A.N.: Hi :) Here comes a little missing moments collection. It's mostly very fluffy and all about Ron and Hermione. I plan to upload two chapters a day, finishing on December 23. I hope you enjoy reading and leave me a comment! :D
A big thank you to CeeCeeSings for her lovely and helpful Beta-reading!
December, 1991
It was an unusual afternoon for everyone in the Hogwarts library:
For Penelope Clearwater, a lovely and still quite earnest fourth grader, it was an unusual afternoon because her class mate, Percy Weasley, had smiled at her today. She'd never really spend a lot of thoughts on him before; she had to admit that his smile was rather nice.
For Cedric Diggory, a charming and good looking boy the same age as Penelope, this afternoon was unusual, because he'd found a tiny, crumbled piece of parchment at the bottom of his bag. Someone had drawn a small love heart on it, and Cedric was curious about who it might have been. Also, he'd found an old, dirty sock at the bottom of said bag, which might even count as more peculiar than the wordless love letter, for Cedric tended to be a very well organised young man.
For Madam Pince, the librarian, this afternoon was especially unusual, because Hogwarts' janitor Argus Filch helped her to repair an old chest of drawers close to her desk. The one in which all the freshly returned books were stored during the day time (before Madam Pince made them fly back into their original book shelves every evening). She surely didn't like a lot of people in this school, Madam Pince, but Argus Filch might perhaps count as one of the few she truly did tolerate.
But the most unusual thing in the library that afternoon was probably Hermione Granger's situation.
Hermione was twelve and bright and buck-toothed, and for the first time ever, she didn't use the Hogwarts library to read or to study in it. She wasn't even thinking about anything school-related in the slightest; not even about Nicholas Flammel, that mysterious man Hagrid had mentioned and about whom she and her friends had tried to find books about in this very place.
No, in fact, she was thinking about exactly that: her friends.
Hermione Granger had actual friends here in Hogwarts. She'd never really had a lot of people to call just that – friends - but here she did.
It wasn't that she hadn't tried hard enough to make friends before her time in Hogwarts! No, Hermione had done a lot of embarrassing and unusual nonsense in order to get someone, anyone, to like her. To notice her. During her time in primary school,- muggle primary school, as she would now smugly call it in her head, - Hermione had gained the liking of most teachers, but of the other kids... not so much.
Most people had rolled their eyes at her, whenever she'd said something in class. They'd believed her to be a little arrogant. Whenever she had tried to blend in, or to join them in games on the playground, people would only get more annoyed with her. The harder she tried, the worse it got, it seemed. So Hermione chose to do something better with her time, instead: Each and every lunch break, she sat in one of the nicer, quieter corners of the school yard, immersed in the pages of a book.
Any book, for that matter. Books were easy. Books understood her. There were fictional stories and fairy tales and comics that made her smile, as well as interesting school books or fascinating science fact books that made her wrinkle her forehead in concentration. Hermione had read entire encyclopaedias, before some of her classmates had even learned to finish simple children's novels without an adult's help. Not, that she wanted to judge her classmates. No, Hermione wanted to not care any more about them all together. She had books. Books, and her parents, and her cousins Louis and Melissa, too. (Although her cousins were not around very often. In fact, Hermione barely knew them.) It didn't matter what the kids in school thought of her.
They'd never understand her. Her with her confusing, most secret abilities.
The ones that were so scary and inexplicable, that Hermione would wonder whether she was sick. Whether her brain was somehow damaged. But other kids had imaginary friends, hadn't they? Could it be that Hermione had imaginary talents? It was normal for young children to be overly creative in such ways, right? To see and to hear things that were not really there...
No, Hermione wasn't sick, she'd then decided. She was perfectly normal, really. There was no such thing as magic or superpowers or whatever else she'd previously assumed she might have.
Except that there was.
There was something like magic. Not just like magic, in fact. Real magic. And it had all been true, all been an actual part of her for so long!
Learning about Hogwarts had made Hermione believe that all the scary somethings she'd always ignored might be important, after all. If magic was real, and her ability to use it was real, then maybe her creeping fear of not being normal made sense, too. Maybe she wasn't normal for a reason. Maybe there existed an entire world of book-loving, aspiring people out there. Of little girls who weren't only talking about clothes or ponies all the time, like some of Hermione's muggle classmates here did. Of little boys that weren't always avoiding to do their homework. Of people who appreciated it, when Hermione made their cats fly gently out of the trees they were stuck in, instead of staring her down and asking for explanations that weren't possible.
An entire world of people like her.
Well, Hermione thought with a chuckle, she'd quickly learned that that wasn't true.
Now, after several months here in Hogwarts and a few less of being friends with Ron Weasley and (the famous) Harry Potter, Hermione wasn't disappointed any longer to find that her classmates here were not all that different from the kids at home. It was nice to not keep her magical abilities a secret any more. But apart from that, Hermione had not changed much. And still, she'd coincidentally found the truest of friends here.
They were a bit lazy sometimes, but she would work on that. They were brave and loyal and very funny, the two of them. Yes, Harry and Ron were quite cool.
And now it was time to buy them each something nice for Christmas.
It was weirdly exciting.
In front of her on the library table lay a small list, written in neat handwriting on one of the gently ripped-out pages of her notebook. She'd scribbled out several ideas for presents already, but she hoped to come up with a few more.
Both Harry and Ron loved Quidditch, so perhaps she should buy them something nice about that: a book, maybe. She'd seen some pretty interesting books about Quidditch here in the library, as far as books about Quidditch could be considered interesting. And surely Ron's and Harry's lack of interest in reading would not involve their favourite sport, right?
But then again, she obviously couldn't give Ron and Harry something they had to return to the library again at one point; she had to buy books like those in an actual book store. And first years weren't allowed to visit Hogsmeade yet.
Sure, Hermione could have ordered the books easily. They said that the shops in Hogsmeade, and even in Diagon Alley, could send you a lot of stuff with owls in no time.
But what if Ron and Harry weren't giving her anything at all for Christmas, and if she'd embarrass herself by putting way too much effort in the whole thing?
No, she needed something small. Something nice and friendly and not too meaningful. She'd barely been friends with the two of them for more than a month! Although it felt like way more, didn't it?
Hermione sighed. Parchment and quills and books about Quidditch and all that - it didn't really seem right.
She could just ask her Mum for help. Perhaps, her Mum would send her something nice and sweet then.
Like her self-made lollipops, or her peppermint and raspberry candy canes.
But while those sweets were perfect for someone like herself, Hermione wasn't entirely sure how Ron would think about sugar-free treats. And for some reason, it seemed very important what Ron thought about his present from her. It might even be the first time he'd eat Muggle candy, and Hermione didn't really want him to get the wrong impression of it.
Ron chose that moment to appear from somewhere behind her. She heard his laughter as he approached, and quickly hid the list of possible presents under some pile of her homework.
"Oh, of course you'd still be here!" He commented, rolling his eyes with a sort of grin that wasn't all that annoyed, and stepped beside her chair. "Harry and I are going to have dinner, do you want to come too, or are you still busy finishing unnecessary essays?"
"How could an essay possibly be unnecessary, Ron?" Hermione commented, standing up, while putting her things away. She didn't want to risk Ron seeing her silly Christmas gift list, so she hurried a little.
"If it's due to next week, it's definitely unnecessary," he explained, as they walked through the door. Then he reached into his robe pocket and pulled a small bag of Berty Bott's Every Flavour Beans out of it. He pulled a few beans out, throwing them into his mouth in one quick motion, before offering Hermione some. She felt her cheeks warm up at the niceness of the gesture, in that weird, lovely way in which your cheeks warm up when you see old people hug each other, or something. Because, ..really, Ron didn't have a lot of money. His family was... well, they were pretty poor, based on everything she had heard and seen so far. And he loved sweets.
But of course he was sharing his Berty Bott's Beans with her. That's just what Ron Weasleys do, isn't it? Sharing their sticky, sugary wizards sweets with the world, as if it wasn't something he completely adored and didn't get to have half as often as he liked.
Berty Botts Beans were quite funny, come to think of it, and Hermione was about to go through with it and grab one out of his offered bag, when she already changed her mind again. Her fingers curled securely around the palm that had just been about to reach out for the candy. She was the daughter of two very responsible dentists, after all. And it was almost dinner time.
"Ron, how can you possibly eat sweets now?" she wondered out loud. "We're about to have dinner!"
"And?" He questioned, getting himself another bean. This one was orange and slightly blue-dotted.
"You're about to ruin your appetite," Hermione argued. Ron raised an eyebrow at her.
"You've seen me eat, right?"
"Well, you're going to ruin your teeth at any rate."
"Teeth are made for eating things with them, Hermione! Telling someone they shouldn't eat sweets because it might make their teeth fall out is like... like telling someone to not use a quill because the quill might break, or something." He looked at her triumphantly as she snorted.
"That's a bit different Ron. Quills are only made for that one purpose; writing with them. Whereas teeth are there for eating all different sorts of things! And there are lots of healthier things to eat than Berty Bott's Beans. A lot of stuff tastes better, too, I would suppose."
"How would you know? It's not like you constantly eat them, Hermione!"
"No, but I've seen you eat them often enough, and Harry, too. Half of the time you're making these really disgusted or scared faces, I don't know what's supposed to be so great about that."
"Well, that's part of the fun," Ron shrugged, grinning a bit. "The risk of getting the yucky beans. Come on, Hermione, you tried them on Halloween, you have to admit that the risk is pretty fun!"
She looked up at him for a second as they passed through another corridor. He had a point, she thought. That Halloween night in the common room, shortly after the troll attack, had been one of the nicest nights in Hermione's entire life, so far. And every single bit of it had been fun.
Well, after the first few moments of embarrassment, obviously. She and Harry and Ron sat together and talked and laughed, and for the first time really appreciated each other being here at Hogwarts. And then the boys had been curious about why she wasn't eating any more candy - it was Halloween, after all! - and she had explained to them that her parents were dentists and not all keen on too much sugar.
Which ended in them making her try quite a few more kinds of candy than her mother would ever like to see Hermione eating. And it had been entirely, completely worth it.
Now, surrounded by the orange gleam of the corridor they were in, Ron reached for the bag of Berty Bott's Beans again, holding it out in front of her. It was an offer and a dare in once, but for whatever unknown reason, Hermione actually pulled one of the beans out of there and let it slip between her lips. A light blue one.
A yummy one!
"Cinnamon!" she exclaimed with a surprised beam, and Ron started laughing at her expression. Not in a rude way, though.
"See? Not all of them are bad! You want another?"
She pondered for a few seconds, and then took a light yellow bean.
And after that, there was another bean. And then anther, and then another.
By the time Ron and Hermione met Harry in front of the Great Hall, they were both laughing and making faces because of all the weird tastes they had found.
"What's so funny?" Harry wondered, chuckling, and Ron offered a bean to Harry, too.
She'd have to brush her teeth twice as well tonight, Hermione decided. And she'd have to make sure to not eat as much candy all the time. But now and then, in the company of her new best friends, such sweets might be not such a bad thing, after all.
And that's why Hermione decided to give Ron another bag of those funny beans for Christmas. Maybe he might share them with her and Harry, or eat them all by himself all at once. She would be interested to see what he did, as she wasn't quite sure – it could go either way.
Anyway, it would be a nice gift, wouldn't it? And Harry... Harry she could give some chocolate frogs, she decided. Chocolate was a great gift, too.
It was a real relief to be done with the Christmas planning, Hermione thought, while meeting Ron's amused grin over their plates. The library would be a place for only studying and reading again, by tomorrow.