Chapter 8

Love is a sort of bizarre phenomenon, don't you think? It creeps up on you without even the dignity to make a bit of a ruckus so that you at least know it's coming. One minute you're perfectly content being friends with someone and arguing with them over trivial matters, and the next you've found yourself completely nutters over that person. It's even more bizarre, and more difficult, when you're allowed to kiss that person. Indeed, I'd taken all this time just to tell you I had feelings for you, and then I found myself having to tell you that I loved you. I realize, now, how irrational I was back then, for the main reason I didn't tell you straight off was that I was completely afraid that you'd reject me, or that you'd laugh in my face, or, worst even, that you'd listen to me tell you that I loved you and that pat me on the head like you would Crookshanks and say 'there, there,' as if I'd suddenly been caught with some mortal affliction.

It's hard to be a lovestruck teenager with a wonderful girlfriend, and a wonderful best friend, and feel as though you're trapped with no one to talk to. Indeed, how was I to know how to go about telling you this? I couldn't go to Harry because he was your friend as well and if we'd been sharing something in secret you would have known straight away, and you were the only other person I could ever see myself turning to, but really you would have been absolutely no help in the department as, after all, it was you this was all concerning. I found myself trapped in a corner, and it felt as though a thousand spiders were getting ready to pounce on me…it was not a pleasant feeling, as you can imagine. It's a good thing I happen to be brilliant, otherwise I might never have thought to go to Ginny for help. She was, after all, the only other logical choice, even if she was my sister.

"What can you possibly mean you're in love with Hermione and are looking for a way to tell her?" Ginny looked at me with disbelief. I'd accosted her in the hallway after her Transfiguration class, and we were now whispering behind one of the many suits of armor adorning the hallway.

"Ssh, not so loud, would you? I don't need the whole world to know about it!" I replied. Ginny had a tendency to raise her voice when she was surprised, or when she was heating up for an argument. I loved her to death, for she was my sister, but at the same time I couldn't help but wish that she hadn't inherited that particular trait from my mother.

"Well what do you expect me to say?" Ginny lowered her voice…though anyone passing by could probably still hear her…and grabbed my arm right above the elbow, pulling me in further into the shadows. "Here I am learning that my brother is fancying his best friend, not only fancying her but is in love with her, and doesn't know how to tell her? Why don't you just start telling her you fancy her, first of all, Ron? I have great respect and admiration for Hermione, you know, and it just seems unlikely to me that a person of her intelligence could ever stoop to liking, you know, you." She said the last part jokingly, her duty as my sister to tease me endlessly, no doubt, but it did bring up a very valid point. You and I had been so good at hiding the fact that we were now together, and had been together for almost six months, that still no one knew about it. It was March, now, and we'd told Harry during Christmas vacation. How did I go about telling my own sister that I'd hidden something from her for just about the better part of a year?

"Er, well, about that, Ginny," I started. I was squirming in my trousers, and she must have seen it. My sister happens to be a very intelligent witch; oh, she might not get your grades, but she has a kind of intuition that I often wonder about. This was one of those moments, for I hadn't even said anything, or even begun to form thoughts that might lead me to say something, for that matter, when her hand soundly connected with the back of my head. I looked at her incredulously, my mouth hanging open. Ouch! That had hurt!

"When exactly were you planning on telling me, your own sister!?" She whispered as quietly as she could, considering how outraged she must have been. "I can't say I never expected it to happen, but really, you and Hermione start seeing each other and you don't even have the courtesy to tell me about it? Does poor Harry even know or have you not told him, either?"

"Harry knows," I said, though I doubt it was much consolation to her. "Look, Ginny, I'm sorry I haven't told you, but Harry really only found out on his own, and Hermione and I were still trying to make heads and tails of things, but this feeling, it's been gnawing at me since Christmas, and I want to tell her, but I don't just want to walk up to her and tell her, and at the same time I'm afraid of even saying anything. Does any of this make any sense to you?" I asked, hoping for a miracle, for none of it made any sense to me.

"No," Ginny said, and my heart sank, "but it's not supposed to, you ninny," she grinned. "This is love." She said…great, so that was the wisdom she had to share with me?

"Tell me something I don't know," I said, miserably.

"Oh, you great prat," she patted my shoulder. "Look, this is obviously not the place to be speaking of such things, and I've Herbology to go to next. Meet me after dinner in the Astronomy Tower, will you? I could use some help with my constellations, anyway, and you did rather well last year as I recall."

"I suppose, but," I interrupted, hoping that maybe I might have some immediate advice. The longer this feeling lingered unprofessed, the more I was worried I'd never be able to profess it at all, and that promised to be an even bigger disaster.

"No buts," Ginny smiled, giving me a quick hug—something she hadn't done since my second year, I reckon—and dashing away to her next class. When had my little sister grown up? As I watched her bouncing away amidst her circle of friends, I couldn't help but feel as though she'd changed somehow, changed for the better—she wasn't the shy girl who had first come to Hogwarts—that was true, and yet I didn't know why part of me felt sad over it. It was as though everything around me was changing at an uncontrollable pace, and eventually I'd have to change with it. What was most frightening was that maybe I already had.

~*~

I went up to the astronomy tower a littler early, trying to think over the situation I was in. Surely, Ginny was having a fancy old time laughing at me, right now. She probably found it very amusing that I'd had to turn to her for help, and the irony of my having to ask my younger sibling romantic advice when she herself was single didn't escape me. I just hoped she wouldn't take advantage of me in my time of need and make me do something stupid like make me dress up as a singing goblin, or anything of the sort. I was at a point where I might just have done it if I'd thought it might make things any easier.

Ginny met me a at seven sharp, and again I noticed that she'd grown quite beautiful. A pang of pride swelled my chest. No matter how we fight or yell, I really do love my sister. I always tell her she's my favourite sister, and she always rolls her eyes.

"That's because I'm your only sister, you dunce," she said now, after I'd greeted her with the familiar phrase. A moment of silence passed as she sat down on the stone floor of the open observatory. In the sixteen years I'd been her brother, never had we had an awkward moment though this was beginning to resemble one.

"How have you been?" I asked her. It seemed an unlikely question to ask your sister when she, for all intents and purposes, lived in the same quarters as you did, but, for the first time since I'd begun dating you, I realized how distant she and I had become though I knew neither of us had intended it to be that way.

"I've been well," she answered, "busy with school, and I've been elected head of the 5th year class as unofficial planner of our next Hogsmeade itinerary." I couldn't help but notice a kind of sadness in her eyes as she told me this, and I instinctively felt that I'd something to do with it for that same pang of sadness now radiated through my own chest.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Hermione," I blurted-out but instantly felt as though it was something I'd been meaning to say to her for a long time. I was sorry, so sorry I hadn't told her this. Ginny and I had always been close, being the closest in age, but lately we'd been losing that.

"You'd better be," she nudged me with her shoulder, a gesture that meant she forgave me. I nudged her back, and for the first time in a long time, it felt as it had always used to.

~*~

It was late by the time we got back from the Astronomy Tower, and when we entered the Common Room it was empty which meant you'd gotten tired and gone to bed. I'd left my chess set on a table near the fireplace—Harry and I were in the middle of a particularly gory battle, and the game had to be put on hold while we reevaluated our tactics. As Ginny said goodnight and made her way upstairs, I noticed the corner of a neatly folded piece of parchment poking from beneath the board. I picked it up and opened it, finding your neat handwriting gracing the page.

Ron;

I hope you and your sister had a nice time; I'm glad you had the chance to catch up. I got tired and fell asleep on Harry's shoulder, so now he's telling me I have to go to bed. I'm sorry I missed you, but I'll see you bright and early for our Transfiguration test, tomorrow.

Good night!

Hermione

P.S. Kindly tell Harry, when you see him, that he is not the boss of me, and that I'm going to bed only because I value his friendship too much to hex him, right now. H.G.

I smiled as I read your note. To anyone who picked it up inadvertently, it would merely seem to be a note from one friend to another, but I could feel what you'd felt while writing it, and could picture you perfectly as you scribbled your neat handwriting onto the paper. You'd dotted the 'i' on your name with a tiny little heart, and that alone betrayed the feelings that your words failed to convey for fear that our "secret" would become known throughout the tower. I smiled and folded your letter, tucking it into the pocket of my robes as I headed up to bed. Ginny had been a great help, and I no longer felt apprehensive. I knew exactly how to tell you my feelings…all that now needed to be done was the actual telling.

A/N This is the first half of this chapter. I am so sorry it's taken so long. I never expected life to be as drastic as it has become. I have not forgotten about this story, though, and I most definitely do mean to finish this. You're all just going to have to bear with me. I promise, promise, promise I'll try and update more regularly from now on.