AN: This was another chapter written on receipts at work, which made for an awkward six hours with my coworkers trying to peer over my shoulder to see what I was working on... Hopefully I'll be able to get back into updating more frequently and not leave you guys hanging again. I'd also like to thank all of you who have reviewed, I love seeing what you think of the story so far. For those of you who haven't yet, please review, it takes a few moments for you but motivates me through every word. Lyrics are from United States of Eurasia/Collateral Damage by Muse.

-Ophelia

You and me fall in line

To be punished for unproven crimes

And we know that there's no one we can trust

Our ancient heroes, they are turning to dust

And these wars; they can't be won

Does anyone know or care how they begun?

They just promise to go on and on and on

Nothing gets me worked up as much as a lengthy conversation with you, and although this one had been relatively tame it still took hours of stomping around the castle for me to cool down enough to return to the Common Room. It was loud, warm and packed as usual, and the familiar sight of all these chattering students was oddly soothing. Despite the war, or perhaps because of it, they clung stubbornly to the people they once had been. They laughed and joked as always, and still had not lost themselves to the darkness that surrounded them. It was a somewhat bittersweet realization, for I knew that I had not been nearly so fortunate myself.

Even with the safety of the castle, surrounded by those I had called friends for seven long years, I still couldn't bring myself to relax and drop my guard. I saw an enemy in every shadow, took each step preparing to break into a desperate run the next, and kept my wand within reach at all times. I never unpacked my beaded bag, just in case the time would come when I needed it again, when I needed to put my life on hold and say my last goodbyes and take off, never to be found. Harry and Ron were the same way, I knew. Both being in the thick of the action and being hunted down by Snatchers had robbed us of whatever childish innocence we once held. Even before the war, though, that innocence had been gradually wearing thin. Every adventure within the castle throughout the years had taught us that the only people we could trust was each other, and created warriors out of children who should have been more focused on their studies than on keeping themselves alive. Harry had been hit the hardest by this, having been forced to the forefront of any and all deadly trouble at Hogwarts over the last several years, but Ron and I paid the toll as well.

As I stepped further into the room, the crowd parted for me as if I had some contagious disease, as if my misfortune would leap from me onto them if they so much as made eye contact with me. It was incredibly unnerving to walk past all of these people, feeling their silent gazes upon me but refusing to meet my eyes. They were not so obvious as to turn their whole bodies away from me, but as I slowly and awkwardly passed, it was as if I was both the most and least visible person in the entire crowded room. By the time I had reached the overstuffed couches before the roaring fireplace, I felt as if I had run a marathon. Thankfully, Harry and Ron were both in our usual spots, and as I sank down gratefully beside them I felt the last lingering eyes turn away.

It was the first time I had seen Ron since he had yelled at me for my supposed lack of reaction to my impending marriage, and for a moment I was shocked to see the redness in his eyes. What on earth had he been crying about? Was it my fault somehow? "Ron, I –" The beginning of the sentence had not yet left my lips when I cut it short, remembering. Bill. Of course Ron was crying, his oldest brother had been brutally murdered. I felt horribly ashamed of myself, and more than a little confused. How could I possibly have forgotten that? How could I have forgotten the way his body had been torn to pieces, or the pool of blood that had steadily spread throughout the entire corridor? My trainers and the hem of my robes were still soaked through with the stuff, and yet the incident had completely cleared my mind until this moment. Was this another price that we paid on the war, to be able to see such horrors and harden our hearts against them in a matter of hours? I tried to put my hand on Ron's arm, but he flinched away. "I'm so sorry…"

He looked up as I spoke, then glared at me and crossed his arms. I stared at him, utterly bewildered, but Harry sighed. He stood up and moved to Ron's other side, serving as a barrier between us, having had far too much experience with our fighting to let us sit right next to each other. It was a perfectly innocent and neutral move, but Ron fired up at once. "Oh, sure, Harry. Go ahead and defend her, why don't you. It's not like she just betrayed us all or anything!" His ears were quickly turning as red as his eyes and hair, and his voice was slowly rising in volume. I looked around wildly to see who had heard him, but in the chaos of the Common room nobody had spared so much as a glance in his direction.

I frowned, crossing my arms as well. It was bad enough to know that the Ministry considered me and other Muggle-born girls nothing more than pawns in their games of power, bad enough to know that we would be given away like chattel and meant as an insult to the remaining Death Eaters, and bad enough to deal with your constant hostility and the unspoken threats of potential violence that lay within your every glare. What could I have done to turn Ron against me as well? "What do you mean, I betrayed you?" Despite my best efforts to keep my voice calm and cool, I could not stop from hiding just how much this hurt.

"I think you know what you did," he replied darkly, refusing to elaborate when I raised an eyebrow at him. Merlin, this boy was making me feel like a petty criminal in one of the bad crime shows my parents used to watch. I turned away quickly to hide the tears that had suddenly and unhelpfully welled up in my eyes; the last thing I needed now was to think of my parents again, off living their blissfully unaware lives in Australia. They don't know I exist, and they certainly don't know that off in distant England one desperate girl named Hermione Granger is being forced to marry a complete monster by order of the very government that ought to focus on keeping her safe. Between Harry's actions earlier today and Ron's behavior now, I was under fire from all sides, by no fault of my own. Don't these two blockheads realize just how much I've sacrificed for them, to keep fighting in this war as the odds grew weaker and weaker and to keep watching their backs at every turn? Don't they see that, even after the smoke has cleared and a winner has been declared, there is still a battle going on that I'm once again in the middle of? Can't they see that I need their help right now, not their anger?

I did my best to push down my tears, then turned back to Harry for assistance. He was trying and failing miserably to escape my notice, as if by shrinking against the back cushion of the couch I wouldn't involve him in what was shaping up to be a fierce argument. There were few things that he hated as much as being stuck in the middle of a fight between Ron and I, but when he was being such a pig-headed git there really was nothing else I could do about it.

After another moment of uneasy silence between us, punctured by the shrieks and laughter of the students socializing all around us, Ron turned his scowl upon Harry as well. He squirmed uncomfortably, darting his head from side to side to look at us both, then gave another sigh. His two best friends were at a standoff once again, and it had fallen to him to smooth things over. "Look, Hermione, all I did was tell him what happened today. You know, with McGonagall and… her." His face twisted momentarily in disgust, but his voice was pleading and earnest. He wanted nothing more than to diffuse the tension as soon as humanly possible, and apparently decided that I would back down before Ron would. "I – I just stuck to the facts, I swear. I tried to tell it the same way you would have if you were here."

I rather doubted that he, my dear hot-headed Harry, had actually succeeded in recounting today's events in an unbiased manner, but I loved him for trying. I could tell that it was his way of apologizing for lashing out at me this afternoon after you had so caustically broken to him the news of our loathsome engagement. I took a deep breath. "What exactly did you say, then?" I didn't want to insult Harry by implying that he wasn't completely honest, but I needed to hear exactly what had been said to figure out what had offended Ron the most.

As it turned out, he was more than happy to tell me that himself. "Well, let me think, Hermione," Ron said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He put a finger on his chin in mock concentration before continuing. "He told me all about how you two found Bill." His voice trembled despite himself, and he closed his eyes for a moment to gather himself before replacing his saddened expression with a sneer. "Then he mentioned something about you getting married to Bellatrix fucking Lestrange. When were you planning to tell us that you were going out of your way to spend your life with that psychotic bitch?"

Harry leaned in, his eyes pleading. "I also told him about all the stuff McGonagall said, you know. How she didn't seem to have much against this plan. If she wants to go with it, then it can't be that bad…" Ron let out a hollow laugh behind him.

"Oh, yeah, I left that bit out. The one where you two have to pretend to love each other, right? We wouldn't want the Ministry to kill your darling Bella, now would we?" I flinched away from him as if physically struck by his sharp words. I have never, in all my years of knowing him, seen him look at me with such disgust and contempt. His eyes, normally sparkling with laughter, were burning with rage, and he was just getting started. It was the same as his episode over Draco, but with his scorn magnified a hundredfold. Harry and I stared wordlessly at him, absolutely shocked. "I wish I could have seen the look on Malfoy's face when you told him that you were ditching him for his aunt. I never knew you were into girls, Hermione. It explains a lot, like why you turned down me and Malfoy; you just wanted a nice warm cunt in your bed…"

I slapped him.

For a long moment after, Ron looked at me and I looked at Ron and Harry looked at both of us in horror. I was breathing very quickly, my hand still held up as if to defend myself, or to hit him again. Something had broken between us; even with all of our fighting before neither of us had raised a hand to the other. I stood up angrily, ignoring Harry's hand clutching at my sleeve and making a beeline for the girl's dormitories. I needed a good night's sleep, and a good hard cry before that. Ron had crossed a line tonight, and I felt overwhelmed by everything that had taken place during this whole long day.

Neville stood up as I angrily shoved past him, grabbing my arm and turning me around to face him. "Hermione, what happened? What's wrong?" His round face was full of nothing but concern for me, the friend who had saved him in Potions class for so many years.

"Nothing, Neville," I muttered, not looking him in the eye. "I'm fine." He frowned, unwilling to let anybody, let alone a friend, slip by so easily when they could clearly use a gentle touch and a word of comfort. He put his arm around my shoulder and opened his mouth to speak when Ron came up behind us. Harry was still sitting on the couch, staring into the fire looking absolutely shell-shocked.

"Don't worry about her, Neville. She's probably just a bit nervous before her big day coming up," he said in an almost cheerful voice. I wanted to turn and run from the room, but Neville's arm kept me pinned in place.

He frowned, but gave my shoulder a comforting squeeze. "Yeah, I heard about that. Malfoy's a nasty git, we know, but better him than one of the other Death Eaters. This law is terrible, Hermione, but this whole House is completely behind you." The Common Room had fallen silent, and all of the students were nodding solemnly at Neville's words. Even worse, they were listening carefully now, all previous frivolity put aside.

Ron looked at him in mock surprise, and I silently begged him not to say anything further. When I glanced up at him, I could see a bright red handprint on his cheek, and he looked down at me with an uncharacteristic sneer. Tears welled up in my eyes, but he wasn't quite done yet. "Yeah, it would have been much better if she stuck with him, like the Ministry wanted. But, as it turns out, there's been a bit of a change of plans. Hermione here has decided that she would rather marry Bellatrix Lestrange, to keep the Ministry from killing her. It makes sense, of course, that she doesn't deserve to die. It's not like she did anything wrong, never hurt anybody…"

That did it. I shoved Neville's arm off of me and sprinted to the girl's dormitory, keeping my eyes to the ground to avoid seeing everyone's shocked and hurt faces. The moment the door slammed shut behind me, I dove into my bed, pulled the curtains closed, and sobbed into my pillow.