So once upon a time there was a stupid little plot bunny hopping through my mind... Did you ever wonder while reading what the heck one person would do with a bathroom as gigantic as the the Prefect's bathroom? Well, I did.
Anyway, it's set during Order of the Phoenix more or less. It might seem a little hokey or impractical in the beginning, but I swear it will all fall into place towards the end. So I was slightly disappointed that the fifth movie made no mention of Hermione and Ron as prefects, or of Ron playing Quiddich...so I made a point to make up for it. I apologize for typos, I tried to hunt them all down, but I could have failed. And I also apologize for the slightly fluffy nature of this piece, but that's the way I like it, so that's the way it will be. Enjoy!
For being his best friend, Ron found Harry's style as Quiddich captain to be a little more demanding than he had imagined. He didn't exactly expect him to go easy on him by any means, but when he was told he needed broken in as the team's new keeper, he didn't think he'd feel so…broken after the fact. He had done some practicing with Harry, Ginny, and Hermione at the Burrow during the summer, but his first day trying to hang in with the rest of the Gryffindor team was by far more difficult, and painful for that matter. He meant no disrespect to his sister and Hermione, but they had failed to prepare him properly. He had been hit with quaffles and occasional bludgers. He had fallen off his broom once and landed in a huge puddle of mud accompanied by a thump and a splash.
He dragged his broom and his practice gear up the stairs, tracking muddy footprints all the way up to the Prefect's bathroom. He didn't bother to drop off his stuff in his room before heading there. He was tired, absolutely filthy, and not to mention, he imagined he smelled rather similar to a few choice ingredients locked up in Snape's potions supply closet. He didn't know what it was, but it smelled quite foul yet familiar to him. He felt like his skin was crawling underneath the layer of sweat mixed with dirt which had accumulated. Taking a detour would only make the spider-like feeling worse.
When he got to the end of the carpeted hallway, he reached the doorway to one of his favorite rooms in all of Hogwarts. Harry had told him about it the year before, when Cedric had granted him access during the Tri-Wizard, but his description, he felt, didn't give it the justice it rightfully deserved. It was like something the king of England would have, a swimming pool size tub with golden faucets and stained glass windows. He had been accustomed to the tiny bathroom at the Burrow, the only bathroom for, at most, seven children occupying the house. He had to admit, one thing he enjoyed most about his new title as "prefect" was that fact that he was granted access of such a room. The telling younger children what's what got pretty irritating pretty fast, but the prefect's bathroom would always remain a good thing to him.
It was open only a crack, though he thought nothing of it as he anxiously pushed the door open. He turned to his right and dropped off his things immediately. He grimaced as he lifted his arms to stretch out. Man, he was definitely not like a bouquet of flowers. He slipped his shirt up and over his head revealing his toned stomach and the stressed muscles that resided in his upper arms and back. He couldn't help but catch a glimpse of himself in one of the many mirrors that lined the wall adjacent to him. Sure he hated today's practice, but with a few more he knew he'd be well on his way to compete with Viktor, or at least more so than he could have done previously. He had grown less pasty looking over the summer, degnoming the garden and spending time at the lake a short walk way from home, or was it simply the layer of Quiddich grime that had cast a tan hue upon his skin? He was going to throw the credit to the sun, simply because it sounded better to him. He'd already gotten taller and wasn't that just the kind of guy she liked; tall, fit, and slightly tanned? Sure, he still paled in comparison to his Bulgarian competition, but he knew that regardless, he could never make the game that close to call.
He didn't mean to fall in to the vanity of it all, but he just assumed that, considering she had known him for years and knew basically everything about him and he couldn't see how he could possibly change that; he could, however, improve his appearance and hope that maybe, just maybe she'd catch on somehow. He didn't think Hermione to be shallow. She was a smart girl and knew for a fact that there was more to look for in a person that a lovely outside, but he honestly couldn't understand what else in Krum drew Hermione to him. Sure, he was Ron's idol. Posters of the guy had adorned his walls back at home, but ever since he met him in person, some of his "magic" seemed to have disappeared. Some may claim that his impression was terribly biased, but the guy rarely spoke and had the dullest sense of humor he had ever stumbled upon. Ron wasn't the most brilliant person by any means, but something about Krum just screamed to him that he wasn't the brightest wand in the shop. Ron had always worried whether brilliant Hermione thought of him as too unintelligent for her taste, but then the next thing he knew, she was hanging on Krum's arm. It made no sense, if he knew Hermione at all.
He took one last purposeful glimpse in the mirror and it all struck him that he was just wasting his time. No matter what he did, it was, more likely than not, going to dig him a deeper hole rather than get him out of it. He was just Ron, best friend Ron, and that was how he would be eternally labeled. There was no changing to it. He could have, theoretically, buffed himself up beyond Viktor, he could say all the most polite, most flattering, most right phrases, and she wouldn't have taken a second look.
He turned around and wander closer the large pool, to begin running the water. He was just about to turn the knob when he glanced back to the tub and suddenly realized that it had already been drawn for him. It puzzled him. First of all, why would anyone actually make the effort to do it for him and if for some reason they had; how could they have known that he was planning to stop by that place that day at that time? He paused for a moment to take a lengthier look at the large room almost entirely taken up by this one water-filled hole in the floor. At the end, he noticed there to be a pile of school books stacked at the edge of the tub and a small framed girly haired girl sitting on the inside ledge in the shallow body of water.
It was Hermione; he could tell that much, but what he couldn't figure was why he hadn't noticed her presence sooner than now. She still seemed oblivious to his presence, not saying a word since he walked through the door. Ron, now noticing, would have expected to hear a scream. If anything, he thought that the girl in the tub would have taken more notice to the person barging in than the one doing the barging. He sensed something was terribly wrong.
He ran over to the other end of the tub to find her eyes closed and apparently unconscious. He knelt down on the tiled floor above her head, but he didn't know what to do first. Had she hit her head on the tile and knocked herself out, or had someone put a terribly spell on her purposely. He bent down towards the water and held his two fingers to her neck searching for a pulse. No sooner did he place a hand to her skin, and she nearly jumped straight out of the water. "Bloody hell….Ron!" She exclaimed as soon as it registered to her eyes who had disturbed her. "What do you think you are doing?" She scrambled to gather bubbles around her as Ron, as much of a gentleman he could be at the moment, turned his back on her as she was talking.
"What were you doing? I mean the door was…" He had a bad habit of wandering as he talked and soon found himself turning where he stood. He snapped his body back to face the other way once again, showing his frustration with her in the way he shouted with his hands. "It was open, so I just came in!"
He could hear her getting out of the water behind him. He tried to avert his mind from wandering through thoughts of which he knew she would be in great protest as she did so. "I fell asleep, okay!" He heard her footsteps slightly squish on the tiles as he sensed her moving towards him. "I was sitting there studying for my O.W.Ls and I fell asleep." She spoke as she appeared in front of him.
He raised his head cautiously, to find her wrapped in a towel all sopping wet, like Fang after his bath. He also noticed two thin black straps draped over either shoulders from underneath the terry cloth. She hadn't been in as much of a compromising position as he had previously thought. "You wear your swimsuit in the bathtub? Man, Hermione are that much of a…"
"I wasn't bathing." She answered bluntly, to the puzzled look upon Ron's face. "Hogwarts doesn't have a pool, so…when I feel like a little swimming, I come in here." Well, it kind of made sense, but in more a Luna way than a Hermione one. Though the more he thought of it the more logical it seemed. He knew how much she loved to go swimming during the summer at the Burrow, but she always had a problem with cold water. It took her forever to just jump right into the lake, unless he pulled or pushed her in of course. The lake on grounds wasn't allowed for swimming and even if it was, at this time during the year, it would have been too cold for her leisure. Sure, it sounded a bit out there, but what else would you do to make use of a pool-sized bathtub?
"So why did you bring your books?" As soon as the words slipped from his mouth, he knew it was a rather stupid question. This was Hermione. Hermione and books went hand in hand, especially when the OWLs were quickly approaching.
"Trying a new studying atmosphere…the common room was too chatty." She pulled the towel closer around her body, suddenly growing more self conscious. Goosebumps were beginning to form on her damp skin left uncovered. She normally wasn't so jittery around Ron. He was her best friend and if she was comfortable around anyone, it was him. She just didn't appreciate being startled in such a location.
She wandered back over to her stack of books, kicking herself for falling asleep for who knew how long when she could have used it productively to cram more little spells and charms into her over crowded mind. The exams were in two weeks and her time was quickly slipping past her unused. She sat down on the ledge, her legs dangling in the still soapy water below, with her defensive spells book opened on her lap and her scarlet and gold towel resting lifelessly on the floor. "What are you doing?" She heard him ask from somewhere near the stained glass windows lit up behind her.
She didn't part her eyes from the text as she answered him impatiently. "I'm studying, Ron. What does it look like?" She moved her feet in a circular motion through the bubbly solution in which they were immersed as she continued to absorb information.
"Well, you can study in the common room…I can not, however, bathe there. So I was hoping you'd leave." He spoke close to her ear as he crouched down beside her. He assumed that it was the only way to get his words to register to her over the "facts about Patronus charms".
She responded in a relayed manner, appearing rather perturbed, sighing audibly, and being slow to rid herself from the room. In fact she hadn't moved but an inch when she saw and then heard him hurriedly fight with his belt and leave his jeans behind when he jumped in, nearly drenching her books in the process. She snapped her book closed suddenly.
He waded closer to her, parting the communal suds that floated together across the surface like the Red Sea as he moved. He came to stop as soon as he reached where she still remained perched. "Look at me…" He ran both of his hands through his hair. Though he hadn't drenched his ginger locks as he did with Hermione, the strands still stood up straight upon his head as he let them go. "I'm filthy and in need of some hardcore cleaning." He shook his head a handful of times and the spiked up strands of hair fell flat. He took a step or two further in her direction, placing himself conveniently with one of her legs dangling over the rim of the pool on either side of him form. His height, when compared to the floor, matched that of Hermione's when she sat in front of him. "Or you could always set your books down and join me?"
A smirk grew on his face as he watched her place the textbook she had held in her hand carefully on top of the insanely thick pile at her side. No sooner had she done so, he realized that she had only done so to give herself a free hand when she attempted to slap him upside the head. Luckily his reflexes were still on heightened alert from practice and he ducked quickly to the side missing it unlike the quaffle he had met in the same manner just earlier that day.
He read into the expression upon her face of what he thought to be a slightly smile, a subconscious one, one that she wasn't aware she was wearing, but that something inside her prompted it to appear. It was a risky move, but he thought, somehow, that he could pull it off successfully. Banking on his tricky reflexes, he quickly seized her form at the waist and tugged her into the water with him. "Swimming, 'Mione! Join me swimming. It sounds like more fun." He spoke in a downward direction to where she stood slightly below his height.
He couldn't help but to notice, has he still stood with his arms, tired and worn, looped around her narrow waist that the swimming attire which she had chosen to wear today was considerably different from that of their summer days spent at the lake. It was plain black just the same, though this particular garment consisted of far less fabric. Where as the one he had seen before had been exceedingly modest, this one dipped lower in the front, was nearly bare in the back, and split into distinct pieces in the middle baring her midriff. Apparently she had assumed that she wouldn't be seeing anyone while wearing it. He had to focus his mind carefully, guiding it away from where he knew it would wander if was left dangerously unattended.
Hermione was a smart girl; that was common knowledge. Everyone knew it, but, for them, that was the only thing that they could see. She was the girl most eager to raise her hand in class, the know-it-all, the one with her nose eternally buried in a book. She had begun to think the same way about herself; she was the "geeky girl" and there was no way that she could get around that. But Ron knew that there was far more to her than that; he just wished that she could see the same things in herself. Not only was she the most brilliant girl in their year, the most brilliant in all the people he had ever met for that matter, but she was beautiful in all ways he saw possible. Even though he couldn't fully understand her attempts of the S.P.E.W campaign, he could respect the passion she had for doing what she felt was the right thing regardless of whether people would listen to her or not. The amount of compassion she had, he knew he could never possess himself, yet at the same time, he loved how she could hold her own with guys like Malfoy, often managing to nearly break their noses in the process.
On a superficial level, which he couldn't help but perceive, he loved the way her curls misbehaved and spiraled wildly in all directions. He loved her porcelain skin, although pale, but perfect. Despite their constant quarrels and fiery words exchanged, her honey eyes never could turn cold on him, though how desperately she wanted them to show such. She was a typically modest girl, never showing too much of herself, nothing in bad taste, and nothing more than she felt was necessary. He felt bad allowing his eyes to wander across the area of her skin that rarely saw sunlight, but he just couldn't stop as the moving water lapped up at her bare waist.
He snapped back to what was going on outside of his own mind when a big splash of water met with his face followed by Hermione's laugh to which he had grown rather accustom. "What was that for?" He asked, causing a wave of retaliation to crash her way.
She didn't answer, but escaped him to the other side of the pool, only for him to follow closely behind. She knew that he mostly likely would so she was prepared for when she caught up with her. She jumped towards him, pouncing much like Crookshanks, on to his shoulders and tried with all her might, all of the strength that she could muster, to tackle him off of his feet and into the water, more so than he already was, but she failed miserably as he sill stood sturdy on his feet, all of her weight clinging to his shoulders.
"What are you trying to do?" He shook his head as she let him go defeated, but in a manner that she wouldn't admit that it had occurred. He couldn't help but let a short laugh slip from his smirk. "You can't outsmart me every time, you know."
She simply stared back at him with a hint of a scowl. "I know…The Daily Prophet will be knocking down my door for the headliner." He attempted a backstroke across the water as he held her recent failure over his head. He wasn't much good at it, however. He had a hard time staying afloat, and after a few short stokes, he felt his feet sinking to the bottom, along with the rest of himself which soon followed. He sputtered the soapy tasting water from his mouth as he returned to his feet a few feet away from her.
She had noticed a while bad that Ron had a real talent for making an utter fool of himself. He could have been going well for the longest time, and the next thing either of them knew, something stupid would fly untamed out of his big mouth or he'd trip over his own feet and any façade that he had managed to build up came crashing down. But she had to admit, she liked the Ron left in the wreckage of all the perfection he had clumsily dropped. She found his awkward nature one of the most endearing qualities of which he was completely oblivious. In situations such as this, she couldn't help but stand back and watch with a shy smile. "Shouldn't you be studying too? I haven't seen you crack a book all week." She spoke, but still kept her distance.
He leaned his weight back against the opposite side of the pool before he had any sort of response to give her. "You and I just work differently. You stress yourself out studying like mad…and I just take it a little easier, you know, nice entertaining breaks in between…" He folded his arms across his half dried off chest.
"So this in one of your 'entertaining breaks', is it?"
He looked around the room as if he was searching for something specific, in the room containing them or some though lost in the corner of his mind. "Oh, yes…you have no idea. You should try it, really." He laughed with squinted eyes.
As her eyes closed, her smile widened. She moved closer to him, blinded, with her arms outstretched before her, feeling for where he might be. "Godric!"
He snorted back a loud laugh before exclaiming, "Gryffindor!" and diving to his right, trying his best to make the least amount of noise as was possible to throw her off of his trail. It was just like the burrow, where he had first learned the silly little children's game. When she first introduced the concept to him, he was instantly confused as who this Marco Polo guy was. He had never heard of him before, never read about him in any history books in school. If he could remember correctly, he thought that marco had to have been some kind of spell she had discovered, and polo, the counter spell as he heard Harry say it;it was all so foreign. They then decided that it was best to be renamed for their house founder instead of some random muggle name.
She proved to be good at it too, like she had a sixth sense of sorts. She could hear every bit of movement made, every stifled snicker spilled. Perhaps that's why she was so quick when it came to defensive spells. They were used to turning to the child's game when they found themselves bored during summer and if she was capable of catching him quickly given the vast place to be found in the lake, the prefect's bathtub, although gigantic, was going to be far easier for her. He didn't have far to escape. "Godric!" She was too close to him for him to respond with any sound or she would have pinpointed his location in a second. He tired to veer off to the left, but she had caught him against the side of the shallow pool.
She opened her eyes again to find that she had him trapped cleverly between her hands that gripped the edge of pool on either side of him, giving him no where to be except right where he had found himself standing then. "Gryffindor?" He answered, though moments too late. He didn't know what to do with his hands, as they had been floating in air the moment she had stopped him from moving, so he let them rest slung around her bare shoulders. Though he hadn't consciously planned it, it had been a clever side affect that she had shifted her weight closer to where his legs held him upright. Her fingers traveled to his sides that had been plagued with tiny bubbles that had fled the water to cling to him just as she had.
A moment of complete silence was held between the two of them as the stood in growing proximity of each other. Though she could move away any moment, unlike Ron, she felt frozen there, seized by the look swimming in his eyes. She could feel the tension floating between them, but she was lost as to what to do. She could feel his heart increase in rhythm through her palms at his back the longer she stayed in his presence.
She moved closer and his breath hitched in his chest. "There goes your headline." He could feel her warm breath dance upon his neck and then fade away as she paused.
He let the pent up exhalations escape from his lungs before he spoke as a way to refocus himself before he began. "At least I won't have to deal with Rita banging down my door." He nervously laughed through his words.
"Speaking of that…did you lock the door?" He could feel her words reverberate against his lips, she was so close to him.
"Ron! Did you lock the door?" He heard Hermione scream through the door as he awoke in his room. He sat up, lifting his head up off of his desk, leaving a wet spot on the wood surface where his open, likely snoring, mouth had rested. He squinted his eyes to the light peering in through the curtains as Hermione aloramora-ed his door before he could get up to open it himself. Frick…it had only been a dream.
She took in every aspect of the room as she entered; the piles of books just like hers opened and sprawled across his desk, his shabby appearance, the hair that stood up on his head. "You actually were studying? I thought you just locked yourself in so I couldn't bug you to open a book or two." She spoke genuinely surprised as she took a seat at the end of his bed, across from where he still sat sleepily on his desk chair.
He looked up at her, rubbing his eyes. "Well, I tried…and then I got a little distracted."
"By sleep?" She questioned as her eyes followed his steps which ultimately led to her. The mattress dipped slightly as he added his weight to it beside her.
"I guess you could say that…" He answered with a sheepish grin, knowing all that he had seen resided safely within his own memory.
She watched him let out a rather large yawn before she spoke again, hoping that he was awake enough to comprehend her words. "So, a few of us are going to Hogsmeade. I thoughtwe could use a break….if you want to go that is?"
He shook his head and she looked concerned, until he spoke up again. "Are you okay?" He raised a hand to her forehead to prove his point. "You want to get away from the books and you're actually questioning whether I would like to or not?" Sure he had tried to increase his study time as a way to please or impress her and her bookworm way, but he hadn't left all of his procrastination habits behind him.
"Hey, didn't you ever think I might just feel like living on the wild side?" She asked him, a serious expression masking her face.
"Honestly…no." He answered bluntly.
"Well, for your information…" She jumped up from her seat and grabbed him tightly by the arm, egging him to get up and go with her. "I'm feeling a little change might be needed. Now, come on…there is a cup of tea at Madam Puddifoot's with my name written all over it!"
He didn't need her to ask twice. He stood up, threw on a jacket and attempted to force his hair to lay flat. When it refused, he gave up and followed behind her, a certain spring in his step that he hadn't possessed until now.
He knew he had barely passed divination, but he was certainly hoping that his latest 'vision' held some strand of truth when it came to what the future held for him. It had to, it just did! How often did Hermione say that she'd rather do anything other than study when she had something like her OWLs in the next week? Never, until now at least. Sure, it had been far fetched. Never in a million years would real life play out for him as it had in his dreams. He'd never find himself sharing the Prefect's bathtub with her. Merlin, no! But it made him that much more optimistic that something far more realistic could occur in its place.
Something was different with Hermione, obviously, but what exactly had prompted the sudden change in character, he didn't yet know. She was away from the books and knocking at his door. Even more so, she had become perfectly fine with going against the rules. She was plotting against Umbridge and speaking out in class, and now by passing a Saturday of study time. If things were going anywhere, they were moving in his favor.
As she linked arms with his to hurry him out the door and down the stairwell, he couldn't help but hope that all of his prophesizing was correct, that this new Hermione could, maybe, possibly, if he was really lucky,have an eye for a guy like Ron Weasley after all.
So I'm thinking of adding another chapter or two to follow this, but I'm not sure in what direction to take it just yet.
Reviews make me happy, so remember that and tell me what you think.