Well another chapter up, really I'm kinda surprised with myself I never thought I'd go past 15 chapters with this. Again thank you for everyone who has favorited, or signed up for updates, or reviewed (my personal favorite thing to see). I do try to take the reviews I get and make the story better and it's always nice to hear someone really likes the story. It pumps me up to write another chapter. Anyway please read and review!

Also I own nothing and if there are any mistakes if you want to point them out I'll try and fix them. I've read it over a few times but I can't catch everything.

Hermione knocked on the door to the Weasley home which was promptly opened by Mrs. Weasley. It was a week after her hospitalization and she could almost feel her body slumping back into the old routine of work and errands, but before she could allow herself to do those things there was something else she needed to take care of first.

"Oh Hermione!" she exclaimed a little surprised. She wiped her hands on her apron and Hermione could tell from the flour that floated around the kitchen and the assortment of bowls and utensils levitating magically around behind her that she was in the middle of baking.

"Hi Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said nervously. "I was just wondering if Ron was here."

"Oh he's out back," Mrs. Weasley said. "Are you alone?"

Hermione knew this question more thickly inquired about Parvati than anyone else. "Just me," Hermione said with a small smile.

"Oh great," Mrs. Weasley warmly. "Come in, come in."

As Mrs. Weasley turned her back to her, Hermione grimaced. Obviously, Mrs. Weasley was thinking she had come over to patch things up with Ron. Which was true, but not in the way Mrs. Weasley was thinking.

"He's just out back there. He was de-gnoming the garden earlier," she said leading her towards the back door.

"Thanks Mrs. Weasley," Hermione said walking towards the door and pulling it open.

Ron stood learning over the old fence with his back turned to Hermione. Hermione walked over to him noticing several gnomes running around as she did so clueing her in that Ron had not been doing as much de-gnoming as thinking.

When she got over to him, she stood next to him and leaned her forearms against the fence mimicking him. Neither of them talked for a minute, until Hermione finally said, "Thank you."

Ron snorted disdainfully finally looking at her. "For what, Hermione? For acting like I hated you, for making you choose over your girlfriend and a friend, or for being the reason you broke up with Parvati in the first place?"

"You didn't make me break up with-"

"I did!" Ron interjected looking away. "I always ruin relationships for you Hermione. I'm no good. I made it difficult for you to be with Krum years ago and I made it difficult for you to be with Parvati now, all because I'm jealous. You just needed someone to support you and I never did. . . I'm a git Hermione."

Hermione grabbed Ron's arm, who painfully looked into the eyes of the girl he loved but could never have. "You're my best friend Ron. Sometimes best friend's treat each other like crap. Sometimes best friends make fun of the other one so they cry in the girl's bathroom when a mountain troll is on the loose, and sometimes best friends throw up slugs all day because some git called her a mudblood."

Ron looked down and smiled sadly. "You give me more credit than I'm worth."

"I don't give you enough credit," Hermione said frowning. "If I did I would have told you about Parvati earlier."

"I," Ron started like he was swallowing something particularly distasteful. "I like her."

Hermione laughed shaking her head. "No, you don't have to say that."

"No she's not bad," Ron admitted. "I mean if you go for the whole ditzy, cute thing. . ."

"Ron, she's more than that," Hermione said in a testing tone.

Ron didn't say anything but raised his eyebrows teasingly.

"Well what's wrong with the whole ditzy, cute thing?" Hermione wanted to know.

"Nothing," Ron said smiling. "I guess I always had a thing for the smart ones."

"She's smart too-"

"I mean the smart that reads textbooks for fun and is annoyingly, but always conveniently knowledgable on the most random things," Ron said, raising his hand to a strand of hair across Hermione's face and tucking it behind her ear.

Hermione blushed. "Those girls seem like they're gonna be hard to find."

"They're rare," Ron said sighing. "But are completely worth waiting for."

Hermione looked away awkwardly. "You know I. . . I really like women."

"I know, Parvati told me to stay away if I was going to try and be more than a friend," Ron said rolling his eyes. "And, then she took that back and advised me if I wanted to be more than a friend to act more like a friend first."

Hermione gave him a shocked look. "She said that?"

"At the hospital one day, we had both come to see you at the same time. Then she lectured me and we argued. . . it was hard to be around her with the way she was talking about you."

"How was she talking about me?" Hermione asked curiously.

Ron slouched back on the fence looking at the sun creep behind the thicket of trees. "Like she loved you," he said simply.

Hermione didn't say anything but looked toward the falling sun also.

"Anyway," Ron said sighing. "Parvati's got a twin doesn't she? A ravenclaw bookworm right?" He watched Hermione smile wondering where this was going. "Maybe I could start dating her and then who knows maybe we could have a foursome one day-"

"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed shocked. It sounded like something that would come out of one of the twins, but not Ron.

"Only a suggestion- I'm sorry!" he conceded defeat as he was assaulted by multiple punches to the arm.

Ron continued laughing as Hermione folded her arms clearly disgruntled by the unwanted mental image, but somewhat pleased to see Ron was taking what must have been a huge blow somewhat light-hearted.

"Come on though, Parvati has a twin. You can't tell me you've never considered a three-" Ron cut himself short as he saw the glare Hermione was giving him. "I'm just gonna stop now," Ron said holding his hands up in defeat.

"Smart move."

Neither of them said anything for awhile. They could hear an owl hooting in the distance. Hermione considered telling him her fears about Parvati. The fear that shot through her every time she looked in Parvati eyes and saw confusion. Hermione was almost certain her time with Parvati was running dry and it was too late to salvage it.

After a long silent moment, while both of them were considering different things, Ron asked the question he was inevitable to ask. "This is the last time we're going to talk about this aren't we?"

Hermione did not have to ask to know what he meant. She knew he meant the possibility of them having a relationship or Hermione listening to Ron say he had feelings for her. After today they would not talk about it anymore whether Ron's feelings for her stayed for years or ended tomorrow.

"Yeah, Ron it is."

Ron swallowed hard like he was comprehending something. "Can I tell you something I always wanted to tell you, but for some reason never did?"

Hermione nodded.

Ron looked at her with a small, sad smile on his face. "The first time I knew I loved you was when you punched Draco Malfoy in the face."

Hermione burst out laughing and Ron let out a couple of light laughs himself. "It's completely true," he promised.

"I remember that," Hermione said still smiling widely. "I don't know what came over me."

"Was there anything I could have done," Ron asked changing the subject to a more serious one, "that would have made you choose me over Parvati. Be honest, Hermione. Please."

Hermione thought about it for a minute and then answered truthfully, "No."

Ron nodded and looked away for a moment. For a minute Hermione thought he was going to argue, or complain, or lose his head. In fact she had been surprised with their whole conversation- Ron never took these things so well. She wondered if Harry had talked to him, or rather, Ginny had told Harry to talk to him. Ron was taking this eerily well even if there was slight disdain in his voice. "I know you're happy with her. I hope everything works out for you two," he sighed sounding defeated and Hermione felt her stomach drop, "But at the same time I hope it really doesn't. I still want to be your friend though, if that makes sense."

"You're my best friend, Ron. You always will be." Again she held back her fears that her and Parvati would not last. Right now she was putting the effort into fixing things with Ron, and her thoughts on Parvati would have to wait.

"Alright. . . I'm gonna need some time though. If I stick around too much now I'm gonna sabotage everything like before. I mean I want to be there for you Hermione, I want to be your best mate, but you have to understand I just lost. . ." he trailed off not knowing what to say.

Hermione felt her eyes water, and nodded slightly signaling that she understood. Ron noticed and gave her a sad smile feeling his own eyes water a little bit themselves. He got a little closer to Hermione and gave her a warm hug. She hugged him back wondering if things would ever be simple between them again.

Suddenly they heard an abnormal growling and squealing coming from the ground. Hermione jumped startled which caused Ron to laugh.

"That's just the garden gnomes," Ron said pointing to the two ugly things on the ground. They were rolling around smacking each other with little fists. "Have you ever de-gnomed a garden before?"

Hermione shook her head. "I've seen you do it, but I've never done it."

"Harry use to get a kick out of it," Ron smiled remembering. "Too bad he's not here now, I could use his help. I told Mum I would do it for her but I got outside and well I just didn't do it too much. Do you want to help me?"

"Sure," Hermione said although she could remember not liking the method the Weasley's used to de-gnome their garden. Even though the method was apparently effective she still found it slightly barbaric.

"Alright, hopefully you're better at this than skipping stones," he said grabbing the two squealing gnomes and started swinging them around by their ears.

x x x

Parvati gave her sister a long hug. "Thanks for staying," she told her as she hugged her tighter. It was nice to know that over the years they had never grown apart, and nicer to know that they had never felt the need to.

Padma squeezed her back. "What are sister's for anyway?"

Lavender let out a long exaggerated sniff in the doorway. "Moments like these make me wish I had a sister. . . but then I remember I'm the only recipient in my parent's will and then I don't."

The twins rolled their eyes and detangled themselves from their hug. "Really, Lav? Do you insist on ruining every tender sisterly moment?" Padma asked raising an eyebrow.

"She just feels left out," Parvati said with a grin. "But we all know that we would be happy to call you a sister if we got a part in your parent's will Lav."

"Ha ha," Lavender said sarcastically, but she went up to give Padma a long hug anyway. The Patil twins were, after all, the closest thing she had to siblings.

"I'm assuming your coming back for Christmas right?" Parvati asked as Padma grabbed her bags and grabbed some floo powder.

"What and miss our Uncle down a bottle of fire whiskey and tell the story about the banshee werewolf monk he's been telling us since we was five? Of course not, Vati."

Parvati sighed. "It lost it's appeal when we turned about twelve."

"Or ten," Padma smiled. "But I should get going."

Parvati nodded and with one more quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, Padma went into the fireplace and threw the flew powder at her feet. Parvati and Lavender waved until the flames took her away back to India and her research team.

Parvati sighed. "Remember when life was simple," she said taking a seat on her couch. "And when Padma came to visit us all she had to do was get my gryffindor tie and the password?"

"The good ole' days," Lavender remembered fondly. "We also had to make sure Hermione was going to be gone though."

"Yeah she was a goody-two shoes wasn't she?" Parvati said remembering fondly.

Lavender snorted. "She was a bit worse than that. . . You never said what was up with you two," Lavender hedged slowly, taking a seat next to her.

Parvati shrugged. "Well she's barely getting over her ordeal at the ministry. . . we haven't really talked about it yet."

"Oh."

Parvati noticed the apprehensive look Lavender was giving her like she was dying to say something. "What?" she asked her.

"I don't understand what the fuck you guys are doing not talking about it yet.'"

"Lav," Parvati stared at her open-mouthed. "It just didn't seem important before Hermione got better-"

"Not important?" Lavender asked critically. "You mope around for weeks unsure about how you feel about her, then you decide you do, then you risk your life saving her and now it's not important? Or how about Hermione lousing around not taking care of herself and becoming a zombie just because she wasn't with you. I mean come on Vati, don't be so daft, it's the most important thing."

Parvati did not say anything, but sat down on the couch and buried her face in her hands. "I'm just not sure. . . I don't know what to do." Yes, the fear of finally dealing with this was surfacing. She knew it was only so long that she could push it back before they inevitably had to face the reality.

"What do you want to do?" Lavender's question was one that had echoed through her head since the night at ministry, one that she had consciously been pushing to the corner of her mind.

"I want her to be happy, and for me to be happy- I want us both to be happy. . ."

"But what?" Lavender hedged.

Parvati dropped her hands and gave her a pitiful look. "She's so messed up Lav. She has so many issues. . ."

Her best friend sighed and took a seat next to her. "You haven't talked about this at all?" she asked weakly. "You two have no idea where the other one stands."

"I don't want to leave her, but I feel it might be better for her if I do," Parvati hesitated and continued. "She relies on me too much. I think she depends on me to be happy and she shouldn't. Not because I don't want to make her happy, but because she deserves a life where her happiness isn't contingent with me being there."

"Well it's a good way to start off," Lavender said scratching her head thoughtfully. "Then what would you tell her."

Parvati let out a bitter laugh. "Oh we're role-playing now?"

Lavender gave her a disgruntled expression with a close likeness of an annoyed Hermione doing her schoolwork while the common room was noisy. "If you had read anything your sister gave you about muggle therapy like she told you, you would know that role-playing does have it's benefits."

Parvati snorted at Hermione's impression. "Well, obviously someone's been practicing. But, I have read some of it. . ."

After Parvati had come home the day Hermione had awoken, once she was past blundering and crying, she asked her sister what she knew about therapy. It was hardly mentioned at Hogwarts and some professors certainly showed some disdain towards it, but Padma (being Padma) had done her own research on it. It was slowly becoming an integral part of wizarding medicine despite all the skepticism, and was being introduced in small doses to wizards who have had traumatizing experiences. A big drawback was some wizards being unwilling to draw upon muggle experiments and procedures, when it was all too clear that muggles have been at psychology a lot longer.

"I think she needs some kind of therapy similar to how the muggles do it, but it's going to take some time. It could take years if it ever gets better," Parvati said with a small frown. "At least that's what most of it seemed to suggest." She looked up to see Lavender's face edging her on and continued. "I want her to get better and be okay, but I. . . I-"

"You can just say it. It's okay," Lavender said gently.

"I can't wait," Parvati said sounding defeated. She knew it was true. In her head she saw two choices. In one scenario she stayed with Hermione and years later they'd be together and stronger for it. She could almost picture themselves snuggling on a couch in their living room just talking and laughing. She could almost picture it, but there was something off about the daydream as if it were all too simplistic and easy to not feel squeamish when fantasizing about it. Her other choice she saw was easier to think about even though it was slightly depressing. She could see herself in an apartment with a faceless lover off to the side, when she picks up the prophet or some magazine to see a picture that Hermione is in- whether it be for her career accomplishments or some social function with Harry and Ron- and she would just stare at it and feel things. She would feel nostalgic and sad, happy and bittersweet about the whole thing. But, she would smile to herself and realize she was happy to have known her and had her for that short while. She knew that second scenario seemed more probable and real, but that did not make it any easier. "I'm a terrible person-"

"You're not-"

"I told her I loved her-"

"A little prematurely-"

"I made it sound like I would always be there for her and now I'm lying. I can't leave her just because it's getting hard," Parvati said quickly. "I should stick it through and-"

"Vati!" Lavender said loudly stopping her. Parvati gave her a startled look and felt her best friend's hand curl around her own. "You're nineteen," she whispered tenderly.

Parvati shook her head. "But-"

Lavender shook her head curtly cutting her off and started in a business-like tone with the smallest lace of empathy. "You are nineteen years old Parvati Patil. You have dated Hermione for a grand total of five months. You both are young and are acting like you are not capable of loving anyone else and that's a load of hippogriff shit. Here's the deal Parvati- you loved her and she probably loves you back, but it's not healthy. It's not healthy for Hermione to invest so much in you because she thinks you're a cure to her issues and it's not healthy for you to stick around because you'll feel guilty for walking off. I'm not the only one that thinks this- your sister does too. She told me the conversation you had with Hermione when she woke up and quite frankly I don't think this relationship is good for either of you. You told Padma that night that you knew it was best for Hermione if she worked through this alone, and you said it again just before in a wishy-washy way-"

"So Padma just told you everything," Parvati said scowling, retracting her hand from her friends touch.

Lavender, however, was not much offended. She had been expecting resistance. "She told me as much as I needed to know. I live with you Parvati and you're my best friend. Don't you think I should know?"

"Why didn't Padma just tell me herself then?" Parvati asked still sore ignoring Lavender's very good point.

"Because it would have been to easy for you to pretend to listen to her advice one day when you knew she was going to be leaving the next. I, however, am not going on any long-distance trips anytime soon and would be happy to remind you every time I see you that you need to let Hermione go. . . I'm not forcing you- I'm supporting you."

Lavender placed her hand on her friend's for a second time and this time Parvati let it stay there as she soaked in what her best mate was telling her. "You know. . . You know for a second there I thought it was going to all work out. When I had just rescued her from the dementors and she was waking up- just for that second- I was so certain that we were going to fix everything. That I had saved her and all our problems were going to magically resolve themselves because she was almost gone and then she wasn't. . ."

"She's lucky you were there."

"She's lucky she taught me to do a patronus."

There was a pause where both friends sat on the couch lost in thought.

"Do you think she'll hate me?" Parvati asked quietly. "For leaving her?"

"I think she'll understand someday," Lavender answered after a moment. She hesitated before continuing. "At first though, maybe she won't be so happy with you."

Parvati grimaced. "I'll tell her soon," she resolved. "I'll owl her tomorrow telling her it's important we talk and invite her to lunch on Saturday. . . she'll have a few days to know it's coming if she doesn't already." She tried to keep her voice all business, but her eyes betrayed her and her best friend noticed.

Lavender grimaced. Suddenly her self-assured nature was gone, and she looked at Parvati in a mixture of pity and sadness. "I'm really sorry. I know you cared about her."

Parvati felt her heart sink and a familiar, yet unwanted feeling returned. It had a been a while since she had her heart broken. Even when Hermione had told her to leave she almost instinctively guessed it was not the end, but this, this was. Her gut told her so. She would go a long time without seeing her and when she did finally see her again Hermione would not be hers to take. "I don't know what to say her when I break up with her. This isn't some guy or girl I had a fling with and did not care about- I want her to know that."

"Why don't you tell her what you've told me and Padma," Lavender reasoned thoughtfully. "You're actually very well spoken. Not everyone is so eloquent as you."

Parvati sighed. "I just don't know how to say it because Hermione will know it's coming. . . I think she's figured it out by now and she's just waiting. She won't end it so she's just waiting for me to. I don't know how she'll react when it actually goes down though."

"Hermione's the smartest witch I know. She knows the reasons behind you're leaving and even if she won't admit it to you now, she does know that you care about her Parvati."

"I hope so."

The room fell silent save for the ticking of the clock that Parvati was growing annoyed with as the moment wore on. Time, she felt, was not her greatest friend at the moment. Each tick seemed to be stressing how close it was for Parvati to end things with Hermione- how close it was for her to do something she did not want but knew she had to do.

Lavender sighed breaking the quite and reminding Parvati of where she was. "When did life get so complicated, anyway? It was a lot more simpler when you all you waned to do was bang Alicia Spinnet."

"I remember that," Parvati said letting out a bitter smile. "We would get drunk in the secret room behind the picture of the bard under the oak tree, and I would go on and on about it."

"It was more like a hole in the wall, but the bard was funny-"

"Only when we were drunk-"

"He kept our secrets though," Lavender said in defense.

"I'm glad he did- I was slightly terrified he would write a song about me wanting to shag Alicia. . ."

"You drooled over her. It was terrible," Lavender said daring to grin. With a flick of her wand she summoned some elf wine and two glasses from their kitchen. With all that was going on she figured some alcohol would be needed.

"I never consciously drooled over her and at least I had good taste! She was an angel, unlike- who was that bloke you liked fifth year? Ernie Macmillan." Parvati felt her mouth form a wide smile that seemed unnatural because of her frowning moments ago. Although unnatural as it felt Parvati could not deny it felt nice.

"I didn't like him for very long!" Lavender protested in a fit of giggles. "It was just because I had this dream one time-"

"Yes, the infamous Ernie sex dream- the only one I'm sure anyone has ever had of him," she said rolling her eyes. "You're ridiculous," she continued as she watched Lavender pour the wine.

Lavender rolled her eyes back at her and handed her a full glass. "To the good old days," she said raising the glass.

"When everything was simple," Parvati said with a grimace.

And, as Lavender downed her glass she had the distinct feeling that someday they would be talking about Hermione with the same nostalgic fondness as they talked about Alicia and Ernie. The distinct feeling that Parvati would be alright.