Empathy
A HariPo oneshot
by mew-tsubaki
Note: The Harry Potter characters belong to J.K. Rowling, not me. I…honestly dislike Romione. I really think Hermione could've done better, and I think Ron deserves someone refreshing (like Luna or…anyone else, really). Why canon, HP Ship Weeks, why? Dx Read, review, and enjoy!
- ^-^3
He wakes up every morning and it's just another day to him:
Get up, kiss Hermione awake, dress, and cook something for the both of them before she leaves for work and he cleans the house before heading to the shop.
Ron has no clue for how long this will last. He doesn't really give it anything thought, not really. Thinking is Hermione's job, as it always has been. In the meantime, they're enjoying peace and quiet in Twelve Grimmauld Place.
It's not the ideal home, no, but Harry finally moved back into his parents' home in Godric's Hollow. It took some fixing up, and Harry had stayed at Grimmauld Place for the duration, giving Hermione a place to stay at the same time, but now Grimmauld Place is being looked after by Hermione and Ron. Sure, Ron has a home to return to, but Hermione doesn't. Her parents are still living out other lives…
Ron rubs his temples. No. Nope. He's not going to think about that. Thinking isn't his job. Hermione's good at that. He's good at feeling things. Like jealous, when Hermione gets the occasional letter from Krum, or annoyed, when he manages to tick off his girlfriend.
Besides, cleaning Grimmauld Place daily and going to work for George is mind-numbingly welcome after all they went through. It's nice that it's not his job to think.
- ^-^3
Every month, once a month, it's the same thing for him:
Make some reservation at some restaurant, buy a little bouquet of flowers, and kiss Hermione before telling her that they'll go out to eat.
It's an action that makes him feel like a normal, capable boyfriend. He is more than capable of being romantic. His parents taught him how to love when he was a child. He saw his brothers grow up and make right and wrong in love. Even Harry's been a fairly good example, considering that Ginny hasn't gotten fed up with his wishy-washiness from the end of the war.
Like clockwork, every month, Ron will don some nice clothes (none of the smelly-dress-robes kind) and Hermione will dress up and they will let their hair down and forget the world around them as they lose themselves to one night of frivolity.
(For every following morning, they must return to the reality of working to support themselves and to change the world…at least, in Hermione's case.)
- ^-^3
With each year that passes after the war, Ron tries to think less and less and to feel more and more.
What use is there in thinking about the "what ifs"? What is done is done; they won't get their loved ones back. It's just better to remember the joy in sharing any time at all with them.
In May, Ron feels it's hardest on his family. He can never be around George in that first week of May, so it's a good thing they close the shop then. No work gets done anyway.
Still, Ron's better at feeling. Hermione's better at thinking. She and Harry are the ones who get up and talk with Kingsley (now the Minister) beside them and convince the Wizarding world that they're making it a better, safer place to live. Hermione's a planner, she is.
Ron loves that about her. It's why he's okay with being the impetuous one.
- ^-^3
Then he wakes up one morning and goes to kiss Hermione—
But she's gone.
Ron does not panic. It's all right. Hermione's done this before, when she's stressed. She's been known to head in to work early and hole up in the office for days at a time. Magical law doesn't rewrite itself, you know.
So he goes to the shop. George is not a total mess, because May has passed once more and it's June. Sometimes Ron muses that one day George will be okay just having Verity alone work for him, so that Ron might finally become an Auror (after all, Kingsley's offer still stands for those who survived the war to albeit skip formal training).
As the evening passes without any word from his beloved, Ron thinks nothing of it. He goes home and it's quiet, but he's still not surprised. Hermione always has loved throwing her all into her work.
- ^-^3
Yet…it hurts that she sends him no owl and doesn't Floo him when a week passes.
Ron's heart aches. He knows what it's like when she's angry with him, and this can't be one of those cases. He knows her too well—they grew up together, so it was likely to happen.
But he goes into the Ministry, almost ready to give her a piece of his mind. Then it hits him that, in their relationship, Hermione's the one who settled. He reddens, because it's a truth his brothers always tormented him about, but he does agree with them. And if he doesn't want to lose her, then he'll have to enter her office with a cool head. So he exits the Ministry, walks around the block, and returns to her office.
It's empty and locked.
It's quite a curious thing, enough so to make Ron gape at her office door. This is a first for him. Hermione's never avoided him so badly before.
No, no, it's not time to panic, not yet.
He gives it a few more nights, wondering if he did something wrong. He hardly thinks cooking breakfast and dinner for her every single day is it. His mother taught him and it eventually stuck, so his cooking isn't the problem.
Then what is?
For the love of him, he can't figure it out. Even looking around Grimmauld Place, he can't figure a bloody thing out.
It just doesn't make sense.
- ^-^3
If it were a laughing matter, Ron would've laughed at Ginny's face the night he told her Hermione was missing. It really was priceless.
But Ron wasn't thinking. He stopped thinking after he realized Hermione was gone. All he could think to do was ask if Ginny knew anything.
"What do you mean you haven't seen her for two weeks?" his sister growls at him as she hauls him inside the Potter home. She's just about finished moving in there, though their parents have yet to realize that.
"I thought she was busy. Then I thought she was angry at me, but I truly don't know why she would be," he says.
Ginny stares at him, and she can see that he's breaking bit by bit, and Ron can feel that he's breaking bit by bit, so she does him a favor and Floos Harry and tells him it's an emergency.
Then Harry arrives, and the story's repeated, and suddenly everyone around him is in a whirlwind of action. Everyone else is thinking and acting, acting and thinking.
Ron is left to feel, and it hurts so goddamn much.
- ^-^3
The Aurors come up with nothing. Ron, Ginny, and Harry scour every inch of Grimmauld Place and find no clue. They ask friends, but no one knows anything.
"Hermione? Haven't seen her since lunch shortly after the remembrance ceremony" is Parvati's answer.
Susan shrugs. "If I didn't work in the Ministry myself, I'd never see her. We used to be closer in school, you know."
"Been too busy at St. Mungo's—injured people don't heal themselves," Terry says distractedly, but he's a Healer, and that's to be expected.
Only one person is able to tell them anything at all: Percy. As Kingsley's right-hand man, he's expected to know anything and everything. "Look, all I could learn is that Hermione asked for a leave of absence in her department." He gives his brother a compassionate look. "I think she was planning on going somewhere."
But where? And why not tell Ron?
The best advice (and most annoying bit, at that) comes from Harry: "Look, mate," he tells Ron with a pat on the shoulder, "you and I know Hermione best. Hermione…does things of her own accord. She's always thinking ten steps ahead of everyone else. I'm sure she's fine and is off just…following some idea of hers. Dunno what that would be, but you know Hermione. She's unique. She's got no peers—no one else is on her level."
Translation: "Don't worry." (But where's the "She'll come back"?)
All Ron can do is worry. (Because he's not so sure anymore. What if he was just one of Hermione's ideas that she chased after and he didn't pan out and so now she's moved on to big and better things?)
- ^-^3
With no hint and no help, Ron can't do anything. He tries to live life regularly, but it's hard.
Waking up every morning without Hermione to kiss awake…it's akin to tearing off a bandage fresh each day. Not seeing her eyes light up when he cooks her favorite things is like having the only candle in a room go out.
Now he can barely feel let alone think.
- ^-^3
One month.
One whole month.
One whole month passes.
One whole month passes and he stays alone in Grimmauld Place.
(No wonder Sirius felt it was like being trapped in a prison.)
Ron has been trying to keep it together. He's been wondering what this life has been like, lived from Hermione's perspective. Did he pamper her too much? Was he overprotective? Was he commonplace? Was he too routine? Was he too boring after all the adventures they'd shared with Harry?
Was he not intimate enough? Has he never held her properly all these years? Is he supposed to be Viktor Krum after all?
Such questions die on his lips. Then he thinks, for a moment, about that: He's got lonely lips.
(Ah, he's beginning to think: Are hers lonely, too?)
- ^-^3
Partway through July, he realizes it's July.
How much time has passed, since May?
(He doesn't know anymore. Without Hermione…well, it's like being awake for three years straight. He doesn't know how to sleep anymore. He doesn't know anything anymore.
He doesn't know anymore.)
- ^-^3
Finally, he kicks himself.
He's usually so good about cleaning Grimmauld Place. So how the hell could he miss this?!
Hidden beneath the bed, having fallen behind the headboard and to the left of the nightstand, cast in the shadows of the foot of the bed, is a note.
It's more of a missive, really.
Either way, Ron snatches it up, heart pounding in his chest. His heart hasn't done that for months. Oh. Had it gone dormant? Anyway—
Dear Ron,
I've, got to do something on my own. It will take some time. I don't know how long. Don't wait up for me.
Hermione
No "love," and there's a comma after "I've" which tells him that she hesitated while she wrote this on the spot, but it's something. It's something.
He hesitates for but a second. Should he go after her or shouldn't he?
And where would he even start?
- ^-^3
A day after he owls Viktor, he gets a reply:
Ron—
Hermione has said nothing strange to me. I do not know where she has gone. The last thing we talked about was names. She likes the name "Monica." That is all she said.
Viktor
It doesn't make any sense, not really. Firstly, Ron pauses to chuckle at how Viktor can write perfectly fine English while not really speak it. Then Ron thinks. (Merlin, he's been doing too much of that lately.)
It was a strange topic for Hermione to bring up, names. And "Monica" of all things. Though, more strangely, it sounds familiar to Ron, so very familiar…
Ron goes and visits his parents. He mulls things over aloud, and his parents are like sounding boards. They've been very comforting throughout all of this.
"Ron, have you been eating? You're thinner than ever," his mother says. Then her ears turn deaf while she whips something up to stuff down his gullet.
His father smiles at him sympathetically. "Hermione's a bit of an odd girl, though bright. 'Monica' must mean something to her. Maybe a relative's name?"
"No," Ron replies. "Her middle name comes from her…mother's name…"
As the Muggles say, the light bulb goes on.
Ron leaps out of the chair at the counter in his parents' kitchen. He grabs a biscuit, kisses his mother, hugs his father, thanks them, and Disapparates home.
- ^-^3
Australia…is different from what he'd thought it'd be.
It's not all big cities and the Coral Reef. There's actually quite a bit of land. In a way, it reminds him of home, because in Queensland, Australia, there's almost enough land between houses to make one think that each family is magical and simply doesn't know that all the rest are, as well. Australians, Ron decides, like to keep their distance and keep to themselves.
…well, that's somewhat untrue, though. Be it in the big cities or small town centers, no one turns him away when he asks if they've seen his—Hermione. He's made sure to bring a Muggle photo, just in case.
And despite their strange accents, he never fails to get a warm smile and a comforting encouragement. (Now if only someone could tell him where she was.)
It isn't tough to stay for a while in Queensland. Even in winter (because Australians are nutters and have their winter when the English have their summer), Queensland is quite sunny. The only thing hard about it is Ron having to watch the families and couples around him be happy.
Ah, he wonders. He's never been this far from home before.
Of course a part of him misses Hermione. But part of him misses Harry, too. And he suddenly has a hole in his heart that he eventually recognizes belongs to his family—he's never had to do without them for so long before.
With that, in a way, Ron begins to understand why Hermione came here. For once, he begins to understand why she does nothing but think, but that's not entirely true, either. The truth is that she thinks and feels with the same breath.
(Now Ron's learning to do the same.)
- ^-^3
By his third week in Australia, he catches the trail.
He can't recall what their names became, but go figure that Hermione would think it best to leave their occupations the same, so that they could do something that comes naturally to them. So he hears of a dentist couple who live in the northern part of Queensland and make good money making house calls—and he follows the trail.
They live on a large piece of land and own a few horses. After a small bout of rain, the black horses look leathery, and Ron is reminded of thestrals. But they're not thestrals, and he can't see thestrals, and he swears it up and down (and it hurts that much more that this journey for Hermione is making him think and feel at the same time about one too many things, one too many people, and one too many deaths).
Ron doesn't approach the house. He watches it. Like a good Auror would, he assumes. He tries to cheer himself up, thinking like that. He's getting some training in. Hell, depending on how he does, maybe he could run the Auror Office with Harry in a few years.
But then the grin vanishes from his face when he sees her.
Hermione. His Hermione. She's outside and circling the house. She's putting up some minor enchantments and barriers, he notes. But he sees, too, that she's walking around wearing her sadness like a cloak of fog that hugs the ground.
That isn't right. No, it's not. She's supposed to have found her parents.
So why isn't she happy?
- ^-^3
He comes back a day later, expecting to case the house a little longer. Of course, Ron never was one for planning, so he gets caught.
"Ronald?" Hermione gasps. Her brown eyes glitter like burning embers, and her brow knits together with confusion (so rare and so cute), and her hair is bushier than ever.
"'Mione," he says by way of greeting. It's all he can do to choke down his sob of relief at meeting her again.
She stares at him and he backs up, preparing for a good scream or thwack upside the head. He grabs his wand just in case, because his body recalls her Avis Spell much too readily. But she doesn't attack him or anything like that. She simply turns on her heel and asks over her shoulder, "Why are you here?"
"I—" He stops. Good Merlin, he hadn't considered this before. He swallows the lump in his throat. Why is he here, after all? Because he can't live without her? He goes with that, for now.
Hermione rolls her eyes, but she almost smiles. "Of course you can't live without me, Ron—you've never been able to, since we first met."
"Not true," he says as they walk to the house. They slow when they get about half a dozen yards away.
Hermione puts a hand on his chest. "Ron, I…"
"I know. They're your parents, right?"
She blinks, stunned.
He smiles. "Always that look of surprise."
Her cheeks pink (just enough for him to notice), and she nods. "How did you…?"
"I asked everyone. Even Krum. And something he wrote got me thinking, and talking with Mum and Dad helped me figure it out—because didn't you rename your parents in 1997? Didn't your mum become 'Monica'?"
Hermione seems so delicate, and she takes his hand and walks him over to the horses, far out of earshot of the house. She pats the mare and has him do the same. The motion seems to soothe Hermione. "You…you remembered."
"With some effort," Ron confesses.
"Well, after the war, my plan was to get them back immediately. But Kingsley gave me that job in the Creature office and I was working on expanding S.P.E.W. before working in Magical Law Enforcement and doing all of that while helping him and Harry rebuild our world." Her face falls, and it's a wonder that she has any strength left in her to muster a fraction of a smile. "You were right, you know. Monica and Wendell Wilkins are dentists here in Queensland. They only just learned they have a daughter."
Ron scratches his head. "Wait, just learned?"
"I got so busy with everything else that Mum and Dad…I put them on the back burner." Hermione rests her head on the mare's neck. "It's delicate work, returning their memories to their, ah, default settings."
He doesn't exactly understand what that means, but he gets the idea that she's trying to piece their lives back together. He's glad. He's glad that it's this and not that she was done with the Wizarding world or…or with him. He rubs circles on her back, between her shoulder blades, just where she likes it, and she releases a heavy sigh. His other hand, in his jacket pocket, thumbs a little white box, the existence of which he is now comfortable declaring is still unknown to Hermione, and probably will be for a little more time.
"I didn't expect you to come after me, you know," she says, straightening up and looking him in the eye.
"I didn't know how long you'd be gone."
"Yes, well, it took some time to find them myself. I never wrote anything down about them, just in case, in the war…" She doesn't finish the thought. They had too many close calls, so she doesn't need to explain. "Anyway," Hermione continues, staring outside the horse stalls, as it has begun to rain again, "I was going to come back."
"Your note said, 'Don't wait up for me.'"
She winces. "I suppose I could've written that better…"
Ron surprises her and tugs on her arm until he has her enveloped in his arms. "Hermione," he whispers, "I think I almost stopped breathing without you."
Hermione holds on to his back. "Like I said, you can't live without me."
He pulls away and gives her a stern look. "It's not just you and me in the world, though. I know that. I know that…now." He looks at her parents' home. Then he looks back to her. "I get it. Not having them there for you—no one should have to grow up without their family. And I know I have my family, but this time away from them has made me miss them incredibly, and I don't know how you've managed without rushing over here before, but I get it. And it's why I can't live without you—because you're my family, too, 'Mione." He kisses her and hugs her once more, and he just knows he's stunned her once again.
They stay like that for several minutes. At last, Hermione is the one to break away—but not fully. She holds Ron's hand as they walk through the mud and approach the house. "Well, Mr. Weasley," she says quietly, "prepare to meet the rest of your family…again." She glances at him. "I only just gave them back their identities as the Grangers today, so…"
He smiles and squeezes her hand. He understands her nervousness and he knows her desire to have all their loved ones back in their right places in their lives. (But it doesn't mean he doesn't squeeze that little white box in his pocket for encouragement.)
And then she rings the doorbell.
- ^-^3
Whoa. O.o Kind of experimental for me… I hope everyone's not too OOC here; I did try very hard, but I think Ron and Hermione are harder for me to write than even Harry… -.-; Ah, and in case you were wondering, that is a ring in Ron's pocket; he's had it for a few years here, and he fretted that maybe Hermione's discovery of it might've driven her away. But aw, housewife!Ron is kind of cute, eh? XD I do wonder what happened with Hermione's parents, though, because all that's said is that she eventually restored their memories…but I wonder if she was successful and how long it would've taken… :O Also, I wasn't hating on Australia at all, jsyk; I quite like the place and have a very good friend from Queensland (you know who you are, luv ;3), so I think I felt comfortable using Queensland as a backdrop because of what I've been told about it.
So…yeah. Please do review! It's hard for me to write canon… Plus, this is also my 600th fic! *w00t*
-mew-tsubaki :]