A/N: set just before HBP. the evening before Harry arrives at the Weasley's.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, I doubt I'd be checking the time every 5 minutes, counting down the hours to the release of Deathly Hallows.

Hermione

Hermione Granger was sitting in an armchair in the corner of the Weasley's living room pretending to read a book.

It wasn't that her book (Ye Olde Castles and Monuments of Magikal Britaine) wasn't interesting – to her at least – it was just that there were more important things to be observed in that room that Friday evening.

Ron Weasley, her best friend for the past five years, was currently having a horrendously brutal game of wizard's chess with his elder brother Bill. Ron was sitting cross-legged in front of the dying fire facing Hermione, whilst his long-haired brother leant over the chess board set out between them.

There were many things that Hermione knew she was supposed to be thinking about this evening, but somehow they had all been pushed to one side of her brain when she'd first looked up from her book to see Ron staring at her, a rare look of seriousness upon his face.

When he saw her look up at him, he had raised his eyebrows and grinned at her for a moment before returning to the game; from then on, Hermione had lost all interest in her book and all thoughts of Harry, Sirius and school had been swept out of her head.

Moments like these had been occurring all throughout last year. Of course Hermione, a girl who was top of all her classes at Hogwarts knew exactly what they meant. She just wished she knew whether Ron knew. Or if he even noticed anything different.

Because of course, things were much different from how they'd been say, two years ago. Their turbulent friendship had gone from blazing rows to shyness and awkwardness. They still argued. All the time in fact, but there were moments now that certainly weren't there in third year.

She supposed it had all changed in their fourth year.

After spending lengthy periods of time with Ron, desperately trying to get him to make up with Harry, she found that there was now no denying the fact that had been hounding her for a while: she liked Ron.

She, Hermione Granger liked Ron Weasley.

His name had been scrawled, printed out neatly and placed in little hearts all over her impeccable notes. She couldn't get his laugh out of her head and each time he smiled at her she had to look away for fear of becoming a breathing replica of a beetroot.

Hermione had finally fallen for her hopeless best friend. The one who had an exact 5ml emotional capacity and also the one who she had spent an entire year arguing with over a cat and a dubious rat.

Then came the Yule Ball where she'd spent a week wondering whether by some lucky chance she'd end up going with Ron – they were best friends after all – until Bulgarian Quidditch star Viktor Krum asked her in an offhand tone one afternoon in the library. She took up his offer, brushing away all hopes of going with Ron – why would he want to go with her anyway? He'd probably disregarded her a long time ago as a possible ball candidate after finding her nose was 2mm too far to the left.

Then after a year spent mostly in Ron's company during DA meetings and whilst Harry attended detentions and Occlumency lessons, she had come to realise something she had sworn she would never succumb to when she was younger.

Last summer she had been thrust into the company of Ron and his family and her and Ron managed to spend the longest amount of time together that had ever been endured without Harry to keep the peace. Sure she had Ginny too, but Ron was her best friend so she was obliged to spend the majority of her time with him.

Although, obligation wasn't exactly the word Hermione's heart was thumping out when Ron wrote to ask her to come and stay at Grimmauld Place with him that holiday, or when Dumbledore explained that it would be better if Harry stayed at the Dursley's for the time being. Of course, Hermione didn't like to keep Harry in the dark about what was going on, but there was a part of her that was glad for the chance to be alone with Ron, to talk to him, to get to know him better, maybe explain what she had been thinking when Viktor had asked her to the ball that Christmas… No. She was never going to have done that.

Apart from not telling Ron exactly what she was thinking that summer, she did get to talk to him and get to know him more than she had in four years.

She also got the opportunity to see him from a different angle. Not just physically – although she enjoyed seeing him brush his hair back from his face as they played wizard's chess on his bed, or watching his blue eyes flash when she told him she neither knew nor cared anything about Quidditch teams, or getting a glimpse of his back muscles stretching as he cleaned out a dresser one day. It was just as satisfying to admire the way he stood up to his older brothers but the way he backed down from Ginny, the way he doubled up at one of Mundungus' vulgar jokes and then creased up again when he saw Hermione's puzzled expression and heard her saying 'What? I don't get it.' The way he pulled her aside as they helped clear the table and explained it to her.

All these things. All these tiny things she had started to notice about him added up to one thing in her mind. She had always looked at things logically and here there was only one explanation. She had fallen in love. After all these years of swearing she wouldn't do it, she had fallen for Ronald Weasley. It wasn't just that she admired these quirks about him. It was that she had noticed them in the first place. How could you know all these things about someone and not be in love with them?

She still got angry at him and this made her doubt the L-word, but when she truly thought about it, the reason she got so angry with him was usually due to the frustration she felt when he said something flippant, offhand or completely careless. However, at the same time, this was what made her like him so much. Mostly to her, he wasn't so much careless as carefree. She wished she could be like that sometimes.

Hermione glanced over at him once more. His eyes were darkened and focused on the game before him, his brow furrowed in concentration, his mouth clenched at one side. One hand was in his hair and as he pushed it back, he looked up and caught her gaze.

She dropped her eyes back to her book and turned the page guiltily. She mustn't be caught looking again.

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A/N: sooooo this is like my first attempt at writing anything serious. next chap will be ron's thoughts then will do a scene or two between them. it's not really a ron and hermione coming together story - i don't want to interfere with whatever jk's got in store - but more like a missing moment. review please! x