(A/N: 1) Sadly I do not own Harry Potter or any of these other characters. I am only playing around with the wonderful characters J.K. Rowling has given the world. 2) Thought the title may sound boastful, it was not meant that way. The title comes from a song by Oliver James call "The Greatest Story Ever Told" from the movie "What a Girl Wants."

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Chapter 1: Like a bludger to the head.

It was by far the hardest thing Ron Weasley had ever faced. Trolls, giant chess pieces, basilisks, even enormous spiders seemed like child's play to what he was facing now. Somewhere in the course of five years he'd fallen in love with his best friend. Not that best friend, Hermione. Geez get your mind out of the slash bin. No, Ron wasn't sure how or when it had first happened, but all Ron knew was that one day amidst all of the bickering he looked at Hermione and realized his heart was no longer his. It belonged to her and she didn't even know it. Ron laughed at the idea of Hermione not knowing something, but she seemed clueless to this one fact.

The day that Ron remembered, the day it had hit him that he was hopelessly in love with Hermione Granger, had only been two days ago. The three had gone to the library and as usual she was chastising him for not taking his studies seriously and as usual Ron was shouting for Hermione to lay off him considering they were only a month into classes.

"That's one month you could have spent getting ahead Ron."

"For what, Hermione, I do fine at my pace."

"Fine! You call barely scraping by in potions fine?"

"I don't scrape by."

Apparently tired of watching his bickering friends Harry silently stood and exited the library.

"You see what you did, Hermione?"

"What I did?"

"Yeah, Harry's got enough on his mind without you nagging about grades."

"I wasn't nagging Harry. I was nagging….I mean I was talking to YOU!"

"What difference does it make, Hermione? Why do you care what marks I get in potions?"

"Because Ron, you've got such great potential and you just waste it. It should be a sin the way you squander your talent. You're so brilliant, but to watch you blunder through your assignments you'd think you couldn't tell a Dragon from a Hinkypunk."

It was there somewhere in the half encouraging/half reprimanding speech she was giving him that something clicked inside of Ron. He looked at her as if he was seeing her that very first day on the train, as if he'd never seen her before in his life. Who was this woman in front of him and what had happened to the little girl he'd made cry in first year? When did she become so beautiful? Had her eyes always been that shade of brown, somewhere between honey and cinnamon? When had her hair gone from a fury of frizz to a frame of soft curls around her face, and her face, had she always had those freckles? Why hadn't he seen all of this before? Had he been blind for the last five years?

He didn't know how long he looked at her, studying the little details he'd somehow missed all these years, but apparently Hermione took notice.

"Ron. Ron! Are you even listening to me?"

Ron jerk back into reality, "w-wha…I'm sorry what were you saying?"

Hermione growled in disgust. "You know Ronald Weasley I don't even know why I try anymore. You obviously don't care what I have to say." She stood gathering her books, "Now if you'll excuse me I'm going to my room to study in peace."

"No…Hermione…wait," he said standing to go after her, but she was already gone. Ron sat back down, dumb-founded. What had just happened? Why was Hermione suddenly the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen? Then it hit him, she'd just grown up. Yeah, that was it, she'd grown up and he was so close he didn't notice until now. He started thinking back to the last five years of their friendship, but in every memory he thought of it wasn't an awkward frizzy haired bookworm he saw, it was the beautiful vivacious girl who'd just stormed away from him. She'd been that way all the while, from the very first day on the train when she'd come in looking for Neville's toad to the Yule ball last year when she'd walked in on the arm of Viktor Krum.

Viktor Krum. The name was like poison as he thought it. Great imbecile, Ron thought, couldn't even say her name right. "Herm-own-ninny," he mocked in his best Viktor voice, something he'd perfected over the summer, "honestly how hard is it to say Hermione?" Then, just as quickly as the first realization had come, another epiphany struck Ron like a bludger straight to the head. That's why I hate Viktor! It all made since now. He's always wondered how he'd gone from idolizing Viktor to despising the sight of him. It was Hermione. Viktor had invaded Ron's territory. Not that Hermione was technically his territory, seeing as how he'd only realized a few moments ago that he in love with her. Wait, in love with her; no that was silly. He fancied her yes, but love was a bit strong, wasn't it? It was too much for him to think about right now. In one swift movement Ron had gathered up his books to go find Harry. He needed to play chess or Exploding Snap or do anything that would take his mind off of the life altering conclusion he'd just come to.

As he entered the common room, he had to fight to urge to turn back around and leave, as the first person to catch his eye was a lovely brunet sitting at an empty table. Ron froze in his place and watched her. She twirled a stray curl around middle finger as she poured over the four books that lay open before her, then bit down on her bottom lip as she jotted down something on her already filled piece of parchment. He felt like he could watch her do this forever. Who would have thought that anyone could make studying look so sexy? SEXY! Where had that come from? Jolted back into reality by his surprising choice of words Ron looked around the room to find it almost empty.

A few first years sat in front of the fireplace playing Gobstones, some third years were quizzing each other on History of Magic, and there was Hermione, sitting keeping watch over it all and still maintaining to get her own work done. Ron slowly stepped toward the table, hoping he would be able to sit down without her noticing.

"Go away Ron," she said not even looking up from her work, "I haven't the time to argue."

"I didn't come to argue. I came to say I'm sorry," he said not having planned to say it.

"You're what?"

"I'm sorry. You were right, there's no harm in getting a head start on my assignments. Do you mind if I sit here and work?"

Hermione looked in a state of shock. Had Ron Weasley just apologized to her? Had he actually admitted that she was right about something? She felt as if she should take this rare opportunity to gloat and rub it in his face that after five years he'd finally realized that she, Hermione Granger, was right. On the other hand, she was touched that he made it appoint to apologize and let her know that she had been right, and this was what kept her from dancing in celebration of her long awaited victory over the stubbornness of Ron Weasley.

"Not at all, have a seat." She couldn't help a tiny gloat, "I'm glad to see you've finally come to your senses."

"Well, I couldn't just ignore you forever now could I?" Ron chuckled at the irony of his last statement, and then let the common room go quiet as he attempted to work on his assignments.

It was difficult, he realized, to keep his eyes off of Hermione. The longer he looked the more he discovered things that he'd missed. Like the adorable way her lips moved sometimes as she read or how she managed to write so quickly and yet so neat. Ron watched every loop of quill as she wrote out the second draft of a potions essay that wasn't due for another week and a half. Fearing that Hermione would look up and notice his stare, Ron quickly looked back to his paper and began the next paragraph of his essay. I wonder if she knows how cute she looks sitting there like that? Ron's mind questioned as he looked back at her, probably, she knows everything else. Ron shook his head slightly in disagreement with his last thought. Not everything. She doesn't know I'm in love with her. LOVE! There was that word again. He tore his gaze away from Hermione and slumped over his paper.

Do I, he thought, do I love Hermione?

His eyes focus on the sentence he'd just written. His hand was apparently eavesdropping on his brain, because right there in dark blue ink it had scrolled I love Hermione. Ron crumbled the paper up quickly hoping no one had seen it.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said blushing, "just misspelled something."

"Why didn't you just scratch it out?"

"Essay was rubbish anyhow, I'll just start over." Ron looked at his watch, "besides, I should get going; I've got Divination in forty-five minutes."

"But it only takes five minutes to get to Divination."

"Yeah…I know…but I feel asleep last class so I owe Trelawney a detention. She's making me set up for our lesson on Crystal balls." Ron walked away marveling at the lie he'd just pulled from the top of his head. He's spent the next half hour standing outside the Divination classroom pondering what exactly his feelings were for Hermione.

Two days later Ron sat alone in a dark common room. Everyone had gone to bed hours ago, but not Ron. Ron hadn't slept much in those two days. Every time he closed his eyes he saw Hermione's face and if he managed to drift to sleep amidst the trail of questions running through his head, he dreamt of her, of holding her, of kissing her. That scared him. What was he going to do? Hermione would never want to be with him. Why on earth would she? He was a shadow, a side kick, the red head who tagged along with the famous Harry Potter, but for some reason as he thought all of this, Hermione's own words played in his mind. "You've got such great potential and you just waste it. It should be a sin the way you squander your talent. You're so brilliant..."

She believed in him. She always had, even if he himself didn't. He wasn't Harry's shadow, he was brilliant. She thinks I'm brilliant, Ron sighed rising to his feet. Crawling into bed he decided he'd rather do something than risk never knowing what could have been. Soon, I've got to tell her sometime soon, he thought, but how?

Chapter 2 coming soon...please read and review.