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In the Gryffindor Common Room, the fire was crackling cheerfully, emanating a warm feeling throughout the room and its occupants. It was a Friday night, so every student from the fourth year up was still awake and doing activities to unwind from the past week. Schoolwork and classes seemed almost a childish preoccupation to Harry, now that he was enrolled in the Triwizard Tournament. Despite his passing envy for the small problems of the rest of the students, Harry was still having a truly funny evening.
“Come on! You can’t be serious!” his best friend said with a tone that told Harry he was whining about something unfair. In his perspective, anyway.
“I’m not telling, Ronald.” Hermione turned her chin up and away from Ron in a way that anyone could tell was final. She wasn’t going to say if any boy had asked her to the Yule Ball or not and nobody could convince her.
“Why not?” Interjected Harry, careful to keep his voice neutral, unlike Ron.
Hermione turned to look at Harry with her big, brown eyes, which reminded him a bit of a dear from their almond shape. When she shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, her high ponytail swished with the motion, attracting Harry’s attention. Maybe, just then, his heart skipped a beat.
“It’s just, erm, private. I guess you guys will know the night of the ball,” Hermione said with her eyes downturned while her fingers were preoccupied with the hem of her skirt. “I’ll just go to bed If you don’t mind.”
“Sure,” both boys said automatically as she rose from her spot on the carpet and uttered a quick goodnight in passing.
Harry didn’t miss the way Ron’s gaze followed Hermione until she disappeared from his sight.
“Mate, I bet she already has someone to bring her to the ball,” Ron said, elbowing him.
“Possibly.”
“You know how she’s a decent-looking girl?” Uh-oh. What was he gonna say. What was he going to say.
“Erm…” Way to be a fool, Harry.
“Well, I think she is.” Ron missed the way Harry’s non-answer wasn’t out of disagreement, on the contrary, he had been thinking the same thought - well, he’d thought of her in better terms than ‘decent’ – but that just put Harry out of a difficult situation.
“Would you ask her?”
“W-what?”
“If you were me, I mean?”
“Oh!” Harry let out a breath and relaxed into the back of the couch again. “I think I would,” he said sincerely. A few tense moments passed, in which Harry swallowed excess saliva more than once, thought he should have just shut up and played dumb.
“Nah.” Ron smiled squeezing the cushion in his lap. “I reckon you would have more luck than me.” Oh, Harry had been fervently hoping so for the last few weeks. But he wasn’t going to say that to Ron.
“Alright, I think I’m going to bed,” Ron announced, getting up from the couch. “She hates my guts, but she loooves you,” he said laughing and throwing the cushion in Harry’s face.
Harry was frozen for more than a few seconds with the cushion right over his face, swirling the last few words in his head. She loves him. Does she? Did Ron see more than what he let on?
“Coming?” Ron’s voice came from the stairs to their dormitory.
“Erm, yes!” Harry hurried behind Ron, smiling like a little fool.
He was going to ask.