Serendipity by romulus lupin

Rating: G
Genres: Romance
Relationships: Harry & Hermione
Book: Harry & Hermione, Books 1 - 4
Published: 02/05/2003
Last Updated: 02/05/2003
Status: Completed

Divination is an imprecise branch of magic ... or is it? Harry, Hermione, Ron and Lavender plus
a few Gryffindors try to find out one night after a heated argument between Ron and Lavender.




1. untitled
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Serendipity

**DISCLAIMER:** This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK
Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and
Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark
infringement is intended.

**Author notes:** The story was inspired by a discussion on the HMS Pumpkin Pie last year
when **Nightfall** asked, “What poems remind you of H/Hr?” The response was enthusiastic, and
**Nightfall** subsequently collected all the answers and posted them on the pumpkinpiearchives
website.

As usual, my deepest thanks to the shippers of the HMS Pumpkin Pie, especially those who
submitted poetry to *Nightfall's Anthology of Wizard Prose and Poetry*: **Nightfall, Lord
William, Happy_Daze, Joyce Cohen, Hermione L. Granger, Blue, Catsky, akscully.**

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

The sounds of verbal battle could be heard the moment Hermione Granger entered the Gryffindor
Common Room -- and she sighed. She didn’t need this, she thought. She’d had enough problems with
being a Prefect, trying to keep up her grades, studying for O.W.L.s, and helping Harry with his
studies, to have more problems added on to her already overloaded shoulders.

For a second, she thought of backing out through the portrait hole to look for an empty
classroom to fall asleep in … it would be easy to transfigure one of the chairs into a mattress …
to sink down into its softness … and have Peeves drop a bucket of ice-cold water all over you.

To say nothing of throwing the bucket at you.

Thanks, but no thanks.

Straight ahead through the Common Room lay her dorm … if she could only sneak by the battling
whoever-they-were … but again, she knew that *that* was a lost cause. She could tell from the
voices that it was her dorm-mate Lavender Brown who was holding down one side of the argument – and
that it was her other friend, Ronald Weasley, who was carrying the *other* side of that
dispute.

She groaned softly. She knew how worked up Ron could be whenever the mood struck him … and it
seemed that Ron’s “evil” moods were striking more and more often these days. Ever since she turned
him down …

She forced that thought away. He’d tried proposing to her soon after they arrived at Hogwarts
for their sixth year … clumsily … endearingly … working up the courage to ask her if she would be
his girlfriend … it was all she could do to keep from laughing … much as she liked him, she did
*not* like him in *that* way … and besides …

“I wonder where Harry is,” she thought. And then, she smirked. “Probably hiding in some corner
or another. Honestly, that boy! Thinks nothing of facing down Voldemort with his bare hands … but
try to place him between Ron and a female, and he starts looking for a place to hide!”

She smiled fondly at a vision of Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, Guardian of Good Against All
Things Evil and Yucky, and the only Wizard who’d escaped Voldemort’s attempts to kill him four
times in the past 5 years, cowering in a corner whenever she and Ron started bickering … although
to be fair, he *did* put a stop to it finally … threatening to hex Ron into another dimension
if he so much as tried to argue with her …

Her brain stopped, as it always did when she recalled that Incident. She was as surprised as Ron
when Harry suddenly burst out with that threat … in all the years she’d known The Boy Who Lived,
he’d chosen to keep quiet whenever she and Ron bickered … or, if he did intervene, it was usually
to ask her to shut up …

Ron’s expression that day was thoroughly priceless … he looked as if Errol, their family owl,
had bitten him on the nose … but the incorrigible Weasley spirit had turned on Harry with the
question, “Why *me*?”

Harry’s expression, however, was dangerous – he’d looked Ron in the eye, and with a soft, calm
voice, said, “You’re the one who’s always bickering with Hermione … find someone else to bicker
with. Besides, it’s giving me a headache …”

Green eyes clashed with blues … and Ron had whispered, “So that’s how it is …”

Harry’s eyes had turned even more dangerous as he responded with, “And what’s *that*
supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.” Ron had backed down … and left Hermione wondering, yet again, what he actually meant
when he said, “So that’s how it is …” Coming so soon after she’d turned him down …

Did that mean that …?

No.

It couldn’t be. If there was one thing she knew about Harry Potter, it was that he would not be
thinking of her that way … much as she wanted to believe that there was something *more* in
the way she sometimes caught him looking at her … she knew that his mind was too preoccupied with
Voldemort and the Death Eaters to even begin to think of her in that way …

Much as she wanted him to.

Much as she was willing to accept whatever it was that he felt for her.

And again, that stopped her brain from thinking.

What was *happening* to her? Harry was her friend, she thought savagely … there was nothing
going on between them. Besides, Harry would be too scared of losing their friendship … and he would
be thinking of the ever-present threat that would hang over her if people ever found out …

She sighed.

Another circular argument, she thought … the same one with no resolution, not until Voldemort
and his Death Eaters (now that sounds like a perfect name for a Muggle rock band, one of those with
weird make-up and spouting unintelligible lyrics in voices that would put Crookshanks to shame)
were locked away in their special corner of hell …

She knew she was merely postponing the inevitable. Gathering up her courage (she was in
Gryffindor, after all), she took a deep breath and plunged into the Common Room.

* * * * *

It was much as she expected – Ron and Lavender facing each other across a low table loaded with
books as they argued, other Gryffindors sitting around either studying (or trying to), or playing
Wizard’s Chess (Colin and his brother), or Exploding Snap, while trying to ignore the bickering
pair. Harry, however, was not with them. She glanced around the room and smiled as she saw him in a
corner, patiently tutoring the Terrible Two in Transfiguration – and glancing up at the bickering
duo in the center of the room.

Or was he? The moment she’d stepped into the room, he glanced up … caught her eyes … and smiled.
She almost missed a step as she felt the warmth of that smile envelop her – she had to smile back
as he gestured to a seat beside him … ignoring the giggles that the Terrible Two were giving when
they, too, noticed that she was in the room.

She shook her head at him, and gestured with her head towards the staircase … Harry smiled and
nodded, glancing at the bickering twosome and rolling his eyes. With a smile, she nodded and
quietly made for the stairs …

“Hermione! Just the person I wanted to see,” Lavender called.

‘Wonderful!’ Hermione thought to herself, and silently cursed green eyes and goofy smiles … if
she hadn’t stopped to look for him when she entered the room, she’d have been home safe … but then
again, she just couldn’t … she could *not* go up to her room without taking a look at him
before going to sleep …

“Oh, great! ‘Just the person I wanted to see’,” responded Ron in a sarcastic voice, breaking
into her reverie. “She’s the one person in our year who doesn’t believe in Divination … or have you
forgotten that fact *again*?”

“Shut up, Weasley. You don’t know what I wanted Hermione for.”

“Oh? Now that’s a …”

“*Shut up, Ronald Weasley! Or are you trying to prove that you’ve got another use for that
mouth other than for eating? It’s been no use for snogging, if you want to know!”*

A stunned silence fell over the Gryffindor Common Room – everyone present wondered whether they
would be party to a major breakup, and everyone there suddenly wished for the ability to
Disapparate out of the room to avoid a major embarrassment. As for Ron, it seemed that the
indomitable Weasley spirit finally met its match – he was sitting there like a beached fish, mouth
opening and closing, but no sound coming out of it for now.

Apparently satisfied that she had finally gotten the last word in, Lavender turned to Hermione
and Harry (‘now how’d he do that?’ Hermione wondered distantly. ‘He was over there just a moment
ago …’). With a grim smile, Lavender gestured to Hermione to sit beside her; as she sat down, she
could vaguely feel Harry standing behind her, one hand resting quietly on her shoulder.

She tried to suppress a shiver at his touch, and thought, ‘That boy! Always trying to protect me
… as if I couldn’t do it by myself … and besides, what’s there to protect from in the Gryffindor
Common Room? Unless he just wants to touch me?’

She forced her mind back to Lavender. “It’s about Divination, Hermione,” Lavender was saying.
“Professor Trelawney was telling us at class today that *anything* can be used for divining
the future – as long as the magical energies are channeled properly.”

Hermione glanced quickly at Harry, who rolled his eyebrows at her. She looked back at Lavender
who, fortunately, had not caught the silent conversation between the two friends, and was
continuing her explanation. “For example, you can hold a question in your mind and open a book –
any book, for that matter, and the *first* thing that you see is always an answer to the
question you are asking.”

Hermione raised an eyebrow at this, and glanced again at Harry who, in his turn, shrugged his
shoulders. He’d long lost his faith in Divination, believing that (as McGonagall put it) it was an
imprecise branch of magic *at best* – and, given his annual (sometimes monthly) death as
forecast by Professor Trelawney, he could never work up more than a momentary seriousness about the
matter.

Hermione, on the other hand, totally distrusted Divination, after having walked out of the class
in a spectacular fashion in their third year. Still, this was her dorm-mate … anything to keep the
peace in their dorm – as well as to shut Ron Weasley up.

“So? What do you need me for, Lavender?”

“I want you to design a test.”

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, a high level of excitement and tension had enveloped the Common Room. It had
taken Hermione less than five minutes to work out the mechanics of the test … now all that remained
was for the participants (or willing victims) to put their folded pieces of parchment into Cindy’s
pointed hat.

“We’re all agreed, then,” said Hermione in the bossy, high-and-mighty tone of voice that had
never quite left her. “Now, all we need is a book …”

She glanced around the Common Room, and saw a likely looking volume on the table where Harry and
the Terrible Two had been studying earlier. Pointing her wand at it, she murmured, “*Accio*
book!”

The heavy tome flew into her hand, and she almost dropped it on the floor, had Harry not
suddenly grabbed it. She took it from him with a smile of thanks and, glancing at the cover, looked
up in surprise.

“’**Nightfall’s Anthology of Wizard Poetry**’*?*” she asked. “Who …”

She suddenly stopped when she saw a slight blush creeping up on Harry’s face. ‘Harry?*’*
she thought. ‘What would Harry be doing with a book of *poetry*?’

Her thoughts were interrupted by a nudge from an excited Lavender (her earlier argument with Ron
apparently forgotten, although the latter kept glowering at her dorm mate.)

“All right, then. As agreed, Carolyn,” and she nodded at one half of the Terrible Two standing
close by, “will be the one to draw the parchments. She’ll read out the name of whoever is drawn …
and that person will be given a moment to concentrate on whatever it is he or she has written down.
After which, he or she will open the book, use this quill to mark a passage on the page, and pass
the book to Cindy who will read it out.

“All right?” At the nods from everyone around, she continued, “After Cindy reads out the
passage, Carolyn will then tell us what the question is. Are we all agreed with that?”

As everyone nodded, she nodded to Carolyn, who started shaking the hat vigorously before
reaching in and pulling out a parchment.

“Neville?”

“Why me?” Neville asked in a plaintive voice as the room roared with laughter, but he willingly
walked to the book, grabbed the quill, focused on the wall and, with a gesture of resignation,
opened the book and stabbed it with the quill.

As soon as he finished, Cindy grabbed the book and, with a quick glance at the marked portion,
began to read:

Is it a sign

or just a visage of hope

in my heart

to believe it is you I've seen

in the place

where we first met

A pin dropping would have sounded like a tree crashing in the forest as everyone watched a
blushing and stuttering Neville Longbottom squirm. Cindy, with a glance at Hermione, continued
reading the poem by someone named Lord William:

Do you recall

lingering nights like this

too cold for winter

renewed with the breath of the spring

We held on to each other

touching until it was time to go

and we floated against the night

with your yearnings placed upon this hand

promises of kisses

sinking our doubts

chasing our tomorrows

because love chose us

and bounded us together.

Cindy looked at Hermione, who was looking at Carolyn, who was looking at Neville. The latter
silently nodded, and Carolyn said, “Neville wrote, ‘S.B.’”

The room’s silence continued, as everyone tried to guess who “S.B.” was … until, Ginny said,
with a wide smile, said, “Susan Bones?”

Neville nodded, and the room exploded in cheers and applause for the now red-as-a-beet
Gryffindor. Over the hubbub, Ron’s voice was heard, “Are you sure it doesn’t stand for Severus
*Bnape*?”

Over the laughter, Neville threw a pillow at Ron’s head; Parvati Patil said, “I didn’t know you
and Susan were an item, Neville.”

“We’re not,” Neville protested. “We’re just good friends” – greeted with hoots of laughter – “I
just wanted to find out if we could be more than friends.”

The room fell silent as they contemplated what Cindy had read, and Neville’s question. Finally,
Harry spoke, “Go for it, Neville. If what Trelawney says is true, then that means there’s something
between you and Susan.”

Neville’s smile of gratitude was wonderful to behold, and he was walking towards the portrait
hole when Hermione’s voice stopped him. “Neville? It’s after curfew, you know …”

Neville suddenly stopped, one foot in mid-air, and said, “Oh … right,” before turning back to
the now-roaring Common Room. He quietly walked back to a chair near the others, smiling to himself
as he ignored the taunts and jeers of his dorm-mates.

“All right!” Lavender Brown shouted, centering the discussions, “That’s one for me – ten points
for Divination!”

The declaration was met with cheers, but Ron (who could never stand losing gracefully), butted
in, “Hey! That’s *one* … we agreed on a best of five score, right? So who’s next?
Carolyn?”

With a broad smile, the second year reached into her friend’s hat and pulled out another
parchment and called out, “Dean?”

With a broad smile and an insolent smirk, Dean Thomas took the book from Cindy and went through
the motions … after stabbing at the book with the quill, he stepped back, arms folded across his
chest as if daring the book and the reader to do its worst …

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Dean’s face blanched, and he looked as if he would collapse. The others, not noticing this, were
urging Carolyn to open the parchment and read out what he had written. Carolyn was looking down at
the parchment, puzzled … and holding it out to Hermione, said, “A cabinet?”

Hermione took one look at the drawing (Dean was *very* good at sketching) and said, “It
looks like a closet to me …”

As she said the words, she did a double-take, and looked at Dean with wide eyes. Dean Thomas
stared back at her as if he were a deer transfixed in headlights, arms limp at his sides, doing his
best impersonation of a beached salmon …

With a sudden start, Dean Thomas looked around at the crowded room and said, “I’m going to bed …
thanks, guys!”

The moment his back disappeared, the Common Room erupted in conversation, as everyone present
tried to decipher what had just occurred. Harry was sitting on the couch’s arm beside Hermione and
asked, in a low voice, “What was *that* all about?”

Before she could respond, one of the younger Gryffindors (to whom the drawing had been passed),
squealed out, “A closet? Is Dean thinking of coming out?”

Puzzled, Harry looked at Hermione. “Coming out?”

And then, it clicked … Uncle Vernon ranting about “freaks” (which he apparently ranked at the
same level as wizards), and his look turned to one of total surprise. “Is Dean Thomas *gay*?
Is that why …”

“Honestly, Harry! So what’s wrong if he swings that way?” Shocked, Hermione, Ron and Harry
stared at Seamus Finnegan. Lavender, also shaking herself out of her shock, asked, “*Seamus!*
Are you …”

“No,” Seamus replied in a strained voice. “No, I’m not … but Dean *is* my friend, as he is
*your* friend. Don’t condemn him for something that he has no control over …”

“We’re not,” Ron said for the group. He glanced around at the other people whispering around the
common room. “It isn’t a crime in the wizarding world, is it? It’s just that …”

“All these years, and we never knew,” Lavender put in.

“But it is his affair,” Hermione observed. She raised her voice to address the room, using her
high, bossy, Hermione-as-the-Gryffindor-Prefect tone, “People! Much as we’d like to discuss Dean’s
question and the answer, I think we should leave him alone. It’s his affair, after all.”

She followed this with a glare around the room that would have had Minerva McGonagall taking
lessons from her, and the room quieted down.

“Thanks, Hermione … for Dean,” Seamus said.

Lavender spoke up, just as anxious for the mood to be broken and attention diverted from the
revelation. “All right! That makes it two for Divination! Feel like giving up, Ron?”

“Hey, no way, Lav! We still got three to go … you’ve never heard of a coming-from-behind
victory?”

“This isn’t Quidditch, Ronald! There’s no Golden Snitch to grab to give you 150 points …”

“Oh no? Well, for your information, Ms. High and Mighty …”

“Ron!” The bickering duet looked in surprise at Harry Potter, perched on the couch’s arm beside
Hermione. “We’re doing this to settle an argument between the two of you … not start another one,
OK? Back to your corners, both of you.”

The bickering couple sat down, and looked expectantly at Carolyn and Cindy … the former again
shook the hat vigorously, and pulled out another parchment, while everyone looked on with expectant
faces, and called out, “Ginny!”

Ginny approached *Nightfall’s Anthology* with utter confidence, and went through the
motions again, and handed the book to Cindy without even trying to see what she had hit. The latter
took one look at the marked passage and read,

Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll

Of black artillery; he comes, though late;
In code corroborating Calvin’s creed …

“*What?*” The Weasley siblings screamed at the same time, badly frightening a surprised
Cindy, who dropped the book on the table … and was looking at the brother and sister with shock on
her face. Harry and Hermione, however, were immediately beside her, as though prepared to defend
the second-year from an attack from the enraged siblings.

“Honestly!” Cindy stuttered, “That’s what I saw marked in the book!”

Ron looked down at the book, which had closed when it fell on the table and said, “Well, we
wouldn’t know now, would we? How do we know it isn’t some joke on your part, Cindy?”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Carolyn (who was Cindy’s partner-in-crime in various pranks around the
castle) spoke up. “Besides, how would she even know anything … “

“About Draco Malfoy?” Ginny asked in a voice tinged with disbelief.

“I mean about poetry … it’s not that it’s her book, is it?” Carolyn continued. “Neither is it
mine … so how can she or I do something like that?”

“Well, whose book is it, anyway?” Ron asked.

Hermione caught the faint blush creeping up Harry’s face … for a brief moment, she considered
letting him admit that it was his book, but decided not to embarrass her best friend and his taste
in reading. She held out a hand before anyone could speak, and said, “Hey, people! It’s not the end
of the world.”

With that, she picked up the book and placed it on the table. With a wave of her wand, and a few
well-chosen words, the book flew open to the last page marked by Ginny Weasley, and she read the
passage out loud:

Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll
Of black artillery; he comes, though late;
In code corroborating Calvin’s creed
And cynic tyrannies of honest kings;
He comes, nor parlies; and the Town, redeemed,
Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds
The grimy slur on the Republic’s faith implied,
Which holds that Man is naturally good,
And—more—is Nature’s Roman, never to be
scourged.

She looked up at Ginny, who appeared both puzzled and flustered – and she suddenly thought of
the parchment that Carolyn was still holding. With a silent gesture, the younger girl handed it
over to her… when she opened it, she read out loud, “Who will my future husband be?”

“Oh, really now!” Ginny nearly shouted. “*Wise* Draco? Who’re you trying to kid?”

“Hey, hey,” Harry stepped in. “This is *not* Hermione’s fault, is it? Nor should you be
blaming the kids (gesturing to the Terrible Two) … they didn’t have time to set anything up,
right?”

Ginny visibly settled down, but was still looking rebellious and angry. The other Gryffindors
were also whispering to each other … and then, Hermione stood up. “Hey, guys! What was that we
always said about Divination? It’s an imprecise branch of magic, isn’t it? And the passage didn’t
say it has to be Draco *Malfoy*, does it?”

Ginny smiled at Hermione, and she felt a soft whisper in her ear, “Nice save, Mione.”

Hermione knew without looking that it was Harry who whispered to her, and kept herself from
shivering. ‘What is it with me today?’ she wondered to herself. She shook the feeling off, and
turned to Ron and Lavender.

“Well? Do we rate that as a win or as a loss?”

The once-bickering couple (now sitting beside each other with their knees pressing against each
other) looked at her, and at each other.

“I’ll count that as a win for me, Lavender,” Ron said, before the other could speak.

“*What?* Oh no, Weasley … no way …”

“Well, it didn’t answer her question, did it? Wise Draco, indeed! If there’s anything that Draco
is wise at, it’s being a wise *ass*!”

Lavender was about to protest, but a look at Hermione stopped her. With a gracious gesture, she
said, “Oh, all right … you can have that win. But it still makes it two-to-one, Ronald! So, who’s
next?”

Carolyn again picked up the hat (which someone had already dubbed ‘The Sporting Hat,’ from the
number of bets that were now being placed on who would be next on the firing line), and pulled out
a parchment … “Lavender?”

Surprised, Lavender stood up from her seat beside Ron and approached the book. With a deep
breath, she emulated the three who had gone before her – and stabbed the quill at a page in the
book. She immediately stepped aside but, to Hermione and Harry’s surprise, stood to one side of the
couch, away from Ron.

Ron, however, did not notice … his whole attention focused on Cindy, who was now reading from
**Nightfall’s Anthology**,

If I really cared...
I'd look you in the eyes when you talk to me;
I'd think about what you are saying rather than what
I am going to say next;
I'd hear your feelings as well as your words.

If I really cared...
I'd listen without defending;
I'd hear without deciding whether you're right or wrong;
I'd ask you why, not just how and when and where.

Cindy paused, and looked at Lavender and then at Ron. With a serious look on his face, Ron
gestured to Cindy to continue reading. Lavender continued to stand to one side of Ron, fists
clenched, slowly biting her lip as she listened to the words of a poem attributed to a wizard named
Lord William.

If I really cared...
I'd allow you to know me;
I'd tell you my hopes, my dreams, my hurts;
I'd tell you where I've blown it and when I've made it;

If I really cared...
I'd laugh with you but not at you;
I'd talk with you and not to you;
and I'd know when it's time to do neither.

If I really cared...
I wouldn't climb over your walls;
I'd hang around until you let me in the gate.
I would not unlock your secrets;
I'd wait until you handed me the key.

If I really cared...
I'd put my scripts away,
and leave my solutions at home.
The performance would end.
We'd be ourselves.


For a long moment, no one spoke. Carolyn, who had looked at the question asked by Lavender,
quietly passed the parchment to Harry who, in his turn, glanced at it before passing it on to
Hermione. She glanced at it, and then turned to Ron, who was sitting on an armchair, elbows on
knees, head down and staring at the floor.

“Ron?” Hermione whispered. He looked up at her, and she quietly passed him the parchment with
Lavender’s name on it. Written on it were the words, “Why does Ron treat me this way?”

Ron didn’t respond, just looked at the floor. Once again, a pin dropping would have sounded like
a tsunami on a deserted beach, as everyone in the room watched with bated breath for what would
happen next.

With a deep sigh, Ron finally looked up, first at Hermione (with a look of utter apology) and
then at Lavender. In a quiet voice, he said, “I guess that answers it … your question, I mean, Lav.
I thought I was caring … I thought I was loving … it seems I was not. I’ve been the same selfish,
self-centered git that I have always been … guess it needed something like this to make me realize
how wrong I am.”

He stood up and approached Lavender, and grabbed her hands. Holding them, he gently forced her
face up to meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Lav. I’m really, truly sorry for all the hurt I’ve caused you.”

“It’s all right, Ron. I forgive you.”

With those words, Ron slowly leaned forward and gave Lavender a soft kiss on the lips. Suddenly,
Lavender’s hands broke away from Ron and wrapped around his neck and, while the assembled
Gryffindors broke into raucous cheers and thunderous applause, the soft, gentle kiss quickly became
one of deep passion and forgiveness.

The applause and cheers continued as the two kissed alone in a world all their own; with a
sudden inspiration, Cindy and Carolyn started clapping a slow beat – followed by Harry Potter’s
voice giving a numbers count … “eight … nine … ten … eleven … twelve … thirteen … fourteen …
*fifteen!*”

Hermione’s elbow in his ribs knocked the air from his lungs, but the chant was immediately taken
up by the other Gryffindors … “twenty … twenty-one … twenty-two …”

The cheering was interrupted by the loud voice of Dean Thomas, who had been wakened by the
noise, as he shouted, “Ten Knuts they don’t make it past forty-five!”

He was answered by shouts of “You’re on!” from Harry, Seamus and Neville – this reaction,
however, earning Harry another jab in the ribs from Hermione. The twice-winded Harry Potter,
however, gamely kept up with the counting … cheering lustily as the count passed forty-five (he’d
moved away from Hermione, and was now standing on the other side of the Terrible Two) … until, at
the count of “*fifty-five!*” the snogging couple finally broke, chests heaving, faces red … to
the loud claps and cheers of the assembled Gryffindors.

Breathing heavily, Ron and Lavender bowed with a flourish to the cheering crowd, as a flustered
Dean settled up with his fellow-Gryffindors. Lavender said, after several bows, “I take it back,
Ron … that mouth is better used for snogging than for eating!” to the laughter of the Common
Room.

* * * * *

The room was finally quiet. Books, parchments and quills were scattered all over the room … here
and there, Wizards’ Chess sets and Exploding Snap cards lay forgotten. In the comfortable armchairs
in front of the fireplace, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter were sitting separately, quietly
contemplating the fire and feeling warm from the events earlier that night.

They were both used to the silence … having grown up alone, quiet was something they were both
at home with.

A chuckle finally broke out from Harry Potter’s lips, startling a deep-in-thought Hermione
Granger. She looked up at his amused face, but before she could ask him why, he had responded,
“Well … does that change your mind about Divination, Hermione?”

Hermione smiled at him. “Not one bit, Harry Potter … ask me, and I would say that it’s
serendipity.” At his upraised eyebrows, she clarified, “It means making discoveries by accident …
there’s nothing divine in what happened today.”

Harry, eyebrows raised in his turn, snorted at that and responded, “Haven’t you heard of that
muggle saying, Hermione, that ‘coincidence is God writing with invisible ink’?”

“Maybe, Harry. Maybe.” Hermione again lapsed into silence, watching her best friend as he also
sat back, staring at the fire. She felt at ease with the world, and comfortable with the warmth of
the fireplace and the presence of her friend. Lazily, she watched as he picked up *Nightfall’s
Anthology* from the table, and remembered her intent to ask him what he, of all people, was
doing with it.

She was just too happy with what had happened, however, to ask … besides, she thought to
herself, she had never had any questions or doubts with anything Harry did. Well, not much, she
thought … but still …

Hermione watched as Harry flipped through the book and then, as if with a sudden resolve, closed
it, riffled the pages and stabbed at an opened page with a quill. She watched as his lips moved as
he read whatever it was in the dim light … and was startled out of her reverie as he suddenly
slammed the book closed and stood up.

“Night, Hermione. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

As he passed her on the way to the boy’s dorm, she suddenly leaped up and grabbed the book from
him and fled for her room, laughing all the while. She had *not* planned, however, for the
charm that she had taken pains to teach him in their fourth year … “*Accio, book!*”

Hermione felt the book slipping from her hands; this only made her grab the book harder, and
wrap it to her chest. Harry’s magic, however, was too powerful … and she felt herself being dragged
with the book towards him. Hermione, however, would not give up … and felt herself being dragged,
like a loose needle pulled by a powerful magnet, towards him.

It was an uneven battle, and she felt her slim body finally giving up the book … which only made
her redouble her efforts to hold it – and found herself, and the book, being pulled towards
Harry.

The latter tried to break the charm before disaster happened – but it was too late. She suddenly
slammed into Harry Potter, still clutching the book to her chest, and they both fell to the floor –
Hermione on top of Harry, the book and her hands keeping her weight off him.

Harry’s arms, however, had flung themselves around her; even though it was her fault, he was
still doing his best to protect her, and cushion her fall. Before he could recover, however, she
had sprung up and placed the couch between them.

“Hermione,” he pleaded, “you’ve been beating me up all night … jabbing me in the ribs twice, and
now this! Give me the book, Mione.”

She clutched it harder. “No, Harry … call it curiosity, but I want to read what you were reading
…”

“Please, Hermione …”

“No.”

Harry stood there, chewing his lower lip, in an unconscious gesture that Hermione found both
oddly endearing, and strangely familiar. (She never realized that it was exactly the same gestures
she had when she was worrying over a problem, or over Harry). With a sigh, Harry gave in … but with
a devilish twinkle in his eye.

“All right, Miss Granger. You win … but on one condition.”

“And that is,” she challenged him.

“I’ll let you read what I read … but I would like to read what *you* read. All right?”

It was Hermione’s turn to chew her lower lip (unconsciously copying Harry’s earlier gesture) and
then, looking up at him from behind her lowered lashes, nodded.

They sat on the couch facing each other, *Nightfall’s Anthology* between them. Harry, ever
the gentleman, gestured to her to be first. Drawing out her wand, she waved it over the book,
opening it to the passage Harry had found. As she read aloud the verses written by Joyce Cohen, an
American witch, she felt a flush creep over her:

Nighttime – the perfect time
For contemplation, reflection, introspection
Sitting by the fireplace
With a mug of hot chocolate
Rich, dark chocolate
Just like your eyes
Eyes that I could drown in
Lose myself in, find my soul in
For you are my soul

You support me, console me, complete me
If only I could tell you that

But no, you won't respond in kind


I don't deserve you, won't deter you
From your heart’s true course

But wait, I've seen you gaze at me
The way I gaze at you


You're smart; you'll realize it, too

One day, you'll find me sitting here
In the lonesome nighttime
And no longer be alone
One day, someday, soon

She looked up at Harry as she finished her recitation, and felt herself blush as she saw his
emerald green eyes fixed on her. Harry responded to her unasked question, “Yes, Hermione … it’s
you.”

She lowered her face to stare at her hands, clasped in front of her, but peeking at Harry
through the curtain made by her flowing hair. She didn’t know what to say, and decided that, for
the moment, silence was the better part of valor.

Harry, however, apparently knew what to say. Quietly, he nudged the book towards her, saying,
“Your turn.”

Without looking at him, she riffled the pages of the book, and blindly poked at it with her
quill. She then turned the book around, and offered it to him. Still looking down at her clasped
hands, she heard Harry’s suddenly deep and roughened voice reciting,

I ne'er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.

She looked up in surprise, for the words sounded familiar … and as she listened closely, she
realized that it was, in fact, something she had read before …

My face turned pale, a deadly pale.
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked what could I ail
My life and all seemed turned to clay.

And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my eyesight quite away.
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.

It was a poem by John Clare, a 19th Century English poet she had always assumed was a muggle …
and the poem … the poem, she realized, was titled … “First Love.”


I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start.
They spoke as chords do from the string,
And blood burnt round my heart.

Are flowers the winter's choice
Is love's bed always snow
She seemed to hear my silent voice
Not love appeals to know.

I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before.
My heart has left its dwelling place
And can return no more.

As Harry ended the poem, silence fell again between them. After a moment, however, she heard
Harry clearing his throat. “Thinking of Ginny Weasley, are you?”

She looked up at him … and remembered the gender used in the poem. She shook her head and said,
in a soft whisper, “No, Harry … I wasn’t thinking of Ginny Weasley. I was thinking of you.”

They locked eyes, green on brown … no words were said, or needed to be said. Before any move
could be made, however, a log crashed in the fireplace beside them … startling them both, and
bringing them to their suddenly rational senses.

With a deep sigh, they both stood up, still facing each other. As he was about to turn away,
however, Hermione stopped him and gave him a hug, resting her head on his chest … and he wrapped
his arms around her, resting his head on her hair. They held each other closely, embracing tightly,
feeling their hearts beat together …

Then, they broke apart … looking at each other, understanding of their unique situation flowing
through them. Nothing more needed to be said … they knew what they wanted to know, and knew that in
time … in *time* …

They walked slowly to the staircases, where Harry gave her a kiss on the forehead, and Hermione
gave him another swift, tight hug.

“Night, Hermione.”

“Night, Harry.”

As he watched her slowly ascend the stairs, he whispered, quietly, “’Night, love.”

As Hermione’s form disappeared, Harry heard a whisper floating back, “’G’night, love.”

The End



