a/n: I'm awfully sorry that it took such a long time to update, and this still isn't the final chapter! Sorry! The whole story is now almost finished, but it kept getting longer and longer and so I decided to cut it half, as there are a few things I want to think about in the end and didn't want to keep you waiting for longer. So, hopefully you like this chapter, and the next one will definitely be the last!

Many thanks for your encouraging reviews. I'm very interested to know how you like this chapter and especially Ron and Hermione's interaction here. At first, I had a lot of difficulties in writing this, but now I actually like it, myself.

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The Confrontation with the Evil Portrait of Doom

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"Shut it, Ronald Weasley! You don't understand it at all! This is serious! I...dammit, I'll show you!"

She wasn't sure if it was her cursing or the tears that, again, were running on her face, that made him shut up. He was still sullen and frowning, but he was silent, and Hermione took a deep breath and tried to keep her voice from breaking.

"Let's go, then."

Ron didn't answer, but started towards the Fat Lady. Before he had taken a full step, Hermione grabbed his sleeve.

"No! Don't you remember what she did the last time!"

"How are we going to get out, then?"

"Haven't I told you dozens of times, you really should read Hogwarts, a History?"

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For a while, Hermione felt almost normal. Once again, she was instructing Ron and doing so, she could nearly forgot the feeling of drowning inside of her. She went to the fireplace, drew her wand and, a little bit smugly, tapped the mantelpiece twice whispering: "Vereor litterae". Immediately, the tiles rearranged themselves very much like they did at the entrance to the Diagon Alley, and half of the fireplace disappeared from the place of a narrow passageway lighted by dim torches.

"What?" Ron sputtered.

"I told you you should read the book, Ron."

"Hogwarts, a History told you how to get out of the Gryffindor Tower in secret! How come you never said nothing to us? How many times have you sneaked off like this?" At first, Ron had sounded merely intrigued, but when he got to the last of his questions his face was all red and he was scowling angrily.

"I only learnt this a couple of hours ago," Hermione snapped. "I guess the book doesn't leak information until it's really needed."

"So you really need to see this Derek?"

"Yes, I do. And stop twisting your face, Ron. I said you didn't understand what this is all about."

"I maybe would if you explained."

"I told I'd show you, didn't I?" She was frustrated and quite pissed off. Why could Ron never listen and be patient? "Would you just follow me?"

"Okay..." He was sulking, but at least he was doing it silently. Hermione thought it was good enough. The most important thing was to get Ron to Derek. Preferably before the evil piece of art had a chance to fulfill his nefarious plans.

The dimly lit corridor led them to the small hall in front of the transfiguration classroom. Hermione started to fold out Harry's cloak when it suddenly struck her: she would have to share the cloak with Ron. Ron, who once again was all jealous without showing any marks of being in love. Ron, who probably never would show any marks of love, at least not towards her, at least not without fulfilled nefarious plans. Ron, who was all big and warm and manly. Ron, who would get much too close to Hermione for her mental health, when they both were to get under the cloak.

"Um...we'll have to use the cloak," Hermione said, unnecessarily, as she was already holding the cloak in front of them.

"Okay."

It was awkward, very awkward to get settled under the cloak. They both were trying to avoid touching each other, but it was impossible. Hermione felt her spine stiffening when Ron's large hand brushed against her hip, but she was still disappointed when he immediately pulled his hand away.

"Sorry."

"It's..it's cramped here."

"Yeah." The word came out as a puff and Ron's breath tickled Hermione's neck. She stiffened again, and he shifted as far away of her as he could under the cloak.

"Well." She swallowed. "Let's go then. It's on the fourth floor."

"It?"

"Him. He is."

"Oh."

Moving under the cloak together was a dozen times more awkward than just standing still under it. How on earth had they managed to do it without physical contact before? As she thought of it, Hermione realized they hadn't. Before the contact just hadn't been painful or unwanted. Even during the most dangerous and adventurous situations, a small part of Hermione had kept track of a boy beside her, accidentally brushing against her. She had noticed when it was Harry, and though she had only ever had a tiniest, fleeting romantic notion about Harry, it had still been exciting and a little bit arousing. When it had been Ron whose body had touched hers, whose shoulder had, by chance, bumped against hers, she had liked to imagine it hadn't happened by accident at all.

Now, every time they made a tiniest contact, both would draw away. It felt like a rejection, maybe even Rejection. At least it proved Ron wasn't under the Fat Lady's love-spell, Hermione consoled herself. Not a very good consolation, that was.

It seemed to take forever to reach the fourth floor and still longer to finally arrive at the start of the eight corridor on the left. Hermione stopped abruptly and let out the breath she had been very much aware of holding. Then she took a new, deep one . The time had come.

"Hey?" Ron whispered. "Why did you stop?"

"Shhh! We are here."

"Where's he, then?"

"I told you to be quiet! He's dangerous. Let me do the talking, and if he points his wand at you, don't try to hex him back, just dodge and run."

"I can take him." The words were confident, but Hermione could feel Ron's nervousness as his body tensed beside her.

"Please, Ron! It won't be a normal hex, I don't know how to counter it."

"You don't?" His voice wavered hardly noticeably.

"No. So please, promise me!"

"And if he attacks you?" Now his voice was determined – or less nicely put, stubborn – once again.

"He won't." Hermione knew it was a lie, Derek had tried to curse her before, and apparently the painted person's spell would work on either Ron or her, but she was at least prepared. Ron wasn't and Hermione had to make sure he would take the situation seriously enough. "Promise me. Please."

She felt, rather than saw him nodding solemnly and sensed him shifting his hand towards his wand. Apparently, Ron had finally realized this wasn't only about some unfortunately ended clandestine affair on Hermione's part. Once again, Hermione noticed she had forgot to breath properly. It was a detached observation, as if it really didn't matter whether she respired or not, but rationally she knew it did, and so she concentrated on inhaling deeply and exhaling calmly and repeating the process over and over again, as it was supposed to be done to maintain life.

After she felt she had gotten down the breathing part of her act, she was finally ready to carry on. Or actually, she wasn't anymore ready than she had been a moment ago, but at least she wasn't turning blue from lack of oxygen. That alone had to be enough of encouragement for her to take action. It was a marvel Ron had just waited patiently beside her for all this time.

"Hermione?" Well, maybe not so patiently. It sounded as if Ron had tried to get her attention for a while already.

"I'm going to reveal us now. Remember, don't say a word, no matter what happens. Just follow my lead." And then she removed the cloak.

"Well, well well, little lady. I knew you would change your mind." Derek's voice was creeping along her spine, slyly attempting to break her defences. "And you brought your young man along. How very considerate of you." Then the man in the painting did what Hermione had been sure he would do: he drew his wand. "Shall we proceed, then?"

"No! Wait!" Now it was time to look confident, sound confident and lie convincingly. Except that before she managed to do more than shout in alarm, Ron took action.

"Expelliarmus!" the red-headed Gryffindor yelled and Captain O'Samuelson's wand flew swiftly from his hand and into Ron's grasp. Hermione gasped. How come she hadn't thought of that? Then she sobered. How come Headmaster Dippet or Dumbledore hadn't thought of that? Her inner question was answered when Ron's victorious grin died on his face. The wand he had been holding in his hand vanished into thin air.

Derek's gleefully malicious laughter - how did it manage to combine both those attributes- rang in the corridor. "You haven't done your research, young man! I command the world inside of my painting! I can, if I so wish, hand you my wand, but without my wish it stays right here with me, where it belongs." He was teasingly twirling the wand in his hand. "You can only expel the visual idea of my wand, and like the person in your world who is painted, my wand here does not suffer when it has it's visual image replicated. The only way you can really affect either me or my wand is to step into my painting, into my world and duel with me properly. Would you wish to do so?"

Ron took a hasty step forward, ready to take the challenge, his ears red with anger, but Hermione grabbed his sleeve. "Ron! He's trying to trick you! If you step inside the painting, you'll become two-dimensional. You won't be able to see or move properly, you might even suffocate!"

Ron stopped dead, paling when Hermione's hurried whisper registered in his mind. "Well, well, well...the little lady has done her research, I see. Good for you, young man!" Derek's voice was so utterly cheerful and encouraging that Hermione felt sick. She felt more sick, though, when the man in the painting brandished his wand again and pointed it straight at Ron. "Well, now as we have dealt with these little misunderstandings, I'll ask again: Shall we proceed?"

"No!" Hermione was quick to utter and kept her hand firmly on Ron's arm to prevent him from doing anything rash. "There's no need for that anymore." She collected all of her Gryffindor courage and looked straight into the painting's eyes. "As you saw, he is very protective of me. That's not only because we are friends." Hermione could feel Ron blushing violently beside her. It was almost as if his blush would have raised his actual body temperature with several degrees. She felt her own face heating up as well, but ignored it, hoping it would just make her story more believable. "You see, yesterday I was very anxious about having met you and discussed the spell you wanted to cast on Ron. And...and Ron noticed my...discomfort and...one thing led to another...and well...we are together now, romantically, so there's no need for your spell anymore!"

She couldn't look at Ron. She knew it probably would have been sensible to enlighten him of her fabulous plan in advance, but she just hadn't had the courage to do so. Even now, she could only address a painting when clearly implying her love for her best friend. At least she was pretty sure she had clearly implied how she felt about Ron. Even someone so thick as the red-head should have been able to get it. And that was why Hermione couldn't look at Ron. Instead, she carried on:

"So, he loves me already and I love him and I really prefer the real sentiment over the artificial one, no matter how skillfully manufactured, no offence or anything, and I really, really appreciate your concern and all the effort you went through for me, even if I didn't overly like the methods you wanted to use, but as none of it is necessary now, we'll just be leaving, so good-bye!"

She still didn't look at Ron, she didn't even glance at him, only blindly reached for his hand and prepared to run away. She had planned something more eloquent, sure, but in her current state of mind she didn't think she'd manage. Ron's presence always did this to her. She couldn't understand how she had been able to trick Umbridge so calmly in her fifth year and still sound so unconvincing now, when it even wasn't a question of life and death.

"Oh no! Don't you go anywhere, little lady!" Derek's amused voice caught her unguarded. "I think you should have informed your young man about your plan in advance, dear. His face isn't the most hard to read and, unfortunately for you, he seems to have been totally ignorant of your allegedly tender relationship."

From some unknown place inside of her, Hermione felt words and actions raising. Maybe she needed a truly dangerous situation before she could be courageous and cunning. She heard herself saying flippantly: "It's just all new to Ron, and I didn't tell him about you. He is so very shy to reveal his feelingsin front ofstrangers, aren't you, honey?" Hermione almost grimaced, she knew the endearment didn't sound at all like her, but she smiled winningly instead and somehow, not realizing how, turned to Ron, lifted her hand to softly caress his cheek and raised on her tiptoes to kiss him straight on the mouth.

It wasn't at all like she had imagined their first kiss to be. She had thought it would maybe be awkward and the romance novels she had read had made her expect bumping of noses (especially as Ron's nose was exceptionally long), but first of all, she had never thought it would be her that initiated the kiss, and secondly, it had never, ever occurred to her that he wouldn't kiss her back.

Ron didn't kiss her back. His lips were chopped and dry and warm and his cheek was flushed and slightly sweaty and he didn't kiss her back. Hermione's lips felt too big and too moist all of a sudden. Her mouth seemed to be full of saliva. No wonder Ron didn't kiss back. Who would want to kiss a girl that kissed so badly as her? She remembered Ron's scathing words: Not so sure if you can get an Outstanding, in this subject? Well, you haven't had any practice, have you now? Nooo, 'cause no-one's good enough for you! It was true, she hadn't had any practise, and that was why she sucked at kissing.

She still clung to Ron, kept her lips glued on his mouth, not knowing what to do with them and thus only letting them stay still against his. "I didn't think you would be one for such public displays, little lady." Derek's mocking voice gave her a chance to let go of Ron. She drew back, not needing to act bashful. She was, genuinely so.

"I wouldn't be...it's just that I had to convince you." She swallowed. Her mouth still felt like it was full of saliva.

"And you reckon that this...let's put it nicely...pathetic attempt at kissing convinced me? Little lady, little lady, what do you take me for – a Hufflepuff? You simply have no proper respect for my services and try to run away. Luckily, I'll help you even when you yourself have no sense to ask for it." For the third time the looming wand raised. Hermione couldn't help it, in her head an eerie voice echoed over and over again: three times the charm three times the charm three times the charm...

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a/n: Is it? Will Derek finally hex them? Why didn't Ron kiss back? How will he react afterwards? Is Hermione's plan really that simple? What will happen? What! I know, you don't...reviews keep your writer happy!

I actually feel a little strange when attempting to write fluff...angst is more my cup of tea...was the bit of fluff okay, here? The final chapter will be up next week, I promise! Oh, and BTW, the spell in the beginning means, according to the Latin on-line dictionary, something like "Respect for Literature".