Chapter 8 Moments in Eternity

Author's Note: Yes, it took a while. Please don't remind me, I apologise, etc. etc., etc., It's long though! And it's fluffy! And you'll be happy with me, (I hope). School got off to a rather difficult start and I've just been turning the chapter over in my mind again, and again, and again. So yes. Enjoy, and review! It really means a lot. *smiles* Now READ!

Disclaimer: Alright, everyone. Common sense. 1) Would J.K. Rowling be publishing things on the Internet? 2) Would she have a DISCLAIMER?

I wonder why
I feel so high though I am not above the sorrow
Heavy-hearted 'till you call my name
And it sounds like church bells or the whistle of a train
On a summer evening I'll run to meet you barefoot
Barely breathing


As I lay me down to sleep
This I pray
That you will hold me dear
Though I'm far away
I'll whisper your name
Into the sky
And I will wake up happy

-Sophie B. Hawkins, "As I Lay Me Down"



"Love vanquishes time. To lovers, a moment can be eternity, and eternity can be the tick of a clock."



"That's it!"

Hermione threw her wand down upon the library table with a distinctly satisfied look on her face, glowing with her previous efforts.

Ron grinned. "We've actually done it this time? Not just half done, and still pages and pages of notes by incomprehensible scholars to review?"

Hermione made a face at him. "Very funny, Ron." She paused, as if in consideration. "One more go - just for fun?"

Laughing outright, Ron nodded. Picking up his wand, he outlined a heart in the air and recited the words, "Amo aureo!" A glittering red heart appeared in the air and slowly, an invisible cursive hand wrote the sonnet in gilt line by line.

"It's really not bad, is it?" Ron said, turning to look at Hermione. The smile faded from his face in confusion as he saw she was staring at him with bewildered eyes that seemed to ask an unknown question.

Ron gulped, and attempted to smother the emotions that rose up in him at the all-too-familiar sight of her softly luminous chestnut eyes, and her face that was somehow dewy. Was there something wrong, had she figured out his, -problem-, that she was looking at him with such perplexity?

"Hermione?"

Hermione shook her head quickly, and looked at him with a distracted look on her face. "No, it's very good. I can't imagine our getting a bad mark, though I must say I'm not quite sure about the mechanics of the hand yet, who would have known it was so hard -"

"Hermione."

"Yes?"

"We.  Are.  Going.  To.  Hogsmeade."

"Are you sure, because I know that sometimes these little problems creep up on you -"

"The spell is perfect! There is nothing wrong with it, or your research, or my research, or you," how did that slip out, how? Cover it up, cover it up quickly, "except for the fact that you just won't relax. So. We are going out for a nice ButterBeer so that we can savor the fact that the most difficult project of the year is probably over."

"Well, I suppose, though it's only February. Sometimes Snape has something up his sleeve, actually I think he does this year -"

"Going, Hermione!"

"I'll go get my coat."

                                                                          

                                                                        ~-***-~


Hogsmeade, a warm glass of Butterbeer and Hermione seemed to Ron to be something only angels could wish for.

An unwieldy silence, however reigned over their small table. Hermione seemed to be doing anything but looking straight at him. Which was, actually, what Ron was doing as well.

"It's funny that we're done our project in February. We got the actual assignment in what, January?" Ron fiddled with the handle on his glass.

Hermione remained silent.

"And then if you look at poor Harry - he hasn't even started, I don't think, he doesn't have nearly as good a partner as I have -"

Hermione's head popped up. "It wasn't just me, Ron, you know very well you helped get it finished soon too."

Ron flushed, not having expected the sudden compliment. "I know that, but if I had been doing this project on my own, I probably wouldn't have considered the requirement until April."

The silence returned, Ron thoroughly confused. Had he done something wrong? Hermione hadn't been this quiet since she was Petrified.

The jolly owner of Honeydukes' broke their ungainliness.

"Can I get anything else for y'two?"

The two shook their heads in dissent, murmuring small comments to the same extent.

She smiled benevolently at the two of them. "Aren't the two of you just so cute, I hope you've gotten something nice for her for Valentine's Day, it's coming up, y'know."

As if she had somehow pressed a button, Ron's face flamed a burning red and Hermione made a gallant attempt to reach his unequable cherry shade.

"Oh, no -"

"We're not -"

She let out a yelp of surprise, patting Hermione on the hand. "I'm ever so sorry, both of you, I should really stop assuming things. Why, my mother, just the other day, very old, and wrinkled she is, said to me, "You've just got to stop these guesses, they'll get you into so much -" Her story trailed off as she gathered their empty glasses and took them back to the counter.

Ron thought he saw something that made absolutely no sense.

Had she winked at him?


                                                                                  ~-***-~


Unfortunately, she had merely guessed the truth, however unlikely it was. Their library visits had done nothing to cool Ron's ardent fire. Sometimes he caught himself looking at Hermione when he really had no reason to, staring at her profile as she concentrated in class, in an almost reverent wonder that melted into coincidence when she turned around. He could hardly believe that she was so beautiful. Not, of course, that he would ever think that in a state of sanity.

It all just seemed like a huge lapse in logic, where nothing really ever mattered reason-wise, and a smile could send the earth turning, and a frown make the sky fall.

Ron had had "crushes" over the years, on people whose names he hardly liked to utter anymore, so embarrassed was he that he had once harbored feelings that were out of the ordinary for them.

But Hermione seemed to be different.

Every line of her face was memorized, so intently had he studied it, words that she had said and her motions seemed stuck in his brain immovably.

Tonight, lying in his bed, he had to ask himself the all-consuming question.

Was this just a crush?

He knew that a lot of people used the word "love" in every situation, from Quidditch to the new wizard heart-throb. He wasn't sure how, but the word he had been trying to use for the last few months extended deeper than that, reaching within him and withdrawing every last ounce of tenderness he had ever felt.

It was more than just an infatuation, more than just simple lust.

Unless feeling as if every moment with her was a surprise that somehow you had felt before was normal. Unless knowing every movement she was about to make before she made it was only friendship.

Oh, why couldn't he just say it.

He, Ron Weasley, loved Hermione Granger, the top witch in his class, the one he had known for six years and shared every moment of them with, the person who knew him as well as anyone out there knew him.

And there was nothing he could do about it.

He felt as if she opened up the world for him all over again, as if in her eyes he could be everything he had always wanted to be. His love made him burn with a slow but steady fire, a fire that already consumed all of him. It wasn't hot in bursts and starts, but warmed him from within with something that made him regard her with an adoring amazement that something like her could exist.

She didn't know it, but every second he had worked on that spell, he had been dedicating it to her.


                                                                  ~-***-~


"Potions!" Harry said brightly, as they strolled quickly through the busy corridors. "Nothing better, that's what I always say."

Ron laughed. Turning to his friend, he asked, concerned, "How's the Charms thing going? Bad as you thought?"

Harry laughed bitterly, arching his eyebrows sarcastically. "That would involve beginning it with her, Ron. Once we do, though, it'll be World War III."

"What?"

Hermione swept in from another part of the hall. "Carnage. Destruction. Bloodshed."

"There was a World War? When?"

Harry threw his hands up in the air. "Honestly, Ron, I think that the best option for you next year would be Muggle Studies."

Ron snorted. "How would that be useful?" he said, a glint in his eye. "It's not like I know any Muggles or anything -"

Hermione playfully hit him, as they sat down at the desk.

Five minutes later, Potions class was in full swing.

"Longbottom!"

"Y-y-y-yes, sir?"

"Tell me the reaction caused if you were to ingest a mixture of Dergewerty Juice and Bicklument Tonic?

"Er, swelling?"

"INCORRECT!"

Harry leaned over discreetly to Ron. Talking out of the side of his mouth, he muttered, "He's in a nasty mood today. Reckon he drank some of the Diggiwerty and Bickly stuff?"

"POTTER!"

Harry shot back to his normal position with a speed that was almost faster than light.

Snape trod back to the front of the room, oozing distaste. "Does anybody know? None of you precious geniuses can answer one of the most elementary questions in this study?"

Hermione hesitantly raised her hand. As a rule, she had learned not to be too enthusiastic in Snape's class. Although now he merely insulted her for not knowing anything, and cheating on her tests.

It was the wrong move. Snape spun on her with a gaze that seemed to try to incinerate her flesh.

In an icily cool voice, he said, "Miss Granger?"

Hermione read the look in his eyes and realized her mistake. "Sir, I -"

Snape's tone changed as quickly as Harry's Firebolt. Spitting out his words, one by one, he yelled, "I did not ask you, Miss Granger, or any other pathetic excuses for a know-it-all that there might be in this classroom. But it's just you isn't it? You may have learned somewhere that you are superior to everyone else, but you should just go back to the Muggle world where you came from, and I -"

Ron stood up. "SHUT UP!"

Snape looked at him with a furious expression on his face. This wasn't the first time Ron had done this, but everyone had thought it would be the last. "MR. WEASLEY. I suggest you SIT DOWN before you are expelled!"

Ron didn't even think about it.

"JUST GO TO HELL!"

Snape's eyes widened. As did most of the students', including Harry and Hermione. Ron stared down a shocked Snape for a moment, and then wrathfully, and with short, powerful movements, gathered his books and left the classroom.


                                                                               ~-***-~


Ron sat in his dorm room, head buried in his hands. Class wasn't over for the others yet, and he was contemplating just what he had done.

He could be expelled. But strangely, he didn't regret a word he had said. If he could have had Potions class again, he would have done it all exactly the same.

A noise startled him. He turned around quickly, to see Harry standing in the door.

He shook his head wonderingly. "You really did it this time, Ron."

Ron opened his mouth, half finished excuses, apologies, complaints on the tip of his tongue.

Harry spoke before any could spill.

"It was brilliant!"

Harry strode over to Ron, patted him on the back. Suddenly he turned to him, a worried expression on his face. "But stupid, don't get me wrong. You could be expelled, Ron. Just hope it's not Snape who makes the decision."

Ron found words. "I don't care, he practically called her a Mudblood, Harry, I couldn't let that go -"

Harry's brow furrowed. "She's been called that before, Ron, she doesn't really care anymore."

Ron bent his head again.

"What I don't understand, Ron, is why on earth you won't just admit -"

Another noise at the door made both of them turn their heads.

It was Hermione, standing awkwardly.

Ron turned to look at Harry, to see he was already up. "Well, I'll just be going now, I have a lot of studying to do -"

"But Harry, you never study this far ahead of a -"

Harry turned to him with an odd expression on his face. "Today I am," he said cryptically, and left the room.

Hermione stood there, very quietly.

Ron jumped up. "Uh, hi."

"Ron, why did you do that?" Hermione's face was utterly blank of any expression.

Ron spread his arms helplessly. "Because I had to, I don't know, I realize it was stupid and everything -"

Hermione walked further inside, placed her books on his bed, and walked close enough to Ron to make him stop breathing.

Stuttering, Ron managed to get out, "Hermione, you -uh- shouldn't be here, it's against the rules, you know that, right?"

"Right." Hermione looked at him. As in, right at him.

Ron was more than slightly confused.

"Ron. Why did you do that?" Hermione's face was inches away from him. Less than inches. Painfully close. For Ron, at least.

"Because I - I -"

Something very strange happened then. For the life of him, Ron just couldn't understand it. Not that that was the most pressing issue on his mind or anything, though.

Much more pressing (literally, actually) was the fact that somehow, for some unknown reason, Hermione's lips were on his.

And this was indescribable.

A few seconds seemed like eternity to Ron. He hadn't realized he'd been waiting for this almost all his life.

Hermione drew away. Another lifetime went by in her eyes. She was flushed, and her eyes had never seemed so beautiful, and that expression in them was given to him, and she was smiling with all her heart, and he had just kissed Hermione and -

"Why, Ron?"

Ron grinned. He had nothing in his mind except for her presence.

"Because, Hermione."

And he leaned in again.