A/N:  Once again I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed this story.  This is the first story I've ever written that has gotten a hundred reviews.  None of my other stories have even come close.  Thank you!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:  SOME THINGS CAN'T BE FIXED

It was late on Saturday morning when Harry entered the Great Hall for breakfast. The Gryffindor table was surprisingly empty, save for a bunch second years, and the odd older student – Ron Weasley among them. Instead of sitting himself as far away from Ron as possible – which was something he had got accustomed to doing in during meal times – Harry situated himself several feet across from him.

Ron hurriedly finished the last of his porridge and stood up from the table the same instant Harry sat down.

Against his better judgment, Harry told him he didn't have to leave.

Ron wasn't sure what to make of Harry's changed attitude towards him, but sat back down nonetheless.

Harry did not appear to be in too much of a hurry to reveal why either. Minutes passed before Ron finally broke the silence.

"What do you want, Harry?"

It sounded so much like something Ron would say if he were bad mood resulting from an unpleasant encounter with Draco Malfoy, that it was hard to believe they had avoided talking to each other for weeks.

Harry didn't know how to answer his question, though, and remained silent.

It had been nearly two weeks since his conversation with Hermione in the common room. He had thought she was wrong then and he still felt the same way, but he had promised her the other night he would make an attempt at being civil with Ron – beyond that he wasn't making any promises.

Just thinking about the other night made him wonder how he could look Ron in the face and act as if he wanted to patch things up.

Hermione had come up to the seventh year boys' dorm to talk to him.  As of late, he had been trying to spend as little time as possible in the common room since his breakup with Ginny.  Hermione knew him well enough to not try and get him to talk about her, but she had been unable to restrain herself from asking if he had spoken to Ron.

He told her that of course he hadn't, and she wouldn't leave him alone about it until he promised to do it first thing tomorrow. He really wished that she didn't care so much, because he had nothing to say to Ron, and the only reason he was sitting there at the Gryffindor table was because he had given Hermione his word.

She had gone on about how she didn't want to force him to do anything; that all she wanted to do was keep Ron's mistakes from destroying another friendship. It was the first time since their breakup that she had been able to speak about Ron without getting overly emotional.

Everything would have been fine if Hermione had just left his room then, but she didn't. She had stayed on his bed, waiting for some sort of response from him. He did respond, only he gave her the most stupid response imaginable. He had kissed her. He had gone and violated – and probably destroyed – their entire friendship by kissing her. Afterwards, there had been no way to shake the guilt he felt from doing it.  He had no right to kiss her.  It wasn't as if her and Ron would ever be together again, but deep down Ron was still his best friend and there was no excuse for what he had done.

Hermione had left his room without saying anything to him, and he had not realized how bad he had messed things up until he found himself purposely avoiding her gaze on his way down to breakfast.

Now, he found himself doing his best to avoid Ron's gaze, hoping his guilt didn't show on his face.

Ron was watching him carefully before finally saying, "do you want to have another go at me? Is that why you came down here?"

Of course Ron would think that and though the idea was somewhat appealing to Harry, he merely shook his head. "I don't fight my friends,"

Ron looked taken aback. "I didn't realize we were still friends,"

Harry shrugged. "Neither did I, but I promised Hermione I would try,"

He noticed the pain in his friend's eyes when he mentioned Hermione's name.

"How is she?" Ron tried to ask casually, as if he didn't really care, which could not have been father from the truth.

Harry figured there was no harm in telling him the truth – at least the truth up until last night. "She's managing. That's not to say she hasn't had a hard time of it,"

Ron said nothing.

"You broke her heart, Ron,"

Ron seemed to slump down further into his seat. "Harry, you have to believe me, I love Hermione. I made a mistake – a horrible one, but I need her to know that it'll never happen again. She needs to know that I love her." He sounded desperate. "Please, Harry, you have to talk to her and make her understand. She'll listen to you,"

"You know I can't do that. How can you even ask me to get her to forgive you after what you did to her?"

Ron seemed to have regained control of himself, having understood the very awkward position he was putting Harry in. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you to get involved. This is my mess,"

Harry was already involved – Ron, though, had no idea just how much, and Harry planned to keep it that way.

Feeling as if they had said everything they were going to say to one another, Ron rose from the table.

"Things aren't okay between us, you know that, right?" Harry said before he could walk off. "They may never be,"

Harry's words stayed with Ron long after he left the Great Hall. When he thought about it, he realized he shouldn't have expected anything else from Harry. He figured he would have done the same in his position.

Their friendship might not be fully mended, and like Harry had said it might never be, but his best friend was talking to him again, and that was more than he had yesterday.

Rain was pelting down on the windshield, but the poor weather wasn't the only reason Hermione was having difficulty seeing the road in front of her. She supposed she should have been going a bit slower, but all she wanted to do was get home, lock herself in her bedroom, and never come out.

She knew better than to let herself get distracted while driving, but the events of that evening were still too fresh in her mind for her to focus on much else.

It wasn't enough that Ron had seen her and Harry together in bed, but he had also found out about the closely guarded secret they had been keeping for years. She knew she never could have told Ron about them while they were still at Hogwarts. They had managed to mend their relationship enough by graduation, but even then it wasn't near fully healed. If she had dropped that bombshell on him then, she had a feeling that he would have cut her out of his life completely. His reaction tonight only served to remind her why she and Harry had made a pact never to tell him or anyone else for that matter.

The main reason being Ron would over analyze the whole thing. Ron was the most stubborn and proud person she had ever met. How would she get him to understand that she wasn't in love with Harry and never had been? It had never been about love. Sometimes she didn't even think her time with Harry qualified as a relationship.

But that's not how Ron saw it, and she doubted there was anything she could do to make him change his line of thinking. He wouldn't think it was possible for them to be together and not have it mean something, even when it had not lasted for very long.

He had always been so jealous of Harry; his fame, his wealth. His ability to do and have anything he wanted. He had confided in her once, asking her how it was possible to be best mates with someone you were insanely jealous of. Of course she had never said anything to Harry. Ron couldn't help the way he felt, what with having five older brothers to contend with.  She had hoped that once he got older he would get over it.  But after tonight, she wondered if he ever would.

She hit a pothole in the road then and veered slightly onto the shoulder before regaining control of her car. She mentally cursed herself for not paying closer attention to the conditions of the road she was driving along.

Back at Hogwarts, she knew Ron had secretly taken pleasure in the fact that she would be the only thing Harry Potter could never have, but even that was gone now and he probably hated Harry for it.

She hated herself for it.

She had spent the better half of a decade trying to convince herself that Ron Weasley was not the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. That she could live her life without him. It was amazing how all that work could fade away over the course of a few weeks.

Perhaps she had been a fool to not forgive and forget, and this was her punishment. Deep down she knew that her and Ron would never be able to make things work now. He would never be able to get passed how she had turned to his best friend for comfort, and had kept it hidden from him for years.

Again, she thought about slowing down, as the rain seemed to be coming down even harder, but she was so close to home now that she didn't.

Under different circumstances, she would have remembered the sharp turn in the road up ahead, or at least paid attention to the yellow sign indicating that she was approaching a tight turn. Then again, she had traveled this road enough times in the past two weeks that she should have known what was coming.

But her mind was elsewhere and she ended up taking the turn too fast. Her first instinct was to slam on the breaks, but that only served to spin the car out of control on the slick road. With no traction and nothing to stop her, she let out a short scream before crashing head on with a telephone pole.

        When Harry reached The Burrow the morning after Ron had not so subtly told him and Hermione that he never wanted to see them again, he was praying it wouldn't be Ron who answered the door when he knocked. Harry was almost sure it would be slammed in his face if he did. It wasn't as he didn't have a reason to, but Harry wanted Ron to hear him out first, then, if Ron still felt the need to do him bodily harm he could go right ahead.

He didn't think his chances faired much better when a certain other Weasley answered instead.

        "If you're looking for Ron he's not here," Ginny told him, not bothering to mask the anger in her voice. "Though I can't imagine why he'd want to listen to anything you had to say anyway,"

        Harry cringed inwardly. Ron had obviously told her everything. "Can I wait for him?"

        She clearly looked like she didn't want him in the house, but moved out of the doorway without a word so he could come in.

        She was hoping he would wait for Ron in the living room, but to her great disappointment he followed her into the kitchen where she was making lunch.

        "Have you heard from Hermione?" He asked her.

        "Why are you asking me? Obviously if she wanted talk to anyone it would be you," she said hotly.

        "Ginny, you don't understand what happened,"

        Suddenly her roast beef sandwiches didn't seem so appetizing anymore. "What don't I understand? The part where you stab my brother in the back and sleep with the woman he's obviously in love with? Or when you went behind my back at Hogwarts with Hermione?"

        So that's why she was so angry with him. "Ginny, I never – "

        "Save it, Harry," she cut him off sharply. "All that time you went on about how could my brother do that to Hermione when you were doing the exact same thing to me. You're noting but a hypocrite, Harry Potter,"

        "I swear I never laid a hand on Hermione when we were together,"

        "It all makes sense now," she went on, ignoring what he had said. "All those times you were alone with her…"

        He hadn't figured she would take this as bad as Ron had. "Ginny, nothing happened with her when I was with you," he said, unsure why he was so desperate to make her believe him. "You remember when we broke up for a couple of months during seventh year? Your mum was sick and we were having problems so we broke things off. I didn't plan for anything to happen with Hermione, it just did. We were both lonely and going through a rough time. It was just two best friends trying to help each other out. Nothing more,"

        "How long did it last?" She wasn't sure she really wanted to know the answer.

        "About a month. Once I had worked things out with Ron, it was even harder to justify why were doing what we were doing. There had already been enough heartache that year and we ended it,"

        Ginny was shaking her head. "I just can't believe you never said anything afterwards,"

        "So that what happened last night could have happened six years earlier?  You know Ron would have never understood,"

        Ginny said nothing. She was staring very hard out the kitchen window.

        Harry couldn't resist saying what was on his mind then. "You're happy with Colin now, so why should ancient history matter to you?"

        "It doesn't,"

           Harry was not convinced. "It does bother you. And you hate that it bothers you,"

           "I think you should go. I'll tell Ron you stopped by,"

        She wouldn't look at him, but he knew he had hit a nerve with her.

        He was on his way out when the telephone rang. That in itself was strange. The Weasley's did have a phone but it was only there incase someone couldn't get in touch with them through magical means.

        When he heard Ginny's loud gasp he rushed back into the kitchen.  Her face had gone very pale and when she hung up the phone she looked to be fighting to keep herself standing.

        Their argument completely forgotten now, Harry went over to her and said, "Gin, what is it?"

        It took her a moment to respond. When she found her voice, she looked at him, her eyes glistening and said, "it's Hermione. She's been in an accident,"