"Hermione, stop causing a ruckus." It was Harry's voice this time, ever in the lead to take Ron's side. Even after they had shared time together in the woods, he would still always favor Harry, even though he didn't know what actually happened.
Hermione could only assume what Ron had told him about their break up, the lies he had blatantly threaded to make her look more like a villain than ever. She hated being framed that way, hated thinking the first person who ever truly became her friend thought she was nothing like she actually was.
"I'm not the one causing a ruck, Harry, Ron is. He was, after all, the one who instigated the entire conflict." Hermione didn't care that poison was laced in her voice, the threat ever present.
"You were the one who-"
"What?" Hermione interrupted. "I did not do anything, because the lies Ron chooses to spew are his lies. If you think I could really hurt him, than you are no longer the boy who saved Hogwarts, no longer the boy who lived that was my best friend."
She could feel the thrum around her, the people staring at her, and especially the accusation she had just said. Hermione was exploding with her bold side, unafraid of the consequences to her truths. No one could possibly do anything about an argument between a few friends.
Hermione watched as Harry shifted his gaze from her to Ron to Ginny. Slowly, he nodded, as he grabbed a hold of her, and apparated them far away from the scene in the bar. Hermione resisted the urge to roll her eyes, hardly believing that Harry actually cared what the public thought. Maybe her accusations were right, she realized solemnly. Maybe Harry really wasn't the person she used to know.
Hermione stared at the blank room she was now in, watching as Harry whispered a soft muffliato and turned to face her. His shoulders were squared— offensive and ready for any verbal attack.
Harry face her as he spoke. "Hermione, you really can't talk like that in public. You know it will become next day's scoop."
Hermione raised her eyebrow. "So what? What if I am in the Daily Prophet, my life watched with a hawk's eye like it still will be? Harry, who cares if I am one day's news? All you could possibly concerned about is how it must look, your ex-friend making these statements about you."
"It was your choice to hurt Ron that way, Hermione. Not his. Do you know how he talked about you after you left him? And the way you betrayed him? That is not his fault! Not his!"
Harry's voice rang through her eyes as Hermione looked at him, resisting the urge to laugh. What could Ron have possibly told Harry to enrage him this much. She really wanted to know, a curiosity more than anything else.
"So tell me, Harry, how did me and Ron break up? Obviously I did something terrible, but in your own words, what did I do to possibly hurt Ron that much to make you this unforgiving and changed to someone who use to be your best friend." Hermione crossed her arms as she waited for Harry's response, racking her mind for anything Ron could possibly have told him that might have been taken from real experience.
"C'mon, Hermione. You were the one who was so distant, so unaware. You were the one who let work consume you, and slowly Ron faded from your life. And when Ron tried to talk to him about it, you just denied him an opportunity to even just talk to you!"
Harry's voice was consumed with anger, which was why his face contorted into disbelief as Hermione began laughing at Harry's accusatory statement.
"What? You think Ron's pain is suffering, he should have broken up with you before then, if you are really this ungrateful-"
"You really think that's what happened, Harry? Ron lied to you, and if you don't want to accept that, you can apparate before I tell you what really happened. The truth. One Ron obviously hid from you because it turned him out on the bottom. I cannot possibly fathom how you thought that I was the villain. I was your friend Harry, and after one conversation with Ron, you ended things."
Hermione shivered, remembering the horrid night of her and Ron's break up. A whirlwind of screams filled her ears as she went back to their argument, one loud and shaky, one of a couple not destined to be.
It all started when Hermione got home from drinks with Ginny, late at night, after the unwind of a hard day. Ron had been sitting at their small kitchen table, tapping his foot, standing up as the door opened to reveal her. She could see the straight 180 degrees of his eyebrows, his fists clenched.
Hermione could hear him whisper muffliato as she walked up to him. Hermione watched him put his wand away, staring at him as he stared at her.
"Where were you?" It was not a question, at least not the way he sounded. It was the thunder before the lightning, the rage before the blast. He was annoyed, and Hermione recognized this as a demand and not a simple inquire.
"Out with Ginny, why?" Hermione had calmly put her jacket on the chair, watching as Ron slowly gathered himself. She had no no clue what was about to come out of his mouth.
"Hermione, you've been working so late this week. And then going out with Ginny, it feels like I never see you! I mean, I need to see you. Your my girlfriend, after all." Hermione had smiled, Ron's consideration the only thing that have come out of the confrontation. Your in the clear, she had thought. You made it.
How wrong she was.
"Okay, so I'll try to be home as early as possible after work. I might have to work late next week to finally get S.P.E.W fully off just my ground, and I think a promotion might be due soon to law enforcement…" Hermione's voice trailed off as she saw the look Ron was giving her. "What is it Ron?"
"I just don't understand, 'Mione. Why are you working so hard, pushing yourself so that you never see me? Heck, your seeing Kingsley Shacklebolt more than you actually see me. We won the war! What is keeping you shackled to the stuffy office."
"So? Ron, I'm trying to follow my career." Hermione could remember her confusion in those moments, not understanding why Ron was so annoyed with her.
"But why? I mean, when we have children, you'll be home. It's not like you can work, right? Especially if we want like four or five, I mean my Mum couldn't keep her job. So, 'Mione, just don't push yourself too hard, okay? Because I don't even think you understand what will happen when we have children."
Hermione recalled how livid with anger she was, staring at Ron stating out what he seemed to think was an obvious future. "What do you mean? Ron, I'm keeping my career."
Ron had blinked, as if not registering what the underlying statement in that comment was. Hermione was upset, and she wanted to scream over and over what she really wanted to tell Ron. It infuriated her, the fact that Ron could just tell her that they were having a lot of children.
"You couldn't possibly keep your career, because then you wouldn't be able to take care of the children. 'Mione, you do know that you have to stay home. I mean, what else can you do? Work? 'Mione, be serious. No woman could possibly work and have children."
Hermione was insulted. She could not believe these words were coming via her serious boyfriend's mouth, that he was actually insinuating that this was their only option for the future.
"Ron! That is outrageous! I am not putting my career on hold for a child or two, I am not just yours to command! This is my choice, I chose to work. I can be a mother, if I want to, and have a successful career with the Ministry. If you really think I can't, then you are not the person I fell in love with."
"What do you want me to tell you?" Ron had been exploding with anger, and Hermione's emotions were a clouded mixture of anger and sorrow for the boyfriend she had known she was losing. "That we don't need to have children! That you can work, and I would stay home?"
"No, Ron, I'm just saying that I don't want to put my life on hold. My career is important and-"
"More important than children. 'Mione, my children need a proactive mother who will always be there for them. That means a break from the Ministry, you have to be able to comprehend that."
"No!" Hermione's voice was the strike of lightning, the finality. "No, this cannot happen" It was the declaration of the end, as Hermione remembered it. It was the true end of the relationship, not the tangle of anger and comments afterwards, all just a jumble of the same as before.
As Hermione relayed the story to Harry, she noticed as his expression morphed through the initial shock and into an anger towards his best friend, but she also noticed that there were still some hard feelings between her and him.
"What? Do you agree with Ron?" Hermione cut the silence of the realizations with a knife, swift and sharp.
"No," Harry said, shifting uncomfortably. "Though I do partially agree, and understand where he was coming from."
A/N:
Dun dun dun! Harry too! Man, I really don't like these characters... Any who, thank you to anyone who faved/followed from my initial chapter. Please R&R, and again, I have yet to introduce a main ship (I have no idea). Sorry for any mistakes, and thanks so much for reading! :)