Rating: PG
Genre: Romance/Drama
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters except Annabelle. She is my own creation, built in the laboratories of my mind. All the others like Ron, Hermione, Harry, Snape, Draco... all of them, belong to J.K. Rowling
* * *
"No Ron."
"Please Hermione! It's due tomorrow and I can't think anymore! Oh, come on, just give it to me and I promise I'll never ask you for anything ever again."
"You ask me for my toast every morning, Ron." Hermione said without looking up from her textbook.
Ron sighed and rolled his eyes. "I do it for your own good, Hermione. Everyone knows all that fat goes straight to your hips."
Hermione looked up and stared at Ron in disbelief.
"What?" Ron asked, confused.
She kept staring.
"....Oh! No! I didn't mean you personally! I mean um... oh Gods... of course I didn't mean you! You have very... er... shapely hips. Yes! Yes that's it!"
Her mouth fell open.
"No! No, that's not it. Um... I mean I don't notice them or anything... I've just heard stories..." Ron drifted off. He was now clearly avoiding her eyes and studying a crumpled ball of parchment near his foot.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Hermione recovered from her initial shock and tried to regain her composure.
"...Right. Well I must be off to bed then. Big day tomorrow." She said crisply and rushed off to the girl's dormitory, leaving her homework behind.
Ron looked up slowly at the now vacant chair Hermione occupied moments before. Slowly, he stood and picked up Hermione's essay. He looked over it once, then carefully rolled it neatly and tucked it under his arm. He quickly gathered the rest of his things and headed towards the stairs leading to the boy's dormitory at the opposite end of the common room.
* * *
"Tap tap tap."
"Ughhh... no...no thank you Professor Snape, I'd rather not meet you in the Astronomy Tower Saturday night..."
It was 3:30 A.M. the morning after the embarrassing conference with Hermione, and Ron was fast asleep dreaming of God knows what.
"Tap tap tap." It came more urgently now.
"Arghh, Pig!" Ron exclaimed when he saw the fluttering ball of fluff outside the window.
Angrily, Ron sat up in his four poster, brushing his head against the top, and drug himself sluggishly out of his warm bed into the cool air of the early morning.
He shivered as he treaded across the cold floor to the frosty window.
Damn it Pig! Don't you know what time it is? I can't go around school all day tomorrow with dark circles under my eyes, now can I?!" Ron growled menacingly as he pried open the old castle window and let the small hyperactive owl in.
Pig promptly dropped a letter on Ron's head and continued to flutter madly around the room, bouncing off random objects now and then, all the while, tweetering enthusiastically, apparently very happy he had woken Ron up.
"Oi! Calm down Pig! You'll wake everyone up with all that noise you're making!" Ron whispered loudly when Pig managed to knock over a picture of Neville's grandmother.
Ron rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as he bent over to retrieve the letter. He didn't recognize the handwriting which addressed the envelope simply to "Ron". It was clearly a girl's handwriting, but definitely no one he knew. Parvati and Lavender's handwriting was always dotted with hearts or flowers and Hermione's- his ears turned pink at the thought of her- Hermione's handwriting is always very neat and professional. This writing however, was professional, yet more curvy than Hermione's, but not as immature as Parvati's or Lavender's. Ron had never seen any handwriting similar to this one, this was more angelic than any he'd seen before.
Ron slowly turned the letter over and carefully broke the wax seal imprinted with the Ravenclaw mascot.
"So she's in Ravenclaw hmm?" Ron thought to himself as he pulled the actual letter out and unfolded it.
It read:
Dear Ron,
Hiya! Umm... you probably don't know my name,
but perhaps you've seen me around school before. It's Annabelle Mace. My
name, that is.I can't believe I'm doing this, but I need to tell you something.
I have a sort of crush on you... It all started in our first year. I always
saw you with Harry Potter and some girl. I don't know her name, but she
seemed friendly enough. I had always wanted to be in your circle of friends,
but was always too cowardly to approach you. Anyways... I thought it was
time I finally told you how I feel and that I exist and all. If I didn't
totally waste my time writing you this letter, then meet me by the Quidditch
Field Saturday afternoon right after lunch. If you're not interested, I
just embarrassed myself horribly. Please send a reply soon with your answer.
Sincerely,
Annabelle
Ron was shocked. He read the letter twice more before finally folding it neatly and putting it back into its envelope.
"Annabelle." He thought to himself. "What a pretty name."
He tried to remember any mention of an Annabelle Mace, but couldn't recall ever hearing the name before. He was definitely wanting to meet her, except there was only on dilema.
Hermione.
Ron couldn't deny he had had feelings for Hermione for some time now. Hermione though, had never known of these feelings and never showed any interest in Ron other than friendship for as long as they had known eachother. He had always hoped that Hermione would somehow show some sort of sign that she, indeed, had some sort of romantic feelings towards him, but she never did.
Now Ron had this toublesome task before him.
Decide to either not meet Annabelle and hope Hermione will come to her senses or he could forget about Hermione and meet Annabelle by the Quidditch Field Saturday afternoon.
He turned the letter over in his hands, lost in thought.
Then, he quietly tip toed over to his trunk and dug around for a scrap of parchment and a quill and ink bottle.
He quickly scribbled a note to Anna.
I'll be there.
Ron lured Pig away from his bouncing reflection in Harry's glasses with some owl treats and tied the note to his small leg. Now Pig, you bring this to Anna. It's very important you do this, it might be my one chance to get over Hermione."
Pig tweetered happily in agreement before Ron shoved one last owl treat in his mouth and pushed him out the window, whereupon he dropped several feet under the weight of the letter before finally catching wind under his wings and started flying haphazardly toward the Ravenclaw wing of the castle.