Chapter 6 – A Different Kind Of Magic
1st October 2000
Sitting at a table for two in a small café in the centre of London, Ron had to admit that he felt a little guilty for inviting this woman on what could only be called a date without the best of intentions. But not nearly guilty enough to let her know his real motivation. Besides, before he had known the truth about her, had he not wanted to ask her out anyway? The new information he had gained had just… peaked his curiosity, that was all.
However in the last half an hour he hadn't really learned very much more about Hermione's involvement – or rather, non-involvement – with the magical world. Not that they hadn't talked: in actual fact the conversation had flowed, which was something Ron found he had grown disturbingly unaccustomed to. Though Hermione had tactfully not mentioned any of the more distressing aspects of his past he had brought up in their shouting match the week before, she hadn't glossed over it the sickeningly obvious way that most people did. They simply talked about everything else – their likes, dislikes, living in London, working in London (he had had to use a bit of poetic licence when describing his job as a muggle bank clerk), being in a generation where everyone assumed you were useless, that sort of thing. And she almost managed to hide the fact that she was skirting around certain key issues. She hid it so well, in fact, that Ron thought if he wasn't constantly on alert for the mannerisms that told him a person wasn't being honest, he might not even have noticed she was avoiding the subject of any of their previous meetings. But notice he did.
He wondered if she suspected that he knew about her. She couldn't know that he did for sure – after all, she had no idea of his own connection to the magical world. He smiled to himself bitterly, thinking how refreshing it was to be able to talk to someone who didn't instantly pity you because of the colour of your hair, or your family name. But if she didn't know about him – and why should she? – then she had no real cause for suspicion, and he was sure that a part of her was wary about telling him certain things. Perhaps she was just naturally an overly-cautious person. He supposed you would have to be if you spent your whole life trying to hide what you truly were both from yourself and the people around you.
"Penny for them." The voice broke into his thoughts and he blushed involuntarily as he looked up, realising that Hermione had returned from the bathroom, pulled back her chair and sat back down opposite him without him even noticing.
"What?" he asked, both embarrassed and a little confused. He knew that pennies were those stupid little copper coins that muggles used to make up ponds – no, powunds – but he couldn't understand what she was offering him money for.
"Penny for your thoughts," Hermione said, smiling. "You looked as though you were miles away."
"I wasn't," said Ron, bewildered, "I was right here."
Now Hermione looked confused, but Ron didn't understand; she was the one saying ridiculous things. Unless… Oh no. Was this her telling him that she knew he was a wizard? That he could Apparate instantly to somewhere miles away? Remove thoughts from his own head with his wand to put into a pensieve? "N-not that I could be anywhere else!" he blustered, beginning to panic slightly. "I mean, you've only been gone five minutes, and I'd have to get the tube or a bus to get that far away so quickly, wouldn't I?"
"I…" Hermione trailed off, and from the way she was staring at him he knew he had done something wrong again. "Are you making fun of me?" she asked suddenly, a slight edge to her voice.
"No," said Ron warily, wondering if this woman was a little bit unbalanced after all, "but you weren't making any sense. How could I give you my thoughts? I mean, there's no mug… normal way to do that." He cursed himself mentally – that would have been the second time he said muggle in front of her. The chances of her picking up on the reference were small, but he didn't want to risk it a third time.
"Are you being serious?" Hermione was looking at him incredulously, and he felt himself redden even further under her penetrating gaze. She was clearly trying to figure out if he was deliberately mocking her, but he still couldn't understand what he had said wrong.
"Are you?" he countered, going on the defensive because it seemed the safest option in the circumstances, "I mean, it's not like…" Oh, what the hell, he thought, "It's not like there's any such thing as magic, or anything!"
If he had had any doubts about his theory before, they were quashed once he uttered those words. A tiny unconscious flicker crossed Hermione's face, invisible to anyone who wasn't watching closely, and she let out a short, forced laugh.
"No," she said, shaking her head a little too hard to be genuine, "of course not. But I mean… It's just a figure of speech. You know – penny for your thoughts? As in, you looked as though you were off in a world of your own?"
Something clunked into place in Ron's head, and he groaned inwardly. In his mind's eye he could see his dad waving a copy of 'When It's Raining Cats and Dogs – Common Muggle Phrases for Wizards in the Know' at him, saying "You never know when it might come in handy, son!". Suddenly he wished he'd paid more attention to what he'd seen as his father's ridiculous attempt to educate him about muggles when he'd had the chance.
"Um, yes" he stammered, feeling himself going a ridiculous shade of scarlet, "of course I knew that. I was just… er…" He searched his mind frantically for something intelligent to say, knowing that no matter how hard he tried he was going to come off sounding like an idiot no matter what. Again. What was it about this girl?
"Never mind," said Hermione bracingly, though she was still looking at him with a rather curious expression on her face. "It's not important, anyway."
"I'm sorry," he said a little hesitantly, desperately trying not to make another excruciating faux pas, "I'm just a little nervous." He smiled across the table at her hopefully, wondering why it was that the intellectual part of his brain could come up with phrases like 'excruciating faux pas' but seemed so reluctant to let his mouth actually say them. However, she seemed to melt a little at his woefully pathetic apology; at any rate, she smiled back at him.
"It's quite all right," she said kindly. "Truth be told, I'm a little nervous myself. I haven't really had a proper conversation with someone my own age who wasn't a client for… well, for a long time."
"Me neither," said Ron wonderingly, forgetting his embarrassment for a minute. The look on her face was so familiar to him – that painful, self-deprecating smile that was a part of him now. "I haven't talked to someone like this in months, actually."
"Really?" she asked, looking puzzled. "You don't seem like… I mean, it seems like you're the kind of person who could talk to just about anyone really easily."
"No," Ron lied, "that's never really been me, to be honest." Well, it had been once, but that had been a long time ago. He was different now.
"Oh," said Hermione, looking a little melancholy. "Well, I've never been able to do that either – I make a terrible first impression, you see."
"No you don't," Ron said quickly. If there was one thing that didn't agree with him more so than someone insulting one of the people close to him, it was someone insulting themselves. Only he was allowed to do that, after all.
"I do," Hermione said, looking down at the table, "I always have. I never seem to know when to hold back, and it makes me come across as… Well, I don't know. Arrogant. Self-absorbed. Patronising. A know-it-all."
"Hey," Ron said gently, reaching his hand across the table to her. "Don't say things like that. If it makes a difference, you never came across that way to me."
"Yeah, I'm sure," said Hermione sarcastically, but she did at least look up at him again.
"You didn't," he said insistently, "not at all. I thought you were sweet, and charming, and ridiculously gorgeous of course." He grinned jokingly at her, and she gave a half-hearted smile. "Honestly." He could actually see the effect that his words were having on her, seeming to light her up from the inside. It was… remarkable. He wasn't used to his words having such a strong effect on another human being.
"Was that before or after I had you thrown out of the bar?" she said wickedly, suddenly smirking at him like a cat that had got the cream (of course that was the one phrase he remembered from that stupid book). Ron was delighted by the fact that he seemed to have got over at least one hurdle – this was her first mention of their previous meeting.
"Oh before, definitely," Ron said, trying to keep a straight face: however soon they both succumbed to the laughter that appeared to have crept up on them from nowhere.
At the same time, they realised that their hands were now touching on top of the table. Simultaneously they looked down and then back up at each other, and Ron felt a little jolt of something like electricity go through his body as she met his eyes. But this was a different kind of magic. His stomach gave an involuntary twist, and he realised that though he had made a little progress today he had also discovered a major obstacle in his path. He was going have to work hard if he wanted to find out the truth about Hermione Granger before he let himself get too close and had to cut her out of his life.
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Truth be told, Hermione was feeling a little bit out of her depth. For so long she had succeeded in keeping her guard up around people, never letting anyone get too close, even her own parents. Especially her own parents. She had only let her guard down with one person, and the result of that… experiment had led her to believe that getting close to someone was tantamount to signing up for unbearable and never-ending hurt. What sort of sensible person would volunteer for that? And if she was anything, Hermione was sensible. But now those barriers that she had built, the citadel walls that she had thought was so strong, were being demolished from the foundations like so much rice paper by this one man. And for the life of her, she couldn't figure out why.
There was something altogether… different about him. He was like no-one else she had ever known, and she was able to relate to him more than she liked to admit. He was hiding something too, she was sure of it. Of course, Hermione's ever analytical mind had processed the fact that he wasn't too hard on the eye either, and that this might have something to do with her growing fascination with him. But she didn't think that was the only reason she couldn't stop thinking about him. Ron Weasley. Even his name was unusual, somehow sounding foreign but at the same undeniably British. Yes, there was something about him that sparked her interest, that made her want to get to know him.
Although, she told herself sternly, she did already know some things about him. He had been through a recent trauma, and was clearly not over it. He had a quick and fiery temper under that calm exterior, and a drinking problem that he could not have recovered from yet, though he might think he had. What else did she not know about him? For all she knew, he could be a hard drug addict who took heroin three times a day! She just couldn't be sure that he wasn't a lying, scrounging cheat. And yet she was. She told herself it was because she had seen so many junkies and street walkers in the last year that she could tell just by looking at someone, but she knew that was ridiculous. The most respectable looking gentleman in the finest suit could be snorting a line from his dressing table every night. The truth was, she just didn't want to believe that Ron could be a man like that, because it would shatter the picture of him that she had conjured up in her own mind. A troubled but good man, who she could take in her arms and nurse back to health…
In all honesty she should have been appalled with herself for even having this sexist and twisted fantasy, which she knew was ridiculous anyway. The rational part of her brain told her that subconsciously she felt guilty about what had happened in the past, and that she was trying to 'save' Ron as her penance. But really, in her heart of hearts, she knew that wasn't it. When he looked at her with those blue eyes, it was as if every bad thought just flew out of her head. He made her laugh, and she hadn't had a real reason to laugh for a long time. He paid her compliments, which she had to admit were quite flattering even if they were ridiculously exaggerated. He talked to her, really talked to her, seemed interested in what she thought about things instead of wanting to make it all about him.
All the same, there was something nagging at her about him that wasn't really to do with whether or not she really was starting to have feelings for him or not. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she knew that it was somewhere in the recesses of her mind, just trying to catch her attention. She put her fingers on her temples and thought her way through what had happened earlier that day.
-
The dinner had gone well, she had to admit. The place Ron had chosen was small but pleasant, with a homely sort of atmosphere. And it had nice bathrooms, so by her standards it was excellent – one habit Hermione had picked up from her mother was judging the quality of a restaurant by the upkeep and sanitation of its ladies. As the woman herself said, 'What use is fancy china and silk tablecloths if you have to hover five feet off the loo because you're scared you'll catch something?' Hermione thought it was one of the most useful and insightful pieces of advice her mother had ever given her.
Anyway, apart from the slightly awkward pause after what she had deemed the 'hand-holding incident', things had been going well. They had had a heated but amusing argument about who would pay the bill – Hermione had won of course, and they had split the bill down the middle – and then Ron had handed her back her coat and they had headed for the door. They had been walking back to Hermione's flat when there had been a slight lapse in conversation, and Hermione took the chance to ask something she had been wondering whether to bring up or not since a remark her companion had made earlier.
"Ron," she said briskly, "what's a muggle?"
The reaction had been instantaneous – Ron had frozen mid-step, a decidedly strange look on his face, and his hand seemed to twitch automatically towards his right pocket. He seemed to think very carefully before swallowing hard and turning his head to look at her.
"What makes you ask that?" he asked, sounding almost perfectly normal, if a little strained.
"You said it, em…" Hermione found herself unsure of what to say – this had been the main reason against bringing it up, that Ron had said it in the heat of the moment during their argument in her hallway. She had tried to avoid mentioning their previous meetings, telling herself it was so Ron didn't feel embarrassed, but knowing it was because she didn't want him to think back to what she had… done… in the bar. But this one word had stuck in her mind, because it had seemed so out of place to her. She had searched every dictionary but not found it anywhere, and she did so hate not knowing something.
"In your flat," Ron finished for her, giving her a thin lipped smile that indicated he really wasn't very interested in talking about that day either.
"Yes," said Hermione gratefully, "and it sounded like you started to say it earlier. I was only wondering what it meant – I've looked everywhere but I couldn't find it."
"Well," Ron said slowly, "I don't suppose you would. It's, um, what do you call it? Sling? No, slang, that's it."
"Oh," Hermione said, comprehension dawning. "I suppose that makes sense, really. There aren't many colloquial terms in the dictionaries at the moment, though they are talking about changing that in future editions I hear…" As Hermione heard herself babbling on about the way the world was changing and the woeful use of the English Language nowadays, she noticed that Ron visibly relaxed back into himself. It was strange – it seemed she had really riled him somehow. By the time she was finished, he was nodding along with what she was saying quite happily, and she decided to try her luck again. "So, what does it mean, then?"
"Hmmm?" Ron said, stopping walking suddenly and turning to face her.
"I just wondered what the word actually meant," Hermione said, confused, "and why have we stopped?"
"You're home," Ron said simply, and looking up in amazement Hermione realised that she was. She really could talk for longer than was good for her when she got going.
"Oh, so I am," she said stupidly, then kicked herself inwardly for making such an inane comment.
"Nice to see you're on the ball," Ron said teasingly, laughing softly at her.
"Oh, shut up," Hermione said, finding herself beginning to laugh too. "Anyway – what does 'muggle' mean? You never actually told me." But Ron was looking at her straight in the eyes, and all of a sudden he wasn't laughing any more. And when she saw the way he was looking at her, neither was she.
"You know what," he said in a strange, husky sort of voice, "I can't even remember now." He was moving closer towards her on the pavement, but Hermione didn't move away. She was suddenly paralysed, unable to do anything but stare back at the man in front of her.
"Oh," she said again, for the third time in a minute, but at that moment in time it seemed like the right thing to say. And then she didn't have to say anything, because Ron had moved even closer, so there was only an inch between them.
"Hermione," he said slowly, "would it be alright if I-"
But he never got to finish the sentence, because in an instant Hermione overcame her paralysis to lean in and softly brush his lips with hers. After a second she realised what she had done and pulled back in order to apologise for being so forward, but Ron lifted his hand to her cheek and put his thumb on her lower lip to stop her.
"Shhh," he said softly. He leaned in to replace his finger with his mouth, and Hermione didn't pull away again for a long time…
-
And so, they had shared their first kiss – Hermione felt herself flush a little just thinking about it – but now that she was re-examining it, she could see it in a slightly different light. At the time it had seemed almost unbearably romantic, but had Ron in truth just been trying to distract her from what she had wanted to find out? After all, she had been so giddy after they had broken apart that it had been all she could do to stammer out a 'goodbye' and arrange to meet him at the same place in three days time. What if that had been what he was aiming for? Why would anyone be that manipulative? Unfortunately, she knew the answer to that – if they had something big to hide.
Well if there was one useful skill she had learned in all her training, it was that a lawyer's mind is as good as a machine: you give it information in the form of evidence and after a period of thinking time it will spit out all possible conclusions. And so she did what she did best – she examined the evidence. Working chronologically, she noted down all the strange things she had noticed about Ron in her casebook.
When he appeared at her flat the morning after she had met him in the bar, he had shown no signs of the ill-effects of the alcohol from the night before even though he had clearly been very intoxicated. There was that strange thing he always did where whenever he felt threatened his hand automatically went to his pocket, as though some kind of weapon was concealed there. That weird feeling she had got when he had been so angry, the feeling that something very tangible was radiating from him in waves. The ease with which he had tracked her down at her workplace – she still didn't know how he had done that, and hadn't wanted to ask in case it sparked a row. The way he had fudged around the subject of his job, as though he was trying not to give too much away. Perhaps most oddly, his unfamiliarity with perfectly normal, everyday phrases and concepts, things he must have heard before. Separately none of the things would probably have bothered her, but together… It was just sounding an alarm in her head, that was all.
Wracking her brains, she tried to think what the reason behind all this oddness could be, but annoyingly the answer seemed to be lurking at the very edge of her mind, unwilling to make itself known. For some reason her head just wasn't piecing things together the way she had come to rely on it to. Perhaps she was tired.
She looked at her watch, and was shocked to discover that it was almost ten o'clock. She had to be out of the house by six to in order to get to work on time in the morning. The mystery of Ron could wait until later – right now she had to concentrate on getting a decent night's sleep, uninterrupted by thoughts about the red-head. Well, she thought to herself with a smile, perhaps she would allow it to be interrupted by some thoughts about him…
A/N: Apologises for the delay, but as you probably noticed this is the longest chapter yet to make up for it! I am very happy because this is the first 'kiss scene' I have ever written and I'm actually quite pleased with the way it turned out. Comments, criticisms etc are very welcome, as always.
