Time After Time. *Complete*

Chapter Twenty Eight - Do You Hear Yourself

"I didn't!" Ron snapped trying to defend himself. "I would never try and do that to you Hermione. I love -"

"Don't you dare say that to me!" She screamed back wagging her finger angrily at him. "Don't you dare!"

He looked momentarily hurt but her words. "Hermione they are lying. I didn't do anything. All I did was give you a harmless -"

"A love potion. You tried to give my wife a love potion," Draco glared at the weasel who looked like he was squirming. Ginny was still holding on tightly to him. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

No one spoke for a few minutes. No one knew quite what to say. Hermione looked hurt and clung to Draco desperately, trying to calm both her and him down. Harry looked sickened by the thought that Ron could do this. Ginny looked furious at her idiotic brother. She knew he had stooped low this weekend but not this low. The Slytherins wouldn't have thought this wasn't possible coming from a member of the Golden Trio - weren't they meant to be godlike?

Ron was a bit flabbergasted that Malfoy was speaking to him like this, cursing and everything and no one was saying anything about it. But it was the look Hermione was giving him that pushed him over the edge. A look of pity and hatred. A look he didn't think she was capable of. It was in this moment that he suddenly realised Hermione was under no potion. She (for some fucked up reason) actually loved the bastard. But he would never admit that as long as he lived. He wouldn't give the ferret the satisfaction. "What is wrong with me?" Ron chuckled. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He stepped closer to Malfoy. "You stole my girlfriend. I don't know what you did to her - I still say it was a love potion but I was NOT letting you get away with it. I am not going to stand about and watch as you drool all over my woman. She is MINE!" He all but growled the last part.

"Sweet baby Merlin do you hear yourself?" Draco said squeezing his eyes shut. "Have you actually stopped this weekend to listen to how utterly ridiculous you sound? Hermione cannot be yours!" He used air quotes when saying "yours" to empathise his point. "She is not bloody property or an item you bought. She is a person. No one has control over her and she is free to make her own choices in life. I have never once tried to take that away from her." He was breathing heavily as he spoke, fuelled by anger and loathing.

But Ron was just as angry, just as emotional. "That's not what I meant dickhead! I meant that she was in love with me and I -"

"Broke her heart!" Draco snapped again. "You broke her heart. You had the most amazing girl in the world, completely and hopelessly in love with you and you still treated her like crap. You should be ashamed of what you did to her. When I met her she was only a shell of the amazing, fierce and loving girl she used to be. You broke her. And I tried to help mend her but she did 99% of it on her own. She is fucking amazing!"

Ron couldn't bear to hear this. He shook his head as Draco spoke. "No, no. I loved her and -"

Hermione wanted to scream. She was fed up. This whole situation was ruining her weekend and her time with Draco and she had enough. "Alright that's it!" She snapped. "Ron, you cheated on me...countless times. You broke my heart and even if we were together, I would never trust you again. Never. And I couldn't be with someone I don't trust." Ron opened his mouth to argue but she raised a hand. "For once just listen to me!" She took a deep breath. "I fell out of love with you as soon as I saw you and Susan in bed. I was heartbroken but also glad. I couldn't see a future with you Ron. We would have killed each other and fought constantly. You merely proved to me that night that we were wrong for each other. I have never been happier than I am with Draco -"

"That's because we never got a chance," he didn't know how to make her understand. "We never got to try, to see what would have become of us as a couple. That's all I want." He sighed.