Fic Written For the Exchange
Title: The Colour Of Feelings
Author: Lire Casander/lire_casander
Beta: Lovely B. Any mistakes left are my own.
Rating: PG
Word count: 5078
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe - all recognisable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. I do not own Goo Goo Dolls nor their songs either.
Summary: Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley travel all the way to Sydney to find her parents, but the search is not as easy as it seemed. During the process of looking for lost people, Hermione and Ron discover some facts that will change their lives, and their feelings, forever.
Warnings: First person. A little angst. A little fluff. A really tiny bit of humor.
Notes: Thank you very much to B, who has put so much effort in this story. I owe you tons and tons.
~ The Colour Of Feelings ~
I would give you everything just to
Feel your open arms
And I'm not sure I believe anything I feel
Without You Here ~ Goo Goo Dolls
Montparnasse stands erected against the bluest sky I have ever seen. The walls shine under the sunrays bathing everything. The windows reflect the light of the bright day. The sunflowers gleam, seeking the origin of their beauty under one of the hottest days I have ever lived through. I had been told that seasons in Australia are the opposite of seasons in England - summer in December instead of in July, winter in August instead of in February. I suppose it is late fall then, when we arrive, that sunny Monday morning in mid-June.
Had it been my decision, I wouldn't have gone so far away from the Islands, but my sister insisted that Hermione couldn't fly alone halfway across the globe. I would have liked to remain by Harry's side now that no danger threatens us, but I have to admit that Ginny was right. It has been a long, far too emotional trip for Hermione, and, given the circumstances, I was the best candidate to accompany her. After all, I am a gentleman. A gentleman who would have preferred to stay at Ottery St. Catchpole, but a gentleman nonetheless.
I look at Hermione, who is observing the edifice with critical eyes. "Are you sure?" I ask. When I have no reply, I slip her hand into mine and squeeze her fingers slightly. "We can wait a bit more."
She shakes her head no, her fingertips seeking mine instinctively. My thoughts of staying at my comfortable home fly through the invisible window at the back of my mind when she inhales deeply in a failed effort to control her feelings. She needs me, and I'm here, and I will always be here.
I caress her skin slowly, drawing small patterns as she speaks with an unsteady voice. "We don't have any time, Ron. What if the magic wears off and suddenly they find themselves in a place they can't quite remember? I can't risk them going insane, just as much as I can't risk losing them in Australia."
I sigh; her logic is perfect, as always, and yet I think of telling her to leave it all behind and start anew without any of them - without my parents, without hers - and move to the States or somewhere else as attractive as that country. However, I don't say a thing, for talking would mean my own suicide; Hermione is really sensitive when her parents are concerned.
"Let's get inside before I lose my nerve," I say instead, pulling at her hand. She follows me, never letting go of my hand as we walk into Montparnasse.
Phase One ~ Landing In Unknown Places
We had Apparated to a safe point in Sydney at an unthinkably early hour, twenty minutes before dawn. That gave me enough time to prepare myself for what was coming, and to get used to that strange place. Everything was different from what I had ever known - the skyline was beautiful under daylight, and even the smells were special, more intense, more appealing. I tried to take in what I was seeing, the buildings that reached for the clouds, the streets that languished under the sun, the people who ran towards what seemed to be an interminable road to their dreams.
Hermione took my hand and led me through a maze of lanes and boulevards, and each one was unique - the colors changed, the people smiled more or less depending on the area. We had been walking about an hour and a half following the map she had bought in London before moving to the other side of the world, wading through poorer and poorer districts, misery and dearth piling up everywhere we looked; I was ready to protest that I was hungry when we finally stopped in front of an old building of five floors with a crystal door and a broken buzzer. "Here," she whispered. "I rented a flat for them in this building."
"Then go ahead and find them inside," I urged her. "There's something about this area that I don't like."
"The Seeker has to wait under the worst of conditions for the most precious treasure of all, the Golden Snitch," Hermione said aloud, making me to stare at her in disbelief.
"What?"
"That's what Mathilda Tomwald says in her book---"
"Ten Ways To Become The Best Of Seekers, preface," I finished her sentence. "I've read the book, 'Mione, it's about Qudditch."
"So what?" she replied defensively.
"So that you never really wanted to attend a Quidditch match," I retorted, confused.
"I have been reading a lot," she explained, looking at her hands.
"About Quidditch? You have to be kidding me."
"Now I can't read what pleases me?" Hermione asked.
"You can read about whatever you like. I was just surprised that you wanted to read about Quidditch, of all things."
"Why? Because I'm a girl, Ronald?" She stared at me.
"Listen, I don't want to fight with you," I started. "But I don't have anything against girls playing and liking Quidditch, you know that. I think Angelina did a good job at Hogwarts."
"So Angelina can know about Quidditch but I can't?" Hermione spat. "Is there something you want to tell me, Ron?"
"This is ridiculous," I sighed. "You're just stressed, Hermione, I'm going to ignore your last comment."
"But..."
"No buts!" I exclaimed, my hands in the air. "Give it a rest! I didn't mean anything offensive!"
Hermione huffed but didn't say a thing. I was hoping she would retort something witty, but she didn't. I guess she was just taking out her frustrations on me, and that when we found her parents everything would be better. "Let's get inside, then," I finally articulated.
Phase Two ~ Losing What Had Been Found
The building was grim and lifeless on the inside, once we managed to open the door with a bit of undercover magic when no Muggle was looking. Hermione strode to the lift that waited for us at the end of a dim corridor, as broken and flaking as the walls around us. On our way there, we passed the letter boxes, where shredded pieces of paper announced the names of the different tenants. "Wendell and Monica Wilkins, apartment 4 D," she read in her shaky voice. "We'll need the lift."
"You go in first," I offered, signaling at the broken door of the elevator.
"I cannot stand it when you get all chivalrous; it does not suit you," she remarked. "What's the next step? Bringing me flowers? Coming from you, they will be sunflowers!"
"Well, I cannot stand you being a know-it-all the whole time, and I suck it up the best I can," I replied before thinking, and that comment earned me a glare.
"If it is that troublesome for you to be here and stand me, then you can go back to London. I'll find them on my own," she responded, her eyes becoming dangerously darker. "I'll go upstairs alone."
She entered the lift and closed the doors on my nose. While I raised a hand to rub my hurt nose, I thought about the stupidity of my own behavior, and decided to go to the fourth floor to make amends with her. I briefly considered Apparating right there, but the moment I was about to take the wand out of my left pocket, a middle-aged woman made her way downstairs and caught me when my fingers were wrapped around the wood, so I abandoned all hope in commodities and started walking towards the dreaded floor. With a bit of luck, her parents would be home and we could go back to England.
When I arrived at the fourth floor, breathless and sweating, she was already ready to knock on the door of flat 4 D. I didn't want to make a scene in front of her parents, so I lunged forward and caught her arm when her hand was almost touching the wood. "Wait a second," I said, panting.
"What? Ron! You've scared me!" she cried out, rescuing her arm from my grip and looking at me, bewildered. "I believe I stated very clearly I would go up here alone, or now you don't know the meaning of that word?"
"Listen, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things. I fully regret it." I stood between the closed door and Hermione, attempting not to allow her to bang on it.
"You wouldn't know regret even if it kicked you in your big mouth," she spat, her irrational anger making her fume. "I thought we had got over those times, but I guess I was badly mistaken."
"Hermione, please, I said it without thinking. You know me, you know I have a mouth bigger than all Devon county." I tried to grab her hand again, but she batted it away from me. "Please, I'm sorry. Forgive me?"
I aimed to gain her favor by lowering my eyes humbly and waiting for her affirmative response, but she remained silent. I looked up again, and noticed the twitching of her mouth. "Are you laughing at me?"
"Oh, Ron, you should have seen yourself!" she exclaimed, her guffaws freed at last. "This does not mean that I forgive you, but you make me laugh. Maybe I'll keep you around for the sake of happiness."
"Thank Merlin," I sighed, stepping out of her way. "Now call them, remodify their memories, and go back to England before we have another row."
"I guess it's just the emotions," she mused under her breath, but loud enough for me to understand it. "It's been a rough couple of months, ever since we discovered exactly what Voldemort wanted."
"Well, we never really got along that well."
"Then I don't know what you're doing here with me," she joked, breathing in deeply and knocking on the wood, completely oblivious to the power her words had on me.
I had often wondered about the same premise. Precisely, Hermione and I had never really gotten along. We were always the ones fighting - except in Fourth Year, when she had to be the mediator between Harry and me - she always being the voice of reason and general spoilsport, and me being the foolish brat who would support Harry blindly, unconditionally. She supporting the house-elves, and I being the one to destroy her expectations each time. She dancing with Viktor Krum and I sulking in a corner because my hero had stolen the girl from me. She yelling at me, and I pretending not to be affected by her feigned hatred. She being the beautiful princess of any Muggle fairy tale she surely had read during her childhood, and I... I was just the ogre, the prince who could not find the key to that damned high tower where she was waiting.
"Ron?" she demanded, probably for the umpteenth time. "You were so far away. Is everything alright?"
"Yes, yes," I managed to croak, staring blankly at the closed door. "Why haven't they answered already?"
"If you could stop making so much noise, you would have noticed the sign on the door," a strange voice exclaimed at our backs. We both turned around to meet a man of indefinable age standing at the doorway next to flat 4 D. "The Wilkins left about three months ago, but the landlord is too slothful to change the names on the mail boxes." Something in the way he talked reminded me of long nights before a fire with butterbeers and a chess match - something in his air reminded me of home. "If I were you, I wouldn't go on speaking about Voldemort so airily. It could be dangerous."
"You know about---?" I started, but Hermione elbowed me, effectively earning my silence.
"Joey Jenkins," she said instead, and I stared amazed at him. Possibly he wasn't who I thought he was, but the similarity of his name to that of the Cannons' beater, suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth, was remarkable, and even his eyes were akin to his. "I thought you would have come back to England?"
"Not in a million years, not at all," he said. "I'd rather stay here and keep as anonymous as possible."
"But, but... you are---"
"Yes, Ronald, we all know he is Joey Jenkins, Chudley Cannons beater, thank you very much. We're here trying to find my parents, remember?"
"The Wilkins are your parents?" Jenkins inquired, taken aback. "I would have sworn they didn't have any children. Though I remember seeing a ghostly shadow coming with them last year, when they moved in."
"That would be her," I managed to say. "She told us she had let them fly here on their own, though, but you can never trust what Hermione Granger says she does to keep her beloved safe."
Jenkins blinked for a second, almost imperceptibly, and then smiled widely. "Are you Hermione Granger, then? The papers say nothing but praises about you, young girl. I presume you are not Harry Potter, for that red hair can only belong to a---"
"Weasley, I know," I finished his sentence through gritted teeth. "I've been told that all my life."
"I would invite you to come in and have some tea, but I'm afraid neither my house nor my tea would be of your liking," Jenkins said matter-of-factly, his hand waving in the air. "Plus, you'll have to travel all the way to Perth to find the Wilkins."
"They're in Perth?" Hermione screeched. I searched my brain trying to remember the geography of Australia, which I had learnt while being a child from a very stubborn cousin named Mafalda. "What the---?"
"Don't swear, it doesn't suit you," I admonished her, feeling like a father telling off his child. The image of a family sitting before a warm fire, happy together, made it into my head in the form of a picture where I could discern bushy long hair bobbing up and down as the mother rocked a baby back and forth.
"That's all I know," Jenkins said. "The Wilkins were not very sociable, you see. They were always locked in their home when they were not working. They had a really strange Muggle profession, for all I know." The former beater entered his flat, closing the door at his back and leaving us alone in the hall.
"Let's go find somewhere to Apparate to Perth," I suggested. Wordlessly, Hermione nodded and followed my pace as I hastily got out of that gloomy building and onto the sunny street.
Phase Three ~ Fighting Against Despair
We searched for another safe Apparition point in Sydney to travel inside the country. It was easy enough, for Hermione took from her beaded purse a map of Wizarding Sydney and quickly found a Travelling Office near the Opera. She started walking and I had to catch up with her long strides. Thank Merlin I was taller than Hermione, and in a couple of steps I had reached her as she walked down a crowded street. "It's nice here, huh?"
"I can't believe they moved to Perth! It's so far away!" she replied to my fruitless attempt to make small talk. "What is in Perth, anyway?"
"Hermione," I said, my hand sneaking around her waist. "Remember that you left them here to lead a new life. Maybe there were more chances to practice dentistry in Perth than there were in Sydney."
She leant on me while we waited for the traffic lights to flame green. I held her against my side, the smell of her hair and a fragrance that was distinctively hers filling my nostrils, erasing the other nasty scents around us. I couldn't believe she even thought I was worth befriending, that I was worth kissing.
"Maybe you're right," she whispered. "It has to be easy to find them in Australia. Not many people here named like them."
"Wilkins?" I asked. "For me it's a pretty common surname."
"No," she shook her head. "It is not that frequent, though for a while I considered naming them after your family."
"Weasley?"
"Yes."
I gaped at her, the true meaning of her words slowly sinking in. She had chosen my name in the first place, to give it to her own parents when she made the difficult decision of cutting them from her life. Even if it didn't work in the end, it was something grand for me. That thought made me remember what I had back in England, and the reason why we were in Australia. She had to have felt horrible, using magic on her own flesh and blood, extracting happy memories and replacing them with voids of feelings until the time was ready for them to reunite. I couldn't begin to imagine how hard it would be - granted, I had lost a brother, but I had the rest of my family, and together we would never forget who Fred was but we would learn to hold on to life for as long as we lived. Hermione had no one; she had sought solace and support from her friends, and I was honored to have become one of the most important people in her new life.
A frightening thought crossed my mind right then, while we marched towards the Wizarding Travel Office. What if I wasn't enough for her? What if she realized that she didn't want to spend her life with me? What if she suddenly decided that I was not the person she liked, and she left me for another boy, taller, more handsome, more intelligent, braver? What if I got scared and abandoned her just like I had left my best friend to rot in a magical tent during the war? What if I was not strong enough for whatever we had going between us?
I realized then that we hadn't talked about the kiss ever since it had happened, right in front of Harry. We hadn't had time to sit down and calmly speak about our feelings.
About my feelings.
"Hermione..." I began, only to be cut off by her waving.
"Here it is," she exclaimed, making me shut up. "Let's go to Perth!" She entered the office, a short building that seemed trapped between two others - it reminded me of Grimmauld Place. I briefly wondered if the Muggles could see that workplace.
I opened the door and gently allowed Hermione to step inside, the sound of the welcoming bell fading into the sultry air. We headed towards the window where an old witch was reading Witch Weekly, Aussie Edition, with a picture of Harry waving to the masses in the cover.
"Hello," Hermione greeted. The witch tore lazily her eyes from the magazine and stared at us blankly. "We'd like to Apparate to Perth."
"What for?" the old witch demanded, her voice croaking.
"Personal issues," I supplied, not liking her tone.
"We have to keep a high security about unauthorized trips, what with that madman who was willing to take over the world in England... Are you English?" she demanded.
"Don't you know who---" I tried to point out, but Hermione's elbow - a weird and most uncomfortable habit she had developed - stole the words and the breath from my lungs.
"Yes, we are. And we really would like to travel sometime today," she stated coolly.
"You'll have to fill in some papers and then I'll set up your Apparition point." She handed us a wad of applications, green and salmon and white sheets with lots of small writing on them. We separated from the counter and sat on some chairs oddly distributed along the ramshackle waiting room.
"I think I had a quill somewhere," Hermione mused, half her arm into the purse as she felt inside. "I knew it was not a good idea to keep this Mary Poppins bag with me."
"I don't know what a Mary Poppins is, but maybe a Muggle pen will do," I offered, taking one from the breast pocket of the shirt my mother had forced me to wear. "Dad gave it to me before coming here."
Hermione gazed at the pen, eyes wide and the beginning of a smile dancing on her lips. "My hero," she said mockingly, snatching it from my hand. Her words left my heart fluttering and butterflies flying in my stomach, even though they had been meant as a joke.
She neatly filled the gaps in the papers and gave them to the old witch. "It will take me a couple of hours. You can wait where you were sitting," the insufferable old woman told us. I was about to kick something, or someone, when Hermione pulled at my sleeve and guided me again to our chairs. We sat and she rested her head on my shoulder. I seriously considered spending that time we had been granted speaking about my fears, but when I looked down to face Hermione, I found her fast asleep, softly snoring and even drooling over my shirt.
I couldn't help but feel weirdly proud of myself, as Hermione believed I was suitable as a pillow. That meant she felt at ease with me, and at that thought some of my apprehensions vanished.
Phase Four ~ In The Name Of The Daughter
Perth is not that different from Sydney. That was my first thought when we landed here, about three hours ago. We walked for what seemed ages from the Perth Travel Office to a place where Hermione could find about her parents - she called it the Dentistry Association. She said that, to practice dentistry, both her parents had to be associated, and that they would be recorded in the annals of the association. After spending the most boring hour of my life talking to some stranger with a horrid non-native accent, we find ourselves entering Montparnasse, the most modern hospital in town, or so it seems.
The corridors are disinfected and aseptic, like the halls of the Mental Damage Ward at St Mungo's. We cannot hear a thing, not a single wail or protest, not a voice, not a sound telling us we are in the right direction, going through endless walkways. We pass by a nurses' post, but I do not pay much attention to them, for Hermione is pulling at me to approach a notice fixed on the wall before strolling towards a waiting room, as colorless and aseptic as the rest of the building. She has not left my hand ever since I took her fingers into mine, and I am quite relieved that she hasn't. I would feel lost without her touch, but I fear that, if I word my emotions aloud, they will scare her away from me. That is why I always try to step in her way and make her feel uncomfortable; to prove myself that she still has a reason to stay, if she hasn't left me yet.
"They should be up there," she says, taking me out of my reverie, pointing at a bureau upstairs. "Their names are listed on that poster over there, the one near the nurses posts," she signals again at a small, ramshackle space at the end of this large corridor, where some Muggle nurses are silently knitting while the television shows a bizarre black and white program.
"So, all we have to do is go up there and take them back to England?" I ask, not believing our good luck.
"Not exactly," she explains, and I sense the obstacle just forming behind her mouth. "They don't have to start working until tomorrow; their consultation hours have finished long ago. So we are stuck here until they come back in the morning."
I sigh. There is no way we can discover where her parents live here in Perth, and we only have the option of remaining in a waiting room at an unknown hospital. "Then sit down and I'll cast a Notice Me Not spell on us. No one will see us here." I make sure no Muggle is looking at us, but the nurses are too busy with their personal affairs, and there is no one else around. I take my wand out of my pocket and make it flick a bit before saying the spell in Latin. Unsurprisingly, I don't get it right in my first attempt, earning Hermione's stifled laugh.
"You have to swish it, not just shake it."
"We are not in a class, Hermione," I protest, still struggling with my wand. "I am perfectly capable of doing this myself."
"That I can see," she chuckles. "Mind if I go to the toilet while you keep on your futile tries to get it done?"
"If you go, how can I put the spell on you?" I ask. She just smirks and whispers a few words without drawing her wand from her purse. All of a sudden she starts to merge with her surroundings, and it is more difficult for me to fathom exactly where she is, though I can still see her, her skin losing colour and blending with the wall at her back, and understand she has cast the spell wandlessly. "Have I told you how much I hate you today?" I mutter, my wand refusing to cooperate.
"No, you haven't, but I wouldn't have believed you," she jokes, her hair bouncing on her back as she slips away from me. Before taking the corner that will lead her to the bathrooms, she turns around and stretches her hand towards me. I can see her lips moving, and my body feels the effect of raw magic on it; my limbs start to fade into the background, and I know I'm invisible. I decide to wait for her lying on a couple of chairs, pretending not to give a damn about her whereabouts, but my own reaction betrays me when she comes back ten minutes later, looking all but faultless.
Breathtakingly perfect.
"What are you looking at?" she asks, her brows arching.
"You," I admit. The fleeting feeling of inferiority I have when I am with her comes back full force, and it must have shown on my face, because she is staring at me strangely.
"What happened, Ron?"
"Nothing," I say, lowering my eyes.
"I can tell that this nothing is something, or you wouldn't refuse to meet my gaze."
"Why do you always have to be so nosey about everything?"
"Because I care for you!" she yells. I thank all the gods above for the spell that allows us to produce sounds without being heard. "Can't you see it?"
"Why?" I voice my fears at once. "Why do you care about me? I am surely not what you must like in a guy."
"Let me tell you this once, and please don't make me repeat it," she says very seriously. "You have been acting very oddly ever since you offered to come along, as if you were trying to deceive me with your comments and inconvenient words, but you are not getting rid of me this easy, Ronald Bilius Weasley."
"I still don't understand... You could have anyone, you could have Viktor; he is far better and braver than me..."
Her index finger is on my lips before I can finish my thought. I look up at her, her curls around her face as a tiara of sorts, like an ethereal halo made of the finest materials. "I don't want to fight with you over your insecurities. I am used to them, and they are part of your charm." She smiles and melts my uncertainties. "If I didn't like you the way you are, I wouldn't have stood by your side for seven years. I would have followed Viktor when he asked me to date him. I would have tried to separate you from Harry if I had thought you were not a good influence. And, most important, Ron... I wouldn't have kissed you that day. I wouldn't have risked so much for you." I open and close my mouth like a fish out of water, not knowing what to say, as she keeps on talking, her gaze softening. "I was about to hex Lavender Brown in our Sixth Year, did you know? I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now, but it is enough for me to know that you were willing to give up everything to come with me on this trip. Everyone has dreams, Ron, me included, like any other girl. All these years... I thought I would never see them come true. Now that I have what I was looking for, don't tell me you're going to back out of this, whatever we have going on."
"The problem is, I don't know what we have going on," I paraphrase her. "We haven't talked about that kiss, and I am just confused!"
"What is there to be confused about?" Her self-confidence exasperates me to the point of breaking. "How do you feel when you are near me? Because I'm sure it is the same I feel whenever you touch me. Why do think I've been reading Quidditch books?"
I shake my head at my own silliness. She has total faith in this... relationship of sorts we have. And I fully intend to get through anything for her. I already have.
"I have been a fool, it seems."
"When are you not?" she retorts, lying next to me and burying her face in the crook of my neck, sending shivers throughout my spine. "Sleep a bit, Ron, tomorrow we have to convince my parents that they do have a daughter, and it's going to be hard work, given that we have already stated that you are a fool."
I laugh low in my throat and catch her in my arms as her breath evens. The importance of the conversation we have just maintained dawns on me like the sun dawns on sunflowers at the beginning of the day.
Life with her will never be easy, but then, life will never be as free of worries as it is right now.
I smile into her hair and rock her sleepy body in time with my heartbeat, allowing slumber to take me into its arms peacefully.
------------------------
ORIGINAL REQUEST
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive: I want something that explores their characterizations, all the flaws and the virtues, and how it affects their relationship. I want to see them get into a fight because of the flaws and make up because of what they love about each other, and I want to see them grow and mature to it. I want to see the contrasts and the similarities between their personalities. I want to see a real relationship that could happen in real life, not too much fluff or angst. The key word is "realistic", I want a story about real-life people.
Preferred Genre(s): like I said, the key word is "realistic."
Preferred Rating(s): whatever the writer is comfortable with.
Canon or AU?: as close to canon as possible, especially when it comes to characterization.
A specific you want: I want to read at least one of Ron's sarcastic remarks, Hermione quotes a book on a subject one would never expect her to read about (you pick what), and sunflowers incorporated in any way. Focus on the details.
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): They can't be married or engaged. I don't want too much characters, make it as focused on the two of them as you can. No perfect, enchanting, romantic moments, they're too unreal. Sappiness in any form. Rape, or other too extensive traumas. Too much fluff, angst, or comedy (SOME is okay, but not too much, I want it to be a mixture of everything).
Thanks for participating in the Love in Full Bloom Exchange!
Author: Lire Casander/lire_casander
Beta: Lovely B. Any mistakes left are my own.
Rating: PG
Word count: 5078
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction set in the Harry Potter universe - all recognisable characters and settings are the property of J. K. Rowling and her associates. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made from this work. I do not own Goo Goo Dolls nor their songs either.
Summary: Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley travel all the way to Sydney to find her parents, but the search is not as easy as it seemed. During the process of looking for lost people, Hermione and Ron discover some facts that will change their lives, and their feelings, forever.
Warnings: First person. A little angst. A little fluff. A really tiny bit of humor.
Notes: Thank you very much to B, who has put so much effort in this story. I owe you tons and tons.
~ The Colour Of Feelings ~
I would give you everything just to
Feel your open arms
And I'm not sure I believe anything I feel
Without You Here ~ Goo Goo Dolls
Montparnasse stands erected against the bluest sky I have ever seen. The walls shine under the sunrays bathing everything. The windows reflect the light of the bright day. The sunflowers gleam, seeking the origin of their beauty under one of the hottest days I have ever lived through. I had been told that seasons in Australia are the opposite of seasons in England - summer in December instead of in July, winter in August instead of in February. I suppose it is late fall then, when we arrive, that sunny Monday morning in mid-June.
Had it been my decision, I wouldn't have gone so far away from the Islands, but my sister insisted that Hermione couldn't fly alone halfway across the globe. I would have liked to remain by Harry's side now that no danger threatens us, but I have to admit that Ginny was right. It has been a long, far too emotional trip for Hermione, and, given the circumstances, I was the best candidate to accompany her. After all, I am a gentleman. A gentleman who would have preferred to stay at Ottery St. Catchpole, but a gentleman nonetheless.
I look at Hermione, who is observing the edifice with critical eyes. "Are you sure?" I ask. When I have no reply, I slip her hand into mine and squeeze her fingers slightly. "We can wait a bit more."
She shakes her head no, her fingertips seeking mine instinctively. My thoughts of staying at my comfortable home fly through the invisible window at the back of my mind when she inhales deeply in a failed effort to control her feelings. She needs me, and I'm here, and I will always be here.
I caress her skin slowly, drawing small patterns as she speaks with an unsteady voice. "We don't have any time, Ron. What if the magic wears off and suddenly they find themselves in a place they can't quite remember? I can't risk them going insane, just as much as I can't risk losing them in Australia."
I sigh; her logic is perfect, as always, and yet I think of telling her to leave it all behind and start anew without any of them - without my parents, without hers - and move to the States or somewhere else as attractive as that country. However, I don't say a thing, for talking would mean my own suicide; Hermione is really sensitive when her parents are concerned.
"Let's get inside before I lose my nerve," I say instead, pulling at her hand. She follows me, never letting go of my hand as we walk into Montparnasse.
Phase One ~ Landing In Unknown Places
We had Apparated to a safe point in Sydney at an unthinkably early hour, twenty minutes before dawn. That gave me enough time to prepare myself for what was coming, and to get used to that strange place. Everything was different from what I had ever known - the skyline was beautiful under daylight, and even the smells were special, more intense, more appealing. I tried to take in what I was seeing, the buildings that reached for the clouds, the streets that languished under the sun, the people who ran towards what seemed to be an interminable road to their dreams.
Hermione took my hand and led me through a maze of lanes and boulevards, and each one was unique - the colors changed, the people smiled more or less depending on the area. We had been walking about an hour and a half following the map she had bought in London before moving to the other side of the world, wading through poorer and poorer districts, misery and dearth piling up everywhere we looked; I was ready to protest that I was hungry when we finally stopped in front of an old building of five floors with a crystal door and a broken buzzer. "Here," she whispered. "I rented a flat for them in this building."
"Then go ahead and find them inside," I urged her. "There's something about this area that I don't like."
"The Seeker has to wait under the worst of conditions for the most precious treasure of all, the Golden Snitch," Hermione said aloud, making me to stare at her in disbelief.
"What?"
"That's what Mathilda Tomwald says in her book---"
"Ten Ways To Become The Best Of Seekers, preface," I finished her sentence. "I've read the book, 'Mione, it's about Qudditch."
"So what?" she replied defensively.
"So that you never really wanted to attend a Quidditch match," I retorted, confused.
"I have been reading a lot," she explained, looking at her hands.
"About Quidditch? You have to be kidding me."
"Now I can't read what pleases me?" Hermione asked.
"You can read about whatever you like. I was just surprised that you wanted to read about Quidditch, of all things."
"Why? Because I'm a girl, Ronald?" She stared at me.
"Listen, I don't want to fight with you," I started. "But I don't have anything against girls playing and liking Quidditch, you know that. I think Angelina did a good job at Hogwarts."
"So Angelina can know about Quidditch but I can't?" Hermione spat. "Is there something you want to tell me, Ron?"
"This is ridiculous," I sighed. "You're just stressed, Hermione, I'm going to ignore your last comment."
"But..."
"No buts!" I exclaimed, my hands in the air. "Give it a rest! I didn't mean anything offensive!"
Hermione huffed but didn't say a thing. I was hoping she would retort something witty, but she didn't. I guess she was just taking out her frustrations on me, and that when we found her parents everything would be better. "Let's get inside, then," I finally articulated.
Phase Two ~ Losing What Had Been Found
The building was grim and lifeless on the inside, once we managed to open the door with a bit of undercover magic when no Muggle was looking. Hermione strode to the lift that waited for us at the end of a dim corridor, as broken and flaking as the walls around us. On our way there, we passed the letter boxes, where shredded pieces of paper announced the names of the different tenants. "Wendell and Monica Wilkins, apartment 4 D," she read in her shaky voice. "We'll need the lift."
"You go in first," I offered, signaling at the broken door of the elevator.
"I cannot stand it when you get all chivalrous; it does not suit you," she remarked. "What's the next step? Bringing me flowers? Coming from you, they will be sunflowers!"
"Well, I cannot stand you being a know-it-all the whole time, and I suck it up the best I can," I replied before thinking, and that comment earned me a glare.
"If it is that troublesome for you to be here and stand me, then you can go back to London. I'll find them on my own," she responded, her eyes becoming dangerously darker. "I'll go upstairs alone."
She entered the lift and closed the doors on my nose. While I raised a hand to rub my hurt nose, I thought about the stupidity of my own behavior, and decided to go to the fourth floor to make amends with her. I briefly considered Apparating right there, but the moment I was about to take the wand out of my left pocket, a middle-aged woman made her way downstairs and caught me when my fingers were wrapped around the wood, so I abandoned all hope in commodities and started walking towards the dreaded floor. With a bit of luck, her parents would be home and we could go back to England.
When I arrived at the fourth floor, breathless and sweating, she was already ready to knock on the door of flat 4 D. I didn't want to make a scene in front of her parents, so I lunged forward and caught her arm when her hand was almost touching the wood. "Wait a second," I said, panting.
"What? Ron! You've scared me!" she cried out, rescuing her arm from my grip and looking at me, bewildered. "I believe I stated very clearly I would go up here alone, or now you don't know the meaning of that word?"
"Listen, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things. I fully regret it." I stood between the closed door and Hermione, attempting not to allow her to bang on it.
"You wouldn't know regret even if it kicked you in your big mouth," she spat, her irrational anger making her fume. "I thought we had got over those times, but I guess I was badly mistaken."
"Hermione, please, I said it without thinking. You know me, you know I have a mouth bigger than all Devon county." I tried to grab her hand again, but she batted it away from me. "Please, I'm sorry. Forgive me?"
I aimed to gain her favor by lowering my eyes humbly and waiting for her affirmative response, but she remained silent. I looked up again, and noticed the twitching of her mouth. "Are you laughing at me?"
"Oh, Ron, you should have seen yourself!" she exclaimed, her guffaws freed at last. "This does not mean that I forgive you, but you make me laugh. Maybe I'll keep you around for the sake of happiness."
"Thank Merlin," I sighed, stepping out of her way. "Now call them, remodify their memories, and go back to England before we have another row."
"I guess it's just the emotions," she mused under her breath, but loud enough for me to understand it. "It's been a rough couple of months, ever since we discovered exactly what Voldemort wanted."
"Well, we never really got along that well."
"Then I don't know what you're doing here with me," she joked, breathing in deeply and knocking on the wood, completely oblivious to the power her words had on me.
I had often wondered about the same premise. Precisely, Hermione and I had never really gotten along. We were always the ones fighting - except in Fourth Year, when she had to be the mediator between Harry and me - she always being the voice of reason and general spoilsport, and me being the foolish brat who would support Harry blindly, unconditionally. She supporting the house-elves, and I being the one to destroy her expectations each time. She dancing with Viktor Krum and I sulking in a corner because my hero had stolen the girl from me. She yelling at me, and I pretending not to be affected by her feigned hatred. She being the beautiful princess of any Muggle fairy tale she surely had read during her childhood, and I... I was just the ogre, the prince who could not find the key to that damned high tower where she was waiting.
"Ron?" she demanded, probably for the umpteenth time. "You were so far away. Is everything alright?"
"Yes, yes," I managed to croak, staring blankly at the closed door. "Why haven't they answered already?"
"If you could stop making so much noise, you would have noticed the sign on the door," a strange voice exclaimed at our backs. We both turned around to meet a man of indefinable age standing at the doorway next to flat 4 D. "The Wilkins left about three months ago, but the landlord is too slothful to change the names on the mail boxes." Something in the way he talked reminded me of long nights before a fire with butterbeers and a chess match - something in his air reminded me of home. "If I were you, I wouldn't go on speaking about Voldemort so airily. It could be dangerous."
"You know about---?" I started, but Hermione elbowed me, effectively earning my silence.
"Joey Jenkins," she said instead, and I stared amazed at him. Possibly he wasn't who I thought he was, but the similarity of his name to that of the Cannons' beater, suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth, was remarkable, and even his eyes were akin to his. "I thought you would have come back to England?"
"Not in a million years, not at all," he said. "I'd rather stay here and keep as anonymous as possible."
"But, but... you are---"
"Yes, Ronald, we all know he is Joey Jenkins, Chudley Cannons beater, thank you very much. We're here trying to find my parents, remember?"
"The Wilkins are your parents?" Jenkins inquired, taken aback. "I would have sworn they didn't have any children. Though I remember seeing a ghostly shadow coming with them last year, when they moved in."
"That would be her," I managed to say. "She told us she had let them fly here on their own, though, but you can never trust what Hermione Granger says she does to keep her beloved safe."
Jenkins blinked for a second, almost imperceptibly, and then smiled widely. "Are you Hermione Granger, then? The papers say nothing but praises about you, young girl. I presume you are not Harry Potter, for that red hair can only belong to a---"
"Weasley, I know," I finished his sentence through gritted teeth. "I've been told that all my life."
"I would invite you to come in and have some tea, but I'm afraid neither my house nor my tea would be of your liking," Jenkins said matter-of-factly, his hand waving in the air. "Plus, you'll have to travel all the way to Perth to find the Wilkins."
"They're in Perth?" Hermione screeched. I searched my brain trying to remember the geography of Australia, which I had learnt while being a child from a very stubborn cousin named Mafalda. "What the---?"
"Don't swear, it doesn't suit you," I admonished her, feeling like a father telling off his child. The image of a family sitting before a warm fire, happy together, made it into my head in the form of a picture where I could discern bushy long hair bobbing up and down as the mother rocked a baby back and forth.
"That's all I know," Jenkins said. "The Wilkins were not very sociable, you see. They were always locked in their home when they were not working. They had a really strange Muggle profession, for all I know." The former beater entered his flat, closing the door at his back and leaving us alone in the hall.
"Let's go find somewhere to Apparate to Perth," I suggested. Wordlessly, Hermione nodded and followed my pace as I hastily got out of that gloomy building and onto the sunny street.
Phase Three ~ Fighting Against Despair
We searched for another safe Apparition point in Sydney to travel inside the country. It was easy enough, for Hermione took from her beaded purse a map of Wizarding Sydney and quickly found a Travelling Office near the Opera. She started walking and I had to catch up with her long strides. Thank Merlin I was taller than Hermione, and in a couple of steps I had reached her as she walked down a crowded street. "It's nice here, huh?"
"I can't believe they moved to Perth! It's so far away!" she replied to my fruitless attempt to make small talk. "What is in Perth, anyway?"
"Hermione," I said, my hand sneaking around her waist. "Remember that you left them here to lead a new life. Maybe there were more chances to practice dentistry in Perth than there were in Sydney."
She leant on me while we waited for the traffic lights to flame green. I held her against my side, the smell of her hair and a fragrance that was distinctively hers filling my nostrils, erasing the other nasty scents around us. I couldn't believe she even thought I was worth befriending, that I was worth kissing.
"Maybe you're right," she whispered. "It has to be easy to find them in Australia. Not many people here named like them."
"Wilkins?" I asked. "For me it's a pretty common surname."
"No," she shook her head. "It is not that frequent, though for a while I considered naming them after your family."
"Weasley?"
"Yes."
I gaped at her, the true meaning of her words slowly sinking in. She had chosen my name in the first place, to give it to her own parents when she made the difficult decision of cutting them from her life. Even if it didn't work in the end, it was something grand for me. That thought made me remember what I had back in England, and the reason why we were in Australia. She had to have felt horrible, using magic on her own flesh and blood, extracting happy memories and replacing them with voids of feelings until the time was ready for them to reunite. I couldn't begin to imagine how hard it would be - granted, I had lost a brother, but I had the rest of my family, and together we would never forget who Fred was but we would learn to hold on to life for as long as we lived. Hermione had no one; she had sought solace and support from her friends, and I was honored to have become one of the most important people in her new life.
A frightening thought crossed my mind right then, while we marched towards the Wizarding Travel Office. What if I wasn't enough for her? What if she realized that she didn't want to spend her life with me? What if she suddenly decided that I was not the person she liked, and she left me for another boy, taller, more handsome, more intelligent, braver? What if I got scared and abandoned her just like I had left my best friend to rot in a magical tent during the war? What if I was not strong enough for whatever we had going between us?
I realized then that we hadn't talked about the kiss ever since it had happened, right in front of Harry. We hadn't had time to sit down and calmly speak about our feelings.
About my feelings.
"Hermione..." I began, only to be cut off by her waving.
"Here it is," she exclaimed, making me shut up. "Let's go to Perth!" She entered the office, a short building that seemed trapped between two others - it reminded me of Grimmauld Place. I briefly wondered if the Muggles could see that workplace.
I opened the door and gently allowed Hermione to step inside, the sound of the welcoming bell fading into the sultry air. We headed towards the window where an old witch was reading Witch Weekly, Aussie Edition, with a picture of Harry waving to the masses in the cover.
"Hello," Hermione greeted. The witch tore lazily her eyes from the magazine and stared at us blankly. "We'd like to Apparate to Perth."
"What for?" the old witch demanded, her voice croaking.
"Personal issues," I supplied, not liking her tone.
"We have to keep a high security about unauthorized trips, what with that madman who was willing to take over the world in England... Are you English?" she demanded.
"Don't you know who---" I tried to point out, but Hermione's elbow - a weird and most uncomfortable habit she had developed - stole the words and the breath from my lungs.
"Yes, we are. And we really would like to travel sometime today," she stated coolly.
"You'll have to fill in some papers and then I'll set up your Apparition point." She handed us a wad of applications, green and salmon and white sheets with lots of small writing on them. We separated from the counter and sat on some chairs oddly distributed along the ramshackle waiting room.
"I think I had a quill somewhere," Hermione mused, half her arm into the purse as she felt inside. "I knew it was not a good idea to keep this Mary Poppins bag with me."
"I don't know what a Mary Poppins is, but maybe a Muggle pen will do," I offered, taking one from the breast pocket of the shirt my mother had forced me to wear. "Dad gave it to me before coming here."
Hermione gazed at the pen, eyes wide and the beginning of a smile dancing on her lips. "My hero," she said mockingly, snatching it from my hand. Her words left my heart fluttering and butterflies flying in my stomach, even though they had been meant as a joke.
She neatly filled the gaps in the papers and gave them to the old witch. "It will take me a couple of hours. You can wait where you were sitting," the insufferable old woman told us. I was about to kick something, or someone, when Hermione pulled at my sleeve and guided me again to our chairs. We sat and she rested her head on my shoulder. I seriously considered spending that time we had been granted speaking about my fears, but when I looked down to face Hermione, I found her fast asleep, softly snoring and even drooling over my shirt.
I couldn't help but feel weirdly proud of myself, as Hermione believed I was suitable as a pillow. That meant she felt at ease with me, and at that thought some of my apprehensions vanished.
Phase Four ~ In The Name Of The Daughter
Perth is not that different from Sydney. That was my first thought when we landed here, about three hours ago. We walked for what seemed ages from the Perth Travel Office to a place where Hermione could find about her parents - she called it the Dentistry Association. She said that, to practice dentistry, both her parents had to be associated, and that they would be recorded in the annals of the association. After spending the most boring hour of my life talking to some stranger with a horrid non-native accent, we find ourselves entering Montparnasse, the most modern hospital in town, or so it seems.
The corridors are disinfected and aseptic, like the halls of the Mental Damage Ward at St Mungo's. We cannot hear a thing, not a single wail or protest, not a voice, not a sound telling us we are in the right direction, going through endless walkways. We pass by a nurses' post, but I do not pay much attention to them, for Hermione is pulling at me to approach a notice fixed on the wall before strolling towards a waiting room, as colorless and aseptic as the rest of the building. She has not left my hand ever since I took her fingers into mine, and I am quite relieved that she hasn't. I would feel lost without her touch, but I fear that, if I word my emotions aloud, they will scare her away from me. That is why I always try to step in her way and make her feel uncomfortable; to prove myself that she still has a reason to stay, if she hasn't left me yet.
"They should be up there," she says, taking me out of my reverie, pointing at a bureau upstairs. "Their names are listed on that poster over there, the one near the nurses posts," she signals again at a small, ramshackle space at the end of this large corridor, where some Muggle nurses are silently knitting while the television shows a bizarre black and white program.
"So, all we have to do is go up there and take them back to England?" I ask, not believing our good luck.
"Not exactly," she explains, and I sense the obstacle just forming behind her mouth. "They don't have to start working until tomorrow; their consultation hours have finished long ago. So we are stuck here until they come back in the morning."
I sigh. There is no way we can discover where her parents live here in Perth, and we only have the option of remaining in a waiting room at an unknown hospital. "Then sit down and I'll cast a Notice Me Not spell on us. No one will see us here." I make sure no Muggle is looking at us, but the nurses are too busy with their personal affairs, and there is no one else around. I take my wand out of my pocket and make it flick a bit before saying the spell in Latin. Unsurprisingly, I don't get it right in my first attempt, earning Hermione's stifled laugh.
"You have to swish it, not just shake it."
"We are not in a class, Hermione," I protest, still struggling with my wand. "I am perfectly capable of doing this myself."
"That I can see," she chuckles. "Mind if I go to the toilet while you keep on your futile tries to get it done?"
"If you go, how can I put the spell on you?" I ask. She just smirks and whispers a few words without drawing her wand from her purse. All of a sudden she starts to merge with her surroundings, and it is more difficult for me to fathom exactly where she is, though I can still see her, her skin losing colour and blending with the wall at her back, and understand she has cast the spell wandlessly. "Have I told you how much I hate you today?" I mutter, my wand refusing to cooperate.
"No, you haven't, but I wouldn't have believed you," she jokes, her hair bouncing on her back as she slips away from me. Before taking the corner that will lead her to the bathrooms, she turns around and stretches her hand towards me. I can see her lips moving, and my body feels the effect of raw magic on it; my limbs start to fade into the background, and I know I'm invisible. I decide to wait for her lying on a couple of chairs, pretending not to give a damn about her whereabouts, but my own reaction betrays me when she comes back ten minutes later, looking all but faultless.
Breathtakingly perfect.
"What are you looking at?" she asks, her brows arching.
"You," I admit. The fleeting feeling of inferiority I have when I am with her comes back full force, and it must have shown on my face, because she is staring at me strangely.
"What happened, Ron?"
"Nothing," I say, lowering my eyes.
"I can tell that this nothing is something, or you wouldn't refuse to meet my gaze."
"Why do you always have to be so nosey about everything?"
"Because I care for you!" she yells. I thank all the gods above for the spell that allows us to produce sounds without being heard. "Can't you see it?"
"Why?" I voice my fears at once. "Why do you care about me? I am surely not what you must like in a guy."
"Let me tell you this once, and please don't make me repeat it," she says very seriously. "You have been acting very oddly ever since you offered to come along, as if you were trying to deceive me with your comments and inconvenient words, but you are not getting rid of me this easy, Ronald Bilius Weasley."
"I still don't understand... You could have anyone, you could have Viktor; he is far better and braver than me..."
Her index finger is on my lips before I can finish my thought. I look up at her, her curls around her face as a tiara of sorts, like an ethereal halo made of the finest materials. "I don't want to fight with you over your insecurities. I am used to them, and they are part of your charm." She smiles and melts my uncertainties. "If I didn't like you the way you are, I wouldn't have stood by your side for seven years. I would have followed Viktor when he asked me to date him. I would have tried to separate you from Harry if I had thought you were not a good influence. And, most important, Ron... I wouldn't have kissed you that day. I wouldn't have risked so much for you." I open and close my mouth like a fish out of water, not knowing what to say, as she keeps on talking, her gaze softening. "I was about to hex Lavender Brown in our Sixth Year, did you know? I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now, but it is enough for me to know that you were willing to give up everything to come with me on this trip. Everyone has dreams, Ron, me included, like any other girl. All these years... I thought I would never see them come true. Now that I have what I was looking for, don't tell me you're going to back out of this, whatever we have going on."
"The problem is, I don't know what we have going on," I paraphrase her. "We haven't talked about that kiss, and I am just confused!"
"What is there to be confused about?" Her self-confidence exasperates me to the point of breaking. "How do you feel when you are near me? Because I'm sure it is the same I feel whenever you touch me. Why do think I've been reading Quidditch books?"
I shake my head at my own silliness. She has total faith in this... relationship of sorts we have. And I fully intend to get through anything for her. I already have.
"I have been a fool, it seems."
"When are you not?" she retorts, lying next to me and burying her face in the crook of my neck, sending shivers throughout my spine. "Sleep a bit, Ron, tomorrow we have to convince my parents that they do have a daughter, and it's going to be hard work, given that we have already stated that you are a fool."
I laugh low in my throat and catch her in my arms as her breath evens. The importance of the conversation we have just maintained dawns on me like the sun dawns on sunflowers at the beginning of the day.
Life with her will never be easy, but then, life will never be as free of worries as it is right now.
I smile into her hair and rock her sleepy body in time with my heartbeat, allowing slumber to take me into its arms peacefully.
------------------------
ORIGINAL REQUEST
Briefly describe what you'd like to receive: I want something that explores their characterizations, all the flaws and the virtues, and how it affects their relationship. I want to see them get into a fight because of the flaws and make up because of what they love about each other, and I want to see them grow and mature to it. I want to see the contrasts and the similarities between their personalities. I want to see a real relationship that could happen in real life, not too much fluff or angst. The key word is "realistic", I want a story about real-life people.
Preferred Genre(s): like I said, the key word is "realistic."
Preferred Rating(s): whatever the writer is comfortable with.
Canon or AU?: as close to canon as possible, especially when it comes to characterization.
A specific you want: I want to read at least one of Ron's sarcastic remarks, Hermione quotes a book on a subject one would never expect her to read about (you pick what), and sunflowers incorporated in any way. Focus on the details.
Deal Breakers (what don't you want?): They can't be married or engaged. I don't want too much characters, make it as focused on the two of them as you can. No perfect, enchanting, romantic moments, they're too unreal. Sappiness in any form. Rape, or other too extensive traumas. Too much fluff, angst, or comedy (SOME is okay, but not too much, I want it to be a mixture of everything).
Thanks for participating in the Love in Full Bloom Exchange!