Snow

Snow

by leftsockarchive

The silver sparkles piled on the glass. They were languid, and casual, and they rested where they pleased, and he couldn't remember what that felt like. Those tired, hooded eyes, once bright and hopeful, searched themselves in the reflection. His years betrayed him with ripples of skin creasing his face. In the darkness, he gazed beyond at the thick white blanket of regret; it teased human eyes, glittering in winter moonlight, no matter how downturned his lips were.

He didn't remember the castle being so cold. Like a stunned animal waking in a thicket, he watched as his sigh became a transient mist. In the battered, love-worn valises of his memory, he'd packed lots of crackling fires, and melted chocolate from his sweaty hands, and those tingles--the ones in the belly--that loved smiles and laughing and a good Quidditch match.

Funny, that. Somehow, he still carried with him so much of that warmth, when this place had ultimately stolen from him all that had ever mattered. Yet he was back, and hope burned inside him furiously, and he wondered why he hadn't found the Gryffindor courage to make it all right ages ago.

Nobody is allowed to do it. Nobody.

Turning from the frosty window, he reached for the tiny trinket around his neck, and trailed his withered fingertips along the fine chain of gold. Just one moment's determination, and it would be done--magical laws and regulations be damned. He knew the precise night; he'd calculated how many days had passed. The number was ridiculously high, and he could have kicked himself. Rather than dwell on it, he let the giant number shatter and fuse into small groups, each of smaller numbers, and then in his head each day became nothing more than an Every Flavor Bean, or better yet, a Fizzing Whizbee, and he let them roll around innocuously.

The 'how' was easier to determine than the 'why', and much easier to understand, and he sought undeserved comfort in that. When the days were not days but sweets, easily dissolved and forgotten after fleeting pleasure, guilt would not be his master.

Why is it bleeding? Please, you have to tell me...

What a sodding fool he'd been! A life of glory and accolades, a shimmering title and the power to change almost anything, all wasted. A heart sedated from the lack of beating. A pulse barely detectable now, when it once fluttered effortlessly at simple sights and sounds.

I need you to say it...

Determination returned to him. It glided over his ornate, starched robes and seeped into his veins. He was here, equipped with the tools he needed, and he was ready, oh how he was ready, to part with regret. But a rude interruption jarred his thoughts, just as he began to shift the tiny hourglass at his neck.

"I always knew you would come back, your Headship, sir." The cackling voice was exactly as he remembered--mischievous and oily. He could only resent the lack of conviction it oozed.

He chuckled on behalf of the moment as he looked up at the bobbing figure, reluctant to indulge in the humor but prostrating to his own nature. "I see that all the attempts at exorcism have failed," he said.

Peeves grinned, switching to a reclining position in mid-air and resting his chin on his interlaced fingers. "Ministerhead, with hole in heart, back at 'ogwarts to goeth back. Me understands, Headship!"

"Really," he replied. "How is it that one such as yourself could understand?"

"Trouble am I... But I know all about the heart, most worthiest Ministerhead," said Peeves, with his head bent over and peeking between his legs. He then stuck out his tongue, made a brilliantly loud raspberry, and zoomed down the stony corridor, his cackles echoing in the chill.

On with it, then. With nothing more to stop him, he held the Time-Turner in his hand and used the fingers of the opposite to twist it... as many times as the hours in the sweets...

A spattered whirl of colors and sounds whizzed around him, as he stood, the eye of the storm. A million bodies sped in both directions, faster than sunlight. The murmured conversations of adolescence, and corruption, and secrets that remained untold rushed by in words. He felt giddy and the vertigo was not unfamiliar.

When the ground was solid again and he caught his breath, and he walked up the stairs as he never thought he would again, he was there. He was in the dormitory again. He didn't bother thinking about how unreal it felt, because it was real. For an old man, it was better than magic.

He glanced around the room at the four-poster beds, trying to stifle all of the feelings that threatened to stop his heart. Irresistible urge made him pull back the curtain of the bed next to the snow-caked window, and look down at the boy with forever disobedient hair and eyes. Black fringe veiled the waxy zigzag at his forehead in his rather peaceful sleep, and it made him ache all over again. He glanced at the nightstand; the spectacles lay crooked and teetering on the edge. He righted them quietly and turned to his destination.

Pulling his wand from somewhere inside his robes, he stepped inside the curtains of the next bed and confronted the head of red hair, face down in the pillow. A hand with long fingers dangled over the side of the mattress, and even snores emanated from his open mouth.

"Hermione..." Ron moaned, twitching slightly.

"Impervius," he said, pointing to the curtains in an attempt to protect Ron from all of the laws he was breaking by being there. "Weasley! Weasley, wake up!!" He refused to touch him. It would just be too strange, and wrong.

"Wha... who?" Ron's muffled reply came just as the lids over his blue eyes cracked open and he raised his head from the pillow.

"Ron! You must listen to me," he said.

"Bloody hell, who on earth are you?" Ron asked in his gravelly voice, leaping fully upright and reaching for his wand.

He acted quickly, plucking it from the table and holding it aloft with his own. "You have nothing to be afraid of, unless a lifetime of loneliness counts for something."

"Come again, old man?" Ron flicked his eyes around, searching for a defense or an escape, before locking eyes with the stranger before him.

"My words will be brief, but heed them! Listen to me, Ron. Don't make the same mistake again. I've risked everything by coming here, and you have to do as I tell you." He let the words emerge unbridled, startling even himself, but he was more determined than ever.

"Don't argue with her. Just go with her tonight. And for Merlin's sake, be a gentleman, and help her with her footing, and look at her face when she speaks to you. And don't wear the shirt with the butterbeer stains on it. Don't muck it up!"

"You're mental."

"Absolutely. I should have done this ages ago!"

"Who are you talking about?"

"Honestly, Ron. Do I really need to clarify for you the person I'm referring to?"

"Is Hermione in trouble? If you did anything to her, or if you know something that you aren't telling me, I swear I'll..."

"Shut it. Just do as I say. Now this is the most important thing. You have to answer all of her questions truthfully tonight. Don't lie to her, and don't ignore her, and don't change the subject. Trust me, this is your only chance."

"But, you can't..."

"I've already stayed too long. Make it happen, sugarbear."

He tossed Ron's wand back on the nightstand, and removed the ward around the bed. In an unsilent flourish, he turned and took his leave down the stairs, heart pounding like it hadn't in years.

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Potions were by far the easiest form of magic. They were the most scientific of any endeavor. They didn't rely on a certain state of mind, or the will to gather together an intent or a feeling inside the gut. You just followed a formula, and if you followed it correctly, as she always did, the result was the same every time.

There was something to be said for reliability, and Hermione knew it.

She hastily threw on her cloak and pounded the tiny bits of dried, caked mud leftover from her last outing out of the soles of her boots. Outside the icy window, she saw brilliant sails of orangey-red and violet. So what if she only had a few hours until sundown? She had to go out for the last remaining item of the potion she'd discovered in the Restricted Section of the library.

She walked down the stairs of the girls' dormitory, pausing on the sixth step from the bottom. Like a sometimes-traitor or a niggling pest, her mind conjured Ron, and her heartbeat quickened. Two years ago she thought that by this moment, he would have told her, and she wouldn't have to keep feeling so annoyed and angry about it, and if she was being honest about what she wanted, maybe they could kiss each other instead of being so mean to each other. He would have released his childish insecurities. He would have justified the horrible, wonderful fiery blazes around her tummy that could not be stopped in his presence, (though she tried) so that she could stop feeling guilty and chiding herself for her emotions, which were perfectly natural, and had hormones on their side, and were determined to continue making her so frustrated with Ron Weasley that she could snog him and murder him simultaneously...

But she supposed that he just couldn't love her. Maybe that was why he hadn't told her.

And maybe that was why he could sit there so nonchalantly and play chess with Neville in the common room. He couldn't love her, but he could sit there and watch her walk into the room in her snow gear with those blue eyes, when she didn't want to have him pester her about where she was running off to or offer to come with her--which would make her feel a little self-conscious, even though it was just Ron, and it would set her determined mood off by a good measure because they would undoubtedly get into a row. Then she'd start to question again why he liked to argue with her so incessantly, and she'd feel used, because she'd have no other option but to suspect that he saw her as convenient entertainment. He didn't occupy himself with schoolwork or sweets or Quidditch practice nearly enough to ever stop doing this, and it made her very sad. And it made her very angry.

Which made her want to snog him and murder him simultaneously.

"Hermione!" he called. She felt his eyes bore into her body, even though he remained seated with his elbows pressing into his knees.

"What?" she snapped, allowing her thoughts to condemn him, even though as yet, he hadn't done anything today.

"Where are you going?"

There was no point in lying to him. She didn't want to lie to him, either. "I'm going into the Forbidden Forest to gather Star-crossed flowers. I'll be back soon."

He stood, and Neville took a deep breath. "Like hell you are! Do I have to remind you of all the times we've been in there and barely got out alive?" Ron said.

"Ron, I just need a few petals. They grow just a few meters inside the treeline. Honestly, you're acting like there's some big scandal underfoot..."

Ron's eyes flashed and he tilted his head as he stood, pondering her. "I'm coming with you."

"I don't need you to come with me." She had advanced several steps and had almost reached the portrait hole.

"You may not need me, but I'm coming. Wait there while I get my cloak."

"Ron..."

"Stop arguing with me. You better still be here when I get back."

Hermione sat on the arm of an overstuffed chair and swung her dangling legs as she sighed.

"Hermione, I don't understand why you need Star-crossed flowers from the Forest," Neville said. "Why can't you get some from the greenhouse?"

"Because Neville, the petals need to have bathed in the snowy January moonlight for a fortnight to work for this potion."

"What potion?"

"Never mind, Neville."

Neville looked exasperated as he began collecting the chess pieces and placing them in the case. Soft cries of "Quitter!" and "Finish the match, then!" emanated from the four knights, while the queens simply patted their hair and pinched the cheeks of a particularly cute pawn.

Ron then came bounding down the stairs in his cloak and boots, brandishing an extra pair of mittens Hermione assumed his mum had knitted. "Let's go," he said, pushing them at her with an authoritative hand.

"Something wrong with the gloves I'm already wearing?" Hermione asked, as they stepped through the portrait hole and strode down the corridor.

"Yes. They aren't warm enough. Your knuckles have been cracked and since you won't take care of yourself, I guess I have to do it."

"Oh, well thank you, my sugarbear," she said daringly, not knowing why.

Ron stopped to stare at her, and she felt her cheeks grow warm. She was glad that they were already pink from the cold, because she didn't need for him to see her body doing even more things to betray her.

"What did you just call me?" he asked.

"Oh, for goodness sake Ron, it was just a little joke."

"Sugarbear?"

"I don't know... I just like it. I think it fits you." She was getting into unchartered territory, but she allowed herself to just roll along, even if she knew she'd later regret it.

"Why?" He was obviously determined to push the matter.

"Because you're mean and you're always eating chocolate."

Ron grinned at her sideways and raised his eyebrows in a way that made her feel like she was in trouble. "Whatever you say," he replied.

They walked for a few minutes in silence; his demeanor had stiffened a little since she called him that name, but he said nothing. As they progressed, he always motioned for her to go first when they reached a narrow passageway, and he stood very close to her when they crossed paths with any other students. She fought the tendency to notice these things unsuccessfully.

At last, they reached the castle's entrance, and Hermione was about to push open the massive door when Ron stopped her.

"You know that we could be expelled for going anywhere near the Forest, don't you?" he asked.

"Since when has that stopped us from doing anything we needed to do?" She pushed the door and began walking briskly, and Ron huffed after her on his long legs.

"I've been such a bad influence on you, Hermione."

"Just you? What about Harry?" They were now walking side by side towards Hagrid's hut, and she saw the smoke coming from his chimney.

"I'll take all the credit for it," he said.

"You make it sound as if I have no will of my own."

"Well if you consider..." He stopped at an unexpected and very rude interruption.

"Oh, look. The weasel is taking his Mudblood girlfriend into the Forest in the freezing cold for a shag." Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle moved in front of them like a foul obstruction.

Hermione grasped at whatever she could to stop the situation from escalating. "Ron, don't..."

He gently grabbed her by the shoulders and pushed her behind his tall frame. Something in his eyes she saw when they lingered on hers for three seconds told her that this would be different. These encounters were always bad, but this one may be the worst yet.

Ron stepped forward and used his left hand to fist Malfoy's collar. His knuckles were white and his ears were purple. But his face was enraged in a way that made Hermione's heart pound. Suddenly, his right hand pulled Malfoy's wand from his Slytherin robes and snapped it in half over his knee.

"Ron, please, he isn't worth this," Hermione pleaded.

"The two of you going to just stand there observing this or are you going to get the Mudblood-lover off of me?" Malfoy said.

Crabbe and Goyle stood to each side, stunned, their bodies moving like mammoth rocks and their mouths hanging open.

"Listen to me, Draco. If you ever use that word in the presence of Hermione again, I'll rip your larynx out of your throat by going in through your arsehole and coming out your eye socket. With my hands. If you ever look at her disrespectfully again, or say anything nasty, or even consider touching her anywhere, you'll be watching the world go by from the blurry vision of your remaining eye, hunched over on your stump of a leg and breathing with the help of a ventilation spell, all while little children stare and point and ask their mums why the poor bugger in the street is so ugly and scary. Now have you missed any part of this discussion?"

Malfoy sniggered, while Crabbe and Goyle looked at Hermione like she must somehow be worth all the gold in Gringotts. "Weasley threats mean little to one such as myself," he said.

Ron tightened his grip on Malfoy's collar while Hermione reached out to place her hands on Ron's shoulders. "That's enough, Ron. Come on. Let's go now," she said.

She could feel the tightness of the muscles in his arms relax slightly, but he held his grip and said, "You can think what you want about Weasley threats, but I don't see how you'd know anything about them. You should be worrying about Weasley promises, which is what you just received, you fu--"

"RON!"

Hermione's cry stopped his verbal assault. He gave Malfoy a shove, took hold of her hand, and stepped over the prone Slytherin in the snow.

"Ron, how many times do I have to tell you," Hermione said, quickening her pace to match Ron's, and trying to sidle up to him so that the arm of the hand he held wasn't stretched so far away from her body. "Malfoy's not worth it, and you--"

Ron paused to look at her as she caught up to him, still holding her hand. "Hermione, let's get your flowers and get the hell out of here. Okay?" He ran his thumb tenderly over her wrist, and she thought she'd die from it.

"They're just over there," she said, after glancing around to avoid his gaze and tugging her hand away from him. "I told you they wouldn't be far in." She moved toward a small patch of tall, white flowers with purple and red streaks that curled to the ends of the petals. They glistened in the icy twilight and she could almost say that they were beautiful.

"Have you noticed that you're always telling me something or another, and then telling me that you are telling me or you told me what you're telling me?" Ron asked.

"At least one of us tells the other things," she responded, having moved a few feet away from Ron.

Then, as she bent to pluck the stem of a Star-crossed flower, she felt her feet slip on a patch of snow that had slicked and hardened into silver ice.

Hermione was about to throw her hands into the snow to catch herself when Ron was behind her, his hands at her waist, and he pulled her against him to stop her fall.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, his lips close to her ear.

"Nothing, sugarbear," she said, indulging herself and feeling very empty again, knowing that he would kill and maim for her but he wouldn't love her. She pulled away and he dropped his hands, when something glinting in the snow at the foot of an oak a few meters away teased her eye. "What's that?"

"What?" He followed her to where she stood, and she stooped to pick up a glossy black stone.

She looked up when she heard some rustling above in the treetops, and shuddered at the sight of two Thestrals with their reptilian features frolicking together. Ron's gaze followed her own, and they glanced at each other in tacit understanding.

A warm wetness seeped into her mitten, causing her to turn the stone over in her hand. Large red drops of liquid were spilling to the ground, steaming, their color an obvious contrast to the snow that shone silvery-gray in the remaining light.

"What on earth?" Hermione said. "I think it's blood!"

The stone's black color then seemed to shift to a glowing amber, and words appeared in thin, smoky letters, hovering over her cold hands.

This heart will not thrive

A stone in the chest sinks

True love pumps blood alive

Blood on lovers' hands; denial shrinks

Wait not for perfect faire

Perfection is not all

Perfect fools in missed opportunities rare

Render perfect lovers small

"Bloody hell," Ron said, after the words had evaporated and the wind had carried away the mist. "Do you think it's some kind of dark magic?"

Hermione felt her throat constrict as her lungs struggled to fill with the cold air. If she had ever doubted Ron's feelings, she could now take those doubts and wind them into webs of sugar, and pour water over them until they were barely even memories.

"It's not dark magic," she said.

"What is it, then?"

"Ron, don't you see? I am supposed to... you have to..."

"What, Hermione? Why is it bleeding? Please, you have to tell me."

"Ron, I need you to say it." She stepped close to him, and felt the warmth of his body. "Don't you understand what this means? Blood on lovers' hands; denial shrinks."

"Hermione, I have no idea what that means." She worried that he might back away, but he remained in place, only inches from her.

"You don't have to understand it. You just have to tell me the truth. Isn't it time?" Her fingertips brushed his forearm and her insides plummeted in anticipation.

"I don't have anything to tell you, Hermione. You know everything about me," he said defensively.

Her head turned away, and she swung her thick curls so that they blocked her face. There was something about January--it was so cold and hopeless. She was straining to avoid the eruption of hot tears that blurred her vision and stung the back of her throat. He couldn't be honest with her, and she resented herself more than ever for allowing her feelings to be batted about like a cat's toy. She noticed how cold her toes were, inside her socks, which were inside her boots, which were planted in the snow. She took a deep breath quietly and said, when she was ready to test her voice in its loyalty to her, "Okay. I'll just get my flower petals and we can go back."

"Hermione, wait. I guess I just..." Ron reached for her face and his thumb landed on her chin, just below her lip. She looked at him fearlessly, because she owed that to herself, and he leaned in. His beautiful pink lips brushed her stinging cheek, and they moved to her ear as he reverently held her shoulders. "I reckon you're fantastic," he whispered.

She didn't know what to think at that moment, because thinking was gone, and she realized that she didn't have much use for it anyway, if her dreams were going to stop teasing her and start behaving. She closed her eyes as his hands moved up to hold her face. Ron was very close now, and she waited for the alarm clock to jar her awake like always. But this time there was no alarm clock to worry about.

"I love you," he whispered into her lips, before pressing his own to them and sealing the exit for her breath and her words. His lips were soft but demanding, and it thrilled her like nothing else had. One of his hands drifted to her back, where his fingers began to dance up and down her spine, and creep against the nape of her neck, under her wild hair.

Hermione moaned involuntarily and was startled to feel the surprising push of his silky tongue on the inside of her bottom lip. She'd seen loads of kisses in her lifetime, but the feeling of her own, with the only boy from whom she would ever want one, rendered her knees functionless. She parted her lips a little to let him in, and out of curiosity and need, she reached inside his cloak and held him at the waist, her thumbs brushing his flanks. A thrilling reaction from his throat vibrated into her mouth, and she wondered how she spent so many days being near him but never doing this.

"Call me sugarbear again," Ron said after several moments, grinning, when he pulled away a little to take a breath. He brushed away the hairs that the cold wind had blown across her eyes.

"No. I'll say that when I feel like saying it, not when you tell me to." She smirked.

"I think, young lady, that you'd better get used to taking instructions from me now."

"Why is that?" she asked, as she clasped her hands behind his waist and rested her cheek on his shoulder.

"Because you're mine now."

"Is that right?"

He kissed her between her eyebrows and whispered, "Only if you want to."

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He was back in the Gryffindor common room now, and it was his duty to go back to when he came from. It was no use worrying now; the damage was done and frankly, he had finished with regrets. The Minister of Magic reached for the Time-Turner at his neck, and once again, he twisted it enough times to get to the right place.

When his feet were firmly in place again and the vertigo subsided, he glanced around the room. His gaze landed on the great lion portrait, which in youth he used to contemplate in the middle of the night, while the rest of the tower slept. He had faced spiders and Boggarts and tentacled brains, but he hadn't faced his own heart beating in his chest. The lion, with its jeweled crown perched on its head, would stretch his great, slow paws out before him and roar, utterly bored with his mascot duties in the presence of such foolishness.

But maybe, just maybe, he'd changed all of that.

He'd probably changed the world as he knew it--prevented deaths, and caused them, and altered the course of wizarding events. Guilt didn't stab at him as he expected. It wasn't a selfish act. He knew it was right, and he imagined Dumbledore would be proud, wherever he was.

"Are you finished, sugarbear?"

She was standing at the portrait hole, whisps of silvery curls falling around her shoulders. He gazed at her beautiful brown eyes and began to remember all of the years that had only just been allowed to pass.

His heart beat furiously in his chest, and he was alive again.

"Actually, love, I'm just beginning."

The End