Set about 2 weeks after the Battle of Hogwarts. All the couples and stuff are like Rowling had them, except Neville and Luna are together. All the deaths are like Rowling had them too. Everyone is at the Burrow, recovering. Amidst all the grief, can love still prevail? Harry finally learns the lesson about love in the last book, in his talk with Dumbledore at King's Cross, but does Ron? This is a bittersweet story of when he does, even amidst all the fresh grief.
3rd Person Limited Pov, With Hermione
The Burrow had never been so quiet. Never had it gone so long with out an angry outburst, often accompanied by a gleeful laugh. Never had it seemed so foreboding. It reminded her of when she and Harry were on their own, searching for Horcruxes, after Ron had left. It was hard for her to put into words, but the world felt bleak, and wrong, and grey. Grey like a cold winter Saturday morning, when it refuses to snow, but the sharp crispness still bites viciously. She didn't know how Ron could take it.
Ron, her er, friend. She didn't know what else to call him. That's what she had called him for the better part of the last 7 years. When they had kissed in the battle, (with Harry standing right there, no less!) it had felt so real and right! She had wanted to forget all about the battle and just spend all eternity kissing Ronald Weasley, her...friend. I still need to sort that out.
On one hand, it seemed so easy; she had been reflecting on her life and realized that she had fallen for Ron a lot earlier than she thought, long before the Triwizard tournament, with the whole Victor Krum fiasco... At first she couldn't pinpoint the moment, but then it fell on her, and she smiled at the memory. It had been when Malfoy had called her a Mudblood, and he had pointed his faulty wand at Malfoy, yelling "Eat Slugs!" and suffering the consequences... With a hopeful try at a smile, she reminisced in the memory, which seemed so funny, now that slugs were far from the most repulsive thing she'd seen. That memory made it seem so obvious that she and Ron were more than friends.
On the other hand, he could have just been adrenalized and wanted to kiss her before the battle; everyone thought they'd be dead by morning... No. She couldn't think like that. She was sure that Ron, had felt it too. Harry had said they had been arguing like an old married couple for ages. He's right, she thought and grinned. She quietly got off of the air mattress, where she had been reading, in Ginny's room, and walked deliberately to Ron's room, that he and Harry were sharing. Please let Harry not be there, let him be away... She didn't really have a plan, or a goal in mind, but she needed to talk to Ron, and not just a 'pass the butter' either.
She tiptoed to his poster-laden door, and pushed it open, forgetting to knock, and saw an alarming sight. Ron Weasley was lying on his bed, with a picture of Fred in his hands...Crying.
Never, in all her years of knowing him had Hermione seen Ron cry. Not even when Sirius (in dog form) had accidently broken his leg whilst trying to get to Peter Pettigrew had he cried. He definitely whined enough to give everyone a headache, but even when he walked in the makeshift splint made for him, not a single tear dropped from his eyes.
She felt like she was intruding on something too private, as if she was spying on his soul, and hastily turned to walk away when he looked up.
His clear blue eyes pierced into hers similarly to those of Albus Dumbledore. She noticed a distinct difference though; Dumbledore's displayed none of his emotions, whereas Ron's betrayed all of his pain and grief. An emotion that wasn't shown in his eyes was embarrassment. Everyone was way past embarrassment when it came to grief. Normally, in this situation, Ron's face would've bruised to the famous Weasley red, but not anymore. He pulled himself up into a sitting position, and motioned for her to come and sit too.
She dropped down next to him on his gaudy orange Canons bed.
"I haven't really talked to you since-well for awhile," she started out awkwardly.
"Yeah, I mean, other than that time I asked for the butter," he replied.
"That's just what I was thinking." She looked up at his face, and she didn't find it smiling, like she had hoped, but still sad and tear-streaked.
"You can say you know. You can say 'the battle,' it's not Taboo'd," he said. She cringed at the reference.
"Yeah, but it's hard to make yourself think about it. It's easier to think of something else..." She trailed off.
"Yeah, but everything is hard now. Life is hard. I feel like an old man Hermione. The things I've experienced, they're not for a seventeen year old. Just a month ago, I was convinced that you were going to die. I still have nightmares where I hear your screams as she cuts into your neck. In the battle, I witnessed the death of my brother!"
"Ron, I know, just cry, It's okay-"
"And I will, but let me finish. After that, I knowingly let my best mate walk into the woods to sacrifice himself for us to live! Hermione, we both thought we'd never see him again! And then, we win the war!" He exhaled bitterly. "Whoopee, because when we go home, we don't celebrate a job well done, we go to funerals! One for Fred, Lupin, Tonks... And did you see Teddy? Did you see the look in Harry's eyes when he was holding him? Knowing that he was orphaned just like Harry was, never knowing anything about his parents other than what other people told him? How many other children are orphaned because of this war?"
"Ron-"
"And I'm not the only one! George is a wreck, so is my mom, and dad, and all of my surviving siblings. I dare say you are too, and Harry. Everyone is this close to losing it! I bet if a dementor came in here it wouldn't make much of a difference, because the only memories that they'd make you relive are the ones of yesterday, and the day before, and that day, that final day, for some of us."
Silence followed his speech.
"I don't even have anything to live for anymore. I should just-" She didn't listen to the end of his sentence. She was too overcome with a new, and entirely unexpected emotion. Anger.
"What!? How can you say that, Ronald Weasley? After everything we've all done to stay alive? After I've been tortured, and kept my sanity? After Harry sacrificed himself for all of us? After everyone else's sacrifice to keep US ALIVE!? How DARE you say you have nothing to live for!"
"Hermione, I just meant-"
"I know very well what you meant! What about the people who are alive? What about me? Am I not reason enough to live for?!"
"Hermione, please!" He sounded ashamed, and desperate to recover from his mistake. "No! You are a reason, you know, to live for..." He looked up hopefully at her.
Hermione calmed herself down, her pulse slowing a little, and her expression becoming a little less menacing. She was still angry though.
"Figured that out, have you?" She asked, still rather coldly.
"Hermione, I was being stupid, I don't know how I got myself thinking like that-"
"Well, I do." Her gaze softened visibly, and she conceded that Ron wasn't the only one to think like that. "We've all had those thoughts Ron. I'm sorry I yelled at you."
"But you were right you know. The people who lived are reasons to live for. I don't know how I could've over looked it, but, well, um..." He took a deep, steadying breath. "Hermione, you are my reason to live for."
And suddenly they were hugging and sobbing in each other's arms. The tears were of grief, and relief, and stress, and even, just a little bit, happiness.
"Is that last thing...true?" She turned her head slightly, glimpsing that it was indeed, still possible for Ron to blush.
"Definitely." He smiled for a second. "I guess Dumbledore was right after all. He wasn't mad after all."
"What?"
"Well, you know, what he was saying all those years. Love really does conquer death."
"Yeah, I hadn't really thought about it, but it really does."
"Because we'll always love each other."
"Yes, we always will."