A/N: My take on the missing moment where Ron and Hermione are left together for the first time since his return. It's been done before ad it'll be done again, I'm sure. Follows cannon (i.e. sorry but she hasn't forgiven him by the end of it) and has major spoilers for harry Potter and the Deathly hallows (though I'm sure anyone reading HP fanfiction has read it at least twice by now (and I stress at least). Ok, enjoy. And remember revies are love :)

"Harry had not expected Hermione's anger to abate overnight, and was therefore unsurprised that she communicated mainly by dirty looks and pointed silences next morning." p.315 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. UK edition.

"All three of them returned to the tent when darkness fell, and Harry took first watch." p.318

--

"Hey." Ron sat across from Hermione at the small table in the tent's kitchen area. She was reading a book, refusing to look up at him and so he was met with silence.

"So, uh, what're you reading?" He tried again. Once again, he was met with silence.

"Oh come on, Hermione! So what, you're never going to talk to me again?" She continued to read. "Look," he said, realising she wasn't going to respond. "I said I was sorry." She let out an irritated breath.

"I think we established that you were sorry last night but you know what, Ron?" she said, closing her book sharply and leaning over the table towards him. "Sometimes 'sorry' just isn't enough." She glared at him for a moment before leaning back in her chair, opening her book again and continuing to read.

"Tell me what I have to do then," he asked, leaning, as she had, across the table towards her. "Name it, Hermione, anything and I'll do it." She looked up and regarded him coldly for a moment before focusing on her book once more.

"There's nothing you can do." Her words, although spoken softly, hit him like a bludger. He could feel the anger swelling inside of him.

"So, that's it then? You're just never going to forgive me?" She didn't look up. "I came back, Hermione. I know I should never have left in the first place, but I came back."

"You're right," she said and suddenly relief began to fill him. "You never should have left." The feeling left just as quickly as it had come.

"It wasn't my fault," he said darkly.

"Oh and whose was it then? The Locket's? Well I have news for you, Ron; I wore that blasted locket too, as did Harry and neither of us abandoned our friends." Her tone was icy.

"It was worse for-"

"Was it?" she asked shrilly, all pretence of reading her book out of the window. "And how can you be sure? Last time I checked you couldn't read minds and I highly doubt that in the time you were gone you became a skilled Legilimens." She continued to glare at him. "You have no idea how that locket affected me!"

"But I know how it affected me-"

"Oh bravo," she responded sarcastically. Her tone had a particular bite to it he couldn't remember her using before.

"Look, I know you don't like me right now, Hermione-"

"That's an understatement," she muttered.

"But you can't not forgive me - forever!"

"And why not?! She asked. "Our entire friendship has revolved around you hurting me and me forgiving you-"

"What're you-"

"And I, for one, have had enough of it."

"Oh, come off it-"

"First year: you said I had no friends-"

"I was eleven!" he exclaimed in disbelief.

"And I forgave you," she continued over him.

"After we saved you from a troll." She chose to ignore this too.

"Third year: you were horrid to me because of my cat, because of Harry's broom-"

"You got his Firebolt confiscated!" This did little to placate her.

"Fourth year!" she almost yelled. "And the bloody Yule ball!"

"You were as much at fault as I was."

"Sixth year," she concluded in a dangerously low voice. "And Lavender Brown." Ron paled. "Which was the worst because I knew that that time you did it to purposely hurt me." Ron had the decency to look ashamed as he turned and focused on the tent's opening rather than on Hermione. "Well, that was the worst until now…" she continued coldly. "And this time I've just - I've had enough. I - I…can't forgive you." He could hear the tears she was trying to keep back in her voice.

"Can't? Or won't?" he asked, still not looking at her.

"Does it matter?" she asked as she stood up and moved to sit on her bunk, opening her book once again.

"I'm an arse, Hermione, I get it!" he said, standing up too and walking slowly towards her. "I know that and I know that I've never been good enough for-" Her head snapped up to look at him and he quickly changed course. "I know I've never been a good enough friend to you. I don't need you to list all the bad things I've ever done to you. I know them all off by heart! They've looped in my head constantly since I left. They're all I could see! I couldn't stop thinking about the night I left - about the look on your face…I never want to see that look again," he said darkly.

"And what look was that?"

"You looked…" he ran a shaky hand though his hair. "You looked broken," he whispered as he stood before her.

"Broken?" she asked incredulously.

"When you came after me - followed me into the rain - screaming." It was her turn to pale. She was silent for a few moments and Ron feared that their conversation was over for tonight.

"I didn't want you to go," she said quietly.

"I - I know," he said, surprised at her change in tone.

"But you still left." He hung his head. " I thought - when you left I honestly believed that I would never…" She seemed to struggle to get the words out. Ron raised his head and could tell that she was near tears. "…that I was never going to see you again." Ron continued to stare at her. "I thought that that was it. Forever."

"That's ridiculous." He quickly realised his wrong choice in words when she became angry once more.

"We're in the middle of a war, Ron! Fighting at the right hand side of Harry Potter! Do you really expect both of us to make it out of this alive?" Ron just stared at her, at a loss for words. "Do you have any idea what it was like for me? Knowing you had gone - that you had left us here to die-"

"NO!" he said fiercely. Her head, once again, snapped up in surprise. He was suddenly livid. "Is that what you think of me? That I would leave you to fight this alone? That I wouldn't come back? That I would let you die?"

"What do you expect - what did you expect me to think? How was I supposed to know that you'd come back? That you'd be able to come back? You could have been killed and I wouldn't have known! I wouldn't have been able to tell you that -" It was her turn to change course. "- to tell you goodbye! Knowing that the last time I had seen you, you hadn't cared enough-"

"It wasn't like that! Don't you dare say that I didn't care! You don't know what it took for me to leave. How I felt when I knew I couldn't come back. Waiting each day for news that you'd been caught or killed - "

"You didn't care enough about me - about either of us - to stay - to ever want to see us again. In the days after you left, or maybe even in the same night I came to terms with the fact that was the last time I was ever going to see you." Tears were beginning to fall from her eyes now. Ron's heart constricted painfully. "Came to terms with the fact that one my best friends was gone forever...I've never felt anything like that in my life."

"I - I'm sorry."

"Yes, Ron, I know." The anger was back as she furiously wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Just - just leave me alone. I don't want to talk to you, I just want to read my book in peace."

"Hermione, please don't close me out - I know I deserve it - but don't lock me out, please. I never should have left. I accept that. I accept that I'm a terrible friend and that you hate me but you have to compromise with me on this; I have to know that you can forgive me. At least somewhere down the line," he said earnestly. "You said yourself that you don't think we're both going to survive and I hope you know - Merlin, you have to know - that there is no way in hell that I'm going to let anything happen to you - that I'll do everything I can to make sure you survive this Hermione."

"You can't expect to stand there and apologise and make promises you can't keep and expect to me to - I've had enough of this Ron. I've just had enough."

"So that's it then? The end of us? Of a six year friendship?"

"This isn't my fault. Don't put this on me! This is all on you - and the night you left. This is your fault. Not mine."

"I KNOW THAT! Don't you think I know that?"

"No, I don't think you do," she replied coldly.

"I'd give anything to take it back. To turn back time and do it all over again but I can't. I have to live with that - I'll have to live with that for the rest of my live - however short it may be. But I need you to forgive me, Hermione. I need -"

" I don't care about what you need," she said stubbornly, returning for the final time to her book.

"Fine," he said defeated. "Hate me. But know, that I'm not giving up. I'm going to fight for this - for us." He turned away from her toward his own bed to retrieve his rucksack, taking it through to the living area. In doing so he missed the look of surprise that flickered across her face before it was quickly replaced once again with one of impassiveness as Harry entered the tent, returning from watch.

--

"Hermione was lying on her bunk reading, while Ron, after many nervous glances up at her, had taken a small wooden wireless out of his rucksack and started to try and tune it." p.318