So this chapter is a bit shorter, but I wanted to end the chapter the way I did. Enjoy and please review, thanks to everyone who has reviewed, or favorited the story, or is getting the story updates. I really appreciate it. . . no really, I DO appreciate it :) Also if there's any mistakes if you could point them out I would love to correct them.

And obviously I've said it enough- I own nada

Parvati gave Ron a puzzled look and Hermione looked perplexed.

"Come to rub what in, Ron?" Hermione asked before Parvati could do or say anything.

"I'm not a bloody moron Hermione. The whole world knows, how would you think I wouldn't see it?" Ron said turning on Hermione.

"Knows wha-"

"Let me see that magazine," Parvati said forcefully looking at George.

George sighed and handed her over the magazine looking slightly guilty as he did so.

Parvati snatched it from him and unfolded it, Hermione gazing over her shoulder as she did, and then they both saw it. On the front cover was the two of them kissing passionately outside the wedding the tent. The photographer had obviously used some kind of unseeable flash because it showed the two of them clearly despite the dark sky and they would have noticed a bright light interrupting their rather private moment. Despite the picture the headline, Parvati noticed as she read "Scandal at Potter Wedding: Best Man Loses Out to Last Minute Bridesmaid", was enough to make any guy angry especially when it was evidently true. As her photo self was snaking an arm around photo Hermione and pulling her closer, Parvati stole a look at the real Hermione to gauge her reaction. Her face was oddly blank at first, but then turned a scarlet color.

This, Parvati knew, was never the way Hermione had planned on coming out to her friends. "How did they get in?" Hermione asked quietly more to herself than anyone echoing the question that was in Parvati's head as well.

"Well," Charlie said slowly not really wanting to speak, but feeling almost obligated to. "There were security problems all day. None of them made it into the tent except that one, but some of them were able to get close. . ."

"It's not about security," Ron said loudly pointing an accusatory finger at Parvati. "It's about her taking advantage of Hermione."

Parvati, who was consciously wondering (or rather frantically worrying) how long the photographer had been watching and if he had taken any more compromising photos of them once they had moved into the forest, took a minute to register what was being accused of her. "Me taking advantage of Hermione?" Parvati asked incensed, once she got back to her senses. "I would never take advantage of her-"

"You're just like Lavender," Ron sneered. "You only date someone who's popular, you're just trying to piggy-back on Hermione's fame!"

"You dated Lavender you pathetic prat!" Parvati practically screamed rolling up the magazine and crinkling it in a fury. It was one thing to insult her and another to insult her best friend. "And you were no one! The only reason she did was to get an easy lay to make Seamus jealous! Which, if I remember correctly, you couldn't even do that good-"

"Because I was tired of being used!" Ron retorted in rage although his face, if possible, turned even a deeper shade.

"Because you were a scared virgin!" Parvati shot back at him aiming quite below the belt on that one.

"Maybe I don't go around sleeping with everyone I see. You, Parvati don't seem to have a problem with that!"

"That- that doesn't even make any sense!" Parvati yelled flustered counting the few number of people she had slept with in her head. "You're just mad because Hermione chose me over you!"

The two of them were getting closer now, staring daggers at each other, their noses only inches apart. Hermione stood off to the side still neglecting to say anything. Apparently lost in her own head.

"You're using her!" Ron roared. "When have you ever liked her before the war was over and we all became famous? Huh? I distinctly remember you and Lavender never giving her the bloody time of day before and you were roommates. Then all of a sudden, they're asking Hermione to do book interviews and radio broadcasts and suddenly you've become her best friend-"

"I don't think you're one to talk," Parvati interrupted knowing full well what Ron was saying was cow dung, but also that it was painting her in a horrible light as it could appear that way from an outsider's point of view. "You've treated her like crap for a friend- our first year I find her crying in the bathroom over some crackpot thing you said, our third year you ignored her and made her feel miserable for a cat killing a rat. You cared more for a rat-(a rat Ron!)-than Hermione!"

"The rat didn't die from her cat," Ron sneered. "The rat wasn't even a rat, she never told you?"

Parvati looked taken aback. For the first time in the argument she was knocked dumbstruck and the magazine slipped from her fingers in a kind of unregistered shock of hearing something so completely random, but knowing that it must be something undeniably important. Charlie and George exchanged uneasy looks both feeling miserable for Parvati right now. From there point of view, the argument of who was using who was changing rapidly, as Ron noticed as well.

"Ho, ho!" he laughed. "Well that's interesting. Maybe, Hermione isn't being as manipulated as I thought. Maybe, someone else is. . ."

Parvati glared at him. She was so mad that her eyes were watering, but she was determined not to blink and let her tears roll over her cheeks to give Ron the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Hermione, however, finally seemed to notice things were getting out of hand and finally found her voice again as Ron was about to open his mouth.

"That's enough, Ron," Hermione said in an uncertain voice not looking at him.

Ron's mouth hung open as if not knowing what to say, but then said in a softer voice. "You know I'm right Hermione. You shouldn't be with her-"

"You'll just be mad at whoever Hermione's with as long as it's not you!" Parvati spat, but not as loudly as she had been before. "You were mad at Krum for having her and now you're mad at me." Parvati blinked and her eyes finally spilt over with tears.

"I know her better than you," Ron said brushing it off although his face never turned back to it's normal shade. "Even you said it. Besides there's no secrets between us-"

"Obviously, there was," Parvati said pointedly glaring at him. "She never told you about me!"

"I was talking important life events, Patil, not some phase she's going through." He said it in such a curt, finalized way so very un-ron-like (as he usually had a habit of losing his head in an argument rather than keeping his cool and unnerving his adversary) that Parvati was left seething as he turned towards Hermione and addressed her. "C'mon Hermione. You've always been the logical one. How many times have you complained about her and Lavender? You know it's not going to last."

Hermione would not look anyone in the eye, as tears started falling down her cheeks and on her shoes. "Ron, I- I can't okay?" she finally looked up at him with tear-stained eyes.

Ron shook his head frustrated. "You're making a mistake, Hermione. You know, she doesn't care for you. You know she wouldn't understand you," he said keeping no attempt to keep his voice civil.

"Ron!" Hermione said flustered and angry. "Just stop!"

Ron looked almost surprised, but much more angry. "I'm not always going to be sitting back waiting for you, Hermione. I'm through!" He shot Parvati a dirty look before turning around and leaving the kitchen through the back door letting it slam generously on the way out.

There was a moment of silence where the four of them stood awkwardly in the kitchen. Charlie stood itching to leave as George sat there equally as eager to, but both were unwilling to make the sounds necessary to leaving that would disrupt the silence. Both felt rather immobilized.

Parvati was the first to break it. She took a step towards Hermione with outreached arms to hug her, but Hermione evaded her.

"Parvati," she said shaking her head. "I can't."

Parvati felt her arms fall limply to her sides, her heart feeling heavy and panicky.

"What?" she asked weakly.

"I think it's best if you go," Hermione said quietly not looking at her. Hermione did not quite know why she was saying this. In the moment all she wanted was to be left alone. She wanted Ron to have never found out, for that picture to have never been taken, and for Parvati to not be comforting and supportive.

Parvati felt as if her heart stopped. Surely, this wasn't how it was ending. She thought they were making progress, that they had the potential to be an actual couple that would be together for years openly and happy, that might one day contemplate spending the rest of their lives together. Surely, the past weekend had meant something to Hermione.

"Hermione," Parvati said almost desperately grabbing her arm. "Please. I- I" she stuttered clearly desperate now. There was almost a frantic look in her eye as she finally blurted out in a very indelicate way that she never imagined telling her, "I love you!" Hermione's eyes almost flickered to Parvati's but stopped halfway. "Please, Hermione," Parvati pleaded, grabbing her hands in her's and wishing that Hermione would look at her. Parvati pulled Hermione's hands close to her chest where she knew she would feel the quick beat of her lover's heart which Hermione tried desperately to ignore. "I know you f-feel something back," Parvati said not sounding convincing at all. "Don't do this."

There was a moment of silence where Hermione may have very well be contemplating what to do. But, really, she was just in a stunned silence. She had always been quick to think of ideas or solve problems. Hadn't her instance of leading Umbridge into the Forbidden Forest in her fifth year after only have a few minutes to formulate a plan been a stroke of genius? But, being fifteen seemed like a long time ago and a lot had changed. She was tired of being the brilliant brainy one that thought of everything ahead of time and always had a clever spell to get everyone out of sticky situation. For once all she wanted was to go to sleep and let the waves of this bizarre disaster wash over and resolve themselves, and she was banking on the quickest way to get that solitude was to not think or care about her friends, family, or Parvati. She had the completely irrational assumption that if she could only be alone things would magically get better, and she certainly wanted to believe it. So, always-rational Hermione did the stupidest thing she could have done pulled her hands away from her girlfriend and shook her head.

Parvati stood there stunned for minute and her tears seemed to stop automatically as her face turned bright red.

"Fine!" she shouted furiously at the woman she had just told she loved. Her lips and nose were red from previous crying and her dark eyes flashed dangerously. "FINE! You think I need you Hermione?" She yelled credulously. I don't! I'm leaving and I don't play games," she reminded her. "I told you if asked me to leave I would, I'm not going to come crawling back and neither should you!"

If Hermione had looked up she would have seen Parvati's face contorted in rage, and her hands balled up in the little fists like an angry child. But, she did not look up until Parvati was storming out of the room to the front door where she would no doubt apparate away a second later. As Hermione watched Parvati's retreating figure, she knew she would not stop her and knew she would probably regret it.

And, as Parvati left the house and let the door slam loudly behind her she knew she was making a mistake. As she took her wand out of her pocket and hoped Hermione would come running out and say something to make everything better, she knew she wouldn't. And, as she finally apparated away leaving behind the very person that had made her last four months undeniably the happiest of her life, she knew she would regret this decision.

x x x

Hermione stood in the kitchen of the burrow for a minute lost in thought before she looked up at Charlie and said. "I'm going to floo home, do you mind? I just don't really feel up to apparating right now," she said quietly.

Charlie nodded and said, "Help yourself there's some powder next to the fireplace in the living room."

Hermione left the room without a second glance and a few seconds later they heard the fires of the floo powder erupt and die down taking Hermione with them. Charlie rubbed the back of his neck feeling rather awkward as he looked down and noticed the magazine that Parvati had dropped on the floor during her argument with Ron. He bent down and picked it up frowning, it was rolled up in such a furry by Parvati that it was a mess.

George sighed noticing Charlie's expression and said in a voice similar to how one would sympathize to co-worker after a particularly bad day at work, "I know, it's gonna be more awkward than riding a broomstick with a backside of festering boils than to ask Parvati if she's bi now."

Charlie gave his brother a scrutinizing expression before he further folded the magazine in his hands and hit his younger brother on the side of the head with it.