A/N: Thanks so much for reviewing the last chapter!!! I hope you all
enjoy this story!!!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything here...
**************************************
That evening, after Harry had left and gone home, Ron trudged up the stairs to his room. He was thinking mainly of the fight he'd had earlier with Hermione; it was all he'd thought about since she'd stormed out of his flat. Harry had said not to worry; he'd said that Hermione would get over it soon enough and that everything would go back to normal.
But Ron hadn't been convinced.
This wasn't the first time that he and Hermione had fought over the issue of his mother. He wasn't blind; he knew that his mother disliked Hermione greatly and that she had no qualms about making this fact known. But he didn't know what to do about it. It wasn't like he could exactly take sides since the two parties in question were undoubtedly the two most important females in his life.
And it wasn't like he'd never said anything to his mother, either.
He had. In fact, he'd said several things, but every time he mentioned the suggestion that his mother be a little friendlier and a little less cold to Hermione, he'd been met with the inevitable, "Well, Ron, I don't see how you can't tell that I'm only looking out for your best interest. Honestly! What kind of a relationship can you possibly have with a girl who has no more self-respect than she does- throwing herself into the beds of various men who have never expressed any real interest in her at all, much less given her any sort of commitment?" And Ron had grown tired of receiving this response very quickly; there was simply no use arguing with his mum over the matter.
And Hermione...
Hermione was a whole other story completely. There was a time when she would have been bothered beyond belief by the relationship with his mother. Of course, that was also the time when Hermione wouldn't have even considered putting herself in the position to gain that type of relationship. Hermione had changed so much since the time they'd spent at Hogwarts that Ron often had trouble picturing the bushy-haired, buck- toothed, know-it-all who was always scolding him for not doing his homework properly and insisting that he not swear in front of her. Aside from changing physically, and she had definitely changed physically, she was a completely different person on the inside. She was the first one to threaten someone with bodily harm, and her mouth could easily rival his and Harry's in the swearing department. So, the fact that his mother openly loathed her only gave Hermione an excuse to show her sarcastic aggression off.
As he entered his bedroom, Ron noticed the bathrobe and towel that Hermione had discarded earlier still lying on his bedroom floor. He walked over and picked them up, tossing the towel into the laundry basket. He started to do the same with the robe, but at the last second, he unconsciously held it to his face and drew her scent in through his nose. She had the most distinguishable of scents, and he had always been able to smell her on any of the various clothes she would leave at his home. It was a mix of coconuts and lemons, and to Ron, it was the most beautiful and enticing scent in the world.
There had been countless nights when Ron had simply laid awake while she slept on top of his chest. He didn't know why he loved to watch her sleep so much, but he did. He loved the way she made a very soft whistling sound from her throat, and he was always mesmerized by her smell. He could watch her sleep for hours and never grow tired of it.
But now he didn't know what to do.
Hermione had a temper on her like no one else he'd ever known, and he knew this temper better than anyone probably. They'd spent seven years at school arguing incessantly with each other, and they'd spent four years since then having their fair share of questionable moments. Yes, they had managed to mix in their fair share of sexual escapades during those same four years, but these experiences didn't calm the fact that they were still complete opposites and both way too stubborn for their own good.
Everything was just confusing. Every single thing that had to do with Hermione was confusing- from the way her brilliant mind worked all the way down to the relationship she shared with him. There was just nothing simple about her in any form or matter. She was Hermione, and she had to be taken exactly as she was.
The one woman who had the ability to drive him mad in more ways than one.
Did he regret the way their relationship had started? Yes. If he could go back and do things over, he would definitely do them differently. He wouldn't start out the most amazing experience of his life in a drunken stupor for one; he'd make sure that they were both sober before jumping into something as serious as a sexual relationship. The fact that the only reason they'd ever slept together in the first place was because they were both too drunk to think properly instantly lowered the standard of their "relationship." They'd basically used each other to fulfill an immediate need and desire. There had been nothing tender about that first time; it had been urgent and lustful and just desperately needed.
But it had been... There weren't even words to describe what that first time had been like.
He could remember looking into the eyes of the eighteen year old Hermione, completely breathless and shaken after it was over and wondering why he'd never known he could feel like this before. The moment their eyes had connected, they both knew that any and all thoughts of this being a one- time thing were long gone. There was just simply nothing else like it, and they both had an insatiable need to repeat the performance.
At first, they'd both been timid around each other, both wondering if they should try and make something official, something real, out of the whole thing. But the experience in itself was all the real that Ron needed. And he suspected that it was all that Hermione needed, too. Neither of them were romantic and needy people; neither of them was really dependent on anything that a "real" relationship would have entailed. They just simply both had needs, and the other was simply the best person to fulfill those needs.
Ron, like Hermione, had dated his fair share of people over the years, and several different women had graced his bed with their presence. But none of them was Hermione. None of them could make him feel the way he felt whenever he was with her, and none of them knew him the way that she did. He had a sinking feeling that no one would ever be what she was to him. And even if he decided one day to fall in love and get married, the whole thing would be like the old Muggle saying. He'd have that other girl in his arms and Hermione on a pedestal.
And there was just no other way about it.
He finally placed her robe into the laundry and lay down on his queen-sized bed. His sheets almost felt warm, as though she'd only gotten up from them moments before. The pillow she'd used was still engulfed with the smell of her shampoo, and he could still feel her presence everywhere. And he wondered briefly when or even if he would feel her lying beside him for real. They'd fought before, but he knew when she was pushed too far, and she was definitely pushed too far by the whole thing with his mother.
But he couldn't do anything about it.
His mother had given birth to him and raised him and he owed her more than he could ever possibly repay.
And Hermione had been his best friend for eleven years and she'd changed him in more ways than one and he owed her more than he could ever possibly repay.
And he had no idea what to do about any of it.
*************************************************************
Hermione was ashamed of herself. She'd gone home to her own flat, and she had cried. She had cried over the utter stupidity of the whole situation, and she had cried because Ron wouldn't take her side.
She had let Ron Weasley make her cry for the thousandth time in her life, and it disgusted her.
She'd made a vow the day her parents had died that she would never cry over anything ever again. Tears were simply useless things that made one's mascara run. They didn't solve anything; they didn't make anything better, and they didn't cause any sort of pain to disappear.
And she hated tears more than she hated ogling reporters.
But, once again, Ron Weasley had succeeded in bringing the wretched things to her eyes. The first time he'd ever made her cry was on Halloween night of her eleventh year. He'd said something about her, and she'd overheard it; she couldn't even remember all the details or the exact thing that he'd said, but she did remember being so upset about it that she'd locked herself in the girls' bathroom and missed the first Halloween Feast of her Hogwarts career. Since that fateful night, he'd made her cry countless times. Their second, third, fourth, and part of their fifth year were filled with dangerous rows that more often than not resulted in her bursting into tears in the privacy of her four-poster bed. But that Christmas holiday had changed her completely, and she had vowed never to cry again.
She hadn't cried when her parents were buried. She hadn't cried when she'd left her childhood home for the last time to move in with, surprisingly enough, Ron's family soon afterwards. She hadn't cried when Hogwarts had been rocked with the news of their Headmaster's death a year later. She hadn't cried when she first realized that she was either going to kill or be killed. She hadn't cried when an attack on their school had left two of her Muggle-born friends, Colin Creevey and Dean Thomas, dead in its wake. And she hadn't cried when she herself had turned into a murderer and taken the life of dozens of Death Eaters and their leader.
She hadn't cried during any of it because tears simply didn't help anything at all.
But for some ungodly reason, she had picked today of all days to finally break down and cry. She wasn't even sure why she was exactly crying because it certainly wasn't the first time she and Ron had disagreed over the issue with his mother, but it was the first time she had realized that Ron simply was not going to side with her no matter what.
And it had hurt.
It had hurt her more than he could possibly have known, and the fact that he was going to be of literally no help had simply felt like a knife being stabbed through her heart.
She wasn't sure why this analogy had leapt into her head, but she reckoned that a lot of it had to do with the fact that Ron was the one person who was closest to actually having her heart. True, they had established a no- strings-attached relationship nearly four years before, and neither of them had any real want to change this. But it didn't change the fact that Ron was the one person on the planet who she could bare her entire soul to and not worry about him taking advantage of it. She trusted him more than she trusted herself, and when push came to shove, she would give him anything that he wanted.
But she obviously cared more about him than he did for her because there was nothing and no one that she would ever side with against him.
And this, perhaps, hurt her more than anything in the world.
They were more than lovers. They were best friends. Best friends who had been through more together than most people would dare only dream about. They'd shared more arguments, more laughter, more upsets, more terrors, and more life than they had with anyone else- Harry included.
And he just had to be the only person on the planet capable of making her break her promise to never cry again.
And she had cried. She'd cried all day long until she literally had no tears left in her to cry.
And then she had slept.
******************************************************
Pain shot through her body, reaching every nerve-ending and setting her skin on fire. She twisted horribly in an attempt to alleviate the torture, but nothing worked. Screaming was out of the question because making any sort of sound only tripled the pain taking over every inch of her body. She felt tears stinging her eyes, but she mentally willed them away.
She wasn't going to let him make her cry.
She was stronger than that. Stronger than him.
"Where are they?"
His voice was icy and cold, but it made her burning hot with anger. He was taunting her. Taunting her and torturing her...
**********************************
Hermione Granger woke up in a cold sweat, shivering from head to toe.
**********************************
"We've already got the woman. Tell us where he is."
He glared at the cloaked figures all around him. "I'll die before you get them!"
"But we've already got her," they taunted. "She's in more pain than you can imagine, and you can't do a thing about it."
His insides burned with a fury he hadn't known in years. Reaching for his wand, he didn't think twice about his next move.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green light blinded him, and when it cleared, he was surrounded by five bodies dressed in black cloaks.
All dead by his hands.
**********************************
Ron Weasley sat straight up in his bed, jerking himself out of the nightmare.
**********************************
"We're going to kill all of you."
He glared at the cloaked figure in front of him. "Go to hell!"
The cloaked figure removed his hood to smirk icily at him. "No, that's your destination. Very, very soon."
He was filled with more hate than he'd ever known as he glared at the familiar face in front of him. "I should have killed you years ago!"
He raised his wand to do exactly that.
But the man before him was somehow quicker.
"Expelliarmus!"
And then he was defenseless...
*********************************
Harry Potter woke up and cried out sharply, the pain from his forehead dangerously close to unbearable.
*********************************
SO? I know it was kind of an awkward ending place, but this is all to add mystery to everything that is going to happen in the next chapters. PLEASE review!!!!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything here...
**************************************
That evening, after Harry had left and gone home, Ron trudged up the stairs to his room. He was thinking mainly of the fight he'd had earlier with Hermione; it was all he'd thought about since she'd stormed out of his flat. Harry had said not to worry; he'd said that Hermione would get over it soon enough and that everything would go back to normal.
But Ron hadn't been convinced.
This wasn't the first time that he and Hermione had fought over the issue of his mother. He wasn't blind; he knew that his mother disliked Hermione greatly and that she had no qualms about making this fact known. But he didn't know what to do about it. It wasn't like he could exactly take sides since the two parties in question were undoubtedly the two most important females in his life.
And it wasn't like he'd never said anything to his mother, either.
He had. In fact, he'd said several things, but every time he mentioned the suggestion that his mother be a little friendlier and a little less cold to Hermione, he'd been met with the inevitable, "Well, Ron, I don't see how you can't tell that I'm only looking out for your best interest. Honestly! What kind of a relationship can you possibly have with a girl who has no more self-respect than she does- throwing herself into the beds of various men who have never expressed any real interest in her at all, much less given her any sort of commitment?" And Ron had grown tired of receiving this response very quickly; there was simply no use arguing with his mum over the matter.
And Hermione...
Hermione was a whole other story completely. There was a time when she would have been bothered beyond belief by the relationship with his mother. Of course, that was also the time when Hermione wouldn't have even considered putting herself in the position to gain that type of relationship. Hermione had changed so much since the time they'd spent at Hogwarts that Ron often had trouble picturing the bushy-haired, buck- toothed, know-it-all who was always scolding him for not doing his homework properly and insisting that he not swear in front of her. Aside from changing physically, and she had definitely changed physically, she was a completely different person on the inside. She was the first one to threaten someone with bodily harm, and her mouth could easily rival his and Harry's in the swearing department. So, the fact that his mother openly loathed her only gave Hermione an excuse to show her sarcastic aggression off.
As he entered his bedroom, Ron noticed the bathrobe and towel that Hermione had discarded earlier still lying on his bedroom floor. He walked over and picked them up, tossing the towel into the laundry basket. He started to do the same with the robe, but at the last second, he unconsciously held it to his face and drew her scent in through his nose. She had the most distinguishable of scents, and he had always been able to smell her on any of the various clothes she would leave at his home. It was a mix of coconuts and lemons, and to Ron, it was the most beautiful and enticing scent in the world.
There had been countless nights when Ron had simply laid awake while she slept on top of his chest. He didn't know why he loved to watch her sleep so much, but he did. He loved the way she made a very soft whistling sound from her throat, and he was always mesmerized by her smell. He could watch her sleep for hours and never grow tired of it.
But now he didn't know what to do.
Hermione had a temper on her like no one else he'd ever known, and he knew this temper better than anyone probably. They'd spent seven years at school arguing incessantly with each other, and they'd spent four years since then having their fair share of questionable moments. Yes, they had managed to mix in their fair share of sexual escapades during those same four years, but these experiences didn't calm the fact that they were still complete opposites and both way too stubborn for their own good.
Everything was just confusing. Every single thing that had to do with Hermione was confusing- from the way her brilliant mind worked all the way down to the relationship she shared with him. There was just nothing simple about her in any form or matter. She was Hermione, and she had to be taken exactly as she was.
The one woman who had the ability to drive him mad in more ways than one.
Did he regret the way their relationship had started? Yes. If he could go back and do things over, he would definitely do them differently. He wouldn't start out the most amazing experience of his life in a drunken stupor for one; he'd make sure that they were both sober before jumping into something as serious as a sexual relationship. The fact that the only reason they'd ever slept together in the first place was because they were both too drunk to think properly instantly lowered the standard of their "relationship." They'd basically used each other to fulfill an immediate need and desire. There had been nothing tender about that first time; it had been urgent and lustful and just desperately needed.
But it had been... There weren't even words to describe what that first time had been like.
He could remember looking into the eyes of the eighteen year old Hermione, completely breathless and shaken after it was over and wondering why he'd never known he could feel like this before. The moment their eyes had connected, they both knew that any and all thoughts of this being a one- time thing were long gone. There was just simply nothing else like it, and they both had an insatiable need to repeat the performance.
At first, they'd both been timid around each other, both wondering if they should try and make something official, something real, out of the whole thing. But the experience in itself was all the real that Ron needed. And he suspected that it was all that Hermione needed, too. Neither of them were romantic and needy people; neither of them was really dependent on anything that a "real" relationship would have entailed. They just simply both had needs, and the other was simply the best person to fulfill those needs.
Ron, like Hermione, had dated his fair share of people over the years, and several different women had graced his bed with their presence. But none of them was Hermione. None of them could make him feel the way he felt whenever he was with her, and none of them knew him the way that she did. He had a sinking feeling that no one would ever be what she was to him. And even if he decided one day to fall in love and get married, the whole thing would be like the old Muggle saying. He'd have that other girl in his arms and Hermione on a pedestal.
And there was just no other way about it.
He finally placed her robe into the laundry and lay down on his queen-sized bed. His sheets almost felt warm, as though she'd only gotten up from them moments before. The pillow she'd used was still engulfed with the smell of her shampoo, and he could still feel her presence everywhere. And he wondered briefly when or even if he would feel her lying beside him for real. They'd fought before, but he knew when she was pushed too far, and she was definitely pushed too far by the whole thing with his mother.
But he couldn't do anything about it.
His mother had given birth to him and raised him and he owed her more than he could ever possibly repay.
And Hermione had been his best friend for eleven years and she'd changed him in more ways than one and he owed her more than he could ever possibly repay.
And he had no idea what to do about any of it.
*************************************************************
Hermione was ashamed of herself. She'd gone home to her own flat, and she had cried. She had cried over the utter stupidity of the whole situation, and she had cried because Ron wouldn't take her side.
She had let Ron Weasley make her cry for the thousandth time in her life, and it disgusted her.
She'd made a vow the day her parents had died that she would never cry over anything ever again. Tears were simply useless things that made one's mascara run. They didn't solve anything; they didn't make anything better, and they didn't cause any sort of pain to disappear.
And she hated tears more than she hated ogling reporters.
But, once again, Ron Weasley had succeeded in bringing the wretched things to her eyes. The first time he'd ever made her cry was on Halloween night of her eleventh year. He'd said something about her, and she'd overheard it; she couldn't even remember all the details or the exact thing that he'd said, but she did remember being so upset about it that she'd locked herself in the girls' bathroom and missed the first Halloween Feast of her Hogwarts career. Since that fateful night, he'd made her cry countless times. Their second, third, fourth, and part of their fifth year were filled with dangerous rows that more often than not resulted in her bursting into tears in the privacy of her four-poster bed. But that Christmas holiday had changed her completely, and she had vowed never to cry again.
She hadn't cried when her parents were buried. She hadn't cried when she'd left her childhood home for the last time to move in with, surprisingly enough, Ron's family soon afterwards. She hadn't cried when Hogwarts had been rocked with the news of their Headmaster's death a year later. She hadn't cried when she first realized that she was either going to kill or be killed. She hadn't cried when an attack on their school had left two of her Muggle-born friends, Colin Creevey and Dean Thomas, dead in its wake. And she hadn't cried when she herself had turned into a murderer and taken the life of dozens of Death Eaters and their leader.
She hadn't cried during any of it because tears simply didn't help anything at all.
But for some ungodly reason, she had picked today of all days to finally break down and cry. She wasn't even sure why she was exactly crying because it certainly wasn't the first time she and Ron had disagreed over the issue with his mother, but it was the first time she had realized that Ron simply was not going to side with her no matter what.
And it had hurt.
It had hurt her more than he could possibly have known, and the fact that he was going to be of literally no help had simply felt like a knife being stabbed through her heart.
She wasn't sure why this analogy had leapt into her head, but she reckoned that a lot of it had to do with the fact that Ron was the one person who was closest to actually having her heart. True, they had established a no- strings-attached relationship nearly four years before, and neither of them had any real want to change this. But it didn't change the fact that Ron was the one person on the planet who she could bare her entire soul to and not worry about him taking advantage of it. She trusted him more than she trusted herself, and when push came to shove, she would give him anything that he wanted.
But she obviously cared more about him than he did for her because there was nothing and no one that she would ever side with against him.
And this, perhaps, hurt her more than anything in the world.
They were more than lovers. They were best friends. Best friends who had been through more together than most people would dare only dream about. They'd shared more arguments, more laughter, more upsets, more terrors, and more life than they had with anyone else- Harry included.
And he just had to be the only person on the planet capable of making her break her promise to never cry again.
And she had cried. She'd cried all day long until she literally had no tears left in her to cry.
And then she had slept.
******************************************************
Pain shot through her body, reaching every nerve-ending and setting her skin on fire. She twisted horribly in an attempt to alleviate the torture, but nothing worked. Screaming was out of the question because making any sort of sound only tripled the pain taking over every inch of her body. She felt tears stinging her eyes, but she mentally willed them away.
She wasn't going to let him make her cry.
She was stronger than that. Stronger than him.
"Where are they?"
His voice was icy and cold, but it made her burning hot with anger. He was taunting her. Taunting her and torturing her...
**********************************
Hermione Granger woke up in a cold sweat, shivering from head to toe.
**********************************
"We've already got the woman. Tell us where he is."
He glared at the cloaked figures all around him. "I'll die before you get them!"
"But we've already got her," they taunted. "She's in more pain than you can imagine, and you can't do a thing about it."
His insides burned with a fury he hadn't known in years. Reaching for his wand, he didn't think twice about his next move.
"Avada Kedavra!"
A flash of green light blinded him, and when it cleared, he was surrounded by five bodies dressed in black cloaks.
All dead by his hands.
**********************************
Ron Weasley sat straight up in his bed, jerking himself out of the nightmare.
**********************************
"We're going to kill all of you."
He glared at the cloaked figure in front of him. "Go to hell!"
The cloaked figure removed his hood to smirk icily at him. "No, that's your destination. Very, very soon."
He was filled with more hate than he'd ever known as he glared at the familiar face in front of him. "I should have killed you years ago!"
He raised his wand to do exactly that.
But the man before him was somehow quicker.
"Expelliarmus!"
And then he was defenseless...
*********************************
Harry Potter woke up and cried out sharply, the pain from his forehead dangerously close to unbearable.
*********************************
SO? I know it was kind of an awkward ending place, but this is all to add mystery to everything that is going to happen in the next chapters. PLEASE review!!!!