Disclaimer: …. Duh.

Music: Nâdiya:­ 16/9 ('specially: Hey! Laisse Tomber)

Hey, hey, who wants to know how Ron and Hermione really feel? It better be everyone who's reading this…. Not that it matters whether you want to know, because I'm writing it anyway 0-)

And, Harry and Draco have an actual conversation, gasp, what is the world coming to! Can't they just keep it simple and snog (among other things) each other's brains out?… no, apparently not. Damn me and my semi-plotlines

Also, I have quite a few author's notes, mainly because I feel the need to share my opinion… a lot.

Chapter 3:

Part I:

The tension that had been lingering between Harry, Ron and Hermione for almost two years disappeared much sooner than it had appeared. Harry reveled in the ease of their relationship. Studying, or even just sitting quietly together in the common room was a pleasure that Harry had rarely enjoyed in the past two years; and he decided that it was something he wanted to keep doing as often as he possibly could.

Hermione and Ron were glad that Harry was finally acting normally, but they were also extremely curious as to who this mysterious lady was. "D'ya s'pose that it's a Gryffindor?"

"No, we'd know." Hermione said with certainty. They were in the library, working at one of the tables, sitting facing each other. Harry was supposed to be there too, but neither Ron nor Hermione had seen Harry since breakfast that morning (A/N: but it's Saturday, so no worries…. And we all know what he's doing, yes? Good.).

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Ron, I'm sure. Now, back to Care of Magical Creatures." Hermione was beginning to get annoyed.

"Yea, yea, yea." Ron said in an, 'I couldn't care less' voice.

"You'll never be ready for N.E.W.Ts unless you study. The Demiguise may be on the test, so it's important that we study it now."

"I know, Hermione, I know."

Less than ten minutes later, "Hermione, you must have some clue about who it is! I mean, don't you know everything?"

"I don't know this." Hermione said, in a distracted tone, as she took notes from her 'Monster Book of Monsters'.

"Have you asked anyone, then?" Ron looked hopeful.

"Well, I put the word out that Harry was taken, on a long-term basis." Hermione chuckled a little, getting a suspicious glare from Madam Pince. Hermione lowered her head, and her voice, as did Ron. "Practically the entire female population of Hogwarts has been trying to find out all week who the mystery girl is, but no one knows. Whoever it is, isn't talking. No one's been able to catch Harry and whoever, er, at it, either..." Ron was gaping at her, "what?" She said, wondering if she had something wrong, or if she had something on her face.

"You have a network!"

"Excuse me?" Hermione said, very confused.

"You could find out practically anything about anyone!"

"Well… yes." Hermione said, wondering where Ron was going with that particular train of thought. Hermione herself never paid much attention to the gossip going around school, but was aware that every house had at least one girl who knew everything that was going on… except, apparently who Harry was shagging- something those girls hadn't not known for… well, they never didn't know. As soon as Harry Fuckin' Potter kissed Cho underneath the mistletoe these butterflies (as in, 'social butterfly') knew.

"Blimey!" At another glare and an, 'ahem' from Madam Pince, Ron lowered his voice more. "That's… well, slightly creepy actually. But useful, bloody useful."

"Except this time."

"Oh… right."

"Mmm." Said Hermione, turning another page, and scribbling a few more notes onto her parchment. Ron sighed, and returned to his notes, albeit halfheartedly.

Almost an hour later, in the Gryffindor common room, Hermione and Ron were to be found practicing turning their Transfiguration textbooks into chickens. Hermione had been successfully turning her books into chickens after her third attempt, and was now changing the color, and size of her chickens. Ron on the other hand, was attempting to turn his book into a chicken for the second time… on what seemed like the hundredth attempt, he got a feather-covered book with a beak, wings and legs.

"I can't do this, Hermione!" Ron said in an exhausted tone, and fell into the nearest chair, which was actually a couch.

"Of course you can, Ron." Said Hermione encouragingly, "you just need to concentrate."

"I can't concentrate anymore, let's take a break. Besides," Ron checked his watch. "I have Quidditch practice in a little while."

Hermione smiled slightly, "Ron, you have Quidditch practice in almost two hours."

"That's a little while." Hermione looked at him skeptically, "on a cosmic level." Ron said cheekily.

Hermione laughed, "Alright then, we'll take a break." She changed Ron's chiook(?) back into a book, and sat down next to Ron.

They sat in silence for a few seconds before Ron said, "Why won't Harry tell us who it is!"

"Maybe, Ron, he wants to have some part of his life private for once."

"He's never kept anything from us before."

"That's not true, Ron, and you know it."

"Okay, he's never not told us about stuff like this."

"Fair enough." Hermione's tone was uninterested.

"Hermione, you must want to know who this girl is!"

"Of course I do, Ron! But I know that we'll never know unless we just back off and let Harry come to us in his own time." Ron made a sound that indicated he definitely was not happy with the situation.

"This is stupid." He said in a final tone. Hermione shrugged, but made no response. "Hermione, how come Harry gets to have all the fun?"

"Huh?" Hermione raised her eyebrows, she was pretty sure she knew what Ron was saying, but also hoping he wasn't.

"You know, how come we aren't dating anyone?"

"Because, well…. Uh. Oh, I don't know, Ron." Although, Hermione did know the answer, she had known it for a long time. Too bad that she wasn't used to this sort of situation. When she had been dating Viktor he had always taken the lead. But, Ron…well, Ron wasn't like the (in)famous Seeker.

"Hmph." Ron said, frustrated with himself.

Luckily, Hermione summoned up her Gryffindor bravery, and the intelligence that almost put her in Ravenclaw. "Maybe because we're only interested in one person, and we're afraid of trying to take a chance with that person. Even if we know that being with that person would be the best thing ever to happen to us."

"Er…. Maybe, yea." Ron shifted uncomfortably, looked out the window for a moment, and then gulped. "Uh, Hermione, I… well, that is… er."

Hermione laughed, relaxing slightly, "You're such a git, Ron." She said, before leaning over, and kissing him gently, aided by the fact that Ron turned his head obligingly.

"Uh…." Said Ron.

"Yea." Said Hermione.

And, with typical bad timing, in walked Harry Potter. "Hi, guys, sorry I-" Harry noticed their identical slightly spaced out smiles, and stopped dead. "Is- is this a bad time?" He asked, extremely confused.

"No, of course not, Harry." Hermione said, snapping out of whatever trance she had been in. Ron, however, didn't say a thing.

"Riiight." Said Harry, sitting in a chair across from them. "I'm sorry I didn't make it to the library this morning, I uh…. Well, you know." He ran his hand through his hair, feeling very awkward indeed.

"Yea, we know."

Ron jumped up, as if he had just been hit with a cattle prod. "Who is it?"

Harry and Hermione stared at him, stunned. "Uh… look, Ron, I'd like to tell you, but I really just- can't." 'No,' thought Harry, 'I really can't'

"Why not?" Hermione and Ron said in unison, blushing simultaneously. Harry didn't notice.

"I just- I don't think either of you would like it."

"Harry, if she makes you happy we'll like her."

"I don't know. I don't really..."

"Really what?" Ron said, confused.

"Like them. They're not very likeable."

"All this 'they' stuff is stupid, let's just call the mystery girl, er… Rosie."

Harry decided not to mention that they were off on the gender of Rosie. And suppressed a chuckle at anyone referring to Draco Malfoy as "Rosie". "Okay. Well, Rosie isn't very likeable."

"Then why are you with her?"

"Oh, I dunno'." Harry ran his hands through his hair again, nervous. He knew very well why he was "with" Draco, although he wouldn't call it "with" so much as "fooling around with".

"Well, that's stupid." Ron said, sounding slightly incredulous.

"You know, Harry, I have to agree with Ron. It's nice that you've decided to stick with one person, but if you can't even have a conversation with Rosie, then why her?"

"Well… er, you know." Ron and Hermione gave him blank looks that plainly stated that they did not know. This may seem unbelievable, but we can forgive them because they were probably still a little mushy. "C'mon!" Harry was slightly frustrated, he didn't want to be interrogated on the subject of why he was messing around with Draco, he just wanted to do it, not have to think about why.

"Oh." Hermione said, apparently Harry had finally sunk in. "Well, then, Harry, how is this different from all the other girls? You're just doing the same thing."

"No one made me feel like… Rosie." Harry said simply. It was true, too. Not that the truth of that statement was something Harry was happy about.

"Well then she's obviously special." Harry shrugged but didn't say a thing.

Ron was still looking confused, staring at Harry like one might stare at a particularly strange piece of modern art, as if trying to figure out what the hell it is. "I don't get it." He said finally, continuing with the modern art analogy.

"Oh, come off it, Ron." Harry said, burying his head in his hands, and hoping Hermione would come to his rescue.

"Honestly!" Although Hermione sounded annoyed, she was actually extremely amused at Ron's stupidity. "Sex, Ronald. S-e-x."

"Ooohhh. But then how's that different from all the other girls?" Harry groaned, and Hermione laughed. "What?" Ron looked from one to the other, lost…. Again. "What! What'd I say!"

Part II:

A week after that, in yet another closet, Harry abruptly pushed Malfoy away. Causing the tousle-haired elitist to bump into a shelf of cleaning supplies, and possibly bruise one of his perfect shoulders. "Hey! What the hell was that for!" As soon as their lips weren't locked their enmity came into play again… although it was starting to get stupider, and less witty.

"This is too weird."

Malfoy narrowed his eyebrows, not sure whether to slug or kiss the scar-faced boy in front of him. "Never bothered you before, Pothead." Harry didn't respond, but turned away from Malfoy as if there was something interesting there to look at, this was futile as Harry found himself staring down at a doorknob. Oops.

Against his will Malfoy found himself actually wondering what was wrong with Potter, "what!" He said, sounding aggravated, which he was slightly, poor boy thought he was going to get some, not get a bruise.

"I'm spending time with Draco Malfoy not only not to kill him, but to… snog him." Harry liked to edit his vocabulary, particularly on this subject.

"So? It's a damn good time." Malfoy's tone was now surprisingly earnest.

"That's not the point!" Harry turned to face Malfoy again, pulling his hands through his hair like he always did when he was nervous; although he rarely thought about the fact that he was mirroring one of his father's vain actions exactly.

Malfoy was surprised by the anger in Harry's voice, not that he should be. He had heard anger in Harry's voice for the past seven years, it shouldn't take him off guard now… so why was it? "Why not?" He finally asked stupidly.

"Because, I- I- I never felt this good being with a girl, and that's…. and it's you on top of it and, just- ARGH!" Harry said, flinging himself dramatically to the floor. He hadn't meant to confess why he was angry, but it had to come out sometime. And since he couldn't tell his friends that he was bi, Malfoy was the only person he could talk to- even if Malfoy was the last person in the world he would confide in if he had a choice… maybe second to last, after Voldemort.

"Ah, questioning your manliness, are you?" Malfoy said reluctantly, sitting down, and leaning against the shelf, looking at the pathetic form of the supposed savior of the wizard world, and being moved to a very rarely felt emotion: sympathy. "Look, Potter. I may not like you, but I do know that you're not a freak… well, no. That's not true, you are a freak, but not because you snog boys. You're a freak because you have a huge scar on your face, and you've somehow managed to escape death over and over again your entire fucking life. And, also you're ugly." Malfoy finished, trying to regain some of his pompous outer shell- which was hard considering he had just attempted comforting his worst enemy.

Harry looked up at him with a crooked smile, "thanks, Malfoy." Then he blinked, and cocked his head to the side, "never thought I'd say that."

"Me neither. Now, can we go back to where we were?" Malfoy asked, trying to crawl sexily towards Harry's end of the closet, which he didn't really succeed at, but no matter, because he's gorgeous, and Harry can't resist him.

"Sure." Harry said, grinning, and pulled Malfoy to him in order to resume their (increasingly longer lasting) foreplay.

Part III:

Harry walked into the common room that afternoon (for a study session with his two best mates) in a very good mood. He wasn't quite sure why he felt so happy, but he couldn't remember feeling this good in a very, very long time- although he was trying to keep the reasons for that out of his thoughts.

Harry was fully ready to write his Transfigurations and Astronomy essays (with help from Hermione of course) but stopped dead at the sight of Ron and Hermione sitting next to each other on the couch giving each other soft kisses. "Uh…." Harry said, although he had meant to turn around and leave them alone (which is what he would want in their situation), but the noise had slipped unbidden from his mouth.

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione said, jumping and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Ron looked at him with a very stupid grin on his face, "oh, hello, Harry." He said, and then seemed to register that Harry must have just seen him and Hermione kissing, "oh, Harry!"

"Uh, sorry we didn't tell you, it just sorta', er…. Happened."

"No, I don't care, I'm glad." Harry said, his grin returning, and sitting on the nearest chair. "It's about time you two stopped being so stupid."

"Now, hang on a minute, Harry. We weren't being stupid we were just, uh… tell him, Hermione."

"Well, we were… okay, we were being stupid." She said, with an obliging smile at Harry. Ron frowned slightly at Hermione, he had hoped she would come with some brilliant answer that didn't involve either of them being stupid, oblivious, self-denying gits… unfortunately she didn't. Ron did realize that she couldn't come up with an answer like that because there wasn't one- he just didn't like it.

Harry laughed, and leaned back into the chair, feeling like his life was finally falling into place. He felt content, at ease, relaxed… but God loves irony.

-

Oooo, cliff-hanger! And you'll probably have to wait another week for the next chapter. School has started and it takes me a few days to write chapters when I have nothing to do. And now I have homework as well. Rgh.

Mucho amor to FireLass for her awesome suggestions, and for taking time out of her (probably more) homework-logged life to edit my mistakes