Pondering
(Ron)
Harry had arrived, a few days ago. And, Merlin, he'd been angry!
All of Hermione's fearful expectations about how he'd probably react to the whole situation had become true. More than true, actually, since Ron had never seen Harry shout like that at someone before. And not at his two very best friends, of all people!
Fortunately, they were together in this whole thing, him and Hermione, - the being-friends-with-Harry-Potter-thing. Because, currently, Harry Potter wasn't really himself. With Cedric's death and the nonsense the Prophet wrote and with being stalked and secluded and everything...- Harry had a lot to deal with, and was therefore in some kind of angry crisis.
Hermione would shoot Ron a certain look, sometimes these days, that made him feel as if they were allies on a complicated mission. And although everything was so messed-up, something about being Hermione's ally was pretty nice.
The idea of being on her side, even if it was about the most unpleasant things, was not just comfortable, it felt necessary. Now and then, at least.
Because she was Hermione and he was Ron, and normally, this caused the two of them to clash with each other in the most ridiculous ways. But he didn't want to bicker with her all the time. Sometimes, worrying about Harry together, or scolding Harry together, or practicing how to talk Harry out of weird plans together, was just as fun. And then, there were moments when there was no Harry and no bickering, whatsoever, but just the two of them. When they would play chess or when she was helping him with a certain essay or homework, late in the evening,- curled up in comfortable commen room chairs and the warmest candle light... Or maybe, even, when they were just talking,- quiet conversations behind library bookshelves, or louder ones, inbetween gulps of pumpkin juice, in the slightly noisy big hall at breakfast...
Ron thoroughly enjoyed being the best friend of "the brightest witch of their age", despite her being obsessed with house-elf-rights and horrible at Quidditch.
So, what do you do, when you have an achingly intense crush on someone like that? On someone who's such a huge part of your life?
Everyone was right there to watch, if he made the wrong move. One slightly conspicuous sentence out of his mouth; one overly enthralled word about her; one wrong glance in her direction, really, could make someone notice the feelings he held for Hermione.
Not the angry or the annoyed or the hilariously amused kind of feelings, that were sometimes connected to things she did or said; the other ones.
Although, mostly, all his many feelings about her mingled. He didn't know what was happening. He wasn't entirely sure if she did, either.
He had felt all this confusion for a while now, had felt his affection for her grow and deepen and spread in so many corners of his life and mind, from the dreams he had at night to boring lessons in class. It was a good thing that Hermione was such an eager student. Every time she put her hand up during a lesson gave him the opportunity to shamelessly stare at her for a few seconds.
You would think that after so many years of knowing her, the mere sight of her was not as interesting any more, but it actually got more and more absorbing, the longer he knew her. There were tiny differences he noticed over time, like the length of her hair or the colour of her skin when the seasons changed. There were dark circles beneath her eyes when she was tired, and a warm glow upon her cheeks, when she was happy. There were angry tears in her eyes when people like Malfoy would make their mean jokes about people like Hagrid, and the most amazing sparkle, when she was talking about things like SPEW. He'd seen a few tiny, almost invisible freckles grazing her face during one summer, and he wondered whether they might come back someday, or not.
Right now, she was sitting there on the coach, just a few metres away from him and Harry. There was a book laying on her lap, gently moving with the abstracted teetering of her fingers, her sock-covered toes were touching the table leg in front of her now and then. Her eyes were running along each line she read in delighted speed, she looked fascinated by..- whatever it was, this time. Hermione Granger really was the only person who could enjoy a school book that much. But then again, she also was the only person who looked so immensely pretty when doing it...
Gee, Weasley, give it a rest!
"Knight to A8!", Harry said, contentedly observing the chessboard in front of them, and turning Ron's attention back to their game. It wasn't much of a distraction, though. Ron could still feel Hermione sitting there, her presence setting warm tingles in the back of his brain, as it sometimes strangely did, and making it all the more important to win, somehow...
It didn't take long for that, though.
"Checkmate!", he smiled, cheekily grinning at Harry a few moves later. He saw Hermione looking up and over to them from the corner of his eye, a part of him being glad that she saw him winning, once again. It wasn't like she hadn't already seen him do so over and over and over again, but it just always made him proud, still. There was this one, unimportant, but still kind of cool thing he could do better than Harry. He deserved something to brag about, didn't he?
"How do you always do that?", Harry complained, confusedly trying to figure out what he should have done, instead. "I really thought there was no possible chance for your king to escape! And then..", he shook his head. Ron laughed.
"Your problem is that you're too spontaneous, Harry. You always wait till the last possible second to make a decision, you need to think further!"
Harry stood up and stretched his tired limbs. It was almost midnight, the three of them being the only ones left in the Black's living room... And if Harry would leave now, and go to bed, then Ron would once again be alone with her...
He hadn't been that a lot, any more, since Harry had arrived. Which really should not bother Ron as much as it apparently did...
He noticed her watching him, in that instant, curiously staring at him over the brim of her book, a few bushy curls falling out of her messy ponytail... She looked back down to her reading, and he averted his eyes as well.
Sometimes this would happen. Weird little sequences of eye contact with her, way too long to ignore, and way too short to make him fully understand them.
Harry hadn't noticed anything, of course.
"Well, I think I'll go to bed, guys. Good night.", he yawned, before grabbing his half-filled cup of now lukewarm tea and making his way up the stairs, quietly.
"What's my problem?", she asked, then, and Ron twitched from the sudden sound of her voice.
"Huh?"
"With playing chess.", she explained, her voice turning slightly quieter and softer. "You said to Harry that he was always too spontaneous and not thinking things really through... I think you might be right with that. So... what's my problem?"
Ron held her gaze again, and for a moment there the warm light from the chimney, the fresh night breeze from the window and her company were the only things he could feel.
He shrugged. "I think you know already..."
She sighed.. "The thing with the over-thinking?"
"Yep."
She stood up and crossed the room, her book laying forgotten behind her on the coach as she sat down on Harry's empty chair. "But I really don't think I'm...-"
"You are. Here, let me show you."
He grabbed the white chess pieces he had already captured from Harry, and set them back down on the board. He was recreating a situation from five minutes ago.
"Okay, so here we are: Harry's remaining pawns are setting my knight at risk, his queen could checkmate my king in three moves, his rook is over here. What would you do, in his case?"
"I think I would...-"
"-I'll tell you what you would do", Ron interrupted her. A slightly smug expression crossed his face as her eyes blinked back up in amused annoyance.
"You would take the castle and use it as a guard against my queen", he put the white rook a few fields closer to himself at this, ".. fearing that you might lose your own queen otherwise. The queen is pretty important to you."
"Well, she is!", Hermione exclaimed, still looking surprised at how well he'd read her thoughts about their hypothetical game. "The queen is the most valuable token here!"
The tiny white queen on the board looked pretty pleased at this.
"But by focusing so much on your queen, you're complicating your way to my king."
"No, I'm not.", Hermione answered, her eyes flashing up to his. "Look at this, there's still the option of taking your king in three moves, I just made everything a little safer, first." She drew an imaginary line across the chess board with her fingers, showing him where she'd move her queen next in order to win.
"Yeah, but what if I do this?", Ron said, moving his own queen amidst her path.
Her eyebrows wrinkled and she bit her lip. "Then I would use my rook and...-"
"Exactly.", Ron commented, and he took her outstretched wrist to draw another imaginary line across the board with her hand. "You'd go all the way around here, in order to get to my king from another angle. You'd make several theoretically logical plans in your head on how to deal with the situation, and while you are thinking so much, I would find a way that's way too easy and plain for you to even consider. And then I'd win."
"That's not..-",she started, but blushed and closed her mouth again, defeated, realising that he was right. His lips twitched up into a lopsided smile. Ron was incredibly good at playing chess, and they both knew it.
"Okay, okay, so perhaps I am lacking the right kind of attitude for this game.", Hermione admitted, and Ron's grin widened. "But one of these days, I'm sure I'll beat you at it, anyway."
"Maybe. If you watch me win for another few hundred times, you might pick something up here and there."
She rolled her eyes, about to go back to her book, when he noticed how one of his thumbs was still grazing her wrist on the table, ever so slightly...
How was it, that sometimes touching her or making her laugh or talking for half an hour to her were the most normal things in the world to him, and then again so flustering, all of the sudden?
Perhaps, she'd noticed it too, his touch, because he would have sworn that there was a light, rosy tint on her cheeks as she went over to the coach, once again. His fingertips felt rather empty, in that moment, but they also sent pleasant tingles down his spine and up to his scalp, somehow.
As they sat there in silence,- Ron organising the gossiping chess-people back into the box; and Hermione reading her book and making unobtrusive remarks on some of the pages with her favourite removable quill,- Ron couldn't help but to think about their implications. About their natural assumption that there were so many other chess games still to come...
"One of these days, I'm sure I'll beat you at it", she'd said... How many of these days were there, he wondered? How long would things be the way they were supposed to be?
Not only because of the uncertain times they were living in, but also because of all the childish rows and fights they sometimes had, Ron needed her to say stuff like that, now and then. Optimistic stuff. Optimistic stuff about chess or chocolate frogs or homework... Stuff about them, him and her.
She could be so consumed by all her crazy doubts sometimes. Her perfectionism was making her worry way too much, it always had. It was so nice to be seen as a constant in her life, to know that she didn't question their friendship at all. But then again, why should she?
He must have stared at her again, because at one point, she was holding his eyes again with hers, for a second.
The darkening flames guttered, as the corners of her lips twitched up.
He smiled back.
Author's note:
Hi guys! :) After several weeks, I'm back to writing on this. There's been a LOT of other stuff going on, but now I'll have more time for my fan fic love. ^^ No one agreed to be my Beta on this story, so far, which is why it's still not as good as it could be. I'm still planning on continuing it, nonetheless. I'll try to post a new chapter on this each Friday, for a few weeks. As always, honest comments are my fuel, so tell me what you think, please!
Have a nice day or night, thanks for reading and for support! Bye!
