romioneflufffest:

Title: Mark the Start

Author: @trademarkblue

Prompt(s): Common Room at midnight

Description: Ron and Hermione return to the Common Room for a midnight snack after Prefect rounds, 6th year. This fic was very, very loosely inspired by the song “Dials” by Tommy Reilly in the sense that when I was trying to come up with a title, his lyrics “please say I haven’t taken too long – have I? – to sort my head out, to mark the start of this night… I hope this was the start, that maybe there’s more” popped directly into my head. It was also inspired by two of my RL friends who I have been shipping pretty hard for a while now…

Rating: K+

Warning: light swearing

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They were finishing rounds, and his stomach was grumbling insistently. It had been hours and hours since dinner, and he kept thinking about hot chocolate, even though the weather had turned spring-warm, hot enough to roll up his shirt sleeves to the elbows and unbutton his collar. Before thoughts of midnight snacks had entered his mind, he’d been thoroughly focused on the fact that this was the first time in ages they’d spent patrolling together. Especially in comfortable silence. Which this was.

Comfortable.

Except for the pounding of his heart when her hand brushed his and the way he felt too relieved to risk planning a second, more meaningful apology. They weren’t great at those, and silence was easy.

He should have known years ago that they’d reach this point, where one or both of them would resort to hurting each other in a much more personal way that had nothing to do with rats and cats or bloody stupid Christmas dances. But Lavender had led him to a few personal realisations that he wasn’t entirely ready to look directly at, though he occasionally tried, wide awake in his four poster when he’d smile, thinking of Hermione… thinking of her hand on his arm while he’d been recovering from poisoning in the hospital wing.

“One more floor and we can go back,” she said, yawning.

“Think I should go ahead and order a sandwich to be waiting for me in the Common Room?”

She leaned sideways as she walked, shoving her shoulder into his arm as she bit her smiling bottom lip.

“Are you honestly hungry?”

“Why not? We’ve walked the damn castle corner to corner.”

“If you’d rather not have come along-”

“No, didn’t mean that,” he said, much too quickly, missing the fact that she was obviously teasing him until he caught her eyes, amused crinkles at the corners.

“Well,” she moved on, clearing her throat, “the house elves don’t need to be up making you a snack at midnight. But, if you’re really that hungry, we could stop by the kitchens…”

“Seriously?” His stomach grumbled again, as if encouraged by her suggestion.

“Sure. We’re already close to the stairs down to the basement.”

“Brilliant!”

—

A quarter of an hour later, he’d toed off his shoes and collapsed onto the Common Room sofa, holding a plate of treacle sponge pudding in his lap and setting a cup of rich, hot chocolate on the table in front of him. Hermione removed her bag from her shoulder, dropped it to the floor, and sat beside him, which he found mildly surprising, considering the hour. He glanced sideways at her, trying to read her expression from her profile as she reached down to take off her own shoes, obviously planning to stay with him for a while.

“Have you started your essay for Monday?” she asked, as he picked up his fork.

“I’ll do it tomorrow,” he said, as he scooped up a large bite and felt her turn to look at him.

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I love this; so sweet and cute!