It is once again 2 and a half weeks since the last update, at least half a week long than I intended. Sorry for that. Anyways, thanks for your kind words and interest, it is what keeps the story up and running, mostly. Chaosrin, I think you asked for longer chapters: I would like to do that, really I do, since I personally prefer reading them as well. I would like you to keep in mind that , if I make them longer, I cannot update as often as I do now. I will try to keep them above 1,500 words rather than 1,000. I know this chapter is shorter than that as well, but still, I'll try. That being said, on with the story.

„What the fuck are you doing with Hermione?", Ron exclaimed loudly, pointing accusingly at Pansy.

"I'm kissing my girlfriend", she answered in a matter of fact tone that only served to aggravate him further.

"Like hell you are! Those idiots", he made a vague gesture over to Harry and Ginny, "may have believed that Hermione is doing this on her own free will, but I don't. So take whatever spell you laid on her away, and then I may consider letting you go away without hexing you!"

While he continued ranting, I was thinking of some way to prove to Ron that I was not under the Imperious or whatever monstrosity he seemed to believe Pansy did to me, but to my annoyance I could not find a way to do so. Had he been thinking clearly I would have been able to convince him, but right now he was not thinking clearly at all. In such a situation it was absolutely impossible to even try to talk to him. There had to be some way to get him to calm down, but frankly I had no idea how to.

"Don't you dare touch my girlfriend again", Ron shouted, startling me and rising me from my thoughts. His girlfriend? I was quite sure I had not left him any room for interpretation when I had told him that we were over, but he still seemed to think of me as his girlfriend.

"Your girlfriend?", Pansy asked incredulously. Thankfully she only seemed to be angry at him for suggesting this, not to actually believe him as I had feared. The last thing I needed right now was to let my girlfriend think that I had been double timing. I was also well aware that it took quite something not to at least doubt someone in such a situation. Just like that, I fell in love with her all over again.

Still, I had to make this clear to him as well, once and for all. The question was though, how? He was not going to listen to me right now if I just told him. It seemed as though, even if I did not like the thought of that at all, my only chance was to hex him to keep him silent and then talk to him.

Just as I was ready to draw my wand at him, he huffed loudly, before storming out of the hall, not without glaring at Pansy once more, though.

Sighing, Harry stood up and went after Ron, to, as he said, "try to talk some sense to him". I doubted that would get him anywhere. If he wanted to, Ron could be as stubborn as a mule, and right now, Ron obviously saw me being with Pansy as a chance to believe our breakup and everything that followed was caused by Pansy hexing me or something along those lines. The fact that this was absolutely ridiculous was lost on him when he insisted on something. He even had kind of a point, given the fact that a year ago she perhaps would have thought that Pansy would try to mind control someone. However, had she been under the influence of some kind of mind control, it would have been noticeable one way or the other.

I sighed. This could only end in drama, and, for all I knew, I had had more than enough of that in my life to last not only one, but at least three lifetimes, and that though I was not even 20 yet.

"So, Hermione, tell me, how did this come to be?", Neville asked curiously, shacking me from my somber thoughts. "You know", he vaguely gestured to Pansy, "you being with Parkinson?"

"You can just say Pansy, Longbottom", she said to him, smiling slightly. I could tell she was making an effort to be especially nice to my friends, and I could not say that I did not appreciate it. Just like I myself had before, my friends did not have a very fond view on her, but they knew that I would like them to get along with Pansy, any thus were willing to give her a second chance, and she knew it and was doing her best to use it to change their opinion of her.

"Fine", Neville conceded, "but if I call you Pansy, then I am Neville, not Longbottom." He smiled crookedly, before getting back on track: "Anyways, you still did not give me an answer to my question, Hermione", he said, turning towards me. I glimpsed at Pansy for a moment to see what she thought. I tell she was begging me silently not to add how she had sent those letters, what her original intention in approaching me had been, so I simply said:

"Well, we kind of met up. In the beginning we simply worked on a potions project together. We kind of grew closer during that."

"Not to mention that it took Ginny drugging you to finally spill the beans, didn't it?", Pansy said, grinning at me slyly. I could feel myself blushing, even more furiously as Ginny made a gagging sound and added:

"Just so you know, 'Mione, girlfriend or not, I never want to see you so all over someone ever again."

Trying to redeem myself at least a little bit, I feebly protested: "I wasn't that bad." I should have just let it slide.

"You were practically begging her for sex, 'Mione", Ginny said matter-of-factly. "I would not call that `Not so bad`." Suddenly, I felt a certain longing for a hole to open up underneath me, some stray death eater running amok in the hall, an angry dragon trying to burn the school down, something to save me from my embarrassment, but nothing took place, so I was left to wallow in utter mortification.

Unlike my girlfriend, who somehow seemed to enjoy seeing me this way. "You know that I am going to drag 'Mione up to your dorm and make out with her right in front of you just for the sake of it because of that comment, right?", she said, turning to Ginny with a challenging gleam in her eyes that let one thinking she would be willing to fuck me right on this table just to spite her. Somehow, that did not make things better. Even worse was the fact that right now I was actually getting turned on by the thought of that happening.

Still smirking, Pansy leaned over to me to stage whisper in my ear: "You are so hot when you're embarrassed", in that low, silky voice she knew aroused me so much. She was enjoying herself way too much right now, I could tell. I for my part, felt close to dying from mortification.

In a real whisper, inaudible to the others, she added: "I know you like this, too, don't you? I can tell." Her hand traced slow circles up my tight under the desk.

My only thought was: Please, Lord, just kill me now.