A/N: I'm not gonna lie - this is crack fic. A ridiculous idea occurred to me that should have been maybe 2K words, and… Yeah, here we are. I feel like I might be incapable of writing pure silliness without droning on about hand placement and like feelings and stuff.

Of course it is for callieskye, because 6th year AU. Thank you for brainstorming the "how" of this fic with me! I LOVE YOU, and DEM, and anyone out there reading this, and just everyone in this lovely R/Hr fandom. I feel as though I also have to credit wildegreenlight and azaleablue, who both wrote lovely 5th and 6th year fic as birthday presents recently, and I think they put me in the 6th year mood. Also, I've stolen "astonishingly" from my dear napchic ❤️ Hope you enjoy! x

He was definitely snogging Hermione.

This might have been considered the best kind of unusual. If he had been awake.

As it was, actual-Ron was sprawled across his own narrow dormitory bed in only his boxers, sound asleep, whilst dream-Ron was being pulled down into Hermione's bed, and his hand was sliding up the front of her vest, where she definitely wanted it to be. He could hear her moaning - or had he made that sound, himself? - but it didn't matter, because the next thing he knew, her tongue was in his mouth and any ounce of coherent thought he'd been maintaining slipped quickly away.

There were scraps of reality, peppered through his dreams. He'd broken up spectacularly (maybe he was exaggerating, just a bit) with Lavender that day. However, in this particular fantasy, he had immediately confessed his feelings to Hermione, not to mention earnestly expressing how many nights he'd spent wanking behind his Gryffindor curtains (because that was the sort of thing he could easily tell her about, yeah) as he'd thought back to a flash of her bare thigh between the bottom of her skirt and the top of her knee socks… or the way she'd tuck a curl of hair behind her ear and he couldn't stop staring at her exposed neck, or-

Well. Alright, dreams could be amended, and now he hadn't waited seven bloody weeks to chuck his "girlfriend" and then clammed up at the thought of being that fucking honest with the girl he was actually in love with.

Love…

Dream-Hermione's lips attached to his neck, and he groaned, twitching almost awake.

She'd rid him of his shirt, he was lying partially on top of her, between her parted legs, and she was telling him she'd always fancied him-

The back of Ron's head clapped hard against wood, and his eyes flew open, heart suddenly racing as someone gasped dramatically, very close by.

Hermione's round, brown eyes were staring at him, mouth wide open in shock.

Hermione.

Hermione?!

"Fuck!"

He bolted upright, a million out of control thoughts warring for first place. She scrambled to sit up at the same moment, gaping madly as she clutched the half-unbuttoned pyjama top she was wearing.

He was… in Hermione's bed?! At Hogwarts. In the middle of the night.

"WHAT-" Her chest heaved for a moment as she tried to breathe, but then she lunged for her wand before frantically fastening her bed curtains shut.

It occurred to him how drastically underdressed he was for- for what, exactly?! Apparating, in the middle of his bloody sleep, into the sixth year girls' dormitory?!

"HOW…" she spluttered at a pitch so high that she probably could have shattered thin glass.

"How the hell should I know?!" Ron growled, clutching her blanket to his naked chest. "You're the one always going on about not being able to-"

"Apparate in or out of Hogwarts!" she hissed across him, sharply tugging at her bed curtains again, for good measure, though they were already shut about as tight as they could possibly get.

"But… I'm still inside Hogwarts…" he reasoned, but she rather aggressively shushed him before swiping her wand in a circle around them. The air seemed to vibrate for a moment before settling.

"Ron." She shook her head, dumbfounded. "It doesn't work like that. You can't Apparate around the school, full stop! Particularly not into a girl's… bed!"

"Well! I dunno!" he groaned back, shifting her blankets around, over his lap… "I wasn't trying to do it! There's obviously a reason why it worked. Ask Dumbledore-"

"Dumbledore!" she squealed, eyes perfectly wide again.

"Huh?"

"Harry had his lesson tonight! What if Dumbledore had to lower the shield to leave the school and you just-"

"-happened to spontaneously Apparate in my sleep at the same moment?"

They stared at each other for a tense second, both breathing a bit heavily.

He'd never been this close to her for this long… in this little clothing.

"What were you thinking about, when you fell asleep?" she asked sensibly, tucking up her legs- bare legs.

"Uh…" he cleared his throat, "just going over what I fucked up at the Apparition test earlier."

"Well, that lines up," she sighed. "Then what?"

"I, uh…" He tousled his hair and swallowed, vivid images from his dreams rushing back. His face suddenly felt like it had been lit on fire… "Nevermind that. How the bloody hell are we gonna get me out of here?"

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, suddenly glaring at him.

"This is my problem, is it?"

"Not if you don't mind your roommates discovering a half-naked bloke in here with them!"

She clucked her tongue loudly, but, even in the dark, he was sure her cheeks had tinged a gentle pink.

"We're behind a ward now, Ron. No one's going to find you unless we do something stupid."

"What do you reckon, then? I just lie back and have a nice kip in your bed til everybody else clears off for breakfast?"

"Shut up. I'm thinking," she huffed, briefly closing her eyes. "Where's your wand?"

"By my bed, I reckon."

"You Apparated without a wand?" Her brows disappeared underneath her fringe.

"I told you, I didn't do it on purpose!"

"I know, I know, sorry… You must've been thinking about my room in your sleep…"

It was incredibly fortunate that she hadn't looked at him just then.

"You can't go down the girls' stairs while everyone's asleep," she continued fluidly, as if she hadn't just danced around the edge of the smutty dream he'd been having about her mere seconds before he'd arrived… "You'll wake the whole tower, or Professor McGonagall will find you and…" She trailed off, wincing.

"Well, you passed your test," he shrugged.

"What?" Her curious eyes met his, and he almost forgot what he was trying to say.

"Oh, um, I just mean you could Apparate us back to my room, if it still works."

"Oh!" She chewed her bottom lip for a moment… damn it. "Well, it's worth a try. Stand up."

There was no way in hell he could do what she had just asked and maintain a single shred of dignity. But she stood up on her bed first, in her tiny, tiny pyjama shorts - had her legs always been that long?! - and she held out a hand toward him. Shit.

Awkwardly clutching her blanket up to his bare stomach, he managed to stand and take her hand. She didn't let go of him as she shoved her bushel of tangled hair over her shoulder, then raised her wand to chest height. Her skin was so soft, and she was clearly trying not to look him in the eyes as she squeezed his hand tighter and attempted to Apparate.

Nothing happened.

Sighing, she let go of him.

"Sorry," he mumbled, sniffing. She did meet his eyes then, and her expression was much softer all of a sudden, no longer so distressed by his startling arrival.

"Maybe you will have to stay," she said.

He forced his eyebrows to remain neutral.

"I could…" she started to suggest, "go down to the Common Room-"

"-and explain to your roommates why your bed's behind a ward?"

No. No, he wasn't looking for a weak excuse to share her bed. This was serious…

Her gaze made its way down from his face to his bare chest, which happened to be at her natural eye level… She licked her bottom lip and quickly sat down again. He joined her, leaning against the headboard that had smacked the back of his skull when he'd arrived. He reached back to touch the sore spot absently, until he felt her staring at him.

"You really hit your head hard," she said softly.

"M'fine."

She nodded somewhat sceptically.

"Could you put my wand under my pillow?"

She handed it to him, and he tucked it away, slightly lightheaded by the accidental intimacy of their situation. They stared at each other for a stretched moment after that, and he had no idea how to approach the subject of their current sleeping arrangement. Clearly, if they were meant to stay here together for the rest of the night, there would be some rules. Right?

"You look tired," he stated rather dumbly, but she smiled slightly.

"It's the middle of the night."

"Yeah." He rubbed his hand across his jaw, absently thinking he probably should have shaved the previous day. "Let's switch. I'll sleep down there." He gestured toward the foot of her bed.

"You're too tall," she said in a small voice. "We can both fit on the one pillow. You can stay above the sheet."

"Right."

His heart was suddenly pounding in his ears, and she crawled up next to him as he scooted as far to the left edge of her bed as he could get without falling off. She carefully slipped under her sheet, and he offered her a fair bit of the blanket he'd been clinging to, unfortunately realising that he was going to have to exercise an incredible amount of control to avoid embarrassing himself at some point before dawn…

She shifted around, then rolled onto her side, facing away from him. He tried to make himself as comfortable as could be managed on his back, but he literally had to grip the edge of her mattress to ensure he wouldn't topple off, and with the way his thoughts were racing, he reckoned there was next to no chance he'd be able to sleep anyway.

"We'll have more space if you sleep on your side," she mumbled after a while, and though she was logically correct, it took him at least a full minute to force his body to try it.

Way too careful not to touch her, he rolled over to face the back of her head, finding it almost immediately impossible to completely avoid her wild hair, a few stray curls tickling his nose. He heard her sniff loudly before she adjusted the blanket and sheet over her shoulders. He bent his knees with the intention of scrambling his feet up under the blanket where it was warm, but the resulting factor he hadn't considered was that he could now feel the heat from the backs of her own bent legs, so close to his that if he even breathed wrong, they'd be touching…

She made the tiniest adjustment, and, all of a sudden, her foot was touching his shin through her thin sheet.

He closed his eyes.

For one whole second he allowed his mind to fully drift to all the things he desperately wanted to do, which included (but was not limited to) draping an arm over her waist, flipping her to her back, and snogging her deeply into her mattress…

He swore under his breath.

"Okay?" she asked in a strangled whisper.

"Yeah," he lied.

Her foot dragged a few inches up his shin.

"Stop. moving. around."

"Why?" she squeaked.

"Multiple reasons…" he muttered, closing his eyes tight.

"Sorry." She sounded so genuinely apologetic just then that he wanted to blatantly correct her… but of course he wouldn't. She'd bloody hex him down to the Common Room, charmed stairs or no, if she found out-

No. He'd just have to force himself to sleep. Eyes still closed, he relaxed his legs, accepting the presence of her feet against him, and began mentally reciting Quidditch stats, hoping to lull himself eventually to unconsciousness...

He'd thought she must have fallen asleep herself, until she began shivering, close enough that he could quite obviously feel it.

"Are you cold?" he asked in a scratchy voice, opening his eyes again and forgetting to be distracted by her physical presence in favour of mild concern.

"No," she answered tersely.

"Then why are you shaking?"

"Oh, I don't know," she suddenly shot back, quite sarcastically. "I've just got my half-naked best friend in bed with me, like usual…"

He was struck speechless for far too long after that, until he finally managed a raspy reply.

"Best friend?"

He could feel her rolling her eyes, and he wondered if she had any idea the completely opposite effect it had on him as he slowly grinned at the back of her head.

"Who else do you see me spending all my time with?" she whispered.

"Harry?"

"Shut up."

Alright, so they'd mostly sorted things out since the whole poisoning ordeal. And by sorted things out he obviously meant the fact that he'd nearly died had overridden the fact that he'd snogged Lavender for weeks, hurt Hermione's feelings on multiple levels… followed smoothly up by her retaliating and taking bloody McLaggen to that daft party he was meant to have gone to instead, all whilst hating him for a couple of months… Yeah, they'd been a mess. Maybe they still were. Maybe he needed to say… something.

She spoke again, before he could dampen the spiraling panic that had begun to set in at the prospect of trying.

"First, I'm allowed two best friends. And second… second, j-just mind your own business."

"I'm sorry," he breathed, because those were the only two words he could manage, out of all the ones he wished he could string together instead.

"What?" she whispered back, far too confused for someone he reckoned was owed countless apologies for the things he'd done. Honestly.

"I didn't mean for this to happen, obviously," he said, opting for the easiest one first. "And it was your idea for me to stay - it was definitely a joke, when I said it."

"If you're that keen to leave," she sighed, "go on. Maybe you can make it up the boys' side, before anyone hears-"

"No, I'll wait."

"Well, now it just feels like you're trying to torture me…" she muttered, half under her breath… but half over it, and he was sure he had heard her quite clearly.

"If it's that terrible for you-" he began, knowing he was pushing for her to confess more, but she flipped over to her back so abruptly that he almost felt like the wind had been knocked out of him.

"Stop, Ron," she literally moaned.

His lips parted slowly, shocked by her sudden proximity, her lovely face so, so close to his. And he was doubly shocked to see that her eyes were glassy with unshed tears.

"It's not terrible," she forced out, wiping her eyes with the side of her hand. "That's the problem, isn't it."

"Is it?" he whispered back, and she met his gaze with a challenging stare, one that he watched thoroughly melt to reflect the nervous anticipation he felt consuming him as well.

God, he wanted to kiss her. But bloody hell, if he was wrong, if he'd let the enormity of his own feelings cloud what she really meant…

"I can't do it again," she trembled, "months and months of not speaking to each other."

"Neither can I," he answered, quite seriously, because it had really been the worst time of his life. He had felt so unlike himself in the most painful ways imaginable, and it had turned him into someone he disliked even more than usual. Recovering from poisoning had lifted more than the physical fog of nearly dying - he'd been clinging to the frayed friendship he valued more than quite possibly any other thing in his life.

"No matter what?" she asked timidly, but he heard himself answering with conviction.

"No matter what."

Evidently, she'd been afraid of the same things he had been. What ifs.

Now, she reached for his wrist, wrapped her cool fingers around it, and the rest was easier than he'd ever hoped it would be. Maybe in part because she moved to meet him, because she was tugging his wrist to encourage him, because her lips were already parted when he reached them.

His eyes fluttered blissfully shut, and his toes went numb, and he was kissing Hermione.

He reached blindly up to touch her face, and she moaned against him, letting go of his wrist to clench two tight fists in his hair. He was, as his dreams had always warned him, beyond coherent thought as her tongue brushed against his lips.

He shifted to a better angle, stretching his body over hers, her hands roaming down to his bare shoulders before they had to pull apart to breathe.

They stared at each other, wearing identical expressions of disbelief and awe. His lips twitched toward a grin.

"Really?!" she breathed. Astonishingly, he understood what she meant, aligning fear and doubt with the newfound knowledge of wanting the same things.

"Obviously." A full grin broke across his face as she laughed, cheeks flushed a gorgeous shade of rosy pink.

"Not obvious to me," she pointed out. And of course he understood. He'd felt the same way for years. But then she bit her still-smiling bottom lip and shook her head. "Well. Maybe a bit obvious, now I'm really thinking about it…"

Laughter bubbled to the surface, and he felt completely giddy… until her fingertips danced down to his bare sides, and she visibly stopped breathing for a moment.

"I know you were hiding something when I asked before…" she started in a shaky voice, "but what were you dreaming about before you Apparated here?"

"This. Literally this."

She held his gaze with wide, longing eyes as he supported his weight slightly off of her with his forearm… only he hadn't needed to bother, because her arms suddenly looped around his neck, pulling him back down to crush her into the mattress as he kissed her again. Her sheet had slipped alarmingly down to her waist, and he could feel the unbuttoned buttons of her pyjama top digging into his bare chest. It was all so bloody brilliant and perfect and impossible that he could have cried.

"Should've been obvious to you, too, you know," she muttered breathlessly against his mouth as their noses brushed to change angles.

But he didn't have a spare breath to answer her, and his hand was deeply tangled in her hair, and it didn't matter anyway because this was actually happening. He was entirely focused on the soft, warm feel of her lips, her slightly minty taste from her toothpaste… until a fleeting, distant thought echoed by, then grew, then took over.

They were snogging, half-naked, in her bed.

This was levels beyond any situation he'd been in before, in many ways. And he was fairly certain it was for her, too. There was specifically not enough fabric between their lower bodies, and her thin-sheet-covered thigh was directly underneath his crotch-

He tore his mouth away from hers and retreated slightly off of her, neck burning, realising she must have felt-

"What's wrong?" she asked tentatively, hands sliding down from his neck to his shoulders.

"Sorry," he muttered, breathing in uneven intervals. "Got carried away, I guess."

"You can't be sorry if I wanted you-" She cut herself off and cleared her throat in a trying-to-be-polite sort of way that made his lips twitch.

"I'm just, uh…" He sniffed. "Not properly dressed."

"For what? Are you meant to wear full dress robes while snogging?"

"Don't take the piss," he laughed. "I'm trying not to take advantage of you."

"Wow," she smiled slowly. "I'm sure Apparating directly into my bed is a good first step in chivalry."

He laughed again but shook his head at the same time, briefly closing his eyes. Her hands slipped down his shoulders to his biceps as her right foot had come out from under her sheet to hook around the back of his shin, leaving only her left leg covered.

"I'm trying to be serious," he groaned.

"This is a bit… um… intense," she agreed in a wispy sort of voice.

"Yeah…"

He opened his eyes and stared down at her.

"But I've waited a long time for this to happen," she admitted in that same, slightly high-pitched, barely-there voice.

"Have you?" he asked roughly back, amazed. "I really fucked up."

"I think I did, too. Let's forget about that." He nodded almost before she'd finished her sentence.

"I've never… been in this situation before."

She blinked at him.

"I thought you should know," he added nervously.

A pleased smile flitted across her face before she licked her kiss-swollen lips. He stared, lightheaded again, realising they'd moved closer and closer together again, throughout their conversation, and that the tip of his nose was almost touching hers.

"Wouldn't wanna be, 'cept with you," he managed to groan just as she gently gasped and lifted her head off her pillow to kiss him again.

This time, he really let things go too far. Or was it even considered too far anymore? He hadn't even meant to, but his left hand had found the warm, soft skin of her hip, underneath her shirt, which had ridden both up and down, and, as he shifted further over her, his own bare stomach collided with hers, and he sucked in a sharp breath between their half-joined mouths.

She shivered and tipped her head back, softly moaning.

"Ermynee," he mumbled, as if he had mostly lost the capacity for speech. Her eyes suddenly locked on his, and he held his breath.

"You said my name, just like that," she whispered, "when you were poisoned-"

"Yeah, I know. I remembered when I woke up."

He smoothed a tangle of her hair back from her cheek as she stared up at him, and she took in a very deep breath, which had the effect of squeezing her barely-clothed breasts against his chest…

"Come here," she exhaled, which was comical given how close together they already were, but he kissed her open mouth once more, assuming that's what she had meant.

He wasn't really one to plan very far ahead, but his mind seemed incapable of latching onto anything aside from the potential timeline of the rest of his night. Barring something completely mental happening - which, admittedly, was more likely than it should have been with them - no one was going to find them here. No one would be awake for hours. Hermione's bed was his home until they could sneak him out at breakfast. She didn't seem particularly inclined to ever stop snogging him… which was more than fine, except…

His knee was wedged between her thighs. Her sheet had slipped almost completely to their feet. And he could feel her warm skin against so much of his.

He pulled back from kissing her to stare down at her flushed face with heavily lidded eyes.

"Can't believe this is really happening…" he said in a raspy voice.

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

Before he could speak or even figure out what to do next, her hands had roamed down his sides, and she was arching her body into his, shaking slightly. Her thigh pressed up against his very obvious erection, and his eyes snapped shut.

"S-Sorry," she stuttered, and he bravely opened his eyes again to meet her apologetic gaze, hair frizzing wildly away from her face. "I didn't mean to…" She paused to swallow. "I mean I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do."

He tried not to laugh, but the idea that he'd be the modest one just then was so absurd that he couldn't help it.

"What?" she shivered, not finding this the least bit amusing.

"I…" he started, before realising what he was about to confess and pausing. Oh, sod it. "I don't think there's a single bloody thing I don't want to do with you…"

...to you, he amended inside his head. Close enough.

"Alright," she sighed, smiling. "Me, too."

He ducked his forehead to her pillow, reminding himself to breathe.

"But, Ron…" she shivered again, lips so close to his left ear, "you've got quite a bit more experience than I do…"

"Have I?"

She shifted around until he lifted his head so she could glare at him. Her eyes were a bit glassy again though, so he sighed and slid off of her, flipping over to his back. He felt her cautiously staring at his profile, preparing to question him.

"Okay," he began, gaze fixed on the ceiling for courage. "Now that we're doing this-" his hand made a weak gesture between them, "-it's sort of hard to imagine ever… not. Y'know what I mean?"

God, he hoped she knew what he meant.

A long silence stretched between them, during which he was quite sure he'd shaved a few years off the end of his life from anticipation. And then, she sat up and scrambled to sit on her knees, facing him, hand pressed to her bed by his thigh, hair falling messily forward as she gazed down at him.

"You mean that?"

It was strange how he'd known her so long, been through so much, how he reckoned he knew every expression and tone of voice better than he knew his own. And yet… he'd taken so much for granted, and here was a new face, a new tone. For him. What had felt commonplace for so many years suddenly felt incredibly special, to have reached this remarkable point in their lives together… at bloody seventeen. He reckoned a part of him wasn't even ready for it yet, but maybe their experiences had changed that, too. She wasn't asking him for anything but honesty, yet he'd been so afraid of facing his own truth, of discovering how strong it really was, how much it consumed him. But she wasn't afraid of that from him. She longed for it. Bloody hell, he could see it now.

"Yeah, 'course I do," he said gruffly, mesmerised by nervous strength as she licked her bottom lip and smiled, relieved.

But none of that could stop him from noticing that the half-unbuttoned pyjama top she was wearing was now gaping forward slightly, giving him a direct view of so much more naked chest than he'd ever seen before. He could clearly make out the shadowy swell of her breasts on either side of a deep, open V of tartan fabric. His gaze was glued there for far longer than he'd have let it, had this happened yesterday, and he saw her completely realising what he was doing. But as his ears burned, her own gaze slipped down from his face to his chest and further. It swiftly occurred to him that her blanket was now tangled at his feet, and his neck tried to set itself on fire again.

The only logical thing to do was to kiss her again, which was quite hilariously ironic - the thing that had caused him so much stress and so many sleepless nights was now the exact thing he used to ease his nerves. He sat up in front of her, and she either got the message quickly or felt precisely the same way because she reached for his neck and leaned toward him at the same moment he did.

Fuck, he hadn't even been aware of something this amazing prior to mere minutes ago, the first time he'd kissed her. He was so, so addicted to her, and it hadn't been a single hour yet. They hadn't left her bed…

As their kiss deepened, he felt her hands trembling slightly on his neck, before letting go completely. His right hand had dropped down to rest on her collarbone, and he was almost shocked to see it there when he pulled back an inch and opened his eyes. She was breathing in ragged bursts as she reached up to the buttons of her top. He'd thought she might be planning to fasten them shut, but then… She fumbled with the first still-buttoned one, halfway down her chest.

"Hermione…" he vaguely questioned, low voice wavering slightly.

"It's a mad coincidence that you're even here," she whispered. "We might not be alone like this again for a while…"

He hadn't thought of that, and he could already feel his brain working on concocting a million schemes that mostly involved the Room of Requirement and Harry's invisibility cloak…

"My hands are all shaky. Do you want to…"

She let go of the button she'd been touching, then found his eyes, a trusting sort of nervousness dancing between them.

Every Christmas, every birthday, every Quidditch victory he'd ever had could not stack up to Hermione Granger asking him to take her fucking shirt off.

There was really nothing he could do but try to lower his shocked eyebrows and go for it. Before he'd even touched the flannel fabric of her top, his knuckles brushed her smooth skin above the first secured button, and she lightly gasped, closing her eyes with her lips slightly parted.

"Bloody hell… my hands aren't any better," he pointed out in a scratchy half-whisper, trembling fingertips working on such a tiny metal circle.

"Yes, they are," she breathed, eyes still shut, chest moving much more dramatically than it had been.

He took a brief opportunity to be thankful that she wasn't looking at him as he finally worked the button free and watched her shirt fall further open. He miraculously made his way through three more buttons, noting the moment she was no longer breathing heavily but was holding her breath instead. Waiting for something?

She very slowly opened her eyes - she was always too curious about everything - and the tips of two of his fingers dragged down her stomach to her bellybutton. A light spray of gooseflesh rose up her torso, and he bravely moved his hand to her bare side, beneath her open shirt. His movement, coupled with her leaning slightly forward, exposed her chest completely, and he stopped breathing.

"Ron…"

He wanted to answer her with some comprehensible collection of the complete mess of thoughts and swears inside his head, but that was much easier wished for than done. Instead, he sighed shakily, and his eyes fixed on her hardened nipples, and she held tightly onto his wrist. Fuck, she was amazing. He'd already known that, of course, but… Physically, he'd only ever been able to mentally paste half-formed guesses of what she'd look like naked into his most scandalous dreams. That would all change, he realised, now he knew how much better the truth was.

"We're breaking a million school rules," he finally said scratchily, to her ribs, the corner of his mouth lifting toward a grin.

"Three, actually," she whimpered, and his grin fully formed as she tugged her shirt completely off. But he had no time to comprehend her quick movements as she grabbed him fiercely around the neck, toppling him to his back and crushing her bare chest to his.

His arms flew around her, a tangle of legs and her lips brushing across his jaw, and had he always had so many nerve endings in his upper body?

"Fuck…" he breathed, hands sliding down her bare back, up her bare sides. His eyes snapped shut, and then he felt her mouth on his, and he responded so enthusiastically to her frantic attack that he could no longer tell who was making which sounds. Low moans vibrated between their chests, and was his heart beating that fast or was it hers?

One of his hands tangled in her hair, the other was all over her skin. This might have all been moving quite fast, but the first time he'd wanked in the middle of the night, thinking of her, he'd been fourteen…

His thumb dragged along the outer edge of her breast, where her skin was meshed down against his, and she gasped into his mouth before separating from his lips and staring down at him, in the dark… deeply flushed cheeks, frizzy curls in a halo around her face. He'd never seen anything more beautiful. And then she sat up on his lap, sparks of pleasure running through his body, watching his own familiar fingers stretch up the front of her, curving over the soft swell of her breasts, her perfectly smooth skin disappearing under his freckles. Her hair was hanging down in tangled ringlets, small hands gripping his forearms as his thumbs brushed across her nipples, and her nails dug painfully into his wrists, but he didn't even flinch.

"Oh, God…" she breathed.

"Fuck, y'feel so good…"

She shifted on his lap, and his vision blurred.

"Ermynee… gotta stop."

"What?" she panted shakily.

He let go of her and clenched her sheets in both fists.

"Seriously," he shuddered, closing his eyes. He felt her climb off of him, felt her staring down at him. He risked opening his eyes again to find her half-curiously, half-uncertainly gazing back. "I'm not being an arse, but how much do you know about, uh…"

Her gaze flicked down to his very obvious erection, and his face burned furiously.

"Oh," she mouthed, then she daintily cleared her throat. "Sorry."

"This is… shit. You're fucking amazing, y'know."

She shook her head slowly, chewing her bottom lip in a far too sexy way. She very clearly had no idea… and she was still lightly shaking.

He closed his eyes and attempted to slow his breathing, reminding himself that he couldn't scarper to the bloody loo to have a wank… Girls' dormitory, damn. Resigned to his fate, he opened his eyes once more, took in the still-quite-unbelievable sight of her staring down at him with kiss-swollen lips and badly tousled hair from his fingers twisting through it… and he immediately needed to feel her again, sod the consequences.

"C'mere."

"I thought you just said-" she started.

"Yeah… it's fine now. Well, not fine, but…" he amended, managing a brief smirk up at her.

She pressed her lips together and stretched out next to him, arms over her chest and tentatively cuddling up against his side.

"Ron?" she asked, in the tiniest voice, as he loosely draped his arm around her shoulders.

"Yeah?"

"What do we do now?"

He turned his head right to fully look at her, so close that her face blurred slightly out of focus.

"Well… reckon we've got a few hours before dawn, and then-"

"No. I don't mean that." She broke eye contact and sighed, possibly staring at his jaw or his neck, he couldn't be sure. "This…" she nodded between them, "this changes things… doesn't it?"

"Bloody hope so."

Her eyes snapped back to his, and he swallowed, frozen by the intensity of her stare.

"But… alright." She smiled tentatively. "I want that, too."

He grinned back at her, and she seemed to lose her concentration for a moment before her eyebrows lifted, and she spoke again.

"But what are we supposed to say?"

"Who's asking?"

"I don't know. Harry?"

"I'm pretty sure Harry already knows."

"How?"

"He has a brain and eyes and we're his best mates."

She laughed and scooted her head closer to his, across her pillow so their noses were almost touching.

"Fine. What do we tell everybody else?"

That I think I'm in love with you, and we finally did something about it?

Looking back, he hadn't said much of anything, before. Lavender had snogged him in public and everything had just sort of happened from there. But, unsurprisingly, he didn't really want it to be that way with Hermione. Were there even words to explain what they were to each other?

"It's okay," she said after a silence that had probably stretched for longer than he'd realised. "We don't have to say anything-"

"No, I want to. But… calling you my girlfriend sounds sort of rubbish, yeah? Just seems like we're a bit past that…"

She sat halfway up on her elbow, and he forced himself not to glance down at her bare chest again.

"Doesn't sound rubbish to me," she said quietly, looking slightly dazed. "But I know what you mean."

"Yeah?"

She nodded slowly, almost hesitantly, but she didn't seem to need an explanation. He was going to owe her one… but preferably fully clothed, at a reasonable time of day, when he could think half-straight.

She suddenly reached down for the tangled blanket at his feet, pulled it up over them both, and flipped over to her side, back toward him. He responded without really thinking about it, moving his face halfway into her hair as he draped his arm over her waist.

He only fully comprehended what he'd done as his naked chest pressed all along her naked back.

"God. I'll never be able to sleep like this…" he muttered happily into her curls, smiling.

"Oh! I'll put on my shirt-"

"No, thanks." He tightened his grip around her, and she laughed in a slightly giddy sounding way before lightly touching her foot to his shin again… How could it still make his heart stop, whilst his arm was fully around her naked stomach?

Though he was prepared to be irrationally focused on the thumping of his heart and every. single. inch. where he was touching her skin for the remainder of the night, his last conscious thought was of moving his hips back from her arse and shutting his eyes unnaturally tight.

As he slowly woke, the first three things he noticed immediately were the light pattering sounds of rain on the windows, a slightly sweeter than usual scent on his pillow… and the feeling of soft, warm skin against his forearm.

His eyes shot open to the sight of Hermione sleeping partially on her stomach, coils of her hair obscuring his view, but her blanket had been tugged down nearly to her waist, and his arm was intimately draped across her bare back. This was not a sight that his waking self had ever fully reconciled as an actual possibility.

He didn't even want to breathe too heavily and risk waking her up, an event that he knew would cut the most amazing morning of his life too short. Unfortunately, as he was losing himself in daydreams of snogging her again (a startlingly real part of his life now), female voices reached his ears through Hermione's still tightly shut bed curtains, and his heart thumped madly. He winced as he recognised Lavender chattering away about shades of lipstick to Parvati, and though he trusted Hermione's charms with his life, he couldn't be sure of what she'd done exactly to ward them safely away.

He quickly recalled stowing her wand underneath her pillow, so he very reluctantly withdrew his arm from around her, carefully sat halfway up, and shoved his right hand between pillow and mattress, long fingers wrapping around cool vine wood.

"Muffliato," he barely whispered, frozen for a moment afterward as he listened acutely for changes in conversation, but the girls seemed far too distracted to have noticed his voice, even if it had been possible for them to have heard him.

Hermione stirred immediately beside him, and his gaze was drawn to her bare back again before sliding slowly up to catch a glimpse of the side of her face as her foot rubbed against his leg. Her eyes cracked open… then widened sharply.

She yanked the blanket up to cover her chest as she turned around to face Ron, lips parted. He smiled shyly at her.

"Hey," he said, at full volume.

She bolted to sit up completely, one fist tightly holding her blanket to her sternum while the other flew wildly over his mouth.

She stared at him quite pointedly, gaze flicking frantically to the continued sounds of her roommates speaking just outside the bed curtains.

"Ermynee," he mumbled almost inaudibly behind her hand… which instantly clamped down tighter. He lightly bit her, prompting her to angrily withdraw her hand, eyes narrowing, and an incredibly stern look plastering across her face. He grinned at her and held out her wand. "I cast a Muffliato."

She blinked at him twice… then sighed out relief and took her wand from him.

"Oh my God… I thought for sure we were caught…"

"You can trust me, once in a while, not to be that bloody thick…"

Her expression changed completely, and she shook her head.

"I didn't mean… You're not..." she started, flustered. "I'd forgotten about the ward, as well, and I was still half-asleep, wasn't I-"

"S'fine," he interrupted, shrugging as he watched her cheeks blotch with a heavy flush. "I was only joking…"

"Oh."

Her eyes locked with his, and, with their relative safety reestablished, the reality of their night together and their current states of undress seemed to drive back to the forefront.

"Do you see my shirt anywhere?" she asked in a scratchy morning voice that he was instantly obsessed with.

His long arm stretched down to the tangle of sheets and blankets around them until he located the discarded bit of tartan he'd unbuttoned a few hours ago…

"Thanks," she said softly as she took it from him.

She licked her lips, then watched him quietly for a moment until he caught on.

"Oh, sorry." He ducked his head and covered his face with both hands. "M'not looking."

He felt the bed move and heard vague rustling sounds for a few seconds before she cleared her throat.

"It's alright now," she said.

He dropped his hands away from his face, lifted his head, and opened his eyes. They stared at each other for a few blissfully heart pounding seconds before he became entirely focused on her chaotic tornado of hair. She caught on to where he was looking and quickly shoved the majority of it back over her shoulders, aggressively yanking her fingers through it before reaching for an elastic band around her right wrist.

He reached bravely up and tugged the end of a long curl. She brushed it away from him almost absentmindedly, but he reached for another.

"Oh, would you stop?!" She swatted his hand away and rapidly gathered as much of her hair as she could into a messy ponytail.

"What?" he laughed. "Your hair's bloody brilliant."

"Oh, sure… It's a knotted mess," she sighed, glaring sideways at him for a moment.

"I've never seen it quite like this before."

"Well, of course you haven't. We've never woken up… together." Her cheeks blazed crimson.

Two things quickly occurred to him as his own ears burned - that she should absolutely not be embarrassed by her hair and that he wanted this whole waking up together thing to be much more of a new tradition than a fluke… But despite being protected from anyone discovering them, it was hard to completely ignore the sounds from outside. Someone giggled loudly, and something occurred to him.

"Will they wonder why you're in bed so late?" He tilted his head toward the curtain to indicate her roommates.

"Well…" she started, averting her eyes all of a sudden. "No, probably not. Before… well, before your birthday, I was trying to avoid them as much as possible, so… I'd stay right here most days until they'd gone to breakfast anyway."

His chest clenched regretfully as he absorbed her meaning, and then, as if on cue, Lavender and Parvati's voices faded away as they left the room, a soft bang echoing as the door shut behind them.

"M'really sorry," he sighed. "I'd take it back if I could, yeah? Been wanting to for months…"

She nodded briefly, and he wondered if he should say more, but he didn't know where to start. He rode a fine line between trying to ignore mistakes of the past in order to focus on the incredibly amazing truths of the present and wanting her to know the depth of his feelings, as scary as that may be, so she would have no lingering doubts about how important she really was to him… Fortunately, small steps forward seemed to be enough, and she smiled gently down as she slid her hand across her bed to touch his fingertips with hers. He looked down at their hands, too - large freckled fingers next to small, ink-stained ones. He would have done it any second anyway, but she moved first to hold his hand.

"Reckon we're alone now?" he asked, as he looked back up to meet her eyes.

"Should be. Fay and Annie are usually gone much earlier."

"Should we wait a few minutes… just to be sure?" He could feel himself leaning toward her, as if magnetised by her presence. He could fight it, as he usually did… or he could do what he really wanted, what she actually seemed to want as well.

"Mm, I think that's smart," she replied, suddenly breathless, her face now only a few short inches away from his.

Their noses collided before their lips met, and she squeezed his hand tight.

In the few hours he'd been sleeping, he'd somehow managed to forget the exact level of the best fucking thing ever that was kissing Hermione. He heard himself make a low pleasurable sound in the back of his throat that apparently encouraged her, because she sat up on her knees to get closer and touched his jaw with her shaky fingertips.

The rain had picked up a bit outside, tapping more insistently against the windows, and he let go of her hand to hold her face and brush his thumbs across her cheeks. He quickly lost all concept of time… until she pulled back for a breath and dropped her hand to his bare shoulder.

"We'll be late for class if we don't go soon," she whispered, looking almost as disappointed by this news as he felt… which was really saying something for Hermione. If a single part of her would rather go on snogging him than learn anything...

"Yeah, alright," he reluctantly agreed, not wanting to selfishly get her into trouble alongside him…

"I should get Harry's cloak for you," she suggested, as she let go of him. "You can't avoid the stairs, but at least you'll be able to go up to your room to get dressed without being seen."

Without waiting for him to reply, she crawled to the edge of her bed and slowly opened the curtains, peeking out.

"They're all gone," she confirmed, then she slid out of bed and adjusted her slightly twisted pyjama shorts and shirt as he moved to sit on the edge of her mattress. She collected the clothes she'd evidentially laid out on her chair the night before. "Stay here. I'll be back with the cloak in-"

He hadn't thought it through, just reached a long arm out, snatched her wrist, and pulled her back toward him. She squealed, dropping her clothes to the floor as she toppled against his chest, eyes wide… for the single second he caught sight of her expression before kissing her. She stayed frozen and startled for a moment, then laughed against his lips and playfully pushed him away.

"Sorry," he grinned. "Just needed one more…"

"You know we could be expelled if anyone found out you were up here…" she reminded him, in a failed attempt at a serious tone of voice.

"Just one of the hundred or so things we do every year that you could say that about."

She shook her head in a way that suggested an accompanying eye roll, but, rather than move away from him, she tugged a fistful of his hair and kissed him one… more… time. He loosely gripped the side of her pyjama top to pull her closer-

"Okay, okay," she smiled, pressing a hand to his naked chest… and exhaling shakily. "I'm going."

She broke away and gathered her clothes quickly, darting from the room without looking back.

It couldn't have taken more than ten minutes, but he spent every single second lying on her bed and grinning foolishly up at the ceiling.

"Hurry," she called out, before the door was fully open again, dressed in her school robes, tossing the invisibility cloak at him as she grabbed up her bag of books and motioned him frantically out of bed.

He draped the cloak around his shoulders, and she shoved him out onto the landing as he ducked to disappear completely.

"We've only got a quarter of an hour before class. Wait two minutes, and I'll be far enough away for you to come down. I know you don't want to miss breakfast…"

"Oh, It'd be worth it," he assured her, peeking out from the cloak.

Her lovely eyes stared back at him, face flushed and parted lips panting slightly from rushing, and it really wasn't going to take much to push him to use some serious words to describe how he felt… out loud.

"Next time Harry has a meeting with Dumbledore…" he smirked, and she pressed her lips together, reaching forward to gently cover his face with the cloak again.

"Girls can go up the boys' stairs any time, you know…" she whispered, and, before he could reply, she brushed past him to bound down the stairs, leaving him to gape slightly after her, vividly picturing her sleeping next to him the following night in his own four poster.