April Fool

April Fool

Ron sat up in bed and stretched. He felt even groggier than usual this morning, and wished that he could sleep for another hour. Instead he sighed and used his wand to open the hanging of his bed. All of the other boys appeared to be awake and in various stages of preparing for the day.

"Morning, Ron." Harry grinned at him. He was already fully dressed and putting his books in his bag. "I was just about to wake you."

"I'm up," Ron yawned. "Barely."

"Uh, Ron?" Seamus was grinning wickedly at him. "You've still got a bit of lipstick on your face, mate."

"Huh? Why would I have lipstick on my face?" Ron asked, automatically swiping the sleeve of his pajama top over his mouth. Sure enough, there was a pale pink smear on the thin cotton fabric. "Okay, you guys, what did you do?"

He leapt from his bed and marched over to the mirror above his dresser to inspect his face, half expecting to find that his dorm mates had applied eye shadow and blusher as well. However, he looked completely normal, other than the fact that his hair was untidy from his hard night's sleep.

"I don't think he remembers," Neville said quietly to Harry. Harry nodded in agreement.

"Don't think I remember what?" Ron asked spinning to face his friends.

"What's the last thing you remember doing last night?" Harry asked carefully.

"I played chess with you and then went to bed!" Ron answered, becoming more and more confused. "Why did I wake up with lipstick on my face?"

None of the boys said anything for a moment, but Dean pointed to a pile of what appeared to be candy wrappers lying on Ron's nightstand. "You don't remember eating those?" he asked with some amusement in his voice.

"I just can't believe he ate five of them," Neville added as he watched Ron pick up one of the wrappers and inspect it closely. "Especially with that warning on the label."

"Cupid Caramels," Ron read from the package that bore a label from Weasely's Wizard Wheezes. "These can't miss if you want a kiss!" He looked up at the others blankly for a moment and then turned the package over and read, "Warning: Overuse of this product may cause temporary short-term memory loss."

He looked up again to find the other boys nodding at him with varying degrees of seriousness and amusement. He got an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach and rubbed his hand over his lips again. Harry was very close to laughing out loud, and Seamus drew Ron's attention away from that fact by saying, "So you don't remember kissing Hermione?"

"I did WHAT?!?" Ron shouted with a definite hint of panic in his voice.

The boys were nodding again, and Neville, getting into the spirit of things, said, "And how! We showed you the Caramels and you said you didn't believe that it would work, and to prove it, you shoved five of them in your mouth."

Harry had composed himself and picked up the tale from there. "You swallowed the lot, then said, 'See? Nothing!' and then you suddenly stood up, walked over to Hermione, and kissed her senseless."

"You're winding me up," Ron said, not sounding the least bit convinced. "Why didn't she slap me?"

"I thought she was going to!" Dean said. The others nodded.

"By the end, it looked to me like she was kissing you back, but it was hard to tell," Neville said. "When you stopped kissing her, she just looked kind of dazed and asked what had gotten into you."

"Well what did I say to her?" he asked desperately.

"You said that you'd been wanting to do that for ages," Harry said. "But then we told her about the caramels."

"She looked a bit disappointed, if you ask me," Seamus commented. "She just sort of said, 'Oh,' and then said that you'd probably come to your senses by morning, and that you'd probably want to forget all about it, so she would let it pass."

"Then what happened?" Ron demanded. It wasn't really possible for him to turn any redder. He couldn't remember a single thing that they were telling him; he couldn't believe it! He'd really kissed Hermione- on the lips - and couldn't remember it at all? That didn't seem fair.

"Then you tried to kiss her again," Neville supplied. "Hermione just put a hand up and said that she was going to bed, and that we should make you go to bed too, before you kissed anyone else."

"Oh God," Ron said, sinking onto the edge of his bed, looking faintly ill. "How many people actually witnessed this?

"Well let's see," said Seamus, clearly enjoying Ron's discomfort. "There were all of us, of course. And Hermione - that's a given - and Lavender and Parvati."

"The Creevey brothers," Harry added. "And Ginny"

"Katie Bell," Neville supplied.

Ron was getting greener with every witness they named. He ran a shaky hand through his hair and looked as if he wanted to ask something else, then finally said, "How am I going to face her today?"

Harry shrugged, and Neville wouldn't make eye contact with him, but Seamus said, "If you want my advice, act like nothing out of the ordinary has happened. She said that she was going to let it slide this time, and she didn't really seem mad."

"Yeah," Dean agreed, "Seamus and I'll go and tell her that you don't remember a thing, and you can just act like you don't know anything about it."

Ron was just desperate enough to grasp at anything that would help him get out of facing up to his folly. "Thanks, guys."

"No problem," they said, and finished packing their schoolbags and departed.

Ron got dressed and shoved his books roughly into his bag and joined the others to go down for breakfast. If they hurried, he'd have time to at least grab some toast before Charms.

"You know," Neville said as they headed to the Great Hall. "You might want to consider kissing Hermione while you're not under the influence of Fred and George's sweets. She really did look like she was kissing you back."

Ron said nothing to this extraordinary announcement. He followed them to the Gryffindor table and was relieved that Hermione didn't appear to be there. Had he really kissed her? Had she really kissed him back? He remained lost in his own thoughts as Harry and Neville bolted down some bacon and toast before they all hurried off to class.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Hermione woke up early, as usual, and scratched Crookshanks behind his ears and she lay in bed for a moment, as was her custom. She liked to enjoy a few minutes of quiet, wrapped in the cocoon of her drapery-enclosed bed before she began her day. The other girls wouldn't be up for another half an hour or so... or they shouldn't be. As she absently stroked the ginger cat, she heard the unmistakable sounds of Lavender and Parvati giggling across the room. Had she overslept?

She pulled the red velvet hangings back from around her bed and looked over at the clock. No, the other girls were definitely up earlier than usual.

"What's up?" Hermione asked with a frown.

They looked in her direction as the hangings were pulled back, and nudged each other knowingly. Parvati was gesturing for Lavender to answer Hermione, and finally said, "Hermione, do you ever, uh, sleep walk?"

"Sleepwalk?" Hermione asked in a puzzled tone. "Not since I was a child. Why?"

"Well you did it last night," Parvati said with a bit of a smirk on her face.

"I did?" Hermione was surprised to hear this; she normally slept very well, and woke rested and refreshed.

"Oh, boy! Did you ever!" Lavender assured her.

"That sounds ominous," Hermione said as she stood and put on her dressing gown. "Did I do something foolish?"

"That depends on how you look at it," Parvati said slyly.

"Just tell me," Hermione demanded as she picked up her toiletries to take to the shower. She tired easily of Lavender and Parvati's girlish games and fits of giggles, and was losing patience.

"Well last night, you went to bed while Ron and Harry were playing chess," Lavender said, sensing that she was losing her audience. "And me and Parvati were doing our Divination Homework at the table by the stairs to our dorm. We were surprised when you came back down a little while later, wearing your nightgown, but we figured you were just looking for one of your books."

"I didn't do any reading before bed," Hermione remembered, speaking more to herself than to the other girls.

"Well that became obvious pretty quickly," Parvati said with a grin, "when you walked right over to Ron and planted one on him!"

"I did what?" Hermione asked, sure that she had misunderstood what they were telling her. It sounded an awful lot like they were saying that she had....

"Kissed him!" Lavender clarified.

"I most certainly did not!" Hermione protested, heat creeping into her cheeks.

"You most certainly did too!" Parvati shot back with a giggle.

"I thought Ron was going to have a heart attack!" Lavender said with relish. "He was totally stunned."

"Oh God!" Hermione looked from one girl to the other, praying this was some sort of sick joke. Then she remembered the date... "Nice try girls, you almost had me going for a minute there. April Fool, ha-ha."

They both looked blank for a moment before Lavender jumped to her feet and looked at the calendar she had tacked to the wall above her dresser. "You know, she's right! It's the first!"

"I wish I could tell you it was an April Fool's Day joke," Parvati said pityingly. "But the whole common room saw it."

Hermione blanched. "Like who?" she asked sharply.

"Well there was Harry and Ron." Lavender came to sit on the edge of Hermione's bed and said thoughtfully, "I think that's the first time I've seen Harry beat Ron at chess."

Parvati nodded and said, "Dean, Seamus and Neville were at the table on the other side of the stairs doing homework. And I think the Creevey brothers were there, and Ginny. And that Quidditch girl - the seventh year - Katie Bell."

"Yeah," Lavender said, "I think that's all."

"All of those people saw me walk into the common room in my nightgown and kiss Ron?"

"Right on the mouth!" Lavender said cheerfully.

"We could see almost right after that, that you weren't acting right. It was Harry who figured out that you were sleep walking," Parvati informed her. "He said the his cousin sleep walks all the time."

"What happened after that?"

"Well Ron wanted to try to wake you," Lavender supplied, "but Harry said that he'd heard that it could be dangerous to wake a sleep walker. Katie offered to try to guide you back up here, but then you just suddenly turned around and went back to bed as if nothing had happened."

Hermione was now sitting back on the bed as if she needed the support. Lavender put an arm around her shoulders and said, "It's no big deal, Hermione. Harry and Ron talked it over, and they decided not to say anything to you about it. You know - just pretend that nothing had happened."

"We thought that you would want to know, though," Parvati said. "I mean, there were a lot of people who saw it happen, and if you found out about it later, you'd be horrified that no one had told you. Besides, Ron was actually smiling pretty happily when he finally went to his room."

Hermione nodded at their logic while wild thoughts flashed through her mind. He had been smiling? She longed to ask the other girls whether it had been a 'glad it happened' kind of smile, or an, 'it's not often Hermione loses her marbles' kind. She refrained from bombarding them with questions, not wanting to seem too eager. She had been dreaming about kissing Ron for over two years now, and when it finally happened, she'd been fast asleep! It just wasn't fair! Instead of stamping her foot in frustration, though, she buried her face in her hands and fought down a scream.

"Look at the bright side!" Lavender encouraged. "Harry and Ron've already agreed not to mention it; they know that you would never consciously do something like that. All you have to do is act like you don't know it happened."

Could she really do that? Was she that good an actress? She certainly hoped so, because there was no way on God's green earth that she was going to walk up to Ron and say... what could she possibly say? "I guess I'll just have to act like it never happened."

The other girls nodded in sympathy, and Hermione headed to the showers. 'Maybe I'll get lucky and drown,' she thought bitterly as she went. She would hurry through her morning ablutions and rush to the Great Hall; she planned to try to finish breakfast before Ron got there, and then hide out in the library until it was time to go to charms. She would try anything to delay the moment in which she would have to face him.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Much to Hermione's consternation, the only seat available when she arrived in Charms class was at the end of the row, right beside Ron. She slid into her seat just as Professor Flitwick climbed onto his stack of books, and quickly took out her quill and parchment, busying herself until class officially started. She didn't notice Lavender giving Seamus a 'thumbs up' sign as they both smiled. Once the Professor began to speak, she was able to focus her attention on the lesson, and only thought about her predicament once or twice during the class. At one point, her eyes made contact with Seamus Finnegan's and she noted that he leered slightly before turning his eyes back to his parchment.

'Oh great!' she thought distractedly. 'He's thinking of what an ass I made of myself last night. This is never going to work! Every time I see one of these people looking at me like that, I'm going to know that they know, even if they think I don't know...'

"Miss Granger?"

Now all eyes in the class were on her, and she had no idea why! Could this day get any more mortifying?

"Yes, Professor?"

"Are you quite all right?"

"Yes Professor. I apologize. My mind was elsewhere." Hopefully that would be a sufficient explanation for her inattentiveness.

He seemed to accept this excuse and asked her if she would kindly give the answer to the question he had just asked about Translation Charms. Ron was looking at her strangely as she answered, but looked away from her when she looked in his direction. Harry was hiding a grin, making her even more convinced that he thought she'd gone mad.

'It's lucky that I've got Arithmancy next,' Hermione thought as class was dismissed. 'I won't have to deal with any of the other Gryffindors there.'

"I'll see you at lunch," she said hurriedly in the direction of her two best friends and dashed off before either of them could speak.

Back in the Charms classroom, Ron turned to Harry and moaned, "She can't even stay in the same room with me! She wouldn't even look at me during class!"

"Maybe she's trying to forget about it," Harry suggested, walking out into the corridor with him.

"Maybe she doesn't want to forget about it," Dean suggested. "Maybe she's disappointed that you've 'forgotten' about it."

"Why?" Ron asked sharply. "What did she say about it?"

"Nothing, really," Seamus said. "We just showed her the warning on the package and told her that we think you overdid it. Told her that you didn't seem to recall a thing about last night."

"What did she day about that?" Ron asked, stopping in the middle of the flow of students trying to get to their next classes. Harry grabbed his arm and urged him forward.

"She just sighed and said she supposed that it was for the best," Dean said. "She seemed a disappointed about it is all."

Ron lapsed into silence as he absorbed this bit of information. Had she really been disappointed? Was it possible that she had enjoyed being kissed by him? What if it was true? Shouldn't he do something about it? But what could he do? The others had already told her that he had no recollection of last night's events, and it would seem strange if he were to make a move toward her now.

The other boys watched the expressions pass over his face as he dealt with internal struggle, and fought to keep from laughing outright. They were on their way up the steps to the Divination classroom when Colin Creevey passed them on the way down, and clapped Ron on the shoulder as he passed, saying, "Way to go, Ron! Wish I'd had my camera!" By the time they had climbed the ladder to the classroom, Ron looked as though he were suffering from bad sunburn. Harry almost felt sorry for him!

"Today I will divide you up into pairs," Professor Trelawney told them as they took seats. "You will be reading the Tarot Cards for each other using the basic three card layout."

Ron was paired with Lavender, and went to sit across from her gloomily. She took all of this stuff very seriously, and would no doubt expect him to do the same. Her giggle when he settled onto his pouf caught him off guard, until her realized the she had been there when he'd made a fool of himself last night. As one of her room mates, he might have been able to give him some valuable insight as to how Hermione was feeling right now, but he couldn't ask. He wasn't supposed to have any idea of what he'd done, and if he revealed to Lavender that he knew, she might tell Hermione. With a sigh, he pulled his deck of cards from his bag and asked her if she'd like to go first.

She nodded and took her own cards out of a highly stylized leather case made specifically for her deck. Ron rolled his eyes when she wasn't looking. Once the three cards were laid on the table, Lavender focused on the reading.

"Okay, your first card is the Situation card, and tells us that you are in an indecisive phase right now, and are having trouble making up your mind about something." Lavender lied calmly, watching Ron's facial expressions from beneath her lashes. She knew that he didn't lend any credence to Divination, and so did not feel bad about the deception. When Professor Trelawney had paired her with Ron, it had seemed too good an opportunity to pass up; she wouldn't feel the need to check on her star pupil's reading when she could be pestering Harry about impending doom.

"Really?" Ron said, looking at the cards in front of her without any clue as to what they might mean.

"Uh-huh," she nodded, pretending to be absorbed in the cards before her. Your second card is the Self card, and tells us that you are entering a phase of self-awareness and new beginnings. You are at a period in which you may be ending one type of relationship to enter another." She struggled to keep the mirth out of her voice as Ron hung on her every word, not even looking at the Tarot.

"What's the last card?" he asked eagerly. "What's the Ten of Wands?"

"Let me see, my dear," Professor Trelawney had heard the excitement in Ron's voice and it had caught her attention. She leaned over the cards to not the position of the card that her partner had asked about.

'Damn,' Lavender cursed mentally, and prayed that Trelawney wouldn't ruin her fun.

"The Ten of Wands in this position requires you to re-evaluate your motivation for continuing to do what you have been doing, because your previous motivations have been exhausted. You took things as far as you could; now you are gaining wisdom from the experience...."

A loud crash from the next table had all heads turning toward Harry and Dean, who had somehow managed to drop an entire stack of books from the table to the floor with a satisfyingly loud noise. Harry grinned conspiratorially at Lavender as the Professor said to Ron, "I'll leave you in Miss Brown's capable hands, Mr. Weasley." And then moved over to Harry and Dean's table to see that they were reading their cards correctly.

"So what did all that mean about the Ten of Wands?" Ron asked when she had gone.

"Well it means that you need to evaluate the direction you've been going in with the thing that's troubling you. That direction has run its course, and you need to learn from it and take things to the next level."

"The next level, huh?" Ron repeated thoughtfully.

At the next table, Harry went into a sudden coughing fit as he tried to hold his laughter in.

*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*

Lunch was an interesting affair for Ginny and the sixth-year Gryffindors. Hermione had arrived to join them, and had promptly removed a book from her bag and began revising her Arithmancy. Not even Ron missed the furtive looks she kept throwing his way each time she took a bite of her food, but he said nothing. Harry would have given a large portion of the gold in his Gringotts vault to be able to read his friends' minds right now. It surprised them all when Ron finally spoke.

"So Hermione," he said. "Do you think you'll have time to help me with that Charms essay Flitwick assigned today?"

Hermione looked startled at the question, though it was one he'd asked on numerous other occasions about just about every subject they took. It seemed that he was trying to put things between them back on a solid footing. "Oh!" she said hesitantly. "Sure. We can work on it tonight if you don't have Quidditch practice too late."

He nodded, and then just kept looking at her for a moment. "Sounds great," he finally said, and went back to his lunch.

Just before the end of lunch, Ron excused himself to go and get a book he'd forgotten for Herbology, and Harry decided to go with him.

Parvati leaned closer to Hermione and said, "He's being so sweet!"

Lavender nodded fervently and said, "If it was me, I'd think about kissing him while I was awake. He obviously fancies you!"

"He does?" Hermione asked wistfully, cringing when she heard herself talking that way. "But he's my best friend! I don't want to ruin that!"

"Call me thick," Parvati said. "But I think it would be great to be in love with a guy who was my best friend."

"Ginny," Lavender said, drawing Ron's sister into the conversation. "You've been awfully quiet through all of this. What do you think?"

Ginny gave a small smile before looking around her to make sure that no one else could hear her, "I'm only going to say this once, and you didn't hear it from me."

"What is it?" Hermione asked anxiously, leaning closer.

"Okay," she said, lowering her voice even more. "Last night, after you went back to your room, I overheard Ron and Harry talking about what had happened, and Harry asked Ron, 'Why don't you just tell her you fancy her? If she's walking around in her sleep, and she comes in and kisses you, she's obviously got you in her subconscious.' And then Ron said that he was afraid that telling you would ruin your friendship if you didn't really feel the same way."

"You do feel the same way, don't you?" Parvati asked knowingly.

"I... I do." Hermione said, and then blushed to the roots of her hair. It was the first time she had admitted it to anyone but herself.

"Well then I think it's pretty obvious the two of you need to have a talk," Lavender advised.

"Maybe tonight while you're helping him with his Charms essay?" Ginny suggested.

"Maybe," Hermione said. She had a faraway look in her eye, and a soft smile on her lips as she said it.

"Well I've got to get to Transfiguration," Ginny announced giving the two girls a wink behind Hermione's back before departing.

The three girls headed out to the Greenhouses for Double Herbology, and were met there by the sixth year Gryffindor boys. They were having a practical lesson that day, which didn't lend itself to too much socialization, and so passed in relative peace. It was when Ron was heading back up to the castle that he passed Katie Bell, who smiled sweetly at him, held out a bag with the logo from the twins' shop and said, "Caramel, Ron?" She walked away laughing merrily at her little joke while Ron scowled.

As they washed up in the boy's bathroom, Dean chose a sink next to Ron's and said, "Got some news for you, mate."

"What's that?" Ron asked irritably as he rolled up his sleeves. He was still stinging about Alicia's snide comment.

"Just that Hermione has been talking to Lavender and Parvati about a certain common room incident. I just happened to overhear them talking about it after lunch," He said as he lathered his hands.

"What were they saying?" Ron asked with trepidation in his voice.

"I only heard a bit," Dean shrugged, "but Parvati was asking Hermione why she doesn't just tell you she fancies you."

"And?" Ron asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"And Hermione said that she was afraid you don't feel the same way, and didn't want to make a fool of herself and ruin your friendship," Dean said with a straight face, ignoring the impressed looks that Neville and Harry were giving him behind Ron's back as they dried their hands.

"You do fancy her don't you?" Seamus asked with raised eyebrows.

"Of course he does," Harry supplied helpfully. "He's just too thick to do anything about it."

"I am not!" Ron defended hotly, thinking his manhood was being called into question.

"So you're going to tell her?" Harry asked skeptically.

"I... I will!" He said, his heart jumping into a wild gallop at these words.

"How about tonight, when she's helping you with your Charms essay?" Harry suggested, having run into Ginny in the corridor on the way to Herbology and stopped to tie his shoe to get a few moments to talk to her.

"Yeah," Ron said, looking mildly green. "Tonight."

The bets started the minute Ron left the bathroom and headed up to change before dinner and Quidditch practice. Harry felt confident that he and Neville would have considerably heavier moneybags by the end of the evening, having bet that his best friends would be kissing before midnight.

After Quidditch practice, Harry headed for the dorm showers, and saw Ron mumbling to himself as he gathered a change of clothes to make use of the Prefect's bathroom. He was pretty sure that he was going over what he wanted to say to Hermione in his head, before he actually tried to talk to her later. He hurried through washing and dressed quickly. He wanted to make sure that the small table in the far corner of the common room remained free for Ron and Hermione to do their homework at. It was secluded enough to be private, but open enough so that he and the others would have a clear view of them as they 'worked'. Ginny and the others were spreading out their books and parchment on the other tables, just enough to make it inconvenient for the focus of their plan to use them.

When Hermione walked in and looked around for a place to settle with her books, Harry was seated at the small table in the corner, and waved her over. "You can sit here," he told her.

She nodded and set her bag down next to a chair. "Have you seen Ron?" she asked with a puzzled expression. "He said he wanted help with his charms essay."

"He went to wash up from Quidditch practice," Harry said, pretending to read his Care of Magical Creatures book. "He should be along any minute."

Almost as if Harry's words had summoned him, Ron climbed through the portrait hole and looked around. When he spotted Hermione and Harry, he held up a finger indicating that he would be right back, and went up to retrieve his schoolbag. When he returned to the table, Harry stretched his arms high in the air as if tired, and right on cue, Ginny called to him.

"Harry, could you help me with these Defense Against the Dark arts questions?"

"Sure," he said, and left Hermione and Ron alone together.

They both felt that something suspicious was going on, but didn't say anything as they got out their Charms books, parchment and quills. They worked in silence for a few minutes before he asked his first question, moving his chair closer to hers so that she could look over what he'd written with him. Their conversation was a bit stiff and formal, and finally Ron took a deep breath and decided that he would go mad if he kept thinking about this all night while he tried to build up the courage to speak his mind.

"Look," Ron said, run a hand through his hair nervously. "I wasn't going to say anything about it, but I think I need to talk to you about what happened last night."

"You do?" Hermione asked tentatively. What could this mean? She might as well come clean about it and put him out of his misery; he was only trying to be a good friend. "I mean, I already know."

"You do?" He blinked.

Heart pounding heavily, she nodded, looking at the region of his Adam's apple rather than looking directly into his eyes. She was afraid that she would see discomfort or pity in them, and didn't want to face it.

"The thing is..." he began, his heart racing as he tried to think of what he would say to her. If he chose the wrong thing, it could be the end of their friendship. He swallowed hard, but before he could say anything at all, she interrupted him.

"I'm not sorry it happened," she blurted out, her cheeks pink, but her voice defiant. She didn't want to give him the chance to say, 'Thanks but we're better off as friends.'

"You... you're not?" he asked, afraid that this was some sort of dream that he would be forced to wake from.

"The only thing I'm sorry about is not telling you that sooner," she said, finally daring to meet his stunned gaze.

A smile had begun to creep onto his face as he realized what she was saying. "You mean it?" he asked in disbelief, taking her hands in his.

"I mean it," she said firmly, her smile emerging as well.

"What do we do now?" he asked, afraid of making a wrong move.

"How about a repeat performance that we'll both remember this time?" she suggested slyly.

"Sounds perfect."

It was impossible to say who made the first move, but in an instant their lips met and fused. They were completely oblivious to the applause that had broken out around the rest of the common room, while Dean and Seamus handed over several gold coins to Harry and Neville. They also didn't see Ginny lean over to the group of friends who had planned it all and ask, "Are we going to tell them it was all an April Fool?"

"Nah," said Harry happily, watching his best friends embrace at last. "Why ruin it?"

Finis! (You can say Awwwww now.)