It was a tearful Hermione that walked back to the empty girl's dormitories and curled up in her bed, still in her snow covered outfit, while sobbing her heart out. Harry walked out on her and she was certain that everything in between them was completely messed up to the point that she'd never get to tell him how she felt.

"So, Hermione," Ginny barged into the room with a grin before seeing Hermione's miserable state, "WHAT THE HELL DID HE DO?" The fiery girl asked in a yell while brandishing her wand menacingly.

"H—he...didn't do a—anything," Hermione waveringly told the younger girl through her sobs. She wailed loudly as Ginny hustled over to her and threw up a locking and silencing charm over the room while taking her in her arms.

"Oh, love, what happened? What'd you say?" She asked Hermione as gently as she could, stroking her hair and shushing her. She pressed a soft kiss into the girl's hair and rocked her tightly, feeling her own heart being ripped apart in real time as Hermione's misery just wouldn't cease.

"I—I tried to tell him I loved him...but I stumbled over it," Hermione buried her head into Ginny's chest, "a—and I sort of blurted out that I was moving to New York."

Ginny shook her head at the girl and sighed in frustration. Still, that didn't explain why she was in a heaping mess. Harry must not have taken the news well but Hermione was smart and intuitive enough to realize that him doing so would shed some light on his feelings for her. Then again, those two never did see straight when it came to each other.

"Was he mad?" Ginny decided to ask, hoping to segue into a discussion of his feelings for Hermione.

"Yes, but he was more mad when I couldn't tell him why I wanted to go. I wanted so much to say I loved him but I don't know what stopped me, Gin." Hermione calmed a bit and it was reflected in her voice but she still sniffled into the redhead's chest. "The words wouldn't come out, and then he looked so hurt and I just kept talking and talking," the brown haired girl moaned.

"Well what'd you tell him?" Ginny continued to press on.

"He asked me why I wanted to leave and I told him it was what's best for me."

At that, the younger girl gasped in shock. She knew immediately that Harry would have taken that statement in the wrong way. Whether he would admit it or not, Harry always held insecurities about his ability to provide a safe, healthy relationship for a girl and Hermione's admission would clearly exacerbate them. He must have thought that Hermione meant leaving him behind was what was best for her.

"And then he asked me if leaving him behind was what was best for me and I froze," Hermione whimpered and Ginny could feel the girl's sobs returning in full force. "I couldn't answer him because I did think that was what was best for me."

Ginny hugged the older girl tighter, remembering their conversation on the grounds the week before she met with Harry, and realized that Hermione's lack of an answer was enough of an answer for Harry to his question.

"Hermione, but that isn't what's best for you. You know that."

No response came from the girl in question. Ginny shook her in her arms and laid in the bed, Hermione snuggling into her side. "Hermione, love, what happened after that?" She questioned softly.

"He stormed out on me and told me to do what was best for myself. He hates me," Hermione once again wailed.

"He doesn't hate you," Ginny shot down that notion as quickly as Hermione created it. She wrapped her arms tighter around the girl's frame and said, "you just took him by surprise, that's all."

Her words did nothing to comfort the distraught witch, however. The redhead wanted to ask Hermione to write to Harry to clarify herself but the girl was in no state to do so. No, what she needed now was comfort and not solutions. That would come later.

"Okay, love. He's just...hurt by you. He wants nothing more than for you to stay but he...just doesn't know how to say it," a melancholy Ginny said in defense of Harry.

"It shouldn't be this hard for me to tell him how I feel. It's not worth it, I've hurt him again and I'm no better than anyone else who's done so."

Hermione was on the verge of giving up and Ginny could sense it immediately. She hushed the girl and stroked her hair comfortingly again. "Hermione Jean Granger, don't you dare give up on him, on this. This is just a stupid hurdle you have to go through."

"But it shouldn't be this hard, I shouldn't have to face all of this just to tell him I love him," the emotionally distressed witch snuggled up into the redhead's side, "it's not fair."

"It's not fair but you can't give up on him," Ginny tried to console the older girl. It was getting much too challenging for them but Shakespeare once wrote that 'the course of true love never did run smooth', she remarked to herself.

"How do I know this isn't a sign? How do I know this isn't the world telling me that we shouldn't be together? I hurt him terribly, Gin. He thinks I'm trying to get away from him and he's not wrong. The only reason I even considered the offer was to run away from him," Hermione protested weakly, her voice cracking under the weight of her sobs.

"No, no, Hermione, look at me," Ginny forced the older girl to stare up at her, "you can't run away from him again."

"I have to, I can't stand to be the one who's hurt him. I don't know if he even loves me and, after today, I don't think he does."

The younger girl's auburn curls bounced as she frantically shook her head.

"Has he told you he doesn't? Have you told him that you love him?" When Hermione nodded negatively, Ginny continued, "then how do you know?"

"He called me his best friend multiple times during our conversation and he even told me that nothing would change between us and that he would always be like that to me."

Hermione's reasoning was complete and utter shite to the redhead. She asked herself when Hermione, the brightest witch of her age, became such an irrational person. Ginny wondered how blind the witch had to be not to see how much Harry Potter loved her and wanted to be with her.

"I can't be with him, Ginny. The world doesn't want us to. I should just go to New York and hopefully our friendship can recover before I leave," Hermione sighed resignedly, "maybe we were meant to be friends and meant not to be with each other."

"You can't honestly believe that? Not after everything that's happened with you two?"

"That's exactly why I believe it."

The older girl grew tired and her eyes eventually fell shut. The discussion, Ginny declared to herself, was far from over though. She eventually fell asleep with Hermione still in her arms but not before discarding the charms around the dormitories. When Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil entered for the night, they smiled warmly at the sight before them as they covered the girls with a heavy blanket.