Disclaimer: Don't own it so don't sue me.

A/N: This is probably the closest thing I will ever do to fluff. Enjoy. RonHermione, drabble, Hermione's PoV. Read, enjoy, let me know what you think.

He doesn't call her love.

He doesn't call her pumpkin or buttercup or sunshine. He's never whispered 'lovely' into her ear before they go to sleep and he's never woken her with 'honey'.

He doesn't call her sweetheart—in fact he seems to visible cringe at the endearment for reasons that Harry and Ginny still have a good laugh over but has become unmentionable between the two of them.

(Guilt and shame and heart ache don't ever fade quite the way the world tells you they do)

He has never called her Granger or Hermy or Herms. He knows better than that she should think, elbow always at the ready should he ever slip again, even in jest. He calls her Hermioninny from time to time but only to grate on her nerves but she has the wonderful comeback of Billus with which to fight, and it tends to quiet him ere the end, no elbow required.

He doesn't call her 'Mione, except by accident, when the syllables of her name stumble off his tongue and the 'Her' is lost in all the commotion and all that comes out properly is the end. She doesn't mind it so much, not when it's only a half whisper against the shell of her ear and everything else is too busy falling away.

What he calls her is Hermione, the syllables bending and shaping the wonderful echo inside her ear, a single word used universally to address her. He calls her Hermione, with all the ease in the world, the name light and unchanging in her ear making her stop and think that for a moment they are young again and this is just another one of their adventure through the dark corridors of the school.

She doesn't need endearments next to that.

End

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