Hermione had been sure the whole thing would be better within a week, but six days later things showed no signs of improving. Ron was still being strange, although, Hermione acknowledged, he was making attempts to hide it, and she suspected that if she didn't know him so well, she'd fall for it. In some ways she'd have preferred it if he was openly sulking and snapping, at least then they would know where they stood with each other, and it would take less time to fade.

            They hadn't been out flying together since that night that Hermione didn't like to think about. It was silly, she told herself firmly. Barely anything happened and look at all the trouble it had caused. Obviously the answer was, she thought, logically, to go out flying again, and make sure the evening went perfectly and completely platonically and without complications. That would solve all the tension, and things would be back how they were again.

            She looked over at his bed, where he was inside, with the curtains drawn, despite the fact it was midday. She presumed he was having a lie-in, although she hadn't checked. He'd taken to sleeping in late these days, and then spending the days outside being hit by Bludgers. She hadn't even caught him talking to Harry at all, and so Hermione had been talking to their sleeping friend twice as much in an effort to keep things normal.

            Later, she mused, later, she could fix things.

***

Ron was lying hunched up in bed, reading his book again. He was trying to be as quiet as possible, so that Hermione would think he was asleep. It was easier to avoid Hermione than it was to hold back from snapping because he didn't know quite what he was thinking. And now that he had decided not to talk to Harry, all his thoughts tended to get muddled up in his head.

He put his book to one side, and slipped out his notebook from under his pillow, along with a rather bedraggled quill. He'd taken to writing his thoughts down, as compensation for not talking to Harry, and he'd worked out a way of doing it in diagrams, which was much clearer than saying it out loud anyway.

He carefully studied last night's diagram, which was quite similar to the other ones he'd done in the last few days. On one side of the page, was Hermione's name, written carefully in block capitals. There was an arrow connecting it to a box in the centre of the page, which contained the words 'Flying over lake and having nice time'. Both 'Hermione' and this box were linked to 'Weird tingly thing', which was linked to 'DEFINITELY DO NOT FANCY HERMIONE'. Ron carefully underlined this phrase three times, feeling it was the most important.

After looking at it for a few more seconds, Ron pushed it to one side and picked up his book again. He was reading the chapter on mind reading, in the hope that he could read his own mind and work out quite what was going on. Every now and then, however, his attention was reclaimed by the notebook and his scribbled diagrams, and Ron couldn't concentrate on the chapter at all.

He was having a rather funny feeling, that he was in what the book called 'denial'. He skimmed over the paragraph again, and then had another look at his diagram, and his heavily underlined phrase. Then he sighed heavily, and turned to the chapter, 'Love and How It Affects One's Mind'.

***

Some time later, Hermione approached Ron's curtains tentatively. "Ron?" she called out. "Are you in there?"

There was a pause, and then Ron answered, "Yes."

"I was wondering if you wanted to go flying with me later? We haven't done it in ages…"

There was another pause, and then the curtains opened. "That'd be nice," he said, smiling. It was a different kind of smile to the quick, awkward one of the last few days, but it wasn't quite his usual smirk either. Hermione didn't worry too much about it however, and was pleased that things were starting get better, or at least change.

As they walked down the stairs, Hermione decided to make a start at normal conversation again. "You know, we've been here for almost three weeks now."

"I know," Ron said, in a surprisingly more friendly tone than Hermione had expected. "I wish we had more time here."

"Thought you were bored?"

            "Well, I am, sometimes, but I like it here."

            "Me too."

***

They hadn't talked about it but each was fully expecting that it would be Hermione who would control the broom again. She felt more confident this time, her mind full of plans to get Ron back to normal, and not really noticing the jerkiness of the broom.

Everything seemed to be fine so far, she noted, as they flew towards the lake. She'd been worried that perhaps he wouldn't want to come flying with her at all, but obviously things were on the way to getting better.

"I don't think there's going to be a pretty sunset," Ron commented, looking up at the sky, worriedly. "Look at all those clouds…"

"Well, we can still have a nice time anyway." Hermione was anxious for nothing to interrupt them. Besides, perhaps an absence of sunset would make the whole thing feel more friendly than romantic, and then he'd be back to normal, once he realised that there weren't any romantic feelings to get worried about. Really, Hermione smiled to herself, crushes could be complicated even when they didn't exist.

Ron, on the other hand, was thinking quite the opposite. He was starting to accept the idea that he may well be in denial, and so carefully worked out a plan: to get into a romantic situation with Hermione – not with kissing or anything though, he thought in alarm, just something like seeing the sunset again – and then pay very close attention how he felt. Surely it couldn't be too difficult to work it out, if he was ready for it this time. He'd just been taken by surprise before, after all. And maybe, he thought, hopefully, it was just the surprise that had got to him before, and he wasn't in denial at all and it was all just one big misunderstanding.

He felt soft raindrops falling on his head, and he looked up to see dark clouds over head. "Perhaps we'd better go back…" he said, reluctantly. There must be romantic situations in the castle, he thought to himself, and rain against the windows was a nice romantic thing to have in the background.

"No!" Hermione insisted, sticking to her plan. "It's alright, it's just a bit of rain."

"But it looks like it might storm…"

"If it gets worse, we'll go back," Hermione promised. "It's not like we're going far…"

"Alright then." Ron gave in.

They were over the lake again by now, and looking down they could see themselves reflected in the glimmering dark surface, against a background of black clouds. The raindrops made rippling circles on the lake, overlapping and multiplying rapidly.

The rain still continued to fall steadily and softly however, despite the threatening clouds, and Hermione looked up so as to feel the water on her face. It dripped down her forehead and onto the end of her nose, and she could feel it running the other way too, into her hair. She was pleased – she quite liked the way her hair looked in the rain, it went almost curly and more subdued.

"This is nicer than last time, isn't it?" She said, carefully, testing her theory. She tried not to sound too eager though, in case she scared him again.

"It is," he agreed. "Er… Hermione…"

"Yes?" She asked, slightly worried. He was sounding nervous.

"You can lean on my shoulder again, if you like."

Hermione frowned, and thought quickly. This wasn't part of her analysis at all! She'd thought he was trying to avoid getting too close to her… but perhaps, she considered, she'd read the situation the wrong way… She realised that she had better do something, anyway, as any second now her hesitation would appear suspicious, and so she leaned back again, resting her head on his shoulder and gazing up at the increasingly dark clouds.

"Are you comfortable like this?" she asked him, checking the situation from all angles.

"Perfectly," he nodded, and she thought she saw him smile. She could just about see him, from the corner of her eye, and she was sure that if she turned around just a little bit, she could look at him properly. She didn't, however, still not certain how this situation was working.

Ron held Hermione a little tighter, and concentrated on exactly how he was feeling. He was aware of a rain drop running slowly down his nose, and of Hermione's damp hair on his shoulder, but he commanded himself to feel deeper than that. Real feelings, he told himself. He thought very hard on the subject of Hermione – how she always had something to say, how she always helped him with his homework even though she swore every time would be the last, how she always tried to convince the house-elves that they worked they worked too hard, the way she always wrote such long informative letters to his sister… and suddenly Ron realised, the warm tingly feeling that had resurfaced, might just possibly be love.

He felt a little daunted, but then somehow felt as though he was in a daze. Everything had started to move in slow motion, even the raindrop on his nose, and he felt as though even if they jumped off the broomstick, they'd still remain floating here, gliding around the lake in the rain, which was starting to get heavier by the second.

"Hermione," he was aware of himself saying, although he wasn't quite sure how, "look at me, a minute."

She looked around, a cute frown on her face as if she was trying to work out what he was thinking. Her hands gripped the broom tightly, keeping it on course to keep circling the lake, and then he saw a look of realisation in her eyes as she finally worked out what he was thinking. She didn't look horrified, he observed, dreamily, she looked like she was almost blushing, and very slowly she was beginning to smile widely.

He leaned towards her a little, and saw her shut her eyes, waiting. He closed his eyes too, and it felt like it was taking forever for their lips to meet, and just when he felt hers brush his…

Ron wasn't sure which came first, but suddenly there was a loud bang, a flash of lightening and a scream – Hermione's scream – and then the rain was falling heavily upon him and Hermione was falling rapidly towards the lake. 

***

Author's Notes

Hope you all like this one! Big cliff-hanger! So I'm not going to upload this one until the next one is written – I don't want to leave you in too much suspense!

I'm sorry that sometimes at first the formatting is a bit strange, it always looks completely different when its uploaded and I have to move it around and re-upload it to fix it and it takes up to 24 hours to work so I don't always know what it looks like. I think I've worked out the right way to format it to make it show up right though, so should be alright from now on!

            Thanks to everyone who's reviewed, it helps me a lot! And Zidane, they haven't quite told each other what they feel yet, but it's getting there! I hope it's worth the wait! You don't have too long to wait really – just a chapter or two. But that's not the end!

            And thanks to Jo for beta reading, by the way.