A/N: Nothing like posting a Christmassy fic in April, is there? Hope you enjoy it anyway!

Cormac hiccups, rises from his chair, and sways on the spot. A crystal goblet dangles precariously from his hand, one strong breeze away from slipping and shattering on the common room floor.

"Ready to go, then, Granger?"

He takes a few steps towards Hermione, stumbling over his own feet, and instinctively she takes several steps back.

"I suppose," she replies, unable to help glancing down at her attire as if to confirm this for herself. And she's not sure she agrees.

She's in her best dress, yes, the gauzy blush-colored material skimming across her knees. And heels, which are already pinching her feet. But truly? She can't bring herself to do much more. She's simply wrested her hair back into a knot at the base of her neck, rather than bother with Sleakeazy; what little Muggle makeup she owns is still wrapped in its original packaging.

Cormac's not worth the effort.

He drains the contents of his goblet into the back of his throat and tosses it haphazardly in the direction of the hearth, where it crashes against the brick and disintegrates.

Hermione cannot keep the disdain off her face. "What's wrong with you?"

"S'alright," he chuckles, approaching her again. "Elves'll clean it up."

Blood rises slowly, steadily up Hermione's neck and into her face as she uses all the willpower she possesses to fight the barrage of disparaging remarks on the tip of her tongue. Instead, she simply vanishes the broken glass with a wave of her wand and marches towards the portrait hole.

He catches up with her just as she's stepping into the corridor and slings an arm around her waist.

"Hey," he said, Firewhiskey sharp on his breath. "Whaddya say we skip the party altogether?"

Hermione walks a little more quickly, shaking off his grasp.

"I told Harry I'd meet him there."

Cormac scoffs. "Potter. Don't you reckon he's got enough friends already?"

Just two hours, Hermione tells herself. Two hours, then it's over.

All she has to do is put in an appearance at the party. Just enough of one for the word of her arrival with Cormac McLaggen (who is currently taunting the portrait subjects as they walk) to enter the gossip circuits. News at Hogwarts never fails to travel fast, and it just needs to get back to one specific person for this all to be worth it.

At the thought of - of him - Hermione's stomach twists uncomfortably. This is not how she imagined this evening would go.

Slughorn's office is so festively decorated, the walls dripping with bunting, mistletoe hanging from the ceiling, that it feels like an assault. The air is heavy and thickly perfumed, like Trelawney's classroom, and the guests - not all of whom are students, as the jolt to Hermione's stomach upon catching sight of a vampire tells her - seem to press in from all sides. The poor little elves bearing trays of food appear in danger of being trampled. The music is loud and cloying and guests have to shout above it, creating a cacophony of discordant sound. Everything in her body is telling her to flee, that this isn't worth it, that she doesn't belong here, that he is too busy snogging Lavender Brown to care if Hermione goes to Christmas parties at all, let alone with a lout such as McLaggen.

"Ya wanna drink?" Cormac half-yells in her ear, his massive hand landing on the small of her back.

"Erm-" She may as well, if only because the room is stiflingly hot. "Just a gillywater."

"You got it."

The smile he gives her as he slinks off in search of a serving tray has no warmth behind it, no affection. It's a mere baring of teeth, a means to an end, and it sets her nerves on edge. As she waits, she scans the crowd, hoping and praying to catch a glimpse of Harry's dark mop of hair or Luna's radish earrings. Anyone friendly will do, particularly when Blaise Zabini pushes past her and nearly knocks her into the wall.

Cormac reappears a second later, as she's still regaining her balance, to press an icy glass into her hand. Hermione goes to take a sip and nearly chokes.

"Are you sure this is gillywater?" she asks, repulsed and sputtering, as Cormac laughs.

"I might've enhanced it a bit," he grins, though at her expression of disbelief, he continues. "Vodka," he clarifies, opening his robes a bit to reveal a flask tucked inside. "But only a little."

"Wha - how did you-"

"Just packed it in my trunk at the start of term," he tells her, brimming with pride at this feat of deception. "I told Filch it was Muggle medicine, an' he's so thick, he believed me."

For the first time in her life, Hermione feels sympathy for Argus Filch.

"Sorry you don't like it," Cormac adds flippantly, taking back the glass and drinking from it himself. "One of the elves over there has butterbeer, I think, if you'd rather have that."

"It's fine," she finds herself saying, even though it plainly is not. The party has only just begun; perhaps she can salvage it. "So - er - so what NEWTs are you going to take?"

"NEWTs?" He furrows his brow like he's never heard the term before. "Oh, I don't know yet. Haven't thought about it much."

Too stunned to reply, Hermione snatches a glass from a nearby tray and, without thinking, gulps it down. It's pumpkin juice, and it's sickly-sweet, making her empty stomach churn.

"You look really fit tonight," he says, eyes roving slowly up and down her figure, his hand returning to the small of her back. "You oughta dress like this more often."

"Really?" she says skeptically, sure that he's just spewing lines as they occur to him. "You think I should wear a party dress to class?"

"Yeah." He chuckles again, his hand now unpleasantly close to the curve of her bottom. "It'd be hot." Before Hermione can formulate a response - and it is taking all of her brain power to figure out what to say to him - he jerks his chin up to the ceiling. "Look."

Against all her better judgment, she does, and of course it's mistletoe hanging above them, taunting her.

Damn you, Professor Slughorn.

"Oh - er-" Hermione gives a shaky attempt at laughing it off, as if the thought of them acting on the purpose of mistletoe is so preposterous, only to realize his hand is firmly situated on her backside now.

His mouth is on hers a second later, wet and sloppy and tasting faintly of alcohol and, somehow, onions, and his tongue pushes into her mouth, foreign and invasive, and this isn't who she wants kissing her at all.

"Stop," she blurts out, pushing his chest, needing distance, more distance, entire oceans would not be enough. "I'm - I'm just going to get one of those butterbeers after all."

"Alright, I'll be here," he drawls, looking sickeningly pleased with himself.

As Cormac leans back against the wall, taking a surreptitious swig directly from his flask, Hermione steps around a small elf bearing a tray of crudités and strides purposefully towards the opposite end of the room. The scene before her has morphed into a sea of faceless bodies and voices that she can't discern from one another. And then, when she's sure she's disappeared into it, become just another body among the many, she pivots on her heel and bolts for the door. She sprints past a bewildered Harry, and maybe in another universe she would have stopped to talk to him, but right now, she can think of nothing but getting away.

She feels cowardly, running rather than doing what she really wants to do - smack Cormac in the teeth. The shame rises in her, bubbling up from the pit of her stomach and into the back of her throat until she nearly chokes on it, wobbling down the hall in her heels, the abandoned corridor a slate-grey blur through her tears. Nothing that has happened tonight has been worth it. Though she set out to hurt Ron - God, actually hurt him, as though he hasn't been her best friend for the past five years - all she's done is make herself feel like the sludge at the bottom of the Black Lake.

It takes a near-tumble on a moving staircase for Hermione to shed her shoes altogether. With the stone floor cool under her bare feet, she spits the password at the Fat Lady (who looks offended, but swings open nevertheless) and steps into what she hopes is an empty common room.

It isn't.

In a corner of the room, illuminated only by the wavering glow of the fireplace, Ron sits alone in front of a chess board. His lanky body is folded in on itself, a leg up to his chest pulled up to his chest, chin resting on his knee. As she hastily wipes the fresh tears from her face, he picks up his head, and his blue eyes land on her.

They regard each other, not moving, not speaking. Just… considering one another.

"You're back early," Ron comments, just the slightest trace of vitriol in his voice.

"Yes, well." Hermione sniffs, trying to fix her face into an expression of utmost dignity. "It was a bit of a boring party."

"So where's your date?"

Now, there is definitely vitriol in his voice, but it doesn't even sting the way it used to, the way it did after that fateful Quidditch match in November. It just makes her miss him and the warmth he used to have, the playful teasing, his sharp-tongued wit that never aimed to wound.

Hermione opts for honesty. "I left him there."

Ron's brows lift, briefly, and he nods. "I see."

"And where's yours?"

The dim light in the room is not enough to mask the ruddiness growing in Ron's face. "I don't know," he admits. "I think we had a fight-" there is a thud as his foot drops from the edge of his chair to the floor- "and she chucked me."

"You think?"

"No, I know she chucked me." He cringes. "She made that part clear."

"Oh." Despite everything, there is a little flutter of excitement in Hermione's stomach that she can't quite ignore. He's single again. "You don't exactly seem gutted over it."

Mouthing, he attempts to piece together the words. "I - it just - well - she's-" He shrugs, resigned. "No. I s'pose I'm not."

He does not look proud of this fact. His eyes are cast down to the chessboard - it appears he's challenged himself in a match - and he's fidgety, fingertips drumming on the edge of the table, as is his habit when he's feeling guilty.

The fireplace crackles and hisses, flames dancing up against the soot-stained brick. Between them, the silence pulses, growing stronger, threatening to suffocate them.

And then they both speak at once.

"Why did you-"

Ron freezes, stunned, and then chuckles; the stretch of his lips lights up his whole face.

"No, no, ladies first," he says with a wave of his hand. "You go."

Swallowing, Hermione steels herself. She could turn, and walk up the stairs to her dorm, and she would probably end up never speaking to Ron again, but even just being in the same room is making her ache from missing him.

"Why did you get so mad at me?"

"Because," he says in a tone that implies she should already know, "you acted like the Felix was the only reason I could play a decent Quidditch match-"

"Not that." Hermione pads across the worn carpet floor, shrinking the gap between them. "You were already so mad at me before that happened, and I still don't know why, I don't know what I did - it was like you woke up one morning and decided you hated me-" Her throat constricts, her voice breaking off.

Hurriedly, he shakes his head, as though eager to dispel the notion. "I don't hate you."

"You could've fooled me."

"I don't hate you," he repeats, rising from his chair. "I've never hated you."

"Then why - what happened?"

"It's-" He won't meet her eyes. "It was nothing, really-"

"It must have been something," she snaps back, infuriated, "and I want to know what."

"It was stupid-"

"I don't care!" she cries. "I want to know why you suddenly couldn't stand to look at me, why you'd treat me like that - do you know how mean you've been to me lately?"

"How mean I've been?" He holds up a large hand, the back of it facing her. "I still have scars from the canaries, thank you-"

"And what about in class today?" she counters. "You think I liked being imitated like that?"

She can barely get the words out without choking on them: the recollection of the cruel laughter from Lavender and Parvati makes her want to sink into the floor.

"Yeah, that," says Ron, not quite meeting her eyes. "I'm sorry about that."

"As you should be."

"Well, I am!" The flush in his face deepens to a boiling red. "It was an arsehole thing to do, I - I mean, I don't know what else you want me to say."

"I told you, I just want to know why you were so mad at me-"

"I wasn't mad," he says, with a brittleness in his voice that Hermione isn't sure she's ever heard from him. "I mean, okay, I was, but - but I was kinda just… just hurt, more than anything."

Ron looks lost, almost hopeless, and fearing that he might just escape to his dorm never to be seen again, Hermione takes a step closer to him.

"But why?"

"I told you, it's stupid-"

"I want to hear it."

He gulps; he looks as though he's about to walk to his own execution. "Basically… I didn't want to be what I was to you."

The words float through her brain without registering meaning. "Wh - what?"

"I didn't want to go to the party with you if it was just, y'know, like a pity invite-"

"Pity?" she repeats, stunned. "You think I invited you out of pity?"

"I just reckoned you should go with who you actually wanted to go with-"

"Who I wanted to go with," says Hermione, her voice trembling with the effort of maintaining some shred of control, "was you. Only you."

"But I thought you were just - just asking as friends, so I wouldn't be left out, 'cause Harry pretty much had to go-"

"No," says Hermione, desperate to be understood. He needs to know, she decides, with a rush of adrenaline that makes her hands shake. She has to tell him, and it has to be now. "It wasn't just as friends."

It's Ron's turn now to step closer, until just a foot of space separates them. In this big, empty room, all she hears are his low, shallow breaths. She thinks she might even be able to hear his heartbeat, quick and urgent, matching her own.

She's a Gryffindor, and she knows that means she should be brave - and she is, when it comes to fighting dark wizards. But this vulnerability, and knowing, despite everything that's just transpired between them, that Ron could still crush her heart… it requires a different kind of courage, and she has to summon it from deep within.

"And I'm sorry about the canaries," she adds, "I really am, but when I saw you kissing her-"

"I should never have kissed her." His words come out in a breath. "She wasn't who I wanted to kiss."

Hermione's breath catches in her lungs as he moves closer, now just a sliver of glowing firelight between them. For the briefest half-second, Ron's tongue darts out to wet his lips.

"Who did you want to kiss, then?"

Finally, he looks straight into her eyes. "You," he says firmly. "Only you."

Then he's leaning towards her, fair eyelashes fluttering against freckled cheeks, and he's so close, just inches between them, then millimeters, then a brush of breath against her lips-

And she jumps back. "You can't kiss me now," she says frantically, almost tripping in her haste. "I'm sorry, you just, you can't-"

His face falls. "But-"

"Cormac kissed me," she confesses in a rush, "and it was awful and disgusting and I didn't want him to at all - and if I kiss you now, it'll be tainted by him."

Biting her lip, she watches as he processes this, and prays she hasn't ruined it entirely.

"You're barking," he says finally, brimming with affection. "D'you know that?"

"Then so are you."

Low chuckles rumble out of him then, like he can't help himself, and it's contagious, and Merlin,it feels good to laugh with him again.

"Am I allowed to hug you, then, at least?"

In response, Hermione steps into his embrace, closing her eyes as her cheek settles against the heavy wool of his jumper. He smells faintly sweet, like butterbeer, and his arms hold her close and tight, like he plans on never letting go again.

"What were you going to ask me?" says Hermione quietly, her words muffled against his chest. "Before?"

"Oh, it doesn't matter anymore." His chin settles atop her head. "I've got my answer, now."

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