"It's Amortentia!"

"It is indeed. It seems almost foolish to ask," said Slughorn, who was looking mightily impressed, "but I assume you know what it does?"

"It's the most powerful love potion in the world!" said Hermione.

"Quite right! You recognized it, I suppose, by its distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen?"

"And the steam rising in characteristic spirals," said Hermione enthusiastically, "and it's supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell freshly mown grass and new parchment and Ron's -" She gasped and rose her hand to her mouth.

"What?" exclaimed Ron, who looked like he had just been awoken from his usual daydream.

A few student in the classroom started to whisper to each other as Hermione's face turned bright red.

"Alright, alright, settle down everyone!" intervened Slughorn in a loud but still amused voice. "Now, who can tell me the main ingredient that is used in the Amortentia potion?"

Nobody rose their hands, as that task was usually Hermione's, who lowered her head in her potion book as much as physically possible and tried as hard as she could to ignore Ron's signs and whispers.

The rest of the lesson went by as slowly as it possibly could have. It might have been the only time in her life that Hermione couldn't wait to get out of class, which she did as soon as the hour was over. She quickly walked out of the classroom, before anyone even had time to gather their books. She could hear people muttering her name as she ran passed them.

She marched purposefully through the empty corridor as she heard her name being shouted from behind her. She didn't have to look around to recognize Ron's distinctive voice, who seemed like he was coming closer, running down the corridor to catch up with her.

"Hermione, wait!" he shouted again as he had caught up.

"Leave me alone, Ron!" she answered, walking even faster, her head hanging low.

"Wait, Hermione, please. I need to know, did the potion really smell like me?" he asked, trying hard to keep up with her pace.

"Why? So you can make fun of me too?" she asked on the verge of tears.

"No," he said calmly, "because mine smelled like you too."

Hermione stopped abruptly, her eyes growing wide. She turned to face Ron for the first time since she had blurt out his name in class.

"It did?" she asked cautiously.

Ron smiled. "Well, yeah!" he said as if it was obvious. "It smelled like old books and strawberry shampoo and that flower perfum you always wear."

Hermione stared at Ron, longing for words. They looked at each other for a moment before students started filling up the corridor around them, some of them muttering as they saw them.

Ron could clearly see that Hermione was uncomfortable as she looked down, turning slightly pink.

"Do you want to talk somewhere perhaps, um, more private?" he asked hesitantly.

She simply nodded in response.

"Alright, come on." he said grabbing her hand and leading her out of the corridor and into an empty classroom. He made sure the door was locked as she made her way through the classroom and sat on a desk by the window.

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asked as Ron turned his back to the now locked door.

"Well that's not fair, you didn't tell me either!" Ron said in his defense.

Hermione rose her eyebrows in response, as in to say "It wasn't my place to say it first."

Ron shrugged, "I thought you hated me."

"Well," she said, "you're not wrong."

Ron's face changed in a fraction of seconds as his eyebrows raised as high as they could.

Hermione laughed. "Come on! I'm only joking!"

"Since when do you tell jokes?" said Ron teasingly.

Hermione frowned slightly in annoyance, although she was still smiling.

Ron stepped up to where she was sitting. He rose his hand and pushed aside a curl that had fallen infront of her eyes. Hermione felt a chill run all the way across her spine as Ron's hand brushed her cheek slightly.

"Hermione, I..." started Ron as he felt his heart pumping hard in his chest, "well, do you think I can, um, I mean, maybe we could..."

Ron felt helpless. He absolutely wanted to kiss Hermione, and he had wanted to for longer then he would ever admit to himself, but he had absolutely no idea how he should proceed.

Hermione smiled shyly. "You can kiss me if you want." she said.

Ron's heart was ready to burst out of his chest in excitement. He gave her a shy smile in return as he leaned in and prested his lips against hers.

His hands were resting on her hips as she threw her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss.

They stayed in that position for a few moment, snogging each other like they'd been holding theirselves back for too long. They were still wrapped around each other when the door flew open and they heard a quiet "Oh!"

They broke appart as quickly as humanly possible and they looked down to see little professor Flitwick, who had come in to get ready for his afternoon class.

Hermione's face turned scarlet as she got down from the desk.

"Um, sorry professor." mumbled Ron awkwardly, "We were just, um..."

"We were just leaving." interrupted Hermione, "Come on Ron." She grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the classroom, both trying hard to avoid Professor Flitwick's eyes.

They were walking rapidly down the corridor and as soon as they turned a corner and were out of sight from Flitwick's classroom, Ron burst out laughing.

"How can you possibly be laughing right now?" Hermione asked in a panicked voice.

Ron stopped laughing but kept on smiling brightly. "Oh come on Hermione, you have to admit that was bloody funny!"

"Funny?" She repeated incredulously, "We could've gotten detention!"

Ron rolled his eyes and let out another small chuckle.

"All of that because you couldn't do a proper locking charm." Continued Hermione.

"What? I did do it! Flitwick must've used a counter charm or something!" said Ron defensively, shocked that Hermione would blame him like that.

"Well, if you had done it properly..." said Hermione.

"I did do it properly!" interrupted Ron, who was starting to get hurt and annoyed.

They continued arguing all the way up to Gryffindor's common room and they knew that, although clearly nothing had changed between them, everything would be different from now on.