"Oppungno!" came a shriek from the doorway.
Harry spun around to see Hermione pointing her wand at Ron, her expression wild. The little flock of birds was speeding like a hail of fat, golden bullets, who yelped and covered his face with his hands, but the birds attacked, pecking and clawing at every bit of flesh they could reach.
"Gerremoffme!" he yelled, but with one last look of vindictive fury, Hermione wrenched open the door and disappeared through it. Harry thought he heard a sob before it slammed.
Harry turned to look at Ron, who was working feverishly to beat the birds from his face, and sighed.
Ron, who hit the last of the birds away with a particularly violent swat, wheeled around to face Harry.
"What?" Ron demanded. He felt it was his turn to be mad.
"Nothing," said Harry slowly. He could see that Ron was at a breaking point. He didn't think that it would do anyone any good if Ron got mad at him as well. Not with Quidditch coming up, with Lavender hovering outside the door, with Harry needing Ron's approval to date Ginny. 'What?' thought Harry, as a flutter of butterflies took flight in his stomach. Is that what he wanted? To date Ginny?
Unfortunately, Harry's romantic revelations were cut short by Ron's yelling; "No it bloody well isn't nothing! What are you doing, going around sighing for instead of helping me get these damn-" Ron swiped at a particularly persistent canary that kept flying back towards his face, "-yellow beasts off me!" he finished.
"Well…" Harry began slowly, deciding that what he was going to say, needed to be said. "You're...you're always making her cry, mate."
Ron looked livid.
"It's not my fault that girls turn into faucets every time someone says something to them! Besides, I have every right to kiss whomever I please, thank you! And anyways, Lavender is about a hundred times better than that filthy, double crossing, Krum that Hermione went off snogging!" Ron's angered doubled in size as he remembered Krum.
"But, Ron, it's kind of obvious-"
"You know what Harry? I don't think you're exactly the best person to be giving advice on the matter, seeing as every time you got within two feet of Cho, she went leaky like Hermione as well!"
Ron stormed out the door, angry at Harry, angry at Hermione, angry at Krum, angry at the bewildered Lavender he passed on the way out the door without a second glance.
Harry stood inside the classroom, affronted by what Ron had just said. It was true, Harry had to admit to himself. He had always made Cho cry. But this was different, Harry concluded. The situation with Cho had been…kind of strange. And Harry hadn't been making her cry for six years, either. Harry sighed again and walked out the door, also passing Lavender, but was too absorbed in hoping that Ron and Hermione would work something out so that they could all just go back to being friends, to notice her.
Ron was storming through the halls with every intent of going back up to his room, writing Hermione a particularly nasty letter and pining it to her door, when he ran into Peeves.
"OOO! Ickle Ronnikines got in a fight, did he?" said Peeves, spotting the cuts and scratches left on Ron's face by the canaries.
"Shut up, Peeves!"
"OOO…you don't want to be going down this way with a temper like that…tsk tsk. Filch is out patrolling and in quite nasty mood. He just love to pick up a ickle kiddy like you and give you a detention for-"
Ron swore loudly and, not waiting to hear what Filch might give him a detention for, turned on his heal and started to take the long way back to the common room. The detour forced him to go down three flights of stairs and across the entire length of the castle.
The long walk had abated his anger some, so when he stepped in a huge puddle of water and got both his socks soaked, he didn't swear quite so loudly as he would have a few minutes earlier. Looking around for the source of the flood, he realized that he was standing outside the bathroom that he, Harry and Hermione had brewed the Polyjuice Potion in during their second year. Turning towards the door, he found himself face to face with Moaning Mrytle.
"Mrytle! Um…hi…What's with the flood this time?"
"Oh, it wasn't me," squeaked Mrytle with a smile. "Not this time. I just helped her make a mess."
"What are you talking about?" inquired Ron, still standing in the huge puddle of water.
"That girl that you always came in here with. She's in there now, carrying on and making quite a ruckus really. Interfering with my moping."
"H-Hermione's in there?" Ron stammered.
"She's in there more and more these days. I don't know why, but it's nice to have some to be sad with, so I let her keep coming."
Instead of getting angrier, the last of Ron's fury slipped away as he slowly walked towards the door.
"Good luck," said Mrytle, starting to glide away down the hall, "She's in quite a state. Even I couldn't deal with her."
Feeling quite miserable now, Ron watched her disappear around a corner before he turned back to face the bathroom door and push it open.
He didn't see Hermione, but he noticed the burn marks on the floor where they had brewed the potion, the snake on the one faucet that had proved to be the secret entrance to the Chamber of Secrets and the sink that was still in pieces from when the three of them battled the troll. Thinking about the troll brought back something Harry has said to him just before. 'You're always making her cry, mate.' It was true. He had been making her cry ever since first year when he had made fun of her for having no friends. She had been crying in this same bathroom when they came to rescue her from the troll. 'Ron,' he thought to himself, 'you're such a prat. You've been making her miserable for three years when all you've wanted to do was make her happy. And it's just been getting worse.'
He slumped against one of the sinks. It was his turn to sigh. He knew he liked Hermione. He had admitted it to himself right after he and Harry had stumbled across Ginny and Dean and Ginny told him about Hermione snogging Krum. There was no excuse he could make that would explain the jealously he had felt-- well, still felt. There was no excuse that would explain why, when he kissed Lavender, he wished it were Hermione.
"Aaargh!" he exclaimed loudly when he thought about Lavender. He was such an idiot! What was he doing with Lavender?
Behind him, he heard one of the bathroom stalls open. He whipped around and found himself staring down the length of the bathroom at Hermione.
Neither of them said anything.
Staring at Hermione, Ron's mind turned back to first year. They were both eleven again and madly in love with each other, but too concerned about cooties to realize it. Thinking about the first time Hermione had been in her crying, Ron, with a small smile, tentatively said the first thing that came to his mind.
"It's Levi-O-sa, not Levio-SA…"
Hermione gave a small, choked laugh through the tears that were still coating her face, but stayed where she was.
Ron thought his resolution would hold, but upon seeing her tears, he couldn't handle it anymore. He walked quickly across the room until he was standing only a few inches away from Hermione. She didn't recoil like he thought she would, so he reached up a hand and started wiping away her tears.
"Stop it. Stop it. Stop it," he said softly. "Oh, God, Hermione, Harry was right."
Still crying too hard to speak, Hermione didn't reply, but looked quizzical.
"I'm always making you cry."
In a sudden movement, he gathered her into his arms and whispered in her ear "I'm sorry about Lavender."
Hermione shook her head and pulled back slightly. Regaining her power to speak, she said shakily, "No. I shouldn't have been so upset. You were right Ron. You can do whatever you want. And I have no right getting angry at you for dating someone. Our friendship isn't worth it."
At this, Ron pulled back a bit as well. Friendship? Was that all Hermione really wanted? He thought his innards might collapse and he would be a wandering hollow shell for the rest of his life—a shell that couldn't be filled up by all the Lavenders in the world. Hermione was still talking.
"So I shouldn't have been so upset, but…"
"But what?" prodded Ron.
"But…talking myself out of it didn't make watching you and Lavender hurt any less."
"Talking yourself out of what?"
Hermione blushed furiously.
"Talking myself out of…liking you," she finished with a whisper.
Ron was stunned. She liked him. She liked him. She liked him!
"Of course, I can understand if you didn't reciprocate my feelings. I mean, I did just attack you with birds…"
Suddenly, the bird attack seemed very, very funny to Ron. He grinned, leaned down and stopped Hermione's rush of words with a quick kiss. He had never seen Hermione's eyes grow so big or seen her at such a loss for words.
"I…uh..well…I..I guess…umm…" Hermione faltered, "um…I'm sorry about your face," she added quietly at the end.
This time Ron threw back his scratched face and laughed out loud. "I love you Hermione," he said with a sparkle in his eyes and a huge grin still on his face.
Hermione's face lit up and she stood on her toes for another kiss. It was longer this time and Ron felt quite content to stay in this bathroom forever. He felt hundred times better than he had ever felt with Lavender in his arms and Hermione was of the opinion that the Quidditch player she was with right now was no match for Krum.
"Well! This is all very nice, but you are still in my bathroom!" said Moaning Mrytle from the doorway where she had just reappeared.
Ron grinned down at Hermione, who beamed back up at him, took her hand and, with a wink at Mrytle, led her out of the bathroom.