Disclaimer-Not mine.

They never spoke anymore. She missed the constant buzzing in her ear, the inane chatter which surrounded them before it all changed. All she now heard was the scraping of forks and the clatter of knives. Harry stared into nothing, his eyes glazed. She used to find him muttering in his sleep, to whom she did not know. It stopped, like everything else that reminded her of the Harry that died with Dumbledore. Sometimes she suspected he wasn't even there anymore, that a Dementor had gotten him in one of their grueling disputes with evil. Sometimes she wished it was. Sometimes she wished he had been forced to leave. Sometimes she wished that it had been her.

Ron never spoke to her anymore, much beyond the profunctionary 'Pass the Ketchup.' and their tactical planning anyway. Tonight it was different. He was angry. She could tell by the way he glared into the table; by the way he stabbed the slime they chocked down like it was Voldemort himself. Actions had always been more important with them than words, mainly because they had spent most of their friendship ignoring each other. Or screaming at each other. The result was the same either way. What hurt her most was that he never spoke of their 'arrangement' as she likes to think of it ironically. She knew, even before the Yule Ball, that he would never sweep her off her feet, never do irresistible romantic things. She had lived in her fantasy, though. Her fantasy of dates at Hogsmade, of roses, romantic whispers. They were dead now, lying shriveled in the same place Harry's soul was.

He came to her one night, they didn't talk, but she understood. It would mean nothing in the morning. Harry came first, Harry always came first. She would've chuckled at the irony if it he wasn't feeling so explosive. His anger was hard to bear. They had never understood each other, she had wished for it, yes, but they never did. And now she didn't want to understand. She wanted a house with white-washed walls and rowdy children with red hair. She didn't want silent nights, their faces half hidden in the shadow the candles created. She wanted laughter. And rose petals. She didn't want tears, she didn't want a heart of stone, created by the blood of others.

He stormed up to his room, leaving the cleaning to her. Harry, moved to the fire, still staring at something she did not see. She cleaned the Muggle way, her muscles aching from the fight earlier, the Cruciatus still lingering in her bones. She was punishing herself, but she didn't know why anymore. Her eyes fell on a sweater Ron had carelessly tossed onto the chair. It was worn and old, but you could see it was one of Mrs. Weasley's. She folded it and went up the creaky stairs of Grimmauld Place, once the headquarters of a secret rebellion, now home to three war- broken teenagers. It was an excuse, the ever-present logical aspect of her brain told her, you want him to yell at you, be angry. You want to know that he's not like Harry, that he feels some emotion towards you. Logic was vindictive, cold, like Ron's shoulder always was.

She stood at the threshold to his room, still clutching the sweater. He was stood at the window,
staring out the foggy garden, the tears he never spilled streaming down the glass pane. She shifted, the floorboards creaked. He spun around his wand raised, his eyes wild, just like Harry's when he woke up from a nightmare. Harry had been dreaming too long. She never saw the expression anymore, not even when Ron almost died at the hands of Bellatrix Lestrange, not even when she told him that Remus Lupin had been captured. The eyes soon regained the look of cold fury he had worn through dinner.

"What do you want?" he croaked. He had not used his voice properly for a long time. She held up the sweater and then moved to put it on his bed. His eyes followed her around the room. She buried her face in the faded fabric, inhaling deeply, before carefully putting it on his bed.
It reminded her of her mother, she had always loved the smell of clothes. She had laughed then.
She understood now. Suddenly his hand was on her shoulder. She missed his lumbering step. He only tread softly now. He spun her around and started to kiss her neck. Always her neck. He never kissed her on the lips. Maybe he thought she would mistake it for sentiment. Suddenly she was angry. She hadn't been angry in a long time. Not at Ron. Not at the Death Eaters. Not even at Voldemort. She knew it had to be that way, and it was that way. She was no Ginny Weasley,
yelling her lungs out at Harry because of his brooding moods. She had accepted Ron's actions where they normally would've been met with fiery eyes and cutting words. And tears. So she pushed him away.

"No."

Her voice was firm. She sounded brave. She didn't sound like the broken little girl inside. He didn't let go. He just looked.

"Why?"

He sounded hurt. This incensed her even further. As if she had inflicted suffering on him. As if his heart wasn't made of stone. She knew it was. So she told him.

"Your heart is made of stone. Mine isn't. See, it doesn't work. Stone. Not Stone. It doesn't work."

In some part of her mind she knew this was it, her mind had finally crossed the edge which she had been teetering over for some time. And there was the anger again. In both their eyes.

"Your wrong, Hermione, for the first time in your entire fucking life, you are wrong, you are the one with the heart of stone. You don't cry. You just analyze everything with that clinical logic of yours." he said, his voice raw with anger.

"Well that clinical logic of mine is what has kept me from killing myself, I don't have the luxury of just sitting there, of just sitting there and staring into space, maybe I have a heart of stone, but you must have one damn good hammer because you smash it to pieces every time you just leave, just give me the cold shoulder." she wasn't yelling, she was whispering, her fingers digging into his arms which still held her in place. It was a good thing they did, she would've fallen by now.

"Are you saying I don't care? Are you saying that I don't care about you?" his grip on her waist was painful, his voice low and dangerous. She, for the first time in her life, was scared of Ron Weasley. Ron Weasley, the lanky boy with mismatched limbs. Ron Weasley, the scarily tall man, the scarily strong man.

"Yes I am." she whispered defiantly. She had always been brave to the point of stupid.

Suddenly he was crushing her against the wall, his mouth violently shoved against hers. His kiss was punishing. Tears slipped down her cheeks. How ironic that perfect Miss Granger was so dysfunctional. How ironic that the only way they could show each other love was through anger,
through hurt. How ironic that they punished each other for the what poets proclaim the most wonderful feeling in the world. The next day they ate in silence. He had kissed her. Maybe one day they would learn to speak again.

A/N: Review, please.