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Cheers erupt around Hermione, making her look up from her textbook. On the field, she sees Ron emerging from a successful tackle, jumping to his feet with a smile that could light up the whole town. A particularly shrill shriek sounds from the left — Lavender waving pom-poms and jumping up and down in her little cheerleader outfit. Hermione scoffs and looks back down.
Moments later, Hermione vaguely hears the coach’s whistle. She’s scribbling an equation when a familiar musk overtakes her senses, intoxicating and unfair.
“Whatchya working on?” Ron says by her right shoulder.
“Calc,” Hermione says without looking up.
She feels him mock-shudder. “Oof. Couldn’t be me.”
“It’s not so bad,” she says, eyes still firmly on her homework.
“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?”
She looks up, and he has a different smile this time. The wattage is still blinding, but there’s an ease to it that she knows better than the back of her hand. His shoulder pads make his already broad shoulders look massive. Sweaty ginger strands cling to his forehead, and it takes all Hermione has not to brush them away. She reaches for her bag, trying to ignore the stupid flutter of her heart.
“I reviewed your English essay, by the way,” she says, pulling it out and handing it to him.
His eyes glow with surprise. “You did? I didn’t think you were going to have time for it!”
“I made time,” she says with a shrug, even though she was up until 3 am wrapping it up.
Ron tips the essay toward his chest with an earnest expression. “I love you, Hermione.”
She blushes, heart racing, and looks back at her book. It doesn’t mean anything, you idiot. He’s only ever seen you as a friend. Even if that bimbo thinks otherwise.
“Don’t let Lavender hear you say that,” she mutters, eyes still on her book.
Ron laughs. “I won’t. Well, maybe I will. Maybe then she’ll dump me.”
Silence stretches after these words. Hermione feels Ron’s eyes fixed on her, as though he anxiously awaits her answer.
“Trouble in paradise?” she says calmly, even though that wretched heart of hers revs faster still.
After a beat, Ron says, “Lavender’s great, she’s just…Well, I guess we’re not so compatible.”
Hermione snorts. “I could have told you that.”
“Why didn’t you?”
She shrugs. “Didn’t think it was my place.”
When the resulting silence becomes unbearable, Hermione looks up again and meets Ron’s gaze. She does everything she can to match his inscrutable expression. Eventually, Ron sighs and looks down at the space between them.
“I’ve tried to hint at it,” he says sheepishly, intently studying the grooves of the bleacher seats. “But every time I bring it up, she just clings tighter like that squid in that marine life documentary we saw in Bio.”
Hermione laughs and returns to her equation, even as her stomach sinks. Even as she feels his gaze heavy on her again.
“Anyway, you’re a lifesaver, Hermione,” he finally says. “I should have come to you about it ages ago.”
“Well, you always treat me like a last resort, so it’s nothing new,” she mutters without thinking. She bites her tongue the moment she realizes what came out of her mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She hastily shuts her book, shoves it into her bag, and gets to her feet. “Forget I said anything.”
She gasps when she feels Ron’s rough hand close around her wrist.
“No, what do you mean—?”
“Won-won!”
They turn in unison to witness the cheer captain — homecoming queen, to boot — glaring at them. Ron drops his hand as though scalded.
“You don’t want to keep Lavender waiting,” Hermione says quietly before taking her leave. At about a hundred yards away, however, she can’t help but look back. Lavender yammers furiously at Ron’s right ear, but he only has eyes for Hermione.
Two hours later, as Hermione lies on her bed and mentally replays the events of the afternoon over and over again, she hears tapping on her window. Her heart jumps to her throat at the sight of Ron waving at her, hair damp as though freshly washed.
“Ron!” she exclaims as she lets him climb into her room. “What are you doing here?”
Ron straightens and stands silently for a moment, towering over her, filling the room with the woodsy smell of his aftershave. His eyes are the bluest she’s ever seen, like the surface of the ocean above its deepest point.
“Lavender broke up with me,” he finally says.
Every nerve in Hermione’s body stills.
“Why?”
The silence that precedes his response seems to last an eternity.
“Because of you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Be my first resort?” he says with a sheepish shrug.
The admission sucks the air right out of her.
“What?” she breathes.
Ron takes a step closer. He is so close now that Hermione feels as though she is drowning in his clean, post-shower scent. He lifts a hand to her cheek, his touch proving to her that this is real. That he finally woke up and found that what he’d been looking for has been there the whole time.
“It’s always been you, Hermione. I just…well, I just didn’t think I was good enough for—”
Hermione launches forward and kisses him. He responds with such enthusiasm that he lifts her off her feet. She loses track of time as their mouths move together, hearts aligning behind their chests, beating in unison.
“Wow,” Hermione says when she pulls away.
“Always the tone of surprise,” he jokes, setting her to the ground.
They’re still wrapped up in each other, wonder-eyed and giddy, when the words her kiss interrupted finally sink into Hermione’s brain.
“All this time, how could you not know?” she says, tracing his jaw.
“Know what?”
Hermione smiles and boosts herself on her toes so that her mouth hovers just below his.
“You belong with me, baby,” she murmurs before meeting his lips again.