Hello world! This is my first Harry Potter story, and I strongly appreciate feedback of any kind, positive or negative! And this is a kind of introductory chapter for this story, which is going to be a primarily a collection of moments Hermione has with Ron that she reflects on in the setting of book six, with an introductory chapter at the start and a conclusion chapter at the end. Due to my job, school, and other story I'm in the process of writing still (See Burning On, which is NOT a Harry Potter Story), I may not be updating this as quickly as I'd like to. I hope you'll all bear with me and enjoy this story as much as I have been while writing it.

con·stel·la·tion

[ˌkänstəˈlāSH(ə)n]

NOUN

1. a group of stars forming a recognizable pattern that is traditionally named after its apparent form or identified with a mythological figure. Modern astronomers divide the sky into eighty-eight constellations with defined boundaries.

2. a group or cluster of related things.

Here I sit, quill in hand, hunched over and poised to write. It's a familiar position for me, of course. Just ask any of my classmates, I'm sure they'd tell you all about it. "Look,"they'd say, "there's Granger again. Studying."

I often have to resist properly leaning over and commenting that just because I am sitting at a table does not automatically mean I'm studying, but I normally either can't find the energy or any real reason to do so. Telling them this wouldn't really change anything anyways, so I normally just sit there and listen as they quietly comment about it from across the room, as if my ears have suddenly ceased to exist.

In this case, I really am not studying. In fact, I can hardly focus at all. I amvaguely aware of almost everything except what I should be doing, which is this God- awful Potions essay that, for what is probably the first time in my life, I have failed to do until the night before its due date. Yes, I, Hermione Granger, have officially procrastinated. I hope someone, somewhere finds that amusing, because I certainly don't. Not today, anyway.

If I'm honest, Potions has not once truly crossed my mind today, not even when I took out my parchment to start the assignment. Not only was I not on task, but I also was only vaguely aware of the drops of ink that were falling from my quill and probably staining my page as I shakily hovered my hand over it, and the slight night breeze that had entered through the window brushing the tips of my hair, and cackling of the fire in the corner of the common room. I had officially pulled out my parchment an hour ago, yet here I am, still in the same position. In fact, the only thing about the scene that's changed in the last hour is the noise level, because the moment she entered it, loudly inquiring his whereabouts and giggling about what she would do to him when they were alone, I would feel my grip on my quill slipping and my vision stemming to points around the room, looking anywhere, anywhere, but at her. And although one would think avoiding looking at Lavender Brown would be more than enough to occupy my attention, my mind is still swimming, drowning in thoughts of blue eyes widening in surprise, ginger brows scrunched in confusion, and feet retreating several steps as birds dart from my wand and peck whatever skin they can find.

No, no. I will cry in front of Lavender Brown. She would probably find that utterly satisfying, wouldn't she?

When did she turn into such a villain? We were never enemies like this, or rather, I 'd never had a hard time looking at her from across the common room. Sure, her mum was against Harry's assertion about Voldemort's return for a time, and she also believed in Professor Trelawney's heinous predictions, but those weren't things that had ever come between us. We'd been living together in the dormitories for six years now, yet it had now become so hard to even look in her direction that I sometimes compromised the comfort of my feet and walked long detours to class just to avoid being around her.

And him.

I don't even know what to do when I see him. I become a puddle, essentially. My insides writhe in what I sometimes assure myself is fury, apathy, and the deepest loathing, and not sadness, jealousy, and definitely, most certainly not love. I tell myself that love doesn't involve conflict like this, where one party is so completely infatuated with the other and the other is off snogging and doing who knows what in empty classrooms with girls whose names are color schemes almost as horrible as Grawp's bogeys. I tell myself a lot of things. I'm a talker, after all, and I'd thought for a long time that I'd gotten quite good at telling myself I had no feelings for him, that I'd get over whatever this small crush was, and that there was no way, absolutely no way that I'd fallen so madly in love with him that I'd ever not be able to write a damn essay due to my mind's preoccupation with something as illogical as this whole tangled situation.

Ironically, there are almost no books on the topic of love in the Hogwarts library, which is something I find to be both odd and insulting. I'd probably given the library more business than whole years of students (not that I'm paying it or anything, but you get the idea), yet it was failing me in what I would call a time of desperation. With so many hormonal, irrational, and passionate teenagers in one place, one would think there would be at least one book on the topic, right? So why the hell isn't there more accessibility to knowledge on this? What kind of school wouldn't provide practical, applicable-to-everyday-life information that is actually useful? It's an outrage.

I'm being melodramatic, of course. I'm fully aware of how immaturely I'm handling this and how unnecessarily crude I've been about small things and how I am behaving very nastily towards a girl who really hasn't done anything but like a boy, same as me. But, it's so much easier, and I mean so much easier, to dislike her than to, say, find her relatable in that we both like the same person. I don't want things in common with Lavender, I really don't. She's nothing like what I aspire to be, and yet…she is the one who has Ron's attention. And that is probably what is the most horrible about all of this. The person who I'd been thinking about for almost three years, the person who I'd thought was finally getting the hint that what I felt was definitely not friendship, the person who I'd thought actually might have genuine feelings for me as strong as mine for him, had chosen someone who was the polar opposite of me.

And to add to how sick I feel about the whole thing, he had chosen her mere days before were going to go on what would have been our first kind-of date. I'd been so ready to take the next step, to finally let him know everything after feigning like I didn't notice him, pretending I found him despicable, hiding my feelings to a fault…

Somewhere inside me, maybe I'll be able to find the gall to admit that this whole thing would never have happened had I been clearer to him about my feelings. It's mostly his fault, of course, as he constantly needs validation and is too damn stubborn to ever think that he is worth anything more than a second glance, but I suppose that…that I did nothing to help with that.

Perhaps, if I'd actually thought logically like I'm so known for, I'd have followed through with my urge to close the distance between us during all those late nights we spent together doing homework by the fire in this very room. If I'd been smarter, I would have asked him to the Yule Ball, I would have told him how much I admired his persistence with Quidditch in spite of his dismal fifth year and how horrible I felt every time I saw one of those crown badges with his name on it, and I would have hinted, at least a little, about how it was he that I'd smelled in the Amortentia, and not Viktor, or McLaggen, or anyone else. If I wouldn't have let my pointless insecurities get the better of me and prevent me from revealing too much, I would have realized that he wouldn't stick around forever, that someone else eventually would find him as appealing as I did, and that of course he would have that effect on someone other than just me. I underestimated him, and I overestimated just how well I would be able to handle this.

I'm just now noticing that my parchment is wet in a few spots and that not one coherent sentence related to Potions has been written. I don't know how many minutes have passed. Lavender is still laughing in the corner, so clearly, not much time has passed. It feels like I've been sitting here for years.

I'm now quickly packing up my things and praying to every god imaginable that Ron doesn't walk through the portrait hole as I do so. My ink spills, but I can always buy new ink. My parchment is shoved into my bag at an odd angle, and I know I'll regret wasting the paper later, but right now, it's all I can do to keep the bubbling emotion inside me from splattering everywhere. Gripping the spine of my textbook like a lifeline, my feet direct me to the base of the stairs, where I sense her watching me. She's not laughing, and I can't hear any whispering, but it wouldn't matter anyway. I know that I'm an ugly crier, Lavender, and you whispering about it wouldn't make it any less obvious.

In minutes, I find myself in bed, staring up at the pattern of dirt and age marks on the ceiling. Normally, I would find their resemblance to one of Professor Sinistra's star charts rather convenient, and would mentally run through the names of the constellations as a small exercise before falling asleep. However, they've been looking more and more like freckles as of late and, pretending as best I can that I don't know why and turning on my side, I force my sticky eyes shut.

And for what is probably the thousandth time, the little moments run through my mind, and all the times I wanted to show him how I felt come again. The simplest way to do so would have been with a kiss, surely. There were so many times I could have done it, many times I wanted so badly to do it…

And yet, I never did.