The pain was unbelievable, and although she had never been one for dramatics, it truly felt as though her heart had been ripped from her chest. When Ginny had flung herself at Harry, eyes blazing, fiery hair flowing behind her and lean figure wrapping around him, she had forced herself to smile through the sound of her heart breaking. The cheering from the rest of Gryffindor became muffled as all of her senses narrowed down to the one scene she had never wanted to witness. Feigning tiredness, she quickly escaped out the portrait hole and made her way through the castle, not paying attention to where her feet were taking her.
'How could he do this to me?' she whispered to herself, absentmindedly running her hand down her arm to fight the cold that invaded the castle. Immediately the rational side of her mind tried to take over, she had never made her feelings for Harry clear and she had given Ginny advice about the younger girls crush on the raven-haired seeker. But she had thought that they had a special bond. How much had they been through since they had started Hogwarts together? Nightmares that Ginny could not even begin to imagine, memories that would only be shared within the "Golden Trio" as she had heard some younger students referring to them as.
Looking up, she realised that she had made her way to the Astronomy Tower, one of her favourite places to think when her head felt like it was going to burst. Hermione always managed to find solace in looking at the stars that blinked down at the castle, calming her mind through naming as many of them as she could recall. Her eyes lingered on the brightest star in the sky, the Dog Star… Sirius. Her heart ached even more thinking about the recently lost member of their dysfunctional family. The grief that had overwhelmed Harry was unlike anything she had ever seen, another member of his family lost to him. What made it even worse was that she had on many occasions overheard the two talking about their start as a family when things quietened down. She knew that Harry had every intention of moving in with Sirius when the blood protection no longer worked, she knew that Harry looked to Sirius as a father figure, even if he wouldn't admit it himself. That was the nature of their friendship, she knew everything about him without him having to say a thing.
Shivering, she tried to block out the mental image of Ginny wound around Harry that seemed to be replaying incessantly in her mind. She would have to make another excuse when she returned to the Common Room, but she was well experienced in fooling Ron and Harry. They were fools, she snorted softly, but they were her fools. She had never felt much jealousy towards Ginny in earlier years, seeing her as Ron's sweet but extremely outgoing younger sister, and a potential close friend. But as she grew up, Hermione felt the jealousy that seemed to echo all of her insecurities. While she had bushy, untameable hair that had a life of its own, Ginny had silky hair that seemed to glimmer when the sun caught it. Hermione felt that she had a rather average looking figure, on the other hand, Ginny seemed to have grown curves in all the right places over the summer, attracting the attention of more than just a few males in her year and above. The idea of writing to Viktor briefly flashed across her mind, he was the only boy to consider her beautiful after all. As quickly as the idea came she had squashed it down. Best not to linger in the past. They had shared a magical night and that was all.
The pain had subsided into a dull ache now, and she irrationally felt bitter towards Harry's obliviousness, despite once finding it one of his most endearing qualities. Squaring her shoulders she knew that she would just have to endure things silently, she would still be there for Harry whenever he needed her.
Turning around, she headed back to the Common Room, trying not to think of the happy couple that would most likely still be there wrapped up in each other.