A/N: Hi all, welcome to this silly little two-shot I wrote... Takes place on Ron's birthday in sixth year, when he accidentally takes Romilda's love potion. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and Co.


"Hermione!"

Hermione looked up, surprised, as Ron Weasley flopped down next to her on the couch in the Gryffindor common room. She was surprised for two reasons: 1) she and Ron hadn't exactly been on speaking terms for weeks now, since he had begun 'dating' the beautiful and cloying Lavender Brown, and 2) he was wearing the stupidest look she had ever seen on his face. "Yes, Ronald?" she said coolly, setting her half-finished potions essay on the table in front of her.

"Have you seen her anywhere?" Ron asked her in a tone that somehow managed to be both desperately serious and completely spacey at the same time.

"Have I seen who, Ronald?" Hermione asked haughtily, annoyed. He could ignore her for weeks on end, but as soon as he needed something from her he came running back. A little too far back, in fact, she thought as she scooted away from him slightly. In his excitement he was rather invading her personal space.

Not that she really minded, if she was honest with herself...

"Her." Ron said, an odd sense of worship in his tone that he usually saved for the food at the Halloween feast or the latest model of racing broom. "Romilda."

Hermione blinked, doing a mental double-take. "Romilda?" she repeated. She only knew one Romilda, Romilda Vane, who like them was in Gryffindor house... but she couldn't ever recall hearing Ron even mention her name before, let alone speak to the girl.

"Romilda Vane." Ron elaborated impatiently. "I need her, Hermione."

"What... what do you need to speak to Romilda for?" Hermione asked, curious despite herself. Ron was acting very oddly.

"Not even to speak to her..." Ron said with a little sigh. "Just to look at her. Just to be in the same room with her..." He put a hand on Hermione's shoulder and told her seriously. "I'm in love with her."

Hermione was caught somewhere between laughter and unbridled shock. "What?" she finally managed to get out. "That's very funny, Ronald."

"It's not funny!" Ron roared, causing Hermione to jump back, startled. "I love her."

"Forgotten about your precious Lavender already, then?" Hermione sniffed, hurt and angered by his outburst.

"Who?" Ron said cluelessly.

Before Hermione could say anything more Harry came rushing down from the boys' dormitories, heading straight for them. With shock, she realized that one of his eyes was watering and that a reddening bruise was beginning to form on his cheekbone. "Harry!" she cried. "What happened to you?"

Harry raised his eyebrows and tilted his head towards Ron, who said, "He laughed at Romilda!" Just saying her name seemed to cause Ron to swoon, and he fell back onto the couch, sighing.

"And you hit him?" Hermione hissed, horrified. Ron didn't answer, didn't even seem to hear her, instead staring dreamily into space.

Harry took Hermione's arm and pulled her to the side. "He accidentally ate those Chocolate Cauldrons Romilda gave me." he said.

Hermione clapped her hands over her mouth. "Love potion!" she gasped, remembering the rumor she'd heard before Christmas that Romilda was ready to use any means necessary to snag the Boy Who Lived. "I can't believe she actually tried to give you a love potion! I can't believe-" she gasped again. "Harry, she gave you those months ago!"

"I know," Harry said guiltily. "I meant to throw them away, I guess I just forg-"

"No," Hermione interrupted urgently. "I meant that love potions generally grow stronger over time. That's why it's affecting him so badly!"

"Ah, I wondered why she'd want me to act like such a drooling idiot..." Harry said, and they both looked over at Ron, who was, indeed, beginning to drool a little. "So what do we do? Find Romilda and make her reverse it?"

Hermione bit her lip. "She probably won't be able to. I doubt she made the potion herself, she probably doesn't have a clue how it works."

"Well we have to do something." Harry said, touching his still-darkening bruise tenderly. "Dealing with him when he's like this is no joke."

"That's it!" Hermione cried suddenly. "Joke! They were the ones selling those potions!"

"What?" Harry asked, but Hermione simply turned and fled up the stairs to the girls' dormitories. Ginny emerged from the stairway a minute later, looking backwards in confusion.

"What's going on?" she asked Harry. "Hermione nearly bowled me over on the stairs."

Harry sighed wearily and gestured to Ron, who had picked up Hermione's quill and begun writing "Mrs. Romilda Weasley" in all the margins of her potions essay. "Love potion."

Ginny's expression was halfway between amusement and concern. "Well, it'll wear off, won't it?"

"We don't know." Harry said. "The potion was a few months old, and that apparently makes them really strong. Hermione's had an idea though, she- Oh, here she comes."

Hermione rushed back into the common room, a little pink bottle clutched triumphantly in her fist. "I knew I still had it!"

Ginny and Harry shared a look of disbelief. "Why do you have a love potion?" Harry asked.

Hermione blushed. "Fred and George gave me a bunch of free stuff last time I was at the shop, to make up for all the trouble they caused me testing their products here. Of course, I was never going to use this!"

"They were probably hoping you'd be the one to use it on Ron." Ginny teased, causing Hermione to redden even further.

"Not likely." she sniffed. "I just wanted to have a look at the instructions, see if it says anything about reversing the effects."

"Yeah, Fred and George really seem like the type to give you all the information up front." Harry said dryly, and Hermione glared at him.

"Do you have a better idea?" she asked. When he was silent, she unrolled the scroll that had come attached to the neck of the bottle. A small flood of tiny heart-shaped bubbles floated off the parchment and floated around her head, bursting at random intervals. "'So you want your sweetheart to find you enchanting...'" she read out loud, rolling her eyes. "Honestly." She turned her attention back to the scroll and read the rest silently, moving her lips and furrowing her brow in concentration.

"Find anything?" Ginny asked nervously, as Ron had gotten up and was banging his head against the doorframe that led to the girls' dormitories, chanting, "Romilllllda" in a low, cracking voice.

Hermione bit her lip again. "It does warn that the potions should be used within two weeks of being bought, or you risk the potion fermenting and becoming exponentially stronger."

"Yes, I think we'd already figured that out." Harry said.

"Well, does it talk about any weird side-effects?" Ginny asked.

"'Side effects may include nausea, awkwardness, embarrassment, humiliation, and mono.'" Hermione read. She flipped the parchment over. "Oh, wait! Look here." She scanned it quickly. "It says... it says that the potion should wear off on its own, but it can be countered by a hate potion, or a love potion antidote. 'Please allow six to eight weeks for shipping.'"

"If you have to use the love potion within two weeks how can you wait six for the antidote?" Harry asked.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "That'll be the twins' idea of a joke."

"'Caution:'" Hermione read the final note slowly and thoughtfully. "'The effects of your love potion may also be terminated by... true love.'"

"Er... what?" Harry asked, rubbing his neck uncomfortably.

"Oh!" Ginny cried suddenly, clapping her hands over her mouth. "They told me about that! That's why they said you shouldn't bother-! I mean, they said that... that love potions aren't as strong as real love, so the potion stops working if the person is faced with their true feelings!" She looked at Harry, blushed scarlet, and turned quickly to Hermione. "Ron doesn't really love Romilda, so he could kiss her all he wants and the potion would keep working. For it to stop, he has to be kissed by someone he actually loves. If he really loved Romilda, the potion wouldn't work for her."

"If he really loved her, she wouldn't need it." Harry pointed out, and for some reason Ginny blushed again. "I mean... if I really loved her, I guess." he added ruefully, remembering that the potion had been meant for him in the first place.

Hermione paled, but she scoffed. "True love's kiss? I really would have expected a little more creativity from Fred and George."

"It's not uncreative, it's just a fact of life." Ginny defended. "They would have done away with that little snag if they could. They're very professional like that."

There was a thump as Ron tried to race up the stairs to the girls' rooms and the stairs, as usual, became a chute and dumped him back into the common room. "Romilllllda." he called mournfully.

Hermione sighed. "Well, I guess we'd better go find Lavender, before Ron hurts himself."

"Speak of the devil." Harry muttered as the portrait hole opened and Lavender Brown appeared, just as if Hermione had Summoned her.

"Won-Won!" she cried, spotting Ron on the floor, rubbing his bruised elbows. "What happened? Are you hurt?" She fell to her knees beside him, but he only looked at her blankly.

"He's fine." Hermione spoke up, stepping forward. "But he's having a bit of an issue-"

Lavender, who had tensed up at the sound of Hermione's voice, rose to her full height confrontationally. "Oh, is he?" she said.

"He accidentally took a love potion." Ginny explained quickly, seeing that there was no love lost between the two girls. "But we think-"

"Oh, accidentally?" Lavender repeated, her eyes narrowing at Hermione, then moving to the bottle Hermione still held. She gasped, pointing at the bottle. "You! How dare you try to steal my boyfriend!"

"It wasn't Hermione!" Harry stood up for her. "It was-"

"Romilllllllda." Ron moaned again.

"This bottle is full, if you'll notice." Hermione said coldly, placing the bottle on the table. "In any case, Ron needs a kiss from someone he loves to make-"

"Oh!" Lavender cried, looking happier than was really called for. "Come on then, Won-Won..." She threw herself into his arms, standing on tiptoe to reach around his neck.

Ron dropped her unceremoniously, causing her to stumble backward several steps. "What are you doing? No! You're not her!"

Lavender's lip wobbled. "But-"

"I love her!" Ron reminded them all.

"But Ron, she only wanted to kiss you goodbye, since she knows you'll be going with Romilda when she gets here." Ginny spoke up, thinking quickly.

"Oh." Ron said thickly. "Wait... Romilda's coming? When?"

"Soon." Ginny assured him. "Now let Lavender say goodbye."

"Oh, all right." Ron said, plainly completely uninterested in Lavender. He held out his arms but his eyes remained locked on the portrait hole, as if Romilda would be coming through any moment. Lavender stepped into them, catching Ron's head between her hands and pulling his lips down to meet hers.

Hermione looked away, knowing from experience exactly what Ron and Lavender looked like when they kissed. The couple separated with a loud pop, and Lavender gazed up at Ron adoringly. "How do you feel, sweetie?" she asked in a sugary voice.

Ron blinked. "Fine." he said. "Goodbye then." He turned to Harry, Hermione, and Ginny. "Where's Romilda?"

There was a long, tense moment of silence.

Lavender whimpered and whirled on the spot, only making it halfway up the staircase before she burst into tears. Ginny barely held back a giggle. "I want to feel bad for the girl, but... I just can't." she confessed.

Hermione had never liked Ginny more. "Lavender is rather annoying, isn't she?"

"And she's all wrong for Ron." Ginny added, smiling slyly at Hermione. "I mean, look, he doesn't even love her."

"Well, maybe the potion's just too strong for the kiss thing to work." Hermione said fairly. "I mean, it's months old."

Harry looked uneasy, probably still feeling guilty that he hadn't thrown Romilda's Cauldrons away months ago. "I think we should take him to Madam Pomfrey."

Hermione nodded. "I think you're right."

"Oi, Ron!" Ginny said loudly, managing to get his attention away from the portrait hole. "Did you hear that Romilda's in the Hospital Wing?"

Ron's jaw hung open. "Is she hurt?" he asked fearfully.

"Yep." Ginny said cheerfully, hooking her arm through his. "C'mon, big brother, let's go visit her." Then she yelped as Ron, clearly unsatisfied with the pace they were going, began dragging her across the common room.

Harry and Hermione exchanged a glance and made to follow, but Harry reached out a hand and stopped her. "You better not leave that in the common room." he said, pointing to the little pink bottle. "Who knows where it might end up, and it's even older than Romilda's."

"Good thinking." Hermione said, and slipped the bottle into the pocket of her robes.


"Not to worry, not to worry." Madam Pomfrey said reassuringly. "The antidote's brewing, it'll be done in half an hour or so."

Harry, Ginny, and Hermione exchanged looks of relief. "Thank you." Hermione said gratefully.

"I've been seeing more and more love potions these days." Madam Pomfrey said, bustling around them to take an empty tray off of a sleeping patient's nightstand. "I blame your brothers for that." she told Ginny.

Ginny shrugged, unable to hide the fact that she was at least a little proud of Fred and George. "I guess they saw a market for them..."

"Well they should see about putting some kind of preservative in them." Madam Pomfrey said. "So we don't see things like this happening." She nodded her head to indicate the bed where Ron was sleeping. He'd become so distraught upon realizing that Romilda was not in the Hospital Wing that Madam Pomfrey had had to give him a Calming Drought.

"I'll suggest that to them." Ginny said, to Hermione's dismay. She would, too.

"I wish you wouldn't encourage them, Ginny." she said. "Love potions can be dangerous. And- and they're invasive. It must be disorienting to suddenly find yourself in love with someone you've never met! Ron's going to be so embarrassed when he realizes how he's acted. You- you shouldn't mess with a person's feelings like that."

"Oh, it's all in good fun." Ginny waved her off. "Fred and George's stuff isn't really dangerous. And Ron knows we know it wasn't his fault."

"Yeah, it was mine." Harry said miserably. "I knew Romilda was trying to slip me a love potion; I should have got rid of those chocolates as soon as she gave them to me."

"For Merlin's sake, Harry, stop blaming yourself!" Ginny said, nudging him a little with her shoulder. "Not everything that goes wrong in the wizarding world is your fault, you know."

Hermione's eyes—and thoughts—wandered to Ron as her friends continued to talk. This morning she and Ron hadn't been speaking. Would they still be at odds when he was cured?

She almost smiled to herself. They would always be at odds. The real question was, would they be friends again? She really, really hoped they would. For all their fighting and bickering, she truly missed him when they weren't talking to one another. She couldn't help feeling that Lavender had usurped her place in Ron's life. Where he used to spend time with her and Harry, he now spent it sucking face with his girlfriend... Maybe that was why seeing Lavender fail to cure him made her feel so good.

"Hermione?"

She was broken from her reverie by Ginny and Harry saying her name simultaneously. "Sorry, yes?" she apologized.

"We're supposed to leave." Ginny said. "But Madam Pomfrey asked if one of us would stay to help administer the antidote, when it's time."

"Oh." Hermione hadn't even heard Madam Pomfrey speak. "Okay then." She took a few steps toward the door but Ginny stopped her.

"Would you stay, Hermione?"

Hermione's eyebrows shot up. "Me? But Ron and I aren't even-"

"Ginny said she's got some bruise remover for my eye." Harry spoke up. "It really hurts."

Hermione shot him a look that said Harry-James-Potter-I-know-what-you're-up-to-but-I'll-let-you-get-away-with-it-this-time. The day when brave and silent Harry Potter would complain that a bruise was paining him—and a bruise Ron gave him, no less... She could argue, but it wasn't worth making a scene in the Hospital Wing... especially when a large part of her wanted to stay. "All right, I'll stay." She turned her back to avoid having to see the knowing looks on their faces.

She sat on the chair next to Ron's bed, ready to wait for Madam Pomfrey to finish the antidote. Should've brought a book, she thought dimly... there was really nothing else to do but sit here and stare at him. And worry.

It was only a love potion, true, but seeing him lying still in a hospital bed called to mind some of her worst memories, and a few of her worst dreams. No matter if he had been acting like a prat, she never wanted to see him end up here. And you could never be sure, until the antidote was given, whether it would work, whether everything would truly be okay again. Biting her lip, she lifted her hand and rested it gently over his.

It was a good thing he'd offended Lavender earlier, Hermione thought. If she walked in and saw me here she'd probably breathe fire. She'd never understood that Hermione was Ron's best friend, and that that meant more than a bit of snogging and a few horrible mushy Christmas presents. If anyone had the right to be here, it should be Hermione, really. Ginny was family, obviously, and Harry was as good as, but Hermione had been through so much with Ron, even if they did fight sometimes.

"Miss Granger?" Madam Pomfrey called from across the room.

Hermione yanked her hand back guiltily, blushed, and replaced it over his.

"See if you can wake him. The potion's about ready." Madam Pomfrey instructed, and Hermione nodded although the healer was no longer watching her.

She shook his hand gently. "Ron..." she murmured.

He stirred, and his eyelashes fluttered, but he didn't wake. Hermione worried her lip with her teeth as she leaned closer. She'd never noticed how light Ron's eyelashes were before. Suddenly, an impulse seized her, and without fighting it, without even questioning it, she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

His lips were dry and soft, and when she pulled back his eyes were open, blinking at her in confusion. "Whuh- huh? Hermione, what just happened?" he croaked. His voice was hoarse, but his eyes were clear and alert.

"Ready to take this for me, dear?" Madam Pomfrey asked, appearing at the foot of the bed with a goblet of steaming pink potion. She frowned at the confused-looking pair. "Well Mr. Weasley, you look a bit better."

Hermione clapped her hands over her mouth in shock and embarrassment, pushing herself back from the bed. Her chair toppled over on its back as she scrambled out of it and ran for the Hospital Wing doors, nearly knocking over a startled Madam Pomfrey on her way out.


A/N: Please review, and I'll be sure to post the second part as soon as I can! By the way, you should find me on Pottermore- I'm RainEye45.