Melinda had lost count of how many times she had found herself staring into space, remembering those gentle touches that were in such sharp contrast to the sheer size of Oliver. How his fingers would gently skim the skin of her forehead when he brushed the hair out of her face or the tenderness in his voice when it had just been the two of them. Heated kisses were as far as they had gone, and yet was the soft ones to her cheek, her forehead, her nose that had burned into her memory along with the desire to get to know this man about who she only knew what the rest of the Wizarding World knew about him.
Those memories, however, were just a washed out version of the real thing, she realised, when that small, almost chaste action had her smile and blink slowly at him. “I’d like-,” she couldn’t help the soft sigh his kiss drew from her, but she was still smiling when she could look at him again. “I’d like to get to know you,” she told him, not to put a damper on the mood or slow things down; there was a refreshing feeling of genuine unhurriedness about them that she hadn’t identified until now.
Her fingers found and laced through his. “Let’s go upstairs,” she suggested, “unless you really want to stay, of course.” It was hard to move away, but keeping a hold of his hand made it a touch easier as she gave his hand a gentle tug to get them on the way. “Maybe you could send the Owl off with an order while I change into something a little less… work?”