4Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter…
"Miss Granger! Please settle down or I shall have to take five points from Gryffindor at the very least!"
Ignoring the strange looks her classmates were throwing her, Miss Granger picked up her book and tried to read. She attempted to look vaguely interested in what was supposed to be a riveting topic. She desperately tried to focus her attention on the pagers in front of her. Of course, it would have been much more convincing if she had not been looking at the book upside down.
Several people were openly staring at the 'brightest witch of the decade', who had now given up the pretence of feigning interest and was now jigging her knees up and down impatiently. Her gaze was not fixed on the professor at the front of the class or on the roll of parchment crumpled beneath her hands. Instead her brown eyes were looking intently through the window at the darkening sky of the storm brewing outside.
"Ombragio!" barked the professor and at once the black drapes hanging on either side of the windows flew shut.
"Incendio!" And the candles were lit.
Hermione sighed irritably and looked to the front, chin resting in her hand. The professor droned on and on, but she did not pick up her quill and make notes. She did not doodle and she did not yawn. The fidgeting of before did not return but the intensity in her eyes seemed to grow.
The lessons dragged. Hermione sat in her seat restlessly. Her legs began to swing back and forth. She was waiting – that much was clear to the bemused students surrounding her, but for what?
And then it came – the boom of distant thunder and a jagged scar of lightning. Her eyes blazed. Still she sat, waiting, waiting. And then the soft tinkling of rain, and another slash of lightning.
"Mr. Weasley! Kindly rise from your stupor and turn to page three-hundred-and-forty-one – if I have to tell you again, I shall deduct some precious house points!"
Mr. Weasley blinked at the professor in front of him and nudged the boy who was gently snoring beside him, as a crack of lightning splintered the sky – and the boy woke up, his own piece of lightning partially hidden beneath black hair.
The rain began to fall and soon raindrops splattered the windows next to Ron. The professor in the background hummed in a monotone tune that went on and on. Ron gazed out as the rain continued falling – and saw her. He saw her standing in the middle of the grounds, arms outstretched, face turned to the clouds, smiling as the sheets of rain plastered her robes to her body.
She laughed and did not know how, in this time of darkness, she could find the strength to laugh.
He burst out of the doors behind her and ran towards where she was standing, wet and alone.
"Bloody hell Hermione, what in Merlin's name are you doing?
She turned to him, eyes happy, "I was waiting for the rain."
He looked at her in amazement. "You're crazy, you know that…"
His shirt was stuck to his skin and it rippled when he moved.
She grabbed his arm and he found himself lying on the ground, fingers entwined with hers as she lay beside him. The water splashed over them, rain coming down in buckets. He opened his mouth to speak and the rain filled it. Somehow he managed to laugh and she laughed with him, and they lay there laughing on the wet grass, soaked to the bone.
Once again the sky split and lightning coursed down to meet the earth. He scrambled to his feet and hauled her up. He faced her, cheeks shiny, hair dripping. She reached her hand up to the nape of his neck, and before he could even think, he bent his head to meet her lips with his own. Her tongue fought with his, and they kissed as though trying to quench an insatiable thirst. He battled her right back, hands grasping for a hold on the slippery material, fingers tangled in her hair.
The rain fell on both of them, covering their lips, eyelids, jaws with liquid silver. And they stood together in the empty grounds, kissing; kissing, and the air was full of rain and fury and danger and hatred and thunder and lightning and love.