Changing in More Than One Way

Chapter 4: Hermione Comes into the Picture

"Are you almost finished with packing your trunks sweetie?" Mrs. Granger called up the stairs.

"Almost!" Hermione shouted back. She was lying.

To be truthful, Hermione had all of her things packed since the first week of summer holidays, quickly following her homework completion. She had even double-checked the belongings she packed after she first received her invitation to Ron's house, as was expected. Heck, she would have been at the Burrow with the owl sending her response if she wanted to, which she had.

The entire summer after that first exhilarating week of schoolwork, Hermione found herself to be very bored. She found herself beginning to reread all of her old books over and over again. She was in a rut. She enjoyed all of the things she had been doing, but the repetition of it all had really been getting on her nerves. She had decided to set goals for that summer. The very first on the list had been to try new things.

Seeing as most of her clothes were becoming smaller on her, especially around the chest area she would acknowledge with pride, she decided she might as well go and buy some new clothes to take up some time. One of the ladies at the shop had helped Hermione out tremendously in figuring out which outfits best complimented her figure.

After finishing the "new things" goal on her list of two, Hermione found herself with passing two weeks of summer. Having to now consider her second goal, she went on to review her feelings for a certain red headed, freckled boy. She found herself thinking of him constantly, unable to figure out the meaning of it all. Of course she always really did know the truth, but it was her stubbornness of "just friends" that had clouded the very fact.

As the week progresses and Hermione did some serious reflection over the past few years, she was able conclude the impossible, or the impossible to her at least. She liked, no scratch that, she loved Ronald Weasley. And she wanted to know if her feelings were mutual. She wanted them to be mutual. She thought at times they were, but she could never be really sure, and she couldn't take the risk with the 80 chances. She wouldn't ever be able to live it down if her suspicions were wrong and she ended up losing Ron as a friend, and losing him from her life forever. Which is why she had not gone immediately to the Burrow, even though she could have. She couldn't seem too obvious now could she?

Getting back to the present with a now very impatient Mrs. Granger waiting at the bottom of the stairs, who had now taken to pacing across the main hall. Hermione in her room was now observing her reflection in the mirror. That lady at the shop really knew what she was talking about. She was wearing one of her new outfits. She had a cute black top with three-quarter length sleeves and pink stitching that stood out against the black. The top had a semi-low cut showing off some cleavage, but not being over exaggerated as to come across as slutty or sleazy. She was also wearing dark blue jeans with a cut going up to her knees on the sides of the flares of each leg.

Also a very new important feature about Hermione was her hair. Her usually messed up untamable, unmanageable hair, had somehow been able to be under more control over the past few weeks much to Hermione's delight. She had no clue as to what did it, thought she suspected it was the new conditioner she had created when she was experimenting with a few everyday household substances. Whatever it was, it had done the trick. No more tangles held residence on her head, just soft brown ringlets of curls around her face instead. (A/N: OMG that rhymed! What a fluke! LOL)

Hermione kept on wondering about what Ron would think of her "new look". It was, after all, what the surprise that she had mentioned in her letter to him, about. She had of course, told Ginny all about her happy changes, and Ginny had told her not to tell Ron. But then again, Ginny had been able to figure out easily her infatuation with Ginny's older brother. She kept on wondering about what Ron would think, as she guiltily remembered how a younger Hermione had once vowed to never, ever spend hours on end thinking about boys and what they thought. A small smile began to tug at her lips as she remembered. She would always be a studious little bookworm, that Hermione knew for sure as she looked down into her hands to see her copy of "Hogwarts: A history", now battered from all of the times she had read it. She couldn't wait for the new school year to begin. But who did it hurt for her to know focus her holiday time on Ron?

Mrs. Granger who had now grown slightly dizzy from all of her pacing now stood before the bottom step of the stairs and shouted at the top of the lungs, that Hermione feared the people in Japan could hear,

"HERMIONE JANE GRANGER! ARE YOU OR ARE YOU NOT READY TO LEAVE!"

Hermione quickly snuck another glance at the mirror in front of her and then replied,

"I'm ready."

As soon as Harry and Ron entered the Burrow, they were swamped with masses of ginger hair. The twins made their usual cracks to get a smile out of Harry as they picked up his trunk and started lugging it up the stairs.

"Kind of reminds you of four years ago when we smuggled you out of that hell hole, huh Harry?" Fred remarked with a smirk.

"Fred!" Mrs. Weasley replied, shocked at her son's choice of words.

"So sorry Mum," George began, "Kind of reminds you of four years ago when smuggled you out of that heck hole, huh Harry?"

At this everyone's mouth had begun to twitch as they had seen Mrs. Weasley's sour expression. Mrs. Weasley then did her best to brush off the situation as she turned her worries and attention towards Harry.

"Hello Harry dear! How are you? How have you been?" she rushed in with many questions as Harry's answers were muffled as he was being hugged. Not waiting for an answer she continued, "Well I suppose not very well when over at your uncle and aunt's home. Did they treat you well? I will be sure to mention it to Dumbledore the next time I see him if they didn't! I don't know what he thinks allowing you to stay there at all! Oh it doesn't matter though right now. You're here now and are going to have a fantastic time for the rest of your break. We'll even be going to Diagon Alley—"

"Mum, please! Must you go through the entire summer's conversations with Harry, right this instant? Don't you think it would be best if you paced them out slightly?" Ron asked his mother after noticing the awkward expression growing on Harry's face.

"Well, yes, of course," Molly said unscathed. While beaming and giving Harry one last hug, she returned to the kitchen to finish creating the feast she had prepared for dinner.

Just then jumping off the stairs to the ground Ginny came causing Ron to jump himself and Harry just to rise in eyebrow as he questioned the girl's sanity. Ginny grabbed Harry's hand and started pulling him back up the stairs with her.

"Umm, Ginny, Harry's my friend, in case you didn't know. Why are you taking my friend with you when we just got back from getting him here? Don't you have any friends of your own to bother until Harry's unpacked?" Ron interrogated.

Harry was about to respond when Ginny shushed him. Instead of being embarrassed or offbeat by the comment thrown her way, Ginny threw her head back, pursed her lips in an uncanny resemblance to Mrs. Weasley and said,

"Sorry, but I figured that you were boring dear Harry out of his mind what with your random noises you seem to think is talking. Felt I might as well take the boy out of his misery."

"How would I be able to bore Harry already –which I'm completely not doing—if we just got back from the car ride from the Dursely's house? Explain that one Miss-I-think-I-know-everything."

"Well, Mr-I-so-need-to-come-up-with-better-insults-before-a-house-elf-outdoes-me, that's just how incredibly boring you are. In a matter of minutes you'll have the people around you falling asleep on their sides, guaranteed! It's a pity you have such nice friends that they feel they'd be rude to point out such faults, but you're lucky to have one honest sister."

"Oh yeah so lucky I could jump for joy off a bridge," Ron muttered to himself.

"Now what was that Ronnie?" Ginny asked as she leaned forward cupping her hand against her ear. "Now if you don't mind, Harry and I have quite a lot of catching up to do, so if you need us we'll be down in a bit."

As they both continued up the stairs, Harry snickering at the sibling interactions of the two, Ron flustered still at the bottom of the stairs shouts up to them,

"Well what am I supposed to do then until you're 'done'?"

Ginny shrugged her shoulders as she said,

"I dunno, I suppose you can continue to count down the hours, minutes, and seconds until Hermione will be arriving. Oh don't give me that look Ronald Weasley, I know that's exactly what you've been doing up in your room all of yesterday and today. And then you actually wonder why Harry doesn't want to be in your company when you don't give him the same amount of attention to him as you give to Mione," Ginny shook her head in mock disapproval.

"Please believe me Ginny, I don't want the 'same kind' of attention that he gives Mione. Believe me." Harry jokingly insisted as Ginny and he continued up the stairs into a room.

Ron, still at the foot of the staircase watched their retreating bodies as he thought with a frustrated frown planted on his face, when did everyone become such nut jobs about everything? He then had his thoughts go back to Hermione as they now often did as he thought, still with a frown; I sure hope Hermione hasn't gotten this crazy over the break. Changes aren't seeming so good so far. Of course he completely disregarded any changes he had gone through with that thought. Just as he was continuing his thoughts, George happened to walk by the staircase, where Ron was still rotted to the spot, his frown becoming more furrowed the deeper he got into his mind. George just couldn't help going up really quietly behind Ron, up to his ear and giving him the scare of a lifetime as he whispered,

"Don't make a face like that or it'll stay that way."

And as his little brother jumped, just to irk him even more George added,

"And no matter how intelligent you thought that face was, it still wouldn't have impressed Hermione the way you want to," and he apparated with a SNAP laughing at the bewildered expression now on Ron's face, which in Fred's opinion, when he came by just seconds later, wasn't much to impress Hermione with either.

A/N: OMG I know I'm actually alive and I'm actually updating this one! Yeah, I was reading a bunch of Harry Potter fanfictions, and I thought to myself, hey, didn't I have one of those? And I realized as lazy as I might be in writing this, I still have to follow through and at least try to finish it. So now I got 2 fics, and I'm gonna do my best to keep with all of them. No promises on how lengthy they'll be, chapter-wise, 'cause at this point I'm just trying to find out ways to get the plots moving and the story's finished. Okay then? Alright, hopefully this incredibly late chapter is good enough for all who have been waiting. Sorry again about the wait, I feel horrible about it …