Okay, so the war is over, life is all happy or almost...so what happens next for Ron and Hermione.
I know it's a little lacking in plot, but I meant for it to be more of a dialogue/drabble than anything else. I like stuff like that, sorry if you don't.
The war had since ended; Fred was cold in the ground, along with Lupin and Tonks. The whole wizarding world had breathed their combined sigh of relief and had begun to start living their lives just as they had done before the chaos had erupted. Buildings were being rebuilt and the Ministry was slowly but surely being rebuilt to better than its previous working condition. Hogwarts, so they had heard, was being reconstructed at a hasty pace, in hopes that it could be in one piece by the mark of the next school year. Everyone seemed to be moving in a forward direction, except for those inhabiting the Burrow.
The house was still as occupied as it had been before Fred's funeral, frozen in time. Every room still had at least one person sleeping in each of its beds when came nightfall. The table was set for twice as many guests, as it had been for quite some time. George, Percy, Bill and Charlie were all back home and remained there, mostly to make sure their mother was going to be okay. Some how they had imagined that the company of four sons who were not usually at home would make up for the one son who would never be coming back, or at least for a short amount of time it would mask Fred's absence in Molly Weasley's conscious thoughts. Since Bill was visiting home, so was Fleur, who inhabited one third of Ginny's room. Hermione took up the other portion. After all, she had no where else to go. The Burrow had always been her second home, and until the could track down her parents in Australia and return their rightful memories of even having a daughter, all she could do was hope that she could call it home for a little while longer. Harry always had Sirius's old Grimmauld Place apartment, but, for some reason, he felt that the Burrow was the place where he most needed to be, a house filled with friends and the closest thing he had left to be called his 'family'.
Ron had been, for the last few weeks, forced to share his already small room with George upon a cot set up next to his small but comfortable bed and Harry on the other side on an even smaller mattress. They had begun their stint as roommates with an argument over who slept where. It was decided that rightfully Ron should be allowed to sleep in his own bed, but when it came to who received the other bed opposed to the hard flimsy army cot, it a bit messier. After much protesting from Harry, George stated that Harry needed far more uninterrupted sleep and that he'd sleep on the floor in the corner until Harry decided to give in and listen to him.
Ron really didn't care so much, he was just glad to be at home in his own room. He was glad to be able to look over to the one side of his room and see his Chuddly Cannons posters plastered to the wall in all shades of pumpkin hues. He felt a certain comfort in seeing the moving, although aged, photographs of Hermione, Harry, and himself altogether sitting in frames upon his dresser, the only area of his room that looked remotely in order. He could see the garden from his window, the dozens of wildflowers his mother had planted while he was away to bide her time and focus all of her negative energy and uncertainty. It was just nice to be in the same place for more than three days, to not have to pack and leave when their hiding place became threatened, and to not have to scurry to put in place all of the right enchantments around his whereabouts as soon as they arrived in fear that someone would attack them the second they arrived. At the Burrow he could finally breathe, even if they others couldn't yet do so.
Sure Harry was his best friend and George was his brother, but some times sharing a room with both of them put him at his last nerve. George was terrible when it came to snoring. When George lived at home his room was down the hall and yet Ron could then still hear him like a bear in the middle of hibernation, and now forced to be in the same room with the human fog horn, it was simply unbearable. Harry, despite his mission's completion, still had nightmares, at least one a night. He would scream in a sound sleep and toss about on his squeaky old set of box springs. He knew he had no reason to be angry at the kid, as he had just weeks ago come to terms with the fact that he was going to without a doubt have to die himself to kill Voldemort, and only luckily did he survive. He had a right to have a few…unresolved issues. Ron was just slightly vain in craving a little peaceful sleep for himself.
This particular night he found it impossible to sleep. He hadn't looked at the calendar as of late, but he was willing to bet that there happened to be a full moon out tonight based upon the way its rays crept in through the crack in his curtains and conveniently found the spot on his pillow where he struggled to fall asleep. Though his eyelids had been forced shut, the brilliant light still managed to leak through to torment him. After what seemed like hours of trying, he carefully hopped out of bed in defeat.
Another downside to sharing his room meant that on the occasions he couldn't sleep he couldn't simply get up and do what he wished. He could have done been like Hermione and pulled out a book to read to lull him back to sleep, the moonlight would at least have made itself useful, but he was simply not in the mood for being academic. He wanted to actually do something. He began to pace the floor, although slowly to keep the old floor boards from creaking in protest of being used so late in the night. Then suddenly a thought hit him.
He looked down as Harry's rucksack, its contents strewed allover his area of floor space, and found a velvet burgundy pile of fabric lying lifeless on top of the pile. For once, he took weight of the situation before picking up the cloak and throwing it over himself anyway. He opened the door, checking the hallway for other insomniacs like himself that could have been wandering around the house, even though he'd remain unseen even if there was anyone awake and wandering around aimlessly. He tiptoed out and continued down the hallway, still feeling a need to look over his shoulder as he grew closer to his sister's door way.
It was open a crack when he got there, most likely left for Crookshanks to come and go from the foot of Hermione's bed as she so pleased. He cautiously pushed it open, hoping that his father had not too long ago fixed the noisy aging hinges that held it steadfast to its wooden frame. His sister was sound asleep, as was Fleur, all curled up in the fancy sheets that she insisted on bringing from her own home while she stayed. When he looked over at the third bed pushed against the far wall to make room, Hermione was sitting up against the headrest reading some thick textbook by wandlight. He slinked closer, moving towards her bed side, loosening his grip on the cloak as he moved.
A sound from the floor planks grabbed her attention away from her reading, but when she parted her eyes from the black text on yellowing paper all she could see was a long fair and freckled nose and two pink lips curved in to a smile floating disembodied next to her. She knew it was Ron and at the sound of his name accompanied by her voice he parted the cloak front to reveal that alas she had guessed correctly, though only daring to bare his face, incase his sister was to awake at an inconvenient time. Without a doubt Ginny would go to all lengths to make things difficult for him had she caught him here.
"Get in." He whispered, gesturing to her with has she couldn't see. He couldn't hear her, but he could read the word 'why' form upon her lips as he watched her intently through the shade of night. "We're going somewhere."
She closed her book and set it aside. He watched attentively as she pushed her bed covers aside, exposing her legs revealed by the summer pajamas the weather commanded her to wear. Out of fear that she had noticed the focus of his eyes, he snapped back to her face with a nervous grin. She sat on the edge of the bed, her feet flat on the floor, but moved no further.
"If you think I'm going to tell you where we're going...then you don't know me." He held a hand out from beneath the stolen sheet of fabric and she disappeared from sight as she joined him willingly. Upon doing so, she made no effort to let his hand leave hers.
It was hard to believe that at one time at three of them could fit underneath it comfortably and completely covered, because six years later the two of them barely fit. Ron had grown nearly a foot since then, making his feet quite vulnerable to visibility. And in what Ron took up in height the two of them were forced to make up in width. He had to keep her close to his form to keep them both undercover. Sure they weren't hiding for their lives; no one was out to harm them any longer, they weren't on the run, but Ron knew his mother better than most, and had she learned of what he was doing she would be beyond angry as well. He knew he didn't need the cloak. The chances anyone would catch them wandering in the night was very low, but he found the sensation of being a little dangerous, not the sense of danger they had experienced for the last few months of their lives; but the more fun kind, he found quite intriguing especially when it involved Hermione and sneaking around. The cloak just gave him a bit more of an excuse.
One thing of which he had failed to note before wandering into her room to steal her away under cover of darkness was the proximity in which would find himself to her. He had to be so close to her while escaping down the stairs that he could feel every exhalation she made warm and soft against his neck, every accidental brushing contact her bare arms made with his. He tried to push it all far away from his consciousness, but it refused to stay hidden. As they struggled with every step of the stairwell, the shifting of her weight and taking uneasy steps in the dark, she found herself falling against him rather than taking a tumble down the stairs. Of every little touch he took notice, each one tormenting him more than the one that occurred before.
Once they cleared the kitchen door and had at last were free from the bound walls of his house he gripped her hand tightly within his as he disapparated with a snap from the darkened backyard to somewhere still unknown to Hermione.
When they both were pulled back out of the dark swirling traveling space her barefeet touched down upon cool blades of grass. She looked up to see a murky pool of water a few feet from where she stood. She had been there before, not yet this summer, but all of those previously. It was only a short distance from the Burrow; in fact she knew if she was to turn around, she would see the little house only a field way from her. The gentle waves that moved across the surface were only highlighted more so by the gleaming layer of moonlight that hovered above them. She could hear a band of crickets sing their serenades from where they remained hidden in the weeds that lined the very edge of the pond. It was so beautiful, even more so as she had only ever seen it in the sunny afternoons. At night, the view seemed more captivating than she had noticed on any other occasion. It took a moment longer for her to remember that she wasn't there alone.
When she turned, leaving the view at her back, she caught Ron conjuring some kind of spell than she had, for once, never seen before. With a swish and flick motion of his wand and a low murmuring to himself he had made a blanket smooth itself out upon the grass along the water's edge. He motioned for her to take a seat before he bent down to take one right next to her. "The night looked too nice to sleep through it." He finally spoke with laughter on his lips.
She took one more searching look at the view unfolding around her before she said anything. "Too nice not to share?" She closed her eyes as to take in everything else that had been over shadowed by the veil of moonlight. It was the end of summer, containing the most sweltering days of the year. The nights were balmy as well, but not nearly as blazing now that the sun had retreated from its post. Though it was warm, the gentle breeze that drifted over the water and across her bare arms felt cool to the touch, but not to the point where she was uncomfortable. It was a pleasant break from the stale stuffy air throughout the Weasley's home.
When she opened her eyes, she discovered Ron watching her intently, a look of contentment and comfort showing in his worn and lightly scarred features. "Wouldn't have it any other way." He spoke sincerely, welcoming her form in his as he draped an arm around her bare shoulders. He couldn't have been more pleased as he felt the weight of her head rest, nestled into the crook of his neck, upon his shoulder. He knew he must have, at this point, appeared to anyone else like a grinning buffoon, but he was useless to fight it.
Finally something had worked out for him, which, until then, he had only assumed it worked only for people other than himself. What more could he rightfully ask for? Sure, Fred was no less dead than he was a week ago and Teddy was still an orphan following Tonks and Lupin's deaths. Ron's mother was not yet in her old sane frame of mind. At this point, he had settled with the fact that there was nothing he could do to change that past. He couldn't bring them back no matter what powers he possessed. The only thing upon which he could focus now, was what the future held for him and those he loved most.
"I wish I lived in a place like this…" She offered up as soon as it popped into her thoughts. Sure she loved being at her home with her parents during the summer, as it was the only time she could ever see them, but she couldn't help but look forward to the weeks that she spent with the Weasley's before school began. She lived in the city, not a big city, but it lacked vast fields full of nothing but wild flowers, the sounds of crickets and various birds, that she loved so much. There were no ponds in which she could jump in for a swim on a whim. She liked having a backyard where she could play, or attempt to play, Quiddich with Ron and Harry. She knew that in one point in her life, she wanted to see herself living in a place like this with her own family. She just felt more alive at the Burrow and at a time like this it made her feel more than she had even been before. All of the life left buzzing around her reminded her just how lucky she was to be living along with them.
He gave her hand in his a gentle squeeze as he spoke. "Well…you're welcome to stay as long as you like." Some how, he knew that it wasn't news to her. He felt slightly disappointed that the only things he felt like he could spill to her were things that had already become obvious to her. He wanted to be able to tell her just how much he loved her, how much he just loved being in her presence, how he had decided back in the forest that he never wanted to leave her again. He wanted her to know that the kiss she gave him amidst a war was the one thing that kept him hanging on despite everything thrown at him. But on second thought…could that all have been even slightly obvious to her? Were all of his questions on her mind as well?
"What do we do now that it's all over?" He broke the silence by letting the question hang heavily in the air. There were so many subquestions he pondered offering up instead, but he knew not where to begin. He only hoped that she did.
It almost felt as if they were starting from scratch. Nothing was the same anymore; sure, it was mostly in a good context. The Death Eater spirit had lost its fire with the demise of their leader. It hadn't fizzled out completely, but Hermione needed not to lie about her family or have to worry whether her name would appear on some kind of list. It just felt slightly uneasy to Ron. Everything he had planned to do with his life had been knocked of kilter slightly. But normality would return in a matter of time and in the process.
Her answer was more confident than Ron felt about his own plans, as she lifted her head from his shoulder she had made into a nice pillow. She didn't take a moment to hesitate. "Well, I have to go back to Hogwarts…" She only began and paused before Ron took the opportunity to interrupt her.
"What? You forget something there when we last left?" He asked with a smile.
"My diploma?" She interjected snappily.
"Yes 'Mione…I'm not completely stupid." He stated, poking her side in a teasing manner as he did. "Actually, I was thinking about going back myself. Doubt I could get in as an auror being a seventh year dropout…not to say that there'll be a growing need for them now that old Voldy's gone…" They both laughed. It was strange how less than a month ago they feared even breathing his name even in the lowest tones imaginable, yet now they could casually throw out his name in a satirical fashion as if he was someone so far away in their pasts. But going back to Hogwarts couldn't have seemed more like the right thing to do at the time.
"I doubt they'd turn down your application, knowing that you were capable of bringing down the dark lord regardless of how much time you had spent in school." It was strange to think that from now on they were famous. Their names would be in history books, the three of them, right there in the same sentence, Harry's coming first of course. It was hard to fathom…a little overwhelming when he thought about it too much, so he tried no to let it pop up too often.
"Wait, you are actually condoning not going back to school?" He spouted surprised.
He could see her roll her eyes in the low light. "You know what I mean, Ron." Her comment was followed by a taunting gab to his ribs, but oddly enough, her fingers never returned to her, but instead paced up and down his side navigating the wrinkles of his thin shirt.
"You don't suppose we'll get special treatment from McGonagall when we go back?" After all, now that Voldemort and his henchmen weren't causing problems, Ron and Hermione would, most likely, not be pulling any shenanigans either, or at least not as many. "Yeah…I didn't think so…" He continued, based upon the look on Hermione's face.
He didn't really want to bring it up, but he somehow felt compelled to do so. It had been on his mind off and on for some time now, as his mind anymore leaped from one subject to another with no real probable connection between. Her parents were still wandering around the coast of Australia, their minds completely erased of memories of her. He knew that if it was his family, he'd be torn apart inside, yet Hermione hadn't spoke of leaving to find them anytime soon. He didn't know how to go about finding out what he wanted to know so badly, without upsetting her. "When you leave for Australia…I'm going with you." He figured it was the best way. She couldn't do it alone…she'd want to do it all in that manner, she'd think she could do it alone, and a girl like Hermione, she probably could, but he wanted to believe so badly that she needed his help even if only a little bit.
Hermione was a strong girl, one of the strongest he knew, no doubt stronger than himself when he really took the time to think about it. But he wanted so badly to think that somewhere in her she felt she needed him as much as he knew he had, and still to this moment, needed her. Whether she had been aware of it or not, she had been one of the very few things to get him through his brother's funeral. He just wanted her to know that he could be that same person for her if she was to ever need it.
Her watch had been abandoned on the wooden surface of her bedside table, but she knew it was well into the night. She didn't need to see any glowing numbers to know, instead, the weight of her eyelids told her enough. She gave in and laid flat against the blanketed grass. She was growing tired, but she didn't want to miss a thing by allowing herself to drift asleep. "Well I just wanted to make sure everyone was okay here before I left. I didn't want to up and leave if…if you still needed me." She spoke straight up to the stars that hung high above her head, allowing gravity to pull them down to his ears. As she began, she could feel a familiar presence occupy the space at her side. "I mean, your brother just died and my parents are okay where they are…I just thought it could wait."
She felt his hand seize hers, comfortably in his grasp, warm to the touch. "I'm okay. I know how much you want to see your parents, so don't worry about me." He teased the space between her fingers with movement until he left them intertwined with hers against his chest.
She could feel his heart rate pick up through the back of her hand, and only wondered to herself what had caused its sudden acceleration. "Why don't we leave next week? I don't know how long it will take, but I can pack up my bag again and we can make a little vacation out of it…I never got to look around when I brought them there…"
As he began to speak, she heard his stomach growl in protest of where he was relative to the refrigerator full of leftovers. She watched as he subconsciously licked his upper lip, whether it had anything to do with his apparent starvation, she was unsure. "Hungry?"
He spoke nothing, but nodded his head furiously. "Up for brownies? I don't think George has eaten them all yet." He sat up eagerly, ready to for her to say yes so he could get them. He barely waited until she responded to take up his wand and summon them from the kitchen counter top yards away from where they both lay. A few moments later the tray could be seen floating towards them before it landed upon the blanket beside him.
"So, a midnight picnic? I don't think I've had one of those before." She replied, humored. Ron was already half done with one as she picked one up out of the small metal pan. There were little granules of chocolate stuck upon his bottom lip as he finished off the small baked square. She paused eating, politely piece by piece, to brush off his face with a laugh. Ron had never been known for being the most cleanly eater. On occasions he's find barbeque sauce on a cheek or on his socks if he was having a particularly bad day. But she found his messiness to be rather endearing, not like other guys who tried to be neat to impress. Instead, they all came off as pretentious in her opinion. Ron was Ron no matter who was around. He couldn't help not to be anyone but himself and that seemed like such a rare thing anymore.
"Positively amazing." She suggested it with a straight face, but no sooner had she opened her mouth to release words; he had begun to spout laughter in her direction. "What?" She smiled again, fueling all that he found to be so humorous. She was growing self conscious by the second. She wouldn't have been so, had she known what he had found to be so amusing.
He took a moment to mime to her that she had a little something, more like a lot of something stuck between her two front teeth. She quickly fixed it before pelting him with her little ineffectual fists. Ron continued to lean back against their picnic blanket, pulling Hermione in his direction and eventually discovering himself pinned between her and the ground. Perhaps she was far more powerful than he had imagined.
The Hermione he had known, until only recently, would have been much more inhibited in such a situation. She, before, had been very aware of her distance relative to him and she was vigilant to keep it in check, never going closer than was necessary, as she was afraid of what might happen if she did. But ever since the thought had been imprinted in her conscious that any day could very well be her last, she had some how forgotten to worry about it…and he couldn't have been more ecstatic. He knew it was all in good fun, but he couldn't help but find it growingly impossible to push the feeling of her knees braced on either side of his legs or her abdomen hovering such a short distance above his, to the very furthest corner of his mind. He could sense her laughter dance warmly across his face as she struggled in a child-like manner against him. He captured her wrists within his grasp and they both froze.
All around her was darkness but the light emanating from his eyes was brilliant as they bore straight into hers. They were more piercingly blue than normal, more saturated in hue than the pond had become in the moonlight; they were captivating. In the silence, her eyes wandered across his freckled cheeks and the tiny scars that had appeared between them in the last year. The dungeons, dragons, fiend fire, and the millions of green glowing forbidden spells that had flown past his head in the last few months; they all had managed to reek havoc upon his body. The scar on his arm from where he had splinched himself, the large gouge in his cheek; it was like they altogether told a story. Each one screamed to whoever was watching that he was still alive, that he might have just barely scraped by, but there he was alive and breathing. "What's going to happen to us?" She had been only thinking it, but it had slipped through her lips involuntarily.
He loosened his hold upon her, his hands slipping down to where they rest near her elbows. "What do you mean?" Neither moved as she formulated the words in her head.
She feared to even mention anything further. As she moved to lie at his side once again, she was suddenly hit with the hard thought that maybe he didn't feel the same way about things as she did. Maybe all that had happened between them had meant nothing of much importance in his eyes. "Us…whatever you call what is going on between us?" She didn't want to come across as an insecure whiny girl about it, but she couldn't help if it presented itself that way.
He could see the worry in his eyes as he peered over at her, and it bothered him that he had apparently been the cause of it. "I don't know if you know it 'Mione…and you should…" He stumbled, despite being the one containing the higher level of confidence for the two of them. "…but I pretty much love you…" From the moment he let the disastrous words depart from his tongue he was kicking himself for the utterly ridiculous form they had taken upon themselves. He smiled nervously anyway, in a failing attempt to cover up his embarrassment.
"Pretty much…" She replied in a laughing question, though moving towards him in every movement her amusement prompted. As an afterthought, she felt badly about finding humor at his expense. He was trying to be honest, trying to spill his heart, although less eloquently than she had previously hoped if the occasion was to ever present itself, and then there she was making it far more difficult for him than it should have been. She hadn't meant to be insensitive, but it came out as a product of her nervousness. She could be as bad as Ron on rare occasions.
He pressed a light kiss to her cheek before he continued. She could feel his hand tremble as he braced himself at her side to sit up enough to do so. He let his lips linger near her ear before he spoke. "Bloody hell, Hermione…I love you." His words came out as mere whispers but the message they carried screamed so loudly in her ear. "And…I don't know about you…but I think we have something here…" He continued in a wavering voice that produced a grin on her face. "And I'm not giving up on it...if you aren't…"
She could sense a question in his voice as he allowed his words to trail off in to silence, though he looked in every direction but hers. "I think…" She began situating her position to let her head rest upon her chest just below his collar bone. He allowed a lone finger journey up and down her bare arm as he silently convinced her to curl towards his form. "…I think that I kind of love you too…you know…just a little bit…" She motioned with her thumb and index finger in close distance from each other as she lifted her hand from where it rested against his stomach.
Her tone turned rung on a more serious note as she continued. "So…we're a …thing now?" Maybe he would find it redundant to ask, but it was pertinent to her.
"Yes…" His voice sounded skeptical, as if he didn't want to declare so if he didn't know for sure that she wanted the same thing that he did. They had made it this far. They had been through hell and back all while at each other's side. They had faced death together many times over. They had been close friends, inseparable, for seven years. Every obstacle they had ever faced since the age of eleven, they had had each other to get through it all. If they hadn't broken through any of that, nothing could stop them. Sure they had had their fair share of arguments for a whole life time; snappy comments about cats versus rats, or a shrill voiced blonde girl and a tall dark Bulgarian. But they had some how known all along what had prompted their bickering, that they had feared finding how they truly felt about each other once the anger emotion was pushed out of the way. It was just a children's game when they squabbled 'like an old married couple' as others claimed…but maybe in that public opinion there was a sign.
He never would have guessed that this would have been the result of helping her escape a mountain troll. One moment he had thought of her as a snobbish eleven year old know-it-all and next he knew she was the beautiful love of his life asleep at his side…yes, asleep. As he looked down at her, he could see her eyelashes against her flushed cheeks, the one which was pressed against his chest, in doing so, made her lips push out in a pout.
Sure, he couldn't move because of her. He couldn't reach the pan of brownies either because her position was such a hindrance. No matter how badly his stomach growled for thirds, he wanted to be no where else but there with her. A beautiful night falling around him and a beautiful girl asleep in his arms; for what more could a guy possibly ask? He all ready had it all…well, except for the brownies, but in a matter of minutes they became finally forgotten as he too fell into deep sleep at her side.
Thanks...review and make me happy...please?