"Are we still going to Slughorn's party together?" Hermione asked nervously in the alcove where she had successfully cornered Ron after dinner. He hadn't been avoiding her, exactly, but he had been spending more time with Lavender than was strictly necessary. "We don't have to, of course, but if you want to…?" she added, her voice lilting up in question. "Just as friends!" she hastily added, cutting off Ron, who had opened his mouth to reply, but now was just sort of gaping at Hermione, completely at a loss.

It had been three weeks since the incident where he had consoled Hermione in an empty classroom, but Slughorn's party was still a month away, and Ron couldn't really understand where this urgency was coming from.

"You still want to go with me?" he asked in confusion.

"I mean… I… I don't…" Hermione stuttered.

"Wouldn't you rather go with Harry? He hasn't asked anyone yet, has he?" he didn't quite manage to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

Hermione's face grew red and her eyes widened briefly before narrowing at him. "Ron!" she hissed, glancing around as if Harry would materialize in the alcove at any moment.

Ron glared back, suddenly feeling very annoyed. "Hermione!" he parroted.

Hermione took a deep breath, crossing her arms and looking away. She was quiet for several moments and Ron could feel trepidation building in him, his heart beating louder and faster as he waited for Hermione to explain herself. He had been trying lately to be a good mate, he was, but did she have to be so bloody confusing? Asking him if he'd still like to go to the party? With her? He had been trying very hard to quell the part of him that definitely-maybe-sort-of-possibly still fancied Hermione, and it was moments like these that made him think that he should just sod it all and snog her and see if that cleared things up for him. It was also moments like these that filled his veins with liquid fire, fanning his temper – the kind of thing that usually resulted in a blazing row and weeks of mutual silence and cold looks and petty, hurt feelings.

He was sick of feeling this way, of saying things to get a rise out of her. Of his insecurities always getting the better of him. He didn't want to be like that with Hermione anymore. Or Harry, he thought, stomach lurching when he thought of Fourth Year. The other day, that conversation with Hermione and later with Ginny… that had felt much better.

She doesn't fancy you the way she fancies Harry, he reminded himself silently, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes. Doesn't mean you lost any contests. Doesn't mean Harry is taking anything from you. It's just different. Another inhale. You can't control how she feels about him. Exhale. Harry always comes first to her, but it's not your fault. Inhale. It's no one's fault. Exhale. Don't go there, you idiot. Inhale.

All he really knew lately was that Lavender didn't make him feel second.

Hermione let out a huff, and Ron opened his eyes. Hermione's eyebrows were still furrowed, arms crossed in annoyance. But when Ron raised an eyebrow in question, ears reddening but no longer scowling, she seemed to deflate.

She mumbled something under her breath.

"Sorry, didn't catch that." Ron said, cupping his hand behind his ear exaggeratedly.

She huffed and mumbled quickly, though slightly louder, "I said I was sorry."

He felt his face contort with confusion. Birds. Every one of them a bloody mystery.

"Sorry?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You're not going to hear me say it again."

"What are you sorry for?" asked Ron, undeterred. He pushed down the impulse to tease her. The great Hermione Granger? Doing something wrong? Apologizing to renowned prat, Ronald Weasley? Is the world ending?

Hermione blushed again. "We said we would go together. I'm not… I wasn't planning on… I don't want to ask Harry or anyone if you still want to go."

Ron felt his chest fill with warmth and felt the same confusion from before twist in his gut.

"I'll see if it's okay with Lavender."

"So… you do? Still want to, I mean."

Ron found himself nodding. "I think maybe…"

"… Yes?"

"I mean, don't I sort of owe you? After the Yule Ball?" Hermione started to open her mouth, brows furrowing the way they always did when she was trying to sort something out, but Ron cut her off. "Don't… I guess I just mean… wouldn't it be nice to go to one of these things and actually enjoy ourselves for once? Without any of our stupid rows? We are capable of having fun together, aren't we?"

The corners of Hermione's mouth lifted hesitantly in a small smile; all of the earlier tension seemed to have evaporated from the air. "Yes, yes of course we are," said Hermione resolutely, nodding in confirmation. "Sometimes I forget that it isn't all fire and brimstone and Dark Lords and… and…" she trailed off, frowning, her usual seriousness creeping back into her voice. Ron silently completed her thought in his head. And prophecies and cursed scars and… and… and…

It always circled back to Harry in the end.

The silence stretched between them, the air decidedly more solemn than it had been only moments ago.

"It seems rather silly, doesn't it? Worrying about a date to a Christmas party of all things? Given everything…" Hermione asked, gesturing vaguely.

Ron slung his arm over her shoulder, beginning to steer them back in the direction of the common room. "Speaking of everything, I may have possibly neglected that Transfiguration essay due tomorrow…"

Hermione sighed in exasperation, but the fog that had settled on them began to dissipate as Hermione berated him and he cajoled her into helping him finish his assignments anyway. When Harry greeted them as they entered through the portrait hole, it was to them laughing, Hermione poking him in the ribs as he mentioned how brilliant she was for the tenth time in as many minutes.

Harry grinned at them as they joined him on the coziest sofa, closest to the fire, where he appeared to be just beginning the very same assignment Ron had neglected. Hermione tsked at them as she helped to correct their essays, but it was hard to take her seriously when she couldn't stop beaming at the both of them.

Ron couldn't remember the last time the three of them had allowed themselves to be like this. The last time they had allowed themselves a night that wasn't sullied by Harry's paranoia about Malfoy or Hermione's animosity towards a book (Hermione Granger – hating a book!) or Ron putting his foot in his mouth or revelations about You-Know-Who's past or or or or or.

"You guys are my best friends, you know?" Harry said into the comfortable silence that had descended upon them, interrupted only by the scratch scratch scratch of quill on parchment and Seamus' stream of expletives when he singed his eyebrows in a game of Exploding Snap on the other side of the common room.

"Oh, Harry!" exclaimed Hermione, looking up from her essay. "Of course we know. You're ours too." Her eyes were shining.

"The best," concurred Ron, ruffling Harry's hair. "But quit being so sappy before Hermione starts crying on our homework and we have to rewrite it all."

Sitting there with his friends that night, Ron didn't feel second. He felt whole.