Chapter 1 - Another Summer
Ron stood in front of the fireplace, his hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets. He felt someone's eyes on him but didn't turn around to see who it was.
"Your eyes will fall out soon if you don't quit staring a hole through the fireplace," came Ginny's voice from behind Ron.
Ron ignored her, but shifted his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, his eyes still focused on the empty fireplace.
"What time is she supposed to be coming?" Ginny asked as she sat down on the couch behind Ron.
"Not sure," Ron mumbled. He tried to take a peek at his watch without Ginny noticing, but she suppressed a slight giggle and Ron rolled his eyes. "Would you go away?" he groaned.
"Okay, okay," Ginny said as she stood from the couch, holding her hands up in surrender, though Ron couldn't see her as his back was still towards her. Ginny paused before leaving the room though, and Ron tried hard not to think about her eyes on his back. "She's fine," Ginny said firmly after a moment. "Don't worry." Ginny paused again, her eyes still on Ron's back, and he nodded once, trying not to think about what he'd do if Hermione wasn't alright... He heard Ginny's soft footsteps moving away through the kitchen and finally up the stairs behind him. He let out a long shaky sigh and held up his watch to his eyes again.
It was true that he wasn't sure when Hermione would be coming. The only plans they had been able to make were that she'd be going home for a very short visit with her parents and to pack... to get ready for the coming year. Then she'd be traveling by floo to Ron's house. But recently, Ron had begun to seriously doubt Hermione's ability to arrive by floo. Mr. Weasley had agreed to link Hermione's house to the floo network for a short time, but things had become increasingly chaotic for him at work, and he had started to take extra precautions, no longer traveling to and from work by floo anymore either. He had taken to Apparating everywhere, and now that Hermione had passed her Apparition test at the end of their last school term, Ron wondered if it wouldn't be safer for her to Apparate directly onto the Burrow's grounds. But he had no way of contacting her to tell her his concerns. He wasn't allowed to owl anyone, and no messages had come in from anyone.
It had been a week exactly, one week since he had hugged Hermione goodbye on the platform and looked back over his shoulder to watch her departing with her parents. And that's what they had said... one week. Hermione had told him that it should take her at least a week before she'd be able to join his family at the Burrow. So, after dinner, Ron had stationed himself in front of the fireplace and wouldn't budge for anything or anyone. Hours passed, and still he stayed in front of the fireplace, unwilling to move. After the fourth hour, he sat down on the couch, his elbows on his knees, his eyes fixed on the ash at the bottom of the fireplace.
Finally, after everyone else had gone to bed, Mrs. Weasley sat quietly on the couch next to Ron.
"Why don't you head on up to bed, dear," she said gently.
"'M okay," Ron said sleepily.
"Ron, your father will be home soon and our room is close to the kitchen. We'll know if Hermione arrives."
Ron considered his mother's words for a moment. He honestly felt that it was unlikely that Hermione would be arriving at his house past midnight, and it was now nearly quarter past, but what if she showed up and he was already in bed? He needed to see her the moment she arrived... needed to know that she was alright...
"Mum," Ron began slowly. "What if she Apparates? It's possible, now that she has her license. Someone has to be awake to let her inside the house."
"We'll hear her," Mrs. Weasley said reassuringly. "She'll knock on the door and we'll hear her."
After a long pause, Ron nodded slowly.
"Alright, I'll go to bed, but you have to promise that you'll wake me up if she gets here in the middle of the night. And tell dad the same thing when he gets home."
Mrs. Weasley smiled softly at her son and nodded.
"We'll make sure you know," she said.
"Thanks," Ron mumbled as he stood from the couch. "'Night."
Ron had no idea what time it was when his eyes cracked open in his dark bedroom later that night. He wondered for a moment what had woken him, but as he blinked to clear his vision, a silhouette came into focus standing quietly at the side of his bed.
"Hermione?!" Ron gasped as he sat up in bed with a jolt.
"Hi," she said in a tiny voice.
"It is you!" Ron scooted on his knees to the edge of his bed and flung his arms around Hermione's waist, pulling her down to him slightly so his face was buried in her neck. She wrapped her own arms instantly around his shoulders and held him closely to her. Several seconds passed as Ron breathed in deeply, his eyes closed. But suddenly, he was fully awake and aware of everything he had just done. He felt his face heat up immediately as his eyes popped open. He pulled back from Hermione and looked anywhere but directly at her.
"I just got here," Hermione said, and Ron had the impression that she could see him blushing, even in the dark room, and that she was trying to change the subject. He silently thanked her if that really was what she was up to. "Your dad let me in the front door."
"So you Apparated?" Ron asked and he looked at Hermione now, his interest in her story enough to distract him from what had just happened.
"Yes. I wasn't sure if the floo would be safe. I know we talked about it before..."
"No, you were right to Apparate. I was a little... uh... worried about you using the floo to be honest," Ron said, scratching the back of his neck, slightly embarrassed.
Hermione moved to sit on the edge of Ron's bed.
"And sorry about coming in so late," Hermione continued. "I felt terrible waking your parents, though your dad didn't seem like he'd been sleeping. He told me to come up and let you know I was here. I would have done anyway..."
Ron smiled slightly at her comment.
"It's okay about being late," he said. "And I doubt it's been long since dad got home from work actually."
Hermione nodded.
"I planned to arrive in the middle of the night so I could avoid being seen by anyone."
"Good idea," Ron said, nodding.
Hermione went very quiet all of a sudden and looked down at her hands in her lap.
"You okay?" Ron asked in a quiet voice, not sure what she could be thinking about. When she didn't answer, he moved slightly closer to her. "Hermione?"
It almost seemed like she was holding her breath. He couldn't see her very well in the dark and her head was turned down and away from him. But before he could ask her again if she was alright, she let out a stifled sob and covered her face with her hands.
"Hermione?" Ron scooted even closer. He wanted to hold her but he wasn't sure if he should, if she wanted him to. "What it is? Has something happened?"
It suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea what Hermione may have been through since they had parted on the platform a week ago... Damn the consequences, he thought, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her towards him. She responded by turning in towards him and nearly knocking him back into the bed. She wrapped both of her arms around his shoulders and cried into his neck. He tried not to feel happy about holding her so closely. This wasn't the time to feel happy about anything. Hermione was crying, and he had no idea why...
"My... parents..." Hermione choked out through sobs.
Ron felt his heart sink into the pit of his stomach. He wasn't sure what he'd do if she told him they were injured... or worse... He waited for her to go on, not sure what he should say yet.
"I sent them away," Hermione whispered through her tears.
Ron felt relief wash over him. But he realized almost instantly that he might not have the whole story yet.
"Sent them away where?" he asked softly.
"To Australia. So they would be safe," Hermione cried.
Ron paused to think about this for a moment, and when Hermione didn't go on, he thought that it was probably safe to assume that they weren't in danger at the moment.
"Okay, so that's good then, right?" Ron said, trying to sound positive. "You protected them."
But apparently this had not been the right thing to say. Hermione began to sob uncontrollably again and Ron felt the collar of his t-shirt getting wetter by the second.
"Ron... oh, Ron, what have I done?" she cried, her fists clenched in the back of Ron's cotton shirt.
"Hermione," Ron began, but now he really was confused. What was she on about? He moved one hand into her hair and let his fingers tangle into it slightly. "What happened?" he tried after a moment.
"They... they don't remember me. They don't know me!"
Ron's eyes widened. She continued to cry and he felt her back shaking.
"What do you mean?" Ron asked slowly after a moment.
"I... I altered their memories."
Ron's eyes widened even more.
"What?" he asked, trying not to sound as shocked as he felt. Hermione let out another huge sob and he felt her shaking worse than ever.
"I had to do it!" Hermione cried defensively. "I had to! They don't know who they are. They don't know who I am. So they'll be safe, you see?"
Ron did see, and now that it made sense to him, what Hermione had done... he felt completely awed by the girl in his arms, not that this was the first time he'd felt that way about her. He ducked his head slightly so his face was pressed against the top of her head.
"That's about the bravest thing I've ever heard of," he said into her hair.
"Brave?" Hermione said questioningly into Ron's shoulder.
"Yeah! Blimey! I don't know if I would have been able to do something like that..."
Hermione pulled back from him now, and he raised his head so she could move away. She looked up at him, tears still pooling in her eyes.
"It isn't horrid, what I've done?"
"Course not," Ron said honestly. "You may have saved their lives. Dunno why I didn't think of something like that before you left the platform..."
Hermione sniffed and removed her arms from around Ron to wipe her eyes and cheeks with the side of her hand.
"I... I don't know if I can reverse it," Hermione whispered, her voice breaking.
"Sure you can," Ron said, not a hint of doubt in his voice. And he didn't doubt her. He knew that if anyone could reverse the spell, it would be Hermione. And he didn't even really know what spell she had used. He just knew that it would work out. It was Hermione after all.
"But you don't know that, Ron," Hermione said seriously.
"Yeah, I do. When have you ever failed, Hermione?"
She sighed, her breath coming out shakily.
"But that's the problem, isn't it?" Hermione said softly, shaking her head.
"What is?" Ron asked, confused.
"Everyone thinks I'm just brilliant at everything."
"Because you are," Ron stated simply.
He caught a slight smile playing at the corners of Hermione's lips before she continued.
"That doesn't mean I'm perfect. You and Harry both expect me to be. And I'm not always going to get everything right. I'm so scared that I'll screw up everything because there will be something I won't be able to get us out of, something that we'll get into that's way over our heads."
"Hermione," Ron began, feeling a bit guilty all of a sudden. "We don't expect you to figure everything out on your own. We're not going to just sit back like we do in History of Magic and expect you to get us out of trouble at every turn." Ron gave her a half smile, hoping to cheer her up slightly with his joke. It seemed to work as she returned the smile. "We're going to do this together. All three of us."
Hermione smiled wider at Ron now and sniffed back her remaining tears.
"Thanks," she whispered.
"'Course." Ron blushed slightly and had to look away from Hermione for a moment, hoping that she hadn't noticed. "I'm really sorry about your parents, Hermione. But they're safe. They'll be alright. And when this is all over, we'll go and find them and bring them home."
"We?" Hermione asked, grinning again.
"Yeah," Ron said, nodding. "Didn't think I was going to let you go alone, did you? In fact, now that you're here, I hope you know that you aren't going anywhere without me again."
"Ever?" Hermione said playfully, raising her eyebrows at Ron.
"Ever." Ron sat back against his pillow in a final sort of way and put his hands behind his head . "So get used to it."
"Okay," Hermione said, nodding. "I'm used to it."
"Already?" Ron asked, grinning.
"Yeah, I wasn't planning on letting you go anywhere without me either so it works out."
"Perfect," Ron said, and then Hermione did something he could never have expected. She scooted up to the head of the bed and rested back against his pillow right next to him. Her left shoulder rested up against his right one, and as she settled into the pillow, most of the left side of her body rested against the right side of his. He had never felt goosebumps quite this severe before...
After a long silent paused filled only by the sporadic breathing of both of them, Hermione spoke in a voice so small that it was hard for Ron to hear her and breath at the same time. So he held his breath the moment her tiny voice broke the silence.
"Ron... do you think that I could... well, Ginny's bound to be asleep. I left my trunk downstairs. And Harry's not here. His bed's still here in your room and..."
Hermione fell silent again. Ron blinked. Was she asking... to sleep in his room??
"It's okay," Hermione continued after what seemed like an eternity of extremely awkward silence. She moved slightly next to Ron and he had the feeling that she was about to get up. "Don't worry about it... I was just-"
"Wait," Ron cut in, turning onto his side towards her now so that he could actually look at her. "You... you can stay. I wasn't... trying to make you think that you couldn't..." He felt his face heat up to such an extreme temperate that he was sure it would soon set fire.
"Oh," Hermione whispered. "Okay. Thank you."
Silence engulfed them as Hermione leaned back slightly against Ron's pillow again. He didn't move but remained on his side facing her, trying not to look directly at her in case she caught him. He picked at a frayed bit of his blanket between them and focused his eyes on it.
"Ron?" Hermione said in a tiny voice after a long moment.
"Hm?"
"Do you... do you think we'll make it?"
Ron opened his mouth slightly to reply, but he wasn't sure what to say. He hadn't been expecting Hermione to ask him something like this...
"I..." but he stopped, wanting to tell her that they would make it, that everything would be fine, but knowing that he couldn't lie to her, and he was honestly terrified of what was coming. "I don't know," he said finally. "I really don't."
He felt Hermione tremble slightly beside him but still couldn't bring himself to look directly at her. She was so close... His heart was pounding rapidly as he thought of what to say next.
"But no one does know, do they?" he continued. "We've got a plan..." Ron paused, then added, "sort of." He smiled slightly, though he wasn't sure Hermione had seen him. "And we've got some time," he went on, "to work everything else out. We're not going to jump into anything completely unprepared."
"But how can we be prepared when we don't even know what it is that we need to prepare for? Sure, we have some idea, we know what we have to do. We have to finish off the Horcruxes, then hunt down Voldemort." Ron flinched, but Hermione ignored him. "But we have no idea what obstacles we'll be up against."
Ron thought hard for a long moment, unsure of what to say to comfort her. But finally, he felt his own heart lighten slightly as his thoughts shifted from doom and destruction to hope and... love... Though he wouldn't be able to tell her how he felt exactly, he at least had one thing that he felt confident enough to say aloud.
"We've made it through before, haven't we. Every year there's been something, hasn't there... And we haven't failed yet. Sure, some of that was luck. But there's just something about the way we work together, the three of us. Do you feel it too? It's like we're meant for this, like we were destined for it. And I don't think I'd feel that way if we didn't have a chance of making it, if we weren't meant to succeed."
Ron felt Hermione shift in the bed beside him and he chanced a glance at her. She had moved onto her side facing him directly now. He smiled at her as she stared into his eyes, and he stared back, though his ears and cheeks were burning.
"I feel it too," Hermione said softly, her lips forming into a smile to match Ron's.
"Good," Ron said. His heart pounded furiously in his chest, but he didn't want to look away from her now that she was smiling at him. He felt his insides go soft and warm, and though it wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling, he never wanted it to end.
"Yes, it is good," Hermione said with a nod and a yawn.
Their eyes became heavier and heavier as they stared at one another across Ron's pillow, and before they knew it, they were sleeping soundly next to each other, Ron's left hand resting mere inches from Hermione's right as if begging to hold hers in his dreams.