Chapter 1:It Began With a Touch...

1 Year Ago

"Potter, Weasley! Will you please pay attention!" McGonagall yelled impatiently across the Transfiguration classroom.

"So Harry, when are you going to let me ride your Firebolt again?" 17 year old Ronald Weasley whispered with a grin to his best friend seated beside him, "Come on, this afternoon? Please? Don't be a dick Harry!"

Harry Potter, tall, dark haired and handsome, pushed his slipping glasses back onto his nose and made no reply. Pretending to ignore Ron, he slowly turned to the next weathered page in his old textbook, and let out a forced yawn, a small grin spreading across his perfect face.

"WEASLEY! WILL YOU BE QUIET?!"

Ron leaped back into his chair with a start. He had been so deeply involved in his one-sided conversation with Harry that he hadn't even noticed Professor McGonagall approach their desk.

Quickly recovering from the initial shock, he ran his fingers lightly through his scarlet red hair, and rearranged him self comfortably in his small wooden seat. Raising his eyes to meet the Professor's he couldn't help but let a cheeky grin raise with them. Not saying a word he just sat there silently.

Harry let out a tiny snicker.

"Right. I've had it. Potter stay where you are. Weasley go and take a seat next to Miss Granger, maybe she can teach you the appropriate manner to behave in class." McGonagall said softly in an attempt to suppress her mounting rage.

Ron gathered his books and quills and slowly made his way over to Hermione. Behind him he could hear Harry receiving a lecture from the aged witch.

"This is your final year at Hogwarts Potter. You of all people should know better." She hissed "Now get back to work all of you" After addressing the class angrily she turned her back on Harry and proceeded to continue with the lesson.

"Stupid wench." Harry muttered rudely under his breathe before returning his attention back to his, so far, blank parchment.

"Hey Hermione. So what are we supposed to be doing?" Ron asked as he approached the young witch, he absentmindedly took a seat with no real care of an answer.

Hermione, small, with bushy brown hair, was one of Harry and Ron's oldest and dearest friends. She let out a defeated sigh, reached out impatiently and flipped open Ron's tattered old schoolbook.

As she moved her hand away, without realising, it gently passed over Ron's large unclenched fists, a small draft of cold air following the movement.

Hermione quickly jerked her tender fingers away shoving them hurriedly inside her robes. Attention that was only moments before directed at nothing more than creating mischief was now being given in full to the attractive young witch staring diffidently at him. A veil of confusion seemed to be layered upon perfect face, Ron got the impression that the same look was mirrored on his own.

What is happening to me, Ron thought uneasily to himself as he felt a warm wave of emotion flow throughout his body. For Christ's sakes man, don't be stupid! This is your best friend!

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Hermione watched silently as she witnessed Ron's eyes twitching nervously crossing from one point of the classroom to the other, avoiding all contact with her own, as if he was having an inner battle with himself. Suddenly the twitching stopped instantaneously and Ron stared right into Hermione's open eyes.

They say that the eyes are the windows to one's soul and at that instant Hermione felt like she could feel the deeper depths of Ron's inner most being staring mindless holes into her as his perplexing brown eyes kept still on her now unusually timid face. Oh god, she thought oh god, oh god, oh god.

All of a sudden a quick flash of a past memory once lost flashed through her disorientated psyche, the image of when Harry, Ron and Hermione had encountered Buckbeak for the first time in Hagrid's first ever Care Of Magical Creatures class and how her hand had instinctively reached out and clutched the tender folds of Ron's palm in fearful anticipation of Harry crossing paths with the now illustrious Hippogriff.

Only seconds, which seemed like hours to Hermione passed before Ron suddenly broke the mystifying silence and brought Hermione quickly back to the reality of the present.

"Uh, um, uh...I know what I'm doing now, thanks anyway." Ron responded with a slight stutter at the start of his sentence as if his words and thoughts were becoming tangled with each other.

As if coming out of a trance and having no previous recollection of the moment they had shared Ron immediately delved straight into his work with no further conversation passing between the two for the rest of the lesson.

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The end of lesson bell echoed pleasantly throughout the magnificent castle sometime later.

Harry watched as Hermione and Ron left the Transfiguration room at awkward intervals, every now and then lifting their heads at various times for a discomfited glance at the other.

Harry trailed behind...just watching, with a tainted look of jealousy slowly beginning to encompass his teenage face...