"It's not Lavender."

"Oh, right."

Ron tried to shrug this off, as though it didn't matter who had just come through the portrait hole - as though he hadn't spent the past hour since he and Hermione had been sitting there, constantly watching to make sure his girlfriend wouldn't see him.

It had been a few days since he had been allowed out of the hospital wing and conversations with Lavender had become very… awkward. For some reason she was comparing everything about herself to Hermione and asking his opinion. Even Ron knew that questions didn't come more loaded than that. That wasn't even the worst of it - if he sat with Hermione at dinner, he would spend the half an hour the next time he was alone with Lavender being shouted at for being with her.

Ron had told her time and time again that he and Hermione were friends and had never been anything more. He just wished he could maintain eye contact while he did.

Sensing that he would be safe for the moment, Ron tore his eyes away from the portrait hole and looked at Hermione as she completed her Arithmancy homework, a clump of her hair, tucked pointlessly behind her ear while the rest fell around her face. There was no way that he could tell Lavender about the… thing… with Hermione. He hadn't long admitted it to himself; it would take forever to tell anyone else -- especially Hermione.

"I'm not Lavender either," Hermione said evenly, without looking up from her essay, "so you can stop looking at me."

Even through the curtain of hair, Ron saw the pink tinge in her cheeks.

"Sorry."

"It's all right."

Hermione had been so different since they had made up. Or maybe he had forgotten what it was like to be her friend? The thought made Ron feel cold. Hermione was a vital part of his life. They used to spend every day with each other. After just under four months of not talking, surely they'd still be the same? It had seemed like forever at the time but, now they were through it, it hadn't really been that long.

Ron pulled his Transfiguration book out of his bag and flicked to a random page. He had no intention of doing homework, but this is what he used to do with Hermione so he hoped it would make things easier between them. Not that things were difficult, just -- different.

For example, before Lavender, if Hermione had caught him staring at her (something that happened more than he liked to admit) she would snap at him. Now she would request that he stopped in a soft voice and blush a little. Plus, she was definitely nicer to him. The other night, when they were walking back from the prefect meeting, she was talking about the last Quidditch match and how she thought he would've been able to make some of the saves that McLaggen missed. She didn't really know about Quidditch so the compliment was probably void, but the fact that she had bothered to make it at all…

He'd expected things to be awkward when Lavender was around. After all, they had fallen out because he had started going out with her and Hermione… well, Hermione didn't seem to like it for some reason. Well, he knew that she had asked him to Slughorn's party and she probably didn't think it was proper to go with him if he had a girlfriend. What was the problem though? They were only going as friends, weren't they?

Now, whenever Lavender was around, Hermione… wasn't. She just disappeared. Every time. A part of Ron was working on a theory that one had killed the other and was now spending half of their time impersonating the other to cover it up.

Stupid idea, really. He saw them together in some of their lessons. He'd be sat by Lavender while she passed annoying notes to him, while Hermione sat next to Harry, doing her work with Harry asking her for help. She always helped him despite having her own work to do. She was always nice like that. Generous. Helpful.

Ron glanced up from his book to see Hermione writing diligently, not giving anything away as usual. They were always more civil to each other after rows, but this wasn't normal. This went beyond biting their tongues or saying please and thank you unnecessarily. She was overly nice to him. Maybe it had something to do with him nearly dying? That seemed to have a strange effect on people. Ginny had hugged him the day he had got out of hospital. She had made sure they were alone before she did it, but still.

"You're doing it again," Hermione sighed.

Shaking his head to clear away his thoughts, Ron mentally chastised himself. If he kept staring then she might realise that he liked her in a way that he was not supposed to. In spite of himself, he gave her a sheepish grin and received a small smile in return. Her eyes flicked back down to her parchment, but, almost straight away, she looked back at him, now biting her lower lip.

It was all Ron could do not to jump across the table and bite it for her.

Far away, in the world that Ron and Hermione were supposed to be a part of, someone lost a game of Exploding Snap and the resulting explosion woke them both up to the fact that they were still staring at each other.

They coughed and went back to the words in front of them.

These moments hadn't happened before they had fallen out. Well, Ron thought they might possibly have done but there was no way they were that intense. Before they were one-sided -- it was just him staring like a sick puppy that was having food dangled in front of it. Now he could've sworn Hermione was doing the same thing.

You have a girlfriend.

Guilt seeped into Ron's daydreams and his heart sank. He may have done many petty, horrible and stupid things in his time, but cheating was not one of them and he was determined to keep it that way. He slumped back in his chair and let his eyes fall over the words in his textbook. It had only been a few days of having Hermione back in his life and he was even more confused and desperate than he was before. At least he had Quidditch practise over the weekend to distract him from all of this stuff. On the pitch there was no Hermione and, more importantly, no Lavender. He just had to get through this Friday night and-

Friday.

"Hermione," Ron panicked, sitting up and dropping his book haphazardly on the table, "it's Friday."

Bemused, she looked at him for a moment before replying, "Yes, Ron. Well done. It only took you eighteen hours to notice."

"No," he snapped, "it's Friday and you haven't gone to the owlery."

"I also haven't been to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom."

"It's Friday!" Ron laughed in disbelief.

"Yes," said Hermione slowly, carefully placing her quill on the table, "we have established that."

Sensing that he wasn't getting anywhere, Ron cut to the point. "Every Friday, for as long as I have known you, you have written a letter to your parents and sent it using one of the school owls. Every Friday, without fail, for the past -- what? -- nearly six years."

Understanding dawned on Hermione's features before it was suddenly replaced with uneasiness.

"What?"

"Well, my dad changed his shifts at the beginning of last December," Hermione explained. "He works Friday evenings now so I write to my parents on Saturday. That way they are both there when my letter arrives."

"Oh."

They had locked eyes again but the stare held an entirely different type of weight. Hermione sending that letter on a Friday had been as dependable as Ron rushing his homework on Sundays. Fourteen weeks apart and it had changed. Something about Hermione had changed and he had missed it. She smiled sadly at him, as if to let him know that it was okay, but Ron still hated it. What else had he missed?

Not for the first time, Ron started wondering what could've --what should've -happened last December at that party. He would've worn the dress robes that Fred and George had bought him. They were too small now really but they were still an improvement on the old ones. He and Hermione would've met up in the common and, with Harry having to meet Luna, they could've walked to Slughorn's office together. It would have been awkward at first, but he would have told some stupid joke and she would've laughed against her better judgement and it would've been great.

At the party, she would have people coming up to her, trying to make connections but, in Ron's head at least, she would blow them all off to talk to him. Yeah, they would have spoken to a couple of people that they knew but the evening would've been theirs.

And maybe, just maybe, if he drank enough wine and Hermione seemed like she wouldn't slap him, he would've maybe held her hand as they walked back to the common room through the torch lit corridors.

And if that hadn't backfired horribly, he might've told her, in the best words his stupid, pea-sized brain could manage, that… well… He might've told her everything.

But instead he had snogged Lavender Brown and now he didn't know what day Hermione wrote to her parents.

"How can I dump her?"

Ron didn't realise that he had spoken aloud until Hermione froze.

"Pardon?" Her voice would've been casual if it hadn't cracked slightly.

"I-I just- t-thought," Ron stuttered. "Well, you're a girl-"

"This again?" Hermione asked weakly but Ron ignored her.

"-so you know this kind of stuff." Unfortunately, she continued to look at him blankly and Ron was forced to explain himself, even though he wanted to stop talking and leave the room. Or, better yet, country. "Lavender. How can I dump her without, y'know-"

Ron grimaced and hoped Hermione would understand.

"Without her being upset?"

"Yeah."

He waited for a response but instead Hermione met his eyes with an intense look, her expression unreadable. He was used to this, knowing that something was whirring in Hermione's brain that he couldn't understand, but it didn't mean that he liked it. Eventually, much to his relief, she sat back in her chair and clasped her hands together on her lap.

"Why would you want to do that?" she asked in an emotionless voice.

"What? Not upset her?"

"No," she replied steadily. "Why do you want to end your relationship?"

Every particle of liquid in Ron's mouth and throat evaporated as he met Hermione's eyes. He groped around his head for a reason or anything really, but all he could think was that she had to be the single, most perfect thing in all of creation. There was no way he could tell her that.

"I'm not - Things aren't-"

I'm in love with you. I've tried ignoring it, denying it, burying it but the fact still remains. I know it could change and ruin everything but it's about time I told you.

"It's not really going well with us," Ron finished lamely. It did nothing to stop Hermione's unnerving gaze. In turn, her gaze did nothing to stop the forbidden words that Ron knew he didn't really understand, from flashing across his brain.

Hermione made everything twenty times worse by wetting her top lip.

"In what way?"

Ron tried to tell himself that this was somehow applicable to his original question, that by knowing the whole story, Hermione would be able to help him dump Lavender. She always did her research thoroughly, after all.

"Well…" Again Ron wracked his brains for a stand out reason why he wanted to break up with Lavender, but there wasn't just one thing. "She isn't… what I wanted."

Hermione's eyes widened a fraction but otherwise she didn't react. The whole temperature of the room skyrocketed and Ron couldn't move, let alone take his jumper off. Everyone else in the common room had become blurry shapes in the distance and their chatter, white noise as Ron tried to keep his face as neutral as possible. Everything about this conversation was dangerous and he couldn't afford to slip up.

"What did you want?" Hermione's voice wasn't much more than a whisper but he caught every word. Immediately his mind started screaming "YOU!" He ignored it. It didn't help. In fact, it just made it ring louder in his surely glowing ears.

"Someo-thing different."

Was that a flicker of disappointment he saw on her features?

"Maybe you'll find something different?"

Everything about Hermione was saying that she was holding something back; the inflection in her voice, the twitch in her eyebrow, the white knuckles on her tightly clasped hands…

Ron had no idea what to make of any of it. He just knew that if he kept this up, he'd say something ridiculous. He couldn't take it anymore. He had to break the moment. He just had to.

So he gave a shaky laugh and ruffled his hair in what he hoped was a cool and nonchalant way and hoped she didn't notice his hand shaking.

"It was hard enough to find one girl that liked me," he joked, turning to the window. He shot Hermione a sidelong glance when the pressure in the air didn't fully subside and saw that she was still looking at him, her body still tense, but her eyes had lost all of their fire. It was enough to wipe the limp smile off his face.

For a long time, Hermione said nothing and simply watched him watching her. Ron tried to convey wordlessly that he needed her to speak, to explain this mess, to guide him because he didn't have a clue. The questions about Lavender were long gone and now he didn't really know what they were discussing, just that whatever Hermione said next would be confusing, double-edged and far too complicated for him to follow.

"Maybe," she finally said, her tone as empty as Ron's lungs, "you were trying too hard. Maybe you should stop looking."

Or, Ron's numb brain thought, she would say something that was as direct as he could've hoped for. He was looking at her. Once he had seen her, really seen her for all that she was, he hadn't looked anywhere else. Not really.

"I probably shouldn't be looking though," he mumbled through numb lips. "Not while Lavender's still around."

"No," Hermione sighed, "you shouldn't."

She blinked rapidly and tore her focus back to her homework as she leant over the table again. With that, the moment was broken in the way Ron had tried to make it. Of course, Hermione would succeed where he failed. That was what she did best.

Ron looked to the window and watched the Forbidden Forest stretch out across the landscape, towards the mountains beyond them. If this conversation had taught him anything it was that he was as crap with words as he was great at messing everything up. No matter how hard he tried, he never got his true meaning across. It made him so inadequate that he wished some days he didn't have to speak at all.

He was forever surrounded by girls that he didn't understand and who seemed to hear everything that he was thinking except the thoughts he desperately wanted them to. How was he ever going to achieve anything he wanted with his clumsy gestures and fumbled words?

The only way he was ever going to get Hermione was if she fell into his lap. The only way he was ever going to get shot of Lavender, without telling her why he wanted shot of her, was if she ditched him.

Frowning slightly, Ron picked his book back up. He was the master of screwing up; surely it wouldn't be too hard to screw up his relationship? He knew exactly what annoyed Lavender -- Hermione. A few hints that he wanted out, combined with him singing Hermione's praises and spending more time with her (which would be a huge perk) and Lavender would hit the roof in a matter of weeks.

And maybe, just maybe, Hermione would hear why she was so angry.

"What do you look so happy about?" Hermione asked, her brow, knitted together.

Ron shrugged. "I was just thinking about something different."

Hermione pursed her lips a little and went back to her essay and Ron hoped that one day she would know that he was thinking about her.