Author's Note: This chapter is inspired by The Bravery's song "Fistful of Sand". The chapter will focus more on Harry and Hermione's childhood friendship. Enjoy!

CH. 2- FISTFUL OF SAND

FLASHBACK – 9 years ago

I enjoyed walking to the park near our house in London after school and sitting down under my favourite tree with a book. My parents finally relented two weeks ago to let me walk the short distance to the park on my own with the promise that I would not speak to "strangers". Sure I was 8 years old but I was not one of those easily swayed children.

Suddenly, my books were forced out of my hands and on to the dirt.

"Oops, how clumsy of me," a girl my age with bright blue eyes and long blond hair said in an annoyingly sweet voice. She did not sound the least bit apologetic.

Her name was Rebecca and man did I hate her. Rebecca and her three little friends, Laney, Marie, and Lavender were the most popular girls at my primary school and they just so happened to be the meanest girls in our year.

I bit my lip trying to control my anger when I heard a boy's voice behind me.

"Yes it was Rebecca, especially since you will have to pick up all of the books after you so conveniently knocked them out of Hermione's hands," the irritated voice responded.

It was my best friend Harry. He smiled at me reassuringly before turning back to my enemies with a glare.

"Oh Harry why must you continue to defend that pathetic bookworm. You are so much better than—"

"I highly suggest that you do not finish that sentence. Don't you girls have anything else to do? Maybe go play dress up or annoy someone else for a change?" Harry interrupted pushing his glasses further up on to his face.

"Oh Harry such the joker. We actually do have some place to be though. Let's go girls. See you 'round Harry, Hermione," Rebecca replied with a smile towards Harry and a disgusted look towards me. She and her little friends followed along behind her, carefully stepping over my fallen books.

"Here, let me get these for you. I'm sorry you ran in to the four idiots," Harry said as he bent down to pick all of my books and carry them in his arms.

"Thanks for standing up for me. You really don't need do that. I can handle them, really," I replied with a sigh, following behind him as he walked toward my favourite spot.

"We've been friends since we were babies, nothing is going to change that. You are my best friend Hermione. No one has a right to act that way towards you if I can do something about it," He asserted as he took my hand for me to sit down beside him under the tree.

"Nonetheless, thank you. What are you doing here anyway? I thought you would be out practising football with Draco and Sirius."

"I was but plans changed. Draco has to go with his mum to his aunt's house and Uncle Sirius said we would practise later today instead."

"Oh I see," I said with a nod looking down at my books on the ground.

"What's wrong? Let me guess, you didn't get perfect marks on our last paper assignment? You can't expect to be perfect all the time, it's okay to make mistakes. You taught me that," Harry stated sensing something wrong with me.

"It's not that. I did manage to get perfect marks by the way. 3 points over I might add," I answered with a smile looking at him.

"Of course, I would have expected nothing less. 3 points though, not 5? Someone is slacking off these days aren't they," He responded with a grin.

"Ha ha," I said hitting him playfully on the shoulder. "I've just been thinking a lot lately about growing up and the kind of person I am becoming. I don't know if like it. Maybe Rebecca is right…" I trailed off.

"The type of person you are becoming? Hermione, you are 8 years old not 25. And I happen to like the person that you are. You are brave, intelligent—"

"And that right there is the problem. I'm only book smart. Who is going to actually want to ever be with someone like me? I'm not pretty to Rebecca's standards, I'm not funny, and I lead an incredibly dull life. My idea of fun is curling up with a good book on quantum physics," I said dejectedly.

"Please stop comparing yourself to Rebecca, I honestly may throw up if I hear her name once more. She won't always look that way. Besides, I don't surround myself with stupid people so you should feel quite honoured," He responded with a smile.

I smiled back at him feeling reassured once again. I was being a little silly I suppose. We were only kids after all. I picked up my book and began reading against the tree as he picked up the football that he had brought with him that I didn't see earlier. He ran off a little distance away from the tree and started doing some kicking drills. I looked at him from over my book watching him for a bit before I went back to my reading.

FLASHBACK/FLASHFORWARD — 4 years later (12 years old)

"Seriously I give up. This is ridiculous. When will I ever need to know this stuff? I don't plan on becoming an English professor or something!" Harry announced in irritation throwing his pen on the ground.

We were in Harry's room sprawled out on the middle of the floor with our English homework surrounding us. He asked me over to help him with our English assignment that was due tomorrow. Why he waited so long to start working on the assignment was beyond me. I finished the homework after school the same day it was given out three days ago. Truth be told, I really enjoyed the assignment. Maybe it was a little bit too short in my opinion but the students always seemed to complain (Harry included) when I asked the teacher to assign more. So I've given up on the idea.

"It's very simple once you get the logistics of it. In this sentence, the instructions require you to just identify the dangling participle," I said to him patiently pointing at his paper.

"Yeah I still don't know what that means Hermione," He answered in frustration running his hands through his unruly hair. I tried not to concentrate on that distracting act. He seemed to do it whenever he could not get something right. It was actually kind of cute. Did I just say that?

"The dangling participle, or the grammatical error in the sentence structure occurs when the phrase in the sentence usually does not attach to a word at all. For example, if I were to say… "At the age of six, my family decided to purchase a cat", what would be the dangling participle?" I asked him as I bit my lip trying not to reveal the answer.

"Hmm. Well, wouldn't it be "at" because its not really attached to a noun or anything right?" He asked looking at me nervously.

"Correct Harry! See I knew you could do it. You just needed an example. Now apply that logic to the rest of the sentences," I replied happily with a smile. He smiled back at me with a shake of his head at my enthusiasm.

Harry went back to finishing off the English assignment. I got up from the floor grabbed a book that I brought over for light reading, and sat down on his comfortable bed. I smiled to myself as I looked around his room. Gone were the days of buzz light year bed sheets and posters of Star Wars characters. The room was overwhelmed by his love of football and rugby, football mostly. I turned my attention back down to Harry who seemed to be writing profusely on the paper. Sometimes I worried about him.

You see, a mass murderer killed Harry's parents when he had been 1 years old. Sirius had agreed to watch Harry while his parents had gone out in celebration of his mother Lilly's birthday. On their way back from a restaurant, the killer named Tom Riddle had held them at gunpoint demanding that they hand over the car before he shot and killed them. Riddle has never been found and I think that fact has always been especially hard on Harry, knowing that his parent's killer is still at large after all of these years. Since that day, Harry's godfather, rightfully known as Uncle Sirius, took him in as his own. Sirius was honestly one of the most important people in Harry's life and they were a good match for each other.

"Harry, did you want to go out and catch a movie…Oh hello Hermione, I did not know that you were coming over today. Helping the senseless boy with his homework again?" Sirius announced stepping in to the room.

"I'm not senseless," Harry asserted throwing an extra pen at his uncle. His uncle caught it and threw it back at him playfully.

"Hello Sirius. He just needed a bit of help with our English homework. He got the hang of it rather quickly so I think he should be fine," I said with a smile.

"Well that's good. Can't have him walking around with an empty whole in his head. Thank you Hermione. One day I tell you, he will gather his wits about him and pop the question," Sirius responded with a grin.

"Alright that's enough of you. We need to finish our schoolwork and we can go to the movies later. You're distracting me," Harry jumped in with a slight red tent to his cheeks. I was just as bad. I hated when Sirius suggested that we were going to marry one day. It always gave me an odd feeling that I have yet to put a finger on.

"Blah blah, just let me know. Hermione, always a pleasure and of course you are invited to come along," He said before closing the door behind him with a salute.

"Sorry about that. You know how he gets," Harry told me with a sigh.

"Its fine. Lets just check on your progress. Let me see your paper," I replied trying to change the subject.

He handed me his paper and I looked it over. Shaking my head with approval I looked down at him on the floor to hand his paper back when I saw a weird expression crossing his face as he stared at me. Self-conscious, I sat the paper down and brushed my hands over my busy hair.

"What is it? Is there something in my hair?" I asked skeptically.

"No, no your hair is perfect," He responded still staring at me intently.

"Then what is it? You are really unnerving me Harry."

"I was just wondering…"

"Wondering what exactly?"

"IfIcouldkissyou," He mumbled out quickly.

"What, I didn't catch that?" I asked him again with a confused look on my face.

"I said, I was wondering if it would be alright if I could kiss you. Just once, its okay if you say no," He answered again nervously running his hands through his hair.

"Oh," I responded in shock. Harry Potter wanted to kiss me? Was this some sort of joke? Did Draco put him up to this? No, Harry wasn't like that. But it was so weird! Why did he want to kiss me of all people? My heart was starting to pound a mile a minute. It weren't as if I never imagined kissing someone, but kissing my best friend was a new idea altogether. "Umm, okay if you want to that's fine," I finally answered with a nod of my head.

"Really? B-brilliant," He stuttered out.

He got up and walked towards me and sat down next to me on the bed. He looked deep at me with those piercing green eyes before glancing down toward my lips. I licked my lips nervously and thought that the best thing to do was to take control of the situation. I leaned slightly closer to him and he took the hint and did the same before locking his soft lips on to mine.

In that moment, something awakened in me. Sure I was extremely nervous, but it just felt so right. He started moving his lips against mine hesitantly and I reacted more encouragingly in kind. He placed his hand on my cheek before softly breaking the kiss. We panted against each other, looking at one another in the eyes.

"Wow," Harry whispered to me with a slow smile coming to his face.

I smiled back biting my lip. Harry kissed me and it felt great! Nothing could break this moment.

A few days later—

I was still walking on the clouds after that magical kiss from Harry three days earlier. He had pratised a lot in preparation for his football team's championship so I hadn't seen him as much lately. Not a great deal changed after that moment but I found myself trying to be near him as much as I could. Whenever we did homework together, I would try to sit closer than necessary to answer his questions. At times I even found him touching my hand when I handed him an extra pen or piece of parchment. I don't really know what was occurring between us but all I knew was that I never wanted it to end.

I just started walking down the block that would lead to my home when I saw Harry ahead of me about to cross the street. I almost called out to him until I saw his friends come around the corner surrounding him. I stood back for a bit trying to hide a little behind my neighbours' house. I didn't have a problem with his friends but I wasn't really in the mood to hear them talk about football pratise like I knew they were about to do. I was definitely not a sports fan.

"Hey mate," Harry announced in greeting at Draco, Dean, and Seamus. They all exchanged similar greetings before Draco spoke up.

"We are about to head over to the park for a pick up game of football. Do you want to come along?" Draco asked.

"No, I will catch up with you guys later. I am meeting with Hermione," He replied.

"What is with you lately Potter? All you ever want to do is go study with the bookworm. Nothing against her really but it can't be that exciting. I mean its not as if you are actually getting anything out of it. I've been telling you for years now you've got to move on. There are tons of girls just waiting to be with "the" Harry Potter," Draco emphasized impatiently.

"I do not want to be with someone who only wants to be with "the" Harry Potter. I don't want to be with someone who only cares about how wealthy I am or about how famous I am because of my parent's death. It's sick and wrong. Besides, when I kissed Hermione—"

"Hold on. Did you just say you kissed Granger? Have you gone mad mate?"

"No. It just happened."

"You cannot go around kissing people like her if you want to get somewhere with people like Rebecca or even Cho. I know how much you want Cho. Now is the time to decide. Either you want to be with Granger or Cho, which is it?" Draco demanded.

I could not believe that piece of scum Malfoy. He was always annoying and full of himself, but demanding that Harry pick between his best friend and a girl that he was starting to fancy is just low. Of course I knew that Harry wouldn't abandon me. I remembered that Draco and the others had teased Harry about Cho but I never really thought he cared for her very much. Not to mention the fact that he had kissed me, not Cho! Why would he do that unless he actually liked me as more than a friend? Nonetheless, I had full confidence in Harry to blow Draco's demand off. I almost laughed at the silliness of it all.

"Hermione is a friend but Cho is all I ever wanted," Harry finally replied to his friends.

"Alright then, the sooner you ditch her the easier it will be to win Cho. Come on, pratise with us and forget about Granger," Draco said clapping a hand over his shoulder as they all started walking further down the street.

And just like that the best friend I thought I knew, the best friend that I shared everything with including our first kiss, abandoned me. To say it hurt was an understatement. Calls from him went unanswered and when he came over, I threw a box full of the stuff he gave to me throughout our childhood at his chest. He never knew that I had overheard his conversation with Malfoy and his friends and he didn't need to. I told him that our friendship was over and to never talk to me again. And just like that, he blew away from my life like a fistful of sand.

END FLASHBACK

Note: I hope that you have all enjoyed the story so far. As I have said before, I am trying to write this from a British standpoint and I am only American so give me a little break please if its not perfect. As with my other stories, I will always update with two chapters at a time because I just feel that it is wrong to keep people waiting forever. The next chapter will go back to the present. Please read and review! Thanks! =]