Summary: Hermione's fallen. Hard. And quite frankly she's not too happy about it. It's so illogical, so inconvenient, so irrational. Falling for your best friend - how clichéd.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and associated characters and events do not belong to me. They belong to the marvellously talented JK Rowling (published under Bloomsbury Press). They are being used solely for entertainment purposes and no money is being made from this work (trust me on this one). No copyright infringement is intended. Any original characters are mine, mine, mine evil cackle

Author's Note: The following story contains spoilers up to and including Order of the Phoenix (although I'm very tempted to change one particular event that cost me an entire box of tissues).

How Clichéd

Prologue

Hermione Granger had always considered herself a rather clever member of the wizarding community. Hell, who was she kidding, she knew she was brilliant. Seven years of being at the top of every single class she'd ever taken (with the possible exception of Divination but that really didn't count) and graduating with the highest grade ever seen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (an impressive 157 percent) had to account for something. Not to mention the three productive years she'd spent studying Magical Perspectives in History at the prestigious Morgaine's Magical Academy. She'd given more than one professor a frightful shock when her final grades were calculated (actually, they were unable to completely ascertain the mark seeing as their system wasn't capable of dealing with marks over 213 percent).

Either way she was pretty sure that in the scheme of things, her intelligence was a force to be reckoned with.

So now, all she had to do was figure out how she'd gotten into this situation in the first place. She simply could not determine how someone with such an academic record – someone so logical and rational – could do something so illogical, so unreasonable, so … damn inconvenient!

It was quite a dilemma and Hermione was quite perturbed.

She didn't even know when it had happened. One day everything was normal and then it wasn't.

Suddenly every accidental touch sizzled across her skin. Every smile directed her way had the power to melt her insides into a gooey mush. Every sparkle in those dazzling eyes caused her knees to weaken and her pulse to race, and that was when he had his sights elsewhere – a Quidditch match perhaps, or the latest broomstick on display at Quizzing Quidditch Supplies.

Such hypersensitivity to one person could be fairly tiresome really.

Hermione sighed.

It had been dangerous from the beginning, she supposed. From the moment of their meeting on the Hogwarts Express to the next seven years, that eleven year old boy had become quite the man. They'd all had their fair share of drama in their years at Hogwarts and were thus all marked in some way or other. Some more than others – and all more than any child should have to deal with. But still, despite it all, he'd managed to retain a measure of the youthful innocence that had been so endearing back then.

And besides he was quite a wizard (magically speaking and otherwise). Quidditch certainly hadn't hurt his physique either.

Retrospectively, it was no bloody wonder something like this had happened. In fact, logically speaking one would have to comment on the fact that it hadn't happened sooner.

But still, why did it have to happen? She would have been perfectly happy to just remain friends – it would certainly have been less trying and mentally exhausting. How could she have let herself fall so deep, so far? She had let the situation get to this point and now, she was stuck.

She was, without a doubt, helplessly, hopelessly, recklessly in love with her best friend.

How illogical.

How unreasonable.

How inconvenient.

How clichéd.

tbc …