Author's Note: The characters belong to J.K Rowling; the plot belongs to me. That is all.
Bottling Things Up
Having just been given a foot-long potions essay on the uses of wolfsbane by Snape, Hermione was not at all surprised, although rather annoyed, to hear Ron say a word that Mrs Weasley would have smacked him round the head for saying, if she had heard. "Ron!" Hermione exclaimed, as she walked alongside both him and Harry towards the Gryffindor common room, where they planned to deposit their bags before going to eat in the Great Hall. "How many times do I have to tell you that I don't like that kind of language – especially from you!"
"I'm sorry… It's just –" Ron sighed, dreading writing the essay and not having the energy to take on Hermione at that moment in time.
"You're always sorry, Ron, and it's always just something." Striding off from the group, Hermione didn't once look back, hoping that her action would teach Ron a lesson. She was sick and tired of his abuse of the English language, and hoped that he'd stop if he saw how much he was upsetting her. Knowing that she wouldn't find out what effect she'd had on him until later, the young muggle-born witch headed straight for the Great Hall and ate her food quickly, managing to get out just as Harry and Ron arrived together, Ron looking down as she passed him without a word.
"What am I going to do, Harry?" Ron asked as they took their seats at the Gryffindor table.
"All you can do is apologise, I guess." Harry shrugged, smiling inwardly at his friend. He knew that they'd make it up, they always did after one of their little arguments. Seriously, they were like a married couple – in his opinion, anyway.
"But I've already apologised, and I've tried to stop, I really have. I don't know why she's getting so uptight about it anyway, it's not like she's an angel herself!" This was the stage during which Ron would be annoyed at Hermione, even though she had done nothing wrong. It soon blew over, though, and Ron would be back to thinking about a way to make things better between them. Why he and Hermione didn't just admit their true feelings for each other, Harry didn't know – she and Ron were certainly in love.
"I've got it! I'll do a spell!"
"I don't think that's such a good idea, you don't exactly have a very good track record when it comes to using magic – unless it's against Voldemort, and Hermione certainly isn't him." Harry smiled, but frowned with annoyance when Ron's face blanched at the mention of the Dark Lord. "Ron, seriously, when are you going to get over me using his name? Aren't you used to it by now?"
"Uh, yeah, sorry mate. I do think this'll work though, I even know what spell might work! There's this one that I heard Fred and George talking about once. You can work it so that when you say certain things it covers them up with over sounds so that no one hears them – you can even just make it work so that there's just silence when you say them."
"Well, if you're going to do something, and I'm not going to convince you otherwise, then I'd suggest using the latter. I don't expect that she'd be amused by strange noises, even if they were to cover up your language, which she'd then realise you were trying to use anyway."
"Right, let's go!" Ron stood up, brimming with excitement.
"But I haven't eaten yet!" Harry sighed, cast a longing look at his warm plate of food and followed his friend out of the Hall.
"See, Harry, it's easy. All I have to do is wave my wand and say that word and presto, no swearing and a happy Hermione." It was later and the two young wizards were sitting together in the library, Ron pointing at a spell he'd found and Harry looking at the clock, hoping he would have time to eat and shut up his stomach, which was growling relentlessly – so much so, in fact, that it brought him back to some of his times at the Dursley's, and the hunger he had felt then, locked in the cupboard under the stairs.
"Okay, then. Go for it." Harry replied, distractedly.
"Right. Here goes nothing." Ron read over the spell once more and then pulled his wand from his pocket and waved as directed, uttering a spell as he did so. "Corkus Expletio!"
"So, did it work?"
"Uh, I don't know."
"Well, test it."
"Right." Ron, after checking that the librarian wasn't anywhere close, swore as loud as he could and then covered his mouth with both hands, looking shocked. Thankfully, nobody seemed to have heard him so he lowered his hands and spoke to Harry. "Oops. I guess it didn't work."
"What do you mean? I didn't hear anything."
"Really?"
"Really, mate; it worked."
"Yes!"
"Yes, good, can we go now?"
"What? Yeah, sure. Let's do that."
Knowing that Ron was likely to head straight to Hermione and apologise again, Harry smiled at him and waved a goodbye, running ahead of him to get to the Hall before it was too late to eat. He made it on time, although barely just, and ate quickly – he had a funny feeling that he needed to get back before Ron made a fool of himself and he and Hermione ended up not speaking to each other for a week, or something like that.
He was right.
As Harry entered the Gryffindor common room, having muttered the new password to the Fat Lady, he found Ron and Hermione squabbling in the corner.
"You used MAGIC? What on earth were you thinking?"
"I was trying to make it up to you…"
"By using magic? Have you not learnt anything? Spells have consequences, Ron, and you don't know what the consequences of this one could be. Besides, a spell to cover up your habit of swearing? I wanted you to stop, not cover it up."
"I said I'm sorry, what more do you want?"
"I want you to think things through for once! I want you to be normal!" She wanted to not love him as much as she did, despite her anger, as she looked at his face, contorted into a look of disappointment. What right did he have to be disappointed, when it was he who had disappointed her? He really annoyed her sometimes, with his glowing cheeks and his goofy, handsome…
Huffing, Hermione, for the second time that day, turned on her heels and stormed out, this time heading for the girl's dormitories.
Harry walked up to Ron and placed his hand on his shoulder. It had barely rested there for a moment when Ron, whose eyes looked rather dilated, turned and left the room, heading up to his own dorm. Once he got there, he really put the spell to the test, as, in frustration, he let out a stream of expletives that would have made even the wildest redneck blush. Thankfully, no one heard him. The spell did its job.
When Harry himself went up to bed, having left Ron alone for as long as he could, he found his young friend had his curtains drawn around his bed. He was probably still awake, Harry thought, but left him alone.
Meanwhile, in the girl's dormitories, Hermione was sitting on her bed, looking up spells, trying to find the one that Ron had used. She might have been annoyed at him, but it was mostly out of concern. If she was honest, she did appreciate what he had tried to do, even if he did it in such a stupid manner. She looked through nearly all of her books that night, and she had a lot of them, before she finally found the spell. When she read the small print, she did the very thing that she was constantly telling Ron off for; she cursed.
The next morning, having not slept at all, Hermione dashed down to the Great Hall, where she found Harry sitting alone eating his breakfast. "Harry! Where's Ron?"
"He's just gone to get something, why?"
"Because I was right, once again. The spell does have a side effect, and a pretty bad one at that."
"Ah."
"You see, it works sort of like a bottle. The words do not disappear; they are contained in this 'bottle' and corked up so that no one hears them. Now, while that's all well and good, if someone says too many words in a short space of time, the bottle is overloaded and the cork pops."
"And when that happens—"
"Exactly."
Standing behind them, having heard everything that Hermione said, Ron's face turned white.
"Shit."
The word slipped through Ron's lips with ease, but rather than going unheard, it was amplified so that everyone in the Great Hall heard it. A sound like a pop, and then a hiss, filled the room, and suddenly Ron's voice echoed throughout the Hall, saying all sorts of rude words that no one was supposed to hear. Ron's ears glowed bright red, Hermione looked at him in shock, and everyone sat in silence, gob-smacked at the events which were unfolding.
When the ranting finally ceased, the room was filled with a deadly quiet. A minute passed, perhaps, and then another. All the while everyone sat motionless, somewhat stunned. Then someone laughed, and another joined in – within moments the Hall was filled with the laughter of students.
Slipping out of the Hall, Ron sat on his own on the grass, utterly embarrassed and angry with himself for doing the wrong thing again. He always did that; he was always upsetting Hermione.
Hermione followed him out, watching him as he attacked himself verbally, without the use of curse words. It seemed he had learnt his lesson – about time, too! She sat beside him quietly and waited for him to turn and look at her before she spoke.
"I'm sorry."
"You're sorry? Why? I'm the idiot that went and did a spell without thinking."
"And I'm the idiot that made you feel like you had to."
Ron tried to interrupt, to apologise again, but Hermione silenced him with a look.
"I shouldn't have spoken to you like that, you have the right to say anything you want, whenever you want. It's none of my business what you say. So, yeah, I'm sorry. I was wrong."
Ron looked at Hermione, stunned, and loved her even more in that moment than he ever had before.
"I'm sorry too. If it bothers you that much, I'll stop swearing. As long as we can be friends again."
"Well, maybe you can just cut it down a bit. For now." Hermione smiled, but on the inside she cried out with sadness and longing. Friends, the word cut into her like a knife. For that's all they were, friends.
Harry looked at the two of them across the fields, sitting together, almost touching, and sighed.
If anyone had listened hard enough, they would have heard Hermione's barely audible whisper.
"I love you."