t a k i n g n o t i c e

It wasn't that he hadn't noticed, exactly. He could have told you, if you asked him. In the question of bloke or girl, Hermione clearly fell into the girl category. That much he knew, but she was a girl in the same sense that his mother and McGonagall were girls- Hermione being a girl was a small detail, something that could be brushed aside and forgotten. Her girlhood wasn't constant and irritating; she wasn't like Ginny, who spent hours on end fussing over Harry and her jumpers and her hair. She wasn't mysterious, not the same as those other girls like Lavender and Pavarti- Hermione always spoke clear English, rather than the secret language of giggles and babble that belonged to them. Before she had so blatantly pointed it out, Hermione's girlhood could be forgotten. He could ignore those occasional twists in his stomach and continue to pretend that his feelings for her are no different from his feelings for Harry. He could have, at least, had it not been for those words.

I'm a girl.

Those three pesky words destroy the careful pretense and equilibrium he had worked so hard to keep up. From that moment on, her girlhood is unavoidable. Hermione Granger is a girl, and now he can't look at her and see anything else.

In the weeks that follow, he's sure that's she's doing it on purpose; holding it over his head. Okay, I understand, Hermione, he wants to say to her, you're a girl. Point taken. It's only after he suggests this to Harry and he gets a look that's somewhere between amusement and disgust that he realizes that it probably has very little to do with anything she's doing now and a lot to do with everything she's been doing all along.

It starts when she finally decks Malfoy- this, on it's own, does not seem like very girlish behavior, and it certainly didn't look like a girlish punch, but the twisting in his stomach is worse than ever that day. Ten minutes later, they're carrying her off to the hospital wing because her teeth have begun to resemble that of a walrus's, but she tells him later that it was worth it, getting to hit Malfoy and seeing the look on his face after.

It takes him another week to notice just what it is, but her mouth is different- her always large front teeth are small and straight- and were her teeth always so white? He's transfixed by her mouth after that. He watches, waiting for that rare smile with teeth (she usually only half-smiles with just her lips, and she doesn't smile much around him at all anymore.) When she speaks, blathering on in words that he's often certain she made up herself, he finds himself staring at her mouth, pink and soft and forever moving. Even when she isn't saying anything, her mouth moves- twitching in amusement and disapproval and worry and whatever else could possibly be running around in that overactive mind of hers.

At the ball, she is pretty. There's no denying that- anyone would say so, wouldn't they? It has nothing to do with him. It's a simple face. She's pretty. Thinking that she's pretty tonight is nothing that would indicate that he feels anything for her at all.

(No, what's more incriminating is the fact that he thinks she's pretty even when it would never occur to anyone else.)

The twisting is almost unbearable that night, mingled with disgust and anger and maybe a little hatred. He tells himself it's for her and directed at him (and he would have given up his bed for that fiend!) but it was more for himself and somehow he knows that, as he ignores Padma Patil and watches her twirl and laugh with someone else.

He screams at her that night, her cheeks slick and pink and her hair falling out of it's careful arrangement. Her eyes are a brighter brown than he's seen in anyone's eyes, amber doused in kerosene. She's screaming and she's angry as hell, but there's still something around her mouth that twists upward and hints that this is all a really big joke that he's not quite in on yet, that she's fighting her terrible acting skills and trying not to spoil the surprise. It is that night when he realizes that Hermione Granger is truly different.

Six months later and the entire world has seemed to shatter.

You-Know-Who is back. Diggory's dead. (he feels guilty, now, that he never really liked Diggory and occasionally hated him.) Harry saw it all happen. This doesn't surprise him, but he does feel sorry for Harry and wishes that he knew what to say to someone, for once.

She always knows what to say to people.

It's the day before the end of term and Harry's off being moody, and he doesn't want to be by himself, so he finds her. She's sitting by the lake and there is another twist at the sight of her discarded socks and shoes, her long white legs skimming over the water. It must be cold, but that doesn't bother her, he guesses.

She looks somehow happy- carefree, even. Too light to be Hermione, for a moment: but there's no mistaking the red stains on her cheeks. He crouches next to her, pushing his left hand through the lake water. It is cold. He pulls upward, allowing it to slip through his fingers, dipping into the lake. He remembers how he used to try to catch the water, when he was younger.

She's half-looking at him, an expression in her eyes that he doensn't bother trying to read. Her hair is glinted with red in the dying sunlight, but it isn't like Ginny's hair, or his mother's, or anyone else in his family's. The red in Hermione's hair is fleeting and ghost-like. It gives him the feeling of water- like if he tries to reach out and catch it, it will fall right through his fingers.

Her hair is different from before, he realizes. It isn't so bushy, anymore. It falls to her waist in shimmering corkscrews, long and abundant. There's a thin brown headband buried close to her forehead, but it's a wasted piece of plastic if it's purpose is to tame.

He looks at her for another minute. He's not sure how she would react to that, him looking at her this way. What if he kissed her? His eyes widen on a reflex, surprised at himself for coming up with such an idea, but he can't help but try to imagine her reaction. She is impossible to predict, as usual. Perhaps that is why she hates Divination so much.

He considers saying something, just to fill the silence, and is about to open his own mouth when she speaks.

"He's back." she says, her voice hardly a whisper.

He nods, and, without looking at her, says, "I know." He curses himself, for that. He has always been such a bloody awful conversationalist.

"I still can't believe it." she says, staring out at the lake. He feels a bit better- she can't look at him, either. "Everything changes now."

He's heard her say it once before, though he can't quite pin down when or where. It's different now, just like everything else. Her voice is so small now, so full of everything and so maddeningly quiet. Everything has already changed.

"I s'pose it does," he mutters, tossing a rock over the lake and crossing his arms. Closing everything off, because that is what men do.

Girls, however, wrinkle their foreheads in concern and sigh, and pull their legs out of the lake so that they can wrap their arms around them and hold themselves together.

He stares down at her small, pale feet. She's wearing toenail polish. It is purple and it glitters in the sun. He would have never expected that.

"I'm so scared for him," she whispers. "For all of us, but for him especially."

"He'll be all right." he says, and he sounds more sure than he ever has about anything. He's almost surprised at himself.

"How can you be so sure?" she asks, closing her eyes.

"Because he's Harry." he answers simply. "Maybe not every good guy will always win in the end, but Harry is Harry. He'll always win, and he'll always walk away from whatever he's had to take down with his brave face, pretending that it didn't scare the bloody hell out of him and telling us all that he had basically nothing to do with it, again, and all will be right with the world."

She smiles but opens her eyes and stares at him, too intense and too quiet. "You really believe that?" she murmurs, squinting at him.

"More than anything." he says, "I have to believe that."

They are quiet for what could be an eternity. It's a nice silence-perhaps exactly what they need- but he can't stand silence of any kind so he says something stupid.

"You going to Krum's this summer?"

"What?" she gapes at him, and her feet fly back into the lake, splashing him and stirring the Giant Squid somewhere near the bottom. She does not apologize. "What's it to you?" she mutters once she regains composure.

"I-er-my... mum. She wanted to know, because she- er- wanted... you to come for a visit, I dunno- she wanted you to, and when she read that you were going to Krum's in Witch Weekly... I dunno. She wanted me to ask if you were going."

"Oh," she says, as if this explains everything, though she hasn't believed a word he's said. She relaxes, flopping onto her back. The sunsetting curls fall around her, and her purple tipped toes remain under water. "I don't think that it's best, especially with everything that's... I don't want Viktor to get the wrong idea, anyway, you know. He's more serious than I am. He cornered Harry, you know! Did Harry tell you that? He thought he was a threat, or something. Harry was a bit frightened, but I think it's a bit funny."

He grunts, looking down at her. Her teeth smile appears for a second. He's always wondered, maybe a little bitterly, why no one ever sees him as a threat.

"So, you aren't going," he verifies, pulling on a blade of grass. "That- that's good, isn't it? Probably for the best."

"Hmmm," and a smile are her only responses, so he continues.

"A bit too old, I thought. Seventeen... and famous- you don't really need to be hanging round with anyone famous, do you?"

She smirks. "What about Harry?"

"Oh! Well, Harry. He's different. I mean, y'know, hanging round. Unless you and Harry-" he stops, looking at her incredulously. "You and Harry aren't..."

"Ha! Don't be ridiculous, Ron. Of course not."

He smiles, swelling with relief that he hopes she can't see. "Well. Krum was probably... only after your, y'know..." he stops himself, utterly horrified with his choice of words.

She laughs again, a loud, broad laugh. "My what, exactly, Ron? My high status in the wizarding world, perhaps? My fortune of galleons? My dazzling face?"

"Well- yeah! I reckon he only liked your looks! I mean- not that there aren't- but Krum wouldn't appreciate how smart you are, would he? He's an-" he decides against insulting Krum, in case it might still offend her. "You're a bloody genius, Hermione. Does he even know that?

"Honestly, Ron. As if there are lines of boys dying to go out with me for my devastatingly beautiful looks." She stops, her tone saddening but lightening at the same time, somehow. "If anyone ever loves me, it certainly won't have a thing to do with the way I look."

"I-" he stops, staring at her delicate features, her pale face and faded blush cheeks. She's ethereal and gorgeous and she doesn't have any idea. He doesn't know what would happen if he tells her, but he doesn't want to say nothing so he compromises. "I like your hair."

"What?" she says for the second time that day, grabbing the ends of a cinnamon curl and examining it in front of her eyes. "My hair? Now? Honestly, Ron. Why on Earth would it occur to you to like my hair now?" She shakes her head at him, bemused, and he panics around for an excuse to match his clumsy words.

"I just..." he says, "I do. I like it. It looks... nice. Pretty."

She raises her eyebrows at him. "Really." It isn't a question, exactly, as much as a declaration of her amazement. She laughs. "It's far too long. I- I really should get around to trimming it."

"I like it." he says again, refusing to look at her.

"Well, I like yours, too." she says. "It's so... red. I've always loved red hair. It's very unique. I'd like to be unique."

"You are." he assures her, grinning and earning a smack in the arm. "And it isn't, really, when you're one of nine redheads in one house."

She shrugs. "In general, though. It's different."

He shrugs back, rubbing his hands over it self-consciously. Awkwardly. "Yeah." he says, "I s'pose it is."

"I like it."

She sits up to look at him, and he looks back to find her amber-on-fire eyes wide and honest. He is startled. There is a look there that he's never seen before. And though he is painfully mistaken and it takes three years for him to act on the notion, he smiles to himself that night thinking that though it's taken four years, Hermione Granger has finally realized that he's a boy.

-end-