Chapter Seven


June 1996

'Hermione, we wanted to buy that!' shouted Ron.

They'd been preparing for their O.W.L.s all week and Ron was desperate to prove that he could do something right, maybe something Hermione could actually see. After all, she wasn't likely to skip out on their exams, no matter how much Hagrid needed them or how many giants were in a forest. But he knew that revising wouldn't help him even if he stayed up for days. Baruffio's Brain Elixir had been offered to them by Ravenclaw sixth year, Eddie Carmichael.

Hermione had just poured it down a toilet.

It was almost like she didn't even want them to pass.

'Don't be stupid,' she snarled. 'You might as well take Harold Dingle's powdered dragon claw and have done with it.'

'Dingle's got powdered dragon claw?' said Ron eagerly.

'Not any more,' said Hermione. 'I confiscated that, too. None of these things actually work, you know.'

'Dragon claw does work!' said Ron. 'It's supposed to be incredible, really gives your brain a boost, you come over all cunning for a few hours-Hermione, let me have a pinch, go on, it can't hurt-'

'This stuff can,' said Hermione grimly. 'I've had a look at it, and it's actually dried doxy droppings.'

He'd barely spoken to her all week after their row, though he still seemed to be on decent terms with Harry—much to Hermione's irritation which only made Ron avoid her all the more. When they did speak to one another, it was like they were in competition to see who could yell the loudest.

Ron was hurt over the Quidditch match and Hermione was on edge over the examinations. His bruised ego mixed with her obsessive nature was never a good combination. Unstoppable force meeting the immovable object. All they ended up ever doing was colliding, and then waking to asses the damage, which was usually monitored heavily by Harry, who seemed to be teetering on the idea of being done with both of them until they got their acts together.

The closer they got to exams, the less angry Ron seemed to be. Hermione was losing it and it just wasn't fun to argue with her anymore when every row nearly brought her to tears. Harry even mentioned she'd accidentally hit him in the face with her Achievements in Charming book when he'd been helping her to revise for the exam.

She looked pale and the shadows around her eyes grew darker by the day. She'd snap at anyone who spoke to her, and had even overdone it on her prefect duties, taking away more points and handing out more detentions in one week than she had all year. Ron was certain she'd almost entirely stopped eating as well. She'd come down to meals, of course, and pick at her food subconsciously with books and notes in her hands. Once, while revising some of her History of Magic notes at the breakfast table, she'd accidentally used her quill as a fork and took a small mouthful of ink.

"Hermione you need to eat," Ron said from across the Gryffindor table, shoving a platter of sausages toward her. She didn't even hear him, her nose stuck in a book only to withdraw from it to dig into her bag, obsessively looking for notes.

Ron sighed. "Hermione, if you don't eat something and get some sleep, you're gonna faint in the middle of your exams and end up in the Hospital Wing."

'Oh, my goodness,' she said faintly, staring into the Entrance Hall. 'Is that them? Is that the examiners?'

Nothing could break her out of it.

When the exams actually began, she got worse.

Once, after heading into the common room after dinner, Ron found her in her usual chair looking over her notes, a lock of her bushy hair twisting tightly in one finger looking like it was likely to rip from her skull.

"You weren't at dinner," he stated as he walked over to her. She didn't respond so he stepped closer and looked down. "Hermione those are Charms notes."

She blinked slowly, her eyes red with exhaustion. "What?"

"Charm notes. Hermione, we did our Charm O.W.L. days ago." He looked down at her and was suddenly incredibly worried.

"Oh," she paused and then reached into her bag to pull out her Arithmancy notes as though it was no big deal, "have I done this?" she asked him, a blank and tired stare in her eyes. She looked as though she'd been confunded.

Ron shook his head. "Hermione, go to bed."

"Not tired," she said, her eyes drooping. "I need to . . ." She silently tapped the notes in front of her.

"Hermione get up to bed," he raised his voice. "I'd throw you over my shoulder and carry you up myself but the damn spelled steps would have us both breaking our necks before we reached the top."

"I'm . . . I'm . . . fine," she said and her face connected slowly with the table in front of her and she instantly fell asleep.

Ron sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking around the common room as though he were searching for someone that could help. Save for Hermione, it was surprisingly empty. Resolved to do something, Ron leaned down and lifted her into his arms and watched helplessly as her head fell backwards over the side of his elbow and her limbs hung limp in his embrace. He shook his head and carried her over to the couch, placing her down gently.

Crookshanks, who'd been curled up at the end of the couch turned and hissed at him.

"Oi! Piss off!" he cursed at the cat who darted off as Ron set Hermione down, moving her arms and legs so that she'd at least be comfortable whenever it was that she woke up. He sighed looking down at her, wishing there were more he could do, but at least she would get some rest for now.


When he'd woken the next morning, Parvati mentioned that Hermione was already gone. He hadn't seen her in the Great Hall for breakfast and, assuming she had gone to the library, he'd snuck in a piece of treacle tart—despite the fact that Madam Pince would skin him alive if she caught him. But Hermione wasn't there either. Ron began to worry.

"Mr. Weasley," someone called from behind as Ron made his way up a staircase, treacle tart still wrapped in a napkin held tightly in his hand. Almost out of instinct, he hid it as he turned to spot Professor McGonagall. "Shouldn't you be using your free time to prepare for your final exams?" she asked him, a thin brow raised.

"Er - I have been Professor," he partially lied. "Just taking a break is all. Thought I'd clear my head a little, and umm . . . catch up on some prefect duties. Patrolling and such."

McGonagall eyed him curiously. "I hope you're putting more effort into your O.W.L.s than your lies, Mr. Weasley."

"Loads more actually," Ron admitted, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand sheepishly, having been caught.

"Carry on then," she said. "There is too much on my hands today to bother with one wayward prefect. It seems someone has put another niffler into Professor Umbridge's office. It's tearing the place apart and must be dealt with at once," she told him and then turned to walk away.

Ron couldn't help but snort a quiet laugh as he watched her walk in the exact opposite direction of Umbridge's office.

Eventually, he made it up the stairs to the fifth floor toward the prefect bathroom, very nearly ready to give up on his search for Hermione—assuming she'd at least show up for her next exam. He moved toward the door, slipping the wrapped treacle tart into a large pocket of his robes. When he heard a loud sniffle, he turned toward a large statue of Boris the Bewildered. Statues couldn't cry, could they?

Ron moved around the statue to find a bushy-haired Hermione, crumpled into a pile on the floor, knees to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them as she cried.

"Hermione," Ron quietly said. "You weren't at breakfast. Been looking everywhere for you." He knelt down to her level when she wouldn't look up at him. "What happened?" he uncomfortably asked. The sight of girls crying had always left him feeling awkward and inept to help.

"It's too much," she admitted. "I feel like . . . like it's third year all over and I'm trying to keep up physically with the Time-Turner."

Ron immediately understood. Third year had been a nightmare. Between the ridiculous amount of classes Hermione had been taking plus everything to do with Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew—not to mention working hard to keep Buckbeak alive—it was a shock that Hermione hadn't cracked earlier from the pressure. He hadn't remembered that until now, and realised that this year would have been much worse for her considering the effort she'd been putting into her O.W.L.s.

"You think too much is all. You know you're going to come away with at least twenty, all O's I reckon too," he said and grinned at her.

"Ron," she looked up at him, her eyes red and puffy, "I've only eleven available to me."

He chuckled. "Exactly. But you're Hermione Granger, they're barking if they give you any less than fifteen." He beamed when he saw her smile at his words.

"I'm such a mess," she admitted.

"I think we all are at this point," he said as he scooted back against the wall beside her. "Everything else we've got going on this year, and it's the bloody exams that're making everyone snap. Umbridge, Death Eaters, Harry inside You-Know-Who's head. But it's a Growth Charm performed in front of a five-hundred year old witch that does me in." He turned and smiled at her.

"Maybe we've just grown accustomed to all the dark and horrible things we have to deal with, that it's the normal occurrences that we react poorly to," she suggested with a loud sigh of exhaustion and, without thinking, leaned her head against Ron's shoulder as a post-cry headache started to set in.

"If there's anything that I can always count on at Hogwart's, it's you and Harry. And the fact that we'll probably end up fighting You-Know-Who at some point." The words came out a little nervously as he watched her head move to his shoulder.

It had been the only real physical contact they'd had since before Christmas when she'd shown up at Grimmauld Place and hugged him. At first, the small bit of connection stiffened his body in response, turning his ears slightly pink. But then he remembered that she had stopped crying, had even smiled once or twice and it had been all because of him. Ron felt ten feet tall and used what little bravery being in Gryffindor allotted him by moving his arm gently around her shoulders. He'd wanted to pull her in closer, fit her against his side comfortably, but in the end his nerves ran out and all he could come up with was a friendly pat.

He turned and looked at her, glad to see that her tears had dried up. "So, what was the final straw, if you don't mind me asking?"

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Ugh. It's pathetic really," she admitted. "I came up to use the prefect bathroom, just to get away some place quiet so I could study."

He rose a brow. "And?"

"And I walked in and caught the Head Boy and Girl snogging in the corner." She could barely say the words without blushing.

Ron let out a loud barking laugh that almost sounded like Sirius. "After that whole bloody speech on the train?"

"It's not funny, and don't swear," Hermione admonished, but couldn't help smiling as she said the words. "I wanted to turn and run out but instead, I snapped and began yelling at them. I reminded them that the bathroom was a privilege and that they were to be held to a higher standard than everyone else. Then I . . . "

Ron grinned eagerly, his eyes begging her to finish.

"I gave them detention," she finally said.

Ron paused for a long moment and then burst into hysterical laughter. Hermione looked scandalised at first, but slowly the smile on her face returned and she too began to laugh, holding onto her side as tears of laughter filled the paths in her cheeks once made by tears of stress and anger.

"You gave the Head Boy and Girl detention . . ." Ron continued laughing, "for snogging!"

"I didn't even mean to, it just came out . . . I was screaming. They looked terrified and just ran for it!" She finally let out a loud sigh as she wiped the tears from her face. "Come on," she stood up, using his shoulder to push herself to stand, "I need to go back to the common room and finish preparing for my Arithmancy exam."

Ron stood up. "You need to eat something."

"I don't have time." Hermione tried to fight him but felt something being pushed into her hand. She looked down and opened the napkin to find the treacle tart and she couldn't help but smile softly, her eyes rising to meet his.

Ron awkwardly shrugged his shoulders. "Don't thank me. You take care of us the rest of the year," Ron said, throwing Harry into the mix. "It's only fair we make sure you don't starve during exams." He nervously shoved his hands into the pockets of his robes and headed off toward the Gryffindor common room, Hermione in tow, treacle tart already stuffed into her hungry jaws.