Sunlit Days

He had never really noticed how sunny it got there on the banks of the lake, watching the Giant Squid as it heated itself lazily in the bright warmth of it. He probably would have gone on not noticing, if it hadn't been for the way it played through the chestnut strands of hair that kept continually blowing in front of his face as his sat that breezy afternoon in May.

"Sorry," mumbled Hermione absently as she caught at the tangle of hair, pushing it back behind an ear as she continued to pay more attention to the textbook in her lap than to the warm afternoon around them.

"S'all right," murmured Ron absently as he continued trying to focus on the lake, and not on the curve of her slender neck as it bent over her studies, "why are you reading that musty thing instead of enjoying the sunshine anyway?" He had rather hoped she'd pay a little more attention to her friends today. Well, at least himself. Harry and Ginny, sitting within arms reach, seemed to be quiet happy between the two of them. He tried not to think on that too much.

"It's Urartian, have to know for Ancient Runes," with just a little more than three weeks till the final tests of the term, Hermione was as usual panicking that perhaps she had forgotten some rare bit of knowledge off-handedly mentioned in a lecture three years ago. Ron sighed, shaking his head.

"You'll never change, will you?" He chuckled, and found that instead of irritating him, this statement was rather heartwarming. He rather liked that about Hermione, that steady predictability of her nature. Not like Lavender at all there, that girl had been as flighty as the wind, and just about as easy to read.

"Just because I like succeeding in my studies, Ron, doesn't mean you have to always criticize it," was her automatic retort, though it lacked much of the fire it normally would have contained. She really was distracted today, Urartian must be difficult. "Besides, perhaps you should put a bit of mind to your studies as well. You know NEWTs are only a year away."

"I know," he grinned, rather than rolling his eyes dramatically as he normally did. He had a feeling this would be one of those arguments they would always have.

'Always,' that word. He hadn't really thought about 'always' in connection to Hermione before. He had rather assumed that after Hogwarts, he'd of course speak to her, perhaps get together a bit. But there was that word, 'always', it sort of buzzed in the back of his brain. Yes, he couldn't really see her just going away when this was all over, could he?

"Anyway, why are you fussing at me, Hermione, you know it does no good," he lay back on the grass where he sat, putting his hands behind his head. "You should go yell at Ginny you know. She's got OWLa coming up, and she's off draping herself all over Harry all the time."

The two may or may not have heard his light banter directed at them, but if they did, they were ignoring it. He actually suspected that both were napping in the warmth of a spring afternoon, a suspicion confirmed just then by a light snore coming from his best friend.

"Leave Ginny be, she's happy," Hermione responded, looking up from her book for the first time that afternoon to glance at the two with a soft smile. "And so is he."

Ron nodded, a tiny frown forming over the bridge of his nose. He hadn't been all together sure about his best mate and his little sister as a couple. Not that he wasn't thrilled of course, but still, it was a sticky situation to be in if things went south. "I wasn't sure I liked those two together at first, you know." He said softly as Hermione turned her head slightly to look down at him over her shoulder.

"I guessed. But you seem well enough with it now."

"Well, I looked at it like this. Ginny is my sis, I want her with some bloke who will treat her right and not run her around like some of these fellows would. And as for Harry, he's had so few good things in his life. I think you, me, and Sirius are the only family he's ever really had, and of course, Mum, Dad, and the rest. I suppose in the end, I want my best friend happy, I mean REALLY happy. And you know, Hermione, Ginny has made him the happiest I've seen him in all the years I've known him."

Hermione glanced back at the pair and smiled. "Yeah, I know. It's so strange seeing him like that. It almost makes you wish that…" Her smile faltered slightly, but Ron knew what she meant.

"Yeah, wish that he didn't have to do what he has to do." He felt that same tug at his heart he was sure Hermione did. "But," he continued slowly, "at least he won't go it alone, will he?"

"No, that he won't," the emphatic tone in Hermione's voice took that tug away from Ron's chest, and he found himself smiling up at her.

"What," she looked at him in confusion, frowning as if she suspected he meant to tease her.

"I was just thinking how lucky Harry is to have you as his friend," Ron replied playfully, ignoring the impulse to tug at the tangled strand of bushy hair that had once again loosed itself from its prison behind her ear. "Imagine where he'd be without you about to talk sense into him."

She snorted in amusement. "Imagine where YOU would be, Ron Weasley, if I wasn't here to talk sense into you. You'd have gotten eaten by a troll years ago."

Ron grinned even more broadly as he recalled that Halloween nearly six years before. "Yeah, well, I suppose I'm lucky to have you around as well."

"Really, Ron," Her voice was unusually high then, and something in her eyes sparkled just a bit.

"Well, yeah, I mean you're ten times more practical than any other girl I met, and aren't nearly as hysterical as Lavender." He shrugged in a non-chalant manner, as somewhere in the vicinity of his stomach a million butterflies Apparated out of nowhere. "After that entire fiasco, I guess I've sort have learned to appreciate you a bit more."

Upon saying that, a strange thing happened that Ron hadn't ever recalled seeing before. He rather hoped he would see it again though, and often. The happiest, brightest look came over Hermione, an almost transfiguring look. It was so brilliant, she looked near angelic.

"Ronald Weasley, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." She cried happily, as without warning she launched herself at him and hugged his prostrate chest fiercely. He felt the air go out of his lungs but the warmth he felt in his middle seemed to make him not mind nearly so much.

"Err….you're welcome," he gasped hoarsely.

"What's he gone and done now," Ginny's voice was sleepy, as she rolled her head over on Harry's chest, her current pillow, to look blearily at the two. "He's not said something stupid again, has he?"

Before Ron could come up with an angry retort, however, Hermione had nearly leapt off him, sat back up, and was blushing as she shook her head furiously. "No, as a matter-of-fact, he said something very right for a change." Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, face still red, she returned to her runes book determinedly. But Ron could tell by the ways her eyes didn't quite focus on the page that she was paying little to no attention to Urartians or to Ancient Runes.

"Oh good," Ginny yawned sleepily, "Now if we can teach him to clean is room, we might have some promise in turning him into a decent human being."

Ron was far too happy to fling a retort at his younger sister. Instead he pulled up a handful of silky grass to toss at her instead. As Ginny laughed at him, Ron settled back on the ground, smiling at the cobalt blue sky. He wished, no he rather hoped, that they could have many lazy, sunlit afternoons to come.