Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters. Also, the dialogue between the marks belongs to JK Rowling.

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Six

That summer was even more torturous than the previous ones. I spent the whole summer going through the events of the previous year, wondering what went wrong. Why did he accuse me of such things? What did I do to make him stop loving me? Where did I make a wrong turn and stride off the path? More importantly to me, was he feeling the same way?

Somehow, I felt that he wasn't regretting this at all.

I came back to school that year a bit sadder and wiser than the Hermione everyone else knew. I couldn't let it show, though. So I pretended nothing was wrong, and I wasn't bleeding inside.

I was quite bored with the year until Viktor Krum came to the school. A 17-year-old Quidditch player from Durmstrang, he was quite handsome, strong, and popular. You could barely get near him the first day because so many people were around him, trying to get his autograph – Ron included.

Ron, Harry, and some of the Weasleys had gone to the Quidditch World Cup that year, in which Krum had participated. Krum was Ron's idol, pretty much. Ron hoped to be a Quidditch player, but had a lot to live up to since he had so many older brothers who all had made great achievements. Charlie was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team when he was in school; Bill was a wonderful student, as was Percy (who had been Head Boy last year, much to Ron's discontent). Even though Fred and George goofed off all the time, they were still good students and were the Beaters on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. There wasn't really anything for Ron to do that hadn't already been done, unless he did everything at once.

Not only did he have competition with his brothers, but he always felt like he was one step behind Harry on the popularity issue. Everyone knew who Harry was, and Harry always had some exciting story to tell. He always felt like the uninteresting one, the one that everyone thought was fairly cool, but no Harry. Ron wanted to be like Krum so badly, because he wanted to be better at something than his brothers and his best friend.

To me, he was. But no one could know that.

"Did you see him? It's Viktor Krum. Can you believe it? Viktor Krum!" You could see the excitement in his eyes. I knew Ron was excited about this guy.

"Yes, Ronald, I saw him. Now, will you stop talking about him so much? Quite frankly, it's getting a little annoying," I said. Ron scowled at me.

Little did I know that Krum was going to get even greater involvement in my life.

Viktor had been invited to the Hogwarts along with the rest of his school, Durmstrang Academy, to participate in the Triwizard Tournament. The three schools – Hogwarts, Durmstrang, and Beauxbaton, the French Wizarding Academy – selected a representative from their school to compete in exciting games and fight for the Triwizard Cup. When the representatives were chosen, Krum was selected from his school, a Veela girl named Fleur Delacor was selected from Beauxbaton, and there were two representatives from Hogwarts – Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter.

As part of the tradition of the Triwizard Tournament, there was a Yule Ball, to be held on Christmas. I hadn't been expecting to get a date. I mean, me? Hermione Granger? Get a date? But I was surprised that it wasn't long before I was already taken.

Ron and Harry, however, had much more trouble than I did. Part of the problem was that they were too chicken to ask anyone. The other part of it, though, was that they had waited until the last minute, and everyone else was already taken. So when I walked into the room while Harry and Ron were discussing ideas for people to go with, all hell broke loose.

"Why weren't you at dinner?" I demanded.

"Because – oh, shut up laughing, you two – because they've both just been turned down by girls they asked to the ball!" Ginny blurted out.

"Thanks a bunch, Ginny," said Ron. I sort of felt bad for them, but there was nothing I could do. I was laughing internally at their change in behavior.

"All the good-looking ones taken, Ron? Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, isn't she? Well, I'm sure you'll find someone who'll have you," I said, suppressing a laugh.

"Hermione, Neville's right – you are a girl . . ." he murmured.

"Oh, well spotted," I retorted.

"Well, you can come with one of us!" Ron cried excitedly.

"No I can't!"

Ron sighed and said, "Oh, come on, we need partners, we're going to look really stupid if we haven't got any, everyone else has . . ."

I blushed, saying, "I can't come with you because I'm already going with someone else."

"No you're not! You just said that to get rid of Neville!"

"Oh, did I? Just because it's taken you three years to notice, Ron, doesn't mean no one else has spotted I'm a girl!" I said acidly.

He looked at me, smirking, and said, "Okay, okay, we know you're a girl. That do? Will you come now?"

"I've already told you! I'm going with someone else!"

With that, I stomped out of the room, absolutely enraged. How come he didn't believe me? After all, it was only last year that he had liked me. Was it so hard to believe that I got a date?

I spent the whole rest of the year arguing with Ron, pretty much. I noticed that his obsessions with Viktor went downhill from that day on. Once he saw me at the dance with him, he seemed to hate the guy. Matters only worsened when he accused me of "fraternizing with the enemy." Harry, of course, had no objection, but I was quite offended. I was not and had no intentions of fraternizing with the enemy. Besides, it had been a friendly school competition, and it was to induce brotherhood and all that stuff. Fraternizing with the enemy! Honestly!

The end of the year was devastating for all of us – that was the year that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was brought back to power, and Harry watched Cedric Diggory die at his feet. He won the Triwizard Tournament, but many people were mad at him and thought that it was his fault that Diggory was dead. Not to mention that when Harry told all the officials that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had risen again, they all thought he was crazy except for Dumbledore.

That summer, I spent some of it at home, but about half of it was spent at the Headquarters for the Order of the Phoenix with the Weasleys. It was fairly uneventful, but once Harry got back from the Dursleys, he was mad at all of us.

Our fifth year was fairly uneventful, in terms of Ron's and my relationship. We quarreled every so often, and I continued writing to Viktor (much to Ron's contempt).

At the end of the year, Sirius fell beyond the black veil. In other words, he died. It was a horrible end to the year. It was bad enough that Diggory had died last year, but we barely knew him. Sirius' death, on the other hand, was completely disturbing – we had known him for a couple years, and even though he was innocent, he had never been proclaimed a free man. That was probably what disturbed me the most.

My sixth year was absolutely and completely uneventful. It was like our fifth year – random quarrels here and there, but no real fun and nothing of importance or significance.

That summer, there was a huge change in me. I don't know what triggered it, but something changed. Ron had done nothing abnormal, nothing to show me that he still cared. And yet, here I was, almost four years after we had gotten together and broken up, and I did. I resolved that I had to do something.

Not only did I change emotionally – I changed physically as well. Up until then, I had been an average-looking girl. Nothing special, nothing to write home about. But suddenly, I . . . blossomed. Everywhere, all the changes that were supposed to be done and over by now were finishing up. Even my hair changed – it lost its puff, so it was still wavy, but not bushy. I was amazed by the changes that had been made, especially knowing that it was all natural.

With my new plan in action and the new me, I couldn't wait for my seventh year to begin.