Woot! Another crazy dramatic and oh-so-reflecting chapter!
Hermione sighed as she leaned against the door she had just slammed shut.
Moving slowly around her room, Hermione found that she had nothing to do. Without the option of homework, sleep, or access to the common room Hermione was a very dull girl.
Half fearing to step into the library, Hermione succumbed to staring at the ceiling of her room.
But the bland, bland white was dull enough for Hermione to wish that she had chosen more appropriate colors.
With sudden inspiration in mind, she looked around at her dull, peaceful room.
With just a flick of her wand, Hermione was faced with the terrors of pure, pure white walls surrounding the perimeter of an empty room. Wincing, Hermione whisked herself something she hadn't used in a few years.
Dabbing her paint brush in the acrylic paint, Hermione bit her lip and started on her eastern wall.
-
Hermione's smile was all to herself as she lay in the origin of her room, staring up at her ceiling, now an orgasm of clouds, pink and gold.
Sitting up, Hermione wiped her cheek as she proudly looked upon her abstract walls.
"You've got something on your cheek here."
Hermione gasped as she felt a hand from behind her. Whipping around, Hermione was faced with- Ron?
Laughing in relief, Hermione flung herself in his arms, quickly surrounding her as he embraced her in his warmth.
Holding her at an arms length, Ron grinned as she playfully glared up at him.
"You know Hermione," he said huskily, "glaring at me won't work when you've got that adorable streak of yellow paint across your cheek."
Both breaking into grins, Hermione finally started thinking straight.
"How did you get here?"
"I was watching an episode of Harry's "X-Files" DVDs and there was this guy that stretched so small he could crawl through house's ventilation systems and ate people's livers so he could hibernate for another thirty years. I was wondering how badly you'd freak out if I crawled out of your air-duct."
At the sight of Hermione physically shrinking from him, Ron gave up his straight face and pulled her to the open window, where his loyal broom was patiently waiting his return. Seeing the magical cleaning companion floating outside her window, Hermione grasped the window frame and did not allow Ron to cart her onto his chariot.
"I don't fly."
"Well, neither does superman, he's just not used to the low gravity."
Looking at Ron quizzically, Hermione wondered how he could know such trivial Muggle trivia.
Seeing her expression, Ron grinned sheepishly. "Ok, so I've been watching a lot of Harry's dvds."
In her moment of weakness, Ron lifted her into his arms and, before she could physically protest, they were levitating just outside her window.
Letting out an un-lady-like squawk, Hermione buried herself into Ron's chest as his chest rumbled with his laughter.
"What on Earth made you think I would agree to this?"
"Nonsense Hermione, I knew you wouldn't. That's why I brought handcuffs."
Once again seeing her expression, her face barely lifted from the sanctuary of his chest, Ron guffawed. "We need to hang out more Hermione; you've completely lost your sense of humor!"
Refusing to believe that anything was out of the ordinary, Hermione puffed out her chest and, in her second of confidence, forgot that they were zooming over the Great Lake.
"We hung out on Wednesday!"
Ron frowned at her. "Listen to yourself, 'Mione! Letting me copy your homework-superb by the way-every few days does not constitute being friends! …and yeah, I got so bored I learned that word from my hours of 'X-Files!'"
As they settled to a spot on the edge of the lake, Hermione faced away from him as she dealt with this fact.
Speaking softly as he approached her from behind, Hermione spoke the most truth she had uttered in weeks.
"I wish there was something I could say to help the situation. But my words do not speak as loudly as my actions. I've been a snob, Ron, I know. I won't blame it on school or Malfoy or the fact that I've got Head duties. I want to say nothing's changed, that it never will. But I have no right to promise that. And you know I can't make that promise-"
"Things don't have to change, Hermione. We'll always be-"
"No, Ron. You don't know it either. You can't say we won't be best friends forever. How can you say that when, if we don't see each other for a few weeks, we start to forget about each other?"
Ron stepped in front of her, his face scrunched up in anger and disbelief.
"Are you bloody mad? You forget about me? That's fucked up, Hermione, I sure as hell don't forget about you!"
"Give it up, Ron, we're not exactly the best of friends anymore!"
Ron was about to yell, about to continue his rant with his famous Weasley temper. But hearing her words caused a cry to utter from his mouth, a hurt in his eyes like no other. Biting his lip in his fury, he shook his head and the tears out of his eyes as he looked to the sky above them.
"No, Hermione, I guess not."
Reaching forward, Ron grasped her neck in one hand and roughly pulled her to him with the other.
Crushing his lips upon hers, Ron let his tears let loose from his closed eyes, for he knew that hers were open in shock.
Pulling himself away before she got the chance to push him, Ron did not look to her face, knowing that whatever expression he saw would haunt his ego for the rest of his life.
"I don't want things to change, 'Mione. As much as I want more, I was always happy with the fact that you could care about me as a friend. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I kissed you like I did, and Harry always told me-" Ron's voice broke-"he always told me that you would love me more as a friend than as a lover, that you respect a friend more." Ron swung his hurt eyes to her own, and for the first time he noticed that her dark brown eyes were blessed with hues of dark green, like moss on a fallen tree. "But if you can't be my best friend, if you can't humor me into thinking that we'll always be in situations where we can openly love each other, then I never want to be in anything less."
With a final shake of his head, Ron walked away from her quickly crumpling figure.
"Ron…" she whispered to his retreating figure, mounting his broom- but he was too stubborn to hear her cry, she was too stubborn to plead any louder.
-
Draco, at the same time, was watching the entire scene from his window and, although he was not blessed with exceptional hearing, he knew she was crying.
The smirk that crossed his cynical features was genuine as she stumbled towards the Quidditch pitch.
-
Wiping her eyes in her pride, Hermione quickly thought through the possibilities that Harry might be on the pitch at this hour.
As she neared the field, her heart fell. There were no players in the air. But she continued her journey, perhaps climbing to the top of the stands and looking at her surroundings would be moving enough to get her to calm down.
As she neared the locker rooms, she heard familiar laughter.
Her heart soared as she recognized Harry's soft laughter and Ginny's full-stomach bellows.
Smiling truly past her tears, Hermione followed the sounds into a room near the back of the boy's locker room, quickly planning to pretend to call points from Gryffindor because Ginny was in the locker room of the wrong gender.
But her smile fell onto the floor as she turned the corner, to the two's surprise, and, to Hermione's surprise, she found them half-naked and amidst passing a joint to one another.
Within the shocked faces, Hermione was trying to keep a grasp on reality.
My best friends are smoking pot in the back of a musty locker room. I am Hermione Granger. I am Muggle born, Head Girl, and have strong morals. My best friends are fond of calling me the Virgin Mary.
My best friends are smoking pot in the back of a musty locker room.
Using her acting skills to be nonchalant, Hermione smoothed a wrinkle out of her clothes and straightened her Head Girl badge.
"Three hundred points from Gryffindor."
My two best friends are smoking pot in the back of a musty locker room.
That's pathetic.
Feeling only slightly proud of herself, Hermione questioned what else could go wrong today.