Ron and Harry joined Hermione's side as she slept.
"She's really done it this time -" Ron started shakily.
"She hasn't!" Harry insisted pointedly. "Dumbledore's put up with plenty of my violent… outbursts."
"What? But you're a boy," replied Ron to Harry, confused.
"Umm…"
"PM- oww!"
Ron had just been smacked in the head by a sleeping Hermione.
Hermione awoke, pushing her untidy hair off her face sleepily.
"What up? Ron?"
She turned her gaze shiftily to Ron who was massaging his head. Harry and Ron turned to Hermione slowly. Afraid.
Hermione spoke robotically as though rehearsed: "I have decided to leave Hogwarts to pursue my dreams – which don't lie here. To start a new life."
Ron opened his mouth slightly making a peculiar face unlike Harry who frowned.
"What the hell's that going to do!" choked Harry furiously.
"And you're so… clever…" added Ron sheepishly.
"I don't care! You don't know me! When I first came to this school I abided by the rules word for word – mostly, too shy to show my remotely interesting self. I'm sick of it!"
"If you're not expelled you'll have to stay anyway. You can't go to muggle school, that's just wrong." Ron said in a way that showed he thought he had settled it.
"I quit, Ron. No school whatsoever! I'm going to stay with Miss Bella Lestrange."
"Her!" squeaked Harry.
"Yes: if you ever bothered to speak to Sirius you'd know all about her, she's his cousin, she sounds nice!"
"She's in Azkaban, spoon!"
"She's in Grimmauld Place hiding with Sirius, don't believe what you read!"
Hermione snatched her wand up off the dresser next to the hospital bed. She brandished it in the faces of Harry and Ron defensively. Hermione's chest rose and fell rapidly as her heart quickened its beat.
"Put it away, dear."
Madam Pomfrey entered the ward unabashed with a trailing list in one hand and her wand in the other.
"Now, what do you want for dinner? Beef casserole, lasagne, omelette?"
Hermione screwed her face up.
"Tofu and vegetables! Please!
"No!" gasped Ron.
"Oh, Hermione, not a dreaded fad, you need your protein," Harry pressed.
"You may not know me at all, Harry Potter, but you should know I don't do fads and vegans do get their protein!"
"Okay."
Face crumpling startlingly quick Hermione dissolved into tears to the shocked faces of Ron and Harry. The pair of them exchanged worried looks.
"Mum and Dad don't like the 'witch thing'. They never have done. They want rid of me and to start again, Mum's having a baby, a non-magic baby too."
Ron embraced Hermione first as she sobbed harder into his cloak. Her head was patted cluelessly by Harry.
"Surely you can relate to one of us then, if you really do hate us so much," Harry soothed.
Hermione's tears stopped as fast as they had come on, she threw a furious look at Harry.
"I didn't say I hated anyone, you just don't know me!"
Harry and Ron left the hospital wing to let Hermione brood malevolently over what was to come.