This story takes place in the summer between 4th and 5th year and covers an incident that occurred outside the JKR-Harry Potter Universe between Ron and Hermione (i.e.- it's my own twisted fantasy). It is completely fan-fictional, but I'd like to think that it COULD have happened. I hope you enjoy it, but that you enjoy JKR's universe more because she owns it all and I'm just a sloppy, tawdry wench with a hope and a dream that involves the characters that she created and owns outright. Oh, but one last note…there are spoilers to book 4, so read with caution!

---------------Now, read my shite. ------------------

Confessions of a Teenage Barrister

Chapter 1: The Elusiveness of Forgetting

He was soaring through the sky, thighs clenched around Harry's Firebolt, as the wind whipped his ginger locks into a frenzied mess. His arms remained low at his sides, palms forward, reveling in the crosscurrents of the wind as they tugged on and pushed at his large hands. Shifting slightly in his seat, Ron circled the skies above his home, the Burrow, while anxiety twisted his stomach into knots. He could see Gred and Forge below in the gardens where they were weeding out garden gnomes under Mrs. Weasley's less than strict supervision. She sat on the porch, absently flipping through the latest Witch Weekly, and ever so often she would transpose a new recipe into her enormous cookbook. Glancing toward the rest of the house, Ron could imagine Ginny in her bedroom, no doubt writing another letter to . . . HER.

He flinched. Lately, just thinking about her name left him flushed with anger and humiliation. Things hadn't been the same between them since that fateful visit to Madame Pomfrey's sickroom. He cursed his luck again, damning Draco Malfoy to an ever expansive blaze in hell and warming a seat in his imaginative inferno beside Draco for Neville. Poor Neville, he thought. He let the hot seat vanish from his imagination with a sigh as his conscience pricked him. He knew it was only Neville's bad luck rather than any trace of ill will that had lead to his misfired Cheer Charm. But Draco, the prat, had intentionally infected him with Snape's Veritaserum, even though he knew the resulting consequences of such an interaction between the two magicks.

He shook his head, attempting to shake the memories from his mind. He landed roughly, and stomped slightly towards the house with Harry's broom slung over his shoulder. At his approach, Mrs. Weasley clucked her tongue with impatience as she noticed the mulish set of his features.

"Off to throw another strop, I suppose? Ronald Weasley! You must desist in this nonsense." She rose slightly, grabbing his elbow firmly as he tried to walk around her into the house. "Ron," she spoke quietly, concern etching her face, "I hate to see you like this. And I know that it wears on Harry as well. Please Ron . . . just send Hermione an owl. It can't be as bad as all that. After all, she's written to you . . . ."

Ron shook off her grasp, looking at her as if he'd been slapped. "Mum look, it's not that easy. You don't know…everything. You're wrong, alright?" Lowering his voice, he muttered, "Besides, she wrote to Harry, not to me."

Darkness clouded her features as Mrs. Weasley's brow furrowed further. "Oh, I don't know everything, do I? I know that tone Ronald Weasley, and don't you DARE act as if I don't know ANYTHING about you and your friends! Even now, poor Harry is upstairs moping over the state of things between you and Hermione. After everything he dealt with at the Triwizard Championship, and with the return of You-Know-Who, why can't you lay your pride aside and make amends, hmm? And I do too know that Hermione is more than willing to do the same. Don't think for one second that I've missed the three owls you yourself have received from her this summer, or the fact that you've yet to write her back! I'm ashamed of you! Go on. Go into the house and mope."

His chin wobbled slightly at her berating lecture. He clenched his jaw hard, glancing back at the garden where Fred and George quickly turned back to their work, both pretending that they hadn't been listening to the horrid exchange. But he saw their expressions—mirrored raised eyebrows and smirks—and leapt to his own conclusions about what they thought.

Everyone in his home believed that he was jealous of the King's Cross kiss; before parting for the summer at platform 9 and ¾, Hermione had leaned up on her tiptoes to press her lips . . . to Harry's cheek. Well, with the events that took place during the Triwizard Championship—Cedric's death, You-Know-Who's return, and Rita Skeeter's capture—he could hardly expect anyone to remember HIS insignificant visit to Madam Pomfrey's hospital wing after an unfortunate prank. But Hermione recalled. She had tried to pretend it hadn't happened, but he couldn't forget her rejection.

He stormed up the stairs to his bedroom and paused before the door. He heard low moans coming from inside and wondered whether Harry was having another nightmare. He had been doing that more and more lately, tossing and clutching a phantom pain originating from the scar on his forehead. Ron swallowed slightly and edged the door open silently before poking his head inside the room. He glanced around the flickering orange walls until his eyes alighted on Harry's bed. It remained empty. Frowning, he glanced back towards his own bed and his breath caught as he saw, not Harry, but Hermione sitting on his Chudley Cannons bedspread.

He stared hard, walking into the room against his own volition, hesitantly closing the gap between him and her starkly silent form. She looked so strange perched upon his bed, facing the wall with her back to him. Her face was turned as well, cheek pressed to the wall, and her eyes were shut as if in slumber. Her arms lay against the wall, bent at the elbows, on either side of her head while her hands curled against the posters as if they were clutching a bedspread. Ron gulped audibly as he approached her and thought that she surely must be under an enchantment. After all, why else would studious, sensible, practical Hermione Granger—top witch of their year—be in his bedroom, nude to the waist, and pressed intimately to his poster-laden walls without even the slightest qualm marring her sweetly-formed expression?

He stopped a few feet from her and leaned Harry's Firebolt against the window sill. Worrying his bottom lip with nervous teeth, he slowly stretched his arm out toward her shoulder. His hand visibly shook as it inched towards her bare flesh. He swallowed again, hard, while glancing down the length of her slim, smooth back. She seemed perfectly formed, though so much smaller than her robes had betrayed. His eyes followed the curve from her shoulder, over her shoulder blade, down her torso until they rested on the slight swell of her hip. Sporting scarlet-flushed ears, he glanced up quickly at her face which remained unchanged. Her hair floated around her face and shoulders like a quirky halo and her eyelashes dusted her cheek with soft shadows. Ron imagined trapping his fingers in those curls before raising fistfuls to his nose- breathing her in. Closing his eyes, he gulped back the temptation and returned to his task with a determined gleam in his eyes.

He veritably squeaked her name. "Her—ahem—Hermione?" She shifted slightly, snuggling closer to the wall, and Ron felt a slow-burning flush creep from the nape of his neck up through his cheeks as he glimpsed the silhouetted side of her breast.

Trembling, he glanced around again, desperate to spy a lurking Harry in one of the corners. He simply wasn't brave enough . . . he couldn't . . . no, couldn't POSSIBLY be the one to wake her. But he was quite alone but for this miniature goddess. Licking his parched lips, he took heart. Planting his feet firmly, he reached for her shoulders with both hands. His fingers skimmed over their fragile slopes, but before he could truly grip and shake them, she moaned- whimpered really, low in her throat- and he froze. His face a mask of fright, he looked again to her face, but only a soft, smiling pout had curled the corner of her lips upward. He nearly fainted as she spoke:

"Mmmmm . . . Ron? More . . . touch me . . . please?"

Her breathy words were so soft that her lips had barely moved. His palms instantly itched with nervous sweat. Pulling his hands away as if her skin had burned him, he clutched them in front of his stomach, wiping them on his shirt. Her face was now a study in consternation. She shifted fitfully, trembled. A small tear glistened beneath her velveteen eyelashes and his heart turned painfully.

"Hermione?" he spoke louder, "Hermione, you must wake up."

She seemed frozen in a silent pain. Summoning all the courage he possessed, he placed his palm fully against her shoulder blade. She sighed contentedly at his touch, her expression melted, and his thumb traced her spine, up and down, of its own volition. He felt a tingle between their skins, as if an intangible liquid heat rushed ahead of his fingertips only to force them back against her skin. It was like being caught again in the crosscurrents of the wind, as if he were caressing sky as he stroked her soft, golden skin. She purred then—actually PURRED—and his resolve shattered.

Surrendering to his quaking knees, he sank onto the bed behind her. His other hand seemed engorged as he compared its proportions to her other shoulder blade. He couldn't bring himself to press against her firmly, and so his hands nearly floated over her skin. He traced her spine with hands on either side of it, and let his hands turn as her waist thickened into the crests of her slight hips. He rested his hands there while he shut his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. When he reopened them, slowly, he allowed his gaze to trace the details of her face.

There was a small freckle at the corner of her eye that he had never noticed before, but her skin was as smooth as he'd recalled and her lips were as full. His eyes moved across the bent lines of her fretful curls, and he smiled as he began to count the shimmering colors within each strand that combined to form the shade of Hermione-brown of which he had so recently grown fond. It held a subtle beauty, unlike the palpable riot to which his inflamed tresses seemed to aspire.

He leaned closer, bowing his form around hers as he rested the side of his face against her neck and shoulder. He felt her sigh ripple through his own chest as if they were breathing the same dreams. She was soft and pliant- plush- like a pillow. He allowed his eyes to drift closed as he nuzzled her, lips resting lightly on the crest of her shoulder, and listened to the soft thrumming of her heart. Thump. Thump. THUMP!

He raised his head from his pillow with a start, and glanced around his shadowed bedroom from the awkward position of lying on his stomach. He saw the gentle rise and fall of Harry's chest as he slept in the bed opposite himself and continued to look for the source of the rhythmic thumping that had broken him from his dream. Glancing up at his window, he saw a slight, shadowy form beating against the pane with its face. Grumbling as he fumbled for the catch, he finally opened the window with only a mild curse for his devoted Pigwidgeon.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, ruffling his hair tiredly from his face and rubbing the sleep from his eyes with impatient hands, before focusing his bleary eyes on the tiny missive attached to Pig's leg.

Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley

The Burrow

He read the words with a sinking heart. SHE had written again. He turned the page over and over in his large hands, contemplating whether or not he should simply give into his curiosity and read her letter or place it atop Harry's other mail. He rubbed the bridge of his long nose with tense fingers and frowned. Perhaps it was due to the longing that his dream had inspired, or maybe it was because the will of Hermione Granger was a force of nature that no mere wizard could defy, but Ron felt compelled to scan the contents of her letter.

Gingerly, he pulled the folds apart, holding the page up to the sliver of moonlight that spilled through his window. His eyes skimmed the page, tracing the loops and curves of handwriting that seemed to whisper secrets to his resonating heart. Shaking his head with frustration, he sat up fully, furrowed his brow, and began to read.

Hello again Harry. Please send Ron my love (is he still angry with me?). I miss you both. Our travels aren't quite the same without your correspondence. No matter. I'm sure you are well taken care of at the Burrow (please send Mr. and Mrs. Weasley my love as well). You've been practicing quidditch and wizard's chess, no doubt (one of us must beat Ron one of these days; infallibility is good for NO ONE'S ego).

Mum and Dad are content. Please don't worry so much about us. Honestly. We are as safe together here as we would be were we at home. Does Ron never ask about me? I have written before, but he has not written back. Of course, I have enjoyed your letters, but it has made me wonder— is Ron ill? Or angry? I haven't received an invitation to the Burrow yet, and my parents are asking about it. I feel stupid not knowing where we all stand.

I can't tell you how much I miss you both. Please write again as soon as possible. And please let Ginny know that I hope she is enjoying the Muggle study aids that I sent to her. They are some of my favorite CDs as well.

Love from,

Hermione

His lungs expanded painfully and he realized that he hadn't breathed a single time while reading her letter. He sighed and attempted to rub the tension from behind his eyes. Glancing out the window at the moon, his body thrummed with longing. He grimaced at the irony of her written words. It seemed strange and incongruous that she would express concern over his unchallenged victory in wizard's chess when her unbeatable scholastic standing was far more renowned.

No one is infallible, he thought, thinking of his heart. He blushed as he realized that he was using the same caress upon the page that he had employed in his dream.

Shifting uncomfortably, he refolded the letter and pushed it towards Harry's side of the night table. He closed his eyes painfully and could almost hear the note of concern in her words. But he couldn't respond. He still couldn't believe how much her rejection had maimed him. It was an ache-filled presence in his heart that even now fought to burst from his chest. If he could erase that day he would—from his mind and from existence. But it replayed in his mind again, and he let his head fall back against the wall as he gave into reliving the day that had changed everything.