Her hair was greasy and falling out of her knot. Her makeup was smudged, and it looked like she had two black eyes. There were black streaks going down her face, and her robes were wrinkled and messy. She grabbed a set of Hogwarts robes and shut herself in the bathroom. It took her a while to coax her hair down out of its tangled mess, and then she magically removed her makeup.
After taking a shower, she put on her robes and headed down to the Common Room in search of Harry. She found him, sitting in front of the fire. She imagined the Ball was still going on, because Harry was alone and there was no one else in sight.
"The Ball will be ending soon." came Harry's grovely voice. "And if you're looking for Ron, I have no idea where he disappeared to. I came back here to find him shortly after you left and he said he wanted to be alone and went walking across the grounds."
"Oh, Harry," said Hermione, the tears spilling out of not only her eyes, but her voice, too. "I didn't mean for it to go this far! But when I tried to explain that to Ron, he refused to listen. Harry, could you talk to him?"
"Hermione, I'm tired of talking to him. You need to talk to him because you're the one with the issues. He refuses to listen to me anymore because he thinks that I'm siding with you instead of him, his best friend. If you're so determined to talk to him, then you can go find him yourself."
"No! I won't! I'll just wait a bit longer, because I'm not going out in the frigid cold looking like a Yeti just to tell him that I love him!" At the word love, Harry turned to face her.
"You love him? How can you say that? You go out with his worst enemy, and rub it in his face, and then can't take the heat when it goes too far. And you say you love him? Hermione, he has no evidence that you love him, because he thinks you love Malfoy!"
This was like a slap in the face to Hermione, who hadn't realized the true impact of what she had done to Ron. She heard footsteps and a very familiar voice saying the password to the Fat Lady.
"I'll leave you two alone," said Harry with a wink. He quickly disappeared up the stairs and the next thing she knew, Hermione was looking up into the face of Ron Weasley.
* * *
"Ron," Hermione started, the tears already forming behind her eyes. "I never meant to hurt you. I just wanted you to realize your true feelings for me."
"Hermione, I wanted you so badly. I liked you from the moment that I met you, and loved you from the beginning of our first year. I felt that I could walk through fire for you, walk on water, do anything for you. But the fact that you set me up, I don't think I can ever forgive that."
"Ron!" Hermione cried, the floodgates had broken and the tears were spilling down her face into her lap. "I am sorry! I would take back everything, but I just wanted you to realize that I loved you too."
"I don't love you anymore. I realized I don't know you well enough to love you. Because the Hermione I know would never do anything like this." She looked up from her lap and saw the tears were running down his cheeks, too. The look upon his face was of utter disbelief and incredible hurt. Hermione would never forget that face. It was the face of the man who had stopped loving her.