The Problem With Trust
"Wow!" Ron exclaimed as Hermione entered the kitchen.
Her cheeks flooded with colour, and she dropped her gaze, hurrying over to the counter to pick up her purse.
"I mean, really, wow," Ron went on, nothing but admiration and respect in his voice. He put the Daily Prophet down on the table, taking in the vision of beauty that stood before him, otherwise known as his girlfriend.
"Stop it, Ron," Hermione mumbled bashfully, though it was with adoration rather than anger. "You're making me blush!" She ran her hands over her dress in a self-conscious manner, as though only feeling the soft satin for the first time.
"You look... great!" Ron said hesitantly. Compliments had never particularly been his strong point. But great she definitely did look. Far greater than great, Ron thought.
Hermione was dressed in an adorable little number which Ron had never seen before—A pretty satin dress in pale blue, with an elegant neckline that showed off the graceful curve of her collarbones and a hem that crept up just past her knees. Her hair was knotted into a bun, with a few strands of hair delicately falling down to brush her shoulders. In that moment, Hermione Granger was the very definition of beauty.
"Wow!" Ron repeated.
Hermione let out a small giggle, momentarily distracted from checking and rechecking she had everything in her purse. Ron could only guess at what event it was that she was headed off to.
"So you're going out with Ginny?" he asked, still in complete awe of his girlfriend's attire and general exquisiteness. One thing kept springing to mind—the constant wondering of how on Earth he of all people could possibly deserve her affections above everybody else.
Hermione faltered, though only momentarily, but just enough for Ron's heartbeat to quicken. A mild sense of suspicion began to pester at the back of his mind. "Not exactly..."
"Harry, then?" Ron teased, though he was starting to feel nervous.
Hermione ignored him, hurriedly looking through her purse once more.
"Well, who then? Your Mum? Somebody from work? Neville?" Ron was laughing, but there was an uncomfortable pain swelling in his chest. He knew Hermione well enough to know that she was concealing something.
"Look, Ron, I need to go now or else I'll be late."
Hermione fled, headed for the kitchen door, but Ron was quick on his feet, rushing to block the door just a second before she could seize the handle. In his panic, he'd knocked over the chair he'd been sat on, and it made a deafening screeching noise as it scraped along the tiles, causing both of them to wince.
"I'm sure you couldn't possibly be so late that you don't even have enough time to tell your boyfriend the name of the person you're so concerned you're going to be late for." Ron was temporarily impressed by the iciness with which he'd spoken, without having faltered or tripped over his words even once, but the effect was lost as the uneasiness of Hermione's attitude overwhelmed him.
"Ron!" Hermione said irritably.
"Why can't you tell me?" he asked, not even caring how sulky he sounded.
Hermione merely met his question with a glare. "Ron." She was pleading now.
"Just a name. That's all I want to know. A name."
"What?" she asked shrilly. "Don't you trust me!"
"If you tell me who you're meeting them maybe I won't need a reason why I shouldn't trust you."
"Ron, this is ridiculous!"
"Then why can't you just tell me who you're meeting?"
A painful silence fell between them, in which the two glared at each other. It felt as though the old bitter anger that they would so frequently convey to each other was back once more. After what felt like minutes, but could really only have been seconds, Hermione pulled her wand from her purse. Immediate panic flitted into Ron's eyes. Hermione with a wand was scary enough, but Hermione with a wand when her anger was directed at him was absolutely terrifying.
Ron glanced towards the table where his own wand lay. He gulped as he realised he was completely defenceless against her. But was she really going to attack him?
In response, Hermione aimed her wand at the fallen chair, silently making it spring back to the position it had been in right before Ron had caused it to topple. Relief flooded Ron's body, but all too soon, Hermione's fierce look was directed at him once more, wand still tightly clutched in her hand.
"Ron, move," she ordered. "I need to go, now."
But Ron stood his ground, refusing to move even an inch before he'd gotten what he needed to hear. "I will as soon as you tell me who you're meeting," he said, still stubborn, wondering how longer the two of them could keep this up. Somebody was bound to cave soon, and for just once he didn't want it to be him.
But to Ron's surprise, something almost like defeat began to spread across Hermione's face. She lowered her wand.
"We shouldn't be keeping secrets from each other," Ron continued, trying to coax her into confessing whatever it was she was hiding.
"I don't have any secrets," Hermione said defiantly, though incredibly unconvincing. Ron didn't speak—only raised an eyebrow at her in a patronising manner.
"Keep looking at me like that, I dare you!"
Ron's eyebrow dropped, out of immediate fear—he was all too familiar with the ferocity in her tone—but remaining stubborn, he kept silent.
"Fine!" Hermione finally yelled at him, turning away and striding across the tiles with a clatter of high-heeled footsteps, putting enough space between them until she felt safe. Ron was immediately concerned. This was always her first move when they were about to start an argument.
Hermione turned on her heel to glare at him. "I didn't want to tell you who I was meeting," she said, "not because it's a secret, or there's anything about it that I wish to be secretive, but because I thought you'd freak out and completely overreact if I told you."
Ron didn't say a word, unsure of what exactly he could say to that. Who could she possibly be meeting up with that she knew would fill him with jealousy and rage? No names sprang to mind. "So, who, then?" he asked, now more curious than he was angry.
"Viktor Krum."
The effect on Ron was immediate. All the unrelenting hatred that that particular name stirred inside him had intensified due to years of bitter jealousy and now swelled inside him like a phoenix bursting forth from the ashes. "Viktor Krum?" he asked in a dangerous voice, his face turning as red as his hair. "Viktor Krum?" And then, he exploded. "YOU'RE SEEING VIKTOR KRUM BEHIND MY BACK?"
"Don't be stupid, Ron!" Hermione cried. "I am not seeing him in the way that you think I am. Don't you understand why I didn't want to tell you? How I knew you'd overreact!"
"Overreact?" Ron asked, his voice was abnormally high. "Overreact? How could this possibly be overreacting when I've just learnt that my supposed girlfriend is meeting up with her old lovers!?"
"He was not my lover!" Hermione replied furiously. "And he's only one person. You make it sound like I've got a string of men on the side!"
"And what's to say you haven't?" Ron challenged.
"Ron!"
"I forbid you to see him," he told her sternly. "Not now, not ever!"
"You forbid me?" Hermione spat in disgust. "You can do no such thing! Ronald Weasley, I am your girlfriend, not your dog! You never minded the other times—this time wouldn't have been any different."
"Other times? Exactly how long has this been going on?"
Hermione shrugged, looking slightly guilty. "A couple over the past year."
The anger had drained from Ron, only to be replaced with sorrow and dread. Feeling defeated, he went and sat down at the table, slumping down low in his chair. "Well," he said weakly. "We're certainly learning a lot today..."
Hermione sat in the chair opposite him, reaching across to take hold of his hand. She adopted a tender tone of voice, but he wouldn't look at her. "Ron, you know I would never cheat on you. I'm not seeing Viktor behind your back. I'm not in love with him—I never was. He's my friend, and it's nice to catch up once in a while. But I knew you'd take it like this, and I'm sorry that I never told you earlier, but please, please, just believe me when I tell you that I love you, and you alone."
Ron was still staring into his lap, refusing to look Hermione in the eye. But he couldn't pretend that her carefully chosen words hadn't stirred something within him. Hermione always knew what to say.
"You never loved him?" he asked quietly, uncertainly.
"Not once," she promised.
"But you... you went to the Yule Ball with him."
"That's only because the idiot I really wanted to go with didn't have the guts to pluck up the courage and ask me!"
Ron let out an involuntary laugh and then proceeded to frown after catching himself.
"You went with Padma Patil," Hermione pointed out. "Did you love her?"
Ron felt defeated as he considered this, finally looking up to meet Hermione's gaze. He was met only with love and compassion—none of the previous anger. "No, I was too much of an idiot to ask the girl I really loved."
Hermione beamed at him, tenderly stroking his hand with her own. "Did you really love me back then?"
Ron blushed. "I don't know. Maybe," he shrugged.
Hermione looked crestfallen.
"I thought maybe I could love you in the future," he tried to explain. "I knew that what I felt when we were that young could maybe turn into love as the years went on." He felt embarrassed to talk about his feelings so openly.
"And did it?" Hermione asked quietly.
Ron nodded, which was plenty good enough for her.
"You were my first love," Hermione confirmed. "It was never Viktor, or Cormac, or anybody else you might think it was. Not my first kiss, but nonetheless, completely my first and only love."
Ron sat up sharply, pulling his hands away from her. "I wasn't your first kiss?" he asked in accusation. "I suppose it was Krum, wasn't it! And you had the nerve to tell me you never loved him!"
"Oh, and do please tell me about your first kiss," Hermione challenged spitefully.
The colour drained from Ron's face. "Never mind..."
"Hmm, so tell me, Ron, did you love Lavender Brown?" Hermione asked, but with light-hearted humour rather than genuine jealousy. She was just grateful that she was finally getting through to him.
Ron very nearly broke into a smile, but the insecurity was still lingering. In a rather solemn manner, he said, "We didn't have to fall in love, we could've climbed down slowly..."
"That's very profound," Hermione said in surprise. "But I disagree—I couldn't have done anything but fall in love with you," she proudly declared, rising from her chair and reaching for her purse once more.
"Same," Ron mumbled, but the words were lost, only to be heard by his own ears.
He looked up sharply, suddenly realising that Hermione was headed for the door. That could mean only one thing. "You're not still going to meet him?" he asked, his voice shrill once more.
"Ron." Hermione smiled at him sympathetically, before turning on her heel to walk back to the table. She leant down so that her face was only inches from his, creating a much more intimate and personal atmosphere. "If we've learnt anything about each other today then it's that we need to trust each other more."
"It's not that I don't trust you," Ron tried to explain. "It's just, if there's one thing I've learnt from the years we spent fighting the Dark Arts with Harry, it's that you can't just trust anybody. The whole concept of trust is... hard for me to handle nowadays."
Hermione looked at him, endearment filling her eyes. She felt nothing but complete and utter love and devotion for the man that sat before her. She pressed her lips to his, closing the short gap between them. For a moment, they lingered there, caught in a beautifully perfect moment where nothing but the love they felt for each other mattered. She pulled away reluctantly.
But just before Hermione straightened up and walked to the door to go and meet up with her old friend, she leant in to Ron so that the very words she spoke seemed to brush against his lips. And with a soft and gentle tone, advised him that, "The best way to find out if you can trust somebody, is to trust them."
Originally written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition—Round 12
Team: Wigtown Wanderers
Position: Beater 1
OTP: Romione! (Ron and Hermione)
Additional Prompts: "We didn't have to fall in love, we could've climbed down slowly" – Upset Boulevard, Spector, Dialogue: "Keep looking at me like that, I dare you," and "The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them" – Ernest Hemingway