how to do

Hermione. Krum.

She never asked about Quidditch. She didn't even pretend to care. It was a nice change not to think about it. Nice to just rest his chin on his crossed forearms and watch her, her face serious, her fingers twined about a lock of hair. Nice to speak to her of his home and of Durmstrang, of her house-elves, of her friends. To sit quietly and watch her brows knit and furrow as she paged through 3 books at a time, marking her place with her finger, her wand, once even grabbing his own hand and pressing it down on a particularly slippery volume on common magical pests that had made repeated attempts at effecting an escape. Girls he knew did not study. They did not frown. They did not gently correct his rough English or repair his frayed cuffs with an absent wave of their wands, not even bothering to look up.

He knew her feelings did not quite mirror his. Oh, she liked him well enough. Welcomed his company in the library; smiled shyly, nervously, as he brushed the back of her hand with his lips. But he saw how her eyes sometimes followed the red-haired boy, felt the tension in her body when he was near. He felt how unsure she was of herself.

Such things should have mattered to him, maybe. It wasn’t as if he lacked for choices. Girls waited for him outside classrooms and ambushed him in the halls. If he had any sense, he wouldn’t be spending all his spare time in a musty library, moonily watching her study.

But when she first kissed him – hastily, impulsively, between towers of moldering books in a tiny corner of library only she frequented – her lips were a benediction against his. Her hands – her small, insistent hands – burrowed beneath his shirt and trembled against his stomach, and he was undone, disarmed by her courage and by the sweet press of her mouth. If he was only a substitute he couldn't find it within him to care, not when those hands tested the skin beneath his waistband and her clever tongue found the pulse in his throat. His hands hovered at her sides, clumsy and unsure. If she was surprised at his inexperience, she gave no sign. Her only response was the deepening of her kiss, sweet and sure on his tongue, tasting of toothpaste and pumpkin juice. Her hands found his. She laced their fingers together and squeezed, an act so unexpectedly tender and erotic that his cock stiffened painfully and he was afraid he would lose control, embarrassing himself like a callow boy in front of her. Well, he thought crazily, as she pushed their joined hands behind his back and stepped into his body, her small, perfect breasts against his ribs, that’s what the scourgify charm is for.

He became dimly aware that he was speaking against the shell of her ear, chanting a litany of endearments, promises, in his native tongue. Later, lying in his bed, his body as tight as a drawn bowstring, he would blush to think of his florid language, so at odds with the carnal images playing in his head in a continuous loop: her hair wild about her shoulders; her mouth like crushed strawberries; her sad, sweet eyes inviting what had previously existed only in his fevered dreams, in which she was the featured player.

She shivered as his lips moved against her ear, curling her body towards him like a question mark. Suddenly she loosed his hands and slid hers around his waist, clutching at him and burying her face in the side of his neck like a child. The other boy, he thought. She thinks of him now. She felt impossibly tiny in his grasp; so much person in such a small form. His hands that had seemed so useless only moments before now moved to hold her, to press her against his greater mass and hold her together, as they would so many times in the future, when the weight of things pushed in on her and she sought refuge in his arms, his mouth, his bed. This he knew how to do.