Chapter Three: Falling In Love

Sairae was completely recovered by the last couple days of winter break. Ron had come to see her every day and was going to walk with her back to the Common Room. He was beginning to lose his heart to her. She was so beautiful and soft when she was close to completely healed. He held her hand down the halls. She was jumping inside. Ron Weasley was holding her hand. He watched her as she half-limped. The cut on her leg was scary. Ron remembered when he first got a glance at it. She had rolled over on the bed in the hospital wing and the covers weren't covering her inner left thigh and there it was. It was about seven inches long. Ron knew that's where she had to have lost a lot of blood from. He held her hand in her sleep whenever he was there with her. Harry would come in and see if Ron was ready for Quidditch practice and would almost catch his hand in hers. Luckily, Ron was quick and moved it, immediately. He didn't need Harry badgering him for liking the poor, little American girl.

"This weekend is a Hogsmeade visit. Would you want to go around with Harry, Hermione, and me?" Ron asked her. Sairae had a kind of sad look on her face.

"Brandt signed the paper, but he told me if I ever went there with a boy, well I just don't want to talk about it." Sairae explained.

'Poor girl,' Ron started to think to himself, 'she's so afraid of this man. He eats at her conscience. Maybe I should show her that everything will be okay.'

"Well, why don't you just come with us. If someone asks, you were with Hermione. She's a girl." Ron suggested. He gave a little grin when she nodded to this. He knew that she liked him so if he did ask her to be his girlfriend, he was pretty sure he'd get a 'yes.'

"That sounds like fun. I think I can do that." Sairae said to him.

In the Common Room, Harry watched as Ron kept an eagle eye watch on Sairae. Harry was amused at how totally smitten Ron was with this girl. If she got tired while walking Ron would make her sit down even though she didn't want to. She seemed to want to be independent, but enjoyed Ron's pampering too. Harry thought that maybe Ron just found his 'Hermione.'

"You guys don't mind that I, um, invited Sairae to go with us to Hogsmeade this weekend?" Ron asked Harry and Hermione. They saw Sairae's face light up at the idea of going with someone.

"Oh, no, not a problem at all. We'll be glad to have her." Hermione said with complete sincerity.

They were all in their snow gear because of the weather when they left for Hogsmeade. Harry and Hermione were holding hands and walking a little ways in front of Ron and Sairae.

"I was wondering something." Ron said to Sairae.

"Yeah?" Sairae asked him.

"I was wondering if you'd want to be my girlfriend?" Ron asked. He knew she was going to say yes, but he was still nervous.

"Yes, I want to be your girlfriend!" Sairae exclaimed loudly. Harry and Hermione looked back at them. They both seemed really happy.

"That's what they've wanted for awhile now. You can definitely tell." Hermione said to Harry as she kissed his cheek.

Ron took Sairae's hand and kissed it. He was smiling and his ears were going red. Sairae was so excited too as she began to chatter to everyone.

They bought sweets at Honeydukes and Ron got Sairae a butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. The day went by in a flash and soon it was time to go back to the castle.

When they got back to the Common Room, Sairae sat next to Ron with her head on his shoulder. Before long she started to drift into sleep because all the walking took a lot out of her. Ron watched as she struggled to stay awake.

"I think I should go to sleep. All that walking, and not being completely better are not working together." Sairae said as she headed off to the girls' dormitory. Ron looked after her and got up to follow when he looked towards Harry and Hermione. Since they were Head Boy and Head Girl, they could give him permission to go into the girls' dormitory.

"Oh, go lover boy." Hermione said with a giggle. She watched as Ron ran up the steps behind her.

"Where you going without me?" Ron said to her with his big dopey grin.

"Well we're heading off to the Heads' Quarters. You have a good night!" Harry shouted up to Ron. Ron just waved down to them.

"And Ronald Weasley, don't you dare be in there too long!" Hermione yelled before Harry shoved her out the portrait hole.

In her room, (everyone got separate rooms their seventh year), Ron looked at her from the doorway. She was sitting on the bed holding the knife cut on her leg. Ron went to her when he saw the first tear drop. She was crying hard when he held her.

"It hurts so much. I can't stop all the pain I feel and it's not even from the cut it's from this feeling inside of me." Sairae sobbed into Ron's chest.

"I know. It's not that hard to understand. The cut was given to you in a horrible manner. Not that a knife cut itself isn't horrible, but what I'm saying is that because you received it under those circumstances it makes you more emotionally in pain." Ron said sounding so matter-of-a-fact about the subject that Sairae had to look up at him and wonder. How could he know how she felt?

Ron looked down at her and she tilted his face up to him. Ron lowered his lips and put his hands on her hips. His lips brushed hers lightly and then he kissed them. It started out soft and sweet until her lips parted and he slipped his tongue inside her mouth and caressed her tongue with his.

'No not again. You can't take me again. I don't want this again. It hurts and I don't want this again.' Sairae thought and then tensed and backed away. Ron stopped. He looked at her. He felt like an ass. Of course she wasn't going to be able to get through something like that.

"I'm so sorry. I just can't escape it." Sairae apologized.

"No it's okay. I should have thought." Ron said to her, he stood to leave. "Well I'll go to my room now."

"No don't leave. It sucks to be alone." She told him. He sat back down. Sairae took his hand in hers and directed him to lay next to her. Maybe he could keep the dreams away.

'Hermione is going to kill me.' Ron thought to himself as Sairae drifted asleep in his arms. He watched her for about an hour and then fell asleep himself.

"Ronald Weasley! I told you not too late and you go and spend the night in her room! I'm not trusting you again!" Hermione screamed at him.

"Hermione, she didn't want me to leave. She said she couldn't sleep that she had nightmares about it and that maybe I could help her chase them away. I swear nothing else went on." Ron explained to her.

"Nothing else better have gone on. I swear I find that something has and I will have that dorm shut to you so fast that you won't even be able to say Alohomora before I do it." Hermione told him sternly. She wouldn't be the first Head Girl in a thousand years have a problem under her watch. She needed to get through this year as smoothly as possible she was not giving either of her friends leeway to mess it up. 'Well maybe she let Harry have some leeway whenever they weren't too tired and she was up to having fun, but they couldn't get caught in the Heads' Quarters.'

"I swear Hermione. I won't get in trouble on your watch." Ron assured her with a smirk.

"Ron, just please if you do take it upon yourself to do something, take all precautions with everything." Hermione told him. Of course she meant a silent charm, lock charm, contraceptive charm, and anything else he could possibly think of. Not that Ron was expecting to do anything with Sairae he just wanted to irk Hermione.

"I promise Hermione. Everything I swear." Ron said to her seriously.

Hermione just nodded. Harry watched the whole scene play out and laughed. His girlfriend and best friend were fighting over her ability to take control and want to keep a perfect reputation. 'Little does Ron know how tattered her good girl image would be if what happened in our dorm was told to someone.'

Later that night Harry and Hermione were laying in their bed together.

"I know Ron's going to be tempted into trouble, Harry, I just know it." Hermione said the exasperation in her voice apparent.

"Trust him. Ron's a good guy and he won't let you or Sairae get into trouble. I know him enough to know that." Harry said as he kissed her lightly on the lips. He parted his lips and she let her tongue devour his mouth. He did the same. Soon their passionate kiss was turning into Harry's hand up Hermione's shirt making her moan.

"Oh, Harry, more." Hermione said as she pulled off his pants. Harry grabbed at her undergarment and threw it over at the other side of the bed. He eased himself inside of her and then slowly thrust in and out. Hermione nibbled at his ear as she moaned and called out his name.

When they both released, they rolled over and laid with one another.

"And you give Ron a hard time about this." Harry said as she lightly punched him on the arm.

"I trust us, I don't trust him because he's going to be the hero this time. He needs to be. He's always one step behind you and now that he can save someone on his own he wants to make sure he gets the girl in the end. He'll do the very same things that you do with me just so he can be ahead for just some while on his own. He doesn't really care for this girl. I mean look at her, she does have American damsel in distress written all over her." Hermione explained to him.

"Mione that is so mean of you to say. How can you say something like that about the poor girl? Did you not see her that day in the Common Room?" Harry said. He was getting mad at his girlfriend for being so insensitive about this. She never could figure out feelings from books.

"I'm sorry, Harry, you're so right. I should have so much more compassion. She did look like hell when she was there that day." Hermione answered him.

"Sairae, where are you going?" Ron asked. It was two days after they first started sleeping in each other's beds for her nightmares.

"I got a letter this morning. I have to go home because my step father demands it. Dumbledore says I must go. I don't want to and I don't know when I will be back, but I have to go." Sairae said as she began to cry silently.
"No you're not going! I won't let you. I don't want him to hurt you again. I don't want it!" Ron screamed at her. He went to her and he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Ron, I can't just stop taking the abuse because you're in my life." Sairae cried to him. She was just so upset that she upset Ron. He looked at her when she said 'just stop taking the abuse.' She was right. She couldn't make her life worse just because he didn't want her to get hurt. She had been doing this for so long that she knew that if she fought back he would just make it worse on her.

"What does he do to you? You've never quite told me. You've told me that he beats you, but for some reason you keep leaving out the fact that he raped you." Ron said matter-of-factly.

"How…how do you know about that?" Sairae stuttered.

"Well to be honest with you, when we brought you up to the Infirmary you told me some crock about your chores. So I went back to the Common Room and seen that you left your diary there. I read it. I stopped at the entry where he first raped you." Ron said the last part really fast because it made him so sick on the inside.

"YOU READ MY DIARY!!" Sairae yelled at him. She was so angry at him. He read her personal thoughts, problems, and feelings. 'Oi, he read about how I liked him so much. This is not good. I have to get out of here.'

"Yes, I did. And from the looks of it, I don't think I should have. I'm sorry if that upsets you, but I wanted to know about you and why you were laying on the Common Room floor like someone killed you." Ron explained to her calmly.

"Whatever. I have to go. I'll see you whenever." Sairae said picking up her luggage, turning on her heel, and leaving.

Ron stared after her. He couldn't help but feel like whatever happens now it was his fault for being a jerk.