A/N: Sorry the update took so long! I've been on vacation. Hope you guys
like this, and thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter!
Disclaimer: I still don't own them.
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Later that night, Ron found himself leaning over his Transfiguration homework at a table in the corner of the Gryffindor Common Room. Harry was at a Quidditch meeting about the upcoming tryouts, and he wasn't exactly sure where Hermione was. He assumed that she was in the library somewhere, but he didn't actually care too much. They'd gone the entire day without speaking to each other.
Ron actually felt awful about the fight earlier, but he wasn't about to admit that verbally. He could barely admit it mentally. He didn't know why they'd even fought- why couldn't he just have left well enough alone? He'd been doing so good all summer with not causing any unnecessary arguments about Krum. Why the hell did he have to open his mouth today? On her birthday?
He knew the reason.
He was jealous.
Jealous that Krum had sent a better present. Jealous that Krum had more money than he did. Jealous that Krum was Hermione's boyfriend.
Wait.
Well, maybe not jealous that he was her boyfriend, so much. Just that he was taking up her attention maybe. He'd never in his life had anything that was just his, and friends were no exception. He was used to sharing her attention with Harry, but splitting it three ways was just a little too much. Especially when boyfriend sounded so much more important than best friend. Or even worse- one of two best friends.
Damn it.
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't see Hermione enter the Common Room, and he didn't see her stop and stare at him intently as though she was trying to figure out whether or not to approach him. But he did hear her when she made her decision and joined him at the table.
"What are you working on?"
He looked up to see her smiling nervously at him. She was clutching her bag to her hip and biting on her lower lip nervously. "Transfiguration," he answered quietly.
"Need some help?" she asked almost hopefully. "I already did it; you can look at mine if you want to."
Ron raised an eyebrow at her as she sat down across from him. "You never let me copy your homework."
She shrugged. "Well, you can if you want to."
Ron just shook his head, not at all sure why he was passing up the opportunity. "No, thanks."
There was a moment of silence as Ron looked back down at his book. Finally, Hermione said, "Ron, are you mad at me?"
"No." Ron said the answer simply. He wasn't mad at her- not really anyway.
"Then why haven't you talked to me all day?" she asked, her voice laced with a sense of worry.
Ron looked up at her. "Because I thought you were mad at me."
"I'm not mad at you," she said quickly. "I mean, I got a little angry when you started in on me at breakfast this morning, but I got over it."
Ron shrugged. "Okay."
Hermione sighed. Very quietly, she said, "Thank you for the bracelet. I really love it."
Ron groaned mentally. He shrugged yet again. "Sorry I couldn't afford a diamond encrusted necklace to match it," he said bitterly.
"Ron, stop it." She was looking at him very seriously. "I hate when you say stuff like that."
To this, Ron shrugged yet again. "Then don't listen." He was seemingly very deep into his work, though he hadn't read a new sentence in many minutes. "And don't think you have to wear it just so you won't hurt my feelings. I know Krum gave you a better bracelet."
"But he didn't."
"I'm not stupid, Hermione," he looked up at her over his book. "I know that his was better."
"But it wasn't," she said almost urgently. "I don't care how much they cost. I like the one you gave me better." She was being very serious.
"Why?" Ron couldn't fathom any reason why she would like his better than the incredibly expensive one that Krum had sent.
Hermione once again bit her lower lip; she'd been doing a lot of that lately. "Because," she answered finally, "yours has more meaning."
Now he was confused. "Huh?"
"Look," Hermione looked directly into his eyes as she spoke. "Whenever I see those two bracelets, I'm going to think of the people who sent them to me. When I see the one Viktor sent, I'm going to see a Yule Ball and two weeks spent in Bulgaria. But when I look at the one you gave me, I'm going to see five years of really close friendship," she grinned. "And five years of really loud arguments. The happiest five years of my life. And then later when I look at it, hopefully I'll see many more than just five years of those things." Her voice got steadily softer as she spoke.
Ron didn't know what to say. How the hell she'd ever managed to tell him that, he'd never know because he knew that there was no chance he'd ever be able to tell her something like that. Even if it was true. He agreed with her that the past five years had been the best ever.
After a moment of unsure silence, he finally spoke up just as softly. "Yeah. But when you look at Krum's you're going to see your first boyfriend, and what is more important than that?"
Hermione just wrinkled her forehead a bit. "Ron, Viktor's not my boyfriend."
Whoa. Hold everything. "What?"
Hermione's cinnamon eyes darted around uneasily. "He's not my boyfriend. Why would you think that? I never told you that."
"In Quidditch Center, it said that you were his girlfriend," Ron said a bit too quietly.
"You can't believe everything you read in magazines," she sighed. "Don't you remember Rita Skeeter?"
Ron smiled just a tiny bit. "So, you're really not his girlfriend?"
Hermione shook her head. "No. We're just friends. We're sort of dating, but it's not serious." She was still looking a tad uneasy, but she was relaxing some which was good for her behalf.
Ron didn't know what to say. He was relieved that Krum wasn't her boyfriend, though he really didn't know why. But he was also somewhat nervous now that he knew that Krum had no claim on Hermione. A thought entered his mind that if Krum couldn't claim Hermione then that meant that anybody in the whole school could, and he wasn't about to let someone like Seamus Finnigan make claims like that. And then there was the whole "sort of dating" thing. What did "sort of dating" mean anyway? He decided to ask. "What does sort of dating mean?" Nice round about way of asking, eh?
Hermione's nose twitched slightly; it had a tendency to do that whenever she was uncomfortable. "It's complicated," she finally said, rather quietly.
"Complicated?" Ron raised one eyebrow at her. "What are you talking about?"
Hermione looked down at the table and then finally back up at Ron. "We're best friends, right?"
He nodded, unsure of what she was talking about. "Yeah…"
It was clear that she was extremely anxious and uncomfortable. "Well, I haven't really talked about this with anyone else. I mean, it's not like I'm going to run and tell Parvati and Lavender or anything."
Talk about what? Ron was very confused. "Hermione, what are you talking about?"
She sighed softly. "I think Viktor thinks we're more than we really are. Do you know what I mean?"
"Like what?"
She sighed again. "Well, he is trying to move things to serious way too fast for me, and I can't make him understand that I don't want to be serious with him without hurting his feelings."
"What do you mean trying to move to serious too fast?" Ron asked quickly, his eyes now dancing menacingly. "How exactly is he trying to move too fast?" If Krum had tried anything with her… Ron would kill him with his own hands.
"I don't know…" Hermione glanced around uneasily to make sure no one was listening to them. "I just feel like he's looking for a lot more than I am. I mean, he's older, and he's just more ready for a serious commitment than I am."
"You're not ready for a serious relationship?" Ron was relieved by her statement.
"Well, no," she admitted. "I mean, not with him. I barely know him."
Hmm… There was something to think about.
Hermione continued before Ron could respond. "Don't get me wrong. Viktor is a very nice person, and I do like him a lot. But I don't know… I told you it was complicated."
"You really do like him?" Ron felt something in his stomach drop, and he instantly cursed it.
It was clear that Hermione was growing more and more nervous by the second. "I guess I do. I had a lot of fun with him this summer."
"Oh." Ron looked across the Common Room at something, though he didn't even know what. "Did you ever kiss him?" The words left his mouth more quickly than he could have imagined. He wasn't even aware of the fact that he had been thinking it, and he felt his face begin to burn as he hurriedly averted his eyes even further away from her.
Hermione, too, blushed bright red at the question, and she moved her own eyes away from him just as quickly as he had from her. "Why do you care?" she asked quietly, trying not to let the strain in her voice show through.
"Um," Ron swallowed as he quickly thought up an answer to her questions. "I don't. It's just that… You know, since we're best friends and all… I just thought maybe you'd want to tell me?" The final part of his excuse was more a question than a statement.
"Oh." Hermione was quiet for a long moment, and Ron finally glanced at, nervously awaiting the rest of her answer. She looked up at him just as anxiously and finished. "Well, yeah." Her answer was so quiet, he could barely hear it.
Yeah? She really said yeah? Ron's eyes widened just a little. "You kissed him?" His voice was a little louder than he'd meant.
Hermione quickly darted her eyes around to make sure no one was listening. "Ron, keep your voice down!" she hissed.
"Well, did you?" he demanded.
"Yes." Hermione's voice had dropped so soft by this time that it was barely audible.
Ron was silent for a long while. He really had no idea what to say, and he actually wished he'd never asked the question in the first place. She'd kissed someone already? Oh, hell. Why did he even care anyway? Ron mentally shrugged off the aching in his stomach as too much pudding at dinner. Instead, he decided to get as much information out of her as he could; hey, he was her best friend, right? She'd said so herself. "So, what was it like?" He gave her his absolute best nonchalant voice.
Hermione looked at him a bit strangely but answered his question anyway. "It was sort of weird, actually. I really didn't know what I was doing, and he really did," she finished off-handedly. "I felt kind of stupid."
"Well, that must have been new for you," Ron said, a tad bit more sarcastically than he'd meant to.
Hermione just rolled her eyes. "Well, have you ever kissed anyone?"
Now it was Ron's turn to roll his eyes. "The closest I've ever been to going out with a girl was the Yule Ball, and do you actually think Padma let me kiss her? I think I royally pissed her off that night."
"You royally pissed me off that night," she said sardonically.
"Hermione," he teased gently, "don't swear."
Hermione just rolled her eyes again and reached across the table to playfully punch him in the arm. This caused them both to laugh.
Wow, she was pretty when she laughed. Her eyes flashed so brightly, it was just amazing.
When they're laughter subsided, she just looked at him smiling. "Ron, I'm really glad I have someone I can talk to. You're much better than Parvati and Lavender, trust me."
Ron grinned, too. "Is that supposed to be a compliment? Because I really don't think that's a huge accomplishment."
It was her turn to shrug now. "Well, they're all I have to compare you to besides a couple of girls I used to know in grade school, and I hardly think that discussing which Barbie character was the prettiest is an equal conversation topic to first kisses."
"You played with Barbies?" Ron asked, his eyes widening a bit in disbelief.
Hermione looked at him curiously. "Yeah. So what?"
He snickered quietly. "I just can't picture you ever playing with dolls."
"Well, Ron," Hermione said with a lingering sigh. "I know that it took you over three years to realize I'm a girl, but I figured by now you would have come to terms with the revelation." She was speaking in the most sarcastic voice she could muster.
Well, Ron had news for her. He definitely knew that she was a girl, but he wasn't about to tell her just how much of a revelation that discovery had been for him. And he wasn't about to tell her that he was still reeling from the effects of such a discovery.
"Hermione, I know you're a girl," he said, forcing himself not to blush. "But I still can't picture playing Barbies." His nose wrinkled as he thought up the next part of his statement. "That's such a Ginny thing to do."
"Ginny played with Barbies?"
Ron nodded, a slight smile on his face. "Yeah, Dad used to bring them home to her because she always loved Muggle toys better than Wizard toys. We used to have the corvette and the dream house and the beach set and everything."
Hermione was silent for only a moment before biting her lip to obviously hide a grin. "We? What? You played Barbies, too, Ron?"
Ron turned bright red as he realized his slip. "No! I mean… Well, I had no choice; Mum made me play with Ginny because she was the only girl and had no one else to play with!"
Hermione began to giggle. "Did you play with any other dolls?"
"No!" Ron looked around hurriedly to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "Okay, so I liked her Baby Alive, too, but only because it shit green if you fed it bananas."
Hermione made a face. "That is gross, Ron."
"No, it was totally cool!" he said a bit too excitedly. "Even Fred and George played with that doll!"
Hermione couldn't stop giggling. "Well, don't worry. Pretty soon you'll be able to play dolls with your new little sister."
"It's going to be a new little brother," Ron said determinedly. "Trust me."
Hermione just rolled her eyes, but then smiled across the table at him. "Aren't you excited about the baby?"
In response, Ron rolled his own eyes. "What's there to be excited about? Another sibling to share everything with?"
"Ron, I would love to have a new baby brother or sister!" she said quickly and adamantly.
"Yeah, but you don't have six siblings already," Ron said quite pointedly. "Trust me; if you were in my shoes, you'd feel differently."
"I think it would be fun."
"Well, then you're welcome to be a Weasley any time you choose." Ron shook his head slightly. "It's not as much fun as it's cracked up to be."
Hermione didn't tell him that she wouldn't mind being a Weasley. Instead she just sighed softly. "Well, I can't wait to see the baby. I'm going to your house for Easter, I hope you know."
He just rolled his eyes. "I'd already guessed that you were."
Hermione beamed at him before standing up. "Well, you'd better get back to your homework."
"Hey, Hermione," Ron said quickly just as she started to turn away.
"Yeah?"
"Can I still copy yours?" He smiled at her hopefully, and she just laughed.
"Nope, sorry." She flashed him her own grin.
"Damn," he muttered, glancing back up at her once more. "Oh! And just so you know, Skipper was the prettiest."
Hermione laughed , shaking her head. "Goodnight, Ron." And then she leaned over to kiss him quickly on the cheek before hurrying off in the direction of the girls' dormitory.
And then Ron couldn't concentrate at all.
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I love feedback!!!!
Disclaimer: I still don't own them.
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Later that night, Ron found himself leaning over his Transfiguration homework at a table in the corner of the Gryffindor Common Room. Harry was at a Quidditch meeting about the upcoming tryouts, and he wasn't exactly sure where Hermione was. He assumed that she was in the library somewhere, but he didn't actually care too much. They'd gone the entire day without speaking to each other.
Ron actually felt awful about the fight earlier, but he wasn't about to admit that verbally. He could barely admit it mentally. He didn't know why they'd even fought- why couldn't he just have left well enough alone? He'd been doing so good all summer with not causing any unnecessary arguments about Krum. Why the hell did he have to open his mouth today? On her birthday?
He knew the reason.
He was jealous.
Jealous that Krum had sent a better present. Jealous that Krum had more money than he did. Jealous that Krum was Hermione's boyfriend.
Wait.
Well, maybe not jealous that he was her boyfriend, so much. Just that he was taking up her attention maybe. He'd never in his life had anything that was just his, and friends were no exception. He was used to sharing her attention with Harry, but splitting it three ways was just a little too much. Especially when boyfriend sounded so much more important than best friend. Or even worse- one of two best friends.
Damn it.
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't see Hermione enter the Common Room, and he didn't see her stop and stare at him intently as though she was trying to figure out whether or not to approach him. But he did hear her when she made her decision and joined him at the table.
"What are you working on?"
He looked up to see her smiling nervously at him. She was clutching her bag to her hip and biting on her lower lip nervously. "Transfiguration," he answered quietly.
"Need some help?" she asked almost hopefully. "I already did it; you can look at mine if you want to."
Ron raised an eyebrow at her as she sat down across from him. "You never let me copy your homework."
She shrugged. "Well, you can if you want to."
Ron just shook his head, not at all sure why he was passing up the opportunity. "No, thanks."
There was a moment of silence as Ron looked back down at his book. Finally, Hermione said, "Ron, are you mad at me?"
"No." Ron said the answer simply. He wasn't mad at her- not really anyway.
"Then why haven't you talked to me all day?" she asked, her voice laced with a sense of worry.
Ron looked up at her. "Because I thought you were mad at me."
"I'm not mad at you," she said quickly. "I mean, I got a little angry when you started in on me at breakfast this morning, but I got over it."
Ron shrugged. "Okay."
Hermione sighed. Very quietly, she said, "Thank you for the bracelet. I really love it."
Ron groaned mentally. He shrugged yet again. "Sorry I couldn't afford a diamond encrusted necklace to match it," he said bitterly.
"Ron, stop it." She was looking at him very seriously. "I hate when you say stuff like that."
To this, Ron shrugged yet again. "Then don't listen." He was seemingly very deep into his work, though he hadn't read a new sentence in many minutes. "And don't think you have to wear it just so you won't hurt my feelings. I know Krum gave you a better bracelet."
"But he didn't."
"I'm not stupid, Hermione," he looked up at her over his book. "I know that his was better."
"But it wasn't," she said almost urgently. "I don't care how much they cost. I like the one you gave me better." She was being very serious.
"Why?" Ron couldn't fathom any reason why she would like his better than the incredibly expensive one that Krum had sent.
Hermione once again bit her lower lip; she'd been doing a lot of that lately. "Because," she answered finally, "yours has more meaning."
Now he was confused. "Huh?"
"Look," Hermione looked directly into his eyes as she spoke. "Whenever I see those two bracelets, I'm going to think of the people who sent them to me. When I see the one Viktor sent, I'm going to see a Yule Ball and two weeks spent in Bulgaria. But when I look at the one you gave me, I'm going to see five years of really close friendship," she grinned. "And five years of really loud arguments. The happiest five years of my life. And then later when I look at it, hopefully I'll see many more than just five years of those things." Her voice got steadily softer as she spoke.
Ron didn't know what to say. How the hell she'd ever managed to tell him that, he'd never know because he knew that there was no chance he'd ever be able to tell her something like that. Even if it was true. He agreed with her that the past five years had been the best ever.
After a moment of unsure silence, he finally spoke up just as softly. "Yeah. But when you look at Krum's you're going to see your first boyfriend, and what is more important than that?"
Hermione just wrinkled her forehead a bit. "Ron, Viktor's not my boyfriend."
Whoa. Hold everything. "What?"
Hermione's cinnamon eyes darted around uneasily. "He's not my boyfriend. Why would you think that? I never told you that."
"In Quidditch Center, it said that you were his girlfriend," Ron said a bit too quietly.
"You can't believe everything you read in magazines," she sighed. "Don't you remember Rita Skeeter?"
Ron smiled just a tiny bit. "So, you're really not his girlfriend?"
Hermione shook her head. "No. We're just friends. We're sort of dating, but it's not serious." She was still looking a tad uneasy, but she was relaxing some which was good for her behalf.
Ron didn't know what to say. He was relieved that Krum wasn't her boyfriend, though he really didn't know why. But he was also somewhat nervous now that he knew that Krum had no claim on Hermione. A thought entered his mind that if Krum couldn't claim Hermione then that meant that anybody in the whole school could, and he wasn't about to let someone like Seamus Finnigan make claims like that. And then there was the whole "sort of dating" thing. What did "sort of dating" mean anyway? He decided to ask. "What does sort of dating mean?" Nice round about way of asking, eh?
Hermione's nose twitched slightly; it had a tendency to do that whenever she was uncomfortable. "It's complicated," she finally said, rather quietly.
"Complicated?" Ron raised one eyebrow at her. "What are you talking about?"
Hermione looked down at the table and then finally back up at Ron. "We're best friends, right?"
He nodded, unsure of what she was talking about. "Yeah…"
It was clear that she was extremely anxious and uncomfortable. "Well, I haven't really talked about this with anyone else. I mean, it's not like I'm going to run and tell Parvati and Lavender or anything."
Talk about what? Ron was very confused. "Hermione, what are you talking about?"
She sighed softly. "I think Viktor thinks we're more than we really are. Do you know what I mean?"
"Like what?"
She sighed again. "Well, he is trying to move things to serious way too fast for me, and I can't make him understand that I don't want to be serious with him without hurting his feelings."
"What do you mean trying to move to serious too fast?" Ron asked quickly, his eyes now dancing menacingly. "How exactly is he trying to move too fast?" If Krum had tried anything with her… Ron would kill him with his own hands.
"I don't know…" Hermione glanced around uneasily to make sure no one was listening to them. "I just feel like he's looking for a lot more than I am. I mean, he's older, and he's just more ready for a serious commitment than I am."
"You're not ready for a serious relationship?" Ron was relieved by her statement.
"Well, no," she admitted. "I mean, not with him. I barely know him."
Hmm… There was something to think about.
Hermione continued before Ron could respond. "Don't get me wrong. Viktor is a very nice person, and I do like him a lot. But I don't know… I told you it was complicated."
"You really do like him?" Ron felt something in his stomach drop, and he instantly cursed it.
It was clear that Hermione was growing more and more nervous by the second. "I guess I do. I had a lot of fun with him this summer."
"Oh." Ron looked across the Common Room at something, though he didn't even know what. "Did you ever kiss him?" The words left his mouth more quickly than he could have imagined. He wasn't even aware of the fact that he had been thinking it, and he felt his face begin to burn as he hurriedly averted his eyes even further away from her.
Hermione, too, blushed bright red at the question, and she moved her own eyes away from him just as quickly as he had from her. "Why do you care?" she asked quietly, trying not to let the strain in her voice show through.
"Um," Ron swallowed as he quickly thought up an answer to her questions. "I don't. It's just that… You know, since we're best friends and all… I just thought maybe you'd want to tell me?" The final part of his excuse was more a question than a statement.
"Oh." Hermione was quiet for a long moment, and Ron finally glanced at, nervously awaiting the rest of her answer. She looked up at him just as anxiously and finished. "Well, yeah." Her answer was so quiet, he could barely hear it.
Yeah? She really said yeah? Ron's eyes widened just a little. "You kissed him?" His voice was a little louder than he'd meant.
Hermione quickly darted her eyes around to make sure no one was listening. "Ron, keep your voice down!" she hissed.
"Well, did you?" he demanded.
"Yes." Hermione's voice had dropped so soft by this time that it was barely audible.
Ron was silent for a long while. He really had no idea what to say, and he actually wished he'd never asked the question in the first place. She'd kissed someone already? Oh, hell. Why did he even care anyway? Ron mentally shrugged off the aching in his stomach as too much pudding at dinner. Instead, he decided to get as much information out of her as he could; hey, he was her best friend, right? She'd said so herself. "So, what was it like?" He gave her his absolute best nonchalant voice.
Hermione looked at him a bit strangely but answered his question anyway. "It was sort of weird, actually. I really didn't know what I was doing, and he really did," she finished off-handedly. "I felt kind of stupid."
"Well, that must have been new for you," Ron said, a tad bit more sarcastically than he'd meant to.
Hermione just rolled her eyes. "Well, have you ever kissed anyone?"
Now it was Ron's turn to roll his eyes. "The closest I've ever been to going out with a girl was the Yule Ball, and do you actually think Padma let me kiss her? I think I royally pissed her off that night."
"You royally pissed me off that night," she said sardonically.
"Hermione," he teased gently, "don't swear."
Hermione just rolled her eyes again and reached across the table to playfully punch him in the arm. This caused them both to laugh.
Wow, she was pretty when she laughed. Her eyes flashed so brightly, it was just amazing.
When they're laughter subsided, she just looked at him smiling. "Ron, I'm really glad I have someone I can talk to. You're much better than Parvati and Lavender, trust me."
Ron grinned, too. "Is that supposed to be a compliment? Because I really don't think that's a huge accomplishment."
It was her turn to shrug now. "Well, they're all I have to compare you to besides a couple of girls I used to know in grade school, and I hardly think that discussing which Barbie character was the prettiest is an equal conversation topic to first kisses."
"You played with Barbies?" Ron asked, his eyes widening a bit in disbelief.
Hermione looked at him curiously. "Yeah. So what?"
He snickered quietly. "I just can't picture you ever playing with dolls."
"Well, Ron," Hermione said with a lingering sigh. "I know that it took you over three years to realize I'm a girl, but I figured by now you would have come to terms with the revelation." She was speaking in the most sarcastic voice she could muster.
Well, Ron had news for her. He definitely knew that she was a girl, but he wasn't about to tell her just how much of a revelation that discovery had been for him. And he wasn't about to tell her that he was still reeling from the effects of such a discovery.
"Hermione, I know you're a girl," he said, forcing himself not to blush. "But I still can't picture playing Barbies." His nose wrinkled as he thought up the next part of his statement. "That's such a Ginny thing to do."
"Ginny played with Barbies?"
Ron nodded, a slight smile on his face. "Yeah, Dad used to bring them home to her because she always loved Muggle toys better than Wizard toys. We used to have the corvette and the dream house and the beach set and everything."
Hermione was silent for only a moment before biting her lip to obviously hide a grin. "We? What? You played Barbies, too, Ron?"
Ron turned bright red as he realized his slip. "No! I mean… Well, I had no choice; Mum made me play with Ginny because she was the only girl and had no one else to play with!"
Hermione began to giggle. "Did you play with any other dolls?"
"No!" Ron looked around hurriedly to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "Okay, so I liked her Baby Alive, too, but only because it shit green if you fed it bananas."
Hermione made a face. "That is gross, Ron."
"No, it was totally cool!" he said a bit too excitedly. "Even Fred and George played with that doll!"
Hermione couldn't stop giggling. "Well, don't worry. Pretty soon you'll be able to play dolls with your new little sister."
"It's going to be a new little brother," Ron said determinedly. "Trust me."
Hermione just rolled her eyes, but then smiled across the table at him. "Aren't you excited about the baby?"
In response, Ron rolled his own eyes. "What's there to be excited about? Another sibling to share everything with?"
"Ron, I would love to have a new baby brother or sister!" she said quickly and adamantly.
"Yeah, but you don't have six siblings already," Ron said quite pointedly. "Trust me; if you were in my shoes, you'd feel differently."
"I think it would be fun."
"Well, then you're welcome to be a Weasley any time you choose." Ron shook his head slightly. "It's not as much fun as it's cracked up to be."
Hermione didn't tell him that she wouldn't mind being a Weasley. Instead she just sighed softly. "Well, I can't wait to see the baby. I'm going to your house for Easter, I hope you know."
He just rolled his eyes. "I'd already guessed that you were."
Hermione beamed at him before standing up. "Well, you'd better get back to your homework."
"Hey, Hermione," Ron said quickly just as she started to turn away.
"Yeah?"
"Can I still copy yours?" He smiled at her hopefully, and she just laughed.
"Nope, sorry." She flashed him her own grin.
"Damn," he muttered, glancing back up at her once more. "Oh! And just so you know, Skipper was the prettiest."
Hermione laughed , shaking her head. "Goodnight, Ron." And then she leaned over to kiss him quickly on the cheek before hurrying off in the direction of the girls' dormitory.
And then Ron couldn't concentrate at all.
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