The three times Harry cock blocked and the one time he didn't. AU.

He saw her sitting in the far corner of the common room, her eyes flicking between a large and open book that looked too big to even fit on the table and an entire roll of parchment that she was scribbling furiously on. From the other side of the room, Ron could imagine her hand writing, it wouldn't look like a drunken sea horse had gone on a rampage across her work, like his would if he wrote that fast, but it'd be small and neat and perfect. Someone like that surely wouldn't say yes to him?

Ron jerked his shoulders, as if shrugging to himself. He'd just have to ask her. If she looked doubtful, he'd quickly add that it was only as friends, like it was what he'd planned all along. She wouldn't turn him down for going as friends and then he could ask her to dance and...but what about his dress robes? Would she be embarrassed to be seen with him, even if it wasn't a date? No, that wasn't Hermione. She was a bossy, muggle born know it all, she didn't care what people thought of her.

He was going to do it, he told himself firmly as he marched across the common room, but inside, he was far less confident. He could take rejection from Fleur Delecour, no matter how humilating it had been. She'd enchanted him, it wasn't his fault really and he didn't know her. Once the year was up, he'd never have to see her again. But Hermione...well, they were friends. Maybe it was a bad idea to ask her, even as friends. But Harry was in detention with Snape and it was one fo their rare moments alone. That was, if he could persuade his feet to take the last few steps towards her.

"Ronald, are you going to lurk behind me for the entire evening or do you plan on taking a seat?"

Her voice startled him and he felt warmth spread through his ears. What if she'd guessed he was nervous? What if she knew what he was going to ask her and was thinking of a way to turn him down as kindly as possible? "Er...right," he stammered and look the vacant seat beside her, but there was no room on the desk to lean on. It was taken up the the giant book that was written in nothing but symbols.

"So...Runes, can you speak in them?" Hermione finally looked up from her work then to shoot him look that was a mixture of curiousity, bewilderment and exasperation.

"No, Ron. Ancient Runes are simular to Egyption Hyrogliphics. They can be written, read and translated, but they have no sound of their own."

"Oh," said Ron, disappointed by her short answer. He had been betting on a ten minute Hermione rant so he could think of how to ask her in the most casual way possible. He had at least hoped that taking an interest in her work would earn him her temporariy affection, but she was peering at him with an expression more suspicious than anything else.

"What about swear words?" He said, daringly, Even if she was mad at him, she'd talk long enough to buy him time. But then he realised how badly that plan could backfire when Hermione's eyes narrowed, dangerously. What if he made her so angry that she just rejected him straight off? "Never mind," he said, hurridly. "Stupid idea."

Hermione returned slowly to her work, still shooting him suspicious glances between lines, but a smile seemed to be fighting its way onto her face, caught between disapproval and amusement. Or perhaps flatterly that he'd taken an interest in her work, however unacademically.

"Erm, Hermione-" She turned to him again, looking annoyed now. Ron swallowed. That was not the look he had been hoping for.

"Yes," she said, impatiently. With a glance down at her page, he saw he had interrupted her mid sentence and looking back at her, he was met with a raised eyebrow of irritation. He smirked. Perhaps it was the perfect time to ask her.

"Do you-"

But before he could complete the sentence, Harry threw himself down in a chair he'd dragged half way across the common room, scowling furiously. Both Ron and Hermione jumped, snapping their heads around to face him as if they'd been caught doing something forbidden and listened to him take off on a rant about Snape and all of the torture devices he was going to invent to cause him pain and Ron could not help thinking, that if Harry ever did build them, he might just turn them on their creator.

...

It was not until Hermione wanted to get Ron alone that she realised how little oppertunity there was for it. Harry was around them constantly, during lessons, the walks between, in the common room in the evening, at meal times. The only times he wasn't, such as when she had Ancient Runes, or in the girls' domitory, neither was Ron. It was impossible to get him alone without expressly asking him, and fora reason she couldn't quite pin point, she could not bring herself to do it.

She saw her chance when Ron excused himself from their homework to use the toilet and Hermione too jumped to her feet, claiming to urgently need to attend the library to contunue with her essay, an excuse which nobody questioned, despite the mountain of books that alredy cluttered the surface of the table, leaving little roon for them to work.

They began to walk together and Ron stopped at the portrait hole, gesturing for Hermione to go first. She gave him a surprised but grateful smile and climbed up, feeling a flush of pleasure at the way things had started out. At the very least, they were not arguing.

They slid out of the common room, and Hermione began to plan frantically in her head what she would say, but nothing came to mind. There must be something in all the books she had read, but dating methods were not mentioned in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, and neither was adivce given in her translations of Ancient Runes. Maybe she would go to the library after all and look it up, take a chance to ask again later. But when would they get another moment alone? The one they had now was a rare miralce.

"Ron-" Hermione began, deciding to just ask with as much confidence as possible. Like she was answering a question for a teacher. That, she knew. "Would you-" She stopped before the question had fully formed. What if attending the Yule Ball together ruined their friendship? Friends dating was an illogical idea, even in friendship they got utterly on the other's nerves.

"Ron, would you like-" she began again. They could go as friends if nothing else. It was just a dance, there was no need to label it as anything instantly. They'd attened together, assuming he said yes, and see how the night wore on. But her attempt to ask was ruined once again, that time by the sound of heavy footsteps behind them.

Both turned to see Harry charging towards them as if on a determined mission. Hermione rolled her eyes, but resisted the temptation to cry out in frustration. No one needed to know what she had been about to do, and anyway, she convinced herself as Harry fell into step, claiming that he needed to go to the Owlery to give Hedwig her daily treat, it was most likely an awful idea.

...

Harry, Ron and Hermione sat side by side in a patch of grass that Hermione had cleared of snow with a flick of her wand. White flakes swirled around them, falling onto their shoulders and nestling in their hair, the wetness making Harry and Hermione's all the more unruly, but the cold was not biting enough to convince them inside the castle walls. Harry had wanted to escape the staring eyes and whispers that followed him everywhere he went following Rita Skeeter's latest article.

Harry sat in the middle, with Ron and Hermione on either side of him and both kept shooting each other glances, imagining how it would be to sit side by side with their hands clasped together, or the promise of the Yule Ball.

"Harry, have you given any more thought to that egg?" Hermione asked, once again. Harry sighed. She brought it up at least three times a day and each time he told her he was no closer to solving the clue, she sighed in exasperation, as if he were being deliberately insolent. Harry bit back the temptation to tell her to solve it if she thought it must be so easy. He did not to fight with one of the few people who were not whispering about him in classrooms.

"Yeah mate, Hermione's right, you're getting close to the task and-" he stopped mid sentence as both Harry and Hermione turned to him in surprise. For the past few months, every time Hermione had mentioned it, Ron had quickly jumped to his best friend's defence, telling Hermione to leave it out and let him figure it out at his own pace.

Hermione smiled at him, fainly, the surprise still evident. "Thank you Ron," she turned back to Harry. "You see, if even Ron thinks you need to begin some serious work on this clue, does that not tell you that you've allowed yourself to fall far too far behind?" Ron looked slightly put out by that remark, but then shrugged as if to say well, she's got a point.

Harry rolled his eyes and scowled at Ron, who suddenly became very interested in the snow falling around them, watching it drift as if he couldn't feel Harry's penetrating stare. "Look, I'm trying Hermione, okay? But it doesn't help that half the school think I'm some damaged little boy that's going to have a breakdown at any moment." He stood up and Ron's heart soared, hardly dating to believe he and Hermione were about to be left alone.

"Where are you going?" Hermione sounded annoyed, but there was a hint of hope to her tone too, as if she too wanted the moment alone.

"To find Cho," said Harry, shortly. "See if I can spot her alone. At leasr get one thing done with." He walked away with a slight stomp in his step, but Hermione and Ron were too thrilled at the prospect of finally having more than a moment alone to worry about him.

But as soon as he was out of sight, a silence fell between them that was filled only with the shrieks of first years as they hurled snowballs and ran from Fred and George's charmed snowman that scuttled towards them. Ron cleared his throat at the same time as Hermione took a breath, as if to say something, but whatever she had been about to say died in her throat and she simply let her mouth close again, leaning back against the tree they were perched under.

Just ask her, Ron urged himself. It was so rare they got a moment alone, and now he was wasting it. If Harry could go and find Cho, then he could ask Hermione, who he already had on her own. But Cho wasn't Harry's best friend. If it didn't work out between them, it wouldn't matter, and he would know he'd tried. If things didn't work out between him and Hermione, or she said no, he didn't know if their friendship would survive it and Harry would be caught in the middle.

From nowhere, a large chunk of snow flew towards them, hitting Hermione square in the face. Her scream was muffled by a mouthful of snow and she spluttered, scraping it from watering eyes with her fingers. She seemed to forget she had a wand by her side as she gasped and shook snow from her hair. Her face was red from the impact of the snowball, and that was all Ron needed to see before he was on his feet and charging towards the responsible first year.

"Oi!" He yelled at the petrified kid, who cowered away as the much older looking and taller student barrelled towards him. Ron was just as red in the face as Hermione and his face was twisted in a snarl. The kid backed away, tripping in his heavy boots and tumbling down into the snow. "Would it kill you to watch were you're throwing?!" Ron yelled, and the kid whimpered, cowering as if he though Ron was going to hit him.

Hermione arrived at his side, breathless and still red. "Ron!" She hissed, and he blinked, staring from her to the kid as if only just realising what he was doing. His gaze fell on the first year, still trembling on the floor and he had the grace to look ashamed. "Just-just say you're sorry," he mumbled.

"S-s-sorry," he stammered, breaking his gaze from Ron for just a second to look at Hermione, so she knew he meant it.

"That's quite all right," said Hermione, kindly. The kid's eyes returned to Ron, wide and fearful and Ron extended a hand, streching it towards the ground to help him up. The first year stared at it for a moment, uncertain, as if he thought Ron was going to heave him off of the floor and then drop him again to have a good laugh, but another look at Hermion'e's kind face and Ron's guilty one, he relented and took Ron's huge hand.

"Sorry for scaring you," Ron mumbled, looking just as guilty as the kid he had almost terrified to death. The shorter boy shrugged, as if he couldn't care less and hadn't been frightened in the least before giving a little squeak that could have meant 'thank you for not cursing me' before charging off to rejoin his friends, watching on with wide eyes.

When they too were out of sight, Ron felt Hermione's gaze on him and he turned to her, sheepishly, expecting her to be glowering at him, but instead he was met with a soft smile. "Although I do not appreciate your methods, your reasons were noble," she explained in answer to his blank look and through the haze of falling snow, her glooved hand found his for just a moment and she squeezed it before letting go.

"Listen," said Ron, plucking up the courage in the heat of the moment. "Hermione, I was wondering-" but what he was wondering, Hermione never found out, because Harry returned at that moment, storming up to them looking angrier than ever.

"She's surrounded by a gang of giggling friends, again!" He ranted, seeminy not to notice both of his friends' red faces. "Why is it you can't ever get a girl on her own?"

...

Ron slammed the book shut as he heard someone clear their throat from behind him. Someone with a high voice who was most definately not Harry. He shoved it away from him, leaning back in his seat as if he could pretend that way that he had never touched it at all. A hand slapped the front of the closed book, and Hermione's eyes glowered down at him. Ron shrank in his chair, his mind frantic with excuses.

"What, Ronald, may I ask, were you doing with my book on Ancient Runes translation?"

Ron made a strangling sound in his throat and stared hard at the table, his ears burning. "Er-I was-I wanted to know how to write 'Snape is a tosser'." He smiled quicky at the wooden table, impressed with the excuse. It was just the sort of thing Hermione would have expected of him.

Confirming his thoughts, she rolled her eyes and threw herself down in the chair beside him. "Honestly Ron," she sighed, exasperated. "How do you expect to learn anything of use when you fill your brain with immature and pointless information."

Ron just grinned at her, too pleased with himself to rise to it. Anyway, there was no point getting into an argument with her about something he didn't do. Hermione scowled at him and dragged the heavy book towards her and Ron took that as his queue to leave. He was out of the portrait hole before Hermione had so much as opened the book and he did not turn back to see the confused frown she shot his way at his ebrupt departure.

Sighing, Hermione flipped open her book to the correct page and began to work. She had allowed herself to get far too behind on her translations (not that they had actually been assigned any, but the extra pratice was always useful). After a few moments, she became absorbed in what she was doing, finding it oddly easy to translate the strage shapes, as if it were a language she had been using far longer than eighteen months.

She smiled to herself and flipped the page, glad to be back in her comfort zone after the awkward moments with Ron that had arisen since she had learned about the Yule Ball. Runes, she knew. Academics, she could do. Dating, however, was something she was not an expert in. She was logical, if Harry and Ron were failing to grasp a girl's emotions, she explained it to them, but when it came to her own life, she was clueless. She didn't know where to find the courage to ask out one of her best friends, or face the consequences, whatever he said. She didn't even know how to get him alone. It seemed every time Harry was otherwise occupied, so were they. Ron had upped and left almost as soon as she had sat down.

Shaking her head, Hermione returned her concentration to the Runes. She frowned. Slipped between the pages was a sheet of parchment that she was sure she had not put there herself, and she had read the entire book more than once, if it had been left there by a previous owner, she would have found it long ago. But the parchment did not look out of place, it was patterened with badly drawn Runes and as Hermione stared at it, her brain automatically began to figure out the words.

Her eyes widened, closed, opened again. She picked up the sheet to inspect it at a closer range, studied each Rune for an alternative meaning. They were poorly drawn, there was every chance she could have made a mistake. But on every letter? She cluched the note tighter in her hands, a brilliant smile spreading across her face as the memory of Ron slamming her book shut and his ears flushing red played in her mind.

Hermione, I wanted to ask you this face to face, but Harry was always around and I didn't wanna make things awkward. Do you want to go to the ball with me? My dress robes are kind of disgusting, but you'll look good enough for the both of us so maybe it won't matter. Anyway, if you don't that's fine too, we'll just pretend you never got this because we make good friends.

Ron

Warmth spread through her and Hermione had a sudden urge to giggle. To shout. To stand up and read the note out to the entire common room. She wanted to put away her Runes and instead plan her hairsyle for the ball. But there was another thing that had to come before any of that.

Grinning foolishly, she tore a strip of patchment, printed 'yes' in her neat, curled hand writing and screwed it into a messy ball. Her eyes scanned the room, spotting Ron in conversation with Dean and Seamus. She hadn't heard him come back into the common room, and a second later, his eyes darted to her. When he saw her looking, his entire face flushed, his embarrassment going beyond his ears and he quickly looked away again, pretending to be engrossed in the conversation.

Hermione rolled her eyes and drew back her arm, shooting the ball across the common room towards Ron's head. It hit his temple and bounced off, rolling a couple of feet away where he quickly moved to scoop it into his hold before either of the others could get a hold of it. He stared down at the open note for a lot longer than it would have taken him to read the word, but when he finally looked up at Hermione, slowly, as if he were afraid of seeing her laughing at him from her table, there was a dopey grin on his face that made him look as if he had been confunded.

Hermione held his gaze for just a moment, long enough to confirm the word on the note before turning back to her work, the bright glow inside of her not even flickering when the Runes melted on the page, refusing to make sense in the neat print of the book that was nothing like Ron's scrawl.

I'd love to hear what you thought. I haven't been writing Romione for long and I'm curious as to how it goes.