What I have is in the midst of the waves
A ray of water, a day for myself
- Pablo Neruda

The second summer is a greedy summer, and Hermione guards it close to her breast.

A quasi-physical thing, as if a summer could be ground to the size of an eyelash. She pinches her heart between her fingers and warns the sand dunes and yellowing grass: you could be next.

It listens, like every other splintered piece of her, poised and waiting for direction. It breathes between her breaths, stings at her eyes when she least expects it.

The sting is: sweat, and it's just a memory, but it was there for so long that it could be an echo, and echoes lap back in circles, again and again and.

She remembers his legs.

The prickling glide of them, their weight against her calves. Sun warmed hot against her ankles when she shifted restlessly.

Her hair tangled up in some strange halo, itching at her ears. Her back against dirt, where she fell, where he had pushed her. Pushed in that good way -- big hands on her waist, thumbs slipping down towards her tailbone and curving out over her hips.

Sand dirt, brown with golden flecks, would dot every inch of her, and their toes pushed up tiny mounds of it as their knees hooked and skidded. Skidded like her thoughts spun and looped and dug in and felt like fat, round raindrops splattering on earth when his mouth fit itself at her throat.

Her hips were so skinny and pale, jagged edges like they could hurt somebody. Her name was clumsy and earnest across his tongue.

The second summer was like the first summer, except another year gone and more tables.

Flat and dusty with flour, and she left footprints on them.  She clamored up as wands danced across the stove (a jig for porridge and a waltz for biscuits), before morning practice, and afternoon practice, when she would floo to see his cousins or poke about the book shelves. Or nap, and wake with sleep damp skin and purple orange twilight through the window pane (he would kiss her awake with his open mouth and fingers touching lightly at the backs of her calves).

She gripped the table sides and wriggled backwards, smiling at the smell of breakfast, and those too large hands slid up to right under her breasts, spread out over her lungs, and her dress was all pushed up as well, and crooked.

"Warm up," he said, and laughed, except it came out all broken (but still pretty, like sunshine on bits of glass).

She laughed too, because it was easy and she felt so young, but not in that way that would make her want to stop, and he stroked at her ankles until they felt impossibly fragile, and then slid them up around his back so that he could press down. He pressed, thumbs on the insides of her thighs, and nudged a little, blood hot beneath his thin cloth, against her thinner cloth, white and wet. Such strong want in it and she squirmed and tightened up everywhere and they were both so flushed and not speaking, her nails at his back, begging for something. And he kissed her mouth again, slow, and it was like nothing was finished.

They would walk in the evenings, and touch, and it all felt so desperate.

She remembers his wrists, and how she couldn't fit her palm around one, but she could drag him off anyway -- like a kite.