Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns all rights to Harry Potter and all related titles, characters, places, and plots. I'm not making a single brass Knut off this folks.
Her Own Personal Rain
She'd much rather hide away, thank you, and pray desperately for rain than let herself make this decision. A decision made from desperation and instincts. A decision made with feelings—those strange, unfamiliar things that could not be explained in any book; dangerous possessions of the mind that could never be learned and rarely be mastered. Something that couldn't be learned, that had to be explored gently without any manual or guide, without any rules or regulations, was incredibly frightening to her. Her intellect screamed against it, refusing to admit that she was blind in this matter; blind and deaf with nothing to trust but her heart. This was why she was sitting under the tree by the lake, looking out over the placid waters and internally wishing for a storm to come and wash away her doubts.
However, she did not have that option. She did not have the right to sit quietly nestled under the tree praying to the ancient Druid gods, begging them to make water fall from the swollen, brooding sky that whirled above her. She had to make a decision; she had to face him.
Face him and make a decision. The decision.
Hermione Granger hauled her schoolbag off the lush grass and swung it over her shoulder, nearly falling backwards from the force as twenty pounds of textbooks rocked back behind her, changing her center of gravity. She let out a small grunt and steadied herself against the trunk of the solid tree next to her. Looking up through the dark, writhing leaves she again stared unblinkingly at the boundless grey looming overhead. Her head tipped back and the schoolbag slipped down to land with a gentle thud, forgotten for the moment.
Brown hair sliding back from her face, long creamy throat exposed to the brutal sky, Hermione felt like crying. She wanted to scream at the vastness over her, demand that the liquid locked within it burst forth and splash to the earth. She wanted to order the expanse of swirling slate to rupture and rain down around her. She wanted to command the bloated, menacing sky to split apart in rage and soak her through to the skin, to seep into her and freeze her there like a statue—unmoving, unfeeling, and unloved statue.
She wanted to hide away and pray desperately for rain.
She didn't have the right to, though. She remembered his face and started to cry for her fear and doubts.
Her own personal rain.
Her tears began to run down her face, clinging to her lashes and making rivers across her cheeks, the streams running into each other and forging small pathways over her nose. Head still tipped back, eyes closed in private rapture, she sank to her knees in the soft dirt, forgetting who and what she was. She was lost in a moment, not caring where she was, not caring what happened to her as long as the somber sky still swirled overhead and her heart maintained its own steady rhythm.
Inspiration left her as the cold night began to sink around her. Hermione didn't know how long she'd kneeled there; staring up at the shadowy sky and praying silently to whichever god would listen. Her sanity returned and she realized that it was late. Even though the sky was still light she'd missed dinner by now. The sun had set but its brilliant glory was absorbed by the gloating sky and hidden from the view of mere mortals.
Sighing once more, she again bent down to pick up her bag, watching in almost rapt attention (with a decided air of detachment) as a long arm covered in cinnamon freckles wrapped fingers with broken nails around the strap. Hermione bit her lip and glanced up, knowing what she'd see and utterly afraid to meet it. She decided that silence was the best course of action.
"'Mione? Are you okay?"
She looked down at her folded hands, her feet, the ground, the speck of mud on the hem of his robes...
"Hermione? Have you been crying?" A large, calloused hand sprinkled liberally with those same warm cinnamon freckles came up awkwardly to her chin and forced her head level in a gentle way. "Hermione."
"Yes, Ron?"
"Why are you out here crying?"
"I was thinking." It was the truth—honest although purposely misleading.
"You had me worried, Mione." There was something different in his tone. Stooping awkwardly, (he was either too tall for Hermione or Hermione was too short for him) he locked into her coffee colored eyes. "Don't worry me like that again, alright?" He pinned her against the tree with his gaze, frightening her as he thrilled her. "I couldn't find you. I was scared, and that was bloody awful," he murmured with a hint of reproach in his voice.
"Alright. I won't." This was unlike her completely, and that scared Ron more than any crying fit next to the lake. She wasn't fighting with him as he acted like her mother. Something was wrong, but Ron was a man, and men seldom get anything past the first warning cry of abnormality.
"Okay then. You missed dinner, but Harry and I snuck into the kitchens and nicked some food for you." Ron determined that as long as she thought everything was fine, it must be. After all, if something was really bothering her, she'd come to him. However, Ron didn't know that there was a fatal flaw to his logic. He was the one person in Hogwarts apart from Draco Malfoy that she couldn't come to. Alright, that was a lie as well. She wasn't about to tell Professor Snape either.
"Thank you." Hermione suddenly became completely absorbed in studying a small pebble next to her shoe. Liquid silence fell over them like a blanket. Or like a cloud from the dusky heavens. One good scream would break the silence. And leave me permanently mad.
Life wasn't supposed to happen like this. She wasn't supposed to be afraid of making decisions and choices. She wasn't supposed to be afraid of seeing the man she loved. She wasn't supposed to be praying for rain.
"Mione..." Ron abruptly pulled her down into a messy pile on the soft ground, unceremoniously dumping her bag (Hermione could have sworn she heard an ink well smash) and sighing. "Bloody hell. Come off it, something's bothering you."
She felt her eyes widen gently. His hand was on her knee and she was half sprawled across him in a very undignified manner. Grunting, choking back a laugh, attempting not to scream against the injustice of it all, and trying to pull her robes across her knees all at the same time took a level of multi-tasking and coordination that Hermione simply didn't posses. She gave up and slumped back, half leaning against the tree and half leaning against the redheaded Gryffindor.
See what happens when one prays to random Druid gods? The ones with the horrendous sense of bloody awful humor are usually the only ones who take the time to answer you.
Fate is ridiculous.
Ron rubbed a large hand up and down her back, trying to calm her and only succeeding in driving her mad. Her head tipped back once again, allowing her deep chocolate eyes to consider the heavens above her. The sky was her religion. The sky was her refuge. "It's beautiful."
Ron's concentric circles paused for a moment but continued soothingly, working out knots she didn't know she had. "What is, Mione?"
"Sky," she said like a child, halfheartedly lifting a lazy finger in the general direction.
Murky wind brushed around them, whipping the long twisted leaves of the willow tree. The strands looked dark, like a forest green but deeper. The rustlings tore at Hermione's hair and pushed it around, causing a stray lock to fly across her face and stay there. The mood of the entire grounds deepened, seeming to sink into the sky above—the sure signs of a storm. Ron smoothed the stray lock of hair away.
"Beautiful," he whispered, looking her in the eyes and ignoring the changing world around him.
Hermione blinked slowly and decided that the Druid gods didn't come equipped with just a terrible sense of humor, they were armed with horrible irony. See what happens, she chided herself. Fate has a disgusting sense of sarcasm.
"Ron, I—"
He placed a long finger to her lips. Unblinkingly, he moved closer, pressing one hand to her back and drawing her to him. "Hermione?" The Gryffindor boy swallowed uncertainly.
"Hermione, I think I'm going to kiss you now if...if that's okay." It was more of a question than anything else. Hermione felt her senses heighten. She heard the tap of a stray branch against the bark of the willow; she heard the wind rippling over the lake, making up a strange symphony with the water; she heard the beating of her own rhythmic heart racing faster. It was a pleasant sort of fastness, one that she welcomed.
She heard a roll of thunder in the distance as her body pulled closer to his; felt his gentle heat against the cool skin of her face and throat; heard his breath coming in rasping gasps; caught his subtle scent on the slight breeze- musk and sweat and something that was so warm. His eyes were pleading and her mind gently told her not to keep him waiting. "I think you'd better hurry up and kiss me, Ron, because I don't know how much longer I can wait for you." She sighed heavily, hot breath brushing against his lips.
"That's..." he licked his lips nervously and stroked her back gently. "That's good because I don't know how much longer I can live without you."
They closed the small space in between them, kissing each other gently before delving deeper into their emotions. As they lived the moment, Hermione melting into Ron, Ron supporting them both before she tumbled on top of him, a bolt of lightning tore the sky apart.
They fell in an untidy heap, kissing and laughing, and the rain poured down around them, soaking through their robes and straight into their skin and froze them there like a statue—a moving, feeling, loving statue.
The beautiful drops burst forth and fell to the drenched earth as Hermione received the answer to her prayer.
Her own personal rain.
You took the time to read it, now please review! Cheers,
Aly
Copyright, Marshmellin 2005