I had been working on improving the way I interact with Hermione over the last few weeks, hoping to rebuild her image of me as just a friend, but it wasn't until I saw Krum outside the tent at Bill and Fleur's wedding that I realized just how important it was to stop hiding my feelings from her. Since fourth year I've known that I have feelings more than friendship for Hermione. I hadn't believed her when she told me that she had a date to the Yule Ball so when I saw her on the arm of Quidditch hero Viktor Krum I was surprised. And then later, when we had that awful row, I realized that I had wanted to go with her the whole time and just hadn't registered it. I laid awake that night wondering how our friendship was ever going to rebuild itself this time and cringing at the memory of my weak defense saying that Krum was the enemy. He was an alright bloke, really. I just didn't like the idea of him getting to dance with Hermione all night or how enraptured he looked when he was listening to her talk at dinner. Our friendship eventually healed with the help of Harry and Ginny and everything was relatively normal again until what I think of as "The Lavender Incident." I don't feel like delving into sixth year right now so we'll leave it at that.
The appearance of Krum involuntarily forced me to compare the things I had been doing for Hermione during her latest stay at the Burrow to things I wondered if he had done for her during their relationship. Did he pull out her chair? I'm sure he did, while I continued to treat her as ungentlemanly as I always had. Did he compliment her? I remember how during the Yule Ball he would periodically whisper to her or pull at a reemerging curl and how Hermione would blush and murmur a thanks. So while I was sulking and accusing her of helping Harry's competition Krum was listening to her stories and spending time with her in the library. That's all in the past now though. We were only 14 then and so much had happened in the past few years. You Know Who was back. People were disappearing left and right. There was so much secrecy and fear in the world. We're in a war now and no one knows what's going to happen. I know this so it's clear that it's now or never for me and Hermione. Either I give her the attention she deserves and hope that she reciprocates my feelings or I continue to exist in this miserably stagnant quasi-friendship. I choose Hermione.
"Would you like to dance," I ask her as I see him making his way over to our table. I take her hand in mine and it's small and delicate. As I spin her towards me on the floor I run my thumb across the tops of her fingers and relish the faint blush that spreads across her cheeks.