[For Hermione]

[sixthhandlion]

The candy had been a mistake

Comments

[honestlyrubbish]

Yesterday had been nearly impossible. Hermione wasn't sure exactly when it'd started, but at some point over the year they'd known each other, the young witch had gotten a sense of what took Ron far longer to understand. That the two of them fought, bickered, made fun of one another's eccentricities (or perhaps that was more Ron toward Hermione, as she couldn't think of very many on his end, aside from the fact that he would not stop eating), and kept an impossibly close eye on one another because there was a hint of something else there. Potential for more, Hermione might have said, although that made it feel too much like an exercise, trying to calculate the probability of them getting along, or the improbability of them getting by without each other; in truth, she knew that it was more than that. Deeper. It didn't require too much analysis or too much thought. The simple matter was that Hermione Granger loved Ronald Weasley, had loved him for quite some time, and over the past couple of years that love had started to feel very much

[sixthhandlion]

"'m fine. Don't worry about it," Ron lied, shrugging it off and hoping there was a small chance that Hermione'd simply let it go. He wouldn't bet a single knut on it, really, but maybe there was a small chance, at least

[honestlyrubbish]

Although the compliment was, she had to admit, a nice touch (Ron seemed, in fact, to be more prone to complimenting her as of late, and she wondered in the back of her mind who gave him that particular piece of advice), it didn't outweigh Hermione's disappointment over the fact that they clearly weren't going to get the date that they'd hoped for. And perhaps it was the confidence she had in believing that they would, at some point, have another, that their feelings weren't going anywhere anytime soon, that allowed her to look as thoroughly annoyed as she did. How many times had she told him to be careful about what he ate? That no matter how decent the food was, such as the plentiful repasts that the Hogwarts house elves served, anything to excess was bad. It didn't surprise Hermione that he'd forgotten that, however

[sixthhandlion]

If there was anyone who Ron knew well-- besides Harry, that was-- it was Hermione. And her reaction to him turning up looking as if he'd somehow managed to make a slug vomiting charm backfire on himself again. But truthfully, if Hermione hadn't reacted the way she had, Ron would have found himself worried about what was wrong with her. He'd heard about people switching personalities or bodies on the island somehow-- without even a potion-- and that was much more likely than Hermione reacting any other way.

Well, except hitting him for being stupid enough to eat as much as he had. But he couldn't really be blamed for nerves, could he?

"Everyone else was having some," he protested, even as Hermione had started trying to steer them in the direction of the infirmary, "I figured if it hadn't hurt anyone else that it wasn't going to kill me. I swear, I'm fine."

But even as he said so, his stomach lurched and he very nearly went cross-eyed trying to keep the contents of his stomach down.