Five: Possessions
Five
Hermione sat to face her old volumes of textbooks. It'd been years after they all finished school, but she still insisted on keeping her old books. They reminded her of the happy days when they were all together.
She pulled a History of Magic textbook off its place on the shelf and opened to the front cover. She smiled as her thumb ran over 'Hermione Granger' carved and inked into the parchment by her quill, and let out a small laugh when her finger continued over the letters that followed her name: 'eats dung bombs!'
It was clearly Ron's writing.
Four
Harry didn't even notice that he had it until he reached into his pocket. Inquisitively, he pulled it out; it was a long, old, yellowing piece of tape.
'I know what this is,' he thought with a smile. 'The first day I met Hermione she put her wand to my glasses and fixed them.' He'd taken the useless tape and had half-consciously put it in his pocket and had forgotten all about it.
Sweaters, sweaters, sweaters. His Mum always made sweaters. How she ever found the time or patience to make so many sweaters every year for everyone at Christmas was unfathomable to Ron. He had four up in his closet that he hadn't used in years and was about to take them down and throw them away.
He was folding one of them when suddenly he paused to study it more carefully. 'This was the sweater Mum gave me my seventh year,' he thought, and a warm feeling hit his heart. He remembered that he never actually wore this particular sweater, but that this was his favorite one of all. It had been lying at the foot of his bed that one particular night, and when he woke up the next morning he woke to find Hermione with breakfast wearing that very particular sweater… only that very particular sweater.
Two
Hermione had always had a special fondness for Fred and George. It was beside the point that they were Ron's older brothers, but even as stuffy as she knew she could be, they had always made her laugh.
She remembered this especially when they'd sent her a box of fizzing whisbees right after she and Ron had had a rough falling out in the middle of their seventh year. They'd send the box with a note attached, reading, "Dear Hermione, Perk up. We hear these are the muggle equivalents to ice cream, whatever that means. Much love and all that, Fred and George."
Hermione closed her dresser drawer where she had found the note buried under a pile of socks.
One
"Will you shut up, you great twit?"
"Who are you calling a great twit, you twerp?"
"Will the both of you be quiet before someone catches us?"
"Hermione, why are you even with us?"
"Shh! I think I hear Snape!" The three of them fell silent as footsteps padded dangerously close, then faded out of earshot again.
It was Harry who spoke first. "I think this cloak is getting a bit too small for the three of us."
"Maybe if you didn't eat five turkeys a day at dinner we wouldn't have to worry about your fat arse taking up most of the room under here."
"Shut up, Ron!"
Four: Habits
Four
Ron liked to watch her. It wasn't some creepy, stalker-ish obsession, he'd convinced himself of that. He just liked to watch her.
When she studied was his favorite time. From the time she was a first year, all the way up until they were studying for their final N.E.W.T.S., Hermione always twirled a lock of hair around one finger. Ron had watched the stubby, bitten, first-year finger mature and lengthen into a manicured, woman's hand, and he had watch her hair shrink considerably in size from its frizzy rat's nest into smooth, comely curves.
Her hair would always twist around her finger. Over and over and over and over. She could be consumed in Divination or writing a Potions essay, but it was always the same; Hermione's pointer was always wrapped snuggly in strands of her hair.
Three
Harry couldn't help but notice how Ron would talk in his sleep. Sometimes he thought this is what made their friendship so close; they could listen in on the others' dreams.
He rolled over onto his side to better hear the soft, contented laughter of Ron though the curtains of his four-poster bed. "Mm," he heard Ron mumble, "No thank you, I have enough treacle tart."
Harry laughed.
"What? No Hermione, it's not you. I just have enough treacle tart. I'm sorry, yes I still love you…"
Harry's eyes opened wide.
Two
Ron could do something with his eyes that she had never seen another human being do. She'd even looked for it in other people, but Hermione simply came to the conclusion that this gift was singular only to Ron.
Every time someone asked him a question about her, his eyes did a half-second dance before trying to compose themselves and make it look as if he hadn't just momentarily seen heaven. She could see it. She could tell.
"Hey Ron, have you seen Hermione?"
Hermione would be standing just off to the side, or just behind Harry, but she would be invisible to the both of them, and for a very brief moment Ron's eyes burst with stars.
She loved that about him.
Harry had a tendency to daydream. Hermione and Ron would whisper behind his back at first; "thinking about Lavender," and "always wants to play Quidditch," were some of the early accusations. As they grew through their years the whispers became, "thinking about Sirius," and "only wants to know his parents." And then after a while the whispers ceased all together and Hermione and Ron left Harry to his daydreams.
He'd stare out the window during Transfiguration. He'd stare at a far corner of the commons when he was studying. He'd focus on one word in a book when he was in the library. There had always been so much going on inside his head. He just daydreamed a lot.
Three: Occasions
Three
He thought she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Harry knew Ron's face had turned a bright scarlet before he'd even checked to make sure. As soon as Hermione descended the stairs, hair neatly fixed and gown billowing, Harry and Ron stood rooted to the floor.
This was the ball of their fourth year. It was the most beautiful they had ever seen their darling pet bookworm.
Two
"Ron!" he heard his friend call.
From amidst the sea of black robes, Ron saw Harry slowly making his way towards him. His face broke out into one of the largest grins he'd ever conjured. "Harry!"
They met in an enormous hug. Every incident of the past seven years came flooding back to the both of them and tears started to well in the corners of both their eyes.
"It's over, Harry! It's all over! Hogwarts, school, homework, pulling all nighters cramming for a Potions test, it's all over!"
From behind, they felt a massive weight land on top of them, and in a huge heap Harry, Ron and Hermione's limbs became tangled in one large knot.
One
He knew she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Harry watched, as one of very few witnesses to this event, as Hermione took Ron's hand. When she was garbed in white, she looked like an angel.
He could hear Mrs. Weasley bawling right behind him, and Ginny trying her best to comfort her, and a single tear found its way into Harry's eye.
'Ron is the luckiest man alive,' he thought.
Two: Emotions
Two
Ron had to get up and leave to cool off. Jake or James or whatever the hell his name was had sent Hermione a love note that she had just opened. They had agreed to meet at The Three Broomsticks for a drink, and the note had just been flown to her by way of what's-his-name's ruddy owl. It drove him crazy. He got up, perhaps a little too suddenly, and walked over to the bar. He stood there, head down, hands placed firmly apart on the corner of the counter.
He felt a warm breath on the back of his neck, and a comforting arm found it's way around his waist under his robe.
"Don't be jealous," she whispered in his ear.
"You're mine," he said.
"I know." He could feel her smile as she said it.
One
They found that Harry was in the hospital; he had gone down into the Chamber of Secrets further than the two of them had gone, and was very badly injured. Hermione and Ron had sat by his bed for a long time watching him sleep. Madame Pomphrey had urged them to leave him, but Dumbledore had overruled her power. Hermione had turned to cry on Ron's shoulder, and he put a comforting arm over her, despite that it almost didn't fit because of her enormous, bushy hair.
"What… what if he… what if he never wakes up?"
Ron rocked from side to side in what he'd hoped was a sufficiently soothing manner; he was awful at trying to calm people down. "Come on, he's Harry. He has to make it."
Hermione couldn't stay awake all the time, and would often fall asleep leaning over Harry's bed, but Ron was always awake. He always kept watch over his best mate.
Always.
One: Questions
"Hermione?" he asked, slightly weak.
His tone alarmed her. "Ron, are you all right?"
He looked down at his hands. 'Damn-fucking-nation,' he thought. 'You rehearsed this seventeen-fucking-thousand times in front of the mirror, don't loose your nerve now.'
She had stopped playing around with a watch that she found on Mr. Weasley's desk and took Ron's hands in her own. "Hun, is something the matter?"
He was hesitant for a moment. He could feel his face burning scarlet. Slightly hesitant, he allowed one knee to give way, and he looked up at Hermione from his place on the floor. With one hand, he reached back into a pocket of his jeans and pulled out a tiny box.
Hermione smiled.