SD - Harry Potter and company are the property of J.K. Rowling, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, and Warner Brothers, and no copyright infringement is intended therein. Ooh, I sound all sophisticated, don't I? ;-)

AN - I'M BAAAACK! ;-) Yes, my dears, you heard right! dutchtulips has awaken from her long, LONG hibernation to bring you a new R/Hr fanfic from her R/Hr obsessed brain! ;-) I heard that a story like this existed somewhere in the annals of the HP fanfiction world, but I just loved the idea of it so much I had to try it myself. So if you're the one who does have a story like this, my profound apologies for using your idea. But you know what they say about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery... ;-)

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A Draught In Time

-dutchtulips-

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"Listen, when you love somebody, you're always in trouble. There's only two things you can do about it: either stop loving 'em, or love 'em a whole lot more."

--Harry Morgan, MASH

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Hermione Granger's fingers were gripping her Potions book so tightly that sixteen-year-old Ron Weasley was quite worried that they would snap right off.

"Why on Earth would the key ingredient be fluxweed!" She exclaimed, her frustration causing a wild and frenzied look come over her face.

Slamming his notes down in front of him, Ron shot back from across the table, "Because I was actually listening in class for once, Hermione! I know that probably sounds impossible for you to believe, but I'm not stupid, you know!"

Hermione rolled her eyes as she smartly turned a page in her book, nearly tearing it from the leather bindings. "Could've fooled me," she grumbled.

From across the Gryffindor common room, an annoyed sigh erupted from a jet-haired young boy. "Oh, clam up already, you two. You're driving me mad."

Upon hearing him, Ron and Hermione looked over at him and then back at each other, exchanging apologetic looks. "Sorry, mate," the redhead replied sincerely.

"Me too," Hermione said softly, her rigid posture in her chair relaxing slightly. "Ron and I were just trying to discuss the Potions assignment, that's all."

Sixteen-year-old Harry Potter, who was slumped over in the plush red sofa in front of the fire, responded with an incoherent grunt. "Shouting yourself hoarse about it is more like it."

Ron pushed his Potions notes aside and got up from his chair, walking over to join Harry, who was doodling on the corner of his Transfiguration essay. "We really are sorry, Harry. Hermione and I know much it irritates you when we argue."

The jet-haired boy sat up slightly. "Yeah, well, why can't you just stop doing it, then?"

Ron looked over his shoulder at Hermione, who had a sympathetic look on her face, and then back to his best friend. "Yeah, we'll try to do that. Won't we, Hermione?"

She nodded vigorously. "Yes, of course. Ron and I will stop fighting, okay, Harry?"

Harry looked back and forth between them. "All right," he finally said.

A silence fell between them then, but as Ron was getting up from the sofa to rejoin his homework, Hermione suddenly said, "Harry, won't you talk about... it... with us?"

Ron winced at her words, expecting the worst was about to burst forth from Harry. Looking over at Hermione, he said, almost letting the exasperation leak through in his voice, "Hermione, if he doesn't feel like mentioning it, don't make him, all right?"

Before she could fire back a retort, Harry abruptly stood up from the sofa. "No, Ron, it's okay," he replied, taking the redhead quite aback by Harry's calm response to the reference of what had happened last Spring, what had happened to Sirius. "It's just, I don't know what it is that you want me to say. You know what happened. You know how I feel. What else could there be to talk about?" A bit of vexation was seeping into Harry's voice, however.

Hermione sighed. "I don't know, I guess," she finally answered.

"I'll be all right," Harry said quite simply, and as he dropped back down to the sofa and picked up his Transfiguration homework again, he seemed to have completely closed the door on the matter.

Without a word in response, Ron started his way back over to the table again, where his Potions homework was still sitting across from Hermione's massive book, from which she was taking lengthy notes.

Dropping back down to his chair again, Ron made an attempt to start studying his own notes again, but as looked up at Hermione to ask her a question about them, he found himself staring at her instead. True, these past few months had been extremely rough, with Sirius's death and the grievous change in their best friend, and Ron was very surprised to realize that, at the beginning of sixth year, after the repercussions of all those things began to take their toll, his strong feelings for Hermione had not changed.

It was just this time last year when I began to really start to care for her, Ron thought, absentmindedly tapping his quill against his homework, splattering droplets of ink across the parchment. We began to grow even closer than I thought we could be, what with all of the time we spent together as prefects, and in the D.A. And then there was the perfume... I just wanted to give her a Christmas gift to show her how much I really cared about her, really thought of her...

And then Sirius had to up and die, leaving all of us just feeling so cold inside, so sad and hurtful... I thought I would never have any sort of good feelings for a long time... But Hermione... I still loved her... It was still there, when I thought all hope was gone...

A voice suddenly cut into the redhead's thoughts, leaving a heavy fog over his brain. "Er, Ron?"

He blinked hard, as if to bring himself back to reality. His eyes focusing back on Hermione, Ron said, tapping his quill a bit harder in his sudden nervousness, "Yes, Hermione?"

She seemed to be looking at him with such a fervency in her eyes, as if she had been hearing the thoughts that had been echoing inside of his head only moments before. Did she notice me staring at her? He thought now, with a sort of delirium sinking into his veins. What is she going to say to me?

"Ron? You're getting ink all over your Potions notes!"

He looked down, and realized she was right. Large black dollops were all over his parchment; in many places completely smudging over the ingredients for the next day's potion that Ron had so carefully copied down. "Oh, bloody wonderful!" He exclaimed, irritation finding its way back into his voice as he unsuccessfully tried to repair the damage. "Now I'm going to have to write this all over again!"

Hermione leaned across the table to help Ron blot up the splatters of ink, using a spare scrap of parchment to do the job. "Well, why were you rapping your quill all over your papers for? You shouldn't've been daydreaming or else this wouldn't have happened!"

Ron's eyes flashed threateningly in her direction for a moment, his desire to throw back an insult to her impatient words overwhelming, but instead he allowed the remark to pass. Ah, if only you had known what I had been daydreaming of, Hermione...

"Well?" She said suddenly, her voice sharp, as if expecting him to say something nasty in return.

"You're right, Hermione," he said, looking back down at his papers. "I should've been keeping my mind on my work, and not drifting off."

Their eyes locked for a moment, Hermione's cinnamon brown irises looking quite surprised but pleasantly so all the same, glad to hear they had agreed on something. In a soft, compromising tone, she said, "Well, it's okay... I'll let you borrow mine to copy, if you want."

"Really?" The redhead looked relieved. "Thanks, Hermione!"

She reached over to take her Potions notes out of her rucksack and, as she handed them over to Ron, Hermione shot a glance towards Harry, curiosity filling her eyes.

But curiosity momentarily turned to gladness as she noticed that Harry was already looking on, a knowing smile faintly etched across his face.

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"Now remember this!" Professor Snape's voice barked, echoing through the dungeons, "Even though I don't expect you to, as foolish and dimwitted as most of you undoubtedly are. The belladonna antidote - the potion that we have been discussing in class for the past two days - is one of the most important things to appear on your final exam. You are to prepare this potion as homework and bring in a flagon of it to be tested by next Thursday. Absolutely no excuses! This accounts for one third of your final grade, so if you do not complete this assignment successfully, you will fail this course." His gaze flashed dangerously in Neville's direction, whose eyes grew wide and fearful upon hearing this.

Professor Snape continued, a look of intense displeasure on his face. "I hope for all of your sakes that you have been taking careful notes from my past two days' of lectures on this potion, or else you have absolutely no hope whatsoever of correctly brewing the antidote, nor receiving a decent grade for your work. Is this understood?"

"Yes, Professor," the students replied, and in a halfhearted tone, mostly from the Gryffindors.

At that moment the bell rang, prompting a number of inward sighs of relief all around. "Very well. You are dismissed from my classroom," Snape spat, his black robes billowing as he turned on his heel and retreated to his desk and the stack of paperwork there, completely ignoring the students and their chatter.

Among them were Harry, Ron, and Hermione, who were packing up their things in their rucksacks and were preparing to leaving the dungeons as fast as they could. Hermione shoved her books in her bag and slung it on, joining Harry and Ron, who were already starting out of the room. "I guess we'd better get started on that tonight, don't you think? Since the asphodel has to brew for two hours and the knotgrass, the key ingredient, has to go in right after that -"

Ron interrupted quite suddenly, as the trio were climbing the dungeon steps for the main floor corridor. "No, that's wrong, Hermione! Professor Snape said the key ingredient was fluxweed! He mentioned it about twenty times!"

The bushy-haired girl sighed in frustration. "We went over this last night, Ron! You heard him wrong, he didn't say -" She cut herself off, as she glanced at Harry out of the corner of her eye. "We'll talk about it later, okay?"

"Fine," Ron said shortly, feeling disappointed. Why can't we ever get along? He thought, almost angry with himself. He wanted to say something more, to pacify Hermione's indignation with him, but from the look on her face he decided to just let it lie.

He turned to Harry instead, saying, "Want a game of chess when we get back to the common room, mate?"

But before Harry could answer, however, Ron spied Hermione giving him a dirty look, and inwardly he sighed. Oh, Hermione, would you stop doing things that make me want to hate you? I care for you, I don't want to hate you!

As he glanced back towards his friend, the redhead noticed Harry giving him a pensive look.

"What?" Ron inquired.

"Hermione, would you excuse Ron and me for a moment?" Harry said quickly to her, and then pulled the redhead over to the other side of the hallway.

"What are you doing, Harry?" He exclaimed, wanting to know what was up with his best friend.

"Don't play chess with me this afternoon," the jet-haired boy said. "Spend time with her. She obviously wants to study. You'd be making her really happy if you started to work on that antidote for Snape's class."

Ron peered at him, a smile tugging at his lips. "Just what are you getting at, mate?"

Harry rolled his eyes amusedly. "Don't be thick! You know what I'm talking about." He lowered his voice then, his tone becoming slightly somber. "Even after what... happened, you know..." Harry pause, and then tried again. "Well, it's good to see that happiness isn't impossible. That your feelings for Hermione haven't gotten washed away after all this mess."

Ron could feel his ears turning pink. "Oh, well, erm..."

He gave the redhead a nudge. "Go ahead," Harry told him. "I'll see you in the common room later on."

Ron considered this for a moment, and then grinned. "Thanks, Harry. You're a great mate."

"Of course. It's in my job description."

"Ron! Harry!" Hermione's voice suddenly rang out from across the hallway. "Are you coming or not?"

"Yeah! Be right there!" Harry called to her, and then turned back to Ron. "Go on, Valentino!"

Ron started to go, but then regarded the jet-haired boy again. "But... what about you?"

"I told you yesterday, I'll be all right," Harry said stonily, giving the redhead a smile.

"Okay..." Ron said, returning the smile, and then rejoining Hermione up the corridor, as Harry watched them walking towards the stairs together, the first genuine beam on his face in months.

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To Be Continued...