A/N: WOOHOO! Oh yes! Your authoress has is finally done with exams and can concentrate on actually updating once in a while! Praise me people! **Takes bows** Lol, OK, seriously. Sozz it took so long to update, exams suck, but at least it's here now! And I don't have any more tests for a couple of months, so this should get running along smoothly!
Disclaimer: Lives in the previous chapters!
Dedication: All my reviewers and Silvermoon (Hello, I am Professor Alan Rickman, and I shall be taking you for Potions for the next year!). Also to Shelley annd Craig for the new arrival (can't wait to see her!). And, of course, my other friend Rainbow Dreamer- welcome to fanfiction.net!
Harry Potter and the Crystal of Dreams.
The sunshine poring through the latticed windows highlighted every dust mote floating around in the History of Magic classroom. It made Professor Binns droning seem even more lengthy and boring.
Ron frowned in deep thought at the parchment in front of him beofre slowly lowering his quill to it and making an X mark on the nearly full grid. He slid it along to Harry next to him. Harry grinned and quickly drew a O- signalling his victory for the fiftieth time in a row. Ron groaned, not bothering to keep his noise low, and earned himself a reproaching glance from Hermione on his other side.
"Is it me, or does this get more boring every year?" he asked. Harry snorted in laughter and even Hermione cracked a tiny smile, although she tried to hide it. Shannon, however, kept her watch out of the window. Something she'd been doing for the past half hour.
Ron leaned over Hermione towards her. "You know, Shannon, you'd better point out whatever it is you find so interesting, because we sure as hell could do with some stimulation."
Shannon started and whirled around quickly in her seat. Her eyes were wide and almost guilty, as if she'd just pulled a prank- except much more so. "I didn't do it." she stated, then blinked as his words started to make more sense. "Sorry. What?"
"What's up Shannon?" Harry asked as Ron rolled his eyes at Shannon's answer. "You've been staring out of that window for just about the whole lesson."
Shannon paused for a second, blinked, then shook her head with a small smile. "Like I'm supposed to be listening?" She gestured slightly towards Professor Binns at the front of the room. The ancient ghost was droning on about some battle between vampires and hags in the twelth century. This comment alerted Hermione, the only one of the quartet who seemed to be at least half listening to the lesson.
"It might not be the most interesting of lessons, but how're you going to do the homework if you don't listen?" she whispered. This was met by three blank pairs of eyes.
"Do. Home...work?" Shannon asked, pretending to be confused by the concept, thus earning a supressed laugh from both of the boys as well as a frown from Hermione.
"Come of it Herm," Ron said to the girl next to him. "What's an essay on this going to be entitled? Bloodsucking leeches versus crumbling old women?"
"I was leaning more towards 'Murderous monsters and Children-eating old bats' myself." Harry remarked. Hermione rolled her eyes irratatedly as Ron and Shannon grinned.
"You may not think that this is important, but what about when the exams come around?" Hermione demanded. Shannon attempted to supress a genuine yawn and failed.
Harry looked closely at her. Her eyes had lost some of their sparkle, and were heavily undershadowed with purple-blue and lines of tiredness. He knew he didn't look too great himself, and the other two also appeared a little worn-out, but Shannon the most so. She yawned a second time, then caught his eye and smiled.
"'Scuse me," she said. "Must be all that late revision I'm doing."
"But your O.W.L. notes have hardly been touched!" Hermione protested confusedly. Shannon stared at her blankly.
"Who said I was revising O.W.L. work? Nah, I've got much more important work to do."
"Yeah, Hermione," said Ron, somewhere between pretend outrage and mock-exasperation. "She's planning on blowing up Trelawney's tower next week! How can you expect her to revise schoolwork now?"
"Exactly," said Shannon, giving Ron a smile and a nod. Then her face went blank again. "No! Not yet, anyways- first things first. Cornish pixies loose in Potions tomorrow."
The boys laughed, but Hermione was, as usual, much more serious about it.
"The way you're going, you'll probably get expelled by the end of the year!" she said despairingly. Shannon shook her head.
"Nah, they wouldn't do that. With Fred and George leaving this year, they need me to liven the place up a little!"
Hermione would have replied but the bell sounded then for the end of the lesson. The triumphant fifth years stampeeded out into the corridor, hardly bothering to pay attention to the homework essay on the lesson that Binns was explaining, oblivious that he was the only one listening. Everyone began to head off into the direction of the Hall, except Shannon.
"Where are you off to, Shan?" Harry called. "The Hall's this way!"
She turned back, eyes a little too wide for normal. She met managed to meet Harry's gaze and eventually smiled.
"Ah, not hungry. As I said, revision. I'll meet up with you guys in Care of Magical Creatures, OK? We'll see what monstrousities Hagrid's cooked up now for us, eh?" She didn't wait for a reply, but headed off down the corridor at such a fast pace that she nearly collided with some first years headed for lunch. The original trio set off as well.
"I'm a little worried about her." Hermione remarked as they served themselves with casserole.
"Who?" Ron managed to question through a mouthful of food. Hermione raised an eyebrow but it was Harry who came back with the reply.
"Short Irish girl by the name of Shannon Parks, ring any bells?"
"How come?" Ron asked, frowning slightly.
Hermione hesitated. "Let's say that I don't think she's been getting much sleep lately. Or at least, she keeps waking up."
"How'd you know?" Harry asked.
"I couldn't sleep the other night, so I was reading in bed." She squirmed slightly. "I know I shouldn't because of the O.W.L.s only being a little way off, but..."
"Get to the point, Hermi." Ron said, although not unpleasantly.
"Well, anyway. I was reading, and it must have been about two in the morning, when I heard Shannon start to toss and turn. This went on for about five minutes, then she screamed and woke up. It was so loud that I'm surprised Parvati and Lavender didn't wake up."
"Told you she had a right pair of lungs on her." Ron remarked, shovelling more casserole into his mouth.
Harry shrugged. "Maybe she had a bad dream or something." He didn't want to say that he had been experiencing nightmares about his parents. Terribly vivid dreams that racked him with inexpressible guilt and a fear of falling asleep in case he had to see them again.
"But it wasn't just a one-off. It's happened before, quite a few times, but I didn't say anything till now." The prefect shook her head. "Maybe we should talk to her. If she suffers from nightmares, there's things Madam Pomfrey can give her. A sleeping draught or something."
"Hey, if she wants to say anything to us, I'm sure she will." Ron said, helping himself to seconds.
"I don't know," Hermione said, still concerned. "I'm not sure she would."
"We'll go catch up with her in the library later on then," Harry suggested. The conversation died for a few minutes until the boys began to discuss Quidditch and Hermione chose to re-read her Charms O.W.L. notes.
*****
The common room looked so strange when it was empty at lunchtimes. Shannon glanced around it as she passed through and made her way up to her dormitory. As soon as she pushed open the door, Tiah opened one eye from where she dozed on the sunny windowledge and mewed in greeting. Shannon pressed a finger to her lips at the Kneazle and crossed over to her four poster. She crashed on it, face buried in the pillow.
She nearly cried then, but managed to hold it in. She didn't deserve to cry- that's why she never had. A few deep breaths, a swallow, and then Shannon sat up, lips pressed tightly together. She reached over to the bedside cabinet and roughly pulled open the drawer, reaching in and removing her small dark purple book, a quill and a half-full bottle of red ink. She sniffed slightly, flipped to where her last entry ended and began to write in what had happened the night before.
'I see her face so clearly sometimes. Sometimes I don't. I feel so bad because, every time, I don't want to see her, to hear her, to stand close to her. Because it's hard, very hard, to do that. It's my fault, and I feel so guilty. But I deserve it...'
*****
The fifth years were having another difficult lesson with some of Hagrid's new creations. After the Pyroxes turned cannibal and eliminated themselves, he had chosen to breed 'safer' creatures, thereby creating a mean-tempered cross between a Crup and a Tebo. Only Hagrid could find three-foot high, fat monsters with stumpy hooves, eight inch tusks protruding from a dog's snout and wart-covered ash-coloured hide adorable. The fifth years were at the end of their tether-
AND it was only ten minutes into the lesson.
Hagrid sidled over to where Harry, Hermione and Ron were attempting to avoid the choas yet look involved. His brow was somewhat furrowed in thought.
"Had a quick count up," he said. "Think one's missin'. Where's Shannon?"
"Here I am!"
They all turned around to see Shannon, slightly red in the face from running from whever she had been. She pulled an apologetic face to Hagrid. "Sorry I'm late."
"S'okay Shannon, s'long as yer here now." He gestured to the creatures, which were running rampant admist the class. "Cute, aren't they?"
Shannon's eyebrows looked in danger of disappearing over her hairline. "Er...yeah."
When Hagrid turned away, Ron muttered, "Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here."
Shannon laughed in reply as she took up some of the Flobberworm lavae they had to try to get the creatures to eat.
"Where were you?" Hermione asked. "We dropped by the library, but you weren't in there."
Shannon looked at her and paused. "Uh...ill. I wasn't feeling too good, so I decided to go back to the dorm to rest."
"Why not see Madam Pomfrey?"
"Probably just 'girlie problems'." Shannon replied, using her fingers for the airquotes. "She'd want to keep me in for three months or something."
The subject was promptly dropped.
It was a good five or ten minutes before Harry decided to ask Shannon something away from the others.
"Are you sure you're all right?" he murmured to her as they picked out frog brains from one of the huge barrels of possible food types. She raised an eyebrow.
"Why wouldn't I be?" She sounded a little too defensive, even to her own ears.
Harry shrugged, trying to keep casual. "You just seem pretty tired, you know. Exhausted."
"O.W.L. stress." She shrugged as well. "After the exams, I'll be fine."
She left then, attempting to grab a passing crup/tebo cross, leaving Harry alone and still in the dark.
*****
As soon as Hermione's heavy eyelids had dropped that night, she found herself standing on the wet concrete of a school playground. She glanced confusedly around and then, as her bearings improved, the old fear slowly set in.
Oh god, she thought, I hoped I'd never see this place again.
The building that was Heath Park Primary School for Girls loomed over to one side of her. Her old school. Her old prison of pain, of torment for her seven years there.
"Hey Granger!"
Hermione's complete body froze like she was a marble statue. Of course, the prison wouldn't be complete without the guards.
Louise Bardot and Erica Lambert had advanced into her view, sadistically evil smiles on their eleven-year-old faces. Hermione blankly registered in some distant chamber of her numb mind that she herself seemed to feel smaller; weaker. She too was eleven. The bullies sniggered at her obvious fright as they halted inches from her.
"We heard you got another set of full marks in the tests last week." Louise said silkily. There was a deadly pause and suddenly she lashed out, the sharp nails of her right hand scraping at the flesh of Hermione's cheek. Hermione tried to scream, but her voice couldn't be found.
"Teacher's pet." Erica added. "Stuck-up little cow!"
She punched Hermione so hard in the shoulder that she was knocked over, hitting the floor with a horribly jarring thud that sent shock waves up and down her outstretched hands and arms. Hermione tried to cower, to make her attackers pity her helplessness. Instead, they crowed with delight and moved in for the kill, with suddenly many more as back up, crowding to help hurt her. Classmates. Girls from all years, people she recognised, people she didn't. Everyone and anyone who hated her.
Blows rained down upon her, bruising her arms, slashing her legs. Her hair was yanked around so roughly that her neck bones clicked unevenly and her vision swam in a nauseating dizziness. She couldn't scream as she was beaten; couldn't call for help as she bled.
Just how it used to be before Hogwarts, except that then her voice, when she allowed herself to scream, could be found.
And the worst thing was, her eyes wouldn't shut to let her attempt to try to ignore it. As much as she willed it, she couldn't not see the glow of malicious, feral glee in their eyes as they advanced.
Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and a familiar voice calling her name.
"Hermione? Hermione!"
It was only then that she could phsyically look away. She sat bolt up right suddenly, shaking and gasping and sobbing...
To find herself sitting in the empty common room with her Transfiguration essays strewn across the table in fron of her and Ron standing beside her, a hand on her shoulder and a concerned expression on his face.
"Hermione? What's wrong? You fell asleep so I woke you up. It's half one in the morning."
Taking deep and shaking breaths between her convulsive sobs, Hermione looked around the almost completely dark room. The familiarity should have comforted her, but the images still flashed in front of her. Without really thinking, she leapt to her feet and flung her arms around Ron.
"Oh god, they...and they...just like before." She started to cry for real now, tears pouring down her cheeks. "Oh my god..."
Ron was quite taken aback by the prefect flinging herself at him, but not in a completely bad way. He had no idea what was wrong, but he just held on to her and comforted her.
"Who did what?" he asked, voice low and soothing. "you can tell me, it's alright."
"I can't!" she sobbed. "They were going to kill me, they wanted to kill me..."
He shushed her and let her cry her tears until there were no more left to cry.
*****
That was for all the R/H shippers out there. :-) And once again, I'd like to apologize majorly for the delay in updating! Argh, my disk deleted loads of work for the sake of it, then I have even MORE exams up...I'd go insane if I wasn't already! Anyways, enough excuses. Please review and tell me what you think! Toodles.
Disclaimer: Lives in the previous chapters!
Dedication: All my reviewers and Silvermoon (Hello, I am Professor Alan Rickman, and I shall be taking you for Potions for the next year!). Also to Shelley annd Craig for the new arrival (can't wait to see her!). And, of course, my other friend Rainbow Dreamer- welcome to fanfiction.net!
Harry Potter and the Crystal of Dreams.
The sunshine poring through the latticed windows highlighted every dust mote floating around in the History of Magic classroom. It made Professor Binns droning seem even more lengthy and boring.
Ron frowned in deep thought at the parchment in front of him beofre slowly lowering his quill to it and making an X mark on the nearly full grid. He slid it along to Harry next to him. Harry grinned and quickly drew a O- signalling his victory for the fiftieth time in a row. Ron groaned, not bothering to keep his noise low, and earned himself a reproaching glance from Hermione on his other side.
"Is it me, or does this get more boring every year?" he asked. Harry snorted in laughter and even Hermione cracked a tiny smile, although she tried to hide it. Shannon, however, kept her watch out of the window. Something she'd been doing for the past half hour.
Ron leaned over Hermione towards her. "You know, Shannon, you'd better point out whatever it is you find so interesting, because we sure as hell could do with some stimulation."
Shannon started and whirled around quickly in her seat. Her eyes were wide and almost guilty, as if she'd just pulled a prank- except much more so. "I didn't do it." she stated, then blinked as his words started to make more sense. "Sorry. What?"
"What's up Shannon?" Harry asked as Ron rolled his eyes at Shannon's answer. "You've been staring out of that window for just about the whole lesson."
Shannon paused for a second, blinked, then shook her head with a small smile. "Like I'm supposed to be listening?" She gestured slightly towards Professor Binns at the front of the room. The ancient ghost was droning on about some battle between vampires and hags in the twelth century. This comment alerted Hermione, the only one of the quartet who seemed to be at least half listening to the lesson.
"It might not be the most interesting of lessons, but how're you going to do the homework if you don't listen?" she whispered. This was met by three blank pairs of eyes.
"Do. Home...work?" Shannon asked, pretending to be confused by the concept, thus earning a supressed laugh from both of the boys as well as a frown from Hermione.
"Come of it Herm," Ron said to the girl next to him. "What's an essay on this going to be entitled? Bloodsucking leeches versus crumbling old women?"
"I was leaning more towards 'Murderous monsters and Children-eating old bats' myself." Harry remarked. Hermione rolled her eyes irratatedly as Ron and Shannon grinned.
"You may not think that this is important, but what about when the exams come around?" Hermione demanded. Shannon attempted to supress a genuine yawn and failed.
Harry looked closely at her. Her eyes had lost some of their sparkle, and were heavily undershadowed with purple-blue and lines of tiredness. He knew he didn't look too great himself, and the other two also appeared a little worn-out, but Shannon the most so. She yawned a second time, then caught his eye and smiled.
"'Scuse me," she said. "Must be all that late revision I'm doing."
"But your O.W.L. notes have hardly been touched!" Hermione protested confusedly. Shannon stared at her blankly.
"Who said I was revising O.W.L. work? Nah, I've got much more important work to do."
"Yeah, Hermione," said Ron, somewhere between pretend outrage and mock-exasperation. "She's planning on blowing up Trelawney's tower next week! How can you expect her to revise schoolwork now?"
"Exactly," said Shannon, giving Ron a smile and a nod. Then her face went blank again. "No! Not yet, anyways- first things first. Cornish pixies loose in Potions tomorrow."
The boys laughed, but Hermione was, as usual, much more serious about it.
"The way you're going, you'll probably get expelled by the end of the year!" she said despairingly. Shannon shook her head.
"Nah, they wouldn't do that. With Fred and George leaving this year, they need me to liven the place up a little!"
Hermione would have replied but the bell sounded then for the end of the lesson. The triumphant fifth years stampeeded out into the corridor, hardly bothering to pay attention to the homework essay on the lesson that Binns was explaining, oblivious that he was the only one listening. Everyone began to head off into the direction of the Hall, except Shannon.
"Where are you off to, Shan?" Harry called. "The Hall's this way!"
She turned back, eyes a little too wide for normal. She met managed to meet Harry's gaze and eventually smiled.
"Ah, not hungry. As I said, revision. I'll meet up with you guys in Care of Magical Creatures, OK? We'll see what monstrousities Hagrid's cooked up now for us, eh?" She didn't wait for a reply, but headed off down the corridor at such a fast pace that she nearly collided with some first years headed for lunch. The original trio set off as well.
"I'm a little worried about her." Hermione remarked as they served themselves with casserole.
"Who?" Ron managed to question through a mouthful of food. Hermione raised an eyebrow but it was Harry who came back with the reply.
"Short Irish girl by the name of Shannon Parks, ring any bells?"
"How come?" Ron asked, frowning slightly.
Hermione hesitated. "Let's say that I don't think she's been getting much sleep lately. Or at least, she keeps waking up."
"How'd you know?" Harry asked.
"I couldn't sleep the other night, so I was reading in bed." She squirmed slightly. "I know I shouldn't because of the O.W.L.s only being a little way off, but..."
"Get to the point, Hermi." Ron said, although not unpleasantly.
"Well, anyway. I was reading, and it must have been about two in the morning, when I heard Shannon start to toss and turn. This went on for about five minutes, then she screamed and woke up. It was so loud that I'm surprised Parvati and Lavender didn't wake up."
"Told you she had a right pair of lungs on her." Ron remarked, shovelling more casserole into his mouth.
Harry shrugged. "Maybe she had a bad dream or something." He didn't want to say that he had been experiencing nightmares about his parents. Terribly vivid dreams that racked him with inexpressible guilt and a fear of falling asleep in case he had to see them again.
"But it wasn't just a one-off. It's happened before, quite a few times, but I didn't say anything till now." The prefect shook her head. "Maybe we should talk to her. If she suffers from nightmares, there's things Madam Pomfrey can give her. A sleeping draught or something."
"Hey, if she wants to say anything to us, I'm sure she will." Ron said, helping himself to seconds.
"I don't know," Hermione said, still concerned. "I'm not sure she would."
"We'll go catch up with her in the library later on then," Harry suggested. The conversation died for a few minutes until the boys began to discuss Quidditch and Hermione chose to re-read her Charms O.W.L. notes.
*****
The common room looked so strange when it was empty at lunchtimes. Shannon glanced around it as she passed through and made her way up to her dormitory. As soon as she pushed open the door, Tiah opened one eye from where she dozed on the sunny windowledge and mewed in greeting. Shannon pressed a finger to her lips at the Kneazle and crossed over to her four poster. She crashed on it, face buried in the pillow.
She nearly cried then, but managed to hold it in. She didn't deserve to cry- that's why she never had. A few deep breaths, a swallow, and then Shannon sat up, lips pressed tightly together. She reached over to the bedside cabinet and roughly pulled open the drawer, reaching in and removing her small dark purple book, a quill and a half-full bottle of red ink. She sniffed slightly, flipped to where her last entry ended and began to write in what had happened the night before.
'I see her face so clearly sometimes. Sometimes I don't. I feel so bad because, every time, I don't want to see her, to hear her, to stand close to her. Because it's hard, very hard, to do that. It's my fault, and I feel so guilty. But I deserve it...'
*****
The fifth years were having another difficult lesson with some of Hagrid's new creations. After the Pyroxes turned cannibal and eliminated themselves, he had chosen to breed 'safer' creatures, thereby creating a mean-tempered cross between a Crup and a Tebo. Only Hagrid could find three-foot high, fat monsters with stumpy hooves, eight inch tusks protruding from a dog's snout and wart-covered ash-coloured hide adorable. The fifth years were at the end of their tether-
AND it was only ten minutes into the lesson.
Hagrid sidled over to where Harry, Hermione and Ron were attempting to avoid the choas yet look involved. His brow was somewhat furrowed in thought.
"Had a quick count up," he said. "Think one's missin'. Where's Shannon?"
"Here I am!"
They all turned around to see Shannon, slightly red in the face from running from whever she had been. She pulled an apologetic face to Hagrid. "Sorry I'm late."
"S'okay Shannon, s'long as yer here now." He gestured to the creatures, which were running rampant admist the class. "Cute, aren't they?"
Shannon's eyebrows looked in danger of disappearing over her hairline. "Er...yeah."
When Hagrid turned away, Ron muttered, "Yeah, we're having the time of our lives here."
Shannon laughed in reply as she took up some of the Flobberworm lavae they had to try to get the creatures to eat.
"Where were you?" Hermione asked. "We dropped by the library, but you weren't in there."
Shannon looked at her and paused. "Uh...ill. I wasn't feeling too good, so I decided to go back to the dorm to rest."
"Why not see Madam Pomfrey?"
"Probably just 'girlie problems'." Shannon replied, using her fingers for the airquotes. "She'd want to keep me in for three months or something."
The subject was promptly dropped.
It was a good five or ten minutes before Harry decided to ask Shannon something away from the others.
"Are you sure you're all right?" he murmured to her as they picked out frog brains from one of the huge barrels of possible food types. She raised an eyebrow.
"Why wouldn't I be?" She sounded a little too defensive, even to her own ears.
Harry shrugged, trying to keep casual. "You just seem pretty tired, you know. Exhausted."
"O.W.L. stress." She shrugged as well. "After the exams, I'll be fine."
She left then, attempting to grab a passing crup/tebo cross, leaving Harry alone and still in the dark.
*****
As soon as Hermione's heavy eyelids had dropped that night, she found herself standing on the wet concrete of a school playground. She glanced confusedly around and then, as her bearings improved, the old fear slowly set in.
Oh god, she thought, I hoped I'd never see this place again.
The building that was Heath Park Primary School for Girls loomed over to one side of her. Her old school. Her old prison of pain, of torment for her seven years there.
"Hey Granger!"
Hermione's complete body froze like she was a marble statue. Of course, the prison wouldn't be complete without the guards.
Louise Bardot and Erica Lambert had advanced into her view, sadistically evil smiles on their eleven-year-old faces. Hermione blankly registered in some distant chamber of her numb mind that she herself seemed to feel smaller; weaker. She too was eleven. The bullies sniggered at her obvious fright as they halted inches from her.
"We heard you got another set of full marks in the tests last week." Louise said silkily. There was a deadly pause and suddenly she lashed out, the sharp nails of her right hand scraping at the flesh of Hermione's cheek. Hermione tried to scream, but her voice couldn't be found.
"Teacher's pet." Erica added. "Stuck-up little cow!"
She punched Hermione so hard in the shoulder that she was knocked over, hitting the floor with a horribly jarring thud that sent shock waves up and down her outstretched hands and arms. Hermione tried to cower, to make her attackers pity her helplessness. Instead, they crowed with delight and moved in for the kill, with suddenly many more as back up, crowding to help hurt her. Classmates. Girls from all years, people she recognised, people she didn't. Everyone and anyone who hated her.
Blows rained down upon her, bruising her arms, slashing her legs. Her hair was yanked around so roughly that her neck bones clicked unevenly and her vision swam in a nauseating dizziness. She couldn't scream as she was beaten; couldn't call for help as she bled.
Just how it used to be before Hogwarts, except that then her voice, when she allowed herself to scream, could be found.
And the worst thing was, her eyes wouldn't shut to let her attempt to try to ignore it. As much as she willed it, she couldn't not see the glow of malicious, feral glee in their eyes as they advanced.
Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and a familiar voice calling her name.
"Hermione? Hermione!"
It was only then that she could phsyically look away. She sat bolt up right suddenly, shaking and gasping and sobbing...
To find herself sitting in the empty common room with her Transfiguration essays strewn across the table in fron of her and Ron standing beside her, a hand on her shoulder and a concerned expression on his face.
"Hermione? What's wrong? You fell asleep so I woke you up. It's half one in the morning."
Taking deep and shaking breaths between her convulsive sobs, Hermione looked around the almost completely dark room. The familiarity should have comforted her, but the images still flashed in front of her. Without really thinking, she leapt to her feet and flung her arms around Ron.
"Oh god, they...and they...just like before." She started to cry for real now, tears pouring down her cheeks. "Oh my god..."
Ron was quite taken aback by the prefect flinging herself at him, but not in a completely bad way. He had no idea what was wrong, but he just held on to her and comforted her.
"Who did what?" he asked, voice low and soothing. "you can tell me, it's alright."
"I can't!" she sobbed. "They were going to kill me, they wanted to kill me..."
He shushed her and let her cry her tears until there were no more left to cry.
*****
That was for all the R/H shippers out there. :-) And once again, I'd like to apologize majorly for the delay in updating! Argh, my disk deleted loads of work for the sake of it, then I have even MORE exams up...I'd go insane if I wasn't already! Anyways, enough excuses. Please review and tell me what you think! Toodles.