Dolor Draconum

Chapter the Thirtieth

"It could be said, Hermione, that you are," Ron paused for significance, "disproportionately upset."

Hermione didn't say anything.

"Colin told me about the fight. No one's seen Malfoy yet."

"I left him for Snape to yell at," Hermione mumbled. "Not that Snape will."

"Course not," Ron grinned. "Teacher's pet."

"I'm going to go to McGonagall if he gets off too lightly."

"Good plan."

There was a long pause.

"Go away."

"Nope."

Ron hopped backwards onto the bed, sitting next to her and reaching out to run his hand down her back.

"You can talk to me, Hermione."

"How did you get up here?" she asked.

"Ginny tied a rope to the banister at the top of the stairs for me, and I pulled myself up."

"Impressive. Pity it was worthless."

"Ginny was worried."

"That's nice."

Ron reached over and tangled his fingers in her hair. "Hermione."

"Everyone is going to be so happy," she said into her pillow, voice as bitter as her tears.

"You broke up over one fight?" Ron asked, surprised, trying to suppress the joy he felt. It wasn't hard. "Oh, Hermione, you're in love with him, aren't you?"

"Of course not!" Hermione pushed herself sharply. "I just wanted to look after him."

She rolled over to sit up properly, accidentally tangling her legs with Ron's torso. Her eyes were bloodshot, the skin around them puffy, her nose red and her lips swollen. Even Ron couldn't find her attractive, and that upset him. He thought she was gorgeous when her eyes were bloodshot and puffy from sleepless nights of studying, she was beautiful when she was covered in mud and cuts and bruises, and she was even a vision when she was with Malfoy. But she'd been crying, and any attraction he felt for her was smothered by a blind anger on her behalf.

Hermione reached over and grabbed his wrist, slipping her hand down into his and squeezing gently. She knew him.

"Ron... It was just a fight. I'm okay."

"You don't look okay," Ron snarled. "You can't stop me from hating him, Hermione. I always have done."

"I know. And, well, I'm mad at him now anyway, so I'm perfectly fine with that," she admitted. "I tried to help him and he threw a hissy fit. He was so condescending!" she began to rant. "I've never been so insulted, Ron. He just kept talking about me like I was less than human! He said that his love for me made him a sexual deviant!"

"What?" Ron stared at her. "That beast is capable of love?"

Hermione almost retaliated, almost grew angry on Draco's behalf, but then she saw just how wide Ron's eyes were, just how open his mouth. He was exaggerating. He was joking. And to her surprise, she was laughing, albeit weakly. She leant over and hugged Ron.

"Thank you," she murmured into his shoulder.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. She could feel the tension in his shoulders, and despite her own desires she pulled away a little, to give them space to talk. Ron understood the message, though he continued to loosely embrace her.

"He actually said he loves you?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah," Hermione admitted, blushing slightly.

"And you..." Ron let it hang.

"Yelled at him a lot, because of the sexual deviancy comment, and told him I hate him," Hermione told him. "I don't think he meant it, or, at least, not the way you or I would. It was more like he was trying to arrange a marriage of convenience or something. He just slipped it into the conversation, like it was a perfectly reasonable assumption between us. Like it didn't even need saying."

"Do you think he was casual because he didn't mean it, or because he thought, as you say, 'it was a perfectly reasonable assumption'?" Ron asked carefully.

"It didn't mean anything to him," Hermione insisted, tears rising again. "Love is meant to have passion, emotion, power. Isn't it?"

"Of course it is," Ron soothed her. The thought niggled at the back of his mind, that surely the intensity of their fight suggested at least some emotion. He couldn't ignore it, but he could disregard for a little longer. It was hardly something to point out to Hermione. "He's been brought up in a world where 'love' is just another word for 'suppose I can tolerate you for the rest of my life'."

"Isn't that your world?" Hermione sniffed. "The wizarding world?"

"I think of it more as the 'posh wanker' world," Ron told her, hoping for another laugh. He accomplished a slight smile. "He's a twit."

"Yeah."

"Oh, Hermione," Ron sighed, looking at her. He pulled her into another hug. He rubbed her back and stroked her hair. She was shuddering against him, not quite crying, but only because she was too tired to any more. Ron hugged her and murmured calming nonsense in her ear, like his mother had when the twins had shown him his reflection in the back of a spoon and convinced him be thrown out of society for looking like such a freak. He doubted showing Hermione her face in a mirror would be of much help just now, though.

If he hadn't been wishing and praying for this moment he would have been out hexing Malfoy into oblivion rather than cuddling Hermione, despite the inherent pleasures of the latter. Guilt kept him there. Hermione was obviously heartbroken, and he'd wished that on her. It wasn't his fault, but he didn't feel guilty for causing it. He just felt bad for wanting it. And still, even now, wanting it. He'd been patient for years, and now it might only be a matter of months. Already, Hermione was...

He buried his nose into the curve of her neck and tried not to start crying, just from self-loathing.

* * *

They were sitting in the common room, everyone studiously ignoring the redness of Hermione's eyes. She appreciated it, though hated knowing her ego was so fragile as to need that small mollification. It didn't help that every time someone started a sentence with "I..." she automatically supplied "...told you so" and "...knew this would happen."

No one mentioned Malfoy. When Parvati said something about Slytherin she was quickly shushed. Hermione twitched, not sure if she was upset because of the reminder or because they were being so careful not to remind her. Her shoulders stung with the tension between them. She felt like a spurned Jane Austen character, sitting bolt upright with her hands in her lap and her face utterly blank. She wanted to take up embroidery.

Hermione blinked at that thought, and remembered her knitting. She had some in her bag, and she fished it out quickly. At least the repetition was soothing, as the needles clacked together. It was only after several contented minutes that she registered the colours. She'd forgotten she'd started a scarf for Malfoy.

She could feel their eyes on her. They could tell, now she'd stopped, that she'd noticed the green and silver. She could hear Ginny hastily digging in her bag, and out of the corner of her eye Hermione saw Ginny palm a handkerchief to be ready at a moment's notice.

Hermione looked at the scarf again. Part of her wanted to put it back in the bag and hope that one day she'd have a reason to finish it. Another part wanted to throw the mess into the fire.

Both, she scolded herself, were emotion-driven impulses. They suggested strong emotion, too, but she wasn't ready to come to terms with that yet. She was a rational, reasonable person. She wasn't going to sit and sob into an unfinished scarf, or waste wool in the fire. She was above that.

Hermione took up her wand and pointed it at the ball of wool that sat by her feet. With a muttered first year incantation the verdant green turned to a rich crimson. After all, why not knit all of the house colours into the scarf? It showed loyalty. It didn't show taste, but she was sure that she would find someone to give the overly cheerful brightly coloured monstrosity to. Her treacherous mind suggested Ron, throwing her an image of him with one of his mother's knitted jumpers and Hermione's scarf and a bobble hat Hermione couldn't place, but she forced that idea away in a fit of pity and decided one of her young cousins might really appreciate the rainbowed garment.

She looked up to find Ron, Harry and Ginny all smiling encouragingly. She fought the urge to roll her eyes, but found no reason to suppress it and let them all know of her amusement.

"Honestly, I'm not that fragile," she said, hoping she wasn't lying.

"We know," Ginny told her. "You wouldn't be our Hermione if you were."

"Well, you can all just stop tip-toeing around me then," Hermione replied tartly. "It's not as though anything truly horrible has happened. Hardly even unpleasant, when you think about it." She knew she was taking it too far, and forced herself to clamp down on her rambling tongue.

"It was only Malfoy," Harry agreed. Hermione saw Ron and Ginny flinch at what they saw as tactlessness, but Hermione was grateful for it.

"Precisely," she chirped brightly. "Of course I'm hurt that he would misconstrue and reject so violently an attempt to help him, but it's hardly on a par with any of the fights we've had over the years. I would be much more upset if any of you acted so immaturely and insulted me like that."

The last sentence was a little more pointed than it ought to have been, and she could see Harry cringe from his recent behaviour. She sympathised, she really did, but she also took some small pleasure in letting him know that he'd wounded her. In her reasonable mind she told herself that it had in fact hurt more than anything Malfoy had done. It was just a slow ache, rather than this sharp pain. Malfoy was the breaking of the bone, Harry the long healing.

"It's good to have you back," Harry said.

"I never went away," Hermione told him. "Honestly, I don't know what's wrong with you all."

"Nothing," Ron said quickly. "Nothing at all, or with you."

"Want to play four way exploding snap?" Ginny asked.

"Count me out," Harry said, pulling a roll of parchment from Hermione's bag and waving his own quill. "I've got a Herbology essay to write." He paused and added, "Mind if I borrow some parchment?"

"Go ahead," Hermione said, waving the request away with long practised patience. "I think I'm going to keep knitting, if you don't mind, Ginny."

"Don't worry," Ron said, voice exaggeratedly soothing, "I'll blow you to kingdom come, little sister."

"You wish!" Ginny laughed.

Things settled back into their normal routine, shouts of triumph and despair coming from the siblings, Harry asking Hermione for help with a subject she didn't take any more and Hermione mouthing 'slip one, pearl one' at odd intervals. The strange awkwardness was fading now.

"You know what's weird?" Ginny commented, having just soundly beaten her brother. "What's weird is that I'm thinking of you as single now, when I wasn't thinking of you as attached before."

"I guess a few dates allows for the development of marital status," Hermione said, voice neutral. "Before it didn't need defining, just assuming."

"You want to do it again? With someone else?" Harry asked. Hermione couldn't decide on his tone. Maybe suspicious, maybe nervous, maybe hopeful.

"At some point in my life, yes," Hermione smirked. "As fervently as I believe that a woman doesn't need a husband to support her or to be considered successful, I don't really want to live my life alone."

"But you need to get over Malfoy first," Ron said quickly. "Right?"

"Of course not!" Harry spoke for her. "That would imply there was something to get over. Hermione's already said there isn't. She's hurt, not heartbroken."

Hermione opened her mouth and closed it again.

"Don't be daft," Ron growled. "Just because they weren't madly in love doesn't mean it won't take her time to get past this."

"Why would it? She's been freed from his dependency," Harry shot back. "It's Malfoy."

"Why don't you ask her?" Ginny put in before her brother could escalate the fight further.

"Fine! Hermione, would you go out with Ron?"

Hermione's eyes widened. Ron's eyes widened. Both went pale. Hermione watched Ron's adam's apple bob furiously.

She knew that if she had completely lacked feelings for her friend, there would have been no doubt or panic at the asking of the question. She would have treated it as purely theoretical.

She knew she loved Ron deeply, dearly. He was just a friend now, but unlike someone like Malfoy or Krum she could picture herself still in a relationship with him when they were both forty, or four hundred. Their friendship would give them that where pure romance would eventually falter and fade.

She knew it would prove to the world that she'd meant everything she'd said about Malfoy. Maybe she really had enjoyed their relationship, such as it was, but it had come from a false source. She had fallen for his depression and dependence. She had loved his redemption, the redemption that she had forced upon him. She had loved herself.

She knew Ron wouldn't hurt her. He couldn't hurt her, not like Malfoy had.

"Yes," Hermione said, "I would. I will."