather adorable when she was angry, even if she retained the ability to scare him sometimes, though he would never admit such. There was something about her flashing eyes and impassioned reaction that drew him to her, making him do things sometimes just to provoke a response. After all of their years together, he knew exactly how to push her buttons and bring her to a boil in moments.

He struggled to maintain a suitably smug expression as she rose to her feet, stunning him with the full force of her furious beauty. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips parted softly with every exhalation. The soft grey legs of her knit pants bounced lightly as they rolled to the floor, covering all but the tips of her toes. Ron swallowed hard as he noticed the way the thin fabric of her faded gold Gryffindor tee shirt pressed lovingly against her breasts with every fuming breath.

He barely managed to keep himself from flinching as she advanced on him, rounding the coffee table to stand parallel to his splayed legs. He was suddenly and immensely grateful that she had left her wand on the kitchen counter. She smiled at him and his stomach clenched in fear. Things never went well for him when she smiled like that, her soft lips pulled back in more of a grimace than an expression of mirth. She placed one hand on her hip and raised the other to tap her index finger against her chin.

"Do you know what I think, Ronald?" She tilted her head to the side as if expecting a response. His mouth went dry as she dragged her index finger up to trace her lower lip. She dropped her hand but he remained mesmerized by her perfect mouth. Hermione grew impatient with his lack of response. He was simply sitting like a lump and staring at her blankly. She fisted both hands, planting them firmly on her hips as she bumped against one of his denim clad knees.

"Hey! I am speaking to you!" She felt a rush of satisfaction as his eyes snapped to hers, a deep blush creeping up his neck and setting his ears aflame. So she was correct in her assessment of the situation. It seemed that Ron was not receiving as much attention as he would like. She should have been even more incensed by his childish ploy, but she felt herself softening to him as she always did. They had an entire afternoon to themselves and she had ignored him until now. She abruptly decided to change tactics.

Hermione trailed her left hand from the top of Ron's boot to his thigh, pausing to swirl her fingers around his kneecap. She nearly giggled when he coughed and shifted nervously as her hand crept higher up his thigh. Ron had never been adept at hiding his emotions. She drew lazy patterns through his jeans.

"As I was saying, I think that perhaps you do not actually have an issue with our agreed upon rules for cohabitation. I think that perhaps you are simply attempting to provoke me in order to garner my attention."

She paused to drag a fingernail from the crease of his knee up his inseam until she felt his leg tense and his breath falter. She looked up to find that he was staring at her as if entranced, his entire face so red that his ears were nearly glowing. He probably didn't realize that he was tightly gripping the fabric of the couch with both fists, as though he were keeping it from floating away.

Ron knew that she was speaking to him, he could tell by the rhythmic motion of her lips, but he could not hear her over the buzzing in his ears. His insides flipped over whenever she would reach her hand nearly to the source of his agony, only to pull away again. She had to know that she was torturing him, a man could only endure so much and he had thought them well past teasing at this point in their relationship. Perhaps he had pushed her a little too far.