A/N: Hey everyone! This was my first fan fiction and it is actually one of my favorites but I realized that in the first one, there was no author note, no disclaimer, and very many grammar mistakes…so I decided to edit it and repost. I hope all of you that read it the first time don't think I'm annoying for posting again. And all of the people who haven't read it, I hope you enjoy it! Please remember to review. If you would, I'd be ever so grateful! Thank you!
Disclaimer: No, I don't own this but I'd be so entirely happy if you'd give the characters to me JKR! No? *sigh* all right. I figured you wouldn't…
Setting: 5th year, Hogwarts, winter
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Rating: G
Summary: Hermione gets sick *gasp* and Ron tries to make her feel better…
Weird Things Happen When You Are SickIt was a beautiful day outside. The birds were singing, the sun was shining, and Hermione was wishing that she could enjoy it. She sat in bed in the fifth year dormitory wondering how she had gotten sick in the first place. She was always very careful about these things. She always made sure that she was wearing her coat when she went outside and she stayed a safe distance away from people who were ill. The girls who shared her dormitory had gone to breakfast a long time ago and she was alone.
After attempting to sleep for the fifteenth time, and failing horribly, Hermione decided that she might as well go down to the common room. Harry and Ron were testing each other on Transfiguration. (There would be a quiz today.) They saw Hermione clamber down the stairs and flop into a chair near the fireplace. She looked pale and sick. Ron put down his note cards and sat in the chair next to her.
"You ok Mione? You look a little pale." He told her bending down next to her chair.
"I'm sick." She said in stuffy voice. "My throat hurts, I think I am getting a fever, and my nose is running. At least it is a pretty day outside." She said brightly until she broke into loud coughs. She groaned and rubbed her head with her knuckles. "I think I'm getting a headache too."
"Have you eaten anything?" Ron asked.
"No. I didn't really feel well enough to go down to breakfast." She began to cough again. Ron put his hand on her forehead.
"You're burning up." He commented, frowning.
"I guess I won't be able to go to class today." She said a little sadly. "And our quiz in Transfiguration! What am I going to do?"
"I'm sure McGonagal with let you make it up. Don't worry about it."
"But what about notes! I'll miss so much information. Maybe I'll just go into class sick today. I really can't afford to miss anything, what with the O.W.L's coming up and-"
"Don't worry. I'll take notes for you if you don't mind them being a bit messy."
Hermione began to smile before covering her mouth and letting out three giant coughs. "You really, don't mind doing that for me Ron?"
"Of course I don't mind taking the notes for you. That just means you will have to do some of my homework for me."
"Don't I do enough of it already?" She asked stubbornly.
"You never do any of my homework. I would know if you did. You do help though. I was only kidding anyway. You really don't have to lecture me on this one." Ron really didn't want to get into a fight today. "Do you want me to get you something to eat? You need to keep your strength up. Or at least that is what mum says."
"You're right. If you truly don't mind, just incase I get hungry later. I don't think I will come down for lunch either." She told him, breaking into violent coughs.
"Come on, I'll walk you to the hospital wing. Why didn't you tell me earlier? You probably could have attended classes if you'd said something about it and gotten to the hospital wing. I'm sure Ms. Pomfrey would have had no trouble curing a cold in a few hours if she can re-grow a whole arm in one night." He stood up and helped her out of her chair, glancing at Harry who looked at them with an amused grin on his face. He sat back in his chair, feeling slightly forgotten but still smiling as Ron helped Hermione through the porthole, saying a quick goodbye before they left.
"Ronald Weasley is being kind to Mione. This is as strange day. I might as well enjoy it while it lasts." Harry said laughing to himself and continuing to study.
Fifteen minutes later, Ron rushed to meet Harry in the common room and grab his books for transfiguration. The two boys reached Professor McGonagal's room just as she was letting the students inside. Harry grinned as they took two seats at a table in the back. Ron was paying less attention than he usually did and Harry was very quick to notice it.
"Thinking about Hermione?" He whispered. Ron glared at him but continued to let the professor's lecture get further from his mind. After a while Harry said, "Aren't you supposed to be taking notes?" Ron looked as if a spider had just scrambled across the table.
"Oh no! Harry she'll kill me if she-"
"Mr. Weasley! Do you have something to share with the class? Maybe you would like to enlighten us on how to change a chair into a mirror." She waited while Ron tried to think of something to say, blushing deeply. "I didn't think so. Unless you want to get low marks on your O.W.L.'s this year, you had better pay attention." Ron sunk low in his chair.
When Professor McGonagal turned away from them, Harry whispered, "Don't worry, I've been taking notes." Ron sighed thankfully and listened carefully until the end of class.
* * * *
Lunchtime came around slower than usual, or so it seemed to Ron. He ate quickly and was attempting to leave the table before Harry asked him anything. Harry realized this. He had no intentions of letting Ron get away that easily. Something weird was going on and he intended on discovering what it was. Ron was his best friend. If something was bothering him, Harry was sure to find out.
"Hold on a minute." Harry said, pulling Ron back into his seat. "Is today, 'Be nice to Hermione day'? Did I miss something? Since when do you two get along so well?" He asked.
Ron shrugged. "She's sick. I decided to give her a break. Besides, it isn't like I enjoy fighting with her" Ron smiled, that wasn't completely true. "I'm sure if I was sick, she wouldn't yell at me either. It is the least I can do."
"Is that why you were thinking about her so much in Transfiguration today? Because she is sick?" Ron kept a straight face as Harry continued. "You almost forgot your notes in Charms class today. It was a good thing I picked them up." Harry pulled out a piece of parchment.
In the center were the usual notes for Charms. Spell names were underlined and explained. The odd thing about these notes was the fact that little hearts were placed all around the rim of the words. Ron stared at it for a long time.
"Is there any special reason that you decided the 'notes' you were taking should have little hearts all around? You are pretty lucky. Slytherins had that class next. Malfoy would have had a field day with this…" Harry told Ron, laughing at his friend's bewildered expression.
"You know how boring Charms is. Besides I couldn't stop looking at, uh, Lavender. I guess I just thought about her and um, drew those hearts."
Harry sighed, he hated when Ron lied. He wasn't especially good at it and you could always tell when he wasn't telling the truth. "Fine, I except your excuse but do you have an explanation for this?" Harry asked, flipping the parchment over, showing Ron still more hearts, this time, with the initials, H.G. and R.W. inside. Ron made a grab for the parchment but Harry pulled it away. He really didn't like being a pest but he wanted Ron to at least be straightforward. All the beating around the bush stuff he was doing was frankly getting pretty annoying.
"Harry!" Ron hissed, reaching for the paper. "Give it here!"
Harry sighed, "Ok, all right, here." Ron snatched the parchment from Harry's hand after giving it one horrified glance and quickly stuffed it into his backpack.
"I caught you." Harry said laughing slightly.
Ron blushed. "Just shut-up Harry!" He whispered, gazing down the table at the other Gryffindors. He noticed Fred and George joking at the end of the table but and a few of his other friends nearby but no one seemed to notice. Ron looked very embarrassed.
"Why didn't you tell me that you like her?" Harry asked in a rather annoyed voice. "Of all the people in the world, I thought I would get to know about the first girl you had a crush on."
"Shhh!" Ron said in an angry voice. "It isn't something that I like broadcasting everywhere. Besides, how do you know that she is my first crush?" He stopped wanting to smack himself. Harry grinned.
"So I was right."
Ron groaned, "I really could have liked someone else." Harry gave Ron a sideways glance.
"Fleur doesn't count Ron." This statement made him blush even more. Harry laughed. He truly was enjoying this. "You should be thanking me right know Ron. What if Malfoy had found the notes? I saved you a lot of embarrassment." Harry told him.
"Not much. It is still embarrassing. But thank you. At least you won't tell everyone like Malfoy would have." Ron groaned. "I'm going to the Hospital Wing to check on her. Look, just don't say anything about it ok? I'll see you after lunch." Ron grabbed his bag and left the table.
Before Ron had gotten two steps away, Harry quickly said, "You had better tell me about this later!" Ron sighed, angry with himself for being such a stupid obvious git.
He made his way to the Hospital Wing, quietly scolding himself and vowing to burn the notes in the fireplace when he got to the common room. He brought a pumpkin pasty with him that he had saved from lunch. He hadn't been able to bring Hermione anything from breakfast because he had already been running late to Transfiguration. Madame Pomfrey wasn't incredibly eager for Ron to stay but she said he could, if he agreed to leave Hermione alone. ('She needs her rest. Don't bother her!').
Since she was asleep, Ron couldn't do much besides look at her. This didn't annoy him. He liked looking at her anyway. She was extraordinarily pretty. She was pale but it made her other facial features stand out. He noticed the smallest, tiniest things that he hadn't even thought about at all since he had met her. He realized that she had a few freckles on her cheeks, which seemed to glow when put against her skin. He wondered briefly, why he had never considered how pretty she really was. She coughed several times during her sleep and each time Ron would glance nervously at her. He wished he could do something more.
Lunch was over very soon. When he finally had to leave for Potions, he left the pasty and a note:
Dear Hermione,
Sorry, I couldn't come sooner. We learned several new spells. If you want to go over them, you can talk to me when you get better. I left the pumpkin pasty for you because I couldn't get anything from breakfast this morning. I hope it'll make you feel better. I took the notes for you. I don't know how good they'll be, compared to the ones that you usually write. And McGonagal said you could take the quiz when you get back. So don't worry about failing it or anything.
Love, Ron.
Ron had rewritten the letter five times before he had come up with this. It wasn't extremely creative or romantic but he was dearly hoping that she would enjoy reading it. He struggled a lot on the part where he signed 'love Ron'. It was as though he were afraid that she could tell everything he felt about her in those two words, but they sounded so nice that he didn't have the heart to change them.
Ron spent the rest of the day avoiding Harry's eyes when they spoke and taking notes for Hermione in all of the classes, except for Divination of course. He even went to her other classes to get the homework assignments she would miss, though she'd most likely already done them.
He was fairly exhausted when he reached the common room that night. Slumping into a chair, he took out his homework and began to work. The teachers seemed to like pilling on the work as they got later into the year. He had lots of things to do and was up until very late trying to finish it all. He finally realized how much work Hermione had to do and he suddenly felt sorry that he had made fun of her all those times. It really wasn't fair of him.
When Ron had finished his Transfiguration homework and was starting the Potions essay, Hermione stumbled into the common room, looking very tired herself, but much better than early that morning. Her cough was gone along with her stuffy nose. Ron didn't even notice when she came in because he was concentrating so hard on writing the first paragraph of his essay.
"Hello Ron." Hermione said, seeing him working in the corner.
" 'Lo Hermione." He said, not looking up, and responding as he usually did. Suddenly, he realized that she was back and he looked up with more interest than he had shown before "Are you any better? Pomfrey make you all right like the good nurse she is?"
"Yes, I'm much better now. Thanks for the pasty." She said smiling. "And the letter." She came to sit next to him. She was silent for a while and Ron went back to the essay. He felt very awkward with her watching him and several times, to his embarrassment, his ears turned red. Every time Ron did this, Hermione would smile but she didn't say anything more for a long time.
"I have a question." She said finally, with the air of someone who had to bring up a subject that they weren't too keen on discussing.
"Yeah?"
"Did you, um, well, mean to leave your Charm notes there too?" She asked in a rather nervous voice. Ron looked at her. His Charm notes, what was so special about his Charm…
'Nooooo!!!' he thought desperately. Ron's heart leapt into his throat and he found it rather hard to speak. He suddenly wished he had a time turner. As if the most important use for it was to go to a whole bunch of useless classes. This was much more dire than that.
"Charm notes?" He squeaked in a panicked voice, when he was finally able to speak. "Please don't say it was from Charms." He said closing his eyes. "Are you sure it wasn't History of Magic, or, or Potions?" He asked frantically. He looked at her feebly. She nodded and, blushing, handed him a crumpled up paper. In small letters, Ron could see the initials and hearts that were scribbled all over the paper. He groaned, pushing himself as far down into the chair as possible and covering his face, wanting to melt away and disappear forever.
"They are actually very good notes. I could, read them, and, you copied all the correct information." She said, hoping that would bring up his spirits. It didn't.
There was a very pregnant silence afterward in which neither of them said anything. After a few minutes, Ron replied.
"Kill me Mione." His voice was very depressed. "I can't live anymore. Do it quickly so it won't hurt as much. I might as well get it over with."
"Ron! Don't say things like that." Hermione put her hand on his arm. "Ron, it isn't that bad. Really, I mean, it was," She bit her lip, "it was rather sweet. After being sick all day, taking horrible medicines, it made me feel, well, happier."
"What?" He looked at her quizzically.
"Well, what I mean is, I was kind of relieved to think that someone might like me, more than a friend."
"But, ok Hermione, don't get mad at me and start biting my head off," Hermione glared at him, "but, I thought, Vicky-Viktor, I mean, what about him?"
Hermione sighed and tried not to role her eyes. "I've told you a million time if you only bothered to listen you would understand that Viktor is just a very good friend of mine. There isn't anything more to it than that!"
"Oh…" He tried to hold back a smile until he remembered why they were having the conversation in the first place. She knew he liked her now. He sank lower into the chair.
Hermione smiled taking her hand back. Ron flushed, turning a color close to magenta. "You know, I really am sorry for fighting with you all the time. I treat you so horribly sometimes. Truthfully, I don't like when we fight." She continued.
"You never treat me horribly." Ron protested. "Besides, when you do, it is always because I said something rude to you. I am usually the one who starts it. I should really be apologizing to you." He sighed.
"We aren't fighting right now so it's all right Ron." She was quiet for a few minutes before saying, almost to herself, "Sometimes good things do happen when you are sick." They were quiet until Hermione yawned and looked around. It was very dark now and it must have been rather late.
"I should really be getting to bed." She commented. "Do you need help on anything before I go?" She asked.
He looked down at his potions essay. It was his last assignment. Hermione did look tired. Besides, he didn't know how he could manage talking to her after what had just happened. He didn't know how anything would be the same. She probably thought he was the biggest git in the world by now. Rather clumsy and stupid, that is what Ron thought about himself at that moment.
He would have told her all this but he thought it sounded too sappy, instead he said, "I don't think so. You look exhausted. You should really go to sleep."
"Ok. Don't stay up too long. I don't want you to get sick." She said as she got up, knelt in front of Ron, and took his hands. "Please don't be embarrassed. I really liked it. That was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me, even if it was an accident." He nodded silently, avoiding her eyes and turning crimson.
She smiled and placed a small kiss on his cheek. "Goodnight Ron." She said, running up the stairs.
"Goodnight Mione." Ron said softly. He found that he was rather dumb struck and it was much harder to think clearly now. His head felt funny, rather light as if he were filled with helium. He rubbed his cheek idly as he tried to finish his essay. It took a lot of effort to keep his mind on potions and off of Hermione.
Finally, he realized that if he didn't do this essay, not only would Professor Snape pound him into the ground, Hermione wouldn't be too thrilled with him either. He used this as his motivation to finish. He continued on his potions work, however reluctantly, and had half of it done when he heard someone come down the steps from one of the dormitories. Ron, figuring that it was Fred and George on one of their midnight food raids, didn't bother looking up and continued concentrating on his work. But it wasn't Fred or George.
Hermione smiled and blushed as she tiptoed into the room. Ron looked up and pretended not to care that she was back, even though something in his stomach flared when he saw her.
"Back again?" Ron asked in a would-be-calm voice.
"Oh," She said blushing more, "I forgot to bring my uh, my sweater." She said nervously. Ron gave her a sideways glance.
"You need your sweater when you're going to bed?" He asked her, laughing slightly. She blushed. "Besides, it isn't down here anyway, you took it with you when you went up to the dormitory." Hermione looked quite embarrassed, and cleared her throat nervously.
"Oh, you're right. I suppose that I don't need it anyway. That wasn't really the reason why I came. You see," She stopped and came towards Ron again. "I really came down," she sighed and stopped to try finding the right words. "I really came down to say good night to you again." She took another step forward until she was in front of him. Ron turned red and glanced at her, a confused expression on his face.
"Why would you need to say goodnight to me two times?" He asked, his voice unnaturally high.
"Oh Ron don't be a silly git." Hermione said, taking a step forward.
She sounded as if she was preparing herself to do something that had taken her a lot of courage to do. She looked at Ron for half a second more before she decided that if she didn't do it now, she wouldn't ever do it. Slowly she tilted his chin up and kissed him on the lips. Ron, not knowing what to do or what this would do to their relationship, decided that it wasn't the right time to think about this type of thing. Actually, as if by manual process, his brain sort of shut itself down and he was unable to think. Though only a matter of seconds, it seemed like forever before she broke away.
Hermione looked away before saying, "Sleep well Ron." and ran, blushing, up the stairs.
He sat for minutes afterward staring at the stairwell. He glanced down at the parchment covered with hearts and he smiled. He may be a klutz sometimes but he was one that just made the best mistake in his life. He grinned, put the notes away, and continued on his potions work. Tomorrow would be a great day.
A/N: Ok, so I didn't change much but I added an official disclaimer and I changed a lot of the words Ron said from being "can not" and "I will" to "can't" and "I'll" so it sounds a lot more like Ron than it did before. And I totally disregarded the Viktor thing the first time I wrote it, so I added it in here. Anyway, I hope it all fit well…and I hope you all liked it. Thanks for taking the time to read!
~Addy