Well, obviously she looked nice. She always looked nice. And obviously she seemed to be looking right at him. Who wouldn't look when being observed so thoroughly?

To ask her—that would be stupid. She probably already had a date to the ball. And even if she didn't, there was no way that she was about to say yes to Ronald Weasley.

Besides, there were plenty of other girls. Girls he had a chance with. At least, more of a chance than what he had with Fleur Delacour.

And he'd surely at least enjoy it a bit.

In fact, he could quite easily think of someone.

But she rarely looked all that nice and her hair seemed to be gravity resistant or something judging by how bushy it was. And she wasn't charming or graceful or polite. And she was far from sweet.

Nothing like Fleur.

She shouted at him and they were always bickering, and honestly he couldn't think of someone who annoyed him more.

And did he even have that much of a chance with her?

At least with Fleur, he'd never see her again after this year.

Well, maybe he could ask Hermione…

But she's—

Or maybe not…

But—

Yeah, Hermione—

Someone else could have just as easily snatched her up. Someone nicer, bolder, and cooler than he was. Maybe someone had asked her. Maybe someone else argued with her every minute of every day. Maybe someone else had been admiring her from afar—

But maybe they had seized the opportunity.

"Fleur—"

She did not turn around or even flinch.

Well, he supposed, there was always hope.

He asked her.

His hands were shaking, and his face was burning.

She laughed, and for a moment, he thought that all of those fears were true—that she did have a date, one that was charming and funny and smart and definitely not him.

But she didn't.

It was a nervous laugh. Like his. She was nervous.

And then she said yes.

Yes.

She said yes.

(And in that moment, he's infinitely grateful for the fact that he forgot to say that going just as friends would be okay by him. Because really, that was more of a last resort anyway.)

She helped him fix up his robes.

The three of them—Harry, Ron, and Hermione—they patched them up and tore off the frills, and he couldn't think of a single better way to spend his time—laughing with them and talking and finally feeling like everything was perfectly normal.

Surely, he thought, there couldn't be anything better than that.

Until he saw her.

It sounded cliché.

Because it kind of was.

But she did look really pretty.

Really pretty.

He told her, even though his ears were probably about as vibrant as the socks Dobby gave to Harry that morning.

She was beautiful, even, he supposed. He didn't think he'd ever really used that word. Not in the proper way.

But she didn't look like Hermione. Her hair was very sleek and tied back in a bun. And her dress robes—despite the many hours spent on patching his own up, he'd never once seen hers. Periwinkle blue, they seemed to be made of the same airy material as Harry's cloak.

And her teeth—they were normal.

She looked very nice.

But it was a bit odd, to be honest. It was his Hermione—the one who "helped" with his homework, and went with him to the Quidditch World Cup. It was her. But if not for her eyes, he would have hardly been able to tell it was her going on appearances alone.

They had a very good time.

They danced for a while, which, to be perfectly honest, was both pleasant and exceedingly awkward. After all, those surrounding them—those were all, well, they—they weren't friends. They were couples.

But it was nice.

They mostly talked, which was surreal on its own, he supposed. He wasn't used to talking with her normally, in all honesty. With Harry and schoolwork and their constant bickering, they'd hardly had a proper conversation during four years of knowing each other.

And later they sat down and talked some more, and then they saw Harry, who seemed even more uncomfortable than Ron or Hermione.

And it was all very lovely, though all very surreal.

But honestly, he liked it a bit better when they all walked back up to the common room, and they all changed out of their dress robes.

And when Hermione returned, her hair was back to its full bushiness once more, now that the few strands that clung to the bun had been released. And she was clutching a book now, and she's so much more Hermione now that he had to stop himself from telling her that she looked nice.

AN: So, as always, I avoid writing in Ron's point of view, and use very few words to describe a period of time that would take most people five times as many words. But I kind of like the simple sentence structure I used in this. Though I do wonder if anyone else would. I'm always rather fond of choppiness. And I feel like it was appropriate for this. And if anyone's read my Ron/Hermione drabble collection, yes the one drabble is extraordinarily similar to the start of this fic. Except, of course, the drabble follows canon. I wanted to write both. And as they're in the same perspective, and (for the most part) the same scene, it was sort of a given that they'd sound similar. Thank you for reading. (: