AN: No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you! It really is an update! Sorry to leave you guys hanging for so long, but here's the legendary fallout! B.T.W., I don't own Harry Potter, but Stephanie is my original character. I know that you guys get this by now, but I'm still obligated to remind you. And with that done, on with the story!

Chapter 10

Hermione bit her lower lip, not quite sure what to say. Her head advised her to tell Ron everything now, but her heart told her to wait until he had time to deal with what she had already told him. Until they came to an agreement, however, she was stuck in an awkward silence with the boy she once thought she had a crush on.

"…Well?" Ron asked, his voice quickly becoming impatient. Hermione opened and closed her mouth, unable to force herself to speak.

"Who is it?!" Ron demanded, anger beginning to show through his tears.

"…Ron-"

"Don't 'Ron' me you bitch!" He venomously spat. "Tell me his name!"

"Ron, don't take that tone with me." Hermione ordered, willing herself to remain calm.

"SHUT THE HELL UP!! YOU DON'T ORDER ME AROUND!!" He bellowed, now pacing around the Common Room.

"Ronald, there is no need to shout, I am right here." Hermione replied. Ron stopped in front of her and turned to face her. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn't seem to find the right words. He closed his mouth and resumed pacing, his face reddening and his fists clenching and unclenching. Hermione resumed mutilating her bottom lip, still questioning whether or not to tell Ron about Stephanie. Before she could speak, however, Ron stopped and looked at her sorrowfully.

"Hermione, how could you?" He asked, fresh tears now filling his eyes. "How could you do this to me?"

"I-I beg your pardon?!" Hermione was taken aback, what on Earth was he talking about?

"You knew I loved you! You knew it and you hurt me anyway!" Ron yelled.

"I knew?! Ron, what in Merlin's name made you think that I knew?!"

"I saved you from that troll!"

"You and Harry saved me, and if it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been in danger in the first place!"

"I defended you from Malfoy!"

"I thought you were being a friend! You would've done the same thing for Harry!"

"…I helped you to the Hospital Wing after the Polyjuice accident!"

"After you laughed at me and asked to take photos!"

"…But…I…You still had no right!" Ron replied, tears falling down his face.

"Had no right?! Ronald, what on Earth did you think?! Did you think that I was holding out for you, waiting on you to grow up and be ready to settle down?! Did you think that I would just sit around doing your homework while you flirted with every girl that came along?! Did you think that I would wait until it was convenient for you to have a girlfriend?! I never gave you any indication that I would do such a thing." By now, Hermione's voice had quieted.

"Then…why did you tell me now?" Ron asked, his voice barely a whisper.

"Because I only found out today that you had any sort of romantic feelings for me." Hermione explained, relieved that the shouting had ended…for now.

"Had?! Hermione, I still do!" Ron's voice was beginning to rise again. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.

"And you are going to have to find a way to deal with that, because you're a brother to me Ron, nothing more." She replied in an even tone.

"…That's all that you can say to me?! 'Just deal with it'?!" Ron fumed.

"Ron, I'm not going to apologize for loving someone who really makes me happy. But…I am sorry for hurting you." Hermione said, her heart breaking at the pain that she knew she was causing.

Ron stood silent for a while, a dazed look on his features, before finally stumbling over to the nearest chair and plopping onto it. Hermione looked at him for a while longer, then turned to leave the Common Room and return to the Hospital Wing. Her progress was halted by a hand roughly grabbing her upper arm.

"We're not through here!" Ron growled, the look in his eyes positively feral.

"Ron, I don't have anything else to say to you." Hermione said after a moment of shock at the deranged look on the boy's face.

"You still haven't told me his name! It's Harry, isn't it?!" Ron spat Harry's name out, worrying Hermione immensely.

"No, Ron, it's not Harry." She said, trying to free her arm from his iron grip. However, it seemed as though the harder she struggled, the tighter his grip became.

"THEN WHO?! TELL ME!!" Ron snarled, his fingers now grasping Hermione's arm in a bruising grip. Hermione's free hand began to slowly inch toward her inner robes, where her wand was hidden. Thankfully, Ron didn't notice the movement.

"Ron, let go!" Hermione said, hoping that he'd come to his senses before she had to hurt him.

"NOT UNTIL YOU TELL ME HIS NAME!!" Ron bellowed, spittle now flowing with his words.

"Stop it Ron! You're hurting me!" Hermione pleaded one last time.

"…You haven't even begun to hurt yet, bitch!" Ron hissed as he reached for her with his other hand.

Everything happened at once, Hermione could barely process it all.

She kicked with all of her strength, and her aim was as true as her love for Stephanie. Ron crumpled to the ground, his free hand clutching his groin while the hand on Hermione still held tightly. Hermione then pulled out her wand and pointed it at him.

"STUPIFY!!" She screamed, sending him flying across the room and into the wall. Now that her arm was free of his grasp, she looked at it to surmise the damage. However, a low growl from across the room caused her to rethink her priorities.

Ron staggered to his feet, knocking over his and Harry's chess set as he did so. Hermione winced as she heard and watched the pieces shatter on the floor. She pointed her wand at him, and screamed the only thing that came to her mind.

"PETRIFICUS TOTALIS!!"

THUMP!

And just like that, it was over. At least, Hermione thought that it was…

"WHAT IN HEAVEN'S NAME IS GOING ON IN HERE?!"

Professor McGonagall then came bursting through the portrait hole. Hermione looked at her with the classic "deer in the headlights" expression, her wand still pointed at Ron's prone form.

"MISS GRANGER!! PUT THAT WAND DOWN, RIGHT NOW!!"

Hermione would have been insane even to hesitate obeying. Professor McGonagall rushed over to Ron's still form, kneeling to inspect the damage. Hermione began to feel her feet slowly carrying her backwards to a nearby chair. When she heard her shoe crush one of the fallen chess pieces, McGonagall's eyes were immediately on her.

"Hermione, what happened?" She said, her firm voice telling her that she had better start talking…right now.

"I-I-" Unfortunately, the words just wouldn't come out.

"Hermione, I need you to start talking. What happened?"

The back of her knees touched the chair, and the wand slipped from her limp fingers as Hermione sat slowly on the chair. Her mind spinning, she struggled in vain to eek out some kind of coherent sentence.

"We-he…I didn't…I had to…" Still no luck. Finally, McGonagall gave up on trying to get Hermione to tell her anything.

Hermione felt like someone had clamped their hands over her ears, leaving her with only the ocean as auditory company. Every now and then she could make out a flash of color when another person entered the room, but she was more or less lost on anything beyond that. Finally, she felt a pair of hands gently grab her face.

"Hermione? Hermione, can you hear me?" Minerva asked gently, trying to bring the young girl out of the daze that she seemed to be in. She snapped her fingers, nothing. She gently slapped her cheek, nothing. Hermione just continued to stare straight ahead, eyes glazed and mouth slightly agape. Eventually, with a heavy sigh of defeat, Minerva stood and shook her head.

"Still no luck?" Xiomara asked.

"Nothing, she's barely even blinking. Oh, what am I going to do, Xio?" Minerva asked, brow furrowed in worry.

"Well, whatever you decide to do, you need to do it soon. It's been almost an hour since we found them, and students are going to start trickling out of the Great Hall sooner or later. Mr. Weasley is in Dumbledore's office now, so that's not an issue, but we can't keep students out of the Common Room forever. We need to get her out of here as discreetly as possible." The flight mistress paced the room as she spoke, fingers nervously running through her short, spiky hair.

"That isn't the issue Xio." Minerva replied. "We can floo her to Dumbledore's office from one of the fireplaces in the tower. The issue is snapping her out of this daze she seems to be in."

"Min, we could just…well, use magic…" Xio trailed off, looking at Minerva.

"No!" Minerva said firmly. "I would rather not force her out of a trance-like state, it would be better for her if we drew her out of it as gently as possible."

"Well, she's not listening to you. How do you propose that we do that?" The golden-eyed witch asked. Minerva's brow furrowed even more, before a look of realization crossed her features.

"Of course! Minerva you fool!" She chastised herself as she crossed the room to the fireplace. She pulled a small pouch of Floo powder from her inner robes as she stepped into the fireplace. She turned and pointed at Hermione. "Xio, watch her and make sure that she doesn't go anywhere!"

"Um, Min? I don't think that will be a problem."

"HOGWARTS HOSPITAL WING!" Minerva said clear and strong as she threw the powder and vanished with a mushroom cloud of smoke.

"Hermione's been gone a long time." Harry said to Stephanie's back from his bed.

"I know." Stephanie replied, lacing up her boots.

"…That can be either a good thing or a bad thing." Stephanie's movements ceased, and Harry could see her tense ever so slightly.

"…I know." She whispered so softly, that Harry had to strain to hear her.

Her half-tied shoes forgotten, Stephanie slowly turned to face Harry and sat heavily on the foot of her bed.

"Harry, have you ever gotten that sinking feeling that something terrible is about to happen, or already has?" She asked, looking at the shiny floor between her and Harry's bed.

"…You think that something bad has happened to Hermione, don't you?"

"No, Harry, I can feel it. Thinking and feeling are completely different things." Stephanie explained.

"Which one is more reliable?"

"In cases like this? Feeling."

"I see. Are you sure that it's about Hermione? I mean, the dementors have a tendency to leave people with that feeling that everything is crashing down around them."

"No, I know that this is now." Stephanie said without any sign of hesitation.

"How?" Harry asked, genuinely curious.

"Trust me, there's a big difference between remembered fear, and fear in the now." She explained, now back to work on tying her boot.

"Really?"

"Yeah, and to be honest, I really think that you'll understand that difference in a few year's time." Stephanie said softly, leaving her boot untied once again.

"…With Voldemort." Harry's response was more of a statement than a question. Stephanie nodded.

"With Voldemort." She confirmed. "So, you think that he'll return." She said, looking at Harry for the first time in the whole conversation.

"No, I feel it." Harry replied.

"…" A small smile graced Stephanie's face, and she finally managed to get her boot tied.

WHOOSH!!

Stephanie and Harry jumped as Professor McGonagall came bursting out of the fireplace. The professor dusted herself off and crossed the room in quick, great strides.

"Professor! You gave us a fright!" Harry said, but Stephanie only stood, an unreadable expression on her features.

"Miss Byrd, you need to come with me." Professor McGonagall said as she gently took her by the arm and herded her toward the fireplace.

"Why? What's happened?" Stephanie asked, her fears now confirmed in her eyes.

"I'll explain later, but-"

"NO BUTS!" Stephanie growled, jerking her arm from McGonagall's grasp. "You can explain now! Did something happen to Hermione?"

"Stephanie…" McGonagall trailed off, her eyes drifting toward Harry. Stephanie followed her line of vision, and looked back at her with a stern expression.

"Professor, anything that you have to say to me, you can say in front of Harry." Stephanie said, her voice a bit calmer but no less firm.

"Stephanie, the boy-"

"The boy," Stephanie spat the word "boy" with irritation obvious in her voice, "has stared Lord Voldemort himself in the face and lived three times! I think that he can handle whatever you need to tell me! Right, Harry?" Harry started at the mention of his name.

"R-Right!" He enforced, feeling empowered at the idea of actually having a fighter in his corner. It was a pleasant change from having adults shoving him aside and telling him that he didn't need to know things that could mean life or death for him, or his friends.

"…Alright," McGonagall sighed in defeat, "there was a commotion in the Gryffindor Common Room. When I got there, I found Ron Weasley petrified and Hermione pointing her wand at him."

"What?" Stephanie whispered in disbelief.

"There was also some furniture strewn about, we think that there was a fight." The professor explained in an equally soft voice. Stephanie sat on the foot of a nearby bed and rubbed the back of her neck nervously.

"Oh man…where are they now?" Harry asked.

"Mr. Weasley is in Professor Dumbledore's office right now. We managed to transport him without too big of a fuss." McGonagall explained.

"And Hermione?" Stephanie asked.

"Well, that was why I came to get you. Hermione seems to be in a kind of…trance, I guess I should say. We can't get her out of it, and I had hoped that you would be willing to come and help us." McGonagall replied.

"Right, of course I'll help. She's in a trance?" Stephanie's brow began to furrow again.

"Well, that's the only way that I know to describe it." The professor explained. "She sat a short time after I arrived, and hasn't moved and barely blinked since. She just keeps staring ahead with a slightly horrified look on her face."

"Horrified? Then it must be shock." Stephanie surmised. "If she's surprised, then that could mean that she attacked Ron purely on reflex, meaning that she was provoked into attack."

"Stephanie, I honestly hope that you can prove that." McGonagall said. Stephanie and Harry looked at her with confused expressions.

"Huh? Why?" Harry asked.

"Because Ron has been saying that Hermione attacked him without any warning." McGonagall said grimly. "If that statement cannot be dispelled, then Hermione will be expelled from Hogwarts for attacking a fellow student."