All Bets Are On...

Hermione entered the classroom, praying fervently that Snape had suddenly gone blind, that Fred and George had apparated on top of his head, or perhaps that he had decided to make a run for the faculty bathroom- because only one of those three things would stop him from noticing both her and Harry.

Notice them he most certainly did. And so did all of the class, turning around in their seats to stare at Hermione and Harry dripping water all over the cobblestone floor.

The expression on Snape's face as he surveyed them said everything Harry and Hermione needed to know. They were doomed. Doooomed. Forget being as inconspicuous as Professor Flitwick on stilts...as inconspicuous as
Hagrid (not exactly the king of diminutiveness) wearing platforms and dancing to the disco was more like it.

Their entrance couldn't have been more obvious if a howler combined with one of Pansy's tantrums and a Filibuster Firecracker had announced the whole thing.

Relishing the moment, Snape enunciated each word he spoke slowly and clearly, as if the whole class was deaf and incapable of understanding him unless he did so.

"My, my, if it isn't Mister Potter and Miss Granger. And where have you two been?"

On a long and far journey to remove the wand from your butt, Hermione wanted to retort, but not being one to get snippy with teachers, she kept her mouth in a thin line.

"Interesting," continued Snape. " Let me guess, you got so carried away with your passion for each other, you not only forgot to be on time to potions, but you fell into the lake to boot? MOST unfortunate."

"Sorry to burst your bubble and all, but we were just late," said Harry, opening his mouth in spite of the warning look coming from Hermione.

"No particular reason?" asked Snape, his lips curving upwards.

"None," said Harry boldly.

"Seventy points from Gryffindor for impertinence and for being late. And thirty more points," Snape glanced at Harry with pure malice. "For lying to a teacher." Several Slytherins were snickering, and none to quietly at that. The Gryffindors were grimacing, as was Hermione when she counted up the points they had just lost for their house. One hundred. They might as well have just skipped class altogether.

Hermione was furious. "Begging your pardon, professor, but he's not lying."

"Indeed? Then what is your story, Miss Granger?"

Hermione sucked in her breath, suddenly realizing what a pickle she was in. She couldn't very well tell Snape that she and Harry had happened to fall in a puddle that had just happened to appear. Might as well tell Snape they had gotten held up by a giant clown that had escaped from the circus.

If it had been in Draco Malfoy's nature to grin, he would have been doing so. But it wasn't. Because Malfoys never grinned. They sneered, scowled, and looked devastatingly sexy and handsome, but they did NOT grin.

"You see, it's a bit hard to believe you when you seem to be so speechless. Since whatever it is doesn't seem to bear telling, I must assume that what you were doing was not," Snape smiled. "Something that had anything in the least to do with gaining knowledge."

"Oh, yes it did," whispered Harry in Hermione's ear. "I learned that it's better to picture Snape with a vulture hat and handbag when I'm in front of him then when he's not around."

"Add the frilly fuschia dress Pansy wore to the Yule ball and you've got yourself an image," whispered Hermione back, trying to both ignore Snape and keep from grinning.

"Knowledge," continued Snape, glaring at the both of them and causing them to cease whispering immediately. "That you seem to lose whenever you around each other. Which is why, I believe it is best for both you and your apparel"- he paused and the Slytherins once again snickered. "If one of you sits elsewhere. Granger, go over by Malfoy. Potter, you can stay by Weasley."

Draco instantly stopped smirking and looked at Hermione in disgust. No doubt this was the nearest Professor Snape had ever come to giving him punishment.

" Lovely. Malfoy looks like he just ate a pack of sour lemons," muttered Hermione to Harry.

Harry glanced at Draco. "Nah, more like he just got told Hagrid's teaching home economics."

"And was force fed two baskets of Hagrid's treacle fudge," added Hermione, but stopped the conversation short there, for Snape was giving them both a pointed look that told them they had better stop yapping. Taking the hint, she and Harry walked off towards their separate seats on opposite ends of the classroom.

" Do me a favor and accidentally trod on his toe a few times for me, will you?" whispered Ron, not looking at Hermione as she passed by. She had a horrible, sinking feeling Draco's toes weren't the only ones Ron felt like smashing. From the way Ron had given Harry a glare to rival even Snape's, she had no doubt he was ever so slightly upset by what Snape (and Ron himself) thought had most likely happened.

Busy soaking up the fury coming from both Harry and Hermione, Snape
failed to notice a pearl-white, translucent hand reach through the wall nearest to where Hermione usually sat and tip a bottle containing a red liquid swiftly into her cauldron. Unfortunately, no other student noticed, either.

If they had, things would have turned out differently. But they didn't. Besides, with ghosts running rampant playing pranks in the name of the ultimate bet, things almost inevitably would not only have turned out different, they would have turned out worse.

*******

Nick grinned as he drifted back into the empty dungeon next door, where more of a similarly pink colored potion was sitting in a vast cauldron.
Love potions always did the trick. Hah! She and Harry would be hugging each other soon-no more water from Moaning Myrtle's bathroom needed.

Nick wasn't too keen to do that particular summoning spell for the water again. In his ears, he could still hear the first year shrieking when she sat down on the toilet seat only to find the water rush out from it, go over her head, and fly out the door.

A scatter of different ingredients that had been crushed and mixed to make the love potion still lay on the table nearby. Nick simply floated over and scooped them all up into a bag, along with the book "Most Potent Potions" he had been reading.

He should have examined page twenty-four of the book (which contained the list of ingredients required to make the love potion) a bit more carefully. Because if he had, he would have noticed that he had not brewed up the normal love potion, but a version that had an affect on its victims that was much more....speedy.

Not only that, Nick's potion, in Hermione's cauldron, set for her and Harry to taste test, was now being moved on its way towards a very different person's seat...Draco Malfoy's.

Nearly Headless Nick, peering into the classroom one more time to make sure the potion was right where it should be ( namely, next to Hermione and Harry) saw Hermione moving her cauldron towards Draco's and muttered a curse he hadn't said since he had gotten his head chopped at with the blunt axe.

Why couldn't things ever go according to plan?

************

"So," whispered Draco (though he probably could have yelled it, seeing as Snape was mysteriously ignorant of any noise or chaos Draco caused during his class) to Hermione as she took her seat next to him and set up her own cauldron. "How come I didn't get to end up the lucky one you fell into the lake with? Good thing there's no lake here, or with all my charm, I suppose you'd drag me into it, eh?"

Well, Draco obviously wasn't wasting any time in bringing out the razor sharp sarcasm that made you want to slap his face, thought Hermione.

"The only way you'll get drenched," she said, "is if I tip you into a cauldron." Hermione took one look at the potion that Draco was pouring from his cauldron to hers. The whole thing was now a sickly sort of pale pink.

"Ugh. Speaking of which, if you did fall in, you'd probably die." Hermione studied the textbook opened out in front of them. "It says here that the potion is supposed to turn yellow, not pink. I thought potions was your best subject."

Draco languidly leaned back in his chair. "Aha, making an effort to find out more about me, are you?"

"No," said Hermione shortly. "Avoiding it, actually."

Draco joined Hermione in stirring the potion and they worked in stony silence for a few minutes before he spoke again. "Goodness, someone had better restrain Weasley," Draco drawled. "He looks like he's about to cut off his own arm."

Hermione turned to look in Ron's direction and it was indeed true, Ron was busy slicing with his knife-at anything but the roots he was supposed to be cutting up. So far, an end of the table was already missing.

"Funny, I think he's aiming for you," Hermione said through clenched teeth, trying not to let Draco get on her nerves. Only ten more minutes of class. Only ten more......

"Right," said Snape as he walked around, examining the concoctions bubbling in the cauldrons. "It's time to taste test your potions. I don't think it needs to be said that if you have miscalculated or mismeasured your ingredients by so much as a single unicorn's hair, you will find the side effects-" Snape's eyes strayed towards Neville here-"Most grievous."

"You messed up our potion," hissed Draco at her.

"Me? How could I have? There wasn't anything in my cauldron to begin with, remember?"

"Oh yes there was. You call a bunch of vomit colored stuff nothing?"

"It doesn't matter. It's too late now. Whatever happens , happens," said Hermione.

"I just hope it turns you into a bouncing ferret," she added.

Hermione swallowed the potion quickly, ready to turn into a toad or some such nasty thing without a moment's notice, but to her immense relief, absolutely nothing happened other than a curious warm feeling as it settled in her stomach.

Or, at least, absolutely nothing happened so far.

*********

Harry sat alongside a furious Ron. A furious and Harry admitted, every so slightly scary Ron. Harry scooted a few steps further away from his best friend. Ron with a knife when he was mad was not a good thing. He reminded Harry vaguely of Mrs. Weasley when she had found out Fred and George had used their dad's enchanted car to rescue Harry.

Harry knew who Ron was so upset at and he was willing to bet it wasn't Hermione. It was him. Ron had probably taken one glance at Harry and Hermione sopping wet and jumped to his own outlandish conclusions.

And with Ron, outlandish conclusions could be anything...including several things Harry didn't yet want to even think of.

"Ron?," ventured Harry as he watched his best friend chop away like a mad chef. "Me and Hermione weren't....we weren't..."

"Weren't what?" said Ron. "Got to be a bit more specific than that."

"We weren't- well, you know- what Snape said."

"Uhuh. Then how come you're both wet? And don't tell me that it's from the rain outside, because it's so cold I think there are actually icicles growing on Snape's eyebrows."

Harry raised his own eyebrows. "You sure that's not just part of his usual appearance?"

"No," said Ron. "Because if it was usual, he'd have icicles growing out of his nose as well." He went back to his violent chopping.

"So what really happened between Hermione and you?" asked Ron, less angry now (or at least seeming to be, he wasn't chopping the table anymore-only a bowl.)

"We slipped on a puddle outside one of the classrooms," said Harry truthfully. " And that's all that happened, promise."

"Hah!" snorted Ron loudly and then upon seeing Snape, lowered his voice. "Don't you have a better excuse than that?"

Harry rolled his eyes. Wasn't Ron being just a tad melodramatic about this whole thing? Honestly, Hermione was right. Ron could be so pigheaded when it came to what he thought had happened and what had actually happened. It would make a splendid play, Harry could just see it now...The Puddle that Launched A Thousand Lies (and Snape's Forray Into Cross Dressing.)

"Oh yes, now that you mention it. What me and Hermione really did was stop by the kitchens before class and decide to clean a whole set of dishes to make the house elve's job easier. Then, Hermione , startled when she saw a polka dotted elephant, accidentally slipped on a piece of soap and fell into the sink, at which point I decided to pull her out and tragically fell in too. There, is that stupid enough sounding for you?

Ron just glared, tight-lipped, ahead.

"Honestly, Ron, Hermione doesn't even like me." Not a complete lie, Harry comforted himself. I like her. "If she did, you'd be the first to know."

"Really?" Ron cheered up slightly.

"No," said Harry, shaking his head. "I'd tell Parvarti first, naturally, because I just love having gossip spread all over the whole school. Of course it'd be you, Ron. You'd do the same with me, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah...yeah, of course," said Ron, brightening up. " Figures, just like Snape to embarrass you in front of the whole class like that. You should have shook your hair as you walked in and gotten him good and soaked, Harry. That way maybe he'd freeze to death."

Snape blocked off any further use of conversation. "Some people should try to pay attention during class," he said loudly from behind Ron's shoulder, causing Ron to jump up and accidentally swing the knife he had been holding in an dangerous arc. "Or they may find themselves in detention."

The bell rang at that moment. Snape sighed and raised his hands. "Class dismissed. A ten page essay on the effects of your potion is due tomorrow. And Miss Granger and Mister Potter?"

Hermione and Harry stopped in their tracks. "Next time you're in the halls, kindly try to keep your hands off each other and devote your attention instead to being on time."

That was when the potion Hermione and Draco had swallowed minutes before finally brought about the reaction that went with it.

"Excuse me, professor?" said Draco as the other students filed out.

"Yes?"

"Hermione doesn't deserve to be insulted. I demand you take back your comment at once. This biased treatment of the Gryffindors has got to-"

Draco clamped a hand over his mouth, horrified. What was happening to him?

He rushed out of the classroom speedily, only to run into the very person he had been hoping to avoid.

**********

Harry and Ron watched in puzzlement as Hermione walked off in the opposite direction from them both-and from their next class. "What are you doing?" shouted Ron at her retreating back.

Hermione in return answered calmly . "Going to be with my true love, of course."

Harry and Ron stared at her, then as it hit them, they nodded at each other in understanding. "The library."

Hermione, finding the one she had been looking for, grabbed hold of his robes to stop him on the spot. She smiled at Draco's face dreamily while he looked down at her in horror.

"Thanks for sticking up for me, Draco. I appreciate it." What on earth was she saying? Hermione was shocked. It was as if she had no control over her speech. Or her thoughts, she realized suddenly, as she stared at Malfoy and found herself privately praising his good looks.

"What I mean is, I can stick up for myself, thanks a lot, you pompous-"

"Wonderful man." Hermione shook her head and tried again, her cheeks flushing pink. By now, a good number of the students in the halls were staring at them with interest, including Harry and Ron (who had both quickly come to realize Hermione's was not pining away for a dusty collection of books) as well as the Weasley twins.

"No!" she said, every bit as horrified as Draco now. "I didn't mean that! What I meant was, DON'T YOU DARE STICK UP FOR ME..." Hermione began yelling loudly.

Then her face switched back to dreamy again, in spite of her best efforts for it not to do so. "Just because you like me," she finished softly.

"What the bloody???" began Draco.

"Now, now, don't feel insecure, I like you too." Hermione forced her hand into Draco's.

Standing next to him, Harry could practically hear Ron saying evil git, evil git, evil git in a monotone.

"What are you on, mudblood? I don't like you!" yelled Draco, his face as red as Hermione's. "I love you." That was when the bad poetry kicked in.

And boy, was it ever bad. Worse than Fred's attempt to recite three little black sheep with a rose in his mouth had been (and that had ended with the rose going halfway down his throat when Angelina told him to stuff it.)

"I love you with all my heart, more than the-" Draco's face looked convulsed."@#$%^&!" He swore angrily, trying to control this strange feeling that was taking over him.

"More than the birds that sing."

"....Whoever the hell is playing this prank is gonn-"

"More than a king loves a queen. " Draco turned towards the chuckling George and Fred with a murderous expression on his face. "You Weasleys, this is all your doing, isn't it?"

"So much that I-"

"...Am going to wring both of your necks together..."

"-Can't stand the thought of life-"

"After I send you both flying out a window,..."

"-Without you-"

"...beaten up by set of plastic forks, with a bunch of tea dumped over your heads.......

"-I am nothing but-"

"......forced to watch Dobby do the hula on your eyeballs...."

"I say," interjected George. "I may be in the minority here, but isn't it a bit hard to watch someone when they're dancing on your eyeballs? Better say you want him to do the limbo under our armpits, instead."

"Or you could always have him break out tap dancing on our backs," piped up Fred.

"Or do ballet on their toes," suggested Harry. Ron said nothing, still clutching his fists.

The murderous expression Draco had been shooting Fred, and George could have been considered a friendly smile compared to the one he was sending their way now. The potion forced him unto his knees in front of Hermione, who was still just standing still with her hands over her mouth-no doubt trying to prevent poetry similar to Malfoy's from escaping.

"Half alive. For the perfection that is you I -"

"...torn into itty bitty pieces by a magical paper shredder...."

"Now, now," said Ron sarcastically, looking a bit more relieved now that he realized the poetry part of this must have been someone's idea of a joke. "I realize how much you love Hermione, but that's really no reason to go to all the trouble of finding a paper shredder large enough for you to fit through...you can always just eat a Filibuster Firecracker for the same effect."

"Wow. Really?" asked George and Fred simultaneously.

Harry grinned. "Not too sure Charlie's cooking doesn't do as much as well. Not too sure Charlie's cooking doesn't have one or two firecrackers in it, actually. That would explain those long, red things in the mash potatoes he made."

"Mashed potatoes? You mean mashed rocks," muttered Fred.

"I think those long, red things were just some pieces of licorice that Charlie put in to give the thing more flavor," said Ron thoughtfully.

"Either that or Crookshanks jumped into the crock pot," said George (Hermione had spent a month or so at The Burrow that summer, and naturally, the cat had come with her, leaving behind a mound a hair wherever he went and causing Ron to exclaim that with all that shedding, Crookshanks should have gone completely bald.)

"-Strive-" blurted out Draco, who had tried to get his emotions (and his voice) under control and failed miserably.

"To chop off your ears and fed them to a hippogriff," he finished, glaring at Harry, Ron, Fred, and George by turns, making it clear as to just whom the message was intended.

All four, however, pretended as if Draco was simply reciting the whole thing, poetry and nasty comments included, to Hermione.

"Violence, violence," said Fred with a shake of his head. "Is that all teens can think of nowadays? I'm sure a batch of flowers she's allergic to would work much better."

"I love you for all-"

Draco struggled to get himself out of his kneeling position on one knee, but the minute he tried to get up, he simply fell right back down.

"@##%!!"

"Eternity." Draco looked so miserable, Harry almost felt sorry for him. Almost, but not quite. Better to save any sympathy he had for Draco until after Ron had cursed him or beaten him up, one or the other of which, by the way Ron was clenching his fists and his wand, was going to happen very soon.

"Encore, encore!!" uttered Seamus and Dean, both clapping vigorously as they passed Draco and Hermione.

Then Draco did something that caused all the snickering and commenting students gathered 'round to shut their traps. At last finding himself able to get up from his kneeling position, he stood on his feet with a look of triumph....

That lasted all of two seconds before he kissed Hermione full on the lips.

**********

From yet another landing on yet another staircase, Moaning Myrtle, Nearly Headless Nick (who had quickly recovered from being in such a quandary as to almost using Peeves's idea of locking both Hermione and Harry in a closet, he was so desperate for the love potion not to take effect), and Peeves watched Draco kissing Hermione, all three in as much shock as any number of the students.

"Noo! One of you make him stop!" howled Myrtle, covering her eyes.

"Oh, I don't see what you're on about," grumbled Nick, thoroughly put out by the failure of his previous experiment. "Draco's not going to stop wearing leather pants to Care of Magical Creatures just because he kissed another girl, you know."

Peeves, a ghost of action (well, between his kind of action and the kind Myrtle wanted to have but wasn't going to get anytime soon, it was a tie), decided to take some. Floating down the set of stairs, he paused only to grab a litter of books from a first year, who uttered a startled exclamation, before floating back up again.

Hovering on the landing directly above Draco and Hermione's heads, he got ready to drop the load of books on both of them.

"Peeves!' yelled Nearly Headless Nick, exasperated.

Peeves looked at him innocently, blinking his eyes. "What? He WAS from Hufflepuff."

Nearly Headless Nick calmed down considerably once he realized Peeves hadn't stolen some Gryffindor's books. It wasn't his fault house loyalty was important-or that the fat friar had spilled a whole apple pie on his new doublet yesterday.

"Oh, well, in that case, alright. Just give them back when you're done."

"Bwehehehe." Peeves, possessing the much envied quality of selective hearing, hadn't heard a word Nearly Headless Nick had said, he was too busy concentrating on the exact spot he was going to make the books hit. The kiss had already stopped (Hermione had slapped Draco full across the face the minute she came to her senses), but Peeves still dropped the books on both Hermione and Draco, anyway.

Hermione stared at Draco, who stared right back. The effects of the potion, whatever it was, noted Hermione, were quickly fading. Ugh. I can't believe he just kissed me. If this is Fred and George's idea of a funny prank, they've gone too far. I've got enough trouble with telling Ron and Harry who I like without anyone else coming into the picture.

"If you puke," Hermione said at last. "Do me a favor and puke towards the side. I don't fancy being covered in vomit."

That was all Draco needed to hear. One last look at Hermione and he was off, running full speed towards either the boy's bathrooms or the infirmary, Hermione wasn't sure which.

Feeling a good deal sick to her stomach herself, she began walking off alone in the direction of her next class, stopping only to pick up her books from where she had dropped them when Draco had begun reciting the horrible poetry.

She didn't see three ghosts on the landing above, Nearly Headless Nick looking at Myrtle. "You switched their books? But what does it matter? They both have almost all the same classes, anyway. You DO realize that, don't you?"

Myrtle's never answered, evidently having not realized just that. So what? At least Ron and Hermione would have time outside of class, just as much as Hermione and Harry had had when they had fallen into that puddle. Besides, her idea was sure to bring them together. Myrtle had happened to glance at the interior of the book and had seen a set of initials penciled inside a heart there. Of course, they just had to be Hermione's, didn't they??

Too bad Moaning Myrtle had forgotten that she left her glasses in the prefect's bathroom that day.

Too bad Ron, Harry, or Colin Creevey hadn't seen Hermione slap Draco full across the face-some moments deserve to be preserved on film.

*******

"There was one and only one highlight to that whole thing," said Ron angrily as he and Harry strolled to Transfigurations together (once they had heard the bell, they had decided to begin walking off towards class, leaving Hermione behind as she seemed to be preoccupied kissing Draco. They figured she would catch up with them soon...hopefully.) "And that was when I saw Malfoy's face after those books hit them. With his bruises, he was more colors than a string of Christmas lights."

"Very festive," said Harry with a wry grin.

"Yeah." Ron gave a longing sigh. "Now if only we could find some way to stick him on top of a pine tree so he could never come down..."

Ron looked back at Draco and Hermione meditatively, and Harry gave a cursory glance back at them as well. Both were now standing apart and Hermione was muttering something to Draco, at which point, he walked off in a huff.

Harry felt relieved. Good. So it had just been someone's idea of a joke. Not that I thought Hermione would really kiss Draco of her own free will for a minute, he reassured himself, then remembered how queasy he had felt watching Draco recite poetry to Hermione, much less talk to her.

Ugh. This won't do. Soon enough, you'll start turning into Ron and arguing with her all the time if you so much as see another guy stand within a foot of her. That's the one thing I've got going for me that Ron hasn't-I can comfort her when she's feeling down, whereas he just gets her more agitated.

"But what-" persisted a terrible little voice inside him that wouldn't go away, "-if Hermione likes arguing with Ron? He only gets mad at her because he worries about her so much, you know. What if it's the same with her??

Worrying about each other too much led to other things. Things that Ron had already told Harry he felt for Hermione.

Harry snapped out of his reflective state at the sound of Ron's gloomy voice.
"Books, rice, what's the difference? They're as good as married. Hope she doesn't make us call her Hermione Malfoy. Ugh. Even the name sounds horrible."

"Who's married?" asked a curious voice from behind Harry and Ron. It turned out to belong to none other than Padma.

"No one except Harry and Ron and their overactive imaginations," said Lee Jordan, coming up with the twins behind him, per usual.

"Hermione married, honestly," said George (who, along with his twin and best friend seemed to be both overhearing and seeing everything exciting that happened with the ghosts' bets that day.) "Cho kissed you once, Harry and I don't seem to remember you two marching down any church aisle."

"Not unless you count the cracking your voice made afterwards when she asked you to Hogsmeade as wedding bells," added Fred.

"Sounded more like a tree being sawed down to me," put in George.

"Unsympathetic," muttered Padma, as if she thought she understood Ron and Harry's calamity perfectly . "What was the last thing you loved?"

Fred shrugged. "I dunno. Getting out of detention after making Professor Sprout have flowers grow out of her ears?"

"I rest my case," said Ron. Too many siblings. Way too many siblings. And every one of them knows about my crush on Hermione. Apparently, it's so obvious even Padma knows.

Wait a minute, realized Ron. Padma knows everything, obvious or not. She was the one that stalked Filch's cat in the middle of the night because she thought it looked like it was going to have kittens and wanted to find out the father. "C'mon, Harry, we had better get to class."

Fred turned to George and Lee as Ron and Harry walked off. "What? Was it something I said?"

"Duh," said Lee. "You forgot to put in the part about transfiguring her feet into roots. Genius, if I do say so myself."

"No, you should have pointed out that the flowers growing out of Professor Sprout's ears were really roses from you because you were too bashful to give them to her yourself, that Snape and her had been snogging behind greenhouse#2, and that the relationship was doomed because she was really dating the Whomping Willow," said George with snicker. "Then Padma would have been perfectly satisfied."

*********

"And since when do you know everything about romance?" demanded Harry, spinning around in his steps on a hunch and seeing that true to his suspicions, someone was following him and Ron, and that someone was Padma.

Padma smiled. "I'm fluent in the language of it, thanks to Witch's Weekly." And with that, she flounced off to class.

"Only thing she's fluent in is gigglish," muttered Ron to Harry as they entered Transfigurations. "She must have a different giggle for every day of the week."

"And a different colored nailpolish," said Harry as he watched Padma tapping her long, lacquered nails against her desktop while she flirted with Dean.

"Ooh," mimicked Ron, who hated Padma with a passion-mainly because she seemed to have taken to trying to hook him up with every single last girl in the class. "My nailpolish doesn't match my bobby socks. Whatever shall I do?"

Harry stifled a laugh behind one hand. "Probably go to Lockhart for advice. I'm sure he's had that same problem a multitude of times. Only, of course, minus the bobby socks. Matching curlers and nailpolish is much more tough."

Opening his textbook to page 324, Ron was about to try and finish last night's homework , when to his amazement the whole essay he had been supposed to write fell directly into his lap.

"What??! But Ron, you said you still had loads to do on your report," said Harry.

"That's what I thought," said Ron, peering down at his paper. Or, more correctly, her paper, he realized as he looked at the heading on the top of the report.

What was Hermione's stuff doing in his textbook?

Meanwhile, Hermione had just arrived late for the same class as Ron and Harry. Sitting down two seats away from them, she began getting out her textbooks.

Ron glared at her the whole time. Harry, however, attempted to look sympathetic-meanwhile planning ways to slip Malfoy a dungbomb, naturally.
Last thing she needs is another best friend jumping to assumptions, he reasoned. I'm sure there's an explanation for everything....

At least I hope there is.

How could she? thought Ron furiously. And with Malfoy of all the- No, I've got to stay calm. Calm. I'm going to throw a chair at him eventual- Caaalllm. How long has she been dating him now without telling me or Harry? Months? Weeks? And to think, just this morning she said she'd tell both of us before she ever dated anyone. She doesn't realize I think of her as more than a best friend-and she probably never will if I don't get the guts to tell her. But how am I supposed to get the guts when she's out there snogging Malfoy for goodness sake?

Hermione flipped open her textbook and stared at it for a moment in confusion. "Ron? Harry? Did one of you take my repor-?"

She saw her essay lying on Ron's desk. "Oh." She frowned and then turned to the inscription on the inside of the textbook. Property of Ron Weasley. But that wasn't all that was written there. In the corner, several doodles were apparent, including Lavender's name surrounded by hearts?!

"Ron," she said in a rather quiet voice. "I think we somehow managed to switch textbooks."

But that wasn't all they had done. The minute Ron picked up Hermione's textbook to swap it back, he and it both instantly vanished, seemingly into thin air.

Hermione gaped and reached over to shut Ron's textbook (which was on her desk). "Professor McGonagall? I think that Ron's...."

Hermione never got to utter another word as she too vanished.

*******

Nearly Headless Nick sighed as he, Peeves, and Myrtle drifted behind a bookcase to watch whatever events were going to take place between Ron and Hermione. "A can understand making a portkey out of their books," he said. "But to the library? Do you have any idea exactly how loud Ron and Hermione argue?"

"Only so that they can make up in the end," protested Myrtle.

"Oh, they have about a fifty percent chance of doing that," Nick agreed. "But they also have a just as likely chance of beating each other senseless with stacks of books."

Peeves grinned. "Freckles and Frizzy'll get trapped under a pile of books until they have beards down to their little toesies."

"Girls can't have beards," pointed out Nick sensibly.

"Oh yes they can," said Peeves. "Pimply wimply has one growing out of her ear."

Myrtle was about to give a screeching wail in reply, but Nearly Headless Nick, realizing that they where in a library even if the other two ghosts did not, spoke. "You can't have a beard growing out of your ear. If you do, it's not a beard."

"Mustache?" guessed Peeves, who had obviously been dead for a little too long.

"No. It's just ear hair. And besides, Myrtle doesn't have any."

"Pimply wimply doesn't have any what? Beauty? I agree," said Peeves with a nod.

Nearly Headless Nick just groaned and began hitting his head repeatedly against Quidditch Through The Ages.

"Ooh, you meant a boyfriend," guessed Peeves. "My bad."

"I do too have a boyfriend!" snapped Myrtle, then seemed to realize what she was implying and said no more. More like multiple boyfriends if you really counted all those prefects in the bathroom...and it was a bit hard to when they didn't even know she existed.

"Pimply wimply gets her snickers from watching boys without their knickers," Peeves began humming over and over.

At least I'm for Hermione and Harry, thought Nick self importantly. Honestly, you don't see me resorting to such childish tricks as using a portkey just to get two people together, do you?

Now then...would the tripping down the stairs, the attacking toothbrush of agony, or the stalking, pudding filled balloons work better on Harry and Hermione?

********

As the surroundings became unblurred around her, Hermione found herself in the library, much to her surprise. Finding Ron only a few inches away standing next to the same shelf wasn't nearly so surprising. Something very fishy was going on today...all these run ins she kept on having with either Ron, Harry, or Draco. If it wasn't the twins behind all these pranks, then who was it?

"What the-?" began Ron.

"I don't know," admitted Hermione as she sat down in one of the multifarious armchairs spread throughout the place. "This is a direct violation of rule-"

"-434, I know, I know," said Ron.

Hermione gave him a proud smile. "So you did read Hogwarts, A History."

Ron shook his head. "Nope, sorry. You've just mentioned it so many times it started to stick. Keep this up and I'll learn the whole book backwards and forwards."

"Good," said Hermione. "Maybe I should start reciting potion ingredients as well so you can pass the next test."

"Point taken. So did you have fun snogging Malfoy earlier?" Ron asked her dully, sinking into a poof.

At that, Hermione, who had been holding Ron's textbook open in both her hands up 'till now, slammed it shut. Fine. If it was another argument he wanted, he'd bloody get one. Gah, it was all so pointless. Things would be so much if Ron would actually listen to her for once instead of leaping to his own conclusions.

"Ooh, absolutely tons. Right up there with pulling weeds as my favorite activity," she snapped. "Whatever happened to your promising to stop overacting the minute you saw me with anyone else?"

"I said I would stop getting bothered about Krum. Not Malfoy. And you made it kind of hard not to see you, what with kissing in the middle of the hall and all. Couldn't you have at least pulled him into a darkened corner or something?"

Hermione groaned and rubbed her temples. She should have known that was what Ron would be upset about. "Well, if you had watched a little longer, you would have seen I slapped him afterwards. Not exactly the romantic thing to do, now is it?"

"Right up there with that poetry Malfoy was reciting," said Ron, and Hermione actually thought she saw a hint of a smile in his angry face.
"You know, bad as it was, I think he could actually teach Percy a thing or two."

Then suddenly, he was back to looking as angry as ever. "I can't believe you like him, 'Mione."

"Bloody-I do not!" Hermione was about to say that she didn't like a single male within the entire population of Hogwarts in such a way, but then she remembered just who she did....

"The whole thing with Malfoy and the poetry was just someone else's idea of a stupid joke."

"Right. Well, the kiss looked pretty realistic to me. Unless you two had magnets inside your lips and were forced together against your will or something, I don't exactly see how you can explain that away."

"Urggh." Hermione finally lost it, along with several other people in the library, including Madame Pomfrey, who told them to shh. "I give up! I can't explain anything to you!"

"Mister Weasley and Miss Granger, I have never heard so much yelling in all my life. This is a LIBRARY. If you cannot rid yourselves of the whim to argue every five seconds. At least rid us of the need to hear you do so. Ten points from Gryffindor."

This is not my day, thought Hermione grouchily. Not my day at all.
"I'm leaving anyway. Here, you can have your stupid book with Lavender's initials in it back. I don't care! At least I don't get jealous over every last itty bitty thing like some people!"

And with that, she promptly put the book on the arm of the chair next to Ron (Ron was relieved she didn't throw it at his head, which it looked very much like she had been going to do), and stormed out of the library, leaving him flabbergasted behind her.

"Ouch," said Nearly Headless Nick, sounding anything but sorry. In fact, he sounded rather cheerful about it. Ron and Hermione arguing equaled a chance for Harry to comfort Hermione, right? Nick would just have to see to it that Ron never got to apologize....

Myrtle and Peeves looked at each other. "Well," said Myrtle hopefully. "At least they didn't throw any furniture."

"What do you mean at least?" demanded Peeves, sounding upset and disappointed."No one even got hurt."

Nearly Headless Nick sighed, still slightly cross eyed from beating himself in the head with Quidditch Through The Ages. "You know, I'm beginning to think you're missing the whole point of this matchmaking thing."

"Break as many limbs and explode as many things as possible?" guessed Peeves in excitement.

"Ooh, I know! I know! Making sure that Hermione dates Ron and helps him study, so that he can become a prefect!" said Myrtle, thinking, naturally, of her current haunting spot.

"Is all you think about the prefects taking showers?" asked Nick.

"Of course not," protested Myrtle. "I think about them in swim trunks and towels, too."

Peeves gave a mocking grin, getting ready to sing all of his rhythms in succession. "Pimply wimply's ick! She has an obsession with prefect's broomsticks! She gets her snickers from watching boys without their knickers. Pimply wimply likes dimply-"

"Never mind," muttered Nick, going back to beating himself steadily in the head. "Just never mind."

Myrtle looked at Ron and pointed her wand determinedly. "Ron can't just sit there. Not when he's so near Lavender. Just imagine what they could get up to..."

"Oh, don't worry," assured Peeves. "I don't think there's enough room under the tables for what you're thinking of."

Myrtle looked at him and said one word. "Eww." And that was pretty rich, considering Peeves had just managed to gross out someone who haunted the prefect's bathroom.

------------

"I am not jealous!" Ron's voice echoed down the hall and Hermione ceased walking to turn around and look at him. His face and his ears were both akin shades of red.

Hermione noted this bemusedly and when she spoke, it was in a somewhat more calm tone then the one she had used a few minutes ago. "You know, your looks a lot like a strawberry right now."

Ron's eyes suddenly narrowed. Far from making him see how silly the whole arguing thing was, the comment just set him on edge even more.

"That's cherry to you!" he retorted before flinging around, running straight into a wall, picking himself up, and heading back to the library, his face more red than ever.

"I think he looked more like an apple, myself," stated Myrtle as they watched both Ron and Hermione go clomping off in their separate directions.

"Umm...Myrtle?" remarked Nick. "We were talking about his face."

********

Later that night, Hermione climbed up the stairs, exhausted but resolute. Dinner had been an absolute nightmare. Ron hadn't talked to her the whole time. In fact, he had been talking to Lavender, of all people. And no matter what Harry said on Hermione's behalf, he couldn't seem to get Ron and her to stop ignoring each other.

Well, now Hermione was just going to have to take matters into her own hands. An apology was the best she could give Ron-and hey, if he wanted to turn it into another argument, well, she would throw something and lit it out of there, because she really wasn't in the mood for another shouting match.

"Hey, Hermione. Where you off to?" said two voices, perfectly synchronized.
The Weasley twins had somehow managed to find Hermione yet again.

*******

The ghosts were at last on their way to their various haunting spots for some well earned rest (or, in Myrtle's case, some prefect watching) when they saw Hermione and the twins on the stairs. Nearly Headless Nick, who had had by far the most stressful day (you try putting up with Myrtle and Peeves for twelve hours and see where it gets you) gave a defeated sigh.

"Arrgh. Someone should set spell on her so she can't so much as look at anyone besides Ron or Harry without them turning to stone."

"Not stone," said Peeves. "If frizzy looks at them, they should go zooming off towards the prefect's bathroom. Pimply Wimply would like that. Pimply wimply likes dimp-"

"Shut up," grumbled both Nearly Headless Nick and Myrtle as if on cue.

They might as well have told Peeves to recite Romeo and Juliet from start to finish for all the good it did them. He immediately launched into another one of his rowdy songs. "Ooh...Pimply's as dim as Professor Binns, she only grins when she sees a prefect a bottle of gin."

"Peeves is about to get pushed down the stairs if he says so much as one more word about so much as a hair." True to Nearly Headless Nick's words, Peeves went flying head over heels down the aforesaid stairs.

"No, no, no," said Myrtle. "Can't we just make these twins disappear or something?"

Peeves, in spite of tumbling down a whole three flights of stairs, was as full of good ideas as ever. "Lock 'em in a closet! Lock 'em in a closet!" he chanted.

"Whaaatt?"

"That would have sounded far more normal coming from Myrtle," pointed out Nick.

******

Meanwhile, the twins were chatting with Hermione.

"Hope you're not going after Ron," said Fred. "Because we just passed him on the stairs, and if we hadn't moved aside, he would have charged at both of us like a rhinoceros."

"Which pretty much means, if you try to follow him and apologize-" started George, but Hermione cut him off.

"How do you know we got into a fight?"

"Other than the fact that Ron was just walking around muttering 'stupid sodding girls' and that you are clutching your bag of textbooks as if you intend to throw them at the boy's dormitory door, absolutely no clue," said Fred.

"I suggest not throwing your textbooks, by the way," put in George. "The door is only on three hinges as it is from all the times you and Ron have slammed it. It originally had ten. Not to mention that the wall has more cracks now than Malfoy's old broomstick after we whacked him over the head with it."

"Slam that book at the door and you'll not only have it fall down, you'll also probably make the walls crumble as well," added Fred.

"Yeah, save it for later when Ron calms down and decides to go to the loo. Then you can pelt him with it square in the forehead," said George.

"Besides, that bathroom provides so many opportunities for making up," said Fred.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Making out, more like.

"That ought to be the same thing with you and Ron," said Fred again with another shrug.

"Why does everyone keep on trying to set me and Ron up? It's really starting to get on my nerves," said Hermione.

"Speaking of nerves, are they all in a frazzle? Why not try the Weasley's counseling service, free of charge?" asked George, putting on a fake accent and sounding a good deal like a ring leader announcing a circus.

Hermione just stared. "What?"

"Come to the Gryffindor common room, sit down, and we'll talk about this further. You're obviously a danger to society if left alone," said Fred.

"Or left too near the boy's dormitory door," muttered George.

"Ahem. Anyway, the common room is the perfect environment to talk in. Much better than standing around chatting halfway up a set of stairs," said Fred.

"Comfy sofas," wheedled George.

"Upholstered chairs," added Fred.

"Padded walls..."

"Sorry, he meant to say the ceiling."

"Alright," said Hermione, her hands on her hips as she studied the two twins. "Just what is your ulterior motive here?"

"The fact that Filch is only two sets of stairs below us and is climbing faster by the minute," said George.

Hermione leaned over the edge of the railing on the stairs to peer down and could just discern the figure that was Filch along with Mrs. Norris, both of who were making their way up the creaky stairs, just as Fred and George had said.

That was all the convincing Hermione needed. Grabbing one twin by each corner of their robes, she dragged them behind her as she made a run for the Gryffindor Common room.