Hermione sat engrossed in 1001 Essential Spells for the Newt Student and didn't even glance up when Ron walked in. He strolled over and took a seat next to her by the fireplace and just watched her. She read quite quickly, her eyes scanning the page so fast her eyes looked almost blurry. Ron looked at her hair with the light from the fireplace playing with her frizz. Her neck must have been sore because she kept rubbing it. Ron watched her brow furrow as she groaned and massaged her neck. Without conscious thought, Ron's hand was there.

"RON!" Hermione jumped. "Are you TRYING to scare me to death? How long have you been there anyhow?" She looked cross. Ron loved it when she looked cross. Her eyes got all fierce and her lips would part a little. Ron swallowed.

She had been like this since after the battle. Not being able to find her parents when the four of them had gone to Australia had been terrible. She hadn't been able to sleep or eat for the two months they travelled around, fruitlessly searching for any trace of her parents, before Harry finally made her face the fact that they probably wouldn't find them. There was no trace and Australia was a big country. Perhaps the Death Eaters had been there first, he had said. The screaming match that followed was one that Ron had never expected to see. He had rarely seen Hermione blow up at Harry, but she lost her head completely and screamed bloody murder at him.

"You just want everyone to be as miserable as you, Harry Potter! You want to feel like everyone has things that are their fault, instead of thinking you're the martyr! At least I never acted like a martyr about what I did, Harry! I had to make my parents FORGET me!! All so I could help you prance around like a prat, trying to save the world! But you never once heard me whine about how horribly unfair my life was!" Ron tried to interrupt her to tell her she was being unfair and she had tried to hex him. He jumped out of the way by mere centimetres and left them to it. Harry looked so woebegone by now that Ron felt for him, he had been on the receiving end of Hermione's screams, and it wasn't fun. Harry just sat down on the bed opposite Hermione and said softly, "Hermione, you're so much smarter than this. I know you put tracing spells on your parents. Why can't we find them?"

"I must have done the spell wrong!"

"Hermione," Harry whispered, "You never do the spell wrong. Not once in the seven years I have known you have i seen you do a spell wrong. You know that something is wrong, Hermione. We could spend years looking, and never find them, sweetheart." Ron bristled a bit at the term of endearment, but saw Ginny come over and sit with Harry and noticed that he was crying.

A bit embarrassed for Harry (and REALLY not wanting to see Ginny's idea of comforting him) he turned back to Hermione, shuffling his foot. She was staring at Harry with her eyes about to brim over with tears. Ron panicked. He could handle her when she was angry, but her tears were his poison. He saw one roll down her cheek, and his heart broke a little. He was there, he was holding her, he was rocking her, and he was making the noises he hoped she needed to calm her down, but the tears never stopped. They were an onslaught that he was defenceless against. He just held her tight; as if afraid she would float away on a sea of tears. Harry and Ginny left after the first hour. Harry begging Ron's permission with his eyes, and Ginny's warning Ron what would happen if she didn't get Harry out of there now. Ron knew Harry was probably blaming himself, and if anyone could kick some sense into him, it was his outlandish sister.

That had been a hard night, Ron remembered Hermione sobbing into his lap for hours. When Harry and Ginny returned, the four of them just sat in that dingy little hotel in Sydney and didn't talk for days. After the first twenty-four hours Hermione just lay there. No more crying, she just lay there numbly and stared out the window to the view of the next dingy grey building. Her eyes were the only features that gave away that she wasn't just relaxing peacefully. They had darkened in some sort of anguish, and they were constantly glistening, though without real tears. It was her permanent expression now.

The next blow came when they got home and Harry told them he wasn't going to go back to school and finish his NEWT year. He had been offered a position with the Ministry at the Auror office. He was Harry Potter, The Boy who Lived and Lived Again, and he had the position handed to him on a platter. There was really no need for him to go back to Hogwarts, and Harry didn't think he would be able to handle going back to the scene of so much death. Hogwarts didn't feel like home for Harry anymore. Now it felt like returning to the guilt he had carried around with him since the battle. And Harry couldn't cope. Ginny's face when Harry told her he wouldn't be coming back to Hogwarts was almost as devastated as Hermione's. She pulled herself together though, and Harry was soon the proud owner of several million tiny bats that considered his nostrils home. Ginny wouldn't talk to Harry for a whole day, and it wasn't until the effects of the spell wore off that he was able to even talk. She had finally taken his yells through her bedroom door seriously when he had camped there. At 3 in the morning she decided he had had his punishment, and now she had to talk him around.

*****

"Harry, I just got you back," Ginny said furiously, "And we can finally be together without you being all noble and trying to save everyone. So give me one good reason I should let you do this to me now."

Harry had sat there looking at his socks.

Ginny just shook her head. "Harry if you can't talk to me about decisions like this then maybe you're not ready for there to be an 'us'. Are you looking for an out? Because you've got one here. I'm giving you a chance to say 'Look Ginny, I don't want this'."

And Harry was suddenly kissing her. His hands were in her hair and she was pushed up against her bedroom door. "How....could...you...think....that!"He growled at her in between kisses. Ginny kissed him back furiously. It was a battle now. Who loved the other one more? Eventually neither of them could breathe and in the stalemate they just broke apart to breathe in the other one, foreheads pressed together.

Ginny realised her legs were wrapped around Harry's waist, and she didn't even recall how they got there. She jumped down quickly and walked away from him.

"No, Harry," she said firmly. "You don't just get to kiss me and think that everything is better. I need to understand what you're thinking right now. Because I don't understand how you can kiss me like that, but want to leave me again."

Harry dropped his head. He walked over to her bed and sat down. "Gin," he began slowly, "I can't go back there" he whispered.

Ginny's heart melted. He looked so lost sitting there on her bed, in his pyjamas, looking for the entire world like a little boy. "Harry Potter," Ginny said sharply, and he looked at her. "You will stop feeling sorry for yourself this instant do you hear me?" Harry nodded morosely. "I'll hex you!" Ginny warned him. "The issue here is that you can't cope with going back to Hogwarts? Is that the only reason?"

"No."

Ginny came and sat beside him on the bed.

"I need to give Teddy a life. I know he lives with Andromeda, but there will be a time when she won't be able to give him the life he deserves. I need to be able to provide for him." He paused, looking at Ginny, "I don't know what Lupin was thinking when he made me godfather! I don't know the first thing about children! And all I can think about is how I might be as much of a disappointment to Teddy as the Dursley's were to me. So as much as I can't cope with going back to Hogwarts, it's not just that fear. I also know I can't be a kid anymore, Gin. I'm not one, and going back there is just going to make me feel so horrible. I need to see what good I can do, I need to be ready to raise Teddy at any time, and I need to be ready to give you the life I want you to have. If I go back to Hogwarts now, then I will be some freak show again, just more so. And I am not prepared to do that to me or to you. I am going to be adult about this, Gin," Harry said looking in her eyes.

Ginny looked at him.

She was in love with the most amazing person. He was actually not thinking about himself and moping. Instead he was still worrying about everyone else in the equation that was their lives. Because it was their lives now. Ginny knew that they were never going to be apart after this year. She would have tried to say that she wouldn't return to Hogwarts either if she thought it would do any good. If Harry got word that she was planning on not finishing, he would go back just to make her. And she wouldn't have him putting himself through the wringer for her.

Ginny just looked at him. "Okay, Harry."

Then she lay down on the bed and let out a sigh.

"What's wrong?" Harry said and his hand was in her hair again.

"Well for starters, I hadn't planned on this," Ginny said, "I mean we've really got to get a move on if we have a whole years worth of each other to fit into a couple of weeks!" And with that Harry finally smiled. That devastating smile that had gotten them into trouble in the first place.

"Oh really?" He grinned, "And what did you have in mind Miss Weasley?"

"Well for a start, I think we need to work on our...intimacy" Ginny cheeked, "I mean long distance relationships can be very difficult, it just makes everything that much... harder" she winked and Harry grabbed her and his lips found her neck. Ginny loved it when Harry became this man. The one who would play with her and love her, but she was always glad of the other side to him. The one who was always concerned and worrying about her. Without that, Harry would not be as amazing. She held his head in place as his lips began to wander. He tilted his head so he eyes were watching her. He had his wand in his hand and Ginny didn't even have time to think. Suddenly he Vanished her pyjama top and she let out a shriek.

"Harry!" Ginny scolded and tried to cover herself up. "What's wrong?" Harry murmured, as his hands grabbed hers and held them above her head... and his lips found their target. Ginny moaned.

"I'm going to miss you," she sighed.

So Harry accepted the Auror offer and saw Ginny, Ron and Hermione onto the Hogwarts Express on September first. Ginny wasn't thrilled, but she would be in the same year as Ron and Hermione, and they could all cope with it together. She looked back at the platform as the train pulled away, watching Harry with purple-haired Teddy and her mother. Harry held Teddy's hand up in a little wave.

His face was heartbreaking.

*****

"'Mione, I've been here for about half an hour. I think you're studying too much. You need to take a bit of a break. Maybe relax for a bit and then go back over it in a while." Ron was pleading. He knew she would say no and give him that blank-eyed stare and go back to her book. It was bad enough for him to have to walk past the place where Fred had died every evening on his way to the common-room, but now he had lost both his best friends. Harry was sending owls less and less as he spent more and more time undercover now (even though Ron knew Ginny still got owls every second day), and Hermione was a shell of her old self. Ron doubted she even knew he existed half the time. He longed for the days when she would berate him over not doing his homework or drag him off to the library for some 'light reading'.

"Ron, I have to finish this chapter."

Hermione was already 7 chapters ahead of the rest of the year (which was significantly large this year due to the large number of students returning to finish their NEWTS as well as the continuing students). Her eyes glazed back over and she went back to learning the disciplines of Disillusionment charms. Ron left his hand where it was. It was all he could do not to grab her and shake her till she became mad again. It was the only time he ever saw an inkling of the girl he loved. This shell wasn't Hermione. But he knew she had to still be in there somewhere. He ran his hand absent-mindedly through her hair. He didn't even know if they were 'together'. They had shared several kisses and heated sessions during the weeks following the battle, both exuberant with the combined relief and grief and releasing years of stored up feelings. Ron smiled a little as he remembered those few weeks before they had gone to track down Hermione's parents. Then he grimaced at the memory. They hadn't had anything remotely like that since. Hermione had become a shell, and Ron held no interest to her. She didn't even raise her hand in class anymore. She knew the answers. Of course she knew the answers. THAT part of Hermione Granger was still the same. But nothing else was. She had lost all her passion and vibrant enthusiasm that Ron now realised he had been taking for granted. It was always a given, a standard by which he could measure everything, that Hermione would always be a know-it-all. And she was. But no longer the presence that made it annoying or even endearing. Now Ron just looked at her and felt sad; missing her more than anything, needing her to be his rock.

Hermione dropped her quill and Ron ducked to pick it up quickly. Unfortunately Hermione did so at the same time and they bumped heads – hard. Ron fell to the floor in front of the fireplace and clutched the back of his head. He was a little jumpy since the battle too come to think of it. A look of horror came over Hermione's face.

"RON?!" She shrieked, "Ron, I'm so sorry!" Before he knew what was happening she was on the floor next to him. She was stroking his face. She had her hands in his hair.

"Are you okay Ron? I'm so sorry! Are you hurt?" her hands were frantic, clutching at him everywhere trying to check that he was alright.

Ron merely looked at her. He grabbed her hands and stopped them from moving. "Hermione, I'm fine, I just jumped out of my skin. You just scared me that's all."

Hermione sat there. Her eyes blank. Then, suddenly she was pummelling every inch of him she could reach, "YOU... COMPLETE... ARSE!!"

Ron didn't even think. He had no conscious thought of ever making the decision. But suddenly Hermione's hands were tightly grasped in his own once more and he had pulled her face down low enough to kiss her. His lips touched hers and Hermione froze. But only for a millisecond, because the next thing Ron knew her hands were running through his hair and she was kissing him back...furiously. He was amazed. His hands pulled her closer to him and they were in a world all their own.

THIS was the Hermione he remembered. The Hermione who screamed at him with her eyes like fire and her lips like.... Hermione moaned and Ron suddenly realised that his hand was on her breast. She stiffened a little then, as if steeling herself, moved her hand to her top button and murmured his name. Ron started to feel guilty. Hermione wasn't right lately. Was this taking advantage of her? Or was it them coming back together and a new start for Hermione? Did she just need him tonight? Or was this the wrong thing to be doing? Ron felt Hermione place his hand over her heart... and slide it inside her shirt... and all conscious thought flew out the window.

Ron didn't even know what was happening, suddenly Hermione had his pants off, and her skirt was pulled up, and the heat from the fire was making him dizzy. He kissed her, and she kissed him, and everything was alright. For the first time in months Ron felt happy, and at home. He had worried that being with Hermione might ruin anything they had left of a friendship. But now he felt like this was how they were supposed to be. Why didn't they do this all the time? He felt Hermione's heart race as they moved and her eyes were bright with happiness. Was it the fire? Some illusion of the light flickering? Ron didn't think so. Hermione cried out with a little noise and Ron felt her all around him and groaned into her hair. She lay there panting on top of him, and Ron's hands were tracing love hearts on her back. Her fingers were playing with his shirt. And he could smell the ash from the fire. Smoky and strong in her hair.

"I love you, Hermione," Ron whispered.

She sat up.

And she looked at him like she had never seen him before.

"Ron, I really need to finish this chapter!"

Within two seconds she was gone, and her skirt was back where it belonged, and her shirt was buttoned, and her quill was back in her hand, and her eyes were blank once more. Ron just stared. He watched her and she seemed for all the world as if nothing had ever happened between them. As if the world hadn't stopped for those moments. As if Ron hadn't been closer to her than anyone ever had been. As if Ron and her entwined by the fireplace was a dream. Ron almost wished it was.

He got up.

"Goodnight Hermione," he said, kissing her on the top of her head. He lingered a little long to breathe in the smoky smell from her hair, just to reassure himself it had actually happened.

Then he went to bed.

Hermione sat there. Staring at her book, unfocused, unseeing. Her eyes hadn't flown to the words. They hadn't sped across the page. She had tried to read but couldn't. And she had expected Ron to notice. She didn't know how badly she could keep hurting him, and have him stay. It was irrational, it was cruel, but surely the fact he stayed with her and was patient and kind meant that he loved her? And that made it necessary for her to be detached. She couldn't risk losing anyone again. Especially Ron.

Especially Ron.

A tear managed to escape from her ever-glistening, darkened eyes. She wanted to let go and be happy again. But it was too dangerous.

"I love you too, Ron," She whispered.