The next week passed quickly. Harry's birthday came and went with relatively little excitement. He was a bit disappointed to realize that coming of age made him feel no different than he had before, and Ron had joked that he'd felt something quite strongly on his own seventeenth birthday, almost as if he'd been poisoned. As he was now officially an adult, though, Harry was freed forever from the Dursleys. He'd managed to get away with spending only a single night with them the entire summer, and they certainly hadn't complained about the length of the visit. Uncle Vernon had told him never to come back again for any reason, and Dudley had said much the same, though he moreover sort of mumbled it and tried to squeeze himself into a corner, clearly quite terrified of Ron and Hermione, who had come to accompany him back. Aunt Petunia, however, had done something Harry could never remember her doing before in his entire life. When Uncle Vernon wasn't looking, she had hugged Harry quickly but tightly and told him to be careful.

He'd spent the rest of the time since then at the Burrow. Things had calmed down there since the mini battle of the sexes that had ensued after Bill and Fleur's wedding. All four of the teenagers seemed to be going out of their way to be polite to each other; even Ron and Ginny were being overly-considerate of each other. Mrs. Weasley didn't threaten them with the streets anymore, either, though she did mention their upcoming school year quite often. They never dared to contradict her. All that so-called Gryffindor bravery under one roof wasn't enough to oppose Molly Weasley. Even on a good day.

Actually, Harry, Ron, and Hermione spent quite a bit of time discussing their options for the upcoming fall. A month ago, they'd been dead set in their mission to find the rest of the horcruxes and destroy Voldemort, but now they were beginning to rethink everything. Ron started it with a very honest and serious and un-Ronlike confession that he really didn't want to upset his mother anymore than she already was. He admitted that he was scared she was going to crack up soon as it was, and he said he didn't want to add to her worrying if he could avoid it. Hermione had then joined the confessional and admitted that she couldn't honestly imagine not graduating, especially since she'd been offered the position of Head Girl. "We've all worked so hard!" she'd exclaimed during her short rant. "It just doesn't seem right to let it all go to waste..." Harry, while he'd been mildly surprised by Ron's reasoning, wasn't at all shocked by Hermione's. Truthfully, he'd been worlds' more shocked when she had agreed to skip the school year in the first place.

Harry didn't honestly know what he wanted to do. He knew that he couldn't ever be happy until he'd finally faced off with Voldemort and put an end to all of this, but he also wasn't really sure how he expected to just track down the bastard, either. It wasn't as if he could call Muggle information and ask for a telephone number and address of Tom Riddle, who might be listed under You-Know-Who, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, The Dark Lord, or Lord Voldemort. The truth was that he didn't really have a clue as to what to do next. He had no plans, no real leads; he was left only with the hints Dumbledore had given him, but he wasn't sure how to even begin. He needed time, and he knew it. He needed resources and research material; he needed adults, real adults, to try and help him out where Dumbledore had left off; he needed to learn the last bits of magic he was expected to know in order to make it as a fully-qualified wizard. He needed all of that, and he knew that there was only one place to get it.

Hogwarts.

Of course, he couldn't even begin to imagine what Hogwarts would be like without Dumbledore. Yes, he respected Professor McGonagall and honestly thought that she was probably one of the most brilliant people he would ever meet, but she wasn't Albus Dumbledore. No one was Albus Dumbledore. Beyond even that, though, he couldn't imagine what the rest of the school would be like, either. Were there even any parents who were willing to let their children return to a school in which the Headmaster had been killed by one of the senior most teachers just months before? Who was going to be Gryffindor's new Head? He didn't even want to think about what horrible addition would be made to the staff to fill Snape's place... It just wasn't going to be the same.

But, he supposed, nothing would likely ever be the same ever again.

One evening, not quite a week after his birthday, Harry sat in the backyard of the Burrow with Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. It was easy like this, with the four of them, and he was glad that they were all managing to get along so well. It made him feel strangely peaceful, or at least that's the word he would have used had he been a twelve year old girl. No, it made him feel comfortable, comfortable and normal.

They were all gathered by the side of the pond, which looked extremely murky and not at all inviting as it often did on hot summer afternoons. Hermione and Ginny sat a few feet away from him, playing some silly pat-a-cake sort of hand game as though they were seven year old schoolgirls on the playground. Ginny said something he couldn't quite hear, and Hermione giggled. It was a strange sight, Hermione giggling; she didn't do it very often, and she always seemed very unlike herself whenever she did. Ginny, though, could make her giggle. But then again, Harry was quite sure that Ginny could make him giggle if she really tried.

He was beginning to drive himself mad over Ginny Weasley, and he knew it. He should have realized that staying at her house right after he broke up with her was not going to be an easy task, but he honestly hadn't ever expected it to be this difficult. He couldn't seem to keep his eyes off of her.

He watched the clapping game, more specifically, he watched Ginny. Her hair was getting longer, and he wondered how it could grow so fast. In just the past two months, it had gone from just past her shoulders to halfway down her back. The summer sun had streaked it with natural highlights that hadn't been there before, maybe a shade or two lighter than her normal color. He had the sudden urge to smell that hair, to reacquaint himself with her scent. He wanted to reacquaint himself with everything having to do with her.

He was drawn immediately out of the impending daydream when Ron dropped to the ground beside him. Their heads lay at an angle toward each other. He, too, was watching whatever sort of pat-a-cake game it was that girls in their late teens played. "What're they doing?"

Harry took one last look at the girls and then turned his head to stare up at the sky, giving a very simplistic answer. "Giggling."

Ron seemed to take this answer without further question. He sighed, as though he were out of breath or something. Harry realized he hadn't seen him in a little while and wondered where he'd been. He was going to ask him, but Ron cut him off. "D'you think you've got Apparating down?"

Harry had nearly forgotten that the Apparition test was coming up in less than a week. He hadn't thought about it in ages, and he said as much. "I probably don't even remember how to do it."

"I can't fail twice," Ron muttered. "The twins already gave me hell over failing the first time."

"You almost passed," Harry said, trying to be helpful, trying not to look back over to where he could hear Hermione and Ginny in another fit of giggles.

"Failed by a hair. Literally."

Harry smiled. "It'll be fine. I'm sure you'll pass this time. I'll probably end up in New Zealand or something."

Ron snorted. "Yeah, right. And anyway, they'd pass you even if you left half your body behind."

Harry sort of hated the fact that he knew Ron was right.

"You know," he said, staring up at the sky and noticing that it looked like it might rain, "I really haven't even thought about that test at all."

"Well, there's other things to have your mind on," Ron said pointedly. "Obviously."

Harry assumed that Ron was referring to Voldemort and didn't correct him. There was no need to tell him that he was actually speaking more of Ginny. Ron just didn't need to know some things.

"Yeah," Harry agreed. "Still haven't figured school out."

He saw Ron nod, or at least attempt a nod while lying on his back. "We've got a little while."

"I do want to go to Godric's Hollow, though. You know, just to see if it helps or anything."

He could see Ron's head turn toward him from the corner of his eye. "D'you think it will?"

Harry shrugged. "I don't know. I just have this feeling, like there's something really important there. Or something."

The truth was that he did have a feeling like that. But the biggest reason for wanting to go was the fact that his parents were buried there. He'd never put much thought into where they were buried until a couple of years ago. He didn't know what he expected to find out or what he expected to happen, but a part of him just knew that he needed to go up there. Just to see. He didn't say any of this out loud, though. It wasn't like he thought that Ron would make fun of him or something, he knew he wouldn't. It was more the fact that he just really didn't like even thinking about it, much less talking about it.

"Well," Ron said, drawing him out of his thoughts, "hopefully we'll pass this test shit, and then we can just Apparate there."

"Yeah, hopefully."

They were interrupted when Ginny appeared and settled herself right between them. She flopped down sideways, resting her head on Harry's stomach and draping her legs over Ron's. Ron half-attempted to kick her legs away, but he gave up a second later.

"Guess what," Ginny said excitedly.

"You've just found out you're adopted and you're leaving to find your real family?" Ron asked hopefully.

Ginny shook her head.

"Give," Ron said lazily.

She looked at Harry and he just raised his eyebrows questioningly. Satisfied that no one else was guessing, she gave away her secret.

In the form of a very loud, very long belch.

When she was done, she erupted into yet another fit of giggles, obviously quite amused at herself. Harry figured that this must be what happened when one girl was raised in a houseful of older brothers.

Ron rolled his eyes and leaned up on his elbows. "Where's Hermione?"

"She went inside. She was hot." Ginny currently had her hand held over her face, picking at her fingernails.

Ron gave Ginny's legs a shove and succeeded in moving them off of him. "I think I'll go in, too," he said casually. "It is pretty hot."

Harry resisted the urge to snicker when Ginny rolled her eyes so far back in her head that it seemed as though they would disappear. Ron either didn't see her or chose to ignore her, and he stood up and headed back towards the house.

Then it was just Harry and Ginny. Her head was still resting on his stomach, and he was suddenly much more aware of her presence than he had been when her brother was lying within inches.

"Did they make out yet?" Ginny asked, going back to examining her fingernails.

"No." Harry paused. "I mean, I don't guess. Why? Did you hear something?"

"Who would I hear it from?"

Harry thought that was obvious. "Uh, Hermione?"

Ginny once again rolled her eyes, dropped her hands, and yawned. When she was finished, she turned her head slightly and looked at him. "I highly doubt Hermione would tell me if they did."

Harry didn't understand why. "But I thought... She told you about Krum, didn't she?" He thought back to that night when Ginny had blurted out Hermione's business to Ron. "Or did that even happen?" He suddenly wasn't so sure.

"Of course it happened," she said shortly. "And yes, she told me."

"Then why would she not tell you now? What changed?"

Ginny looked at him, almost pityingly. She sat up, shaking her head in what seemed to be disbelief. "The change," she said, shifting around so that she was now lying right beside him, "is that Viktor Krum is a famous Quidditch player. Of course she told me about that." She rolled over so that she was on her side, facing him. Without thinking twice, he moved his arm so that she could settle in right beside him, and she continued. "This time? It's Ron. I don't think she's going to start bragging to me about snogging my brother, do you?"

"I don't know," Harry said honestly. "I thought girls told each other everything."

Ginny smiled, though she still had that sort of pitying look on her face, as though she couldn't quite believe he was that clueless. "We don't," she said simply. "Not everything. Especially not when it has to do with brothers and the such."

"Then I guess we probably won't find out, huh?" He wasn't too sure that he was upset by this prospect. He still didn't know how he felt about the idea of Ron and Hermione going out or doing whatever it was that they were obviously well on the way to doing. It wasn't as if he didn't expect it because it was very clearly going to happen. In fact, he wasn't one-hundred percent sure that it hadn't already happened, but that didn't mean it was any less odd. He didn't know what exactly he would do when their trio became a twosome plus one. He wasn't necessarily opposed to it, he just wasn't... sure.

"We'll know." Ginny sounded lazy and bored. "Ron'll tell you. He can't keep his mouth closed about anything."

Harry wasn't too sure, though. He had spared Ron all the details when it came to himself and Ginny, and he half-thought that Ron might assume that he had to pay the same courtesy. Not that Hermione was Harry's sister, but she was close enough, and Ron knew it. Truthfully, Ron hadn't even told Harry that much about Lavender, and she was nowhere near close to Harry in any way. That wasn't to say that Ron hadn't talked about it in Harry's presence, though. No, he'd been forced to listen to many late-night conversations where Seamus had nagged Ron for details.

Harry started to mention this to Ginny, but when he turned his head to look at her, he saw that her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and even. She'd fallen asleep that quickly. A minute ago, she hadn't even seemed tired, and now she was asleep. Harry realized how nice it was. She'd fallen asleep once before, curled under his arm like this. It had been about a week before Dumbledore died and their whole world got turned upside down. They were downstairs in the common room, everyone else had already gone to bed, and he was quizzing her for her Charms O.W.L. She'd fallen asleep out of nowhere then, too, actually in the time that it had taken him to ask her a question about shield charms.

It was nice then, and it was nice now.

And Harry, not having the heart to wake, shifted onto his side just a little and was delighted when she instinctively moved even closer in her sleep, wrapping an arm around his waist. He thought that he could very much get used to this.

His mood was immediately dampened, though, when he realized that he couldn't and wouldn't ever allow himself to get used to it.

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Ron walked into the house and was glad to find that it was much cooler inside than it was outside. He knew the reason he'd come back inside, though, and it wasn't the heat. He found said reason sitting alone in the den with her head bent over a book.

"It's summer," he groaned. "No reading."

Hermione looked up at him and rolled her eyes. "This may come as a surprise to you, but there are people who do not wish to have their brains reduced to mush simply because holiday comes round."

"What're you reading anyway?"

The quick movement she made to block the title increased his curiosity ten-fold. He snatched the book out of her hand and turned it over. Wondrous Wizard: An Autobiography by Gilderoy Lockhart.

"Shut. Up," she said tightly before he could even start.

Ron immediately burst into laughter, and Hermione glared at him. "I'm not even-" he wheezed with laughter. "I'm not saying a word."

"Good!" she snapped. "If only I believed that."

"Gilderoy Lockhart! I thought you were over that!"

She stood up and grabbed the book back from him. "I was bored. I found it with the rest of your mum's books. It was either this or Wanderful One-Minute Meals."

Ron was still having a hard time controlling his laughter. "I thought his autobiography was called Marvelous Me or something like that?"

"Magical Me. And that was his second autobiography. This is the orig-" She noticed that he was highly amused by her and turned back to glaring. "Oh, shut up."

He smiled, knowing that he could go on for hours teasing her but deciding that it probably wasn't the smartest idea he'd ever have. "Come with me. I've got to make sure Pig's got something to eat."

For a second, it seemed as though she was going to stubbornly refuse, but in the end her boredness must have won out, and she tossed the book to the table and followed him up the stairs. Ron was suddenly aware of the situation. She was coming up to his room. They were going to be in his room alone. Together. It was stupid, really, to be nervous. After all, she'd been in his room loads of times. They'd been in his room alone together loads of times. But that was... before. Now there was this thing between them. Well, actually there had always been something between them, for several years at least, some sort of maddening tension. But now that tension was gone, and it was replaced with something else.

An understanding.

He didn't know what else to call it because that's really what it was- an understanding. It had been there since his birthday and especially since Lavender had chucked him with a very public dumping, complete with a lot of name-calling and a barely-missed Bat Bogey Hex that, had it been a bit more on aim, would have put even Ginny to shame. There had also been a few choice words thrown in there for Hermione, too, as she had somehow managed to offend and anger Lavender just as much as Ron himself had.

It was after that common room fiasco that the "understanding" had been really cemented. Hermione hadn't asked him if any of Lavender's claims were based in truth. She hadn't asked him to explain why his girlfriend had tried to hex her as well. The only thing she had asked him was how he felt, and he'd shrugged and looked at the floor. There was no need to ask the rest of those questions or any others because they both knew the answers.

They had an understanding.

Since that day, they'd had several... moments. Several moments when they could have done or said a lot more and probably should have. But it was okay because they both knew what was going on. Those moments, though not overly frequent, meant more than anything else he'd ever experienced.

Sometimes, when they were alone or positive that no one was looking, their hands would find each other's. He'd never realized how tiny her hands were until he'd taken to holding them so often. They would sometimes have very serious moments, during which they'd tell each other quiet secrets or have grave discussions about the going-ons around them; these talks made him feel loads more mature than he ever had before, and he liked that.

And then there was, what he considered to be, the most defining moment to date.

Professor McGonagall had sent him to the hospital wing immediately following the Death Eaters' attack on Hogwarts. He'd gone with the rest of the hall's occupants and was forced to watch as Madam Pomfrey tried, and failed, to fix his oldest brother's injuries. He didn't know where Ginny'd gone off to, and he'd only seen Harry for half-a-second. In fact, he wasn't even sure he'd actually seen him at all. What worried him most, though, was the fact that he hadn't seen or heard from Hermione at all since they'd split up hours before. He was just about to sneak out and go look for her when the doors to the hospital wing flew open, and she appeared with Luna lagging slightly behind her. She stopped, breathless, and looked frantically around the room. A half-second later, her eyesmet his, and she took off at full-speed across the room. She ran right past Bill, right past Neville, right past Tonks and Lupin and all the teachers...

And straight to him.

And without a word, she literally jumped straight into his arms, wrapping her arms so tightly around his neck that he was a little worried about breathing. He didn't care, though. He would have gladly stopped breathing all together because she was okay. He'd had the worst feeling, but it didn't matter. Because she was just fine. He hadn't actually been this worried about her since he was in second year and had sat at her bedside, reading chapters to her from their textbooks while Harry was at Quidditch practice or off doing whatever it was that Harry had done in their second year. Madam Pomfrey had told him that she was nearly positive that petrified people couldn't hear or comprehend anything outside of their own minds, if that even, but he hadn't cared; he'd still tried because he figured on the off-chance that Hermione could hear, she was most certainly very bored. So he'd figured in his head what the most exciting thing for Hermione must have been and had, consequently, resigned himself to hours spent reading her their homework. But it was worth it because she'd been okay in the end, and she was okay now, too. And maybe it was the thrill of the moment, or maybe it was the relief that she wasn't lying in some downstairs corridor dead. Or maybe it was just the Felix Felicis. Whatever the reasoning, though, he did something he'd never done before.

He kissed her.

It was very quick and over within a second, and he doubted if anyone else in the room could have even caught what had just happened. But he did. And so did Hermione. He was in just as much shock as she was, though, not really believing that he'd finally gotten up the nerve to do it and sort of kicking himself for picking such a stupid time and way to do it. After all, it wasn't a very good kiss; he knew he could do much, much better. But still, he refused to be embarrassed, and he stared her straight in the eye as he slowly lowered her feet back to the floor. For another second or so, they just looked at each other, but then she just retightened her arms around his neck and hugged him again, burying her face into the front of her shirt. He was thankful that she hadn't freaked out, or worse hexed him, and he held her tightly for a few moments, noticing the way she was out of breath from her run and seemed to be holding back sobs, her body shaking every few seconds. He also noticed for the first time the way that his chin rested perfectly on the top of her head, as though they were both the perfect height for each other. It was a strange moment to be noticing all these things for the first time and having this first defining event and surprising her with this first kiss, what with Bill lying mangled in a hospital bed a few feet away, half their teachers standing around, Harry off God only knew where, Ginny inevitably off to find him, and Dumbledore, though they didn't know it at the time, lying dead outside.

But it was also sort of the perfect moment.

Neither of them had mentioned it since. The rest of the time spent at Hogwarts had been clouded with Dumbledore's death and funeral, and by the time they'd met back up at the Burrow, it seemed as though the time to mention it had passed. It didn't matter, he supposed, because they both knew what it meant. It was part of the understanding.

When they reached his room, he kicked the door open, and she caught it with her hand. He was suddenly very aware that his room was a disaster area, and that she was probably disgusted by the mere sight of it. But he managed a quick glance at her and was surprised to see that she really didn't seem fazed by the mess.

"Pig's not even here," she said, looking toward the corner where the owl's cage stood, the door wide open. He hadn't locked it on the off-chance that Pig decided he wanted out randomly, but he hadn't really expected him to actually go anywhere. His bedroom window was also open, though, as he kept it up all the time during the summer, or at least when it wasn't raining. She walked over the window and looked out, as if she expected to see the mad little owl fluttering outside the window. "They'll be back together by the end of the summer..." she muttered, still staring through the open window.

Ron had no idea what she was talking about until he joined her at the window and saw Harry and Ginny on the ground by the pond, several stories below where he'd left them. "You think so?"

Hermione nodded, turning her back to the window and half-leaning/half-sitting on the ledge. "It's so obvious. I don't know why they ever broke up in the first place."

Ron, though, wasn't so sure. He leaned a little bit further out the window to get a better look. They were lying outside together, but that was really all he could make out. "I actually kind of think they won't," he admitted, drawing his head back in and looking at Hermione.

She looked very surprised that he didn't agree with her. "How could they not?" she asked, glancing once more out the window. "They clearly still fancy each other."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean they're going to get back together." He copied her position on the window ledge, though he more leaned than sat, not keen to go flying out the window if his balance happened to leave him for a second. "Just because they fancy each other, that doesn't really mean anything, does it?"

"How do you figure? If they like each other, then they like each other."

Ron frowned and kicked a stray piece of parchment across the room. "Well, I mean, you can like someone... doesn't mean anything's going to happen."

"Well, I don't see why it shouldn't." She was looking at him, eyebrows raised and questioningly.

He shrugged. He didn't really know what he was talking about. Well, he knew what he was getting at, but he didn't know how to get it out without sounding like an idiot. He was quite sure Hermione never had that problem. "I just mean... there's too much stuff getting in their way."

"Like what?"

"Like everything," he said simply.

Hermione sighed and scooted up a little until she was no longer leaning at all but fully sitting on the ledge. "I feel bad for them."

"Feel bad for them? Feel bad for us. We're not doing much better." He was positive he'd only thought this in his head until he saw the look on his face, and suddenly he was all too aware of the fact that his mouth spoke without his brain knowing it. He hated when it did that.

"Doing much better at what?" she asked, her face set curiously, as though she was just waiting on him to say it.

He didn't know why he just didn't say it, but he didn't. Instead, he carefully avoided her eyes and muttered a somewhat safe reply. "You know what."

It was the truth, too. She did know.

"Why don't you just tell me?"

He smirked, not really believing she was putting him through this. "Or you could just figure it out," he said blithely. Truthfully, there was nothing amusing about the situation at all, but he was trying his best not to look like a complete prat and freak out.

Hermione sighed and seemed to take that as the end of that particular line of conversation. She looked back out the window. "Ginny's really lucky, actually," she said knowingly. "Because she knows Harry, I mean. Lots of boys fancy her, you know?" Ron rolled his eyes, but Hermione promptly ignored him. "But she's lucky because she knows Harry's not just..." she seemed to search for the right word,"... not just a boy."

Ron rolled his eyes again. "Yeah, because Harry's so perfect," Ron muttered. "I'm sure he's not as innocent as you'd like to think."

"Well, he's good as far as they go," she said firmly. "Some boys are horrible."

"Yeah..." he smirked a little. "I guess you girls have really got to watch out for the rotten ones, huh?"

"Yeah, because I know so well," she rolled her eyes a little, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly..." Again she seemed to search for the right word, or rather name. Finally, she found it and mingled it with the tiniest of evil smirks. "I'm not exactly Lavender Brown, now am I?"

Ron snorted. "Lavender Brown. Right." Hermione raised her eyebrows, and he shook his head. "Lavender Brown is overrated."

"Yeah?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

Hermione pursed her lips. "Huh. Well, you certainly didn't seem to think so a few months ago."

He wondered exactly what she was playing at, but he bit anyway. "Yeah, well, a few months ago, you weren't even speaking to me, and now look at us. So, you see, things do tend to change."

Hermione ignored the whole of his laststatement. "You seemed to enjoy her perfectly well."

Ron shrugged. "She's okay. I mean, you know, she was. Before she tried to hex me."

"Just okay?"

He shrugged again. "I mean, she's nice enough. She's pretty."

"She's beautiful."

He looked at her, trying hard to read exactly where she was headed with all of this. "She's not very bright."

This time, it was Hermione who snorted. "Oh, yes. Because intelligence is so much more attractive than blonde hair. What was it you said last summer? No bloke in his right mind would ever go for Tonks when Fleur was around?"

Not for the first time in his life, Ron wondered how the hell she managed to do that. "You'd think your brain would have reached maximum capacity by now."

It was obvious that she did not want to smile, but it was also just as obvious that what she wanted didn't matter. She lost that battle. "Shut up."

"You know, that was an amazing comeback. I was going to say that there was no way you could still be at the top of your game, but clearly, I was wrong."

Hermione wrinkled her nose. "Ha, ha. Very funny."

"Anyway," he ducked as she tried to smack him, still not willing to fall out the window, "like I was saying, Lavender's alright, but she's definitely not the smartest person I've ever met in my life."

"Now, there's a shocker."

"You are."

"I am what?" She looked up at him inquisitively.

"The smartest person I've ever met."

Hermione turned a delightful shade of pink before looking away and mumbling, "No, I'm not." She was smiling shyly, though.

"Are you insane?" Sometimes he really couldn't believe her.

"You know loads of people who are smarter than me." She faced him again and started naming names. "Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, Professor-"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Okay, the smartest person under the age of a hundred."

Hermione went right on, naming people under a hundred. "Professor Lupin, Tonks, Bill, Percy-"

He cut her off. "Okay, stop. I am going to ignore the fact that you just referred to Percy as one of the smartest people in the world when he is clearly a giant idiot, and I'm just going to pretend that you got the point I was trying to make." He'd been trying to make several points, but she seemed to have missed them all.

Or perhaps she didn't.

She slid off the windowsill and moved to stand directly in front of him. They were at eye-level like this, with him leaning and her standing, and she looked straight at him. "I got it."

The air in his room seemed to change around them. Hermione was looking at him in a way that made him very aware of all of his senses. He couldn't remember her ever staring at him that intently before, and he was suddenly and very inexplicably terrified of her.

It wasn't the first time he could recall the feeling that she could read his mind. She knew that he was suddenly frightened, and her face softened. When she spoke, her voice was gentle and quiet, yet it was still firm at the same time. "Ron," she moved one of her hands to rest beside his head on the window frame, "if you want to say something... just say it."

Just say it?

Did she expect him to just come right out and say it as casually as if he'd told her it was Thursday? She had to be bloody out of that brilliant mind if she thought it was that simple. He couldn't just say it. He couldn't say anything actually. His mouth and brain seemed to have cut off communication with each other, and he was aware that he mouthed wordlessly for a couple of seconds before just giving up.

"Ron." She was whispering now, still looking at him, almost pleading with her eyes. And he didn't know why he just didn't say it. She wouldn't laugh; he knew she wouldn't. She wouldn't be horrified or disgusted or incensed. He knew she wouldn't. He could say it, and everything would be fine. It would probably even be better than fine.

But he just couldn't make his voice work.

A better idea, he knew, would be to just kiss her. His blood heated up at the thought. He'd been wondering for so long, wondering how it would feel to just grab her and snog her breathless. He wanted to. Probably more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. He'd thought about it so much, that he was almost convinced that he would actually be disappointed when he finally got around to doing it, just because he imagined it to be so perfect and brilliant. But he knew, though, that he wouldn't be disappointed. No matter how many times he thought about it, he knew that it would still manage to be better than anything he'd ever imagined.

Sort of in the same manner that his brain had cut off communication with his mouth, it seemed to have done the same thing with his hands. The difference, though, was that while his mouth couldn't function properly without his brain, his hand seemed towork quite well.Without even knowing it, he'd taken Hermione's hand and was currently pulling her toward him.

He was going to do it.

He didn't know where the guts had come from, but he was going to do it. He was going to kiss her. She knew exactly what was about to happen, too. He could tell by her face, by the way her eyes bore into his with the same nervous anticipation he knew was reflected in his own.

"There you are!"

Hermione gasped and spun around, yanking her hand out of his own. Ron, for what it was worth, managed not to fall out the window. But just barely.

As heightened as all of his senses had been just moments before, he'd somehow managed to miss his mother's footsteps coming up the stairs and down the hall. Apparently his hearing was one he needed to work on. She was standing in the doorway, looking at them with a harried sort of look.

"Dinner has been ready for ten minutes, and I've been looking all over for you. Now where's Ginny? And Harry?"

Ron glanced unconsciously back out the window. He could tell that the two missing parties were now lying side by side. Very close, side by side. His mum marched over to the window and looked out, obviously curious as to what Ron was glancing at. She looked down for a moment and said nothing. Half a second later, though, her mouth set in a firm line, and she shook her head.

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no," she muttered under her breath. "Not in my house."

Ron should have just kept quiet, but he couldn't help it. He'd always been cheeky. "Technically, Mum, they're not actually in the house."

She immediately jerked her attention away from whatever rendezvous was taking place in her backyard and glared at him. "Shut it," she said tightly. "And get downstairs!"

She turned and started to stomp from the room, obviously on her way to tell off Harry and Ginny, which actually was sort of amusing. Just before she got to the door, though, she stopped as though she'd suddenly had a great epiphany and spun around to look at them, pointing a single finger in their direction.

"Not in my house. And I mean it." She gave Ron a hard look before turning the same one to Hermione, who turned very red and immediately looked down at the floor.

Ron didn't know whether to be afraid or amused. He chose no reaction, which was definitely the right choice, as his mother spun back around and took off in a frenzy down the stairs.

The awkward silence that was left in her wake, though, wasn't amusing at all.

"So..." Ron grasped around blindly for anything to say, thankful that his voice was working again. "Dinner."

Hermione swallowed and nodded, still looking at the floor. "Right. Dinner." She hesitated for a second before shaking her head. "So... See you." She left in a hurry.

Ron let out the hugest breath, despite the fact that he hadn't even been aware he was holding it. So close.

He let his head fall back to the wall behind him, and he closed his eyes. It was okay. He wasn't going to dwell on it. The time would come. He knew it would. And he knew she knew it would.

After all, they had an understanding.

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A/N: Than you very much for the reviews from the first chapter. I welcome any and all comments, good or bad.