Harry Potter isn't mine. Consider yourself disclaimed.

Author's Notes: Thanks to Terra for the beta! This was originally written for glamcabaret on LJ, in an exchange in the hpsmutfree community.

"I dunno what you're on about, mate." Ron was sprawled sullenly on the familiar bed of his room at The Burrow, glaring at his best friend, Harry Potter, who had followed him upstairs.

Harry rolled his eyes at that. "Of course you don't, Ron. Look – just – it's the holidays, yeah? And against all odds, here we are, spending them at The Burrow. That's good, right?"

Ron felt a twinge of guilt at the reminder. Just a week ago he would've given anything to be home for Christmas. "Yeah, I know."

Harry lowered his voice before continuing, "And, look, I – you know I don't want to stick my nose in you and Hermione's business, but – I thought you two had worked this all out."

So had Ron. "Maybe we worked it out a little too well," he muttered.

"Well then, why've you been avoiding her since yesterday evening? You've been a right git to her and anyone else who tries talking to you, you know, and you've spent half the day hiding in here."

"I'm not hiding! I'm just – tired. Is it a crime for a bloke to want to catch up on his sleep in his own bed for a change?"

"Whatever. I'll go tell Ginny you don't want to talk to me about it, then." Harry sighed and turned to leave the room.

"What? Ginny put you up to this? I'll kill her."

"For what, Ron? Wanting us all to have a good holiday? If this is about you and Hermione, fine, but your moping is ruining everyone's mood! Is it a crime for your sister to want the only time she gets to see us to be a happy one?"

For a moment Ron considered shouting at Harry, or rolling over and refusing to speak, and so continuing his snit, which was, after all, totally justified under the circumstances. But he couldn't do it.

"No. No, it's not."

Harry didn't reply, seemingly as surprised by Ron's concession as Ron himself, so Ron went on.

"I'm sorry I've been a prat. You and Ginny are right that I shouldn't ruin the holidays for everybody. Merlin knows we deserve a bit of cheer."

"Too right," Harry agreed. "So, are you coming downstairs?"

"Um." Ron might've been ready to admit he was sulking, but that didn't mean he was ready to face Hermione, knowing what he now knew. "I think I'll just stay up here a while longer."

Harry sighed. "What exactly is the problem, Ron? Because Hermione says she doesn't even know what she's done, this time."

"She hasn't done anything," Ron blurted. At least, not yet…. "It's not a row, or anything. I just don't know if I can give her what she wants for Christmas."

"Still?" Harry took a seat on the other bed. "You've been worrying for months about that! I thought you'd decided to sneak a look in her trunk and see if you got any ideas. In fact, I thought I distracted her for two hours yesterday so that you could do just that."

Well, yes. That was the problem. He had snuck into Hermione's room and gone poking through her trunk, hoping to find some hint of what she might like for a Christmas present. Only what he'd found there had been more than a bloody hint.

Of course it wasn't surprising that he'd mostly found books in her trunk, or that those books mostly had charmed covers to disguise their real subject matter. They were trying to keep what they were doing a secret after all, so Hermione could hardly leave two dozen books about Horcruxes just lying around. But not all of these books had been about Horcruxes or magic. A good dozen of them had been about shagging.

Yes. Hermione. Books about sex. Ron's mind boggled. Of course, they were all very Hermione books about sex, with educational diagrams and tasteful discussions of emotional intimacy and shite like that. But still. Hermione. And shagging.

It wasn't that Ron had never thought about it. He did think about it. Oh, did he think about it. He was seventeen, after all. But it was … complicated.

First off, this was Hermione, and even if they were more than friends now, they were off with Harry on a quest to defeat an evil Dark wizard, which didn't exactly leave them much spare time for snogging sessions or anything like that, especially since they didn't want to make things weird for Harry.

So they really hadn't done much of anything yet. Ron was only starting to accept the fact that Hermione wanted to kiss him, and suddenly it seemed clear that she wanted to do much, much more than that. Why else would she have those books? It was a bit of a shock. He could hardly believe this was the same girl whose school robes were always fully buttoned in perfect compliance with the Hogwarts dress code, who had read Hogwarts: A History a billion times and who routinely wrote two extra feet on her Arithmancy essays. It was hard to believe that girl ever thought about sex, let alone thought so much about it, apparently, that she purchased instructional handbooks.

Let alone thought about it with him, Ron Weasley. And that was sort of the other problem. Because he was Ron. And he might've had the emotional depth of a teaspoon. And he might've been a seventeen-year-old boy. And he might've spent more than just a little time thinking about shagging Hermione.

But he'd had a Talk with his father, last Christmas, and he was pretty sure he wasn't ready to actually shag Hermione. Oh yes, he'd listened to The Talk, which had come complete with embarrassing allusions to things his mum and dad may or may not have done that he never wanted to know about and all that sort of thing, but had also driven home one point in particular. 'Everything about being in love is worth waiting for,' his dad had said, 'if it means you can share it with someone special to you. Don't do anything you'll regret later.'

Now at that point Ron had already started to regret a few things he had done with Lavender, such as ever landing himself in her clutches. Snogging had seemed brilliant the first few dozen or so times they'd done it, but more and more it was something he was almost avoiding, because it was all wet lips and wet tongues and really rather strange, if you thought about it that way. There was no emotion behind it, he realized, rather guiltily.

Now with Hermione, of course, things were different; Ron couldn't explain it, but he knew, somehow, that he'd never get tired of kissing her. But he didn't want to rush into anything ever again, even if it was with Hermione, who he had known since he was eleven and fancied since he was thirteen.

Harry seemed to be expecting an answer about the snooping thing. "I did look!" Ron told him. "And, well, I know what she wants now; I just don't think I can give it to her." Ron hoped Harry didn't ask for any details. There was no way he could tell him what he had found in that trunk, let alone get into the stuff about his dad and The Talk and all.

Thankfully, Harry didn't seem interested in prying. After a moment, though, he mumbled, low and quiet, "I could help…."

"WHAT!" Ron burst out.

"I said, I could help. I knew you'd take it the wrong way."

"Well, excuse me," Ron retorted, wondering what exactly the right way to take that would've been.

"I just thought – it could be like a loan."

Ron started to turn red. If Harry thought Ron would just loan him his girlfriend to – no, that was sick. There must be some sort of misunderstanding.

"A loan?" he asked.

"Yeah. And when this is all over and we're saviours of the wizarding world and the job offers come pouring in, you can pay me back."

Oh. "Um, gee, thanks, mate. That's awful generous of you. But it's … it's not about money."

Harry looked puzzled. "Well then, what's the problem?"

Ron groaned. This was completely embarrassing. "I don't want to talk about it," he growled, and rolled over on the bed, smothering his face in a pillow.

"Ron?"

Ron didn't move or respond to Harry's tentative query. As far as he was concerned, this conversation was over. It didn't take Harry long to get the hint, and soon Ron could hear him leaving the room and clattering down the stairs.

Merlin, he was an idiot. He was the only teenaged boy on the planet to be lying on his bed, two days before Christmas, feeling sorry for himself because his girlfriend wanted him to shag her. What the hell was wrong with him? If this was what came of trying to be mature, maybe he should go back to 'teaspoon'.

A timid knock at the door interrupted this depressing train of thought. "Ron?" Hermione asked, from the other side of the door. "Can I come in? Harry said you weren't mad at me, but you still wouldn't come downstairs. Maybe we should talk?"

Hermione! Boy, some kind of a mate Harry was, sending his girlfriend after a bloke when he just wanted to be left alone. Ron was tempted to tell her to go away, but he supposed he'd have to talk to her about it sooner or later, wouldn't he? Better now than have her spring the topic on him unexpectedly. "Yeah. Come in," he replied, voice cracking ever so slightly with nervousness.

As she opened the door, he quickly sat up and ran a hand through his hair. Where to start? He guessed he ought to apologize for looking through her trunk, but that certainly wasn't going to put her in a good mood. There's one way to go about it, he thought. Piss her off enough, and she'll break it off with you and you won't have to worry about any of this shagging business. Not that that really sounded like a good option. He didn't want to lose Hermione.

"So," Hermione began, sitting carefully on Harry's bed, facing Ron, "what's this about?" She fidgeted with her hair a bit, and Ron was relieved to see he wasn't the only one nervous. "I thought we were doing quite well."

"Yeah," Ron replied. "I think we even had the twins in shock there, for a few days."

She smiled, and he had to smile in return. "Yeah, Fred seemed pretty disappointed when he couldn't start us rowing." He smile faded. "So what went wrong, Ron?"

"Um. Well, you see." He tried to look guilty, which wasn't hard, as he sure felt it. "You know how it's Christmas?"

"I had noticed," she replied calmly.

"And, well, it's supposed to be a really happy time for us because it's a break from the you-know-what hunt, and all. And I didn't even get you a present last year because of … things, and so I want to get you a really good one."

"Uh-huh." Hermione nodded cautiously. "I want to get you something special, too," she added tentatively.

"Yeah. Um. So, anyway, it was with these noble goals in mind, just so you know, that I … Iwentthroughyourtrunk."

"What was that?" Hermione went pale.

"I, er, went through your trunk. But only because I wanted to get you something you really wanted! I was just looking for a hint!"

"And you found those books, didn't you?" Hermione asked in a small voice.

"Well, um, yeah." Ron couldn't quite meet Hermione's eyes.

There was awkward silence for a minute. Just as he'd predicted, she was mad at him. Ron cringed. "I'm sorry I went through your things," he said. "I won't do it again."

Hermione shifted on the bed. "You should be sorry," she said. "But I suppose I would've had to show the books to you eventually. If we're going to, um…." She blushed.

"Yeah, well. About that." Ron tried to sound calm, but his voice broke, and something must've shown on his face, because Hermione suddenly looked panicked.

"You don't want to?"

"Not … not exactly. It's just-"

"You don't want to," she repeated, apparently ignoring him. "I can't believe – I went out and bought those books because of you! I had to ask my mum to come with me and it was embarrassing! And you don't even want to-" She broke off her rant, which was good, because soon the whole Burrow would've heard her. She looked him right in the eye, and he shifted awkwardly. "What's wrong with me?" she asked abruptly.

"What- nothing's wrong with you, Hermione! You're amazing! It's something wrong with me," Ron concluded.

"Something wrong with you – what do you mean? Something-" she dropped her voice- "something physical?"

"What?" he yelped. "NO! No, nothing like that. Not at all. For Merlin's sake, Hermione, I'm seventeen. Of course everything's in working order."

"Sorry," she retorted, "I just didn't – I mean, what else could it be?"

"Yeah, what else could it be?" Ron asked, letting the sarcasm bleed into his voice. Dammit, why was this happening now, when he wanted to have a serious conversation with her? He thought they were done getting on each other's nerves like this. "I'm Ron, after all, so I couldn't possibly have done something mature, like think it might maybe be a bit too soon for shagging!"

"Oh." Hermione looked stunned. "You really think it's too soon?"

"Yeah, I do. I mean, I've known you since I was eleven, yeah, but we've only been, well, together for six months. I thought we were taking it slow, anyway. I liked taking it slow."

"Really? Do you mean that?" Hermione's expression was unreadable.

"Yes. My dad, well, he said ' being in love is worth waiting for,' and so I want to wait. Because this is serious, and I want to take it seriously, not rush into things just because."

"Oh, Ron!" she cried, and he suddenly found himself being embraced tightly as she practically leapt from the other bed to him. "That's so sweet! I'm so glad to hear you say that."

"You- you are? But what about those books?"

"I only bought them because I thought you'd want to." Her voice was slightly muffled from her face being pressed against his shoulder. "I just assumed – and I shouldn't have. I should've talked to you. But I wanted to be ready, so I thought a little research-"

At that Ron laughed, in relief as much as anything. 'Bloody hell, Hermione. Only you would do shagging research. You're mental, is what I think."

Pulling away from the hug, she thumped him affectionately on the head, and he winced exaggeratedly and rubbed it as if it had really hurt. "Oaf," she teased.

"Hey now! After I just proved the depths of my sensitivity? I'd better not hear anything more about teaspoons, you know."

"No, no. I'd say you're definitely upgraded to soup ladle," she replied.

"You wound me," he shot back, but he held her to him again, and this time, he kissed her, long and gentle and serious.

When he finally broke the kiss, she sighed happily and smiled at him. "So, are we all right again?"

"No," he answered, but he smiled back. "I still have no idea what I'm getting you for Christmas."