The Beauty of First, Er, Second Love

The Beauty of First, Er, Second Love

Ron Weasley sat at the Gryffindor table at breakfast. Having just come down, he was still a fair bit sleepy, and therefore wasn't focusing very well.

Harry Potter slid into the seat next to Ron, looking much the same way he did. Harry gazed blearily around the Great Hall, then proceeded to load his plate with scrambled eggs and bacon.

"Ron, Harry! I can't believe you waited until the last possible minute to come to breakfast! We have double Potions first thing! Did either of you do your homework last night?"

The voice belonged to resident bookworm Hermione Granger, the two boys' best friend. She sat across from them, briskly buttering her toast as she glared at them.

"Come on, Hermione! You know we had Quidditch practice last night! Besides, we did it when we came in!" Harry looked affronted at Hermione's accusations.

As the two friends began bickering about homework, Ron's mind drifted back to last year, when he and Hermione had attempted dating. It had been a disaster from the beginning.

At first, they had genuinely enjoyed each other's company. Ron recalled how he had asked Hermione out, finally.

It had been during Christmas. The three friends had stayed at Hogwarts instead of going to the Burrow or Grimmauld Place. They knew Harry was still grieving over Sirius, and wanting their friend to be happy, they had agreed to stay.

On Christmas Day, after Hermione had come in to their dorm to share in the gift opening, they had agreed to go outside for a bit. They were planning on visiting Hagrid and giving him their gifts.

Once outside, they had started across the grounds to Hagrid's hut, when Ron suddenly noticed how much snow had fallen the night before. Like most boys, he'd thought evil little things, then picked up a handful of snow and quickly shaped it into the perfect ball.

Aiming carefully, he had launched it at Harry, intending for it to smack his friend in the head. But to his absolute horror, he watched as the ball flew through the air and exploded against Hermione's bum instead.

She had turned slowly on the spot and simply looked at him. Ron had begun offering up feeble apologies as Harry snickered beside her.

"Merlin, Hermione, I wasn't trying to hit you, I swear! I was aiming for that pathetic lump of Potter next to you, and, I don't know, it just..."

Ron had trailed off as Hermione just raised an eyebrow, scarily reminiscent of Draco Malfoy. He had not registered Harry's indignant exclamation at being called a pathetic lump, or the fact that Harry had thrown a snowball at Ron and badly missed. He had eyes only for Hermione, who had suddenly reached down, picked up a lump of snow and hurled it at Ron. It had struck him square in the face. She had begun laughing, as did Harry. Well, Ron couldn't take that kind of abuse, and had immediately declared war on the two Gryffindors.

They had begun having a massive snowball fight, screaming, throwing snowballs, and generally having a good time, when Ron had decided to get braver and had run, yelling a war cry, straight at Hermione.

She had shrieked, but pelted him in the face with another snowball just as he reached her.

Ron was spitting snow out and wiping his face when he suddenly looked up and really saw Hermione for the first time. He realized just how gorgeous she had become, and unable to help himself, had stepped forward and kissed her.

Hermione's eyes had almost popped out of her head, but she had kissed him back. Ron had then asked her to go with him next Hogsmeade weekend, to which she had given an enthusiastic yes.

After their first date, they had another, and another, and another, until Hermione had rather boldly asked if they were just going to date for the rest of their lives or were they actually going to become exclusive.

The entire Great Hall had heard her, and had laughed uproariously at this. Ron, face redder than a tomato, had asked in a shaky voice, if she would be his girlfriend. Hermione had responded by jumping to her feet and kissing him senseless, to which the Hall had burst into simultaneous applause and shouts of "It's about time," or "Knew you had it in you, Weasley!" It had been beautiful.

They had started out as any other couple; holding hands, kissing, snuggling. But they both had known that bickering would ultimately continue. Unintentionally, but it was there, nonetheless.

Bickering had spiraled into screaming, which had gone to Hermione bursting into tears, which came to not speaking for days, sometimes weeks at a time.

But it finally came crashing down one evening when Ron accused Hermione of seeing another guy.

"I saw you, Herm! It was that Terry Boot from Ravenclaw. You were in the library, and then you were kissing! If that's what you call tutoring, it's no wonder everyone is asking you to do it!"

Hermione, speechless with fury, had walked over to Ron and slapped him straight in the face. The Common Room had gone silent. The couple had their rows, but it had never escalated into anything physical.

She had just opened her mouth, when Lavender Brown had come tearing in the Common Room, saying, "You'll never guess who's dating now! They were kissing in the library and Madam Pince threw them out!"

"She did, huh? Did the girl have bushy, brown hair, Lavender?" Ron had been glaring at Hermione as he said this.

Lavender had looked between the two of them, in obvious confusion.

"Well, yes, she did."

Ron had been about to call Hermione something that would have made his mum wash his mouth out with soap, but Lavender had already plowed on.

"It was Terry Boot," here Ron had thrown Hermione a look of fury, "and that girl, Laura Madley, from Hufflepuff! Can you believe it? She's almost four years younger than he is! On top of that..."

Ron's jaw had dropped. He was turning towards Hermione to apologize, but she simply brushed him off, and after telling Harry goodnight, had gone to her dormitory.

At breakfast the next morning, she had told Ron that she thought it best if they split up before it could get any worse between them and they hated each other. Ron had been sad, and had even protested a bit, but ultimately he had agreed. He knew she was right, and he didn't want to lose a friend because of it.

Things had been a bit stiff between them for a bit, but in the end it was like it had always been. Of course it wasn't perfect, but they knew it couldn't be exactly the same again. They just never mentioned what had gone down between them; it was too painful to dredge up.

Coming back to the present, Ron looked up in time to see the post arriving. He wasn't paying much attention, as he wasn't expecting anything, but to his enormous surprise, a tawny owl dropped a letter on his plate. On the front it said

Ron Weasley

Gryffindor Table

Great Hall

Hogwarts

Ron was nonplussed. It was obviously a school owl.

Looking at Harry, he could tell Harry had no idea who would use a school owl when they could have just come up to him in school to talk.

Shrugging, Ron ripped open the envelope. Suddenly, a magically magnified voice, he couldn't tell whose, began reciting a poem.

Thou wouldst be loved? - then let thy heart

From its present pathway part not!

Being everything which now thou art,

Be nothing which thou art not.

So with the world thy gentle ways,

Thy grace, thy more than beauty,

Shall be an endless theme of praise,

And love - a simple duty.

All over the Hall, people were looking at Ron, who could not have been more flustered or confused. Suddenly, a letter fell out of the envelope beside his plate.

"Herm? What is this?" Ron was gesturing at the letter and the poem, which had begun reciting again.

Hermione looked shocked. Her gaze lifted to Ron, and she squeaked out, "I-It's a l-love letter. With a poem. To you."

"A love letter? To me?" Ron looked floored, and no one could blame him. It wasn't often a person chose the Great Hall as the place to declare a crush, love, etc. The fear of being rejected in front of people held back many a person, but still, you could dream.

"Right, well, what does this bloody poem mean, then?" Ron gestured into thin air, where the poem was playing for the fifth time.

"Well, it's pretty obvious Ron. It's saying that this person loves you, Merlin knows why, and doesn't want you to change who you are. Whoever sent this is also saying they admire you." Hermione had gotten over her shock and was looking dubious now. "Are you going to read the letter or not? Maybe we can find out who sent it."

Ron looked at the still closed envelope, and holding at away from him as if it would bite, slit it open and shook out the contents. A simple, one page note fell out. Ron picked it up, unfolded it, and began reading it.

Dear Ron, the letter began,

I hope you liked the poem. I know it was a bit forward of me to send it at breakfast, but I don't know if you feel the same way about me as I do about you, and for this reason, I can't reveal who I am yet. I was hoping you could write me back and we could become pen pals. Maybe if you got to know me a bit first, we could meet. I don't want you to reject me, and I'm afraid if you knew who I was, you might. If you want to become pen pals, that's great. Instead of owling me, I've arranged for the letters to be delivered to me through a good friend of mine. Her name is Luna Lovegood, I'm sure you know her. All you have to do is give the notes to her and she'll deliver them to me.

Please consider this, Ron. I would so like to become friends with you, maybe even more. Please give Luna a reply no later than lunch. Whoops, Filch is coming, I'd better go now. Take care Ron.

Your Secret Admirer and

Hope to be Pen Pal

Ron finished reading the letter and his eyes grew round with disbelief. Harry, who had been reading over his shoulder, looked amused, while Hermione had begun giggling.

"Ron has a secret admirer, Ron has a secret admirer," she sing songed. Looking more reserved, Hermione gave Ron a questioning look.

"Are you going to do it? You'd better, because it sounds as if this poor girl will be absolutely crushed if you don't, and then I'll have to disembowel you for hurting her feelings." She looked completely calm and collected as she watched Ron battle with himself inwardly.

"Herm, I won't have enough time, what with homework and Quidditch. Plus, you know, I'm behind on homework as it is, and I really should catch up..." Ron continued in this vein, obviously pulling all the stops to try and get out of it.

"Absolutely not, Ron. I won't let you crush this poor girl's hope. Besides, it takes what, maybe five minutes to write a simple letter? No, you'll just have to find the time, because you are going to do it. Are you very clear on this?"

Hermione was using her patented Do It If You Know What's Good For You Look. She used it constantly to get Harry and Ron to do homework, and it had never failed yet.

Ron seemed to deflate under her glare. He knew Hermione would stay on him about it until he did it anyway, so he might as well save both of them the fighting that would most assuredly come if he didn't. Sighing loudly, he nodded resignedly.

"Yes, alright Herm, I'll do it. But let me say it's only because you are forcing me to, not because I want to, okay?" Ron dug a scrap of parchment and a quill out of his bag and scrawled a quick affirmative on the back of the letter. Sealing it, he looked up and motioned to Luna at the Ravenclaw table to come over.

Luna looked absolutely overjoyed that he had decided to become pen pals with this nameless friend of hers. She told Ron in her dreamy voice how much the person would love to get his letter and asked if he had he heard the latest news about Crumple- Horned Snorkacks.

Ron quickly blew her off by saying they had to get to lessons, and the three Gryffindors began collecting their things. Luna looked disappointed, but told Ron he could expect a reply from his pen pal at breakfast tomorrow.

Hermione giggled, and to change the subject, said in a chipper voice, "Double Potions, you two! Let's hurry, we don't want to be late!"

As she walked quickly away, Harry and Ron said together in monotone voices, "Double Potions. Yay. Can the day get any better?"

And groaning, they followed Hermione to the dungeons.