I never meant to…
Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me, unfortunately!!!
A/n: This is a story really close to home for me, so I'd be pleased if no one flamed, as its kind of well its based on what's happened to me, I was advised to do this by my psychotherapist and so I've used characters I like.
I'd also like to thank all the people who have reviewed and said such encouraging thing. This story is going to go on for quite a while as it's really hard to admit you have a problem, and a very tough process to go through to get back to normal again.
Now I have to thank Herbie and everyone else for there kind reviews.
Ron had seated himself in one of the comfiest chairs in the common room. He was waiting for Hermione to arrive back from her Christmas holidays. Those who had left were due to arrive any minute now, and Ron had a lot to talk about with her. The common room was completely empty apart for Ron; many Gryffindors were down in the Great Hall waiting for their friends to arrive, or in the case of Harry and Ginny down at the quidditch pitch.
Ron had chosen one of the chairs close to the fire, so he would be kept warm. It was the beginning of January and the snow from Christmas was still around and the cold frost that had occurred the night before was still in the air. There was an empty seat next to him; he was saving it for when Hermione arrived. He hoped to make her as comfortable as possible in order to allow her to open up more. He knew that she was still tense about talking to him about all of this. She only seemed to be able to open up in her letters, when ever he had pulled her to one side and brought up the subject, she had usually stuttered and changed the subject as quickly as possible. Another thing was worrying him though, she hadn't replied to his last letter, she normally wrote back as soon as it was possible, but he hadn't heard from her in days. There could be a good explanation for that, she might not have received the letter, but then surely the owl would have returned it back to him. Maybe, well maybe she didn't want to talk to him about it any more, maybe…
The sound of the portrait closing, brought Ron out of his thoughts, and caught his attention. He quickly swivelled around in his chair to face the opening of the common room.
"Hermione?" he whispered, loud enough for her to hear him. She turned her head quickly in the direction of his voice.
"Ron, what are you doing here? Why aren't you down at the quidditch pitch with Harry and Ginny?" she questioned.
"Oh well I think we need to talk, don't you? How come you never answered my last letter? You always reply as quickly as possible, what happened? Are you trying to ignore me now, did I say something in that letter that hit home?" Ron inquired as Hermione bowed her head and slowly began to walk to the vacant chair next to him.
"Look Ron, I'm sorry I didn't write back, but, well I had a lot of things going on in my head," she tried to explain.
"That's the problem though, you have so many thoughts going round in your head, and that doesn't help you. You keep them all bottled up, you don't share them!" he sighed in an exasperated voice.
"What do you mean?" Hermione's voice began to rise along with her anger. "I do tell you things, what do you think those letters contain that I send you? They contain my thoughts and feelings! I only send them to you, and I only tell you, I don't talk about this with other people. I don't know what your trying to get at, but I'm really not in the mood to listen to it today. I've had a horrible Christmas, and I thought that coming back here to be with my friends, then I'd be allowed to forget about it all. Obviously I was wrong!" Hermione finished her rant and got up to leave.
"Sit down Hermione!" Ron shouted as she began to walk away from him.
"I'm sorry what did you say?"
"I said sit down! We need to talk and I'm not going to let you walk away from this anymore"
"Ron, you can't tell me what to do! I told you I don't want to talk about anything at the moment, and especially not with you!" She turned on her heel and headed towards the staircase.
"Hermione don't you dare walk away from me" he shouted as he grabbed her wrist and swung her round to face him. "Look Hermione, we have to talk about this. Please just sit down!" He led her towards the two chairs next to the fire and made sure they were both comfortable.
"What do you want me to say Ron? Do you want me to sit here and pour my heart out to you?" she cried in explanation.
"I want you talk to me about it, instead of just writing down your feelings, surely it would be easier to say them."
"What if someone's listening though?" Her voice was wary as she turned her head round to look around the room in case there was somebody lurking in the shadows, or hidden behind a chair.
"Look, its just you and me, you can see that. There's no one here to listen into this conversation I promise you that."
"O.k., well I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to be telling you. Maybe I should start with the reason I didn't answer your letter yes?" Ron nodded his head in answer to her question. He sat quietly in front of her, giving her a piercing stare. Hermione took his nod as her cue to continue.
"I'm sorry about not replying I really am, but a lot of things have been going on since your last letter, and I didn't know how to explain them. Do you remember me telling you about the looks I had been getting off my cousin, well we had a long chat on Boxing Day." Ron once again nodded, his eyes still transfixed on her face. "Well she started talking to me about, well mainly the same thing you do. She was telling me what a healthy diet consisted of. You know the usual, carbohydrates, protein, fats, fibre, water, minerals and vitamins. Then she began to tell me what foods contained the components, and how my body needed a certain amount on the components to survive. Of course by then I new where she was going with the conversation, it was blatantly obvious. Then she asked me if there was anything I wished to tell her, in the strictest of confidence of course."
"What did you say? Did you tell her about any of this?" Ron asked immediately, breaking his silence, however he didn't remove his eyes from her face.
"What? Of course I didn't tell her anything, what a stupid question! She doesn't need to know anything, you only know because you guessed and kept going on about it in your letters." Her voice had risen at the beginning of her explanation, but had slowly come back t its normal level. She opened her mouth to continue her explanation, but was quickly cut off by Ron.
"Wait a minute, you told me because I had already guessed, and kept going on about it. Well isn't that exactly what your cousin has done? I mean she's obviously guessed, along with the rest of your family, and she wanted to talk about it, but you ignored the help once again!" His voice had begun to get louder, and this provoked Hermione's to do the same
"Look Ron, I don't need help, and I'm not pushing everyone away. I'm not pushing you away,"
"No, but you've tried to!" Ron interrupted.
"I don't think you know how hard it is to write how I feel, let alone talk about it. Its not easy this, you don't realise how hard I find it." By now tears had started to form in her eyes and were threatening to fall. Ron himself was finding it increasingly difficult to keep his feelings hidden. "You know it's not easy, I don't like what I'm doing, it's not fun, it's hard work. Do you really think I like lying to people about this? Lying is the only way I can achieve this, this aim. For Gods sake, I don't want to lie, but I have to!" By now tears were spilling out of her eyes, and tumbling down her cheeks. Ron could also feels his tears threatening to fall as well.
"Hermione, you don't have to lie," he tried to reason with her, but she quickly interrupted him.
"What do you mean I don't have to lie? Of course I do, do you really think that people would allow me to get away without eating for so long? It doesn't happen like that! People think they're helping and protecting you from it, but there not, they just make it worse. The reason I'm doing this Ron, as I've told you before, is that I think I'm fat. The only way I can lose weight is to stop eating. It's a simple idea and works extremely well. I could explain it all to you if you wish." She was beginning to get hysterical now, and Ron knew he needed to calm her down, but just didn't know how to. What could he say or do, to comfort her, and quieten her a bit.
"Look Hermione," he stopped to wipe away a few of the many hot tears running down her cheeks. "I don't think your fat, I can tell from where I'm sitting that you've lost a lot of weight over the holidays and …"
"What? How can you say that, do you really think I'm that stupid and gullible?"
"I don't know, you see that questions become a hard one to answer considering what you're doing to yourself."
"You know what, sarcasm is the lowest form of humour! To answer your question no I'm not stupid! I know what you're trying to do."
"Oh please tell me Hermione, please tell me what I'm trying to do to you"
"Your trying to make me feel thin, you're lying to me. Don't think I can't tell when someone lies to me. I've been doing enough of that myself, and I can tell when people are lying a mile away. I know your motive, you think that if you tell me that I'm thin enough times, then I may be gullible enough and start to believe what your saying. If I start to believe you then you hope that I'll give up on my aim to bet thin." Hermione had once again stood up, and was shouting down at Ron.
He was still sitting in his chair, his face showed utter disbelief. His eyes were wide open, and full of tears that had yet to fall. Hermione on the other hand was out of her chair looking down on him as she shouted. Her cheeks were red from shouting, as were her eyes. Though her eyes were red from the amount of tears that had fallen from them. The tears were still flowing down her cheeks, and her eyes would fill up with new ones as quickly as they would leave. As her outburst registered in Ron's mind, he too suddenly jumped out of his chair and onto his feet.
"You are so suspicious Hermione, why would I lie to you? I'm telling you that you're thin because it's the truth. You don't want to see it though. You've closed your eyes to what is reality and only open them to your imagination. You want to believe your fat because it gives you an excuse to carry on with his, with this eating disorder. Why can't you see it Hermione? Its took control of you, you can't control it anymore, instead it controls you! Please Hermione, I'm begging you, you need help, please get it!"
Hermione was crying harder than she had been, and quickly flung her arms around his neck. He wrapped his arms around her in return, and both stood there hugging each other. Neither said anything to each other, the only sounds that could be heard throughout the whole room were Hermione crying. Ron was grateful that she couldn't see his face as the tears that had been threatening to spill out for such a long time had finally done so, and were silently falling down his face.
A/n: Please read and review, please no flamers, I understand it may be bad, but as I said before really close to home. A teacher will get involved soon, but there are still quite a few chapters to come before that.