Frozen Memories
A collective series of R/H moments
Some moments, even the simplest of everyday occurrences, can make an imprint in your mind forever. And you can never seem to melt those memories eternally frozen in time, those simple things that made the difference.
(A/N) Hey guys! This is the second instalment to my wonderful one-shot series! Yay! I really like this one because I can relate to it so well. Not in all manners but in pieces of it. I hope you enjoy it too. It's pretty surprising actually and I tend to like it. Well happy reading all. And please take the time to review afterwards. It would be really nice of you and I'd love you forever for it! Thanks again!
Love from Lizzie
(Disclaimer) If I was JK Rowling, I'm pretty sure my agents would be tearing my head off for even trying to post fanfiction on the internet.
…So I'm not In case you're still not sure.
2nd in a series of consecutive one-shots
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One Shoeless Morning
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I thought it would have been just like any other day, normal, boring, yada, yada. Well just about as normal and boring as every other day here at Hogwarts anyway. But obviously I wouldn't have said that if it was only a normal boring day, and yes, I have to say, for the most part, it most definitely wasn't. It was horrible! Absolutely horrible
The morning started off normally, thank you Merlin! Otherwise I don't think I would have left my nice, soft, fluffy sheets to come soak myself in this hellhole. No I would have casually rolled over in my warm comfort zone and casually fell back asleep. Lavender and Parvati might have questioned what exactly it was that I was doing, but I'd simply say that I wasn't "feeling too well". They'd get the hint eventually and leave me alone.
Well today was, most grievous. Usually it seems that when one's hormones are unbalanced, like mine were undoubtedly, everything else in the world always seems to go shifting along with it. I'm sure almost everyone can relate to me when I mention one of those days. For example, when you can't help yourself but burst out in tears for every little thing that bugs you. Or maybe, sometimes, you just hold in every emotion, rage, love, happiness, or depression, all bundled up inside of you until the very last minute where you then explode in tears. Or sometimes, you just seem to need to cry for no reason at all. Yeah today was one of those days, not more or less like any of those examples above more than the other. Just a horribly abnormal, crying day.
I woke up early despite how I felt and rolled off the bed, my hair a mess and little red sleep lines all across my face. I had to drag myself over to the closet and I grudgingly pulled on my blouse, followed by the vest, then the skirt, then my navy bloomers, and finally my only pair of clean socks that were a little overstretched.
I trudged across the carpet dragging my socked feet on the rug so that in hope the static electricity would energize me in some way or another, and then I sat myself, most half-heartedly, down on the floor near my trunk. I dug through the books and books and more books, all the way down to my extra Muggle clothes for Hogsmeade days, searching and searching for my shoes. Where in bloody hell had I left them? They were usually on top of all this rubbish. Then I realized what I had just thought to myself and scolded myself for swearing.
I stood up and threw my hands on my hips and cocked my leg a little to the side, finding no better way to make me feel as if I was really solving the matter. I half jogged back over to my closet again and threw out every last pair of those thousands of meaningless shoes the other girls had in their wardrobe and found myself staring at an empty floor.
This could not be happening. One pair of shoes could not be that hard to find. And it's not as if they were ever moved from their spot at the top of my pile in the trunk.
The watch on my wrist kept ticking away and I knew the time was running short. Breakfast was almost over and I had already been late for Herbology this week because of my meeting with Professor Vector. If I missed this class, I'd have no choice but to be given detention.
I gulped…loudly. I, Hermione Jane Granger, would never be given a detention! It happened before, it wasn't happening again, period!
I looked down at my socked feet and sighed. I had to find those shoes and NOW!
But that damned watch kept spinning and the time kept running short. I looked in every cranny to the very last place I ever though my shoes might be kept- behind my pillow- and everywhere else…TWICE! But still nothing.
And before I knew it, I was racing down the halls and across the cold stone floor my feet sliding across it's worn down stones. I took a wrong turn somewhere in the middle, panicked, skidded to a stop by running headlong into a wall, and then took about fifteen minutes to retrace my path. But before long I could feel the wet lawn with nothing but my little white socks to cover my toes. Oh how I hated it.
I rushed into class with the last of the stragglers who I always sneered at for taking their precious time to get here. But now I was one of them. I couldn't believe it! But I had made it on time, at the least.
That was about the only good thing that happened to me that morning before Herbology class. I think one of my socks had started sliding slowly from my foot as I raced across the grass outside as all stretched-out socks normally did. Either that or someone must have stepped on my toes while I was walking, and I didn't have time to notice before it happened. Either way, when I tried squeezing my way from the crowd of students gathered at the door, my sock got caught underneath someone's shoes when I wasn't looking down at my feet, and fell, I did. All the way down and flat on my face.
At first no one seemed to notice, but then once the "tripper" caught sight of me and began to bellow out in roaring gasps of what I believe was laughter, all the roaring started. I stood up though very shamefully and tried to casually brush off the front of my robes without looking as shaken up as I felt. I pulled my sock back on all the way and stormed, my head held high, over beside Ron on Harry's left side.
The laughter subsided eventually and everyone settled in his or her usual places.
"Where've you been?" Ron whispered at me accusingly, a smug grin on his face. If I had been any less than in love with that cursed boy I would have murdered him right then and there.
"That's none of your business, Ron!" I whispered back, but mine was a bit more dangerous than his.
He shook his head at me and grinned before turning back to the board. That small grin. I sighed. That was all that I needed to melt my chocolate.
Professor Sprout began giving us instructions about how to handle the Pequin Ferniculus, something I had learned to do over the summer, when Ron's head whipped back over to me. He questioned my eyes intently with a surprised look on his face then looked down at my feet. Oh, Merlin!
"Um, Hermione…" Ron leaned in and placed his lips next to my ear, and whispered ever so softly, "You don't have any shoes on."
If I could have blushed any harder, I would have. But I had been blushing so hard since Ron had locked eyes with me and then with the sound of his voice so near to me, it was kind of hard to blush any further.
I gagged on my breath instead but I tried to sound as normal as possible when I finally decided to open my mouth once more. The result was a very sharp squeak. "I know that, Ron. You think I don't know that? The ground is still damp outside and my socks are covered in a cake of mud! I know very clearly I don't have any shoes on!"
"Mrs. Granger, is Mr. Weasley bothering you?" Professor Sprout asked suddenly and Ron spun back around in his place. Harry looked over and smiled at us sarcastically before rolling his eyes.
"No, Professor, it's quite alright. Ron was just explaining to me what we were about to be covering," I said knowing full well of the lie slipping from my tongue. I never lied to a professor. Well maybe a few times, but not normally.
Ron looked at me skeptically from the corner of his eyes but didn't say a word. He seemed to be focused more on trying to look innocent.
"Well…all right, then." the Professor nodded in my direction a quizzical look on her face, but she didn't say any more about the matter. Instead she went back to her lesson again, the one I hadn't listened to a word of.
Ron grabbed up his knife and began to cut up the salmon roots they had all been told to chop up. I grabbed up my own and started in the same manner as he did but I forced the root up into smaller pieces than was needed due to my own anger management problem.
"So you've walked around all day without your shoes?"
I rolled my eyes. Honestly had he nothing else to worry about?
"Yes, Ron."
"You lost them or something?"
Sure did seem like it!
"Yes…"
"Did you find them?"
This is getting really annoying!
"Undoubtedly not!"
"So…that's why you skipped breakfast?"
I slammed my knife down so hard that Lavender on my other side jumped and gave a short squeal. I shoved my face under Ron's nose and stared up at him forcefully. I could see him shaking in his skin at my death stare.
"Yes, Ron! That's why I skipped breakfast! I'm starving, because I lost my shoes and had to take my time in order find them. That is why I skipped breakfast! Are you satisfied now?"
Ron made an odd sound in his throat, but didn't ask anything else while he chopped up the remainder of his roots.
I didn't mean to sound so harsh, really I didn't. But the dampness of my socks and feet seemed to dampen my heart as well, and, really, I didn't want anyone questioning me anymore. I just wanted the rest of my glorious day to finally end up being nice and quiet.
A finger tapped my left arm. I closed my eyes and prayed she'd just go away.
"Yes, Lavender? You needed something?" I asked in the sweetest voice I could manage. The fact was, I just wanted to bite her head off. That would have given me so much joy and satisfaction for the moment!
"Um, I need your homework!" Lavender rolled her eyes as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "We're all passing it down to the Professor…right now!" A sarcastic smile blazed on Lavender's lips and it took all my will power not to slap it off of her makeup-plastered face.
But wait a second… homework?
I looked down at my feet and then I realized it. My homework, my books, my book bag, they were all upstairs right next to my trunk, just where I left them. I closed my eyes and opened them again praying it was only a dream. Please be a nightmare. Please just let me wake up!
"Hermione! I need your homework!"
I snapped my face at Lavender and felt like cursing her and that irritating look she was giving me now into a million pieces. If only I could have studied a spell to dismember her face I so would have!
"I don't have it," I groaned wanting more than anything to shove my five-foot long essay under her nose and brag about how much of a better grade I was going to make. But then I must have forgotten what day it was.
I turned to Ron and picked up both his and Harry's homework and handed them to Lavender to pass up the Professor Sprout. Lavender looked curtly over at me again and waved her eyes down to my feet then up to my hair, which I had hardly brushed at all.
"You know," she started, putting her knife down and turning to face me directly. "If you hadn't stayed up all night, you'd probably have your homework done. But as you were wasting the whole night playing chess with you little so-called friend here," she nodded at Ron. "…Well we can all see it isn't done. Maybe you should organize your time just a little bit better, don't you think? And stop wasting you time trying to get something you just can't have."
She turned away from me again, that smug smile on her face. My blood was bubbling all the way down to my toes. My skin was practically pulsating. I turned to Ron and handed him my knife just to make sure I didn't stab the wench. If I did that I'd have to do time for murder and I don't think that would look to good on my job applications.
I turned to Lavender and pointed a threatening finger directly in her face, but before I could slash a single syllable, Ron jumped in.
"Hey, Lavender!"
Lavender turned and smiled a goofy lopsided grin. "Yes, Ron?" she said so sweetly it made me gag inwardly. She was such a fake it was pitiful.
"You lay off Hermione! She hasn't done anything to you that would give you reason to talk to her like that! And if you know what's good for you, you'd shut it right now!"
I watched the concentration in Ron's eyes and the reign of emotion on his face, all the passion in what he said, I thought I might up and kiss him right there. He looked so intense.
Lavender blinked a few times without taking her eyes off of Ron. "But I wasn't insulting her. I was just telling her what she was doing wrong. After all, she's been acting very reckless in her classes lately and I'm scared her class rank might fall behind me." She smiled greatly and tipped her head at me.
That was it.
"You know what, Lavender!" I pushed Ron gently to the side and stepped into her face. The whole of the green house turned my way and they all seemed to be watching now with nothing short of awe. "You will never be better than me at anything! You must be insane if you really think I'd let you, of all people, get ahead of me in any class. For your information, I finished my homework last night, but I decided to spend a little bit of time with my friends afterwards because we actually have things to do with each other. Undoubtedly, unlike you. Are you really all that bored that you have to weasel your way into my life?! That's really sad if you do! But you are not going to insult me to my face! You can eat dung, Lavender Brown, because you will never offend me like that again!"
And then I did what I had never expected myself to ever do. I gabbed a handful of potting manure and shove the entirety into her face and then smeared it in her blonde hair leaving a nice streak all the way through. I knew it would take a while for her to get it out all the way and I was so bloody proud.
Lavender screamed bloody murder and began to jump around in place trying to shake the soil from herself. I smiled at her with a very satisfactory grin and then turned back to Ron hoping to see the equal satisfaction from him as well. The first thing I noticed however when I looked at him was not exactly the thing I wanted to see. His moth was opened wide with shock and both his blue eyes were wide and staring at me in absolute disbelief. Harry was standing behind him with almost the exact same expression. And then looking around the class at all the terribly shocked faces, I finally realized exactly what it was I had done. I pushed myself past Lavender and did the only logical thing I could think of. I ran as fast as my bloody feet enabled my to do.
My socks slid across the grass and hardly made any noise at all. I had no idea where I was going. And I didn't know where I was planning to go, now that I understood I had no idea where I was going. All I knew was that I was going.
My legs were beginning to feel weak and I realized it was because I had been crying all that time. I can't even remember to this day when it was that I actually started crying. I just know that I did. No, scratch that. I sobbed. Tears poured down my face as I stumbled as fast as I was enabled to do. I flew into the oak front door and had to throw my hands out in front of me to keep from smashing into it. I jerked on the handle and the door flew open gushing wind into my face. I gathered myself up and ran into the Entrance Hall letting my feet guide me wherever it was they were leading.
By then I had no idea what to do with myself anymore. My legs were about to collapse on me and I just couldn't stop crying no matter how hard I tried not to. I wasn't even sure why I was crying to begin with. So I stood there shaking in the middle of the Entrance hall, my feet soaked to the bone, tears streaming from my face, and howling like a werewolf.
I needed to sit down. No lay down was more like it. But I couldn't think straight. That might be why I found myself suddenly lain out on top of one of the tables in the Great Hall staring at the sky through my blurry tears.
It started to rain too, but I wasn't quite sure if it really was at the time. Maybe it's only my eyes, I thought to myself, but then again maybe it isn't. I could hear the rain though as it started pounding on the wooden roof of the castle. Then as if the ceiling had suddenly opened up on me, letting the rain wash away my tears, I felt sprinkles of water beginning to hit my face.
"Are you okay?" a voice said from nowhere and I rubbed a hand over my face mixing the tear in with the new drops of water and sat up to see who was in here with me.
It was Ron. And it wasn't raining on me. Instead Ron had leaned over me and raindrops were falling from his hair onto my cheeks.
"Are you okay?" He repeated looking more and more unsure of himself by the second.
"Y-yes!" I whispered under my breath. I knew I was fine. I felt fine. Besides the fact I was crying I felt absolutely fine…and mad…and cold…and…wet.
But before I could control myself, I cried out and began sobbing once more. Again with the sobbing and I couldn't find any logically reason as to why. I just sat there and cried and Ron looked as if he had been petrified.
"I-I can't s-s-stop cry-ing!" I told him through the shaking of my voice. I couldn't stop shaking and trembling and it just made me even angrier.
Ron sat next to me on the tabletop and wrapped a comforting arm around my shoulders. He seemed skeptical at wither or not he ought to be here at first but he soon stopped when he took another glance at my face.
"But why are you crying, Hermione?"
I racked my brain harder and still no sensible reasoning came from it.
"I…I…I don't know!"
I buried my face in Ron's shoulder and soaked his already wet shirtsleeve with my tears. I didn't let go either. I refused to let go. This seemed to be the only thing that made me feel any better. And neither did Ron. He sat there with me for a good fifteen minutes rocking me back and forth until the tears subsided, my body stopped shaking, and I undoubtedly decided it was time to quite crying. But I made sure not to let until my feet were surely purple from the cold and I had no choice but to move.
Ron let go of my shoulder slowly and slid off the bench onto the floor. He stared at me a minute as I hiccupped the last few tears I had forgotten to cry and then, unexpectedly, he knelt down in front of me on the bench, which my feet were sitting, and took both my hands in his own.
"You feeling better now?" he asked, his voice echoing off the great stonewalls of the giant room.
I nodded in reply, feeling that I couldn't find my voice for the moment.
Ron smiled softly. "Good," he said and then quickly took his hands from mine.
I closed my eyes, tying to imagine the feel of his skin on mine for just a minute longer, and then opened them again to see him blushing furiously, and quickly tuck his hands in his robe pockets.
"So then," he started and turned around to face the head table. "I guess I'll bring you up to the dorms so you can put on some dry socks. And if I remember, and I don't usually, but I'm pretty sure there were a pair of shoes next to the fireplace. Incase you wanted to know…"
I slapped my forehead repeatedly in my mind. Why hadn't I thought of that! I had left them to dry because of the mud outside yesterday. But then again, this wasn't the first time I lost my head in a stressful situation.
"Yeah, I guess so," I said sounding very crackly at the moment.
"And I guess I better go back down to the green house and explain to Sprout why I cursed out Lavender for you," said Ron, hanging his head guiltily. He put on a smile and winked at me meaningfully, and I just couldn't help the full-bloomed smile spreading across my face.
"Ronald Weasley I know you did not!" I laughed heartily tapping him playfully on the arm. He laughed along with me and we both walked up to the dormitory talking about what had happened earlier that morning and all the things that had cursed me that day.
I did find my shoes by the fireplace after that long morning of nowhere-near-dry feet, and Ron received a detention for cursing out another student in the middle of class. But I think it was all really worth it in the end, for each of us. I'm pretty sure Ron and I both will never quite forget that horribly, revolting, abnormal day when I smeared fresh dung into Lavender Brown's blonde hair.
(A/N) Well I hope you enjoyed it. I wrote this all on my sick day from school. I had plenty of time on my hands and nothing to do. Remember to review! Thanks so much guys!!
Love from Lizzie