Second submission for Era #1 of @cruelsummer-ficfest! This is a sequel to @adenei ‘s Should’ve Said No, so check that out if you haven’t already!
Mastermind
The ticking of the clock is endless as Ron sits on the sofa in front of the fireplace in Gryffindor’s common room. Not even his chess set can distract him anymore. It’s been hours, or so it seems, and Hermione’s still not back from the party.
The party they were supposed to attend together. Before he’d fucked it all up.
He’d known kissing Lavender was a bad idea from the get go, but he was too mad at the thought of Hermione snogging anyone else to care what the repercussions would be. Blind rage fueled his actions, and suddenly he was ensnared in a relationship with a girl he wasn’t remotely interested in.
He supposes that was the first time life has shown him a lot can change in one evening. Tonight is the second. Lavender is no longer his girlfriend. She made sure of that after Hermione’s scene earlier. Not that Ron cares. If anything, he’s happy to be rid of Lavender Brown, even if that means his ego has been bruised by a public dumping.
At least now he can confront Hermione in peace. And he won’t feel guilty if his eyes linger on her a little too long.
Ron never understood how the simple touch of a hand could send shockwaves throughout his entire body, making for some awkward situations if he wasn’t wearing robes or sitting without a book handy to conceal his lap. But after seeing Hermione emerge from the girls’ dorm in a stunner of a dress, it all clicked into place. He’d tried to play off his attraction as typical teenage boy stuff. When you’re best friends with a girl, you’re bound to feel something. Right?
After seeing her in that tight dress, showing off more skin than he thinks he’s ever seen, there’s no doubt in his mind he wants her. As more than just a friend.
Sure, she snogged Viktor, and he could still be pissed about her keeping that from him. And now he’d snogged Lavender, so they’re even. Did it have to come to that? No, probably not.
But maybe if Hermione had intended for tonight to be a date, then she should have made that clear from the start. It was unfair for her to accuse him of misinterpreting the meaning when she’d asked in the middle of a class. Even Harry couldn’t oppose that; it sounded like a pity invite. If there was another reason she wanted him to go other than for the sake of including him, she should have specified that.
‘But she did, you wanker.’
‘Sure, she did tonight. A lot of good that’s done, isn’t it?’
Ron shakes his head. He doesn’t need to engage in imaginary conversations. He needs to focus. Tossing his head back on the sofa, he closes his eyes and strategizes for the battle ahead. Every move needs to be carefully calculated. He needs to have a plan or he’ll fail for sure, losing his chance to make things right.
Just then, he hears the portrait hole creak open, the Fat Lady slurring and muttering something about curfews and how teachers shouldn’t be hosting soirees outside of strictly set hours.
If Ron wasn’t so annoyed with Hermione’s masterful scheme, he’d crack some joke about the Fat Lady just wanting to get drunk in peace, but he keeps his focus on the task at hand. Seconds later, Hermione appears in the common room, not bothering to look around as she makes a bee line for the stairs.
“Oi!”
Smooth, Ron.
He has no idea if that’s going to do anything to stop her, but his mind has gone blank. All because of that damn maroon dress and the way her hips sway—
“Yes?”
Ron can barely believe she stopped, let alone is waiting for him to respond. He needs to say something. She could disappear up to her dorm any moment, yet he can’t seem to arrange his thoughts as fast as he’d like.
“I—” He pauses, causing Hermione to huff and spin on her heel, continuing her trek toward the stairs, just as he’d feared.
Ron lunges forward, his arm outstretched as he latches on to her hand and pulls her to him.
“Ron, what are you—”
“We need to talk.”
She tugs her hand away but doesn’t make any other moves. It’s almost as if she’s ready for a fight. “Oh, do we? Does your girlfriend know you’re down here?”
“Don’t have one.” Maybe he should have kept her guessing a little longer, but something compels him to be open and honest for once.
With a scoff, Hermione crosses her arms in front of her chest. The stance accentuates her cleavage and Ron may spontaneously combust if he doesn’t look away.
Fucking hell. Does she even know what she’s doing?
“Please don’t lie to me, Ron. I’d rather suffer the silent treatment than be sheltered from the truth.”
“It is the truth! She dumped me after you told me I needed to go with you tonight then stood me up!”
“I did no such thing!”
“Yeah, you did.”
“Please.” She rolls her eyes. “I’d only be standing you up if you actually wanted to go. Clearly, you didn’t. Why would you when you could be snogging someone else’s face off?”
Merlin, she is so infuriating. “You think I’d rather be snogging Lav? Are you mental?”
“Am I? Sorry, but isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the last month?”
“Yeah, only because you snogged Viktor Krum!”
Even though the information slips out, it catches Hermione off-guard. Her eyes widen and eyebrows shoot toward the sky, lips parting ever so slightly that it has him thinking how easily he could just capture them with his own.
“I—excuse me?” And then, she somehow puts the pieces together. He’s seen that face before. It’s the same one she makes when she’s cracked a tough Runes code. “Do not tell me that the only reason you subsequently snogged and then dated Lavender was because Viktor kissed me once after the Yule Ball. Two years ago! Is that the reason you didn’t speak to me for two weeks?”
Oh, fuck.
“It wasn’t just because you snogged him!”
“Kissed.”
Of course, Hermione Granger would choose to argue the word itself and not the action. “What? Oh, bloody hell, does that even matter?”
“Yes, it does! Snogging is what you’ve been doing for a month now, in case you haven’t noticed. You two have been sucking each other’s faces off every second you get! At least I kept my affairs private and haven’t flaunted anything in your face. Not that it was anything worth flaunting. It was a goodnight peck on the lips that I wasn’t expecting nor did I want. And—”
White hot rage blinds Ron, severing his train of thought from their previous argument so he can only focus on the fact that she didn’t want it.
“Don’t tell me he fucking kissed you without permission,” he growls.
“Oh, that’s your takeaway from all of this?”
“Hermione…”
“It’s fine, Ron. He took the hint. No harm was done. Now, can we please focus on why you ruined everything?”
That snaps him out of it. “I ruined everything?”
“Yes. You stopped talking to me. You chose to go out with Lavender after committing to me. All because of something I did when I was fifteen. Honestly…”
“Committing—Hermione, what the fuck? You asked me in the middle of Herbology! You didn’t even specify that it was a date!”
Her face turns the color of her dress and he catches the tiniest stamp of her foot. “I shouldn’t have had to! I thought—after all summer—Merlin’s balls, Ron, you really are thick, aren’t you?”
Jaw dropping, Ron gapes at her. “Did you just—”
He has no words. His brain is broken. Hermione just said Merlin’s balls. Ron has never seen her this flustered before. He catches the slightest pout on her bottom lip and his primal instincts scream at him to pull her close and kiss it away, but he can’t. He won’t. Not yet.
In the midst of his inner turmoil, she finds her words and conveys her frustration as succinctly as possible. “Let me spell it out for you since earlier it wasn't clear enough to permeate your thick skull. Yes, I fancy you. Yes, I wanted you to be my date for the party tonight. And yes, I would have wanted that party to end in a kiss and quite possibly even a relationship. Instead, you stopped speaking to me, snogged my dormmate, and cast me—your best friend—to the curb.
“Well, guess what? Even if you didn’t feel the same way about me, I wasn’t going to lose my best friend. So, if forcing your hand and making you think you still needed to be my ‘plus one’ was the only way to get you to talk to me, then that’s what I did. Bonus points to me for getting Lav to dump you though. Who knew making a scene and having you think I was going to the party alone would work out this well for me?”
The slyest of smiles creeps wider on her lips as she divulges her diabolical plan, and Ron is stunned. Was there far more at stake here than he’d realized? Was he truly in jeopardy of losing her? And was this not just another row they’d get over eventually and at some point go back to normal?
Or was the whole purpose because she doesn’t want to go back to normal? Does he want to go back to normal? What is normal anyway? Just friends? Fuck that.
Hermione has made it perfectly clear what she wants and finally, Ron takes the hint. He doesn’t wait another second as he reaches forward, wraps his long, lanky arm around her midsection and pulls her close. When she tilts her head up to look at him, they’re nose to nose. Her eyes flicker to his lips and that’s all the confirmation he needs.
His head dips down and he captures her lips with his. The sweet and spicy taste of spearmint invades his senses. It’s so much better than the sticky sweet bubble gum flavor Lavender always had to have plastered to her lips. He should have known kissing Hermione would be so much better than he ever expected.
Her hands slide up his chest and wrap around his neck. His slip down to the small of her back, pulling her even closer than she was before, so that their bodies are pressed close. Ron never wants this feeling to end, but it does. Far too soon.
As Hermione backs away, he swears he hears her mutter “Checkmate” under her breath.
“Sorry?” he asks.
“Nothing.” But the smirk on her face tells a different story.
“No, you just said checkmate. Why?”
She glances at the fireplace and plays with the locks of hair at the nape of his neck. The sensation makes his knees go weak. He could get used to this. Fuck, he’s already used to this.
“I couldn’t lose. What if I told you none of it was accidental? The first night I saw you with her, I knew nothing was going to stop me. I laid all of the groundwork, and tonight, just like clockwork, the dominoes cascaded in a line.”
Despite the sincerity as she explains her entire plan, Ron bursts into laughter. He can’t help it. None of this should have surprised him at all, especially given her track record. From taking every possible class third year, to starting S.P.E.W. and spearheading Dumbledore’s Army. Even locking Rita Skeeter in a jar as a beetle. Nothing stops Hermione Granger from serving justice in her own way, and this is no different.
He can’t even be mad.
“Want to know a secret?” she whispers, bringing him back to the present.
“Always.”
She leans up on her tiptoes and murmurs in his ear. “I never even went to the party. I hid in the library.”
Ron simply gapes at her in disbelief. “You went to the library in that dress? You’re mental.”
If only he’d known, he would have sought her out. Perhaps they could have settled this hours sooner and spent all that time in between making up. Of course, none of that really matters now.
Planting a soft peck on his lips, she smiles. “I told you, I’m a mastermind. And now you’re mine.”
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