One chilly day in late January, Hermione was on her way to her rooms after dinner when someone called out to her.
"Hermione."
The woman addressed turned back to face the speaker. She had known who he was without looking, but clung to the faint hope that she might have misheard. Who was she kidding? She could identify that voice in her sleep.
"Hello, Ron."
He hastened to put her in a favorable mood to hear him out. "I'm not here to point fingers. I wanted to apologize. Last time, I didn't say things right."
No, really? "No, you didn't. But I overreacted."
Ron seemed encouraged, but did not speak. Instead he fidgeted with hs collar, looking around him at the architecture of the corridor. Hermione wondered why he had fallen silent, until she saw a cluster of Hufflepuff girls, late to dinner, looking at them curiously as the clique passed through.
When they had gone, Ron continued, "Actually, I didn't come to talk about the end of our relationship. I wanted to see if we could make a fresh start."
Hermione would not have believed the Ron's transition from oldest friend into slimy salesman had she not witnessed it herself. How many times did he rehearse that line? "Ron-"
"We could go slow," he interrupted. "As slow as you like." Hermione thought this ironic, given that she had once said something very similar to him when he was terrified that she would trap him in a marriage.
Hermione shook her head. "I'm sorry, Ron, but I can't."
He looked stricken. "I know I was an idiot, but it won't happen again. Hermione, please. Give me another chance."
"It's not you," Hermione answered him softly. "I loved you. A fight couldn't change that."
Ron went from remorseful to puzzled. "What is it, then?"
"I..." Hermione had barely admitted this to herself, and was uncomfortable saying it out loud. "I think I may have found someone else."
"You think?" If Ron had sounded upset, Hermione would have told him that it was none of his business, but he seemed merely curious.
"I don't know how this person feels about me. Given, well, everything, it seems highly unlikely that I could hope for a return of my feelings, but I have to try."
"I don't blame you. But please, say it isn't Malfoy." Ron turned green at the mere thought, and Hermione had to laugh.
"It isn't Malfoy."
"Thank Merlin! Then I wish you well." Ron Weasley was, for the first time, putting a loved one's happiness above his own jealousy. Hermione was not insensible of the import of the occasion.
Ron added, half joking, "If it doesn't work out, you know where to find me."
"I don't think so, Ron." Hermione's tone was gentle but firm. At least, she was going for gentle but firm. The actual effect was closer to how she felt: adamant but full of regret. It worked out well, though, because the message got through to Ron much better couched in nostalgia than it would have had Hermione seemed to be unmoved.
"I'll be going, then."
On an impulse, Hermione threw her arms around him. He might never be her lover again, but Ron was still her friend.
Fleur was not hungry. She had stayed in the Great Hall just long enough to ask Hannah to make sure that Dominique ate a reasonable amount, and she was going to her office to see of she could find a particular book that one of her fifth-years had asked about.
Coming around a corner, she caught a flash of orange hair and ducked back behind the wall for concealment. Cautiously perring around the barrier, she identified the youngest Weasly boy embracing none other than Professor Hermione Granger.
Fleur's world was spinning. The happy couple were standing between her and her destination and she could barely remember her own name, let alone plan out an alternate route. Where was there left to go?
As Draco Malfoy ambled up from the dungeons towards the Great Hall, he was scanning a list of the students who wanted to tae NEWT-level Potions the following year. Surely, then, despite his usual rapid comprehension of female emotions-thank his mother for that-he can be forgiven for believing, when Fleur ran past, that he had imagined the tears. For Malfoy's sake, pass over the fact that Draco had never seen Fleur run anywhere, no matter how pressed she was for time.
To be fair, the young man always could put two and two together and arrive at four. He saw Ron, assumed that he and Hermione were dating again, heard them decide to still be friends, realized that he had judged wrongly, and remembered Fleur tearing off, all in one second.
He expressed himself with all the eloquent brevity a modern wizard can ever hope to possess. "Bollocks."
Half an hour later, Malfoy was becoming worried. Fleur was not in her rooms. She was not in her office or her classroom. She was not in his laboratory. He had even checked the Astronomy Tower, taking great pleasure in meting out detention to the Gryffindors fumbling in the dark. Draco might be a good man, but he would never be a nice one, at least not where those flying red and gold flags were concerned.
He decided to ask McGonagall if she had any idea where her missing staff member might be, but he very quickly happened upon a better plan, based on a vague memory from last semester.
In all honesty, this was not hard, for his last idea had almost no potential. McGonagall let her teachers wander where they wished, providing that they attended classes and meetings on a regular basis. Still, this new one was a Good Idea, even without the comparison to a long shot.
If Fleur had been careless, Malfoy reflected, his life would be fairly easy. If she hadn't, he had a long night ahead of him.
Approaching the Room of Requirement and seeing a door where the wall ought to be smooth and seamless, Draco permitted himself a smug smile. Coming closer, though, he could hear the sound of something shattering, and his grin faded. Perhaps this wouldn't be quite as simple as he had anticipated. "Maniac," he muttered. "And they call her calm!"
Praying to every god he could think of (This was not a large number. Wizards are primarily agnostic, and Draco had never bothered with Muggle Studies.), Malfoy pulled the door open.
The Room had outdone itself. It was perfect, though bare. Four hard stone walls and a long table covered with breakable objects were quite sufficient to convey the space's intended purpose.
Fleur had her back to the doorway and a vase in her hand. Draco waited until she had hurled it against the wall, mentally noting as she did so that it appeared fairly old and could probably have held its neck up in the best of museums, before he announced his presence. "You left the door open. Or in existence, anyway."
She whirled around, and he saw that she had been crying.
"I wouldn't have thought you the type to get violent when you were upset."
He was expecting to be the next target, but Fleur only wiped her eyes. "I am not."
"This," he indicated the entire room, "suggests otherwise."
"I am not usually," Fleur amended with obvious reluctance.
"Do you love her that much?"
"I don't love 'er at all. What she does is 'er business."
"Oh." Draco became absorbed in his already immaculate fingernails. "So you won't care that she isn't with Weasley?"
Fleur took a step towards him, but quickly gained control of herself. "She isn't?"
"No."
Fleur waited for details. Draco gave none.
"Please," she said in a hoarse whisper.
"They're friends. Nothing more. He was here to make sure that they could stay friends despite his stupidity." This was a guess, but Draco was confident of its accuracy.
Fleur's head dropped. Her shoulders began to heave, and Draco realized that she was crying again, He threw up his hands and walked out of the room. Behind his back, delicate glass figurines and ceramic sculptures disintegrated as the Room of Requirement tried to find and form what its occupant needed.
Fleur sat down on a growing couch, which put down legs just as she rested her full weight on it. She needed to do some serious soul-searching.