A/N: I really don't have time to be writing this right now. There are plenty of other things that need my attention. However, a plot bunny decided to run through my brain. So here I am! I'm sorry this is a bit rushed and not my best writing. I just wanted to get the idea out there. Enjoy~
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did, I wouldn't be here right now, nor would I have empty pockets. But that's the breaks.
Hermione was still sitting in that one chair, her arms and legs crossed so tight not a crow bar would be able to pry them apart. The only movement she made was a light tapping of her foot upon the floor, and her mouth when she shot harsh comments and insults to a certain tall red-head.
Ron had come back. At last. Secretly, she was happy, but she was also mad at him for leaving in the first place. Not only did he leave her, but he left Harry, who needed his friends now more than anything.
Harry was glad to have his friend back, he truly was. Ron had just saved his life, too, which was what made him forget how mad he was at Ron for leaving. He just wished his two best friends would stop bickering. He had had enough fighting with the war going on, he didn't want it—nor need it—from them.
But things were not going in the way he wanted. Sure, he hadn't voiced that he wanted them to stop arguing, but he assumed that both of his friends knew him well enough to know what he wouldn't like it.
He was wrong on that assumption.
"Ronald Weasley, do you honestly think I'm just going to welcome you back with open arms after you so cruelly left?"
"I was hoping so, yes! You don't know how bad I felt about leaving, but apparently you didn't care enough to wait around to see if I would come back. Which I did!"
"Well, good for you. But you never should have left in the first place! Really Ron, I don't know how someone could be so thick and idiotic. But then again, you learn something new everyday!" Hermione was yelling now, slightly turned around in her chair to face Ron, who was standing with his arms crossed near the tiny table they had in the tent.
"I may be a little slow, yes, but I'm not stupid! I left because no one cared here enough to even miss me! And I know I'm right, because here you are yelling at me! If you had missed me, you wouldn't be yelling!" Ron's face was red with anger, and he had uncrossed his arms. He was clenching his fists so hard that veins were starting to pop out in his arms.
"That's not true." Harry said, deciding to make an intervention. All this yelling was getting to him.
Hermione started to come back with what promised to be a nasty retort, clearing not having heard what Harry said. So he cut her off, repeating himself.
"That's not true."
"What's that, Harry?" Ron asked, his voice much lower than the one he was using with Hermione.
"Do you really think that we didn't care about you, which is why you left? I had thought it was because you were fed up with life on the run."
"Well—" Ron began.
"Well nothing! Did you think that when you left you were just walking out on Hermione? Have you suddenly forgotten that I even existed, or have the last 6 years meant nothing to you?" Now Harry was yelling, his frustration all coming out at once, as it usually did with him. He tended to bottle things up, which just made it that much worse when the dam finally broke.
"Look, mate, it wasn't like that. . ."
"Don't call me 'mate'! I know you just saved my arse from drowning, and I thank you, but that doesn't change anything! First you get all buddy buddy with Hermione, leaving me alone, then you start to treat us all like this bloody war is our fault, and then you walk out! You left Hermione, which was bad enough, but I might be able to forgive that in time. But you left me, too! I thought you and Hermione were the two constants in my life, the two people that I could rely on no matter what. But I don't know what the hell to think about that any more!"
Harry paused to take a couple of deep breaths. His face was flushed, he was pacing a bit as he yelled, and he was exercising all his self control not to flip the table over or throw something.
Ron's face had paled, and was back to normal color. He'd unclenched is fists, and he was standing there, dumbfounded, as he listened to what Harry had to say. Ron hadn't known that's how he felt.
Hermione, meanwhile, was sitting there, her limbs still crossed but not as tightly. Her mouth was slightly agape with surprise.
"Harry, you know you can count on us . . ." Hermione said, her voice barely loud enough to be heard.
"I don't know that I can anymore. Ron's up and left, and you just cried yourself to sleep every night."
"Harry, I don't know what you're on about. I know that I left, but. . ."
"NO! There is no 'but'! You left and that's the point! You know, you know that I've never been able to count on anything in my life except maybe that I'll be on the Death-Eaters most wanted list or that the Dursleys are going to treat me like vermin! You were my first friend, and you left! And then you come back and get into another one of your mindless rows with Hermione about it! I'm sick of the fighting! I just want everything to go back to damn normal!"
"Harry. . ."
"And you, little miss, you need to get off your high horse! You're just as much at fault as he is. No, you didn't leave, but that didn't stop you from fighting with him as soon as he showed his face. I thought you, with all your clever wits, would know that I get enough of the fighting dealing with Voldemort and the Death Eaters!"
"Harry. . ." Both Ron and Hermione started, trying to calm him down.
"Don't!" Harry yelled. Then he stopped pacing and clenching his fists, as if suddenly struck with an alternative. "You know what? I'm done. Over it. You two can hash it out as much as you want, I don't give a damn. Just come get me when you're done." Harry walked to the entrance flap and walked out.
"Harry, where the hell do you think you're going?!" Ron asked, trying to stop Harry from running out by putting a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"None of your business, and get your hand off of me if you wish to keep it." Harry said in a deadly tone with a glare that matched.
Ron withdrew his hand as fast as his reflexes allowed him. When Harry used that tone, it was wise to obey.
"Harry!" Hermione said, coming out of the tent. "You can't run off! What if you get attacked?" She was earnestly concerned.
"Then that'll be my problem!" Harry called as he stalked off. He wasn't planning on going far, and he was going to use the protection charms they were using on the tent; he just needed to get away from them and be alone for a while.
Harry walked a little ways and then, once he determined that he was far enough away from the tent, he spun in a wide circle casting the protection charms. Next he conjured a thick, fluffy sleeping bag and a pillow. To keep him warm he conjured four bell jars and cast fire into each of them. Then he placed them around where he would sleep—two to go on either side of his head, and two for the same around his feet.
After one last scan of the area to make sure it was safe, he crawled in his sleeping bag and hunkered down for the remainder of the night.
"Do you think he'll be alright?" Hermione asked Ron. Even though she was still a bit mad at him, Harry's anger—and safety—was more important.
"I'm sure he will be. Harry's a fighter, and he knows how to take care of himself." Ron said, still looking in the direction that Harry had walked off. Ron couldn't believe that he got told of by his best mate; it made him feel horrible and like a prat.
"True, but we can never be sure." Hermione started to gnaw on her lower lip.
"Well, at any rate, he's just as safe as us if he used the same protection charms."
"But he's alone! And there's strength in numbers. . ."
"Hermione, you worry too much. Let's just go inside and get some sleep ourselves. We'll be able to deal with him in the morning." Ron tried to steer her inside, to no avail.
"He said to come get him once we worked over our differences." Hermione was timid, and slightly scared to breech this subject, but it needed to be addressed.
"And how are we going to do that?" Ron gave her a look, one that said 'we-can-work-that-out-later-we-need-to-focus-on-getting-Harry-back-with-us.'
Hermione sighed. It was late, she was exhausted, and she decided that she just didn't want to deal with that right then. "Actually, never mind. We'll work it out later. Let's just go get some sleep, and hope that Harry comes back in the morning."
With that, she turned back to the entrance flap and went inside.
Ron looked back in the general direction that Harry had walked off too, and then followed Hermione into the tent.
They didn't talk anymore that night as they got ready for bed. Hermione took off her shoes and crawled into her bed, pulling her blankets around her so she was obstructed from view. Ron went into the bathroom to change out of his wet clothes and then crawled into his own bed.
Soon his snores filled the tent, and Hermione smiled at how much she missed that sound. Not long after, she succumbed to sleep as well.
Harry had actually slept fairly decently that night. He didn't have any nightmares—that he could remember—nor did he wake up often. He sat up and stretched, happy to see that his fires had made it through the night. He stood up, rolled up his sleeping bag, Vanished it, then moved to put out the fires. He used a simple spell, and the fire went out. Then he Vanished each of the jars in turn.
He was planning on going back to the tent. Sure, he had been mad the night before, but now that he had calmed down, he saw that he had yelled and acted just a tad bit irrationally. He didn't regret what he had said, per sé, but he definitely regretted how it had been said.
Taking a deep breath, Harry stood up. Turning around in a circle, he took down the protective charms that he put up. Then he started walking back to where, he hoped, the tent was. They better not have left. He said, thinking back to what he and Hermione had done when Ron left.
"Do you have anything that we can make for breakfast?" Hermione asked Ron as he walked out from the bathroom. She hoped he had been smart enough to save some food from wherever he had been.
"I have some bread, but that's it. Nothing else I could've grabbed would have kept. I didn't fancy the thought of carrying around some rotten eggs." Ron said, as he came to sit down opposite Hermione at the table.
"Eh, true. Those wouldn't have been any use to us rotten anyways." Hermione sighed. "Give me the bread. I can make toast or something. I think we have an old jar of jam around here somewhere. . ." She trailed off as she got up and began shuffling through the belongings they had food-wise.
"Do you think—Harry!" Ron stood up again as Harry walked back into the tent. "Er . . . did you sleep good?" He finished lamely, not knowing what he was supposed to do.
"Good morning to you, too. And yes, I did, thanks for asking." Harry said, heading straight towards the bathroom.
Ron and Hermione shared a look. They both knew that Harry wouldn't talk about what happened last night unless he was the one to bring it up. So, by an unspoken agreement, they both consented that they weren't going to talk to him about it.
Harry walked back into the main room, and saw the bread Ron had brought back sitting on the table. "Is that going to be our breakfast?" He asked, hoping for at least some toast.
"Yes. We might have to eat it plain, though. I can't seem to find any jam nor do I know where I might have put it." Hermione said, still rummaging through the cabinets.
"I don't think we have any, but bread's good enough for me. Are you going to toast it?"
"That was the plan."
"Good." Harry said, grinning a bit. Hen he went over to his bunk and pulled out something from under his pillow case. It turned out to be the pouch that Hagrid had given him for his 17th birthday.
"What are you doing?" Ron asked, wanting to fill the awkward silence.
"Checking something." Harry said, pulling out the Marauder's Map. He didn't get to check it last night—something he had taken a habit of doing—and he figured he might as well go ahead and check it then.
"What do you need to check on the Marauder's Map? It's not like we're at Hogwarts." Ron was confused.
"I just like to know what people are around, to get a general idea how things are going." Harry replied.
"Oh. Well, that makes sense." Ron replied. He would've never thought of doing something like that. But Harry thinks through things like that more than I do he reasoned with himself. We each have our strengths and weaknesses.
"Breakfast's ready, come eat." Hermione said, setting three small plates she had conjured on the table with a piece of bread on them.
"There's one more piece," she started, "but there's three of us. So I was figuring we'd break it in three after we eat our first piece."
"That works for me." Ron said, with half of his piece already down his throat.
Harry just shrugged and started eating. Bread was good; it stayed on the stomach longer. Even if they only would have a piece and a third each, it would keep them full longer than something else would have.
After they were done, they were all just sitting there, not really knowing what to do.
Harry took the initiative, and cleared his throat to say he wanted to say something.
"I'm sorry I blew up last night." He announced, suddenly interested in a spot on the table as he spoke. "Everything just kind of . . . spewed out. So. Sorry," he finished lamely, not being one for talking extensively.
"It's alright, mate. We all have our moments." Ron said, smiling and having already forgiven Harry. They were best friends, and that meant through thick and thin, and all the various moods that brought on.
"Yes, Harry, it's quite alright. What with everything going on—and us being crammed in this tent—it's no wonder that tempers are running high. And you had every right to be mad at us. We were being so inconsiderate." Hermione said, her eyes shining.
"Yup, you rather were. But I was being irrational. So! We were all at fault; we all forgive each other, so it's all good." Harry said, smiling and standing up. He was just glad to have that behind them.
"We should get moving to a different place. We've been here long enough." Hermione said, also standing.
"Tell us what to do, 'Mione, and we'll do it." Ron said, happily.
With that, they all started preparing to Apparate to a different place, all three glad to be together again, and glad that they had worked through a difference that could've caused major problems further down the road.
A/N: So! This is a kind of AU/what-could-have-been fic. It was just a different way Harry could've taken Ron's return. I always thought that he'd feel a bit betrayed, and I let that come out in the story. It didn't turn out quite how I wanted, but that's the breaks. Remember, reviews make me happy :]
-Zenelia*Sky