A/N: Hey guys! Okay, so here is the chapter you've all been waiting for…I hope you all like it!! I have to say, I very, very much enjoyed writing this, it's possibly my favorite chapter so far, so I hope you all like it as much as I do! It's definitely…eventful. That's all you'll hear from me. So read up, enjoy, and make sure to tell me what you think when you've finished!!
Lauren
Disclaimer: Had I been born JK, I wouldn't have to resort to writing cliffies to get reviews, now would I?
Didn't think so.
Chapter Twelve
The Beginning of the End of the Beginning
Ron awoke from his second slumber and looked out the window. Oh, so it really was a dream…he thought, noticing the brightly shining sun. Seemed a little too real for my liking anyway… He lay back down in his bed and sighed. "Definitely not a bad dream, though. Not a bad dream at all," he said out loud.
Meanwhile, Hermione raced up the stairs, dropping her bag at her feet and nearly knocking poor Lavender into the wall as she went. Ginny called after her, but the air was rushing past her ears so fast that she never heard her. Up and up she went, paying no attention to the students who stopped to point and stare. Finally, just as her legs could take her no further, she collapsed against the wall next to the portrait hole and tried to catch her breath.
"Dear, may I help you?" asked the Fat Lady, watching her almost nervously, anticipating her next move. Hermione took an audibly deep breath.
"S-s-SPEW!" she cried, causing the Fat Lady to jump a bit.
"Yes, yes, why of course, dear!" she replied, and she swung open to reveal the common room. Hermione, in a very different manner as previously, tossed her hair behind her, stepped inside, and climbed the staircase to her dorm as calmly as possible. There's no way that dream was real, it's not possible…not at all, no way. She opened her door and walked over to her bed. On the chair at her bedside table rested her cloak, and there was a very pregnant pause before she let herself touch it. She would know, for if she had really gone, it would surely still be wet…
Slowly, she extended a shaky hand. Never before had she been so nervous about an inanimate object. Her fingertips brushed against the fabric once, then twice, and then she grabbed it fiercely and sighed, relieved. Just as she sank down onto her bed, still clutching the coat, she heard someone enter behind her.
"Hermione, what on earth has gotten into you? What are you doing?" Ginny asked, out of breath. Hermione held the cloak close, as though it had just saved her life. Or better, told her she had passed all of her N.E.W.T.s with flying colors.
"Well? What's going on?" Ginny asked again, resting her hands on her hips. "You dropped this, by the way," she said, letting Hermione's bag sink onto the floor next to her. Hermione looked at her and smiled.
"Thanks. Uh, it's nothing, I was just um, worried that my cloak had been wet, but here I find it's not, that's all." She handed it to Ginny as though asking for further proof of her discovery.
"Gee, Herm, it's just a cloak, you know," Ginny said, taking it and examining it. She was just observing the collar when, with a small shriek, she slipped it over her shoulders. Hermione looked at her, confused.
"Oh, here it is! I was wondering where I'd put this, and it turns out I'd left it here all along! Thanks Hermione, now I'll be warm if that storm starts up again," Ginny said happily. Hermione let out a small squeak. It can't possibly be hers, what is she talking about?
"Wait, yours? What do you mean, how can you tell?" she asked desperately.
"Well, mine has a few holes chewed into the collar, see? Right along there," she said, taking it off and showing Hermione the marks. "A couple years ago, I was wearing it outside while Ron was de-gnoming the garden, and something gave him the idea it'd be really adorable to stick one on my shoulders…well, as you can see, he had a bit of fun with my collar."
Hermione sank lower into her bed as she felt the weight of what may well have been a thousand gnomes rest on her shoulders. It wasn't her cloak? (Well, in any other situation, she would have surely felt a bit bad about the whole gnome-chewing thing, but…this was obviously more important.) How was it not her cloak? She wouldn't let herself believe it. If that wasn't hers, then where was it?
"Well, where could mine be then?" she asked, trying to keep calm. She dropped to the floor and began searching through her trunk.
"Hermione, don't worry, McGonagall says it probably won't start again, but if it does it won't be until later tonight…after classes end, I'll help you find it, all right? But right now, if we don't go downstairs we're going to be late," she said, sliding off the cloak and folding it over her arm. Hermione looked up at the clock and mouthed silently.
"Gah! Let's go," she cried, standing up and grabbing her bag laying at Ginny's feet. Ginny led as they descended the stairs, and Hermione waited (however, quite frustrated and distressed) while Ginny dropped off her cloak in her dorm. They walked as quickly as their tired legs would take them, and when they reached the entrance hall, they parted ways, Hermione going toward the dungeons, and Ginny heading to Charms.
A few moments later, Hermione puffed through the door and landed in her seat next to Harry, who looked at her inquisitively. She had time enough to say "I'll explain later" before Snape bustled into the room.
Hermione was finding it extremely difficult to concentrate. The thought of last night being even the merest of possibilities was more upsetting than anything she could recall. Okay, except for the troll incident, and the chess game, and Harry's second encounter with Voldemort, and then the basilisk stuff, and then being chased by Sirius Black, and then the whole third task incident, and then of course there was Harry being almost killed at the end of fourth year. And then, there was Mr. Weasley being attacked by that basilisk, and having to suffer through the pains of Professor Umbridge, and Sirius' death, and going after and fighting Death Eaters…
All right, the thought of last night being even the merest of possibilities was undoubtedly less upsetting than all of the above, but it was still quite distressing. How could something like that happen? How could she even be sure that it had? And, if it had, how would that change things? Surely things would get very strange, as they hadn't spoken in three weeks, and there was the Padma factor…but what if it didn't happen? Hermione couldn't decide which possibility disappointed her most, and that fact was the most distressing of all the others. Did that mean she liked Ron? After three weeks of deciding she didn't? Her head was spinning and she couldn't stop it.
After double Potions was over, and after Charms, Hermione and Harry headed toward the great hall for lunch, though somehow it hadn't quite registered with Hermione that it was lunch until Harry said, "Hey, let's go check on Ron, see how he's feeling!"
Hermione wondered if Harry would be as happy to see Ron if he'd known that it was more than quite possible that he and Hermione had snogged the night before. At three in the morning. In the middle of a dangerous, thunderous storm. For who knows how long.
Hermione wasn't exactly ready when Harry abruptly opened the door to the seventh year boys' dorm; she felt rude having not knocked, for it was guy territory. It took her a moment that she was in the clear, being in the company of a, well, guy.
"Hey, Ron, how're you feeling?" Harry asked, plopping into a chair next to Ron's nightstand.
"Oh, hiya Harry. I've been feeling a little bit better. How was Potions?" he asked from behind his partially-closed bed curtains. Hermione, supposing he hadn't noticed her presence, turned to walk out the door.
"Herm, where're you off to?" Harry asked. Hermione turned her head to see Ron tense up under the covers.
"Hermione?" he asked, peeking around the curtain, eye widened. Hermione gave him a half-smile.
"Um, hello, feeling better?" she asked, trying hard to ignore the curious knot in her throat.
Well, I was a second ago, he thought as he grinned politely.
"Um, yeah, I've been sleeping most of the morning, so at least I'm not devastatingly tired any more," he said, ignoring the curious knot in his throat. Harry looked at the clock on Ron's table and jumped up.
"Sorry guys, I promised Ginny I'd meet her in the library and help her study for her Potions exam. Herm, I'll see you in Transfiguration?" he asked, heading for the door.
"Oh, yes, Transfiguration. I'll see you then," she said uneasily. It was lucky she turned her head away at that moment, because as he closed the door behind him, a furtive grin took over Harry's face that no one had witnessed.
Inside, Ron and Hermione sat through an awkward silence, Hermione staring out the window, twiddling her thumbs, thinking about the note he left but not wanting to mention it, and Ron watching and examining his bed curtains, wondering how long it would take to unravel each and every thread of each curtain. (And thinking about the note he left, but not wanting to ask if she'd received it, of course. But there's only so much activity in a boy's brain, and so can only focus on one thing at a time. Hence the curtains.) Finally, Hermione brought up the ever-inflicting occurrence.
"So, all of the outdoor classes were canceled from the storm last night," she said nonchalantly, looking at her nails. An indistinctive noise came out of Ron's throat.
"Really? There was—there was a storm last night?"
"Oh yes, McGonagall said it was so bad that it caused severe rain and lightening damage," she replied, sitting down on the end of his bed and relaxing a bit. Ron's face took on a look of distraught.
"Huh, that's pretty strange, isn't it? I mean, a storm happening right at the end of summer and all, the weather has been pretty warm lately, so it makes no sense for there to be a storm all of a sudden…," he rambled on, looking at Hermione and hoping he was making sense. Luckily, she smiled, so he must not have been doing too terribly.
"Oh yes, I agree, it makes no sense, no sense at all, really," she replied, agreeing unnecessarily. They both began nodding continuously, neither bothering to stop, because the whole thing was just so humorously awkward in the first place.
Ron was thinking about his dream, and wondering if it had been real. He looked at Hermione, pondering it, when as though reading her mind she brought it up.
"Oh, by the way, you were in my dream last night," she said, desperate to quench the silence. And to stop nodding her head.
"Hmm, really? What kind of dream?" he asked.
"Well…" she paused, wondering why on earth she mentioned it now, "it was um…well, there was a storm," she said cautiously.
"A storm? Kind of like the one that supposedly happened last night?" Ron asked, a little too eagerly.
"Well, yes, I suppose so. Anyway, in the dream, the storm woke me up, and as I was looking out the window, I saw you standing in the rain. It was quite strange, really, as I couldn't imagine why you'd ever want to stand outside in the middle of a horrible storm," she said, explaining it through serious thought and theory.
"I-I was standing, out, in the rain?" he asked, chuckling a bit, but out of fear. She's joking, right?
"Yes, yes you were, I thought it was odd too! Anyway, I saw you outside and, in the dream, (she kept repeating that phrase as to remind him that this sort of thing would only happen unconsciously) I was rather afraid for your health, so I slipped my coat on over my nightgown to go after you," she said, blushing. Ron cocked his head to one side as he listened on.
"So I ran down the halls, down the stairs, and outside, and without a second thought I was chasing after you! It was crazy, really, because normally I don't go running out into storms on the middle of the night. But anyway, I couldn't find you, and I kept running deeper and deeper into the grounds when all of a sudden, there you were, as if you'd appeared out of nowhere, and I have to admit, I was quite spooked for a moment," she continued, at this point a bit breathless. Ron was now watching her, enthralled.
"And then what happened?" he asked.
"Um, I uh, don't remember," she lied, looking away. If she had realized that he would, naturally, be interested in the rest of the (very, very embarrassing) dream, she might never have brought it up in the first place, but lo and behold, it was far too late for that now.
"Are you serious? You don't remember the end of a dream like that? What, was I struck by lightning or something horrible like that?" he asked, knowing perfectly well what happened and almost daring her to tell it differently. If she said it, as it was, then he would know it had really happened, and if it had really happened, it would change everything. Because friends don't kiss friends like that. Not even the best of friends. She blushed lightly as she looked into his face.
"Look Ron, I honestly don't remember, because at that point Ginny came in and woke me up!" she cried, only slightly stretching the truth. Ron looked exasperated.
"'Mione, that was one of the best dreams I've ever had, and now you're ruining the ending, so just do me a favor and tell it like it really happened!" he exclaimed, hitting his hands on the bed next to him. Hermione gaped at him like a fish.
"The best dream you've ever had? What do you mean, 'you've' had?"
Ron stared at her, half terrified, half spellbound. It was curious how Hermione could, in one moment, scare him out of his mind, yet fascinate him, draw him to her. Hermione grew impatient, he could tell by the way her eyes narrowed and her brow lowered. There were no words, no excuses that fleeted into his mind that would correct his last statement, so he didn't bother trying. He shifted his weight onto his legs, then leaned forward, all the while keeping his eyes locked on hers. He very slowly slid toward her, extending his hand to the right side of her jaw, and almost smiled as her face took on a look of frightened confusion. Right as her lips were merely inches from his, he stopped.
"You give me a bit less credit in that dream than ought to be given, Hermione."
Without another word, he relieved the tense air between them and pressed his lips to hers. A small, squeak-like noise released itself from Hermione's throat, but after a second, she felt her eyes close. Ron placed his other hand on the unoccupied side of her jaw, pulling her closer and deeper into the embrace. He could almost hear the rain again, pounding down on them and everything surrounding them. Hermione's hands were gripping the knees of Ron's pajama pants rather tightly, but neither of them really noticed. They were too busy lost in each other, lost in the moment that seemed to last forever…
Or three minutes and 48 seconds.
Hermione opened her eyes to see why Ron had stopped. Surely this too was not another dream, she thought frantically. She looked at his eyes and, noticing his gaze was somewhere behind her, turned her head to look. Harry and Ginny were standing in the doorway, looking as though evil trolls had just come and stolen Christmas.
"Look, I know what you're thinking--" Hermione began.
"It's not what it looks like--" Ron blurted.
Ron and Hermione blushed like tomatoes, not realizing they were still holding onto each other. Ginny grinned awkwardly, as if to say that, while she was definitely, genuinely happy for the two of them, something had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
"You guys, it's fine. Yes, I'm definitely, genuinely happy for the two of you, but something is terribly, terribly wrong," she said with a grimace.
"Ron, I think you'd better get dressed and go downstairs… Padma's downstairs in the common room, looking for you."
Hee hee hee…
Review! Or else you'll never find out what happens next…
I know, I'm cruel, I had to go and ruin their moment. Again! I'll make it up to you, I promise, but only if I get lots of reviews!!
