Hermione led hidden away under the covers of her four-poster bed, curled up into the smallest shape possible, sobbing into her knees as she hugged them tightly to her chest. It was well past midnight and she was still unable to sleep, thinking of that night's events.
Three hours earlier she'd walked into the common room to find "Won-Won" and "Lav-Lav" entwined on a loveseat next to the roaring orange fire, whispering sweet nothings to each other. No matter how hard she tried to avoid them every single day, there was only so much time she could spend in the library. She'd spent ten hours in there that day. It was a Saturday and she'd successfully completed a full weeks homework in a day. Getting slightly fed up of the silence and dull atmosphere of the library, she had decided to take her chances and head on up to the common room.
As she muttered "Love Potion" to the portrait of the Fat Lady, she secretly prayed to herself that Ron and Lavender wouldn't be there. She had tried for the past 6 years to pass off her feelings for Ron as almost sisterly now that they were such good friends. But it seemed that her jealousy of Lavender had pushed that boundary, and even she had to admit deep down that she liked him.
The moment she stepped into the common room, she felt her stomach drop and she could have sworn that she actually did feel her heart breaking. It was aching and she was having to struggle to breathe properly. She felt tears stinging the corners of her eyes and her legs turned to jelly from her knees down to her ankles. She reached out and placed her right hand on the cold flagged stone of the common room walls, leaning all her weight on that one arm to stop herself falling to the floor.
To her right were Ron and Lavender, the only people left in the common room. She didn't know what to do. She didn't want Ron to see her like this, but at the same time she couldn't take her eyes off of them. She hoped that if she stood there watching them, she'd see them have an argument of some kind to make her feel better. But the longer she stood there, she realised that it wasn't very likely, they hadn't even noticed that she was stood there.
'I don't mean anything to him.' She thought to herself as she stood there. She felt the tears rolling down her cheeks. 'I have no chance, I might as well just forget about it.' She wiped her eyes and sniffed, heading straight past the couple and over to the stairs leading to the Girls Dormitories.
Ron broke away from Lavender and looked up, just in time to see Hermione turn away from them and disappear up the stairs, her shoulders shaking and her eyes red and blotchy. He sat frozen for a second and swallowed the huge lump that had formed in his throat. He felt like he'd been hit in the chest with a bat of some kind. He detached himself from Lavender and sat in a chair opposite and stared at the staircase that Hermione had just bolted up. He ran his hands through his hair and bent his head down, all his thoughts muddling up in his head.
Lavender sat in the loveseat, confused and hurt, but she didn't say anything, she just rolled over with her back to Ron and led there quietly.
Ron stood up and went to walk towards the Girls Dormitory. He had to talk to Hermione. He had to confess his feelings for her before it was too late. But just as quickly as the thought had entered his brain, it had left again. He could almost hear his brain laughing at him as if to say 'And what are you planning on telling her. That you're sorry she saw you making out with Lavender? I'm sure she'd love that' Ron slapped himself on the head and tugged at his hair. He spun on his heels and disappeared up to the Boys Dormitories, taking the steps angrily, two by two.
He threw himself on his four-poster face down, breathing heavily. He knew he had to do something. This feeling was driving him crazy. The feeling of complete terror and anger that he'd never ever get up the courage to tell Hermione, but also the feeling of happiness and warmth when he thought of her smile and how pretty she looked when she got angry with him not concentrating in class.
Ron switched on his Magical MP3 and thrust the headphones into his ear. In his mind he tried to decide on a song to pick, but he couldn't. Instead, he said the word 'Hermione' in his mind and the MP3 played a song. It was a song he'd never heard before and realised it must be a muggle hit. He smiled when he listened to the lyrics. The voice of a man sung over a piano, singing the words :
Cause you had a bad day
You taken one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don't know
You tell me don't lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
Ron could just imagine this being the kind of song Hermione would listen to; just listening to it reminded him of her and the way that she'd take her work so seriously. It was enough to make anyone have a bad day and need to turn it around.
He closed his eyes and listened to the soothing lyrics, creating his own music video for the song in his head, with himself and Hermione as the stars. There she was sat there in Potions, laughing at him when he singed his eyebrows with a bad bottomless potion. Then a scene of Hermione clutching onto him with a face full of fear as a Giant Troll paraded throughout the Girls Bathrooms. Then he saw her running onto the Quidditch Pitch and throwing herself at him as Gryffindor collected the Quidditch Cup.
He fell asleep with images floating around in his head, the realness of them making him smile. He knew what he wanted, and he was going to work his hardest to get it, no matter what it took.
