(no subject)
Written for the Checkmated Moviequote! Challenge
Prompt - “So you lie to yourself to be happy. There’s nothing wrong with that. We all do it.” -Memento
Title: Cryptograph
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Rating: R
Beta:
gwen1170
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“Anything? Anything at all?” asked Hermione as Harry and Ron entered the kitchen of Grimmauld Place. They were a scratched up and dirty and Harry looked typically irritable.
“Do you think if we’d found something we wouldn’t say so?” Harry snapped.
Hermione scowled but Ron gave her a reassuring wink and waved off Harry’s surly mood.
“Nah, there was nothing magical in that tomb at all,” Ron said, straddling the end of the bench at the long table.
Harry tossed a bag of crisps from the larder to Ron and opened one for himself.
“How about you?” Ron asked her, opening a Butterbeer. “Did you make any progress researching the Cup?”
Hermione glanced sideways at the muscles in Ron’s forearms flexing as he twisted the top off of his bottle. She didn’t allow herself to acknowledge how the cords in his neck moved as he swallowed.
“Well I did start using the E.L.S. on Hufflepuff’s spell book.” Hermione looked up and they both blinked at her.
“The Equidistant Letter Sequence, it’s the system used to find the Bible code.”
They looked at each other, and then gave each other that look.
“Never mind,” she continued. “That’s not important. But I did start writing down what I found. It’s here someplace.” She began sorting through the stack of parchment strewn across the table.
“This looks like it,” Harry said, lifting a sheet. “A Wales lord yen-”
“Oh that’s not it! Erm - it’s not done yet.” Hermione jumped up, reaching for the paper.
“No, this actually makes sense,” Harry said. “Hepzibah Smith’s father was a Welsh lord, yeah?”
“Erm, yes, actually,” Hermione agreed quietly.
“So, yen, that means he wants something. Then you have seer alloy wand.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing, really. It’s just gibberish, isn’t it?” Hermione offered.
“No,” Ron objected. “Seers have often been Hufflepuffs, right? And this is saying he was looking for a metallic wand?”
Hermione shifted in her seat.
“Please give it back. I’d really rather work it out before you look at it.” She was cursing herself for being so careless with that paper.
“Hermione, you’ve got to trust yourself, this looks interesting,” Harry said. “Have a look, Ron.”
She opened her mouth to protest but the paper was already in Ron’s hand. Hermione nervously chewed her thumbnail, watching Ron.
He was leaning with one elbow on the table, in such a way that accentuated the bulge of his bicep, and if she hadn’t been so flustered, she would have rather enjoyed admiring it.
Instead she watched over the top of the paper, looking directly at his eyes as he read.
“There’s a lot more writing down here,” he said.
“Don’t mind what’s at the bottom of the page, Ron. I’m sure I made a mistake - with the code.”
He read aloud.
“A slayer owl end. All are-” Ron stopped and tilted his head slightly. He squinted an imperceptible amount, and then he got a gleam in his eye. He slowly raised his eyes and gave her a piercing, knowing look.
The air between them seemed to thicken, though Harry didn’t seem to notice.
“You’ve got the old Smith land documents in the library upstairs, right?” he asked. “I’m gonna go look them over again.”
“Yeah. You do that, Harry,” Ron said evenly. She felt trapped by the blue stare, between the ginger fringe hanging on his forehead and the parchment; his gaze held hers.
“Hermione?” he said slowly, his voice gentle and deep.
“Hm?” she squeaked.
“I may not be the cleverest wizard around,” he started.
“You’re very smart, Ron,” Hermione offered in a small voice.
“Mm, but I am at least pretty good at recognizing patterns. I guess Harry didn’t read far enough along to see how peculiar your ‘code’ got.”
Hermione winced and finally broke her eye contact with him, looking down at the table. Ron held up the paper and read aloud again.
“Days lean lower. Lads oral weeny.”
Hermione scrunched her face at hearing Ron say the absurd words, which were written in her own hand.
“All are down yes - interesting, that one. But this last one here is my favorite-”
“Oh, Ron, please don’t … ” she pleaded.
“All ways red one.”
“I, I don’t know what that means,” Hermione said pitifully.
“No? Well here, let me show you then.” Ron got up and quickly stood behind her. He reached around her and placed the parchment forcefully on the table in front her. She could smell him surround her and could nearly feel his chest against her back. Both of his arms reached around as he leaned over her and picked up a quill with his other.
“I’ll show you what I found in your code,” he said.
The last line on the parchment was as plain as day.
ALL WAYS RED ONE
Ron began crossing out letters one by one and rewriting them below. The first two were already done.
ALL WAYS RED ONE
Ro
“Oh God. Please, Ron, just leave it.”
“No. I want you to see what a good code breaker I am.” He continued to strike through letters.
ALL WAYS RED ONE
Ronald Weas
“Just stop it!” Hermione pleaded as she tried to stand, pushing back against his chest, but he closed in and wouldn’t let her up.
“Nuh-uh. How about you explain to me why you’ve got a page full of anagrams of my name?”
“Oh very well, Ron. That’s just fine. Have a go at me. Have a real laugh.” She could feel her face burning and cursed her eyes for watering. He was towering over her back and she wanted desperately to get away and also for him to grab a hold of her.
“I’m not having a go at you. And I’m not laughing. But it’s right here in front of your face. Why can’t you just admit it?”
“What?” she asked feebly, being stubborn to the end.
Ron nearly growled.
“Admit that you fancy me. You do.”
Hermione floundered for a moment, feeling trapped.
“I just make anagrams for, for stress relief,” she answered in a quiet voice. But she felt the change in him, felt him deflate and go quiet, and she hated herself for doing that to him. “Please let me get up.”
Ron stood up and moved back a half step back while she swiveled her legs out from the bench.
“Would it be so bad?” he asked quietly. “I understand, you know; so you lie to yourself to be happy. There’s nothing wrong with that. We all do it. But would you really be so ashamed to be with me?” He spoke in that wounded voice she had heard so many times in him. Only now it wasn’t Slytherins or obnoxious brothers that caused the hurt; she was the cause this time.
“No. No, I could never be ashamed of you. You mean the world to me, Ron.” She stood up and faced him.
“It’s right here in ink, Hermione.” He looked sadly down at the parchment in his hand. “I deciphered your code and I know I’m not wrong. Always red one? That is me, isn’t it? That is my name; that wasn’t an accident. Why can’t you admit it?
She closed her eyes to steel herself, searching for her courage.
“I don’t want you to think I’m silly.”
“Huh?”
“Silly. You make jokes about Lavender-”
“Oh not Lavender again!” he cried, throwing his hands up in frustration.
“You go on and on about how silly she was,” Hermione hurried. “You’re always making wisecracks about how she dotted her i’s with hearts and baby-talked to you. So I didn’t want you to know that sometimes I am just a silly girl who sits around daydreaming about the bloke she fancies.” She looked at her feet but chanced a glance up at his face. She hoped that her abject mortification was enough to correct the injury she’d done to his self-esteem.
She watched Ron’s face go from a hurt frown to wry smile tugging on the corners of his lips. And she saw the gleam return to his eyes.
“I poke fun at Lavender because I want you to know that I’m not still holding a flame for her. Or that just because we - I’m sorry to bring it up - but that we did stuff and that I’d only like a girl because of that.”
A moment of silence passed as they both smiled shyly at each other.
“You’re not the only one who daydreams,” Ron admitted with his expression fixed on the floor. “I think about you every minute I’m awake.” Then his eyebrow rose. “I won’t tell you what I think of when I’m asleep.”
“You dream about me?” she asked, almost surprised.
Ron let out a quiet laugh with a hint of warning in it.
“What do you dream about?” she asked
“That’s a trick question, Hermione. You think I’m going to answer that?”
“I’m not playing games, honest. I want to know.”
Ron shifted and blushed just a little. Then he flexed his fingers before clenching them into a fist and answered her.
“In my dreams, you don’t mind if I kiss you, or touch you. … And you touch me back.”
Hermione was intrigued. “But you hardly ever touch me, Ron.”
“I don’t dare touch you,” he said simply.
“But why not? Why don’t you want to touch me? What is it? The silly girls are for touching, but the smart ones are for …?”
Ron swallowed hard and scrubbed his palms over his closed eyes. He looked like he was concentrating on solving another riddle as he ran his fingers through his dusty hair.
“Because I don’t want to send you running away from me. I don’t want to be another McClaggen to you.”
“McClag-? How did-? Did Harry tell you about that?” she squeaked.
“Yeah, ‘course Harry told me about him; about how you had to run away from the party.”
She was quiet for moment, absorbing this information before another thought occurred. He had after all, always defended her honor with the other boys.
“I would have thought you’d get angry about that.”
Ron grinned and raised his eyebrows. “I did. And Cormac found rats and Bubotuber Pus in his bed for the rest of the year.”
She giggled then, and she watched Ron relax as they moved to sit side by side on the edge of the table. Chancing a casual look sideways at him, she cherished this comfort of just being together. The way they could be together and talk and joke and argue, and yet all they he had to do was sit there and she found him immeasurably sexy. Maybe she wouldn’t have to make a distinction between the Ron that was her friend and the Ron that she daydreamed about.
“I made a page of anagrams because I told myself it might be less silly than just writing your name over and over, which is what I’ve seen other girls do. And I thought I could hide it from you.”
He turned to her with an open, honest face. Taking her hand, something he’d done many times before, he squeezed her fingers gently and ran his thumb over her knuckles.
“Don’t need to hide it from me. I bollocks things up good sometimes, but I’d die to protect you, Hermione. I’d never hurt you for trusting me. Er, well, not on purpose anyway.”
There was nothing for it now, with so much life and death on the line everyday.
“Ron, I’m just like I am in your dreams. I wouldn’t mind if you kissed me…”
Hermione couldn’t breathe deeply enough. She began to tremble and she knew Ron felt it in her hand.
Ron reacted to the shaking in her hand immediately. Still holding it, he quickly stood and faced her.
His lips became the focus of her whole universe and they tried to form an unspoken word. Tearing her eyes from them, she met his eyes; the same stare that had mortified her minutes earlier now had her transfixed with want.
She felt she really ought to say something, and she struggled to find the just right thing as he leaned in close but refrained from meeting her lips. The slim space between them was still a cavernous distance. Hermione reached up and put her hand against his chest.
A shadow of concern crossed his face, as though he thought she was stopping him. Instead, she curled her fingers, fisting his dirty t-shirt, and pulled, closing the distance between them.
Their lips pressed together and excitement jolted through her body, and she shook more. Ron tilted his head, kissing her expertly and pulling her close. He wrapped her in his long arms and she didn’t even realize she had opened her mouth to his until she felt his tongue slide against hers. Now she had the taste of Ron to complete her five senses’ knowledge of him. His mouth was warm and gentle, just like his hands on her back.
A lightning quick thought made her grateful that Ron wasn’t just her close friend, but that he was always full of fire and exhilaration and passion and this kiss might be the death of her to prove her point.
When their kiss halted, Ron was standing between her parted knees with his cheek against her temple.
“Hermione,” he whispered breathlessly.
She slid her arms around his ribs under his robe and hugged him tight, holding him with all the desire she felt for him.
It was then that she realized she could feel the length of him pressing against her open thigh.
“Sorry. I can’t help that,” he said quietly, knowing what she had to have noticed.
He may be infuriating sometimes but he always tries to be honorable, she thought as she pulled him closer, pressing her leg against the hardness in his trousers, and gave him a forgiving smile before kissing him again.
She felt him smile as the beautiful desperation between them began to build and their hands scrambled for more of each other. One of her hands slipped down to the curve of his arse, which she’d peeked at for so long. His hands slid down her waist and along the outsides of her thighs. Her robes fell open and the hem of her skirt now rose shamelessly high as Ron squeezed her legs and ran one hand up the length of her thigh.
“So have we decided that the Cup is down Hermione’s throat then?” Harry asked with ever so innocently blinking eyes. He tilted his head. “Or up her robes, perhaps?”
Ron jerked his hand out from under her skirt but he didn’t back away. He didn’t try to hide what they were doing. He pulled Hermione close to his chest.
“You just never mind yourself about what’s under Hermione’s robes.”
“All right then,” Harry said, playfully. “But if you find a Horcrux under there you’ll let me know, yeah?”
Hermione huffed and laughed. Ron grabbed a bottle of ink and chucked it at Harry, who caught it with an insufferable grin.
They looked into each other’s eyes again. Ron screwed up his face for second and then leaned down with a smirk and whispered into her ear.
“I’m her one.”
She didn’t have to think about it. The letters rearranged themselves in her mind.
I’M HER ONE
Hermione
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Many thanks to my beta Gwen1170 for her brilliant suggestions. Also to ModestyRabnott and Quizzical for their encouragement!