Orange

A/N: Ok. Just a random contribution to the world of Harry Potter fanfiction. A friend of mine gave me the prompt Orange when we were very, very bored in economics. Except she was looking at the fluorescent orange of her highlighters. Oh well, I interpreted it my way. So anyway, this is what I came up with…

The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. There was only one conclusion she could ever come to. Ron equalled orange. Every fibre that he was made of, every second of his past, present and his future. It was all orange.

It was the base of her very first memory of him. She had been frantically searching the Hogwarts train with a helpless boy in tow, wailing about his misplaced toad. And then she had seen him, through the sliding glass doors of the cabin, his cheeks bulging with half-eaten food. His hair was burning orange in the weak sunlight. It was a sensory overload for Hermione, as the blinding shade caught her eye. Never before had she seen such a strong colour.

Years passed, and it seemed that everything seemed to change. Their lives, their world, their feelings. Everything they knew was turned upside down in a matter of months, and before they knew it, she was almost seventeen, and they had grown up so much in that time. She was thinner, her hair was longer, and she sadly wasn't all that taller, though he had shot up further than she thought humanly possible, his frame, leaner and lankier, his hair, shaggy, falling to his collar.

There were stolen moments of peace, where they would just be. All four of them, Ginny, Harry, Ron and her. There were moments by the lake in particular that stood out in her memory. Those moments as they sat on the bank, their bare feet dipped into the glistening lake, as the sun slunk below the rolling hills beyond. A gentle auburn glow dusted his face, highlighting and capturing the laughter written on it, a moment forever frozen in her mind. Orange was there the first time she ever felt love.

And that night he disappeared from their makeshift home. The pale moonlight, bright on his alabaster skin, the great light catching in his hair, bringing his fiery locks to a softer colour than she ever remembered before. Their eyes met as he swept out of the tent and in the weeks to follow, orange was the only thing that kept her breathing.

Their lives quietened after a harsh battle, where they lost more than they could comprehend. At the many funerals they attended, she watched him from afar, upholding her promise to give him time. His face was pale, and his bright hair, contrasting almost obscenely against the black, sombre expression he carried. Orange was the only thing that made her fight to survive through that cold bitter winter.

But spring came around again, like it always does, and it seemed like he had woken up, from a dark, and depressing hibernation. He was filled with a new energy and he was the same as the man she had fallen for so, so long ago. Their lives were thrown together, once again, finally after almost a decade of friendship and on their first date, orange returned. Orange was everywhere that night, from the vegetables that his mother had to cook for him, to the flickering glow, of the candles burning between them.

And from then on, it seemed that the colour was omnipresent in their lives. From the day they moved in together and her disgust dissolving into fits of giggly hysterics at the precise shade of pumpkin splashed on their new kitchen walls. To the day he proposed, his bright Chudley Cannon robes billowing behind him, as he sprinted across the lush field and into her arms after a game.

Orange, it seemed, followed them everything they went, even to the sharp colour of the leaves, swirling around her snowy white dress as she glided up the aisle to him. Orange was the first thing she saw as her veil was flipped back at her fairytale autumn wedding.

Orange was also the peculiar shade that Ron's delicate skin turned after a few hours of lying in the sun in Majorca, causing them to spend the rest of their honeymoon inside their hotel, Hermione pressing a cool cloth to his burning face.

The sun was burning a fierce, fiery amber in the sky, on the hottest day ever recorded, as she screamed and groaned, her husband dancing around the room despite her warnings that she would rip his head off if his didn't get out. Sweat beaded on her forehead, from the heat of the great orange light, as her first child's scream erupted into the thick summer air.

Bright tawny flowers lined the pebbled trail as their auburn headed baby took her first stumbling steps along garden path towards her kneeling mother, away from her grinning father's clutch.

It was the amber glow of the dying fire that reminded Hermione most strongly of Rose's first Christmas. The bustle of two year old James Potter, practicing new found his running skills, Teddy, of eight, with newly acquired magical abilities, still unpredictable and wild and Rose and Albus crawling and walking around precariously ensured that all of the extended, adult, Weasley family were kept on their toes. The image of the glow of the fading embers in the fireplace, dusting an orange glow on her daughter's face, the heat turning her chubby cheeks a rosy red would be one frozen in Hermione's memory forever. The falling snow outside, cast moving shadows on the baby's face, as she giggled and clapped cheerfully, supporting the frivolities of wrapping paper completely.

Hermione smiled, still lost in thought. Her hands rested on her swollen stomach, as the growing baby kicked at her. Excited yelps floated through the open window from somewhere downstairs in their sprawling garden. Hermione extended her upper body, craning so she could see down into the rolling fields of grass.

Her bright haired husband was running around, chasing after their orange haired daughter, who was moving as fast her short, little legs would take her. Ron caught her, slinging his pride and joy into his arms, lifting an infectious laugh from them both.

Hermione chuckled. Orange was Ron's whole existence. It was the colour of his team, his family, and his life. It was everything to him and it was the one thing that had always being constant in his life. Orange was in his blood. It was his past, present and his future. Hermione knew, that it was now, forever ingrained in her life too. It was her favourite colour.

Random plug time. I'm offering my excellent (I wish) services for beta-reading, so if you want a beta-reader feel free to request me! I'll probably accept.

Anyway, love it or hate it, please review!