Note from Snitch: What's this situation you have put her in, Quaffle? You're making things rather difficult for her :-). What will Hermione do: can she keep her secret or will she be forced to confide in Ron? To what lengths will she go for her hidden relationship?

Chapter 6
Queen, Jack and King

Hermione's mind was racing. How on earth could she get out of this one? There was no more denying to it, no more excuses she could think of. But she couldn't tell him, it was just impossible! Ron would not speak to her again, after the humiliations Draco had put Ron through. Harry would team op with Ron, she knew all about it, it had happened before in her third year! But she would not lose her friends, she just would not! Draco would now come out of the Room any moment… The impossibility of the situation made her heart beat so fast she got light-headed. Desperation made her eyes prickle.

Then Hermione knew what to do. It was so low, she felt sickened with herself: her stomach seemed to push against her throat. But there was no choice here…

Hermione let the prickle take over, her eyes filling with tears. Tiny salt rivers ran down her face, coming easy with the despair pushing them out of her eyes.

"O Ron, I'm so sorry I lied to you," she said, looking up at him with a quivering lip. Hermione saw how the anger of Ron, which he had built up, waiting for her to come out of the Room, turned into a surprised, non-comprehending look. This was what she had aimed for, boys couldn't handle crying girls, and she knew Ron certainly wouldn't be able to handle a crying Hermione. She knew she had to take it a little further, to leave Ron with no questions after he had recovered of the sight of her crying. Betrayal burning hot, she continued.

"It's just that I sometimes feel," she snuffed her nose, "so lonely". At this point she didn't dare to look him in the eyes, the lie was too cheap. But she felt Ron coming towards her, unsurely laying his hand on her arm, trying to comfort her. Hermione laid her head on his chest, gently turning him away from the door.

"Since Krum and I split up," she sobbed, putting her face in the black fabric of Ron's robes, "sometimes I just have to cry, and I don't want the others to see." She felt Ron moving his arm, hesitating.

"It's all right", said Ron, eventually laying the arm around her shoulder, slightly shaking. "You don't have to be ashamed of that. Here, just cry". Hermione gave it a few more sobs and then she saw Draco in the right corner of her eye, hurrying down the hall.

"Just… You won't tell Harry, will you?", she looked him in the face, cheeks still wet.

"No, no, don't worry about that." Ron tried to give her a smile, but felt much too nervous in the situation to succeed in doing it.

"Thanks, really thanks a lot Ron" Hermione gave him a watery smile and dabbed her eyes and cheeks with her robes. "Let's just go back to the tower now…"

In silence they walked back, Hermione trying to get her face back to normal, otherwise there would be questions, Ron still stunned at the thought of having just held Hermione. Hermione felt increasingly guilty and after they had climbed through the portrait hole, she quickly told Ron she was going to bed and hurried up the stairs to her dormitory. Once she was there she let herself fall upon her bed and pressed her face hard into the pillow. Now true hot tears streamed out of her eyes and moistened the fabric of the pillow. She had never meant for things to go this way. A lie about going to the library, okay, that wasn't so bad, but now she had lied not only with words, but with all of her body too. And this lie had been meant to go deep into Ron, playing with his feelings. Hermione had seen it, when she was with Krum, Ron had been extremely jealous. Sometimes just small things Ron did too, already for years she had seen them, little things betraying what he really felt for her.

Hermione had known, as soon as she had thought of crying, that Ron would not be able to withstand that, that his anger would dissolve in her tears. Then the lie, the head against his chest… so low… making him believe there was a chance that she might feel about him what he felt about her.

She had not wanted this to happen. What for? All those years in which she had built a friendship with Ron, and now, for some secret kissing and touching, she was betraying all of it! It was not a price she was willing to pay. Yet she knew, there was more to it than just kissing: it was the only way in which she could express a side of herself which no one else but Draco would allow her to.

Then the memory of what had just happened outside of the Room, made place for the one of what had taken place inside the Room. Draco had concealed something from her. He had plainly refused to tell her. Hermione could tell this thing was important, and that it was wrong, by the way he did not meet her eyes when she was waiting for his explanation. Then why wouldn't he confide in her! Hermione stumped the wood of her four-poster with her fist. She had risked much for him, now she had even betrayed a friend, but he wouldn't risk the same. Wasn't Draco feeling like putting as much in their being together as Hermione did? Apparently not, said a small voice in Hermione's head and it made her feel empty, suddenly drained. Apparently not… She sat up, back against the end of her bed. Then it was clear. She wouldn't meet him again. Not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, nor the days after that. Feeling numb, she undressed and got under her blankets, falling into an empty sleep.

Next day, Hermione felt sad, for both the betrayal and her decision, but she felt the two of them sort of justified another. For both she had sacrificed.

During Potions Hermione felt Draco's gaze burning in her back, right through all the purple steam which issued from the cauldrons. When both of them went to get the fairy eggs required for the brew they were preparing, Hermione and Draco looked each other in the eye, Draco's eyes begging for some sort of forgiveness for what he had done yesterday, and for an explanation of what he had seen when he had left the Room, but Hermione's look was one of mingled anger and regret. She quickly looked away, weighed the fairy eggs carelessly and hurried away to her cauldron. She added the eggs, by plunging the bunch in. The fluid was supposed to turn silver, but Hermione's purple brew only became a greyish pink.

"You should have added them in pairs," Harry told her, looking in his ragged, old copy of Advanced Potion-making.

"No, I shouldn't have. It's only your Prince saying that. I told you, you shouldn't listen to him. Who knows who he might be! I thought our second year would have taught you that!" Hermione snapped.

"I can't see how me getting good grades for Potions for once can cause any problems. Making perfect potions doesn't come naturally to us all, you know," Harry said.

"Yeah, the book's really handy!" added Ron. Hermione felt a surge of guilt about yesterday come up and decided not to continue the argument.

That evening she sat in the common room with Ron and Harry and helped them with their homework. Hermione felt she owed, felt she had to invest in their friendship. Being friends also involved giving and she felt she had not given much recently. First she corrected their Astronomy essays ("No Ron, Neptune is not orange"), and after that they played a game, even though Hermione still had some homework of herself to revise. Harry had bewitched a Muggle pack of cards of Hermione with which they played beggar-thy-neighbour. They had a good time, Harry en Hermione trying to explain the game to Ron, who had never played this Muggle-game and laughing about the squealing protest of the queen when she was laid on top of the jack and her approving remarks when you laid a king on top of her. Hermione felt a sad longing when it was eight o'clock, thinking of how Draco would probably be waiting in the Room, growing increasingly disappointed as time past without her arriving. But she should not think of that and she tried to laugh the thought away over a scream of the queen: after all, she had made the right choice.