A/N: Bit of Ron/Hermione drama with Ginny in the roll as righteous defender. Weasley family values.

"Hermione, stop right there." The voice of her once close friend was filled with venom. "You don't get to come here and ask me for forgiveness when Ron is the one you ruined."

Her voice froze in her throat, the knowledge that she truly had broken her once dearest friend. "I know, Ginny, and I'm so sorry. I never wanted to hurt him; he'd just grown so distant from me. He seemed to be a different person, someone I didn't know anymore. So changed…"

Her voice drifted off under the hard glare of her friend. "He was different Hermione, he's a grown man now, not a child on his first day at Hogwarts." She twisted the plain platinum ring on her finger as she spoke. "Did you ever happen to think that you're the one who isn't any different? That perhaps what you viewed as his 'discrepant' behaviour that you noted in the divorce was in fact maturity that you haven't got any clue of? He's tending to the children as you work in your lab all day and night. Who's the unknowable person now?"

Hermione lifted her tear-streaked face as she heard Ginny's chair scrape protestingly against the tiles of the floor. She felt her heart clench and knew she had lost her last adversary in the Weasley house.

"I appreciate that you're sorry, Hermione. Perhaps I even feel sympathy for your plight. But I can't forget the hurtful words you used to try and make Ron look and feel stupid in front of everyone. I cried the night I saw him have to look some of the words up in a book just so he could know what you were telling the court about him. I felt his shame, and I never want to see him put in that position again. He loved you for so long because you were the smartest person he knew and he had faith in that. And in the end you used it against him. "

The older woman looked down, unable to meet Ginny's eyes, knowing under it all that she was right. But she still had her pride, she couldn't be blamed for it all.

"Then why did Ron let me go without fighting? Why didn't he tell me that I had hurt him so much?"

"I feel nothing but pity for you. I think perhaps the title of smartest witch of our time was the discrepant thing between you, he clearly never saw that you understand nothing."