"I'm not going," Harry said defiantly.

"Yes you are," Ron said firmly.

"No he's not," Draco said just as firmly. "And neither am I."

Pansy and Ron, needing a break, had organized for Lavender and Parvati to look after their two charges for the Saturday. The girls were delighted at this but, needless to say, the boys weren't too happy about it.

"They're so icky," Draco complained. "They always coo at us and use stupid voices."

"And," Harry put in impressively. "They're girls." Pansy raised her eyebrows. "I mean," The seven year old said hurriedly. "They're stupid girls. But you're a cool girl, Pansy." Pansy smiled a little. "'Sides," Harry went on comfortingly. "You're more like a boy than a girl anyway."

Harry meant this as a compliment but Pansy didn't see it that way. Her mouth tightened and, too late, Harry saw his mistake.

"Ron is going to take you to the Gryffindor common room and you're going to stay with Lavender and Parvati and behave yourselves," Pansy snapped. "And I don't want to hear another word about it."

Sending Pansy a small, comforting smile, Ron led the boys out of the room into the cold passageways of the castle.

"Is Pansy mad at me now?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Draco said. "You said something bad."

"You weren't very tactful," Ron answered.

"Yes he was!" Draco put in. Ron shook his head. Harry and Draco argued often but in the last few days they had become best friends and would protect each other from anything.

"Don't worry," Ron said as they reach Gryffindor tower. "She'll be fine by tonight. Now have fun with Lavender and Parvati. And behave yourselves," he added as they nodded gloomily.

"Hello," Lavender cooed at the boys. The seven year olds looked at each other and Ron saw a spark of mischief in Draco's eye. Ron gave Lavender and Parvati a small smile.

"Have fun," he said, before heading away to find Hermione.

Ron saw his friend sitting in the corner of the common room talking to a seventh year Gryffindor boy Ron knew by sight but not by name. He had said something and Hermione was laughing, shaking her bushy hair back over her shoulder. The boy smiled and shifted a little closer to her.

Ron was amazed to find he felt perfectly calm. "A few days ago I would've been in a wild fit of jealousy," he thought with surprise. "I would've walked over and scared him away so I could keep Hermione to myself. Now I just feel happy for her. What's going on?" Ron was confused. He'd liked Hermione since the beginning of fourth year – there was a reason he'd never liked Krum – and now all that was gone in a just a few days? Ron shook his head and left his friend in peace.

The red head made his way down to the Great Hall and sat down next to Dean. He was buttering his toast when he realised there was something missing. It felt funny not to have Pansy and the boys sitting with him. It felt ever stranger not to be watching out for the boys planning something, as they did often. Ron was surprised to find to find that he missed having the other three around. Well, maybe not the boys, but it was weird not to have Pansy sitting next to him,

Now, Ron felt her absence keenly and looked over to the Slytherin table. Pansy sat there, having no reason to sit with the Gryffindors today, chatting animatedly to another girl. She didn't look at Ron and seemed to have no feeling of a strange absence. Ron sighed and watched her for a minute.

Pansy was talking her friend Kaitlin from fourth year.

"It must be so awful for you having to be with the Gryffindors all the time," Kaitlin said sympathetically. "How are you coping?"

"It's not too bad," Pansy said. 'Actually it's pretty damned good,' she thought to herself, but didn't confide this thought to Kaitlin.

"Really? Well that's good. So they're not really all 'noble' and crap?"

"Well, they are noble some of the time," Pansy conceded with a laugh, thinking of how Ron had saved Harry from the portkey. "But they don't rub it in or anything." Her friend laughed.

"Lucky for you. So anyway, how's Blaise going? I guess you haven't been seeing much of him lately."

"I don't think I like him that much anymore," Pansy said almost automatically. 'I think I like the red-haired type now,' she thought, and was shocked by it. Kaitlin was speaking but Pansy had no idea what she saying. "Anyway," Pansy cut across. "I've really got a lot of homework to catch up on so I'll see you later?"

"Uh, sure," Kaitlin said, looking surprised. "See you."

Ron watched Pansy leave the hall and turned back to his half-cold toast with a sigh. This wasn't right. It couldn't be happening. He couldn't really like Pansy… could he?

Ron had no time to dwell on this as a shriek came from the other end of the table. He looked up to see fireworks shooting around the room, bouncing off the walls. Girls were screaming and covering their heads. Ron looked down the table. The fireworks seemed to be originating from a goblet of pumpkin juice which sat in front of two grinning seven-year-old boys. Ron left the hall fast, not wanting to have to deal with this. As he walked out of the door Lavender and Parvati were attempting to control the boys and stop the fireworks at the same time – which just made things worse. Ron quickly made his way to the library and hid himself in the rows of books.

He tried to get on with his dream chart, but instead found himself thinking of Pansy. When he looked up and saw a dark-haired girl sitting at a table in the corner he first thought that his thoughts had somehow created an illusion, but then realised that it was the real thing. Pansy was bending over her work, her hair swinging in front of her face, and she kept pushing it back with a cute look of irritation on her face. Ron had a sudden urge to go and hold it out of the way for as long as she wanted.

He shook his head, and forced himself to concentrate. Nothing was going to happen between himself and Pansy and Ron would just have to cope with that.

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Pansy was frowning as she attempted to keep her mind on her work. She was very conscious of Ron sitting not far from her, but forced herself not to look around. She could just imagine what he'd do if he found out she kept on thinking about him. Pansy slipped into a world of imagination as her hand kept writing. When she came back to herself, Pansy realised with a shock that all she'd been writing was, Ron, Ron, Ron, Ron.

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Pansy returned to their bedroom at around the boys' bedtime after spending most of the day in the library or the Slytherin common room. As she neared the room she heard hysterical laughter coming out, and opened the door cautiously.

Ron and Draco had a laughing Harry pinned to Ron's bed and were tickling him mercilessly. Pansy smiled at the sight; it looked so cute! The noise of the door shutting alerted the others to her presence and Harry cried out: "Help me Pansy!" then trailed off into laughter as Draco tickled his stomach. Pansy grinned and obliged the boy by lifting Draco into the air, running into the boys' bedroom, dumping him on the bed and tickling his ribs. Harry ran in and joined in enthusiastically as Draco rolled around laughing and choking out for them to stop.

The three kept this up for a few more moments and then Pansy stopped.

"Alright guys," she said, smiling. "Time for bed."

"Aw, Pansy!" The boys protested together. "Not yet."

"Yes, come on," she said, shepherding them to their beds and tucking them in. She knew that as soon as she left the room they'd be out of bed again, but she could pretend she didn't know that.

"Night guys," she said.

"Night Pansy," they chimed.

She turned off the light and shut the door as she went into the other room where Ron was sitting on his bed. Pansy sat down on her own and stretched.

"Mmmm, that was fun. I never guess those two would be ticklish."

"Yeah, me either," Ron agree. He looked at Pansy with a strange gleam in his eyes that did not go unnoticed.

"What?" Pansy asked suspiciously. Ron started to smile.

"Pansy," he said, the smile growing bigger. "Are you ticklish?"

"What?" Pansy asked, then replied uncertainly: "N-No. Of course not."

Ron grinned and tackled his friend, sending her flying backwards onto the bed as he began to tickle her. Pansy immediately began to laugh.

"Stop Ron," she gasped. "S-Stop it!"

"Say uncle," Ron grinned.

"Uncle," Pansy squealed.

"What was that? I didn't hear."

"UNCLE!" Pansy cried. Ron stopped.

After a few seconds, they both noticed the position they were in. Ron sat on top of Pansy and both were panting. They stared at each other as Ron slowly closed the distance between themand captured her lips with his.

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It was half an hour later that Ron slipped into bed, heart thudding excitedly. He couldn't believe what had just happened. He grinned. Maybe it wasn't so bad sharing a room with a Slytherin girl. Things were looking up.