part6

What Witches Want - Part 06 - by Katherina Black

Later, in the Gryffindor common room, Lavender and Parvati could be seen (and heard) congratulating themselves for the part they'd played in "reuniting" Ron and Hermione. Lavender was back to her bubbly self and Ron heard her happily telling Seamus how they'd "just had to do something about it, as it's so obvious they like each other."

And though Ron hated to admit it to himself, if anything could have changed things more than they'd already been changed, this had done it. This was the second time that he'd been forced to imagine what it might like without this one bushy know-it-all in his life; the difference was, this time it would have been entirely his fault.

As if to reassure himself, Ron glanced to his right where Hermione sat, reading a novel. She sensed him looking at her and sent him a quizzical well-what-do-you-want look back, which he didn't answer. As Ron stared back down at his hands, he heard her sigh and resume reading her book.

Ron was remembering the first time he'd nearly lost Hermione. There was hardly a time when Harry wasn't in some kind of danger, but with Hermione it was...different. It had been only in their second year at Hogwarts when she'd gone and got herself Petrified by a Basilisk. And, what was worse, neither Ron or Harry had been there with her.

When he'd next seen her, Hermione had been lying there on the hospital bed, stiff and still as a plank of wood, face blank. Her eyes had been wide open and clear, unfocused, staring straight up. She looked as though her mind, beneath her skull, had stopped working. That had terrified him the most. She might as well have been dead already.

Unknown to everyone else, Ron had crept back to the hospital wing that night, unable to sleep with his mind filled with dreams of the chamber of secrets and polyjuice potions. Five minutes by her side had been enough. When Harry had proposed going into the forbidden forest the next day, he hadn't hesitated.

Ron came out of his thoughts shuddering. He then noticed that he'd just involuntarily put his arm around Hermione. And that her cheeks were pink.

*

"Stop it," Ron growled as Harry traipsed grinning into their dormitory.

"I didn't say anything," Harry shrugged would-be-innocently, still smirking as he pulled off his socks and threw them across the dorm into his trunk.

"I know what you're thinking though..." said Ron. He was sitting bolt upright on the edge of his four-poster bed, hair sticking up where he'd run his hands through it, staring helplessly down at his collection of Chocolate frog cards. Even they couldn't distract him. When he next looked up, his face wore a rather deperate expression.

"Harry - how did I get like this? What did - how can I - ?" Ron gave up, flopped backwards, and sent chocolate frog cards flying while muttered something which sounded remarkably like "Girls."

One of the scattered cards fluttered gently down on to Ron's face. Before his nose, the image of Albus Dumbledore twinkled and smiled at him from the photo. Instead of sweeping it away, Ron focused on the image, which was smiling knowingly at him.

That's right, he remembered. He knew what witches wanted.

*

The next night was another warm summers evening. Ron wasn't suprised that she was sitting on her own in her favourite part of the Hogwarts grounds, by the rose bushes. Hermione was perched, hugging her knees, on the bench.

"What are you doing?" Ron plopped himself next to her. He was in an extroadinarily good mood all of a sudden. "Wait, don't answer that. Let me see...you don't have a book, so you can't be reading. In that case you must be...thinking; your second favourite hobby!"

"Your powers of deduction are amazing," Hermione said, smiling at him slightly as she made the sarcastic comment. "But yes, you're right."

Ron noted a slightly preoccupied tone in her usually brisk voice. He frowned.

"Hermione, are you okay?"

"Hmm? Yeah, just a bit..." Hermione trailed off. "It's just been one of those days," she shrugged, trying to summon up a smile. She untucked her legs and stretched them out, yawning.

"So come on, what were you thinking about? Out with it. No secret is safe from me." The irony was lost on him until Hermione started to laugh.

"And I thought you were glad to finish with thoughts?"

"I was. Now, don't change the subject," Ron said, swiftly changing the subject and suprising himself with his brisk tone. Hermione sent him a quizzical, amused look before speaking.

"I was thinking about...mayfragons..." she said, randomly, eyeing one of the said magical insects, fluttering on a nearby leaf. Ron wasn't sure whether to believe her. "Did you know, they only have one day to live. They have to find a partner - you know, a mate - and after mating they'll die."

Ron shook his head, not quite sure what to make of it all. The two sat in silence for a bit under the darkening summer sky. The fairies were back, crooning and glowing in the bushes. Peace.

Almost.

Because suddenly Ron remembered why he was out here. Sort of. He knew that he'd been in the common room, playing chess against himself, when suddenly he'd felt an urge to go and find Hermione. But now, actually looking at her...

"Hermione, you know in second year, when you got petrified by the Basilisk?"

Hermione turned to look at him, and nodded. "Why?"

"You...really scared the hell out of me then."

Hermione paused, an unreadable expression on her face. "You've never told me that," she said, finally. He never had, had he? Ron never got sentimental about things like this. Not about Hermione.

"Well you did. I mean, I was really really worried. One of the worst days of my life, that day." And yet it had barely begun then. Ron took a deep breath. What was he getting at? "I just thought...I mean, I just wanted to tell you."

Hermione looked at him, unsure what to say. However, her eyes were glistening and that meant one thing: In a swift movement, she was hugging him. That was Hermione all over.

And then, everything came at once. All Ron's senses awoke, alive, in a second. The smell of shampoo in her hair, her black Hogwarts robes, Hermione's familiar scent of peppermint on her skin. A girl. A friend.

"Hermione, I want to mate with you and die," Ron said.

*

Ron had never found it hard to focus on a game of chess, but tonight he was being sorely tested. Opposite, Hermione's eyes were glued on the board across which two armies, black and white, faced each other in combat. She was making those odd little noises with her tongue which she always made when thinking hard about something.

Ron was finding them increasingly endearing. It was that same mouth which he'd found himself kissing a few hours previously; that mouth which had swiftly kissed him back, sweetly and deeply. This had all been, of course, before they'd both burst out laughing in a giddy state of euphoria.

Even Ron's chessmen were being unusually quiet this evening. Well, they always were whenever he played Hermione; they knew it would always be a certain victory. Ron looked down at the chessboard, then up at Hermione, who was still making those clucking noises to herself. After some thought, he made his move (On the chessboard, that is).

"Your move," he said, looking up, eyes twinkling slightly. Ron ignored his bishop, who was half choking, half yelling at him. ("What on earth do you think you're doing? Are you blind?!")

"Right," Hermione said, contemplating what was in front of her. She moved her knight. "Checkmate."

The meaning of the word sunk in.

"Ron!" Hermione cried. "You just let me win!"

"So I did," Ron said, thoughtfully regarding at the board as if he'd only just realised it. He shrugged and grinned at her, enjoying the variety of expressions passing across her face. "Oh well, my first ever defeat might as well have been to the brightest witch of our generation, eh?"

Hermione was eyeing him suspiciously. "Ron, you didn't just let me win on purpose, did you?" she said, knowing full well that he had.

"Me? Do something so gentleman-like and unselfish? Don't be ridiculous, Hermione."

Hermione shook her head, and both their thoughts turned to the same thing as they settled down before the fire. As it was summer, and a fire was not particularly necessary, blue and purple flames flickered in the grate instead of the usual hot red.

"Hermione?" Loath as he was to break to the comfortable, anticipating silence, Ron was curious.

"Hmm?"

"A while back, we were talking, and I said that love was meant to be painful, remember?"

"Mmm," said Hermione, non-commitally.

"Well, I did. And then you said - thought, rather - that you knew a lot about that."

"Did I?" She was blushing. So she did remember.

"I was just wondering if - if anything's happened between you and Krum to make you say that? You know, has he hurt you, or something?"

Hermione didn't say anything for a moment. Then:

"Ron, I wasn't thinking of Krum then, I was thinking of you," she said quietly.

She took a look at the shocked look on his face, sighed, then started to laugh.

"It's always been you, Ron! Do you still not get that, even after a week of listening to my thoughts? What else do you need to do, get it in writing?"

Ron met her gaze, and put an arm around her, smiling.

"Alright, alright, clever clogs. It was just a question."

"Anything else you want to ask me about my thoughts while we're at it?" she asked.

Ron's grin stretched wider, recalling the bits and pieces which he'd "picked up" from Hermione during that fateful week, and consequently spent the past few nights mulling over (generally during Professor Binn's lessons).

"No, I think I understand the rest of it," he said, leaning in towards her. Ron wondered what Hermione was thinking behind those smiling brown eyes, at the same time enjoying the sensation of not knowing at all.

Then he kissed her, waking all his senses once again and enjoying the electrifying sweetness that swept through him.

Afterall, Ron didn't usually risk getting too deep into thoughts.

The End.

A/N Thanks to Zsenya for spotting my story on ff.net and putting it at sugarquill. Long live sugarquill! The mayfragon idea ("I want to mate with you and die") was based on a bit from Melissa Banks' The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing. After hours of writing this part, it occurs to me that it may come across as slightly weird. Oh well.