You know those moments in life where time seems to slow down? Where the universe, in all its might and majesty for a split second focuses in on you, on that one moment that you're sharing.

It's as if events have weight, as if emotions have gravity, and when they interact the effects are beyond what we can explain. This was one of those moments.

As I turned my head the room seemed to dissolve around me. "Ah!" the universe seemed to say, "this could be interesting," and for that split second I had its full attention, I felt all the infinite forces of the world focus in on me and her, just two people laying on a bed in an empty dormitory. I felt time and space bend around us, all my senses heightened as the room revealed itself in slow motion.

From the window to the edge of the bed my eyes picked up the smallest details, the way the light from the small lamp brought out the yellow in the curtains, the way the bedspread trailed clumsily down to the floor.

I heard the sound of the rain hitting the window outside, and I heard her breathing, nervously but softly, the infinitesimal hiss as the air escaped her lungs.

As my eyes began to travel up her body the thoughts began to spin around my head again. I imagined my hands slipping over her smooth skin, sliding up her legs as my gaze now travelled.

I imagined the purple robe that she was wearing sliding slowly to the floor and revealing her body. I imagined her down to the finest detail, the subtle curve of her breasts, the way the light hit her skin and made it glow, the way she felt when my hands touched her. The way her kiss felt on my lips, burning and passionate. The way the fire reared up inside me when we were together.

All these thoughts shot through my head in a fraction of a second, my fantasies playing out like subliminal messages in my brain. I felt my eyes focusing on her, but it was like I was watching from afar. My mouth opened and words began to escape, but they were not mine, some other voice seemed to be coming from my lips

Then our eyes met, and the universe watched us.

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As the Hogwarts express stopped and the students began to disembark, the four former occupants of the carriage became separated, Harry following Ginny onto the platform and immediately being swept up in the crowd, whilst Ron and Hermione made their way slightly awkwardly through the throng to supervise the younger students. Harry made the journey back to the castle with Ginny and Neville, Ginny still casting him occasional curious glances, but Harry avoiding her gaze.

They chattered amongst each other during the ride through the Hogwarts grounds, but Harry's mind was elsewhere. He was still not sure what he planned to say to Ginny, if she had the nerve to speak to him again after what had happened the first time. He suspected that Ginny still had feelings for him, but he had never really thought of her that way. She had always been nothing but Ron's younger sister, and, he reminded himself, almost like a sister to him too. She was someone who was always around but never the centre of attention, and he suspected that he had become accustomed to her so much that he hardly noticed her anymore, she was just part of the scenery to him, and even in the DA he had taken her for granted.

He remembered his own feelings about Cho, and imagined how he would have felt if she had completely ignored him. He was starting to feel that he had been very unfair to Ginny. Maybe that was the reason she had stopped focusing on him. What if all of this had simply been to get his attention?

He gave no further thought to his conversation with Ron, and all through supper in the Great Hall while he chatted away merrily with his two best friends he failed to pick up on their nervousness, their subtle glances at each other, the fixed smiles on their faces as their eyes betrayed the turmoil beneath.

Later on in the common room Harry caught up with Seamus and Dean, exchanging cordial but slightly brisk conversations about their summers and the coming year at Hogwarts, and played gobstones with Neville while Ginny watched them absently. It wasn't long however before he saw first Ron then Hermione separate themselves from the group and head for their respective dormitories.

Harry excused himself and followed Ron up the staircase to the boys' dorm, where their trunks had already been unpacked and placed at the feet of the five four-poster beds that were arranged around the room in a circle. He spotted Ron over by the window, sitting on the sill with his shoulders slumped against the wall, staring thoughtfully outside.

"Ron? Are you ok?" he asked.

Ron jumped a little as Harry spoke. "Oh, Harry – I didn't hear you come in. I was just watching Hagrid plant the school pumpkins." His voice sounded different from usual - the confidence was lost from it, and he sounded afraid. He avoided Harry's eyes, returning his gaze to the window. "They look awfully big this year, I swear Hagrid uses some sort of growth spell on them, he'd be in trouble if the ministry found out."

"Ron, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" Harry asked, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

"Oh that, nothing, don't worry about it, I'm fine," Ron replied, his voice sounding artificially cheerful.

"Is it something to do with Hermione? She left right after you did, went up into the girls dorm without saying a word."

"Hermione? You're mad Harry, why would it have anything to do with her? It's nothing ok, just leave me alone."

"Well Hermione's upset about something," Harry said, "and I just assumed because you were both acting weirdly that it was something to do with you, but correct me if I'm wrong."

Ron sighed. "No, you're not wrong," he said, looking at Harry, "the truth is, something... something happened over the summer, something between the two of us..."

"What sort of thing, did you have an argument?" Harry asked, looking bemused.

"No, much worse than that," Ron said, taking another deep breath. "The thing is... well... one day when she came over this summer we went for a walk in the orchard, and... we were all alone and... well... we kissed..."

"You what?!" Harry exclaimed.

"We kissed, ok? Like normal people do!" Ron said angrily.

"You kissed Hermione?! But that's Hermione!" Harry said incredulously.

"Yeah Harry, well as you may or may not have noticed, in addition to being Hermione she is also a girl. I know, it took me a while to figure it out as well, but once I did notice..."

"So that's why... on the train... and in the common room..." Harry said, trying to piece together this impossible revelation, so beyond anything he had ever considered happening. "But why?" he added eventually.

"Oh Harry, work it out! Remember how jealous I was over Viktor Krum, remember all the petty arguments we kept getting into, remember all the tension between us? Even you must have noticed something was up!"

"I see," Harry said lamely, not looking altogether like he did. "So you and her... you're...?"

"No!" Ron said, looking shocked. "Nothing like that, it was only that one time, and afterwards we both tried to pretend like it didn't happen, we tried to go on like everything was the same, but somehow something is different. Something changed Harry... and we can't pretend any more, and we can't talk to each other about it because that would be admitting that it did happen..." Ron flopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

"So do you still... like her?" Harry asked, drawing on all of his experience from Cho to try and get his head around this.

"I don't know Harry..." Ron said miserably. "As a best friend, of course I still like her. In the other way... I'm trying not to Harry, I really am... It's just so hard to know what to do..."

"Yeah, I can see that," Harry said, not altogether sure that there was anything he could say that could possibly help.

"Look, Harry, don't tell her I told you ok? It'll only make things worse and I don't want to bring you into the middle of this. Let's just see what happens and hopefully everything will blow over."

"OK, I won't tell her," Harry said, wishing he could be more helpful, but sceptical as to whether things would be that easy. "Come on, let's go back down to the common room, sulking in here isn't going to help, come play a game of chess with me."

Ron looked up. "OK," he said, "but not a word to anyone, got it?"

"No problem," Harry replied, smiling weakly. The two friends headed back down the spiral staircase to the common room, which was still crowded with Gryffindors happily catching up and exchanging stories from their summers. There was no sign of Hermione, and she did not reappear that entire evening, even when the fire died down to embers and one by one the students headed to their beds. As Harry, the last to leave, followed Ron up to the dormitory, he wondered if anything would be the same again between his two best friends.

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