When Did You Know?
They sat in silence for a few minutes. He kept thinking about what she had said earlier -- that she could see herself with him for the rest of her life. She sighed contently as she snuggled deeper into his chest.
"Ron?"
"Hmmmm?" He placed a light kiss against her ear.
"Thank you for taking me out tonight."
"You're welcome." He nuzzled her neck and kissed her lightly on the shoulder. "Mmmmm." She tilted her head away from his, enabling him to have better access to her shoulder and neck. She inhaled deeply and relished the feeling of his thrumming heart beating against her back. "Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?" she asked about the sunset in front of them.
"Never," he looked at her, "I've never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Mmmmm, very beautiful," he whispered in her ear. She turned her head slightly, placing a soft kiss against his freckled face then his lips. Her hand lifted to stroke his cheek as she pulled away from him. Resting her head against his forehead, she closed her eyes and recalled their earlier conversation. She was glad that she had finally told him she loved him and her true feelings for him.
"'Mione?"
"Hmmmm?"
"I love you." Yes. She was definitely happy about her decision to tell him how she felt.
"I love you, too."
They sat for almost a half an hour without talking. They just sat back on the soft grass of the Quidditch pitch and watched the stars, occasionally sharing a soft kiss. Just being next to one another seemed to be enough for now. He would stroke her hair lightly. She would run her hands over his arms, causing him chills, like always. After it was dark, they both noticed a shooting star above them. He closed his eyes and did something he hadn't done since before he attended Hogwarts. He made a wish. He wished that this day would last forever, that they could spend their lives like this. Happy, content...in love.
"So...did you make a wish?" he asked.
"Yes."
"What for?"
"Nuhhhh, uuuhhhh. Can't tell. Won't come true," she said with a slow shake of her head.
"Oh, come on. I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," he gently prodded.
"Okay...you first."
"All right." He cleared his throat and told her, "I wished this night would last forever."
"Me, too."
"Now, you. What'd you wish for?"
"I told you. Me, too. I wished for the same thing. That tonight would never end. That we could just spend eternity like this." His gentle smile caused her heart to flutter as she leaned in for a kiss. She knew she shouldn't be doing this. She shouldn't be letting him kiss her so intimately, but she couldn't help herself. She wanted him to know how much she loved him. She wanted to feel his love for her. She was a bit startled as she felt his tongue flick against her closed mouth, but she opened her lips just a bit and flicked back. The jolt from her returned kiss went through his system like a bolt of lightening. He knew he had to keep it light, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. Especially when she did things like that. She didn't pull away when he deepened their kiss, but settled into it even more. He shouldn't have deepened it to begin with, and he knew that, but it just felt so right. To be honest it wasn't even that much of a kiss. He had gone a lot further with Lavender but with Hermione things were different. Every kiss, every touch meant something to him. Something good. He pulled away from her, searching her eyes for a sign of regret and found none. He had to get off of this blanket; he had to stop touching her before he crossed that line.
"Want to play some one-on-one?" he asked playfully, holding his hand out to hers.
"Okay." She stood up and placed her hand in his. "I still can't believe you did that. Bought me a broom."
"It's no big deal," he said as he shrugged his shoulders.
"How did you know?"
"Know what?"
"That I always wanted to join in when you would play at the Burrow."
"You did?" The shock in his voice confirmed her suspicions that he didn't in fact know, that he had just thought of it on his own.
"Mmmmm hmmm. It always looked like so much fun."
"Wow. I had no idea. I just...I don't know...I wanted to get you something and I thought you would really like that."
"When did you do it?"
"Does it matter?" She looked at him with a slight tilt to her head, as though she already knew the answer.
"Well, I was just wondering when you would've been able to get out of school to get it..."
He chuckled. "That's why it's nice having brothers who own a shop in Diagon Alley."
"So how much did it cost you?" She wasn't trying to make him uncomfortable, but she just wanted to make sure he wasn't spending his life savings on a silly broom.
"Don't worry about it," he mumbled.
"What?" She lifted her head and looked towards him.
"I said..." he licked his lips and looked out towards the road. He really didn't want to get into this. Couldn't she just understand that all he wanted to do was make her happy? That he would travel to hell and back to get her what she wanted? That money would never, ever be an option as long as she was his? "...don't worry about it," he stated clearly.
"If you say so..."
"I do." He tapped her on the nose and kissed her cheek. "Do you think it's a matey-type gift?" The last thing he wanted her to think was that he thought of her as a friend.
"No. Not at all. I love it. It's perfect...so romantic. So, do you want to play?"
"Yeah." He walked over to the center of the pitch and muttered a spell to light up the field. He released the Snitch he had brought with him. "First one to catch the Snitch wins. Ready?" She nodded. "Okay, go!" he shouted as he pushed off the ground and immediately began the painstaking process of locating the golden ball. By some miracle, he saw it before too long. It was floating directly behind Hermione, who had just taken off in the opposite direction. He shot off towards it at high speed, reaching out for it and grasping it in his fingers before shouting while pumping his arms in the air, "Ron Weasley wins by a landslide, and the crowd goes wild!" Hermione turned around quickly, startled by his yelling.
"No fair!" she giggled, finally realizing that he had the Snitch in his hand.
They both landed before they ran over to each other, laughing. "Come on, 'Mione. You know you only love me for my wicked Quidditch skills."
"Actually, you're quite right," she teased as they sat back down on the blanket he had brought.
Hermione shivered. She was starting to feel the cold straight through to her core. She rubbed her arms attempting to generate some warmth in them. He looked over at her shivering form and sat behind her, grabbing the second blanket and wrapping it securely around her shaking body.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Just got a chill."
"Well, why don't you come here and I'll keep you warm. So, tell me something. When did you know you loved me?" She snuggled up in his arms again and laid her head back.
"Do you remember when we were in second year? When I was petrified?"
"How could I forget?" He hung his head, "I thought you'd never come back."
"Do you remember what happened when I did, though?"
He remembered but for some reason he didn't answer her.
"You and Harry were in the Great Hall, and I came in straight from the hospital. I remember that I couldn't wait to see you."
Ron smiled.
"Back then, I didn't know what those feelings meant..."
"Yeah, well neither of us did. You were not alone in your ignorance." They both laughed.
"I just remember seeing you and feeling so embarrassed about being so excited to see you that I ran straight into Harry's arms. I couldn't bring myself to hug, in case you could tell I liked you, so I shook your hand instead."
"Yeah, I remember that." He also remembered what happened after he and Harry had headed up to their dormitory later that night. "Harry? Do you think Hermione thinks I'm some kind of git? All she did was shake my hand."
"I think she likes you," Harry had said calmly.
"Yeah, right! And the queen mother isn't really, really old."
Ron had gone to sleep that night thinking his best friend was a nutcase.
"In the morning I left for home on the train and you were sitting there in that compartment and we couldn't even make eye contact." She turned her head to see if he would deny his act of shyness. He didn't. "I didn't know it at the time but...that was the day I saw it in you. That uncertainty in yourself that I find so attractive now. I saw it and I knew that when I wrote to you that summer, you would pretend like it had never happened."
"Look, Hermione...I'm sorry. I'm sorry I too much of an idiot to realize how I really felt..."
"Ronald." She put her fingers over his lips to stop him from finishing his sentence. "There is nothing to be sorry about. Yes, we did waste quite a bit of time with our stubbornness, but I like to think that that's why we are together now. We got to fall in love together." As she pulled her fingers away from his lips he grabbed on to her hand and kissed the tips of them. Closing his eyes, he tried taking it all in.
"I was so dumb."
"Yeah, you were, but we both were," she giggled.
"Yeah," he chuckled with her, "I guess you're right. So...you've loved me since second year?"
"Pretty much. What about you? When did you know?"
"I'm not really sure. I knew I was falling in love with you, but I just kept telling myself that it was nothing. I just thought you were interesting...different. A really great mate." He got a far off look in his eyes as he continued, "But that day in Potions...you pulled down your stocking to scratch your leg and forgot to pull it back up and...I couldn't think straight. I kept fumbling ingredients. I completely forgot to add some. I kept looking towards Harry, hoping he could help save me but that didn't happen. I remember Snape asking what my malfunction was and I just kept thinking, 'When the hell did I fall in love with Hermione Granger?' By the time the bell rang the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I knew I wanted to be more than just your friend but I guess I wasn't sure...I mean really, really sure that it was love until our first kiss."
"Our first kiss?"
"Yep. You just ran straight into my arms and kissed my silly and I just knew. I loved you. Now the first time I thought I was in love with you...well...that's a different story."
"Well, we've got a few hours until I've got to be home."
"Yeah, I guess we do have some time to kill..." He smiled. "It was the first day of classes third year. We were in Care of Magical Creatures and Harry was riding Buckbeak. You grabbed my hand and look at me and dropped my hand, all within a matter of a second or two."
"You thought you loved me because of that?"
"Yeah. You had no idea at the time, but at that very same moment, I had been daydreaming about how soft the skin on your hands would be."
"Seriously?"
"Yes. I decided right then and there that you could read my mind, and although it freaked me out a bit, I still thought it was the most wicked thing ever. It was the moment I knew that I would do anything to make you mine."
"I didn't make that very easy for you, did I?" she asked sheepishly.
"No," he wrinkled his nose, "not really."
"I'm sorry, Ron. I shouldn't have used Viktor to try to make you jealous."
"No. No. Don't apologize. You're not the one that should be sorry. I did the same thing to you with Lavender."
"But you only did that in retaliation. Can you ever forgive me, Ron?"
"Forgive you?? There's nothing to forgive." He looked at her with a bewildered expression upon his face. "Tell me something. Is it really possible for someone to be this good? To have this big of a heart?"
She looked down at their joined hands, "I never thought it was until..." she looked into his eyes, "...until I met you." He took a breath and shook his head slightly trying to understand her logic. Did she really believe in him that much? Did she really believe he was a good person? "Hermione," he sighed. "I love you." He leaned in placing a soft kiss upon her forehead and pulled her close to him as he sat with her encompassed in his arms, listening to the soft hum of her steady breathing. He thought again of the thing she had said to him earlier and he knew deep within his heart that he would find a way to make it happen.