Ron could feel Padma sitting beside him, frowning into the side of his head, but he paid her no mind.

It was silly of him, he knew now, to think for even a moment that Ginny and Hermione would be lying about whether or not the had a date. Hermione really wasn’t as bad as he’d always made her out to be in his thick-skulled mind; she was just a little more appreciative of the rules than he and Harry, and now, watching her dance out there with Krum amidst the swirling colors of all the girls’ skirts… She wasn’t exactly ugly, either, Ron realized. He was sure he’d never look at her the same again.

Tonight, if she hadn‘t always been, Hermione was nothing short of gorgeous.

He could feel his face flushing with rage - how could he have missed it before? How come she was out there with that scum-bag Krum when she could have, should have, been with someone that was so much better? Not him, per se, but someone better nevertheless - and shame - he could see Padma’s eyes go from his face to Hermione’s and back again. The silly girl wasn‘t stupid, and she was putting something together in a few moments that had taken him four years.

Ron chose to ignore Padma as she sighed pointedly beside him, focusing on Hermione instead, taking his time to look over the girl he’d never thought about this way before with new-found enthusiasm.

Large, luscious lips were curved into a wide smile, filled with noticeably smaller and straighter gorgeous white teeth. He watched as Krum leaned in to whisper something to her - her smile widened - and she spoke, too, lips curving into carefully selected words - he could practically see the thoughts tumbling about in her brain.

--

You’re staring me down,
A glance makes me weak,
Eyes for striking,

--

Ron watched with quickly building anger as the git nodded and smiled, apparently pleased with himself, and she closed her eyes, relaxing her head on his shoulder as Krum twirled her lazily around the room. He had no right to be touching her like that! Watching her with that all-knowing, totally-content look on his face!

Ron, having Krum-hated himself into nothingness for the time being, had settled on inspecting her eyelids; delicate and white with long, black lashes just sweeping the pale, smooth skin of her cheeks; when she opened her eyes again. Her mouth opened into a little ‘o’, surprised to find Ron staring blankly into her eyes.

Slowly, she regained her composure and shifted on Viktor Krum’s shoulder, straightening a bit, but their gaze was still locked - Ron still firmly beyond any rational thought- and she watched him with a slight fire to her eyes until Krum spoke once more in her ear.

Hermione frowned sadly at Ron, before looking back up at Krum, and the next thing Ron knew, Hermione’s back was to him once more as Krum turned her in time to the wail of the Weird Sister’s harmonizing voices.

--

--

It took what seemed like centuries for Ron to come sliding slowly back to reality, when really it was only a few moments. He blinked once, twice, and suddenly he was back at the Yule Ball in his ragged, maroon, horribly gown-like dress robes, sitting beside Padma Patil (one of the prettiest girls in their year, or at least that’s what Dean Thomas had said), staring, flabbergasted, at the smartest girl in their year, who just so happened to be dancing with the star Seeker of the Bulgarian Quidditch team. It was rather sad, really.

Incidentally, once Ron realized where he was and what he was doing, it didn’t take very long for his heart to go rocketing down to the tips of his toes, as though filled with dead weight. Dimly, he recognized the suffocating feeling he was currently experiencing as despair.

But somehow, he couldn’t look away from the gentle, feminine curve of her back, where the pale blue fabric clung.

And so he sat there, utterly miserable, making no attempts whatsoever to try and be subtle about it, because he simply didn’t have to. Krum and Hermione were so wrapped up in each other that Ron didn’t think they would have noticed if the Dark Lord had burst into the room and started killing people left and right. So he was free to stare as much as he wanted, and Ron dimly realized that, chances were, he’d spend the rest of the night watching her.

Suddenly Hermione startled and so did Ron; he nearly came a foot out of his chair, but as he focused back on her, she was merely smiling at Cho Chang over her shoulder. Cho had apparently stepped on the hem of Hermione’s robes.

Ron relaxed, unaware that the Weasley family protective instinct had kicked in like it had for Hermione so many times before.

Both smiling, Cho and Hermione turned back to their partners just as Viktor leaned in to whisper something in Hermione’s ear. His lip brushed her cheek as she turned and she flushed pink but Krum kept his composure. Ron fumed.

Right alongside the despair, a feeling of hopelessness - helplessness - made his teaspoon-range emotions nearly full to overpowering, what with the love mixed in there, too, which simply goes without saying.

It killed him, made him want to throw things and scream and positively implode, left him sitting there, unable to tear his eyes away from them, plotting how, exactly, he was going to mutilate that Krum action figure he‘d once actually thought was cool, wondering if it’d scream when he threw it into the fire.

Hermione made to look down, trying to get her eyes from Krum, regain the cool Ron knew she lived on, still flushing pink, but Krum gently took her chin in his calloused hands and tipped her face back up to his. A soft, forgiving smile that Ron had once thought she reserved only for him lip up her face, and Krum beamed back at her, grinning lopsidedly, before pulling her in, close.

Ron’s breath caught in his throat as all color slowly drained from his face.

A suffocating sort of panic rose in Ron’s throat as he stared onward, because suddenly other couples were sifting out onto the dance floor, and with an awkwardness unknown even to him, Ginny and Neville had stumbled in front of Krum and Hermione, successfully blocking them from view.

Craning his neck oh-so-subtlety to one side, Ron could just get a glimpse of the graceful knot of Hermione’s hair when Pansy and Draco waltzed smoothly into that spot.

Eyes wide with panic (he wondered how he’d react when life went on after this ball; during classes and when summer came if he lost his head after not being able to see her for mere seconds) and Ron leapt to his feet. He realized he was hyperventilating and he tried unsuccessfully to even his breath out.

Padma was looking up at him now with a look somewhere between alarm and disgust.

“Er - thirsty,” Ron grunted, nearly unintelligibly, and Padma rose a finely manicured dark eyebrow.

“You want some punch?” Ron managed to string together, and although Padma stayed silent, when she tipped her head to one side and all sign of alarm drained from her face, Ron took it as a no.

And he was off, briskly pushing his way through the Great Hall towards the table piled high with snack-like delicacies, managing to keep up some of the pretense that he wasn’t, really, suddenly and totally obsessed with Hermione Granger and that he truly was thirsty, all the while knowing that the punch bowl had an extraordinary view of where Viktor and Hermione were now waltzing.

Ron, despite Hermione’s teasing, wasn’t stupid. He was aware of who he was - what he was - and what family he belonged to.

And standing there, spying on Krum and Hermione oh-so-casually with a cup of some sort of yellow punch in his hand (he kept missing his mouth), he was more aware of it then ever.

And suddenly, Ron was resigned to the fact that he wasn’t worth Hermione’s time. He supposed he’d always known he’d never be good enough for her (more or less like he’d always known he cared for her), because the sinking, hopeless feeling he had expected wasn’t there. He was surprised to realize that most of those sleepless nights, saying he was worrying about things like exams and dealing with the Slytherins… They’d apparently gone towards a much better purpose. This didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt of course; but the pain was dulled to a mild ache, and he had come to terms with it.

And now that he was able to realize that he liked Hermione as more than a friend at all, he managed to skip right past anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance. No, he’d landed firmly on the sixth - widely unacknowledged - step of grief and lost love.

Which was an overwhelming urge to protect, of course. But then again, maybe it wasn’t apart of the grief or loss at all; maybe it was just in the Weasley nature.

Ron figured that if he knew enough to realize that he wasn’t the right choice for ‘Mione, he knew enough to figure out who was the right choice - and, yes, there was the protectiveness rearing it’s demanding head - and this… this… (ugh) Viktor Krum fellow was certainly not it.

Who was he to go out there and hold her tight as though he had a right to be with her? Who was he to act like he deserved her? And, even more pressing; what was she thinking to allow him to spend time with her?

Krum had always looked distinctly more clumsy, certainly less elegant and far more ugly on firm ground then he had up in the air at the Quidditch World Cup, zipping around on his broomstick doing Wronski Feints; a fact Ron had been willing to overlook before the git went and tried to take something that was way out of his reach.

Now, however, waltzing slowly with Hermione, it was even more blaringly obvious than usual, and Ron couldn’t help but wonder what requirements Hermione looked for in her men.

A well-known name? (Minus one against me, Ron reminded himself sullenly). Some sort of outstanding talent? (And two…) Or - Ron gave a shudder - money? (might as well go home now). Because, frankly, Ron suddenly couldn’t see anything good about Viktor Krum at all.

Distinctly feeling his eyes began to water, Ron rubbed his free hand furiously at them. But suddenly he opened his eyes and jerked his hand back, as though scalded.

Standing in front of him, he could just see Hermione’s smirk and a sliver of Krum’s chest through the crowd. Slowly, utterly uncertain, he closed his eyes…

And, yes, Hermione and Krum were still there. She’d officially managed to imprint herself on the inside of his eyelids. With a grim sigh, he supposed it had only been a matter of time.

Angrily slamming his nearly untouched cup of punch down onto the snack table, causing most of it to slosh out (how had he managed to let her affect him this much?!) he stormed back over to Padma, who seemed distinctly indifferent to see him back, and plopped heavily down into the seat beside her.

The crowd opened up as though to torture him, allowing him a clear view of the last two people he wanted to see, in such stark contrast to only a few moments ago. He just managed to see Hermione give Krum a (rather deep, he thought) kiss before he turned sullenly away.

Vaguely, he wondered what she tasted like.

The song picked up the tempo and the notes rose to a near-wail; Ron only now paid attention to the song and realized it was Ginny’s favorite - the sound he’d vaguely registered as an animal in pain was, in reality, the chorus.

Ron’s attention shifted back to his favorite couple on the dance floor as he’d expected it would. He tuned in just in time to see Krum twirl Hermione away from him before turning her neatly back, and Ron would have sworn that he could hear her laughter nagging at the back of his mind as he watched her eyes twinkle.

Slowly, Ron was regaining the control he thought he’d permanently lost over his body; turning his eyes in whatever direction he pleased was an unprecedented delight, and his hands were suddenly unclenching as though he was an infant and had just now realized that his entities were forced to bend to his will.

So, he was soothed by convincing himself that he was still staring at Krum and Hermione by his own, free, choice. He gaped in a mixture of anger and helplessness as Krum’s eyes were dipping to new and previously uninvestigated parts of Hermione, and as he twirled her again as the Weird Sister’s shrieks hit a particularly power-housed tone, Ron didn’t miss Krum’s hand ‘accidentally’ brushing Hermione’s chest.

Hermione flushed; Ron looked away.

Staring at his feet now, somewhere between grief and anger, Ron could feel Padma’s eyes burning a hole into the side of his head. He ignored her at first, eyes glued now to the hem of Hermione’s robes as he grew slowly braver again, amazed that she didn’t miss a step, but when Padma refused to look away, he finally, angrily, turned towards her.

“What!?” he snapped.

“Aren’t you going to dance with me?” Padma whined.

“Why would I want to dance with you!?” he snapped without actually thinking about it. He’d made to turn back to Hermione but did a double take and ended up sitting there, ears turning scarlet, gaping at Padma. “I - I’m sorry, I -”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Padma snarled, settling deeper into the high-backed chair. “I don’t need to hear it; it’s been obvious since First Year! You’ve been so… so… Ugh! You’ve been so caught up in that Hermione Granger girl that you don’t play the slightest mind to any other girl that looks your way, even if they are better!”

Ron stared, dumbstruck for a moment as he tried to process all that she had said when, finally, it clicked. His whole face turned a deep shade of puce and the tips of his fingers (he’d bitten off his fingernails while trying to find a date) had turned white as he dug them in to the table-cloth covering the table behind him. “How - How dare you!? ‘Mione’s better than you’ll ever be!”

Ron had opened his mouth to continue but was cut off as a boy from Beauxbaton slyly scooted up in front of Padma and was now squatting in front of her, beaming and flirting in conspiratorial tones. Apparently pleased to have been able to get out her barb but avoid the lion’s share of the lecture, Padma leaned forward and conversed away.

Still fuming, Ron turned his back on Padma and found himself staring at a wall - well, no mind. At least he wasn’t looking at that superior bitch.

Vaguely, Ron realized he was mood-swinging so wildly that even Ginny would be proud. Because now, he’d officially hit rock bottom. And the voice kept telling him that he’d never be with Hermione that he thought he’d manage to sneak past earlier had finally cornered him.

Just as he was settling down to a horribly long Yule Ball filled with self-pity and disgust and ignoring Padma (and staring at a wall) he took one last glance at them and Hermione caught his eye again.

Ron froze and just managed to think that he must look incredibly stupid before his brain shut down completely, and was left, gaping there with this sort of lost look on his face. She, too, seemed a little unaware of what was going on, and for a split second, Ron felt his heart flutter. Maybe she cared? Maybe he had a chance!

But he quashed this hope just as quickly as it came. No. He wouldn’t let it happen, even if it killed him. He wouldn’t let her waste any of her time; especially on him.

But, slowly, inevitably, Viktor jerked her attention back towards him with a well-placed brush of his hand down her jaw line and towards her neck she shuddered (actually shuddered, Ron emphasized with disgust) and turned back to him, a huge smile on her face.

And once more, in a vicious, painful circle of thought, Ron was brought back to why Hermione was dancing with Krum, why she shook like that - actually shook - for him.

Suddenly, Ron hit a rock solid conclusion (‘if it had been a basilisk it would’ve killed you!’ he could hear his mum nagging in the back of his head), so obvious it hurt. Viktor Krum had noticed her when he - when everyone else - hadn’t. Viktor Krum (and this time, it was Hermione’s voice) had ‘spotted’ she was a girl before any of the other dim-bulbs that made up the male population of Hogwarts had.

And suddenly, it made sense.

Which didn’t make it any easier to swallow it, by any means.

Yet, inexplicably (Ron didn’t understand it himself) this calmed him. Maybe this meant that one day - somehow - she would get over this Krum person; move on to someone better. Someone who could better love her, better care for her, better provide for.

And yet, he realized that this might very well be impossible.

Because Viktor Krum had asked her, all prejudices aside. He was rich, that couldn’t be denied, and although he wasn’t a total knock-out, and Ron doubted that he loved her, he was rich, and that was all a girl really wanted, right? (he didn’t miss a chance to hate himself for being poor, here) So, really, this might very well be as good as it gets for Miss. Hermione Jean Granger.

And if you asked Ron - this wasn’t okay. She deserved so much better than Krum, much less himself (how did he keep popping into this silent monologue?!)

He had no idea how, but dammit, he was a huge part of this - a huge part of the argument over who was good for ‘Mione, and who wasn’t. He was practically her brother, for Merlin’s sake (even though he had now realized he wanted so much more).

For an instant he allowed (or rather, forced) his thoughts to drift. Harry was paying less attention to Parvati then he'd originally thought possible when you're dancing with a person - his eyes never drifted away from Cho, yet he never seemed to notice that she was sneaking glances at him too. Padma and the Beauxbatons boy were snogging quite happily in a corner, jumping apart like the other was on fire whenever another Beauxbatons boy, who appeared to be bored with the whole thing, alerted Padma's kissing partner that a teacher was looking. Everyone else seemed happy - or at least not nearly as tormented as he was. And yes, tormented was the precise word to describe it.

Immediately, his eyes drifted back to Hermione, who was busy flicking a fallen tendril of her hair away from her neck. Ron gulped loudly.

He forced his eyes back down to were his hands were knotted in his lap, counting the seconds as they ticked by, anything to avoid that inevitable moment when he saw her again and his stomach dropped and he simply wanted to die if he couldn’t have her.

So it was with a hopelessly twisted mixture of delight and agitation when he heard someone clear their throat and looked up to see a breathless, flushed (gorgeous) looking Hermione and a rather sullen Harry standing in front of him.

“Hi, Ron!” Hermione said innocently enough. “Having a nice time?”

For a bit, there, Ron was relatively sure he had lost all grasp on reality. As he stood, gaping, mouth flapping uselessly, staring at her, his thoughts didn’t get much more articulate and meaningful then, ‘bloody hell’.

There was an uncomfortable, awkward silence that Ron wasn’t even sure of, before Harry, who was too busy being thoroughly agitated to notice, dropped heavily onto the seat next to Ron; it creaked loudly in protest. “Well, I’m having a bloody awful time, thanks for asking.”

Hermione’s brows knit.

“Welcome!” Ron choked out, eyes never leaving Hermione, resurfacing to semi-normalcy just in time to hear Harry thank someone.

Harry frowned.

Ron realized it would be a very, very long year.

--Cayenne