A/N: Um... so this used to be "Acknowledging", as a stand-alone fic. But a while ago, I wrote a sort of prequel to it from Hermione's POV, because I think about GoF a lot (it's not like it's the book that made me start shipping RHr for real or anything).

I decided to post this one as a previous chapter instead of a separate story for the ones who wanted more, even if it won't be a multi-chapter but more of a series. I might write more, also as connected one-shots about fourth year, and post them as following chapters. But because I can't promise anything and it won't happen for a while in any case, I ask you to please don't demand that I do so. I started this one months ago and only finished it because of Romione Week on Tumblr, but I have other writings in line as well as real life stuff to work on. So while I really love and am grateful for reviews and people's continued interest in my fics, asking for more makes me kind of nervous. I'll write more, in time, don't you worry about it! :)

Summary: A discussion about dates for the Yule Ball doesn't go too well, but Hermione didn't know why she was so upset at first. Perhaps there was something she had yet to acknowledge about her feelings towards Ron Weasley.

Realizing

Hermione dropped her bag on top of her closed trunk more violently than was strictly necessary, causing her Potions book to jump out and fall with a thud onto the floor.

'Are you okay?' Lavender asked, stopping in the middle of rummaging through her own trunk and looking startled. Hermione hadn't seen her there, angry as she was.

'Fine,' she said, trying not to sound snappy. 'Don't worry about it.'

Lavender shrugged, grabbed what she had been looking for and left the room.

Hermione welcomed the solitude. She picked up her Potions book and left it next to her bag, then sat on her bed. She was not fine or even close to, thanks to one Ron Weasley and his sexist views on what would make a Yule Ball date worthy of him.

How dare he! Did he think he was some gift to the eyes, that he fitted the standards of male beauty himself? She knew, deep down, that he didn't think that much of himself, yet apparently he expected no less than that from the girl he should hope to take to the Yule Ball, as some sort of adornment he could flaunt.

She felt so insulted. Ron's tact and sensitivity towards other people fit comfortably in a thimble, but still… Didn't he have the sense to realize that Hermione herself didn't fit those beauty standards he so looked for in a girl? That he had been practically implying she wouldn't be asked by anyone, because no boy in his right mind would deem her attractive?

Admittedly, she hadn't made a lot of fuss about the Yule Ball. It sounded like it was going to be fun, but being best friends with two fourteen-year-old boys who hated that kind of stuff didn't exactly prompt her to get excited and talk dresses. And although she could do that with Ginny now, Hermione hadn't considered the part about dates to be something to worry about. Until now.

Harry was the only one of the three of them who had to go with a partner to open the ball, after all. She had an inkling as to whom he might want to invite but, worst case scenario, she had thought of suggesting Ginny to go with him as friends. That left Ron and Hermione, who weren't obligated to bring anybody, to go together, also as friends.

Except Ron wanted to take a real date and, obviously, Hermione just wouldn't do.

Ugh, she could picture him already! Ron and his dimbo of a date, some Fleur Delacour with porcelain skin, silky blonde hair, and blue eyes like his own, who wouldn't stop giggling and making little shrieky noises as they passed her friends. She could picture Ron, too, grinning stupidly at his good luck but walking triumphantly into the Great Hall, ignoring Hermione, his so-called best friend, as if she was some sort of—

Troll.

That was the word he'd used, wasn't it? The voice that repeated it now was Ron's, too, and Hermione's eyes filled with tears as she stared at her knees.

She hadn't understood why she was so upset at first, although she knew it wasn't just about Ron's pretentious, boyish views. There had been something running deep that she couldn't quite get a hold on to, like when you wake up and try to remember a dream and you just know there was something else, something you're missing. Something you're not admitting to yourself.

As she imagined Ron, though, she finally saw it clearly for a moment, as if lit up by a flash of lightning that would leave everything in the dark again in seconds.

She had assumed she would go with Ron as a natural event, but she had also been looking forward to going with Ron. She'd thought the three of them and Ginny could have fun all together, but Harry would have to dance with Ginny at some point. Then Hermione and Ron would be alone, and they wouldn't just go sit down while everyone was dancing, would they? She hadn't imagined it as being a date-date, nothing even close to romantic… They would go as friends.

But when she pictured his stupid grinning face, it didn't look stupid at all. He would look besotted, and actually happy to be there. And for a moment—that was it, the flash of lightning—she looked at the girl next to him again and it was herself.

Hermione got up and walked dispiritedly to the shared dressing table, looking at her reflection in the ancient mirror. She raised a hand at her mass of brown hair, feeling the layer of frizz surround her head like a halo.

No, Ron wouldn't grin stupidly for her. Hermione was a troll, after all. She was not going to change, for him or for anyone; she wasn't going to add to her routine hair masks and foundation and strict diets for a boy. That had been part of the reason why going with Ron to the Yule Ball would have been so much simpler. He didn't need her hair to be sleek and shiny, her teeth to be small and her skin to be unblemished to like her. He liked her as she was, at her best and worst. Her beauty or lack of was not the foundation of their friendship. She would have put on make-up and her new dress robes for the occasion—she would still do it, even if nobody else invited her—but at the end of the day, Ron would know the person he was going with, and she would, too.

For months she had been trying to figure out some things, certain patterns she had observed in herself. Like the feeling in her stomach she'd had when Ron invited her to his house a couple of days earlier than Harry in the summer, or the way she sometimes caught herself looking at him for a bit longer than she ought to, or how she replayed even their silliest arguments in her head, and she claimed to herself she hated having that pointless, constant bickering with him, but at the same time it was sort of stimulating. Some part of her stubbornly insisted that she hadn't really known the answer this time, that she was only now realizing what it meant, while the rest of her whispered she'd only been fighting it.

Ron liked her as she was only because he saw her as a friend, while Hermione… she couldn't say the same anymore.