Work Text:
In and out. The waves crashed against the shore, sending showers of mist into the chilly night air. Over and over. In and out. Hermione willed herself to steady her breath. Over and over. In and out. She chanted it in her mind, but her lungs were not cooperating, either sucking in the air too fast and shallow, or forgetting to draw breath altogether until a gust of wind kicked sand into her face and the subsequent coughing fit forced her body into compliance.
They had been at Shell Cottage for three days now, and each night, after everyone else had gone to sleep, she came out to the beach and tried to forget. Forget that she’d been tortured. Forget that Dobby was dead. Forget that they’d gained a horcrux and lost their one hope of destroying it.
In some ways, it worked. In some ways, she felt nothing. Not the pervasive cold of the ocean air. Not the sand that lodged beneath her fingernails. Not the wetness that started at the hem of her jeans when she got too close to the water and crept steadily higher.
In other ways, she felt altogether too much. The sting in her neck from the cursed blade. The lingering anxiety over everything they had been through. The crippling fear of what was still to come.
She scooted up the sand, closer and closer to the water’s edge until the highest reach of the waves was nipping at her bare toes, and tried again to steady her breathing. In and out. In and out. But her mind drifted back to the grueling scene at the Manor, Bellatrix’s horrid ringing cackle as she cast spell after spell at Hermione, her cruel taunts very nearly drowning out the only thing that kept her from slipping away like the watery sand beneath her fingers. Ron’s voice, shouting her name. Over and over. Frantic. Desperate.
“Hermione.”
It was the opposite now. Soft, barely a whisper, just something to alert her to his presence. She knew that he hadn’t been sleeping, either, knew that he was looking after her, because after her first night by the water, he had handed her one of his thick maroon jumpers and told her not to catch cold. No insistence that she stay inside, no hollow words of how everything would be okay. Just a jumper. Just exactly what she needed.
She tugged the overlong sleeves over her hands as he sat down behind her on the sand, stretching one long leg out to either side. He slipped his arms around her waist, pulling her back flush against his chest, and rested his chin on her shoulder. She could feel the steady rise and fall of his breath and focused on it. In and out. He seemed to realize what she was doing, as he began to breathe more deeply, making sure she felt every inhale, every exhale, in and out, until she had matched her breathing to his.
Her hair was billowing around them, whipping every which way in the wind. Ron’s arms loosened from around her waist, and she grabbed frantically at his wrists to hold him in place. It felt like he was quite literally holding her together, and he couldn’t let go yet. His nose brushed her ear as he turned his head to drop a delicate kiss on her neck, extracting only his right arm from her grip to raise it up to her eye level. There on his wrist was one of her thick black hair elastics. She swallowed a sob that threatened to burst out of nowhere, overwhelmed by the simple thoughtfulness of it, and Ron replaced his arm around her middle, holding her tight against him again until she had returned her breathing to normal. In and out.
The next time, moments later, she let him pull away. He gathered all of her hair together with what must have been great difficulty, though his gentle touch betrayed nothing of the sort, and secured it with the elastic before resuming his position once more. She crossed her arms over his and leaned back into him, turning her head slightly to press her cheek to his. His skin on hers at that smallest point of contact was the warmest she had felt since they had arrived at his brother’s house. His name escaped her in a low breath, though a particularly large wave broke at that moment and she couldn’t be sure he even heard her. But he pressed his cheek harder against hers so she thought maybe he had.
She had no idea how long they sat there in relative silence, engulfed by the howling wind and the furious noise of the ocean. For once, though, the darkness surrounded her without seeping in, and it wasn’t difficult to discern what was keeping it out.
She twisted slowly in his arms, careful not to lose any more contact than was strictly necessary, until she was kneeling in front of him, her hands resting on his shoulders and barely a breath between their faces. She shifted slightly and brushed her lips against his, the idea of the right moment for their first kiss washed out with the rolling tide. He was the only thing she wanted to feel. Ron rested his forehead against hers, their breathing still synced. “Can I tell you something?” he whispered.
They had barely spoken at Shell Cottage, so overcome with grief and fear and relief that words couldn’t possibly capture the entirety of their feelings, so she understood his desire for permission, which she gave him with a brief nod.
“You are—“ Ron kissed the tip of her nose. “Beautiful.” Her cheek. “And strong.” Her other cheek. “And amazing.” Her lips again, lingering there. “And I’m so glad you’re alive.”
The standard for their well-being had dropped so far. They weren’t safe. They weren’t whole, or undamaged. But they were alive. Out there with him, the waves at her back and his blue eyes boring into hers, she almost felt it.
It was funny, Hermione thought, how different the beach felt in the bright sunlight of summer. The sand was still wet beneath her fingers, and the waves were as relentless as ever, but the atmosphere was lighter. The crash of the ocean no longer felt angry, but playful, though that was probably more due to the redheaded toddler that had been happily splashing in the edge of the water all morning than anything else.
“Mummy, watch!” Rose cried suddenly, as if Hermione had done anything but watch her since they had come outside, and proceeded to chase a retreating wave.
“Rosie, it’s chasing you now, you’ve got to run back,” Ron called as another wave followed, quickly closing in on the little girl, who hadn’t seemed to realize that the water was faster than she was. Ron scooped her up, and Rose watched the water rush by below her. She squirmed in Ron’s arms, and when he set her down, she chased that wave out, too.
“Again!” she said happily, clapping her hands together as Ron swiped her from danger a second time.
He turned to Hermione, squinting in the sun as he walked up the beach to where she was sitting and set Rose down. “I have new respect for my parents. Rosie, stay up here,” he said in an aside to their daughter, who was still eyeing the water with excitement. “It’s bloody hard raising Gryffindors.”
She chuckled as he sat down behind her, his legs on either side of her, taking the exact same position he had the last time they had been here. “Cheer up,” she teased as his arms snaked around her middle, his hands resting gently on her barely-protruding stomach. “Maybe this one will be a Hufflepuff.”
Ron dropped a kiss to her bare shoulder and then placed his chin where his lips had just been. “I don’t care what he is as long as he’s healthy.”
They watched Rose play in the sand as Hermione leaned back into Ron’s embrace. She still synced her breathing with his when they were close like this, but it felt more like a habit now and less like a life-or-death necessity. These days, despite the all odds, despite how hard it was to believe sometimes, Hermione felt very much alive.
Ron heaved a sudden sigh as Rose took off for the water again, and he scrambled to his feet to follow her. “On second thought,” he called over his shoulder, “a Hufflepuff might be nice!”