The Overture - Have either of you heard of Armenia?
Title: Riddle
Pairing/Character: Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter
Rating: R, I think - there's nothing really bad (or good depending on your outlook!)
Wordcount: 2,401
Summary: Part I: It's late summer 1997 and in the search for the remaining horcruxes Ron, Harry, and Hermione are at Grimmauld Place hoping to find information about the locket. During their research Hermione accidentally happens upon something quite different.
Beta(s): For this part I am immensely grateful to manynames and millieweasley for straightening out any kinks (as in writing creases and not what some might be thinking!), and their suggestions for improvements. Watch out historians, I'm going to need you very soon - big time.
Author's Notes: In response to millieweasley's Harry Potter History Challenge **here**. I'm taking some of our HP friends back to Vienna, 1786. It's terribly brave of my volunteer history advisors to allow me to take this on, I'm not too sure whether they'll encourage me back another time however! Part II **here**, Part III **here**, Part IV **here** and Part V **here**.




Part I of V - Riddle: Have either of you heard of Armenia?

“Well I’m going to go and do something useful,” Hermione stated, standing from the floor to look down on Harry and Ron, one hand on her hip and the look about her features that said Boys! Why don’t you try actually listening for once?.

“Like what?” Ron asked, rolling onto his side and grinning up at her.

There was loads that could be done here in the sitting room of Grimmauld Place. Even though they’d all worked so hard to help Mrs Weasley make it habitable back in the summer before fifth year, it was looking really shabby. Tomorrow, perhaps she’d find some time for a few cleaning spells; get Harry and Ron to help with the musty smelling curtains or the dusty furniture they were all deliberately avoiding, or something. But for now it would do, there were more important things to be considered, that she didn’t really want to put off. “Useful. Make a cup of tea … or something.”

Harry grinned. It was rare that Hermione got frustrated when they came across dead end after dead end. Usually in those circumstances she was the one who tutted disdainfully towards them and reached for another book, or went quietly thoughtful while they waited for the words ’What we haven’t considered, of course, is … and then came up with at least three new solutions to whatever problem they were sorting out at the time.

Ron looked towards Hermione.

“You can’t..” Ron allowed his eyes to linger for a few seconds upon Hermione, flicking them away before his flushed ears spread further and belied the way he was starting to feel inside. He’d noticed it lately, ever since they’d started to kiss. When Hermione was in a challenging mood he had to resist the urge to take her somewhere alone to press her up against the wall, his lips suddenly hungry to find hers. Just thinking it now was more than he really wanted to cope with inside. He couldn’t do it yet, not without risking her being exasperated with him. He didn’t want to do anything to risk ruining things between them, as new and delicate as they were. One day though, he promised himself as if the thought would tide him over until the time came, one day he’d find out just what it was like to be passionate with Hermione.

“Ronald Weasley, I am quite capable of making something as simple as a cup of tea. Are you telling me you don’t want one?”

“No. I’d love one.” He was finding it hard not to be amused despite the other emotions playing havoc with his gut.

“So?” She had a hand on each of her hips now and her eyes were flashing towards him, “I asked a question.”

“So, we don’t have any milk here, silly.”

Harry winced. He’d have not dared call Hermione silly when she was in this mood, ever. He and Ginny had guessed that his two best friends had at least crossed the line between being just friends, and onto something a little more a few weeks ago, sometime between Hogwarts and setting out for Godric’s Hollow. Perhaps Ron was getting a little bit complacent? If so, then he was surely about to be put firmly into his place.

“Well then, why don’t you go and get some?” Hermione raised an eyebrow and almost half quirked a smile, grinning inwardly at the obvious surprise on Ron and Harry’s faces at her reaction.

“Okay, I won’t be long. Muggle shop on the corner, yeah?” With that and without waiting for an answer Ron Disapparated to a safe place close to the Muggle shop which actually wasn’t on their corner, the one at Grimmauld Place, but on the corner of a street about half a mile away near one of London’s leafy square and fenced gardens.

“I’ve got something niggling in the back of my mind.” Hermione looked over to Harry after a few moments of silence during which she’d dropped back to the floor, “It’s so frustrating that I can’t work out what it is. But there’s definitely something.”

“Let’s start from the beginning again then,” Harry suggested, noticing Hermione’s fingers start to drum on the floor beside her as he sat up from the huge comfy rug transfigured by Hermione and as if by doing so he’d be able to think more clearly.

Hermione flicked through the pile pieces of parchment again. They’d looked in the bureau hoping that there were some clues to the locket, Harry’s current search, and found these, the cause of Hermione’s latest tangent in that search.

“It’s Yerevan,” Hermione said, “That’s the link. I think I’m going to have to go to a library, even a Muggle one –“ She grinned towards Harry at the suggestion. “I’ll look it up and see what I can find but I’m sure that word says Yerevan, and I’m sure I’ve heard that name before. Somewhere.” Hermione pointed to the writing on the sheet of paper. It was similar to that which Harry had on the letters he’d kept from Sirius, similar but not the same. That had puzzled them, another mystery to add to the pile they already had to solve.

“Yerevan … never heard of it.”

“You could make the tea as well,” suggested Hermione towards Ron as he stood newly reappeared in the room proudly holding out a carton of milk. But there again, it was probably quicker to do it herself, or at least help him. “Oh come on …”

Making tea was such a basic thing to do, yet amazingly therapeutic, Hermione considered, as with the swish of her wand the kettle filled itself and then started to heat up. Three mugs were summoned to the table, and a little milk tipped into each. Sugar for Ron’s cup, of course, none for the other two. “Well?” she asked.

“Well?” Ron had followed her to the familiar kitchen and stood watching her, the feeling newly implanted into his head that he wanted to kiss her, hard. Not the gentle pressing together of lips they’d enjoyed so far, something that said so much more.

“I thought,” Hermione raised her eyebrow in challenge, “there might be something you wanted to do?” She walked towards him and stood close, her eyes shining up to his.

“Oh, Hermione,” was all Ron could croak as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him. How did she know everything? Without the usual care he took when he was kissing Hermione he searched her lips, pressing his against them and opening his own, his tongue retreating back into his own mouth at the insistence of Hermione’s. For a few glorious minutes Ron lost himself, savouring the new experience until Hermione pulled away and rested her nose against his.

“We were making tea, I think.”

That Harry hadn’t asked what had taken so long, or why Ron had returned so … well, dishevelled wasn’t really the word … was of great comfort to him. Hermione was a little firebomb, he’d never expected that. His thoughts on the relationship would be that they’d very slowly and steadily build through the different stages as he saw them. Holding hands one week, more gentle kisses the next, perhaps she’d sit on his knee, he’d put his arm around her shoulder as they walked. He’d never felt quite this unsettled before. But if feeling unsettled was like this - bleeding marvellous - then he wasn’t going to complain.

“Have either of you heard of Armenia?” Hermione asked after draining her mug and lazily sending it out to the kitchen without moving herself from the floor.

“Hermione!” How could she be thinking of strange and foreign countries now, after what had just happened?

“No,” Harry looked across towards her, “Never. What is it?”

“It’s a country. I think somewhere by Turkey.”

“Turkey? Isn’t that what we have for Christmas dinner?” Ron’s stomach was sure it was.

“Yes, Ronald!” Hermione looked kindly towards him, her eyes glinting again. “It’s also the name of a country the other side of Europe. My parents thought about going there for a holiday one year. Of course, we didn’t. We went back to France, the wine there is so much more refined.”

“No Hermione. I can’t say that I have heard of it.”

Hermione had. She’d heard of Armenia, she knew she had, and it was more than the country next to the potential holiday too. If she was correct, and she was a little more than eighty percent sure that she was, then Yerevan was the country’s capital city. She’d looked everything about the area up when the holiday had been mentioned, just to check and see if there had been any interesting magical facts, of course. Perhaps a rebellion, or a trade in illegal flying carpets, or a Gobstone competition, or anything in Turkey or any of its surrounding countries. She knew something about Armenia, she was sure, but what was it? It couldn’t have seemed important at the time, or she’d have remembered now - except she was sure it had, sure it had made an imprint on her mind for a reason.

“Are we eating in tonight? Or going back to The Burrow, or going out, or what?” Perhaps she’d remember what was bugging her by refusing to come forward if she forced herself to do something else. On top of that thought Hermione had an appetite. A raging appetite. She wanted and needed to eat. She wanted exotic flavours, perhaps the mild intoxication of a glass of good wine, and then to round the meal off, the bitter-sweet of a dark chocolate mousse with brandy and praline. Then coffee or maybe a coffee with floating cream and some more brandy. Hermione’s liaison with Ron in the kitchen had had quite a different effect on her, one that needed to be satisfied by good food, wine and company.

“Burrow?” suggested Ron.

“Pizzas?” suggested Harry.

“No. We’ll go out - my treat,” declared Hermione reaching for parchment and a quill to make a reservation. “We’ll be leaving at seven and dressed to look smart. Okay?”

The meal and the wine had been delicious and it was great to get away from the pressures of thinking while they ate and chatted and reminisced and, of course, laughed. The restaurant had got very busy with a mix of business type wizards entertaining in the hope of a deal or two, and sophisticated couples arriving after a busy day, while the three of them drank their coffee. People watching was always interesting, there were all sorts of things to be observed, and stored away, perhaps for later use. The cooler air of Grimmauld Place was welcome when they Apparated back there, even if the surroundings weren’t quite so salubrious, Hermione thought with a fondness for the old house.

“Shall we sit down for a while?” Hermione asked Ron after Harry had excused himself on the pretext of an earlyish night, “Or would you like more coffee?” She yelped a little with glee when instead of answering with words Ron reached for her hand, backed her through the nearest doorway and kissed her once more as she’d kissed him before.

“Sit down,” he finally grunted looking towards the sofa in the gloomy sitting room where they’d worked earlier. “Coffee doesn’t compare to this, Hermione.”

At last, after what had seemed like months, they appeared to feel comfortable with each other. They’d stopped dancing around what they each thought the other wanted. Hermione moaned a little into Ron’s mouth when his hand threaded through her hair, enjoying the feeling of his fingers combing through it. Ron moved his mouth to her throat when her hands started to explore his back, sinking into the small of it and holding him close.

A bit clumsily and with a few suppressed chuckles they changed their position so they were reclined along the length of the sofa, Ron lying beside Hermione, his top half leaning over her.

“This is nice.”

“Nice, Ronald?” Hermione asked teasingly and slightly amused. It was more than nice, it was right. It was what she wanted. “Nice enough not to waste a moment?”

“Yeah,” he whispered as his lips found the soft turn of Hermione’s neck and kissed gently up to her ear. “The food was nice too.”

Choosing the upmarket restaurant had been a gamble. Hermione had expected both Harry and Ron to be a bit uncomfortable there, and for the first few minutes she guessed that they had been exactly that. Neither of them had been in the position to enjoy the way of living with which her parents had been able to provide her. The Weasleys were a fantastic family, she couldn’t think of a better one but when you had seven children, there wouldn’t be spare money for a restaurant such as the one at which they’d just eaten. Harry’s biggest treat, it seemed from the stories he’d told of life before Hogwarts with his mother’s awful relatives, had been a visit to the zoo and a tiny ice lolly. It was bound to be a learning experience for him too.

“You’d go again some time?”

“Mmmmhmmm?” Ron muttered into her skin, making her shiver and forget her question for a moment. Hermione tugged at Ron in a very unpractised way and brought him crushing down on top of her before she searched for his mouth again, wanting another of those heated kisses they’d shared before.

“Hermione,” Ron squeaked after a little while, his voice taut with embarrassment as he attempted to edge away just a little bit.

“It’s okay,” she muttered back and pulled him closer, pleased to feel how strongly his body was reacting to the situation. “In fact, it’s nice.”

“You know,” he continued giving himself a little breathing space from the onslaught of amazing feelings, a welcome relief after being cooped up in stuffy robes all evening. “When you dressed me up like Gilderoy Lockhart tonig-“

“Ron” Hermione almost shrieked. “Ron, that’s it. Lockhart. I’ve got it. You got it. You’re wonderful. Thank you.”

“You have?” Ron tried to sit up but her grip on him was too strong.

“I have. Now get back here and kiss me again. I’ll tell you both together over breakfast in the morning. There’s something I want to check out first.”