Disclaimer: Harry Potter, etc. are the intellectual property of JKR; no infringement is intended

A/N: I don't know why I'm writing all these angsty stories, but here's another. Just a one-shot ficlet. This one is based on the song You Can't Hide Beautiful by Aaron Lines.

You Can't Hide Beautiful

It was funny how someone as wonderful as Hermione Granger could be so self-conscious about her appearance, how she could be so confident about her intellectual abilities but the second it came to her hair or her teeth or her clothes she felt like hiding behind a great big stone pillar and never coming out. He'd told her time and time again that she had nothing to worry about, as had Harry for that matter, but she just didn't seem to believe either of them.

"You're my best friends; if you don't tell me what I want to hear, who else are you going to find that's willing to look over your homework for you?" she'd said to them once, and he'd suppressed a rather inelegant snort at her comment. She tended to go through phases, he'd realized long ago. One day she might have been perfectly content with herself and the next she'd be close to tears at thinking herself unworthy of anyone's attention. It seemed as though tonight happened to be the latter.

"I don't want to talk about it, guys," she dismissed him and Harry before they'd even been able to utter a word. Harry looked at him and shrugged, sitting on the common room sofa and picking up a Quidditch magazine. He couldn't really blame Harry for giving up. These conversations with Hermione rarely got them anywhere, but he knew her better than she knew herself, and knew that when she said she didn't want to talk it was because she was secretly wishing they'd persist.

"I know something's wrong, Hermione Granger. Don't you pretend otherwise now," he said. He rarely used her full name…especially when addressing her…but it seemed a trick that his mother used when she wanted them to have something out with it.

"Nothing's wrong, Ron Weasley," she answered. She hated it when he pulled the psychological tricks on her, probably because she was much too intelligent to be duped by them, but her turnabout, he knew, was only a way to mask her unhappiness. He'd known it the second she'd said nothing was wrong…it seemed women only used the word 'nothing' when they meant 'everything.'

"Er, Ron?" Harry addressed him, and he turned to face his friend. "I think I'll just head upstairs and call it an early night," Harry told him before saying goodnight to Hermione and heading upstairs. Across from her, Ron heard her sigh.

"Is it really that difficult to be around me now?" she asked, looking miserably at Harry's retreating back.

"Quit it with that nonsense, Hermione, would you? Harry's just," he groped for the right words, "he's just not used to seeing you acting like this, especially when every time he tries to help, you tell him to bugger off." Harry, as noble as he was, still had a lot to learn about women. Ron supposed he did too, but somehow with Hermione it was different.

"I tell you to bugger off too, but you never seem to get the clue, do you?" She crossed her arms defiantly across her chest and glared at him. It was all he could do not to laugh out loud. She did everything to push him away, it seemed, when he knew she was itching to tell him what was wrong. It was a cycle they'd been through several times.

"I s'pose I'm just slow that way," he winked at her before moving from his sofa to hers, draping his arm casually over the back of it so that he could feel strands of her hair tickling his bare skin.

"Or incredibly stubborn," she muttered under her breath, and he smiled to himself. For someone who desperately wanted to confide in him she sure knew how to put on a show.

"So are you going to tell me what's wrong, or not?" he asked her. He wasn't impatient, per say, but he was curious as to what folly she would come up with now. Had she known just how he felt about her, perhaps she would have been less apt to think of herself as so inadequate.

"No," she said, being stubborn.

"Of course you are; you know you want to," he said, keeping his tone light as he nudged her leg with his. He knew from experience that she didn't like it when he acted too concerned or serious when she was like this.

"Do not," she defended; he could see the corner of her mouth twitch a little and jumped on the chance to tease her some more.

"Is that a smile I see trying to break out?" he asked, and she socked him on the thigh.

"No," she denied, though the smile had effectively broken free.

"I may not be top of the class, but it looks like a smile to me," he grinned, and she leaned into him to push him to the side.

"Why do you always have to cheer me up? I was perfectly happy sulking, you know," she said, pouting slightly.

"It's a bit hard not to be happy when you're with someone as wonderful as I am," he joked, and through her smile he heard her sigh.

"You are, you know," she smiled. "I'm surprised the girls aren't lining up at your door."

"Oh, they are," he joked, "but I'm just taking numbers until I can sort through the hordes of possible candidates."

"Oh, be quiet," she laughed, reaching out her left arm to push him to the side.

"Only if you tell me what's really bothering you."

"A lot of things," she responded quietly, her eyes now fixed on a spot at her feet.

"Like?" he asked, suspecting what was coming.

"I'm not pretty," she said, and he felt like snorting at how ridiculous that statement was.

"Hermione," he began, but she interrupted him.

"Don't say I am, Ron, because I know it's not true. You'll just be lying to make me feel better, and as noble as that is, I know what I am and pretty just isn't one of them."

"We've been through this before, haven't we?" he prompted and she shrugged. "All right, fine; why aren't you pretty?"

"Because," she answered dismissively, and this time he really did snort.

"'Because' doesn't exactly give me a lot to go on if I'm going to prove you desperately wrong, Hermione."

"I don't know, Ron, all right? I just know that boys don't like me."

"Is that what this is all about? Boys? Hermione, if there is one thing that I can say without a doubt in my mind is that boys are incredibly stupid; believe me, I happen to be one myself."

"You're just saying that because you have to. I see you and Harry looking at girls, you know; boys never look at me like that."

"Viktor Krum looked at you like that, didn't he?" he asked, desperately wanting to admit that he too had looked at her that way…was still looking at her that way.

"You hate Viktor Krum," she said.

"Of course I do," he answered matter-of-factly, "I got stuck taking Padma Patil to the Yule Ball when he got to go with you." Now it was her turn to snort.

"Now I know you're just saying that to make me feel better," she responded, "besides, Padma Patil is one of the prettiest girls in school. Boys look at her. I look nothing like her, or Parvati, or Lavender. Everyone says they're the prettiest girls in school."

"Hermione, listen to yourself for a minute would you?" he scolded, "Padma and Parvati and Lavender, they just look like everyone else. What is there that's interesting to that? It would be like dating a copy of every other girl at Hogwarts."

"Just tell me I have a 'great personality' already and be done with it," she muttered, sighing again.

"Why would I do that? You have a horrible personality," he teased.

"Ah! I resent that!" she laughed, hitting his arm repeatedly. He laughed too as he fended off her attack, finally getting her to stop by grabbing hold of her wrists.

"Why do you never believe me when I give you compliments?" he asked, really curious as to why that was.

"I already told you; you have to tell me those things because you're my friend."

"So friends are only friends if they lie to you, is that it?"

"You know that's not what I meant."

"I know it isn't, but you always assume that if I'm saying something nice about you it's because I'm forced into doing it by our friendship. You say plenty of horrible things about me to my face, does that mean that you're not my friend?"

"I do not!" she answered.

"Yes you do; you just called me a liar. Isn't that a horrible thing to say about someone? If you were really my friend wouldn't you have to say otherwise to protect my feelings?"

"You're switching all of my words around on me, Ron, you know that's not—"

"Too late, really, Hermione. I'm already hurt. You think I'm a liar. I don't think I'll ever be able to get over the pain that you've caused me." He sniffled exaggeratedly and turned his back to her.

"Ron, stop acting like an idiot."

"Oh…now I'm an idiot! Will the abuse never stop!?" He pretended to sob now, and could hear Hermione trying not to laugh behind him.

"Now you're acting like Fred and George," she said, and he turned to face her, clutching his chest.

"Oh, the pain of it all! Now you're just being cruel!" he joked, and she rolled her eyes.

"All right, you've made your point. Just because you're my friend it doesn't mean that I always lie to you instead of telling you when you're acting stupid."

"Thank you, now you listen to me all right? I am not lying when I tell you that you are pretty." She tried to look away but he nudged her chin with his index finger, forcing her to look at him and cupping her face in his hands when she finally did. "Hermione, you're more than pretty, you're beautiful and you don't even know it. You are such a great person, and believe me, I don't make friends with just anybody. You're smart, you're funny, and you do have a wonderful personality, and that makes you beautiful from the inside, but believe me when I say that you are also beautiful from the outside.

"You have the most mesmerizing eyes I have ever seen on anyone in my life, you have lips that every boy in Hogwarts should be dreaming about kissing, and you have a figure that Lavender, Padma, and Parvati would kill to have. You are beautiful, Hermione, and it's about time you realize it."

"Thank you Ron," she smiled, stretching up to kiss his cheek.

"So you finally do believe me?" he asked.

"Not for a second," she smiled, and leaned into his shoulder for a moment, prompting him to close his arm around her and pull her closer, "but it was nice of you to say anyway."

"You're hopeless, you know that?" he asked, placing a light kiss on the top of her head.

"I know…but you love me anyway." He heard the smile in her voice, knowing that she meant his love for her as a friend, though when he answered friendship was the furthest thing from his mind.

"I do," he answered, and it was true…he really did.