Saving Hermione - Ch. 2: Aftermath and Late Night Talks
Hermione could feel his large hand in her hair and another on her waist, balancing her on his lap as she cried like a like what she thought was a big baby. She voiced and apology to Ron for being so overreacting and for wetting down the front of his new robes.
When she said she was sorry for being a big baby, Ron suddenly got very angry and quickly sat her up so she could see his face. She was frightened for a moment when he moved so swiftly and by the look on his face but was comforted by his words.
"Don't ever think that you are being a big baby for what the sick prat did to you," he said harshly and shook her shoulders a bit, as if trying to shake the sense of the absurdity of her statement into her. He then realized that he had frightened her and pulled her back to him quickly and went back to his soothing voice.
"I acted like I was defenseless, I could have probably stopped him," she choked into his neck.
"Not a full grown teenage boy with big dumb bodyguards and without a wan," he reasoned.
"I could have brought up my knee, or done something," she argued what she thought was her stupidity.
"You were scared and shocked. Probably didn't register to do something to defend yourself. And even if you'd done that, he would have hurt you and done what he wanted to forcefully." Just saying that made his blood boil again and bring Hermione into a fresh wave of frightened tears.
"What if he tries it again?" she sounded almost hysterical and wanted an answer from the person who had saved her from what was and could have been a more traumatic experience.
"He won't," he stated simply.
"How do you know?"
"Because of my promise. He knew I fully meant it. Besides, if he does, then this time remember just bring up your knee and then run like hell to me and I'll take care of the rest." He smiles at her and she gave a small smile back through her tears.
A little later, Ron left to stand right outside the door so Hermione could change into her robes. All the while he was waiting, he wondered when he had felt the need to protect her so much. With a wand, you would never want to cross Hermione Granger on the warpath, but without, she was still a delicate girl that was no match to a hormone raging, and not to mention violent, seventeen year old boy when it came to brawn. He continued in his deep thoughts until the door slid back open and Hermione came out wearing her robes, that seemed to have shrunk a bit on her, causing Ron to become one of those hormone raging teenage boys, but he kept that to himself. He was already afraid of why he was protecting her so fiercely, and did not need the added pressure of figuring out why she looked so appealing in her robes all of a sudden.
"STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! " his brain yelled, "This is Hermione Granger, here, your best friend for seven years! Get a grip, you great stupid prat!"
"But she still looks really gorgeous," another voice said somewhere in his mind.
"STOP IT!"
They found Harry with Ginny in an empty compartment. When Ginny saw Hermione, she leapt up with a shriek and hugged her tightly, her mouth going about a mile a minute with "Are you okay!?!?" and "Wait until I get my hands on Malfoy..." With the last one both Ron and Harry stepped in and declared that she would do no such thing. They explained that they thought it was a good idea for neither of them to be anywhere around Malfoy without one of them around, just in case. The girls reluctantly agreed, and Ginny's mouth started going again.
"I'm fine. Really." Hermione added this even though she wasn't just to reassure Ginny. Ron noticed this and grabbed her hand and led her to the door so they could get off the train.
Outside on the platform, after saying a quick 'hello' to Hagrid, they waited for the carriages to arrive. Ron and Harry were turned away from Hermione talking with Seamus and Dean for minute while Ginny was again dragged away by her friends unwillingly. Hermione stood there and thought about what happened that day only an hour earlier and what would have happened if Ron and Harry hadn't showed up.
She did not have a lot of time to think about this however, because right at that very moment, someone placed a hand over her mouth and an arm around her waist and hauled her back into the train. When they didn't let go, Hermione panic. Then, she heard a silky voice in her ear say, "Miss me, Mudblood?" At that she started to cry. Big tears rolled down her cheeks onto the hands of Draco Malfoy. He noticed this and let her go. She opened her mouth to scream when Draco's hand connected firmly with her cheek. He hit her with such force, she fell back and hit the wall. She slowly stood up and stopped crying. She was not scared anymore, she was angry. Livid. No one hit her, especially Draco Malfoy. With that she looked him in the eye, walked over to him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and swiftly and hardly brought her knee up to the center of his legs. He cried out in pain and since Crabbe and Goyle weren't there she started to back away satisfied. What she didn't expect was for Draco to somehow gather his strength back that quickly and stand up and go after her. By the time she realized what he was doing, he was already standing and less than a foot away from her.
She gathered her wits and bolted down the corridor of the train trying to find the nearest exit door with Malfoy trailing right behind her. She took this opportunity to let out a blood-curdling scream.
Outside, Ron heard a scream that sounded like Hermione's, but that was impossible. She was right behind him. He turned and saw she had disappeared. That was all the conviction he needed to bolt onto the train and see a blonde head quickly catching up on a brown one. Before he could get there, Malfoy had leapt and tackled Hermione under him with her arms pinned behind her back. Ron stopped running and quietly snuck up on the two. Malfoy flipped Hermione on to he back and pinned her arms above her head. "Now, I will teach you a lesson that you deserve." With that, he took one hand and unfastened her robes in one fast movement and took the collar of her shirt in his hands ready to rip it right off, when something with such force knocked Draco off of her and all the way down the corridor. Hermione, shaken for what was the second time that day, looked down the hall at Malfoy to see his limp body sitting upright against the wall with a trickle of blood oozing down his temple.
The next thing she felt was a fresh wave of pain. She looked down at her wrist and felt it. It was surely broken in several places from where Malfoy had handled it so roughly. She looked from her wrist to the absolutely livid face of Ron. He looked ready to kill and would have probably if Hermione had not been in the way. He still had his wand pointed to the place where Malfoy had been, but his eyes were looking at the blonde twenty feet down the hall. He started to walk towards Hermione, but nearly passed her as he headed to Draco, to no doubt do as much damaged as wizardly and humanly possible, but Hermione cried out and he stopped. He looked down at her holding her wrist and tears on her face. His look softened considerably and he picked her up with ease and carried her to the carriages that had arrived outside. He climbed into the last one and headed up to the school, all the while whispering and comforting her for the second time that day.
When they arrived at school, Madame Pomfrey fixed Hermione up as good as new, although a little stiff, but not without many questions about how the injury came to be. Ron had talked with Hermione in the carriages and she said that he should tell no one but Harry and Ginny about what happened. So they told the matron that Hermione had fallen getting off the train. She asked no more questions, even though not quite believing it.
After her wrist had been mended, Hermione and Ron made their way down to the Great Hall. They had missed the Sorting, but, to Ron's great appreciation, had not missed the feast. Only a few people realized that a certain permanently disgruntled blonde was absent. After dinner was finished and Professor Dumbledore gave his speech, the prefects led the first years to their common rooms. Soon after everyone went to bed.
Hermione had gotten out of bed an hour after she went to bed. Thoughts kept racing through her mind. She went down to the common room only to find a tall, muscular body with a red head sitting on the couch already.
Ron had a look of deep concentration on his face and he was staring into the last remains of the fire that caused the room to go almost completely dark, but still caused eerie shadows on the walls.
She watched him for what seemed a few minutes until he spoke. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come here?" He asked this all quite suddenly and scared the living daylights of her. She jumped and he turned to her grinning. She couldn't help but smile back. She walked over to the couch and sat down next to him.
They sat there in silence like that for what seemed to be an eternity but was in reality only a few minutes. Hermione finally broke the silence. "Couldn't sleep?" He looked at her and said, "I was just thinking what we should to do about Malfoy. I mean, we can't have him trying to fondle you and God knows what else every time he sees you." Hermione was silent but then said, "I don't think there is much we can do, unless we tell the professors, which I don't want to. I already have you and Harry thinking I can't protect myself, I don't need a whole army of bodyguards. Besides, I'm going to have to deal with it someday, right? I mean, I can't always have you or Harry or the professors around to help me out." She said all this very quickly. Ron looked at her quietly for a second before he spoke, "Why can't I always be there to protect you?" He was genuinely curious. She thought about this before she reasoned, "Because, someday I will be on my own, and I can't drag you around every where I go or ask you to do things like that! It's just absurd!" He knew she was right and he let her now that. He also stated, "I wish I could be there all the time." She sighed and replied, "Yes, I know and I appreciate that. Just like I appreciate what you did for me today. I keep thinking what would've happened if you hadn't shown up?" With that she let a tear roll down her cheek. Ron saw this and wiped it away with his thumb. Then he stated, quite matter-of-factly, "I will always be there to make sure he doesn't hurt you. I promise." He said this while looking directly into her brown eyes with his deep dark blue ones, in a way that made her stomach do flips. She, although despite the stomach flops, decided to argue that. "Don't say that, because there is no way you could be there all the time to pro-" but she never was able to finish her sentence due to a pair of soft lips crushing themselves onto hers. She was very surprised at first when she felt Ron's hand behind her hear and pulling her forward, but she quickly got over that.
Ron was listening to her argue her point when he couldn't take it anymore and pulled her in for a kiss. It was a very gentle kiss. And it only lasted for a few minutes before he realized he was kissing Hermione. HERMIONE! This caused him to jump up all of a sudden, leaving Hermione with a cold feeling where his lips and hands has been and him with the sudden idea of kissing Hermione was not bad at all, it was wonderful. And that was what made him stop. She was his best friend for one; he couldn't do this with a friend as close as Hermione! And then there was the fact that she had been sexually assaulted twice this afternoon, which probably made her feel very upset that he was doing this now! He couldn't believe the audacity he had to do this to poor Hermione! She probably thought he was just like Malfoy now! And that is what he honestly thought in his head.
With a mixture of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and anger with himself, he said. "I'm sorry," and left quickly. Hermione sat there and then went up to bed after a couple of minutes. She thought she had done something wrong, but no, wait, didn't he kiss her? She didn't do anything. Or maybe he just didn't mean it. That's what it was. It didn't mean anything. Just a kiss between friends, right? Then she thought, "Why do I feel so horrible then?" She fell asleep finally with tears in her eyes an hour later.
A/N - So what do you think? To many Malfoy rape attempts for the first two chapters? Let me know. Thanks!
Hermione could feel his large hand in her hair and another on her waist, balancing her on his lap as she cried like a like what she thought was a big baby. She voiced and apology to Ron for being so overreacting and for wetting down the front of his new robes.
When she said she was sorry for being a big baby, Ron suddenly got very angry and quickly sat her up so she could see his face. She was frightened for a moment when he moved so swiftly and by the look on his face but was comforted by his words.
"Don't ever think that you are being a big baby for what the sick prat did to you," he said harshly and shook her shoulders a bit, as if trying to shake the sense of the absurdity of her statement into her. He then realized that he had frightened her and pulled her back to him quickly and went back to his soothing voice.
"I acted like I was defenseless, I could have probably stopped him," she choked into his neck.
"Not a full grown teenage boy with big dumb bodyguards and without a wan," he reasoned.
"I could have brought up my knee, or done something," she argued what she thought was her stupidity.
"You were scared and shocked. Probably didn't register to do something to defend yourself. And even if you'd done that, he would have hurt you and done what he wanted to forcefully." Just saying that made his blood boil again and bring Hermione into a fresh wave of frightened tears.
"What if he tries it again?" she sounded almost hysterical and wanted an answer from the person who had saved her from what was and could have been a more traumatic experience.
"He won't," he stated simply.
"How do you know?"
"Because of my promise. He knew I fully meant it. Besides, if he does, then this time remember just bring up your knee and then run like hell to me and I'll take care of the rest." He smiles at her and she gave a small smile back through her tears.
A little later, Ron left to stand right outside the door so Hermione could change into her robes. All the while he was waiting, he wondered when he had felt the need to protect her so much. With a wand, you would never want to cross Hermione Granger on the warpath, but without, she was still a delicate girl that was no match to a hormone raging, and not to mention violent, seventeen year old boy when it came to brawn. He continued in his deep thoughts until the door slid back open and Hermione came out wearing her robes, that seemed to have shrunk a bit on her, causing Ron to become one of those hormone raging teenage boys, but he kept that to himself. He was already afraid of why he was protecting her so fiercely, and did not need the added pressure of figuring out why she looked so appealing in her robes all of a sudden.
"STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! " his brain yelled, "This is Hermione Granger, here, your best friend for seven years! Get a grip, you great stupid prat!"
"But she still looks really gorgeous," another voice said somewhere in his mind.
"STOP IT!"
They found Harry with Ginny in an empty compartment. When Ginny saw Hermione, she leapt up with a shriek and hugged her tightly, her mouth going about a mile a minute with "Are you okay!?!?" and "Wait until I get my hands on Malfoy..." With the last one both Ron and Harry stepped in and declared that she would do no such thing. They explained that they thought it was a good idea for neither of them to be anywhere around Malfoy without one of them around, just in case. The girls reluctantly agreed, and Ginny's mouth started going again.
"I'm fine. Really." Hermione added this even though she wasn't just to reassure Ginny. Ron noticed this and grabbed her hand and led her to the door so they could get off the train.
Outside on the platform, after saying a quick 'hello' to Hagrid, they waited for the carriages to arrive. Ron and Harry were turned away from Hermione talking with Seamus and Dean for minute while Ginny was again dragged away by her friends unwillingly. Hermione stood there and thought about what happened that day only an hour earlier and what would have happened if Ron and Harry hadn't showed up.
She did not have a lot of time to think about this however, because right at that very moment, someone placed a hand over her mouth and an arm around her waist and hauled her back into the train. When they didn't let go, Hermione panic. Then, she heard a silky voice in her ear say, "Miss me, Mudblood?" At that she started to cry. Big tears rolled down her cheeks onto the hands of Draco Malfoy. He noticed this and let her go. She opened her mouth to scream when Draco's hand connected firmly with her cheek. He hit her with such force, she fell back and hit the wall. She slowly stood up and stopped crying. She was not scared anymore, she was angry. Livid. No one hit her, especially Draco Malfoy. With that she looked him in the eye, walked over to him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and swiftly and hardly brought her knee up to the center of his legs. He cried out in pain and since Crabbe and Goyle weren't there she started to back away satisfied. What she didn't expect was for Draco to somehow gather his strength back that quickly and stand up and go after her. By the time she realized what he was doing, he was already standing and less than a foot away from her.
She gathered her wits and bolted down the corridor of the train trying to find the nearest exit door with Malfoy trailing right behind her. She took this opportunity to let out a blood-curdling scream.
Outside, Ron heard a scream that sounded like Hermione's, but that was impossible. She was right behind him. He turned and saw she had disappeared. That was all the conviction he needed to bolt onto the train and see a blonde head quickly catching up on a brown one. Before he could get there, Malfoy had leapt and tackled Hermione under him with her arms pinned behind her back. Ron stopped running and quietly snuck up on the two. Malfoy flipped Hermione on to he back and pinned her arms above her head. "Now, I will teach you a lesson that you deserve." With that, he took one hand and unfastened her robes in one fast movement and took the collar of her shirt in his hands ready to rip it right off, when something with such force knocked Draco off of her and all the way down the corridor. Hermione, shaken for what was the second time that day, looked down the hall at Malfoy to see his limp body sitting upright against the wall with a trickle of blood oozing down his temple.
The next thing she felt was a fresh wave of pain. She looked down at her wrist and felt it. It was surely broken in several places from where Malfoy had handled it so roughly. She looked from her wrist to the absolutely livid face of Ron. He looked ready to kill and would have probably if Hermione had not been in the way. He still had his wand pointed to the place where Malfoy had been, but his eyes were looking at the blonde twenty feet down the hall. He started to walk towards Hermione, but nearly passed her as he headed to Draco, to no doubt do as much damaged as wizardly and humanly possible, but Hermione cried out and he stopped. He looked down at her holding her wrist and tears on her face. His look softened considerably and he picked her up with ease and carried her to the carriages that had arrived outside. He climbed into the last one and headed up to the school, all the while whispering and comforting her for the second time that day.
When they arrived at school, Madame Pomfrey fixed Hermione up as good as new, although a little stiff, but not without many questions about how the injury came to be. Ron had talked with Hermione in the carriages and she said that he should tell no one but Harry and Ginny about what happened. So they told the matron that Hermione had fallen getting off the train. She asked no more questions, even though not quite believing it.
After her wrist had been mended, Hermione and Ron made their way down to the Great Hall. They had missed the Sorting, but, to Ron's great appreciation, had not missed the feast. Only a few people realized that a certain permanently disgruntled blonde was absent. After dinner was finished and Professor Dumbledore gave his speech, the prefects led the first years to their common rooms. Soon after everyone went to bed.
Hermione had gotten out of bed an hour after she went to bed. Thoughts kept racing through her mind. She went down to the common room only to find a tall, muscular body with a red head sitting on the couch already.
Ron had a look of deep concentration on his face and he was staring into the last remains of the fire that caused the room to go almost completely dark, but still caused eerie shadows on the walls.
She watched him for what seemed a few minutes until he spoke. "Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to come here?" He asked this all quite suddenly and scared the living daylights of her. She jumped and he turned to her grinning. She couldn't help but smile back. She walked over to the couch and sat down next to him.
They sat there in silence like that for what seemed to be an eternity but was in reality only a few minutes. Hermione finally broke the silence. "Couldn't sleep?" He looked at her and said, "I was just thinking what we should to do about Malfoy. I mean, we can't have him trying to fondle you and God knows what else every time he sees you." Hermione was silent but then said, "I don't think there is much we can do, unless we tell the professors, which I don't want to. I already have you and Harry thinking I can't protect myself, I don't need a whole army of bodyguards. Besides, I'm going to have to deal with it someday, right? I mean, I can't always have you or Harry or the professors around to help me out." She said all this very quickly. Ron looked at her quietly for a second before he spoke, "Why can't I always be there to protect you?" He was genuinely curious. She thought about this before she reasoned, "Because, someday I will be on my own, and I can't drag you around every where I go or ask you to do things like that! It's just absurd!" He knew she was right and he let her now that. He also stated, "I wish I could be there all the time." She sighed and replied, "Yes, I know and I appreciate that. Just like I appreciate what you did for me today. I keep thinking what would've happened if you hadn't shown up?" With that she let a tear roll down her cheek. Ron saw this and wiped it away with his thumb. Then he stated, quite matter-of-factly, "I will always be there to make sure he doesn't hurt you. I promise." He said this while looking directly into her brown eyes with his deep dark blue ones, in a way that made her stomach do flips. She, although despite the stomach flops, decided to argue that. "Don't say that, because there is no way you could be there all the time to pro-" but she never was able to finish her sentence due to a pair of soft lips crushing themselves onto hers. She was very surprised at first when she felt Ron's hand behind her hear and pulling her forward, but she quickly got over that.
Ron was listening to her argue her point when he couldn't take it anymore and pulled her in for a kiss. It was a very gentle kiss. And it only lasted for a few minutes before he realized he was kissing Hermione. HERMIONE! This caused him to jump up all of a sudden, leaving Hermione with a cold feeling where his lips and hands has been and him with the sudden idea of kissing Hermione was not bad at all, it was wonderful. And that was what made him stop. She was his best friend for one; he couldn't do this with a friend as close as Hermione! And then there was the fact that she had been sexually assaulted twice this afternoon, which probably made her feel very upset that he was doing this now! He couldn't believe the audacity he had to do this to poor Hermione! She probably thought he was just like Malfoy now! And that is what he honestly thought in his head.
With a mixture of shame, guilt, embarrassment, and anger with himself, he said. "I'm sorry," and left quickly. Hermione sat there and then went up to bed after a couple of minutes. She thought she had done something wrong, but no, wait, didn't he kiss her? She didn't do anything. Or maybe he just didn't mean it. That's what it was. It didn't mean anything. Just a kiss between friends, right? Then she thought, "Why do I feel so horrible then?" She fell asleep finally with tears in her eyes an hour later.
A/N - So what do you think? To many Malfoy rape attempts for the first two chapters? Let me know. Thanks!