By Hannah Davenport (slytherin_punk@hotmail.com)

Rating: G

Summary: Ficlette. What was said before Harry walks in on Hermione and Ron's argument after the Yule Ball, and what that arguement leads eventually to later on in their lives. Ron's POV.

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. It's just fan fiction!

< >"Hermione..."

< >She looked at me quietly, her face very, very closed. I hated not knowing what she was thinking. It’s just always bugged me. She looked beautiful, her hair falling out of the knot she had put it in and her periwinkle robes swishing around her as she stared at me. I was very grateful Harry wasn’t there.

< >"Ron, you really need to grow up." she snapped. "You act like a child."

< >"I said I was sorry, Hermione!" I cried indignantly. "What do you want from me?"

< >"I want to know why you would ever be so cruel, Ron." she said firmly. "I want to know what makes you explode like you did tonight. I hate it when you do that, Ron!"

< >I stared at the ground for a moment, trying to decide what to say. Hermione always made me seem ignorant when we argued. I scratched the back of my head, still thinking. I then looked up. "I dunno, Hermione..." I replied. "I guess... I guess I was just jealous that you went with Krum and not me, is all!" By now I was very, very angry. I get angry easily when provoked. Especially when provoked by Hermione. She began to blush violently, and I could feel the heat in my face, too.

< >"Well," she said loudly. "if you don’t like it, you know what the solution is, don’t you?" She was outright yelling now.

< >"Oh yeah?" I said, which was a very idiotic thing to say, now I think about it. "What’s that?"

< >"Next time there’s a ball, ask me before someone else does, and not as a last resort!"

< >I stood there, gaping like a thick git as she stormed elegantly up the stairs, which is entirely possible for Hermione. I turned, and saw Harry. I nervously wondered how long he’d been there.

< >"Well," I stammered, feeling extremely stupid. "well - that just proves - completely missed the point --"

< >Harry gave me a funny look. My stomach lurched, and I tried not to let it bother me.

< >It bothers me worse as it happens now.

< >Hermione looks gorgeous in a wedding gown. Blast, Hermione looks gorgeous in anything. I stand by Ginny and Harry as the bouquet gets thrown. I don’t even know why I’m here. I know I’ve got a drink in my hand, and that everyone is looking almost painfully happy. I know I don’t want to be there. Harry dragged me along, ‘to show support’, he said. The only thing I want to show support for right now is the blasted deck I recently added onto my flat. Crookshanks is here. What on earth possessed her to bring an old, obnoxious cat to a church is beyond me. It’s one of the mysteries of Hermione, which there seem to be more of these days.

< >"She looks happy, eh Ron?" Harry asks me quietly.

< >"Yeah..." I reply absently. I take a drink from my glass, even though I discovered hours ago that I didn’t like what was in it. It would be much easier if time stopped when we noticed we were screwing up, and we were allowed to fix it.

< >Seamus and Lavender approach, smiling. "Since when d’you have a goatee, Ron?" Seamus asks with a laugh. It’s very obvious he had been sampling the Irish whiskey at the refreshment table.

< >"Hullo," I say, pretending to be cheerful. I’m not.

< >The conversation turns to Harry - how he’s doing, what he’s up to... Doesn’t the conversation always turn to Harry? He’s like another brother to me (except nicer...), but sometimes I wish...

< >"I’m not feeling so well," I say, with the aid of some acting skills Fred and George had shared with me. "Harry, I’m going home... Tell Hermione hello for me, will you?"

< >"Sure," Harry replies, suspicion layered in his gaze. "I’ll be there in an hour or so," Harry and I share a flat.

< >I begin to walk out the door, cursing myself and my inability to take emotional tension. I want to dig a hole and hide in it... I want to gouge out my -

< >"Ron? Where’re you going?"

< >I turn around, and my spirits sink even further. Hermione stands on the top step of the church, looking at me in a puzzled way. It was a very recent acquirement of expression for her.

< >"Home, I reckon," I say, running a hand through my ‘spiked’ hair. "I’m not feeling so well...."

< >"Ron, you’re such a liar," she says with a smile. My knees buckle. I want nothing more than to have Harry’s Invisibility Cloak with me.

< >"Why do you say that?" I ask, feeling very uneasy. Technically, I reason, I am sick.

< >She looks at me with concern. I look away. I can’t take it when she looks at me like that. "Ron, what’s wrong?" she asks.

< >"Nothing," I say, my voice cracking slightly. "Nothing. I just - I just don’t want to be here. That’s all. I want to go home...."

< >She comes down the remaining steps, and is now near enough that she takes my hands. I pull away. I chew my tongue angrily. It’s a habit I recently adopted.

< >"Ron," she says quietly. "Ron... what’s up?"

< >"Nothing’s up." I defend myself firmly. "I’m absolutely overjoyed, Hermione. Ecstatic." She can tell I’m being sarcastic now. She frowns at me, as if she knows what I’m thinking. That thought disconcerts me. "I don’t get why you’d think something was up."

< >"Ron, please..."

< >"I’m excruciatingly happy. See," I smile widely, so widely my cheeks began to hurt. "I mean, I’m an actor, for goodness sake! Aren’t we always happy? Or maybe it’s that we’re always drunk...." I pretend to think for a moment. "I never can remember."

< >She looks away, trying not to get angry. "Ron..." she says again. "Ron, stop it."

< >"I’m not going to stop it!" I cry, scowling around. A particularly Snape-like scowl. "I am allowed to be upset, you know, Herm. Just because it’s your wedding day doesn’t mean I have to pretend that everything in the world is perfect, because it’s really not. Especially for me!"

< >"Ron, STOP IT!" she shouts, facing me once again. Tears are running down her cheeks as she gazes at me, imploring calmness with her gorgeous brown eyes...

< >I loose it. I forget she’s married for a split-second. Later, I know I will hate myself. But, acting like the thick I am, I take her by the shoulders, and kiss her. I can feel her shock, her instinct to pull away. But she doesn’t, and I hold onto her like death. I love her, and that’s all there is to it.

< >Finally, my brain begins to work again, and I let go, unable to believe what I just did.

< >"Blast," I say, staring determinedly at the ground.

< >"Oh, Ron..." she whispers, sounding depressed.

< >I walk quickly away, swearing at myself and trying not to cry. After I round the corner, where the Apparation safe-point is, I Dissapparate, back to the flat Harry and I share. I lock myself in my room, and I don’t come out - not even after Harry breaks the door down so he can see what the matter is. I can tell he saw. I can tell he didn’t mean to see, but that doesn’t change anything. Hermione is still married, I am still a lonely actor, and Harry is engaged to be married.

< >Ten months later, I receive a letter with a large gray owl. It reads:

It’s a girl!

Name: Gwendolyn Elizabeth Krum

Born: March 1

Weight: 7 pounds, 7 ounces

Height: 21 inches

< >I look at the moving photograph of the small child, my heart aching. I can tell she’ll look more like Hermione than Viktor (which is good news for any child of theirs). I can already see Hermione’s adorable nose... her face shape, her eye color, even though it’s usually a while before you can tell about that with infants.

< >I look at the picture a little longer, and then shove it under my bed, which is where I hide various things I don’t ever want to see again. I stand there, looking at my bed for a while. The doorbell rings, and Harry isn’t home.

< >"Coming," I call.

< >I walk into the hallway, knowing almost immediately who it is. I open the door, to see my sister Ginny, Neville Longbottom, Draco Malfoy, Colin Creevey, Hannah Abbott, Ernie MacMillan, Padma Patil, and Roger Davies.

< >"You going to perform tonight, Weasley?" Malfoy asks, drawling in a very familiar tone. "Or are you just going to have Ginny here be your substitute?"

< >"Ron," Ginny says, quite seriously. "I am not going to play Othello, just so you know."

< >I smile wearily. My friends, my fellow actors... The Mixed Nuts Theater Company. Too bad Harry couldn’t act to save his life.

< >"Hold on a minute, would you Iago?" I say to Malfoy. "I need to get my coat."

Author's Note:
< >Ahem. This was a very hard ficlette to write, seeing as I was in a very good mood when I wrote it. For those of you curious enough to know, I was happy because I found out they’re making a movie of my other favorite book-series, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Count Olaf is most likely going to be played by Jim Carrey, and the first two chapters of the ninth book in the series (The Carnivorous Carnival) are available to read on a certain website. And for those of you who haven’t read Shakespeare, Othello, is a play, and Iago is the bad-guy while Othello is the main character.And remember, curiosity didn’t kill the cat - - the butcher-knife did. ::grins evilly, and innocently wonders who was holding the butcher-knife::