Hermione

March 1996

Hogwarts

"Is she looking at me?" Ron asked wearily, leaning behind Hermione for protection. Hermione looked to her right.

Over in the corner of the Gryffindor common room, Lavender Brown and Parvati sat in matching arm chairs that had been moved close together. Their heads were angled in, each talking at a fervent pace.

As Hermione looked, Lavender's eyes swooped to Hermione's and gave her a blistering stare back.

"Yes," Hermione answered matter of factly, turning her focus back down to the book on wandless magic she was reading.

It had been almost two months since Malfoy had cut ties with her in the Room of Requirement, and only recently could she even stomach reading about Thatcher's without thinking about him.

Ron leaned back into the couch, nestling close to Hermione. Impulsively, she adjusted herself away from him.

Ginny stared at the spot where the two nearly connected, then gave Ron a critical look.

"You just broke up with the poor girl," Ginny said, not sounding all that empathetic. "She'll need some space"

Harry nodded at Ginny's sage advice and turned his attention down to his Potions book.

A little over a week ago, Ron celebrated his 17th birthday. Having grabbed a box of chocolates that were actually meant for Harry, having thought they were a birthday gift, Ron unbeknownst to himself ate several love potion dosed pieces of chocolate.

Ron had become feral in his attempt to find Romilda Vane, who was the perpetrator of the spiked chocolates. Harry escorted Ron down to Slughorns for an antidote, and with luck not being on Ron's side, the two had run into Lavender as they were exiting the common room. She was none too pleased that Ron seemed to have patently forgot who she was and wouldn't stop talking about Romilda Vane.

After Slughorn fixed up a potion to offset the effects of the tainted chocolates, Ron was able to explain to Lavender what happened.

But, it seemed as if the whole incident exposed a deeper crack in their relationship because , apparently, Lavender was convinced Ron was in love with Hermione.

It made her feel unsettled when Hermione learned the true reason for Lavender and Ron's continued relationship issues from Harry. For the past two months, she had been using every ounce of her emotional fortitude to not look as if she was falling apart from the inside, and frankly, she had no additional energy to consider this nonsense with Ron.

Hermione decided to go along with the narrative that her and Malfoy were never together. And because of that, she had to act as if nothing was wrong, because why would she be a broken version of herself if nothing had ever happened between them? So she hid it.

And it took everything out of her.

"What are you reading?" Ron asked in a low voice just to Hermione, causing her to focus and . look over her shoulder at him. A reluctant grin formed at her lips, knowing full well Ron didn't care what she was reading about.

"It's about Thatcher's method, it's a wandless spell technique," Hermione explained. Ron, to his credit, looked invested.

"But we've been learning MacArthur's in Flitwick's class," he noted, looking over her shoulder at the page she was on.

After two months of weening off Malfoy, she could feel her senses somewhat coming back to her, and she registered the smells that lingered off of Ron that used to captivate her.

Hermione held Ron's look for a moment longer, not certain if he was earnestly engaging with her on the topic, or just was trying to get her to talk. She had been so quiet lately that every time he got more than a sentence out of her, his whole mood improved.

He kept his eyes trained on her, waiting to hear her response.

Hermione carefully smiled, and Ron looked as if he had won the lotto. "Thatcher's is considered a better method for wandless spells in stressful situations, like duels. MacArthurs is best for every day use"

Ron considered what she said. Over Hermione's shoulder she could feel Lavender staring at them again.

"Why wouldn't we learn Thatcher's then? It seems more practical to be able to use wandless spells in duels," Ron questioned.

Hermione nodded, feeling a bit odd at his earnest engagement on the topic.

"I suppose we're not normally on the brink of war," Hermione considered, to which Ron dipped his head in agreement.

A second later, Ron shifted his position on the couch, letting himself sink deeper into the cushions, remaining gently against Hermoine's arm.

"Do you think you can teach me Thatcher's?" Ron asked, his head turning towards Hermione's which was now level with hers. The intimacy of their positions made her go rigid.

It had been two months since Malfoy had shattered her heart in the Room of Requirement, which he then continued to drag through the rubble with a regular display of vitriol for muggle borns, plus having to watch Astoria fawn over him publicly. The majority of her felt numb. But a sizable part of her still felt confused.

Nothing about what happened between her and Malfoy, albeit brief, made sense. But that being said, she felt so assured that there was a part of the equation that she was missing.

Since that night, he almost never looked at her. But in the absolute rare moments that his glance would cross her's, his eyes betrayed the vile things he had taken to saying in public.

She savored the moments where their eyes would meet, but it felt like taking one step forward and two steps back. Deep down, she didn't want to have to forget about him. If she had her choice, he would just tell her why he was doing all of this.

But at the same time, she couldn't continue to let herself be pulled up by hope to be thrashed back down with reality.

And then there was Ron.

He had changed his whole disposition towards her ever since that day he found her with Malfoy in the Arithmancy classroom. Even while still dating Lavender, he had begun talking to her again, showing her more kindness than she really knew what to do with.

Then when he broke up with Lavender, Hermione felt the tension begin to build of what that meant for her and him.

Because at that very moment, he sat next to her comfortably, their arms connected in a leisurely seated position in a way that months ago would have never been possible.

But when Hermione considered her and Ron as a couple, it was like trying to desperately remember something that was on the tip of your tongue, but it never came.

Before when things between her and Ron didn't work out, she never felt shattered in the way way she did currently. Intellectually, she knew that heartbreak happened in life, and while it's typically not the best plan to go through the process in complete secrecy acting as if everything is OK, Hermione still knew what she was experiencing from Malfoy was just something that happened in life, and was normal. It had to be normal, she reasoned, otherwise she didn't know what she would do.

So eventually she would need to figure out how to move beyond these feelings she still harbored for Malfoy despite it all. Because unlike the feelings she tried to resurface for Ron, what she felt for Malfoy stayed tattooed on her body and all she could do was try her best to cover it up.

Hermione looked over at Ron who was giving her a boyish grin. Tightly, she returned a semi smile, willing herself to consider it. She owed herself the possibility to escape the pain she felt.