A/N: I haven't been able to post in the past few days as my city has been hit with massive floods; cell, internet, power lines were all hit. Immense grace of God, my family and friends are all safe but that can't be said for many lives that have been lost or thrown into complete disarray. Life is slowly trickling back to normalcy and writing is my refuge to hide away from my recent memories of the devastation. Request your prayers for all the troubled souls.

Thanks to all of you for those lovely comments for the previous chapter. I understand the confusion over that memory that supposedly 'leaked' in (or maybe not) into the pensive. Well before we proceed, I have to remind you one thing that I mentioned in my notes right before the first chapter- the lead characters in this story are going to be darker and you will see that coming to the fore as we proceed.

Even in cannon, the couple that was much in love (though reluctant to admit) was pretty hostile to each other in the sixth year. Here in this scenario, they are practically in the opposite camps. So be braced and let's proceed...

J.K. Rowling owns all character rights along with the places and the props mentioned here. I write for the sheer pleasure of it, no profit is being made.

Chapter 15: Fighting Back

She looked like a wild cat as she scrambled to get to her feet and then eyed him with undisguised pain and anger while he returned her gaze with nothing but mild curiosity.

"Why are you here Weasley?" she hissed but only after she had thrown her notebook and quill away on the couch and moved a substantial distance away from him.

"I am here to get back my memories Granger. I don't intent to let you have them, you see." He replied cool and composed while she turned around furiously.

"Take it. I don't want anything that belongs to you either." She screeched, fighting tears and the urge to stamp her feet and yell at him, all at the same time.

"That's nothing new." He replied with a shrug and taking out his wand, collect the thread of wispy memories and transferred them to his temple, all the while keeping his back to her so she could not see his expressions herself to decide if he had done it on purpose. Ron turned around to find her staring hard at him.

"What?" he asked casually while she glared.

"Why did you do it?" she asked and cringed immediately. Her brain was frantically shaking it is head; it was absolutely insane to give your opponent an upper hand by playing into his hands. If he had intentionally put in that memory there, he would be looking out for exactly this, a reaction from her.

"Why did I do what?" he asked perplexed and she watched him carefully.

"Nothing..." She replied sceptically.

"Come on Granger, you looked pissed enough to hex me. What happened? Did I not pay attention to the teacher?"

"Never mind. It's nothing..." she replied turning away waiting for him to walk away just like he had been doing for the past few days. It all made perfect sense now. His urgency to get out, to get into that bimbo's arms, into her knickers too perhaps, she though angrily and hated the tears of frustration that sprung up at the thought.

"Fine then." He said and she heard his footsteps moving away.

"Tell Dumbledore that you are not interested in this assignment anymore and ask him to appoint someone else." She spat when he was almost at the door making him turn around and glare at her.

"Just spit it out Granger." He growled menacingly. "What the hell is it?"

"Nothing. I am just saying because you're mind is hardly into the task. You are just skimming over your duties."

He let out a deep breath and walked towards her purposefully. Once they were face to face he looked into her brown pools with those icy blue eyes of his.

"Stop beating around the bush and get to the point."

"I am not beating around the bush. You are skimming over your duties and you know that!"

"Really? So what part of my duty have I missed? Singing lullabies to you or feeding you dinner perhaps? Oh! I forgot! I must have stood in attendance waiting for Her Highness's orders, right?"

"None of those but of course you could have spent a little time talking to me perhaps? Aah! How will you do that! You are too busy shoving your tongue down Miss Brown's throat after all!" she sneered and noticed his momentary surprise that was soon masked by a look of deep loathing.

"Granger stay in your limits. What I do in my personal life is none of your business anyway." He replied fiercely.

"It is every bit my concern! You are my guard you are supposed to look over my safety and not get busy snogging some dumb chick." She cried exasperatedly.

This time he looked hard enough at her to unnerve her as she wrapped her arms around herself and bit her lips in an attempt to bite back the groan and looked away to hide the moisture in her eyes.

"I am your guard, not your personal slave. It is none of your concern Granger if I date or snog or even shag Lavender or anyone else for that matter." He replied coldly as she met his eyes, shocked at his words. Her heart seemed to shatter into a million pieces. She wanted to hurt him and hurt him bad, just as much as he was hurting her, now when she had finally begun to understand her feelings for him, now that she had started to depend, he had gone ahead and ...Was he really shagging her then?

"How did you know about Lavender and me?" he asked as she walked away to stand near the large window looking over the Forbidden Forest.

"You showed me." She replied softly, swallowing the ache.

"I- Fuck! I guess I was a little distracted." He muttered.

"I understand." She answered in a monotone, still looking away. "May I ask you for something?" she inquired softly just when he was about to turn away.

"Yes." She heard him reply.

"Will you take me away from here, please? Just for an hour or two... I need to get away... Please Ro- I mean, Weasley?" she pleaded in a quiet, sad voice.

Ron watched her silhouette and let out a sigh. Her demure, the flaring up on seeing him, the unreasonable arguments which actually reflected her anger over his memory and finally this defeated stance, both angered and saddened him in equal measure. She was doing exactly what he had anticipated, pretending to be all heartbroken over his affair with Lavender. In fact the way she asked him to take her away was so flawlessly acted out, that it strengthened his belief that she was playing the grief card again. He almost had the urge to walk up to her and shaking her by the shoulder, ask her to drop the act.

But what if she wasn't acting? After all he had dropped in suddenly, just to catch her off guard and had indeed found her crumpled on the floor, heart- broken. That could not have been an act, could it? -asked his foolish heart but he shoved that thought away. It was nothing, just her dismay on seeing that her charms had failed to entice him this time round- he convinced himself firmly.

Despite everything, he found himself wishing to be ignorant if only to see her pinning for him like this. He almost wished to willingly fall into this web she was spinning around him. He looked at her petite form. God he wanted her! And not just physically either... Lavender, he knew, was a means to release his sexual frustration and no matter how skilled she was with her mouth and hands, she was nowhere even close to eliciting that burning passion that Hermione generated in him, even when they were not touching. He looked at the girl standing inches away and realized that he had to come clean to Lavender before the girl got any more involved. It was already a mess of a situation. He could by no means tell her that he was in love with a Slytherin the world thought to be dead. He had to come up with a reason good enough and do it soon, before he screwed it up even more. There was no way he could commit himself to Lavender or anyone else for that matter.

"Where do you want to go?" he asked quietly.

"A place where there are no walls." She replied with a sigh. "Somewhere open. An open meadow or the ground near the lake or even the forest." She replied as if the answer was already pondered over and maybe it was. After all it was all premeditated anyway.

"They are all locations beyond the castle walls." He mused softly to himself.

"Does that make a difference?" she asked still looking away.

"I don't know. We have never tried, but no harm in giving it a go." He replied after a pause. "Saturday midnight?"

"I'll be waiting." She replied.

...

He arrived on the dot on Saturday night and after the same drill reached the seventh floor corridor. She watched him carefully.

"How do you do it? Make the door appear, I mean?" she asked as if in awe once they entered and the room that was now a perfect copy of the sunlit grounds and the lake.

"You just have to think what you want and repeating it walk to and fro thrice.

"Wow... I have almost forgotten how it feels to have the sun on my face." She whispered softly as she lay down on the grass. Despite everything she felt for him and the determination to find her parents, she had not forgotten that she wanted revenge. Ronald Weasley would pay for hurting her, yes he would. The plan was formulating steadily and it was only a matter of time now. She had to get out of this soon, she had to get out of this game of manipulation and go back home to her parents, away from this young man who had managed not only to find his way into her heart but also to break it. She had to do it quick and close this chapter once and for all.

One revenge plan had failed and miserably so, she reflected silently. It was lucky Ron had no clue. It was a disappointment really to have written so elaborately to McGonagall about a made up attempt of molestation against him. Hermione had really thought it would have been her words, the brightest witch of her age's against his. Who would believe him and how would he prove otherwise? But then the Headmistress had written back, Dumbledore had apparently charmed her quarters both at the school and the safe house so that no one would be able to sexually abuse her, touch her against her will, it said. And the headmistress was disappointed that such a student as herself had come up with false allegations. She had felt a tiny bit of guilt and a whole lot of disappointment on losing that piece of arsenal. At least Ron did not know about her deceit or the charm...

"How is Brown?" she asked casually, turning around to face him.

"Who?" he asked with brows furrowed.

"Brown... Lavender Brown. Your girlfriend."

"Oh...Yeah... She is... She is good." He replied eying her cautiously.

"I am sure she is." Hermione replied with a smile that looked strange on her pretty features.

"I wonder if we can try the forest next time. Do you suppose it will be exactly the same?" she asked innocently.

"Do you mean with the live creatures? I don't know." He answered and she nodded a little and went back to stretching herself on the grass. Ron was sitting with his back resting on the tree trunk, close enough to her and watched her soaking in the warmth. The brown curls glinted in the sunlight and she seemed to glow. He noticed she was wearing a particularly fitting dress inside the woollens which she had discarded once they got in the Room of Requirements. This deep navy dress had a wide neck and her satin bra straps peeked out. She was playing the charms card again and he realised with a grunt that it was working to a certain extent too. He wanted to pull down the dress from the shoulder and get those straps off as well. He wanted to place his mouth over those breasts that were straining the dress in her present position and suck till the buds hardened. He would love to...

"Bloody hell!" he muttered under his breath. It seemed as if all the snogging he got in with Lavender did nothing to help and he was still getting hard even at her sight despite knowing how close they were getting to the climax of this cat and mouse chase. That had been the whole point of carelessly dropping that memory for her to see, to push her into a rash reaction that would increase her chances of making a mistake and he was sure he had achieved it. The forest... Well he was positive she would ask for a chance to make the request to the room soon. 'Just to see how it worked', she would say and that he knew would be it. Harry was sceptical when Ron had confided in him, but he wanted to see for himself. Find out the place she was desperate to visit. It was like a puzzle he needed to solve. He knew she would try to harm him too. If she had it in her to revenge a stupid award from first year, he had given her reasons plenty in these few months. He knew it was getting closer, he could see it in her smile, in her eyes, feel it in his very bones. And he couldn't wait to see what she was planning and to what lengths she would go to hurt him again. It was creepy the way he wanted to go through the pain himself, maybe then his stupid heart would stop caring, stop loving her once and for all.

A/N: Thanks to all of you for reading. A review is highly anticipated and will be greatly appreciated.

Next Chapter : Hermione's Secret Location