A/N: I've been working on this for ages; starting, stopping and rewriting. I'm still not sure I'm happy with it. I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: This is only for pleasure; I own nothing and therefore have no money.

She stared at him, mesmerized. He had done this many times before, of course, but something about this time it was so different. It was sexy. A shiver came over her when he turned to her and smiled, returning to his task unhurriedly.

The slight noise in the room seemed to stop, and the scratching of his quill became a roar in her ears. Each stroke, punctuation, the slight pause when he returned its tip to the inkwell, a fascinating rhythm of his body completely in sync with his mind. The sound continued steadily, and she closed her eyes briefly, wondering when this simple common task had become so arousing.

She turned to her own dull parchment and became extremely aware of how little she had written down. Quickly, she looked around to see if anyone had noticed her obvious staring and complete lack of work, face turning bright red when she locked eyes with a pair of distinctly green ones.

They smiled back at her knowingly and she looked down at her paper, strangely ashamed of her sudden awareness of this frequently occurring feeling throughout the teenage population. As her quill raced her across her near-empty sheet, her eyes became focused on the writing, her ears ignoring the steady pace of the one across the way.

She jumped suddenly when his foot found her leg and rubbed it softly, splotching a large spot of ink across a very important section of her essay. "Hey! Don't scare me like that!" She whispered fervently.

"Pay more attention then." He whispered back, grinning his sweet crooked half smile and laughing lightly through it. "You looked so gorgeous just then, I couldn't help it."

She felt her cheeks pink up a bit more and tried to smile, hiding her complete embarrassment at the things that were just racing around her mind while his leg was still against hers. It was electric, as usual, sending sparks straight into her heart, beaming out from her smile.

Her parchment was still depressingly bare, apart from a few paragraphs, hidden by the blot of dark ink. She grabbed her wand from her bag on the floor next to her and began siphoning off ink carefully. He chuckled lightly and her eyes flew to him, smiling from under her eyelashes with her head tilted down to the paper. "What?" She spit through her grinding teeth.

"You're just predictable." He smirked, re-inking his quill and turning back to his writing.

"This is a lot of work; I don't want to throw it away!" A half-smile grew on his face again, though he didn't look up from his essay. She bit her lip coyly, looking at him, tilting her head sideways.

She slipped off her shoe, flexing her toes in her crisp white socks and rolling her ankle a few times. Bending over her mended essay, she read over the last bit to refresh her memory and began scratching away at the parchment. Once she got back into the swing of things, turning clever phrases on the utterly boring Goblin Rebellion of 1372, she lifted her foot, running it up his leg, his pant leg rising with her.

He looked at her, cocked an eyebrow and returned to his writing. She had to admit, when she was named Head Girl and decided to implement this new study hour option, she didn't expect such good progress. Truly, if even he could still work on his essay with her foot caressing his calf her plans had succeeded.

When Harry had defeated Voldemort the year before, one of the first things the community did was restore Hogwarts, and Hermione, being the scholar she was insisted on hers and Harry and Ron's return for their final year. It hadn't been as hard to find new teachers as now Headmistress McGonagall had expected. As many as were appropriate returned to their former posts, Professor Sprout and Binns, Molly Weasley had subjected to McGonagall's repetitive questioning and now held the Potions Master spot. The Weasley children were surprisingly thrilled at their mother's new post and contested a secret knowledge of her potions skills all along, claiming her delicious food gave it away.

There were many familiar faces, and it made Hermione so happy that so many had made it safely through the war. McGonagall had appointed her Head Girl (naturally) and offered the Head Boy position to Harry, who declined, ever the modest type. So the position went to the boy with highest marks the year previous, Justin Finch-Fletchley, who fulfilled expectations marvelously.

Ron and Hermione began dating almost immediately after the final battle, as did Harry and Ginny, forming a happy foursome. The four were nearly inseparable, the only time anyone saw them apart was when they had separate classes or Ron and Hermione were in one their all-too-often tiffs. But other than the occasional disagreement, the two got on famously and had never been happier.

Currently, they were in the new study option and Hermione was taunting Ron under the table with her foot. He appeared unaffected but when Hermione slid her chair closer to the table to rest her foot in his lap, her effect was obvious. Ron lowered his left hand from the table while she was engrossed in the newest paragraph of her essay and grabbed her foot suddenly, tickling it.

Hermione let out a noise somewhere between a squeak and a laugh, instantly grabbing the attention of everyone in the room. She pulled her foot away and hung her head, turning a shade of red to challenge a Weasley, and crouched her body inward trying to disappear.

Ron leaned back in his chair and chuckled softly, smiling warmly at the girl across from him with the beautiful blush. Hermione sent a glare at him that normally would have made his heart skip a beat in fear, but lately she had become rather lax with his punishments. Her eyes stared at him and he merely smiled back, his red hair shining in the afternoon sun. Hermione felt her anger dissipate and one corner of her mouth turned upward. She just couldn't stay mad at him those days, not for something so small.

He dropped his hand under the table again and she replaced her foot in his lap, their eyes still locked on each other. Ron rubbed the top of her foot softly and merely held his hand on it, the warmth rocketing up Hermione's leg and pooling in her core. She looked back down at her essay and tried to find her train of thought again, content his antics were through. He watched her eyes search the essay, shaking his head slightly at her predictable biting of her lip and furrowed brow as she concentrated.

Ron turned back to his essay after watching her quill fly across the page furiously. A thought ran through his head about 'his Hermione' and the little things about her that made him love her so thoroughly. He had always found something sexy in the calculated way she attacked her homework. Ron loved the way she had some of the smallest handwriting he had ever seen and still managed to fill almost double the parchment requirements every time.

His thoughts had strayed so far from the Goblin Rebellion that he found his quill scrolling little doodles down the side of his parchment and looked up at Hermione sheepishly to see if she noticed. She was still deeply involved in her essay and paid no attention to him, other than a quick smile when he squeezed her foot lovingly.

He reread his last paragraph and tried to get back on topic, finding it very hard to ignore the warm foot in his lap and the warm body across from him. "Hermione?" He whispered to her.

"Yes Ron?" Her voice came out light and fluty, she was too far gone in her essay to give him her full attention.

"Do you want to cut study hour short? I'm nearly done anyway."

She looked up him, a bit frightened that he would force her away from her work. "Ron I only have two paragraphs left. I really need to finish this." Hermione bit her lip, looking like she might cry.

His voice came out with a bit of laugh in it "That's fine love, but we are heading straight upstairs as soon as you finish." Hermione's cheeks were tainted pink as she turned back to the end of her paper.