Late for the Sky

Timing, if you asked Hermione Granger, was nearly everything.

She lived her life by a set schedule, a schedule which might have been deemed rigid by most other teenagers, and she tried her best to keep to it. Of course, being best friends with Harry Potter meant that there would be the occasional departure from the daily schedule. Hermione was used to this, but she often wished that the trouble that visited Harry and his friends would restrict itself to the summer, when there were no classes in session. Still, for the most part Hermione felt that her schedule kept her on track. She considered it a matter of common sense. If one performed certain activities virtually every day - waking up and going to bed, brushing one's teeth, eating meals, attending class, doing homework, etc. - then it logically followed that the best way to accomplish each task daily was to perform them at a specified time, and not deviate from that time.

Her other best friend, Ron Weasley, had never understood her love of order and stability. He was constantly urging Hermione to loosen up, to "live it up a little more," as he put it, frequently supplying other worn-out clichés such as "you're only young once." Hermione had never listened to such nonsense before. Fifth year was when she really appreciated her schedule; she went into her O.W.L. exams knowing that her studying and the careful modulation of her time would pay off. When she received her exemplary scores that summer, she found that she had been right. She attempted to impart this wisdom to Harry and Ron, but they waved her off with the same indulgence they always applied to what they considered her scholarly eccentricities. Nevertheless, Hermione knew that her system worked best in her life, and she did not feel that anything was truly lacking. She had her family, she had Ron, Harry, and other slightly less important friends, she had her cat Crookshanks, she had class, and she had her schedule. A time for everything and everything in its own time.

Ironically, it was also during fifth year that she began to ponder Ron's advice in a different sort of way. Rooming with Parvati Patil and Lavander Brown meant that she was immersed in a great deal of gossip and speculation, chiefly about members of the opposite sex. Although Hermione spent many a restless night that year with her head under her pillow to stifle the giggling and chatter, she couldn't help admitting that she was becoming curious about the subjects of her roommates' discussion. The fact that Harry embarked on his first (ill-advised, in Hermione's opinion) romantic relationship that year only served to keep the thought in her mind. They were all growing up, and many students in her year were beginning to discover that there was more to romance and sex than just talk. However, Hermione knew that experimenting with dating and boys was another task set for her young life, and she felt that fifth year, with the O.W.L.s looming, was not the proper time for such an undertaking.

Never mind that more and more often her thoughts turned to the pattern of freckles on Ron's nose, or the way the shade of his eyes changed with his mood, or the definition that was beginning to show on his gangly arms and legs, or the fluttering she sometimes felt in her stomach when he smiled. There had been sexual tension between them the previous year and she was willing to explore it further, but it was not the time.

Any half-formed plans she'd had about the concept of a sixth-year romance with Ron were unfortunately dashed with the events of the end of the school year. Harry's loss was so wrenching that he was virtually all Ron and Hermione thought about that summer and well into the fall. He seemed so fragile and they were both so frightened for him that they simply put all their energies into trying to ease his troubles. It seemed to be an unspoken agreement, and it prevented any opportunity for Hermione to discover if her crush on Ron was the roots of something deeper.

Because thoughts of Ron were so far below the surface for Hermione, she wasn't surprised to find herself, in mid-November, suddenly attracted to a handsome, studious Ravenclaw seventh-year named Andrew Price. It was then that she remembered her intention to engage in some sort of romantic liaison that year, and also then that she remembered her feelings for Ron. For a few weeks she tried to catch his attentions without being obvious and crass about it, but he seemed to take no notice (though from time to time, Hermione caught Harry staring at her with a disturbingly knowing look). It was not working out as she hoped. Ron was worried about Harry and his family, and he was moody. As a result, they fought more often than normal - and then they made up more quickly, for Harry's sake. If they were to add romance to the volatile mix, Hermione reasoned, there was no telling what could explode.

Besides which, Ron was smitten with Lavender Brown. Hermione could only attribute it to her blond hair and beautiful large green eyes, because she certainly could not see the appeal of dating her in any other case; she and Lavender had always been friends, but from then on Hermione began to find her more insipid, shallow, irritating, beetle-brained, and plebeian than she had ever thought a person could possibly be.

So she made a point of being in the library when Andrew Price was there: scanning the aisle nearest his table, asking him to borrow a quill, accidentally dropping her knapsack near his feet. She pulled her hair back in a fashion she knew was flattering, something she normally didn't feel the need to do. Once or twice, she adjusted her knee-high stockings in his direct line of sight. She didn't feel entirely comfortable doing all this, but she had no other idea as to how she could get him to notice her. And it was no worse than Lavender forever batting her eyes at Ron, flipping her pin-straight hair, pouting her shiny pink lips, and giggling at his every joke (no matter how uninspired).

After several days of this behavior, Hermione was disheartened. It didn't seem as though Andrew was taking the slightest interest in her. She was sitting glumly alone one afternoon, chin propped on her hand, looking at his reflection in the glass door of a covered bookshelf, when he came up behind her and dropped a silk orchid on her notebook.

Hermione started, and was amazed when he smiled at her and asked if she might like to take a walk with him. She accepted gladly.

It was nearly dark when she returned to the Gryffindor dorms, where Harry and Ron were waiting for her (Ron somewhat less patiently).

"There you are, Hermione!" he exclaimed the second she entered, making her jump. "I've been sitting here waiting for you to come back so I could borrow your History of Magic notes. Have you been at the library all this time?"

Hermione felt her cheeks, already rosy, turn a deeper shade of pink. "I - yes, I was at the library. Studying."

Harry set down his quill and raised an eyebrow. "For six hours straight?" he asked.

She glared at him. She hadn't realized they'd been gone so long.

Ron had gone silent, studying her intently. Hermione blushed deeper under his frank gaze and tugged her blouse straight.

"You have a leaf in your hair," said Ron, thunderstruck. "And you're all - rumpled."

Harry merely sat back and smiled.

"I am not rumpled," Hermione snapped. Quickly she raised a hand to her mouth, praying that it wasn't reddened or swollen or something else equally damning. Ron did not miss this and his mouth fell open.

"You've been kissing someone!" he shouted. Several nearby students stopped whatever they were doing to watch. Hermione was mortified.

"Shut up," she hissed, "there are people around, Ron!"

He shook his head violently. "Oh no, you don't get to lie to us about being off kissing somewhere with - with God knows who, and then tell us what to do!"

Hermione sighed, knowing she wasn't going to get any peace until she settled things. "It isn't any of your business whom I kiss or whom I do not kiss, Ronald Weasley, but just so you know, it was Andrew Price and we were down by the lake -"

"Andrew Price? From Ravenclaw? But he's a seventh-year-"

"Stop shouting! And I am quite aware of that!"

"I can't believe you'd be taken in by his pseudo-intellectual, look-at-me, I'm-so-deep BOLLACKS!"

"Pseudo-? You hypocrite, how dare you -"

"You can't just go off kissing seventh-years! Don't you know that all seventh-years only want one thing from younger girls-"

"Now that is enough, Ron! Stop being ridiculous and stop embarrassing yourself by acting like a jealous boyfriend, again!"

Ron, ears flaming red, opened his mouth to speak again, but her words hit home. He was a boyfriend now, but he was not hers. And she could see in his eyes that she had hurt him. She wished she had said 'brother' instead.

Harry got up then, to come and stand between them with a placating hand raised to both.

"The both of you, calm down. Ron, you can borrow my notes - as long as you take them up to our room."

Ron's nostrils flared alarmingly and his jaw tightened, but he said nothing and obeyed. Hermione was glad, because she could feel that she was about to cry and that was the last thing she wanted Ron Weasley to see.

Turning back to her, Harry smiled and put his arm around her shoulders. "Don't be angry with him for being an idiot about a lot of things, Hermione."

She rubbed her eyes tiredly. "I'm not," she whispered.

"He just needs time -" Harry began.

"No," she interrupted. "No more of this - this childishness. There is nothing between Ron and me, and furthermore, there never will be. He lost his chance."

With that, she turned on her heel and went to her own bed.

The rest of the year passed with a strange distance between she and Ron. It hurt, but in some ways it was better than the constant butting of heads. Once again they both focused on Harry, who was deep in Dark Arts training and becoming so serious that making him laugh became one of their chief goals in life.

And Hermione continued to see Andrew, so her schedule for sixth year - just as she'd planned - was a little flexible. Ron and Lavender dated for just over a month before the infatuation ended for both of them. She was the one who did the breaking up, though, as Hermione had predicted, and moved on to Terry Boot faster than you could fly from one end of the Quidditch pitch to the other. There were other girls for Ron. He went through the female hearts of Hogwarts faster than she went through her quills. She found herself violently disliking each one, even those with whom she'd previously been friendly. For his part, Ron's disapproval of her own boyfriend was silent but fierce. Harry tried to stay neutral.

In the meantime, her relationship with Andrew contiued to flourish and deepen. In April she decided, without much prior thought on the subject, that she wanted her new explorations to include sex. Andrew was unsurprisingly accommodating, and though the first time was awkward and not a particularly rewarding experience, together the two of them learned the contours and needs of one another's body. And Hermione was astonished to find that she did love Andrew, which she had not thought possible at her age.

She was even more astonished to find that she did not love him as much as he needed, or as deeply as she was capable of. Ron was still there, always on the fringes of her thoughts, and with the same intuition that guided her to answers of the most perplexing of logic puzzles, she knew that she would love him completely and unequivocally. She would have done it a long time ago, but even if he felt the same depth of emotion, he wasn't ready for it.

When she laid it all out in her mind like that, clearly, she thought her heart would fracture into thousands of tiny shards.

It did not, because she was who she was. She had schoolwork to do and Harry to take care of and a life to live. She also remembered her reasons for abstaining from romance the year before, and next year was the N.E.W.T.s. When she broke up with Andrew, not quite six months after he had first given her that silk flower, she cited her studies as a primary reason. She also used phrases that felt wrong and unfair: "we've grown apart recently," "we're better as friends," "I never wanted to hurt you." She should have known she was going to hurt him from day one.

That summer she saw Viktor Krum for the first time in ages, spending several weeks with him in Bulgaria. She loved the weather and the quaint nearby village. Neither she nor Viktor was looking for a long-term relationship, but neither of them had a problem with a short fling, and she left his manor without regrets or hurt feelings.

Immediately upon the beginning of seventh year, she knew things were going to change. Voldemort was going to strike soon; everyone was sure of it. Percy Weasley had gone missing and been presumed dead. Several members of the Order were gone, as was Lucius Malfoy and several other Death Eaters; they had not succeeded in either being released or rescued from Azkaban, and they had been executed in July.

Hermione, reading this in the Daily Prophet, realized with shock that Draco Malfoy had all but disappeared from their lives in sixth year. She could not recall a single insult, not one sneer of "Mudblood" or "Potter" or "Weasel." It struck her as very odd until she stumbled upon Harry and a slim blond boy embracing in a shadowy fourth-floor corridor the day after the new term started. She ducked behind a suit of armor and peeked out, not entirely sure of their identities, but yes, that was definitely Harry and if the other boy turned his head just a fraction - it was Draco. They were holding onto one another like the sky was falling down and in between kisses, Hermione could make out ragged sobs, repeated utterances of "I'm sorry" from both parties, and a final litany of "I love you, I love you, love you love you love you love you..." from Harry that dissolved into a frenzy of kissing.

Having seen and heard all she needed to know, Hermione quietly slipped away. Harry would tell them when he was ready, and they would accept whatever or whomever he needed to be happy - both of them, even if she had to beat Ron over the head with one of Ginny's Quidditch mallets.

Ron. Of course there was Ron. Hermione told herself over and over than she had not broken up with Andrew to be with Ron, and it was the truth, no matter what things her heart whispered at night. He was too immature, and they would not work out, and this was seventh year - her final year at Hogwarts, possibly the final year before the war, and not the time for romantic dalliances. In any case, he did not seem interested. When she and Harry visited the Weasleys at the end of the summer, Ron was very quiet and almost painfully polite to her.

She is carrying a message to him on this late Saturday afternoon. It's from Harry, who is ostensibly studying but in actuality probably shagging Malfoy behind the owlery (they have not proven particularly skillful at hiding their torrid love affair).

The leaves are starting to turn and the air is chilly enough to warrant a heavy wool cloak, but the charmed grass of the Quidditch pitch is as green as ever. Hermione sits down on one of the team benches to wait for Ron to alight, shading her eyes to look up at him swooping around in the sky. She has always preferred watching Harry or Ron flying solo to watching Quidditch, really. There is more time for poetry when one is alone.

After a few minutes he spots her and lands, face tinted pink by his exertions. He is so tall now that she would have to stand on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, as she once felt comfortable doing.

That was a different time, she reminds herself, a different stage in their friendship. She wishes she knew what the next stage will be.

She realizes that she was staring, and Ron is waiting.

"Harry says not to wait up for him, he's got a late study meeting with Ernie MacMillan and some other Hufflepuffs.

Ron snorts as he takes a seat on the bench, stretching his long legs out in front of him. "You believed it? He's been scarce at night a lot, recently."

She sits beside him, scuffing her shoes in the dirt. It seems like forever since it's been just the two of them, one-on-one. It was always easier to have Harry around.

"Whatever he's been up to, he seems to be sleeping more easily." It isn't a lie, not really.

"He is," Ron confirms, frowning slightly. "I just wish I knew who this mystery lover was."

"Maybe you should ask him," Hermione suggests gently.

He turns his head to look at her, his eyes solemn with a funny indiscernible edge. Perhaps it's the fading light that renders her unable to read them.

"Maybe I should," Ron replies, reminding her that this is an actual conversation and not just a short bout of eye-gazing. She looks down. It can't be helped. For some reason, tonight his blue eyes are the most compelling problem she has ever faced.

"Hermione," he murmurs, just as she feels his hand on her face. She didn't notice that he has removed his gloves. It was uncharacteristically inattentive of her.

"Look at me," Ron is saying. He lifts her chin until she has no choice but to meet his eyes or stare into the setting sun.

"I'm looking." Her voice sounds petulant and sulky, even to her own ears.

Now his other arm is headed for her waist, and she doesn't feel that is smart. "Can you forgive me, love?"

He said - what did he say?

"What?" she manages to get out. Her chest hurts and his hands are so warm - his body is warmer still, she can feel the heat he radiates...

"For everything stupid I've ever done," he says with a lopsided sheepish grin that makes her catch her breath. This isn't supposed to be happening. She has accepted that.

"I know it's a lot," Ron continues, "but I promise I'll make it up to you. Hermione...I love you." She knows, by the raw sound of the words, that he has never said this to any of his girlfriends. But he didn't stutter and his voice was perfectly steady. Which is more than she can say for her whole body, currently trembling like the proverbial leaf in the breeze.

She tries to find something to say, but it's as though all her extensive vocabulary has taken a swan dive into her stomach, where the many tiny words are now doing complicated ballet and synchronized swimming routines.

Finally, with his hand still cupping her face and his eyes still studying hers - though growing more anxious by the second - she chokes, "It's not the proper time!"

Ron's hand drops like a stone. "What?" He sounds panicked, not angry. "Is there someone else? Viktor Krum-"

This prompts all the tension in her belly to be expelled as a gust of air. Suddenly she is laughing so hard she can barely breathe, bent over his knees, both of her hands clasped in one of his.

"Hermione? Are you all right?" He's worried. He's adorable. She loves him. He's late, but she loves him.

"Yes," she says, straightening. She knows her eyes must be shining, because his are. "It's only - last year was the year of boyfriends. It's the year between major wizarding exams."

For a second Ron looks at her as though she's gone insane, but then he starts to laugh, which sets Hermione off again; they lean on each other, helpless with mirth, all the aches and tensions of the past year erased as if they never were.

When they're capable of speech again, she finds herself pulled tight against Ron's chest. He's just as warm as she knew he'd be, if not warmer, and she's no longer shivering.

"I've never had the best timing in the world," he admits, his lips against her brow.

She tilts her head up to beam at him. "That's all right." Some things, she thinks, were never meant to be planned.

Ron's eyes get softly serious again. She lifts one hand to slide her fingers through his red hair until she is holding him by the back of the head, and then - finally, finally - they kiss. Hermione closes her eyes as her lips part and heat rises inside of her and both of Ron's arms wrap around her.

Eventually the need to breathe becomes too strong and their mouths break apart, much to her dismay.

"So," Ron says jauntily, twirling a dark lock of her hair around his finger, "ready to give up on the anal-retentive scheduling of every tiny detail in your life?"

"Of course not! This was just a temporary glitch in my otherwise perfect system. And I'll have you know, Ron Weasley, I am not anal-retentive, I just -" He ingeniously interrupts her with another kiss, so she finishes the sentence in her head.

I just like things where they belong.