"Hermione, Hagrid trusts us more than Dumbledore does! Dumbledore didn't tell us what he knew, and look what happened to Sirius!" Ron's face was crimson with anger by this time.

"Ron, don't be stupid! Dumbledore couldn't have known what would happen!" Hermione herself was getting quite worked up.

"If we can't trust Dumbledore to know what to do, what good is any of this?"

"Obviously," Hermione replied sharply, a haughty tone in her voice, "you aren't going to listen to reason." She turned on her heel, jerked open the door on one end of the parlour, and slammed it behind her.

Ron glared at the door Hermione had just stormed through. "Fine!" he said fiercely. He whipped around, stalking to the door on the other side of the room, and slammed it behind him as he left.

Hermione turned over and tried to return to sleep for a while. When that didn't work, she lit a few candles by her bed, and sat up to read her new texts for next year.

'The sequar charm,' she read silently, 'allows the user to know precisely where the person they set it on is at any particular time.'

Hermione sighed. Every word she read was forgotten almost immediately, so upset was she about Ron.

"I have been one acquainted with the night," she muttered to herself in lieu of a prayer.

She sighed again, and grabbed her dressing gown from the back of the door. Tiptoeing silently down the corridor, Hermione reached Ron's room in the Order's headquarters. She slowly opened the door, which creaked slightly, and stepped inside.

To Hermione's surprise, she found Ron pacing up and down the dark room. When he didn't say anything, Hermione asked timidly, "You couldn't sleep either?"

Ron replied gruffly, "No. What do you want?"

"I...I just came to..."

"To what?" Ron interrupted with a snap. "To try and convince me that I'm wrong again? Do you even care about Sirius?"

"Of course I do! Ron, I came to apologise."

He looked skeptical. "What, you're sorry that no one else can ever be right? That you don't even care what anyone else is going through? Why are you really bloody here, Hermione?"

"Because I love you!" she blurted in response.

Hermione paused, her eyes wide. "I...I do. I love you."

Ron rushed forward, placing his hands on either side of her face, and pressed his lips to hers. Passionate, intense, unexpected, it was all of those things. Mostly, though, it was romantic. Everything a first kiss should be.

The kiss lingered on, Hermione eventually raising her hands to caress Ron's face.

When the two of them finally pulled apart, both flustered and breathing heavily, Hermione burst into tears. Ron wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into a comforting embrace.

"Shh," he whispered. "I know, Hermione. I know. Everything's so overwhelming right now."

She wiped her face after a few moments, and replied quietly, "It's odd the way things work out sometimes, isn't it?"

He nodded, and the two of them stayed, embracing, until the sun began to peek over the horizon.

A/N: 'I have been one acquainted with the night.' is from Acquainted With the Night, written by Robert Lee Frost.