Honestly, Hermione

Hermione couldn't believe how stupid she was acting. What happened to being the smartest witch in Britain? One minute with Ron Weasley, and she was acting like a silly schoolgirl. Blushing over "It'll just hurt for a minute" was not something the smartest witch in Britain would do, no matter what it brought to mind! Hermione decided she was going to have to turn in her wand if she kept acting like such a git.

If only she could turn off her memory with such a mental upbraiding. But no. The memories kept coming.

***

It took Hermione all of three seconds to adjust to being kissed by Ron. It had been completely unexpected, even though he had asked her to meet her in the third-floor corridor. He'd said he needed to talk to her about something, and she'd not-quite-graciously acquiesced, giving him time she should have spent studying. But she had to admit, she was intrigued. Ginny had let slip her belief that her brother was in love with the brilliant Gryffindor prefect, and Hermione wanted to know if it was true. It'd be nice to have something new over Ron for the next time he beat her at wizard chess.

She'd been in a good mood as she headed for the corridor. But she'd been waylaid by ferret boy Draco Malfoy, who succeeded in infuriating her with his "filthy mudbloods; we'll get you first" mutterings. She'd paused to give him a very public set-down, but by the time she met Ron, her earlier good mood was completely ruined. All she'd wanted to do was get back to the safety of her studies. She had no patience left for Ron, and lost her temper with him. She'd been about to leave him when he grabbed her and kissed her.

For a moment, Hermione did not know what to do. She'd never been kissed before. But she wasn't the smartest witch in Britain for nothing. She had read enough to know what to do, and she did it. And then it was as though she stopped thinking so hard about it and allowed her instinct to take over. The longer the kiss lasted, the more Hermione enjoyed it. Somewhere in her head her brain was still functioning at full speed. In that part of her brain, she thought quite logically that she liked kissing Ron. Anyone with that much passion for arguing was bound to be a good kisser. And, it turned out, he was.

In the beginning, it was little more than that - stolen kisses, when they thought no one else was watching. After all, Hermione told herself, Ron was not her type. She would never get involved with a - well, with a...prat...like her flame-haired best friend Ron. After all, Hermione was a genius. She needed to be stimulated, made to think, egged on by the intelligent thoughts of other geniuses. Harry and Ron were fun to hang around with, she admitted, and she didn't regret a single one of their adventures. But they were boys, and Hermione would never develop those kinds of feelings for a mere boy. Especially not pain in the bottom Ron Weasley. She told herself she was just experimenting with him. She was trying to learn. So she'd be ready when she met the man of her dreams.

Hermione couldn't say just when things changed for her. It wasn't when Ron managed to perform a particularly difficult charm on Malfoy and turned him into a ferret for an entire Hogsmead weekend in order to avenge Hermione. It wasn't when Harry started referring to them as Ron-and-Hermione instead of Ron and Hermione. It wasn't when she and Ginny performed keeping spells on the bouquets of flowers Harry and Ron had bought "for their girls." Indeed, by the time Hermione realized that her feelings for Ron had changed, she felt very much like Elizabeth Bennet: "It's been coming on for so long, I hardly know myself when it started."

No matter when it had begun, Hermione knew by the end of sixth year that she liked kissing Ron. She felt all warm and tingly when he held her hand or gave her one of those smoldering looks across the Potions classroom. And when they weren't sneaking off for a snogfest, they sat quite companionably in the Gryffindor common room, talking, studying, arguing. But their arguments weren't as entertaining for the rest of the house to watch anymore. Ron and Hermione had both mellowed.

One thing Hermione did know for sure, though, was when her relationship with Ron officially changed. That happened that summer, when Hermione and Harry had come to the Burrow for their traditional last hurrah before September. Hermione had been helping Ron de-gnome the garden while Harry and Ginny snuck off for some time alone. Hermione had put on her oldest summer clothes and pulled her bushy brown hair back into a ponytail. She planned on impressing nobody, hurling gnomes over the fence, and didn't care much about how she looked. She and Ron worked up quite a little competition, seeing who could throw a gnome the farthest. She felt silly and foolish - something Hermione never felt, if she could help it - and reveled in it.

They had gotten almost all of them when Hermione found one hiding under a lettuce leaf. She picked it up and swung it around for one last toss. Unfortunately, Ron stood up right as she let fly the gnome, and it hit him with some force - right in the jaw. The gnome dropped to the ground in a daze and immediately fell unconscious. Ron, Hermione saw, was about to do the same thing.

She hurried to his side. "Oh, Ron, I'm sorry! Are you hurt? Here, let me look at it." Already his jaw was beginning to swell.

"I'm fine, 'Mione," he muttered.

"No, you're not. Come on, Ron. You know I studied with Madame Pomfrey last year. If you'll just let me have a look, I could heal it up for you." She reached up to touch his jaw now, to turn his head her way, but he shook her off stubbornly. She rolled her eyes. "Don't be such a baby, Ron. You're seventeen years old. I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to look."

With the exaggerated patience of a saint and a look of martyrdom to match it, Ron let Hermione lead him away from the garden to a relatively secluded spot in the yard, behind an ancient oak tree. "Now sit down and let me fix you up," she ordered, sounding more than a little bit like Madame Pomfrey. Ron grinned, then scowled as the pain shot through his jaw.

"You should really play Quidditch, 'Mione," he told her through the pain in his jaw. "With an arm like yours, you could probably knock Malfoy off his broom in one stroke."

Hermione smiled. "Maybe if I didn't have to fly to do it," she countered.

At that, Ron snorted. "The only reason you don't like flying is because you're not the best in the school at it. It's okay to come in second sometimes, you know."

"Yes, I do know," she answered him sharply. "And you remind me of it every time we play chess. That's not why I don't like flying. I just prefer the stable ground beneath my feet, is all."

"You wouldn't if you could fly."

He was deliberately taunting her. She was sure of it. "I can fly, Ronald Weasley. If I recall, I got my broom up before you did."

"That was first year!" he defended. "Those old Hogwarts brooms hardly count for anything. And if I recall, Harry was the only one who could manage a broom. Besides, you haven't been up on a broom since."

"Because I don't like flying," she enunciated. "Now shut up before I hit you with something harder than a gnome."

Ron knew better than to torment her further. He was seated under the tree, leaning against its ancient trunk, and she was squatting beside him. But he couldn't help it. "You wouldn't do that," he replied lazily, closing his eyes as she touched him.

"Don't test me, Ron," she warned, pressing on his swollen jaw a little harder than was necessary. His eyes flew open, and Hermione grinned ever so slightly.

"You think that's funny, do you?" He reached up and grabbed both her wrists. Yanking her hands away from his face, Ron caused her to lose her balance, and she tumbled into him. She tried to wrench her hands away from his, to no avail. Thus began the wrestling match. He was grinning (though it was a decidedly lopsided grin, due to his injury), and she was giggling. She meant to get the upper hand.

Unfortunately, Ron had the more tactical mind. It was all those years of wizard chess, Hermione grudgingly admitted to herself after she found herself most certainly pinned to the ground. Ron was practically sitting on her, and pinning her arms away from her head. He watched her closely, his face only inches from hers, daring her to move. Hermione squirmed, trying to best him, but to no avail. Nevertheless, when she shifted beneath him, his demeanor changed.

"Hermione," was all he said before he closed the gap between them and kissed her.

And she kissed him back. And he kissed her. And she kissed him. And suddenly they weren't just kissing. He was touching her, and she, with just as much urgency, was touching him. Warning bells sounded in her mind. She knew what would happen if she didn't stop him. But for once in her life, Hermione just didn't care. "It'll just hurt for a minute," Ron whispered, and she nodded. It did hurt. A lot more than her mother had ever told her it would hurt. But Ron kissed away her tears. He was the most tender and gentle lover a girl could ask for. And afterward, he held her close and murmured loving words in her ears. When Hermione was thinking sensibly again, she was surprised that she could have such a perfect experience, with Ron, of all people, in the woods behind the Burrow. But even in her dreams it couldn't have been a better first time.