A/N: Hey you guys! Thank you guys so, so much for reviewing my first chapter, you have no idea what it means to me! Well, I take it you guys liked the first chapter, so here you go, number two for you. Just to let you guys know, Hermione's going to be having flashbacks of their relationship throughout the story, so you'll get the full story eventually. This first part of the chapter is just about when they broke up, so…don't worry! You'll get the full story! Hope you guys like this one!

Lauren

Disclaimer: no no no, I am NOT JK! Haha, not like I could ever convince anyone that I was…

Chapter Two

Breaking the Girl

It was May, almost the end of their fifth year at Hogwarts. Hermione and Ron had been dating for six months. Everything seemed to be going fine, and everyone seemed to be perfectly happy. Well, except for Hermione. And the thing was, she didn't know why. I mean, if you had Ron for a boyfriend, you'd be absolutely thrilled, right? He was a great guy, undoubtedly. But for some reason… Maybe it was that, as Ron had gotten older and, in turn, even taller and increasingly attractive, the other girls had started flocking to him like bees to pollen or bears to honey. Maybe it was that, what with this happening, he seemed to have lost whatever shyness that had encompassed him before, making it seem as though he actually enjoyed—or even flourished in—all this new attention. Maybe it was the inevitable and overbearing jealousy that completely washed over her every time she saw him with another girl, be it in a deep conversation with Lavender or a simple hello with Padma. Or maybe it was that, no matter how hard she looked, he never gave her any sort of sign that told her that being with her really ever meant anything to him.

Sure, occasionally, he would hug her, and every so often, he would hold her in his arms, but times like those were rare. Extremely rare. They had started spending less and less time together. She began to feel neglected, unappreciated, and unwanted. And the fact that he could make her jealous only made her become angry. The only thing she knew to do was, well, to separate herself from him. Of course, she would realize later that the logical thing would have been to have talked to him about it first, tried to resolve it, but at the time, all she could think of was the pain. It had been hurting her so badly that often times she ended up angry with herself, for not being pretty or funny or interesting enough. And she couldn't really take any more of it.

Which is why she simply…let go.

But right now, sitting there on the grass in Ron's arms, the last thing she wanted to do was let go. She took a deep breath and shook the memory from her thoughts, at least for the time being. Besides, they were friends now, and that's all that mattered. No matter how bad the past had been, right now, she had him on her side, and the thought of that comforted her.

After a few more minutes of silence, Ron noticed that the shadow of the school had encompassed them, and that it would soon be nightfall. He cleared his throat pointedly and lightly tapped her shoulder. She lifted her head and looked up at Ron. Oh, those wonderful eyes… she couldn't help but think as he spoke to her.

"It's getting dark…we should head back inside. Harry's probably wondering where we are by now, it's been a couple hours."

Hermione nodded in agreement, silently cursing the sun for setting, and got herself back on her feet. After Ron stood up beside her, they headed back toward the castle.

It must have been quite amusing, watching the two of them head back to the castle side by side, as Ron practically towered over her now. Though they once were near the same height, over the years he had grown considerably more than she had; he was now nearing six foot three, and she was at a disappointing (in her eyes) five foot two. Being so, standing next to him, she reached to about his shoulder. Harry, on the other hand, had grown to about the average male height of five foot ten. But, regardless of how noticeably shorter Harry was than Ron, he wasn't the one that got all of the ridiculous teasing.

The two of them entered the entrance hall, where they immediately heard the bantering of a certain couple coming down the hallway. Ron stopped Hermione and moved her up against the wall so they could eavesdrop without being noticed.

"But I really think that Romeo should have waited just a little longer—just a little! —before he you know, offed himself like that. I mean, come on, she woke up literally two seconds later, they could have been happy together!!" she declared, making wild gestures with her hands. It was rare indeed to see Ginny speaking so fervently about anything, since she had always been the quiet type, but as she had gotten older, she had started acting a little more confident in her opinions.

"Yeah, but as great as all that sounds, it's not the point of the story! There's no way they could have truly been happy if they had lived, because even though they would have had each other, they would have never been able to lead normal lives! I mean, their families absolutely hated each other, and you can't really…*sigh* it was just fate, Ginny, that's what it was. They died, but they died together, and they died loving each other. Can't you just accept that?" he said, with a hint of pink frustration showing in his cheeks. He was beginning to wonder if introducing Ginny to muggle literature had really been such a good idea. Ginny grumbled as they turned to go up the stairs, but something drew Ginny's attention to whatever was behind her. She turned around to find Ron and Hermione standing there, attempting to act as though they had been having a normal conversation the whole time. Of course, both of them hoped that it wouldn't come to anyone's attention that no one really ever has a normal conversation against a wall next to the door of the entrance hall.

Apparently, no one noticed.

"There you are! We've been wondering where you guys were," Ginny said happily. She wasn't the only happy one, Harry was glad she was distracted now.

"Yeah, where'd you go? One minute, we're all in the library, and the next…"

"Oh, you know, we just went for a walk and ended up hanging out in the grass by the lake, that's all," Ron replied, reaching down to sneak a little tickle attack by Hermione. Reading his mind (or perhaps anticipating his move), Hermione slid a foot away just in time, giving him a 'oh-no-you-don't' look, which in turn caused him to smile alluringly. Harry couldn't help but wonder if they really had broken up, for that chemistry between them was certainly still there. But then, before he could help it, the memory was coming back to him…

He would always remember that day. Well, it was the kind of day no one can ever forget. Much like your own birthday or Christmas, but in more of an apocalyptic sort of way. No one (besides Harry, but even he didn't truly know) knew it, but that day was like an apocalypse for Ron…

Hermione didn't know what she was doing. Her hands were shaking, and she felt a terrible aching in the pit of her stomach. It might have been her heart telling her that she was making a horrible mistake, but she was too busy listening to that damn logic in her head to notice. She fiddled with the folded paper in her hands, sighed, and quickly walked over to where he was sitting in the common room. He looked up at her with a smile.

"Hey Mione, how-"

"This is for you," she interrupted, placing the letter in his hand. Dean, Seamus and Neville all looked curiously at him, eyeing the note suspiciously, but remained silent. Without looking at his face, she turned to leave, accidentally catching Harry's eye out of the corner of her own as she walked away, which only made her feel worse. Regardless, she practically leapt up the stairs as fast as she could, anything to not be in the room when he read it.

Hermione slammed the door nervously behind her and plopped herself onto her bed. She tried to distract herself by doing the assigned reading for Potions the next day, but she couldn't, for the life of her, focus. Anything, do anything, just don't think about it… But she couldn't avoid that terrible feeling in her stomach. It felt like it was eating her alive. She tried to comfort herself by telling her heart that she had done the right thing, but it was unwilling to listen. It was too busy wishing Ron would come knock on the door…But he didn't, which Hermione reminded herself was for good reason.

She finally worried herself to sleep, only to have horrible dreams, and the thing she found herself longing for was, ironically, the comfort of Ron's arms. But sadly, all she had was her pillow, which was really of no comfort at all.

Now, breaking up with someone through letter is, of course, less than responsible, but to Hermione, it was the only way she would get to say what she felt without getting interrupted or overly emotional. Her nervousness was at times so unbearable, she would decide that it wasn't worth bringing up in the first place. This time though, she knew she had to do it. So she did what she had to do. And that was that.

And she spent everyday for three months after that convincing herself that she did the right thing.

Harry shook his head remorsefully, as it occurred to him that it really was true.

Okay, I know that was a little sad, but don't worry, that was the worst of it. Well, sort of. We're still going to see Ron's reaction and what he goes through, so…yeah, sad stuff. But hey, the present story s going to be happy and fun! It's only the flashbacks that are going to be sad. Well, mostly. Some of them are really funny or cute.

You know what? I'm gonna stop blabbering and just let you keep reading the story. Oh yeah, and review, you can do lots of that. (teeheehee…)