Chapter Five- Confessions
"W-what? How did you get past the staircase?" Hermione shrank away from the door as Ginny pushed it open. Standing there with her, all of them looking grim was Harry and Ron. Her insides coiled into hot ash.
"Hermione, you've got to tell someone. I know you're scared right now and you're not thinking properly." Harry said firmly.
"Let's go to McGonagall," Ginny said, looking at Harry. "Hermione, we must."
She stared at them, her eyes full of fear. She turned to Ron, who was still in the doorway, his face inscrutable.
Before she had levitated them up the staircase, when Ginny had ran down and told them what had happened, he thought he might die of rage. He couldn't remember ever having been so angry before; enraged to the point that it was painful. It was his greatest instinct to leave Gryffindor tower, find Malfoy and kill him. It didn't matter if he got expelled, didn't matter if he got life in Azkaban just as long as he had a guarantee that Malfoy could never touch her again. But Harry and Ginny had each seized an arm before he could make it out the portrait hole and forced him to sit and listen. Ginny told him that the reason he couldn't leave was because it was Hermione that needed him here, now.
It was for this reason he gave her a look of understanding and nodded his head yes.
"Alright," she said slowly. "Let's go."
The four of them left the girls dormitory and headed for Professor McGonagall's quarters. They knocked on the door and she appeared in her tartan robes.
"Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, Miss Weasley. What are you all doing here?"
"We have something to tell you, Professor. Hermione's been accosted by Malfoy."
Professor McGonagall raised her eyebrows. "Very well. Come inside, Miss Granger."
"Can't they come too, please, Professor?" Hermione said meekly
"Were they there when it happened?"
"No."
"I'm sorry than, back to the tower with you. Except you, Mr. Weasley. I need to speak with you about your prefect duties." She said goodnight to a reluctant Harry and Ginny as she let Ron and Hermione into her quarters. Although Ron was happy to be able to stay, he was surprised to be singled out. "Now, sit down, you two, and tell me what's this all about."
Hermione seemed to have lost her voice. They sat down on a couch and Professor McGonagall in a chair. After some prompting, she began to recount her story. It was difficult for Ron to hear, but even more difficult to watch. He had never seen her in such a state. She seemed ashamed, although he didn't know why. She sat with her legs together with her arms folded across her body, and she stared down at her knees as she spoke. McGonagall looked on, clearly concerned. By the time she was finished, she was in tears again.
The head of Gryffindor looked on with compassion. "I'm glad you told me this, Miss Granger. Why don't you go back to your dormitory and get some sleep. If you'd like, you can go to Madam Pomfrey for a sleeping potion. I am going to see Professor Snape." She stood and sent them on their way, even forgetting to tell off Ron. "Come and see me before your first class tomorrow morning," she called out to them.
On the way back to their dorms, Hermione didn't have much to say. Ron tried to be helpful. "Do you want to go see Madam Pomfrey?" he asked carefully. "Or do you think you'll be able to sleep?"
"I'd rather not...they always make me feel groggy in the morning." She had felt a little humiliated now that practically everyone knew what happened to her. She could almost do with a sleeping potion although she did loath to take them. "I think I'd just like to like down."
"Hermione...I wanted to say...I'm sorry that happened to you. I should have been there. And tomorrow I will be, I won't let you out of my sight." He stopped there, hoping he hadn't gone too far.
"Oh, don't think of it too much Ron," she started. "It's something I'd like to forget altogether. Besides, we can't let it get in the way of our school work or our prefect duties."
Ron smiled because it was such a Hermione-like thing to say. "Right," he said as they arrived at the portrait hole.
For some reason, Ron was suddenly stricken with a memory from the beginning of their first year, shortly after he first met her. He hoped they wouldn't get sorted into the same house. Now he grinned inwardly at how happy he was that they did. They shared the small intimacy of walking through the same portrait hole. And he was so glad that they could share this tonight, for if they had been in different houses, this would be the time when he would have to say goodbye.
He breathed a sigh of relief that it was not so. Something about sleeping under the same roof was comforting to him. He spoke the password and they entered the common room. "Will you be all right?"
At this she had to stop and think. Normally, she would give an automatic answer, 'yes, I'll be fine,' but this was Ron, and for reasons unknown to her, she felt compelled to disclose to him the real truth. But what was it?
"I think I'll be all right." This had never happened to her before, so even through she felt all right now, she didn't know what would happen when she went to lie down. She supposed Ginny would be waiting up for her. She looked up at him, and they made eye contact.
"W-Well if you'd like, I can stay down here in the common room, so if you should need me, you won't have to worry about bothering the other lads." He'd had no idea why he said that. He stammered be cause he'd got the immediate feel of a deer caught in the headlights...warm, brown headlights. (Not that he'd encountered many deer in the flying Ford.)
"Oh, Ron, you don't have to do that, you can go sleep in a proper bed."
"No, it's all right. I don't mind. In fact, I think I will anyway. The fire is still going. Go on, go upstairs and get some rest. I'll be here if, ah, you know." God, did he feel foolish now. But judging by the look in her eye, that might have gone ok. He smiled lightly as she said goodnight and he watched her ascend the staircase. He flopped down on a couch by the fire and gazed into the flames, sleep nowhere near him.
AN- Review, please. Make some smiles for me.