Wednesday October 30th
9:20 am
Ancient Runes

I'm avoiding Matt. I got Ginny to bring me some toast so I didn't have to get it myself and possibly get cornered by Matt. I just can't face him right now.

9:22 am

He LOVES me? Where in the bloody sodding hell did he get this absurd romantical notion? We've only been seeing each other for thirteen days! You don't just love someone after thirteen days.

9:35 am

Ohhh, I hate Professor Vector, I hate her! She caught me writing in here instead of doing my Rune Translations and read out my diary to the whole class! Well, not the whole thing, just this page. So now my entire Ancient Runes class knows that Matt loves me and I don't love him back.

11:15 am
DADA

But HOW can he love me? What on earth have I done to make him love me? And why can't Ron be under the same spell? Life is just not fair.

12:02 pm
Lunch

Oh bloody hell, I've just remembered that stupid contest. The entries were supposed to be in by noon today. Can ANYTHING go right in my life, just once!

Well, at least Matt is being a proper jilted boyfriend and is sitting a ways away being properly sulky.

12:17 pm

Ron keeps looking from me to Matt in confusion

"You two have a fight or something?"

I think I might have imagined the slightly hopeful tone in his voice.

"No," I snapped. Ron quirked an eyebrow at me. "Okay, well, yes - no - sort of, he told me he loved me and I spazzed."

Ron laughed. "Jeez, all I did was kiss you and you spazzed, I really should have warned him about you."

And so then, Lavender looks over with this look on her face like someone's just hit her around the face with a lemon (which I've been meaning to do for some time, actually) and says, "You kissed Hermione?" and tears well up in those stupid cow eyes of hers and she rushes off, sobbing.

"No - Lavvy, it wasn't like that!" Ron yelled after her, getting up. "It was way before you and me -"

And he rushed off after her.

12:35 pm

He calls her Lavvy? It sounds like a nickname for the lavatory if you ask me.

1:10 pm
Potions

Lavvy is still upset with her darling Ron. Consequently, when we needed partners, she picked Harry and so Ron is working with me (Hurrah!)

1:15 pm

"So, is she really mad at you? I muttered to Ron as he cut up the tentacula roots.

He glanced over at Lavvy, who seems to have taken Ron's choice of partner (Me! Double ha and a hyphen!) As proof that her worst fears have come true, and her stupid lower lip is trembling like you wouldn't believe.

"She doesn't believe me. I told her it was way before we started going out, and it meant nothing..."

"It didn't?" I blurted out, my voice cracking slightly. I could have swallowed my tongue.

"No - of course it - didn't..." he caught the look on my face and groaned. "Shit, Hermione, you still fancy me!"

I swallowed and said nothing, turning back to the potion. Ron groaned again and put his head down on the desk.

"Why didn't you say something earlier?" He muttered, not looking at me.

"Because you were going out with Lavender."

"Before that!"

"Because you," I said shrilly, forgetting there was a dozen other people in the room, "Told me, and I quote, 'What's a little kiss between friends?'! How was I supposed to bring up the fact that I fancied you when..."

"Fascinating though this argument undoubtedly is..." Snape interrupted smoothly, causing both Ron and me to freeze, "I'm afraid I must put an end to it. Fifty points from Gryffindor, and if you talk again during this class I shall put you in detention."

2:00 pm

The bell rang, and Ron tried talking to me.

"'Mione..." he began, but I cut him off.

"Don't start," I snarled. "I've only just got over you and if you break my heart again, I'll kill you."

2:20 pm
Transfiguration

"If you break my heart again, I'll kill you."

HOW could I have said that? NOW he's going to think I'm in love with him or something!

3:05 pm
Hallway

Walked out of transfiguration to find Matt waiting for me.

"We need to tlak." he said tersely, and led me off to the common room.

3:15 pm
Common Room

"Lavender told me you fancy Ron." Matt said once we got inside. You could have knocked me over with a feather. That was the last thing I'd expected him to say to me.

"I..." I mumbled, not meeting his eye.

"So what?" he said bitterly. "I was just your Red Herring?"

"No," I snapped. "Nothing like that at all -"

He grabbed my arm suddenly, and twisted it so painfully that tears came to my eyes.

"Look at me!" he yelled.

"Let go of me!" I screamed back.

"LOOK AT -"

"What's going on here?" Ron had just entered the Common Room. He took in my frightened face and Matt's angry scowl, then said, "Let her go."

"Ah, just who I wanted to see," Matt smiled sardonically, dropping my arm as though I had burned him. "Lavender wasn't good enough for you, hey?" His face was twitching with anger and hatred. He pulled out his wand, snarling. "You had to steal my girl, too - I'll show you - STUPEFY!"

I screamed as Matt stunned Ron, who had had no time to react. As Matt started pummeling the Stunned Ron, I grabbed my own wand.

"Petrificus Totalus!" I yelled. Matt keeled over. I ran to Ron and quickly un-Stunned him.

"Are you okay? Ron asked me. I nodded, tears of anger more than fear streaming down my face. He looked over at Matt, whose face was frozen in a look of intense hatred. "Bastard," Ron muttered, before turning back to me.

Then, a rough hand seized my wand and threw it across the room. Next thing I knew, I was being shoved hard into the wall - Lavender had performed the simple counter-curse on Matt. As I hit the wall, I felt a searing pain in the left side of my head and saw nothing but stars for several minutes. Then I heard a small explosion. "Ron!" I yelled, shaking my head violently. When I could finally see again, my eyes focused on an unconscious Matt and a still-standing Ron sporting a vicious nosebleed.

He knelt down beside me and gasped. "Oh god, Hermione, let's get you to the hospital wing!"

It was only then that I realized the entire left side of my body was sticky with blood from my head wound.

Ron picked me up and carried me, sobbing with fear, all the way to the hospital wing.

4:20 pm
Hospital wing

Madam Pomfrey fixed me up in about twelve seconds. I had to drink a blood-replenishing potion as well, but other than that, I am perfectly fine. Actually, I'm surprised I didn't faint from loss of blood.

Ron stayed to make sure I was alright, and now he's gone off to find Dumbledore and McGonagall.

6:40 pm

Ron's back with Dumbledore and McGonagall. I wonder why it took him so long?

"We went to escort Mr. Becker from the Gryffindor common room before coming to see you, Miss Granger." Dumbledore explained. "He is in - er - protective custody."

"Filch," Ron muttered to me. I grinned slightly. Filch! Hah!

Dumbledore looked grave. "Miss Granger, I am sure you want to see Mr. Becker punished immediately...but for the moment, all I will ask of you is a full statement regarding what transpired in the common room earlier."

And so I gave him one. I told him how Matt had stunned Ron, and then I'd performed the full Body-Bind and awoken Ron, and then Lavender had unbound Matt, he'd stolen my wand and bashed me into the wall.

"After that," I said, "I couldn't see anything, and I heard a loud explosion. Then, after my vision cleared, I saw Matt lying unconscious, and Ron carried me up here."

McGonagall's face was mottled purple with suppressed rage. She started to speak, but Dumbledore said quietly, "That will be all for now, Miss Granger. Come, Minerva." And they left.

Ron looked at me. "Wanna play Wizard's Chess?"

7:15 pm

Halfway through our game of chess I looked at R on and broke down sobbing. Ron looked at me in alarm, and then rushed to my side. "'Mione, what's wrong? Are you hurt somewhere else?"

I shook my head, still crying. What was hurting me, neither he - nor Madam Pomfrey, nor anyone in the world - could fix. No one could bring my parents back together. No one could restore my world to it's perfection of a few weeks ago. No one could do anything to make it better. And so I cried, because I was helpless. I cried because I realized now that I loved Ron more than anyone. I cried because I knew that once the story of me and Matt got out to the rest of the school, I'd be seen as a dirty slut. I cried because I didn't know what else to do.

Ron put an awkward arm around me and let me cry on his shoulder, which, truly, was the only thing he could do.

7:30 pm

"You know," said Ron thoughtfully as I was finishing up my cry, "I'm kind of glad this whole thing happened."

"You - you are?" I sniffled in disbelief.

"Yeah, it made me realize something important."

Just then Madam Pomfrey popped in to say that Ron had to leave in two minutes because I had been traumatized and I needed my sleep. I could have kicked her.

"What did you realize?" I whispered once she'd left. I don't know why I whispered. It just felt like the right thing to do. Ron took my hand and caressed it gently.

"That I want to be the one who's always there for you, no matter what."

My heart was in my mouth. Was he saying what I thought he was saying?

Madam Pomfrey sniffed loudly from her corner. Ron glanced at her, and then looked back to me with a grin. "I've gotta go," he said. "'Night, Hermione. Sweet dreams." And with that, he kissed me gently on the forehead and slipped out of the hospital wing, leaving me to my jubilant thoughts.

A/N: Ok, so I hope you don't all think this was horribly dramatic and crap, because I really wanted Ron and Hermione to have something horrible happen to bring them together. JK Rowling started the whole thing in the first book, with Harry and Ron saving Hermione from the Troll, and that's how they ended up being friends. I always thought it would be romantic if something of the same sort happened to bring them together as "more than friends". If it's absolute crap, PLEASE don't hate me and please keep reading my story because I promise it's not going to turn into some crap soap opera thing.