"Crystal Tears"

* * * * *

I must let go,

Of what is gone,

To say goodbye

and then move on.

Though I try,

To keep you here,

I just can't stop,

These crystal tears.

* * *

Chapter Two...

Days went by and Hermione moved from class to class in a in a rythmic pattern. Deep inside she was almost afraid that if she really let out all those feelings she'd been trying to bury then she'd never be able to get back on her feet and keep moving on. Not that she was moving on in the state she was in. She was just standing still and she hated watching the people surrounding her progress in their lives as she viewed them like a spectator in a fast paced Quidditch match. Waiting and praying that one day it may be her turn to chase that Golden Snitch.

But there was no such luck yet.

Everyone around her could sense Hermione's ever growing aura of failure. She even overheard the other girls in her dormitory whispering about that 'Ghost of Hermione' but she didn't care. She barely blinked twice. Who cared what Lavender or Parvati thought? As far as Hermione cared, they were just insensitive gits who hadn't cared when Harry had disappeared.

"She is a weirdo," she overhead Lavender say one night.

"I know, like a full on freak!" added Parvati before hushing her voice so Hermione wouldn't hear. "I'd hate to be her, everyone's always talking about her," she added, a couple of octaves lower.

Hermione rolled her eyes and leant over the side of her bed. She rummaged through a calico book bag lying on the floor, searching for that book she'd borrowed from the library.

Angry that she couldn't find it, she heaved the massive thing on top of the bed and dumped the entire contents out.

She froze.

Sitting neatly on top of the pile of books was 'Romeo and Juliet', a muggle play she'd loved reading and had read at least a hundred times.

The significance of the play however was that one time when extremely bored, she and Harry had mucked around in the common room and had read the parts of the character outloud for an amused Gryffindor audience. They'd recieved much applause and Hermione treasured the memory fondly in the back of her head. This was the second time Hermione had seen the book since Harry had left and the strange thing was that the first time had been when she'd thrown it out of the window in rage, hoping that she'd never have to see it again.

But there it was. Looking brand new.

She checked to make sure it was the same copy. Sure enough it was. It had her scrawly handwritten name across the top right hand corner of the second page in. Hermione Granger, Gryffindor. She stared at her own name blankly, for a moment there she'd forgotten who she was.

But the question remained? How did it get back in her book bag? She certainly hadn't put it there, and no one else in the dormitory had known she'd even thrown it away let alone gone to the trouble of going all the way downstairs to retrieve it for her.

She frowned slightly, deep in thought, before shrugging, putting it down to her sheer lack of observation in the last few months and opened up another book, setting Romeo and Juliet on her bedside table and putting it out of her mind for awhile.

* * * * *

Ron stared at himself in the mirror and looked to where Harry would normally be standing. They used to brush their teeth together every morning and evening and though he tried not to let it on too much, he missed Harry more than anyone could know.

He had to admit, he didn't have many friends. Hermione was still a sort of friend but because of her weird, spaced out sort of moods lately, Ron'd spent a lot of time by himself, reflecting on things that had never really crossed his mind before- like why chocolate frogs come in milk chocolate but not in white, and why Zonko's never have any sickles in their cash register- you always end up with heaps and heaps of knuts as change.

He gloomily rested the toothbrush back in the jar and turned around.

He gasped.

He clamped a hand over his mouth.

He had to hold onto a towel rail to steady himself.

There, sitting on the laundry basket was a pair of glasses.

Harry's glasses.

* * * * *

"Hermione! Hermione!" called Ron, chasing after her bushy hair in the corridor. "Hermione, please wait!"

He nearly tripped over a couple of first year girls before crashing right into the back of Hermione.

"Ron!" she exclaimed, picking up the dropped books. "What on earth do you think you're..." her voice trailed off. She stared at the glasses in Ron's hand- now broken again because of Ron's fall.

He looked hopelessly at her, half expecting her to that spell she'd done in their first year to fix them. But she didn't.

"Ron, I can't believe you'd do such a thing as to show these to me..." she whispered, completely mortified. Hermione threw a last nasty glance at Ron before turning and running off, faster than ever before.

"Hermione! Wait!" Ron watched desperately, mentally slapping himself for making such a foolish mistake. Of course he shouldn't have just shown her the glasses, she would just think he'd found them in Harry's belongings. Infact, that's just what she had thought. He shoved the glasses in his robes pocket and headed off to class, head down and feet dragging. Where could they have possibly come from?

* * * * *

They didn't speak to each other for at least three days after that incident. Everytime Ron came within fifty feet of Hermione, she just made up some feeble excuse to leave or move away where he couldn't confront her. One time she even bravely stood next to Professor Snape knowing full well that Ron wouldn't come near her then. She had remained by his side for the next twenty minutes until he took 5 points off Gryffindor for being a nuisance.

Ron finally caught up with her in the library where she was carefully tearing through the pages of a Jane Austen novel.

"Hermione..." Ron approached her carefully and slowly, so he wouldn't frighten her.

Hermione looked left and then right- she was right in between shelves of books- there was definitely no escape now. "Shouldn't have cornered myself in..." she muttered under her breath.

"Hermione?" he asked again, closer this time.

"What?" she snapped, trying to look bored.

"The other day... I'm sorry," said Ron. "Really, I didn't mean to upset you... it's just... well, Harry's... Harry's glasses. I found them sitting on the laundry basket in the bathroom."

"That's really interesting," Hermione sarcastically retorted. "But I'd really rather not know," she tried pushing past him but Ron had a strong grip on her shoulder.

"Please, just hear me out."

Hermione sighed, looked at her watch and decided to give him a few minutes. "And?" she tapped her foot impatiently on the carpet. She didn't want Ron to think she was interested in what he had to say though she desperately was and was pretty much hanging off his every word.

"Well the thing is, I didn't put the glasses there. No one else did. They just... just ended up there somehow," Ron finished.

"Really?" Hermione asked curiously, a little too quickly. "I mean," she cleared her throat and put on a different tone. "Really. Well, that's fascinating Ron, but... but..." her mind went back to Romeo and Juliet.

"Is there something wrong?" asked Ron, loosening his grip on her numb shoulder.

"No, no, not at all," she replied, waving him off.

"Hermione... you're still a terrible liar. What is it?"

"Nothing!" she protested. But Ron wasn't going to give up without a fight.

"TELL ME!" he yelled. The already quiet library went completely silent. They both looked around guilitily knowing that the librarian was going to come storming up to them any second now. Ron grabbed Hermione again and pulled her into a different section of the library- the restricted section.

"Now tell me," he said more softly. "What do you know?"

"Romeo and Juliet," replied Hermione in a whisper and she began to tell him what had happened.