okay, so havong a chapter the next day didnt work out :/
wasn't workin on my computer for a little while, and then wen it was, i had too much homework to go online. sorry...
When they got closer to the hospital wing, Ron looked at Hermione, "Do you want me to go in with you?"
She swallowed, "You know, I think I'll be alright. Thanks for . . . walking me here." She turned and quickly hugged him.
"No problem," he said, not quick enough to hug her back before she let go.
Right before Hermione was about to go through the hospital wing door, Ron said, "If there's anything you need- anything at all- you can just ask me."
She smiled at him, "Thanks." Then she paused for a moment, and added, "Um, don't . . . tell anyone. You know, about any of this-"
"Of course not-"
"-except Harry."
Ron's face went blank for a second. "Right."
"I'd feel weird if he didn't know," she explained, "He's one of my best friends . . . you know?"
He nodded in agreement.
"But no one else."
"No, of course not. I'm really glad you decided to . . . come here," he said, referring to the hospital wing, "and . . . what I said earlier, about kicking Cormac's arse-?"
"No!" she said at once, "Look, it's really- er- nice that you want to do that, but, he'd know, and I just . . . just-just stay away from him, alright?"
He sighed, "Alright."
After somewhat of an awkward pause, Hermione said, "Once again, thanks . . ."
Then she turned, and went through the door of the hospital wing.
Ron stood there for a moment, and then eventually turned around and headed back up to the Gryffindor tower.
As he walked along, though, he could not help the sickening images drifting in and out of his mind: Hermione crying . . . Cormac pushing her to the ground . . . Standing over her, laughing madly while she begged for mercy . . . Suddenly Hermione had no clothes on and Cormac was on top of her . . .
Ron shuddered. He started feeling very ill. He wanted to throw something.
The more he thought about, the angrier he got. By the time he was at the Portrait of the Fat Lady, he was shaking with rage.
"TAPEWORM!" he yelled at her.
"Calm yourself!" she scolded, as the portrait swung open.
Ron walked into the common room, while a furious fire burned in the pit of his stomach. He tried to focus his mind on just two things: finding Harry, and avoiding, basically, everyone else.
But there was a slight flaw in this plan, when he walked into the common room, the first thing he saw was Cormac McLaggen, across the room, talking and laughing with his friends.
He looked so casual. Does he even know how much of an arse he is? How could anyone do something so awful, to someone so innocent, and then easily just go about their day? Laughing with friends . . .
Cormac then noticed Ron was staring at him. He didn't think anything of it at first, but then he saw the expression Ron was wearing, and he knew that Ron knew.
In a matter of seconds, Ron watched as Cormac's face went from fear, to annoyance, and finally . . . humorous.
Cormac smirked at Ron. Not just because he was half-drunk, and felt almost no guilt for what he did, but because he knew there was nothing Ron could do at the moment. Cormac was surrounded by his tall, strong friends, not to mention the fact that he, himself, was almost twice the size of Ron. He wouldn't have dared to try and pull anything then.
But Cormac was wrong.
Something inside Ron snapped at the sight of Cormac's nasty, smiling face. He ran across the room and lunged himself at that face, knocking Cormac over and landing on top of him.
Cormac received blow after blow to the head. It was mere seconds before the entire common room had gathered around them, not shouting or cheering, but in awe, muttering and murmuring to each other, trying to figure out what they had missed.
Ron ignored them, and just kept hitting. A simple curse, hex, or jinx would not have been enough; he wanted Cormac's blood on his hands.
Once Cormac had recovered from shock, however, he managed to block one of Ron's hits, grab his arm, and punch back.
"You wanna mess with me, yeah?" he said, pushing Ron off of him and standing up.
His friends laughed and cheered. It was obvious, now, that they didn't need to be too concerned for him, he was much stronger and tougher than his opponent.
Once they started cheering, the rest of the common room started imitating them. "Fight, fight, fight!" they chanted.
Ron only noticed the pain from Cormac's punch for a brief moment, then he too stood up, charging back toward him, fist first. He hit as hard as he possibly could, on every inch of Cormac he could reach.
Even though he was hitting him back, Ron would not quit. His anger far outweighed the pain.
After watching all of this unfurl from across the room, Neville finally decided to get some help. He ran upstairs to the boys' dormitory.
Harry was sitting on his bed, looking at a piece of parchment.
"Harry!" Neville exclaimed when he saw him, making Harry jump, "You better come quick! Ron's completely lost it!"
Harry furrowed his brow, not sure if he heard Neville correctly, "What?"
"Ron! He walked in the common room, then just started attacking Cormac McLaggen! C'mon!" Neville turned around and ran back down the stairs.
Harry quickly stowed away the Marauder's Map, and ran down the stairs after Neville.
When he got downstairs, sure enough, there was Ron, actually fighting Cormac. It was clear that Ron was not in the lead, but every time Cormac hit him, which included some pretty nasty blows to the face, Ron just shook it off and went back for more. He seemed to be egged on by the few hits he got to Cormac.
Without a word to each other, Harry and Neville made their way up to Ron, each grabbing one of his arms, and together they tried to pull him from Cormac.
Ron tried to bat them away, but they were both stronger than him alone.
"C'mon," Harry coaxed, "Let it go."
Ron still tried to pull away from them, but it was no use. They had managed to drag him halfway to the portrait hole already, and in a last moment of fury, Ron yelled, "YOU BASTARD! I'LL KILL YOU!"
Once, they were outside the portrait hole, Ron calmed down a bit, but was still fuming.
After Neville made sure Ron was going to be alright, he went back inside.
When the portrait of the fat lady swung closed behind him, and Harry and Ron were alone, he asked, "What the bloody hell was that all about?"
Ron was too angry to answer. He was shaking head to foot. The only thing he could do was tilt his head back to try and stop his bloody nose.
"Was this all about his date with Hermione?" Harry asked, "'Cause if it is, I've got to say, it seems a bit much . . ."
"You wouldn't say that if you knew what he did to her!" Ron argued.
Harry seemed to straighten up, and a confused expression filled his face, "W-what-?"
But before either of them could say anything more, the portrait swung open.
Lavender came out into the hallway. A moment later Ginny came out behind her. It was obvious they were not together.
"Won-won!" Lavender yelled, glaring at him with displeasure, "What has gotten into you!"
"It's a long story . . ." he muttered, still glowering at the ceiling.
Ginny didn't say anything; she just seemed intent on hearing this story.
"Well don't do it again!" Lavender demanded, "I can't be dating someone who goes around randomly beating people up, like a madman!"
Harry then felt awkward and uncomfortable about being near the two fighting, and looked at Ginny to see if she felt the same.
But Ginny was looking defiantly at Lavender.
"Don't talk to my brother that way!"
Lavender spun around, "What! You think it wasn't completely mental that he just went and beat up someone!"
"No!" Ginny argued, "I don't think it was! Ron wouldn't just start a fight with an innocent person! He probably had really good reason! Didn't you, Ron!" She turned to her brother.
His face was expressionless, and he looked as though he were thinking deeply about something, "I did." He answered shortly.
"Well!" Lavender snapped, "What was it then!"
"I can't tell you." He said simply.
She looked outraged, "And why not, exactly!"
"Because, frankly," Ron said irritably, "it's none of your business."
Lavender's jaw dropped, and she looked outraged, "Either you tell me, Ronald Weasley, or we are over!"
"Oh, look at that," Ron said without thinking, "You do know my real name! And I was just about to ask who this 'Won-won' was . . ."
"That's it!" her face was red with anger. She looked ready to whack Ron, "We're done!"
Then, giving the password, she stormed back into the common room.
There was then a very long silence, which, after a while, Ginny broke.
"So . . . why did you start a fight with Cormac?"
Ron was not only surprised, but extremely grateful for his sister sticking up for him, but he could really only give an apologetic shrug and say, "I'm sorry, but I don't know if I can tell you either . . ."
Ginny stayed put, however, "Was it because of his date with Hermione?" she asked, " . . . Were you jealous?"
"No, I wasn't jealous," he answered, sounding just a bit annoyed, and his ears going red, " . . . if anything I'm repulsed . . ."
"Actually," she continued, "where is Hermione anyway? I haven't seen her since she left for her date. Have either of you?"
"Hermione . . . will be alright." Ron answered her, "Just go back to the common room."
"Wait-what do you mean 'will be alright?' Why would I have thought any differently?" Ginny looked concerned, "Where is she?"
"She's . . . in the hospital wing," he sighed.
Her eye's widened, "What! Why!" she looked from Ron to the portrait, and then back again, "Was it something Cormac did?"
"I'm sorry, Ginny, I really can't tell you much more," he said reasonably, "Hermione only said I could tell Harry. She'll probably flip when she founds out about the fight I started, anyway."
Ginny looked somewhat annoyed with Ron, but otherwise nodded her head, and went back into the common room.
When she was gone, Harry was about to open his mouth to speak, but the Fat Lady interuppted.
"Are you boys going in or what! You can't stand here all night!"
"Come on," Ron said, and he headed the opposite direction, "I won't be able to go back in there for the rest of the night probably, or at least until McLaggen has gone to bed. We might as well see how Hermione's doing in the hospital wing."
"Right," Harry agreed, "But why exactly is she in the hospital wing?"
"Cormac . . ." Ron shuddered, " . . . raped her."
"What!" Harry looked shocked, "Are you serious!"
Harry turned around, and glared back toward the portrait. Ron could tell what he was thinking.
"Come on, mate," Ron said, gesturing the way they were headed, trying to get Harry to turn back around, "It's enough that she had to tell me twice to stay away from him, and I still went and started a fight."
Harry finally did turn back around, but reluctantly. "How is she?" he asked.
"Well she was pretty shaken. I found her in the library. We got into sort of, a fight, and when I . . . mentioned her date, she started crying. It took a bit, but she finally told me why. I had to convince her to go to the hospital wing."
"That's meantal!" Harry almost yelled, "If Dumbledore knew, McLaggen's arse would out of here before he could say 'troll bogies!'"
"That's what I tried telling her. Hopefully Madam Pomfrey will do something to get that to happen. That is if she even tells her who did it . . ."
When they got to the hospital wing, Ron saw that every single bed was empty. Madam Promfrey was straightening out the sheets of the nearest bed to the door.
"Where's Hermione?" Ron asked her.
Madam Pomfrey looked up, "I'm sorry, but she's been taken to St. Mungo's."
"St.-St. Mungo's? Why?" he asked anxiously.
"It was something, in my opinion, a specialist would deal with," she answered.
Ron seemed to understand, but still looked concerned.
"Don't worry," Madam Pomfrey added, "she should back in a day or two. Besides, it is too late for you two to be down here. I'll let you off the hook this time, but don't make it a habbit!"
"Right," he said, "we'll just be going then."
Ron and Harry took their time getting back up to the Gryffindor common room; they were both afraid they wouldn't be able to control themselves if Cormac was still in there.
"Do you think she knew who did it?" Harry asked, after a while, "Do you think Hermione told her?"
Ron thought for a moment, "No idea. I sure hope she did though. I don't think I could stand being in the same school as him, after tonight. He makes Malfoy look like a good guy! How he got into Gryffindor, I'll never know . . ."
"Well, Wormtail got into Gryffindor. People change I suppose."
When they got to the Portrait of the Fat Lady, neither of them were looking foward to going back in the common room.
When they entered it, however, there was hardly half the people that were in there before. Fortunately, Cormac and his friends were not among that few.
But Ginny was, and when she saw them, she went up to them.
"How's Hermione?" she asked.
"She was taken to St. Mungo's," Ron answered in a monotone, not stopping on his way to the boy's dormitory.
"What!" Ginny gasped. She grabbed his arm, making him stop, "Ron, tell me what Cormac did!"
Ron looked at her, "I'm sorry! I really can't tell you!"
"Just stay away from Cormac," Harry added, "and tell every girl you know to, too."
She let go of Ron's arm and took a step back, "You're scaring me . . ."
"Just listen to us," he said, "Maybe Hermione will tell you when she gets back."
Ginny finally gave up on finding out the whole story, but agreed to stay away from Cormac.
Ron and Harry went up to the boy's dormitory right away. They weren't in the mood to hang around in the common room, though, neither of them would likely be getting much sleep that night.
Ron spent the majority of the night thinking about Hermione. He imagined her laying in a hospital bed at that moment. He hoped she was okay.
hope you liked! please review
and sorry if there's any mis-spelt words, i had to type the last few lines on word pad, instead of word, so no spell checker