A/N: I am so, so, so, sorry it took so long! Here it is!

For Ron, the memories of that morning are a blur. As if they occurred in a long ago dream, or perhaps they were the memories of someone else, told to him in a story. He remembers a very loud noise very early in the morning, he remembers Harry's face when he drew open the bed curtains and saw he had been crying, and he remembers Harry's choked expression as he tried to find the right words to say. But these memories are clouded, obscured in an odd way that Ron cannot explain.

Later, he would think about that morning and be ashamed, embarrassed that Harry had seen him so vulnerable. But at the time he didn't care much about anything outside of the guilt and sadness tumbling about in his mind. He didn't care, or even register the goings-on around him, Harry's expression, Seamus angry yelling and dirty looks, and Neville's excited jabbering was all like ships passing in the night to him. He was too much inside himself; he was not really there at all really. His body was there, on his bed, curled up helplessly, like a child, but his mind was still stuck in the common room last night. He replayed the scene over and over again, the shouting, the table crashing over, and the look in her eyes. A look of the deepest sadness, and hurt he could fathom and it was all because of him. Him. Ron Weasley. The one boy who more than anything wanted to see her eyes smiling, and would probably want to kill someone who had put such pain in her eyes. The memories of last night were crystal clear to him although the present was much more hazy.

Each time he remembered the night before, his emotions would surge forward again, like a great tide. Every time the guilt would compound upon itself growing greater by the moment. The tears, which he could no longer suppress with anger, would leap to his eyes again and it was all he could do to hold them back.

A small part of him thought this was all very, very wrong.

'Merlin, I'm a boy, a man. I'm fifteen bloody years old, what the hell is wrong with me? I shouldn't be crying; I shouldn't be lying here like a complete prat! I shouldn't care about it, her, any of this!'

He pleaded with himself, trying to make the irrational way he was acting stop. But he knew he did care, and he knew why. It was her, Hermione. Just saying her name in his head made his heart raw with emotion. Then Ron could see her eyes, her clear eyes clouded with sadness, and he could tell that no amount of reasoning would stop those eyes from haunting him.

It may seem, the boys around him might notice this torrent of emotion coming from Ron. But of course, boys are boys, and besides being un-empathetic, they were also too caught up in their own doings to bother about Ron. Seamus was still grumbling about his potion notes, Neville was still shouting excitedly about Rita Skeeter and her quill, and Dean was desperately trying to convince Neville that an enormous quill was not prowling the corridors of Hogwarts, hunting for him. Harry, being Ron's best mate was the only one who could see the pain behind Ron's eyes. But Harry was so startled to see Ron in this state that he hadn't the faintest clue how to go about helping him. Did he console? Did he hug? Did he say everything would be all right? All of these things seemed extremely inappropriate, even silly to Harry. In Ron's fuzzy opinion he did the best thing he could have done. He had shouted at Seamus, given Ron a brief look of understanding, and then left him alone. Harry could see Ron was nowhere near being able to talk about it.

At long last, the rational side of Ron took over, if only for a moment, and he realized that he had to go to class. This filled him with an indescribable amount of dread. Not because he hadn't studied for his transfiguration test, and he hadn't finished his rubbish predictions for Trewnaly, but because of Hermione. He could hardly bare to think about her, how was he going to face her? He tried his hardest to shove the thought out of his head and in a daze; he left his bed and prepared for class.

In another dormitory, Hermione was scribbling. She had just gotten out of the shower when she realized she had forgotten to put the finishing touches on an Ancient Runes essay, what she had failed to take into account was that the essay wasn't due for another three weeks.

The previous night she had completed a Potions, a Transfiguration, and a History of Magic essay, she had 'polished up' four more papers, and had made decent headway into studying for a few exams. All of this schoolwork was not due for many weeks; the exams did not even have dates set yet.

But as Hermione worked through the night at the essays she knew something was very wrong. It was certainly not the essays; she had put so much effort into them, trying to ignore what was wrong, that they couldn't be anything less than perfect. In fact, with the determination of trying not to think about what was wrong they had turned out to be some of her best work.

But it was more than a little thing bothering her; it was everything, it was Him.

Him. Ron Weasley. Ron, Ron, Ron!

She couldn't block him out any longer. It was like battling a raging fire with a teaspoon of water. The fact that she couldn't block him out hurt almost as much as her fight with him had. She had been so determined to be indifferent, unfeeling. She wanted to ignore him more than anything; it was so much easier. Usually she could block out everything by studying. But with Ron it was impossible. He was just too insufferable, incorrigible, irresistible, everything!

She set her head down wearily on the papers on her desk. She didn't cry; even if she couldn't keep her emotions from herself she could at least keep other people from thinking she a blathering idiot.

Hermione heard someone walk over to her and she looked up. Ginny was standing over her and setting a hand on her shoulder.

"Really Ginny…I-" But she couldn't seem to get beyond that. Ginny didn't say anything; she just picked up Hermione's papers and put them in her bag. She then set the bag by Hermione's feet.

"If you like, I can fetch you breakfast, and you can come down later."

"No Really, Ginny, I…I have to be, I have to, I can't just…"

Ginny opened her mouth again but was cut of by a loud shriek from Lavender.

"Padma!" She stretched out the MA out for a few seconds to seemingly emphasize her annoyance.

"Yes what, Lav?"

"My good blouse is all wrinkly, you didn't wear it did you?" The way she said this made one quite sure that Lavender already knew the answer.

"Well yes, I borrowed it two days ago when I was meeting Dean by the lake."

Ginny tried again to say something but was cut off again.

"You really could have asked me!"

"Actually I did."

"No, you never asked me!"

"Yes I did, I left you a note, you are really dense, do you know that?"

"What note? I think I'm just smart enough to see there is no note here!" She waved her hands around wildly.

"Well you're very keen aren't you? You've obviously just gone and-"

At this point it seemed they were about to go to blows and Ginny quickly grabbed her bag, grabbed Hermione's hand and steered her out of the door.

"Thanks" said Hermione feebly.

"That was really sickening, that was." Replied Ginny.

Hermione gave a very weak sort of smile and they headed down the stairs.

As Ron walked down the stairs caught in a mixture of bleariness and sadness he did not know that on the opposite stairwell, Hermione was doing the same. That is, until he reached the bottom and looked around the common room.

Their eyes met.

A/N: Hmmm, not very happy with this chapter, they seem all wrong, oh well. Please Review if you enjoyed reading.