Rain, Rain, Don't Go Away
She loved the rain, there was nothing for it. Harry and Ron thought it was strange that she enjoyed unwinding in the rain, which was what she was doing at the moment. Hermione was perched on a rock at the edge of the lake, getting pelted with fat raindrops. Her only resistance from the downpour was the Impervius charm, allowing her to see a few feet in front of her. Despite the fact that she was freezing and soaking wet, she was thoroughly enjoying herself. The rain had the tendency to wash away her stress with the drops. She could ignore the cold as long as the tension ran down her arms, her face, her shoulders. The rhythmic sound of the rain allowed her to think without distraction.
Hermione pulled her legs up on the rock and wrapped her arms around them. While she let her mind wander, she tried to keep it away from the boy who was catching her eye lately. This technique didn't seem to work: the harder she tried to think of something else, the more he was slipping into her mind.
He had been frequenting the common room she shared with the Head Boy, Draco Malfoy. While Malfoy still acted like the stupid git he had been for the past six years, Hermione found she enjoyed the company of his best mate, Blaise Zabini. Of course, she and Zabini never actually had conversations, no; he came to the room to spend time with Draco, but Hermione felt that Zabini was more attentive, sensitive, and much more considerate than the other Slytherins that Malfoy hung around. Thus, she had begun to glance at Zabini over the top of her books when she was in the common room with the two of them. He always greeted her when he came to visit, which Hermione found was a very endearing quality. Lately, when he did this, she had to reply quickly and then hide her blush behind her book.
Hermione cursed herself for thinking about him. She knew that it was unorthodox for her to have these growing feelings for a Slytherin, but she couldn't help it.
The rain was falling harder now, and it felt as if it was penetrating her skin. She wrapped her arms more tightly around herself. For a fleeting moment, she wished Blaise would appear and wrap his arms around her, sheltering her from the cold.
She tried to keep her mind on other things. N.E.W.T.s were a good topic to think about. They were fast approaching, and Hermione hadn't really gotten down to studying yet. This was something she needed to do. Her last Potions exam hadn't gone as well as she had hoped, and she needed to make up for her less-than-perfect grade with the N.E.W.T. Hermione had finally managed to submerge her mind in another topic when the rain suddenly stopped overhead. She was puzzled, for she could still see the downpour falling on the lake, making uncountable ripples on the surface. She looked up, and couldn't believe what she saw.
Blaise was standing over her, holding an umbrella.
She swallowed, and it was a lump in her throat. "Hi," she croaked out nervously.
He smiled down at her. "I saw you from the common room window," he explained. "You looked like you could use an umbrella."
"Thank you," she replied, trying to keep her voice steady. This was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for her, and she couldn't believe it. He handed the handle of the umbrella to her, and she took it.
It was one of those substantial umbrellas, with a large canopy and a thick, curved wooden handle. This was the kind of umbrella Hermione hated to be stuck next to in a crowded street because it took up so much room.
Despite the large umbrella, it only covered Hermione on the rock; Blaise was standing next to it, rain plummeting down on his head. She pointed this out to him. "Now you're getting wet. Then, in an unusually bold move for Hermione, she offered, "Why don't you join me?"
Thus, he sat down on the plane of the rock, a mere few inches away from her. Hermione's breath caught in her throat: she had just realized, in this proximity to him, the gravity of her feelings for this particular Slytherin. She decided to make conversation as she held the umbrella over the two of them.
"So, er, how did you do on that Herbology exam?" she asked lamely. Even in the rain, she caught his smell in the air. He smelled like sage, and slightly of the smoky smell of a fire.
"I've been noticing you lately, Hermione," he said bluntly, ignoring her question. He turned to look at her, and his golden eyes were nearly hypnotizing to Hermione.
"Um, really," she said, averting her eyes from him. "Wh-what do you mean, exactly, by noticing?"
He smiled amusedly at her. "I would like to take you to Hogsmeade next weekend." Her heart was beating loudly in her chest, threatening to burst forth from its cage.
"Um…" she swallowed hard again, but Blaise didn't miss a beat.
"I may be jumping to conclusions, but I think that you've been noticing me, too. At least, that's what I've gathered from the past few months."
Hermione was still not looking at him. She paused, breaking his fast-paced dialogue. "Yes, you're right." She felt her cheeks burn red with embarrassment.
Even though she wasn't looking at his face, she could hear the smirk in his voice when he said, "Yes, I thought as much."
Normally, Hermione would have something snappish to say back to a comment such as this one, but her mind was currently racing with too many thoughts for her to focus. Besides, she didn't want her blush to become visible to Blaise.
Just who did he think he was fooling, anyhow? There was no way any of this could be happening. Hermione knew she was asleep, right now, in her feather bed, napping after a hard afternoon of studying. She would wake up any second and find the sunlight streaming down on her pillow through the open window, no rain in sight. For there was no possible way that Slytherin Blaise Zabini could ever have romantic feelings for a Gryffindor, let alone Hermione Granger in particular. Therefore, he could not, at this moment, be seated next to her, on this rock, in the rain, especially because she resembled a drowned cat.
And yet, he was. "Hermione, I apologize if I'm making you uncomfortable, I just thought that our little charade had gone on long enough."
How could he be so composed? Hermione was feeling very conscious of her wet, stringy hair and water-logged clothing as she sat next to this creature who still managed to appear poised regardless of the water soaking him to the bone.
"Um…no, I'm not uncomfortable," Hermione countered. "I'm merely a little surprised."
Subtly, he moved closer to her on the rock. "Then it would appear you are not as observant as I," he said.
Hermione was a little offended by this comment until she looked at his face and saw he was smiling at her. His face stood out, clear against the hazy background of the rain. She had never seen such a playful look on his face as he gazed down at her.
Then she realized she hadn't given him an answer to the Hogsmeade question. "I'll go with you, at any rate," she told him. She hoped frantically to Merlin that he wasn't doing this because he had made a bet with Malfoy. Blaise seemed to know what she was talking about, even though that part of the conversation had long since passed.
"I thought you might," he said.
He wasn't revealing much emotion in his responses to her. He seemed to want to be in complete control of the situation, and have Hermione be the unsure one. Well, his plan was working. "Can you be a little more expressive than that?" she asked.
The smirk widened on his face. "What would you like me to express, Hermione?" he wondered.
She couldn't believe she was sitting here, talking to him, in her favorite place: the rain. She couldn't believe he was asking her out to Hogsmeade. This was something she had (somewhat subconsciously) dreamt about for months. "What do you mean; you've been noticing me, Blaise?" she asked. Blaise. She loved how his name rolled silkily off of her tongue.
"I mean that I fancy you," he said amusedly.
"Oh," said Hermione. It was strange to hear him say it outright, and it made her heart flutter in her ribcage. "Well," she said, "I fancy you too."
And that was how it started, on that rock in the rain, the day Hermione wanted to clear her mind.