Erised Senoimreh
Summary: R/Hr fluff. Hermione fights with Ron, as usual, and then comes to a shocking realization.
A/N: I re-posted this story and made it more believeable, and this time I'm planning to continue. On with the fluff!
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Hermione rushed down the corridor and into the Potions classroom. She cringed as she slid into the seat beside Harry, waiting for Snape to reprimand her lateness.
"Nice of you to join us, Miss Granger. Your excuse would only further delay the class so I will just proceed with the deduction of 10 points from Gryffindor."
Hermione nodded and stared down at the desk in frustration. She knew that she deserved the punishment. She had overslept, being lost in a dream she could no longer remember, and Parvati and Lavender had chosen not to wake her. She wished she could recall the dream as she had been quite content with it when she awoke, but all her concentrated effort did no good.
With a barely audible sigh, she pulled out parchment in order to take notes. About twenty minutes later, Snape announced that they would be paired up to make today's potion, the Coloring Potion. He pulled out parchment and began reading off pairs. When he got to Hermione he gave a satisfied sneer. "Granger and Malfoy." She shuddered just hearing their names together. She glanced at Harry, who gave her a sympathetic smile, then at Ron, who was too busy glaring at Malfoy to notice.
Hermione gathered her things and moved up to the desk beside Malfoy. She had learned to tune out the Slytherin comments so well that she did not even know if Malfoy had said anything negative since she walked up. She simply ignored him completely and got to work. The Slytherin followed her lead and remained silent as they worked on the potion. Hermione let her mind wander again as she began adding ingredients. Sporadic thoughts came and went through her train of thought and something reminded her of her dream. She smiled although the thought was gone as quickly as it had come. She knew the dream was good. She really wanted to remember.
"What are you smiling at, Granger?" Hermione heard Malfoy sneer.
The smile vanished and Hermione glared down at the leaves she had just added to the Coloring Potion. She had to bite her tongue hard to keep from retorting.
As she felt someone's eyes on her, Hermione turned around. No one was looking, but Ron did seem to be looking too deliberately, not to mention too angrily, down at the desk. Narrowing her eyes, she turned around and kept working. She heard Malfoy open his mouth to comment, and blocked it out as she had before.
Finally, the class ended. Hermione walked toward the door, her mind still searching for bits from the dream that was long gone. She got in too deep again and ran right into someone as she rounded the corner in the corridor.
Her face burned and she looked up to see Ron staggering back. She reached down for her knapsack which had fallen but luckily remained closed in the collision. "Sorry Ron. I wasn't looking where I was going." She took off toward the common room, not wanting to look back.
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That night in the common room, Hermione started working on a report due in two weeks while Harry and Ron searched frantically through their textbooks to finish homework due in twelve hours.
"Hermione?" Ron asked. Hermione was surprised at first, as Ron had been oddly silent all day.
But then she realized with a sigh, and said, "I'm not helping you finish your essay, Ron," without looking up.
"Yeah, I didn't expect so," he said with some annoyance. "So I noticed you were enjoying being paired up with Malfoy this morning during Potions."
Hermione snapped her head up and stared at Ron. "What?! What are you talking about?"
"I saw you smiling at him!"
"Oh that, I wasn't smiling at him. I was just remem..." she stopped short and narrowed her eyes. She was vaguely aware of Harry standing and moving to a desk farther away but didn't acknowledge it. I shouldn't have to explain this! Ron is being an idiot! "Wait. What made you even think I would be smiling at Malfoy?"
"My vision! I saw it with my own two eyes!"
Hermione felt her face getting hotter as her temper, and her voice, rose to a higher level. As the two Gryffindors fought it out, they slowly got off the original subject.
"You're always doing this!" Ron shouted.
"Doing what?!"
"Flirting with rich guys! First it's Vicky, now it's Malfoy! Next you'll be going after Harry! Maybe you didn't notice, but he's loaded too!"
Luckily enough, the common room was mostly deserted because of the screaming, but the way the level was now, the argument could surely be heard upstairs in the dormitories.
"That is NOT TRUE! I can't believe you would say that to me! No wait! I CAN! I HATE YOU, RONALD WEASLEY!"
She turned stormed out of the common room in a flash before the tears came. What a complete jerk! Her mind was still racing in anger. How could he think I was flirting with Malfoy?!
She continued on in her head like this as she wandered aimlessly through the castle. She began up the stairs when the staircase changed on her. It didn't matter though, because she didn't know where she was headed anyway. She walked to her left into a big room and finally collapsed onto the floor, letting all her angry tears fall.
She lay in that spot for a few minutes before she saw a brightness on the far end of the room. It was moonlight reflecting on a mirror.
Hermione pulled herself off the ground and walked toward the mirror. She swept across her cheeks with annoyance. Ron wasn't worth her tears.
She read the top of the mirror and recognized the inscription. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. This was the Mirror of Erised. Harry and Ron had told her about the mirror when she came back from Christmas break in their first year, but she had never seen it.
She walked up directly in front of it but shut her eyes before looking. She searched her mind for potential things she could see, not being able to decide. She liked to be able to guess at things like this, but was never given much of an opportunity. She had no specific ideas so she assumed it would be lots of N.E.W.T.S. or something similar and opened her eyes.
Her jaw dropped to the floor.
Her own body was mirrored, almost exactly. The only differences were that the tears were gone from her face, which was turned away and up, and her hand was intertwined with the one she was looking at.
That one person was none other than Ron Weasley.
Hermione rubbed her eyes, thinking that maybe she was hallucinating. The mirror's Ron was looking down at her reflection, giving it The Look. The I-Love-You Look. Then the real Hermione watched in amazement as Mirror Ron leaned down and kissed her mirrored self.
After a few moments, the initial shock wore off and Hermione let it all sink in. Her heart's desire. Ron Weasley. Kissing her. None of it made sense. She thought she hated Ron. No, she thought, annoyed at herself, you never hated Ron.
Now the tears came, this time from sorrow and regret. Now that she'd blown Ron's small comment out of proportion, she had probably ruined any chance of even being just friends with him.
She stepped back a few steps to where she only saw her current reflection and glared at it in disgust. How could she have been so blind? As tears ran down her face, Hermione fled out of the room and through the many corridors once again.
She did not want to be here. She wanted to apologize but knew she would not be able to without sounding stupid. Plus she knew that Ron would still be angry with her and she really wanted to avoid seeing that angry look now that she knew she was in love with it as well as all Ron's other looks. Especially The Look, she thought hopelessly.
She sobbed softly before rounding the corner. Suddenly she was knocked off of her feet and down onto the cold floor of the corridor. She stared in front of her, terrified, until Ron appeared right where she was staring. The terrified feeling doubled.
She was too jarred by his sudden appearance to think. She did not notice the sympathy and regret in his eyes. She only felt embarrassment and grief. She wanted to run. Run in the other direction as fast as her legs could carry her.
There was only one problem. Ron was staring right into her eyes. She could not move her legs at all.
He extended his hand to her. "Are you alright?" He sounded mildly scared of her.
Though her mind could not concentrate on one thought, the tears kept falling from her eyes like a faucet. She shakily took his hand and got onto her feet. "I'm f-fine," she choked out.
Again she wanted to bolt in whichever direction she could, but was unable to because her hand was still in Ron's. Her eyes were glued to Ron's like a magnet.
Ron looked helpless. "Please don't cry. I didn't mean anything I said back in the common room. I just–"
"No. Don't. You don't have to apologize."
"Yes I do! I not only falsely accused you, but I accused you of flirting. With Malfoy! I didn't really–"
"You didn't?" She gave Ron a quizzical look.
"W-well, I–I'm sorry, Hermione. I just get so tired of being poor and being overlooked. I just overreacted again because, well, I thought Malfoy could be getting something else that I could never have."
Hermione couldn't feel her legs. "And what's that?"
He blinked twice quickly then stared intently at her.
"You."
The intensity of his stare began to overwhelm her and then it dawned on her. Ron was giving her The Look. The only way she was able to stand was that Ron still held her hand in his own.
She began to lean forward, feeling awkward. Ron was awfully tall. When Ron dropped her hand she would have pulled back in humiliation except immediately after he dropped it that same hand along with the other one cupped her face and pulled it toward his own in a sweet kiss. Hermione wrapped her arms around Ron's neck and gave in to this new, wonderful feeling.
For once in Hermione's life, there was no thinking, analyzing, wondering. All she knew was Ron and Ron alone. And he was hers.
Suddenly the mystery dream flooded back into her mind as she and Ron pulled away. That had been the dream. She had felt that same, wonderful feeling and been kissing someone but at the time she hadn't known who. And when she awoke she forgot the kissing and only remembered the feeling. "So that was it," she whispered softly.
"What was that?" Ron asked, putting his arms back down at his side.
Hermione unhooked herself from Ron's neck so that he could step back. Her arms no longer felt natural at her side. "I–er–"
"What is it? Is something wrong?" His ears turned pink with embarrassment.
"No! No, Ron." Hermione gave a soft laugh. He looked so cute. "I just remembered the dream that I've been trying to remember all day."
"Oh. So–"
But Hermione wasn't done. "It was the only reason I smiled at all during Potions. Yes, I remember now. I was trying my best to ignore Malfoy and then I thought of you–" Ron's eyes widened slightly and his ears turned pink again. "–and that must have reminded me of my dream."
"What kind of dream are we talking about here?"
"A wonderful dream. It was the whole reason I was late this morning to Potions. I was dreaming of you, Ron."
Ron's mouth hung open. "Me? Are you sure it wasn't..."
Hermione shook her head, linked her arms back around Ron's neck, and said with a smile, "No, it wasn't Viktor."
Ron's eyes were very bright when Hermione kissed him for a second time. She closed her eyes and tried to memorize every little thing about the feeling. It was such a wonderful feeling.
When Hermione pulled back this time, Ron seemed very hyper. "I don't understand. I didn't even think you–"
"Neither did I. You remember the Mirror of Erised. Right?"
"Yeah, of course."
"Well I accidentally stumbled into the room where it is now and, well, I saw you. And me. Like this."
Ron raised his eyebrows. "Like what?"
"Together."
"But, but you said that you hated me."
"Oh, Ron. You know I could never hate you. Really hate you. Don't you?"
"I guess I do now." Ron leaned down, picked the Invisibility Cloak up off the ground, took Hermione's hand, and threw the cloak over them. "The only thing," he said. "What are we gonna tell Harry?"
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A/N: The next chapter will be the same situation from Ron's POV. Then in the 3rd chapter I'll wrap up the story. If you have ideas for the 3rd chapter or constructive criticism, I'd appreciate it! And if you have praise please tell me as well because I need the encouragement! Thanks a bunch!
