Disclaimer: The day I own these splendiferous characters and settings is the day Malfoy dances naked in front of me, and turns into a teapot at midnight. (Actually, I wouldn't mind the whole dancing naked bit! Tee hee.) Sounds like an idea for a fan fic! No, no, just kidding. On with the show!

Dum Dum Diddle

Chapter the Fourth

She didn't know how long she lay there, crying, broken, heartbroken. Her weeping had slowed and her breathing was less ragged, when she realized that whoever it was that had been there, who had delivered this fiendish omen to her, had most certainly done all the damage that they had intended, and left her there to cry her heart out on the cold, hard floor. Slowly she pulled herself into a sitting position, hardly noticing the pain and stiffness in her limbs as she forced them to move.

She steeled herself for what she was about to do, and stood, slowly walking over to the thing which had caused her so much grief. As she walked, still moaning quietly as tears streamed down her already wet cheeks, she noticed two things which surprised her. She scrunched her nose up in curiosity and bafflement as she noticed that the leg and foot, Ron's leg and foot, appeared not to have been severed, roughly or otherwise, but simply stopped.

She had no time to ponder this further, however, as at this moment she screamed and jumped as she heard a muffled groaning coming from the empty space somewhere between Ron's foot and the wall behind it.

Wild eyed and near hysterical, she spun around once more, fearing that whoever had brought Ron's foot was back again. She shuddered at the thought of what they might bring this time, as she heard the noise again.

"Mmmrph?" It was louder this time, and sounded confused.

"Who's there?" Hermione said quickly, staring piercingly at the place where the noise came from.

"'Mione?" the voice said, questioningly.

"Who are you? What do you want?" she shrieked.

Again, Hermione screamed, unaware of the extreme damage her vocal chords had endured over the course of the night, as she heard a swishing sound and saw an arm, followed by the rest of a body, appear out of the thin air which previously appeared to occupy the space where the noises had come from. She stared with wide, frightened eyes, hardly able to believe what she had just witnessed.

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There, joined to Ron Weasley's foot, was the rest of Ron Weasley, apparently unhurt apart form a small gash on his forehead which was dripping blood down the bridge of his nose, and most definitely alive.

Hermione watched, frozen in complete and utter shock as Ron threw the invisibility cloak to one side, and looked around at Hermione. He reached up to touch his forehead, and winced as his fingers found the wound from where he had hit his head against the wall when he fell.

It was Ron who broke the silence.

"'Mione? I've hit my head," he finished pathetically, wondering wether she had been petrified again, or was just doing her best impression of a stunned mullet.

"Ron!" she finally managed to choke out. Finding no other words to express the assortment of emotions running riot through her being, she recovered the use of her limbs, and ran the distance between them, collapsing next to Ron and throwing herself, now crying as hard as she was before, onto his chest. Shocked, he sat there, patiently waiting for the tears to stop, so that he could ask her what had happened, and do something about the blood which had now stopped dripping, and was drying on his face.

When she finally stopped crying, she looked up at him.

"You're hurt," she said, as she pulled a tissue out of a pocket in her robes, and began to clean some of the dried blood from where it had dripped onto his nose and chin.

"Hermione?" he asked, before she put a finger to his lips and shushed him.

"I'm taking you to the hospital wing," she told him "We can talk about what happened after Madame Pomfrey has fixed you up." Her tone was final, and neither of them spoke as she stood, helped Ron to his feet, and didn't let go of his hand until they reached the hospital wing.

As expected, Madame Pomfrey mended Ron's head in a jiffy, and although she gave the pair a few odd glances, she asked no questions as to how Ron came to be at the Hospital Wing at such a time in the morning, with Hermione in tow, and a nasty looking wound to the head.

As they were walking back towards the Gryffindor Common room, an uncomfortable silence having settled over them, Ron stopped suddenly.

"The cloak. We have to go back," he said, more to himself than Hermione.

"It can wait 'till morning, Ron," she replied, laying a small hand on his arm so as to steer him forwards.

"No, I want to go back. We can talk about what happened tonight," he said, deciding that it was finally time to confess to Hermione that he had been watching her, and why.

"Ron, it's late," she pleaded, tugging on his sleeve, but he refused to budge.

"Not too late for you to be out there playing you violin, is it?" he countered, instantly wishing he hadn't, as he watched her surprised expression turn into a deadly glare.

"I was watching you," he admitted, before she could ask.

"Ron," she faltered, the glare fading into non-existence. "I thought…" she paused and took a deep breath, fixing her gaze on his eyes. "I thought you were dead."

"What? No, I fell, and I hit my head - Oh," he stopped, as he realized that Hermione couldn't see him when he had fallen and knocked himself unconcious. She could have thought anything was happening. "I tripped on the cloak and there was this sharp rock and; here-" he walked forwards, taking Hermione's hand gently in his, from where it was still tugging on his sleeve. Hermione followed obediently behind him. "-I'll show you."

When they reached the top of the Astronomy tower, he stood and faced Hermione.

"Hermione, I've been watching you," he confessed again. Her face remained emotionless, listening. "Not just tonight, every night for almost the entire term. I borrowed Harry's invisibility cloak so that you couldn't see me, and then tonight I tripped, and I hit my head on this stone," here he gestured towards the jagged stone sticking out of the wall where he fell. "And I just blacked out, and then you had stopped playing, and you were crying, and I didn't know what to do…" she said nothing, still staring blankly up into his eyes. "I'm sorry."

Hermione looked like she was about to cry again, and then she did something that Ron was not expecting. She slapped him across his cheek, as hard as she could.

"Don't you ever do anything like that to me again, Ron Weasley, EVER!" she yelled at him, and dissolved into tears again, covering her face with her hands.

Still shocked from being slapped, Ron sighed and put his arms around her shoulders, drawing her to him. He was still uncomfortable when Hermione cried, but it was his fault this time, and she seemed to like being hugged when she was crying - or at least she didn't mind it - and that was reason enough for him.

Hermione sniffled as she put her arms around Ron's waist, busying her face into his shoulder. Ron smiled and rested his cheek on the top of her head as they stood there, swaying slowly on the spot as though dancing to some unheard melody, the cloak and the violin laying forgotten on the ground.

He knew he was forgiven. They would talk about what had happened tomorrow. For now there were things to be said without words.

Ron opened his eyes to see that the sky was beginning to lighten to the east over Hogsmeade.

"Hermione," he said gently as he released her from their embrace. "Look."

She lifted her head and turned around, snuggling back into Ron's chest as he held her around her waist from behind. They stood there together and watched the sun rise, glittering on the rooftops of the village.

"Hermione, I'm sorry," Ron said again. "I'm sorry for spying on you. I'm sorry for scaring you. I'm sorry I was so stupid."

"You have no idea what it's like, Ron," she replied, turning around in his arms so that she was now facing him, looking up at him with those big brown eyes. "I thought you were dead. I thought I'd never see you again. You have no idea how that feels."

It was now or never, Ron decided, and with only the tiniest moment of hesitation, Ron told her what he had wanted to for six years.

"Hermione, I love you."

She said nothing, gazing into his eyes as though she was looking at his inner being, trying to see if he was telling the truth.

"I love you, too," she said finally, a small smile creeping onto the edges of her mouth for the first time that night.

"You- you do?" he faltered, "I mean, you do! That's great!" He grinned widely.

And with this he leaned down and kissed her, all his worries and pains ebbing away into nothingness as everything outside himself and Hermione slowly faded away.

When they broke away, she smiled mischievously at him as he beamed down at her.

"You know, I'm going to tell Harry you nicked his invisibility cloak," she teased him.

"Oh yeah, well then I'm going to tell McGonagall about your late-night rendezvous to play your violin!" he replied.

"Are not!" she said, slapping him playfully on the arm.

"No, you're right," he sighed. "I guess I'm not. As long as you don't tell Harry about the cloak."

"Deal," she said "Although I don't know how we're going to keep it from him. We're going to have to tell him about… 'us'… eventually," she said.

"So there's an 'us' now, is there?" he grinned.

"Yeah, I guess there is," she smiled back.

Still locked in their embrace, their lips met again, and all worries of Harry and the rest of the world were dispelled, and for one perfect moment, in a world so riddled with war and grief, everything was beautiful.

Dum-dum-diddle, to be your fiddle
To be so near you and not just hear you
Dum-dum-diddle, to be your fiddle
I think then maybe you'd see me, baby
You'd be mine
And we'd be together all the time
Wish I was, dum-dum-diddle, your darling fiddle

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AN: So there it is, the final chapter of Dum-Dum-Diddle. Thanks all for reading. *sighs contentedly* Also a big thankyou to all my wonderful reviewers. You guys helped make writing this worthwhile for me. I hope you liked the finished product.

Cheers all,

~Ninny Weasley~