August 24th

As lunch was served, the trio reluctantly left what they were doing and sat down at the table in silence. As it was raining, they had all had an excuse to segregate to separate rooms of the house.

Ron had been sitting in his room, trying to concentrate on his new Chudley Canons biography and failing miserably as his mind wandered back to Harry and Hermione. Hermione had been in Ginny's room lying on the floor contemplating what had gone wrong over the past couple of days and Harry had decided to find Mr Weasley in the garage to finally explain the function of a rubber duck.

They had effectively managed to avoid each other for a whole three days, except for the run in that Ron and Hermione had briefly had the day after. By now, the twins had found out what had happened and were determined to rub it in next time the three of them were together.

'Well, well, well,' said George as Ron joined the rest of the group at the table in the kitchen, 'if it isn't the usual suspects.'

'Speak for yourself,' said Ginny, the only one not affected by the news knowing that it was all just a misunderstanding, as she reached across for some bread from the breadbasket. Hermione had spoken to her about the incident and Ginny felt that she understood completely, much to Hermione's relief.

'Any developments?' asked Fred as he drummed his fingers together mischievously.

'On what?' asked Mrs Weasley as she entered the room with a saucepan full of soup.

'On the situation between these three hormonal teenagers,' George piped up before Fred even had time to open his mouth, 'there's been a lot of kissing going on under your own roof and you weren't even aware of it because all three of them are so embarrassed…'

'SHUT UP,' Ron stood up so quickly and violently that the table shook, 'JUST SHUT UP!'

Hermione and Harry both looked up at him in amazement; in a way, Harry knew what was wrong but Hermione was oblivious to what was going on in Ron's head at that moment.

'Ron, I don't see why you're getting so worked up,' squeaked Hermione, 'it was just…'

'Just a friendly kiss,' Ron cut her off, 'Yeah, I know! You keep saying. But what if it wasn't, you refuse to admit that it could be something more.'

'Because it wasn't anything more, you're reading too much into this,' she got to her feet, and leant across the table to him, 'if you'd given me time to talk after the incident instead of locking yourself away in your room then maybe you would have understood my feeling.'

'I know what happened, I was there!' he leaned forwards in anger.

'You don't know the whole story,' Hermione snapped.

'Look, you two,' Harry said, hoping to make the situation better, 'this is my fault…'

'No it isn't, Harry. You had no say in the matter,' Hermione pointed at him.

'No say?' Ron scoffed, 'he's at the heart of it, if he hadn't been there then none of this would have happened.'

'Maybe it was my fault,' Hermione yelled, bringing her face closer to his, steadying herself with the table.

'Partly yours, partly his,' Ron replied.

'Stop being so childish, Ronald!'

'Will you two please sit down and tell me what's been going on?' Mrs Weasley pleaded, raising her voice over the squabbling of the pair.

'Ask Hermione,' Ron snarled, now nose to nose with Hermione, 'she knows exactly what happened!'

For a second they just stood there in silence, Hermione could feel Ron's warm breath on her face and could see deep into his eyes. She could see all of the hurt which he must have been bottling up since the incident and was beginning to fully understand why he was acting this way, 'Ron, I…' was all she could say before she broke off, as her breath caught in her throat at the discoveries she was making mentally.

Ron waited for her to say something, anything that may restore his hope in their relationship. When she didn't continue he turned from her and left through the back door into the rain, knocking into Mr Weasley as he went.

Hermione sat down heavily, partly in shock and partly from exhaustion. She looked across at Harry who gave her an urging look, Hermione nodded. She understood; excusing herself she headed after Ron, quickening her pace with every step.

'What on earth has been going on?' asked Mr Weasley.

'I was going to ask the same question,' said his wife.

Ginny looked across at Harry, 'Hermione kissed Harry.'

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

August 20th

'Hermione?' Harry asked from across the room. There had been a silence between them since they had run out of things to say and Hermione had resorted to reading History of Magic again.

'Hmmm…' Hermione replied, not looking up from her book. Curled up in an arm chair, Hermione had managed to completely forget that she was in Harry's company and therefore didn't register at first that he wanted to talk.

'What happens if I decide to kiss Cho next year?' This got Hermione's attention fully, she snapped her head up immediately and looked across at Harry with a puzzled expression on her face.

'Are you intending on kissing Cho next year?'

'Well, you know, if the occasion arose then…' his sentence drifted off as he tried to find some way of explaining himself, 'erm, well, not Cho in particular but what if I wanted to kiss anyone in future?'

'What about it?' Hermione closed her book, now intrigued by this choice of topic.

'Well, you have experience and I was wondering, you know,' his cheeks were going red, 'how do you kiss someone?' He rushed the last part of the sentence; he kind of wished he hadn't started this conversation and now hoped that Hermione hadn't heard the last bit.

Hermione stood up and walked across to stand in front of Harry, 'stand up.'

'What?'

Hermione took Harry by the arms and pulled him upright, 'now, look me in the eye and tell me what's troubling you.' She'd never kissed Victor properly before but she wasn't going to let on to Harry about that quite yet.

'It's just, you see, I've never felt like this about anyone before. Cho makes me feel like there's butterflies in my stomach, I can't speak around her, it's difficult to breathe…

'That's exactly how I feel about Ron,' thought Hermione.

'… but she's been with Cedric and I'm worried that if I go to kiss her then I'll make a fool out of myself…'

'I wish I had experience in kissing someone too, what if I mess it up. Wait, Ron likes Lavender… but I can't die without him ever knowing I liked him.'

'…so now I'm thinking that you might know what to do and could help me to understand and I feel so stupid for asking you this and…' he began to gabble uncontrollably now that he realised what he'd done.

'I could always kiss Harry, experience for both of us… no, what a stupid idea, but why not?' Hermione struggled with her thoughts. Should she just kiss Harry or should she explain to him the exact logistics of kissing someone?

'…anyway, now that I've made a complete fool out of myself can you just help me out and…'

'Choice A seems like the easier option.'

'Oh, shut up, Harry!'

And with that, Hermione kissed Harry fully on the mouth. No passion, just a kiss. Harry seemed to take a sudden intake of breath and at the same time they both heard a gasp of confusion.

Pulling away suddenly, they both looked towards the door and saw Ron standing there in shock. Backing away from each other, Hermione began to explain what had happened.

'It was nothing, Ron, just a friendly kiss. Harry was worried and… and… it meant nothing. I feel nothing for Harry beyond friendship, right Harry?'

Harry was still standing there in amazement; however, he nodded his head in agreement and finally managed to get out the words, 'all a misunderstanding mate, Hermione was trying to help me to overcome…'

'Shut up, both of you!' yelled Ron and without a further word to either of them, he turned and slammed the door behind him. They could hear the sound of banging as he mounted the staircase and entered his bedroom.

Harry just stood there looking guilty for a moment; he knew why Ron was so upset. He wanted to tell Hermione but had been sworn to secrecy, if he'd been able to tell her then this would have all been worked out by teatime. Instead, he looked to Hermione for explanation, still confused at why she had kissed him.

Looking back at him, Hermione shrugged, 'Sorry Harry, choice A was easier than choice B. You were just going on about no experience and liking someone, and I feel the same. No Harry, I have never really kissed Victor,' Hermione said as Harry opened his mouth to protest. As he closed it again she continued, 'in the end I just snapped, you need experience, I need experience, I just didn't think of the consequences. Can you forgive me?'

Harry smiled, 'of course I can,' he walked across and hugged her, 'I know who you like and I think it's important that you explain the situation to Ron. Just promise me you'll never do anything like that to me again.'

'Promise,' replied Hermione, 'and I will tell Ron, he'll understand.'

How little she knew of the situation at that point.