A/N: Reviews are cooooooooooool…thanks to everyone who left one. Also, I suppose I should explain that the title isn't so much a description of the content of the story (though it is pretty apt) but a link to that Frank and Nancy Sinatra song, "Somethin' Stupid" (recently redone by Robbie/Nicole. Damn their hides.) You know, "And then I went and spoiled it all by saying something stupid like I love yoooooo", etc. You'll see what I mean later in the story.
*
So then for the first time ever Ron found himself going home for Christmas. As well as Hermione and Harry, the twins had brought home Lee Jordan and Angelina Johnson, and Ginny had invited her friends Henrietta, and-to Harry's utmost despair- Colin Creevey.
"Ginny- why?" he had wailed, rounding on the poor girl as soon as he heard.
"He's my friend," Ginny said, taken aback.
"He's also a twit with a an obsessive compulsive disorder!"
Ginny had crossed her arms across her chest. "Is that so?"
"Yes, that's so!"
"Well, don't worry," she said in a very dangerous voice reminiscent of Ron's when he was about to blow a fuse. "We wouldn't bother you if you paid us, Mr. Potter." Harry's shocked expression as Ginny stalked off to the girls dorms with Hermione had brought rather a too-large grin onto Ron's face. Harry glared at him. "And what's so funny?" Ron had shrugged and smiled mysteriously, and Harry had spent the rest of the afternoon trying to appease Ginny's bad mood.
The morning of December the 24th found the four Weaslies who still attended Hogwarts and their honourary Weasley friends speeding towards London on the Hogwarts Express. Everyone was in fine spirits (except perhaps Harry, who was having a hard time dealing with Colin Creevey in such an enclosed space as a train compartment) and by the time they were nearing London, the twins were in full Hoorah-for-Holidays mode as they guessed who Bill's mysterious fiancée might be.
"I bet it's a hag," Fred said. "Bill always did have a soft spot for ugly creatures, remember that girl he dated when we were in first year?"
"Nah, I bet it's a man, hey." George grinned. "You never know, with that long hair someone could have mistaken Bill for a girl."
"What if he's marrying Percy? He looks like a woman!" Fred sniggered.
"I bet it's a house-elf, trying to gain human-status by marrying one," George guessed.
"Oh, please…" Hermione started. Fred and George grinned.
"You know, Hermione, I eat house elves…" George started. He stopped at the look on Hermione face with a sheepish grin, but it didn't stop the rest of the compartment bursting into laughter- all except Ron.
"Oy, leave it," he said giving George a nudge with his large left foot. Hermione felt pleased at the time but ended up wishing Ron hadn't done it, because Fred and George spent the rest of the journey raising their eyebrows and nudging each other with very suggestive looks on their faces. It wasn't the first time of course- the Weasley twins had always joked about the "rampant sexual tension" between Hermione and Ron- but lately…
Hermione supposed it was just being so pleased that they were all friends again, but lately she couldn't get enough of Ron. That was disturbing enough in itself, but she had also admitted to herself that the reason she disliked Ron dating Parvati so much because she was jealous. There was no use pretending that undeniable facts were, well, deniable: She had been jealous. It was the why that bothered her so much…
It wasn't just because she disliked Parvati, either. She'd known it from the moment she saw them holding hands in the Three Broomsticks: she couldn't stand it when Ron looked at other girls. And why was that? Well, she was far too clever not the think of several possibilities, but all of those possibilities made her palms sweaty and her heart quiver. Especially when she realized that those sorts of possibilities had been in the back of her mind, since, well, their fourth year. That was when Ron became not just Ron, but Ron-and-everything-else. That was not when he became Ron-who-smelt-sweaty-after-Quidditch-training, but Ron-who-smelt-nice-after-showering. Ron whose hair flopped insistently over his forehead no matter how many times he pushed it out of the way. Ron whose beautiful hands would sometimes touch hers while they were working together, and so conscious was he of the fact that they had touched her would pull away as if her had been burned. Ron whose eyes reminded her of the embers in the fire when he looked at her. God…could it be true? That he wasn't smelly big old Ron anymore but someone she would consider as a…Hermione could barely even think it, and knew that she would never be able to say it aloud…
She was jerked out of her reverie as the train pulled into Platform Nine and Three Quarters, and was more disturbed to find that Ron had been looking at her. He blushed furiously when she caught him, and not even Hermione grinning at him as kindly as she could would coax him to look her in the eye as they rambled out of the train with their rucksacks and bags and bird cages. They found Charlie waiting there for them quite patiently, only to be bombarded by question from the four Weaslies with reference to Bill's mysterious fiancée.
"I think I'll let you meet her yourself," was all he said, and, for some inexplicable reason, looked at Ron and gave him a very deliberate wink. The Weasley twins howled their disapproval, but managed to pack everyone's things into the hired car fairly quickly and Fred, George, Ginny and Colin piled into the front seat. As Hermione was now used to, the inside of the car had been magically fixed so that everyone could fit inside, although not especially comfortably.
"Gee, Charlie, why didn't you get a smaller car?" said Fred sarcastically.
"Yeah, I mean, we're perfectly comfortable, we can afford the space," mumbled George from under Colin Creevey.
"Sorry, kiddo," said Charlie mildly. He turned to the remainder of the group- that being Angelina, Lee, Henrietta, Harry, Ron and Hermione, not to mention Crookshanks, Hedwig and Pigwigeon "Okay- you guys'll have to fit in the back somehow."
"I know!" called Fred gleefully, from inside the car, "Angelina can sit on me! Want to sit in the back, Ginny?"
"Actually, that's not a bad idea, Fred," said Charlie mildly. Angelina raised her eyebrows.
"I'm not sitting on him."
"No, but you can all sit on each other. Come on, in you go."
And after much grumbling and a fair bit of embarrassment, they managed to get themselves sorted out. Henrietta sat perched rather awkwardly on Lee Jordan's knees, while Harry, being a good two feet shorter than Angelina, sat comfortably in her lap. That left Ron, and Hermione. Of course, Hermione thought, swallowing hard as she followed Ron into the car. It had to be this way. Expecting- as the tension between them was bound to dictate- an uncomfortable journey perched on the end of Ron's knobbly knees, Hermione was inexpressibly shocked when Ron out both his arms around her and drew her close to him, so that both of his hands rested on top of hers. I'm sitting on Ron's lap… she thought, as her face went red.
"Are we ready, boys and girls?" Charlie asked.
"Yes," came the ragged chorus. (Ron's breath tickled the back of Hermione's neck as he spoke.) Charlie started the car with a crunching of gears, and they were off.
Hermione found herself feeling ambivalently comfortable and nervous as the journey wore on. Ron's arms around her felt so inexplicably…right, that Hermione found her heart sped up at the feeling. Finding comfort in Ron's arms? She almost giggled. So conscious was she of everything- the scent of his deodorant, his breath tickling her neck, his stomach rising and falling as he respired, every single shift of his legs, every single movement of his fingers- that it came as a surprise to her when she found that she had leant back into him, encouraging him to hold her closer to his chest. She felt, very briefly, his nose touch the back of her head. His heart was beating and so was hers- hard. She felt quite dizzy. The conversation in the car rose and fall like Ron's stomach.
"…And so the vampire says, "No thanks, I'm making tea!"" Not even Lee Jordan's crude jokes could take away this moment. I'm enjoying this, Hermione realised, I like having him hold me like this…She suddenly realized that she could feel someone's gaze and looked up to see George Weasley twisted round in his seat, staring at them both. He gave her a grin and a wink before turning back around and whispering in his brother's ear. Hermione's face flushed, and she wondered if Ron had noticed. Apparently he had.
"Am I making you uncomfortable?" he murmured into her ear.
"No," she whispered back, twisting her head so that she could see his face. "Am I?"
"Not at all." He paused. "Don't pay any attention to George."
"I never do."
"He's a git."
"He's a lovely git, though."
"I'm sorry he made that joke about house-elves."
"It's not your fault. Don't apologise for him."
"Were you terribly offended?"
And Hermione found herself thinking Have I ever been this close to him before? Not just physically- had they really ever been such good friends before? When did Ron start wondering if his brother's jokes offended her? When did they start worrying if they made the other uncomfortable? She felt, amazingly, inexplicably, that their physical comfort with each other was stemming from their newfound closeness. Hermione suddenly had a vision of that night, so many nights ago, when she and Ron had been lying on top of each other in the common room. But they had been nowhere near as emotionally in sync then as they were now…. And yet that night changed everything- not just because it was the night Parvati Patil happened to come into their lives and disrupt everything, but because she had noticed Ron as, for possibly the first time, not just as a boy, not just as a friend, but as…someone she could easily grow to care about in a way that was a lot deeper…
And she had.
"You all right?" Harry was shaking her arm. "You look like you're about to collapse."
Hermione smiled. "It's okay, Ron's got me."
And he had.
