Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the characters, but if Hermione and Ron don't declare their love for each other in Book 5, 6, or 7, then I may steal them for myself

Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns the characters, but if Hermione and Ron don't declare their love for each other in Book 5, 6, or 7, then I may steal them for myself.

A/N: A Ron and Hermione story wouldn't be complete without a good fight, don't you think? Oh! Someone mentioned in a review that they should write to Harry. Well, they will talk to him on the telephone, but not until later. Remember, Ron's only been at the Grangers for two days now.

PART VII: FOOD FIGHT

Tuesday morning, Hermione was in the kitchen banging around some pots and pans when Ron came stumbling down the stairs. Groggily, he remembered that according to her schedule, Tuesday was "cooking day." He wasn't sure why he needed to learn this, but figured it might be useful to learn how the kitchen machines worked, and maybe they might make some edible food, which was always fine with Ron.

The blushing, shy Hermione of the night before had been replaced by Sergeant Granger, who greeted him with, "Right, this morning you are going to make your own breakfast, Muggle-style. What do you feel like eating?"

"Toast" replied Ron, who was thinking that must be the easiest thing to come up with.

"Okay, well, first you need bread, which is kept here in this bread box. Nothing special there. Next, you need a toaster. In the past, Muggles would toast their bread on the fire, as wizards do today. However, since most Muggle kitchens don't have fires anymore, they devised an electronic device called a toaster to do it for them. It's quite quick and easy. You can make two pieces at a time with ours. You simply put the bread in the slots and set the toaster for 'light', 'medium', or 'dark.' Then you push down this lever. You try. Good, now, the coils inside, which run on electricity, get hot very quickly and toast the bread. There's a sensor inside to time it so that the toast isn't burned. Now, do you want anything on the toast?"

"Butter," replied Ron, whose head was already slightly dizzy from this 9 am lecture.

"Right, the butter is kept in the refrigerator." Hermione pointed to the large white cabinet across the room. "Muggles can't perform spells to keep their food from spoiling, so they had to invent a refrigerator to keep food for longer periods of time. A refrigerator also runs on electricity and it's set to always be cold inside, so that things like butter and milk won't spoil. Go on, open the door and see if you can't find the butter."

Ron reached for the closest handle, "No! That's the freezer! The top part is kept colder for meat and things like that. The butter's down below."

Ron found the butter and plopped it down on the table. Then he sat down and waited. "The toast isn't going to come to you, Ron," said Hermione irritably. "You have to put the butter on yourself." She handed him a butter knife, showed him where the plates were located and watched as he attempted to spread the butter on the toast.

"I know how to butter toast thank you very much," responded Ron, waving the knife at her.

"Thank you very much," said Hermione, taking the plate out of his hands when he finished. "Now you can practice by making your own." Giggling, she sat down at the table and began to eat. Ron made a face at her and threw two more pieces of toast into the toaster.

By the time he finished buttering his own slices, Hermione had finished hers and was watching him humorously. He sat down at the table, poured himself a glass of the orange juice and tried to think of something interesting to say. Soon, however, his mind wandered towards the guitar and he thought about which songs he might try to practice.

Just then, a dark gray owl appeared at the window and pecked on the glass. Hermione got up, saying "I already got the Daily Prophet this morning, I wonder who this is from." She opened the window and let the owl inside. There was a letter attached to its ankle. She untied it carefully and gave the owl a bit of feed from a bowl on the counter. The owl seemed to be waiting for a reply. Hermione opened the letter and smiled slightly.

"Who's it from then?" asked Ron, his mouth full of toast.

"Viktor Krum," said Hermione very softly.

"Oh," said Ron, feeling his face grow hot and anger well up inside of him. 'I will not get angry, I will not get angry,' he repeated to himself. Unfortunately, the next moment he said aloud, "So, what's your boyfriend got to say?"

Hermione's brows crossed in anger and she stammered to Ron, "He's not my boyfriend."

Before he could stop himself, Ron heard his voice say, "Oh, I'm sorry, I just assume that when a girl goes to visit a boy in Bulgaria and prances around in front of him in nothing but her knickers, and then gets a letter from him that makes her smile and blush, then it must be her boyfriend, but maybe I just don't know anything."

"No, you don't know anything, do you Ron?" retorted Hermione, throwing the letter down on the table. "If you knew anything then you would know that, oh! Never mind!" Hermione covered her mouth, as if to stop herself from saying something truly horrid, and then, picked up the letter and stormed upstairs. Ron heard a door slam a moment later. The gray owl cooed softly behind him. "Shut up you stupid Bulgarian owl," muttered Ron.

He sat slouched in a chair in the kitchen for a good ten minutes, arms crossed, lips pursed, fuming, and thinking of nothing in particular. Eventually, one thought did pop into his head. Viktor Krum was in Bulgaria. And he, Ron Weasley, was in England at the Granger's house. All was fair in love and war. 'Wait a second,' he thought, confused, 'what do I mean by that?" His heart gave a lurch and suddenly he saw Hermione, looking as she had at the Yule Ball in her shimmery dress robes, and then, again he saw her, smiling at him across a pile of library books, and then, as she had been a few minutes earlier, instructing him how to open a refrigerator.

"Damn!" he said, rolling his eyes and pushing himself up from the chair. Slowly, he headed up the stairs towards the door that said "Hermione's Room" in flowery letters.

Ron could hear crying coming from the room and he felt nauseous. Was Hermione crying over Krum, or over what he had said? Ron reflected that he had not STAYED IN CONTROL, nor had he been a gentleman. Tentatively he knocked on the door.

"What do you want?"

"Can I come in?"

"Why, so you can accuse me of being a scarlet woman again?"

"No, I … Look, I'm sorry, can I just come in?"

There was a moment of silence and then Hermione opened the door, her face wet with tears. "Fine, come in. I don't care."

Ron had not seen the inside of Hermione's room. Two of the walls were overflowing with bookshelves and books. There was a wardrobe and small dress table against the third wall and the bed was lined up against the fourth next to the window. Ron noticed a wizard picture of himself, Hermione, and Harry, smiling and waving in their third year, propped up against the mirror. Hermione sat down on the corner of the bed, looking down at her hands. Ron took the chair from the dressing table and gingerly sat down, facing Hermione. "Er, I think that owl is waiting around for a reply."

Hermione didn't look up, but continued staring at her hands, which were now clenched very tightly in her lap.

Ron didn't know what to say. He really did not want to fight with Hermione, and he certainly didn't want to make her cry any more than he already had in the four years that they had known each other. The silence was very uncomfortable. Finally, he cleared his throat and said, "Look, Hermione, I'm sorry for what I said. It wasn't very nice."

Hermione's head jerked up and she looked at Ron. Her face was very red and her cheeks were very wet. She looked absolutely astonished that he had apologized to her so quickly. Slowly she said, "Viktor Krum is not my boyfriend. He is my friend. Just like Harry is my friend," she paused for a very brief moment, Ron thought he might have imagined it, "or you." The last word was said in barely a whisper.

"I just thought you must fancy him," said Ron quietly. "You went to the Yule Ball with him and you went to visit him." There was nothing accusatory in his voice any more.

"Viktor is very nice," admitted Hermione, "and quite the gentleman. It's interesting to talk with him and he knows loads of things. But I never liked him like that. I mean, he's ages older than I am, and he lives all the way in Bulgaria. I went to the Yule Ball with him because he asked me. First."

Hermione looked up at Ron and he looked up at her and for a moment her brown eyes and his blue ones were locked in a gaze. After a moment, Hermione looked down again quickly and said, "Well, should we head downstairs? I was going to show you how to make a pie, and I should write a reply so that the owl can get on its way."

Briskly, she grabbed a sheet of parchment, a quill and ink bottle and led the way downstairs back into the kitchen.

Ron went to go practice the guitar while Hermione wrote her reply. He turned up the volume so loudly that he didn't hear Hermione call him, or enter the room. Finally, she had to stride over to the amplifier and turn down the volume. Ron jumped and faced her with a smile, "Ready to make pies then?"