Disclaimer: Not mine. No way, no how.
The Art of Knowing by Sarah
People might have called her a know-it-all, but Hermione Granger knew that one of the truest signs of intelligence was knowing that it was impossible to know everything. That was why she liked knowledge, was so voracious about it, because the more she learned, the more she knew that there was to know.
Still, though, there were some things that she liked to think that she knew everything about. Like who was considered cute that week, who had been caught making out in an empty classroom after hours, and who she, Hermione Granger, had a crush on. Who she was sure that she was meant to be with, forever and ever, from school sweethearts onward.
She'd been so sure.
She hadn't been the one to add the 'forever and ever' in there, though. No, that had been the work of Lavender and Parvati and the three weeks they'd spent trying to divine their soul mates and their perfect weddings out of the remains of their afternoon teas. (They'd done Hermione, too, although she'd protested. She was going to be wearing off-white at her wedding, apparently, and that had led to a whole discussion about whether she'd *chosen* to wear off-white, or whether she wouldn't be *allowed* to wear white at her wedding. Much giggling had ensued.)
Hermione didn't trust divination, though. (The whole school knew that.) She trusted books and common sense. (The whole school knew that, too.) And it was her common sense more than her books that had told her whom she was meant to be with.
It had all added up.
They'd started off hating each other. They'd argued and fought. They'd stopped speaking to each other on a semi-regular basis. He had defended her from the evil Draco Malfoy on more than one occasion. She'd taken to feeling awkward around him, would get a slightly fluttery feeling in her stomach whenever he was near, and there had been sparks.
She'd been sure of it.
She was sure that he'd felt them, too. He'd been *jealous* when Viktor Krum had asked her to go to the Yule Ball during their fourth year, after all. So jealous. Jealous enough that the whole school had known. After she'd gotten over her annoyance, she'd thought that it was cute.
All of the signs she'd ever read about, all of the signs she'd overheard the older girls talking about, had led to one person, and one person only: Ron Weasley.
She'd kept it a closely guarded secret, because she hadn't wanted to be Lavender or Parvati, who changed their crushes daily. She hadn't wanted to be the topic of conversation in the girls' dormitory (anymore than she normally was, anyway, for being friends with Harry Potter).
She'd made a mistake, though. She'd succumbed to a girlish impulse while lying in bed one morning, writing 'Hermione Granger-Weasley' in the air with her wand, watching it shimmer in front of her. And Lavender and Parvati had seen and giggled and squealed and had hopped onto her bed for a full-blown gossip session.
(That was what had started their interest in divining their forever and evers. Or maybe not started it, but tipped the scales into doing something about it.)
"Ooh," Lavender had said. "You two would be perfect together. Wouldn't they be *perfect* together, Parvati?"
Parvati had nodded enthusiastically, and Hermione had blushed and giggled, because she hadn't known what else to do.
But then nothing had happened. They'd all blamed it on Ron, of course. They'd all agreed that he really just wasn't mature enough to admit to what he wanted, but it was obvious to all of them, to the whole *world*, that he wanted Hermione Granger.
"Next year," Lavender and Parvati had said empathetically, and Hermione had hoped.
She'd been totally prepared. Close to a thousand times between the time she'd left Hogwarts and the time she was asked to go to live in London with the Weasley family, she'd planned out exactly how it would go, that moment when their mutual antagonism would turn into something more.
But then it hadn't.
Nothing had happened before Harry had arrived.
Nothing had happened when they'd returned to Hogwarts.
And still, when they'd left Hogwarts at the end of their fifth year, nothing had happened.
Why, she hadn't been able to say.
Then, anyway. Maybe she could now.
Maybe with everything that had happened-with Delores Umbridge, the evil teacher turned headmistress, the true and acknowledged return of Voldemort, and Sirius' death-schoolgirl crushes hadn't seemed to be quite so important. Maybe her bickering with Ron had suddenly seemed less charged and more the pastime of two people who truly enjoyed arguing with each other.
Or maybe it was because somewhere deep inside, even then, she'd started to realize that she'd been focusing her attention on the wrong best friend.
Which is apparently what had happened, because there she was, standing with Harry in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room, his hands buried in her still-too-bushy hair, her lips moving somewhat desperately against his, and she couldn't bring herself to be surprised.
She should have been surprised.
It should have felt like a sudden realization, her feelings for Harry. A Bludger to the stomach, something, but it didn't, because when she looked back, she could see that this had been building for awhile, for far too long.
With Ron there had been arguments, bickering turned to lust. With Harry there had been a slowly building love: a kiss to the cheek as they'd said goodbye for the summer; hugs where she hadn't felt comfortable giving Ron the same; not wanting to hear about his puppy-like crush on Cho, yet making herself ask about it anyway.
Giving him advice on girls and subconsciously wishing that he'd apply it to her.
The little thrill that she'd gotten in her stomach when, during their fifth year, Harry had said, "but I don't think that you're ugly."
She wasn't surprised, when she knew that she should have been, and maybe that was the reason that she pulled away from him, because what they were doing.
"What are we doing?" she asked, her voice sounding somewhat breathless. "Shouldn't we-" Talk? Think? Over-analyze?
He shook his head, looking down at her through smudged glasses. "You want this, right?" he asked.
She nodded. Because she did. More than she'd realized.
"Then don't think so hard," he said. "Don't think at all. We have enough to worry about as it is. Let's just let this happen."
She nodded.
He leaned in again, then, and she was leaning in towards him, her lips already parted, and when they were pressed together for the second time, she took his advice and stopped thinking.
The Art of Knowing by Sarah
People might have called her a know-it-all, but Hermione Granger knew that one of the truest signs of intelligence was knowing that it was impossible to know everything. That was why she liked knowledge, was so voracious about it, because the more she learned, the more she knew that there was to know.
Still, though, there were some things that she liked to think that she knew everything about. Like who was considered cute that week, who had been caught making out in an empty classroom after hours, and who she, Hermione Granger, had a crush on. Who she was sure that she was meant to be with, forever and ever, from school sweethearts onward.
She'd been so sure.
She hadn't been the one to add the 'forever and ever' in there, though. No, that had been the work of Lavender and Parvati and the three weeks they'd spent trying to divine their soul mates and their perfect weddings out of the remains of their afternoon teas. (They'd done Hermione, too, although she'd protested. She was going to be wearing off-white at her wedding, apparently, and that had led to a whole discussion about whether she'd *chosen* to wear off-white, or whether she wouldn't be *allowed* to wear white at her wedding. Much giggling had ensued.)
Hermione didn't trust divination, though. (The whole school knew that.) She trusted books and common sense. (The whole school knew that, too.) And it was her common sense more than her books that had told her whom she was meant to be with.
It had all added up.
They'd started off hating each other. They'd argued and fought. They'd stopped speaking to each other on a semi-regular basis. He had defended her from the evil Draco Malfoy on more than one occasion. She'd taken to feeling awkward around him, would get a slightly fluttery feeling in her stomach whenever he was near, and there had been sparks.
She'd been sure of it.
She was sure that he'd felt them, too. He'd been *jealous* when Viktor Krum had asked her to go to the Yule Ball during their fourth year, after all. So jealous. Jealous enough that the whole school had known. After she'd gotten over her annoyance, she'd thought that it was cute.
All of the signs she'd ever read about, all of the signs she'd overheard the older girls talking about, had led to one person, and one person only: Ron Weasley.
She'd kept it a closely guarded secret, because she hadn't wanted to be Lavender or Parvati, who changed their crushes daily. She hadn't wanted to be the topic of conversation in the girls' dormitory (anymore than she normally was, anyway, for being friends with Harry Potter).
She'd made a mistake, though. She'd succumbed to a girlish impulse while lying in bed one morning, writing 'Hermione Granger-Weasley' in the air with her wand, watching it shimmer in front of her. And Lavender and Parvati had seen and giggled and squealed and had hopped onto her bed for a full-blown gossip session.
(That was what had started their interest in divining their forever and evers. Or maybe not started it, but tipped the scales into doing something about it.)
"Ooh," Lavender had said. "You two would be perfect together. Wouldn't they be *perfect* together, Parvati?"
Parvati had nodded enthusiastically, and Hermione had blushed and giggled, because she hadn't known what else to do.
But then nothing had happened. They'd all blamed it on Ron, of course. They'd all agreed that he really just wasn't mature enough to admit to what he wanted, but it was obvious to all of them, to the whole *world*, that he wanted Hermione Granger.
"Next year," Lavender and Parvati had said empathetically, and Hermione had hoped.
She'd been totally prepared. Close to a thousand times between the time she'd left Hogwarts and the time she was asked to go to live in London with the Weasley family, she'd planned out exactly how it would go, that moment when their mutual antagonism would turn into something more.
But then it hadn't.
Nothing had happened before Harry had arrived.
Nothing had happened when they'd returned to Hogwarts.
And still, when they'd left Hogwarts at the end of their fifth year, nothing had happened.
Why, she hadn't been able to say.
Then, anyway. Maybe she could now.
Maybe with everything that had happened-with Delores Umbridge, the evil teacher turned headmistress, the true and acknowledged return of Voldemort, and Sirius' death-schoolgirl crushes hadn't seemed to be quite so important. Maybe her bickering with Ron had suddenly seemed less charged and more the pastime of two people who truly enjoyed arguing with each other.
Or maybe it was because somewhere deep inside, even then, she'd started to realize that she'd been focusing her attention on the wrong best friend.
Which is apparently what had happened, because there she was, standing with Harry in front of the fireplace in the Gryffindor common room, his hands buried in her still-too-bushy hair, her lips moving somewhat desperately against his, and she couldn't bring herself to be surprised.
She should have been surprised.
It should have felt like a sudden realization, her feelings for Harry. A Bludger to the stomach, something, but it didn't, because when she looked back, she could see that this had been building for awhile, for far too long.
With Ron there had been arguments, bickering turned to lust. With Harry there had been a slowly building love: a kiss to the cheek as they'd said goodbye for the summer; hugs where she hadn't felt comfortable giving Ron the same; not wanting to hear about his puppy-like crush on Cho, yet making herself ask about it anyway.
Giving him advice on girls and subconsciously wishing that he'd apply it to her.
The little thrill that she'd gotten in her stomach when, during their fifth year, Harry had said, "but I don't think that you're ugly."
She wasn't surprised, when she knew that she should have been, and maybe that was the reason that she pulled away from him, because what they were doing.
"What are we doing?" she asked, her voice sounding somewhat breathless. "Shouldn't we-" Talk? Think? Over-analyze?
He shook his head, looking down at her through smudged glasses. "You want this, right?" he asked.
She nodded. Because she did. More than she'd realized.
"Then don't think so hard," he said. "Don't think at all. We have enough to worry about as it is. Let's just let this happen."
She nodded.
He leaned in again, then, and she was leaning in towards him, her lips already parted, and when they were pressed together for the second time, she took his advice and stopped thinking.