A/N: Short chapter! So sorry! I won't get the tenth chapter up for a while longer! Sorry! R&R!!!

Hermione stood in the now dark corridor examining Harry in silence. He was still very red in the face, but his eyes had lost some of their anger. Truth be told, he looked not unlike a scolded child who was filled with defiance at having been told he was wrong. The look stayed her hand from reversing the charm immediately after Ron and Kate disappeared. Certainty that he would go after them and finish Ron off coursed through her thoughts shouting "CAUTION!" in big red letters. So they sat in silence for a full ten minutes as she waited until his shaking had subsided.

"I'm going to let you off now, but if you run to kill Ron again, I won't think twice about doing this again. He is our friend and I like his being alive." Her words reverberated off of the stone walls. After as slight murderous look at her, his green eyes shown with defeat. She reversed the curse and held Harry's wand out to him. He took it and put it safely back into his back pocket and began to walk in the opposite direction of the common room. "Are you okay?" she asked finally following him back towards the marble staircase.

"Hermione, that is my sister! My little sister and he had his hands—" he made a frustrated motion as if grabbing invisible breasts before gagging in disgust. "How could he do that? She's only sixteen and he was taking advantage of her! And—" He stopped as he heard Hermione snigger behind him.

She quickly straightened her face and gazed up at him. "Oh, come on! You don't honestly believe that now do you?"

He blinked at her obliviously.

"Harry! They have been mooning over one another for months now! I mean honestly! You didn't notice!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that your sister and your best friend have been crazy about one another for a while now. Probably been dating for a really long time without telling you because—well—they knew you would react like this."

"Of course I would react like this! How would Ron react if suddenly I were kissing Ginny? That is my baby sister and she is too young and he is—"

"—your best friend."

"But he's not good enough for her!"

"Would anyone be?"

He paused for a moment in the courtyard just outside of the entrance hall. The cold winter air tugged at his cloak sending sparks of tingles down his bare arms and cooling his anger a few degrees. "Well, no, but still." Restless, he paced around the snowdrift-buried fountain.

She grabbed Harry by the shoulders and made him face her. His gaze bit into her, but she held it steadfastly. Without looking away she casually flicked her wand at one of the snow covered benches making it dry and warm before saying, "Harry, you don't have to worry about Kate! She can take care of herself. And you need to ask yourself one question. Is losing both of them really worth butting heads with two of the most stubborn people we know over something that is making them both happy in such dark times?"

Harry fell into silence and sat down. "You really think—"

"Yeah," she said taking a seat next to him letting him marinate for a moment.

"I don't like it," he grumbled.

"It doesn't matter."

He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. He knew she was right. He just wasn't ready to swallow his pride about it yet.

A comfortable silence settled around them as the soft winter noises began to float around them. After a while she added, "Plus it the atmosphere couldn't have been more romantic."

"What?!" He looked over at her surprised.

She blushed prettily at the admission and became ver interested in picking at a stray string on her arithmacy book. Not for the first time he noticed how beautiful his female best friend had become. The failing sun was washing her curly brown hair, flecking it with blonde and redish highlights making her look more radiant than before. Freckles dusted her nose giving her just enough of an innocent look so that when she looked up at him through her eyelashes she looked sultry rather than childish. Her boyish figure had finally curved in all the right places giving her a look that made Harry rethink how he could have ever considered the woman before him plain. Her cheeks flushed deeper with embarrassment when she noticed how Harry was looking at her, but she didn't back off.

Tentative at first, Harry leaned in, brushing a strand of her hair behind her ear and hooked his index finger under he jaw drawing her forward. Softly, he closed his eyes and gently brushed his lips against hers, savoring the smoothness of them against his own. When she didn't pull away he moved his hand into her hair and deepened the kiss. To his surprise, she returned it tangling her petite fingers into his windswept locks.

But as suddenly as it had begun, she pulled away and stood suddenly. "I'm sorry, I can't!" she said and turning on her heal headed back into the castle, leaving Harry to ponder the confusion and annoyance that seemed to be his bedmate this evening.

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