Chapter Twelve

When I woke up, the first thing I was aware of was the pain. Every part of my body was either throbbing, stinging or aching. I hadn't even opened my eyes before I groaned and said, "Ouch."

"Jesus, Granger," I heard a voice reply. "How did you get yourself into that mess?"

I opened my eyes and saw Tom sitting beside my bed with a book in his hand. His voice sounded annoyed and condescending but I could tell in his eyes that he was relieved I was alright.

"It wasn't my fault, I was hungry," I mumbled back.

He chuckled. I tried to sit up but was met with a blinding pain on the side of my body. I cried out and fell back down.

Tom was there in a second. "You shouldn't be moving," he told me. "You had a broken arm, a fractured ankle, two broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and a dislocated toe. I gave you some skelegrow but it hasn't taken affect yet."

I groaned and incoherently mumbled something about killing Pettigrew with a bowling ball. A thought came to me then. "What happened to Pettigrew?" I asked.

Tom sighed and rubbed his forehead. "When I got there, I blasted him off of you, and while I was checking to see if it was safe to move you, he got away."

I gave him a smile, then immediately winced. I forgot that even my face was bruised.

"Thank you, by the way," I told him, smiling as much as I could.

Tom blushed, "Anyone would have done it."

"Just not as well as you. Accept my thanks and say your welcome."

He was about to open his mouth to protest before shutting it and saying softly, "your welcome, Hermione."

We sat in silence for a while, each of us reflecting on our own thoughts.

"Tom," I asked, a little while later. "How did you find me?"

"Well," he started. "I heard you leave the common room and when you didn't come back after awhile, I wondered if something happened. But then I thought that you had probably just gone to Gryffindor tower or something. I decided that, just to be safe, I would use a tracking charm. You know what it is right?"

I gave him a look that clearly asked if he knew who I was.

"Right, of course you do. It's you," he continued. "Anyway, I decided that I would cast one and as you know, it would change colors depending on the condition you were in. After I cast it, it turned a blood red and I knew that I had to find you. I cast the second part and it said that you were in the kitchens. I ran down there as fast as I could and I saw Pettigrew, on top of you …" he shuddered. "I blasted him off and rushed over to you. There was so much blood, I didn't even know if you were alive."

His face suddenly turned to angry.

"I swear, if I ever find Pettigrew alone, he had better watch out," he hissed. Tom was seething and I could tell that he was completely serious.

"Tom," I said calmly. "I have no doubt that you are much stronger then Pettigrew, but it's not worth getting expelled over."

Tom gave me a bewildered look. "How can you say that after what he did to you?"

I looked straight into Tom's eyes, trying to portray how serious I was. "What he almost did," I clarified. "Believe me, I would like nothing more then to deal with him myself, but he's not worth the time, effort or the consequences. I refuse to let something like this change or stop my life."

Tom looked at me for a second before saying, "Do you always have to be so strong?"

"You haven't lived through what I have," I told him.

"How do you know what I've lived through?" he asked. "How do you know that my life hasn't been worse then yours."

I sighed. "Tom, I've seen enough of you to know that you don't let anyone get close to you. You let everyone see what they want to see and by doing that, no one knows who you really are. You're an orphan, you grew up in a muggle orphanage because your mother died before you learned how to talk and your father didn't want you. You killed him, and you killed Myrtle. You strive for power and perfection and you want to rule over everyone. That's been your entire life.

"Mine has been the opposite. I grew up in a loving muggle family, it was just me and my parents. I never had any friends when I was growing up since I didn't know how to act with other children. When I was seven, I was reading books meant for adults, and I didn't know how to act like a little girl. I got to Hogwarts and I didn't have any friends for a while, but then I made the two best friends of my life.

"I slowly became more social and I let more and more people in. I had a second family, best friends who were like siblings to me, mentors, kids who looked up to me … I had a good life. I was called a 'mudblood' through out all of it but of course there would be some bumps in my life. They could never really take away the greatness of it. Then everything was ripped away.

"It started with my family. After the death of our headmaster, who was a mentor of mine and a dear friend, we were all allowed to go home for a few days before we returned back to school. I went home to find my parents inside, tortured to death. There was blood everywhere and the looks on their faces showed pure terror and anguish.

"Then there was a huge battle at my school. In that battle, I learned that the person who killed my parents, also killed my entire family. The only survivors were their leader and a couple of people from our side. I was the only one who wasn't captured or killed. I ended up sending myself here to somehow defeat him. Everyone I had loved was killed in that battle since we were all fighting on the same side. I killed so many people that day …

"And now I'm alone."

Tom just sat there, taking in what I was saying.

Finally he said, "I see it differently. You still had your friends and family. You may have lost them, but you still knew that you were loved. What's that saying? Oh, right. 'It is better to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all.'"

"Whoever said that obviously hasn't lost as much as I have," I told him. "I gave away a little part of myself to so many people, and now that they're gone, it's been ripped out of my heart."

"But you were wanted," he told me.

"And now I'm not."

We sat in silence for a while until Tom suddenly said, "Come to Hogsmede with me."

"What?" I asked, not thinking I had heard right.

"Next Hogsmede trip, come with me," he repeated.

"You mean like a date?" I clarified.

He smiled, "Yeah, something like that."

"Sure."

A/N: Like the chapter?

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