A/N: Thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter. I'm not getting as many
reviews as I used to, but I'm not sure if that's because I'm not leaving
much time between chapters or what. To those of you who are reading, thank
you!!
Well, this is probably my favorite chapter so far. I hope you guys like it, too! Warning, though, it's a bit long...
Disclaimer: Still don't own them!
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Four mornings later, Ron found himself in the Great Hall during dinner. Harry was serving his detention with Snape for cursing that Ravenclaw. His brothers and sister were nowhere to be found, though this did make Ron a little suspicious of their whereabouts. Everyone else was at dinner, though, and Ron was currently engaging himself in what he found to be a rather interesting discussion of football with Dean. Hermione sat to his left listening vaguely, and every once in awhile making a comment. Surprisingly enough, she happened to be a fan of football. She had been released from the hospital wing yesterday morning. Her nose had, in fact, been broken, just as Ron had assumed, but Madame Pomfrey had managed to mend it beautifully, and there was no longer any trace that it had been set an a horribly wrong angle only days earlier.
Everything was perfectly normal until Pansy Parkinson showed up at the table.
She was followed closely by three other Slytherin girls that were all just as annoying as Pansy, and she was clutching what looked like a magazine in her hand. She smiled a fake smile at the Gryffindors, and Ron immediately wondered what she was up to. He quickly glanced behind her at the Slytherin table and saw that its entirety had their attention focused on the unfolding scene.
"What do you want, Pansy?" It was Parvati Patil who had asked the question. She and Pansy had been friends once-upon-a-time pre-Hogwarts days, but since their first year at school, they were anything but friendly with each other.
Pansy smiled innocently at her ex-friend and shrugged nonchalantly. "I just came over to say hi."
Parvati rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right."
Another smile covered Pansy's pale face. "Actually, I came over to congratulate the new members of your Quidditch team and wish them good luck at the upcoming match."
Ron didn't buy that for a second. He didn't trust her any further than he could throw Millicent Bulstrode, who happened, in fact, to be one of the Slytherin girls accompanying Pansy on this little mission.
Pansy turned her attention, of course, to Ron. "Ron," she never used his first name, "I really hope you do well at the match. I thought you might appreciate a copy of this month's Quidditch Center as a form of congratulations." She smiled broadly as she held the magazine out to him.
Ron took it from her carefully, eyeing her a long moment before looking down at it.
"It's open to an article I think you will find especially interesting," Pansy continued. "I'm sure Hermione would enjoy reading it, too." She never used Hermione's first name, either. Something was definitely up.
Ron turned the magazine over and looked down at the article Pansy had so graciously left open for him.
"Krum's New Love," read the title. Ron immediately tried to jerk the book out of Hermione's view, but she was already peering down at it intently.
"Viktor Krum, contracted seeker for the Bulgarian national team, has recently been spotted with a new lady on his arm. The new woman is French model Arlia Krempau; a nineteen year old recent graduate from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. As you will remember, Krum was spotted this summer with another young woman on his arm, Hermione Granger, now fifteen of Britain. Miss Granger is still in school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and apparently Krum can't handle the distance.
"When asked about Miss Granger, Krum was quoted as saying, "She is nice but very young." Whether or not the two of them had an official relationship is a fact yet to be confirmed. What can be confirmed, though, is that Miss Krempau is very much in an official relationship with the seeker.
"The two of them seem very happy, and it has been confirmed by both Krempau's and Krum's publicists that the four carat diamond ring Miss Krempau is wearing on her finger is a gift from Krum. There is no real confirmation on whether the ring is an engagement gift."
The article was accompanied by a picture of Viktor and Arlia, the ring in question glistening brightly on her left hand.
Ron finished the article and looked up just in time to see Hermione doing the same thing. He didn't know what to say as she bit her lower lip and stared determinedly at the table in front of her. Lavender reached for the magazine, and she, Parvati, and Seamus read it together and then passed it to Dean and Neville. No one said anything.
Pansy and her friends were all smiling rather smugly, though. "It was an interesting article, wasn't it?" Pansy's question was answered with laughter from her friends.
And then Hermione threw her chair back from the table and got up, leaving the dining hall at lightning quick speed.
Ron watched Hermione's retreating back as she ran from the Great Hall as quickly as her legs would take her. He didn't have a clue what to do or whether to go after her. Parvati and Lavender were also watching her, and Parvati caught Ron's eye.
"Do you want us to go after her?"
Ron seriously considered the offer. Parvati and Lavender were by no means best friends with Hermione, but, next to Ginny, they were the closest things to girlfriends that she had. And honestly, what type of help would he be anyway? He didn't know anything about "girly" issues. He almost told them yes, to go after Hermione.
Almost.
But he didn't. Because after all, he was her best friend. He was the one that was supposed to lend her the shoulder to cry on and offer a kind word. Yes, that's what a best friend did, right?
But Hermione was... Well, she was a girl.
Still, though. It was his job to be there for her, so he shook his head and told Parvati, "Thanks, but I better go." He got up from the table and shot Pansy the meanest glare he could muster.
But as soon as he stood up from the Gryffindor table, he knew that finding Hermione was going to be quite a bit difficult. Normally, when he wanted to find Hermione, he simply headed to one place and one place only; something told him, however, that she had not run to the library to hide behind a stack of books on that evening. He had no clue where she had run to. Immediately, he wished that he had the Marauders' Map with him because tracking her down with that would be no problem whatsoever. But Harry had taken to carrying it with him everywhere on the suggestion of Sirius in case anyone was able to sneak onto the grounds that might wish him harm. So, Ron was going on complete instinct.
The only problem was that his instinct didn't seem to be working properly.
He figured that the Gryffindor Common Room would be as good of a place as anywhere to start. It wasn't as though he had too much else to go on, so he might as well try it. He set off down the hall in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, but as he passed a girls' bathroom, he knew that he didn't need to make the rest of the trip. For some reason, he knew that he had already found her. Checking at once to make sure it wasn't Moaning Myrtle's toilet, he opened the door and peered inside. There was no one in sight, but he could hear a soft crying coming from the other end of the room. Ron glanced behind him to make sure that there were no teachers or prefects around to take points from Gryffindor for catching him going into a girls' toilet. When he saw none, he quickly slipped inside and followed the sound of the crying all the way to the end of bathroom to the very last stall. He could hear her crying clearly now. Knocking gently on the door, he called to her. "Hermione?"
He was met with no response other than the sound of her sobbing, so he tried again. "Hermione, it's me. Open up."
There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence before Ron heard the sliding of the lock from the other side. He took that as cue to enter, and he slowly pushed the door open. Hermione was sitting on the ground against one of the side walls with her knees being hugged to her chest and her face buried deeply into her arms. She was crying, and it was obvious that she did not intend on looking up and meeting Ron's eye anytime soon.
Ron, himself, was extremely nervous. He wished immediately that he had sent Parvati and Lavender instead, or at least that Harry was there with him. Anything just so that he wasn't alone... in a bathroom... with a crying girl.
What the hell was he supposed to do?
He did only what he could do. He pulled the door closed behind him and quietly slid to the ground opposite of Hermione. It was a tight squeeze, and it reminded him of the month that he, Hermione, and Harry had spent locked in a stall in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom mixing up the Polyjuice Potion. However, even with the absence of Harry, the stall seemed to be quite a bit more cramped. This was due to the fact that they weren't tiny twelve year olds anymore. Ron was actually quite tall, and though Hermione was still rather small, she was, nonetheless, quite a bit larger than she had been three years before. Ron made a mental note that if any potions needed brewing in secrecy this year that they would have to find a better spot than a bathroom stall if all three of them were to be included.
The silence was unbearable, and Ron prayed that Hermione would say something first to break it. He got lucky. With her head still buried into her arms, she mumbled almost inaudibly, "This is a girls' toilet."
Ron grinned. "So I noticed."
"You're not a girl," she told him, still not looking up.
"I noticed that, too." He was trying to joke with her, but she didn't seem to be finding the humor.
She stayed silent with her face still completely hidden.
Finally, Ron said, "I guess it would have been better if Parvati and Lavender would have come, wouldn't it have?"
"Why would they have come?" she asked emotionless.
Ron shifted a bit until he finally found a comfortable position. "Well... Um, they offered to. You probably want a girl in here anyway, don't you? They'll still come, I'm sure. Do you want me to go get them? I can try to find Ginny if you'd like..."
Hermione finally looked up at him. Her face was red and tear-streaked, though she had ceased crying. "No. Don't go."
Ron looked at her in surprise for a moment, the most unusual feelings taking over himself. He studied her curiously before saying, "But I don't know anything about this kind of stuff," he pointed out.
"What stuff?" she asked, eyebrows raised slightly.
"You know," Ron shifted once again, "This girl stuff."
Hermione just rolled her eyes. "It's not girl stuff, Ron," she said rather haughtily, despite her distraught state.
Ron frowned a bit; this was not easy for him. "Hermione, I really don't know if I'm the one you want to talk to..."
But Hermione held up a hand to stop him as she implored him to listen to her with her deep, sad, brown eyes. "But you're the only one who will understand." She spoke quietly and almost pleadingly.
Ron wasn't sure at all as to what she was talking about, and he told her as much. "Understand what?"
"You're the only other person in the world who knows what it's like to be 'Famous Harry Potter's' best friend." Her face fell slightly as she said this.
What did Harry have to do with any of this? "Hermione, what are you talking about?"
Hermione was quiet for a long moment before she finally answered him. "Ron, I'm not crying because I've gone and got my heart broken or anything silly like that. I'm crying because I've just been humiliated in front of the entire wizarding world. I should have known that Viktor wouldn't want a nobody like me. Of course, he wants some beautiful French model!"
Ron just raised his eyebrows at her. "Her..." He didn't know what to say.
"Look. When I was younger, all the kids at my grade school knew me as 'Hermione Granger- the know-it-all.' But then I got my letter from Hogwarts, and I started thinking of myself as 'Hermione Granger- the witch,' and I really started to like the sound of that because no one else I knew was a witch. It really made me feel special for once. But then pretty soon after I got here, I started being known as 'Hermione Granger- Harry Potter's best friend.' Now, don't get me wrong, I don't regret being Harry's friend because he's a wonderful person, and I know he never asked for any of this attention or the fame. But it really got old rather quickly. And so when Viktor came around, I just sort of jumped at the chance to be known as 'Hermione Granger- the girl Viktor Krum is dating.' I mean, I know it's not much better, but at least it was a change..."
Ron listened to her, a wave of shock rushing over him. He knew only too well what she was talking about. Since the day he was born, he had always been known as the youngest Weasley boy. And he knew he wasn't as good as any of his brothers, either. He wasn't as smart as Bill, he wasn't as athletic as Charlie, he wasn't as mature as Percy, he wasn't as funny as Fred and George. He was just the youngest one whose greatest accomplishment had been snagging 'Famous Harry Potter' as a best friend. He knew what Hermione had been talking about when she'd said that that title had gotten old rather quickly. Yes, he knew that Harry had never chosen to be famous, and he also knew that Harry hated having everyone gawk at his forehead everywhere he went. But to Ron, it didn't look annoying at all. Harry was getting all the attention that Ron had craved since the day he'd been born as the youngest of six boys. And, yes, he was jealous. For the most part, he managed to keep his jealousy to a bare minimum, but the year before it had just been too much. He'd let the jealousy get the better of him, causing what had been a very terrible row between the two of them that resulted in weeks of not speaking to each other. Ron wouldn't have admitted it verbally, but those had been very painful weeks for him, and what made them perhaps even more painful was the fact that Hermione seemingly chose Harry over him. Ron knew, of course, that Hermione only spent more time with Harry because no one else in the school would even talk to him, save the Creevey brothers, but still, Ron had wished that Hermione might choose his side. What was so shocking now was the fact that Hermione had been harboring her own bitterness about being stuck with the title of 'Harry Potter's best friend' because during those weeks, though she spent a considerable amount of more time with Harry than with Ron, she'd managed to keep neutral ground and play the part of a somewhat go- between for them. Ron had never in a million years dreamed that she was capable of feeling the same sort of bitterness toward Harry's fame that he had been feeling for five years.
He looked up at Hermione finally and nodded slowly, "I understand. I really do," he assured her quietly.
He saw what was the distinct glistening of tears in the corners of her eyes as she said in what was barely an audible voice, "Why isn't plain old Hermione Granger ever good enough?"
Ron didn't want her to cry again. He didn't know that he was capable of handling her when she was in tears. True, it wasn't anywhere close to the first time he'd seen her cry; hell, he'd even been the one to make her cry on more than one occasion. But this was all different, and it scared him. In the past when he'd witnessed her crying, it had been because she was upset at having to serve a detention after Harry and Ron (it had always been their faults, according to Hermione) had gotten her into trouble with one of their crazy rule-breaking schemes, or it had been because she'd been terrified that Harry was going to get himself killed during one of his many meetings with You Know Who, or it had been because something had made her so happy, she'd been reduced to tears, or it had even been because she had gotten upset at one of the many rows that she had engaged herself in with Ron during the past five years. It had never been because she was pouring her heart out to him and him alone.
And now he didn't know what to do.
"It is good enough," the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Plain old Hermione Granger is perfect even." He was as much surprised by his words as she was, and he felt himself go red immediately after saying them.
For a moment, it appeared as though Hermione were going to burst into tears all over again, but then her face changed to one of screwed up confusion. "No, it's not!" she insisted, suddenly quite loud. "I'm bossy. I'm a know- it-all. I always have to be right. Besides you and Harry, I have no friends. Mostly every girl in this school talks bad about me. And obviously, I wasn't good enough for Viktor, now was I? He didn't even feel it necessary to alert me to his conclusion that 'I'm nice but very young.' I was too daft to see it from the start!" She listed off her "bad traits" as though she'd been thinking of them nonstop for weeks.
Ron was afraid that she had.
In an attempt to cheer her up just a bit, he smiled playfully at her. "Okay, I give you bossy. And the know-it-all one... And you really do always have to be right." He was joking with her, but she glared at him.
"I know, Ron. I don't need you to tell me the obvious."
Okay, obviously, joking was not what she needed at the moment. "I was only playing, Hermione. And anyway, you're wrong about the rest of them."
She raised an eyebrow at him. So, he continued.
"Look, just because Harry and I are your best friends doesn't mean that you don't have any other friends. All the other Gryffindors are your friends," he pointed out.
But she shook her head. "No, they're your friends- yours and Harry's. They only talk to me because they feel obligated to. Do you think that any of them would even speak to me if it wasn't for you and Harry? That is, of course, unless they needed help with Charms," she added bitterly.
Ron frowned. She was definitely not making this easy for him. He opted against trying to reason with her because he knew from more than enough experience that any sort of "reasoning" that transpired between the two of them always resulted in a heated argument, and he didn't think that an argument was what either of them needed at that moment. "And all those girls... Hermione, screw them. They're just jealous."
Hermione laughed at this, though it wasn't a joyful laugh by any means. "Jealous? What have they got to be jealous of? I'm sure that finding out they've been dumped while reading a national magazine has always been one of their dreams," she said with more than a bit of sarcasm.
Ron just shook his head. "Hermione, they're jealous because you're so much better than they are. And they can't stand it!"
Hermione, however, was not convinced. "Better than them? Yes, I'm sure they all aspire to be a bossy know-it-all who can only claim two friends."
"Look. You're the smartest girl in this whole school. You know more than all the other girls put together! And you're nicer than all of them, too! You really care about people, and you really care about things less fortunate than you; they can't stand the fact that you can be so selfless while they're all selfish little twits! And you're really funny, too! Well, at least you are when you aren't being an annoying prat," he added with a teasing grin. Hermione just stared at him expressionless. And with a voice much quieter, he added, "And you're beautiful. Really beautiful..."
He didn't know where he'd gotten the gall to say all of that, but as soon as he'd said the words, he felt a blush creep into his cheeks and settle there.
Hermione stared at him silently for a long moment, and then all at once, she burst into tears and flung her arms tightly around his neck, scooting her body until she was nearly on his lap. And she just cried into his shoulder, soaking his shirt with her tears. Ron, a bit panicked at first, awkwardly raised his hand to pat her on the back; after a moment, though, he was relaxed enough to hold her back while smoothing her hair down soothingly. He was surprised to find that her hair smelled like a mix of coconuts and lemons, and he wondered briefly how he had never noticed this before. He also wondered how he had never noticed how soft her skin felt under his hand as he rubbed her back gently. And he also wondered why he hadn't hugged her more often in the five years that they had been friends...
Hermione was doing some wondering of her own. She wondered when Ron had changed from skinny to built and when these muscles in his back and arms had shown up. She wondered when he had stopped smelling like sweat and started smelling like... cinnamon? She wondered when he had turned into such a... well... gentleman. And she wondered when her own body had started melting so perfectly into his. Never before could she remember ever feeling so safe and protected, and to be honest, it scared her...
Finally, after what seemed like hours to both of them, Hermione pulled away gently and met his eyes shyly. "Thank you," she whispered quietly.
Ron blushed at her words; he knew that going red was a stage he was never going to grow out of. Just as quietly, he said, "And there's something else, too."
Hermione just wrinkled her forehead a bit. "Huh?"
"On your list... About Krum..." Ron looked away briefly and then back to her. "He's an idiot, Hermione."
"He's not an idiot, Ron," Hermione automatically started her defense. "In fact, he's rather intelligent, and..."
"No," Ron cut her off shortly. "I mean he's an idiot because he hurt you."
Hermione was confused, and she was positive that this confusion was showing on her face. "What are you talking about?"
Ron suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable, and Hermione was sure that he was going to get up and make a run for it at any moment. Instead, though, he said, "Well... You know... I mean, he let you go... And I would never let you- a girl like you- go like that..." He finished much quieter than he had begun, and his eyes had obviously found something on the floor that must have been simply captivating because he was studying it quite intensely.
Hermione couldn't quite believe that Ron was being so nice to her. For five years, it had seemed that his greatest goal in life was to tease her and make her angry. But he was just being so... so... so grown up. "Ron, that's really nice," she said quietly, trying to catch his eye.
He gave her a weak half-smile and looked up sheepishly. "Don't tell anyone, okay?"
Hermione laughed. "Okay, I promise."
He finally gave her a whole smile and said, "And really, Hermione. Don't worry about what all those stupid girls say because you're worth twelve Pansy Parkinsons."
They both laughed at the memory of Harry and Ron assuring Neville Longbottom that he was worth twelve Draco Malfoys and of Neville using this as his defense in one of Malfoy's many attacks during first years. "Thanks," said Hermione between giggles, "But I'm not sure that's even much to brag about..."
Ron shrugged. "Oh, well. Pansy's a twit."
Smiling, Hermione nodded. "Well, at least you're right about that."
He gave her a cocky grin and said, "Hey, I'm always right."
Hermione just rolled her eyes. "Sure, Ron."
They smiled at each other for just a moment longer before Ron suddenly grew quite serious and started looking rather nervous again. "Um... Hermione, I have to ask you something..."
Hermione raised her brows and stared at him expectantly. "Yes?"
"Oh! Well, yeah... Well, uh, I was just wondering if maybe... if maybe since you're not going to the ball with anyone now... And well, I'm not going with anyone either... I mean, do you maybe want to go? Together?"
Hermione was shocked a bit at first before she had time to marvel at how much longer it had taken him to ask her this year than it had the previous year when he'd said, "You can go with one of us," as though she were on reserve for Ron and Harry to use after they'd been turned down by all the "pretty" girls in the school. It had really hurt her then, and she still hadn't forgotten how awful it had felt when Ron had basically told her that the only reason she'd gotten a date in the first place was because Viktor had wanted information on Harry. "Are you asking me because I'm your last resort? Or because you feel sorry for me?" she asked rather coldly.
Ron sighed and looked down at his hands, obviously struggling with his insides over something. Finally, he looked up at her and said in what was a very strained voice, "I'm sorry I said all that last year."
Whoa. Ron Weasley had just apologized to her- Hermione Granger. If she had had a quill with her, she would have recorded the date and time because this was definitely one for the history books. He had never, in five whole years, uttered an apology to her over anything, nor had she to him. This was definitely weird.
"Ron... Did you just say..."
He cut her off. "I'm sorry, Hermione. Okay? I really am." He looked up at her with panicked blue eyes, and she couldn't think of one single thing to say. "It was all stupid, and I didn't mean it. And... I'm sorry." She was still just sitting in shock that he had apologized to her. "And I'm not asking you now because you're the last resort or because I feel sorry for you... I'm asking you because I want to go with you. I mean... You know... If you want to." He looked away, his cheeks as pink as the tops of his ears.
Hermione wasn't sure what else to say, so she just said, "Okay."
Ron looked back at her, his eyes wide with what appeared to be shock at the fact that she had accepted his date. "Are you serious?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I'm serious."
Ron swallowed, and he looked as though a wave of relief was washing over him. He bit his lower lip briefly and then said, "So we're going... Like together, right?"
Hermione laughed very softly as she nodded. "Yeah. Like together."
"And you're being serious, right? You're not going to just say yes now and then say no then to get back at me for being a prat last year, are you?" He looked scared, as though he thought she might actually do something that petty.
"Ron, does that sound like something I would do?" she asked him with raised eyebrows.
Ron just shook his head before mouthing a "no" silently.
And then they went right back into the whole staring wordlessly at each other thing. Ron could hardly believe that he had just asked Hermione Granger to the Halloween Ball.
Hermione Granger...
His best friend...
His best friend who was suddenly so beautiful...
His best friend who he really wanted to kiss at the moment...
Wait. Did he really just think of Hermione and kiss in the same sentence? No, this was absurd. He told himself quickly that with them being in such close proximity with each other, it was only a natural male reaction. He knew all too well that teenage boy hormones had been taking over his being for sometime now, and he reasoned with himself that this was all just connected with those horrid little things. It wasn't Hermione. It was just the fact that she was a girl, and that he was a fifteen year old boy.
Right.
Ron quickly shook himself of these thoughts before they became too obvious and he stood up before he could think of anything else to say that might come back to haunt him at a later time. He fumbled for the lock on the door and pushed it open, becoming at once thankful for the much larger open space that the bathroom entailed. He looked back around at Hermione who was still sitting on the floor of the stall looking up at him in shock.
"Well, we'd better get back to the Tower," he said quickly. "Harry's probably wondering where we are." He didn't offer his hand to help her stand because he quite frankly did not trust himself to touch her, and he made his way for the bathroom exit as quickly as he could.
He definitely needed to get out of there.
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Harry was back from his detention and already in the Gryffindor Common Room when his two best friends climbed through the portrait hole. He was sitting at table with Dean, Neville, and Seamus working on their Divination homework, and he looked up and motioned for Ron and Hermione to join him.
"Ron, have you already done this?" he asked, motioning to the books and parchment in front of him.
Ron looked at Harry as though he had grown a second head. "Do you think I have, Harry?" he asked rather sarcastically.
Harry frowned and rolled his eyes. "Well, do you know how to do it?"
"Just make it up," Ron said obviously.
"You can't," said Dean miserably. "It isn't predictions."
"Do you know how to do it?" Harry repeated.
Ron peered down at the book for a brief moment before saying, "Not a clue."
"Damn." It was Seamus who had cursed as he threw his quill across the table, splattering ink all over Neville and his book. "Sorry," he muttered to Neville before biting his lower lip to hide an obvious grin.
"Why don't you just ask the Psychic Sisters?" Ron asked in an attempt to keep himself from laughing at the still shocked look on Neville's face.
"Good idea!" said Dean. "Oi! Parvati! Lavender!"
Ron looked up as Hermione's roommates came bouncing across the room giggling. He glanced at Harry and said, "Let me copy later?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah, okay. Are you going to bed?"
Ron nodded. "I'm really tired. I don't know why."
Harry just eyed his best friend before shrugging and accepting his explanation. He then turned his attention to Parvati and Lavender who were busy explaining the lesson to the other boys. Ron glanced quickly at Hermione and muttered a "G'night" before she could scold him for copying homework. With that, he hurried to the stairs and made his way to the door marked "Fifth Year Boys."
He walked into the room he had slept in for the past five years and made his way past Neville's and Harry's beds to his own. He reached for his nightclothes and pulled them on after quickly removing his uniform and throwing it under his bed with the rest of his dirty clothes for the house- elves to collect in the morning. As soon as he'd had this thought, he immediately wished he hadn't.
House-elves were automatically connected with Hermione in his mind. And Hermione was one person he did not want to think of the moment.
Of course, he knew deep in his mind that the whole reason he had decided to go to bed early was to think about Hermione. He knew that he needed to sort out the whole lot of previous events in the bathroom, and he knew that he couldn't do this unless he was completely alone to think.
Hermione.
Okay, yes, she was a girl. He knew that already. He could even go as far as saying that he knew she was pretty. If he wanted to be totally honest with himself, he would have to admit that he had recognized this fact last year when they'd all been at the Three Broomsticks and Rita Skeeter had walked in after releasing the article about Hagrid being a half-giant. Hermione had gotten so furious that she'd jumped out of her chair and started telling the journalist off, and Ron had realized then that the reason he probably liked fighting with her so much was the fact that her brown eyes blazed so beautifully when she got angry. Yes, he'd truly noticed it then, but for the sake of his pride, he was going to pretend that he hadn't noticed how pretty she was until all the all boys at Hogwarts had- the moment she'd shown up wearing trendy clothes and sporting a slick new hairstyle. So, yes, she was pretty.
So what? Loads of girls were pretty. It wasn't a big deal, right?
Ron hadn't dated much, but this didn't mean that he didn't notice girls. He did. He noticed them a lot, in fact. Truthfully, he thought about them probably too much, but at least he didn't act on any of these "thoughts." He noticed lots of stuff about lots of different girls. For instance, he liked the way Parvati's hair always started to shine when she was sitting beside the fire; the light made her dark locks just gleam, and Ron had to admit that Parvati's hair could sidetrack him from his homework for minutes on end. Then there was Lavender. Although, she could annoy him greatly after very brief periods of time, she did happen to have the most intoxicating laugh. He could listen to her laugh all day- so long as she was laughing and not giggling. He noticed other girls as well. Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff had the most beautiful color of eyes he had ever seen; they were almost a violet sort of shade. And then there was Pansy Parkinson, the girl he hated more than all others; she might have been... well, a bitch, but she had what Ron could not deny was a most perfect body. He didn't know if he was the only one to notice all of this because girls were not a common topic of conversation in the Fifth Year Gryffindor Boys Dormitory. The only girl that Harry had ever mentioned was Cho, and he'd been on about her for years now. Neville had never shown any sort of interest in any girl unless the time he'd asked Hermione and then Ginny (Ron didn't even want to think about that) to the Yule Ball was to be counted, and Dean and Seamus might have confided in each other, but neither of them had ever really talked about girls to Ron. Unless, of course, you counted Seamus' very rude remarks concerning most of the female population of Hogwarts.
But Ron wasn't stupid. He did have five older brothers after all, and he knew that it was totally normal to think about girls a lot- especially when you were fifteen. But what all of them had failed to mention was the fact that it was possible to start thinking about your best friend in that way. Ron reasoned, of course, that none of his brothers had ever had to deal with this issue, though, because they had all managed to stick with members of the same sex when claiming best friends. Well, Ron hadn't meant to end up with a girl as a best friend; it had just sort of happened! And anyway, she hadn't been a girl back then. Well, okay, technically she had been a girl, but they were eleven years old, and an eleven year old girl was quite a bit different from a fifteen year old girl. Besides the very obvious physical differences, there were so many emotional and maturity differences. And though Hermione had always acted old for her age, she was suddenly seeming to be a rather mature woman.
Woman.
No, he could not think of her as a woman because that was definitely too weird. She was becoming a mature girl. Yes, that was much better. She was mature, and yet, at the same time, she was still such a vulnerable little girl. She had shown him as much tonight when she had poured her heart out to him. And even though she was maturing so rapidly, she was still young enough to be playful. She'd shown him that several times in the past few months.
He rolled over and smothered his face in his pillow.
Why, oh why in God's name, was this happening to him?
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Across the tower in the girls' dormitory, Hermione was doing some late- night musing of her own. In the course of three days, she'd managed to get beaten up, dumped, and asked out by her best friend.
Things sure were confusing...
Of course, it was the last of the things that bothered her the most. Maybe bothered was the wrong word because it's not as if she was upset in the least by Ron's suggestion that they attend the Halloween Ball together. She wasn't. In fact, she was rather pleased.
The fact that she was rather pleased was actually what bothered her.
The first time she'd ever met Ron Weasley, she'd been a ten year old girl with nothing except becoming the top of her class on her mind. Things sure had changed since then. That ten year old didn't care about anything except memorizing her course books and getting at least 100% on every exam she took. She didn't really talk to any of her classmates, and the few that she did manage to make occasional conversation with, she found quite annoying.
Ron Weasley and Harry Potter topped that list.
Actually, Harry wasn't that bad. He usually just backed up Ron's taunts and gave the old nod in agreement whenever Ron had a snide remark for her. It was Ron who annoyed her the most- him with his fiery red hair and fiery temper to match. They'd fought incessantly, and if there was one person in the school that she was positive she would never befriend it was Ronald Weasley.
Funny how that same Ronald Weasley was the very person who made her realize that she did, in fact, need friends.
"It's no wonder no one can stand her. She's a nightmare, honestly."
She would never, for as long she lived, forget that remark. Nor would she forget the pain it caused her.
That Halloween night of her first year was the first time Hermione had cried at Hogwarts. She'd been away from her parents for two whole months and not shed a tear, when previously, the longest she'd ever been away from them were overnight trips to her grandparents. She'd listened to her classmates snicker behind her back as she was always the first to put her hand in the air to answer a question, she and never flinched. She'd heard several of them call her a know-it-all, quite a few to her face, actually, and she'd never cried.
So, why had Ron Weasley's off-handed remark been the one that sent her over the edge?
It was a question she couldn't answer at the time. She remembered locking herself in the girls' bathroom that night as well to cry her sorrows out. And as she'd sat there, she'd asked herself the same question. Why did she care what that over-confident prat thought of her anyway? It wasn't like he was anyone of importance. It wasn't like she even liked him, much less cared what he thought.
But for some reason she did. She did care what he thought, and that fact had bothered her.
It was bothering her even more now.
It had been a long time since she'd gone back to that night with the Mountain Troll, but she found that she could remember it as clearly as if it had been yesterday and not five years ago. Perhaps it was the most significant moment of her life... She'd never really thought about that until now, but it seemed logical. That night had changed her entire life forever, and she'd found something she'd never really had before.
Friends.
She remembered returning home to her parents for Christmas that year and telling them story after story about her new friends. When her mum had jokingly asked her if either of these boys was her boyfriend, she had blushed and reluctantly admitted that she did think Harry was kinda cute. She'd then pulled out book after book and shown her parents all the references they made to the Boy Who Lived and told them how he, like her, had grown up in a Muggle home and had no idea he had magical powers until he'd gotten his letter from Hogwarts. When her mum had asked about Ron, Hermione remembered shrugging and saying, "He's okay, I guess. Really annoying sometimes, though."
She'd certainly not blushed and said that he was cute. In fact, she'd never said that he was cute. Not out loud anyway.
Okay, so that was a lie.
Hermione felt herself blushing even now as she rolled over onto her side and cringed at memories still quite fresh in her mind. Though, she had denied having any recollection of it, she remembered the night at the nightclub vividly. She remembered everything that had happened that night, the way she had acted, and the way Ron had taken care of her. Of course, she remembered telling him that he was cute and pointing out more than once how adorable his dimples were. She couldn't believe she'd said all that.
But she would be lying if she said it wasn't the truth.
Ron was cute. In fact, he was very cute. And even though she'd tried very hard to ignore it, she couldn't help but take notice of the way he was rapidly filling out with muscles and growing into his height. Gone were the days of the tall, skinny boy with hands and feet too big for his frame. And then, of course, there was the hair. She'd seen it for five years, and she'd watched as it turned colors from dark red in the winter to an almost strawberry blonde color in the summer to an orangish color in between. She'd watched as it had gone from a bowl cut at eleven years old to a short and spiky cut at twelve to a mess of every which way locks at thirteen to shaggy at fourteen, and now to the short, but not too short cut he was sporting at fifteen. For five years, his hair had transfixed her.
So, now what was she supposed to do? It didn't seem fair to ignore these growing feelings that she was having, but they scared her just the same.
And they confused her beyond reason.
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So? Whadda ya think? I am very proud of this chapter, and I've probably rewritten it more times than JK Rowling has rewritten the fifth book (Grrr...) But anyway, it was one of those scenes that you just have playing in your head and you just know you have to get somewhere where you can write it all down. You know what I'm talking about? Well, this was one of those, and I've had it written since probably the second chapter of this story. I REALLY want to hear feedback on this chapter, you guys! If you don't mind, and if you got this far (it was a long ride, I know), please click the little blue box and let me know your thoughts! Thanks!!!
Well, this is probably my favorite chapter so far. I hope you guys like it, too! Warning, though, it's a bit long...
Disclaimer: Still don't own them!
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Four mornings later, Ron found himself in the Great Hall during dinner. Harry was serving his detention with Snape for cursing that Ravenclaw. His brothers and sister were nowhere to be found, though this did make Ron a little suspicious of their whereabouts. Everyone else was at dinner, though, and Ron was currently engaging himself in what he found to be a rather interesting discussion of football with Dean. Hermione sat to his left listening vaguely, and every once in awhile making a comment. Surprisingly enough, she happened to be a fan of football. She had been released from the hospital wing yesterday morning. Her nose had, in fact, been broken, just as Ron had assumed, but Madame Pomfrey had managed to mend it beautifully, and there was no longer any trace that it had been set an a horribly wrong angle only days earlier.
Everything was perfectly normal until Pansy Parkinson showed up at the table.
She was followed closely by three other Slytherin girls that were all just as annoying as Pansy, and she was clutching what looked like a magazine in her hand. She smiled a fake smile at the Gryffindors, and Ron immediately wondered what she was up to. He quickly glanced behind her at the Slytherin table and saw that its entirety had their attention focused on the unfolding scene.
"What do you want, Pansy?" It was Parvati Patil who had asked the question. She and Pansy had been friends once-upon-a-time pre-Hogwarts days, but since their first year at school, they were anything but friendly with each other.
Pansy smiled innocently at her ex-friend and shrugged nonchalantly. "I just came over to say hi."
Parvati rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right."
Another smile covered Pansy's pale face. "Actually, I came over to congratulate the new members of your Quidditch team and wish them good luck at the upcoming match."
Ron didn't buy that for a second. He didn't trust her any further than he could throw Millicent Bulstrode, who happened, in fact, to be one of the Slytherin girls accompanying Pansy on this little mission.
Pansy turned her attention, of course, to Ron. "Ron," she never used his first name, "I really hope you do well at the match. I thought you might appreciate a copy of this month's Quidditch Center as a form of congratulations." She smiled broadly as she held the magazine out to him.
Ron took it from her carefully, eyeing her a long moment before looking down at it.
"It's open to an article I think you will find especially interesting," Pansy continued. "I'm sure Hermione would enjoy reading it, too." She never used Hermione's first name, either. Something was definitely up.
Ron turned the magazine over and looked down at the article Pansy had so graciously left open for him.
"Krum's New Love," read the title. Ron immediately tried to jerk the book out of Hermione's view, but she was already peering down at it intently.
"Viktor Krum, contracted seeker for the Bulgarian national team, has recently been spotted with a new lady on his arm. The new woman is French model Arlia Krempau; a nineteen year old recent graduate from Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. As you will remember, Krum was spotted this summer with another young woman on his arm, Hermione Granger, now fifteen of Britain. Miss Granger is still in school at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and apparently Krum can't handle the distance.
"When asked about Miss Granger, Krum was quoted as saying, "She is nice but very young." Whether or not the two of them had an official relationship is a fact yet to be confirmed. What can be confirmed, though, is that Miss Krempau is very much in an official relationship with the seeker.
"The two of them seem very happy, and it has been confirmed by both Krempau's and Krum's publicists that the four carat diamond ring Miss Krempau is wearing on her finger is a gift from Krum. There is no real confirmation on whether the ring is an engagement gift."
The article was accompanied by a picture of Viktor and Arlia, the ring in question glistening brightly on her left hand.
Ron finished the article and looked up just in time to see Hermione doing the same thing. He didn't know what to say as she bit her lower lip and stared determinedly at the table in front of her. Lavender reached for the magazine, and she, Parvati, and Seamus read it together and then passed it to Dean and Neville. No one said anything.
Pansy and her friends were all smiling rather smugly, though. "It was an interesting article, wasn't it?" Pansy's question was answered with laughter from her friends.
And then Hermione threw her chair back from the table and got up, leaving the dining hall at lightning quick speed.
Ron watched Hermione's retreating back as she ran from the Great Hall as quickly as her legs would take her. He didn't have a clue what to do or whether to go after her. Parvati and Lavender were also watching her, and Parvati caught Ron's eye.
"Do you want us to go after her?"
Ron seriously considered the offer. Parvati and Lavender were by no means best friends with Hermione, but, next to Ginny, they were the closest things to girlfriends that she had. And honestly, what type of help would he be anyway? He didn't know anything about "girly" issues. He almost told them yes, to go after Hermione.
Almost.
But he didn't. Because after all, he was her best friend. He was the one that was supposed to lend her the shoulder to cry on and offer a kind word. Yes, that's what a best friend did, right?
But Hermione was... Well, she was a girl.
Still, though. It was his job to be there for her, so he shook his head and told Parvati, "Thanks, but I better go." He got up from the table and shot Pansy the meanest glare he could muster.
But as soon as he stood up from the Gryffindor table, he knew that finding Hermione was going to be quite a bit difficult. Normally, when he wanted to find Hermione, he simply headed to one place and one place only; something told him, however, that she had not run to the library to hide behind a stack of books on that evening. He had no clue where she had run to. Immediately, he wished that he had the Marauders' Map with him because tracking her down with that would be no problem whatsoever. But Harry had taken to carrying it with him everywhere on the suggestion of Sirius in case anyone was able to sneak onto the grounds that might wish him harm. So, Ron was going on complete instinct.
The only problem was that his instinct didn't seem to be working properly.
He figured that the Gryffindor Common Room would be as good of a place as anywhere to start. It wasn't as though he had too much else to go on, so he might as well try it. He set off down the hall in the direction of Gryffindor Tower, but as he passed a girls' bathroom, he knew that he didn't need to make the rest of the trip. For some reason, he knew that he had already found her. Checking at once to make sure it wasn't Moaning Myrtle's toilet, he opened the door and peered inside. There was no one in sight, but he could hear a soft crying coming from the other end of the room. Ron glanced behind him to make sure that there were no teachers or prefects around to take points from Gryffindor for catching him going into a girls' toilet. When he saw none, he quickly slipped inside and followed the sound of the crying all the way to the end of bathroom to the very last stall. He could hear her crying clearly now. Knocking gently on the door, he called to her. "Hermione?"
He was met with no response other than the sound of her sobbing, so he tried again. "Hermione, it's me. Open up."
There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence before Ron heard the sliding of the lock from the other side. He took that as cue to enter, and he slowly pushed the door open. Hermione was sitting on the ground against one of the side walls with her knees being hugged to her chest and her face buried deeply into her arms. She was crying, and it was obvious that she did not intend on looking up and meeting Ron's eye anytime soon.
Ron, himself, was extremely nervous. He wished immediately that he had sent Parvati and Lavender instead, or at least that Harry was there with him. Anything just so that he wasn't alone... in a bathroom... with a crying girl.
What the hell was he supposed to do?
He did only what he could do. He pulled the door closed behind him and quietly slid to the ground opposite of Hermione. It was a tight squeeze, and it reminded him of the month that he, Hermione, and Harry had spent locked in a stall in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom mixing up the Polyjuice Potion. However, even with the absence of Harry, the stall seemed to be quite a bit more cramped. This was due to the fact that they weren't tiny twelve year olds anymore. Ron was actually quite tall, and though Hermione was still rather small, she was, nonetheless, quite a bit larger than she had been three years before. Ron made a mental note that if any potions needed brewing in secrecy this year that they would have to find a better spot than a bathroom stall if all three of them were to be included.
The silence was unbearable, and Ron prayed that Hermione would say something first to break it. He got lucky. With her head still buried into her arms, she mumbled almost inaudibly, "This is a girls' toilet."
Ron grinned. "So I noticed."
"You're not a girl," she told him, still not looking up.
"I noticed that, too." He was trying to joke with her, but she didn't seem to be finding the humor.
She stayed silent with her face still completely hidden.
Finally, Ron said, "I guess it would have been better if Parvati and Lavender would have come, wouldn't it have?"
"Why would they have come?" she asked emotionless.
Ron shifted a bit until he finally found a comfortable position. "Well... Um, they offered to. You probably want a girl in here anyway, don't you? They'll still come, I'm sure. Do you want me to go get them? I can try to find Ginny if you'd like..."
Hermione finally looked up at him. Her face was red and tear-streaked, though she had ceased crying. "No. Don't go."
Ron looked at her in surprise for a moment, the most unusual feelings taking over himself. He studied her curiously before saying, "But I don't know anything about this kind of stuff," he pointed out.
"What stuff?" she asked, eyebrows raised slightly.
"You know," Ron shifted once again, "This girl stuff."
Hermione just rolled her eyes. "It's not girl stuff, Ron," she said rather haughtily, despite her distraught state.
Ron frowned a bit; this was not easy for him. "Hermione, I really don't know if I'm the one you want to talk to..."
But Hermione held up a hand to stop him as she implored him to listen to her with her deep, sad, brown eyes. "But you're the only one who will understand." She spoke quietly and almost pleadingly.
Ron wasn't sure at all as to what she was talking about, and he told her as much. "Understand what?"
"You're the only other person in the world who knows what it's like to be 'Famous Harry Potter's' best friend." Her face fell slightly as she said this.
What did Harry have to do with any of this? "Hermione, what are you talking about?"
Hermione was quiet for a long moment before she finally answered him. "Ron, I'm not crying because I've gone and got my heart broken or anything silly like that. I'm crying because I've just been humiliated in front of the entire wizarding world. I should have known that Viktor wouldn't want a nobody like me. Of course, he wants some beautiful French model!"
Ron just raised his eyebrows at her. "Her..." He didn't know what to say.
"Look. When I was younger, all the kids at my grade school knew me as 'Hermione Granger- the know-it-all.' But then I got my letter from Hogwarts, and I started thinking of myself as 'Hermione Granger- the witch,' and I really started to like the sound of that because no one else I knew was a witch. It really made me feel special for once. But then pretty soon after I got here, I started being known as 'Hermione Granger- Harry Potter's best friend.' Now, don't get me wrong, I don't regret being Harry's friend because he's a wonderful person, and I know he never asked for any of this attention or the fame. But it really got old rather quickly. And so when Viktor came around, I just sort of jumped at the chance to be known as 'Hermione Granger- the girl Viktor Krum is dating.' I mean, I know it's not much better, but at least it was a change..."
Ron listened to her, a wave of shock rushing over him. He knew only too well what she was talking about. Since the day he was born, he had always been known as the youngest Weasley boy. And he knew he wasn't as good as any of his brothers, either. He wasn't as smart as Bill, he wasn't as athletic as Charlie, he wasn't as mature as Percy, he wasn't as funny as Fred and George. He was just the youngest one whose greatest accomplishment had been snagging 'Famous Harry Potter' as a best friend. He knew what Hermione had been talking about when she'd said that that title had gotten old rather quickly. Yes, he knew that Harry had never chosen to be famous, and he also knew that Harry hated having everyone gawk at his forehead everywhere he went. But to Ron, it didn't look annoying at all. Harry was getting all the attention that Ron had craved since the day he'd been born as the youngest of six boys. And, yes, he was jealous. For the most part, he managed to keep his jealousy to a bare minimum, but the year before it had just been too much. He'd let the jealousy get the better of him, causing what had been a very terrible row between the two of them that resulted in weeks of not speaking to each other. Ron wouldn't have admitted it verbally, but those had been very painful weeks for him, and what made them perhaps even more painful was the fact that Hermione seemingly chose Harry over him. Ron knew, of course, that Hermione only spent more time with Harry because no one else in the school would even talk to him, save the Creevey brothers, but still, Ron had wished that Hermione might choose his side. What was so shocking now was the fact that Hermione had been harboring her own bitterness about being stuck with the title of 'Harry Potter's best friend' because during those weeks, though she spent a considerable amount of more time with Harry than with Ron, she'd managed to keep neutral ground and play the part of a somewhat go- between for them. Ron had never in a million years dreamed that she was capable of feeling the same sort of bitterness toward Harry's fame that he had been feeling for five years.
He looked up at Hermione finally and nodded slowly, "I understand. I really do," he assured her quietly.
He saw what was the distinct glistening of tears in the corners of her eyes as she said in what was barely an audible voice, "Why isn't plain old Hermione Granger ever good enough?"
Ron didn't want her to cry again. He didn't know that he was capable of handling her when she was in tears. True, it wasn't anywhere close to the first time he'd seen her cry; hell, he'd even been the one to make her cry on more than one occasion. But this was all different, and it scared him. In the past when he'd witnessed her crying, it had been because she was upset at having to serve a detention after Harry and Ron (it had always been their faults, according to Hermione) had gotten her into trouble with one of their crazy rule-breaking schemes, or it had been because she'd been terrified that Harry was going to get himself killed during one of his many meetings with You Know Who, or it had been because something had made her so happy, she'd been reduced to tears, or it had even been because she had gotten upset at one of the many rows that she had engaged herself in with Ron during the past five years. It had never been because she was pouring her heart out to him and him alone.
And now he didn't know what to do.
"It is good enough," the words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. "Plain old Hermione Granger is perfect even." He was as much surprised by his words as she was, and he felt himself go red immediately after saying them.
For a moment, it appeared as though Hermione were going to burst into tears all over again, but then her face changed to one of screwed up confusion. "No, it's not!" she insisted, suddenly quite loud. "I'm bossy. I'm a know- it-all. I always have to be right. Besides you and Harry, I have no friends. Mostly every girl in this school talks bad about me. And obviously, I wasn't good enough for Viktor, now was I? He didn't even feel it necessary to alert me to his conclusion that 'I'm nice but very young.' I was too daft to see it from the start!" She listed off her "bad traits" as though she'd been thinking of them nonstop for weeks.
Ron was afraid that she had.
In an attempt to cheer her up just a bit, he smiled playfully at her. "Okay, I give you bossy. And the know-it-all one... And you really do always have to be right." He was joking with her, but she glared at him.
"I know, Ron. I don't need you to tell me the obvious."
Okay, obviously, joking was not what she needed at the moment. "I was only playing, Hermione. And anyway, you're wrong about the rest of them."
She raised an eyebrow at him. So, he continued.
"Look, just because Harry and I are your best friends doesn't mean that you don't have any other friends. All the other Gryffindors are your friends," he pointed out.
But she shook her head. "No, they're your friends- yours and Harry's. They only talk to me because they feel obligated to. Do you think that any of them would even speak to me if it wasn't for you and Harry? That is, of course, unless they needed help with Charms," she added bitterly.
Ron frowned. She was definitely not making this easy for him. He opted against trying to reason with her because he knew from more than enough experience that any sort of "reasoning" that transpired between the two of them always resulted in a heated argument, and he didn't think that an argument was what either of them needed at that moment. "And all those girls... Hermione, screw them. They're just jealous."
Hermione laughed at this, though it wasn't a joyful laugh by any means. "Jealous? What have they got to be jealous of? I'm sure that finding out they've been dumped while reading a national magazine has always been one of their dreams," she said with more than a bit of sarcasm.
Ron just shook his head. "Hermione, they're jealous because you're so much better than they are. And they can't stand it!"
Hermione, however, was not convinced. "Better than them? Yes, I'm sure they all aspire to be a bossy know-it-all who can only claim two friends."
"Look. You're the smartest girl in this whole school. You know more than all the other girls put together! And you're nicer than all of them, too! You really care about people, and you really care about things less fortunate than you; they can't stand the fact that you can be so selfless while they're all selfish little twits! And you're really funny, too! Well, at least you are when you aren't being an annoying prat," he added with a teasing grin. Hermione just stared at him expressionless. And with a voice much quieter, he added, "And you're beautiful. Really beautiful..."
He didn't know where he'd gotten the gall to say all of that, but as soon as he'd said the words, he felt a blush creep into his cheeks and settle there.
Hermione stared at him silently for a long moment, and then all at once, she burst into tears and flung her arms tightly around his neck, scooting her body until she was nearly on his lap. And she just cried into his shoulder, soaking his shirt with her tears. Ron, a bit panicked at first, awkwardly raised his hand to pat her on the back; after a moment, though, he was relaxed enough to hold her back while smoothing her hair down soothingly. He was surprised to find that her hair smelled like a mix of coconuts and lemons, and he wondered briefly how he had never noticed this before. He also wondered how he had never noticed how soft her skin felt under his hand as he rubbed her back gently. And he also wondered why he hadn't hugged her more often in the five years that they had been friends...
Hermione was doing some wondering of her own. She wondered when Ron had changed from skinny to built and when these muscles in his back and arms had shown up. She wondered when he had stopped smelling like sweat and started smelling like... cinnamon? She wondered when he had turned into such a... well... gentleman. And she wondered when her own body had started melting so perfectly into his. Never before could she remember ever feeling so safe and protected, and to be honest, it scared her...
Finally, after what seemed like hours to both of them, Hermione pulled away gently and met his eyes shyly. "Thank you," she whispered quietly.
Ron blushed at her words; he knew that going red was a stage he was never going to grow out of. Just as quietly, he said, "And there's something else, too."
Hermione just wrinkled her forehead a bit. "Huh?"
"On your list... About Krum..." Ron looked away briefly and then back to her. "He's an idiot, Hermione."
"He's not an idiot, Ron," Hermione automatically started her defense. "In fact, he's rather intelligent, and..."
"No," Ron cut her off shortly. "I mean he's an idiot because he hurt you."
Hermione was confused, and she was positive that this confusion was showing on her face. "What are you talking about?"
Ron suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable, and Hermione was sure that he was going to get up and make a run for it at any moment. Instead, though, he said, "Well... You know... I mean, he let you go... And I would never let you- a girl like you- go like that..." He finished much quieter than he had begun, and his eyes had obviously found something on the floor that must have been simply captivating because he was studying it quite intensely.
Hermione couldn't quite believe that Ron was being so nice to her. For five years, it had seemed that his greatest goal in life was to tease her and make her angry. But he was just being so... so... so grown up. "Ron, that's really nice," she said quietly, trying to catch his eye.
He gave her a weak half-smile and looked up sheepishly. "Don't tell anyone, okay?"
Hermione laughed. "Okay, I promise."
He finally gave her a whole smile and said, "And really, Hermione. Don't worry about what all those stupid girls say because you're worth twelve Pansy Parkinsons."
They both laughed at the memory of Harry and Ron assuring Neville Longbottom that he was worth twelve Draco Malfoys and of Neville using this as his defense in one of Malfoy's many attacks during first years. "Thanks," said Hermione between giggles, "But I'm not sure that's even much to brag about..."
Ron shrugged. "Oh, well. Pansy's a twit."
Smiling, Hermione nodded. "Well, at least you're right about that."
He gave her a cocky grin and said, "Hey, I'm always right."
Hermione just rolled her eyes. "Sure, Ron."
They smiled at each other for just a moment longer before Ron suddenly grew quite serious and started looking rather nervous again. "Um... Hermione, I have to ask you something..."
Hermione raised her brows and stared at him expectantly. "Yes?"
"Oh! Well, yeah... Well, uh, I was just wondering if maybe... if maybe since you're not going to the ball with anyone now... And well, I'm not going with anyone either... I mean, do you maybe want to go? Together?"
Hermione was shocked a bit at first before she had time to marvel at how much longer it had taken him to ask her this year than it had the previous year when he'd said, "You can go with one of us," as though she were on reserve for Ron and Harry to use after they'd been turned down by all the "pretty" girls in the school. It had really hurt her then, and she still hadn't forgotten how awful it had felt when Ron had basically told her that the only reason she'd gotten a date in the first place was because Viktor had wanted information on Harry. "Are you asking me because I'm your last resort? Or because you feel sorry for me?" she asked rather coldly.
Ron sighed and looked down at his hands, obviously struggling with his insides over something. Finally, he looked up at her and said in what was a very strained voice, "I'm sorry I said all that last year."
Whoa. Ron Weasley had just apologized to her- Hermione Granger. If she had had a quill with her, she would have recorded the date and time because this was definitely one for the history books. He had never, in five whole years, uttered an apology to her over anything, nor had she to him. This was definitely weird.
"Ron... Did you just say..."
He cut her off. "I'm sorry, Hermione. Okay? I really am." He looked up at her with panicked blue eyes, and she couldn't think of one single thing to say. "It was all stupid, and I didn't mean it. And... I'm sorry." She was still just sitting in shock that he had apologized to her. "And I'm not asking you now because you're the last resort or because I feel sorry for you... I'm asking you because I want to go with you. I mean... You know... If you want to." He looked away, his cheeks as pink as the tops of his ears.
Hermione wasn't sure what else to say, so she just said, "Okay."
Ron looked back at her, his eyes wide with what appeared to be shock at the fact that she had accepted his date. "Are you serious?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I'm serious."
Ron swallowed, and he looked as though a wave of relief was washing over him. He bit his lower lip briefly and then said, "So we're going... Like together, right?"
Hermione laughed very softly as she nodded. "Yeah. Like together."
"And you're being serious, right? You're not going to just say yes now and then say no then to get back at me for being a prat last year, are you?" He looked scared, as though he thought she might actually do something that petty.
"Ron, does that sound like something I would do?" she asked him with raised eyebrows.
Ron just shook his head before mouthing a "no" silently.
And then they went right back into the whole staring wordlessly at each other thing. Ron could hardly believe that he had just asked Hermione Granger to the Halloween Ball.
Hermione Granger...
His best friend...
His best friend who was suddenly so beautiful...
His best friend who he really wanted to kiss at the moment...
Wait. Did he really just think of Hermione and kiss in the same sentence? No, this was absurd. He told himself quickly that with them being in such close proximity with each other, it was only a natural male reaction. He knew all too well that teenage boy hormones had been taking over his being for sometime now, and he reasoned with himself that this was all just connected with those horrid little things. It wasn't Hermione. It was just the fact that she was a girl, and that he was a fifteen year old boy.
Right.
Ron quickly shook himself of these thoughts before they became too obvious and he stood up before he could think of anything else to say that might come back to haunt him at a later time. He fumbled for the lock on the door and pushed it open, becoming at once thankful for the much larger open space that the bathroom entailed. He looked back around at Hermione who was still sitting on the floor of the stall looking up at him in shock.
"Well, we'd better get back to the Tower," he said quickly. "Harry's probably wondering where we are." He didn't offer his hand to help her stand because he quite frankly did not trust himself to touch her, and he made his way for the bathroom exit as quickly as he could.
He definitely needed to get out of there.
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Harry was back from his detention and already in the Gryffindor Common Room when his two best friends climbed through the portrait hole. He was sitting at table with Dean, Neville, and Seamus working on their Divination homework, and he looked up and motioned for Ron and Hermione to join him.
"Ron, have you already done this?" he asked, motioning to the books and parchment in front of him.
Ron looked at Harry as though he had grown a second head. "Do you think I have, Harry?" he asked rather sarcastically.
Harry frowned and rolled his eyes. "Well, do you know how to do it?"
"Just make it up," Ron said obviously.
"You can't," said Dean miserably. "It isn't predictions."
"Do you know how to do it?" Harry repeated.
Ron peered down at the book for a brief moment before saying, "Not a clue."
"Damn." It was Seamus who had cursed as he threw his quill across the table, splattering ink all over Neville and his book. "Sorry," he muttered to Neville before biting his lower lip to hide an obvious grin.
"Why don't you just ask the Psychic Sisters?" Ron asked in an attempt to keep himself from laughing at the still shocked look on Neville's face.
"Good idea!" said Dean. "Oi! Parvati! Lavender!"
Ron looked up as Hermione's roommates came bouncing across the room giggling. He glanced at Harry and said, "Let me copy later?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah, okay. Are you going to bed?"
Ron nodded. "I'm really tired. I don't know why."
Harry just eyed his best friend before shrugging and accepting his explanation. He then turned his attention to Parvati and Lavender who were busy explaining the lesson to the other boys. Ron glanced quickly at Hermione and muttered a "G'night" before she could scold him for copying homework. With that, he hurried to the stairs and made his way to the door marked "Fifth Year Boys."
He walked into the room he had slept in for the past five years and made his way past Neville's and Harry's beds to his own. He reached for his nightclothes and pulled them on after quickly removing his uniform and throwing it under his bed with the rest of his dirty clothes for the house- elves to collect in the morning. As soon as he'd had this thought, he immediately wished he hadn't.
House-elves were automatically connected with Hermione in his mind. And Hermione was one person he did not want to think of the moment.
Of course, he knew deep in his mind that the whole reason he had decided to go to bed early was to think about Hermione. He knew that he needed to sort out the whole lot of previous events in the bathroom, and he knew that he couldn't do this unless he was completely alone to think.
Hermione.
Okay, yes, she was a girl. He knew that already. He could even go as far as saying that he knew she was pretty. If he wanted to be totally honest with himself, he would have to admit that he had recognized this fact last year when they'd all been at the Three Broomsticks and Rita Skeeter had walked in after releasing the article about Hagrid being a half-giant. Hermione had gotten so furious that she'd jumped out of her chair and started telling the journalist off, and Ron had realized then that the reason he probably liked fighting with her so much was the fact that her brown eyes blazed so beautifully when she got angry. Yes, he'd truly noticed it then, but for the sake of his pride, he was going to pretend that he hadn't noticed how pretty she was until all the all boys at Hogwarts had- the moment she'd shown up wearing trendy clothes and sporting a slick new hairstyle. So, yes, she was pretty.
So what? Loads of girls were pretty. It wasn't a big deal, right?
Ron hadn't dated much, but this didn't mean that he didn't notice girls. He did. He noticed them a lot, in fact. Truthfully, he thought about them probably too much, but at least he didn't act on any of these "thoughts." He noticed lots of stuff about lots of different girls. For instance, he liked the way Parvati's hair always started to shine when she was sitting beside the fire; the light made her dark locks just gleam, and Ron had to admit that Parvati's hair could sidetrack him from his homework for minutes on end. Then there was Lavender. Although, she could annoy him greatly after very brief periods of time, she did happen to have the most intoxicating laugh. He could listen to her laugh all day- so long as she was laughing and not giggling. He noticed other girls as well. Hannah Abbott from Hufflepuff had the most beautiful color of eyes he had ever seen; they were almost a violet sort of shade. And then there was Pansy Parkinson, the girl he hated more than all others; she might have been... well, a bitch, but she had what Ron could not deny was a most perfect body. He didn't know if he was the only one to notice all of this because girls were not a common topic of conversation in the Fifth Year Gryffindor Boys Dormitory. The only girl that Harry had ever mentioned was Cho, and he'd been on about her for years now. Neville had never shown any sort of interest in any girl unless the time he'd asked Hermione and then Ginny (Ron didn't even want to think about that) to the Yule Ball was to be counted, and Dean and Seamus might have confided in each other, but neither of them had ever really talked about girls to Ron. Unless, of course, you counted Seamus' very rude remarks concerning most of the female population of Hogwarts.
But Ron wasn't stupid. He did have five older brothers after all, and he knew that it was totally normal to think about girls a lot- especially when you were fifteen. But what all of them had failed to mention was the fact that it was possible to start thinking about your best friend in that way. Ron reasoned, of course, that none of his brothers had ever had to deal with this issue, though, because they had all managed to stick with members of the same sex when claiming best friends. Well, Ron hadn't meant to end up with a girl as a best friend; it had just sort of happened! And anyway, she hadn't been a girl back then. Well, okay, technically she had been a girl, but they were eleven years old, and an eleven year old girl was quite a bit different from a fifteen year old girl. Besides the very obvious physical differences, there were so many emotional and maturity differences. And though Hermione had always acted old for her age, she was suddenly seeming to be a rather mature woman.
Woman.
No, he could not think of her as a woman because that was definitely too weird. She was becoming a mature girl. Yes, that was much better. She was mature, and yet, at the same time, she was still such a vulnerable little girl. She had shown him as much tonight when she had poured her heart out to him. And even though she was maturing so rapidly, she was still young enough to be playful. She'd shown him that several times in the past few months.
He rolled over and smothered his face in his pillow.
Why, oh why in God's name, was this happening to him?
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Across the tower in the girls' dormitory, Hermione was doing some late- night musing of her own. In the course of three days, she'd managed to get beaten up, dumped, and asked out by her best friend.
Things sure were confusing...
Of course, it was the last of the things that bothered her the most. Maybe bothered was the wrong word because it's not as if she was upset in the least by Ron's suggestion that they attend the Halloween Ball together. She wasn't. In fact, she was rather pleased.
The fact that she was rather pleased was actually what bothered her.
The first time she'd ever met Ron Weasley, she'd been a ten year old girl with nothing except becoming the top of her class on her mind. Things sure had changed since then. That ten year old didn't care about anything except memorizing her course books and getting at least 100% on every exam she took. She didn't really talk to any of her classmates, and the few that she did manage to make occasional conversation with, she found quite annoying.
Ron Weasley and Harry Potter topped that list.
Actually, Harry wasn't that bad. He usually just backed up Ron's taunts and gave the old nod in agreement whenever Ron had a snide remark for her. It was Ron who annoyed her the most- him with his fiery red hair and fiery temper to match. They'd fought incessantly, and if there was one person in the school that she was positive she would never befriend it was Ronald Weasley.
Funny how that same Ronald Weasley was the very person who made her realize that she did, in fact, need friends.
"It's no wonder no one can stand her. She's a nightmare, honestly."
She would never, for as long she lived, forget that remark. Nor would she forget the pain it caused her.
That Halloween night of her first year was the first time Hermione had cried at Hogwarts. She'd been away from her parents for two whole months and not shed a tear, when previously, the longest she'd ever been away from them were overnight trips to her grandparents. She'd listened to her classmates snicker behind her back as she was always the first to put her hand in the air to answer a question, she and never flinched. She'd heard several of them call her a know-it-all, quite a few to her face, actually, and she'd never cried.
So, why had Ron Weasley's off-handed remark been the one that sent her over the edge?
It was a question she couldn't answer at the time. She remembered locking herself in the girls' bathroom that night as well to cry her sorrows out. And as she'd sat there, she'd asked herself the same question. Why did she care what that over-confident prat thought of her anyway? It wasn't like he was anyone of importance. It wasn't like she even liked him, much less cared what he thought.
But for some reason she did. She did care what he thought, and that fact had bothered her.
It was bothering her even more now.
It had been a long time since she'd gone back to that night with the Mountain Troll, but she found that she could remember it as clearly as if it had been yesterday and not five years ago. Perhaps it was the most significant moment of her life... She'd never really thought about that until now, but it seemed logical. That night had changed her entire life forever, and she'd found something she'd never really had before.
Friends.
She remembered returning home to her parents for Christmas that year and telling them story after story about her new friends. When her mum had jokingly asked her if either of these boys was her boyfriend, she had blushed and reluctantly admitted that she did think Harry was kinda cute. She'd then pulled out book after book and shown her parents all the references they made to the Boy Who Lived and told them how he, like her, had grown up in a Muggle home and had no idea he had magical powers until he'd gotten his letter from Hogwarts. When her mum had asked about Ron, Hermione remembered shrugging and saying, "He's okay, I guess. Really annoying sometimes, though."
She'd certainly not blushed and said that he was cute. In fact, she'd never said that he was cute. Not out loud anyway.
Okay, so that was a lie.
Hermione felt herself blushing even now as she rolled over onto her side and cringed at memories still quite fresh in her mind. Though, she had denied having any recollection of it, she remembered the night at the nightclub vividly. She remembered everything that had happened that night, the way she had acted, and the way Ron had taken care of her. Of course, she remembered telling him that he was cute and pointing out more than once how adorable his dimples were. She couldn't believe she'd said all that.
But she would be lying if she said it wasn't the truth.
Ron was cute. In fact, he was very cute. And even though she'd tried very hard to ignore it, she couldn't help but take notice of the way he was rapidly filling out with muscles and growing into his height. Gone were the days of the tall, skinny boy with hands and feet too big for his frame. And then, of course, there was the hair. She'd seen it for five years, and she'd watched as it turned colors from dark red in the winter to an almost strawberry blonde color in the summer to an orangish color in between. She'd watched as it had gone from a bowl cut at eleven years old to a short and spiky cut at twelve to a mess of every which way locks at thirteen to shaggy at fourteen, and now to the short, but not too short cut he was sporting at fifteen. For five years, his hair had transfixed her.
So, now what was she supposed to do? It didn't seem fair to ignore these growing feelings that she was having, but they scared her just the same.
And they confused her beyond reason.
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So? Whadda ya think? I am very proud of this chapter, and I've probably rewritten it more times than JK Rowling has rewritten the fifth book (Grrr...) But anyway, it was one of those scenes that you just have playing in your head and you just know you have to get somewhere where you can write it all down. You know what I'm talking about? Well, this was one of those, and I've had it written since probably the second chapter of this story. I REALLY want to hear feedback on this chapter, you guys! If you don't mind, and if you got this far (it was a long ride, I know), please click the little blue box and let me know your thoughts! Thanks!!!
