"I've been wanting to say this for a very long time, 'Mione," the nickname he had simply been dying to use for years rolled fluidly from his tongue as if he had spoken it every day of his life. " -- First, I'm really, really, really sorry about the Potions assignment. It was an irresponsible thing for me to do and I'll promise you right now that I'll never do it again, so long as I live. I swear."
Ron paused, perhaps waiting for the typical Hermione response of: Ronald Weasley, I've told you countless times not to swear! Yet, only silence met him, urging him to continue onward.
"And, well, I wanted to tell you -- ask you, I mean -- " he paused, looking pained for a moment as he thought of how to rephrase. Nothing sounded quite so perfect as it did in his mind once it was pushed past his lips and he heard it with his own ears. In fact, his voice sounded nervous. "Look," he finally said, determination shining through the quiver in his tone. "I know that we're not supposed to have dancing partners at this ball, right? But ever since fourth year, I've set it in my mind that the next time there was going to be anything even a little like the Yule Ball, I was going to ask you first -- not as a last resort, not before some Bulgarian git snatches you up for himself. Because -- " he faltered again, looking to his feet for a moment, then back up again, " -- Because, well, you're my Hermione."
Behind him, a single pair of hands began a flurry of applause, while the mirror before him broke out with, "Oh, but if only I were her! You've partially wooed me already!"
Really, it was enough to make him want to fall over and die right there. The only comfort that came from his need to practice in front of a mirror and his baby sister came from the fact that Viktor Krum had taken weeks to work up his courage to talk to the exact same girl. Him? He was only taking a few days. Beat that, you Bulgarian git.
"Ron, that was perfect," Ginny literally cooed over his speech, which she had been watching progress through various stages for the past few hours, despite the fact that she wasn't technically allowed to be sitting in the boy's dormitory. "I think you should keep it -- just like that!"
This came as a surprise to him, causing him to turn and give her a look of curiosity, mixed with a generally unhealthy amount of satisfaction, doubt, relief, uncertainty, and something even he couldn't place, as it was a squirming feeling that leapt from his stomach to his chest. "You think I should call her 'Mione, though? I mean, you think she'd hate that?"
At this, Ginny gave a rather honest shrug of her shoulders. "You won't know until you find out. That's what I'm trying to tell you Ron -- half of life isn't guessing, it's just doing."
"What if I sound like a prat, though?" he glanced over his shoulder towards the mirror, pursing his lips at one side to give a quizzical look towards his reflection. The mirror, however, found this look cute and began to giggle quietly.
"That's not important, Ron! Carpe Diem!"
"I hate fish, Gin -- "
"No! Seize the day!" Slipping from the bed, Ginny moved over to grasp her brother by the shoulders and turn him to face her. Despite their apparent height differences, she looked him in the eye with a very serious expression upon her face. "Is this what you want to do?"
Ron blinked, then thought, then struggled with himself for a moment, before finally allowing that feeling which had leapt into his chest overcome everything else in his mind. "Yes."
"More than anything else in the entire world, is this what you want to do?" Ginny rephrased the question, still leveling him with her stare.
"Yes," he returned, almost surprised by the amount of confidence in his voice.
"Then, Ronald Weasley, you had best have at it, the Masquerade Ball is this evening!"
The sudden realization that the thing that had him on the edge of his seat, with anticipation and fear, for weeks was almost at hand slapped him back to reality sharply. Instead of panicking, however, he gave only a nod, at which time Ginny released her viselike (and vaguely reminiscent of his mother's) grip on his arms. A glance to his watch told him that there was still a good five hours to go before that evening's celebration would take place, but he felt it better to get things done with before it was too late. That, and he knew exactly where Hermione would be at that point in time. "I'm glad we're not supposed to be taking dance partners to this thing, though," Ron finally spoke up, moving over to his bed to slip into his overly large shoes.
"Why's that? I thought you'd be happier if you could."
"Well," he thought of how to phase his response as he laced his footwear. "I kept having this dream that Viktor Krum showed up and asked her to the Masquerade before I had the chance -- even if I asked her during the announcement, she told me she was going with him." At this, an odd look of disbelief at his own dreams came over his face.
"What happened then?" Ginny inquired tentatively.
"Oh, um," he paused, standing from where he had sat upon the edge of the four-poster bed to tie his shoes. "I had to transfigure him into a bug and step on him." As if he suddenly realized that the thought of turning his much hated (yet much idolized) former competition into a bug and squishing him underfoot was good, Ron grinned. Then, inhaling a deep breath of air, he started across the circular room to the door. "Here goes everything."
"Don't make such a deal about everything, Ron. It's nothing," Ginny called soothingly from where she still stood near the center of the room. "Just do it -- I know she'll say yes." And, as a matter of fact, she did.
It was noon on the thirty-first of October and Hermione had been pacing the same couple of square feet of carpet for hours on end, throwing nervous glances towards her dress robes and mask, then towards the mirror at her worried expression. Several feet away, Ginny sat placidly upon Hermione's bed, stroking a rather lazy looking Crookshanks. "It isn't too forward at all, Hermione. I say go for it."
Behind a thin fringe of chestnut bangs, her forehead creased with apprehension, hands clasping behind her back to make sure that nails were not chewed out of nervous habit. "No, no. I can't do it, Ginny, I just can't. I'll make a fool of myself, I know it. Besides, it's too late -- it's tonight."
Ginny, who had been voted by the rest of the conspirators as the general mediator for the two, looked up from petting the purring cat, "It's never too late, Hermione."
"It is!" she wailed, pausing finally to flop into the nearest armchair -- as there were several littering the dormitory -- with an almost dramatic sigh. "This isn't some sort of childhood fairy tale where everything fits perfectly into place the night of the ball and you're surely not my Fairy Godmother!"
At this, the youngest Weasley paused and blinked. Then, assuming it must have been a Muggle thing (since fairy's tails weren't even remotely what they were talking about), she went on, "I wasn't saying everything could fall perfectly into place. That's just ridiculous. I'm just saying that sometimes there are things in life that you want and that won't just fall into your lap. You have to go out and get them!"
This seemed to bring Hermione out of her dramatics, as it was perfectly logical. After a moment spent purely in thought, however, she gave up again, with another sigh (though this one not nearly so dramatic). "And, what if what I want doesn't want to be gotten?"
"How do you know that? I'm sorry, but even though you were a Prefect and you're Head Girl, Hermione, there are a lot of things in the world that you have no idea about -- especially what lies deep within my brother's heart." Ginny bit at her lower lip after speaking her mind on the subject, hoping that her soft and apologetic tone had been enough to stifle her older friend's temper at being told she was wrong.
Hermione's large brown eyes glistened with what were apparently, at first, tears of hurt, before she whispered, "You know, I really like when people tell me I'm wrong about things I want to be wrong about. Do you ... do you really think he'd want me to do this?"
Ginny uncrossed her legs from sitting meditatively upon the crimson bedecked bed and padded on bare feet towards the armchair in which her friend was settled into. Taking her hands (having to pry one away from rubbing at Hermione's forehead), she pulled her up from sitting and looked her straight in the eye. "Do you want to do this, Hermione?"
Swallowing hard, as if to push doubt away from springing into her throat, Hermione nodded her head, tossing bushy curls about her face. "Yes."
"More than anything else in the entire world, is this what you want to do?"
"Yes," she heard herself reply before the answer had even come to her mind. It was what she wanted to do, what she had wanted to do for a while, and (she noted while butterflies multiplied ten fold in her stomach) what she was going to do.
"Then, Hermione Granger, you had best get to it soon. You only have eight hours until the ball begins."
Not able to get over the fact that Ginny did seem so much like a Fairy Godmother, Hermione tugged her into a sudden embrace, finally allowing the tears welling in her eyes to spill down her cheeks. There was really no reason in the world to be crying, she realized after a moment, but she felt the need to if only due to the fact that she was happy to have someone to talk some sense into her after walking around in a dazed state for weeks. "I just don't know if I can do it all on my own. I'm not used to being so ... forward," Hermione admitted, though perhaps not without a bit of a lie -- she was forward enough to rattle collection tins beneath people's noses, but not forward enough to ask Ron to be her dancing partner at this supposedly partnerless ball. Perhaps it was just the way it sounded. It had become a fad over the past few weeks for students to inconspicuously agree to go to the ball with one another, making her plan sound quite reasonable if one kept that in mind.
"All right, I'll tell you what," Ginny said, pulled slowly away from the embrace while attempting to mask her grin of excitement (it couldn't have worked better, her plan having been to suggest it out of the thin air before). "I'll go talk to Ron right now -- not mentioning anything that you've said, but letting him know that you want to talk to him about something important. At about, say, three o'clock, I'll have him meet you in the common room, all right?"
Wiping at her cheeks and beneath her eyes, Hermione thought about the plan. "You won't mention what I want to talk to him about?" she inquired for reassurance. obtaining a quick nod in response. "Then, all right. Let's do that."
Ginny, who was positively beaming by that time, fought the urge to jump up and give a triumphant yell. "Okay, consider it done. I'll have him in the common room by three o'clock, come hell or high water."
"Ginny!" came Hermione's chiding tone at the swearing, though it was the last thing that probably reached the girl's ears, as she was halfway out the door by then.
At five minutes after three, Ron descended the set of stone stairs leading up to the dormitories and entered the common room of the Gryffindor Tower quietly. Right away, he began to scan around for the person he was seeking (and who Ginny had informed him would be sitting in the common room, though how she knew he wasn't sure), finding her with her nose stuck in a book in the far corner of the room. Though, her attention seemed to be fixed upon her watch rather than . . . 101 Magical Ways to Ensure Love. Suddenly, he was reminded of Ginny's words -- I know she'll say yes! An odd coincidence? More likely that Hermione had taken ill and was thinking she was reading Hogwarts: A History.
It was five minutes past the hour (and two minutes after she had previously checked) when Hermione noticed Ron had entered the common room and spotted her sitting in the corner. The book, which she had still neglected to look at the title of (obviously), was promptly closed and set aside as she rose from her chair. "Ron, I need to -- "
"Hermione, could we talk some -- "
Each paused in order to let the other speak, though neither continued from where they left off with hopes that the other would finish the sentence they had began. In the end, they each began to attempt a new sentence two more times, being promptly cut off by the other, until Hermione finally insisted that Ron go first (to which he gave much, abnormal, protest but eventually agreed).
"Well, I just wanted to know if we could go somewhere to talk. Like, er, around the grounds somewhere?" Ron attempted to look calm while he suggested this, though he felt the heat which usually accompanied a blush upon his cheeks.
This notion caused Hermione's heart to do something that felt like a gymnastic routine, making it very hard for her to keep even a semblance of calm upon hearing him out. "O-Oh, w-well," she stammered, quickly closing her mouth to prevent more nervous-induced idiocy. After a moment spent collecting herself, she finally replied, "Of course, Ron. We can talk on the way to the greenhouses. I was, um, about to head there anyway. Professor Sprout told us that she would be giving out roses from her flower garden to the seventh year girls who wanted to enchant them to match their costumes for the Ball." The explanation could have gone on longer, if she hadn't forced herself to close her mouth.
Ron, only vaguely accepting the beginning of what sounded to be a cut-short long-winded explanation (due to the fact that Hermione always talked at great length whenever she was nervous), led the way out of the common room without another word, fearing he might say something rather stupid in response. With Hermione following just behind he walked at a rapid speed down the many sets of stairs until reaching the entrance hall of the castle and exiting through the large front doors, whereupon he felt he could finally breathe easily.
Hermione felt as if her lungs were about to explode, finding herself quite out of breath after the rapid walk through the castle. Ron's legs were too long for her to keep up with his quickened stride without breaking into a run, leaving her panting lightly and massaging a stitch in her side by the time they came to the outside steps of the castle. Although she wanted to note that there really was no point to rush out as if the entire place was on fire, she found herself glad that he had done so -- it was uncomfortable to speak around the various paintings, suits of armor, and passing students.
"All right?" Ron inquired sincerely over the fact that Hermione looked as if she had just run a mile -- or, actually, through the entire castle, attempting to keep up with him. "Sorry about that, I just don't like talking around all those ears and eyes. Bloody paintings everywhere."
"I was thinking the exact same thing, you know," her reply came after a moment longer of labored breathing. Finally catching her breath, she leaned away from where she had faltered against the stone wall, and started down the steps and in the direction of the greenhouses, at a measured pace.
Ron, walking in a deliberately slow fashion as soon as he was at her side, lapsed into silence as his memory began to fail him -- he was supposed to be talking about something, he was sure of it.
"What did you want to talk about, anyway?" she pressed, attempting her very best not to sound eager to hear it, though her words eventually deceived her. In fact, she thought she sounded almost to be begging him to tell her.
"Er, well. I ... I wanted to tell you something ... that's been on my mind for a while." It was all Ron could managed to get out while still controlling the tone of his voice to keep it from quivering as it had done to perfectly in his rehearsals.
This caused her to pause for a moment as her heart skipped a beat. "Really?" Hermione gasped out, her breath having caught in her chest at merely thinking about what it could be -- though, after the thought passed, she had to call herself silly. Parvati and Ginny had claimed that he was too afraid to tell her anything remotely in the realm of that.
"I -- " he paused, pushing the two words that formed in his mind away from his lips, despite how well they sounded with the one he had already spoken, " -- feel really bad about that argument we had a while back." At her silence, he continued, "And, er, wanted to let you know how sorry I am over all the things I said."
No, of course he wasn't about to say it. What if Parvati lied? . . . Ginny would never, though. Never! "Oh," Hermione replied quickly, not quite so sure why her voice was laden with such disappointment. All she had wanted a few weeks earlier had been an apology from him for starting that argument, now she was about to get one and felt like she'd rather walk into a convention of Death Eaters than not hear what she wanted to hear now.
Sensing the fact that she was displeased, he continued with the parts of the carefully prepared speech that he could remember. "I'm really, really, really sorry about the Potions assignment. I was being really irresponsible, you know? And, right now, I'll promise you that I'll never do anything like it again. Ever. I swear."
"Ron, don't swear," was the only thing she could bring herself to say, disappointment weighing heavily upon her chest and pulling her words away from the jovial tone they were supposed to carry, making her sound deadly serious. It sounded as if he was trying to ensure that they would never have an argument of such magnitude again, she concluded upon remembering that it had been like daggers stabbing at his heart. Why couldn't he just come out and say everything else? she wondered, not wanting to admit that his lack of confidence was dragging her own down and through the mud. Perhaps Ginny and Parvati had been mistaken, even. What if she said what she had been planning and made a fool of herself?
"I wasn't swearing that way, just making a very important promise," he groped around for something else, before remembering how angry she had been weeks before when he tried to apologize without admitting that he had been the one who started things. "And, um, trying to tell you that I started things with that Potions assignment," Ron continued, though with less enthusiasm and confidence. "And, that I'm really sorry."
It wasn't going at all the way she planned. "I accept your apology, Ron. Now, stop apologizing so profusely before you get to the point of groveling," Hermione attempted to joke again, though found herself only able to give a halfhearted laugh and her hardly funny tone of voice.
What the hell am I doing? Ron mentally kicked himself over and over and over. This isn't supposed to be how it works. I was supposed to call her 'Mione, then apologize, then ask her go to the Ball with me even though we're not supposed to have dancing partners. But, it was too late to even begin to correct things, he decided with a heavy sigh, not even picking up on the fact that she had attempted a joke.
I was supposed to tell him that I was never really mad at him over the assignment, but because he was too proud to admit his was wrong and I was too proud to admit that I overreacted, Hermione watched her feet plod through the grass beneath them, thinking over the exact course of actions she had plotted out in her mind since Ginny had left her dormitory three hours before. Then I was supposed to tell him that, even though we weren't supposed to, I wanted to go to the Ball with him. But, it was impossible to do that now, after his apology that she didn't want and she felt she had forced out of him. What could she say now? 'I'm sorry that I forced you to apologize by arguing with you for a month, please take me to the Masquerade Ball.' No, she couldn't say that -- or anything else, at least for a while.
"Actually," Hermione said after some very oppressive silence, looking to her wristwatch. "I should go start getting ready. Why don't we -- you, Ginny, Harry, and I -- meet in the common room at half past seven to go down to the Great Hall together? We can all get a table, or something," she suggested, feeling like a great prat for suddenly changing her plans.
The sudden change in her attitude -- from downtrodden to whimsical -- caused Ron to blink with surprise. Though, he had to admit, if he were in her place, he'd want to get away from himself, too. "Um, yeah. That sounds good. What about your rose, though?"
It would have been nice to have one, but Hermione felt the sudden need to shut herself away from the world (for at least a few hours) after making herself feel like such an idiot. "Er. I don't really need one, after all. I'll see you back in the common room."
Ron barely had time to say good-bye, before Hermione had started back off towards the castle at a run. "If that could have gone any worse, I'd love to know how," he muttered softly to himself, kicking at the blades of grass at his feet. He stood there for quite some time to review what had gone wrong with his plan, what he should have said differently, and what in the world he could do to set things right.
After what seemed like hours of thought, he continued on their original course to the greenhouses. Perhaps Professor Sprout would give him a rose, despite the fact that he wasn't female. He just hoped he wouldn't have to confess his new plan of action to the Herbology Professor -- there were already too many people at Hogwarts who knew that he was a love-starved prat.
Well, what was one more, anyway?