It was a lazy Sunday afternoon in the middle of April at Hogwarts. The giant squid could be seen playing over by the shore from most of the castle’s windows. Students however were scattered all along the sloping grounds and especially up by the lake studying for exams and writing out foot long scrolls for potions, because Snape was a rat bastard intent on ruining a perfectly good weekend for all.

Hagrid was puttering around his hut and garden, doing only who knows what and all pretty certain they’d find out in Care of Magical Creatures in Monday’s lesson whether they cared to or not. This alone was the reason most students dreaded the upcoming week. It would have sharp teeth, fangs, and a fluffy pet name, that much the students knew for sure.

Ron Weasley was trying to hide from his girlfriend Lavender Brown in the girl’s toilet on the third floor. Moaning Myrtle was beyond pleased by the turn of fair and immediately pounced on the poor lad. A muffled shout nearly gave away his position to his roaming on again-off again girlfriend who was calling out for her beloved darling Won-Won.

Apparently, it was off again.

The Quidditch pitch was full up of the Ravenclaw team running through their offensive and defensive plays for the match against Gryffindor next week. They needed an eighty point lead before catching the snitch if they had a chance in hell at getting the cup by the end of the game. Of course that meant most of the team was brutally drilling their new seeker, a third year girl replacing Cho Chang, to be ready to go up against Harry The-Bloody-Boy-Who-Never-Missed-The-Snitch Potter.

And there across from the Whomping Willow was the said Potter boy lying on his back in the warm spring grass. Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. A warm weight shifted against him, curling up closer as she reread for the umpteenth time Hogwarts, A History. Her soft brown curls a riotous mess about her head, which conveniently rested on top of his chest.

A black speck that was Harry’s owl, Hedwig flew high in the sky against the sunlight that beat relentlessly down on the castle grounds making Harry sleepy. He yawned deeply, his chest and Hermione’s head rising and falling with the act. Her hand came up and patted his stomach absently as she flipped the page. Harry smiled behind closed eyes as he repositioned his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.

Harry could never say exactly when or why it happened. He just knew that it had happened and that he was very grateful that it did indeed happen. That something which had happened, had happened near the end of sixth year, whatever it was exactly, and everything had changed drastically and not at all in one blinding shining moment.

It was a moment remarkably like this one, he thought hazily as he stretched out beneath her weight. Hermione had been reading as she was want to do and he had been brooding. Of course it hadn’t been daylight then, it had been at night in the common room and they had been alone and not surrounded however distantly by anybody else.

Then as now no words were spoken between them as Hermione quietly closed her book and kissed him soundly. The first time she had sat staring at her hands for two unbearably long minutes while biting her lip before looking up and leaning forward. Hesitantly their lips brushed against together before melting into something more.

After the first time’s awkwardness they would fall quickly and easily into Hogwart’s next record-breaking snogfest. It wasn’t something that they flaunted around their other best friend or even most of the truly oblivious Gryffindor’s. But as Collin Creevey’s camera would tell it happened quite a lot and at many different times of the day in different parts of school grounds.

They hadn’t discussed it, Harry and Hermione, just what exactly it was that they were doing. Harry because he followed where Hermione led gladly, even eagerly, and Hermione because she didn’t want to risk it ending. So they continued on they were doing and eventually it stopped needing to happen because it was fairly obvious to those that did pay attention what it was. Including, if they’d admit it, themselves.

Now it was a year and a handful of days since that fateful evening in the common room. A tiny box rested in Harry’s back pocket waiting for the right moment to occur. The moment looked remarkably like this one with Hermione leaning over him and kissing the dickens out of him. Except in this scenario he’d yet to even present to her the ring.

Still he wasn’t complaining. Kissing Hermione was like breathing air, life giving. It was like flying--stomach-rolling. He could spend the rest of his lazy Sunday afternoons pursuing such activities. In fact, Harry planned on it.

--End ficcy.--