A/N: Every time I update I promise that the next won't take so long, and I never pull through. I haven't forgotten this story (completely), and I WILL finish it, but I'm an extremely busy person. Anyway, enjoy!

This chapter is in Hermione's POV. And again, sorry if the dialogue sucks.

This picks up from the last chapter.

Secrets

Chapter V: Little Slips

"Do you regret it?" I ask Ron, anticipating the answer.

I've wanted to know that ever since we stopped doing it the night that it happened. I've wanted to ask him so many things after it was over. Was it good for him? Did he think I was rubbish? Did he wish he'd lost his virginity to someone else?

"No."

I hear the answer and fill with relief. I bury my head in his shoulder instinctively and take in his scent. My mind is still reeling, as I try to take in his reply completely. If he doesn't regret it, even with all this going on, does that mean he loves me? My heart fills with a tiny glimmer of hope. Then it fades. I shouldn't be feeling that.

I sigh.

God, I hate this! Everything I think and feel is wrong! I hate that I can't feel hopeful. I hate that I can't think about Ron. I hate that I betrayed Harry. I hate that he thinks I'm in love with him. Everything makes me feel this damned guilt.

Why did I ever agree to be Harry's girlfriend, anyway? I guess at the time I really thought that maybe I could start to love him as time went on. But why didn't I call it off after I realized that that clearly was not the case? What was I ever going to do? I sure as hell never planned on marrying Harry. Which means I always had a breakup in the back of my mind! Why didn't I put two and two together before?

"I have a confession to make," Ron says.

His voice startles me. I almost forgot I was clinging onto him. I let go of him and look at his face. He looks nervous.

"Go ahead," I say, a little anxious. What's he going to say?

"Remember how you asked me if I was sure that I wanted to lose my virginity to you, and I said I wouldn't have wanted to lose it to anyone else?" he asks.

"Yes," I say slowly. Oh, God. Is he going to tell me that he didn't actually feel that way?

"Well, the truth is. . ." his voice trails away and he doesn't finish the sentence.

"Yes?" I say, feeling horrible now.

"The truth is. . .that really wasn't my first time." he finishes, looking away from me.

Suddenly, I feel empty. It's as if all my emotions have been drained from me. I frown slightly. Confusion starts to sink into my head very slowly.

What?

"Huh?" I ask, sounding stupid. I'm not even sure why I said that. I heard what he said very clearly. But maybe I heard wrong. Maybe I rearranged the message the wrong way.

"When I slept with you I wasn't a virgin," he says, still not looking at me.

Again with the emptiness. I think I might be in shock. A few minutes tick by.

"You. . .weren't?" I ask, feeling extremely puzzled now.

He shakes his head. "No, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I mean, I didn't mean to mislead you. . ."

Why is it that I feel so utterly confused right now? He's being pretty blunt. "But. . .but," I start to sputter. I can't even form a complete sentence. But I thought he was a virgin! I thought he lost it to me! I thought we shared something special. I thought we were each other's firsts. . .

As if my emotions are deciding to each come back one by one, out of nowhere, jealousy decides to take over.

"Who?" I demand.

He scratches the back of his neck with his hand and looks at the floor. "Olivia Burke."

My eyes narrow. Olivia Burke? But she and Ron only dated for two months! How the hell did they get so close in two months? That's not possible.

"Are you sure?" I ask disbelievingly.

Ron looks as though he wants to laugh at that. "I'm pretty sure," he says with a nod.

"And you were that intimate with her?" I blurt out. "You guys loved each other that much?"

"No," he says thoughtfully, "Olivia just thought it was time to go onto the next step, so we did."

My mouth hangs slightly open at this. I can't quite take all of this in. Olivia Burke is an irritating Ravenclaw that has proclaimed herself as God's gift to men. Last year she and Ron met doing prefect duties and started dating after three weeks of knowing each other. They dated from the end of October to the beginning of January, and I always considered their relationship slightly immature. It didn't appear to me that they really cared about each other's. . . lives. They were more into making out and all that. . .

My thought gets interrupted as clarity starts to fill my mind.

Why the hell didn't the possibility occur to me before? Olivia has the reputation of dating guys just to get them to bed. I just always reckoned Ron wouldn't be that stupid. . .

And I thought he would tell me when he did something so major. We were best friends, were we not? Why didn't he tell me?

"Why her?" I ask, hurt. "What did she have?"

He shrugs, still not looking at me. "She was my girlfriend, and that's what couples do."

"Harry and I don't do that," I retort.

"Because you don't want to," he says.

"Because I'm not in love with him, Ron!" I cry, my eyes moistening. "I reckoned that that was reserved for people one falls in love with!"

I gasp slightly as the words spill out of my mouth. Ron's looking at me with an expression I can't decipher. We're silent for what seems like an eternity. I can't quite believe I just said that. I just basically confessed my love to him. I take slow, deep breaths, trying to figure out how to handle the situation. I hadn't outwardly said that I love him, but Ron's not so daft.

Well, this is a problem. A big problem. Another big problem. I can't let Ron walk around knowing just how strongly I feel for him. He'll act even weirder with Harry around.

But I at least deserve to know a couple of things. "So," I say shakily, "no including me, how many girls have slept with?"

I'm still breathing like I've come in from a long run. I don't even want to hear the answer now.

"Two," he says.

I feel a hot sensation taking over my face. Tears are threatening to spill. "I don't want to know who the other one is," I say, though I can pretty much guess since Ron only had two girlfriends last year.

He looks at my hurt face with a pained expression. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but--"

I put a hand up to stop him. "I don't want to hear anymore." I say. "It's. . .it's. . .none of my business, really."

I look at him, and see that he looks just as sad as I probably do.

"Can I just tell you one last thing, though?" he asks. Almost pleas.

I shake my head. "No--"

"But--"

"No!" I snap, louder than I intended. "You were the one that said we should just forget about everything, and not talk about this mess. You were the one that said if we started talking about all this stuff, things would get too complicated. And you were right. Getting into deep conversations about this will only bring trouble. So just drop it."

We look at each other for a moment. I can tell he really wants to say something, and I want him to say it too, but I just can't let him. This talk has buried us in a deep enough hole.

"Alright," he says finally, "We'll leave it at that."

(L)(A)(T)(E)R

I want to look for Harry, but I can't quite do it. I want to go to him and try to resolve the anger between us, but I just can't.

My talk with Ron has left me so hurt, that I've been in this stupid bathroom for hours contemplating everything.

At first I couldn't figure out why I was so hurt. Sure, it was of course because I'm in love with him, and sure, I hate that he never told me about it, and yes, I hate the fact that it was Olivia Burke who took him, but none of those reasons were the biggest one.

When it gets down to it, the fact is that he doesn't feel for me the way I do for him. The fact is that he didn't wait for me, but I waited for him. I stepped out of my personality and values, set everything at risk, and have landed myself in months of a torturous existence just to make sure that the first time I gave myself up completely to someone, it would be the right person. And that's him.

He, on the other hand, screwed some girl he'd only known for three months just because she thought it was time to "step up." He didn't come to me. He just. . .went on without me.

Sure, I'm a deceitful little bitch now, but that's because he drives me crazy. He makes me not care about morals. He just makes me want him and forget about everything. It doesn't matter tome what I have to do to be with him. If he felt the same way for me, why would values matter?

But he doesn't feel the same way. That's why they did matter.

I rub my eyes with my fingers.

Sure, I never told him that I wanted him to be my first, but I just thought. . . It just felt like it was almost a rule that he and I had to follow, just because that's how it's meant to be. It felt like he should just know. But he didn't.

I sigh. Yet when I think about it, it all makes sense. When Parvati lost her virginity, she complained about how awful it had been. For her, the experience had been awkward and a confusing task to complete. Lavender reassured her that it gets better with more practice, and told her that everyone's first time was never great.

But for me, it had been great. Ron did everything right. He did it with the right pace, with the right vibe, everything he did was right. I had occasionally thought about this before and was convinced that Ron had been so good because he knew me. I thought it was because he just naturally knew how to handle me. I thought it might have just been that he might have felt something for me and the feeling was leading him.

But it wasn't because he knew me.

He just knew.

From start to finish Ron knew exactly what to do. He never got nervous. He was always under control. He already knew what needed to be done and when and how. That's why I enjoyed it so much. Because Ron had had enough experience (I'm guessing he did it more than once with each girl) to know what feels good how to it.

Why!

Why did I just have to assume that he was a virgin because of some stupid little idea brewing in my mind? So many girls had started to like him last year. He had gotten so handsome that girls were practically bowing down to him as he walked through the halls. And he liked the attention. He flirted with almost every girl that threw a compliment at him.

And Olivia. I should have taken it into account after he dated her. Obviously, she would want to sleep with him. How could I think that a guy who had been so tired of being invisible all his life would turn down such a flattering and "manly" proposition when it was offered to him? How could I think that I was in his sub-conscience when girls ten times as good looking as me were at his feet?

I'm so stupid.

A tear rolls off my face and onto my lap. I ruined everything. The Golden Trio has been sabotaged thanks to me.

(L)(A)(T)(E)R

About thirty minutes later after I finished crying I set off to find Harry. It wasn't hard. I found him flying around the Quidditch pitch. I watched him fly for ten minutes, when it started to get dark and he descended to the ground. He seemed exhausted. Not physically exhausted, more like emotionally tired.

"Hi," I say tentatively.

He looks at me and smiles wryly. "Feeling better?" he asks.

I nod. This morning I'd been so moody. Poor Harry tried to soften me up by kissing me, but I didn't want it. I didn't want his affection.

"Yeah," I reply awkwardly. "I'm sorry if I acted rashly."

I don't want to apologize for not wanting to sleep with him. He and I probably won't be together much longer. I don't want to try and mend our romance issues when I'm planning to end them.

He sighs. "It's okay, it's my fault." he says.

"Your fault?" I ask.

He nods as we start to make our way towards the castle. "Yeah, I've probably been putting pressure on you to be more physical without realizing it. I should've been more careful. I know how sensitive you are."

Why does he have to be so damn noble? Can't he ever be angry and immature? It'd be a lot easier for me to hear this if he was being arrogant instead of blaming himself for things that aren't really his fault.

"It's not your fault, Harry," I say, tired. "I'm just not feeling myself these days."

"I've noticed," he says. There's something about his tone. "You've been acting strange ever since we came back to Hogwarts."

"I have?" I ask, feeling surprised. I thought I was doing pretty well. Until recently, that is.

He nods. "Yeah."

"How?"

He shrugs. "You just don't seem yourself. You're in deep thought all the time. I know a lot has changed since last year, but the last time I saw you, you were a much happier Hermione than the Hermione I'd always known. Now you seem so gloomy all the time."

"I didn't realize that," I say. "I mean, yes I've been stressed out a lot lately, but I didn't think it showed so much."

"Maybe it doesn't," he says.

"What do you mean?" I ask, puzzled.

"Well, Ron hasn't noticed anything different about you," he tells me. "Maybe I can just notice more things about you than he can, though I doubt it."

"Why's that?"

"Because I always reckoned that Ron knows you better than I do."

When I hear this, my initial reaction is shock. Why would Harry think something like that? It might be true, but I always thought Harry thought he knew me best.

"Why would you think that?" I ask curiously.

"He just. . . He just knows everything about you. What you like, what you don't like, what I should do to impress you, what I shouldn't do to annoy you, he makes you laugh, he can comfort you when I can't, and everything else about you. Whenever I need advice concerning you he always has an answer," he explains. "It's like he. . ." his voice trails away and his gaze becomes blank.

"Like what?" I ask, hoping he'll continue.

"He just knows you inside out is all," he says with a sigh.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

We're quiet for a moment and continue walking across the grounds. Harry seems upset by something.

"So why are you stressed out?" he asks.

I shrug.

"Did something happen during the holidays?" he asks.

I turn my head sharply and look at him. "Why would you think something happened during the holidays?" I ask, a note of panic in my voice.

"I told you you've been acting strangely since we got here." he says simply.

"Well, nothing happened during the summer." I say, a little too firmly.

"Yeah, Ron said that," he says.

I frown. "What?"

"Well, actually, he said you were acting normal," he says with a note of finality in his tone. "Which is strange in itself."

"What is?"

"That he said you were acting normal."

"Why's that strange?"

"Well," he says slowly. "How would he know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Last time I checked you told me you spent your summers apart." he says, facing me with a serious expression.

"We did," I say unconvincingly.

"Is something going on that I should know about?" he asks suspiciously.

Crap. Ron slipped.

A/N: Please review!