Lost

"So, where do we go from here?"

"I'm sorry Hermione, I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me, I just, I'm sorry." Ron reached out for her hand but Hermione shrank back. Her wand had been broken during the struggle and she clutched in to her chest. She edged away from him. Her blouse was torn and her face was stained with tears. There were bruises forming along her things, hips and arms.

"Don't touch me, don't ever touch me again," Hermione said, her voice strained from trying to stay in control of her emotions. She wanted to slap him, to hurt him. She was shaking.

He moved toward her again. She stood up and ran to the other side of the common room.

"I said don't touch me," she screamed. It was well past mid-night and the rest of the castle was asleep but Hermione didn't care.

"'Mione, please," Ron pleaded, begging her to forgive him.

"Don't call me that, you have no right to call me that," Hermione said quietly, her voice composed again. She had given him enough of her emotion, shed enough tears while he sat there stupidly, pathetically, not knowing what to do. At least, he didn't leave her, though half of her wished he had.

"I'm sorry, it was my fault." Ron watched her from across the room.

"Yes, it was." Hermione stated without having to think. Ron winced. What had he expected? A warm acceptance of his apology? No, that wasn't like Hermione, he knew that.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that!" she screamed, "Stop! I don't care how many times you say the words, it doesn't matter if you don't mean them, and if you meant them, then you wouldn't have raped me in the first place." Hermione was always one to fall back on logic. It was safe, it was reliable and it made sense.

Ron took a step towards her, and Hermione took one back, stumbling over the broken pieces of a side table. She vaguely remembered crashing into it earlier in the night.

"You never really loved me, because if you had, you would've stopped when I said no. You wouldn't have touched me. You never really cared, you never..."

"Shut up!" Ron cried out, his face turning red from anguish and anger, "Shut up. Shut up. Of course I loved you. I love you, you're my everything and I'm an idiot, such an idiot to have hurt you. I'm horrible, I, I," he stuttered groping for the words. She wasn't listening to him.

"The problem is, you never really loved me."

Hermione's head snapped up, "Pardon?"

"You heard me," Ron said, more to the floor than to Hermione.

She finally took a step toward him, anger overriding all her emotions, "Ronald Weasley, I can't believe you just said that. How dare you try to turn this on me!"

Ron laughed, she still thought of him as simple-minded, not dim but not bright either. "Do you think I'm blind as well as stupid? You think I don't see the way you look at him. The longing in your eyes that disappear when you look at me."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your face lights up every time he walks into the room, I'm like a rock, a chair. You don't even notice me." He stepped towards her, his voice rising in anger. She didn't step back.

"What on Earth are you talking about? Who?"

"Who else?" he screamed, "Oh give up the innocent little girl act Hermione. I saw you two together." Ron waited. He waited for her to deny everything, to tell him that there had never been anything to see, to tell him that he was being an idiot; anything but the silence she gave him. When she did finally speak, the one word sliced through him, slammed him back, forced him down on the couch.

"When?"

He felt like he was drowning, choking on the water, with Hermione holding him under.

"Last Christmas, after the last prefect meeting when you guys went to study, a month ago by the lake. Everywhere. It seemed like as soon as I was out of sight, you two would go at it like animals. You had passion with him, never with me." Ron paced back and forth trying to collect his thoughts. He was angry, upset, confused and terrified.

"I, we, didn't think you knew," Hermione said, her voice just above a whisper. Her eyes were on the floor, she couldn't meet his.

He stood up and laughed. "You don't give me any credit do you Hermione? You don't think I'd notice. You probably thought that it was easy going about it behind my back. You probably laughed with him about how easy it was," Ron spat out the last words.

"I," Hermione began, but hesitated, "I think I need to explain."

"What could there possibly be that needs an explanation from you? I've seen it with my own eyes! You're in love with Harry." He picked up a glass from the coffee table and threw it across the quiet room with the broken side table, shattering it on the wall beside her. Hermione jumped, hugging her arms around her.

She looked up at him. There were tears in her eyes, but they didn't fall.

"You're right Ron. I do love Harry, and Harry loves me too, but he told me that he could never be with me. He told me that it would be too dangerous, and that he couldn't afford to love anyone. So he told me to give my love to you instead, because you loved me," Hermione said, the final words an accusation.

The colour drained from Ron's face as she continued.

"So I did, because I trusted him. At first, I couldn't stop loving him, I couldn't leave him alone, and he only gave in because I used his love for me against him, against you. I used to cry in his arms afterwards, because I knew it was wrong, and I knew that I was hurting him and you. He used to tell me to be strong, how much you loved me, how good you were to me, and how he could never love me as much as I loved him. He pushed me away. That night at the lake last month, he said that that was the last time he'd ever touch me again. We both know that Harry always keeps his word. I cried, I cried for a long time, and he left me crying by the lake." The tears were falling now; they welled in her eyes, eyes that couldn't look away from him, and trailed down her cheeks. Him, who couldn't find his voice or any words that could save him.

"So then, I fell in love with you too Ron, because you were so sweet and caring and you loved me with all your heart," she paused and took her eyes from him, "the one thing that Harry could never give me. Now, now I guess I'm getting what I deserved, to have my heart shattered by both the men I offered it to, because I hurt them."

She walked away then. Ron watched as she disappeared up the stairs to the girl's dormitories and he realized that she had loved him, but he'd lost it all, because he knew Hermione. He understood her. She was logical above all, and she had already rationalized the situation, and in her eyes, there are no faults in her logic.