CHAPTER TWO: WHY DON'T YOU AND I

"Ron, wait up! You're moving like you've got gnomes in your pants, you are," Hermione tugged once again at her trunk and not for the first time, wished that she hadn't packed so many books. Tossing her head to fling her long, straight hair back and away from her face, she huffed a breath and hastened her pace.

She wasn't really sure why she'd bothered to do anything with her hair that morning. She supposed she'd packed so quickly that there was nothing else left to do but sit and think about all the recent events. Not wanting to dwell too much on any of them in particular, Hermione had grabbed the first thing her eyes had alighted upon: her hairbrush. It was purely coincidental if other people, though no one in particular, happened to like it.

Ron snuck a quick look over his shoulder and quickly snapped his eyes forward again, trying not to make it look like he was running away from Hermione, though at the same time he inconspicuously coaxed his legs into a trot. 'I'm not really,' Ron reasoned with himself. 'She was taking forever and Mum and Dad have been waiting for us.' Satisfied with his train of thought, he once again looked back over his hunched shoulder while at the same time trying his hardest to make it seem like he wasn't. He ignored her laboured breathing as she struggled with her heavy school trunk and took longer strides. Hermione was catching up.

Since the moment I spotted you
Like running 'round with little wings on my shoes
My stomach's filled with butterflies…and it's alright
Bouncing 'round from cloud to cloud
I got the feeling like I'm never gonna come down
If I said I didn't like it then you'd know I lied

Jumping down from the Hogwart's Express, Ron looked around and felt his hands begin to sweat as he saw that his parents hadn't arrived to meet them yet. Gritting his teeth he finally turned to face Hermione and grudgingly held out his hands for her trunk. He looked up just in time to see Hermione's mouth open and shut, as if reconsidering what she was about to say, though he didn't have time to wonder what it could have been, for she had used both her hands to haul her trunk up and practically threw it into Ron's limp arms.

Eyes popping wide, Ron struggled to silently heave and gasp for breath while at the same time trying hard to make it seem like he was unaffected. Feeling his face turn a bright shade of magenta from his efforts, he finally gave up and groaned aloud form the pain radiating from his arms and chest.

"What are you trying to do, Hermione, crush me?" he shrilled at her. Calmly, Hermione stepped down from the train as graceful as you please. She sniffed and brushed by him, making sure to knock his shoulders with her own, though not quite meeting Ron's height, she did manage to nudge him in the elbow.

"Well I'm not sorry, Ron. You ignored me the whole train ride home and then as soon as it stopped, you took off like it was on fire! I'm beginning to regret that I'll have to stay with you this summer if you're going to act like such a prat about it." As they began to walk, Ron tottered as he struggled to drag both their trunks behind him. He felt his jaw drop and he turned to gape at Hermione. "And since when did you call me a prat!" He very nearly shrieked in her ear. They stopped abruptly in their path as Hermione struggled with her flying hair, finally pulling a band from the pocket of her jeans.

"Why'd you do that to your hair anyways? For all the trouble it's causing you," Ron said irritably as he tried not to notice the faint smell of honey and lilac wafting around him as Hermione's hair fluttered about his face. Squinting, he turned his head this way and that, as if all of a sudden quite fascinated with King's Cross, though he'd seen this place a great many times.

Tying her hair into a high ponytail, Hermione scrunched her face up at him. "What, you don't like it?" she demanded, now narrowing her eyes at him. Rolling his eyes, Ron grumbled under his breath and forced himself to look again at Hermione's hair. "For Merlin's sake, I didn't say I didn't like it, now did I? I suppose it's quite alright…it makes your face look…" Ron made the mistake of meeting Hermione's eyes and for a second that could have been a moment or two, or three or a week, they stared at each other, both daring the other to look away first. Hermione's cheeks began to glow a faint pink as she waited for Ron to find the word he was searching for, unaware that Ron now seemed to be suffering with a terrible bout of the shakes. Wrinkling his nose in concentration, Ron opened his mouth and allowed the first word to pop into his head out. "Long," he finished, his eyes suddenly growing wide as the realization of what he'd just said dawned on him.

Every time I try and talk to you
I get tongue-tied
Turns out everything I say to you
Comes out wrong
It never comes out right

Her face pinched in annoyance, Hermione let out one high-pitched 'hpmh!' and turned away from him, heading towards Mr. and Mrs. Weasley who were now waiting at the end of the terminal. Still completely stunned, Ron stared after her, frantically searching his vocabulary for a word he actually meant, but 'beautiful', 'pretty', and 'amazing' all seemed rather too stupid for him to shout out after her. Whimpering with humiliation, Ron once again picked up the trunks and followed Hermione and his parents who were now joined by Ginny, out of Kings Cross.

After nearly a week of polite and stilted conversation from Hermione - when she wasn't trying to avoid him, that is - Ron finally walked into his room and nearly smacked his face into the door when he saw Hermione sprawled across his half-made bed reading a musty old textbook. Warily, he sidestepped some things that were strewn around on the floor and gingerly sat at the edge of his bed, taking care to stay as far away from her as he could while still looking casually cool.

"What's up, Hermione?" he ventured, hoping that she was now back to normal and would take charge of the conversation. Hermione apparently was as she sat up, pulling the textbook into her lap.

"How do you think Harry's doing?" she asked at once, a hint of worry in her dark brown eyes. "I haven't heard anything from him yet and we never really got to finish talking about our plans to go with him when he starts looking for the rest of the Horcruxes." Picking at a peeling corner of the textbook, she glanced at him her face open and concerned.

Relaxing as the conversation turned towards speculation about Harry, Ron sat back on his bed, his back against the wall. Staring absently at a Chudley Canon zooming across a poster, he sighed heavily and turned his own face towards Hermione.

"He was pretty serious about not letting us come with him, 'Mione. What more is there left for us to do?" Dejectedly wishing he had a better answer to give, he stared glumly at his trainers. He half wished he could be having a more enjoyable conversation with Hermione. So many dark and sad things had been happening at a more constant rate, he felt like it had been years since they had really had a chance to sit and talk and laugh, like they used to before.

So I say why don't you and I get together
We'll take on the world and be together forever
Heads we will and tails we'll try again
So I'll why don't you and I hold each other
We'll fly to the moon and straight on to heaven
'Cause without you they're never gonna let me in

He started when a lime-green-coloured jelly bean pelted him right in the middle his forehead. Rubbing the spot on his forehead he picked up the jelly bean and ate it, shooting Hermione looks of accusation. "What did you do that for?" he asked, looking around for the rest of the Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Jelly Beans.

Hermione, nearly cross-eyed from trying her hardest not to roll her eyes tossed the rest of the package to him. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

Tossing a handful of colourful beans into his mouth, Ron shook his head, "Nope!" Laughing at Hermione's death glare, he asked her to repeat it and he tried not to wander off into his daydream of Hermione and him getting rid of Voldemort for good and riding off into the sunset together.

"I SAID - " Hermione's voice rose slightly at the last word, and he realized he had spaced off again. "I said that we should go check on Harry. Who knows what he's thinking now. He might get it into his head to take off before either of us has a chance to reason with him," Hermione promptly plucked a bean out of Ron's fingers as it had been making its way to his mouth and she tossed it out his open window. Crestfallen, Ron stared at her. Hermione got up from the bed, still feeling Ron's eyes following her, waiting for an explanation.

"It looked like a foul tasting one, that's all." She simply said before walking out of the room.

The next day, Ron and Hermione were sitting at the kitchen table with Ginny when two loud cracks interrupted their solemn conversation. A headless George apparated right into Ron's lap as Fred's floating head appeared by the sink.

"Geroffme!" Ron pushed a laughing George off his lap as he pulled off his hat, causing his head to pop into place. "Easy there, Ron. Didn't know anyone would be sitting in that chair, now did I?" George yelped defensively as he plopped down in one of the empty seats around the table.

"So what's the word?" Fred leaned forward eagerly, his eyes darting back and forth from Ginny, Ron and then to Hermione. His eyes landed once again on Ginny who looked especially disgruntled and almost nearly in tears.

"Ron, could you pass me that book over there by the counter?" Hermione, who hadn't looked up once since Fred and George's arrival spoke, her head bent low over another book she was poring through. Ron stood immediately and swiftly grabbed the book from the counter and presented it in front of Hermione, who took it without glancing up. Fred and George on the other hand watched all this in avid interest, finally snickering and shooting each other knowing looks, which Ron chose to ignore as he returned to his seat.

"Ron and Hermione are going to visit Harry. They've just gotten an ownlfrom him today." Ginny was unable to keep the tremble or wistfulness from her voice and she looked out the window of the Weasley's kitchen, focusing intently on the gnomes running amok in their garden.

Feeling a sort of understanding about his younger sister's feelings, Ron patted her on the arm.

"Cheer up there, Ginny. Harry didn't say you were going to stay apart forever." Ron said, half consoling himself silently. Nodding silently, Ginny continued to stare out the window as her brother's glanced at each other uncomfortably, seemingly at a loss of what to say next. However, the next moment, it didn't matter as Hermione stood, scraping her chair back, now looking up, oblivious to what had been going on around her.

"Okay Ron, I know where it is, let's go," she said before her eyes fell on Fred and George. She stared at them mutely, her eyes giving away that she'd only just noticed them there.

"Hello to you too, Hermione," George said easily. "Are you going to bring Harry back here, then?" Fred asked curiously. "He might as well come to the wedding first though right, before he heads off - " "Before WE head off," Hermione corrected him. "Sorry we can't stay much longer, but you'll be here when we get back with Harry won't you?" Not bothering to wait for an answer, Hermione turned on her heel and walked out the door, only pausing to turn around and look expectantly at Ron over her shoulder. "Come on, Ron."

Once again, Ron scrambled to his feet and righted his chair as he hastened to follow Hermione out of the kitchen. Feeling his face flame as he heard Fred and George guffaw loudly, he grabbed his denim jacket that had once been owned by Charlie and he walked out of the house in Hermione's wake.

When's this fever gonna break?
I think I've handled more than any man can take
Like a love-sick puppy chasing you around…and it's alright
Bouncing 'round from cloud to cloud
I got the feeling like I'm never gonna come down
If I said I didn't like it then you'd know I lied

Walking a few steps into the woods behind The Burrow, Ron came to a stop beside Hermione. Bravely, he took a deep breath and forced himself to look down at her. Busy with looking at her notes and directions, Hermione absently glanced up at him and caught his eye. Once more they stood there, staring into one another's eyes, not making the slightest movement for fear of scaring the other away. Compelling himself to take slow, deep breaths instead of the half-breaths he'd been struggling to take, Ron almost smiled. 'I can be normal around her. See, I'm doing perfectly splendid right now, aren't I? She can't possibly hear how hard my heart's beating. I'm perfectly cool. She doesn't affect me at all.' Ron thought to himself frantically, bouncing from one thought to the next.

Smirking at Ron's 'animal-caught-in-headlights' look, Hermione grabbed his hand and firmly laced her fingers through his.

"I figure we'd better be touching while we apparate so that we don't get separated and end up in two totally different places," she explained to him.

Ron stood stiffly by her side, feeling tingles and heat shoot up from where his fingers were now interlaced with hers. If taking deep, normal breaths was his goal before, it was now just trying to remember to breath that was his new goal. So maybe she affected him a little. Ron conceded.

Slowly I begin to realize
This is never gonna end
Right about the same time you walked by
And I said, 'Oh here we go again,'

With that thought, he felt Hermione move beside him and quickly he followed. They vanished with a popping sound, leaving the spot where they stood in the woods empty once again.