A/N: Yeah. Ron/Hermione. Fun stuff. As cliché as this fic is, I think it's pretty good. ;). Anyway. Read! Btw, if italics and bold messes up it's not my fault!

'It's art. You give it up, you were never an artist in the first place.'
~ (I forgot which movie it's from)

Unbreakable.

&&
**
~~

When you're ready to find Prince Charming you'll know, her parents told her.

When you're ready for a boyfriend you'll know, her parents told her.

When you're ready to get married you'll know, her parents told her.

Everything else, they said, was just icing atop a chocolate cake.

Indeed.

She always remembers what her parents say, because they really don't say much. They don't ramble or lecture they just talk. Vaguely, usually. Sometimes really bluntly. They don't lie and they don't tell her what to do.

She wonders what her parents would say if she told them she was in love. She wonders if her father's brown eyes would turn dark quickly, if her Mother would smile nervously. She wonders what would happen if she just said it.

Just say it.

She figures it's hard to tell if you're in love with someone if you've known him all your life. If you've grown up with him, and fought with him, and almost died with him. She wonders if she's making this too complex. Maybe just like with regular people...regular people who aren't brilliant or ugly or anything...if they just say the truth.

Just say it.

She tells her friends she doesn't have a 'crush' that all she has is lots of homework. And maybe a cat, too. But no crushes, no. Maybe not even one. She used to like that Lockhart fellow. That was Prince Charming, she guesses. He was very smart and very fake. This boy, he's very stupid and very real.

She figures he's about the realest person she's ever met.

Sometimes, she wishes she were like all of those popular girls. Lavender and Parvati and Pansy. With shiny hair and red nails, she figures maybe it'd be easier to tell him if she had something like that to offer. Looks. She also figures she wouldn't be in love with him if she was anything different than Hermione. Hermione Rynn Granger.

Also, she wonders why people think she's so unbreakable. Unbreakable. Like what they say won't hurt her, and what they do doesn't scare her. She's very scared now. Very very scared. Almost like excited, almost like scared. She's Hermione Granger and she's really not so confident. She's just smart. When she went with Viktor to the Yule Ball she was so nervous she was shaking. And when he met her in the entry hall she took his hand and it stopped shaking.

It shouldn't so hard to tell him. Tell him what she's been feeling for so long. What she's been thinking. The last thing she thinks before she goes to bed, the first thing she thinks when she wakes up in the morning. It shouldn't so hard to tell him.

Just say it.

And then, she wonders if he loves her too. Maybe, she thinks, you can't love someone, really love him, unless you know he loves you back. Because you weren't allowed to be hurt that bad. Because when two people love each other it's a really nice thing and when only one person loves another it's sort of lonely.

She's used to be lonely.

And all she wants to do is tell him. And all she wants to do is keep it hidden. It's not one of those nice secrets that you delight in; it's one of those ones that you want to tell the whole world. All you want to do is tell the world how in love you are. For the rest of your life. Dancing in the streets, screaming near the Shrieking Shack, running to the green house...

So.

When you're in love you'll know it, her Mother says.

Just say it.

'I love you Ron.'

And he smiles.

-=

&&
**
~~