Note: As always, we don't own what we don't own. But quite unusually, it's Larix here posting this chapter. I haven't done this for a while now and I really don't remember how to write a nice disclaimer and a nice authors' note. So without further ado I give you Chapter 16 - Hermione Quits.

Hermione Quits

Had the Whomping Willow had any feelings it would have not just been enormously cold in the biting frost, it would also have felt anger, confusion, and a desire to run far away. Probably it would have stared in disbelief, too, because the Whomping Willow was not used to being under attack.

But that's exactly what was happening to it right now.

Hermione was standing just out of the reach of the tree in a small pool of water. The warming spell around her had to be extremely strong to fight so effectively with the extreme coldness that hadn't been seen in that part of the Earth for years, and the young witch was using the melting snow around her to form firm snowballs, freeze them into solid ice again with a spell, and fling them at the battered tree with all her magical might.

Hermione was concentrating on her action so deeply that she didn't even notice someone approaching her from behind, though their teeth were clattering uncontrollably.

"Hermione! What are you doing here?" The question was accompanied with a cloud of tiny crystals of water.

"Oh, Harry! I… erm… snowball fright— I mean, fight…snowball fight…" Hermione stuttered in reply, not looking into his eyes.

"Everybody was worried," Harry said simply, grabbing hold of Hermione's arm and tearing her towards the castle. Feeling the circle of warmth around her, Harry quickly stepped closer to her.

"I just wanted to," Hermione started confidently, but her voice faltered halfway through, and the ending of the sentence was quite unconvincing, "have some… fun."

Harry snorted humourlessly, and the Willow shook it's boughs in a way which might have been considered indignant.

"Come on, let's go inside," Hermione suggested silently, as if Harry hadn't been trying to force her to go that way all along.

"Let's go," Harry nodded, and then ran after Hermione whose pace was so quick that for a moment he had been left outside the bubble of warmth.

"Now tell me, what's wrong lately?" he asked, catching up with her.

"Haven't you been to the games?" was the answer.

"No, actually I haven't," Harry replied, his cheeks colouring slightly.

"Good for you."

Harry didn't know what to say to that, so he stayed quiet. For some time they walked towards the castle in silence, Hermione's eyes cast down in a position which would have hinted on humiliation hadn't she been almost running all the while, and Harry trying to keep as close to her as possible without being hit with her flaying arms.

"I don't find chess as thrilling as Quidditch," Harry continued some time later, just to get some words from Hermione.

"Quidditch is wonderful!" Hermione screeched, storming up the stairs to the front door, the smile on her face looking as if she was constantly being tortured with a thousand Crucio's. "When's the next game? I'd really like to come to wa— aargh!"

She had walked straight into the front door, forgetting to open it.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" Harry asked again, gently guiding a cursing Hermione inside. He closed the door after them, and took out his wand to remove the warming spell from his friend. All the while Hermione stood like a statue, having stopped cursing now.

Standing there, Hermione was racking her brain. What could she tell Harry? What should she say was the matter with her? Little drops of sweat started to form on her temples and the back of her neck, and her skin was burning red with the intense heat, for Harry hadn't managed to remove the spell, though he had tried repeatedly.

"Ron's losing," she blurted out finally, happy that she had found a way to keep Malfoy out of it.

Harry nodded.

"You should take the spell down yourself. It's too strong for me," he said.

"And I'm his second and therefore it's my fault as much as his, maybe even more, and I can't live like that!" Hermione continued, her lips bending in a smile against her will, a slightly maniacal gleam in her eyes.

"You should take it down now, before you catch fire," Harry insisted, for bulging blisters were starting to spring on her cheeks and hands.

Hermione didn't listen to him, she was ranting.

"And Ron is blaming me all the time, not that he didn't have a right to do so, and McGonagall is behaving like a child, and she for one certainly doesn't have a right to do so, and Snape is berating me all the time, not that he hasn't done that always, and Draco is—"

Harry didn't even try to listen to Hermione any longer. He made to shake her out of her rant, clearly worried for his friend, but when his hands entered the circle of heat, he couldn't but jump away from her, letting his reflexes get the better of his will. He looked at Hermione for a moment, then closed his eyes, and then ran straight into her, not letting the heat scare him away this time.

Hermione stumbled onto the floor, Harry on top of her. Harry quickly rolled himself away from her, to get out of the heat, for one, and to get out of her reach, too. Hermione, on the other hand, stayed down on the floor for a moment, her mouth open and eyes wide in surprise. Then she jumped up, grabbed her wand, removed the charm and healed her skin in one fluid motion, then stepped up to Harry and loomed menacingly over him.

"And you're the worst of them all! Attacking me like that for no reason at all! I'd do anything to get far away from you all! I don't want to share a House with you!"

And she ran up the Marble Stairs with no glancing back, leaving a befuddled Harry explaining to the empty Entrance Hall that he had thought Hermione was a bit hot with this spell around her inside the castle.

-----

The next day Harry made his way to the Ravenclaw common room with ample time to the start of the match. He was even more worried now than he had been the day before. Hermione hadn't turned up all night, and he hadn't even been able to locate her on the Marauders' Map. From that he had naturally concluded she had been in the Room of Requirement, but when he had finally managed to get the door to appear, it had been locked in a way that no spell he could cast would open it.

So he had decided to go watch the game, knowing that Hermione had to turn up for that.

He took a seat right next to the one that had the inscription of Weasley's second on it's back, and sat there, waiting. Soon a flow of students was blocking the Window Hole, professors McGonagall and Snape had sat down in their seats, even the Bloody Baron had floated over to his seat, smiling and waving to numerous students in the audience. But Hermione was nowhere to be seen.

Minutes passed and the orchestra simultaneously cast the tuning charm on their instruments. A moment later Moody walked in, twirling a pencil between his fingers in a merry way, though the expression on his face was severe and harsh. Then, after him, Ron and Malfoy came, refusing to look at each other, refusing to look at McGonagall and Snape, even refusing to look at Moody. But both of them, almost in a coordinated move, turned their gazes to the empty chair where Hermione should have been sitting, and identical expressions of surprise, confusion, and disappointment flashed over their cheeks as they sat down in their armchairs.

Harry heard a clock tick somewhere as the whole room waited in silence. He saw Flitwick raise his wand to begin, when the Window finally slid open again, admitting Hermione.

"Where've you been?" Harry asked quickly as Hermione sat down.

"Shh!" was all he got for an answer.

"McGonagall came looking for you last night. And Ron was going ballistic. We were worried," Harry whispered.

"Shh, the game!" Hermione insisted again, grabbing for her wand in a threatening way.

"I think you should talk to us about it," Harry tried to tell her, but before he managed to get a word out, Hermione had cast a silencing charm on him.

This way Harry had nothing left to do than to watch the game, though without Seamus' professional commentary he understood next to nothing of it. After some moves the audience would let out Oh!-s and Ah!-s, though Harry could not make himself understand what was so special about them.

He sat there, eyes closed, listening to the music, berating himself for not taking a Quidditch book with him. He was growing more and more restless, but it seemed the chairs had been charmed in a way that prevented the spectators from leaving before the end of the match. And then, some hour and a half later, the time which he had spent mostly asleep, he heard the music growing in volume and speed, getting more anxious with every note, pushing the game towards a climax.

"Checkmate!" Malfoy said.

Harry's eyes snapped open. He saw that Ron looked flabbergasted, almost ready to kill. On the other side of the table Malfoy had stood up, smiling with good humour, no smirk on his face, and bowing to Hermione. With another jolt of surprise Harry noticed that Hermione was beaming right back at the Slytherin.

"So that's what's going on!" he almost shouted, but no sound escaped his lips. He looked back at Ron, whose gaze was now fixed menacingly on Hermione, but when he turned to her again the gleeful expression had disappeared from her face; instead there was the dull devastation and refined certainty they were almost becoming used to, already.

Deciding it was high time to force his friends not to make wrong decisions he jumped up from the chair, grabbed them by their arms, and tore them after him, all the while shouting at them, completely forgetting that he was still soundless.

-----

Ron couldn't comprehend what he had done wrong — first Malfoy beat him in the game, though he played his best, certainly; then Hermione seemed happy about that; and finally Harry tried to rip his arm off, all the while mouthing something fiercely.

He let Harry guide him down some odd three flights of stairs, usher him (and Hermione, too, of course) through some secret passages he even didn't know anything about, then tear them upstairs again so many steps that he didn't even bother to count, still not saying a word, running the whole time.

After another flight of stairs Harry bowed down, clutching his side, evidently having a stitch there. Ron quickly shook his friend's hand off him, from the corner of his eye seeing Hermione doing the same. He stepped some paces away from the others, but Hermione followed him. He took some more strides, but Hermione didn't stop. Ron started running, Hermione high on his heels.

And suddenly Ron found himself again in the alcove from where he had watched Hermione in the snow. He ran to the window and pressed his palms and forehead against it, then turned his back to it and sat down on the ground.

"Five games to two!" he said. "It's all over!"

Hermione stood some fifteen feet from him, leaning on the wall, trying to force her breathing even and look as if she had just been passing by.

"Oh," she said.

Ron looked up at her face, so impartial now, impossible to read. The image of her girlfriend lighting up with joy at the sight of his defeat swam back into focus, and he jumped up from the ground again, bursting with anger.

"So you got what you want
What a nasty ambition!
Set me up, pull me down
Then exploit my condition

I should have guessed, woman
That if pressed, woman
You're on nobody's side but your own
And you are behaving
Like a mere woman
It's so clear woman —
It's your sex!"

"What? First you berate my inheritance, then my sex? And then you ask what's wrong with me!" Hermione screeched, completely forgetting her hope of working everything out with Ron, or her charade of impartiality.

"Once they start getting old and getting worried
They let fly, take it out
On the one who supports them.
That's you I'm talking about!"

Hermione looked at him in clear distaste for a moment, formulating her answer.

"Who'd ever guess it?
Such a squalid little ending
Watching you descending
Just as far as you can go
I'm learning things I didn't want to know!" she spat with malice.

"Who'd ever think it?
This would be the situation —
One more observation —
How'd we ever get this far
Before you showed me what you really are?"

They were both red in the face by now, not listening to each other, just screaming at the top of their lungs. It was clear to the both of them that they couldn't spend another five minutes in the same room without trying to strangle each other. It was clear to both of them that it really was a squalid little ending.

"You'll be lost without me
To take notes like I used to!" Hermione yelled as one last go.

"Go away! Leave me alone!
Be someone else's know-it-all!" Ron answered in rage, but Hermione had already turned around and stormed off.

Review! (please...)