They All Love You

part nine

Nobody ever really saw Hermione after that day. Hermione hibernated in her dormitory and never left. The day when Ron left, Professor McGonogall even held a farewell toast in the Great Hall so the war hero could have a proper departure from Hogwarts. 

Hermione didn't attend.

Instead, Hermione grew fonder of her newly found bookshelf, determined to read every single book in the entire bookshelf before she could leave her room. Throughout the day, Hermione would pull off a book, starting at the lowest of the shelf, fling herself onto her bed and read the entire book before putting it back. Even when it was night and Pansy slipped in to sleep, Hermione still read and read, hoping it would distract her from the pain she felt. Every time she would even think about Ron or that day she would read faster and out loud, drowning out her saddened thoughts.

Harry had written a long, detailed letter to Professor McGonogall about Hermione and what she was going through, embellishing a little bit to the point where she received excused absence from class for two weeks. Her two weeks were up after this weekend, as today was Saturday, forcing Hermione to face class again on Monday.

Ginny would then come to her door each morning, afternoon and evening and slip a plate of food under the locked door, hoping Hermione would eat but Hermione didn't feel the need to eat. Hunger just wasn't apparent anymore and when she could feel sickness rising, she would reluctantly take a few bites of the fruit provided and vanish the rest of the food like she did every day. 

She couldn't explain it, but this was how it had to be. Hermione knew the second she walked out of her room, memories and thoughts of Ron would come flooding back, making her cry even more. Hermione had finished crying. Bored of it, really. Endless streams of hot tears didn't solve her problems or help the pain, but reading and watching outside did. It helped her forget.

Over the past two weeks many people came to the door, knocking in hope Hermione would ope and be the cheery girl she was, including Ginny, Luna, Parvati and Padma, even people like Astoria and Millicent would check on Hermione, making sure she wasn't dead. Instead, Hermione read faster, moving as far away from the door as possible, nestling herself into the room's divot. Watching outside she saw the peculiar Theodore Nott by the Black Lake often. Not every night, but most. He would just sit by it, read by it, but somehow he always disappeared within a matter of seconds and would return minutes later, walking back to the castle.

On this night, Hermione was half way busy through reading Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Second, Most Curious Addition when she could feel something rising from her stomach. It made her halt. Pansy was dead asleep as the darkness from outside rested calmly, but Hermione could feel a disturbance in her stomach. Staring at the door, quickly thinking of her options she reluctantly opened the door and quietly ran down the hallway to the small bathroom the girls shared. It was tiny, and only had two toilets but Hermione plunged onto her knees, vomiting into one.

After a very painful twenty minutes of regurgitating and gasping for air, Hermione made her quiet way back to her dormitory after feeling the sick feeling go away. She sat back on her bed to read when another feeling rose up. This time it wasn't vomit, it was hunger. A long grumble from her stomach out-broke, making Hermione realize how little she had eaten the past two weeks and how much skinnier and paler she appeared. 

She needed food. She felt starving all of a sudden. Desperate to eat anything, she thought of a happy memory whilst in her third year when her and Ginny were roaming the halls and found the fruit portrait leading to the kitchens which she often visited, as she found herself in the library most years during dinner. She pulled herself together and pulled an old hoodie from her wardrobe, conjuring it from her own. It was a large navy blue hoodie, the word 'Lake Lint' embroidered. In fact, it used to be her fathers, one he bought on a family vacation in the Canary Islands many years ago.