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"What are we doing here, Harry?"
Harry looks around at the familiar place. Its allure is different in the summertime, without all the snow and ice. "We're going swimming."
Hermione stares at him in shock. "What?"
He easily finds the little pool again. There's moss and small vegetation growing around it now, and no ice on the surface. "It's been coming back to me in nightmares lately," he admits, staring at the water. "The night that I found the sword, when I almost drowned in here. The night that..." He trails off, not wanting to mention Ron coming back. He doesn't really want to think about Ron coming back, because it's a reminder of the betrayal that preceded it.
Hermione's hand goes to his upper arm, above the hem of his sleeve, and she rubs gently. "They're just nightmares."
He shakes his head. "No, they're memories. So, we're here to replace them." He grins at her. "I figure that if I go swimming in here again, without almost dying, the older memories of this place won't be so prominent anymore. I can remember this more fondly." He gestures at the water.
"That's a good idea," she decides. "But why did you ask me to come here with you?"
"Well, everything is better with a friend, isn't it?"
"Yes, but you could have asked Ron."
He shrugs. "I don't reckon that Ron would want to come back here, not after..." He again trails off, but fails to stop himself from recalling what happened that night. Ron's encounter with the locket... the phantom versions of Harry and Hermione taunting him...
For very far from the first time, the memory of the snog that never happened in real life plays through Harry's mind, and he quickly looks away from the real Hermione beside him.
"I guess that's a good point," she says, oblivious to what he's remembering. "Alright, then, let's make a better memory here."
He nods and quickly strips down to the dark blue swim trunks that he's wearing. She makes a squeaky sound beside him, drawing back his attention, and there's some color in her cheeks.
"Oh come on, you saw me like this plenty of times in the tent," he reminds her.
Her cheeks brighten further. "Yes, but that was... I mean, there was a lot else to worry about back then, so I barely noticed when you were..."
Perhaps it's because he still has the phantom snog in his mind, but he winks at her. "Well, I'm flattered." He barely takes the time to notice her eyes go wide before turning back to the water and jumping in. "Ah, it's warm."
"I didn't bring a bathing suit," she points out, "seeing as I didn't know your plan in advance."
He pauses. "Oh."
"It's alright," she adds quickly, undermining his flash of regret and guilt. "I can transfigure my underwear. Just... don't look at me until I'm in there, please."
"Alright," he replies quickly, carefully ignoring the heat of forbidden temptation that urges him to look at her. Instead, he ducks under the water and swims down to where he retrieved the sword, and then swims back up.
There's a splash beside him when she jumps in. "Okay, you can look." He turns, and his gaze immediately fixes on the plum-colored strap of her bra-turned-bikini top that teases him from her nearer shoulder. His breath stutters, and the phantom snog again plays in this thoughts.
"You don't have to look quite so hard," she says, but her tone is playful, and her foot nudges against his knee below the water.
"Sorry," he breathes, looking away again.
She giggles softly, and swims back and forth across the small pool, keeping most of her body beneath the surface. "It really is warm."
"Yeah, very different from how I remember it. This is much better."
She stops in front of him, treading water, and he slides his knees forward so that she can rest her feet on them. "This was a good idea."
"Thanks. I do have them from time to time."
She smiles, her eyes scanning his face.
"Not as often as you do, of course," he adds.
"Just so long as you know that."
He laughs, and its an utterly delightful feeling that he never could have managed the first time he was here. "I'll never forget it."
"Good." Her feet adjust themselves on his knees, and she treads a little closer. "But I do really like your ideas, most of the time, even though they tend to be really reckless."
"Thanks, and good to know."
"So, what other reckless ideas might you be having right now?"
It feels like a loaded question, and his laughter dies away as the atmosphere around them suddenly changes. The water around them is suddenly not quite as warm, or maybe it's that his body is suddenly very hot.
She's staring at him intently, a blush still on her cheeks, and very slowly treading closer still.
The phantom snog is back in his head again, inevitably. "At the moment, I'm very recklessly thinking about kissing you," he admits, and doesn't feel any of the terror that he should at saying the words.
"Is that so?" Her very slow approach speeds up slightly. "It's a good thing that I'm very recklessly thinking about that, too."
And then her lips are on his, and his hands find her waist beneath the water and pull her close. The kiss is perfect, so much better than the phantom version from the locket. It intensifies far more slowly, but inevitably.
Soon, their bodies are pressed together and she's moving against him, until she abruptly pulls back. "Harry," she breathes.
"Hermione," he replies, chasing her lips, but she pulls further back.
"Slow," she urges. "Slowly." She leans back in and gives him a much more chaste kiss, and then rests her forehead against his. "This is... risky."
"Reckless?"
She lets out another soft giggle. "Yeah. But I want it."
"Me too." The feeling of her skin against his within the water is impossible to resist, and his lips long to feel hers again.
"So we take it slowly, then."
"Yeah," he agrees, "but that doesn't mean that we're finished for right now, does it?"
Her giggle is louder now, but still adorable. "No, it doesn't." And then she kisses him again.