Three Decembers

Although I don't spook easily
It has occurred to me
Transformation is in the air
Are the heavens conspiring to show me this new thing?
Or has it always been there?

~Soon by The Squirrel Nut Zippers

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Part I: Prologue

Hermione Granger chewed thoughtfully on her bottom lip as she looked outside of her window. Snow gently fell from the sky and onto the slopes of white that were the Hogwarts grounds. She rose her hands to rub the sleep from her eyes and was startled to find tears running down her cheeks. She wiped away the tears, looking down at the quill she had poised above a stack of parchment. Silently, she bowed her head and in the candlelight, began to write.

Dearest Journal,

It was last December when Ron died. The year has been hard to get through; extremely hard. Sometimes it seems that whenever I close my eyes I see that bright green light enveloping him, stealing the life out of his body, and slowly fading. I awake sometimes, sweating and crying, remembering it.

Hermione paused in her writing for a moment; thinking.

It's hard.

She paused again.

However, it's getting better.

Harry and I were only sixth years, we shouldn't have had to see our best friend die! We should not have had to learn how to live without him. Yet, somehow we did. We learned-

Hermione frowned and scratched that out.

We coped, and we are still learning. The hole is still there, no matter how many things we do to fill it in, and I am afraid it will never be completely gone. Sometimes I am afraid it will be gone. Sometimes I'm afraid that I'll forget him.

It is a hard thing to explain. For about as long as I can remember we were three. Now that there are only two of us, there's this huge gap where Ron used to be. There is no replacement for Ron; there never could be. Nor do we want one. I just wish we could fill in the emptiness I know we both feel. We want balance, and that is what Ron always provided us with.

Is it really so surprising that Harry and I grew closer?

Hermione pondered that last statement and concluded that it wasn't, and that nobody should have really expected anything else.

We have never dated, and we've been best friends for years, but now it is somehow... different. The best example for us would be Fred and George. Twins. Always together, always connected. Deep down inside, I just know it is unhealthy. Two people should not cling so desperately to each other after a tragedy. Harry... He's worse off than I am. He's hiding his emotions inside, I can tell.

Hermione wiped more tears off of her cheeks and glanced at the tear splattered parchment. She added one more line before going to sleep.

I miss Ron.

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Part II: Quidditch Practice

Hermione Granger was walking down to the quidditch pitch. Snow crunched beneath her loafers and her large school bag was slung over one shoulder. It was a ritual. She came to each of Harry's practices unfailingly. She was known to sit in the stands, rain or snow, and either study the team's playing or finish up some left over homework.

Harry loved to tease her about bringing her school work to practice, but it didn't bother Hermione at all. She was of the opinion that quidditch was in no way as interesting as her Arithmancy class. Of course, she never bothered to tell Harry that. There was no doubt in her mind that he wouldn't understand by now.

As soon as she stepped into the stadium she knew something was different. There were several players in red and gold facing off several in grey and green in the very center of the pitch. Hermione's hand tensed around her school bag strap.

This cannot be happening,

she thought to herself, almost feverishly.

It wasn't supposed to happen anymore. She could barely believe it, even though the proof was staring at her straight in the face. For the last two years, Dumbledore and the rest of the staff (even Snape, though to a lesser degree) were exercising a brand new school policy: School Unity, House Unity, and Staff Unity. Over and over again has it been said that they needed to stand together during the war, but most of the students disregarded it as just a ploy to make them easier to handle.

Since the students wouldn't take matters into their own hands, the staff saw fit to. Any case of house bias, and a staff member would take care of them. The consequences were harsh. Not only that, but the houses were now forced to have more inter-house activities. The rivalry was drastically toned down after a year of use, and now was only vaguely there at all. Hermione was very pleased with the outcome, though she can still remember quite clearly how Ron had stood up after the change was announced and looked straight at Draco Malfoy as he said that "he would rather be tortured days on end then ever become friendly with a Slytherin".

She sighed.

A slip between Gryffindor and Slytherin now would throw every effort they made off-balance. Hermione couldn't allow that to happen. She bit her lip while she searched for Harry in the crowd, barely registering the way she threw her bag into the stands and took out her wand.

She hurried toward the two groups to see what was going on. Ginny Weasley stood toe-to-toe with a rather thick looking Slytherin player that Hermione couldn't recall the name of. Ginny looked furious.

"We booked the pitch for today!" she screamed at him, a gust of wind fanning her bright red hair around her face. It had a startling effect.

"What's going on here?" Hermione demanded.

The Slytherin cocked his head at her. He glanced warily at her Head Girl badge.

"The weasel here-"

Suddenly, everyone turned their heads, looking at a figure walking towards them in the snow. Hermione gasped, as did several others, because of the way he looked in that instant. Harry Potter, with his red and gold cloak blown out behind him majestically, his already brilliant eyes glittering in the winter light, and his face flushed from the cold weather. His unruly, raven colored hair tumbled from his head and bobbed just beneath his chin.

Harry was never ugly, but Hermione never dreamed of seeing him this way. Her heart pounded in her mouth in a moment of confusion and panic. She thought she tasted blood. But as soon as it began, it ended. As Harry strolled towards them, Malfoy appeared at his side. His blond hair was slicked back and was almost as colorless as the snow on the ground. It glittered silver. His likewise pale eyes glinted strangely, and his face was pinkened by the cold. In his own way, with his own cloak billowing around him, he looked just as good as Harry yet completely different.

The two teams immediately gathered around their respective captains and began roaring questions at them.

"Today," Harry said in a voice that commanded attention. "Malfoy and I thought we would have a practice game."

There was a stunned silence.

He continued, but now with a hint of awkwardness. "We both need the training time, and Gryffindor and Slytherin don't play each other for months. Er."

The two teams still watched him in silent astonishment.

"It seemed like a good idea to help each other out," he explained, as if in apology, and shrugged. His majestic appearance dimmed somewhat after that, Hermione noticed, strangely disappointed.

Everyone's heads swiveled towards Draco. He nodded, though he didn't seem pleased with the way his rival captain announced it. He only offered two sentences.

"Quidditch was almost taken away because the professors thought we couldn't handle it. Doing this can only prove them wrong and give us the right to a little more freedom in the pitch."

Draco's words broke the crowd out of their reverie. They all began to speak at once. Hermione honestly thought she had never him speak so maturely and intelligently.

"How the hell did this happen?" one Slytherin player yelled out. It was what they were all thinking.

The captains offered them no more explanation.

"It just did," Malfoy snarled at the Slytherin sharply.

Hermione tentatively put her wand away and walked back to the stands to watch. It was odd. Harry hadn't told her about any duo team practices. What was even odder was the obvious partnership between Harry and Malfoy. It made her nervous.

Though the childish rivalries were gone, they weren't so far into the past to be easily forgotten. After Ron's death there was a period of time when Harry didn't have the enthusiasm for anything or anybody beside himself and Hermione. After that, he grew dangerously energetic and social. He and Malfoy had the worse fights during those days.

Then one day they were caught.

They were punished, supposedly with detentions. Since then the fights and arguments stopped abruptly and they were nearly civil to one another. What happened during that detention, Hermione never found out, but it was effective. Unarguably so.

She sat back, and though she knew the practice would be long, she placed her bag down and watched.