Author's Note: All of the memories that Ron and Hermione recall are excerpts from books 3, 4, and 5, but switched around so that they're from Ron or Hermione's point of view.

JKR owns it all!

To Tell the Truth

The subway whizzed through its tunnel, rocking the people within from side to side as it made its steady progress. Hermione sat among them, her trunk balanced next to her, and Crookshanks in his basket on her lap. The train was carrying her slowly but steadily toward Grimmauld Place, where she would be staying for the remainder of the summer. She was not entirely sure if she was excited or nervous about going, nor was she very sure why she would be nervous anyway, but she was impatient to get there all the same. Being Hermione, however, she could easily pass the time by reading. At that moment she was trying to immerse herself in a large and very heavy book, but was finding it distinctly difficult. Three paragraphs before she had been, as usual, completely absorbed—but three paragraphs before there had been no mention of rats.

"Add two unicorn hairs," the book had said,"and stir for three minutes and thirty-seven seconds before adding the rat eyeballs. This will give the hairs enough time to dissolve, giving the potion the very strange quality of…."

And then she had stopped. Rats …

She looked up. She was not certain why, but she suddenly thought of Ron. A warm feeling grew inside her at the thought of her freckly-faced friend, and she could not help but yearn to see him again. Impatiently she cursed the subway for being so slow, and wished she could charm it to make it go faster. Be patient, Hermione, she thought. Just read your book. And she would have just gone back to reading again, but there was the word "rat" staring at her in black and white, and that same image of Ron burst clearer than ever back into her mind. Strangely, she fought against the memory of him, much as she wanted to think about him. At last, however, she realized she could not be distracted by her book, and she reluctantly let her mind carry her back to that time, almost three years ago now, when a rat had been a very big topic between Ron and herself….

She was walking up the corridor towards the Fat Lady's portrait, trying with all her might to suppress the tears. Despite her anger towards Ron for accusing her cat of eating Scabbers, she had to find him. And there he was, coming down the hall in the opposite direction, along with Harry. Now was the time for forgiveness.

"Come to have a good gloat?" said Ron savagely when she had stopped in front of him. "Or have you just been to tell on us?"

Assuming that Ron had mistaken her look of horror for a look of anger at Harry for sneaking into Hogsmeade again, she shook her head.

"No." She held out the letter as her lip began to tremble with sorrow. "I just thought you ought to know … Hagrid lost his case. Buckbeak is going to be executed."

Harry looked at her in surprise, and Ron's face changed from anger and resentment to surprise and a different kind of anger—an anger at the Malfoys for being so cruel.

"He—he sent me this," she continued, holding out the letter.

Harry took it, and he and Ron began to read quickly.

"They can't do this," said Harry after he had finished. "They can't. Buckbeak isn't dangerous."

"Malfoy's dad's frightened the Committee into it," said Hermione, wiping her eyes to keep any tears that appeared from flowing down her cheeks. "You know what he's like. They're a bunch of doddery old fools, and they were scared. There'll be an appeal, though, there always is. Only I can't see any hope…. Nothing will have changed."

"Yeah, it will," said Ron fiercely, looking Hermione straight in the eyes. "You won't have to do all the work alone this time, Hermione. I'll help."

"Oh, Ron!"

Before Hermione knew what had happened she had broken down completely and was holding on to Ron as tightly as she could. Ron, looking quite terrified, patted her very awkwardly on the top of the head. There was a very uncomfortable moment between them in which Hermione felt like saying a hundred things, but finally settled on only one. At last she drew away.

"Ron, I'm really, really sorry about Scabbers …" she sobbed, feeling thankful that the awkward moment was over.

"Oh—well—he was old," said Ron, looking thoroughly relieved that she had let go of him. "And he was a bit useless. You never know, Mum and Dad might get me an owl now."

Hermione sighed as she came back to the present, glancing about her at her fellow passengers. Thinking about Ron was a funny thing. Even now, when she was miles away from her freckly companion, she could almost hear his voice.

"We should get a move on, you know … ask someone. He's right. We don't want to end up with a pair of trolls."

Hermione let out a sputter of indignation at Ron's horribly rude name for a dance partner for the Yule Ball.

"A pair of … what, excuse me?"

"Well—you know," said Ron, shrugging. "I'd rather go alone than with—with Eloise Midgen, say."

Hermione blinked. She felt slightly stung by his words. She had never considered herself pretty.

"Her acne's loads better lately—and she's really nice!"

"Her nose is off-center," said Ron.

"Oh I see," Hermione said, bristling. "So basically, you're going to take the best-looking girl who'll have you, even if she's completely horrible?"

"Er—yeah, that sounds about right," said Ron.

"I'm going to bed," Hermione snapped, sweeping off toward the girls' staircase. She had half a mind to say more to Ron, but could not find words strong enough to express her anger, or resentment, or whatever it was she was feeling.

She was startled to find that she half-wished he asked her to the ball. But he hadn't. Well, not until it was too late at least. Someone else had gotten to her first.

She was in the library studying her Potions notes when suddenly she heard the familiar giggling. Viktor Krum's fan club, she thought. Again.

But then the giggling stopped, and Hermione looked up. The girls were staring, not at Viktor, but at herself. For a moment she wondered if she had something on her face, but then she realized that they were also staring at Viktor, because he had come over to her table.

"Could I haff a vord?" he asked quietly.

Hermione, taken aback, replied, "Sure."

Krum took her hand roughly and lead her away from his fan club, giving them one of his famous scowls. The girls frowned and stalked off. Once they were gone, he turned to Hermione.

"Vould you vont to come to the ball vith me?"

It was so abrupt and he had said it so quietly that Hermione didn't know what to say at first. He stared straight into her eyes, his hand still around hers. Once she'd gotten over the shock of someone asking her—her, not one of the ditsy pretty girls in his fan club, but her—she began to consider it.

She was surprised to find that her first thought was Ron. What she would give to have him here, holding her hand and looking into her eyes like that, asking her to the ball! But this was not Ron, and what a silly thought, to wish that Ron were asking her. Ron was just her friend, her very, very good friend. So she answered "yes," much as that strange half of her wanted to answer, "no, Ron's taking me." But Ron did not ask, she thought, nor would he, so she put him out of her mind.