TW for mentions of death and torture.
The familiar sounds of a meal were all around Ron. Conversations, pouring liquids, the clinks of silverware against cups and saucers. Aromas wafting from warm food reached his long nose, tempting him, flooding his mouth with anticipatory salivation. One of his hands wrapped around a warm cup of sweet tea, while the other worked food onto his plate.
Unlike all his other senses, his sight was engaged with watching Hermione. This caused more than one accident during dinner, and more than one complaint from affected neighbours. Despite all problems, Ron couldn't take his eyes away from her for more than a second or two. She was distracted; she had been all day. She was lost in her mind somewhere, and Ron needed to know what that was all about.
It wasn't only a matter of curiosity. At some point after lunch, he had began to worry that her distraction was actually a sign of pain or, worse, a sign that her mind had been impacted by the curse somehow. The forbidden curse she had been subjected to, less than a day ago. Ron felt a shiver run down his spine, the fear still fresh in his bones.
"Oi! Watch it!" Dean complained next to Ron.
Ron jumped at the protest and, quickly identifying the piece of food that had flown out of his plate, rushed to pick it up.
"Sorry!" he exclaimed, voice raspy from his sore throat.
Soon the meal was done. Bill asked Ron for help checking the wards, put in place for added security after the group's arrival the night before. He had been too lazy to find his jacket before going out, so he was shivering with cold by the time he returned to the cottage. He toed off his dirty shoes at the door and went straight back to the kitchen, hoping that another warm drink would stop the shaking. He froze in his tracks when he realised that Hermione was there alone.
"Hey," he said in greeting.
"Hey," she said back. "I made you some tea. I thought you'd need one when you came back."
"Really? Brilliant. I do need it."
She had a second cup as well and, taking them both to the table, they sat down next to each other.
"I added extra honey to yours. For your throat," she explained.
Ron picked up his tea and looked down to it, feeling self-conscious over his raspy voice. "Uhm, yeah. Well- you shouldn't be taking care of me, you know."
"Why not?" she asked and he knew, by the tone of her voice, that it wasn't a rhetorical question.
"Because it wasn't me who had to go through the worst of it, yesterday."
She clicked her tongue, and he looked up to her. "Perhaps," she said, "but I think we all went through a lot."
They stared at each other, challenging. Ron's instinct was to complain, to list the hundreds of arguments that would show her why this was all about her and how she was doing.
Perhaps that wasn't the best plan. Perhaps he should stick to making sure she was all right.
"How are you doing, by the way? I feel like we haven't really had a chance to talk today."
"I'm… fine," she replied, and the way her face went blank told him again that she had something in her mind. "You? Does your throat hurt too much?"
"My th- no, tell me how you are doing, Hermione," he insisted. "My throat will get better, so forget about it and-"
"I don't want to forget about it!" she exclaimed. Ron was taken aback by the force of it and, noticing his reaction, she sheepishly looked down to her cup. "I…"
She interrupted herself.
"Tell me. I want to listen," he said.
She hesitated, her eyes darting between her tea and his eyes.
"If I think of how you're doing, if I think of your throat… then it gets me away from my discomfort, really, the way my body aches as if… as if my nerves can still feel the echo of the curse and… well, I could hear you scream my name. It was… I think it helped me stay alive."
Air left his chest in a strangled choke.
"Ron…" she whispered. "I think… I think I died there, for a moment."
Ron's lungs collapsed in his torso. It took conscious effort for him to breathe again. His hand shot forward, his fingers wrapping themselves over Hermione's hand on the table. "Hermione…" he began, but he was at a loss of words.
"I'm sorry," she quickly added, as if just now realising what she had shared. "I know it's a lot, I shouldn't have said- I should have waited-"
"No, no, tell me- I'm glad you told me-" Ron tried, squeezing Hermione's hand in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. He struggled to find words and, finally, just gave up. He started over. "Is that what you have been thinking about all day, then?"
She sighed, her posture relaxing at his willingness to talk about this. She nodded. "Yes. Well, partially." She looked around, making sure they were still alone.
"I think it's… hell, I didn't know," Ron said. "You didn't say anything about it last night."
"I didn't remember any of this last night but, this morning, I started having these images popping in my mind and these feelings…"
She seemed to get lost in her mind again, her eyes glazing over.
"Hermione?" he asked, worried.
She focused on him again, smiling as if trying to reassure him. "I'm all right. I just can't make sense of any of it!"
"So what are these images?"
"I don't know. Do you… have you heard how they say that, when someone dies, they see their lives flash before their eyes, right in that moment?"
Ron shook his head, trying not to show the unease constricting his chest. He didn't like to think of death in general, but thinking of Hermione in this context made it so much worse.
"It might be a Muggle thing, I don't know," she added.
"Did you see something, then?"
"That's the thing, I'm not sure." She sipped at her tea and he imitated her. There was a lot of honey in his; it was almost too sweet even for him, but he ignored it and kept his eyes on her. He didn't realise he had started to draw soothing patterns on the skin of her hand with his fingers.
"After breakfast this morning," she continued, "I started having this feeling… I couldn't make sense of it. Then I remembered something from yesterday; I could hear you calling me and I hurt all over and she- she cursed me again and when it let go, my body just sagged and it was like I was falling asleep, but I felt like I was floating-" Hermione's voice broke, and two fat tears slid down her face.
"C'mere," he said, letting go of her hand and wrapping her shoulders in his arms. Her head rested in the crook of his neck and he closed his eyes, cherishing the closeness. He had held her the night before, well into the night, but they hadn't had the privacy for it that day.
"I'm fine," she said, but didn't move away from him. "I survived, didn't I?"
He didn't know if she was saying that to soothe herself or him. "You did," he whispered into her hair. He felt her hand fist a handful of his shirt, holding on to him.
"Later," she went on, her voice soft and wistful, "I started having these images pop up in my mind, like a hazy memory."
"Mmm," was all he did to encourage her to continue, a hand now running up and down on her hair.
"These memories, they were of all times in my life. When I was little and when I learned I would go to Hogwarts; from getting sorted until yesterday. Everything, but a lot of it wasn't clear; it was like the sensation of having seen it all. And then there were more things. You were there but then… no, you were older and I was too, older than we are today which doesn't make sense at all!"
"I was there?" he asked, shifting a bit to hold her more comfortably.
"Yes, and we were… there were children and… oh!" she gasped and tensed, pulling away from him. Her hands were on his chest, he didn't know if to keep him away or to hold herself upright. Her eyes were round in shock and, to his confusion, she blushed a deep crimson. His hands still held her, holding her just below her shoulder blades.
"What?!" He asked, feeling like he understood what she had seen, but afraid to believe it. It could have been his hope tainting her words, after all.
"I'm not sure but-"
"If you had a sense of the past, d'you think you saw your future?"
"So you think it's possible?"
His bewilderment grew, as for the first time since he'd known her, she seemed to hope it was possible to look ahead.
"I- yeah, I guess. Trelawney was crap at it, unless she was in that sorta trance Harry told us about, but the centaurs seemed like they knew what they were doing."
"Yes, that's right!" she agreed, a gleam in her eyes.
Ron shook his head, mistified. How could they have moved from the terrifying thought of death, to such excitement?
"What did you see, then? Gotta say, I've never seen you this excited over Divination."
"It's not Divination, really… but perhaps it's more like a- vision?"
Ron mulled the thought. "So you think you had a vision of your future?"
"I don't know… I once read that the Celts believed you can have memories of the future, just like you have memories of the past. If we accept that seeing your life flash before your eyes when you die is true, then… then I don't see why we only have to see our past, do you?"
"And you did have a future because you came back, and you are here, so your life never truly ended- it was more like- a pause in it," he argued, because he couldn't continue thinking about things that involved Hermione's death.
She looked up at him with bright eyes, and he knew she had understood how he was feeling. Her hands softened on his chest.
"You've never believed in this sort of thing," he added.
"I know. The thing is… this time, I want to have a future. That future. To think that what I saw could happen- well, it gives me hope."
"Was it a good future, then?" he asked, telling himself that whether he had guessed what she saw or not, he'd be all right with her future as long as it made her happy.
Again she blushed. "Yes, it was."
Ron smiled, letting himself imagine memories of his own future, one where they were older and there were children. He again pulled her to him.
"Do you think the future is set?" she asked.
"I don't know," he said, "but we can build it together."
AN: Just in case any LMF readers are reading this, I need to let you know I haven't abandoned LMF! I am 2/3 done with the next chapter :) Meanwhile, I hope you liked this one.