Author's Notes: If you're looking for some good R/Hr fanfic, check out a couple I've found:
Caring a Bit by Cedar – at www . Checkmated . com no spaces
Writing to Ron by Cinderella200 (It's under my favorites)
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Ginny and Hermione +
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Once in Third Year, Ron had seen Fang devour a ferret outside Hagrid's hut. The ferret, mercifully, had been dead, but that did little to stem the horror of witnessing blunt teeth ripping shreds of flesh from the poor animal's carcass. On that occasion Ron had averted his eyes. He had put it out of his mind, and had not thought of it since until now. Bill's misfortune had reminded him.
Ron was sitting only several doors down from the infirmary's main entrance in yet another out-of-the-way alcove, with his long legs sticking out in the hall. He had come outside to be alone. The tip of his finger was etching imaginary words into the coarse stone step on which he sat while waiting for Ginny to leave the infirmary. The words themselves didn't matter as he wrote them; Ron hardly knew what he was doing. What mattered was that he had a means of passing the time, but most importantly, that he was not within where he would have to try not to wince every time he looked at Bill's mutilated face.
It wasn't so horrible now that Bill had been in Madam Pomfrey's care for several hours. Most of his nose had been regrown, along with the missing chunk of his cheek, but Ron simply couldn't reconcile the memory of what had been there before with the reality of what existed now. Tomorrow he could deal with it, but not tonight.
In the meantime, Ron suddenly found himself unable to understand the concept of time. Bill had been whole and happy not four hours ago. He had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but if he had just taken a step backwards or maybe if Ron had been able to hit Greyback with a curse, then this whole mistake would not have occurred. Why couldn't one simply go back and fix it?
Bill should have turned away a little faster. Lupin should have checked the landing more thoroughly. Ron should have saved a little lucky potion for his brother. If any of them had done one of those simple things…
And Dumbledore. The bile rose to his throat just thinking about Dumbledore.
He wished that Hermione had not left so that they might mourn together, but she had, and she even seemed eager to go. She'd gone up to the common room soon after Harry had departed with McGonagall, no doubt to relate the story in full to their housemates. Ron thought that perhaps he ought to have gone with her. Maybe no one would believe her story. Ron barely believed it himself, which seemed to be a fault of his. He hadn't believed Harry about Malfoy—or he hadn't believed that anything seriously bad could happen.
You should have believed Harry, he told himself. You should have been quicker. You should have taken the potion sooner and then you might have thought of a way to stop Malfoy.
You might not have hesitated.
You might have…
"Harry?" came Ginny's voice from close by. Ron could not see her yet, which meant she could not see him, but perhaps she had heard his idle scratching of the step. Yes, he was still scratching.
When she appeared before him, she had her wand held up as a ward against any hidden attacker. Upon finding him crouched awkwardly in the dusty corner, she lowered it.
"Oh," she said, both relieved and disappointed to see him. Ron saw that her eyes were even redder than they had been ten minutes ago when he had left her in the infirmary. "I hoped you were Harry back again. I thought you would have gone after Hermione."
Ron shrugged, barely noticing her assumption that he would be with Hermione. "I wanted to be alone for a while, and Hermione seemed to want the same thing."
"That's funny," said Ginny in a voice devoid of humor. "Isn't adversity supposed to bring people together?"
"Yeah," he answered, equally glum. "But I think that's only after people get tired of being alone with it."
She seemed to accept this, but for all Ron knew, Ginny was thinking about what a fool he was. Maybe she was wishing he'd vanish and be replaced with Harry, who would offer her greater wisdom gained from hard experience on how to cope with death. Maybe she was just wondering why Hermione had suddenly wanted to be alone, when two hours ago she had peppered Ron's face with kisses as he appeared, safe and sound behind Ginny and Neville.
Ron was wondering the same thing.
"Mum and Dad will want to say good bye," Ginny was saying.
Visions of Fleur shaming all of them by nobly accepting her fiance's fate flashed through Ron's head. His brow furrowed. "I'm not going back in there tonight."
"I know what you mean."
Ron took Ginny's proffered hand and allowed her to help him up. He followed her toward Gryffindor Tower, and neither one said a word about Mum or Dad or Bill or Fleur. For one full minute they walked on, talking about the state of the paintings in the hall or the likelihood of being caught by Filch, as if they were returning from something as mundane as a detention. Their hearts weren't in it, but neither one could bear a silence, and so they talked until they couldn't think of anything else that wasn't so light as to be disrespectful, but light enough to keep their minds off the evening's tragedy. Inevitably, the conversation turned to gossip.
"I saw the way you and Hermione looked at each other back in the infirmary," she said. "It's strange that she never told me you were going out." As an afterthought, Ron heard Ginny mumble, "She used to tell me everything."
"She didn't tell you?" asked Ron, who really didn't care at this moment what girls told other girls.
"No," Ginny answered. "No one tells me anything, it seems. Harry didn't even tell me anything about Malfoy's plot."
"Oh no?" replied Ron, unsurprised but feeling guilty nonetheless.
Ginny seemed to have mistaken his question for an apology, because very quickly she turned to him and said in a rush, "But I'm not blaming you or Hermione. It's not as if you could have done anything. I mean, you two didn't know that Malfoy was staging meetings either."
Ginny didn't notice when Ron stopped walking. They were at the base of Gryffindor Tower, almost to the portrait, and she was bounding towards the entrance when…
"Ginny?" he called after her. His throat felt swollen and his voice was strained.
She turned, then. Very slowly, and when she was faced him Ron knew she understood what was coming next. He could tell because she looked completely heartbroken.
"Harry did tell you?"
"Yes," said Ron.
"And…Hermione too?"
"Yes."
Ginny swallowed. "But not me." He saw tears rolling down her cheeks.
Ron wished she'd just scream at him. Screaming he could understand, but this uncharacteristic resignation of Ginny's was truly terrible. Ron felt like he was witnessing the total collapse of his sister's dreams, like the only shred of happiness she'd had left in her body was her unflagging trust in Harry. It was gone now.
"Why?" asked Ginny.
"I don't know why he didn't—"
Ginny held up her hand, "I know why Harry didn't tell me," she said. "I don't understand it, but I know why. But…why didn't you do something?"
Ron's mouth fell open. "What? Ginny, we went up to the Room of Requirement. Hermione watched Snape's office!"
"Oh, please! If Hermione puts her mind to it, she can do anything. She concocted that Polyjuice Potion in your second year…yes, I heard about that! And she spent all that time on that ridiculous House Elf Liberation Front. The D.A. was practically her brainchild!"
"Wait, are you blaming Hermione for all this!" cried Ron.
"Shouldn't I? She gives me all these lectures about how Harry's distracting me from my studies and what's important, and all this time —"
"Well, he was distracting you, from what I hear!" Ron cut her off.
Ginny looked as if she might hit him.
"That's not the point!" she cried. "THE POINT IS THAT YOU AND HERMIONE ARE THE BIGGEST HYPOCRITES IN THE WORLD BECAUSE THIS WHOLE TIME YOU'VE BEEN POINTING YOUR FINGERS AT ME, YOU'VE BEEN SNEAKING AROUND OUR BACKS INSTEAD OF HELPING HARRY!"
Ron had to swallow that lump in his throat before he began to scream at her. "And if Harry had told you his suspicions about Malfoy, how do you know you would have done anything different! You would have just brushed it aside like the rest of us!"
"No I wouldn't have!"
"YES YOU WOULD!"
"NO, I WOULDN'T! I would have trusted Harry, because he's Harry. Because he's never let me down before…"
"It wasn't about Harry!" shouted Ron, barely able to refrain from mentioning Sirius last year or Hermione lying wounded on the floor of the Department of Mysteries. "It was about Malfoy, and how he's never been anything more than a stupid, slimy, two-faced git and how he's never been worth an ounce of notice!"
It was true, Ron thought. Malfoy had always been up to something, but it had never been truly devious. For all his bluster and threats, he'd never shown any reason for concern. So it wouldn't have mattered if he and Hermione had analyzed his activities in Knockturn Alley or if they had organized the D.A. sooner or if they'd tied Snape to a chair because no one would have believed them when they said that Draco Malfoy was a Death Eater at the age of sixteen.
"Malfoy has always been dangerous!" Ginny screamed at him. "Just think how much trouble Malfoy was capable of causing last year with the Inquisitorial Squad, and this year when he left Harry on the train. But you were too busy with Lavender and Hermione, and Hermione was too busy with you and telling Harry and me what to do, and neither one of you did a single thing to stop this!"
Ron's eyes flashed. He could bear it no longer.
"Ginny, even Dumbledore wouldn't listen to Harry! He told him to stop thinking about it. He told him to trust Snape and to forget about Malfoy, and maybe Harry didn't listen, but we did! So don't you, for one moment, think you're better than Hermione or me just because you've been snogging Harry for a month!"
Ginny looked as if he'd thrown a glass of cold water in her face. Her hand shot up to cover her mouth, apparently horrified that she'd said what she'd said. Her whole frame was trembling so hard that Ron was yanked out of his fury.
"I'm sorry," Ginny whimpered. Then she rushed away and up into the Tower. Ron saw that her disquiet was not the only reason that she had gone off so fast. Half of the Gryffindors had come outside to watch their debate. The noise they had made must have carried into the common room. Lavender and Parvati were on the top step, not giggling for once. Seamus and Dean stood a little ways apart with the Creevey brothers. And just below them, on the bottom step along with a gaggle of younger students, was Hermione, who looked pale and tired. She stepped aside as Ginny rushed past her, averting her eyes as if she were ashamed. Nor would she meet Ron's eyes as he barged through the crowd, even when he brushed her hand. She didn't take the hint to follow him, and Ron didn't stay to ask why.
Ron felt too sour and exhausted and went up alone to the boys' dormitories in order to sit down on his bed and wait for Harry's return. He didn't want to think any more about Malfoy or Bill tonight.
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No one mentioned the fight between Ron and Ginny in the following morning. Ginny behaved apologetically, but it was clear to Ron that she had no intention of reliving what had been said. That was fine with him because he wanted to forget it as soon as possible. He was too depressed by Harry's bad news, which he shared with Hermione before breakfast, that the mysterious R.A.B. had stolen the Horcrux.
"Dumbledore's sacrifice was for nothing," Harry finished. It was a sad moment when no one contradicted him.
For everyone else in Gryffindor Tower, the biggest news in the morning was that Parvati Patil's parents had appeared some time during the night and that she and her sister Padma were gone. During breakfast, Ron and the others noticed a number of other missing students. An uproar occurred when Seamus' mother strode directly into the Great Hall and demanded that he return home with her.
Seamus refused, of course.
Hermione had been staring at the unfolding drama for some time when she turned to Ginny and Ron. "Will your parents ask you to come home?"
"No," answered Ginny, quietly. "They understand that Hogwarts is probably safer than anywhere else in England other than the Ministry."
"Even though tragedies keep striking here anyway," muttered Ron, under his breath. He thought of the Basilisk in particular.
Across from him, Harry sighed. "They won't keep happening if I have anything to say about it," he said, looking distant for some time until Ginny nudged him.
"If Hogwarts closes, nothing at all will be happening here," she said.
Harry smiled at her, and Ron took the opportunity to glance at Hermione, who was staring at the untouched eggs on the plate with an equally distant expression on her face. She was probably upset at the prospect of Hogwarts closing.
Copying Ginny, Ron nudged her arm and was rewarded with a strained smile. He leaned over to kiss her on the cheek when he noticed that Harry was watching him. Instinctively, he stopped what he had been about to do. But why? thought Ron. Why would it matter if he saw? He's probably guessed by now anyway. Ron tried to take Hermione's hand, but she pulled away before he could quite manage.
He gave up and began to chew his food, feeling sour.
"So," began Ginny, "I wanted to visit Bill again this morning. Does anyone want to go with me?"
"I'll go," said Harry, immediately.
"I'll be glad to go," said Hermione.
"Me too," Ron said at length. It might be easier to go back to the infirmary now that it was morning. Bill's wounds would probably be much better than they had been last night. And the news about Dumbledore was not quite as raw…
When breakfast was ended, they trudged off in the direction of the infirmary. On the way, they passed Zacharias Smith, who was waving good-bye to Ernie Macmillan and a few of his Hufflepuff classmates. When he saw Harry, he paused. Ron thought he would turn away with a disgusted snort, but to Ron's surprise, he held up his hand in farewell.
"They're dropping like flies," said Ron, watching Zacharias and his father depart.
Beside him Hermione gave an offended sniff. Ginny looked irritated as well. "Don't say that, Ron," she reprimanded him. Only Harry seemed amused by the comment.
"Sorry."
"He's going to miss the prefects' meeting," said Hermione, referring to the meeting that had been announced at breakfast earlier.
"What's the point of it all?" asked Ron, thinking of the suspended House Cup competition and postponed exams. Hogwarts seemed more like a hotel right now than it did a school.
"Keeping order in the school will be even more essential now that no one has classes than it was before," said Hermione, matter-of-factly.
"Waste of time, if you ask me," said Ron. "At this rate, half the students will have gone home by tomorrow."
"Well no one is asking you, Ron," she snapped.
Ron blinked. He could never tell whether Hermione was teasing him or insulting him, but he didn't like her tone of voice. He wheeled on her, prepared with an equally sarcastic comment, when Harry came between them.
"C'mon guys, let's just go on the infirmary," Harry pleaded. Both he and Ginny looked exasperated.
When they reached the infirmary, Ron discovered that Bill was still sleeping. Fleur had gone downstairs to fetch him breakfast, and his parents had gone to eat for themselves. The morning visit was not a total waste, however, because Madam Pomfrey alerted them to the fact that Neville was wide awake.
Ron followed Hermione to his bedside, while Harry and Ginny lingered behind to fuss over Bill for a few minutes. Neville greeted them with a forlorn 'hello.' Ron saw that he winced as he tried to sit up straight.
"What did everyone say when they heard the news?" he asked, and by 'news,' Ron understood him to mean Dumbledore's death.
"Professor McGonagall made the announcement at breakfast, but everyone already knew the whole story," said Ron. "A couple got taken out of school by their parents. Parvati's gone."
"Seamus' mother wanted him to go too," said Hermione. "But he said he wouldn't go until after the funeral."
Neville hung his head. "My grandmother will probably want me to leave too."
"Well, you won't will you?" cried Ron. Hermione slapped his arm lightly in reprimand. Neville didn't notice.
"No," he answered, quickly. "I'm of age now and I can do what I want."
"Thanks for carrying around your D.A. galleon, Neville," said Hermione, biting her lip. "I was afraid that no one at all would respond."
Ron observed the uncharacteristic way she spoke, offering a comment and retreating into silence just as quickly. He deduced that something heavy was weighing on her mind, which meant that he would not find out about it until she was ready to tell him.
Harry and Ginny joined them several minutes later. Bill had apparently woken up and asked for a mirror.
"I thought we should wait for Fleur to come back before we give it to him," said Ginny, whispering so Bill could not hear her from across the room.
Ron glanced in his brother's direction and was pleased by what he saw. Bill's nose had been entirely re-grown, and his scars made him look a great deal like Mad-Eye Moody. The frightful ghost in bandages from last night was long gone. Bill looked cheerful, and beamed even more when Fleur walked through the door.
"You're awake!" she cried, setting down a tray of sausages and kissing Bill on his scarred cheek. "I went to get this because without me ze kitchen here would not do eet correctly."
Ron heard Ginny groan beside him. They all temporarily left Neville's side and walked over to Bill, who was impassively examining his face in the mirror.
"Not too bad," he said at last, setting it down, but he looked shaken nonetheless.
Fleur fed him a sausage.
"I 'ave 'eard of this Malfoy boy before, who caused this to happen to my Bill," she said to Hermione and Ginny, where were standing nearest to her. Her voice was venomous. "He uses a French name, no? I would be ashamed, except zat nobody would be fooled by zis. We French have no Dark Wizards. What do we care for purebloods or muggles? We are all French!"
Ron glanced at Harry, who simply shrugged. For now they would take Fleur's word on the matter, although Ron had trouble believing that France had never turned out a bad, Muggle-hating wizard.
"And half ze followers of You-Know-Who are half-bloods anyway," she went on. She fed Bill another sausage, which he ate ravenously. "Zey are all hypocrites, zat is what I think."
Hermione began to back away from the scene all of the sudden. "I just thought of something," she said. "I've got to go to the library."
Ron was surprised at her hasty exit. "Wait!" he called after her. "Don't forget about the prefect's meeting!" But she was already out the door.
Soon after Hermione's departure, Madam Pomfrey shooed the rest of them out so Bill could get some rest. Ron watched Ginny and Harry hold hands in front of him as they all walked back towards Gryffindor Tower. The unpleasant feeling of being a third wheel set over him, and Ron decided to part company with them so he could look for Hermione. He checked the library first, but his search was unfruitful. Hermione didn't seem to be anywhere: not in her favorite section behind the Arithmancy texts or in any other hidden nook. When Ron next checked his watch, he saw that fifty minutes remained until the Prefects' meeting.
Wishing to find her before the meeting, Ron stopped by Gryffindor Tower, but Hermione was not in the common room. However, Harry and Ginny were sitting on the couch (not snogging, since the room was too crowded) when he entered.
"We haven't seen her," said Harry, watching Ron closely. Ron turned a little red as he stepped back outside the portrait.
Hoping that Hermione had not gone up to the girls' dormitories where he could not follow, Ron headed towards the grounds outside. He rushed down to the lake, unsure of why he was bothering to remind Hermione of a meeting she had probably not forgotten about in the first place. He wanted to be with her, he supposed. He wanted to ask her if she was all right.
When he didn't find her immediately upon exiting the castle, he walked towards the lake in order to observe the preparations for Dumbledore's funeral. A few other students had come for the same purpose, but most of the people in the vicinity were Aurors, setting up wards and protection spells. Despite all the activity, there was a lonesome atmosphere about the place, like the very trees and stones had gone into mourning.
Just then, Ron spotted Hermione. She was sitting alone under the old beech tree, with her knees tucked under her chin, just watching the Aurors conduct their business. He hurried over to her and dropped down by her side.
"Hey," he said, playfully hitting her shoulder. Ron winced when he realized how pathetic it was to be play-hitting one's girlfriend. "I thought you were going to be in the library."
"I left," she told him.
"Oh, well, I just…er…wanted to remind you about the meeting. It's in half an hour."
Ron expected her to tell him that she hadn't forgotten, but all he got was a quiet, "Thank you."
"Don't mention it."
She sniffed loudly. Ron hunched forward so he could see her face and discovered that there were tears falling down her cheeks. She wasn't sobbing. It was a gentle cry, the kind people had when their misery was too great for sound to convey.
"What's wrong?" he asked her.
Hermione wiped at her eyes. "I can't believe he's gone," she whimpered.
Ron inched closer so that he could hold her, but Hermione pushed him away. Why? he thought. He settled for patting her back, which he did awkwardly because he was afraid of being rebuffed again. He wanted very much to ask Hermione what she was thinking, and yet he was unsure of whether he wanted to hear her answer. Then he saw her averting her eyes and Ron felt his heart crumple. He knew what was coming next.
"We have to talk," she said.
No... Ron gulped at the dreaded phrase. Most of his imaginary break-ups with Lavender had started off the same way, which left Ron with one question and one question alone: Why was she doing this? "No we don't." Ron tried to laugh it off. He even tried to get up, but before he could, Hermione caught his hand.
"I think maybe Ginny was right about what she said last night."
"No she wasn't," said Ron, standing up. "She was just angry because Harry never tells her anything!"
"She was right," Hermione insisted. She got up from the grass and looked him straight in the face. Ron wondered if this was even hard for her. "We distract each other… Or you distract me. There were so many things I could have done differently if I hadn't been so busy thinking about you. I could have organized the D.A. sooner… I could have helped Harry find a way into the Room of Requirement —"
"And what would that have done?" cried Ron. He wanted to shake her so hard that her brains rattled. How could she be saying these things? "Maybe it just would have gotten everyone in the D.A. killed. There wasn't enough lucky potion for all of us. And even if you'd managed to find out what was in the Room or Requirement Dumbledore knew about Malfoy anyway, so nothing would have changed."
"He didn't know that the Death Eaters could get in to Hogwarts!"
"Hermione, you can't do everything!"
Her chin began to shake. "Oh, Ron, there is a war going on!" she said. "And I couldn't even concentrate in the library. All I could think about was you..."
"Maybe that's because you felt guilty about wanting to ditch me," he spat. Ron backed away from her, shaking his head. His hands were trembling and his ears were buzzing. He was pretty sure that his heart was breaking. He turned away and began hurrying back to the castle.
"Ron?" she called after him.
"Leave me alone," he snapped.
"Don't go! Wait!"
He heard her running after him, saw the blur as she rushed by him so she was standing in front. Hermione threw her arms around him before he could brush by her. He refused to meet her eyes for fear he would shame himself by crying.
"I'm not ditching you!" she shouted, burying her face in his chest. Ron did not push her away, even though his legs were going so weak that he was unsure if he could support her weight. Hermione went on, fiercely clutching the fabric of his shirt, "Unless you want to ditch me now, but please...I just wanted a little break. I need to slow down for a little while, but please please please don't go away mad. Don't go off and snog other girls…"
"What! Why would I —?" Ron exclaimed. He allowed himself to feel indignation...mortification...but he didn't dare feel relief. He was having difficulty believing that this wasn't a break-up and that Hermione wasn't smashing all his dreams into cut-up, gnarled pieces of rubble. The whole relationship was simply too good to be true...and looking back on it, Ron realized that all those times he'd made excuses for why he didn't need to tell Harry about it were really poor attempts at easing the inevitable heartbreak when Hermione realized he wasn't good enough. Yet it seemed from the tears she was shedding and the desperate way she was clinging to him that Hermione hadn't realized this just yet.
"Well," she whispered, "You went and snogged me as soon as Lavender ditched you..."
"But you're not ditching me," said Ron, very quickly.
"...No," she said, "But...I just thought that maybe if you were mad enough..."
Ron pushed her away, a little more roughly than he'd meant to. "Who says I'm mad!"
"You're all red in the face," Hermione pointed out.
Ron huffed in frustration. He couldn't deny that she had him. His stupid, tell-tale face always turned red when he was angry, but Ron didn't want her to know he was angry with her because he'd thought she was ditching him. He didn't want her to realize how much power she had over him...and yet...it was kind of cute how she didn't want him to go snog other girls. Even so, what kind of horrible torture was this for her to make him think she was breaking up with him? Maybe he should go snog one, just to piss her off and get even... But Ron rejected this idea outright. She may be annoying and bossy, but Ron still didn't want to kiss anyone but Hermione.
"Ron?" she said, tentatively.
There she was, standing there looking concerned for her boyfriend, just like a girlfriend should, so able to read his emotions, when he never had any idea what she was thinking. It was irritating, that's what it was. And it was unfair how he was going to agree to this break, not because he thought it was a good idea or that it was necessary, but because Hermione had said that she needed one. He wasn't sure if he liked her ability to pull all his strings at once.
"FINE!" he shouted. "I'll agree to your stupid break and I am really mad, but I'm not going to 'go off' and snog anybody...including you!"
When he caught Hermione smiling, Ron added, "And I'm going up to the Prefects' meeting by myself!"
He stomped off toward the school, when he heard her call him one last time. "Ron?"
What did she want now? The rest of his masculinity? "What?" he demanded.
"I love you."
Ron wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. He almost asked her to repeat it, but in the end he just stuttered, "G...good." Did this mean he and Hermione were still on a break or that it had just begun? Should he say it back? Why wasn't she yelling at him because of his outburst? Girls were funny creatures.
He didn't notice that his feet weren't moving or that Hermione had slipped her hand into the crook of his arm. He barely realized that she was pulling him into the castle and up the steps.
When they reached the door to the room in which the meeting was being held, Ron finally snapped out of it. "Hermione?" he said.
She seemed a little nervous when she looked up. She was biting her lip.
I love you I love you I love you... he thought.
"Er..." Ron opened the door for her. "Ladies first."
Hermione beamed up at him. "Thank you, Ron," she said.
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More Author's Notes:
This chapter was impossible to write. I leafed through the book and thought, "There's nothing here. What do I do?" So I realized I had to dig myself out of this huge hole because I'd had Ron and Hermione get together so soon. Then, I started writing this huge break-up scene. I thought that I'd use the spot on page 635 (American edition) where Ron looks away from Harry and Ginny and Harry thinks he's trying to avoid looking at his sister. I was going to have Ron look at Hermione and think, "Why can't I do that to Hermione anymore?" But half-way through I realized that the time between Dumbledore's death and his funeral isn't very great. There's no time for a break-up and a reconciliation, and would Hermione really dump Ron? No... So, I kept having to scrap and re-write and scrap and re-write. This is what I had when the deadline rolled around. So now, had I written that scene with Harry and Ginny's kiss goodnight, Ron would be looking at Hermione and thinking, "When will I get to do that again?" However, this chapter was getting too long, so I didn't choose to write that scene.
I hope I didn't abuse Ginny too much in this chapter. Poor girl. Even so, I felt like there must have been some reason for her to expect Harry to break up with her. It seemed like everything had been going so well for the two of them and then BAM he dumps her and she just says, "Oh, fine. I knew that was going to happen."
PsychoHaired: Ta da! Your Weekend Update.
SaSush33: Yep, I mentioned Bellatrix even though I knew she wasn't there because I was trying to figure out a way for Ron and the others to figure out who was coming out of the Room of Requirement and to understand the danger without being able to see anything. I thought Alecto and Bellatrix probably sounded something alike. They behave the same way.
Love That Elf: I looked over Chapter 6 and made some changes, but I feel like it's completely unfixable. I tried to make the haste of Ron and Hermione's kiss have repercussions here, though.
FetishFemale: Action is hard to write. Whew! I'm glad you liked it.
