Ron woke up the next morning to find Harry, Dean, and Seamus still asleep.
Well, here goes. This could be the day Harry and Hermione find each other once and for all, he thought.
Twenty minutes later, he was meeting Harry in the common room.
"Want to play some Quidditch?" Ron asked, thinking, I hope this works…
"Sure." Harry said. "Just let me get my Firebolt…"
Half an hour later, they were taking turns as Chaser and Keeper trying to beat each other. It got so fun that they continued until sunset, not even taking a break for lunch.
Blimey, he's having fun. And yes, I am too, but how am I supposed to have enough energy to perform after this? And how long have Seamus and Dean been waiting? Ron thought, worrying about if he'd slipped up in his planning.
"Oy, Harry, do you want to start walking back towards the castle? The sun's going down and I'm starving because we skipped lunch. I know it's not dinnertime yet, but I was thinking about going down to the kitchens for something." Ron called.
To Ron's relief, Harry turned his Firebolt towards the castle. "Race you with you getting half a minute's head start!"

Later, Ron had to work hard to keep himself steady from the tension as he and Harry headed towards the courtyard. It was a large patch of grassy lawn with many classically-inspired columns around it and a fountain in the center. Beside that fountain, Dean and Seamus had been sitting. Both of them got up as Ron and Harry came into view.
"Oh, I just remembered I have to talk to Dean and Seamus about something. You can go ahead if you want." Ron said.
"All right. Thanks." Harry answered.
"Okay." Ron said. "See you down there."
As soon as Harry started to walk away, though, Ron gave Dean the thumbs-up and mouthed, "Now!"

Seamus raised his voice. "Come hither, Ron. What was it you told me of today, that our friend Hermione is in love with Signior Harry?"
Ron strained his ears and heard Harry's footsteps stop and hurry ever so quietly back. He gave Dean another thumbs-up, but Dean had also seen Harry stop and hurry back behind one of the pillars.
"O, ay!" He said. Then he whispered the 'continue' signal—"Stalk on, stalk on, the fowl sits." He then raised his voice again. "I never did think that lady would have loved any man—well, save Krum and maybe Ron." He finished earnestly.
Ron shrugged his shoulders. Even though it fit him, that was part of the performance as well.
"No, nor I," Seamus said, "but most wonderful that she should so dote on Signior Harry, whom she in some outward affairs has seemed positively to abhor."
He added, "By my troth, my friends, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection, it is past the infinite of thought.
Dean said in mock thoughtfulness, "Maybe she doth but counterfeit."
Ron exploded at these words. "O Merlin! Counterfeit?" He shouted, prompting Dean and Seamus to whip around and look at him, startled. He finished emphatically, "There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers it."
Dean approached him and demanded, "Why, what effects shows she?"
"What effects, Dean?" Ron replied. "She will sit you—you heard Lavender tell you how."
"How, how, I pray you?" Dean asked in an amazed tone. "You amaze me, I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection—except Krum's and maybe yours."
"I would have sworn it had, Dean, especially in these times against Harry." Seamus said. Then he asked Ron, "Hath she made her affection known to Harry?"
Ron, who had been pleased with the start of the performance but concealed it, shook his head. "No, and swears she never will: that's her torment." He said.
"'Tis true indeed, so our friend says: 'Shall I,' says she, 'that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?'" Dean said, grinning, referring to Lavender as "our friend"—such was their plan because Lavender was their source of information about Hermione's status like Hero was for Don Pedro and company in Much Ado About Nothing.
Ron grinned even more broadly and said, "That she will say when she will begin to write to him, for she'll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock 'till she have writ a roll of parchment: Lavender tells us all." He began laughing.
"Now you talk of a roll of parchment, I can imagine a pretty little jest our friend will tell us of." Dean said, still smiling.
"O, when she will have writ it, and will be reading it over, she will find 'Harry' and 'Hermione' between the sheet?" Ron was still grinning as well.
"That." Dean said, nodding.
"O, she'll tear the letter into a thousand halfpence; rail at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. 'I measure him', she will say, 'by my own spirit, for I should flout him, if he writ to me, yea, though I love him, I should.'" Ron said.
Dean raised his voice even higher to almost a roar. "Then down upon her knees she'll fall, weep, sob, beat her heart, tear her hair, pray, curse: 'O sweet Harry James Potter! God give me patience!"
"Wow." Ron mouthed at Dean as his discreet way of saying, "Nice one."
"She doth indeed, Lavender says so, and the ecstasy hath so much overborne her (Hermione) that our friend (Lavender) is sometime afeard—as I honestly am—" Seamus said earnestly and gravely, "she will do a desperate outrage to herself: it is very true."
"It were good that Harry knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it." Ron said.
"To what end? He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse." Dean said worriedly.
"And he should, it were an alms to hex him." Ron said with surprising sincerity. "She's an excellent sweet lady, and, out of all suspicion, she is virtuous—though it doth not always please us."
"And she is exceeding wise." Dean said in the sort of exasperated-sounding tone one adopts when stating an obvious truth.
"In everything—" Ron held up his hands with a couple of fingers on either one extended for effect before finishing, "—but in loving Harry."
"O my friends, wisdom and blood combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory." Seamus said sadly. "I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her friend and housemate."
"I would she had bestowed this dotage on me, I would have daffed all other respects and made her half myself." Ron said fervently. "I pray we tell Harry of it and hear what a will say."
"Were it good, think you?" Seamus asked.
"Lavender thinks surely she (Hermione) will die; for she says she will die if he lover her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die if he woo her rather than she will bate one breath of her accustomed crossness." Ron answered.
"She doth well: if she should make tender of her love, 'tis very possible he'll scorn it, for the man, as you know all, hath had a contemptible spirit as of late." Dean said.
"He is a very proper man." Seamus said.
"He hath indeed a good outward happiness." Ron said, nodding.
"Before God, and, in my mind, very wise." Dean added.
"He doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit—to say the least." Ron said, chuckling.
"And I take him to be valiant." Seamus finished.
"As Gryffindor himself, I assure you," Ron said fervently, "and in the managing of quarrels you may say he is wise; for either he avoids them with great discretion—"
"—Or undertakes them with a most Christian-like fear." Dean finished.
"If he do fear God, a must necessarily keep peace: if he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling." Seamus said.
"And so will he do, for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for our Head Girl. Shall we go seek Harry, and tell him of her love?" Ron asked.
"Never tell him, Ron, let her wear it out with good counsel." Dean said.
"Nay, that's impossible, she may wear her heart out first." Seamus said sincerely.
"Well, we will hear further of it by Lavender; let it cool the while. I love Harry well almost as a brother," Ron said very earnestly, "and I could wish he would modestly examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy at the moment so good a lady."
"Will you walk, you lot?" Seamus asked.

With that, they left the courtyard and turned a corner that they could peek around to watch Harry's reaction.
All of them, especially Ron, had to hold back smiles until they turned the corner. When they did turn it, though, their faces cracked into broad grins.
Dean also let out a sigh of relief. "I can't believe we just did that."
"Neither can I, but it's not as if we performed poorly, is it?" Seamus asked.
"If he do not dote on her upon this, I will never trust my expectation." Ron said, peeking around the corner. He then turned back to the others and said excitedly, "He's going towards the Charms classroom. Come on!"

They followed Harry until he went inside the Charms classroom. Standing in the center of it, he pulled out a book that had been stuck in his pocket.
"Blimey." Dean said. "That's Much Ado About Nothing!"
"My word…" Seamus said.
"Don't talk like it's bad news, because I've got a feeling it's nothing to worry about." Ron said quickly before motioning them to quiet down.
Harry had been leafing through the book. Now, just as Ron and company fell silent, Harry began to speak, his voice ringing with profound sorrow.
"This can be no trick: the conference was sadly borne; they have the truth of this from Lavender. I hear how I am censured: they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her; they say to that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. They say the lady is fair—'tis a truth, I can bear them witness; and virtuous—'tis so, I cannot reprove it. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have their full bent. But love me?"

"Why, it must be requited!" Ron said, and he stepped into the room with Dean and Seamus behind them. As they entered, the room brightened up as if an electric light had been flicked on inside.
"Ron?" Harry asked. "Dean? Seamus?" There was no trace of fury, only fear.
Now's my chance to stop his eruptions, Ron thought.
"Look," He said meaningfully, "I don't deny that Hermione was wrong to act that way, but I honestly think she's had enough. You should have heard her crying last night—we could hear her all the way up in our dormitory, Harry. It was simply heartrending."
Harry took a few moments, but then nodded as he found that Ron's eyes were not moving from meeting his. It was then his turn to cry.

Ron didn't know whether to feel pride that they'd gotten through to Harry or pity that Harry had started weeping. Dean, however, smiled.
"Sweet Hermione!" He said. "Now her image doth appear in the rare semblance that thou loved it first, doth it not?"
"Yeah, it does." Harry managed to say through his tears and sobs.
"No shame in crying, Harry." Ron said. "Let it out."
He, Dean, and Seamus took seats beside Harry on one of the long desks large enough for four or five students apiece.
"Hang on, I've got something that will put a little spring back in your step." Ron said, and he pulled an unopened bottle of butterbeer out, uncapped it, and passed it to Harry, who took it gratefully and downed almost half of it in one grateful swig.
"Thanks, you lot." Harry said slightly more clearly. Ron could see that he had stopped crying.
"So you actually fancy Hermione?" Dean said.
"Yes." Harry said with a surprising lack of reservation. "How'd you know?"
"We figured." Seamus said. "Or, more accurately, Ron figured."
Ron nodded. "I mean, with all that I saw—her kissing you on the platform and giving you that look, you wanting to save her from the troll, her always trying to keep you out of trouble, you never saying anything bad about her—it was completely obvious. It stuck out more than a sore thumb dipped in undiluted bubotuber pus."
Everyone laughed at the last remark.
"Are you sure you're okay with this, Ron?" Harry asked, anxiety creeping back into his voice. "I know you had been fancying Hermione yourself. After all, 'friendship is constant in all other things save in the office and affairs of love.' And I must admit, I thought 'she were an excellent wife' for you."
"Oh, Harry, come off it. I'm perfectly fine with it! The only thing that will top this is when I find my special lass!" Ron exclaimed.
"I don't think you've got much farther to search because of how you've been watching Lavender over the past few months." Harry said, starting to laugh again and making the others laugh again as well.
"Thanks, Harry. The point is, I do like Hermione a lot, but 'O lord, my lord, if we were but a week married, we would talk ourselves mad.'"
Everyone laughed again. Suddenly, though, Ginny burst into the room.

"Ron! Dean! Seamus!" She yelled. "I saw your performance in the courtyard—it was brilliant! I just came down here to let you know that if you want to talk to Hermione to try and complete the repairs, she'll be in the trophy room in 20 minutes!"
"Right." Ron said.
"Thanks, Ginny." Harry said, smiling at her.
"Good luck." Ginny whispered, smiling back and giving a thumbs-up to the four of them.
Once she had left, Ron turned to Dean and Seamus.
"I don't know about you, but I think it's time for an encore."