A/N – Bit of bad news for you. I'm going on a week and a half's holiday (pretty much) as of tomorrow, and don't know if I'll be able to update. I'll do my best, but chances are slim. Please stick with me though, 'cos I'm so not finished. Sorry to muck you around like this :( … Also, I wanted to say that this isn't an Aftermath prequel, everyone – OK? (Remember how Ginny and Harry don't get together till the summer after 7th year in Aftermath? And you know how they're getting together right now in Harry's 7th year? Hmm). I thought about the prequel concept and it didn't sit properly with me. Right, enough of my babble, I'm going to watch the first Australian Idol final (gasp), and I'll see you on the other side of this chap. Fluff ahead. ~you, enter you~ Shez … PS – I read every review, greennymph :) Thanks XXOO

~

Three weeks passed faster than three weeks should, and it was the first of February almost before he'd blinked. His time at Hogwarts was ticking away, and he didn't know if he loved it or hated it. Snape was a bastard, and study was a bitch, and N.E.W.T.s loomed like a rain-heavy cloud in the distance –

But besides all that, there was Hermione.

He still found it bizarre sometimes, when he looked at her and remembered she was his girlfriend. He felt ridiculously lucky, and more than a bit inadequate. He was better than he used to be (her words from their date in Hogsmeade had stuck), but it was odd – that a Weasley boy, and the one with the least amount of charm or appeal, in his opinion, could keep this amazing girl even remotely interested.

He also thought that the 'I love you' concept was excellent. After he'd gone back to his dorm that night – after saying it, that is – he'd been a bit worried. What did you do after you said 'I love you'? Where can a relationship really go? He'd been a bit nervous until he went down to breakfast, and found her beaming at him.

"Hello," she'd said.

"Hello."

"Do you want toast?"

"Yes, please."

She'd plucked a few pieces out of the holder, and put them on his plate, and they'd eaten. That was all. It was the same as it had been for the past couple of months – with something else too, something he couldn't quite put his finger on – and he loved that they were the same, but different.

Harry noticed right away that something was up. He'd asked Ron after breakfast.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Hermione's weird."

"Hey. No she's not."

"I just meant she's acting weird today."

"How would you like it if I said Ginny was weird?"

"You wouldn't."

"Huh."
That was the end of the conversation. Ron still hadn't told him the details. The thing was, he was right. Hermione was acting weird – or maybe weird was the wrong word. She was different. She wanted to hold him more. There was more kissing, at the oddest times, when they'd look at each other and suddenly be heading for the nearest empty classroom, even if only for five minutes. Harry noticed their disappearances too, he suspected, but kept his mouth shut.

Once, he mouthed 'I love you' at her during Transfiguration, and almost as soon as the class was over, and the lunch hour begun, they were making out in her room.

It always went just so far, and not beyond. He hadn't seen her again as he did at Christmas. To have her this close was both wonderful and terrible. He loved it of course, but he was only human, and no matter how good she felt, or how long they kissed, he still felt the need for some kind of – relief.

And he didn't know how to bring up the sex issue with her. He'd been raised in a houseful of boys, with one rather tom-boyish sister. They'd been taught to respect women, and treat them nicely … but talk to them about sex? Mrs Weasley hadn't exactly gotten around to those lessons.

Mostly he tried to ignore that particular frustration, and focus on the positives. Her general sweetness. The pleasantly lazy banter that once would have ended in argument, and now ran on into snogging. The way he'd sometimes find her things in his dorm, or her hairs on his shirt (A/N – hehe, John quote) … He had it luckier than most poor, lonely blokes, and made a decision to just be happy with what he had for the time being.

So it wasn't until the beginning of February that his resolve snapped, and he had to say something.

It happened like this:

Dean came into the common room very early Sunday morning, when Harry and Ron happened to be finishing an all-night quidditch strategy session. The new season was up-coming, as was their game with Ravenclaw and they were determined to make a good go of it. They'd also had a few rounds of chess and exploding snap, along with food from the kitchens, and it hadn't been a bad sort of night.

When Dean came in, he bumped his head on the entryway ceiling and swore under his breath. Both Harry and Ron looked up from their table, Harry squinting into the darkness with a strangely professional eye.

"Who's that?" he said sharply.

There was a silence, and then Dean piped up.

"Me."

"Dean? What are you doing?"

Dean had righted himself by now, and was literally strutting over. Strutting was the only word. Ron watched him doubtfully, wondering what this was about.

"Nothing," he said, deliberately vague, and Harry sighed.

"Go on, tell us."

"No."

"Go on," Ron said then, with a little more force.

Dean looked from one to the other, and smiled. "Well. Just had a shag with Lavender downstairs."

Ron blinked at him, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Harry doing the same.

"You're not dating her, are you?" Harry asked finally, and Dean shrugged.

"Not really. I took her to the Ball, though. We had a bit of a snog sometimes. But yeah, we did it. Just now. She's crazy. And I'm tired, I'm going to bed."

He wandered upstairs, and Ron and Harry were left in a mildly uncomfortable silence. Ron was tense, and somehow upset. After a few seconds, he threw his quill down and sat back in his seat.

"I hate this," he said, and Harry raised his eyebrows at him.

"What, quidditch strategy?"

"No, bloody – bloody Dean shagging bloody Lavender."

"Er – excuse me if I'm wrong, but aren't you dating Hermione?"

"Of course," he said impatiently. "I don't mean it like that. I don't really care who Lavender's shagging or not shagging or whatever. I mean – well, he's not even seeing her. He doesn't even like her much, does he? And she lets him – you know, when – well, you know."

"Ron …" Harry said, and then stopped. He didn't seem to know what to say, and shook his head. "You can't explain that," he managed eventually. "It's just the way things are."

There was another long silence, and then he couldn't control himself.

"I want to sleep with Hermione," Ron burst out.

Harry stared at him in shock, and then laughed a bit when Ron put his head down on the table.

"I'm not sure I wanted to know that," he said, in a mixture of amusement and unease, and Ron groaned.

"It's horrible. I mean, it's awful."

"Awful, right," Harry commented dryly. "Ron, guys would kill to have what you have. And how often do I almost catch you two snogging every day?"

"It's not –" His ears were red, he couldn't stop them. "It's not enough," he finished miserably. "I'm crazy about her, and I wish it was enough, but it's because I'm crazy about her that it's not."

"I know," Harry agreed, a bit glumly, and Ron looked at him. Harry cleared his throat and glanced away, and Ron tried not to think about that.

"It's just – I can't say anything to her, or I sound too much like an insensitive … well, bloke," he went on. "And I'm not. I'm not, am I?"

"Well …" Harry began, and then grinned when Ron's face fell. "Ron – you love her, right?" he said frankly.

Ron nodded. He did, harder than he'd thought he possibly could.

"Then I don't see how you wanting to – get closer, is insensitive." He hesitated. "Do you think Hermione wants to – you know – er –"

Ron cut him off. "I don't know. Sometimes I think she does. A while ago, she said 'not yet'."

"Maybe you should just ask. Girls always like when you talk things through."

"I can't," he said, in anguished tones. "How'm I supposed to do that?"

"Why not?"

"Well – I want to know what she thinks before I ask her."

Harry rolled his eyes. "You'll go far in life, Ron," he commented. "You're not afraid to take risks."

"Don't," he said sharply. "I'm just – oh, I don't know. It's stupid. Forget it. You can't push these things anyway, and I don't want to. That's the last thing I want to do. It's just – it's frustrating, not to know how she feels."

There was a third, tense silence, and then Harry spoke once more.

"Ron," he said thoughtfully, "maybe we can read her mind after all."

~

"Harry, this is the worst thing we could possibly do," Ron hissed.

"Shh," Harry returned. "They'll hear you."
It was the next night, and they were creeping up the stairs to the hallway where Hermione and Draco had their rooms – with the extendable ears Harry had given him for Christmas. Harry had insisted that girls talk about everything ("Ginny and Hermione more than most, even") and that all they had to do was listen in.

"First off, girls don't really talk a lot about sex – do they?" Ron said, and Harry shrugged.

"I don't know. They must."

"And second, this is private conversation you're talking about."

"If you're too scared to ask, then this is one alternative. The other is do nothing and wait to see if she brings it up."

"Harry!"

"What's it to be?"

He'd chosen the extendable ears, and now he was kicking himself. He didn't think it would do any harm, but girl talk was girl talk, and kind of sacred. Guys weren't supposed to hear it, and he felt very guilty as Harry let the ears rest against her door, stretching all the way from the top of the stairs. Ron cast a worried glance at Draco's door, but again, it was sealed.

They'd watched Ginny leave the common room earlier to talk to 'Mione, and now they heard his sister's voice. Ron nearly jumped out of his skin, but Harry put a hand on his shoulder to hush him. His eyes were gleaming – Ron suspected that he hadn't had so much excitement in a while, and was enjoying this.

"… still hasn't said it."

"Hasn't he?"

Hermione now. His heart missed a few beats, then started up again.

"No," said Ginny. "I think he's coming close. But you know Harry, you have to nudge him sometimes."

Ron glanced at his friend, and he was blushing, gaze fixed on the opposite wall. Maybe he wasn't enjoying it so much now.

"Yeah," Hermione agreed. "Ron's the same. What can you do?"

"Don't know. Nothing."

There was a contented sort of pause.

"So," Ginny said eventually, "anything like Christmas happen again, with you two?"

Ron's mouth dropped open. She'd told Ginny about that? Harry was cocking an eyebrow at him, and Ron waved a dismissive hand.

"No," Hermione was saying, "not yet."

Harry (mildly recovered from hearing himself talked about) gave Ron the thumbs up, but he just waved a hand again.

"Are you going to?"

"I don't know. Sometimes – I think I want to. And other times, I think I don't for a while."

"Mm." There was a pause, and then Ginny giggled. "He said he loves you!"

Hermione giggled too. "I know." Then she sighed. "I know."

"I never would have thought he had it in him."

"He did, though."

"You'd know."

"Gin!"

More giggles. Harry and Ron were shaking their heads – not at each other, not even at their girlfriends, but at the sweet, mysterious turns of phrase they used, and the way the spoke to one another. It was slightly different to the way they spoke in their presence. Ron didn't know what had changed, but it was endearing.

There was a burst of static as the ears shifted, and then Harry quickly put them back in place. When he had, they caught the last past of Hermione's next words.

"… love him. I do. I just want it – you know, to be perfect, when it happens."

"It won't be perfect," Ginny said. "Nothing is."

"Well, as close as it can come," Hermione replied, a bit defensive. "He's been really good about it. And – I don't know. I don't want to ruin things. I just – want it all to be right."

At that point, Ron took hold of the extendable ears and pushed them away from the door. Harry looked at him, surprised.

"Don't," Ron said quietly. "I don't want to listen anymore. OK?"

"OK," Harry agreed.

They went back to the common room, where Harry put the set back into Ron's hand. They sat down by the fire and Ron chewed his lip for a while before Harry spoke.

"So what did that tell you?" he asked.

Ron didn't reply for a moment.

"I can't rush things," he said eventually. "She'd hate that. And I'd hate it because she'd hate it, and 'cos I'd hate myself too."

"So – what are you going to do?"

He had a sudden, shining idea, at that very convenient moment.

"Valentine's Day is soon, isn't it?"

"I think so."

"And 'Mione keeps telling me how that's our three-month anniversary …"

Harry whistled. "Three months. Me and Ginny too, then. It doesn't seem that long."

"I'll do something nice," Ron said, thinking hard. "Something to say that I care about her, and not just – all that other stuff."

"She knows that already," Harry pointed out, and Ron waved that hand at him again. "Don't," Harry said irritably. "I'm not a bloody fly."

"Sorry. I think it's a good idea. I want her to be happy, and not stressed about all this."

"You're not going to bring it up, then?"

"No. Not until she's – you know, ready."

Harry seemed about to reply, but then stopped. He frowned down at his knees for a moment, and then broke into a half-smile.

"What?' Ron asked, almost dreading his friend's teasing, but none was forthcoming.

"Nothing," Harry said. "You've just grown up, is all."

 Grown up. Now that was a weird thought.

They sat for some time in contemplative silence.

~

A/N: Such boys. :) You'll hear from me ASAP … Shez