Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, settings, lines, and references to canonical elements within the Harry Potter universe belong to JK Rowling and affiliated publishers. In addition, any aspects borrowed from the film canon are property of Warner Bros. This fanfiction exists purely for non-commercial entertainment, and the author is not benefiting from any form of profit. Rated T for language and some non-explicit depictions of implied sexuality and violence in later chapters.

Lola ◊ Carmen's Daughter

Part I — Memories

Chapter I

He stands there, sizing me up with his stunningly azure gaze. Naturally, I am inclined to regard Ronald Weasley with a sort of impatient curiosity. This boy—well, man, really—towering over me at his full height of six foot two, with muscled limbs and a toned chest built from years playing Muggle sports, as well as tending to heavy-duty garden and yard work with no magic, is somehow the same boy that I met when we were only children; the same boy with the smudge of dirt on the side of his nose; the same boy that I had deemed an immature and insensitive prat on more than one occasion. The impatience, I suppose, originates from a desire to know if he sees me the same way I see him.

Of course, I'm not completely daft, thank you very much. I would have had my "brightest witch of (my) age" title revoked long ago if that was the case. I've seen the way his eyes linger on me whenever we sit across from each other, or how his hand occasionally brushes against my leg when we're close. And, of course, I could never forget the displeasure that clouded his features when he was made aware that Viktor Krum, one of the most famous living Quidditch players, had taken me to the ball. He rationalized it to me as a concern for my well-being, because Viktor was a bit older than me, but even then I could see there was some deep-seeded jealousy behind his behavior. Still, he had become much mellower in recent months, and I couldn't help but wonder if the subtle signs from our earlier adolescence that I had interpreted as "hints" to possible reciprocated feelings were, actually, simply a manifestation of the curiosity and flirtation that was bound to occur between any friends of the opposite sex. At the same time, though, I had never experienced these types of things with Harry ...

"I missed you," he breathes into my hair as he engulfs me in a hug. "I always miss you the second you're gone ... Did you miss me?" he adds with a hint of mischief.

"Of course I did," I manage to croak out, wondering if he has even the slightest idea how the scratchy deepness of his early morning voice affects me. He smells divine: an intoxicating mixture of spearmint toothpaste, aftershave, and the woodsy scent of his gel soap. "I think you've gained another inch over the summer."

Chuckling, he pulls back, resting his large hands on the sides of my arms and squeezing slightly. "Really? I just thought you'd lost one."

"Very funny."

"As always," he smirks. "Come on, I'll take this upstairs for you." He grabs my luggage and effortlessly carries it up the first flight of stairs and into Ginny's bedroom, where I always stay whenever I visit the Burrow. "Ginny's off visiting Dean," Ron grumbles, plopping down on the spare twin bed that I usually occupy. "She'll be back later."

"Ron," I start, taking a seat next to him. "They've been going out for months now. Surely you can't still be uncomfortable with it, right?"

"Of course I can—it's my job, innit? Brothers are supposed to keep an eye on the blokes their sisters are dating. It's a rule."

I sigh, lying back against the mattress and allowing my hair to fan out against the quilted blanket. "Seems like a silly rule to me. Ginny's not a little girl anymore, Ron. It's natural for you to feel protective of her as a big brother, but it's really not your place to stick your nose into her romantic life."

"Humph," Ron grunts. "Fine. I accept that my sister is old enough to date. That doesn't mean I have to like it though."

"Fair enough."

Sighing, he leans back next to me on the bed, and we stare upward in a comfortable silence. Ginny has added several more posters to her room décor since the last time I was here. My eyes are particularly drawn to a poster of the Weird Sisters placed impressively in the dead center of the ceiling with Spello-tape, where the lead singer Myron Wagtail sticks out his tongue in a rather suggestive manner. It didn't always look this way—in fact I could remember when these walls were entirely bare: during my first visit to the Burrow, in the summer of 1993.

I had been very afraid that I was rudely imposing myself on the Weasleys—the people who, at the time, I barely knew other than through my year-long friendship with Ginny. But, upon hearing from me that my parents were going to be in Spain for the entirety of the summer to participate in a program offered through their office, in which dentists traveled to other parts of the world to shadow other dental practitioners and exchange knowledge on the field, meaning that I would have to spend the holiday with my stuffy Aunt Mildred, Ginny would have absolutely none of it. Despite my protests, she wrote to her mother and by the next morning's mail delivery I had been officially invited to spend the summer at the Burrow. Mr. Weasley reached out to my parents, ensuring them that any friend of their children's was welcome in their home, and assured them that I would have an adequate place to sleep and as much food as I could consume. And, according to the letter my father sent to me, even after they accepted his invitation of my behalf he proceeded to stay at our house for another hour and "dissect" them on every aspect of their Muggle life. "He's a very kind-hearted man," my father remarked. "We were flattered he found us so interesting."

Despite the fact that I would miss my parents very much, I was more than excited at the idea of spending the summer in an entirely new place, and getting to know the people from whom my best friend had come from. Ginny had been a blessing, really, especially considering that our friendship had come about so unexpectedly. It was in the common room that we spoke for the first time: she desperately needed help with her Potions homework and told me that I looked like the only one who was willing to help a first-year. From there we did our homework together every afternoon.

When the end of the school year came, I approached the providers of my summer lodging with the utmost propriety, as my parents had taught me. I helped Mrs. Weasley with the housework whenever she would let me, said "please" and "thank you", and never left so much as a stray hair on the bathroom counter. The Burrow was a massive spectacle, almost overwhelming in its charm. We were on a huge plot of fertile land on the fringe of Ottery St. Catchpole (which in itself looked like a village from a fairy tale), hidden from the Muggle population behind miles of unoccupied fields. The house was several stories tall and was so delightfully peculiar in its structure that I was more than sure it was held up with magic.

Within hours of my arrival, the Weasley household welcomed me as one of their own, so much so that Fred and George wasted no time in making me the subject of their playful teasing. Percy, the eldest sibling to live in the house after the departure of Bill and Charlie, was impressed with my academic achievement during my first two years at Hogwarts and invited me to borrow from his book collection whenever I pleased, resulting in many nights of Ginny and I giggling on the matter in the privacy of her room.

"You liiiikkkeeee Percy," she teased. "I can see it whenever he talks to you. Your eyes light up. You want to kiiiiiisss him."

"I do not," I insisted. "Your brother is nice, that's all. And he's very ambitious, which is admirable."

The youngest Weasley brother, however, remained a mystery to me for the first week of my stay. He would stare at me whenever we were in the same room, biting his bottom lip and squinting as if I was some algebraic formula he was trying to wrap his head around. I truly felt that he must have thought I didn't notice, because he did it so openly and for such extended periods of time that I swear I could feel his eyes on me even after we went into separate parts of the house. It got so annoying that one day I decided to approach him in the backyard following a hearty lunch of bacon sandwiches to, in short, find out what his problem was.

He was skipping stones by the pond as I approached, and he turned upon hearing the footsteps of my soft-soled flats against the freshly manicured grass.

"Hi," he said, a shadow of grin teasing the corners of his mouth.

"Hi," I replied flatly. "Look, I wanted to talk to you."

"Oh? About what?"

"About you."

He raised his brow curiously. "What about me?"

"About the way you've been looking at me," I stated with a firm tone. "Is there a problem between us?"

"Not at all."

"Then what about the way you've been staring at me? You look at me like I'm an insect or something."

"I have?" He actually dropped the stone he had been holding (it landed with a soft "thump" on the ground below) and looked legitimately embarrassed, his face flushing a red almost as intense as that of his hair. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was making you uncomfortable. I mean, I have been looking at you, but that's just because, well ..."

"Because what?"

"Well ..." He clasped his hands behind his back and nervously rocked on the balls of his feet. "I suppose I'm sort of ... intrigued by you. That's the right word, right?"

"Intrigued?" My eyelids fluttered in surprise. "Why on earth would you be intrigued by me?"

"Ginny told me you're a Muggle-born," he supplied, his face going all the more redder. "So ... that kind of makes us opposites, in a way. I'm sure she's told you about ... me."

"Oh ... oh." I placed the pieces of the puzzle together in a matter of seconds, feeling a sudden wave of embarrassment on my own part. Of course it had come up during the hours Ginny and I spent getting to know one another at Hogwarts: the fact that the youngest male in her household lacked magical abilities, the fact that—in all societal, cultural, semantic, and legal regards to the wizarding world—he was a Squib.

I hadn't thought much about it upon meeting him, especially considering that from my observations he was just as involved in and loved by the family as his magically capable siblings. Even in spite of my knowledge on certain attitudes toward Squibs, I hadn't held the slightest notion that any member of the otherwise pureblooded Weasley family harbored any sort of embarrassment of him—no, that would be utterly preposterous, because the Weasleys were among the nicest people I ever had the pleasure of knowing. Still, that didn't change the fact that Squibs were rare, and the unfortunate reality of anti-Muggle and pureblood supremacist rhetoric still existed in our world, even after the downfall of the man called Lord Voldemort in the great wizarding war that was before our time—rhetoric that even went as far as to claim that Squibs were actually Muggle infiltrators of magical heritage and had no proper place in wizarding society. Being a Muggle-born, that kind of thinking obviously impacted me too, but I had seldom considered the idea of how it must be the other way around, to be born to a magical family but possess no magical abilities yourself.

"I'm very sorry. I hadn't thought about that ..."

"No, you're right. It was rude of me to stare at you like that. Gods, you must think of me as a right creep now, don't you? It's okay, I don't blame you."

"I don't think of you like that. But if you wanted to ask me anything, you should have just asked."

"It's funny," he looked down at his tattered brown shoes, "when you first came I had a million questions to ask you. That's why I was staring at you; I reckon I was trying to figure out how to approach you about it. But now that we're actually talking, I can't think of a single one." He looked back up at me, suppressing a grin. "Funny, isn't it?"

"Your father has already asked me many questions about what it's like to be a Muggle-born. I don't see why you would be afraid to ask me."

He shrugged. "I dunno. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry." I took a step forward and picked up the stone he had dropped. "Watch this." Playfully waving it in his face, I firmly planted my feet at the edge of where the pond met the earth and flicked the stone in. It did not skip at all, as I hoped, but instead plopped straight into the water with a loud splash. "Oops."

"You've never skipped stones before, have you?"

I blushed and shook my head. "I didn't think there was much to it."

He snorted. "Figures. You magic folk take everything for granted."

"I do not take things for granted!"

"Sure, whatever you say," he said, an obvious touch of sarcasm sprinkled over his words. "Want me to teach you? There's plenty of other good stones around here that haven't been mercilessly thrown in the water."

"Fine," I chuckled.

"Okay, but first—" he straightened up to his full height—which was several inches above my own—and held out his right hand, "—I want all of this 'me-creepily-staring-at-you-because-I-didn't-know-how-to-talk-to-you' nonsense behind us. So, let's start over. Hi, I'll be your stone-skipping instructor for today."

I took his hand and gave him a firm, friendly shake, noticing how pale his freckled skin was in comparison to my own. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Hermione Granger."

He smiled brightly at me. "It's nice to meet you too, Hermione. I'm Ron Weasley."