Five

After that day at Hogsmeade, I thought I was all set – all I had to do was keep it a secret from Harry and Ron and I were golden.

You cannot possibly imagine how wrong we were.

It was so weird – all of a sudden, Ron and I started fighting constantly. He kept blaming poor Crookshanks, my cat, for chasing away his stupid rat, Scabbers. I mean, I know that he's a cat and it's his nature and everything, but it's not like he can help it! I preferred for the insolent little beast to be out of my sight, anyways. It was absolutely disgusting and grimy, and it looked as though it had been through way too much. It had been in Ron's family for twelve years, and had belonged to many of the Weasley children before it had been passed down to him. It was an unusually long life for a common sewer rat, so I had no idea how it had lived that long. It was also missing a toe, which for some reason creeped me out. I had a strong feeling that Crookshanks was doing Scabbers a favor by putting him out of his misery.

Wait, what am I saying? Crookshanks did nothing to the filthy creature!

Anyways, the rest of the year, we were bickering over our pets, and being way too defensive. At least, Ron was.

Of course, besides the whole problem with our pets, Sirius Black was still at large. The murderous man had escaped from Azkaban somehow, and he was headed towards Hogwarts to find Harry. The dementors, the guards of Azkaban, were stationed around every entrance to the school. Therefore, it was impossible to get outside with Ron for a midnight walk or something, or even just to find somewhere to talk to him.

And on top of that, we were all worried about Harry. It was terrifying to think that his killer could be right outside the doors of the castle, waiting in the Forbidden Forest for him to stupidly make a wrong turn. And Ron seemed to notice my concern, and even take it as something else.

He took me by the arm one day and dragged me into an empty classroom. "Hermione, what is going on with you?" he asked sharply.

"Me? What about you? Suddenly, every kind thing I say to Harry you take it the wrong way. Actually, any time I talk about another guy, you take it the wrong way. I had thought I was set for life. But now I'm not so sure. This is proving to be much more difficult than we anticipated," I said.

Ron sighed and looked at the ground, defeated. "Maybe this wasn't what we thought it was," he whispered.

"Maybe we weren't ready," I whispered back.

"Maybe we should . . ." he trailed off.

"Break up," we said in unison.

We both looked up at each other. Only moments ago, I had been hoping he was taking me in here to kiss him. Now I was looking up at my ex-boyfriend. And for some odd reason, I felt as though a huge weight had been lifted off my chest, and yet replaced by a new one – a familiar one.

So I stood there with him, in that empty classroom, and wondered, "Where did the magic go?"

That same night, we ventured out to the grounds and watched the execution of Buckbeak, the beloved Hippogriff whom we had grown to love. As I watched the executioner raise his axe, my eyes filled with tears. I kept them open long enough to see it come down, and to see the birds around him scatter.

"Buckbeak," I murmured, wrapping my arms around Ron's neck and crying into his shoulder. He stood there, watching where the beast had stood, not blinking. Harry put a hand on my arm to calm me down.

"Scabbers!" Ron suddenly hissed. I let go of him, and he took the rat from his pocket. He was squirming madly, and in a second, he had bit Ron's hand and ran off.

"He bit me!" Ron cried. "Scabbers, come back! It's alright, you stupid rat!" He ran off after him, straight over to the Whomping Willow.

And so began the historic night when we found Sirius Black, discovered Professor Lupin's secret, and let Peter Pettigrew escape. In addition, Harry and I went back in time, saved Buckbeak and Sirius, and let them go free.

After all of that excitement, regular life seemed quite boring and uneventful. All of our cuts and bruises, and in Ron's case, his broken leg, were healed, and we returned to work for the remainder of the year. Gryffindor won the house cup in addition to the Quidditch Cup. If it hadn't been for the earlier events in the year, I would have been able to freely say that it was the best year I had ever had.

Saying good-bye was harder than ever that year. Harry's good-bye was fairly normal, except for the fact that he was a little disappointed that he would be going to live with the Dursleys instead of his rightful godfather, Sirius, who had asked him to stay with him after he was declared a free man.

"Sirius will be alright, Harry," I said quietly before he turned to leave.

He smiled weakly and replied, "Thanks for your help, Hermione. Once again, I couldn't have done it without you."

And with that, he turned and left.

I looked to Ron, who was slowly trying to close his trunk, his owl, Pigwidgeon, flying around his head. I could tell he was trying to stall for time before his mother called to him.

I approached him slowly, and he looked up at me.

"Well? Aren't you going to say good-bye to me?" I asked hopefully.

He sighed and said, "I'm sorry for everything that happened this year. I enjoyed it while it lasted, but I don't know what happened."

"Me neither," I replied, at an utter loss for words.

"Let's just . . . well, let's promise each other not to repeat the events of this year in any other way, shape or form." He extended his hand for me to shake it. I, however, was not going to shake his hand. I hugged him so closely that I was afraid I was going to suffocate him.

When we withdrew from each other, I softly kissed his cheek. "Good-bye, Ron," I said.

"Good-bye, Hermione."

For the third time, I watched him walk away with his family, his flaming red hair fading into the distance. I slowly began to recognize what I was feeling the night that we had broken up, that weight in my stomach that seemed fairly familiar. It was the same weight as I had felt before he had kissed me, the one that was taunting me, jeering at me, telling me that he was way out of reach and he would never feel the same way about me as I did him.

And this time, I knew the weight was not going to go away.