CHAPTER ONE
RESOLUTIONS
***RON***
Ron Weasley sat in the lumpy armchair his mother had given him with an old photo album in his lap. He glanced out the window. It was frosted up, but he could tell it was snowing outside. It had been for the past week straight.
Ron sighed deeply and listened to the utter silence all around him. Harry wasn’t home. He had left the pathetically small house that the two of them had bought together to house them while they attended Richmond Aurors’ Academy for Christmas, and Ron was completely alone. Well, almost. His owl, Pigwidegeon, sat perched in his cage, which Ron had set up on top of the mantle above the little fireplace. Normally, Pig would’ve been fluttering around, squawking and showing off, trying desperately to break free of the confining cage. But even the constantly hyper Pig was melancholy now. Hedwig, Harry’s snowy owl, had gone with him, and the weenie little owl had no one to annoy.
Ron turned his attention back to the photo album in his lap. He opened it to the front page. There, was an enchanted picture of everyone in Ron’s family. His kind mother, Molly Weasley, stood with her arms around Ron’s little sister Ginny, although she wasn’t so little anymore. She was going on twenty, exactly one year younger than Ron himself was. Next to them stood his jovial father, Arthur Weasley. He was attempting to scold two ornery-looking young men for giving him a prank wand instead of his real one, but it wasn’t working too well. He was laughing too hard. Those two young men were two of Ron’s older brothers and the only twins: Fred and George. Next to them stood Charlie, another of Ron’s brothers. He was laughing as a very tall young man with bright red hair and astonishingly blue eyes was been tackled and put into a head lock by a slightly older man with very long red hair that he wore in a ponytail and an earring with a fang on it. The blue-eyed man was Ron himself, and the one with long hair was Bill, the oldest of the Weasley children. Well, you could hardly call them children anymore. The last one was a tall, harsh-looking young man wearing Ministry robes and horn-rimmed galsses. He had his arms folded across his chest and seemed very upset. This was Percy. He and Mr. Weasley hadn't spoken in years, and it had taken a good bit of bribing just to get him to agree to a picture with the family.
Ron stared at his parents. He had been planning to go to the Burrow for Christmas and spend the holidays with them. But since they had decided to go to Egypt and visit Bill, who had just recently married, all of the other Weasleys had decided to celebrate Christmas separately and in their own way.
Ron turned the page. There, he saw a picture of Ginny wrapped in the arms of a tall, muscular boy with untidy black hair, green eyes, and thin, round spectacles. Harry Potter. They were laughing and smiling, and Harry leaned over and gave Ron's sister an affectionate peck on the cheek. She flushed bright red and kissed him full on the lips. It made Ron smile to see the two of them so happy, so wrapped up in each other.
This was where his roommate had gone. To visit Ron’s own sister for the holidays.
He turned the page again. There, he saw the picture he had been looking for. It was a picture of Ron’s other best friend, Hermione Granger. She had sent it to him some time last year when she told him that she would be taking up training to be a Muggle Liaison for the Ministry of Magic. God, she had changed a lot. And for the better, I might add.
Her long brown hair had gone from very bushy and curly to smooth, glossy, and wavy. It made her look more like woman and less like a girl. She had lost whatever baby fat she had to lose, and her teeth, now straighter and whiter than ever, showed when she smiled at him. It was a moving picture, of course, so Ron could see her hair blow in the wind and the autumn leaves in the picture swirl around her awesome body like an enchanted tornado. Her dark brown eyes sparkled happily and made Ron’s heart quicken, even if she wasn’t really here. God, she was beautiful.
Oh, how Ron wished he could be with her this Christmas. But she probably wouldn’t want to see him. After all, it had been almost three years since he and Harry had said good-bye to her at Kings Cross Station after their last year at Hogwarts together. She had probably forgotten all about him.
Here, sitting alone by the fire as the wind blew and the snow piled up around his little house, Ron couldn’t help regretting never telling Hermione his true feelings for her. He had always thought she was attractive, and had been infatuated with her since their second year at Hogwarts, but only he realized that he had really been in love with her in their fourth year. Ever since then, his every waking thought had been consumed with one aspect of her or another. Whether it be her appearance, her wit, or her intellect, she was always on his mind.
For a brief instant, Ron considered going to a Muggle pay phone and calling her at home (he was now pretty good at using a telephone), but he stopped himself.
“No way, Ron,” he said out loud to himself. “She probably has plans with her family. And she couldn’t possibly live with her parents anymore. You’re just upset because you’re all alone,” he rationalized. He had been talking to himself a lot lately.
“But what if she does live at home and she has no plans? It would be stupid to pass up the opportunity,” he considered. Ron started to get up from his chair, but he grabbed its arms and pulled himself back down. “No way. Too risky. You’d be making a fool out of yourself.” He looked at the picture again. Hermione waved at him and blushed furiously from the photo. His stomach did a flip-flop thing, and his heart jumped into his throat.
Torn between his two opposing emotions, he looked from the photo to the door, to where his coat and scarf hung, and then back at the photo. “Ron, this is the exact reason that you’re alone in the first place. If you hadn’t always been so scared of letting your feelings out, you and Hermione could be sitting on a couch in some little cottage sipping hot chocolate and deciding on baby names,” he told himself firmly. With unwavering resolute, Ron stood, picked up a Muggle coin from the table near the door, put on his coat and scarf, and grabbed the keys to his used Ford Taurus. He WOULD go to London and use a pay phone. He WOULD get Hermione to come for Christmas. And he WOULD tell her his feelings when she came.
Author’s Note: So, what do you think? Please go to the review boards and let me know. I do this for the feedback, so let me know! It means a lot! Thanks!