Kiss The Rain

Kiss The Rain

...a Harry Potter fanfiction by dreamkin...

...title taken from a song property of Billie Myers...

Kiss The Rain

The thunder crashed in the enchanted ceiling of the Great Hall, sending bright flashes of lightning throughout the room and making several students jump visibly in their seats. Hermione Granger sighed slightly and looked up from her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 7. Small droplets of rain dissipated inches away from hitting the pages. Another fork of ice-white lightning seared across the ceiling. Recently the weather seemed to be reflecting the general mood of the school, as it had been raining constantly for almost three days now. Realising she had read the same page three times but not taken any of it in, Hermione sat back in her seat with a resigned expression on her face. Closing the book abruptly, she stood up and walked out of the Hall, ignoring the stares this garnered her from many of the other students.

~

In the practically deserted Gryffindor common room, Ronald Weasley was also affected by the weather. Rain hammered on the high glass windows, making so much noise Ron was sure they would soon break from the pressure. The sound pounded in his head, distracting him from his work. He was lying on his stomach in front of the roaring fireplace; Charms notes sprawled around him as he attempted to write an already overdue essay on Invisibility Incantations. There were several different ones available, and he couldn't perform any of them very well. Never had to, when I could borrow an Invisibility Cloak... His thoughts stopped abruptly when the portrait hole swung open and someone marched in. Ron turned his head, wondering who it could be when most of the school was at dinner, and stared straight at Hermione Granger. For a minute, she just looked at him in surprise, then paused as if debating with herself whether or not to speak to him. He purposely turned his head back to his essay, and felt the air currents move behind him as she ran up the stairs to the dormitories.

~

At the same time in Hagrid's hut in the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter was sitting in the large chair staring at nothing. Fang the boarhound's great head was resting on his lap, dribbling heavily onto his robes. Harry's Firebolt broomstick was leaning against the wall beside the door. As the storm raged outside he reached up once or twice to adjust the position of his glasses on the bridge of his nose, as they kept sliding down. The hut seemed large with the conspicuous absence of the half-giant gamekeeper, and very, very quiet without the sounds of the fire crackling or the kettle boiling. In the deadly silence Harry sat, occasionally stroking Fang's head in an absent way, and thought.

~

Once in her dormitory Hermione threw her book into the open trunk at the foot of her four-poster. Shutting the door calmly behind her, she sank down to the floor and rested against it. Should she have said something to Ron? But what could she say, in any case, which could possibly change anything between them? She massaged her temples with her fingers, feeling a pressure between her eyes that indicated a headache would soon follow. Closing her eyes, she willed it away until she felt the pounding subside and the pressure ease. She carefully avoided looking at the two unmade beds in the dormitory, stripped as they were of hangings and bedclothes. She didn't want to think about that anymore.

Suddenly she wondered where Harry was. She hadn't seen him in two days; he had obviously been skiving off those lessons that hadn't been temporarily cancelled, and he hadn't been in the Great Hall at meal times either. Ron would presumably have seen him, if only at night, but she couldn't ask him. There was nothing she could say to Harry if he was right here in front of her anyway, but this didn't prevent her missing him. God, how she missed him.

When another loud crash startled her out of reverie, she stood up and went to the west window that overlooked the Herbology greenhouses. Looking down she could clearly see several plants cowering through the glass, the Venomous Tentacula just visible from under the cupboard in Greenhouse Three where the trowels and aprons were kept. Hermione pulled the red velvet curtain across the window and continued onto the other three windows. When she reached the south window that looked out over the Forbidden Forest, she was astonished to see a tiny figure walking across the grass in front of it, apparently oblivious to the pouring rain. Squinting hard, Hermione could just about make out that the figure had short dark hair and so was probably male, but it was so wet that further details were impossible to distinguish. Frowning at the incredible stupidity of some students, Hermione pulled the heavy curtain across the final window and began to change into her nightwear.

~

Ron tried to get back to his essay, but he had lost his concentration after Hermione's interruption. In any case she was soon followed by the rest of what was left of Gryffindor House, most of who sent nervous glances at Ron from across the room and avoided all the comfortable chairs positioned around the fireplace. His sister Ginny gave him a quick smile, which he returned, before sitting in a corner talking to her friends. It didn't take long before Ron had had enough of the tension, and packed his quills and parchment back into his bag. He didn't want to go up the staircase to the boy's dormitory, not yet, and besides, Hermione was up there somewhere. He didn't want to talk to her now. Flinging his bag into a corner of the common room and silently daring anyone to touch it in his absence, he left through the portrait hole with the intention of sneaking down to the kitchens to get something from the house elves. There would not be anything left in the Great Hall at this time of night.

~

Half an hour later, Hermione was disturbed from The Standard Book of Spells Grade 7 by the realisation that the thunder had stopped, and went to the nearest window to peek outside. Sure enough, lightning bolts no longer pierced the sky, although the rain did not appear to have lessened. She turned away, then her eyes flew back when she noticed a small figure flying a broomstick across the grounds. It was impossible to make out any details, but she was certain it was the same idiot whom she had seen earlier. She made an impatient noise in the back of her throat, then began pulling her robes back on. As Head Girl, she couldn't allow a student to catch pneumonia, even if it appeared they had a death wish. Shrugging on her heavy winter cloak and pocketing her wand, she hurried down the steps towards the common room.

~

It was in a very bad mood that Ron stomped across the Entrance Hall. The house elves, in an unexpected change of attitude, had refused to give him anything to eat on basis that 'It is not allowed sir, not anymore sir, we is sorry sir'. Ron had not been aware that it had ever been allowed to give students extra food whenever they asked for it, but Dobby had been nowhere in sight so he had had no one to appeal to. Thus it was he was not looking where he was going and collided with someone coming down the staircase as he was walking up it. For the second time that evening he stared into Hermione Granger's eyes.

'Sorry', she muttered, dropping her gaze, and moved to go past him, but something in him made his hand reach out and grasp her sleeve. She looked up, an apprehensive look on her face, her eyes searching his. Words rose and died in his throat, and for a long moment the two of them stood there, a frozen tableau on the staircase. Then he released his grasp of her cloak and in an almost inaudible voice said 'Never mind.'

As he resumed his walk up the steps he heard her call out his name. Stopping, but not turning to face her, he said 'What?'

'Please, Ron'

He still would not turn around.

'I'm sorry...Ron...I'm...'

Then he heard her turn and the sound of her shoes slapping on the flagstone floor of the Great Hall and the bang of the huge front door as it slammed closed after her.

...to be continued...