A/N: This is something that probably happened one night at some point during the Trio's sixth year at Hogwarts. Purely canon, I assure you, no matter what you might think at first.

Crash.

Hermione's head jerked up and she glanced out the window. She was hunched over a table in the common room, and had up until this point been writing so furiously that her hand was seizing up around her quill. She took in the roiling dark clouds in the sky outside and knew that the ominous noise she'd heard must have been thunder, booming across the mountains. Her heart sped up and she clenched her jaw in determination. This was exactly what she'd been waiting for.

Without a second of hesitation she slammed her books shut and jumped to her feet, startling Ron, who was sitting next to her, so badly that he gave a strangled yelp and nearly fell off his chair. "Wh—have you gone mad?" he spluttered.

"No, sorry, I'll catch you up later—got to go—"

"Where're you going?" he called as she hurried up towards the girls' dormitories, but she didn't answer, just took the stairs two at a time. Dumping her schoolwork onto her bed in a haphazard pile—she'd organize it later, the storm might pass over any time—she threw on the nearest jacket she could find and raced back down the stairs. She hadn't a moment to lose. Ron bumped right into her as she flew back into the common room. "What's got into you? What happened to Transfiguration? I can't finish it on my own!"

"I know, I'll be back later, I can't waste time, Ron, please!" she insisted impatiently, shoving him aside and rushing across to the portrait hole, leaving him staring after her, utterly bewildered. She thought she heard him mutter "Barkers," as she stepped through into the corridor outside, but she ignored it. Her shoes made odd clacking noises on the stone that echoed down the halls behind her. She didn't pause to investigate the source of the noise; this was too important. She couldn't be sidetracked. She needed to be out in that rain, and now.

She nearly knocked Filch over as she passed, and though his angry yells of protest followed her she took no notice of it. There was a small bunch of people coming out of the Great Hall from dinner; as she ran by, one or two of them exclaimed in surprise. She supposed as she hurried through the towering front doors that she must look a sight, running willy-nilly through the entrance hall and out into what looked like a bad storm brewing. Once outside, she made her way across the grounds, round the edge of the lake and over the sloping grass until she'd found the little spot she'd been looking for. It was a slight depression in the ground, about ten feet across, with a stone big enough to stand on plopped right in the middle. She had discovered it about three weeks ago while wandering off on her own during a free period, and had been waiting for it to rain ever since. As she stepped up onto it, she got her wish; the clouds overhead obliged her at long last, and began to gently pour water down onto Hogwarts.

After a few minutes of standing there silently, she was soaked. She crossed her arms over her chest in an effort to keep warm and make herself as small as possible. Her sopping wet hair dripped into her eyes and she licked her lips, swallowing the water that had collected on her skin. Beautiful. She felt exactly as she had predicted and hoped that she would. Now all that remained to complete the scenario she'd been playing out over and over in her head for the past three weeks was the arrival of the other person. And, true to her imagination, she heard someone hurrying toward her across the grass from behind.

"Hermione, what on earth are you doing?"

She turned, not moving from her somewhat huddled position but glancing over her shoulder. Harry came around to the front, facing her from across the five feet of shallow water now separating them. She shrugged. He frowned and scratched his head. He was going to get as wet as she was if he didn't hurry back inside, she noticed passively.

"Well...are you going to come inside?"

She shook her head.

"Why not?"

"I'm waiting," she said matter-of-factly, and he sighed, looking as though he was resigning himself to a long conversation with someone not entirely rational. Well, maybe she wasn't entirely rational. It didn't matter. She was a woman. A girl—a woman?—and she had her needs, however stupid and unfathomable to the opposite sex they may be.

"For what?"

"For my imaginary conversation to take place."

"...Er...what?"

She sighed in exasperation. "Look, Harry, would you just go back inside before you catch your death? It's a girl thing, you wouldn't understand."

"You should talk. How long've you been out here?"

"Only a few minutes. Now get back inside. I don't want you to ruin this for me by being a gentleman."

Harry shook his head in bewilderment. Hermione glared at him. Didn't he know that he wasn't the one who was supposed to come running out to take care of her? That role was supposed to be filled by someone else entirely. Who was Harry to go and just step forward, with his stupid saving-people thing, and come out to look for her? Who did he think he was? "You're being ridiculous. If you must be out here, at least go hide somewhere out of sight so that when he comes, we won't be interrupted."

Harry looked affronted. "Who—you're meeting someone out here?"

"I've imagined that I'll meet someone out here. But you're not it. So if you please, would you go back inside? You're already drenched to the bone."

"Then it doesn't make a difference how long I'm out here, does it?"

"All you've done while being out here is ask stupid questions, Harry," she snapped irritably, inching her arms tighter around her chest against the rain. "Please go away."

At this, he strode forward resolutely into the ever-deepening puddle surrounding her tiny stone island until he was standing right there before her, looking up at her through the raindrops clumping his dark eyelashes together. She blinked away the water surrounding her own eyes and shuffled her feet slightly backward, making just enough room for him to stand on the stone in front of her—though he would be uncomfortably close. At least he wouldn't be standing in ankle-deep water as he was now, the cold liquid threatening to overflow into his trainers at any moment. She supposed she could be that solicitous, since that he was getting drenched to make sure she was alright. Harry paused, then took the silent invitation, climbing up in front of her and swaying back, unbalanced; he windmilled his arms a little and righted himself. Hermione glared again, only this time he was inches from her, and much taller.

"You're quite stubborn."

"So are you."

She looked up at him consideringly. She didn't think she had ever seen him this up-close before. Examining the individual droplets on his face was not difficult at this range, and she did so. Suddenly nothing fascinated her more than anything that wasn't his eyes. She felt heat rising up in her cheeks, and she promptly bit down on her tongue in an attempt to deter the blush she knew was coming for no reason. She didn't want him interpreting anything the wrong way. He was simply too close to her. She would have the same reaction if it had been anyone's face she was staring at from approximately four inches away. Four inches is a tiny amount of space; she vowed to measure it exactly when she got back into the castle, whenever she decided to.

"Are you going to tell me what you're doing now?"

"I am waiting for you to come to your senses and go away so that I can live out my fantasy in peace."

"Y'know, Ron said you'd gone mental when I met him in the common room, but I didn't believe him," Harry said thoughtfully, and she sneaked a tiny glance up at him. He was staring off over her head—he was tall enough to do that now—at the mountains in the distance. Or the Forest, or the sky, for all she knew. Whatever was out there. Hermione looked back down at his chin, which was at her eye level. For future's sake, she could now say that she'd given valiant effort to fight back down the blush that was staining her cheeks pink now. Pity she'd been overcome. A pity, indeed.

A finger—his—touched the bottom of her own chin and tilted it up so she'd have to meet his gaze. What she saw in his eyes both frightened and intrigued her; and the thought that it both frightened and intrigued her made her blush even further, for it was the ultimate cliché to be feeling those things while looking into someone's eyes. She'd had enough. This was getting much too far out of hand. Why was Harry standing so close to her, anyway? There was no reason, there was no good reason for him to be lowering his mouth to hers and kissing her so very, very softly.

But suddenly...suddenly the rain wasn't quite so cold, anymore. And as she closed her eyes she found herself kissing him back, just as softly, and a feeling in her chest that she hadn't noticed until now swelled to fill her completely, and she glowed with happiness as she smiled.

"Hermione."

"Mmm."

"Hermione."

"Yes?" she said dreamily, not opening her eyes.

"Move your head, your hair's covering my paper."

"What?"

Someone poked her shoulder, hard. She opened her eyes and lifted her head off the open book her head had been laying on, her cheek sticking to the page for a second before she sat herself fully upright and straightened in the chair. Ron was staring at her in mild annoyance. "You fell asleep," he accused her, and she blinked in astonishment.

"I did? I was?"

"Yeah, but as you had that big old grin on your face, I wondered whether you weren't faking it..."

"I was smiling?" she asked, feeling the blush return to her cheeks. Or arrive in the first place, if she'd been dreaming, which it appeared that she had been. She felt flustered and ridiculous. "Er—sorry," she muttered. "Where were we?"

"Animagi."

"Right. Right. Well, write down what you know about McGonagall and Sirius and Rita Skeeter and all them."

"If I knew what to write, I wouldn't be asking for your help, would I?" he said with a frown, but Hermione paused, and then looked at him.

"Ron, I have to go talk to someone. Just write what you remember of seeing them transform and the fact that they have to be registered and have certain distinguishable features and all that, I'll be back later."

Leaving Ron irritated and alone, she got up from the table and crossed the common room for what felt like the second time in half an hour but was really the first. That dream had been so vivid. As she walked down the corridor, it truly hit her how strange the dream had actually been—what was she doing fantasizing about kissing Harry in the first place? As far as she was concerned, he was just as preoccupied with Ginny as she was with him. Hermione had no business nosing into other people's crushes, even if it wasn't her fault. Her own words from earlier that year came back to her—'You've never been more interesting and, frankly, you've never been more fanciable. Everyone knows you've been telling the truth now, don't they? The whole wizarding world has had to admit that you were right...and now they're calling you the "Chosen One"—well, come on, can't you see why people are fascinated by you? And you've been through all that persecution from the Ministry when they were trying to make out you were unstable and a liar...and it doesn't hurt that you've grown about a foot over the summer, either.' Hermione now found herself blushing again. She'd been so ready to identify everything about him that was—as she'd put it—fanciable. Why hadn't she realized them for herself before now? Because really, he was all that, and more...he was her best friend in the whole world (she wasn't going to bother trying to tell herself that she was just as close to Ron) and wasn't he just the most amazing person she had ever met?

"Ow!"

She looked up. She'd walked right into the very individual that she'd been thinking about. As he steadied himself, she looked into his slightly indignant eyes and decided that it really was a shame that he was pining so obviously after Ginny. Didn't she, Hermione, count for anything? Or was she only visible as a girl to Ron? Was she just the other best friend, just another friendly face, to Harry? Hadn't she always stuck by him like no one else had? To her great embarrassment, she felt tears stinging in the corners of her eyes, and she hastily dropped her gaze to the floor again.

"What's wrong?"

Damn. He'd seen. Well, nothing else for it.

"Oh, nothing, I'm just upset—I think I've been slipped a love potion, only it went wrong, because whoever made it put the wrong hair in or something. Nevermind. I've—I've got to go to the library."

And she strode off in the opposite direction she'd been going, back to her usual haunt to sit in a corner of the Restricted Section and have a good, long think.

ooo

Hermione yawned, stretched. Opened her eyes. That had been a very odd dream indeed. Imagine dreaming that you'd been dreaming! Ridiculous. She shook her head and put any unusual thoughts of Harry out of her mind, determinedly pictured Ron's eager and adoring face, reminding herself that it was him she was trying to get to notice her, and sat up in bed, ready for the day.