Chapter XIV

28 March 1997

Hermione, I'm going to be completely honest with you here. I'm worried sick about you. Ginny and Harry say you've been acting weird for weeks, that you've barely been talking and that you've been avoiding spending time with them. I know we haven't talked for some time now and I wish I reached out to you earlier. I thought you wouldn't want to speak to me. But I need you to know you can talk to me about ANYTHING that's bothering you. Please respond. I'm worried about you. We all are.

Ron

I sigh, throwing the letter down and resting my head against my pillow. I shouldn't have opened it. Now what am I supposed to do? Shifting on my bed, I pull up the sleeve of my shirt and look down miserably, and it's there, slightly faded and not as puffy, but still as legible as words in a textbook: Mudblood.

I've tried every potion and spell I could come up with, but not even my strongest vial of Essence of Dittany has done much in the way of preventing it from scarring. Instead, it remains an invasion of sepia against my vanilla-hued skin, an ugly reminder of my attack and my supposed "place" in this world. But I suppose it could be worse.

At first it had been a frighteningly neon shade of crimson, oozing copiously with my blood. I had awoken to find it trickling down my forearm and imbruing the powdery snow on which I had lain unconscious, abandoned, for an unidentifiable amount of time, although judging by the sun that had still been setting low in the sky, I had not been out for long.

The stink of Goyle's breath on my face and the feeling of he and Crabbe's hands on me was fresh in my mind as I went back to the castle, biting my lips and begging myself not to cry, my other hand pressed over my wound. Harry and Ginny had expressed a mild concern about why I was so late to come back, but I could tell they really had other things on their mind, for when I found them in the common room Harry was sitting very close to her on the crimson sofa, his arm slung around her shoulders and laughing about something that she had said. I had quickly made an excuse about being tired and wanting to skip dinner before running into my dorm, collapsing on my bed, and not emerging for the rest of the night. And as I cast a quick silencing charm before I began to cry, the question ran through my head a thousand times: Why hadn't they Obliviated me?

My mistake, of course, had been assuming that a reaction to the incident would be immediate: the Ministry would receive attention of underage magic being performed by Crabbe and Goyle, a representative would be sent to Hogwarts, and they would most likely be expelled, if not face a brief sentence in Azkaban for what they did to me. But only when the days passed, and nothing happened, did the answer become painfully obvious to me: both Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe were born in 1979; they were of age, and the Trace on them had broken. As far as the Ministry's or the school's knowledge was concerned, no assault on a girl named Hermione Granger had ever occurred.

I had never felt more stupid in my life—and feeling stupid is something I rarely experience, mind you. Instead of taking a stand for myself and going straight to Dumbledore's office like I know I should have, I waited for someone to do it for me, to save me from the embarrassment and shame. Had it been Harry or Ginny or anyone else in the same situation, I know I would have urged them to report the attack right away. So why did I treat myself any different?

In the days following the incident, Harry and Ginny had quickly noticed how cold and quiet I was during meals, and how even my enthusiastic answers in class had ceased. I just told them I wasn't feeling well, and avoided being near them or even giving them friendly hugs, lest the sleeves of my robes raise just enough to reveal the mark on my arm that I hid with shame.

Crabbe and Goyle snickered as they passed me in the halls. Draco avoided eye contact with me as if my stare alone would kill him. I kept my head down and said nothing until I returned to my dormitory each night, where I would place another silencing charm around my bed and cry and curse myself to sleep. It's your fault, a voice in the back of my head mocked me, you should have said something, you stupid girl.

As the the Easter holiday approached, I made the decision to return home instead of stay at Hogwarts to use the valuable week off to study, as I usually would have. Strangely enough, I found that for once in my life I didn't feel like studying, and I distracted myself instead with spending time with my parents, pampering Crookshanks, and reading for the enjoyment of it. It was only when my mother announced that had gotten a letter from "one of Ginny's brothers" that I decided to stop avoiding my friends—that, and, I couldn't help but have a burning curiosity about what Ron would possibly want to write to me about, seeing that we hadn't communicated since our last encounter at the Shrieking Shack, more than two months earlier.

But now that I'm actually looking down at his words and taking in its urgency, I'm overcome with guilt, and tears threaten to pool in my eyes as I think of what to do. Crookshanks purrs as I idly stroke his back, appreciating the attention.

"Hermione?" my mother's voice comes sweetly from the other side of the door, followed by a polite knock.

"Come in."

She opens the door and peeks her head in, smiling at me. "You have a visitor, dearie."

"A visitor?" I sit up abruptly on my bed and gently push Crookshanks aside, pulling my sleeve back down with haste.

"Yes, love, your little friend, Ron. Although he's not so little anymore, is he?" she chuckles. "I'll bring him up."

"Wait, Mum—" But she's already trotting back down the stairs, and God help me I can hear his voice accompanied by my mother's as two sets of feet come back up to my room.

Mum pushes the door open all the way, and next to her is Ron, taking up most of the doorway and looking especially lean and fit and still as pale and beautiful as I remember him. He's wearing a short-sleeved green and yellow shirt that for once looks like it's made to fit him, a loose pair of faded denim, and brown trainers. His hair looks as if it has recently been cut, now hanging only just past his ears, curtaining his head in a smooth patch of red. He's stunning, as he usually is, but I've little time to bask in his physical attractiveness, because he's already stepping forward and yanking me toward him in a bone-crushing embrace. My mother grins and mutters something about "going to finish the crumpets" before leaving us alone, the door being left ajar behind her.

I hug him back, quickly melting beneath him as he runs his hands up and down my back. Crookshanks, apparently not wishing to witness the teenage affection any longer, hops down from my bed and heads out the door.

"Hi," I say softly.

"Bleeding Christ, Hermione," says Ron roughly, pulling back to stare at me. "Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"

"No," I move away from him to quietly close the door and cast a silencing charm on the room, since I'd prefer whatever is going to occur between us to not be within my parents' range of hearing. "What do you want, Ron? It's rude to show up at someone's house uninvited."

"Rude? Hermione, you've been acting like none of us exist for weeks and you're the one calling me rude? I'm surprised to see you've even bothered to open my letter then, have you?" he says, motioning to the parchment on my bed. "Sent it first thing this morning. But I decided I wasn't going to wait to see if you'd reply. There was a pub not too far from here with an open Floo Network. I took the Muggle bus from there." He folds his arms over his chest and regards me with a stern expression. "And I'm not leaving until you tell me what's going on with you."

"I don't want to fight with you, Ron. I think it would be best if you just left."

"So you can go on not talking to us for the rest of the year?"

"You're not entitled to an explanation from me."

"Hermione," Ron says in a gravelly voice, "I'm begging you. Please just tell me." He falls down on my bed and looks at me miserably. "You don't understand how worried I've been ever since Ginny started saying you've been acting funny. Harry's saying the same thing! I can't help but think that … well … that I must have really hurt you the last time we saw each other. Is that it?"

"N-No," I whisper. "No, it's nothing like that."

He pats the spot next to him on my bed, and I slowly bring myself to sit next to him, not looking in his eyes.

"Then what is it? Tell me."

"You should go, Ron," I insist, feeling my walls begin to crumble. "If Lavender finds out you were here—"

"Lavender?" Ron chuckles. "Oh, you don't need to worry about her anymore." I only look at him curiously, and he continues: "She chucked me."

"She … broke up with you?" I bat my eyes at the revelation, and Ron only shrugs.

"Yeah. She invited me out for coffee in this miserable little shop a few weeks ago and told me she just doesn't think we're 'on the same page' anymore," he emphasizes with air-quotes. "She also made it a point to tell me she was tired of me talking about you."

"You talk about me when you're with her?"

"I couldn't really help it the last few times I saw her … I was so worried about you."

"Oh, Ron, I … I'm sorry to hear it didn't work out," I lie.

"Don't worry about it. We've been drifting apart for a while now … Actually, to be perfectly honest with you, I don't think there was much between us to begin with. All she really wanted to do was snog me. It wasn't meant to last long." He places a hand on my knee, which sits exposed in my pajama bottom shorts, and I shiver at the contact. "But I'm not here to talk about me and Lavender. I'm here to talk about you."

"There's nothing to talk about. At least nothing that concerns you."

"So there is something bothering you, then?"

"It's none of your business!"

"It is my goddamned business! You're my best friend! Or at least you were until you started acting mental!"

"Stop yelling at me!" I whimper, my eyes brimming with wetness.

Ron's expression softens, and he pulls me flush against him and entangles his arms around my smaller frame, one hand on my head and the other at the small of my back. He strokes my hair as I stain his shirt beyond recognition, crying like an idiot and wishing I would wake up from this nightmare.

"Oh God, Hermione," Ron groans, each syllable aching with woe. "You have no idea how hard it's been for me. I … I wanted to come back to you the moment I left you at the house. I Flooed home and thought to come right back and talk to you but … I figured you were too pissed at me to want to sort it out! And you don't know how scared I was when Ginny told me how you'd been acting." His hold on me tightens. "I didn't mean to yell at you. I'm sorry. But Christ, Hermione—if I'm the reason you've been so sad or if I hurt you, you have to tell me. Because I'd let you hex my bollocks off before I do it again. I love you too much to see you like this ever again."

"You … love me?" I ask, pulling away slightly, a surprisingly pleasant warmth trickling down my torso. "I … I thought you felt differently after the fight we had …"

He actually chuckles: it's soft and breathy and layered with melancholy, but a chuckle nonetheless. "How could I possibly feel any different?" But when I only continue to stare at him, somewhat bemused, he speaks again on a more serious note: "Blimey, Hermione, you're a smart girl. You're the smartest person I've ever met, really. Surely you must have known …"

I shake my head.

"Hermione," he sighs, his blue gaze penetrating my own, "I … I've loved you from the moment I saw you. God knows I hadn't the foggiest what it was at first, but … yeah, I remember, the first time Ginny brought you to our house, and you looked at me with those big brown eyes of yours, it felt like …" he motions with his hands, as if trying to grasp the right words from the air, "… it felt like the first time I rode a broom. Exciting and terrifying and brilliant all at once … Bloody hell, I asked you to marry me when we were thirteen and you honestly had no idea how I felt?"

"No," I whisper. "I honestly didn't. At least not to that extent."

"I don't blame you," he goes on. "I didn't know either, for a long time. For so long I chalked up the strange feelings I had around you up to simply having a girl who wasn't related to me in my house, but after a while … it's more obvious, innit?"

"Yeah … I suppose so."

He smiles tentatively at me, gauging my reaction. "Listen, um … I'm not going to push it. If you don't want to talk to me about it right now—whatever it is—I'll understand. Maybe I should …" he makes a move to stand up, but I grab him by his muscled arm to keep him in place.

"Stay for a while," I insist, grinning at him. "Mum's making crumpets."

"Well, if there's food involved, I guess I have no choice."

I roll my eyes playfully as he hugs me once more, and I find that I'm on the verge of tears again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

"I'm glad you came," I say against his shoulder, cooing as he plays with my curls. "I love you too, Ron."