Chapter 6

Why did I go into that dorm? What did I expect? That he'd be asleep and then so willingly whisk me into his arms like some princess? No, not Hermione Granger. I can't believe you're being so stupid!

Hermione stalked toward the library after her encounter with Ron. She was angrily brushing the tears away from her face. She couldn't cry! She was Hermione… she was…

But that was exactly it. She was Hermione, and she had deep feelings that went far past friendship for her best friend, Ron. What was coming over her?

She hurriedly went to a shelf, pulled random books down, and hauled them all to a table. She didn't care what she had grabbed, as long as she kept her mind off of Ron. However, when she sat down, she realized that she had read every single book she had grabbed.

Staring at the eight or nine books in front of her, Hermione realized that she had finally reached a dead end. She had done all the reading, writing, homework, essays, projects, and reports that a true happiness used to get for her. She was suddenly not satisfied with her work, and it scared her.

She felt her head droop down onto the table as she cried.

It seemed like she had gone through so much as she let her emotions fall out of her eyes in the form of salty tears. Why did it have to be so hard suddenly at sixteen? Nothing had been this hard when she was a simple girl of eleven. Of course, she had hated Ron with such a passion then that all that seemed to matter then was books and homework. After befriending Harry, she soon learned that that was not so.

After third year had gone by, she felt different things, things she had never felt before. She was sure that friendship was more important to her than any report ever would be, but this was not friendship. It was something different.

Common sense, which Hermione prided herself on having, told anyone that if three people of mixed gender were great friends for a period of time, there would be some kind of attraction within the group. For Hermione, it had happened first with Harry, and she was positive after summer break that it had been nothing more than a physical attraction of sorts.

After talking to Ron for so long, she really started to feel something more for him. Through the endearing red hair, adorable freckles, and shining blue eyes, there was so much more for her to ponder and discover. She wanted to know everything there was to know about Ron Weasley. She wanted to be everything to him sometimes.

There was so much at risk if she went for what she really wanted. It was too much. She couldn't risk throwing in the towel, admitting her feelings for Ron, and then risk either losing him or getting hurt. It was almost a lose/lose situation in which she was sure to be at the dire end of the deal.

Setting her head on top of all the books sitting in front of her, she blinked tears out of her lashes and closed her eyes lazily. She suddenly realized that her lids felt heavy, as if the weight of all she had been feeling were on top of them. She soon fell into a deep sleep.

It seemed like it had been hours upon hours when she woke up twenty minutes later. She had obviously needed the relaxation that it brought her, because she felt almost renewed.

Almost.

Pulling her head up, she fixed the stack of books that had fallen and then went to return them. She retrieved a few that she had not read (and it seemed as if there were only a few), set them down on the table, pulled out a piece of parchment, and began to write. She didn't care what she was writing, or what kind of notes she would be taking, but she wrote.

She opened up A Look at the Ancient Gods of Greece and flipped a few pages until she reached the first chapter, 'The Ruler of All Gods: Mighty Zeus.' As she started to read, she jotted down notes and brief facts that she would need to know about Zeus.

But then the question slapped her in the side of the face: When would she ever need to know about this?

Slamming the book shut, she pushed it away and faced the next book in front of her. The Chronology of Antique to Modern Wands.

This may be useful for Charms, she thought hopefully to herself.

After opening the book, she hurriedly scribbled the notes she had taken about Zeus out and began to write something about wands.

'The most ancient of all wands was said to have been fashioned by the first wizard that ever lived. He was best at Transfiguration, and found that with the wand, he was more successful in his attempts than with his own wit to do it for him.'

Scrawling all of this hurriedly, Hermione's hand burned and her knuckles turned white. She didn't seem to care, however. She had to do anything to get her mind off of Ron.

This thought only provoked her to write harder and faster.

'Most wands in those days were longer than modern-day wands, which are the result of many improvements.'

"Most wands…" she whispered to herself as she copied it down. Staring at the chicken scratch on the page, she suddenly didn't care what happened to her. She had her intelligence, and that would get her through everything. Books, papers, and writing would never be unfaithful to her. It would never cause deep stirrings of emotions, it would never confuse her, it would never fight with her and there was no possibility of it ever leaving her. Yes, her brain and intellect were her most useful weapons.

'Wands were particularly useful for Charms, as most wizards discovered Simple spells such as levitation and unlocking doors were now easily performed with this handy invention. However, because of their flighty design and the lack of an important core for the wand, they were not ready for curses such as the Cruciatus Curse.'

"Not ready…" she recited out loud, scribbling the words down.

'And since unicorns were rather rare and dragons had not been discovered, tail hairs and heartstrings are pulled whenever Ron looks into my eyes. I can't believe it. I think I might be in love with my best friend. The look he gives me accompanied by that crooked smile is enough to make my knees weak. Not to mention the fact that he keeps fighting, he's fighting to keep me. He doesn't want us to fight; he doesn't want to lose me. He's so obviously a Gryffindor. He constantly finds the courage to battle me and then finds even more to come up to me and say he's sorry first. Is that normal? I wouldn't expect it from most men. Especially considering his unusually stubborn streak with me in particular. Am I in love with Ron Weasley?'

Hermione's eyes widened when she looked at the book and then down at the paper. She had spent the last two or three minutes scratching all of that down, not even realizing.

Her eyes flooded with tears once again and she finally understood. She threw down her pen, shut the book, and tore up the parchment paper.

She returned the books to their proper shelves, gathered up her things, and left the library. It was time to sit in her dorm and think.

Am I being silly, or should I just confess I'm in love right now?

Ron sat on the stands in the Quidditch field, bundled up to the nine. It was freezing and Ginny and Harry were practicing some of the new moves he had made up for her. It wasn't like he had anything better to do. He couldn't very well spend time with Hermione. That was obvious.

His nose was completely red. He couldn't feel his fingers or toes. However he would rather have been watching his sister practicing with his best friend than face the icy stare Hermione could give him. That would blow the snow out of the competition. The snow physically froze him. The gaze Hermione could set on him would freeze his heart.

STOP THINKING ABOUT HERMIONE!

Wrapping up tightly in his robes, Ron forced himself to watch the action in front of him. Ginny had dropped the ball and Harry had swung down to get it. Now they were laughing, floating next to each other and talking quietly about what Ginny had done wrong. Ron stared at them, a wistful smile crept onto his face. They both looked so happy. It was obviously the fact that they were finally free and up in the air. Harry had always loved being on his broom and the moment Ginny had touched a broomstick, it became a second home for her as well.

"You have to take the ball down there, then swoop back down and come in for a fake, do you get it?" Harry asked, laughing all the while as he explained it.

"I think so," Ginny answered.

Ron bundled up tighter than before and stared ahead, not realizing what he was doing. His thoughts slowly drifted toward Hermione like they had easily done the past few months.

Things were becoming too complicated for him to even want to sort out anymore. One minute, they were biting each other's heads off and were pronounced mortal enemies. The next, they were staring at each other like they were the only people in the entire world that existed. It didn't make sense.

She wasn't only at fault, however. He was reacting strangely to the feelings inside him as well. What was he supposed to do? He had liked Hermione more than a friend for so long that it seemed almost odd for the feelings to plague him like a disease suddenly. Could it have been more than just a simple crush?

"Harry! Give me the Quaffle!"

"No! You have to do the Swooping Pattern I formed!"

"I can't do that out here Harry, it's bloody cold!"

"Then you're not getting your ball!"

"Harry, quit being a Wood!"

Ron laughed out loud at this expression that she and Harry had devised together. It was quite clever. Whenever Harry was being maniacal with Quidditch, she told him he was pulling a 'Wood,' referring to Harry's fanatic ex-captain Oliver Wood.

"Just do it, J!"

"Don't use that name on me! Give me my ball!"

"J!"

"HARRY!"

Ron was watching the scene with a great amusement. They were flying around the Quidditch field, chasing one another all the while yelling back and forth. His sister had grown up so quickly, right before his very eyes. He barely recognized her anymore. She was happy, laughing constantly, fifteen, and physically different in ways he didn't want to think his sister was different.

He also saw transformations in himself and his friends… obviously. Harry had found his home at Hogwarts, and he couldn't be happier for him. He had told Ron once that until coming to Hogwarts, he had always felt like a walking can, like there was nothing inside of him except the organs that kept him alive. Sometimes he even wished those weren't there.

Ron had noticed through the course of his fifth year the way Hermione and Harry stared at each other. He had found his new feelings for that so called bossy know-it-all girl the summer of his fourth year but had been mortally crushed when he saw how much Hermione clung to Harry, surprisingly.

So instead, he decided to take a different approach. If he couldn't be the star and hero that Hermione wanted (who just happened to be the star and hero of Hogwarts), he would be the comforting shoulder she needed. Especially after he realized that Harry didn't have the interest in Hermione she had in him at that time. Maybe to hide his true heartache that he couldn't have the girl he liked.

Of course, he liked her still, and he didn't know if he it was just a like if not more now. What he didn't understand was that if he was so depressed before about not having her and now his feelings were stronger, why was he hesitating to have her?

He could answer that easily, however. It was no joke. He liked Hermione, maybe even loved her. It was just a feeling now that was so intense; he didn't know what to do about it. It scared him beyond anything he had ever been scared by… including spiders.

Smiling at his afterthought, he soon brushed it out of his head and thought seriously. Hermione meant everything in the world to him, and if he lost her in a relationship of such a fierce magnitude, he wasn't sure what he would do with himself. He would be a wreck, a complete loss of a human being.

But he knew now, as he watched Harry and Ginny bicker whilst flying that he was in love with Hermione. There was no denying it.

There was no admitting it however, either.

Hermione stared at her reflection hours later in the mirror, brushing her thick brown hair slowly. She was contemplating and going over thoughts in her head.

"Tomorrow is the day," she whispered to Crookshanks, her fat orange cat who was lying on her bed lazily. "Tomorrow, I'm going to tell him. Tomorrow."

Crookshanks only purred happily, closing his eyes. Hermione laughed, set down her brush and stared at her huge brown eyes in the mirror. Her cheeks had been tearstained too often. She was confident, she was secure, she was self-assured…

She was scared out of her mind.

"Oh help," she whispered and climbed into bed, her heart thudding.