"Dean?” Ron asked anxiously, appearing suddenly beside Dean’s bed where he’d been studying peacefully. “Can I ask you something?”

    “Sure,” Dean replied, putting down his textbook and eyeing Ron warily.

    “What do you know about Muggle girls?”

    “NOT MUCH!” Seamus shouted from the other side of the room.

    “Why do you ask?” Dean inquired, glaring at Seamus.

    “Er,” the tops of Ron’s ears went red. “Just, you know, wondering…you’re half Muggle and all…”

    “He’s trying to ask out Hermione,” Harry said bluntly, having overheard enough of the conversation as he was coming in the door. “And he’s having a rough go of it, so far.”
Ron turned scarlet and stuttered out something unintelligible.

    “Why not come to me, mate?” Seamus asked, popping up beside Ron and slapping him across the back. “Nobody knows more about Muggle girls than me.”

    “I think you mean ‘Nobody knows more about Lavender Brown than you’,” Dean remarked caustically.

    “And I doubt you really want to follow any of Seamus’s romantic advice anyhow,” Harry rolled his eyes.

    “Didn’t Lavender hex him on fire when she caught him snogging Dean in the Library?” Neville put in silently from his bed, where he’d been listening silently.

    “Yes,” Harry and Ron replied simultaneously as Dean busied himself with his book, face pink.

    “If anyone cares to notice,” Seamus said loudly, “My eyebrows have completely GROWN BACK!”

    He stopped out of the room to sulk, while the other boys snickered.

    “But about the girls…” Ron prompted.

    “I’ll see what I can do,” Dean sighed.

    *        *        *        *        *        *   

    Several days later, an owl arrived for Dean from his mother at breakfast, bearing a medium-sized package. He ripped it open, and out fell a letter and a well-worn Muggle paperback.

    “Here, Ron,” Dean said after glancing at the letter, “this is for you.”

    Ron looked at the book for a second, which was titled A Gentlemen’s Guide to Modern Muggle Courting.

    “What’s that?” Hermione asked from the other side of the table.

    “Nothing!” Ron exclaimed, jerking the book off the table. Harry snatched it out of his hands to examine it. As Hermione turned back to her conversation with Parvati, Ron hissed at Dean, “You told your MUM?!”

    “What you expect me to do?” Dean demanded. “She went to the used bookstore and found that. You’d better write her a thank you, if you know what’s good for you.”

    “Ron, I don’t think you should use this,” Harry said, flipping through the pages. “It’s nearly 40 years old, and some of the advice is a bit…well…and to top it all off, I think it’s American.” Harry scrunched up his face in disgust and dangled the book between two fingers.

    “Oh, how bad can it be?” Ron replied, snatching the book back from Harry. “I mean, how much can Muggle girls really have changed in forty years?”

    *        *        *        *        *        *

    Hermione was gossiping in the Common Room with Parvati and Lavender when Ron came down from the boys dormitories looking flushed and a bit…odd.

    He had his hair slicked down with so much gel that Tarantella couldn’t have moved it, and he had his tie tied around his neck in a rather floppy bow.

    Hermione had a sinking feeling Ron was about to do something important as he spotted her and approached her with a single-minded determination. At least most of the other Gryffindors were still at dinner, so he wouldn’t embarrass either of them too badly.

    Ron stopped immediately in front of her Hermione and took a deep breath, seeming not even to notice the other two girls, who were staring at him like he had gone mad. Ron looked very much like he was about to give a speech he had rehearsed to within an inch of its life.

    “Good day, Miss Granger,” Ron said in a loudish, fakish voice. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

    Hermione glanced out the window at the gathering dusk and then back at Ron.

    “Yes,” she answered after a second. “A bit dark, though.”

    “I was wondering,” Ron continued in the same voice as though she hadn’t said anything, “If you might do me the honor of accompanying me to a theatric event?”

    Hermione barely stopped herself before she asked Ron if this didn’t count as a ‘theatric event’.

    “Or,” Ron kept doggedly at his clearly memorized speech, despite the growing snickers of Lavender and Parvati, “perhaps you would be more interested in an athletic competition? There are many sports games we might enjoy together, such as baseball. It would take us no time at all to reach second base on our local field!”

    Here Lavender and Parvati lost it and began roaring with laughter. Hermione’s face was burning despite her best attempt to be supportive of Ron. Ron faltered to a stop, glanced at the other two girls rolling on the ground, looked back at Hermione, then made a dash for the stairs.

    Hermione sprang out of her seat and snagged him by the arm right before he escaped.

    “Sorry,” Ron choked out, staring at the ground. “Just lemme go…”

    “Ron, I would love to go out with you, on two conditions.”

    Ron looked up, astounded.

    “One,” Hermione held out her hand, “You give me that ridiculous Muggle dating book and let me burn it.”

    Ron pulled the book out of his robe and handed it to her sheepishly.

    “How’d you know?” he asked.

    “I saw it at breakfast, idiot,” she replied, holding the book as far away from her as possible. “Among other things.”

    “What’s the second condition?” Ron asked, looking relieved.

    “You never do that to your hair again. Ever.”

    Ron nodded quickly. With a final ‘tsk’, Hermione reached up and pulled Ron’s tie out of its bow.

    “And that’s NOT what a bow tie is,” she informed him as she left the tie dangling about his neck and turned to leave.