HALF PAST TWO, MORNING

Harry stumbled through the Fat Lady's portrait and into the Gryffindor common room as if he'd just gotten hit by a car.

"Hey mate," Ron said from the couch. "Rough night?"

Harry blinked at him once, twice. It was late, or more like early, the hour hand of the clock halfway to three. He had expected the common room to be empty. He certainly hadn't expected to see Ron, who loved nothing more at two-thirty in the morning than his pillow.

"Harry?" Ron asked again, after a moment. "You in there?"

"I don't know," Harry said, taking a seat in the plush armchair Hermione loved so much.

"You don't know?"

Harry swallowed. Tried to think of the best way to say what was on his mind. Instead, it just came pouring out, all at once. "How do you know when you're in love with someone?"

Ron stared at him.

"Ron?"

"Bloody hell, Harry," Ron said, sighing. He sat up and flipped closed the book he was reading, some kind of essay on a regerminating potion. "I don't think this is really my area of expertise."

"Why not?" Harry asked. "You've got parents, and they're clearly in love."

"I don't really talk with my parents about their relationship, Harry," Ron said. "I try to avoid it all costs, actually."

"Ron, come on," Harry said. "You're my best mate. Who else am I going to ask about this?"

Ron thought for a moment – really thought about it, making that face he made when he was puzzling over one move or another in chess – but no answer seemed to come to him. "I don't know," he said, shaking his head slightly. He looked up at Harry, meeting his eyes. "I think maybe Hermione-"

"Not Hermione," Harry said immediately. "This isn't a Hermione conversation." Just the thought of her brought it all back. The warmth of her. The smell of the perfume she had taken to wearing, cinnamon. He could practically smell it again, clinging to the chair. Hermione's chair.

"Harry," Ron said, from somewhere far away. "Harry. Harry." He leaned across the table and snapped his fingers in Harry's face. "Come on, speak."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, shaking his head. "My thoughts got away from me."

"They'll do that," Ron said rolling his eyes. "That's why I try to have as few as possible."

Harry fixed him with a pleading stare.

Ron opened his mouth, about to say something. Closed it again. Shook his head. "Okay," he said. "Okay. Let's help you out then. Love. Er. Well. You...knew this girl before you were in love with her, right?" A pause. "I'd assume."

"Yeah. I mean, she's a student, so we've known her."

"Right." Ron nodded. "So you know how you felt about her before."

Harry nodded eagerly, happy to finally have an answer to something. "Right. Exactly. I knew what we were." Every since the troll attack in their first year, he had known exactly how much she meant to him.

"And it's different now?" Ron asked.

Another nod, slower. "I guess it has. It sneaked up on me," Harry said, thinking it through. Trying to remember. When had it begun? The more he tried, the less he was able to pinpoint a moment where he had stopped thinking of her as a friend. Seeing her for the first time, after that last endless summer – practicing charms with her after his name had come out of the goblet of fire, when no-one else had believed him, not even Ron – huddled so close together that their foreheads touched, her time turned around both their necks – it couldn't possibly have started all the way back then, could it have? He would've known. But all of it had been background, simmering in the far reaches of his mind. Until-

He came back to himself. "It's definitely different. I just don't know if it's – if it's love now."

"I don't think anyone does, mate," Ron said. "I think that's something you're meant to figure out with her." He cleared his throat. "As in, talk to that person about it, and not me."

"I can't," Harry said immediately. He didn't know much of anything about love, but he knew that that would be an unmitigated disaster. He couldn't even bring himself to imagine it – he knew that the minute he opened his mouth he would say something wrong, and she would start crying. God, he couldn't stand the thought of making another girl cry. "After everything with Cho, I don't think it's a good idea."

"Well, that's a good point," Ron said, though he looked loathe to admit it. "You haven't exactly been hitting it across the pitch with the girls recently."

"Recently?" Harry asked.

"Well you held your own at the Yule Ball."

"Only compared to you, mate."

Ron grinned wide. "Okay then," he said, "Your dating life has been one long, downhill skid and you don't think it'll be any different with Hermione."

"She's Hermione," Harry said. "The same Hermione who bosses us around and drags us off to liberate house elves, and makes us do our homework three different times until it's just right."

"She's the same," Ron said. "But it is different now."

Harry shook his head. "She's been different."

"Has she?"

"You haven't noticed?" Harry asked.

"Harry, mate, with the OWLs coming up Hermione has been more Hermione-ey than ever."

"You think? I dunno. It used to be that all the…" he made a gesture with his hands, as if trying to get a hold of something he couldn't quite grip, "Hermione-ey-ness got under my skin. I mean, it made her Hermione, of course."

"Wouldn't have her any other way," Ron said, nodding sagely. "Part of the whole Hermione package."

"Right, right. You like her just the way she is. But sort of despite all that...Hermione-ey-ness."

"Like a sour tart," Ron said. "Sour. Tasty. Tasty because it's sour. But still sour." He paused. "Are the kitchens still open, you reckon?"

"But is it still despite all that?" Harry said, barely hearing him. He stared intently at the heavy wooden table, strewn with books and parchment. "You don't think it's gotten endearing? Over the years?"

Ron considered that a moment. "I'd say she's softened," he said. "Still a right piece of work though."

"Sometimes," Harry said, leaning in close and dropping his voice, as if anyone in the whole castle were awake to overhear. "Sometimes, I see her coming, with that Hermione-ey look in her eye, and I think I'm looking forward to it. Is that love, or am I just mad?"

"Well you're a raving lunatic, but maybe that's it, innit?" Ron asked. "Look at my mum and dad, you think anyone in their right mind has seven kids on their budget?"

"So love makes you crazy, is that it?"

"Would definitely explain tonight," Ron said.

"I'm in love with Hermione and I'm completely mad," Harry said. "What do I do?"

Ron pointed upstairs, in the general direction of the girl's dormitory.

"No," Harry said immediately.

"Come off it…" Ron muttered, "why not?"

"What do I say, you reckon?" Harry asked. "How do you even bring that up? Just wait until I see her at breakfast and ambush her? Talk about how I think about her all the time now, and keep coming up with these stupid little excuses to get closer to her? To put a hand on her shoulder? Tell her that it feels like there's a bloody monster in my chest every time I see her?"

"Well, no, you definitely don't tell her any of that," Ron said. "Unless you want to go to an institution, I suppose."

"Ron."

"God's sake, Harry, it's not hard. You do your hair, put on a nice robe, tell her some stupid jokes, and ask if she wants to grab a butterbeer the next time you're at Hogsmeade."

"Would need to make it a firewhiskey," Harry said.

Ron just threw up his hands.

Harry shook his head. "No. She's my best friend."

Ron coughed, pointedly.

"You know what I mean," Harry said. "I can't risk it."

Ron opened his mouth. Closed it again. Harry watched as a multitude of emotions flickered across his friend's face, each one transitioning to the next so quickly that it was impossible to tell any of them apart. "Why not?"

Because it was her. "Because…" Beautiful, unstoppable, the cleverest witch of her age. "Because…" Because it was him. "Because…" Orphaned, marked by the Dark Lord "Because…"

Because he was terrified.

"Because I can't," Harry said, feeling more confident every time he said it. "No. You and her…you're my only friends. I can't ruin that." He sighed. "Any more than I already have."

Ron shifted in his seat. "You've ruined it?"

"Something happened," Harry said. "Maybe an hour ago. I did something stupid, and I think I freaked her out."

Ron snorted.

"What's funny about that?" Harry asked.

Ron mulled it over. "Nothing that I can put into words."

Confusion warred with annoyance in Harry's head, and it didn't take long for the annoyance to win out. It had been an agonizingly long day, he was more and more convinced that had irreparably damaged one of the most important relationships in the world to him, and this conversation was getting him nowhere. "If I had known," he said through gritted teeth," that you were going to be snide like this, I wouldn't have talked to you about it all."

"I vaguely remember telling you not to talk to me about it," Ron said. "In fact, you know what, I think I've mentioned repeatedly that this is really a conversation you should have with Hermione."

"Well I'm not doing that!" Harry shouted, suddenly leaping to his feet. "I've told you, okay, over and over. It isn't worth it."

Ron scowled. "God, I'm sick to death of the martyr act," he muttered.

Harry whirled on him. "What?"

"I'm just saying," Ron said, holding up his hands. "Sometimes it's like you're addicted to being miserable, right? You act like you don't have a choice, but you do Harry, you do. And you come here, and you ask my advice, and when I give it, you blow me off, which makes me wonder why you're even bothering."

"So sorry to bother you with my problems," Harry growled. "I must've been under the impression that we were friends."

"People keep asking me for emotional support," Ron said, "I'm not at good at this, Harry, I'm not good at it at all. But I'm doing my best, and you and...And I'm in a really awkward position here, you know."

"You're in an awkward position," Harry said, barely believing his ears. "You are. Look, I guess this isn't exactly easy for you, okay. Yeah, it's awkward, we're all friends, I get it, but I'm having a bit of a crisis here, and you want to talk about how it's awkward for you?"

"Fine then, we'll focus on your problems, Harry," Ron said. "Should be a nice change of pace."

Harry suppressed the urge to knock the smug look off Ron's face, settling instead for looking as disgusted as he could muster. "I can't believe you."

"I can't believe you," Ron said. "You've been selfish before, but this has got to take the cake."

"What, because I'm not respecting your feelings?"

"Not my feelings, you stupid git," Ron spat. "Hermione's!"

Harry took a step back. When he spoke, so much rage bubbled up between the words that even he found them difficult to understand. "I haven't done anything except think about her," he said. "If you'd listened for even two seconds-"

"I listened," Ron said. "And every single thought you've had was about yourself, about what she is to you, about what you'd lose. Both of you! You think you know what's going on, but you're wrong. You can't see what's in front of your own bloody face! You think she's your best friend. Wrong!" He tapped his own chest. "You think you've already ruined things. Wrong!" He tapped Harry's chest, and not lightly. "You think it's the end of the bloody world. Wrong! You snogged under the invisibility cloak! You didn't kill her mum or anything."

And just like that, the rage faded.

And everything clicked perfectly into place.

"Ron," Harry said.

"No, I'm on a roll here," Ron said. "And you're going to listen to me Harry, because I'm fresh off a panic attack and I'm wide awake and I'm going to fail my OWLs and I've had it up to here," he gestured well above his head, "with-"

"Ron," Harry said again, more insistently this time. "How'd you know I kissed her?"

Ron paused, his eyes widening. Opened his mouth. Closed it again.

"You told me?" He asked,.

"No," Harry said.

"You sure?" He asked.

"Yes," Harry said.

"It's...common knowledge?"

Harry only stared.

Ron sighed. "One day," he said, "I'll learn to hold my bloody tongue."

FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO

Hermione all but fell through the Fat Lady's portrait, staggering across the Gryffindor common room as if making her way across the deck of a ship during a storm. By the time she reached her favorite worn, padded armchair, she doubted could keep her feet another moment – and so she collapsed, boneless, into the chair's familiar embrace.

Ron, the only other person in the room, watched her performance with a look of concern that bordered on horror. "Bloody hell," he said, "who just kicked your arse?"

Hermione took a moment, seeking enough poise to sit up – she managed it, just barely. "Nobody."

Ron didn't quite scoff, but clearly didn't believe her for even a second. "Hermione," he said, his voice very low, "who did this?"

She didn't realize that he was reaching for his wand until it was already in his fist. "Ron, no," she said, shaking her head. "I promise, it wasn't anybody."

Ron regarded her for a moment, then sighed and put his wand down. "Okay," he said, "out with it then."

Hermione opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her thoughts were a whirlwind, never settling in place for even a moment, any attempt at coherency snatched away with her next heartbeat. She wanted to tell Ron everything, but all she could get herself to say was "I don't know."

"That's a first," Ron said.

She made a choked sort of laugh at the friendly barb. "I really don't," she confessed. "I think...I think I need your help." He reached for his wand again, and she waved him off. "Not like that, Ron, honestly." Men, came the first coherent thought in hours, always thinking with their wands instead of their heads. Not that she was doing much better herself at the moment. "I need your help to make sense of it."

The concern on his face sprouted into full-blown disbelief. "My help?" He asked. "Making sense of something?" He gestured down at the table in front of him, and Hermione suddenly realized that it was strewn with textbooks and notes. Her notes. Thirty feet of painstakingly crafted, color-coded review. "I think you might've gotten our roles confused."

"Are you studying?" She asked.

"For my OWLs, yes," Ron said. "I'm making very good time, actually, I'm just about done with the regerminating potion."

She stared at him. "Without me badgering you?"

Ron leaned back, looking pensive. "It is strange," he admitted. "Well, I woke up half an hour ago and I realized that the OWLs were coming up, and I…" he shrugged. "I think I had a panic attack."

Hermione smiled slightly – just a little bit, a smile born of years trying to hide her teeth even at her happiest. "Good for you."

He recoiled. "Good?"

"Anxiety is academic fuel, Ron. You just might make it through the OWLs yet." She was surprised by how the comment made him beam. "But I don't want to distract you, I think I'll just go upstairs and-"

"Don't be ridiculous," Ron said, shaking his head. "The panic will still be there when we've gotten you sorted out, I imagine." He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, and looked at her with an exaggerated squint, as if she were a rare fossil that he were studying intently. "Now, maybe you should start by telling me...anything...about what's going on."

Hermione cast around in her mind for something to open with, but the whirlwind remained. "I can't," she said, "I don't even know where to start."

"The beginning is an excellent place, typically," Ron said.

The beginning. Of course. For all Ron's faults – and he was still a right piece of work, despite how much he had softened over the years – he always knew exactly how to cut through the chaos in her head. "I suppose it started just a few hours ago," she said, piecing the words together one syllable at a time. "I was studying."

"Shocking," Ron said.

She wrinkled her nose at him, just to let him know she had heard. "I was studying with…with Harry," she said, "it was late. I mean, it was late now...or it's early now, what time is it?

"Bout a quarter after two," Ron provided.

"Yes. So this would've been around midnight. You were sleeping, I think."

Ron nodded. "Pre-panic attack," he said, "I do miss those days. So the two of you were studying?"

"Yes," Hermione said. "Right there actually. With those notes." She jabbed her finger in his direction. "We were doing practice tests, and there was this one question…" she shook her head, trying to remember. "Cassidy's draught, I think, and I thought that the answer was...wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Yes, wrong!" A bit of strength returned to her voice at the memory. "The official study guide, can you imagine? I've been relying on those, and it was wrong! But Harry checked the book and it said that the guide was right and I was wrong, which I knew just couldn't be true."
"Oh, well of course not," Ron said, rolling his eyes.

But Hermione had built up steam, and she barreled on despite him. "There was a book in the library. It proved me right, but...it was in the restricted section, so I told Harry that we needed to go and look at it. He didn't want to, so I...was insistent."

"You threw a fit," Ron said.

"I did not!" She lied.

Ron only smiled. "So you threw on the invisibility cloak and you sneaked into the restricted section," he said. "Did you find the book?"

"No," Hermione said, shaking her head slowly. The whirlwind was abating, thoughts falling into place as she drew closer and closer to the critical moment. "We were looking for it, when we heard someone coming. So we got back under the cloak, and we saw Umbridge."

"She caught you?" Ron said, paling. His eyes went to her hand, and Hermione was suddenly reminded of the back of Harry's, bandaged and bleeding, words etched deep into the skin -

"No," she said. "No, she didn't see us, thank God. She was taking certain books, and throwing them into a sack, and making little marks on her parchment.

"Well, I imagine there's lots of books in the restricted section that aren't approved by the Ministry," Ron said. "Is this what you're on about? They're only books Hermione, and honestly most of them are bloody terrifying. Do you remember that one with the teeth that-"

"It's not the books," Hermione said. "It isn't. Listen! Harry and I were under the cloak and Umbridge was coming. She was so close, we were afraid to move away, but she came right up next to us, and...well…"

She was silent for a long time. Finally Ron spread his hands. "And what?"

"And he...Harry...he pulled me close to him." It all came rushing back then, every detail. His hands on her waist and the strength in his arms as he pulled her close and the warmth of his body against hers and the rapid pounding of their heartbeats in near unison and the scent of his deodorant and the scent of him just under it, and his eyes, half-illuminated in flickering candlelight, so green and so deep that just looking into them made her dizzy, made her breath catch in her throat, but being unable to look away and the way that she had pushed herself onto her toes just enough for their lips to touch, soft but insistent, until everything in the world had melted away and it was just the two of them in the quiet and the dark.

She didn't realize she was speaking her thoughts aloud until Ron coughed. "I get the picture, thanks," he said, ears and cheeks flushed redder than the sweater he wore. "Excellent...attention to detail, Hermione."

Hermione clapped her hands over her mouth, not trusting herself to speak. The whirlwind was back in full force, stronger than ever, just the memory of that moment threatening to completely upend her. "Help me," she squeaked.

Ron gaped. "What do you want me to do?"

"I told you!" She practically shouted, "Tell me what's going on! Help me make sense of it!"

"What, you're serious?" Ron asked. "This is what you wanted help with?"

She nodded rapidly, hands still over her mouth. "I haven't been able to think straight since it happened," she said. "I had to get away...I made some excuse...I nearly walked right off a staircase. I can barely see what's right in front of me!"

Ron snorted.

"What's funny about that?" She asked, aghast.

"It's just a little on the nose, don't you think?"

For perhaps the first time in her life, Hermione came face to face with the realization that she was not the cleverest person in the conversation. It was far from a pleasant experience, and she suddenly had a great swell of compassion and understanding for all the people in her life that had managed to be kind to her despite it. "Just tell me what's happening to me."

"You mean you haven't…" Ron rubbed the back of his neck. "You haven't read a book about this? You haven't had a conversation with you parents?"

"What are you talking about?"

Ron sighed. When he spoke next it was very slowly and deliberately, as if he were explaining something to a very small child. "Hermione...you fancy Harry."

And just like that, the whirlwind stopped.

And everything clicked perfectly into place.

"No!" She shouted.

"No?" He asked.

"Ron!" She shouted.

"Hermione?" He asked.

"Take it back!"

He smiled, and it was full of disbelief. "I don't think that'll do any good."

"Of course it will!" She clenched her hands together in her lap, so tight that for a moment she was afraid she'd break her own fingers. "You put it out into the world like that, you've got to take it back. Before something happens!"

"Hermione," Ron said, his voice surprisingly soft, "you're being ridiculous."

"I know!" She said, and suddenly she was on her feet, pacing back and forth, every muscle humming with energy. "I can't think straight. I can't think at all! Everything's a mess, and, God, this is worse than when we were first years and everyone hated me, even you and Harry, because even if I was miserable at least I understood why. Now I just...I just…" she threw up her hands. "I don't know what to do!"

"Wow," Ron said. "You really, really fancy Harry."

Hermione collapsed back into her chair, hugging her knees tight against her chin. "Oh God," she said. "Oh God. Oh God."

She couldn't. She couldn't possibly. Harry was her friend, her best friend, and yet no matter how many times she ran the numbers in her head she couldn't come to any other conclusion.

Ron was right. She was head over bloody heels for Harry Potter.

"How long has this been going on?" Ron asked after a minute of silence. "Am I stupid for not seeing it before?" He considered her face, a smile tugging at the edges of his lips. "Well, you're the clever one and even you didn't see this one coming. Course, it all seems obvious now."

Did it? Every moment started rushing through her head at once – every conversation, every walk through the halls, every shared smile. Ron was right again. The more she looked, the more obvious it seemed. It dripped from every word she spoke to him, cried out from every glance that lingered on his face, his shoulders, the back of his head.

"I've made an utter fool of myself," she whispered.

Ron scoffed. "Please," he said. "If you didn't know, and I didn't know, there's no way that Harry knows." A beat. "Course, you snogging him probably tipped him off a bit."

Hermione buried her head in her hands and tried very very hard not to cry.

"Oh...Hermione, look, it's not the end of world," Ron said. "You do your hair, put on your best robe, laugh at his jokes, even the stupid ones...specially the stupid ones, actually, and then you ask him if he maybe wants to go to Hogsmeade sometime and have a firewhiskey."

"Are you crazy?" Hermione asked. "I can't do that. I can't!"

Ron held up his hands in mock surrender. "Then make it a butterbeer, but that's not really the point-"

"That's not what I mean and you know it!" Hermione said, fixing him with a glare that would've been withering had it not been quite so pitiful. "I can't do any of that. The hair or the robe, or...or any of it!"

"I'm sure you could figure something out. As you never tire of hearing, you're very clever, and-."

"Stop it," she said, "Not now. Please Ron, just...for once?"

Ron's smile faded, but he nodded. "Why can't you, Hermione?

Because it was her. "Because…" Buck-toothed, frizzy-haired, know-it-all. "Because…" Because it was him. "Because…" Famous, star seeker, triwizard champion. "Because…"

Because she was terrified.

"Because I just need time," she said, quiet. "To sort through it all. To make sure I don't...ruin everything."

"Oh, come off it," Ron said. "You couldn't ruin anything. It's Harry."

"Who would you choose?" Hermione asked. "If...you know, I told him, and it went bad and...who would you choose?"

He didn't say it, but the answer was painted across his face, thick strokes of frustration tinged with shades of self-loathing.

Hermione nodded, huddling in tight in on herself. "I couldn't…I can't lose both of you."

They were both silent for a long time, Ron struggling to find a response and Hermione wallowing in the feeling of utter helplessness that swept through her. No longer could she hide behind the whirlwind, behind the veil of ignorance her own disorganized thoughts had given her. Ron had given order to her feelings, put them out there in the world, just as she had known he would. And now there was nothing to do but accept it.

"Hermione," Ron said finally.
"It's okay, Ron," she said finally standing. "I just need sleep, I think." They both knew it was a lie. "You're not going to tell him, are you?"

"Of course not. Hey." He reached out, took her hand. It was comforting, the contact. A rock that steadied her, instead of the whirling storm that had sent her spinning out in every direction. "I'm your friend too," Ron said. "I won't breathe a word."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what."

She pulled his head to her stomach in an awkward hug, then took that first, fateful step towards the stairs up to the girl's dormitory. She was exhausted, but even her favorite chair was no comfort to her aching body. All she could do now was go upstairs, pull the curtains closed around her bed, and hope that her pillow muffled the sound of her tears enough that none of the other girls would notice.

Sometimes, all the magic in the world couldn't make up for boarding school.

HALF PAST TWO, MORNING

AGAIN

Ron could feel his face making that shape it made it when it got whacked by a bludger. He tried to make it look like not that, like calm and collected or something, but he didn't think he did a very good job.

Harry wasn't angry anymore, but he wasn't...not angry. Usually when Harry got angry he lost all sense of volume control, but now he was very very quiet when spoke. "So that's how it is then," he said. "She talked to you about it."

Ron shrugged, helpless. Clearly, opening his stupid mouth only made things worse. He would stick to being quiet instead.

"Did it...go well, then?" Harry asked.

Ron made a face. It was supposed to be comforting, and reassuring, but his face was already all bludgery and so it threw his baseline off a lot. Horror crept into Harry's features, and a bone-weary defeat. Okay, surely opening his stupid mouth couldn't make that any worse. "It didn't...not go well."

To nobody's surprise, including Ron's own, opening his stupid mouth did, in fact, make it worse. The only time in his entire life he had seen Harry look more drained and defeated was when he had emerged from the final triwizard task with the trophy in one hand and a corpse in the other. Things like that were always happening to Harry, just one string of improbably harrowing events after the other, and in that moment Ron wanted nothing more than for his best friend – his first friend, since his brothers and Ginny didn't count – to catch a bloody break.

"Harry," he said, and his voice was gentle. "I really…really you and Hermione should talk about this."

But Harry only shook his head. "Not tonight," he said. "I think...I think I just need sleep, honestly."

"What? No." Ron knew that wasn't right, with a clarity and certainty with which he rarely knew anything. Harry and Hermione were the best people he'd ever known, but they were also stubborn and hesitant and prone to bouts of self-pity, and...frankly, after tonight, dumber than he had ever realized. Much, much dumber.

They had had a moment – singular, intense, transformative. Something that had shaken them from their normal routine and sense and place and made them something else, something more, to each other. The early morning hours had a magic in them that could do that, Ron was well aware (Lavender Brown had...well, that was something he would never tell Harry or Hermione). But it was a subtle magic, and it died in sunlight. If Harry went to sleep now, they would both wake up tomorrow and this thing that had happened between them would be gone.

"Maybe that's for the best," he murmured, thinking about the fear in Hermione's eyes as she imagined losing everything.

Harry, now on the first few steps leading up to the dorm, turned back. "What was that?"

And then Ron thought about it for a moment, and he scowled. "I just...thought something really bloody stupid to myself," he said. "Listen, Harry, don't go to sleep."

"I'm exhausted, Ron."

"I know. I don't care. I'll go up, and get Hermione, and bring her down here, and you two can talk. Alone."

"I said no, Ron."

Ron shook his head emphatically. "I said yes, Harry."

"Good night, Ron," Harry said, and then he turned to go.

And Ron watched his friend take a step, and then another, and he knew with a clarity and certainty with which he rarely knew anything that there was nothing he could do to change Harry's mind. And so he did something entirely on instinct, something that he did as a reflex when it was dark and hopeless and there was nothing he could do. He sang, very loudly, the Chudley Cannons fight song.

"OOOOOOOOOH," he screamed, really bellowing the words from his diaphragm. You had to get a lot of volume to get past the spells which kept the sleeping rooms quiet, but he was born Cannoneer, and he blew through them, "THE CHUDLEY CANNONS ARE THE BEST ON THE PITCH!"

Harry whirled, shock and disbelief on his face. "Ron – what are you-"

"THEY SHOOT THE QUAFFLE AND THEY CATCH THE SNITCH!"

"Ron, shut up!" Harry said. There were noises coming from above, confused words and protests.

But Ron did not shut up. "THEY MIGHT NOT WIN BUT I JUST CAN'T DITCH, THE GOOD OLE CHUDLEY CANNONS!"

"Shut up!" Someone shouted from upstairs.

"Chudley blows!" Shouted someone else.

Harry bounded down the stairs and vaulted the couch with a grace Ron had never seen him display except on a broom. But he was far and Ron was quick, and he scrambled clear before Harry could tackle him to the ground. "OH! CHUDLEY! YOU FLY SWIFT AS THE WIND! FOR YOU MY HEART BURNS ORANGE!"

They danced between furniture, Harry darting this way and Ron that, as people began descending the stairs to figure out what the bloody hell was going on at two thirty in the morning the night before exams. Gryffindor students in various states of sleepy undress congregated at the bottom of the stairs, and in the middle of them Ron saw a tangle of bushy brown hair framing the absolutely mortified face of his second-best friend. He leapt up onto the ottoman, threw his arms wide, and roared with every ounce of energy left in him, "BUT NOW THIS SONG MUST END! CAUSE NOTHING RHYMES WITH ORANGE!"

Something hit him very hard in the back – Harry – and he tumbled to the ground, which sent the Gryffindors cheering. "Probably wants everyone to do as bad him tomorrow," he heard someone say, as everyone began hurrying back up the stairs to try to grab what sleep they could. Well, Ron wasn't going to say that the grading curve had never entered his mind. But when all the others had left, only Harry and Hermione remained. Looking at each other.

"Right," Ron said, standing up. Dusting himself off. Picture of respectability, Ron Weasley. "I think I'm going to sleep then."

They didn't even look at him. God, being the third wheel was going to be insufferable. But then he looked closer, and he saw the looks on their faces, and he thought maybe he could make it work.