My Only Love

~ * My Only Love * ~

Written By: Evalyn W. (A.K.A Eve)

Hurt

Oh how did we end up this way?

When yesterday everything was okay

Smiling to myself as I thought

Of all the happiness to me you brought

I looked forward to seeing you, kissing you

And even smelling your scent too

But apparently you didn't feel the same

No, to you this seems to be a game

You broke; you snapped my heart in half

Probably with a cruel, sadistic laugh

As you held her, kissed her like you never did me

Oh, why wasn't I able to see?

What was right in front of my eyes?

But now, I guess it's time for goodbyes

Don't speak; don't even try to justify this

Because I've just awaken from my slumbered bliss

To realize what a bastard you really are

After you told me we would go so far

Now I'm left numb to this pain

Tears pouring down my cheeks like rain

And your happy as can be with her

She's awakening urges in you I couldn't stir

If only you knew how hard it is going to be for me to heal

But it isn't as if you care how I feel

I'm hurt

For good it seems

Hurt

Chapter One

~ * Hurt

It ideally was supposed to be a perfect date spending the day in Hogsmeade; even if it had been raining since the early morning, that wouldn't have spoiled the perfection; at least not for Hermione Granger. She had been looking forward to this date with her boyfriend Viktor Krum for over a month now; she had even secretly been counting down the days in her mind until the Hogsmeade day arrived.

On the very morning of the Hogsmeade trip, Hermione had woken up extra early just to think about the day she was about to spend with Viktor Krum. She hated to act this way over a male, but she couldn't stand to pretend to herself that she was indifferent towards Krum; fact was, she was deeply into Viktor, and had been for almost a year now.

She couldn't explain why she was so attracted to him, only that she was. She didn't have a clue whether it was, because as far as she knew, he was the only male to ever fancy her or whether the reason was, because possibly she was falling in love with him. Every moment she seemed to spend with him was wonderful; he always was such a gentlemen, and so gentle, never hesitating to compliment her on her beauty or intelligence. Every time she saw him, he always had a rose for her, or another charm to add to the charm bracelet he had given her for her fifteenth birthday. It just seemed everything about their relationship was so fantastic.

Of course Ron greatly disapproved; he constantly picked random moments in which he would begin bashing Krum to Hermione, explaining why Krum was unworthy of her, and why she should end their relationship immediately. It had, at first, bothered Hermione that Ron disliked him so strongly, but she had learned to ignore it from him; his latest reason for her to break up with him was that he 'claimed' to have seen Krum kissing some bizarre blonde French woman on the last Hogsmeade trip in which Hermione hadn't gone to, because she was sick; she didn't believe a word of it.

Harry always seemed to not want to get involved in Ron's continual determined attempts to break Krum and her up, and rarely ever commented on her relationship with him anyway. Whenever stuck between Ron and Hermione's arguing about Krum, he would simply make it clear he didn't want to get in the middle of their argument; but he always reminded Ron in front of Hermione that it wasn't right for Ron to frequently try to break Hermione and Krum up. He always added with a bit of a blush of the cheeks, that if Hermione was happy with Krum, then he was happy for her.

Hermione took appreciativeness in Harry's understanding of her relationship with Krum; she was grateful that he didn't team up on her with Ron to try to brew up schemes for breaking her relationship with Krum; after all, he seemed to have enough on his plate as it is with Quidditch, homework, the chaos with Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and his renewed relationship with Cho Chang.

So, on the morning of the Hogsmeade trip in which Hermione was going to meet Viktor for their date, Ron brought another fiasco to light. During breakfast at the Gryffindor table, he started badgering Hermione with the exact details of what he had seen on his last visit to Hogsmeade, sadly asking her why she didn't believe him, and why she'd rather believe a brainless Bulgarian Seeker than one of her best friends. In reply, Hermione told Ron that she knew he was telling her this to tear Viktor and her apart.

Deciding to turn to plan B ("Ask Harry"), Ron looked over across the table to Harry, who was sitting on Hermione's left. He crossed his arms stubbornly, staring at Harry, expecting Harry to fervently nod and agree, or at least nod meekly; Ron would have accepted any nod actually.

"Well," he demanded, "Harry, tell her Krum is cheating on her with some bizarre blonde French woman that looked like she was in her twenties, and like she was just someone trying to snip some of Krum's fame for herself by being photographed in newspapers like the Daily Prophet and magazines like Witch Weekly. Tell her, Harry, tell her!"

Harry simply blinked at Ron, incredulously thinking how desperate Ron truly was for Hermione to ditch Krum for good. He set down his fork, which was loaded with scrambled eggs, and gave Ron a sort of apologetic stare before he began to tell Ron to nicely leave the matter alone.

"Ron, why don't you calm down and eat your breakfast?" Harry asked quietly and calmly, "if Krum was cheating on Hermione, which probably isn't the case--" He added the last half of the sentence, because Hermione's mouth had dropped indignantly. "The newspapers would have reported something about it by now, don't you think?"

"Exactly," Hermione agreed, "listen to Harry, Ron. You could learn something from him."

Looking quite sulky about the matter being dropped, Ron grabbed a blueberry muffin from a platter nearby, not noticing nor apologizing for elbowing Dennis Creevy a bit harshly in the chest. He took a bite out of the muffin, and began chewing on it crossly, his eyes darting around, almost asking for someone like Malfoy to come now and start trouble with him just so he could take out some of his aggression.

Hermione looked at her wristwatch with hopeful eyes; she almost squealed in delight that it was almost time for them to board the carriages to Hogsmeade, but caught herself just before doing so; she blushed out of embarrassment of her own foolishness.

"So, Harry," Ron said, resentment still apparent in his voice as he looked up and across at Harry, "what are you doing again today at Hogsmeade? Spending the day with Cho, right? On a date, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Harry answered awkwardly, "a date." Harry's green eyes almost instantly traveled over to the Ravenclaw table where Cho Chang was sitting, talking to her best friend Dena Grimmhand. He snapped his gaze back onto Ron, and said, "That's exactly what we're doing."

"It's time!" Hermione exclaimed, a little more high pitched than she would have liked; Ron mouthed the words "it's time" in a mimicking fashion of Hermione, letting his eyes roll in annoyance.

The trio exited the Great Hall just like everyone else that was going, and got in line for the carriages; they passed Draco Malfoy who, not surprisingly, blurted out some quick insult at the three of them; his insult was so stupid Ron even ignored it.

In the line Harry and Ron talked about different stuff they were going to do excitedly, while Hermione stood next to them both, not really listening to a single word. She kept reminding herself to stop grinning out of thrill. She decided to try to get her mind on something else.

History of Magic, yes, that was a good thing for her to think about. That was until she remembered the time Viktor had told her his favorite subject at Durmstrang was History of Magic; Hermione smiled at the thought of Viktor's favorite subject.

Prefect duties later on, she remembered. That didn't have anything to do with Viktor Krum. That is, until she remembered that Viktor told her Durmstrang didn't have Prefects; again Hermione grinned a bit at the thought of Viktor's old school not having any Prefects.

Okay, ink jars. There. That didn't have anything at all to do with Viktor. Wait, that was before Hermione beamed stupidly when she realized she wrote her love letters to Viktor with her quill and ink jar on a piece of parchment. And, Viktor wrote to her with a quill and an ink jar, too! To be specific, she reminded herself, he always wrote in dark blue or dark red ink.

"Ha!" she exclaimed idiotically to herself in her mind. "Wait, what was I trying to prove again?"

Hermione was so far away daydreaming about Viktor Krum, she didn't even notice that Harry and Ron were both staring questioningly at her with her silly smile; Ron looked rather disturbed at her daydreaming about Viktor Krum.

"What's up with her?" Ron muttered to Harry, "She's even daydreaming about him. She's got it bad."

Harry nodded his head slightly in agreement, deciding to try to change the subject before Ron began a rant about Hermione fancying Krum. Meanwhile, Hermione had just realized what she had been trying to not do in the first place.

"Oh," she thought silently, "that's right, I cannot think about Viktor until our date. Oops, I just thought about him. Hmmm...I wonder where he's taking me. Ooh, and what color rose he's going to give me today. Maybe it'll be a white one. I really hope it's a white one. Eh, pink's okay. Wait, I'm thinking about him again. Merlin, I have it for him bad!"

She shook her head somewhat to rid herself of the rambling about Viktor going on inside her head; she really did hate acting this way over a boy when she was supposed to be calm, rational, and logical, but she couldn't help but to do this whenever she thought about, saw, or was around Viktor Krum.

"Back to reality yet?" Ron asked acidly.

"Ron," Hermione scolded, ending her sentence there.

"Nice to know you've regained speech," Ron said sarcastically, "maybe next you'll get back your rationality, and use that to dump Krum."

Hermione or Harry said nothing; Hermione rolled her eyes, noticing that they were next to board the carriages into Hogsmeade. She got into the carriage, and stared off into the farness of Hogsmeade Village, smiling at the fact that in less than twenty minutes she would be with him.

Harry and Ron sat down in the carriage across from her, and instantly began chatting about Quidditch, and how badly they were going to slaughter all of the other House teams that year, especially Slytherin; they both agreed that Katie made an excellent captain.

Throughout the whole carriage ride into Hogsmeade Village, Hermione thought about nothing, but Viktor; was that really anything new? No, she answered herself mutedly. It wasn't new for her to think about nothing, but her sweet, gentle hearted Viktor.

When the carriage stopped, Hermione was the first one to hop down from the carriage. She turned around to face Harry and Ron, quickly gave them a goodbye, wishing them to have a nice day, and then sped off quickly through the packed streets of the village.

"Well, mate, see you later," Harry said as Cho approached him; their hands locked together and they too started walking into the crowd of people of the streets of the village.

Ron watched the two of his best friends disappear into the crowds, feeling somewhat left out, because he didn't have a girlfriend; he shrugged, feeling much better when he saw that Honeyduke's was having a half off sale on all of their Cockroach Clusters, Liquorish quills, and Spearmint flavored ink.

By the time Ron had entered Honeyduke's to spend most of his small amount of money on candy, Hermione had already reunited with her boyfriend Viktor. When she saw him, she threw herself gladly into his arms, inhaling his sweet scent in sereneness.

Krum hugged her back, though not as tightly as she did him. Once she was contented with the sum of time she had hugged him, she looked up at him with a cheery smile.

"Did you miss me?" she asked him sweetly, "I know I've missed you."

"Yes, Hermy-own-nee," Krum replied after a brief pause, "of course I've missed you. I was full of gloom when you were ill. I am very glad you are better now. Your back to your beautiful self." He gave her a last second smile.

Hermione smiled back. "Thanks," she said, "I'm glad to be back here with you." She noticed he didn't have any rose for her or another charm for her charm bracelet. She decided that didn't matter, just as long as Viktor was here in the flesh with her, and she was able to hug him and kiss him. She buried her head comfortably into his broad chest again, hugging him one last time before they went anywhere.

She again let herself smell his wonderful scent, but it was then that she realized she couldn't smell his usual handsome aroma; instead she smelled perfume, Vachement Belle Perfume. In fact, that perfume was a French perfume for women. She knew this, because Parvati Patil, one of her dormitory roommates, had gone to Paris, France over the summer, and had gotten the very same perfume as a souvenir.

Hermione looked up at Viktor again, a suspicious feeling brewing in the pit of her stomach. She was trying to tell herself rationally that there must be some sort of an explanation for this; that's when she came up with the idea that possibly Viktor had bought that perfume for her when he was in France recently playing against the French Professional Quidditch team, and hadn't given her a rose or a charm for her charm bracelet, because he was saving the perfume as a surprise for her; yes, that was it, she concluded.

"So, where are we going?" she asked him, deciding not to say anything.

"I thought maybe we could get some Brunch, before I have to leave," he explained, putting a hand to her cheek to caress it reassuringly.

"Before you have to leave?" Hermione questioned sadly, "but our dates just begun. Where are you going? Why? I thought you said we would spend the whole day together, Viktor." She knew her voice sounded a bit too whiny.

"I have to get some rest for my Quidditch match tonight against England. You understand, don't you, Hermy-own-nee?" Viktor asked her, gazing into her eyes quite lovingly, still not dropping his hand from the side of her cheek. "You know I hate breaking our date short, but our coach has directly ordered for me to get a few hours of sleep before the game."

"Oh," Hermione said, hurt.

From there they finally did decide to head over to catch some brunch from a small bistro just between the Owl Post Office and another shop for repairing Magical radios, lamps, and any other similar devices that would break down. They mostly remained in silence during the whole brunch; Hermione hardly touched her croissant, because she could only think about how much of a disappointment the day had turned out to be.

Viktor actually didn't seem to be feeling guilty at all for having to break the news to her that he had to get some sleep before the game. When he asked her if something was wrong, she didn't voice her feelings to him, because she didn't want to be bothersome; she was trying to understand that Viktor was a famous, professional Quidditch player, and of course at the moment getting rest for the game was more important than his date with her.

By the end of the date, Hermione decided to at least get a few kisses out of him before he left, but was even more disappointed, when Viktor hardly kissed her back at all; he pulled away from her wearing a sympathetic gaze as he told her he didn't have any time for this, that he really did need to get back to his hotel room or else he'd never get some rest.

He stood up from their table, gave her a quick peck on the forehead, and disappeared out of the bistro without another word to her. She sat down staring at the chair Viktor had been sitting in, telling herself not to cry; she was actually urging herself, commanding herself not to cry about this. She stood up after a minute of feeling sorry for herself, trying to look on the bright side; at least Viktor had told her he was terribly sorry about having to do this, and at least she had gotten to spend some time with him.

She left the bistro, still feeling tears swelling in her eyes. Hermione started down the Hogsmeade streets, her hands stowed desolately in her pockets, her cheeks rosy from the windy cold. She began to wonder if maybe she should follow him to see if he really was going to his hotel room.

"Wait," she argued to herself, "why would I have to follow him? I should trust Viktor when he says he's going to his hotel room for sleep. But, where did that woman's scent on him come from? I'm sure I was wrong about him buying me that perfume; otherwise he would have surely given it to me. And, why was he so distracted and eager to get some sleep? May-maybe Ron's right."

Hermione's feet started moving in the direction in which Viktor had headed; she knew this was wrong of her to follow him, invading his privacy almost, but she had to do this to find out for certain. She passed through a quarter of the village, before she finally located her Viktor.

There he was, she saw, walking towards the HighView Hotel he was staying in; she smiled to herself. Of course he wasn't cheating on her. She felt like such a jerk just for thinking that, and believing Ron's crazy tale. She turned around to walk away, until she heard a woman's voice from across the road screech, "Viktor! Viktor, there you are!"

Hermione spun around very quickly, some strands of her hair whipping into her face; she ignored her hair in her face. Her hazel eyes were staring despondently as Viktor indeed went rushing over to a thin, older looking blonde French woman. Hermione tried to reassure herself that maybe they were just friends, maybe this woman was a reporter that was going to interview him, maybe this wasn't what it seemed. Her still lingering doubt of the idea that Viktor was cheating on her, evaporated when Viktor leaned in and kissed the French woman on the lips.

"He's really friendly," she thought to herself, "that was just a friendship kiss."

Her eyes were swelling with tears as she continued to watch, unable to move her feet at all, as if they were permanently glued to the pebble stoned ground.

"A friendship kiss? Ha! Have you ever, EVER kissed Harry or Ron on the lips? Nope. Cheeks maybe, but not lips. That's no friendship kiss," she reminded herself a second after.

The seconds seemed to be dragging slowly by as Viktor and the woman never separated from each other's lips. They both had their hands wrapped around each other, pulling one another closer out of a sort of hunger that Krum hadn't shown Hermione not once in her whole relationship with him; the tears of Hermione's left her cheeks, and stained the pebble stoned ground.

She became aware that she was shaking a bit violently, mostly not from the gusty cold, but from her heart being snapped into two, tossed worthlessly onto the floor, and stepped on repeatedly by Viktor and the French woman. Hermione tried to blink back her tears as she wrapped her arms around herself, hugging herself to keep warm.

Viktor and the woman had finally pulled apart, and were walking toward the HighView Hotel Viktor was staying in. Well, at least he hadn't been lying about the part of him returning to his hotel, was one of Hermione's thoughts. She was trying to think rationally through all this, but it felt like someone she cared about so much had just stabbed her in the stomach.

From where she was standing she could see that both Viktor and the woman had grins of lust on their lips, and they were eager to get upstairs into Viktor's room to explore that lust. Hermione forcefully began moving her feet in the direction of where Viktor was heading; she was crying all along with her arms still wrapped around herself.

When she came within a few feet of them, Viktor realized who was approaching. He stopped dead in his tracks, his lustful grin vanishing quicker than someone who Apparated into thin air. He stared at Hermione, obviously searching for some way to explain the scene; the woman, however blinked stupidly, continuing her immoral smile.

"Hermy-own-nee," Viktor said finally, looking as if he were about to play this off. "We were just going to--"

"Don't," she interrupted shakily, "don't, please."

"We weren't," he repeated as if someone were shouting an accusation at him, "I swear to you. We weren't going to do anything. I wasn't going to do anything."

Hermione didn't reply at first. She simply stared at Viktor in pain and hurt. Her bottom lip was trembling as she tried to build up the courage to get angry with him; she wanted to shout at him for what he was doing, but she was afraid that would make it hurt more...why'd this have to happen to her?

"I...I thought," She began painfully, "I thought you cared about me. I care about you. I...I thought...I thought you was happy with us. How could you? Viktor, how could you do this to me?" She never got to finish what she was thinking, because she collapsed into more tears.

"Hermy-own-nee, I'm so sorry," Viktor apologized, "it'll never happen again. I swear."

"Don't," she whispered again, "don't tell me that. Don't make it hurt even more." She started to turn away from the two of them, feeling as if confrontation had made things a whole lot worse.

"Don't do this, Hermy-own-nee!" Viktor said.

Hermione looked over her shoulder at Viktor, feeling as if Viktor had just turned the knife he had stabbed into her. "No, you didn't have to do this," she told him, speaking the loudest so far, "you didn't have to! You--" She broke herself off, letting out a moan of frustration. "Just...forget it. Have a nice time with her."

She broke into a run, determined to get as far away from them as quickly as possible without turning to look back at them. She continued to cry all the way back to the other side of Hogsmeade where the Hogwarts gates were; she didn't want to be in this place anymore; she didn't want to ever come back here again; she didn't want to ever think about Viktor again, although she knew that was impossible.

For the rest of the afternoon, Hermione spent it crying intensely in her dormitory, all alone. Every thought, every feeling she had felt for Viktor Krum made her feel like such a fool now. How could she be so idiotic thinking that there was a possibility that Viktor and her were in love? How could she be so moronic as to believe that Viktor was satisfied with a kid like her, when what he yearned for was someone with experience and maturity in levels she hadn't gotten to yet?

All of it made her feel like such a stupid girl. Her tears seemed to come out endlessly for hours, and the pain seemed to burn as if it would never stop. Repetitively she wondered if maybe it wasn't Viktor's fault he had turned to another woman for pleasure; maybe it was her fault. Maybe she was too immature for a real relationship, or maybe Viktor just hadn't been attracted to her.

Maybe she was ugly. Maybe she was fat. Maybe she just didn't do it for a guy. Maybe that's what was it; something was wrong with her. How could she ever blame Viktor? He was doing what probably any guy would do; this thought made her collapse in even more tears.

By the time the rest of the students visiting Hogsmeade returned, she had to stop crying, at least until she had another moment alone. She had to pretend everything was okay, and when asked about her date with Viktor, she would answer vaguely that it was okay.

"So, how'd you spend the day?" Harry was asking Ron when she joined them in her usual armchair in the Gryffindor common room. Harry looked tired from his date with Cho, but despite this he looked mightily satisfied with the outcome of his date.

"I spent half of it with Seamus. You see Dean was out with Ginny for the day, so we decided to go to some shops, and not really do anything. But, Dean's date with Ginny ended early, so the two of them went off somewhere while I went to the Three Broomsticks. I was looking for someone to sit with, when Loony - I mean, Luna Lovegood came up. So, I spent the rest of the day with her," Ron explained, "and let me tell you...I had some of the weirdest conversations ever with her this afternoon."

Harry chuckled at Ron's negativity towards spending a whole afternoon with Luna Lovegood. Quite frankly Harry had always thought Ron and Luna would make a good couple, though he had never told Ron, because he didn't want Ron's head to boil red.

"How 'bout you?" Ron asked after his dislike of spending the day with Luna died away, "How was the date with Cho?"

"Well," Harry said thoughtfully, "it actually went very well. Cho's great. Loads better than last year."

Hermione listened to their conversation, silently hurting still. Her face seemed to be carved out of stone, and her eyes were glazed with pain. She wasn't staring from Harry to Ron, instead staring lost at the fire in front of her; she wanted so badly just to cry. Actually she wanted to run off somewhere where no one could ever see, talk to her, or think about her ever again.

"Are you okay, Hermione?" Harry asked concernedly, noticing Hermione's strange silence.

Hermione looked up from the fire, and at Harry and Ron. She tried to smile, she really did, but her lips just couldn't form into a smile. She nodded gradually to answer his question. She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and said very, very quietly, "I'm fine."

"You sure?" Harry inquired, "You look like something's up. Is there anything bothering you?"

"I'm fine," she remarked a bit rudely, "I said I was, didn't I?" She stood up suddenly, deciding she didn't at all want to be around them, so she was heading to bed to cry noiselessly to herself.

"Hermione, where are you going?" asked Harry.

"Yeah," Ron said, "and oh, how was your date with Krum?"

Hermione stopped dead in her tracks, feeling a sudden burst of anger and rage pump through her; she even began quivering with rage. Her hands curled up into fists as she swiftly turned around to look at the two teenagers that were her best friends.

"How was my date?" she repeated, feeling eager to take out some of her pain on someone else, "HOW WAS MY DATE?"

"Yeah," Ron replied, not noticing Hermione's rage, "That's what I asked."

Harry however seemed to notice something was up, and was staring at Hermione in confused concern, wondering what exactly could have happened on Hermione's date with Krum to make her this upset and angered. He began to wonder worriedly if Ron had been right about Krum cheating on Hermione.

"My date," she said, her anger vanishing abruptly, "was...was fine." She surprisingly felt herself crying. She wiped away the tears in frustration at her own weakness. She turned around again, and started hastily toward the girls' spiral staircase to head to her dormitory.

Standing up, Harry went after her out of worry at what was wrong. He stopped Hermione just when she was by the entrance of the staircase, and turned her around just as Ron joined the two of them, him too looking concerned for Hermione's peculiar behavior.

"Hermione, what's wrong?" Harry questioned, searching her eyes desperately for an answer.

"Yeah, what's wrong?" Ron chorused.

Hermione tried with everything she had to put a smile on her face, but like before it just wasn't happening. The tears rolled down her cheeks still, seeming to have a complete mind of their own, unwilling to obey Hermione. She looked down at the floor warily.

"Viktor," she began, but stopped. Even saying his name hurt her so much. It took her a few seconds to continue. "He...Viktor...he was--" she said, again cutting herself off before she could come around to saying it. "He was cheating on me. You were right, Ron. Right all along."

For the first time, she was able to give Ron a hurtful smile. She wasn't able to keep it for very long before she lost it.

"Congratulations," Hermione said to him, "you knew all along that I was an idiot."

She turned to go again, but Harry grabbed her arm to hold her back. He turned her around to face them, his face full of total fret for her.

"Hermione, I'm...I'm sorry. Are you sure...are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" he offered sensitively as Ron involuntarily whooped at the revelation that he had been right all along.

"No," Hermione replied after a moment of actually considering his offer, but not wanting to talk about it in front of Ron, "I'll be fine."

She left her two best friends there, and disappeared into her dormitory, knowing very well that she wasn't going to be fine. She knew Viktor cheating on her was probably going to affect her for the rest of her life. She also knew that she probably wouldn't heal from this. But, despite all that, Hermione decided to not unload her hurt and pain on her best friends, and flood them with her problems; she decided that she was going to suffer in silent hurt.

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