"Tell me what is going on between you and Malfoy!" Ronald demanded, walking briskly behind a rushing Hermione after dinner that night.

"I don't know what you are talking about!" came her short reply.

"Tell me!" he shouted thrusting himself forward and grabbing her wrist, "and don't lie to me!"

"Why should you care when there's nothing at all between myself and Draco Malfoy!"

"Hermione Granger!" he held her in place and rushed to corner her against the wall by the entrance to the Common Room, "tell me."

"Tell you what, Ronald? What do you want to hear?" she asked brokenly, "do you want to hear that my parents are dead and his father is the murderer? Or how about the fact that I'm an orphan and the only person who gets what I'm going through is my worst enemy? What do you want to hear?"

"Hermione, I…"

"You what, Ronald? You didn't know? That explains a lot, doesn't it, that's why your being such a pig! Or is there something else you're not telling me?"

His head went down as if he was staring at the ground and his hands that were on either side of her against the wall shook as his body shuddered.

"Hermione…I just…" he looked up her with tears falling from his eyes, "I just didn't want to lose you…"

"Ronald, lose me? You're the one who started the quarrel between us-."

"That's not what I meant, Hermione…"

"Ronald, what's the matter?"

"Hermione, I…" he cut off his own words by pressing his lips against hers, his hands coming from the walls to cup her face as tears poured from her eyes.

"Ronald," she whispered pulling away, "I…can't do this right now."

"Am I that bad?" he asked taking a step back.

"No, Ronald," she laughed choking on tears, "I just need to go up and get some sleep…I'll talk to you later?"

"Yeah," he said softly as if disappointed that she had said nothing more about his profession of love, "yeah, go rest."

She smiled and nodded and led him into the Common Room where they parted ways, a confused Ron and an almost relieved Hermione.

But outside, coming from behind his corner where he had watched the whole show, was Draco Malfoy. His eyes flashed with something that no one, had they seen him, could have explained, not even Draco himself could.

Hermione laid in bed that night tossing and turning first dreaming of Ronald and his mouth fused to hers, and then to Malfoy…

"What have I done?" she whispered, gasping as she sat up from a nightmare in which Malfoy and Ronald were both dying and she was the murderer, "oh no."

Her eyes trailed to the window where an owl was sitting staring at her, never blinking or making any indication that it was alive.

"Hedwig?" Hermione whispered standing up to open the window. But when she did so, the bird came plummeting to the floor with a sickening thud. It was dead. Hermione turned the owl over to take in its features…it was indeed Hedwig, Harry's now deceased owl.