"Oh, I'm so afraid to make that first move. Just a touch and we could cross the line…" – Jesse McCartney
Ron refused to look at her, and Hermione could feel the tears welling up again. She blinked them away; she had certainly cried enough since yesterday. As soon as she had learned what had happened, she had raced up to the hospital room, almost sick with worry. She barely listened as Harry and Ginny discussed who they thought was behind it all, and she hadn't been able to take her eyes off Ron while he lie in bed, looking very much like the little boy with dirt on his nose she had met on the Hogwarts Express five years ago.
"You better not stay too long," Ron said, and the malice in his voice made her eyes sting with tears once more. "I expect Lavender will be along soon, and you know how she gets when we're alone together."
Hermione gave a hearty sniff, forcing the tears back into her eyes. She resisted the urge to tell him that Lavender bloody Brown wouldn't be coming to see him any time today, as Hermione had informed her that he wasn't allowed to have any visitors until tomorrow morning at the very earliest. Part of her felt guilty for lying – she was keeping Lavender from seeing her sick boyfriend, after all – but it was a very small part, especially when Lavender had responded with, "Oh, but my Won-Won will need me to get better!"
In addition to making Hermione extremely nauseous, that statement had washed much of the guilt away.
"You're looking well," she said, her tone businesslike and formal. It wasn't a total lie; he did have a lot more color in his cheeks than the night before. She purposely ignored his statement about Lavender.
"Thanks," Ron said brusquely.
Her heart broke that their friendship had been reduced to this. He had almost died, and they were still sitting here, mad at each other. At first, she hadn't even known why the fight had started in the first place; one day, for quite unknown reasons, Ron had just started acting like a great sodding git. When Ginny confessed to telling Ron about Hermione kissing Viktor, everything had become clear. She'd been mad at Ron for a long time after that – mad that he reacted in that manner, mad that he hadn't come to her to get the truth, mad at herself for not telling him sooner, though really it was none of his business. Now, she wasn't really mad so much as hurt. But she'd been unable to sleep last night, thinking of him lying unconscious in the hospital wing. Every time she managed to doze off, she had some horrible nightmare where Ron died in a very gruesome manner. Eventually, she had crawled out of bed, sneaked into the boys' dormitories, nicked Harry's cloak, and sneaked down to the hospital wing, so that she could see for herself that Ron wasn't dead.
But he may as well have been, the way they were acting. Before, she'd wanted Ron to realize the error of his ways and leave Lavender. Now she was just glad that he was alive. She didn't know what she would have done if he hadn't made it to the hospital wing in time. She didn't even want to think about it. Best to think of something else.
She glanced around the room, looking at everything but Ron, and her eyes came to rest on the quill sitting on the bedside table. "New quill?" she asked.
Ron nodded. "Birthday gift from Fred and George."
Hermione bit the inside of her cheek. She had also gotten him a present for his birthday, but she hadn't yet given it to him. Truth be told, she wasn't entirely sure she even wanted to give it to him; he'd been such a prat lately, and she didn't think he deserved it. She'd bought it ages ago, back in Diagon Alley when they'd done their shopping to buy all their Hogwarts things, and was certain that he'd like it – it was from one of those Daydream Charms from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. He'd been so upset when Fred and George made him pay and he couldn't afford half of the stuff he wanted, so she bought him one. She'd been storing it in her trunk since August and then he had started snogging Lavender. Everything had gone downhill from there.
She wasn't quite sure when she had first realized that she fancied Ron, but she had fancied him for a while now and was simply waiting for him to make the first move. After spending much of the summer with alone with him, she thought that they had finally started taking the first steps toward a relationship. But apparently, she was wrong, and she wasn't about to cross the line before Ron discovered that he had feelings for her as well, or she would make a fool out of herself. She knew that Ron returned her feelings but wouldn't admit it; there was no other logical explanation for the way he acted when she mentioned other boys – or even when she spent some alone time with Harry. Harry! As if she could ever be interested in Harry in that way. He was like her brother.
Watching Ron snog Lavender was like having her heart ripped out repeatedly, and the horrid thing was that Ron didn't seem to realize what he was doing to her! Hermione sometimes wondered if Ron was being an insensitive prat on purpose or if that was just part of his personality. At first, she'd assumed that he started his snog-fests with Lavender to make her jealous – to get her back for kissing Viktor – but she had no idea why it had continued for so long. She was obviously jealous; she'd barely spoken to, or even looked at, either of them since they had started "dating". She wouldn't even consider what they did dating, really. All they did was snog, although Lavender wasn't exactly a private person, and Hermione had a feeling that she was more vested in their sham of a relationship than Ron was.
After a while, she could stand it no longer. She burst into tears. "Oh, Ron!" she said, throwing her arms around him. "I was so worried! All anyone would tell me was that you were in the hospital wing, and then Harry said that you'd been poisoned, and – "
She couldn't finish. She was practically choking on her sobs. She cried into Ron's shoulder and after a bit, she felt his arms go around her.
His arms felt safe, and she felt protected, but most of all, the whole thing felt right. Oh, why couldn't Ron see that this was how they were supposed to be? Why did have to be such a git and continue his farce of a relationship with someone he didn't really care about, when Hermione was right here?
"It's all right, 'Mione," he said, stroking her hair. "I'm fine, see? Nothing to worry about."
Her breath caught in her throat. Had he just called her 'Mione? She couldn't remember him having ever done that before. It had to mean something. But what could it possibly mean? Did it mean that he was sorry? Did it mean that he had feelings for her? Or was she just reading too much into something as simply as Ron shortening her name? But she loved the way it sounded; it sounded like "mine".
She hiccoughed and pulled away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry," she said. She forced out a laugh. "I'm being silly."
Ron averted his eyes. "It's not silly to be worried about a friend," he said. And was it her imagination, or was his voice several pitches lower than it usually was? It sounded so…sexy. She ought to feel scandalized for thinking of Ron as sexy, especially when he was spoken for, but it was only Lavender bloody Brown, and she had a right to feel however she chose to feel, thank you very much. "And anyway," he said, still not meeting her gaze, "now you know how I felt last year after the…after the Department of Mysteries."
Hermione cocked her head to the side. "What do you mean?"
He glanced at her, and they locked eyes. "I thought you were dead."
The simple declaration needed no further explanation. Hermione gave him a teary-eyed smile and slid away, back into the chair. She dropped her eyes to his arms, which were peppered with thin scars from where the brain had attacked him. She lightly ran her finger along one, and bit back a smile as he shivered. "Did it hurt?"
Ron sucked in a sharp breath and put on a brave sort of face, shaking his head. "Nah. Nothing I can't handle, you know."
She smiled as shyly as possible. "Well, then. I guess now we're even."
He blinked several times, as though trying to understand what she was talking about. After a few moments, he coughed and nodded. "Yeah. I guess we are."
She glanced away. "Are you still mad at me?"
Ron pulled his head back in surprise, then leaned forward conspiratorially. "You didn't really like McLaggen, did you?" Hermione made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat, which seemed to be a good enough response for Ron. "I didn't think so," he said. "But then why did you take him to Slughorn's Christmas party?"
Hermione raised her eyebrows. "I didn't have much of a choice, as my first choice for a date has a girlfriend who would not have appreciated it."
He gave her a guilty half-grin. "Oh. Right."
She tried again, having not really gotten the answer she wanted. "I can't stand not being your friend, Ron. You're not mad at me, are you?"
Ron shook his head slowly. "No. I'm not mad at you. I guess I never was mad at you." He paused, as though he was about to say more. But he turned to her, looking almost frightened. "Are you mad at me?"
"I…" She trailed off. She wanted to tell him just how mad she was – how hurt he had made her. But this was what she really wanted, to be talking to him again. Rehashing the past few months would only make matters worse, and she didn't want to dredge everything up while he was in the hospital wing. It didn't seem right. "No," she said at last. "I'm not. Anymore."
"Okay then," Ron said, nodding once. "We're agreed. We're not mad at each other anymore."
Hermione's smiled. "Agreed."
Ron folded his arms behind his head and sank against his pillows. "So, what did I miss?"