Disclaimer: Don't own squat. Don't ask me. Don't tell me. It's depressing, and I know it, so I don't have to clap my hands.

BET

Hermione gulped as she watched him saunter into the common room, his quidditch robes muddy from the rainy weather outside. No matter how much she had wanted to laugh out loud as she remembered his 'brillant' catch as he hit the puddle, she still felt her serious problem within her, tugging at her heartstrings. Tonight was going to be the scariest of them all, and it would all be her doing.

Tonight, she would confess.

"Hey! 'Mione!" She shrunk at his voice as he called out to her. "The butterbeer is here and it wouldn't seem right without my best friend drinking it with me."

Her eyes surveyed the party goers around her, staring expectantly back. They knew that if she left, there would be no party like they always had. He would follow her instead and would miss everything in the common room.

Too bad she didn't care what everyone else wanted right now. "I'm tired", she told him before feigning a yawn. "Cheering you on as much as I did made me exhausted.

"Oh no, you don't", another voice called out, a blur of red catching her eye before feeling a hand pull her away from the so-near-yet-so-far stairway that lead up to the girls' dormitories. "You bet me your humility if Slythern was ahead until Harry caught the snitch", the red-head whispered to her, a grin upon his lips reading knowledgably 'I was right and you were wrong'. "You lost that bet. The Gryffondors were ahead by twenty when it was caught. You know what you have to do now, 'Mione."

She cursed at herself, wondering why in Hell she had made that stupid bet. She should have known that he would become a better player with such a bet on his mind. It was either her confession or his.

"Please, don't make me do it, Ron", she pleaded, trying to pull away from his grasp. "It's just a stupid bet."

"What's a stupid bet?" his deep voice interrupted the two of them. Nervously, she turned, laughing as she wished to cry. He couldn't find out, not like this. "What are you guy's hiding?" Even in his smiles and brief laughter, she could hear his hurt in his voice.

"Well, Harry", Ron began, his grin growing by the second, "'Mione and I made a bet before the game and she lost. Now, she won't go through with her bet."

His emerald eyes glittered, amused by this. "Well, it all depends what you have to do, really. What is it? Embarrassing?"

Her brown eyes lowered as she felt his stare on her. Would she tell him? Could she share it with him without truly telling him?

She sighed and pulled him down, pressing her lips against his. All of her thoughts and feelings fled her body as her love for her best friend was shown sloppily. As she pulled away from the surprised young man, she finally escaped up the stairs, blushing madly as cat-calls followed her.

The dark haired man shook out of his shocked reverie and looked at his remaining friend, his eyes confused by what had just happened between both he and Hermione. "That", Ron stated simply, "was our bet, to show our feelings to the people we secretly love." The words slowly sunk into his mind, alerting every nerve in his body.

"She-" He hesitated, afraid to say it aloud as if he would brake the porcelain love she held for him. "Was there a counter bet? Like if the person they like loves them back?"

Ron chuckled to himself. "She was so sure that she wasn't loved by your ass that she almost didn't make it." He smiled at his friend. "I'll go make a, you know, appointment", he said with a large grin.

The emerald eyed man smiled broadly, pivoting around as he broke into a run. His classmates hooted him on, shouting their appraisal for his decision.

Every hurried step quickened his heartbeat. Soon, he knocked on the door, shouting her name in hope that she'd listen. He pounded on the door again, this time gaining a slightly open crack.

"What, Harry?" she questioned, her voice cracking with her sorrow.

"Love you!" he breathed, his exhaustion evident now. He noticed her depression yet confusion in the one eye he saw. With a deep breath, he tried to speak once again. "I love!" he told her. He laughed at his inability to speak.

"Who do you love, Harry?" she asked, her door opening wider, allowing him to see her tear-stained face. She looked hopeful, staring at him with a wishful twinkle in her eye.

"I love… you, 'Mione", he told her, grinning wildly as he watched her face brighten at his confession. "I love you, my best friend, more than I should but I do. I love you." He hugged her tightly, wiping the tear streaks from her cheeks with his thumb, the fabric of his snitch catcher's mit running across his love's face in place of his palm. "I love you", he repeated.

She hugged him tightly, tears of joy falling down her face.

"I love you too, Harry", she murmured into his blood-red shirt, his shoulder just above her nose. "So much."

He pulled away slightly and made her look up at him. Slowly, he leaned down, closing the space in-between their lips.

orokid: What do ya think? I want reviews. I am pitiful and I want reviews. PLEASE GIVE ME REVIEWS!!!