Who: Hermione and Jim When: Before it gets too cold Where: Wilderness What: Camping Rating/Warning: low/implied marital sex under the stars Status: Complete
Hermione had had dreams about camping. They weren’t exactly the best dreams. But this was what Jim did, and she knew that camping with him would be very different from all of the running and hiding that she did with Ron and Harry during what would have been her last year at Hogwarts. She trusted her husband, and was excited to get to spend some invaluable time with him before the holidays really kicked in to high gear.
She was sitting on a rock by the camp fire, arms wrapped around her knees, staring into the flames and thinking about her dreams. How strange they were.
It was cold enough that he’d brought a big sleeping bag for them, and a tent for shelter. If it had been just him alone he would have settled with just the sleeping bag. But they were together, and he was looking forward to it, not just because it was going out. He still felt not quite himself.
It would be good for the two of them to spend some time alone in the woods. Not just because it was one of Jim’s favorite things to do, but also because the fewer distractions they had, the more they would focus on each other. Hermione was without a book, without a cell phone, without anything to distract her from her husband. She had her wand, sure, but nothing else. (As if she would go anywhere without her wand.)
“Are we going to have hot dogs and baked beans?” Hermione teased, thinking of that scene from Blazing Saddles that was confusing to watch on mute.
Kirk had a communicator just in case, and a phaser for bears, but otherwise he was just him. “Yeah. Definitely some baked beans. I brought a few other things that you might like. Burgers!”
“Burgers?” Hermione beamed. “I like burgers. How do we cook them? You can’t just stick a stick into the end like a hot dog, right?”
“Nope. We’re gonna wrap them in foil and stick ‘em right in the fire!” It would cook them, even if it wasn’t technically grilling.
“Awesome.” Hermione said, grinning. She was excited to see how this was all done properly. “Did you bring marshmallows? Please tell me you brought marshmallows.” And she was planning a magical fireworks show later, thanks to her wand.
“I forgot the marshmellows,” he joked, tossing the bag at her.
“You what---Oh.” She grinned, picking up the bag where it’d landed when it bounced off of her arms. “I was going to fire you. But this saves it.” She said, opening the bag. “Do you want some help setting up the tent and everything?” She asked. After spending so long in a magical tent in her dreams, she was looking forward to sleeping in a nice, small, muggle tent.
“Sure. Lets see what you can do,” Jim replied, setting up the marshmallows for proper roasting. He could be lazy about this but he usually liked to see other people work to get an idea of how much help they needed.
Hermione was a cheater. She drew out her wand and gave it a flick, and the tent started setting up itself. She grinned at him over her shoulder. “Did you bring tea?”
“You know, that was something I actually forgot,” he replied, turning to look at her. He’d remembered just about everything else, but forgetting the tea is a high crime.
“What? Really?” Hermione turned to him and gave a sigh, but she couldn’t suppress the grin that was threatening to take over her features. “I don’t know how I’ll survive.”
“You’ll just have to make do with good old American coffee,” Jim said playfully. He grinned at her, then walked over and pulled her to her feet and kissed her.
Hermione gave a little “hah!” and was trying to think of some snarky way to respond, but then her husband pulled her to her feet and she was kissing him. Any thought of saying something in response was gone from her mind. Her arms wrapped around him and she returned his kiss.
He laughed into it, and spun her around a bit. “I’m glad we did this. I needed something like this. Just us and the sky. And marshmallows. Marshmallows are important.”
“And the roaring campfire,” Hermione agreed. “Us, the stars, and the campfire. I think we should point out the constellations, too,” she’d been studying the stars in the night sky as part of her space physics line of studies. “You can try to stump me.” It was especially nice to see him in his element.
“What’s that one, then?” He said, pointing to one of the harder to see constellations.
Hermione turned to follow his gaze, then lifted her hand to take hold of his, closed one eye, and outlined it. “It’s… um.” She paused, then outlined the shape again, using his pointing finger to trace it out. It took her a moment to remember, but then she named it.
“Close enough,” he joked, nuzzling a nose into her ear and then nibbling there. She smelled so good.
Hermione grinned a little, tipping her head to the side as he nibbled on her ear. “...how many girls have you shagged under the stars like this?” She asked, playfully. “Because you’re really good at this romance in the wilderness stuff.”
He smirked against her skin. “You really want to know?”
“...probably not.” Hermione grinned. She wasn’t exactly the jealous type, she trusted her husband completely. And she knew that he was a player in his past. (Had he actually collected all of those ponies?) They didn’t need to rehash it. Especially because she didn’t want him missing those days--any more than he already did. “Think I might be too tempted to go find them all and give them boils or something.”
“Some of them deserve the boils,” he commented with a laugh. “But probably a good idea. Doesn’t that kind of thing come back three times?”
“Wrong kind of witchcraft, I’m afraid.” Hermione said, giving him a little wink. “Nothing in this world comes back three times, not the way they say it does.”
“Well that’s good to know, but later tonight I’ll make sure something comes back three times, at least,” he retorted.
Hermione snorted. Good thing she hadn’t been sipping anything. That was spit-take worthy material. “I’ll hold you to that,” she teased.