Tangles

Hermione sat on the narrow bench before the dresser table, face red and swollen with crying. In her hands, limply held, was a brush with prominent metal teeth. She stared at the brush--as if expecting it to jump to life--and then at the rat's nest that was her hair. Actually, even a rat's nest had some order to it…her hair as it was now had no rhyme or reason.

"Hermione? You up here? Time for breakfast!" With a somewhat impatient tone in his voice, Ron knocked loudly on the door that separated the miserable wretch of a girl from the rest of the family. Before he could hear her watery protest, Ron pushed the door open, and started in on a tirade.

"Look, I know you want some time to be alone, but it's breakfast, and according to Mum, 'family time'. I'm practically starved, so will you just please throw on someth—Hermione? What's the matter?"

For at that moment, the girl had burst into a fresh round of tears, and sat there sobbing her eyes out. Ron stood, mouth agape, hands half outstretched to her, completely shocked. As he simply stood stock still, Hermione gasped out an explanation between heart-wrenching sobs.

"I simply cannot live one day more with this BLASTED head of hair! It will be the death of me! I'm going to take a razor to it, and shave it all off one day!" And to underscore her point, Hermione furiously flung the brush across the room, and collapsed into a little pile on the dresser.

At this, Ron assessed his options. He could only see two of them. He could make a beeline down the stairs, inform his mother that Hermione was terribly ill, and eat breakfast…or he could stay with his girlfriend, and help her get everything sorted out.

With a wistful sigh, thinking about those delicious sausages that awaited him down the stairs, Ron walked calmly across the room to pick up the discarded brush, and gently placed a hand on her heaving shoulder.

"We can fix this. I'll help you." Forcing a smile to his face, Ron gently began to brush the tangles out of the top layer of hair. The dreaded knots would lie in wait beneath the calm surface.

Slowly, Hermione raised her head from the dresser, and carefully wiped her streaming eyes with the palm of her hand. "And we won't have to shave it all off?" she asked, in a childish manner.

At this, Ron had to laugh. "No. You can keep your beautiful hair."

Hermione beamed at the compliment, and let Ron attend to her.

"How did it get this bad?" Ron had to comment when he got to the worst of it. Hermione was clenching her teeth, since the process was quite painful. However, something had to be done about the knots, and Ron was the man for the job.

"I don't know exactly. I forgot yesterday morning—the Quidditch match, remember?—and I just woke up like this." Grabbing a handful of the chestnut locks, Hermione took a long and doubtful look at the strands. "I think I have split ends."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Split ends supposedly make your hair tangle more easily. Yeah, see where that hair has split into two? Either I need to get a special treatment shampoo, or get my hair cut."

"You weren't serious about shaving it all off, were you?"

"No…why?"

"No reason."

"Because I'd look ugly? Is that it?"

Ron stopped his frenetic brushing for a moment. He knelt down so that he was at Hermione's level, and met her eyes in the dresser mirror.

"You are the most beautiful witch in the world. I would love you even if you were spear bald. I just don't want you to do something rash and regret it later."

Hermione's mouth formed a small "o" of surprise at this statement, before ducking her head in embarrassment.

"D-do you really mean that?"

"Yes. Of course I do."

"T-that may have been the s-sweetest thing you've ever said to me."

Unbeknownst to Hermione, Ron had burst into full grin, full of smugness as he recalled the last chapter in his book on picking up women. He had definitely scored some brownie points with her, and he really did mean what he said about her being beautiful, even as she sat before him with her matted mane.

He continued to work on the knots, wondering how women could live with such long hair. It had to be frustrating, and Ron could sense that this wasn't the first time this had happened.

After a moment, Hermione spoke up again, pain underlying every word.

"If it'll make the job any easier, there's some spray-in conditioner in the bathroom. Third drawer on the left. It's the big blue bottle."

"Can you do some of it yourself while I fetch it?"

"Ron, I've been doing this on my own for fifteen years now. I think I can handle it."

He hesitated, reluctant to leave her alone with the dreaded mess that was her head, but she seemed to have calmed down somewhat. He carefully set the brush down on the dresser, and went into the adjacent bathroom.

As soon as he shut the door, Ginny ran up the stairs, muttering slightly under her breath.

"…think he'd want to eat something at least…making me run up all these stairs for his lousy…swear he can't keep his hands off her for five minutes…"

She reached the bedroom door and threw it open, expecting to see the two lovebirds engaging in their new favorite pasttime. What she saw instead was a very flustered Hermione, trying in vain to detangle one very persistant knot at the nape of her neck. She looked terribly blotchy about the face, and her hair resembled a cross between a hay stack, Crookshanks' tail when he was frightened, and a very unkempt broomstick. She looked as if she had just rolled out of bed, and to make matters worse she seemed to be undoing her own work, if that were possible. Every strand she combed into submission simply retangled itself in a matter of seconds, almost like clockwork. Plus her already fatigued state caused her to grow frustrated, which in turn made her work sloppy. Ginny had never seen Hermione so on edge, not even during the final battle. It was frightening.

Just as Hermione turned to face her, on the brink of tears once more, Ron rushed in, barely acknowledging his sister.

"I'm here, I'm here. Sorry, it was buried under some Endless Gauze, and I had trouble remembering the right charm, and, well, you know how it is. Shhh, don't cry…it'll all be over in a minute or so."

Ginny was bewildered and perplexed. In all the time she had known Ron she had never seen him willingly face a distressed female, at least not with any grace or kindness. Yet here he was, soothing Hermione, aiding her in her time of need. It was almost touching, in a way.

"Um, Mum wanted to know what was taking you lot so long. Shall I go tell her you'll be a while yet?"

"Yeah, and could you bring up a coupla plates while you're down there? Thanks Ginny, you're a gem." Ron scarcely looked up as he spoke, almost his entire attention devoted to Hermione, who only slightly winced under his administrations.

Ginny nodded, a bit dumbfounded, and went thoughtfully down the stairs to the rest of her family.

"Well? What's going on up there?" demanded Mrs. Weasley, passing the scrambled eggs to Harry as she addressed her youngest. "They better not be engaged in some hanky-panky, or I'll…" She let the sentence drop threateningly, and shook a serving spoon at the ceiling.

"No, nothing like that. Ron's just helping Hermione with her hair. She seemed really upset." Ginny sat back down at her place next to Harry, still in a state of shock. "I've never seen him so…motherly."

"What? Really? The same Ron who hooked up with Lavender Brown to make Hermione jealous our sixth year? That Ron?" Harry looked at her in disbelief.

"The very same."

"Wow. You sure the ghoul didn't get any better looking, learn human speech, and take his place overnight?"

"Nah. It was definitely him. I've never seen anything like it."

"Well, I theenk eet iz about time leetle Ron knew 'ow to care for someone uzzer than 'imself," Fleur declared, tossing her long, silvery hair over her shoulder. "'e iz becoming a man."

Harry promptly finished his eggs and stood up. "I'm going up. I have to see this for myself."

"No need. I'm here." Ron pushed open the door, and took a seat across from Ginny. "Sorry for the delay, Mum. Hermione needed me."

"Deserted her, have you?" Harry slowly reclaimed his seat, staring across the table at his friend.

"No. We finally got her hair managed. I just left her alone to get dressed properly. Any sausage left?" Finally Ron noticed the stares boring into him from all sides. Even George, who had been morose and unresponsive all summer, turned to look in wonder at his younger brother. "What? Did you all finish it?"

"Ron dear? How upset was Hermione anyway?" Mrs. Weasley looked curiously at her son, head slightly tilted to the side.

"Er, pretty badly. She had been crying for ages even before I got up there. But I think I managed to smooth everything over. She should be fine when she comes down."

Again Ron became aware of the long stares he was receiving. "What? Is there a problem? Do I have something on my face?" Everyone was very quiet. Then, a slightly stifled sob broke the silence. Mrs. Weasley was tearing up.

"M-my sweet little boy is growing up!" With that, she stood behind him and planted a resonating smooch on the top of his head.

"Mum! Stop it! Why's everyone acting like something monumental just happened?" Mrs. Weasley only smothered him in a hug, and ran into the kitchen. "Has everyone gone mental?"

At that moment, Hermione entered the room. This only caused the decibal of silence to grow more profound. The stares of the entire room refocused away from Ron and his new maturity, and onto Hermione.

She looked beautiful. Her chestnut hair, now softly streaming down her back and over her shoulders, shone brightly in the morning light, and there was a spring to her step. She was dressed in pale yellow sundress, and a most beautific smile was plastered across her face. The only way one could tell she had been crying was by the redness about her eyes, which only seemed to draw more attention to the contentment that resided within them.

She lightly crossed the room in less than two steps, and stood next to Ron, who looked partially betwitched. She placed the first two fingers of her right hand under his chin, and tilted his head up. Leaning in, she resolutely kissed him.

Pulling away slowly, there seemed about them a dreamy look, as if they were the only two people in the world. The rest of the family could only gaze on in wonder.

"Thank you," she finally breathed, the sunshine smile reappearing in that instant. "What you did means a lot to me."

"Anytime." He replied somewhat hoarsely, food forgotten.

And all the while Ginny stared at the two of them, the sound of wedding bells already chiming in her ears.

--

Author's Note: Okay, admittedly this started out as "Hey, how romantic would it be if Hermione had hair troubles like I did, but instead of having to suffer through them alone Ron helped her out?"--and it sort of evolved from there.

I wrote out the first part about a month ago, but school got too demanding for me to finish. I found it last night, at about eleven, and said to myself "Wouldn't it be nice to pay homage to my favorite pairing in the whole wide world?" I dunno why or how I managed to throw in a tribute to Mrs. Weasley, Fleur, George, and the ghoul, but I'm glad I worked them in towards the end. I've been meaning to write a fitting Harry Potter fanfic for EONS now.

So here it is. My oneshot to the famous duo. I can only hope it won't be my last.