Authors Notes: Hey all, thanks again for all your reviews!! Hope you like this update. Updates might be a bit slower for a few weeks- I just got a new puppy today (he's a Golden Lab named Charlie).
Enjoy J
Five
The roller rink was old and the decorating hadn't been updated since the 1960's. Ron and Harry exchanged glances as they entered, but didn't dare say anything. Hermione had been more excited that they had ever seen her when she had been talking about the roller rink where her parents had taken her skating as a child.
As she came jogging back towards them, carrying three pairs of skates, Harry couldn't help but be struck with a vision of Hermione as a child, wearing her hair in pigtails and wearing one of those frilly dresses that the girls from his primary school always wore on class party day.
They strapped their skates on at the edge of the rink and for a moment, all three stood perfectly still. And then Hermione glided onto the rink with obvious experience and started to make her way to the furthest side.
'Come and get me!' she called out.
Harry and Ron shared one last look, before stepping onto the rink themselves. Harry felt himself wobble slightly, but was managing to stand upright. Ron's feet slid out from underneath him as soon as he stepped forward and he wound up on the floor, looking as if he had no idea how he'd got there.
An hour later, Harry had to give Hermione credit- skating was a lot of fun. After ten minutes of wobbling, he was doing ok. He was nowhere in Hermione's league talent wise, but at least he was doing better than Ron. It was nearly lunchtime when they called it quits, and Ron looked slightly disappointed (he had only just managed to skate several metres without falling over).
They walked half a block when they left and had lunch in a very crowded McDonalds. Ron had never been to McDonalds before and found the whole experience fascinating.
'It's almost magic, how they do that,' he said, pointing to the deep fryers, where frozen chips had just gone in and cooked ones had come out. Harry decided to not point out how forcibly he was reminded of Mr Weasley and just collected his tray and followed Hermione to a table.
After they ate (Ron had 5 different burgers and pronounced each the most delicious thing he had ever eaten), it was Harry's turn. He couldn't explain his desire to do what he was doing, but he knew it was linked to fun in his mind, from back before he knew that he was a wizard.
It had been eight years since the Dursley's, unable to find anything to do with him on Dudley's birthday, had taken him to the zoo with them. It was one of the first occasions when they had taken him somewhere and despite the company, he had rather enjoyed himself. Especially seeing as though he had set a Python on Dudley.
They spent the afternoon wandering from exhibit to exhibit, laughing and joking. When they reached the reptile house, Harry gave an animated re-enactment of the Python's escape, which left Ron doubled up on the floor in laughter.
From the zoo, they made their way through London and ended up in a pub, where they ate dinner. Ron and Harry tasted the various beers on offer, whilst Hermione stuck to water. As the night wore on, they heard the other people in the pub talking about a night club just up the road.
'What do you reckon?' Ron said, cocking his head sideways to refer to the group beside them who were talking about the club. 'Sounds like fun. And I haven't picked my thing yet.'
Harry agreed immediately- Hermione was slightly reluctant, but agreed. It was almost midnight before they found themselves following the group of muggles. Ron had made friends with them and Harry was keeping a close eye on him- Ron had had plenty of beers already and Harry was paranoid he'd mention something about the wizarding world.
There was only a little line up to enter the club and it moved quickly. Once inside Harry suddenly realised how unused to electricity his eyes were- the fluorescent lights were making his head spin and the beating of the music wasn't really helping. Ron had vanished with the muggles, so Harry and Hermione made their way to an empty table on the edge of the dance floor. Every time the song changed the crowd gave a loud cheer, obviously liking each song better than the others.
After a while, Harry went to the bar and grabbed another beer- he spotted Ron, who was engrossed in a conversation with one of the muggle girls, who was very interested in what he had to say. Harry returned to the table with Hermione and they watched the dancers, before Hermione grabbed his hand.
'Come on!' she yelled (the music was far to loud for normal tones). 'Let's dance!'
She pulled Harry's beer from his hands, drank the rest herself, and then dragged him out into the middle of the crowd. Harry felt frozen and was having flash backs to the Yule Ball in fourth year, dancing with Padma Patil, who had steered him the entire time. This dancing, however, was completely different. Looking around, he saw that it pretty much just involved moving around and waving your arms.
Feeling very stupid, he started to move. After two songs, he felt less stupid. Hermione was in front of him, looking like she was having a fit. Except that her eyes were bright and dancing too, and she was smiling and laughing. She grabbed hold of his hands several times and started to dance close to him, but each time he found a way to pull away. Somehow, dancing the way others around them were dancing with Hermione, knowing Ron could find them at any minute was frightening.
After over an hour on the dance floor, Harry'd had enough. He took hold of Hermione's hand and led her away.
'Let's find Ron!' he shouted and she nodded.
Ron wasn't too hard to find. They'd made their way forwards and they found him, pressed up against the wall, with the muggle girl. Another flash back hit Harry- Ron and Lavender in their sixth year. He burst out laughing, and to his surprise, so did Hermione.
'Let's go- he won't miss us!'
He led Hermione up the back and, after looking around inside to check it was empty, into the mens toilets. He held tight onto her hand and as soon as the door shut, they disapparated back to her house. Harry's head was still pounding from the music, and his eyes couldn't focus on anything clearly.
'Well that was an interesting night,' Hermione said, sitting down on the lounge and looking up at him. 'Ron enjoyed himself.'
'Clearly,' Harry said with a chuckle, sitting down next to her. 'Did you enjoy yourself?'
'Yes,' she said with a smile. 'You were right- we needed to have some fun.'
'Well, I like being right,' he said, feeling his face grow hot and his stomach filled with butterflies. Hermione was sitting very close to him, looking very nervous.
'There's… there's something that… that I've been wanting to do,' she whispered, moving even closer.
For a moment they stared into each others eyes. Harry had never appreciated how brown and beautiful her eyes were. His head was inclining more to hers, her eyes were slowly closing…
This time he wasn't surprised when she kissed him back, just as hard as he was kissing her.