Hi guys, Chapter 4 already!
In this chapter, a subtle shift occurs in the dynamic between Ron and Hermione... Hope you enjoy it!
Since this is my first story, I would appreciate it if you leave a short review if you like this story! Advice is also very welcome, of course. Let me know what you think!

Chapter 4

- Ron -

Two hours. That's how long they had been in the pub. It was so warm that Ron's T-shirt was starting to cling to his body. He had already had a few beers, but he was only slightly tipsy. For the past two hours, he had mainly been hanging out with his friends. Harry and Ginny had disappeared an hour ago. They were probably somewhere in a corner where no one could see them kissing.

Ron had decided it wasn't wise to stick too close to Hermione. She probably already thought he was a meddling jerk, and if he stayed by her side all the time, he would undoubtedly come off even worse.

Hermione was now with a few girls that Ron recognized as girlfriends of some of his friends. They had formed a little group together and were dancing, chatting, and giggling. Ron was amazed that:

a) girls seemed to become friends so quickly in a pub setting, whereas in real life it was much harder than with boys, and

b) girls could easily dance as if they were professional dancers, without really making an effort. Even Hermione, who had never been out before, was energetically dancing. And since she had only had two beers, she couldn't possibly be drunk.

Yep, Ron wasn't proud of it, but he had been keeping such a close eye on Hermione that he knew how much beer she had had.

"What's the deal with you and that pretty, smart girl?" Jacques yelled in Ron's ear. His French accent was even more prominent when he had been drinking.

"We were best friends for a long time," Ron shouted back.

"And you want to sleep with her," Jacques observed.

"What?" Ron looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"Isn't it true? Why else would you be staring at her all night like a creep?"

"I brought her along tonight to give our friendship a second chance," Ron said.

"And that works best when you're glancing at her from a few meters away, like a dirty old man?" Jacques slurred into his ear.

Ron couldn't help but laugh at this remark and pushed Jacques on the shoulder, causing the boy to stagger a bit.

"When was the last time you were with a girl, anyway?" Jacques asked.

"A few years ago," Ron replied, briefly recalling his disastrous relationship with Lavender.

"And what about that time you were flirting with that girl, last year or something?"

"Which girl?" Ron genuinely didn't know who Jacques was referring to.

"I think you were pretty drunk, so maybe you don't remember."

Oh, that night, thought Ron. That night he got drunk because of the argument with Hermione.

"That was two years ago," Ron said. "And no, nothing came of it."

"Come on, man, have some fun. Flirt with girls, maybe even kiss one..."

"Just because you go to bed with any random girl you meet, doesn't mean I have to," Ron defended himself.

"You're just jealous because I charm all the girls with my French accent," Jacques said, pretending to be arrogant.

"That's ridiculous," Ron chuckled.

"Well, anyway, it wouldn't hurt to talk to that pretty girl of yours. Because if you want to casually win her over, it helps to at least talk to her," Jacques rambled into his ear.

"Okay, you're a jerk, but you do have a point," he admitted.

"Again: I'm not trying to seduce her, I just want us to be friends again."

"Whatever you tell yourself, mate. Just go dance with her."

Ron nodded vaguely, said goodbye to Jacques, and began to weave his way through the crowd. He had to push some people aside to reach Hermione.

"Hey, 'Mione." He tapped her shoulder. Hermione turned around and looked at him. Her eyes seemed larger than usual, had she done that with makeup? Interesting, what girls did to their faces when they went out. He didn't quite understand why Hermione bothered, because she was already beautiful.

"Hey," she said.

"Why don't we catch up properly?" Ron asked. A voice inside him said that if he hadn't had a few beers, he would never have been so direct.

Hermione laughed at him. "There are places where we could hear each other better, you know."

"Yes, but we're here now. And I just haven't really talked to you in way too long." Ron knew he was talking nonsense, but Hermione went along with it.

"Okay, let's catch up," she said, and she pulled him towards the bar.

"What are you doing?" Ron yelled in her ear.

Hermione turned halfway. "You catch up over a drink, right?"

"Okay, fair enough," said Ron. "I'll pay. What do you want?"

"A lemonade."

Ron raised his eyebrow at her. "No beer?"

"I'm not a huge fan of beer."

"Okay," he said. "Then I'll have lemonade too."

Hermione looked at him surprised, with a hint of approval on her face. "You don't have to hold back for me, Ronald."

Ron couldn't help but grin broadly when he heard her call him Ronald.

"You might as well just call me Ron by now," he teased her. "And no, lemonade is fine. We have another tough training session scheduled for tomorrow, so I better not have a hangover."

He yelled the order to the bartender.

"Here," he said when he handed the lemonade to Hermione. He took her arm and pulled her towards the stairs of the pub. "It's less crowded upstairs," he shouted.

Unfortunately, it wasn't so quiet on the next floor. The only thing quieter was the style of music; up here they always played less upbeat music, which Ron would best describe as 'trance music.' The few people standing there also looked as if they were in trance: as if they were mentally not in the same place as they were physically. Fortunately, the music was at a low enough volume to allow them to talk to each other.

"So..." Ron began when they were standing quite close to each other, on the seemingly only empty spot on the floor, "how are your subjects going?" He said it in a much too serious tone, making it clear that he was joking. But in reality, he didn't know what to say now that they were so close to each other.

Hermione laughed. "You probably don't want to talk about my subjects," she said.

"No," Ron admitted. "But tell me, how did you and Parvati suddenly become such close friends?" He tried to convey with his tone that he was genuinely curious and that his remark wasn't a dig at their fight two years ago.

"It actually started mainly because Parvati felt lonely without Lavender," Hermione explained.

"Yeah, I still find it odd that she didn't want to continue studying," said Ron. "Not that it matters to me," he quickly added.

Hermione seemed to ignore that remark. "Parvati needed someone to chat with. She started sitting with me occasionally when I was studying in the library. She talked a lot; it was actually quite annoying. At first, I tried to focus on my books and only half-listened."

"Of course. The first person who can distract you from your books has yet to be born."

"But," Hermione continued, "I found her stories surprisingly interesting after a while."

"What kind of stories?"

"Just girl talk," Hermione said vaguely. "Anyway, I began to appreciate her company more. And before I knew it, we were best friends forever. At least, that's how she puts it. I prefer the term 'very good friends'."

Ron laughed. "Always so serious, you."

"And you?" Hermione asked then. She looked at him directly with those beautiful eyes of hers.

"What about me? You mean, how I became friends with the boys from the swimming team?"

"Yes, that," said Hermione.

Ron carefully searched for his words. He knew he had to be cautious with how he said the following words.

"It was just fun from the start with those guys, you know," he said. "After the war... I think I just needed a change, you get me?"

Hermione looked at him with a look as if she only half understood.

"I mean..." Ron quickly amended, "I liked taking a totally different path for a while. No more Quidditch, because it reminded me of Fred. Not hanging out too much with Harry, because the war was still so much on his mind. I know, I sound like a total jerk, but I didn't know how to be there for Harry. Not while I still had to process Fred's death."

Ron swallowed, pausing for a moment to collect his thoughts. He knew he was rambling. He knew he was revealing a part of himself that he had not shown to anyone. But he couldn't stop; it was Hermione, it felt familiar, and she looked at him with such a reassuring look that he wanted to share all his thoughts and doubts with her.

"And I noticed that Harry enjoyed being with Ginny a lot," he continued. "I think because she didn't remind him of the war, and we did."

"Wow," said Hermione, and she stared at the ground for a moment. When she looked up again, she had a soft look in her eyes. "I'm sorry I didn't think about that... That the war was the reason we... saw each other less and less. I assumed we would seek comfort in each other," she said.

"Maybe we should have," said Ron. "But I was too preoccupied with distracting myself from everything that reminded me of the war. In the first year, I trained about six times a week to distract myself. It helped. And I made fantastic friendships because of it."

"I'm glad about that, truly," said Hermione. "I just... wish things had gone differently, you know?"

"I know," said Ron seriously. He didn't really know what to say. "But 'Mione, it's not too late, if you were thinking that." He smiled apologetically and saw that Hermione understood what he meant. Their friendship could still be saved. The tears in her eyes showed how relieved she was about this conversation.

"No, it's never too late," she said. And then: "Ron, I... Can I just..." She looked at him as if she was uncertain about what she wanted to say. And then, totally unexpectedly, she took his glass out of his hand, placed it next to her own on the nearest table, and hugged him.

It felt good and just as exciting as it had been in the year before the war, when they had occasionally hugged. Ron pulled her tightly against him, his nose buried in her big curls. She smelled fantastic, like everything he smelled in the cauldron with Amortentia in their sixth year of Hogwarts. He hadn't smelled Amortentia in a long time, but he was sure it would still smell exactly the same.

So they stood for a few seconds before Hermione gently let him go, much too early for his liking.

"So," said Ron with a hoarse voice, "I'll do my best to be a good friend to you again. You know, distracting you while studying, bothering you with trivial questions about my own homework, not noticing when you've been to the hairdresser..."

"I wouldn't expect anything less," said Hermione. She smiled so brightly at him that he felt like hugging her again, but this time with his lips on hers and his hands roaming all over her back. He suppressed the urge.

Now that the atmosphere was lighter again, they chatted about anything and everything, making Ron feel like everything was back to normal for the first time in two or three years. They told each other anecdotes about funny things that had happened in the past few years. Talking and laughing together felt so good that Ron lost track of time. They might have been standing there for an hour, maybe two, or maybe five hours.

"Come on, let's head downstairs," Hermione suggested at one point, leading him towards the stairs.

As they reached the ground flour, Ron noticed the crowd had thinned out a bit. Had it gotten late already?

In the meanwhile, Ron's group of friends had formed one big group where everyone seemed to be present again, including Harry and Ginny.

When Ron and Hermione joined them, Harry looked at Ron meaningfully.

"Been fun up there?" he yelled in Ron's ear.

"Shut it, nothing happened," Ron shouted back. But he grinned broadly.

The music playing now was unmistakably 'danceable', but to his annoyance, Ron never knew how to dance. When he looked around, he saw everyone moving enthusiastically, knowing what they had to do. Why couldn't he? He always attempted to move along, but it felt unconvincing.

As he looked around, Ron couldn't help but notice that Hermione danced just as well as the others. Where had she learned that? Maybe she was just a natural talent.

And suddenly he realized something. Brilliant! Why hadn't he thought of this before?

He tapped Hermione on the shoulder. "I've got a great idea," he said to her.

"Oh yeah?" Hermione looked at him interestedly.

"Do you remember we were Sports Team of the Year?"

"Of course I remember," Hermione nodded.

"Well, it's amazing that we won and all, but that means I have to open the Summer ball, dancing. Can you imagine me dancing?"

"No," Hermione admitted. "But you can learn anything."

"I considered calling in sick. But then I'd be letting my team down, and I don't think they'd forgive me. But now I've got it."

"I'm intrigued."

"You're going to teach me how to dance."

"Huh?" Hermione looked surprised. "What's that about?"

"You are actually quite good at dancing," he said. Or… maybe he had to phrase this differently, to coax her a little. "I think you look great when you dance," he added. Shit, it came out as if he had been staring at her the whole time.

But Hermione looked flattered, blushing a little. "I took a dance course two years ago in the summer, with Parvati."

"See? You've already got the skills. Will you teach me?" he pleaded.

"It depends on what kind of dance," she said. "I only have experience in ballroom dancing."

"Perfect, right? I really don't care what we do, we just need to twirl around the room a bit before everyone else gets on the floor."

"We?" Hermione raised an eyebrow.

"I need a partner for this dance, don't I?"

"Isn't that arranged for you?" Hermione asked. "Last year, when the girls' Quidditch team won, they found boys willing to dance with them."

"That turned into a bit of a drama, apparently, as two boys wanted to dance with the same girl," Ron laughed. "So this year, everyone has to find their own dance partner to avoid that."

"So you're asking if I want to open the Summer Ball with you?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"Yes, who else would I do it with?" Ron asked. When he saw Hermione's look, he quickly said: "Uh, I mean, I'd love to do it with you."

A wide grin spread across her face. "Oh, how exciting! I would love to, Ron! Oh, I'm already afraid I'm going to stumble... and what on earth should I do with my hair? But this is fantastic, I have always secretly wanted to be one of those first dancers..." Her thoughts seemed to scatter in every direction as she rambled.

"Great," said Ron, satisfied. He was relieved to have this issue resolved. But why did something still bother him? A voice in his head suggested that taking dance lessons from Hermione might not be such a good idea. How could he pretend to just be friends with her when, every time he was close, he wanted to grab her hips and kiss her until she ran out of breath?