A/N: Well, I've tried to speed things up, but it's no use, a month is really the best I could do. I have found out that nice lengthy reviews inspire me, though. And I'm not just saying that so you'll all write long reviews, I mean it. The "Great work, write more!" reviews are great, and they always make me smile, but the thoughtful ones actually make me write faster and with renewed energy. Just thought you should know that. ;)
Anyway, here's chapter 4. Oh, and I don't own anything!
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Hermione closed the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Five with a thud.
"So, Harry, did you understand anything at all?"
Harry chirped.
Hermione set the book aside for a second and sighed. How was she supposed to make Harry study when he was in this condition?
"Well, today's a Hogsmeade weekend, did you know that, Harry?" she said, straightening the covers around him. "I was going to go, but I wasn't in the mood, especially with you in the hospital wing, so I preferred to come visit you instead."
"We both preferred to come visit you, apparently," came Ron's voice from the doorway. "See how loved you are, you lucky bird?"
"Ron!" said Hermione. "I thought you wanted to go to Hogsmeade."
"And leave Harry alone with the orangutan over there? No way," he said, gesturing to a near bed, where a Hufflepuff boy with six-foot-long arms was sound asleep.
"Oh."
He seemed normal, Hermione considered. He was even making jokes. Whether that was some kind of happy act because they were in front of Harry or if he really had already got past the... the event, she had no way of knowing. His attitude was a relief (although a little disturbing, somehow) either way.
"Is he ok?" asked Ron.
"I guess so. Madam Pomfrey said he was going to stay here for a couple of weeks, though."
"A couple of weeks?"
"Yes, Ron, accidents with Transfiguration, especially in humans, take some time to be fixed. Remember the Polyjuice Incident? I was in here for several weeks."
He snickered. "I had forgotten about that."
Hermione stared at him. "That wasn't funny at all, Ron."
"Well, your fur was nothing compared to Harry's purple feathers," said Ron, laughing openly now. "No offense, but you really look ridiculous, mate," he added to Harry, patting his wing.
Hermione smiled. "Well, I suppose that the color of his feathers do clash horribly with his green eyes."
Harry chirped angrily.
"Sorry," said Hermione quickly.
"Yeah," said Ron. "But it would make you look less stupid if you took off those glasses."
Hermione nodded. "Absolutely." She picked up the book she had been reading to Harry.
Ron looked incredulously at it. "What's that for?"
"I know Harry can't do his homework, but he can listen to the chapter we're studying. It's the least he can do. It's the least we can do for him."
"Harry doesn't want to study! He has a beak!"
Harry chirped.
Ron pointed at him. "See? He's agreeing with me."
"That could just as well mean 'Please let me study, Ron. I don't want to fail because you're a prat'! You know, the O.W.L.s are coming."
"The O.W.L.s are months away!"
"It's never too soon to start preparing, especially for something as important-"
"I thought you didn't want to be seen as the know-it-all," interrupted Ron in a light, almost casual tone of voice.
Hermione, who had been leafing through the book to find the aforementioned chapter, stopped doing so and looked up at him in surprise.
"What?" he said, noticing her expression.
"Nothing. I just-" she forced herself to look back at the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Five and started turning its pages again hastily. "I thought you wanted to pretend that day never happened, and now you're even making references to it."
Ron stared at her for a while, probably trying to decide how to react to her bringing it up so abruptly. "What gave you the idea that I wanted to pretend it never happened?"
"I know you, ok?" snapped Hermione, releasing all the anger she didn't know she had been keeping. "'Could we not make a big deal out of this,' coming from you, means 'I regret it profusely and please don't ever, ever mention it again or I'll die from embarrassment'! Except you'd never use the word 'profusely'."
Ron looked taken aback. Harry fidgeted uncomfortably. They both looked at him.
"Oh, look, Hermione. Harry's here," said Ron pointedly.
"You want to hide it from Harry, now??" she asked, raising her voice.
"What, don't you?"
"Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger, I'm afraid that I will have to ask you to leave," said Madam Pomfrey, walking over to them and putting a hand on each of their shoulders. "You're disturbing my patients."
Ron turned on his chair and gave her an annoyed look. "What patients? The only one here other than Harry is that bloke over there, who, by the looks of it, not even an earthquake would be able to wake up!"
Madam Pomfrey looked at him severely. "Mr. Weasley..."
"If anything, you have do ask him to leave, because honestly, an earthquake is nothing compared to his snores."
"Ron, don't," murmured Hermione, at the same time Harry chirped warningly.
Madam Pomfrey looked scandalized. "Weasley, Granger, you'd better leave now or I'll have to-"
"No, no," interrupted Hermione, even though she usually knew better than to interrupt Madam Pomfrey. "We're leaving, aren't we, Ron?" she said in a reprimanding voice to Ron.
"I don't see why-"
"Come on," she said, pulling him off the chair before he got them both detentions. That would be embarrassing, especially since she was a prefect.
Madam Pomfrey didn't say anything as they left.
"Can you believe her?" said Ron as they walked back to the common room. "'You're disturbing my patients.' Honestly."
Hermione simply glared at him.
"Why are you so angry at me?" he asked.
"I'm not angry at you. You're an inconsequential coward, you've always been, why should that start angering me now?" she answered testily.
"I'm a what?" hissed Ron, in a dangerously low voice.
"I was expecting all of this," said Hermione ignoring him and walking faster. "I mean, I knew, from the moment you left that bathroom, that you'd never talk about it."
"Is that what this is all about?" said Ron, jogging a little to catch up with her and blocking her way. "You want to talk? Fine, let's talk."
"Why do we need to talk?" she retorted acidly, trying to pass around him. "It was no big deal, was it?"
Ron gave her a withering look and grabbed her arm, pulling her inside the empty Transfiguration classroom.
"Ron! What on earth...??" she shouted while he closed the door behind them.
"Don't yell," he said, almost yelling himself. "I still don't fully get what's making you so angry."
"Typical you, isn't it?" she snapped. "You never 'fully get' anything I do."
"If you'd just stop being so bloody confusing!"
"Excuse me, I'm not confusing."
"So why are you talking like this entire situation is my fault? Because, unless I'm very much mistaken, you kissed me back. Or did you conveniently forget that bit?"
Hermione couldn't believe his nerve. How could he use that against her? "You started it!" she said, well aware that she was sounding like a five-year-old.
"You continued it," retorted Ron, imitating her voice.
Hermione simply glared at him.
"See? You're a walking-talking puzzle even to yourself!" he said, in a smug tone. He had obviously noticed that she didn't know what to say. "Just admit it!"
"Now you're saying that I don't understand myself? I understand myself very well, Ron, thank you very much."
"Well, then. Here's your chance to prove that you do have an explanation for that," he said, crossing his arms.
Then it suddenly dawned on Hermione what Ron's tactic was. She had fallen for it so easily, really; it was so unlike herself. Now she'd have to give him an answer to his question, and he didn't even have to ask it. Pretty clever of him, in fact.
And the truth was, she didn't have any answer. None that she was sure of, anyway. So she took the easy way out. "Well, it was more of a... a reflex action."
"Reflex action?" repeated Ron, sounding incredulous and slightly amused. "You're saying that if a Flobberworm kissed you, you'd kiss it back, is that what you're saying?"
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on now, Ron, that's ridiculous. The idea of a Flobberworm kissing me is too farfetched and disgusting for me to think about it logically."
"What about Malfoy?" he asked, grimacing a little at the thought.
She grimaced too. "I think you've outdone yourself. That's an even more farfetched, not to mention disgusting prospect than that of a Flobberworm kissing me."
"Hermione."
"I was shocked, Ron, ok?" she said defensively. "It was all so sudden, I didn't think about what I was doing."
"Shock. Huh," he mumbled to no one in particular. "So, let's say, just hypothetically speaking, if I grabbed you, right now, and I told you clearly what I was going to do in, I don't know, five different languages to make sure you'd understand, and only then I-"
"I'd push you away and slap you," interrupted Hermione abruptly. Ron's tendency to wonder out loud was getting out of hand. And that would be ok, if it wasn't for her thoughts following suit.
"All right, then. Just, you know - making sure," he said flatly. Still, there was something about his tone of voice that Hermione couldn't quite figure out.
"That's probably what I would have done once I regained my conscience that day in the bathroom too, if you hadn't run away like a scared little bunny." She didn't want to have a fight, but, she considered, maybe it was better than the course that conversation was taking. Better than the awkward silences. Fights were familiar territory.
"A scared little bunny?" said Ron through clenched teeth, getting as enraged as Hermione expected him to get.
"Are you going to try to deny that?" she said in a defying voice.
"Of course I am! It's not true!"
"Oh, so you didn't run away?"
"No! I just – well, I – I don't owe you any explanations, ok?"
"Face it, Ron. You're just too much of a coward to kiss me and then look me in the eye."
It didn't take a genius to figure out what Ron's reaction to that statement would be. And Hermione would be a hypocrite if she said she wasn't expecting it.
The kiss in the bathroom had been uncertain and sweet. Intense, but sweet. Now this… this was anything but sweet. It was an angry kiss. She could feel his rage by the way he was kissing her: resolute and fierce and… well, passionate.
Ron soon let her go, his breath ragged, his lips slightly swollen, and all traces of anger in his expression gone. He simply looked disconcerted. Hermione couldn't help the fleeting impression that she had the same effect on him as he had on her.
"I'm looking at you," he then said huskily. He was indeed looking at her. Glaring would be a more correct term.
Hermione didn't answer. Honestly, what was there to say? She was still amazed by the realization that she had driven him to it on purpose. She had wanted him to kiss her. She still did. And the fact that he hadn't removed his hands from her waist wasn't helping matters much.
"I was waiting for you to 'push me away and slap me', you know," he added, somehow managing to sound both adorable and infuriating at the same time.
"You didn't tell me clearly what you were going to do in five different languages," said Hermione, finding her voice God-knows-where.
Ron actually smiled, although it was clear he tried hard not to. "I can't speak five different languages. Is that absolutely necessary?"
Hermione gave him an 'I can't believe you' look. "Ron..." she said in a warning voice and darted her eyes to where his hands were resting.
He followed her gaze and, realizing what she meant, let go of her waist immediately, muttering a barely comprehensible "Right."
He stepped away from her and stared at the floor for a while, the tip of his ears red. Then, probably discovering that the stone pavement wasn't all that interesting, he sat down on the top of one of the school desks and stared off into space instead.
Hermione was watching the compulsive way in which he was drumming his fingers on the desk when she realized how much the 'scared little bunny' comment had got to him. It was obvious that he wanted to leave as soon as possible, and just as clear that he wouldn't do it.
"Let me get this straight," said Ron suddenly. He stopped the drumming and jumped off the desk. "Talking is about dealing with a problem in a reasonable and rational way, right?"
Hermione wasn't sure where he was going with that, but nodded anyway. "In theory, yes. Why?"
"Nothing, I was just- well, thinking about the incredibly diplomatic direction our talk has taken," he answered, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Ron..." she repeated, her warning voice weaker this time.
"What, Hermione?" he snapped, his voice somewhat harsher. "No, really, what's the matter? It's not as if we'd never done that before."
His tone made Hermione wince, although he sounded much more angry with himself than with her. Maybe that was exactly the reason she winced. She was used to Ron being angry with her, but the feeling of hating yourself, which she knew fairly well, was something she wouldn't wish for anyone. Especially not him.
"And it didn't ruin things any more than they were already ruined, anyway," he said, so quietly that Hermione wasn't sure if he was talking to her, to himself, or to the heavens.
She glanced at his distressed expression and then swallowed hard. "You know that thing you said about not making a big deal?"
"Yeah," he said impatiently. "I already know that you don't think that's-"
"No, no, I think you were right."
"You do?" he asked, sounding hopeful. Or apprehensive, she wasn't sure.
"I do," she said, fighting not to let the disgust she was feeling with her own hypocrisy show. Not that Ron ever noticed anything like that, of course. "I mean, there's no reason to overreact. Right?"
Ron looked down at the floor awkwardly for a moment, and then said, "Er- yeah. No reason at all."
"So, are we all right?" she asked anxiously.
"Yeah, I guess so. Friends?" he asked, stretching his right hand out to her, anxiety also transparent in his face.
"Friends," she answered, shaking his hand and regretting it instantly.
It's really not good to have any kind of physical contact with your best friend when you're trying to convince him that you don't feel anything in his presence. Especially when you're not able to convince even yourself of that.
Hermione let go of his hand as gracefully as she could in that moment and looked down, not aware of the hair that was falling over her eyes, not exactly aware of anything.
She assured herself that she was rational. She was reasonable. She was able to control herself.
She was also terrible at self-assuring.
And that was when Ron reached out and pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. The tips of his fingers brushed against her cheek lightly, and the little assurance Hermione had been able to gather disappeared completely.
Taking a deep breath which didn't help the situation the slightest bit, she looked up at him, fighting the urge to yell, 'Don't do that!' and producing a sound that roughly resembled a 'huh' instead.
He blushed and said sheepishly, "It was in front of your eye."
That did it. Ron had finally achieved his life goal: drive Hermione crazy. Because, really, she'd have to be out of her mind to grab him by the front of his robe and kiss him, just like that, out of nowhere.
And yet, that was exactly what she had just done.
Hermione didn't know which was worse: wanting to kiss Ron and knowing that she shouldn't or actually kissing Ron and knowing that she shouldn't. It was like eating an entire chocolate cake while you're on a diet.
Ron broke the kiss and narrowed his eyes with confusion. "I thought you didn't want to make a big deal out of..." He trailed off.
"I don't," answered Hermione softly, getting as far away from him as she could. It was probably safer that way.
"Then why the hell did you just-"
"Ron," she interrupted, noticing his irked tone of voice. "Could you... could you leave me alone for a while?"
"Oh, you're throwing me out of the room now?"
"I suppose," said Hermione, wishing that he'd just go already.
Ron sent her an incredulous look and left without another word. The door slammed shut, and Hermione felt incredibly helpless as she realized that she wanted him to come back.