Author's Notes: I want to say that this started out as a class assignment and ended up as a fanfic. I would like to thank me beta (Gypsy Lupin-Black) for her wonderful work... Oh and if you really are reading this please review!!!
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter and company but I wish I own Ron!!!
The NoteI couldn't believe what I was about to do. The moment I had been dreaming about since I was a little girl. I was going to start IT, not the boy like in my dreams. I walked across the grounds with all my courage- which wasn't much- smoldering in the pit of my stomach.
"Hi, Ron!" I said as calmly as I could. He was talking to Harry when I walked up and when Harry saw the look of determination on my face, he raised his eyebrows at me and slunk away. I began to regret ever telling Harry that I fancied...okay, loved Ron.
Ron glanced where Harry had been standing and then turned back and chilled me with his icy blue eyes. I felt my face burn with embarrassment of nothing in particular. Then he grinned that cocky grin that makes you feel like he knows everything that's going on in your head.
"Um..." I paused as I tried to think of something, anything, "You played really well today." I said then cursed internally, he would talk forever about Quidditch. He'd been on the team for all of one year, I would never be able to turn the subject around to the Halloween Ball and then to me, Hermione Granger, asking the love of my life, Ron Wealsey, out.
"Yeah, well there were-" He was interrupted by the sharp sound of the bell.
"Potions class!" Harry said in a sing-songy voice with a grimace on his face as he when through the doors.
"Damn it!" I muttered under my breath and Ron looked at me as we rushed inside the castle and downstairs to the dungeons.
"Shame, shame, 'Mione, you just cussed." Ron laughingly said with a lopsided grin.
Ron and I quietly took our seats in the back between Harry and Neville. Professor Snape stalked to the front of the class just as the last bell rang out through the school.
"Good afternoon." Snape said crisply as he began to write down the potion recipe on the blackboard.
I couldn't concentrate; I had to tell him, to ask him. I grabbed a scrap of parchment from my bag and a quill and scratched down the first thing that came to my mind. I folded it and slid it across the long table.
"Miss Granger! What was that? A note, you just passed to Mr. Wealsey?" I heard Snape's oily voice float across the room. I looked up with my eyes as large as dinner plates. My cheeks started to burn and I had the feeling that my face looked like Ron's bright red hair.
"Bring the note here, Miss Granger!" He commanded me.
"B- but sir-" I stuttered, my eyes getting larger every moment.
"Bring the note here, Miss Granger!!" Snape repeated with a stricter tone.
I stumbled up to the front of the dungeon classroom. Numbly I handed the note to him. He snatched the scrap of parchment out of my hand.
"Since you seem so adamant to share what you wrote, I'll read this to the whole class." Snape sneered at me as I felt a knot settle in the pit of my stomach.
"Hmmmm...let's see what we have here. Oh... Miss Granger this is very interesting." Snape smiled like a Cheshire cat. The knot in my stomach tightened even more.
"Well class, listen to this:
'Ron, I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to come out with it. I really, really fancy you. From the first time I saw you with that big dirt mark on your nose. And if you don't like me like that, then it's okay. I just couldn't keep this a secret anymore.
Hermione'
What do you think class?" Snape smiled even wider than before.
I couldn't take it anymore. The next moment I ran and burst from the room. I ran and ran and found myself at the hospital wing. I bluffed to Madame Pomfrey that I had thrown up and couldn't go to anymore of my classes today. She tsked, gave me some painkillers and left.
For three hours, I lay there thinking about the note, the shocked red face of Ron. Everything... I replayed it in my head over and over, and then I started coming up with possible solutions about what could happen. Every solution turned out with me alone and broken. I cried silently, tears wetting the pillow I lay on.
"Hermione... 'Mione, it's me Ginny. I came to see how you were doing. Harry told me what happened. Do you want to talk?" Ginny said as she sat down beside me on the hospital bed.
"I just don't know what to do anymore!" I whined, looking at my best friend, who incidentally was Ron's sister. "I tried to tell him and the worst possible thing happened!"
"Oh 'Mione, remember what it was like with me and Harry?" Ginny said a smile on her face.
"Ginny, you and Harry never fought like cats and dogs or had a letter confessing your love to him read in front of the whole POTIONS class!" I said as I bolted up to stare at her like she was crazy.
Ginny just smiled like she usually does when she knows something important but isn't going to tell you, even if you begged on your hands and knees.
"Come on 'Mione, let's go to dinner!" Ginny saw the cringe on my face, "We don't have to sit with Ron or Harry."
"But by now the whole school will know what happened." I said looking shamefully at the blanket that Madame Pomfrey had covered me with, thinking that I was asleep.
"So what! I'll be with you and if any on looks at you funny. I'll flog them... okay?" Ginny said, passion blazing in her eyes.
"Well, I don-" I started then looked at Ginny whose face had fallen, "Oh gosh, I guess I'll go but if one person says anything about IT I expect a flogging to happen!"
We joked as we walked out of the hospital wing and toward the dining hall. When the giant doors to the dining hall opened I expected everyone's head to turn and stare at me like I was some kind of wild animal. But I guess they were too busy stuffing their faces with food so they could run back to the common rooms to study and do their homework.
Ginny plunked down at the end of Gryffindor table, "Come on, Hermione, next to me." I plopped in between her and a big space where no one was sitting.
"See? No one's looking, just calm down and eat something. Thank the stars that today's Friday." Ginny said smiling just a little.
"Whatever...All I know is I'm going to have to transfer to another school by next week or be embarrassed for the rest of my life because Ron doesn't return my feelings!" I said as I watched Ginny calmly heap both our plates with food.
"Don't say that, Hermione! If you leave who's going to be my best friend?" Ginny said, knowing that my parents would never sent me to another school.
"Whatever!" I shook my head knowing that she was just making fun of me. I glanced up the Gryffindor table to see if I could spot a certain redheaded young man.
"Forget it 'Mione! He and Harry went to Quidditch practice... They sure are working hard this year!" Ginny said looking at me then back at her plate.
The rest of dinner was pretty much Ginny begging me to eat something. I wasn't really hungry even though all I had eaten that day was breakfast.
After dinner I stumbled back to the Gryffindor tower, then up to the room I shared with some other girls in my year. I mumbled a greeting to them, jumped into my bed (still in my school robes) and closed the curtains that hung around my bed. I could hear them laughing and whispering and couldn't take it, my temper was short that day. When I had walked from the dining hall to my room everyone I passed stared at me like I was going to jump at them and scream BOOO!!!
I whipped out my wand and put a silencing charm around my bed. Then I just sat there staring at my quilt.
My sleep was full of nightmares. I woke up and took the charm off my bed and climbed out. I grabbed a pair of jeans and a long sleeve shirt as I stumbled around the dorm room. I looked at the clock: 7:00am. No one would be up. I took a long, hot shower, then pulled on the clean clothes.
Since the sun was rising I decided to go for a nice, quiet walk. So I snuck out of Hogwarts without crossing paths with anyone prowling around the school also.
When I got far enough from school I sighed and sat with a tree at my back facing the murky lake. I liked this spot and from what Harry said so did the Marauders. I sat there just thinking about how my life had fallen apart in about five minutes. And all because I couldn't keep my feelings to myself like I had done the past six years.
"Soooo...... Did you hear the rumor?" I heard from behind me and couldn't even believe who it was, "This cute bushy haired bird is into this big redheaded wanker..." Ron started as I turned to look at him.
"Oh... um... Ron?!" I really couldn't speak, there was nothing happening in my head and my heart wanted to break from my chest and run away.
"Yeah, but 'Mione you haven't heard the rest," He said as he joined me on the ground and looked into my eyes, "The wanker fancies this girl back but he doesn't now how to tell her." He glanced down at his hands then back into my eyes and I finally noticed how red his face had gotten.
/It's now or never!/I thought as I looked at him.
"I think the wanker should just come out and tell the girl." I looked at him with a grin on my face.
"Okay, then..." He said as he squared his shoulders like he was gathering his courage.
"Hermione... I-I." Then he shook his head like he was organizing his thoughts.
"Ifancyyoutoo!" Ron said in one breath as his face turned a beat red.
"Pardon me?" I asked and silently added, /This is too good!/
Ron took a deep breath and began again slowly, "I fanc...ah hell..." Then he caressed my cheek and kissed me.
End
