Hermione had a serious problem on her hands, one that involved her supposedly new boyfriend, Ronald Weasley. Since this problem included one of her two best friends, she turned to the other, Harry Potter, for answers. She found him in the bedroom that he and Ron share at Grimauld Place. He was currently curled up beside the bed on the floor, staring out of the dusty window. She circled the foot of the bed to find him with his knees pulled up to his chest, and his chin resting over them. He had yet to notice her presence, as she had entered the room silently and shut the door behind her.

"Harry? Can I talk to you for a moment?"

She observed that he looked startled to see her and he quickly wiped his eyes. 'He must have been crying,' she thought. She figured it was about Sirius, as he is still in morning. Hermione felt horrible for burdening Harry with her girly problem when he had so many of his own, but she needed advice, and fast.

"Sure Hermione, I was just…"

"It's okay, I just need to ask you something."

Harry moved a little to make room for her, so she sat down on the floor beside him and leaned her back against the bed. She noted that this was not the most comfortable position to be in and wondered why he was sitting there. Her question was answered when she saw that from this angle he had a perfect view of the cloud-covered sky.

"Well, see, Ron and I… well, he told me that he liked me a little before you came to stay here. And I said that I liked him too, so… we're… you know."

"That's great Hermione! I was wondering when you two would get together. You have both been acting like a married couple for years."

Hermione blushed a little, partially from embarrassment and partially from aggravation.

"It's not so great Harry. I really do like Ron. I even like when we argue... it's sort of, well, fun. Everything was fine until two days ago…"

Harry looked at her intently. "What did he do? What happened?"

Hermione noticed that he had a very protective, determined look on his face. His look clearly said 'If Ron hurt you I'll kill him.'

"Nothing bad really. It's just that… he kissed me."

"That's it? That's all he did? What's wrong with that?"

She took a deep breath to try and calm herself, but she blushed even further.

"I didn't feel ANYTHING! No spark, no comfort, no enjoyment. It was so boring! It was just…WRONG!"

Harry stared at her, and felt a little uncomfortable with the conversation topic. He tried to speak in Ron's defense.

"Well, you know Hermione…Ron doesn't have any experience with girls. Neither do I. I mean, my first… and last kiss with Cho wasn't very pleasant. I didn't know what to do. Maybe Ron just needs you to show him. It's hard to be around a girl you like, you know… you're always afraid you'll mess up. Just give him a little time, it'll get better."

Hermione threw her arms up and gave a very Hermione-like exasperated sigh and an "urgh!"

"But I've tried! We were snogging… I thought he was trying to clean my teeth with his tongue! So I tried to direct him, show him what to do… and he followed what I was suggesting well enough… but I still felt nothing!"

Now Harry was the one blushing, and disturbed. He really didn't want to hear the details of his two best friends snogging… especially when one was bad at it.

"So… um… what do you plan on doing about it?"

"I don't know. I'm just confused. I really can't say anything to him now can I? That's why I came to you. I don't really expect you to give me advice, but you're the only other person I could really talk to about this."

"Well, why didn't you just go to Ginny?"

Hermione had thought of that, but thought better of it considering it was her brother she was talking about. And Ginny can't really keep her mouth shut that well.

"Ginny is a blabber mouth. And she would probably use the fact that Ron is a bad kisser as blackmail and a reason to tease him."

Harry understood that. Ron had always tortured Ginny with teasing, being that she was the youngest. Ginny would jump at the chance to get back at her brother.

"Hermione, you know I'll always listen… but I don't really want to here you talk about how my best mate can't kiss. I'm horrible at it myself! How can I sit here with you and judge him?"

"But Harry that's the whole PROBLEM! I've never kissed anyone else… so how do I now if he's good or bad when I have nothing to compare him too? Maybe something is wrong with me… or maybe we just aren't chemically compatible? Maybe my expectations are too high. Or maybe he's just a bad kisser! I have no idea!"

Hermione interrupted Harry before he could say anything… not that he really knew what to say.

"And how can you say you're a horrible kisser? Cho just kissed you out of nowhere! And that wasn't snogging or anything, that was just a little peck on the lips that was… wet did you say?"

"Er… yeah, she was crying. Well it doesn't matter! I'm probably horrible at it anyway. Every time I'm around a girl I get all nervous and… just… stupid."

Hermione considered him for a moment.

"You don't get nervous around me though. I'm a girl."

"No your not."

"What!" Hermione looked outraged, but Harry was quick to recover the statement.

"That's not what I meant! I mean… you're a girl… you're just not a GIRL girl… you know? I mean… I don't think of you like that. You're my friend. Like Ron. Just… a female. Don't hurt me."

He put his hands up in a defensive motion and Hermione chuckled at his antics.

"It's okay Harry, I forgive you."

"Wooh, dogged that one!" He said, wiping his arm across his forehead in a dramatic gesture. He smirked and stared out the window when he heard her laugh.

Suddenly, she went quite. Her eyes lit up like they did when she got a 'brilliant plan.'

"What are you thinking?"

"I just got a brilliant plan." Figures…

"Which would be…?"

"Okay, just hear me out. I need to find out if Ron is just a bad kisser or I'm expecting too much from him. But I have no one to compare him to. And you want to find out if you're a good kisser or not but you have no one to kiss…"

"No."

"So we should…"

"No! I'm not doing it! You're mental!"

Hermione looked at him a bit perplexed but still excited over her new revelation.

"Why not? It's perfect! You don't even think of me as a girl! You said it yourself. And I only think of you as a friend, so it's not like I'm cheating on him or anything!"

"Yes it is Hermione! You really expect me to go behind Ron's back and snog his girlfriend so she can see whether or not she wants to break up with him! No! That's betrayal! I wouldn't do that to him!"

"Harry, I have to know! And if you don't… then I'm just going to have to find someone else who will."

Hermione got up to leave, but Harry pulled her back down quickly.

"I can't believe you! Now you want me to sit quiet when I know my best mate's girlfriend is off snogging someone else! How can you put me in that situation! I can't…"

Harry was cut of by Hermione's lip touching his quickly before pulling away. 'That wasn't so bad...'

"Did you feel anything?"

Harry stared at her for a moment.

"Um, no. Did you?"

"Nope, not a thing. But that was rather quick. How about this?"

Hermione touched her lips to his once more… softly. His bottom lip was gently nuzzling hers. 'This is nice… really nice… too nice.' Harry ended the kiss.

"Well?" Hermione asked.

"Um, it was defiantly better than Cho." Harry blushed, as did Hermione.

"It was better than Ron as well."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he puckers his lips so much I feel like I'm kissing a fish. That was much better."

"Shit." Harry put arm up so that the elbow rested on his knee and his hand was rubbing his temples. "I just kissed my best friend's girlfriend… and she liked it… shit."

"Harry, stop that! This is strictly for comparison sake, not for pleasure. We will do this in a very experimental manner, and then we'll assess the results. Alright?"

"I still don't like this."

"Oh, don't be a baby."

Hermione latched onto his lips before he could protest. She reached behind his head with one arm to tangle her fingers in his hair (which she had secretly always wanted to do) and used her other hand to remove his glasses then rest it on his chest. He positioned his hands on her shoulder and back, in very safe positions of coarse. Harry was determined to enjoy this as little as possible. He tried to ignore the fact that her lips were very, very soft and very persistent. He thought he was doing very well in keeping this "strictly experimental." That is, until he felt her suck on his top lip, then her tongue gliding along the bottom one…