Chapter Twelve:

Falling in Pieces

Fred didn't care for St. Mungos.

Despite he and George's line of work, they never had injured themselves so badly where they would need to go to the Hospital. Mum had a little bit of Healer training she had picked up before she had eloped with dad. In fact, the only Weasley child to have spent time in St. Mungos was Charlie, who had a bad case of Dragon Pox when he was eight. But Charlie hadn't minded it too bad. He said it was the pox that made him want to handle dragons. If he could survive two weeks with the pox, what was a lifetime of fire?

The only time Fred had come to visit someone was his seventh year, last Christmas when no one knew if Mr. Weasley was going to make it through the night. He had yelled at an escaped Azkaban convict, he was almost certain he had called Sirius Black a coward that night. I was angry then, he told himself. When they got to visit dad the next day it felt similar to the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts, the only difference being a lack of Madam Pomfrey's occasion outburst on policy and procedure.

He knew how Charlie's stay ended. He'd even see his dad walk out of the Hospital in time for Christmas dinner. What he didn't know was how Katie Bell was going to manage.

Fred had waited in the Hospital Wing as Madam Pomfrey stabilized her for the Healers. He had waited for Mr and Mrs Bell to come out of McGonagall's office and answer any questions they might have for him. No, he didn't know what had happened. No, there wasn't anyone lurking in the distance, no one he could see. He only seemed to create more questions but they didn't ask them. They were just glad he had been there. Mr Bell worked at the shop down the Alley, he would stop in and check on the boys when they were first starting up. Mrs Bell had come to watch them play Quidditch their fifth year when they won the cup. If anything, he was just a stabilizing presence for the Bells as part of their world fell apart. Katie's older brother Jasper was to meet them at St Mungos and take over from there, but until that moment, Fred was their son.

The Former Quidditch team had rallied around her in the first few weeks of her stay. Even Oliver was able to swing by after Puddlemoore had a break in the schedule. Prior to Harry joining, Katie Bell had been the baby of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, selected by Charlie to be his replacement as Chaser. Small and lean, with a tendency to dart through the air, she had earned the nickname Imp. She had a self-confidence you didn't see among first years trying out for the team; it wasn't arrogance, she just believed she was good enough to take up Charlie's mantle. Charlie had made George and him swear to keep her in the air as beaters. It was a promise they had kept. Oliver would occasionally get whacked. They probably let the Keeper get whacked down to earth most. But the girls—Angelina, Alicia and Katie—they had always been able to keep them safe.

Until now anyway.

He came to the Hospital on a drizzly afternoon. Dementors were at it again, or perhaps it was actually foggy. He couldn't tell which was which anymore. He was starting to believe the sun never shown in London. It was just mist and damp weather.

She was still unconscious. The Healers said it was a magical coma where her mind would be able to heal any damage done by the Opals. She was in a Semi-Private Ward. Dividers blocking her off from others sight, which was probably a good thing. Fred doubted other people didn't have a team of visitors tracing through every week or a built up offering of flowers and Joke Shop gifts sitting at her night side table, beckoning her to wake up. They actually had to ask the Healers to let her have a second table because there was so much stuff building up on the sides.

"Hullo Katie," he said, changing out the dying flowers for some fresh ones, "It's a cold day in London and not a patch of blue sky in sight," he said sitting in the chair the Healers had left, "Don't worry you aren't missing anything."

She just lay there. Which was what people did while in comas, he learned. They just laid there and let medicine put them together again. It was supposed to give her body the rest to recoup and she'd come out the same Katie Bell as the one who went to bed the night before the fateful Hogsmeade trip.

He envied her in ways. Pending how long she slept, she could miss the entire war. There had been more deaths in the Prophet, no one he knew yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time before that changed. He was a part of the Order of the Phoenix. He expected death. He didn't look forward to it, but he didn't out rule it either. It was easier to take things when they were expected than when they suddenly crashed down in front of someone.

Like Hermione crashing to the ground when she saw you, he thought looking at Katie, bedridden. She looked smaller in the white sheets than she actually was. Small and fragile- Like Hermione looking guilt ridden before she even made it to where we were.

If there was anyone that could benefit from a coma, a time out from the hustles and bustles of the war, it was Hermione Granger.

The Healers had said that with Katie, they had the option to induce the magical coma or not. How sometimes they chose not to if the patient was assumed stable and the damage minimal. He didn't know what had happened at the Department of Mysteries, but with the Aftermath he had seen, he was hating the healer that decided Hermione didn't deserve a time out.

Because something was the matter with Granger.

He took at his wand and waved the curtain closed, muttering "Muffilato" to make the little bay where Katie slept sound proof. "I need to talk to someone Katie," he explained, scooting his chair closer to the bed. " Particularly, to someone who won't repeat what I say" he winked, "I need to talk this out and make some sense. Can you hear me out?"

He skipped the silence. No need to wait for a response. Fred was the talker, George was the listener. He had the ears for it. He knew he could be having this conversation with his twin and get actual advice, but something didn't seem right about that idea either.

"She hasn't been herself lately," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "She's keeping secrets from Harry and Ron. I suppose that's not as big a deal, she's seventeen years old and friends with the emotionally unaware Ronald Weasley. 'Suppose she has to keep something to herself—but it doesn't feel like its school girl secrets. It seems bigger."

He could remember the specifications she gave him on the journal. Something that would allow only the writer to access it. Something she needed to keep from Harry and Ron. And the extra security charms she had him put on it—he had to look up a few of them. Protego Maxima, Protego Totalum, Fianto duri—those were the trinity of protection spells. I made the book as secure and as indestructible as humanly possible. It would take quite the offense to break through those barriers.

She never said why she needed it—he had asked her as much and she started looking off in the distance, getting lost in her thoughts behind those eyes, he gave her an answer. Told her she could have a diary if she needed it. Fred wondered if she had made her own model now. The only thing that had kept her from doing so over the summer was the trace. But she had turned 17, that wouldn't get in her way again.

"But it's more than the journal Imp," he said turning to the sleeping Katie. "The way she looks at people is unnerving. Everyone else seems like their not noticing, but—" he lowered his voice, "She looks at George like he's in pain. She'll ask if he needs anything—I know that doesn't mean something's up, but its unsettling. Its like she thinks something bad's going to happen to him and I can't have—"

He stopped. His throat suddenly felt dry. Over the summer, when he and George had had the spat over whether or not to run from the Death Eaters, Hermione had asked what his death would mean to his family. She even asked about George individually. He had told her they'd go together, but God forbid, what if that didn't happen. What if George left him behind? What if he were the only living Weasley twin? He felt a chill in the air. It was as though a Dementor had crept out of the fog and found its way to this ward. What would he do if George died? They never planned this out. They had strictly agreed not to when the war started again. Other people would focus on dying they'd said, they would focus on living.

"George can't die, he' can't." he said simply, and then looked at his comatose friend, "Well, at least not without Angelina's permission. I figure she'd have quite the bit to say about him dying without her consent."

He closed his eyes and relived the scene as he had every day since Katie's accident. It had been just the two of them, bantering over their Butterbeer. Her mood seemed to drop when he asked about Ron and he found out about their latest fight. Those two knew how to destroy each other with turn of phrase. But when he had told her it'd get better—how they could ask Katie about Quidditch after she got out of the loo—

"She's been acting suspicious, something definitely off that she's not telling anyone about. When I told her we'd have to talk to you about Quidditch it was as though she went from night to day; she followed you before I could get my words out. I thought she was going to trip she was walking so quick—"

He had asked her over the summer if she was a Death Eater. It had just been a jest, one that she had responded with near comical laughter. But something wasn't adding up. When she reached his side following the accident, she blamed her self. She said it was all her fault. He acted as though he didn't hear, he was stabilizing Katie's head so she wouldn't hurt herself while Harry and Ron called in the distance for Hagrid. She kept on muttering to herself, he couldn't make out all the words in the rippling wind and sleet, but he could have sworn he'd heard "different" and "forgetting" before she shut up and helped him.

"Katie, did Hermione curse you?" he asked, the words sounding crazier out loud then they had when they floated in his head. It sounded insane. Hermione Granger, Death Eater. Maybe she wasn't one of them, maybe someone had cursed Hermione and she was acting outside her free will, but even then members of the Order were watching those three night and day, when would a Death Eater have had the chance.

It's the only thing that makes sense, he told himself. He'd write to Dumbledore himself. He'd need to know what was wrong and how he and would be able to fix it. He'd find a way to rescue his friend. After everyone she had helped save through the years, it was his turn to save Hermione.

((*))

Hermione hadn't slept much since Katie Bell's accident.

You swore you were going to do things different, she had nagged herself. Instead, you go out for lunch with Fred Weasley and stand on the sidelines while Katie Bell gets packed up to St. Mungos again.

She hadd remembered earlier that week what was going to happen. She had made a little note in the margins of her journal that this was the only Hogsmeade trip for the year on account of Katie Bell getting cursed by Opals. She had even brainstormed how she could stop it from happening. She had made new gloves that went past the wrists ever so slightly that would prevent Katie from getting grazed by the exposed package. Or better yet, she could run interference and stop the package from even reaching Katie. Camp out in the girls bathroom and wait for Rosemerta. If she broke the curse now, Ron would never be threatened. She'd have thrown Malfoy's plan off track, who knew when he'd be able to curse another person. She could save them all.

But she had forgotten all of that when she got to Hogsmeade. The carriage ride she had thought about the memories she had relived with Dumbledore. She had remembered parts of her childhood and family memories long forgotten—it had to have been a decade since she remembered her imaginary friend Nora—and then there was the memory she had fabricated, of saving Fred Weasley. That had weighed on her mind the entire journey. How she wasn't going to let him disappear in a wall of rubble. She had disappeared in the wall of snow to bring him home. He was going to live. So he could continue making people laugh. He was going to live so his twin would live a normal, happy, healthy life. He was going to live so he could make her laugh when he tried to disguise himself with an amulet and hair charm.

Fred Weasley would live, that had been the mantra everything inside of her had chanted that afternoon. Fred Weasley would live to snoop around shops. He would live to open his own shop in Hogsmeade. He would live so her seventh year they could meet up again for drinks at the Three Broomsticks. It was nonnegotiable. Fred Would live. It would have a different ending.

But Katie Bell would also have a different ending. Or at least, she had intended she would.

When they returned to the castle, McGonagall had spoken with the four of them. Seeing Fred, the old Transfiguration teacher had smiled and, after dismissing the three of them, had told Fred to stick around so he could answer any questions the Bells would have about their daughter's accident. Hermione had wanted to stay behind too and say goodbye, but he been shaken by the accident. He hadn't made eye contact with Harry, or Ron. She turned around before she left and wished him goodbye. He had turned around and winked, but had stayed to talk with McGonagall.

McGonagall should be happy if she knew you kept to your timeline, a voice told her, but Fred would be furious if he knew the only reason Katie was still injured was because you took lunch with him rather then did your lavatory stake out.

And the Katie Bell debacle was just the tip of the iceberg.

Her sixth year hadn't been this hard before, because everything was candid. Hermione was very good at being candid. She reacted to the situation live placed in front of her. But repeating the past was proving difficult, especially events surrounding Ron.

She hadn't remembered Ron being so difficult to deal with the first time around. Their sixth year was by far the most challenging the two of them had faced together. But that was mainly Lavender. She knew that was coming, but she hadn't noticed how hostile he had been in the weeks before he left her standing at the door of the Common Room watching the Gryffindor Quidditch Victory party.

They had been beginning to reconcile before Hogsmeade. He was being helpful again, polite. It was kind of attractive, the polite Ron. He wasn't as stubborn, he was more forgiving. He was complementary too. And he'd do little things , like rolling his eyes to her every time Harry started going on the Malfoy's-a-Death-Eater campaign, or he'd complement her spell work. He had even apologized the morning of the Hogsmeade trip for being a git about her friendship with Fred.

But seeing her and his brother at Hogsmeade must have been the tipping point because she was back on his short list. It was as though he had reverted to their third year when he was shunning her first for the Firebolt and later Scabbers.

When she had been on his bad side before, she had put on the brave face and just rolled with it. She hadn't yelled at him when he had been cold to her. She had hoped that he'd get the anger through his system and then come back and apologize again and they'd start over again.

Maybe it was he foul mood, maybe it was the failure of not being able to save Katie, but she wasn't sporting the brave face and she wasn't taking Ron's actions quietly. When he had suggested she take McClaggen to the Slug Club Christmas party, something snapped inside. Before she had remembered how last time she had said she had planned to ask him but if she'd rather she go with McClaggen she'd see to it. When he made the same accusation that day in Herbology she had snapped just like the Snaragluff pod they had been working on.

"Oh I'm sure you'd like that wouldn't you," She had said, up to her elbow in the sap coming from the now immobile pod, "Lucky for me that I don't have to ask for your permission or anything Ronald Weasley."

"So who are you going to take if not McClaggen eh?" he'd asked " If you want to keep up your tradition of fraternizing with the enemy, you could always ask Malfoy. Maybe by the end of the night you'd be able to tell Harry if there was a Dark Mark on him or not."

His words were so harsh and so unexpected that she didn't know how to react. It was like the air had been blown out of her. "You are an unmitigated and comprehensive ass Ronald," she swore, as she gathered her books and threw him her bag, storming out of the greenhouse. Not listening to anyone or anything behind her.

That was the third time Ron had done that to her, taken the air out of her and left her to wonder what her reflex would be. The first time he had done that was when she crawled into the Portrait hole, ready to apologize for the whole Felix Felicies episode. She was going to tell him he was a good athlete, that he didn't need it and she only acted the way she did because she held him and Harry to better than what she had expected. But instead she had seen him kissing that cow who would make her year hell.

The other time was when he walked out and left her. Well, he had left Harry too, but she had taken in as a direct lost. When she had followed him out in the camp only to see him disappear, knowing he wouldn't be able to come back.

Each time had been a betrayal. Each had been stronger then the last. This hadn't happened last time, she could argue. She could have screamed this from the Astronomy Tower, going that some eavesdropping god would hear her cry and fix it. Last time, it was different. She had been kinder and she had more or less invited him to be her guest at the party. Now, the hell if she didn't write Victor Krum and invite him to her little school dinner party, anything to make Ron hurt like she hurt right now.

She had walked out ten minutes early. She doubted Professor Sprout wouldn't notice. That's another thing the other Hermione wouldn't have done. She would have been kind to Ron, made nice, and stayed in class.

But the other Hermione hadn't been coupled with Malfoy.

She had acted rashly. She was better than this. But Ron had a talent of being able to build her up or tare her down with a string of words. It had been like that before the war, and it had been that way after the war. In the seven months of the relationship she and Ron had before her accident with time, he hadn't torn her down as much as when the were at school—but they had also only spent three months together before she had gone back to Hogwarts leaving him behind with Harry.

She had turned to the library for her free period that afternoon. She needed to cool her head. And of course, Harry found her there.

"Can we talk?" he asked, not long after sitting himself at the table where her books were sprawled.

"Have you become Ronald's owl?" she asked when they got in corridor near the library. It was one of her favorite corridors, isolated, no one usually taking this entrance into the library. She liked it because it had a view of the grounds and the lake that she couldn't get from Gryffindor tower. On a nice day, you could see the hill that overlook the lake. But the weather was turning again. They'd be lucky if they had nice weather for the Quidditch game. But oh, how they'd be lucky. . .

"He feels bad for saying what he did," Harry sighed, leaning against the wall and looking out the storm below them. " Doesn't mean you should forgive him right away though, I chewed him out plenty for that. Git of a thing to say."

She leaned against the wall next to Harry. "Why would he say something like this?" she asked, surprised by how small her voice was. "There are days where he's my best friend and days when he hurts more than saying 'mudblood'."

Harry shrugged, "He hasn't been himself lately, that's all," he tried. "I think seeing you and Fred together has made him jealous."

"We're not together," she hissed, "I came into to Hogsmeade and I saw him outside of Zonkos. I was going to come look for you two when he suggested we get something to eat!"

"And I get that, but," Harry seemed to be struggling with words, "You know how Ron is. Especially when it comes to his brothers. He gets jealous."

"He gets idiotic," Hermione corrected. "Fred's my friend, is he trying to tell me that I can't be friends with his brother?"

"I think he's trying to tell you something else," Harry said, "If its what I think it is, then it needs to come from him and not me. But I think your sudden friendship with Fred is what's keeping him from saying it."

Did Harry see it before we did? she wondered and then stopped herself. Of course she did. All the teachers had. But she had never supposed Harry had. He'd been oblivious to so much, she thought he had been oblivious to this too.

But what he was saying, that in order to get on the course to the kiss in the midst of the final battle, she'd have to abandon Fred all together, that seemed too rich. That seemed like a trade off she didn't want to make. Hermione Granger didn't do ultimatums. Least of all ones from Weasleys.

"Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it," she muttered out loud, the past and present mixing in a cocktail of memories. She had said this before, to Ginny, when in her seventh year Ron had been rude to Justin Fletch-Fletchy when he had complemented her in front of him at Hogsmeade. She had scolded him for that later when it was the two of them. She had told him that she made her own choices, and she had chosen him, not Justin. But she still talked to Ginny about it that night. Ginny had but her arm around Hermione and said that 'Ron is never worth it, but if your worth it to Him, he'll listen." She wished that Ginny was here again. She needed someone to take the helm for her right now.

"You're happiness is worth it," Harry said simply, looking at her and giving a lopsided smile, "Devils Advocate, you know Ron. Jealousy and Pride are his fatal flaws. But he's fiercely loyal. He has that going for him."

The first Quidditch game of the season was this Saturday. She wondered how that loyalty argument would work for Harry then.

"I have to finish an essay Harry," Hermione said standing up from the wall. She walked back towards the library door but stopped for a minute, turning around again to say "Tell Sir Ronald Loyal Heart that I don't take back anything I said today. I know his pride was injured, but my pride is worth more."

((*))

Saturday morning rolled the same as it had before.

She had come into the Great Hall just as she had before, stopping midway up the Gryffindor table when she saw Harry 'spike' Ron's drink with the Felix Felicies. She had called him out, whispering through gritted teeth when she accused him of it. He had whispered back about her confounding Cormac. And then, she did as she had done before and stormed out of the Great Hall and then running back to the Common Room.

When she got back to the tower, Lavender and Paravati were leaving the Portrait Hole. Both of them dressed with their Gryffindor Scarfs, she noticed a smudge of a Quaffle painted on Lavenders cheek. She made eye contact with Hermione and whispered something quickly to Paravati whose eyes seemed to double in size. The hell with you both, Hermione screamed in her mind. She brushed them off, running up the stairs to her room.

She grabbed the book from her trunk and jumped to the page she had worked on the other night, checking her actions as she went.

She had wondered why she was so gun ho on letting Ron and Lavender get together still. She knew she could have prevented it.

It didn't take long for her to come up reasons why she should let it happen. She didn't have the time to have a relationship with Ron this year. This year and most of next she'd be busy trying to save all of their lives. If they had one, how would that change things when they were on the run? If they got together now, would he still leave? Would they have broken up? And then what? Would they be able to get together again as Harry and Ginny had?

If she was trying to save all their lives, she couldn't have the distraction that Ron would be. At least not yet.

She shoved the book in her trunk and grabbed her own scarf. She wasn't going to watch the game. She wasn't going to watch the game where Ron would get over confident, leading the Gryffindor's a verse of Weasley is our king. She didn't want to.

She kept her day's timeline in her head, she had to go to the dressing room after the game and accuse them of cheating with Felix Felicies. She had to argue with them, and have Ron argue with her to the point she stormed off. And then she had to walk into the Tower and then run away again.

She sat next to Hagrid's during the game. He was gone, but she could sit with Fang, sitting on the back step.

When Hogwarts was hosting the funerals for the fallen, Ron Weasley had gone to several. He had sat in the one for Remus and Tonks, and he had been under the marquee for family only when they buried his brother. He had attended Nigel and Colin's, and he had sat in the very back for another one. For Lavender's.

She knew, she had gone with him. They were roommates, she needed to go. They had fought about it. Not their usual sort of row, but they had argued all the same. Hermione saying they were roommates, it would look bad if she didn't make an effort to go. Ron saying that she and Lavender hated each other so much the last year they were roommates, the body might start rolling in its coffin if it knew she was there.

She had won and the two of them sat, fuming at the other silently, in the back of the Great Hall. When the time came in the service, for them to file past the casket, Hermione had gone first, placing a rose in the casket but not making contact with the body held there. She didn't need to see the mangled face that had been Lavender. She didn't need to see the shadow of the bubbly girl with golden hair. She need to bury all memories of her with the body so she'd be able to look back at the name with a sad recollection of the girl who hadn't made it.

She had dropped her flower and was almost back to her seat until she noticed Ron had stopped in front of the casket and was still standing there. He held some small, golden necklace in his hand and was putting it in with Lavender.

After the funeral they argued about what he had given her. It was only when she spoke to Harry he had told her about the necklace she had sent him for Christmas that year. It made her feelings sit like a Quaffle on her chest.

He never spoke about Lavender after the funeral. Even if she jabbed him for something related to their sixth year, he'd usually give up. He'd never bring up Lavender being a better kisser, or a better girlfriend. He locked her up as though she didn't exist after the funeral.

How would it be different now that she had sworn to save her, she wondered. How would Lavender factor into her and Ron's post war love affair?

The chorus of Weasley is our King played in the air. She took out her wand and conjured three golden birds into the air, watching how they flew into small, merry circles as they took off into the fall air.

The game would be over soon. She needed to leave. She needed to get this all over with.

AN:

I'm so sorry any typos or grammar errors, I did a quick sweep but you all know how well that goes. Never shorten your editing time—my words of wisdom to you all—

Also compared to last chapter, slightly angst-y but I thought necessary. It's going to be part of something bigger; and we FINALLY have Ron and Lavender getting together. I know I shouldn't be happy about that but I am. That means I can start having fun : )

Next chapter the family finds out about Lavender, as well as Hermione and Dumbledore having another meeting. . . Fred's theories of Hermione's well being is going to continue a little while longer.

I also wanted to thank you all for your support of this story. I haven't gotten to reply to all your reviews for the last chapter yet, but I genuinely appreciate your feedback and support. I am glad you are enjoying this story and hope that this chapter, as angsty and words as it was, was satisfying to you all.

Until next week,

KH