CHAPTER 1

Hermione ran her fingers through Ron’s hair, letting his tongue slide into her mouth gently. His thumbs left gentle circles on her hips as he pushed her back slightly onto the bed. He looked into her eyes as he tried to slide her tank top up over her head. Suddenly, she stiffened and her eyes seemed to glaze over, as if she wasn’t really seeing him anymore.

“Hermione?” Ron asked concernedly. She closed her eyes and whimpered, turning her face away from him. “Hermione, what’s the matter?”

“No…no, please…” she whispered, but Ron could tell these words weren’t directed at him. She was completely lost to him, he couldn’t get her to respond to him at all, except to try and shrink away from him.

Ron stood up and took a few steps back. Hermione scooted to the corner of the bed and hugged her knees to her chest, a few tears dripping from underneath her closed eyelids. Ron was completely bewildered. He couldn’t think of any reason for her to be acting like this.

“Hermione, it’s me, Ron,” he said, sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to ease toward her. She just whimpered again and winced at his voice. “’Mione, why are you acting this way? It’s just me. You’re best friend of seven years. Your boyfriend. Can you even hear me?”

“Please, not again, Eric, please…” Hermione whispered so quietly Ron almost didn’t catch it. His eyes shot open and his breathing nearly stopped.

“Eric?” he asked bluntly. “Who’s Eric? What did he do to you?” Hermione was crying in earnest now, cowering as far away from him as she could. Ron stood and exited the room quickly, feeling she must need to be alone. He knew there was nothing he could do for her right now.

Hermione looked up at Ron, loving adoration in her eyes. He started pulling her shirt up over her head and something abruptly snapped in the back of her mind. This situation was too similar. Someone she knew, someone she loved, on top of her, undressing her. It hit a chord in her and she stiffened as her vision blurred.

And quite suddenly, it was no longer Ron leaning over her, but him again, him with his soothing words and malicious grin, him with his videos and pictures, him. And she couldn’t take it. Hermione whimpered, turning away from him, trying not to listen as he told her all about what he wanted.

“No…no, please…” she whispered, just as she had done that day, reliving it in her mind for the first time in years. She could hear Ron saying something, but in her mind, it was just Eric with more explanations, more reassurances, more lies.

“Please, not again, Eric, please…”

She felt the presence on the bed shift and she hastily scrambled away from ‘Eric’ as she had done, recoiling as far as she could from the menacing presence of her remembrance. There were more words. She didn’t respond. She knew there were tears streaming down her face but she couldn’t feel them. She heard the door close as Ron left the room but she didn’t see it. All she could feel was Eric, all she could see was Eric.

And her hidden past was slowly driving her mad.