A/N This is my 20th fic. How weird is that? It's also my first Ron/Hermione. How weird is that? I am a converted H/Hr who has seen the errors of her ways.

Please review!

Disclaimer: ::snores:: Oh, do I have to continually treat you people like idiots? Us Ron/Hermione shippers are the smart ones (at least compared to the delusional people that are H/Hrs), so I shall trust you to know that I don't own the characters or the setting.

Dedication: I would like to dedicate this to my fellow R/Hrs Jenny (fruitcake gurl) and Laura (Dolphin07). R/Hrs unite!

Summary: "Behind everything that happens, there is always what should have been… Some are lucky enough to live it, but the more hard-worked of us all have to dream it." A rather dark R/Hr vignette…

What Should Have Been.

By gnome girl aka marzoog

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Sometimes, Hermione reflected bitterly, things happened that shouldn't have. She called them "fate's off days". Like their "off day" when she had fallen in love with Ron and not Harry, the 'off" day" when they had gone off into the sunset leaving her world to collapse….

The fates, Hermione could have told you, worked in mysterious ways. Behind everything that happens, there is always what should have been. A pinpointed ideal that makes life worth living. Some are lucky enough to live it, but the more hard-worked of us all have to dream it. Hermione was among the latter.

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While the rain was hounding outside on a wonderfully typical Saturday afternoon, the Burrow was warm and cozy as Hermione settled the teapot down on the stove. Ron still couldn't convince her to use magic for cooking. There were things, Hermione had declared, that were too precious of habits to give up to magic.

Years had passed since the Burrow had been home to Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Weasley, but Hermione still thought the novelty had not worn completely off of the marriage. It was almost Heaven to have Ron sitting in front of her at the table each morning.

The young children were off visiting their Uncle Fred and Aunt Angelina. Molly, a precocious little eight year old, would be absorbed in her book while her brother Harold, a little six year old "nincompoop" (so called by Molly), would be running his heart out with the other cousins.

It would have been a pleasant sight for Hermione to see, with all of her loved children and nieces and nephews running about. But she preferred sitting in front of the fire playing chess, while drinking tea, with Ron, and having Harry and Ginny curled up together on the sofa, mindful of only each other. It would remind her of how much Harry and Ginny were in love to see them do that. Hermione would give a wry smile to Ron as she watched the two, and he would smile back with amusement. It reminder her of how much she and Ron were in love to do that.

It was all pleasant and homelike to sit with her foot rubbing Ron's under the table, and to bicker with him behind the steadfast old love when they disagreed about the rules. The fact that Ron could still beat her grated irritatingly on her nerves, but she had to love him for it.

She looked into his eyes and remembered all the times they had had together. She could remember the night he had danced with her at the Yule Ball in 5th year, the night when he had held her as they sobbed together about Harry, Voldemort and the fate of Wizard kind, the night he had gone to kill Voldemort with Harry and promised her he would come back…

Then, after their Chess game and Harry and Ginny had gone and the children had come home and been put to sleep, they went up to bed. Ron stopped at the old landing and put his arms around her:

"I love you more every day, do you know that?"

Hermione, crying for some unknown reason, held on to him as long as she could, not wanting to let him go for fear he might vanish. He had done that once.

"Hey, do you think we should get to bed now?" Ron admonished slightly, and they went in the door and settled down into bed. Hermione held tightly on to Ron as she went to sleep, and her last conscious feeling had been his arms around her….

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In the middle of the night Hermione woke up with a jolt. She was holding on to her pillow for dear life. It had all been a dream…. a wonderful dream…. Ron had been there…

Hermione groped around her bed, as if to make sure he was really gone, but of course he was. He still hadn't come back. He once told her would come back because he loved her so much. He lied. Hermione cursed his name for lying to her, and for making her love him so much she couldn't move on. She cursed him for being the sweetest, most perfect person in the world, so she couldn't find anyone to love half as much. She was as absorbed in her hate as she had been in her love while the sun bided its time.

Then the sun came over the top of the next apartment building.

It was a Sunday. A rainy, bleak, day that Hermione once would have hated. But now she loved it. Loved it because she could be alone and just sit, and remember. No one would disturb her reverie. No having to go out and listen to condescending sympathies of her best friends' deaths at the hands of Voldemort. No one would tell her to quit her imaginations of a pleasant future she had never been able to have. She wouldn't have to stop herself from pretending she was making Ron's tea at the Burrow, and watching their fireplace crackle with dancing flames while played Chess (every once in a while her beating him).

No one could stop her living in the realm of what should have been.

Hermione watched the rain fall down the panes, without seeing it at all. If she looked hard enough she felt she could have seen a red head coming up the lane.

But no one came.

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A/N I almost cried writing this. It was inspired by Flourish's fic "Fiction" which is on my favorites list if you would like to read it. Ron's promise about coming back in this fic was inspired by "Not the End" by She's a Star. The "fate's off day" was inspired by the wonderful "Not Quite a Fairy Tale" by Elektra.

I'm sorry it's so sad; it almost depresses me too…. fruitcake gurl, who beta-ed this, said that Hermione needed to get some prosaic. There's comic relief for ya!

Please review!!!

The Minnesotan in England

aka Maren of Minnesota

aka The Glutton

aka Morphing Dwarf

aka

@@@gnome girl aka marzoog@@@