Chapter 5: Friends Again?
Disclaimer: I don't own anything that has to do with Harry Potter except the plot of this story.
A/N: oh my goodness sorry I didn't update in so long!! Thanks sooo much for all your great reviews, u have no idea how much they are appreciated! Much luv!
Surprisingly I hadn't yet felt even slightly ashamed of my behavior towards Ron a few weeks before. Ernie and I were doing, to tell you the truth, great. I never imagined us as getting along, but it was great having someone just as ambitious to do well in school as I am. Plus he was very caring, the only thing that was wrong with him was that he wasn't Ron, but I never seemed to want to admit that to myself. Sometimes I was so thick that when I was meeting Ernie for a date, I would secretly hope that Ron would be standing there instead of Ernie, waiting to take me on a date, and ready to go have a good time.
But all these great things I had going with Ernie didn't seem to keep me from suppressing a little bit of jealousy when a certain Looney Lovegood approached me one day with a question.
"Hey Hermoony." Luna said with a distant stare in her hazy eyes.
"Its Hermoine." I corrected her curtly, finishing off my remark with a fake grin.
"Right..right. Sorry. I was er...just wondering do you know if Ron has an answer to my question yet?"
"Excuse me?" I knew she was a little well... off but what was she walking about?
"You know, he must have told you, I asked him out and he has yet to answer."
"Oh well er Ron and I aren't very close any more so no I didn't know that you asked him out." I tried to keep my most cheery voice but it wasn't working very successfully.
Luna stared up at the ceiling admiring the few cracks that had made their way into the structure of the castle after all the years of being built.
"Wow that crack in the ceiling is in the shape of a hippogriff...brilliant." She muttered dreamily before walking away slowly. What a lunatic!
My curiosity got the best of me, as it almost always did. I wanted, no needed to find out if Ron was going out with Luna. I didn't know why, ok maybe I did...so I was jealous, big deal! My pace quickened, I wanted to find Ron. I stopped suddenly. This was ridiculous! I was dating Ernie, why was I being such a git and speeding off to talk to Ron right when I find out he might have a girlfriend. I ignored being logic and began walking again; Ron was probably in the common room. I approached the Fat Lady's portrait muttering the password, 'blazing boggarts', and walked through the open hole that appeared when the large lady acknowledged that I had the correct password.
I spotted Ron immediately in the corner playing wizards chess with a large ghost that was wearing a jacket so hideous that it could have been Hagrid's.
"Ron!" I shrieked, huffing and puffing from walking so quickly all the way across the school. He looked at me like I was crazy.
"Er...Moine..you okay?" he asked, shooing away his chess partner.
The ghost began floating away, but not before muttering comments under his breath: "Leave it to a little bookworm to ruin a good match of chess...the nerve of that girl." Then he disappeared into the wall leaving Ron and I alone in the spacious common room. An uncomfortable feeling surrounded us as we stared at each other for a few seconds.
"Oh yes! Why everything is fine. I...er was just wondering if you were dating Luna or not?" Ron's look of concern turned to almost an annoyed glare.
"That's why you came charging in here? Since when do you care anyway?" he asked.
"Ron you know I care." I was starting to feel bad about my actions towards him lately; after all he had been my best friend.
"Well you have a real way of showing it." He muttered before flopping back down on his chair in exasperation.
"I know I've been horrible towards you lately, and for that I'm sorry. Cant we just er...be friends?"
"Yea... what ever, and to answer you question: no I am not dating Luna." I could tell he was still upset with me.
"Why did you turn her down Ron?" I asked curiously.
"It wouldn't have been fair to Luna, when I still have feelings for my last girlfriend." He replied, almost nervously digging the toe of his shoe in the red carpet.
"Oh Ron why do you say things like that? I'm dating Ernie now, you know that!" my eyes began to tear up slightly but I refused to blink and let the tears fall from my eyes. He always knew just what to say to get a reaction from me.
He sighed heavily "Yea I know."
"Er...do you want to go grab some lunch?" I asked timidly.
"No, not too hungry. You go ahead."
"My Ron...not hungry? Oh Merlin. Do you feel okay?" I asked placing my hand on his forehead as if to check if he had a fever. "Oh I'm only kidding, please come to the Great Hall with me!" well fine if he wasn't going to come willingly, he was coming by force. I grabbed his forearm and digging my heels into the ground I attempted to drag the tall red head towards the portrait hole.
He smiled sheepishly, keeping his ground amidst the persistant tugs on his arm.
"You're going to have to do better than that."
I let go, oh how childish we were being! Oh well I had gone this far...I stuck out my bottom lip and put on my most convincing puppy face. I knew just how to get to him.
"Oh what the hell, I could choke down something!" he managed to say before bursting out laughing. "Now get that pathetic pout of your face."
I put my arm around his shoulder as we walked towards the crowded Great Hall.
"You know Ron I think I am liking this friends thing again."
"Yep, me too." He replied unconvincingly, but I chose to ignore it.
We took our seats at the long Gryffindor table across from Harry and Ginny.
"Friends again I see." Ginny remarked slyly.
"Mhm." Ron responded through a mouthful of roasted ham.
Harry smiled at his two best friends, "I'm glad."
Ginny and Harry continued to stare avidly at Ron, and I soon realized why when I looked over and saw him stuffing chocolate frogs in his mouth two at a time.
Very unlike myself, I started giggling at his appalling behavior.
"I'm so glad you could choke, cough cough, something down." I smirked, rubbing a smudge of chocolate from his pale cheek. In turn he smiled adoringly at me showing all of the half chewed food in his mouth. It was great to be back with my close friends again.
"Oh for heaven's sake Ron." Ginny scolded. But none of us could keep from laughing when a first year that was passing by sped up when seeing Ron, obviously frightened.
"Uh Hermoine?" I heard the voice behind me. I stopped laughing.
"Oh Hi Ernie." The smile vanished from Ron's face, and he lowered his head, clearly not having a good time anymore.
"You want to go for a walk." Ernie asked timidly wondering why he was receiving dirty looks from both Ginny and Harry.
"Er...sure. See you guys later!" and without looking at Ron I left with Ernie, taking his hand in mine.
I didn't say anything until we were out of the Great Hall.
"So did you need to talk about something?" I asked him.
"No...I just wanted to go on a walk."
"Well no offence Ernie, but didn't you see I was talking to some friends?" I don't know why I was being so rude, and at the moment I didn't seem to care either.
"I didn't know that you would be upset if I asked you to go on a walk! I'm sorry if I interrupted everyone laughing at Ron's utterly disgusting eating habits." He replied, his face turning red.
"Don't you dare insult my friends! Ron does not have disgusting eating habits." Okay...so maybe he did, but that was none of Ernie's business.
"You know what Hermoine, I can't keep dating you when you still have feelings for Ron." My jaw dropped and I began to protest. "No let me finish! So I'm going to do myself a favor and break it off now before I like you too much. Why don't you do yourself a favor and get over yourself and realize that you still like Ron." He turned and began to walk away.
"How dare you....I do not...there are no feelings...he is just a friend." I began blurting out. But Ernie didn't turn around he just continued walking and shaking his head.
A/N: lol I thought that was kind of cute...eh? What did you think? Why don't you let me know in a review J ! hehe I would love you forever!!! Any ways once again, sorry about the wait..and thanks to everyone who has stuck with me for the first bit of this story. I would say there are 3 to 4 more chapters.