Chapter 2: Clouds

Notes: The Fred/Hermione interaction stuff begins in chapter 3! Sorry for so much exposition!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot

Hermione felt as though she was drowning by first week alone. Her first class of the year, Ancient Runes, had started her off with several chapters to read and two essays. She had been sneered and scoffed at by Snape during one of her once-favorite classes, Defense Against the Dark Arts. And although she had gotten Gryffindor points in their first Potions class and impressed Slughorn, she still found herself quite irritated. Harry had been using unfettered and possibly dangerous instructions from a used textbook to best her in the class for the entire week, a task he had never managed to do prior to this year. She put down her quill and lay back on the couch she had settled in. She had been working on Arithmancy homework for the past hour and she had finally finished. She looked over at the couch next to her. Harry had left for his meeting with Professor Dumbledore, which left her alone with Ron who was currently struggling through a Transfiguration paper she had finished the day before. She sighed inwardly at the situation. Even though they had exchanged what Hermione thought was meaningful looks over the cauldron of Amortentia earlier that week, their interactions had been rockier than ever. He had gotten angry with her for helping plan the rounds schedule for prefects because she hadn't considered that he could have quidditch practice at the times she scheduled him. He was irritated with her for being suspicious about Harry's potion book. He had even snapped at her for "distracting" him when she tried to help him with non-verbal spells. She decided to shrug this off and figured he was on edge due to the upcoming quidditch tryouts.

Ron put down his quill and stretched his arms over his head. "Merlin's beard! McGonagall must honestly want us to keel over assigning us this much homework." he yawned widely and then turned Hermione with a look she was all too familiar with. "Do you think you could look over my essay?" She rolled her eyes but smiled "Fine, give it here." she replied. He handed her the parchment beaming at her. She quickly buried her head into the essay so that he couldn't see the light blush on her face and got to work. A few minutes in she looked up to ask Ron about what he meant by a certain sentence, only to find that he wasn't on the adjacent couch anymore. Hermione looked around to find him leaning near the portrait hole laughing and chatting with Seamus Finnigan, Katie Bell, and (to Hermione's great displeasure) Lavender Brown. She felt the anger swell up inside her chest, her hand clenched around her wand. She had a half a mind to hex that flirty look off his face. Instead she put down his half corrected essay, packed her things, and made her way out the portrait hole to the library. She made sure to bump the stupidly grinning Ron on her way out.

The next couple of days flew by. Hermione sat in library going over her Charms notes. All the while her mind was still stuck on the day before. She had gone to watch the quidditch tryouts where she was unfortunately seated alongside Lavender and Parvati. Throughout the trials they giggled and whispered throwing suspicious glances her way which made Hermione incredibly to everyone but Harry's knowledge, Hermione had confounded Cormac Mclaggen on his last save. It wasn't that she didn't have faith in Ron to be the better keeper, she just couldn't stand how Mclaggin acted towards her two friends. She knew that she was doing a favor for both of her best friends by confounding him. Ron had gone up next and performed wonderfully, saving one more goal than Mclaggen. She couldn't wait to congratulate him on his win, she was so proud of him. However, when Ron was announced keeper, Hermione only had a few seconds to talk to him before a blur that turned out to be Lavender tackled him in a hug. Her heart tightened at the thought. Recalling how Ron had looked surprised by the hug, but then suddenly so pleased with himself at the same time. Hermione remembered how upset she felt as she walked to the castle with Harry, who seemed as uncomfortable as she did.

The following week felt like torture as Hermione watched Ron grow more and more interested in Lavender. Once she had overheard Ron talking about,"how unbelievably fit" Lavender was to Harry, a conversation that he abruptly stopped when he noticed Hermione was in earshot. Ron was many things, but subtle was not one of them. She had caught him eyeing the girl over an embarrassing number of times. Lavender had noticed this as well, and she seemed to keep coming up with excuses to "accidentally" brush up against him. She also picked up the bad habit of dropping quills nearby, leading to Ron staring at her shamelessly when she bent over to retrieve them. However, all of these overt flirtations paled in comparison to when Hermione caught him and Lavender intensely snogging in a broom cupboard while on prefect rounds with Ernie MacMillan. After which Hermione found herself sobbing in Ginny's four poster while the youngest Weasley scowled and cursed her brother out.

It turned out Ernie couldn't keep what he had seen to himself, so the next morning when Lavender threw herself onto Ron in the Great Hall and announced they were dating, no one was surprised. Hermione, having gotten all of her emotions out the previous night was able to hold her head high and pretend that this revelation did not affect her at all. She ignored the chittering couple and an awkward Harry as she skimmed through the Daily Prophet, forcing herself to uphold her daily routine. However, her resolve was broken when she heard Lavender's high-pitched giggle and looked up to see she had found her way into Ron's lap. She jumped out of her seat and swiftly made her way to the Library, biting back her tears. Her mind was racing. How could he be dating someone else? And someone as stupid as Lavender Brown for that matter? Her eyes started to well up. She had been so sure that she and Ron were going to start dating this year. She thought back to how she would catch him looking at her throughout her stay at the Burrow and how he secretly held her hand during the prefect briefing on the train. She could hardly hold herself together. Hermione was barely present as her legs carried her into the library to her favorite table. She began to cry the moment she sat down, burying her head in her hands. It wasn't until the figure sitting across from her spoke up, that she realized she wasn't alone.

"Hermione, what happened? You seem awfully sad?" said a soft, familiar voice. she looked up through bleary eyes to see a concerned looking Luna Lovegood in front of her. On any normal day Hermione would have wiped away her tears, swallowed her emotions and pretended everything was okay. However, today was the farthest thing from a normal day and something about the compassionate look in Lunas eyes made her cry harder than ever. Luna quickly rifled through her things and brightly colored blue and yellow handmade handkerchief and handed it to her. Finally she choked out between her sobs "Ron... started dating... Lavender Brown." She inwardly cringed at the fact she, Hermione Granger, was crying about a boy. Luna seemed not to mind such childish things as she gently moved to Hermione's side and took her hand. "I'm so sorry. Ron can be quite hurtful at times." Hermione cried even harder at this and she began admit everything she'd been keeping in to the wide eyed blonde. How Harry had been using the Half Blood Prince's book to become the top of the class in Potion and how it drove her crazy. How she felt Ron had been getting more and more irate with her since they had come back. How all of this had been distracting her from her studies. And lastly how she was starting to feel as though Harry and Ron only kept her around to keep them from failing classes. All the while Luna silently listened, stroking her hand soothingly. When Hermione finished and dried her tears, Luna started to speak "It seems as though you're carrying an awful lot of weight on your shoulders." she looked dreamily down an aisle of books. "From what you've told me, you're so wrapped up in other people you forget about taking care of the most important person in your life… " her focus drifted back to Hermione and finished "Yourself." she smiled gently as a couple more tears spilled from her eyes. Luna continued "I feel like you're too grounded sometimes. Maybe you need to let yourself drift into the clouds." Hermione get out a small watery laugh at this. Luna, as sweet as she was, was still an enigma to her. Hermione continued to smile, listen and even laugh as Luna talked about about various classes and creatures. She was aware that Luna was trying to distract her and she greatly appreciated it. The conversation flowed from topic to topic and Hermione realized it had been a long while since she had such a carefree chat with a classmate. When the bell for class sounded, they had somehow found themselves talking about History of Magic. They both got up to pack up and Hermione blushed, remembering that she hadn't actually unpacked any of her things. They walked together to the entrance of the library finishing up their conversation. Before they parted ways Luna turned to her and said, "I had a really wonderful time talking to you. It was quite fun! If you wouldn't mind, maybe we could study together in the future?" Hermione was surprised but nodded. Luna beamed, turned on her heel and went off to her Transfiguration class. Hermione turned around and started walking to class, feeling almost weightless. As she went she continued to wonder how one could drift into the clouds.

I wanted to say Thank you all so much for the positive response to the first chapter!

Also I plan on updating every Tuesday, so look forward to Chapter 3 soon!