The Truth Hurts

The Truth Hurts

Everyone who looked back on that day would agree the spectacle came out of nowhere.

It had been a perfectly normal morning in the Great Hall over breakfast. The Golden Trio was sitting together as usual eating their customary dishes and drinking goblets of pumpkin juice. Harry and Ron had been joking about Quidditch while the latter sat by his girlfriend, Hermione, and held her hand. The Head Girl, for the most part, sat quietly and picked at the food on her plate only interjecting her opinion into the conversation when directly asked for it. Her eyes were downcast and if anyone had looked closer, they would have been able to see the dark circles that spoke volumes concerning her lack of sleep.

The Head Boy, Draco Malfoy, had been suspiciously missing from breakfast that morning.

Suddenly, Hermione jerked her hand away and stood up. Placing distance between herself and her two best friends, she took a deep breath and struggled to not stammer when she spoke.

"I - I can't do this anymore."

Harry and Ron both barely looked up at her admission and focused their attention back on their food. Ron decided to humor her. "Well, if you can't pry yourself away from the library long enough to eat, go ahead and make your way down there."

Her bottom lip began to tremble as she gathered her courage. She had to get this out before her nerve left her altogether.

"Being with you, it's killing me."

Tears started to fill her large cinnamon eyes as she whispered the words she found so hard to speak because they were true.

Ron spit out the gulp of pumpkin juice he had just taken a sip of and whipped around to face her. His face was turning an unflattering shade of crimson as he rose from his spot on the bench until he was standing across from her.

His voice was dangerously low. "Being with me is what?"

A hush fell over the hall as every person turned and watched the Gryffindor couple in anticipation. The teachers quietly stood from their seats at the Head Table in case their intervention was needed.

The tears she'd been trying to hold back now leaked down her cheeks in wet trails, but she didn't let them affect her. "I'm sorry, but it's true. I can't be with you."

His hold on his temper snapped and he began bellowing, his voice resounding off the walls. "What the hell brought this on?! I love you! What do you mean you can't be with me?!"

She sadly shook her head feeling the roughness in her throat. "No, you don't. You say you do, but you don't really know what it means to love someone. It doesn't mean ignoring that person until you want them around, it doesn't mean picking a fight with them because you can't control your temper, and it most certainly doesn't mean to try and weasel your way out of something by using those words as a way to induce my forgiveness. You didn't even notice how much pain I was in."

Ron shuddered as he tried to protest. "But -"

"You don't think I know about those other girls?!" Her tone was fast-becoming hysterical. "Don't think I knew about what you were doing and how many times you went behind my back?!"

His eyes grew wide in horror as he fell silent, but Harry decided to step up to the plate and try to placate his female friend. "Now, Hermione -"

She turned her eyes on the raven-haired boy and glared daggers of ice at him. "Shut up, Harry. You helped him conceal it from me."

Harry hesitated one moment too long before he tried to deny it. "I would do no such thing."

Hermione clenched and unclenched her fists as the anger and fury she'd been trying to suppress since she'd first discovered her friends' betrayal began bubbling up in the pit of her stomach. "Then how do you explain him coming back in the common room with your Invisibility Cloak on after each rendezvous? How do you explain the two of you sitting there chatting afterwards about whatever new affair Ron was having? I'd really like to hear what excuse you could possibly give."

Harry hung his head in shame not daring to say another word, but Ron had finally found his voice.

"Those other girls meant nothing to me, Hermione, NOTHING! The only person I love is you!"

The whole hall was shocked to hear the brunette girl begin to giggle as if his words were the funniest joke she'd ever heard. Her boisterous laughter was tinged with a slight lunacy until she finally regained breath enough to speak once more.

"You know, for the longest time, I tried to convince myself of the same thing. That you were just sowing your wild oats and you would eventually settle down and be with me, but it just kept on. I watched as you paraded through girl after girl thinking I was oblivious to it, and every time I witnessed you coming through the common room door in Harry's cloak, another piece of me died."

She gasped as another fresh bout of tears started pouring. "Do you understand how much that hurt me? I felt like my heart had been shattered into a million shards I could never put back together, but thankfully, I was wrong." A peaceful shine coated the chaotic emotions swirling within her bloodshot eyes. Wonder overtook her voice.

"I was so lost and he - he found me. Convinced me that it wasn't my fault, that it wasn't because of me that you needed to find your kicks elsewhere. He put me back together again, piece by piece, and I love him."

Ron's face changed drastically from red to a nasty shade of purple as he swallowed her sentence like a bitter pill. "Who?" He could barely choke out the word.

Her eyes refocused on him as if just remembering he was there.

"Draco."

She spoke his name like a prayer. It was, in a way, to her. The name of her savior, of her salvation.

Every inch of Ron's body began trembling in pure unbridled rage. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her smaller form as he screamed. "MALFOY?! So, you're his WHORE now?! How long have you been FUCKING him?!"

Hermione recoiled from him as if she'd been slapped. Her face twisted with hurt and anguish at his words and she reached for her wand. The teachers took note, but didn't move from their place as she waved it over her left hand to reveal a large emerald sitting upon her ring finger.

Ron's screams died in his throat as he saw the jewel.

She gazed down at her hand in admiration. "He's asked me to marry him and I've said yes. The wedding will be sometime soon after graduation. He makes me happy and he makes me feel cherished. His mother and father have both already given their blessing. Lucius sent him a letter explaining that even though I'm Muggleborn, I'm still the smartest witch of my year." She chuckled softly in remembrance. "Some silly nonsense about Malfoys and always having the best."

Hermione finally glanced back up to see his reaction. She found him staring at her as if he had no idea who she was, like she was something he'd never seen before. She sighed before speaking.

"I hope you'll find someone who makes you as happy as I am when I'm with Draco, and then, maybe one day, you'll understand." She glanced sadly between her two best friends. "I can't be friends with you any longer. It hurts too much to remember how it once was because it will never be that way again. I would never be able to trust either of you again." Turning away, she whispered her final words over her shoulder. "I'm sorry."

The whole hall stared in astonishment as the Head Girl exited through the grand doors with her head held high.

Ron expunged the last of his anger by picking up an empty goblet and hurling it at the wall. He smiled resentfully in satisfaction as he listened to it clang noisily against the stone.

Everyone braced themselves for an outburst and was surprised when none came. Ron and Harry both sat back down at the Gryffindor table. Harry stared unblinkingly in front of him at nothing and Ron buried his face in his arms until it was time to go to class.

After that, no one saw the Head Girl without the Head Boy. She sat with him in the classes they had together and sat with Neville in the rest. They took their meals together in the private Head dorms and she no longer spoke to her former best friends. The boys just pretended as if she had never existed.

The wedding took place two months after graduation. It was a grand event, one of the highlights of the year, and an invitation had been highly sought after. People had been lined up to extend their best wishes to Draco and the new Mrs. Malfoy.

Years passed and their happiness continued to grow as they were blessed with children and success, but everyone could remember that fateful morning when Hermione Granger had turned her back on her betraying best friends for the deliverance she found in Draco Malfoy.