Hey!

This is my submission for the Diagon Alley Christmas challenge (I'm sorry I'm so late!)It's also a request to write a story based on Wrapped in Red, by Kelly Clarkson (this is for you, Heather!) It's also my first Christmas story and my first Ron/Hermione. Please R&R and tell me what you think :) I'd suggest that you don't listen to the song until after you read this.

Hermione leans her head against the wall. It's Christmas Eve, and she's spending it with the Weasleys. It's the first Christmas she's ever spent apart from her parents, except for her Christmas in Godric's Hollow with Harry, but this year the Weasleys had invited her expressly, and she thought she had better come.

Harry is here, and she is glad to see him. They talk and laugh together, Harry and Hermione and Ron. It's so strange, to talk to one another, spend time in each other's company, and not have pressing worries like the fate of the world on their shoulders or such. The memory of the war and of all they went through together is stuffed in the back of her head. There is beauty and triumph there, but there is so much pain, and death, and destruction, and lost things that she can never get back.

The Weasleys embody that thought. They smile, the mood is cheerful, but there is a hole, and George does not laugh. He may never really recover, Hermione thinks. And once again, as she often does, she reflects on how horrible war is.

"You look a bit blue, Hermione," Ginny remarks. The youngest Weasley has thrown herself into the festive mood with a vigor. She holds George's hand and hugs her mother when Molly sheds a stray tear. She is strong, and she is there for everyone. Including Harry. Hermione wonders what Harry would do if he didn't have Ginny; she is his rock. He loves her, perhaps more than he has ever loved anybody, and she knows it; Hermione can see it in the way they look at each other and speak to each other.

She is not jealous of them. But she wants what they have, oh, so much.

He is the one who asked her to come. But he has not said more than ten words to her since she arrived, not to her and only her. Oh, he's talked with her and Harry, but she has yet to see him look her in the eye and speak to her like she's his world, like Harry does with Ginny.

Forgetting the war has its downsides, because the war was what had brought them together. And now it is over, and they are suddenly miles away from each other. She looks across the room at him, and he avoids her eyes. Her heart aches, and she wants to leave. She loves him, oh, how much. And he loves her, there is no doubt, or at least he had once. If he has stopped loving her - but she cannot even think of that.

"Hermione?" Ginny asks, and her voice is laced with concern.

"Oh! I'm fine," Hermione says, and she tries to smile. Ginny doesn't press the matter, and Hermione is grateful.

Ron tries to think of a color for this holiday.

When he was little, he'd thought of everything as a color. Yellow was happiness to him, blue was sadness, green was beauty, silver was wealth. Such is the way a child thinks. Now he is older and there are so many more emotions and so many more colors. There is grey for pain and purple for fear, and black for the nameless monster that they called Death.

But he cannot place the color of the mood tonight, and somehow he doesn't want to.

He is miserable, and there is no reason for him to be. Of course it is difficult to face Christmas without his brother. Ginny does all she can to keep the mood light without making it seem fake, and somehow she succeeds. But this is different.

He knows why.

Hermione is here, and the whole house is different because of her presence.

They sit crowded at the small dinner table in the small dining room, and nothing has ever felt more like home to her. The Burrow has always had a way of making Hermione feel safe and happy, even when nothing was safe. She remembers the first time she ever came to the Burrow and almost wishing that she was a Weasley, because the family was so big and happy and so close to each other.

That feeling is quite strong tonight. There are times she's been here, at the dinner table in the Burrow, and wished she was Ron's wife. She wants to call Mrs. Weasley mum so badly, wants to see the faces around the table welcoming her as a member of the family and not just a friend, and most of all she wants to feel the happy pride of everyone else knowing that she loves him and he loves her.

And once again she thinks, as she has thought many times tonight, that if they could only really talk, and really tell each other how they felt, all this would be over and they would be together. But to do so will be a risk, because it might turn out horribly.

At that moment, she hears Ginny laugh and sees her look into Harry's face, sees Mr. Weasley squeezing his wife's hand and the look in her eyes as she turns to him, and she realizes that nothing is worth more than the kind of love they have for each other.

And so she decides: she will risk it, because it's worth it, because she can't stand life as just Ron's friend.

Hermione is still wide awake. She can hear Ginny breathing softly from the other side of the room, as she has been for hours. And still Hermione can't sleep.

Finally she decides it's no use staying in bed if she's not going to sleep, and so she rises and tiptoes from the room, going quietly so as not to wake Ginny, and makes her way downstairs.

And there, as she somehow knew he would be, is Ron, sitting on the couch and staring into the fire.

"Ron?"

He looks up, startled, then scoots down the couch to make room for her.

"You all right?"

"I couldn't sleep."

He nods. A silence stretches between them, a silence that screams. What is this between them? What is it that they have? Hermione feels a sudden burning behind her eyes, and she feels strangely tired. They've grown up together, shared countless firsts with each other, been through countless dangers together, and they can't carry on a deeper conversation than this?

And she decides, right here, right now, that it's time to end this.

"Ron," she says. "I want to tell you something. Just listen, okay?" She pauses, gathering her thoughts. She doesn't want to ruin this, but she knows that if she thinks about it too long, she'll lose her nerve.

"Look," she begins again, her heart hammering in her chest. Ron is watching her, looking puzzled. "I - I hate saying things like this, Ron. But one of us has to say it, and I know you never will. Ron, I think I'm in love with you, and I don't think I can stand things going on like they are much longer."

She stops at the look of shock on Ron's face. But strangely enough, though her heart is still pounding, she feels no regret for what she's said. It's up to him now, but it doesn't matter, because she's finally said it.

It is late, and he still can't sleep. Christmas is over, and he's in bed, trying to sleep.

His mind is still whirling.

Hermione, in so few, so simple words, said what he'd been thinking ever since she arrived.

And now everything is different. Even Hermione seems somehow different. It's as if he's never really seen her before as she is. Out of every Christmas present he'd received yesterday, the things she'd said the night before was what he treasured most. It was her present to him, in a way. She'd given him herself, wrapped up in red.

And suddenly he knows how he'll always think of this Christmas: red. Red for love and for everything she means to him.

This Christmas, I'm going to risk it all

This Christmas, I'm not afraid to fall

So I'm at your door with nothing more than words I've never said

In all this white you'll see me like you've never seen me yet

Wrapped in red

Thank you for reading, and Merry Christmas all.

-Kenzie