Hermione was walking slowly towards him. Her wavy brown hair was blowing in some unseen wind, her arm lifted and she ran her hand through her hair. Slowly. Her breasts. He couldn't stop staring at them. She was wearing one of those skimpy muggle bathing suits.
"Ron." She said, licking her lips.
She was standing right in front of him. His entire body was tingling. He felt a wave of desire wash over him.
"Ron!" She said, rather loudly. He reached out and caressed her face.
"Oh, Hermione." He said softly. Looking at her.
Ron felt something hit him. He blinked his eyes.
"No, it's Harry." He looked at Hermione oddly. That was Harry'svoice coming out of her. Then Ron felt something hit him again, harder, and he woke up.
He looked up and Harry was staring at him bemusedly. Apparently, he had been sleeping rather soundly. And dreaming about Hermione. Ron sat up in bed, making sure his lower extremities were covered, as he was painfully aroused.
Harry was fully dressed; his book bag slung over one shoulder.
"You're going to miss breakfast." Harry said as he walked out of the dormitory.
Now Ron was alone in the dorm, le fell back against the pillows and sighed deeply. Had he said Hermione's name out loud? Did Harry know? He rubbed his face with his hand, and pushed his shaggy red hair out of his face.
Ron stood up when he was cooled off and walked to the bathroom. He showered quickly and hesitated before the mirror. He could really use a shave, he thought, somewhat amazed to see stubble on his jaw. However, he did not have time for that. He ran another hand through his hair and frowned. He had grown over the summer, and now he was almost the tallest boy at Hogwarts, except for that Hufflepuff git, Jared Lee. Also, all of that Quiddich practice during the summer had really filled out his upper torso; he could see defined muscles in his arms and chest. But what did it matter? Girls never looked at him like that.
Ron walked into the Great Hall, took in the decorations around him and realized it was Halloween. How did that holiday sneak up on him? The hall was festively decorated with pumpkins and jack o' lanterns. He didn't take much notice of it; instead he quickly sat down next to Harry at the Gryffindor table and grabbed a slice of bacon.
"You almost missed breakfast, Ron." Hermione said, barely looking up from her books.
"He must have been having an interesting dream…" Harry stated archly.
Ron felt his face heat up. He threw Harry a contemptuous glance and piled eggs and bacon and toast onto his plate, and then started to eat very quickly.
"Ron, you're going to give yourself a stomach ache." Hermione said. He darted a glance at her, feeling his ears redden. She had stopped reading and was starting at him, a frown creasing her features.
"I'm fine." He said, his voice cracking. He heard Seamus snigger. His voice couldn't pick an octave, and it was getting really annoying; it seemed to crack only when it was timed perfectly to continue embarrassing him further. He looked down at his plate again, taking a big gulp of eggs.
"Well, I'm going to get to class." Hermione stood, putting her books away.
"So what were you dreaming about it?" Seamus asked, grinning.
Hermione rolled her eyes, and walked away. Ron's eyes followed her across the room. When she passed through the doors, he grabbed a pumpkin tart of a platter, and took a bite.
"None of your business, you git. And what do you care for, anyways?" said Ron.
"Just curious, that's all." Seamus laughed.
"Dreams don't mean anything." Neville stated.
Everyone turned to Neville, who started to blush slightly.
"They don't. My gram said so."
"Well if your gramsaid so." Seamus laughed.
"Professor Trelawney says–" interjected Lavender, who had overheard the conversation, and was eagerly leaning forward on the table, towards them.
"Well, I agree with Neville and his gram." Ron stood, grabbing another pumpkin tart for the road, and looked down at Harry. "You coming? We've got double Potions this morning."
Ron sat down next to Hermione in Potions. She already had parchment and a quill out, copying down today's potion, "Patefacio Portavi Praeteritus".
"Pate…Facc.." Ron sounded out. He hated Latin.
"Patefacio Portavi Praeteritus."Hermione said, turning to smile at him. That rather stunned him. "It is a potion that opens a portal-" She stopped mid-sentence, and pointed to the corner of her mouth. "You've got pumpkin tart crumbs right here."
When he didn't immediately react, she reached up and brushed the crumbs away herself. When she seemed to realize what she was doing, she blushed, and turned back towards her parchment.
Ron's face was tingling. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed. Malfoy was sitting just a few rows back, but he was busy telling some story to Crabbe and Goyle. He turned to face front. Harry was copying down the directions, seemingly wrapped up in that activity.
"Class." Professor Snape breezed into the dungeon, setting down a large bundle of what looked like sage leaves on his desk. "I'm glad you're all on time. This is a lengthy potion, and we will need the entire time to prepare it. The instructions were on the board; hopefully you have already copied them down."
Snape whipped his wand out and waved it at the board, "Vappario!"and the board cleared. "Now, get started if you want to finish before the end of class. You have two and a half hours."
Ron looked down at his blank parchment. Bloody hell!
Hermione leaned over, and whispered in his ear, "You can copy the directions off my parchment." She smelled like pumpkin juice. He turned towards her quickly and bumped into her nose. Her breath on his ear had caused fire to race along his nerve endings. She backed away, blushing furiously.
"Weasley. Granger." Snape was standing in front of their desk, glaring down at them. They looked up guiltily. "5 points from Gryffindor. Would you two like a private moment to finish? Or are you ready to continue the lesson?"
He could hear Malfoy and his cronies laughing behind them.
"We're ready, Professor Snape." Hermione stated primly, lining up her ingredients, but making sure her instruction parchment was laying flat out on the desk, within easy reading distance for Ron.
"Good." Snape walked back to his desk.
Ron sighed as he filled up his vile with the Patefacio Portavi Praeteritus potion and turned it in to Professor Snape for grading. His was an odd orange color, and he had the nagging suspicion he forgot a vital component. However, his was better than Neville's, who's potion had been a thick, chunky brown color. But that wasn't saying much.
He walked to Transfiguration class with Harry and Hermione, lost in his thoughts. He'd liked Hermione for ever, but lately it was just worse. I mean, he'd always thought she was great. Really smart, interesting, fun (mostly), and could even almost beat him at wizard chess. But lately, he couldn't even think around her. The funniest things would set him off, and his trousers would get very tight. He was lucky they had to wear their robes to school, because they were great at covering things.
His glance slide down to the top of her head, where she walked next to him. She was talking about something to Harry. Probably homework.
"I can't believe Snape assigned two feet of parchment on the uses of Sage in potions on Halloween." Harry griped.
"It's really not that hard of an assignment, when you think about it Harry. We've been studying Sage since 1st year and I can think of at least-" Harry interrupted Hermione.
"I don't care, Hermione. It's Halloween!"Harry looked to Ron. "Right?"
Ron glanced between them. "Um, yeah. Right. Snape is a bloody git." He hadn't been paying attention, but that was always a good answer.
Hermione sighed loudly.
The afternoon's double Transfiguration class was a disaster. McGonagall wasn't a bad sort, and her class was usually fun. But Ron was having the hardest time concentrating on the lesson because Hermione's robes had parted on the side when she sat down, and he could see her legs.
Of course, he'd seen them before. Dozens of times. He couldn't stop sneaking glances at them. They were so long and smooth and surprisingly tanned. Then he remembered that she had gone on a vacation to the south of France with her parents during the summer holiday. That led to thoughts of where elseshe was tanned. Which reminded him of his dream this morning.
Soon he couldn't concentrate on turning his rock into ashes. And he couldn't even think why he would wantto turn a rock into ashes.
Hermione glanced over at him, and saw that he was getting no where with the spell. She scooted closer.
"You need to flick your wrist more." She took hold of his wrist and guided the movement gently. He gulped and tried to concentrate. But he couldn't remember the words.
"Cinis cineris…" Hermione prompted, looking at him expectantly.
"Cinis cineris." He said without much enthusiasm. Hermione sighed.
"Are you even going to try, Ronald?" said Hermione exasperated.
"What?" His voice cracked. He could hear Seamus sniggering a few desks away. "I am trying. Besides, when would I everneed to turn a rock into ashes?"
"Humph." Hermione turned back to her rock. "If that's how you feel about it." She held her wand in her right hand, flicked it, and said, "Cinis cineris!" and her rock was instantly a neat little pile of ashes. She smiled briefly to herself.
Ron looked over at Harry, who's rock was slowly crumbling into gravel. He looked at Neville who wasn't getting anywhere with his rock. He thought about how he wanted to be an Auror, and how he would need to pass this class. He sighed. There was still an hour left of class.
"Hermione, please, can you help me with this? I'm sorry I griped at you."
She turned back and smiled at him.
"It's really quite simple. I think you're getting it wrong because-"
It was a beautiful fall day, a fine day for Quiddich playing. However, he was in horrible form today. He let five quaffles score in the first 15 minutes. He couldn't seem to keep his mind on the game. When he would think about Hermione's hand touching his during Transfiguration, his body would start tingling, and the next thing he knew a damn quaffle was sailing right past him!
By the end of practice, Ron was exhausted and frustrated. He landed and stalked into the shower room, ignoring Harry's look. He didn't need anyone to tell him that he was bloody awful and they were going to loose to Ravenclaw during their next match, in two days time.
He knew Harry wanted to talk to him, which he should, as Harry was the new captain of the Gryffindor team. But Ron just couldn't deal with that right now. How does one explain that they're not concentrating on the game because they're thinking about their best-friend's tanned legs?
After Quiddich, Harry and Ron went to dinner in the Great Hall. There was a great feast of squash chowder, tarts, roast chicken, potatoes, corn, pumpkin pie, and chocolate pecan bars. Afterwards, there was even a special treat from Dumbledore; pints of butterbeer for everyone to enjoy.
Sipping his butterbeer slowly, and eating yet another slice of pumpkin pie, Ron turned to Harry, who was saying something.
"This was a pretty good Halloween, Ron. No trolls." Harry laughed.
"Except for double Potions, it was pretty good." Ron agreed. And Quidditch practice, he silently added.
Then he remembered. "Oh, bloody hell! I just remembered. We've got two feet to write for Snape." Ron said miserably.
He looked over at Hermione, who had her Charms book open on the desk, a fork with a bite of pie half way to her mouth. The candlelight was shining through her hair, and it looked like a halo around her. His mouth went dry.
Hermione seemed to realize what he had just said. "Oh, that's right." She closed her Charms text and smiled at Ron brightly. "I forgot about the Potions homework. I'm going to go up to the common room and get started on it. It shouldn't take too long." She looked at Ron and Harry. "Are you two coming?"
"It's Halloween, Hermione. Give it a break. Besides, it isn't due for two days!" Harry said.
"But I'll have homework tomorrow that I will need to do. Procrastination is-"
"Oh, stuff it, Hermione. Live a little!" Ron said a little too harshly. "Harry, did you want to play some wizard's chess?"
Hermione huffed and started to stand.
"Fine, Ronald, if you want to fail Potions and never amount to anything-"
Ron could feel himself flushing. Is that what she thought of him?
"Well, if you want to stick your nose in the books on a holiday and become a social pariah-"
"I am not a social pariah!" Hermione's face was getting red. "Although I'm glad your vocabulary is improving."
"I didn't say you were. I said-" Ron stumbled, trying to remember what he'd said. Why did he have this tendency to get so upset with Hermione and then say things that he didn't really mean? And what did she mean about his vocabulary? Did she think he was stupid?
"You didn't have to." She stood, grabbed her book bag, and left the Great Hall.
"That was classy." Harry sighed.
Ron sat there, biting his nails. His pie forgotten.
"C'mon Ron. Lets got play some chess."
Ron sat in the common room playing chess with Harry. His mind wasn't on the game. He kept looking over at Hermione who was sitting at a table by the fire. He sighed. She looked upset. That was his fault.
"Your turn." He hear Harry say. But he wasn't concentrating on him.
Hermione was looking down at her parchment, which must be mostly empty, because she hasn't been writing. She had been starting into the fire most of the night. He couldn't help but wonder if she was thinking about him. Was she really mad at him?
"Your turn, Ron." Harry said louder. Ron turned, glanced at the board and absentmindedly made a move. He turned back to see what Hermione was doing, and she was gone. He turned to glance at the entrance to the girls dormitory, and caught sight of her going up the stairs into her room.
"I'm going to call it a night, Harry. We can play some other time." Ron picked up his book bag and went up into the dorm.
He slowly undressed, and got into bed, regretting how the day had ended. Oh well, he'll apologize to Hermione tomorrow.