In Which Ron Finds Out What Harry's Been Doing.

A month had passed, and still things were the same in class for Ron and Hermione. While Hermione insisted that it was only class, and it didn't really matter as they were there to learn anyway, Ron looked at it a different way.

"Hermione, it's not about you just being my girlfriend," he'd said to her yesterday on the way to Transfiguration. "I think of you as more than that. Your my best friend as well, and I miss hanging out with you in class."

Their conversation had to end there, as they'd reached Professor McGonagall's classroom, and had to take their seats in opposite corners of the room.

Now Hermione was once again in Potions class, and instead of concentrating on her face changing draught, a potion used be Aurors to change their appearance, she was wondering how Ron was doing with it, as she knew it was his and Harry's dream to become Aurors.

After potions, the three friends caught up in the hall way, to walk up to the Great Hall together for dinner. "That new potions teacher is great," said Harry. "He actually explains stuff, and I know I'm heaps better at potions now, I didn't find that one difficult at all."

"Um, yeah, it was alright," muttered Ron as they sat down for dinner with Ginny.

After they'd finished eating, Ginny and Harry made their excuses and left together for the common room. Ron was grateful for this as it gave him a little bit of time with Hermione.

"I wasn't really concentrating in Potions," Ron said, a sheepish grin on his face. "I couldn't stop thinking about you and had to do something about it, so I wrote you a letter." He pushed a roll of parchment into her hands.

"You're so sweet, Ron," said Hermione as she pocketed the parchment. "I'll read it as soon as I get up to the common room." she gave him a sweet little kiss on the cheek, and left. She couldn't wait to read his letter.

She went through the portrait hole, and straight up to her room, not even noticing Gryffindor's newest couple on the armchair together by the fire.

Hermione sat on her bed, unrolled the parchment, and started to read.

Hello Beautiful,
I'm sorry, I know I should be concentrating on this potion right now, but I'm looking at the back of your hair, and I can't believe how lucky I am, and I need more than anything right now to tell you that. To tell you that you are amazing. To tell you that I'm the luckiest guy in this class right now, in Hogwarts right now, and probably in the whole world right now. Please come and meet me in the common room after you read this. I need to be with you, and every minute you're away is torture for me.
Love, Ron.

Hermione was smiling so broadly after she finished reading Ron's letter. She bent down to put it in her draw with his other letter, and as she did so, she had an idea. A good, no, great idea. 'Wow, how could I not have thought of this before!' she thought to herself.

Hermione couldn't wait to go and see Ron, like his letter said, and to hear what Ron thought of her idea. She rushed down to the common room, barely able to contain her excitement.

Ron was so caught up in the argument he was having with Harry, that he didn't notice when Hermione entered the common room from the stairwell that led up to the girls dormitories.

"She's my sister!" Ron yelled, a mixture of anger and shock on his face. "And neither of you even had the decency to tell me!"

"Yeah?" Harry yelled back, "Well maybe that's because we knew you'd act like this!"

"I'm only acting like this because instead of hearing about your good intentions towards Ginny from my best friend, I have to walk in here and see you two snogging by the fire, hand's everywhere!" Ron shouted the words hands everywhere louder then the rest.

"My hands were not everywhere," Harry had lowered his voice to a growl. "They were on the small of her back, and I was kissing her by the fire because, well, because I feel the same way about her as you do about Hermione, and if you'd shut your fat mouth for two seconds, then I would explain to you that I couldn't help myself kissing her, and we were originally going to wait for you to come so we could talk to you about it before we made anything official."

While Harry was talking, Hermione had crept around them and was now standing next to Ron, intending to try and calm him down. Ron was oblivious to this.

"Fine job, you did of waiting for me!" he shouted, irrational anger pumping through him. He knew he was being stupid, but he didn't care. His pride had been hurt. "The whole of Gryffindor knew before me about you and Ginny." As he said Ginny, Ron swung his arm out to intending to indicate his embarrassed looking sister, who was still sitting, although rather stiffly, on the armchair by the fire. Instead, there was a loud CRACK! He turned, stunned, to see Hermione, who he hadn't know was there, hand over her nose which blood was spilling out of at an alarming rate.

Ron's expression instantly turned to shock and worry. He couldn't believe what he'd just done!

"Hermione!" Ron sat her on a nearby chair and knelt on the ground beside her. "I'm so sorry! I didn't know you were there!"

Harry and Ginny rushed over to help as Hermione said thickly, "I bknow you didn't," tears streaming down her face. It hurt her so much, but she knew it wasn't Ron's fault, it was just an accident.

"Here," said Harry, "We'll take you to the hospital wing, Madam Pomphrey will fix that up in no time."

"You and Ginny stay here," Ron said, their argument not forgotten, though his voice was softer now, almost back to normal. "I'll take her."

Hermione insisted on walking herself, instead of Ron carrying her like he wanted to, so he put her arm over his shoulder, and his arm around her waist, and together they slowly walked to the hospital wing.

When they got there, Madam Pomphrey gave them a what-have-you-two-been-doing look, but didn't ask any questions, for which they were both grateful.

After a quick examination of Hermione's nose, and the rest of her face, she pronounced the nose to be broken. "Don't worry, child," she said at the look Hermione gave her, "You got here in plenty of time. There will be no visible signs it was ever broken. You only get that awful looking nose if you leave too long before you get it fixed up."

Hermione looked relieved at this news, but Ron still looked as worried as ever. After a quick incantation, and a wave of her wand, the school's nurse told Hermione that she had to lay down on the bed for ten minute before she could examine it again, just to be sure. At the determined look on Ron's face, she said "Oh, alright Mr Weasley, you may stay too." and walked into her office to draw up the paper work.

As soon as she was out of hearing range, Ron turned to Hermione. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were there, I swear!" he said with a look of fear in his eyes. "I'd never ever hit you on purpose! You do believe me, don't you?"

"Of course I believe you! It was just an accident, anyone would be able to see that." she replied, to which Ron's face relaxed for an instant, then took up the worried look once more. "So," Hermione ventured, desperate to keep Ron's thoughts occupied so he wouldn't worry about her. "Harry and Ginny are finally together then?"

"Yeah, I guess so. It isn't that that bothers me. It's the fact that he didn't tell me, that's what I'm upset over. I was just so shocked to see them there, like that, and I guess the yelling just, sort of, got out of control. I didn't know which way to react. Guess I chose a bad one, hey?"

"No, not a great way to go about it, but don't worry. Just talk to Harry and make it up with him," Hermione said. "I'm sure he understands how you're feeling. Don't get out of control, either, because I know first hand how it feels to like someone, and find out that they like you back. I don't think anything could have stopped me kissing you that night!" She smiled, and all of Ron's anger melted away. He now understood why Harry and Ginny couldn't wait to share their first kisses together.

He took Hermione's hand. 'Tell her,' he thought to himself. 'Tell her what you really wanted to write in that letter' "Ah, Hermione..." Ron said as they smiled warmly at each other "I, ah..."

Just then Madam Pomphrey came bustling back to check on Hermione's nose. Ron reluctantly let go of his girlfriends hand as she sat up on the bed. After another quick examination, they were told that Hermione's nose was completely fine as if nothing had ever happened, and they walked back to the common room hand-in-hand, all previous thoughts half forgotten with the news that Ron had not done any lasting damage.

When Ron and Hermione got back to the common room, Ginny and Harry rushed over to make sure Hermione was Ok. After Hermione assured them that she was completely fine, she and Ginny made their excuses and went up to the dormitories.

"Ron, mate, I'm really sorry I didn't tell you first, about me and Ginny," apologised Harry. "I know she's your sister and you're just trying to look out for her."

"Don't apologise. I shouldn't have acted like that," Ron said, feeling ashamed at the way he'd behaved earlier. "When I was in the hospital wing with Hermione, I realised that you probably didn't have much of a chance to talk to me about it anyway, with the way I've been going on about Hermione all the time."

Harry knew exactly what Ron was talking about, but he didn't want to say anything in case it got them into another argument. So he just said "Girls, mate. They do funny things to us."

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "Especially the ones your in love with."

At this, Harry's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You told her you love her? Wow, that's great! So, when's the wedding?" he joked.

Ron looked uncomfortable. "Not exactly," he said, ignoring the wedding comment. "I've been trying to tell her for the last couple of days, but it's been hard. I was going to write it in the letter I gave her today, but for the first time I tell her, it should be to her face, so I had all my resolve set on telling her after she read the letter, but well, you know..." he said, trailing off as he thought about his and Harry's fight.

"Oh, right," muttered Harry. "Ah well, there's always tomorrow at Hogsmeade."

Ron brightened as he heard this. Hogsmeade, of course! He had forgotten all about tomorrow being their first Hogsmeade weekend of the year.

Meanwhile, up in Hermione's dormitory, the girls were reflecting on the past couple of weeks.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about me and Harry, but Harry wanted to wait until after we'd talked to Ron. I hope this doesn't hurt their friendship." Ginny said, biting her bottom lip.

"Don't worry about it," Hermione smiled. "I perfectly understand you not saying anything to me first, and I'll bet those two are sorting it out right now. Anyway, now that it's all out in the open, what happened with you two? Last year you'd given up on him, and were dating other boys, like Dean Thomas."

"You know perfectly well Dean and I broke up over the summer holidays!"

"Yes," Hermione said patiently, "But Harry didn't know that."

"Oh, yes, well Dean told him, I guess. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I was in the common room doing some homework, and Harry came and sat down next to me. I asked where you and Ron were, and he just said off together as usual," Hermione looked a bit embarrassed, so Ginny hurried on. "We started talking about it, and he said he didn't really mind, and he was glad for you two. He seemed a bit funny, and I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn't say. Every afternoon after that, he'd come and find me, and we'd just talk about everything, about how he missed Sirius, and about class, and anything else. Then, four days ago, he was acting all strange again, so I asked him what was wrong for the second time. He seemed reluctant, so I told him that I really cared about him and was worried. He looked up at me and said 'Ginny, I'm so sorry that I've been such a prat and it took me so long to figure out what a wonderful girl you are, even after I started noticing how beautiful you are when I was in third year. I guess my vision was just clouded by the fact that you're my best friends sister, but I want you to be more than that. You mean more than that to me.'"

Hermione looked like she wanted to cry. "Oh, Gin, that's beautiful. What did you say to him?"

"I said that I've always felt that way about him, and he asked me to go into Hogsmeade with him, so I asked him if this meant he wanted me to be his girlfriend, and he said yes, more than anything! I was so happy, and I lent in to kiss him, but he stopped me, and said that as much as he wanted to, we had to wait to talk to Ron about it first, and it wouldn't be right to do anything until we told him. I agreed, seeing how much it meant to him. But tonight... well I guess we're weak, we thought that one kiss couldn't hurt, and we'd defiantly talk to Ron tonight anyway, but that kiss turned into many kisses, then Ron walked in, now everything's a big mess and I feel awful about the whole thing!"

"Ginny," Hermione said seriously, "You two aren't weak at all! There's no way I could have waited that long! Anyway, I'm sure it's all sorted out by now."

"I hope your right," Ginny replied.

The girls said goodnight and Ginny went down to the fifth year girl's dormitory. As Hermione lay in her bed, waiting for sleep to come, she couldn't help but think that there was something she'd forgotten, even though everything around her was working out perfectly.