Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything related. Jo Rowling owns them. No money is being made with this, so please don't sue me!

I'd like to thank Del and Courtney for their help back when I wrote the first draft of this fic, and I'd also like to thank my SugarQuill beta-reader Lallybroch for her help, patience, and insightful comments regarding this fic. Thank you, girls! :)

Chapter 1

Harry Potter was never excited about his summer holidays, but this summer he was feeling even worse than usual. And not because he had to spend it in the company of the terrible Dursleys, who were the only family he had, but also because he'd rather be in the thick of things; he'd rather be as close to the magical world as possible, now that Lord Voldemort was back.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. If you don't know who Harry Potter is you are either a Muggle or an underage wizard Muggle-born, and you won't enjoy our story at all (in case you are wondering, Muggles are non-magical people). So I suggest you go and find out exactly who Harry Potter is before reading this story. Trust me, it's for your own good, especially now that Lord Voldemort is back.

Harry is an underage wizard who is about to attend his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He was raised by his very nasty Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, who are completely terrified by anything slightly odd and out of normal, like magic. And because of that the only link Harry could have with the magical word during the summer holidays was thru his owl, Hedwig, who delivered Harry's letters to his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

That usually made Harry's summer vacation more bearable, but this year nothing could make him feel better. Lord Voldemort, a powerful Dark Wizard who had killed Harry's parents when he was only one year old, and had failed when trying to kill Harry (and losing all his powers in the process while Harry remained intact except for a scar shaped as a lightning bolt on his forehead), was back.

It was only on the last week of his summer holidays that Harry was able to go to the Burrow, and only after much insistence on Mrs. Weasley's part towards Professor Dumbledore.

Much to Mr. Weasley's delight, he and Ron had gone to pick Harry up using the Muggle train (Mr. Weasley was very fond of Muggle inventions). When Harry arrived, Hermione was already there. Not that this was a surprise to Harry; Ron had said about a week ago in one of his letters that Hermione had arrived for the holidays already. But what had been a very delightful surprise was that when they entered the house to find Hermione waiting for them, Ron didn't get a hug from her like Harry did. Instead of the hug, Ron was given a very quick and shy kiss. Not on his cheeks, but on his lips. That caused both Ron and Hermione's faces to turn a very deep shade of red.

Harry looked dumbstruck, but quickly recovered. "So. You two have finally figured out that all that bickering of yours had a deeper meaning, huh?" He said, a smile starting to spread over his face. For a while Harry suspected that there was more to his best friends' relationship than met the eye. Especially after the heated discussion they had the year before, after the Yule Ball, when Ron had been completely and totally jealous because Hermione had gone to the ball with Viktor Krum, a very famous Quidditch player.

Both Ron and Hermione went scarlet, while Mr. Weasley gave them a huge smile and went to the kitchen to warn his wife that Harry had arrived.

"You mean you knew this already, Harry?" Hermione said, casting a nasty look at Ron, "I thought we had agreed that we would tell him together!" Hermione hissed at him.

Ron went very pale, "'Mione, I...I didn't tell him. Really."

Harry decided to question Ron about that nickname later, since at the moment helping his best friend seemed a better choice for a course of action. "Don't worry, Hermione, he didn't tell me anything...I had already noticed that you two fancied each other."

"You did?" both asked, startled.

"Well, everybody did," said Ginny, who had just entered the living room with her mother. "Hi, Harry." Ginny was Ron's youngest sister, and the only girl in a house with six boys.

"Hi, Ginny," Harry answered. At the sight of Ginny, immediately Harry thought that Ginny had really grown up in the last few months. His next thought was about the possible reason why he had even thought that in the first place. "Hi, Mrs. Weasley."

"Hello, Harry, it's good to see you," Mrs. Weasley said and scuttled over to him to give him a big hug. "Are you alright? Feeling OK? Did anything unusual happen while you were with the Dursleys?" she asked, holding Harry at arm's length.

Harry knew that Mrs. Weasley was only doing that because she was really worried about him. She, like everybody else who knew Harry (well, except the Dursleys) was worried about Voldemort's return and about what he would try to do against him. "Yes, I'm fine, Mrs. Weasley. And no, nothing unusual happened."

"Very well then," she glanced at Ron and Hermione holding hands, and said, smiling at Harry while tilting her head towards her son, "I'll let you catch up with your friends then."

When she had left for the kitchen again, telling them that dinner would be ready in about half an hour, Ron turned to Ginny and Harry. "What do you mean by 'everybody did'?"

"Exactly that," said Harry, dryly. "It was pretty obvious that you were jealous of Hermione going to the ball with Krum, not only because of the fights you had during the ball, after the ball, and during Snape's class over that Rita Skeeter article, but also because later I found a toy's arm under my bed. Your Viktor Krum figurine's arm." Rita Skeeter was a very annoying reporter who had given Harry a bit of trouble last year. She had even written an article where she said that Hermione was using Love Potions on Harry and Viktor Krum.

Ron's ears became slightly pink, while Hermione stared at him and said, "You ripped Viktor's arm off?"

"Well, it was not the real Viktor," he said, and then added in a whisper, "Although I wished it really was that stupid git at the time."

Harry and Ginny laughed, but Hermione scowled, "Ron!"

"But tell me; when did you start dating?" Harry asked, a huge smile splitting his face.

Ron and Hermione looked at each other, not so sure of how much they really wanted to reveal to Harry and Ginny. But the fact that Harry was their best friend and that they would never ever be able to keep anything from him was clear in their eyes.

Harry watched their silent exchange amused; he never thought that Ron and Hermione would be able to talk and agree about something without a fight first, but now they were actually reaching an obvious agreement without even saying a word!

"Well...Do you remember the day following the Yule Ball, Harry?" Ron asked, shyly. "How Hermione and I were acting towards each other?"

After a few minutes thinking, Harry nodded. "Yeah. You seemed to have reached an unspoken agreement over your argument. And even though you were quite friendly with each other, you were oddly formal."

"That's because Ron kissed Hermione that night!" Ginny piped in, grinning.

"Ginny!" Ron said, angrily. He looked like he had just taken a Pepper-Up potion from Madam Pomfrey, the matron responsible for the Hogwarts infirmary. Harry wondered if Ron's reaction was due to embarrassment or anger towards his sister. Probably both.

"You kissed Hermione that night?" Harry was bewildered.

"Yeah," Ron said, still looking at Ginny annoyed. He looked even more embarassed if possible, and added in almost a whisper. "You see, after we had that fight at the common room, I couldn't sleep, and so around 2 AM I went downstairs to find that Hermione couldn't sleep either..."

"...Then we started fighting again and, before I knew what was happening, Ron kissed me!" Hermione finished, a little flustered. "You can imagine how surprised I was." Hermione was giggling. Harry couldn't believe his own eyes. Hermione was GIGGLING! She reminded him of Lavender talking about Seamus.

"As surprised as I was," Ron said, hugging Hermione to his side and giving her a kiss on the forehead, while she continued to tell Harry their story. "Anyway, after the kiss, we practically run towards our dormitories, and next day we were acting oddly formal because we were – well – feeling uncomfortable with each other, and we didn't want anyone else to notice that anything had happened between us."

"Until that day in Snape's lesson when the Witch Weekly article came out, saying that Krum had invited Hermione to Bulgaria," Ron said.

Hermione smiled, "I can still remember you hammering mercilessly on your poor desk instead of your scarab beetles."

"After that," Ron continued, his ears rather pink, "we just had to sit down and sort out what was happening between us, and we did it on the same night you went to find out what was the Triwizard Tournament's Third Task about."

Hermione glanced at Ron. "Hey, that was what I told you. The talk was my idea."

"Of course it was your idea, 'Mione," Ron tucked a stray of her hair neatly under her ear, "After all, you are a know-it-all."

"Ron!" Hermione glared at him. "You promised me you wouldn't call me that anymore!"

"No, I promised I wouldn't tease you with it anymore, and I'm not. I'm just telling the truth," Ron said, a twinkle of laughter in his eyes. "Anyway," he continued before Hermione could answer, "when she asked me about the reason I had acted like that on Snape's class, I told her that I – that I –"

"That he liked me. And I told him I felt the same way about him. And – we started dating," Hermione finished in a rush, her face very red. Ginny was smiling, looking at Hermione and her brother.

Harry, however, looked hurt. "But then, if you have been dating since that day, why didn't you tell me?"

Ron and Hermione exchanged quick, apprehensive looks, and she said, "Because of all that stuff happening: first Mr. Crouch disappeared at the border of the Forbidden Forest..."

"...Then your Scar hurt again and you found out all that stuff at Dumbledore's Pensieve," Ron continued.

Hermione added, "Also, you were worried about the Third Task and we were helping you study for it, when we also had to study for our own end-of-term exams."

Ron nodded, "And then it finally came the night of the Third Task and we hadn't told you yet."

"And you had gone through so much pain that night. We didn't find it right to spring our happy news on you. We – we thought you would feel even worse," Hermione completed, a slight pink flush on her cheeks.

Ron frowned, "No we didn't. You thought Harry fancied you because he never really complained about Rita Skeeter's articles. And you didn't want to make him feel worse by telling him you liked me, not him."

Harry had to restrain himself not to laugh at that or at Hermione's scarlet face. "Hermione, don't take me wrong, but I only didn't make a fuss over Rita Skeeter's article because I knew that, if I did, Ron would be even angrier at me and never talk to me again!"

"Why would I be angrier at you?" Ron asked, remembering that he wasn't talking to Harry around the time Rita Skeeter's first article alluding to a possible romantic involvement between Harry and Hermione had appeared.

With an unexplainable nervous glance at Ginny, who was still watching her brother and Hermione with a bemused expression on her face, Harry said, "Well, because you would think I fancied Hermione and would be jealous just like you were about Krum."

"Oh," Ron exclaimed, in a loss of better words to say.

"Children, dinner is ready!" Mrs. Weasley called from the kitchen.

They entered the kitchen, and by the time George and Fred arrived from their room, they were already seated on the table. George and Fred were Ron's twin brothers, and easily the clowns of the family. They were going to start their last year at Hogwarts and, unlike their older brothers who all had respectable jobs (in Mrs. Weasley's opinion), they were thinking of opening a joke shop after they left school.

"Hi, Harry! Have you seen how our little brother has matured?" Fred said, sitting at Harry's left side.

"Yeah! He has a girlfriend now!" George was sitting at Harry's other side "We are SO proud of him," he continued, in a clear imitation of his mother's voice.

"Fred and George, stop teasing your brother!" Mrs. Weasley said angrily, although Harry suspected that she was angrier with them for imitating her than mocking Ron. "Don't you think you should do something better with your time – like studying for the N.E.W.T.s in order to get you both a decent job when you graduate from Hogwarts?"

"We are working on it, Mum," George said, a very serious expression on his face that couldn't completely hide the amusement concealed in his eyes.

"Well, at least on getting a job after we graduate from Hogwats. I'm not sure my mother would call a joke shop decent, though," Fred whispered at Harry's ears, out of Mrs. Weasley vision.

During the rest of dinner, nothing too important happened (unless you consider Fred and George putting a Canary Cream on Ron's food and therefore turning him into a giant yellow canary important) and they spent the whole meal talking about what they would do in their last week before term started. And due to Hermione's constant reminder that they needed to get their books for next term as soon as possible in order to study before term started, they decided they would go to Diagon Alley the following day. When they stopped talking, it was very late, and all the Weasleys, Harry, and Hermione went to bed.