Dancing in the Moonlight

A/N: The story begins when Harry decides to go into the forest late at night to try to talk to the centaurs in an attempt to discover more about prophesies in general. Ron and Hermione insist on joining him, but Harry makes them wait for him by Hagrid’s. After Harry enters the forest, Ron impulsively decides to follow him, and of course, Hermione has to follow him.

“Ron, wait!”

            Hermione Granger quickly jogged through the brush to catch up. He grinned cheekily at her before they began to walk side-by-side deeper into the Forbidden Forest.

            “This is a bad idea, you know,” she said crossly.

            “You didn’t have to come,” Ron told her, “You can wait at Hagrid’s.”

            Hermione snorted. “Please,” she scoffed, “I’m not letting you go off in here by yourself. Harry at least has the Invisibility Cloak; we don’t have anything. Not to mention that if we get caught, we’ll be expelled at least. I mean, we are prefects now, Ron…”

            “Aw, shut up!”

            Hermione let out a frustrated breath, wanting to snap out a clever retort but knowing that starting a row right now was not a good idea. Honestly, why did she always feel this need to follow Ron—he only got her into trouble. But she couldn’t let him go alone—she’d go mad if she just sat on Hagrid’s steps, waiting for him, worrying about him...

            “Hermione, what are those?”

            “What?” she said exasperatedly as she turned to follow Ron’s gaze. All ill feeling towards Ron vanished as her jaw dropped. “My God,” she whispered under her breath, a smile spreading over her face. “Mooncalves.”

            The two creatures were in the middle of a clearing she and Ron had reached the edge of. They were quite a distance away from the animals, but the light of the full moon illuminated their identifiable wide eyes, flat feet, and smooth gray skin. The two creatures were standing only on their hind legs, and circling around each other in a graceful, fluid manner. They were oblivious to her and Ron’s presence, and they simply danced on and on, big eyes locked solely on each other. They were oblivious to other things too, Hermione thought with a pang of sadness. They didn’t know about the war that was raging on at the moment, they didn’t know about the bigotry, and hatred, and death that was consuming the world and making it very difficult for good to overcome evil. And although Hermione knew that they would win since they had Harry on their side, it was a long road to peace and harmony. And along that road was a lot of pain.

            Hermione hugged herself, feeling a sudden chill at the melancholy turn of her thoughts. She was too young to be thinking these thoughts—she should just be worrying about her lessons or boys or something normal like that. She shouldn’t constantly fear her friends and parents safety. She shouldn’t be this worried all the time.

            She wasn’t the best at hiding her feelings, so she wasn’t that surprised that someone as obtuse as Ron noticed the sudden tears in her eyes. “Hey,” he said in surprise, “What’s up with you?”

            “Nothing,” she said hastily, wiping her eyes. She tried to put into words what she was thinking concisely. “It—I—well, it’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?” she managed finally, “That they can dance like that and be so in love even with everything that’s going on right now?”

            But Ron had the capability of always doing or saying the unexpected, and he proved that again. “Oh, I don’t know,” he said awkwardly, “I mean, look at Harry. He wouldn’t even be alive if it weren’t for his Mum and her sacrifice.”

            Hermione looked at him with rare incomprehension. “So…”

            “Well, that proves that there’s always love, doesn’t it? I mean, You-Know-Who was at his peak of his power then, and Harry’s Mum’s love was still there and everything. So why shouldn’t it be here now?”

            Hermione just stared at him wonderingly. How did he do it? Ron always knew what to say. He always knew what to do for her. He always was just so wonderfully Ron. There was no other way to describe it.

            She stood up on her tiptoes and dropped a kiss on his cheek. Granted, she wanted to plant her lips somewhere else on his face, but she managed to restrain herself.

            Ron’s ears flushed bright red. “What was that for?” he demanded.

            “For being you,” she said quietly.

            Ron just stared at her for a long moment. He then leaned forward, and his lips touched her cheekbone for only a second, but it was enough. A delicious sensation traveled up and down her spine. When he pulled back, she stared up at him with a mixture of wonder, surprise, and delight. Ron’s ears were redder than ever, and Hermione could feel the heat rising on her own cheeks.

            “And what was that for?” she whispered.

            Ron shrugged, trying to act casual but failing miserably. “Same reason.” He hastily changed the subject. “We should tell Hagrid about these,” Ron commented. “He could use them for class.”

            Hermione rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Ron, don’t you read? Mooncalves only leave their underground burrows during the full moon in order to…”

            “Shut it,” Ron said offhandedly, “We better find Harry.”

            “Right,” Hermione said softly, her eyes on the Mooncalves’ dance again. “It really is beautiful, isn’t it?”

            “Yeah,” Ron answered in a low, husky voice. The tingling on her spine returned—goodness, Ron needed to talk like this more often! “Come on,” he demanded, grabbing her wrist and pulling her away from the clearing.

            It was only when they were safely in the darkness of the forest that Ron's grip shifted from Hermione’s wrist to her fingers.

            The grin returned to Hermione’s face, and her stomach fluttered with joy.

            Maybe Ron was finally growing up. Maybe they could finally take their relationship to another level, the level she had been dying for it to reach for two years. Maybe he’d kiss her again. Hermione’s already pink cheeks turned magenta at the thought. Maybe…

The list of maybes went on and on, but she couldn’t think about that now. All she knew is that she never felt as safe as she did right now with Ron’s hand in hers.

            Well, she did know one other thing.

            Mooncalves were her new favorite magical creature.