finally, another story! i've had this in mind for a few weeks, but i haven't had time to get it down. i, technically, still don't. i have homework and a big game tomorrow, so i put that off to write for fanfictionnet.

oh well.

There.

I said it.

A world-class Quidditch player is more attainable to me than a tall, gangly redhead.

No, you don't have to believe it. I don't myself. When I first saw Viktor, I viewed him—ignorantly—as everyone else in the world did. Unhuman. Superhuman. I didn't even have to care about Quidditch or stupid wonky faints to know that he was an almost unnaturally good player. That sort of talent placed him above everyone else, above bookish Hermione Jane Granger's bushy head.

Yet he asked me to the Yule Ball in spite of my giggly peers following around like a burgundy parade.

I told him I would consider it. So here I am. Thinking about it. Considering. What I supposedly do best, according to my Year. I haven't been in more of a pickle in my life.

Now, walking down the halls from the library, I remember when Professor McGonagall first announced the Yule Ball over a month ago. While most everyone launched into either extreme of the spectrum (utter despair or total elation), I remember just the one thought:

'Oh, God, now he has to get a hold of himself.'

I don't think I need to say who I was thinking about. But it shocked me, because then I realized that I fancy my best friend. A little.

A lot.

I felt pathetic. I fell right into that cliché. After not saying anything for the rest of that class period (I think all of the others assumed I was just as preoccupied with the dance as everyone else), I took sick leave from Care of Magical Creatures and hurried up to my dorms.

(For the record, I didn't skip Care of Magical Creatures. I really felt ill. I don't think I could have handled being around Blast-Ended Skrewts, for fear the smell would make me vomit.

Also, I didn't want to get mad at Ron just because I realized I fancied him. That'd be unfair to him.

You have to realize that it was an emergency, alright?)

So, that fateful day, as I sat, contemplating what may as well have been the meaning of life, I realized two things: first, I like Ron, for reasons I couldn't imagine, and I've liked him for a long time. (Why did I have to fall in love with the immature one, honestly, this whole ordeal would be so much easier if it were Harry.)

Second, that I needed to find a way to get him off of his arse to ask me. Never had Lavender and Parvati been such valuable roommates. Whereas I had previously just learned to tune them out, over the course of a month I had perfected eavesdropping on their gossip of who-asked-who or who-would-ask-who while pretending to read a book. The trick was to just turn a page every few minutes.

Once again, it was pathetic.

It's been hard, since that Transfiguration class, to get Ron to notice me while at the same time making sure no one knew. I can't lose my head, nor can it be obvious.

It's a losing battle, I decide as I reach the Fat Lady, with a week to go until Christmas and seemingly no headway made.

"Fairy lights."

Maybe I should cut my losses and go with Viktor. That's what Ginny said to me when I told her. He really was ever so sweet when he asked me yesterday. Romantic, if you went for that sort of thing. This thing with Ron simply isn't working, I decide as I clamber up the portrait hole. Instantly, I spot Ron, Ginny, and Harry sitting together. I do hope that Ginny's not still holding a torch for Harry.

"Why weren't you two at dinner?" I ask them as I approach, remembering their earlier absence. They don't answer right away—laughing over something—and Ginny seems decidedly miffed and answers for them.

"Because—oh, shut up laughing, you two—because they've both just been turned down by girls they asked the the ball!"

They both shut up. My eyes instantly go to Ron, simultaneously curious as to who he asked, angry at whoever it is, and grateful that he was turned down.

"Thanks a bunch, Ginny," he saysas I watched him, suddenly peeved at his ignorance.

"All the good-looking ones taken, Ron?" My voice is cool referring back to his earlier comment. "Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she? Well, I'm sure you'll find someone somewhere who'll have you."

It was that comment, sarcastic and aimed to kill, that finally getshim off his arse.

"Hermione, Neville's right—you are a girl..."

"Oh, well spotted," I snap. However much I want him to notice me, I'm not grateful for how he just did so. A last resort. A back-up plan.

Excuse me, but I still have my dignity.

"Well—you can come with one of us!"

"No, I can't," I reply. Won't.

"Oh, come on." He waves me off. "we need partners, we're going to look really stupid if we haven't got any, everyone else has..."

I resist the urge to tell him that he's stupid no matter how he looks.

"I can't come with you," I repeat, feeling both uncomfortable and defiant, "because I'm already going with someone."

"No, you're not! You just said that to get rid of Neville!"

That hard to believe, is it? So this whole month has been a waste, a stupid waste, me being some pathetic starry-eyed little girl – oh, he's going to get it...

"Oh, did I? Just because it's taken you three years to notice, Ron,, doesn't mean no one else has spotted I'm a girl!"

Ron grins at me, and I feel my stomach both leap and clench, in both excitement and anger. I hate this, really; if only I could rewind to that thought, that one thought, I could convince myself it was just a passing thing. Then this wouldn't be happening.

"Okay, okay, we know you're a girl. That do?" It most certainly doesn't. "Will you come now?"

"I've already told you!" I feel even more furious than before; does he honestly think that would work? "I'm already going with someone else!"

Now I am.

I turn heel, and march away from him, seeing red as I fling the portrait hole open.

My destination?

The library. I need to tell Viktor Krum that I'm going to go to the ball with him.

so it starts...