A Fairly Decent Hex

A Fairly Decent Hex

"I can't believe I let you talk me into this."

"How was I supposed to know the counter-spell would disappear?"

Hermione glared over at her friend and jangled her left hand in the air, lifting his hand in the process. "Ron, we're stuck together!"

"I've got that part figured out already, Hermione."

"'Let me try it out,' he says. 'Just want to get it right for the twins,' he says." Hermione rolled her eyes and leaned her head back on the cushions. They were seated on the common room sofa, Ginny's Fairly Decent Hexes book open between them, and they each had one wrist and one ankle attached to the other. "Honestly, Ron."

"How could I have known?" Ron shouted, the tips of his ears growing steadily redder.

"Well, you..." and then Hermione faltered, because, honestly, Ron couldn't have known. She hadn't known. And now they were stuck. "There has to be something in the library," she muttered finally, under her breath.

"Yes, let's troop down to the library, attached as we are, in the middle of the night. Great plan."

"It's not that late," she said, her mouth a mutinous pout.

Ron sighed. "No, but do you really want to sneak out of here like this?" He picked up the book again in his free hand. "There has to be something in here about it." Scratching his nose absently, he flipped through the pages.

"Ron!" Hermione said, leaning into him, wiggling her left hand in front of his face.

"What?" Then he realized what he was doing and dropped his right hand. "Sorry."

"No, wait. Do it again," she said, noticing a slight elasticity in the pull.

"What?"

"Raise your hand again. Yes, like that. See?" She was watching the space between their wrists intently.

"See what?"

"Look, if we pull in opposite directions, there's some give. We're not completely stuck." She pulled her wrist away from Ron's to demonstrate. "There's some space there." She grabbed a loose piece of parchment from her books, sliding it in between them.

Ron's eyes lit up. "Oi, look at that. Well, so... okay. Erm... how exactly does this help us?"

Hermione grabbed the Hexes book off of Ron's lap. "Well, I'm guessing this is some sort of magnetic spell. Positives and negatives and such." She found the original spell Ron had cast and ran her finger over the text. "Ah, here. Fine print." She smiled beatifically up at Ron, and then looked back down at the book. "This spell is based on a positive/negative attraction principle; two negatives or two positives would just repel. See, just as I suspected. So," she stopped, reading over the words again.

"What?" Ron asked impatiently.

"Ron, this says that it will only work if one participant is willing and the other is not," She gave him a confused frown.

"And?" he prompted.

"And," Hermione continued, "since I have been bitterly complaining and you haven't put up much of a fuss... Ron, do you want to be stuck to me?" She watched as the red migrated inward from his ears and covered his entire face.

He reached up his left hand and rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding her eyes. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then eventually shifted his gaze down to her. "It's not so bad, is it?" he asked hesitantly, his blue eyes soft and warm.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, then tentatively reached up to touch his face, her fingertips trailing along his jaw line. "No," she finally whispered.

He gave her a lopsided smile, then slipped his hand behind her neck, cupping her nape. She shifted with the pressure, allowing her head to be moved upwards as he ducked his, their lips meeting in a soft caress.

Their hands were free, but it barely registered as she slipped her arms up his shoulders and around his neck, pulling him closer. In response, he parted his lips over hers, running his tongue across the seam of her mouth, urging her to let him inside. And when she did, every coherent thought she ever had slipped out of her mind entirely.

Just as soon as it had begun, however, she felt Ron pull back. Slowly, her eyes fluttered open to see him studying her face.

"That was..."

"Nice?" she supplied.

He grinned. "Much more than nice, I hope."

"Oh, without a doubt," she smiled up at him, then gave a shout of laughter and pulled him back down on top of her. "Perhaps we need a bit of practice, though. Perhaps we should shoot for 'good.'" His eyes were inches from hers, and she thought they were the most marvelous eyes she'd ever seen; liquid blue with flecks of green.

"I'm pretty sure we'll master 'great' by the end of the night." His grinning lips were almost touching hers.

She giggled. "Such high aspirations you have!"

"I've got you, don't I?" he said, a tinge of amazement evident in his voice.

"Yes, Ron." She kissed him softly. "You do."