Midnight Confessions

Hermione woke to the sounds of muffled moaning. The sounds grew louder until they were cries of pain and anguish which tore her heart in two.

She struggled out of bed, clutching her side and moaning softly to herself, and walked quickly to the bed next to hers. The redheaded boy in it was tossing and turning, his cries ripping through the silence of the Hospital Wing.

"Ron," she whispered urgently, shaking his shoulder, trying to ignore the pinching that was spreading through her chest. "Ron, wake up, please."

His groans faded and he turned on his side, his long freckled nose inches from her face.

"Hermione?" he murmured sleepily. "Wha's wrong?" Half of his response was swallowed up in a yawn.

"You were crying out in your sleep," Hermione whispered. "Are you all right?"

Ron blinked and shuddered. "Oy," he said softly. "Is there a bottle on the table?"

Somewhat startled by this non-sequitur, she nodded and Ron said, "Pour some into that goblet, would you?"

"How much?"

"Fill it up."

She poured the liquid, a shimmering forest green colour, into the goblet and was slightly disturbed to see that it emptied the bottle. Wordlessly, she handed it to him and he drank it all in one long swallow, gagging slightly.

"Ugh," Ron said after he had finished. "Tha's disgusting."

He suddenly seemed to realise that Hermione was out of bed, staring at him.

"What are you doing? Are you nutty? Get back into bed or Madam Pomfrey will skin you alive."

Hermione, relieved that he seemed better though somewhat resentful of the order, climbed back into her bed, wincing every time she moved.

"What were you doing out of bed?" he asked distantly.

"I told you, you were crying out in your sleep," Hermione said, slightly annoyed. "I was worried."

Ron was silent for a minute. "Just nightmares," he said eventually.

"So I figured," she retorted. She bit her lip, regretting her harsh tone. "About what?"

"Nothing."

He was keeping something from her, she decided. Hermione didn't like having this conversation in the dark. She wanted to be able to see his face, to know what he was thinking. After all they had been through, did he not trust her? Had she ever belittled his pain?

His real pain, at any rate.

"This is stupid," she said aloud, now that they were both awake. She didn't care much about disturbing the room's other occupant. Dolores Umbridge lay on her bed, just as unchanging as when she had been brought in. "I don't want to have this conversation in the dark."

"Go back to sleep, Hermione," Ron muttered from his bed.

"I can't," she said plaintively. "How can you? After everything? Don't you want to talk about it? We're sure not going to get anything out of Harry, we might as well discuss it."

"It's late," he groaned. "I promise I won't wake you up again, can we please go back to sleep? Unless you have some urgent homework assignment you have to get done."

Tears filled her eyes and Hermione felt as if she had just been slapped. Then she forgot it. This was Ron she was dealing with. Sarcastic words were his defence mechanism. He didn't want to talk about what had happened in the Department of Mysteries for whatever reason.

So she'd just have to drag it out of him.

"What were you having nightmares about, Ron?"

There was more silence. Hermione thought for a minute he had fallen back asleep, but after a moment he spoke.

"If I tell you, can we go back to sleep?"

Hermione didn't reply as she had no intention of halting the conversation once he told her what he was dreaming about. She heard him sigh and apparently he took her silence for consent (either that or he knew that she'd only pester him until he told her anyway.)

"Some of the things I...I saw, in that room with the brains."

Ginny had told her what had happened to Ron, since she had been unconscious by the time it happened. Having not been witness herself, she was unsure of the details and was hoping that Ron would say more. When it became apparent that he wouldn't, she urged the conversation forward.

"What did you see?"

His voice was rough and full of anger. "Please, Hermione, that potion stops me having nightmares, it doesn't stop me remembering. I'm trying to do that on my own. Don't make me recount it all to you."

Startled by his anger, Hermione stammered, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"

Ron turned on his side to look at her. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. You suffered, too."

Unsure of what he meant by that, she bowed her head. "But I had no right to pry into something that obviously hurts you. I only thought that maybe I could help..."

In a sudden movement Ron threw off his sheets and got out of bed. He stood up straight, but Hermione watched as a shudder crossed his body, causing him to close his eyes for a moment.

"You're right, this is stupid. We ought to be able to look at one another at least. Come on, I'll help you up. We'll sit on these chairs here, facing each other."

He held out an arm and she took it to steady herself as she slowly slipped out of bed. A rippling ache washed over her body and she nearly fell, but Ron grabbed her and sat her down gently in one of the chairs. Then he poured a goblet full of one of her many potions and handed it to her. She took it gratefully and he sat opposite her.

Now that they could see one another, they avoided each other's gaze and said nothing. The general air of misery was all too apparent. So many heavy topics hung over their heads; neither knew where to begin.

"Why don't we start with the hardest," Hermione said softly, unable to handle the silence anymore. There would be too much of that in store for them already. "Harry. And Sirius."

"What can we do for him?" Ron said with frustration. "I can't even imagine what losing Sirius will do to him. He'll go round the bend."

"He won't go crazy, Ron," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "He'll do what Harry always does-he'll pull away from us, thinking either that by being close to us he puts us in danger or thinking that we can't possibly understand. And he's right, on both counts."

"He doesn't put us in danger by being close to us!"

Hermione only gave him a 'Look.'

"Okay, so maybe he does, but it's not his fault, not really. It's not as if we were injured because we're Harry Potter's best friends. We didn't have to go, we went because we wanted to."

"And because Harry needed us," Hermione added with a sigh. "That's the trouble, isn't it? He needs us, more than he can ever admit. But he's lost his parents, and now Sirius, the closest thing he had to a father. He's beginning to think of himself as cursed."

Ron shifted in his chair. "You really know how his mind works, don't you?"

Frowning, Hermione replied, "Is that a bad thing?"

"No, of course not. It's just, I don't know," Ron shrugged, "interesting. I mean, you really had him pegged with that 'saving people' thing."

"Well, maybe, but I don't ever seem to know how he feels. He never opens up to me."

"Do you really expect him to? After all, you're a girl." That brought a faint smile to Hermione's face. "I know how he feels. He's bloody angry. And he's horribly destroyed over this, he just doesn't know how to deal with his grief. Can you blame him? I can't. Sometimes I want to shake him and say, 'Bloody hell, Harry, just get over it already, what's the big deal?' but I'm not quite that stupid."

"You're not stupid at all." The words left her mouth before she could stop them.

Ron half-smiled. "Well, thank you, but most of the world would disagree."

"Don't be stupid," Hermione snapped, and Ron grinned. "You're a Prefect, or had you forgotten? That's proof you're not dumb."

"Come on, Hermione, we both know that Harry would have got the badge if it weren't for the fact that he's rather busy saving the world. I'm just a runner up."

"But isn't it important that you're in the race at all?" Hermione insisted. "The bloody badge could have gone to Dean, or Seamus...or Neville!"

Ron raised an eyebrow. "'Bloody badge'? The day I hear Hermione Granger defame the status of Prefect is the day I'm nice to Malfoy." He added a moment later, "I'd like to think I'm at least somewhat more competent a wizard than Neville."

"I wasn't 'defaming' it," Hermione retorted, somewhat huffily. "I'm only saying that you obviously did something to deserve it or you wouldn't have got it!"

"Well...maybe." Ron hesitated before saying, "What happened to you, Harry, and Neville when we got separated?"

Hermione was slightly surprised; now he wanted to talk about it?

"We continued on," she said, trying to keep her voice steady. "We were cornered by Dolohov and some others in this cramped office. I stunned one and silenced Dolohov, but he managed to perform the spell anyway. I'm not sure which spell it was, but it didn't work quite as well as if he had been able to say it out loud. I don't know much of what happened after, I was unconscious until I was brought here. What about you, Ginny, and Luna?"

She tried not to show how much it hurt to say Dolohov's name. Thinking about it caused chills to run down her spine, and saying out loud made her want to cower under the bed. She hoped she'd get over it.

"Several of them chased us into this odd room with planets in it. It was really dark. I'm rather fuzzy on the details because one of them hit me with some sort of Confusion Jinx or something and I started acting rather loony. I know Ginny's ankle was broken and I think I remember Luna blowing up Uranus."

A perplexed look crossed his face and Hermione leaned forward to pat his hand. He stiffened at her touch, but instead of pulling away, she moved her hand to his forearm where she could feel terrible welts in his skin.

"The brains did this?" she whispered.

Ron nodded, flinching slightly. "It hurts."

"What does, the skin or the memories?"

He flashed the barest of smiles. "You're a lot more intuitive than you give yourself credit for, you know."

Hermione flushed at his compliment and pulled back. "Not really. I deal in logic and reason. I can't understand my own heart, how am I supposed to understand anyone else's?"

Shrugging, Ron said, "Well, you understood how Cho felt when she and Harry kissed."

"Oh, that." Hermione dismissed it with a wave of her hand and then winced as the stabbing feeling came back. "That's not intuition, that's just common sense."

"Well, I still think you should write a book, because it went completely past me. I still say no one can feel all that without exploding."

"And I still say that you have...how did I put it?"

"The emotional range of a teaspoon," Ron finished. "Trust me, I'll never forget it. You also called me an insensitive wart."

She grinned. "You just don't understand girls, Ron."

"What else is new? I never will. You're too damned complicated."

"We're not complicated! Boys just don't even try to understand us!"

"I've tried, believe me, but I just can't understand you."

"It's not hard, you know, I understand you."

"Oh, really? Because I'm so obvious, is that it?"

"No, of course not, you're twisting my words. I just don't see how hard it is for you to understand me. Try listening to me instead of tuning me out."

"If I don't listen why don't you just go talk to Harry? Or better yet, Vicky. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you. Maybe he could figure you out!"

"Stop calling him Vicky! And he doesn't understand me any better than you! In fact you understand me perfectly well, you know exactly what to say to make me feel better or make me angry!"

"Well, I don't know what to say to make you shut up!"

Hermione gaped at him, horribly aware that they had switched to personal pronouns. Ron seemed aware of it too. He ducked his head and bit his lip, refusing to look at her.

In an obvious attempt to both salvage the situation and change the subject, Ron said, "What do you suppose that prophecy was about, anyway?"

"Obviously about Harry and Voldemort," Hermione said witheringly. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Ron, quit flinching!"

"I'm not flinching," Ron shouted back. He sat back in his chair, looking rather sheepish, and glanced over towards Umbridge. She hadn't moved at all. "Think she's all right?"

"She's just in shock, Madam Pomfrey said," Hermione replied, looking over at the frozen woman. "Who can blame her?"

"I can," Ron said darkly. "She got what she deserves."

"I don't like her at all either, Ron, but there is a limit!"

"Not with her there isn't. I'm tired, I'm going to sleep now." Ron stood up with a loud groan and limped back to his bed. He climbed up and pulled the covers up to his chin, letting out a fake snore for good measure.

Hermione was hurt that he would just end their conversation so abruptly. They were just getting somewhere, and he practically cut her off! What was wrong with him? He was hopeless.

Hermione limped back to her own bed and got in, suppressing her own moans. It was so dark in that Hospital Wing, and looking over at him, Hermione could barely see his shape.

Silence descended over the room again.

"Ron?"

"Mm?"

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

"We'll have to pretend nothing happened tomorrow."

"What?"

"We'll have to pretend Sirius hasn't died, that the entire Department of Mysteries fiasco never existed...you know. We have to act as if it's all normal."

"Oh." Pause. "I'll do my best. If all else fails I'll stuff myself with the Chocolate Frogs Fred and George sent. No one will suspect a thing. Go to sleep."

"We have to act normal, Ron, not like there's a famine."

"I was under the impression that everyone thought it was normal if I ate all the time."

"Not all the time."

"Goodnight, Hermione."

"Goodnight!"

Hermione lay back in her bed, the pain having lessened to a dull ache, and thought about what had just happened.

She smiled ever-so-slightly; damn that Ron Weasley.