A/N - There are so many things I could have written for Hermione, but this one shouted the loudest so here it is. This is the first time I've written in the present tense, which was definitely different, sort of like a stream of consciousness thing with Hermione's thoughts. Anyway, let me know what you think!
Late October 1997
Hermione glances back and forth between the two boys as they shout at each other, accusations flying between the two about things that they've been carrying around for ages now. She knows that Ron's resentment goes way back to fourth year and the Tournament, maybe even all the way back to the very first day of school when Harry got all that attention as the Boy-Who-Lived. She knows that he realizes Harry doesn't want the attention, hates it actually, would give anything for it not to be him, but the jealousy remains nonetheless. As much a part of Ron as his red hair and his freckles.
He's worried about his family, she understands that, she does, even though he would probably tell her she doesn't given the fact that she's an only child and her parents are relatively safe in Australia. And she gets his frustration because she's felt it too. The difference is she doesn't blame Harry, not really. It's Dumbledore's fault that they didn't have more to go on or maybe he never really knew either. In any case it doesn't matter now.
The boys trade insults and she begs them to stop, begs them to realize that it's not either one of them, but the damn, bloody Horcrux that's making them act this way. That and the hunger and the cold and the frustration and if they do this now, what chance do they have to succeed. But of course they don't listen because they're stupid boys and they make her so angry she wants to punch them both and leave herself. But she doesn't. Instead, she raises a shield the moment she sees them going for their wands. No matter how angry they are she knows they don't want to hurt each other, that neither would ever forgive himself if he did something stupid.
And then Ron asks her the one thing she knows she can't do. He wants her to choose and she looks at him and wonders just how he expects her to pick between them. Between her brother in everything but blood and him, the boy she loves, has loved since third year probably, maybe even earlier. She's not sure she can actually pinpoint when it began. And she hates the stupid jealousy that he feels, because it's so completely inane. There's nothing like that between Harry and her, there never has been. Sure she thought long ago that there might be, but it was nothing more than simple hero worship because of who he was. Harry is her brother, nothing more and she can't believe that Ron can't see that. He's so thick sometimes that it drives her mad and makes her wonder why she even loves him in the first place. But she does.
And she wants to pick Ron, wants to with every fiber of her being. She wants to go where it's safe, although no place is really completely safe these days she knows. But somewhere they can be warm and dry and eat properly without having to steal or scrounge or just go hungry because they're nowhere near a village and there's only so much you can do with mushrooms and roots and herbs. Somewhere they don't have to play at being adults, where someone else will take the responsibility for taking care of them and looking out and solving problems. And though Molly Weasley is sometimes overbearing and ridiculously overprotective, Hermione would give anything for one of her hugs right now, not to mention some of her roast beef and potatoes.
Because it's not fair, it's not fair at all that they've been forced to grow up so quickly, that the very future of the wizarding world has been placed upon their shoulders. For even though they're considered adults in their world and she in the muggle one as well, they're still just kids. She wants nothing more than to curl up in her father's lap and have her mother stroke her hair and tell her everything will be all right, that they will take care of it all. But she's sent them away and they don't even remember her anymore, but even if they did she knows this won't happen because no one else knows, no one else is in on the secret, there's only them. And as much as she respects him, she curses Albus Dumbledore for putting them in this position.
She looks at Harry and her decision's made, even though she knows that there never really was a choice to begin with. She has to stay with him, has to help him because if she doesn't, he won't make it. He'll go off and do something completely stupid, so completely Gryffindor, that he'll get himself killed and then what chance do they have?
And so she tells Ron she's staying and begs him with her eyes to understand. He looks at her in disgust and then Harry too and storms off. She begs him to come back, finally runs after him out of the tent and into the rain, but he ignores her. She hears the crack of his apparition and falls to her knees, the rain pouring down now and soaking her through. A hole opens up in her heart, so huge and gaping that she doesn't even understand how it can continue to beat. She stares into the night for a few minutes until her teeth begin to chatter and the she goes back to the tent.
She tells Harry that Ron's gone and then throws herself in a chair and starts to cry. She turns away from Harry, not able to look him in the eye for she knows what she'll see. Pity and remorse and regret and she realizes that if she looks at him she'll fall apart completely. She'll lie down on the floor of the tent and drown in her own despair.
Once Harry falls asleep, she gets up and sits outside the tent to keep watch. Even though she knows Ron won't return, knows it in the very depths of her soul that he's gone for good, she still hopes. She waits up all night willing him to come back. But he doesn't.
The next morning she delays and stalls and does everything she can to give Ron time to change his mind, they both do. Even though she knows he won't. She understands how long it takes him to admit he's wrong and even longer still to swallow his pride and apologize. She knows there's no way it will happen in the mere twelve hours that he has available to him.
And when she can stall no longer, when everything has been packed and repacked and they've just stood in the same spots watching and waiting, hoping that he'll return, she holds out her arm to Harry. She's a little nervous that she'll splinch them given her state of mind, but she doesn't. She apparates them to a hillside covered in heather and she wants to lie down and hide in it. He won't find them now, there is no way that he can and Hermione sinks down on a rock and begins to sob.
Harry leaves her almost immediately and begins to put up the wards, something that is usually her job, but Hermione says nothing, just continues to sob on the rock in the meadow for the boy who took her heart with him when he left.