Chapter 3 - Couldn't You Tell?
Hermione sat on her camp bed that night in Ginny's room, biting her lip, her hands folding tightly in her lap. Ginny folded clothes distractedly in front of her wardrobe, but when she turned around, her eyes landed on Hermione where she had closed her eyes tightly, her lips almost white where she was pressing them together.
"This might be the scariest thing I've ever had to do," Hermione said, her voice unsteady and barely audible. It was as if Hermione wasn't really talking to anyone, even though Ginny was only a few feet away in the same room.
"What might?" Ginny said softly, focused on Hermione now. Hermione opened her eyes and looked up at Ginny where she stood staring down at Hermione, her clothes forgotten.
"What I have to go say now," Hermione mumbled.
"Which is?" Ginny said, moving closer to where Hermione sat.
"I... can't..." Hermione breathed.
"Look," Ginny said, sitting down next to Hermione. "Just go and talk to him." Hermione glanced up at Ginny, slightly alarmed by her directness. "It'll be fine," Ginny continued. "And it certainly can't be worse than sitting in here going mental over it, can it? And it definitely can't be worse than the past two weeks have been for both of you, right?"
Hermione shook her head slightly.
"Okay," she said, and she stood from the bed and swallowed hard. "Here goes."
Ron sat on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. How had this happened? How had he not seen the signs of this coming? He had been so sure that things were changing between them, that Hermione might have started to see him in a way that at least vaguely resembled how he saw her. And now... how would he ever be able to face Harry again, knowing how Hermione felt about him? How would he be able to face Hermione again?
A knock on his door broke through his thoughts and he moved to answer it, hardly even realizing that the chances of it being Hermione were probably high. When he opened the door to reveal Hermione standing on the other side, he felt his stomach drop as it had earlier, and he found that he couldn't look directly at her as he moved away to let her come into the room. He turned his back towards her.
"What is it?" he asked. Hermione didn't answer right away, and he knew that she was staring at him. He could feel it.
"Ron, I need to talk to you about-"
But he turned around abruptly and cut her off, suddenly angry and unable to contain it.
"I think I've had enough personal conversations with you for one day, thanks."
Hermione's eyes instantly filled with tears and Ron wanted to jump out the window. He suddenly felt so terrible.
"Hermione," he said in a very small voice. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
But it was her turn to cut him off...
"You should have told me not to ask you what we talked about in the kitchen then! I gave you a chance to say you didn't want to hear about it."
"No, Hermione, that's not-"
But she cut him off again as if she hadn't heard him.
"Do you have any idea how hard this is for me?! Even being in this room with you right now... I almost didn't come up, but after what you said, that you'd want to know, I knew that I had to come up here and-"
"Well maybe I was wrong!" Ron shouted, some of his anger returning. "Maybe I don't want to know this! Maybe if things were different, if it was actually me that you were referring to, then I'd want to know. But maybe you should go and ask the person that this really concerns instead of bothering me with it!"
Tears spilled down Hermione's face and her lips began to quiver.
"I'm sorry I ever bothered you!" she shouted back.
Ron felt guilt returning again and wanted to kick something... But then suddenly, Hermione seemed to realize something that Ron had said that didn't add up. Her eyebrows furrowed, and though she was still crying, it was obvious that something had confused her.
"And what do you mean 'ask the person that this concerns'? Who are you talking about?"
"Harry, of course," Ron said, looking away from Hermione so she wouldn't see all of the hurt and anger that he felt.
"Harry?" Hermione asked, shocked. "What does Harry have to do with this?"
For a glorious moment, Ron considered the option that he had gotten this whole thing wrong, that he had assumed she had been talking about Harry but that he was incorrect. But then he remembered what she had said in the kitchen.
"You said 'if I tell him and he doesn't feel the way I do'," Ron said, as if that cleared it all up.
"And you thought I was talking about Harry?" Hermione asked, astonished.
"Who else would you be talking about?" But then something struck Ron, something that now seemed so obvious he could hardly believe he hadn't thought of it before. "Krum..." he muttered, but Hermione heard him.
"No!" she shouted, her face getting redder by the second. "I wasn't talking about sodding Viktor Krum either, Ron, and would you stop bringing him into everything?!"
Ron stood silent for a moment, confused and upset... pieces of the puzzle seemed to be sliding into place, but he couldn't quite make them all fit.
"Wait..." he began, thinking aloud. "You weren't talking about Harry in the kitchen? And you weren't talking about Krum?"
Hermione made an impatient and desperate sound as more tears spilled down her cheeks.
"So... who were you on about then?" Ron demanded, turning to face her full on now.
"I was talking about you, you prat!" Hermione shouted through a sob.
Thick silence filled the air as this sunk in. Everything Hermione had said in the kitchen rushed back to Ron, all the confessions of her feelings, what this person would want her to say to them if they had a choice in the matter, if this certain someone would want to know how she felt about him... something that could change their relationship for good... and she didn't know if this person would return her feelings or not... She had been talking about him all along. She actually felt...
Ron stared at Hermione, his mouth open in shock, and finally, taking a deep breath, he knew what he had to say.
"Oh my God, Hermione. I had no bloody idea."
She wouldn't look at him, but he could see the tears still trickling down her face.
"I can't believe this is actually happening," Ron continued in awe. "Do you have any idea how many times I've dreamed about this, imagined that you felt the same way I do?"
Hermione's shocked face looked up into Ron's and they stared at one another, Hermione's wet eyes glowing and wide, her mouth slightly open in shock.
"The same way... you do?" she asked timidly.
"Yeah! I mean... you do, right?" he asked, suddenly embarrassed again.
"Yes, Ron!" Hermione shouted. "How obvious can I make it?!"
And Ron found himself grinning, unable to stop, even though a deep blush was creeping slowly onto his cheeks.
"Wow..." he said, nothing more profound coming to mind other than cries of joy that he wasn't sure he should really let Hermione see or hear...
Hermione sniffed, but she was grinning through her tears now too.
"I'm sorry," Ron said quickly as he moved towards her. "I really upset you." And when he reached her, when he was standing mere inches in front of her, he knew what he should do, what he was now almost certainly allowed to do whenever he wanted to. He pulled her as close as he could, his arms wrapped tightly around her. Hermione responded almost instantly, clinging to Ron as she buried her face in his chest. And after a long moment, she spoke into his shirt.
"You actually thought I fancied Harry?" Ron heard the laughter in her voice and he grinned wider. For some reason, now that this little misunderstanding had been cleared up, the concept that he had been so quick to believe that Hermione fancied Harry was absolutely comical.
"Yeah. Completely mental, I know... well, I know now," he said through his grin.
Hermione pulled back from him and wiped at her cheeks and eyes to finish drying them, but Ron's arms remained around her.
"So, spell this out for me, because I need to be absolutely sure that I've got it all right," Ron said, trying to sound serious but his smile betraying him. Hermione rolled her eyes.
"What? You want me to tell you again that I... that I fancy you?" Hermione said, blushing. Ron's grin spread even wider.
"That'd be nice, yeah," he said.
"Well, I just have, haven't I."
"Not exactly."
Hermione laughed.
"Fine!" she said, and she smiled up at him. "Ron, I fancy you. A lot. And I just thought you should know."
"Oh, really?" Ron said, feigning ignorance. "That's very interesting..."
Ron went silent, but continued to stare down at Hermione who looked back up at him expectantly.
"And now you have nothing to say about it?" she asked.
"Hm... I can't really think of anything," Ron said, looking up and pretending to think hard. "Nope," he said, looking back down at her. "I've got nothing."
"Prat," Hermione said as she attempted to move out of Ron's arms. But he stopped her, laughing.
"Hermione, I've just thought of something... and you should probably be made aware of it."
"Is that so?" Hermione said, arching an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah. Hermione," Ron began, locking eyes with her. "I fancy you. A lot," Ron said, echoing Hermione's words. "And I just thought you should know."
"Hm," Hermione said, grinning again now. "That sounds awfully familiar..."
"Does it?"
"Definitely."
And almost instantly, something between them shifted from playful to... well, something else that Ron had never experienced before in his life. His eyes darted to Hermione's lips and his heart flipped over as her eyes copied his movements, darting down to glance darkly at his lips. His breathing was ragged and shallow now and he tried to calm down as his body began to tingle all over, every spot that was touching Hermione, his chest, his arms, even his forehead that had somehow inched forward and down to rest against hers.
He wanted her to say something, anything, to break the tension between them. But at the same time, he desperately wanted to stay trapped in this blissful agony for the rest of his days.
Kiss her! Kiss her! his brain shouted. His ears buzzed as blood pumped furiously from his rapidly beating heart to the rest of his body. This was it. He could move three inches and his life would change forever. There would be no going back if he kissed her. And if he was really being honest, there was no going back at this point anyway. This was what he wanted. She was all he wanted.
"Hermione," he mumbled, unsure if her name had been even vaguely clear as it passed from the frog in his throat through his tingling lips.
Her lips moved very slightly, and though he hadn't heard a thing, he knew she had been trying to say his name back. And in that instant, the moment her lips had parted and he had felt rather than heard his own name coming from her mouth where it waited inches from his own, he could no longer control his own body. He could no more stop himself from kissing her than he could stop breathing and go on living.
His lips touched hers after what seemed like an endless closing of that tiny little distance, those three little inches. His eyes shut tight, but not before locking with hers the moment that their lips touched for the first time.
Every bad or scary thought he had ever felt drifted out of his mind as if turned instantly to vapor. It was as if his life was over and he was now glimpsing something beautiful on the other side, something perfect. His heart could have stopped right then, he could have died there wrapped around her with his eyes shut tight and he would never regret a moment of his life.
His stomach was one giant knot of butterflies. His chest, where it touched Hermione's, was soaring as if lighter than air. His right hand found Hermione's cheek and he could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips. He wondered if she could feel it too. As he moved his lips against hers, he felt his temperate rising. She responded, moving her lips gently against his as if her life depended on this moment, and in a way, Ron ecstatically felt that his life actually did.
As they pulled apart to breathe, Ron felt so dizzy that he wasn't sure he'd be able to go on standing. Hermione's weight pressed against him, and as her eyes opened slowly, he knew that she must feel the same way. Her knees were beginning to bend and her arms were slackening around his neck.
"Here," Ron croaked in a scratchy voice. He reached behind Hermione to shut his door with a shaky hand. Then he pulled her towards his bed where they collapsed together onto their sides, facing one another.
Ron felt his whole body trembling, and he could feel Hermione shaking as well. His hand moved absentmindedly up her side, his fingers floating over her cotton shirt. Hermione giggled nervously as she scooted a bit closer to Ron on the bed, pressing their bodies against each other. Ron felt his face heat up, but he smiled giddily back at Hermione as he pressed his forehead against hers on the pillow. His lips ached for hers again, but before he even had time to think about his next move, Hermione slid forward on the pillow and crushed her lips against his. Ron's eyes snapped shut blissfully as he breathed through his long nose, holding Hermione as close as he could.
As it had been the first time moments ago, all conscious thought drifted away from Ron when their lips met, and he was full of nothing but soaring emotions that made him feel as if he might explode. He finally understood what that was like after all this time, how it was to feel so complete, so overwhelmed, that you could hardly stand it.
When they finally parted again to breathe, Ron found that no real words were left floating to his lips. He had nothing to say, nothing that he'd be able to say anyway. He had plenty of things that he wanted to tell her, to make her understand. He wanted her to know that she was everything, that nothing else in his whole world mattered now or ever would. But as he stared back into her eyes, he felt like he'd never be able to say it, so he concentrated on making her see it in his eyes. He watched as her eyes filled with tears again, but this time he knew it was for another reason, a much better one than earlier. And all of sudden, before he even realized it was happening, his own eyes were blurring as tears pooled in them.
"Ron," Hermione breathed as she reached up to cup his cheek in her hand.
"Thank you," Ron found himself whispering to no one as his eyes fluttered shut, several tears edging their way out of his eyes. He felt Hermione brush them away with trembling fingertips, and he breathed in deeply, somewhat nervously, but in a more satisfying way than he ever had before. Everything felt perfect. Nothing could go wrong. He had once thought of his life as beginning his first year at Hogwarts. He now knew that he had been wrong. His life had just begun moments ago in his bedroom at the Burrow, and only one person had been there to see it, the person who had brought him to life.
