Heart
By Laura L.
A "Harry Potter" fic
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR 'GOBLET OF FIRE'! DON'T READ UNLESS YOU'VE READ ALL FOUR BOOKS!
Harry Potter chewed on the end of his quill, staring at his parchment and its title, "Ten Defenses Against Griffins," which was as far as he had gotten. Idly, he reached over next to him on the bed and flipped through "Magical Defense Is Your Only Defense" by Marvel Shield. The griffins' section was almost non-existent.
Which meant he had to do some research in the library.
As he was shifting off his bed and shoving things into his bag to do just that, Ron appeared and dropped his things on his own bed.
"Hey Ron."
"Yeah."
Harry raised his eyebrows at Ron's downcast face. "What's the matter?"
Ron seemed to realize he was looking less than cheerful and tried to smile. "Ah, nothing really. Just loads of homework."
"Don't I know it." Harry got his things together. "I'm going to the library. Want to come?"
"Uh, Harry," Ron said almost at the same time. "Can I ask you something?"
"Well, sure." Harry hoped it had something to do with the woebegone expression his best friend's face so he could straighten it out for him.
"You know, Hermione…"
Harry waited as Ron started turning as red as his hair, ears first. It was a sure sign that Ron was having problems, all right. "Sure."
"What do you think about her? I mean, feel about her?"
"Feel about--?"
"I mean, would you consider her a really good friend, or—"
Harry couldn't believe his ears. Ron of all people, quizzing him about his relationship with Hermione? After the public misunderstandings during the Triwizard Tournament about just WHO Hermione was really interested in, he would have thought Ron would have gotten it straight!
"I guess a good friend. Has there been any more dumb articles in the Daily Prophet? YOU know that Hermione had more interest in Viktor Krum than me."
Ron stared at him, then after a long pause said: "Yeah."
"What IS the problem?"
"The Slytherins are running around yelling stuff like 'Harry and Hermione!' today, that's all. I wondered what was going on."
"'Harry and Hermione'?" Harry shrugged. "Haven't got a clue. Everyone thought we were going together for a while, but it was just Rita and that poison quill of hers. You'd think after the Yule Ball—"
"I know it's dumb," Ron muttered, "but, well, you two get along and all, so I suppose people get the idea."
"Hell, you and Hermione get along, too, you know. I wonder why they're not running around yelling 'Ron and Hermione,' except maybe the double 'h' thing sounds better." Harry jammed his hat on his head. "I've got to get to the library. My essay isn't even started yet."
"All right. Later."
As Harry ran down the stairs, he found himself grinning inanely. Leave it to the Slytherins to bring things to a head. Maybe Ron was starting to realize things, finally. Harry was wondering just when his best friend would wise up about his feelings for Hermione.
++++++++++++++
An hour later, he began to wonder. Three girls had already stopped by his table where he was scribbling down notes, and each one of them had asked if he was dating Hermione. He was seriously considering attaching a parchment to his robes reading: "NOT going out with Hermione," when the girl herself came in.
As always her hair was brown and bushy, and she was carrying at least twenty books by the look of it. She had an expression of frustration her face that echoed what he was feeling at the moment. When she saw him, she waved, went to return the books, and returned, sliding in the chair opposite him.
"Harry—"she hissed. "Do you KNOW what people are saying?"
"Oh, I don't know, something about you and me going together?" Harry returned, dryly. "I've only had a hundred visitors in the last hour." He eyed two girls doing a bad job of hiding behind the nearest shelf of books. "And Ron brought it up before I came down here."
Hermione's eyes went wide. "What? Ron's heard it?"
"Yeah. I didn't believe it was really that serious, but then—"
"The Slytherins started the rumor, Harry. I just know it. Pansy Parkinson and her lot—"
"But why? That's so old, that rumor."
"I was thinking the same thing, except then I remembered yesterday."
"Yesterday? What has that got to do…?"
"Remember? We were talking about …" Hermione's voice lowered conspiratorially. "A certain godfather of yours, and we noticed Goyle's feet poking out around the corner?"
"Sure I remember! I still don't get it, though."
"Then we went to the garden and sat on the bench, and remember passing Pansy and a group of Slytherins along the way there?"
"Right." Harry's green eyes widened. "Right!"
"And we were whispering back and forth, just in case. Maybe from the back it looked like…"
"Oh." Harry got a sinking feeling in his stomach. "You know, I think Ron kind of believes it too. He looked really upset."
"That's just what I need," she muttered, sighing. "I hope we don't get into another row like the last time he was being stupid."
"You think he'd believe it, even if we told him it was a lie?"
"Do you remember the Triwizard Tournament? Ron goes off whenever…." Hermione stopped abruptly. "Oh, never mind. I'm sure it's nothing. Why would Ron be upset?"
Harry suppressed a smile. "I'm sure he hates to think we're doing stuff behind his back. We ARE his best friends, you know."
"Right. I'm sure that's it."
Harry, however, knew exactly why his best friend was upset. He wondered just how long both Ron and Hermione could remain blind to their feelings for each other.
In the meanwhile, he and Hermione would have to be careful about what they did in each other's company.
++++++++++++++++
Both together and singly that had explained it to Ron, and the redhead seemed to understand how the Slytherins had started the rumor. However, it didn't make it easier to endure by any of them.
Between Malfoy making "kissy" faces at them during every meal and potions class, and seemingly every girl at Hogwarts asking to reconfirm that, indeed, they were NOT going out together, the next week was frustrating and tiresome.
Harry was trying to endure as best as he could, and Hermione was typically cool under fire, refusing to even acknowledge any of it. Ron, however, was going at a slow burn. At meals, his face would take on a stony look, but his eyes would be glinting in anger each time a herd of girls traipsed up to get the scoop on the "relationship."
Harry wondered just how much of this Ron could take before he blew up. Of all the Weasleys, Ron seemed to have inherited his mother's temper, and Harry knew by experience that he'd rather face a nesting dragon than an angry Mrs. Weasley.
Hermione seemed to realize this too, because every once in a while she would cast a worried glance in Ron's direction as his temperature rose. Harry secretly wondered just how much Hermione really comprehended about the true source of Ron's anger. Did she really think it was just righteous indignation that his friends were being made fun of? As another teenager, Harry could sympathize with Ron on a deeper level. He remembered just how miserable and jealous he had been when Cho had chosen to go to the Yule Ball with Cedric Diggory, and how it felt to know that the girl he liked didn't like him. With Ron, having people lump the girl he liked with his best friend must be burning him up inside, on top of the fact that it was the Slytherins' fault, and it was making all three of them miserable.
"It will all pass eventually," Hermione assured them, glancing at Ron's murderous expression as they left dinner on the fifth evening, having endured yet more indignities. "Remember Rita Skeeter?"
"Too bad we can't put Malfoy in a jar," Ron muttered darkly as he walked ahead of them.
Hermione gave Harry an alarmed look.
"Ron, I'm sure Hermione is right. A lie can only last so long, without a truth to prove it."
"Truth?" Ron sighed. "Yeah." A couple of paces forward, and suddenly he stopped. "Harry! Of course, the truth!"
"Don't tell me you have an idea?"
"Sure I do!" Ron turned to Hermione. "Let's give them a truth, then."
"What?" Hermione asked, puzzled by Ron's strange behavior.
"Hermione, go out with me," Ron continued on blindly.
Harry winced. Uh oh.
A silence. "What?" Hermione asked in a slow monotone that even Harry could interpret as dawning anger.
"It's the perfect solution! If you go out with me, then people won't be thinking about you and Harry!"
Harry winced again, stepping carefully from between the two of them.
"Is this some kind of game to you?!" Hermione yelled, and Ron's face went very white as the redhead began to realize just how awkwardly he had gone about it. "Just toss my feelings around between you and Harry, is that it? Common property, am I?"
"Well, no…" Ron stumbled, looking thunderstruck at her reaction.
"If I wanted a boyfriend, Ron Weasley, I certainly don't need YOU to sacrifice yourself! You think I'm that desperate, that no one would want me except as some…deception, some second choice??"
Ron's mouth dropped open and Harry could see him connecting this nightmare to the one following the Yule Ball, where Hermione had finally let him know exactly what she thought of him treating her like a "last resort." That row had been their worst.
Ron, finally showing some wisdom, shut his mouth. Harry let out a breath and hoped that his friend would keep it shut until he had THOUGHT a little more.
"What?" a sneering voice drawled from behind him. "Granger, are these two SHARING you, now?"
Harry spun around, Hermione stared, and Ron slowly turned his head. Draco Malfoy stood there, grinning, with his usual hulking bodyguard of Crabbe and Goyle flanking him.
"Best of both worlds, eh, Mudblood? One has money, the other has the connections… wonder what that would look like, though, all three together, or taking turns…?"
Harry's mouth dropped open at the sheer nerve and nastiness, for a moment unable to conceive that Malfoy had actually meant what he had just said. Hermione's outraged gasp turned into a scream:
"Ron! NO!!"
Ron's lanky form blurred past him and straight at Malfoy, so fast that he was on top of the blond Slytherin before anyone could react, and was already landing a punch when Crabbe reached down and tried to pull him off.
Hermione Granger, who never participated in fights even if they were well deserved, ran up and grabbed Crabbe from around his neck, attempting to pull HIM off of Ron. Harry dived in to help the best he could by diverting Goyle.
It was inevitable that such pandemonium mere steps from the main hall would bring on the attention of the teachers, and sure enough Professors McGonagall and Snape came pelting from different directions, shouting for the end of the ruckus.
Finally when everyone was separated and injuries tallied, Malfoy came out the loser with a black and blue eye and a split lip. Malfoy in return had managed to hit Ron on the cheekbone and deliver some scratches. Crabbe had received scratches from Hermione. Goyle and Harry had managed to hit each other only once.
House point deductions and detentions later, Malfoy was off to the Madame Pomfrey, and everyone else sent off to doctor themselves. News of the fight traveled fast, and by the time Harry, Hermione and Ron were entering the Gryffindor common room, there was a large collection of compatriots ready to applaud Ron, including Fred and George.
"Didn't think you had it in you!" Fred congratulated, pounding his younger brother on the back. "Wished I could be the one to knock out that little ferret!"
"We didn't have time to nick some food for the occasion," his twin, George admitted with some regret, "but I'm sure this deserves our cache of Honeydukes candy at the very least."
While everyone seemed to think it was a great excuse to celebrate, Hermione seemed to think differently. She went and got a cold cloth for Ron's cheek, then left for the girl's dormitory without a word.
Ron gave Harry a miserable look that communicated more than his physical suffering.
++++++++++++++
By the time Harry decided to go to bed, Hermione still had not returned to the common room.
However, Harry had a very happy dream.
Ron was sitting by the fire by himself, and it was late. All the Gryffindor celebrants had dragged off to bed, but the redhead was too depressed and aching from the fight to think of sleeping. The scratches on his neck had stopped actively bleeding, but the cloth came away red every time.
A whisper of fabric made him turn his head.
Hermione, in a blue satin robe and matching slippers, was standing at the base of the stairs that led up to the dormitories. She looked uncertain, and had a box in her hands.
The cloth in Ron's hand fell to the floor. Startled, he stared at her.
"Does it still hurt?" she asked finally.
He blinked, seemed to think for a moment, then said, " A little."
Slowly she approached and pulled up a chair. "Did you disinfect those scratches?"
Wordlessly he shook his head. "Disinfect?"
"Oh, I don't know the magical term for it yet. You know, treat them so they don't get infected."
"Uh, no."
She unlatched the box on her lap. "I know this is old fashioned and everything, but I have bandages and ointments here." She waited, looking at him.
"That would be fine," he said mildly, thinking out every word, afraid that one wrong move would wipe this fine peaceful moment from reality.
She pulled her chair closer and turned his face toward the light of the fire. "I can't do anything about that bruise."
"'S all right," he mumbled, feeling his face go red.
She rummaged through the box and pulled out a tube. He eyed it dubiously but knew now to keep his mouth shut.
He was soon rewarded. "I'm sorry I yelled at you," she said, her eyes carefully trained on where she was applying the antiseptic ointment. "I figure it was me Malfoy heard, yelling loud enough to raise the dead."
"Oh no, you have to yell much louder to raise the dead," Ron defended her staunchly. "You weren't even using a Sonorus spell."
Hermione choked. Concerned, Ron glanced down at her, and was relieved to see she was smiling and chuckling. "That's good to know," she said.
"Well, you know, Hermione, uh, I can kind of see why you yelled."
She was silent as she finished with the ointment, wiped her fingers and sat back. "Can you?" she asked, then gave him a serious look.
"Y-yes, I think so. I didn't mean it how it sounded, you know. It's not like…the Yule Ball. You're not a last resort."
She continued to look at him calmly. "I'm not?"
"Uh, no."
She seemed to be waiting for him to say something more.
"It wasn't a deception I was thinking of. I actually wanted it to be the truth." Seeing her frown of puzzlement, he quickly added: "Going out with you, you know, for true."
Her eyes widened. "You do…want to go out with me…not just to stop the rumors about Harry and me?"
He leaned is chin on his hand, and stared at the fire. "It just seemed easier to do it that way, you know, say 'hey Hermione, let's do it for this reason' then to actually tell you that…I like you."
"Ron," she said, slightly choked.
"I know I was being stupid about it. You were right to yell. I should have thought before I said anything like that. I guess it isn't very romantic to be asked out that way…"
"Ron."
"The thing is, I was sure you liked Harry better. I mean, he's a better wizard, and you're a smart witch…"
"Ron!"
He snapped his mouth shut and straightened, afraid to turn and see her expression. Once again, his mouth had run on ahead of him. Slowly he turned his head.
Hermione was staring at him, her dark eyes wide and gleaming. "You make me so mad sometimes," she said in a quavering voice. "Do you really think of yourself as less than Harry or me?"
He swallowed. "Sometimes."
Tears spilled and slid down her cheeks but she didn't seem to take note of them. "You're not less, Ron, because we all have a part that makes us perfect for each other. Harry has the power, and I have my brain and do you know what you have?"
"My temper?"
She hiccupped a laugh. "Yes, well, but mostly you have honesty, courage and perseverance. You're the greatest part of Gryffindor. In other words, you have the greatest heart."
Ron shook his head. "No, Hermione. I've been a real bastard to both you and Harry in the past."
"But that's just because you forget to be a little less honest. I mean, I really WAS a horrible show-off that first year. And to anybody's eyes, Harry DID seem to want to be in the Triwizard Tournament. If you made mistakes, it's because you think less of yourself and that blinds you."
"Blinds …me?"
"Do you really think I wanted to go out with Harry?"
Ron just shook his head, knowing better than to say anything incriminating.
"Why, because he's famous? You think I care about fame? I said yes to Viktor Krum, Ron, because YOU DIDN'T ASK ME."
He stared at her, shocked.
"You're so caught up with how much less you think you are, that it stops you from seeing the plain truth."
"…truth?"
"You expected me to find someone more famous, more rich, who had more of everything but what's really important! Who cares about all that? Malfoy is rich and from a high family; do you see me going out with HIM?"
"Malfoy's a git!"
"Exactly!"
Ron blinked, taken aback. "But, Hermione…"
"I think you have the best family in the world, and they're not rich. I think you're great, yourself. It's not riches or fame or popularity. It's the heart. And Ron, you've got a lot of heart."
He stared at her, hard. "Hermione," he managed.
"Now will you please ask me correctly?" she asked, and wiped at her cheeks.
"Will you go out with me?" he asked in a strangled voice.
She smiled. "Yes, I will."