Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me. Deathly Hallows Compliant, as well as Nineteen Years Later compliant. "It's now or never, isn't it?" isn't mine, and is taken from page 625 of Deathly Hallows. Enjoy!
Hermione Granger Says "Hello"
Hermione Granger looked out the window of her shared bedroom in the Burrow, and grimaced at the sunshine she found outside. She would have said that it just wasn't right for there to be sunshine outside when so many wonderful, brave, and lovely people had just died weeks before—but somehow the sun was fitting to the mood in the house. Though one of their brightest members had just died weeks ago, leaving a scarred and confused twin behind him, the Weasley family seemed to be moving with the tides, attempting to work, and scrub, and degnome through the pain that washed over them every-time an accidental smile graced their faces. George especially, attempted to muster a signature grin, or tell a joke to lighten the tension that marked the first few days after the "Great Battle". He seemed intent on filling in the space left behind by his brother, as if, by being twice as funny or cheerful, no one would notice the loss of one so important to the family dynamic. And so the sunshine outside mimicked the false cheer within, for one always had the feeling that there was a dark cloud just beyond the horizon, and that the sunshine was only a temporary distraction.
Hermione was not fooled by the forced and rosy haze that made the events occurring seem blurred. She could see the heavy brow of Arthur Weasley—the new wrinkles marking Molly's tear-stained cheeks. She knew that Ginny could not stand to be alone anymore, and constantly sought the attentions and companionship of whoever happened to be handy, and could see through the brave face that marked Percy's stoic features. But above all others, she could read the pain on Ron's face, in his shoulders, in his back, and legs, and fingers—she could feel it radiating off of him, a silent pain that wracked his body as he tried to go through the motions of "ordinary life" back home. They had all been through so much, and lost so much, but the weight of it all seemed to fall so hard on him, and she had never seem him look so vulnerable—his smile concealing nothing, not from her.
Looking out into the garden, she spotted him reaching down to catch another garden gnome, rushing after them in an over-zealous manner, with more drive than he had ever had when approaching the task in the past. He seemed intent on "doing something", and would hardly sit to eat his supper, or even to go to sleep at night. She would stay awake until she heard him creep into his shared room with Harry at all hours of the night—it seemed that insomnia was yet another thing he had to suffer through. And though she felt guilty about it, as she watched him, Hermione couldn't help but notice the curve of his back as he stooped to catch the tiny gnomes, or the slight sunburn that crept across his freckled cheeks—her eyes following his movements with recalcitrant interest. Though she knew that now was no time to ask the question that had been on the tip of her tongue, start the conversation that desperately needed to be begun, she couldn't help but consider the option as she watched his long form bend through the tall grass and flora.
For though the "Great Battle", or so it had been called by the vapid reporters of The Daily Prophet, had been a time of death and victory, sorrow and relief, it had also been the site of one of the maddest things Hermione had ever done. She had kissed him, finally kissed him. In the middle of the Room of Requirement, during a frenzied search for the last Horcrux—she had kissed him. And Harry had yelled, and Voldemort was coming, and there was a fire in the room they were standing in, they still needed to find the diadem, Crabbe and Goyle were spiraling through the air, and there was certainly no time for any explanations, except for his "it's now or never, isn't it?". But she had kissed him, finally, she had kissed him.
In the following weeks, Hermione had played the role she was most comfortable with, Ron's second-best friend. She was there for him whenever he needed someone, or something, and did her best to be available to him, and as supportive as possible—but that was all. They were back to basics, and sometimes she felt as if all of the year's groundwork for something more between them had fallen into the dust left in the battle's wake. And she had tried, for nearly a month, to convince herself that that was okay with her, that she would be fine with returning to how things had always been, and remain a trio—her, Harry, and Ron. But now she was sitting there in the room she shared with Ginny, staring at him run across his back garden, and all she could think about was that kiss, and what he had meant by "it's now or never, isn't it?"
She stood up, ran her hands through her curly hair, and walked, ran, walked down the stairs to the back door of the Burrow. Passing Mrs. Weasley on her way out, she smiled vaguely and said hello, and stepped outside into the sun-soaked grass, her feet bare and getting muddier with each step she took towards his curved and stooped back. Coming up behind him, she slipped her hand into his, effectively stopping the work he had been so intent on. At her touch, Ron looked up from the ground slowly, his face wiped with dirt, and sweat, and that ever-growing burn across his cheekbones and forehead. His features were clouded, and she wasn't sure at all what was happening beneath the red hair on his head, only sure that this was something that she had to do, something that she had put off for far too long. Keeping his hand clasped within her own, she led him slowly through the tall grass, and out through the white-washed wooden fence that encircled his home. They walked, without comment or speech, together until they came to where the grass met the trees, and they were suddenly under the cover of a green canopy.
Her destination reached, and far enough away from the prying eyes and ears of the rest of his family, Hermione steeled herself for the speech she was about to give, when Ron suddenly withdrew his hand and turned away from her, his shoulders cold and rigid, and spoke in a low and barely-there voice.
"So, I guess you're going to tell me that you didn't mean it, eh? Really Hermione, don't even bother, I know that its rather normal for you to just mess about with blokes—it doesn't really matter to you does it? Really Hermione, save it. Just let it alone," With these words, Ron began to walk away, his gait slow but determined to get away from her. Hermione was shocked, and slightly angered by his words, How dare he think so little of her, and what ever did he mean by her "messing about with blokes"?
She stepped towards him, caught his hand again, and lost it once more as he pulled it out of her grasp. This being the final straw, Hermione let her anger and frustration bubble over, and began to let fly a month, no, four years, worth of pent-up emotion, to his retreating back. "How dare you insult me this way! I surely don't deserve your misplaced anger, and I most certainly don't deserve your criticism.. I have done nothing wrong by you—I only brought you out here because I wanted to have an actual conversation with you for once, but it seems that you are just too immature to handle it," she said with an icy stare at his back.
Ron spun around once again, his face aflame, his arms and legs shaking from what she could only assume was a comparable amount of anger to that which wracked her bones. "You bloody well ignore me for a month now, and then you come and take me away from my work, only to tell me what I already know, and aren't too keen on hearing right now—and now you feel that you've got some sort of right to have it out on me? I'm not getting your logic here, Miss Know-It-All," he spat back at her. Wholly affronted by his stinging words and the tone of his voice, which seemed to convey no trace of the friendship she thought they had returned to, Hermione could only sputter in response. "You know, I actually thought that maybe you had noticed all the bloody work I did, trying to make myself the kind of 'world-class' bugger that you seem to go off on. But I'm just mad ol' Ron, the git who thought that maybe you'd..."
Hermione felt as if she had been smacked across the face, all of the anger within her melting away somehow as she watched him walk away from her, back to the garden where he had been working. She had always been able to understand him better than any other person—she could tell what he was thinking, could guess his moods, had the ability to calm him down during one of his bouts of anger or sullenness—but now she felt so cut off from him and any chance of understanding, that she could feel a permanent break in who they had been, and who they would be, together as friends, or as anything else. It seemed to her that there could be no hope.
Three days later, Hermione found herself lying awake in her four-poster bed, waiting to hear Ron return to his room for bed. Though they had not spoken at all in the past three days, beyond a few grunts or pleasantries to keep up appearances around his family and Harry, who could not take much more problems than his own at the moment, especially not a total and complete breakdown of a friendship that surely meant so much to him, she still waited up for him till all hours of the night, unable to sleep until she heard him creeping up the creaky stairs to his room. And though it had only been a few days, she sorely missed his presence. It seemed that all she could think about was the way that his too-long hair fell into his eyes, or how he would guide her through the puddles surrounding his house after a morning rain, or how his face would light up the color of Rosmerta's mead, every time he caught her looking at him from across the breakfast table. There were so many things to notice the absence of, that sometimes her whole day would seem to be one large absence, and she could hardly bear it.
Hermione sat up in bed at the sound of footfalls on the wooden stairs outside her door. It being too early for Ron to be heading to bed, for it was barely midnight, she assumed that it was Ginny returning from her parent's room, where she had fallen asleep while keeping her mother company hours before. She reached over to light the candle beside her bed, but before she could do so, she was startled by the figure she found inside her doorway. For instead of Ginny returning to her room, Ronald was standing there, his blue eyes dark, and his fists stuffed inside the pockets of his pyjama pants. "Hello," she said in a small voice that she barely recognized as her own.
Without responding, Ron moved slowly towards her bed, the door closing behind him, his footsteps sluggish but determined. Reaching her bedside, he pushed her back into her cotton pillow with the weight of his torso, and crashed his lips into hers.
His long legs and feet followed his torso onto the bed, and he was suddenly on top of her, his mouth pressing against hers, with more force than she could've imagine possible. His eyes were open and wide, and as he looked down at her through the frenzy, they connected with her own, and it was as if everything and nothing had been said, or as if nothing would ever need to be said, at least not for the moment. And Hermione found herself kissing his neck, his collarbone, his jaw, his sunburnt ears—pulling her small hands through his red hair, and down his back that still hovered above her. Ron seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as she countered his actions, for as he brought his lips across her face and skin and pressed his body against hers, she only reciprocated. As she began to trail kisses down his neck to the edge of his tee-shirt, his hands pressed against her back, and slipped beneath the edge of her night-shirt. Hermione caught her breath sharply at his touch, and began the same exploration of his own back, tracing her fingers in circles and spirals across his lower spine. Upon a small noise from Ron, Hermione continued to dash kisses across his neck and jaw, and he worked his way higher up the back of her shirt, sending shivers throughout her body. Their lips met again with a fever, rolling like disturbed tides against each other, connecting and reconnecting wildly. He pressed his lips onto the skin of her neck, and she could feel his hot breath upon her, coaxing her to further traverse the coils and scars of his back with her hands, and to bring her lips to his ears and freckled cheeks.
Ron suddenly stopped, took his lips from her neck, and his fingers from her back, and sat upright, kneeling on her bed next to her still and recumbent body. Turning his heated gaze away from her, he began to speak in a determined voice that she had never heard from him before. "I'm not great, Hermione. I'm not great, or wise, or cool, I'm probably starkers in fact, and I'm surely not great. But I am good. I'm good, Hermione, and I'm good for you." More startled perhaps, by this effusion, this rhapsody, than by anything else that he had done in the last few minutes—Hermione was left speechless and star-struck. She hated to hear him say such things about himself, but she knew now that she would have a great while to convince him otherwise. Ronald Weasley was many things, and good was certainly one of them, but he would have to someday know that he was much more than a boy standing at the sidelines of greatness. But for now, Hermione would settle for the next best thing to a heated argument and cries of denial. Without a word, Hermione reached up towards his flushed and stormy face and crashed against him with another kiss, her only explanation remaining a whispered, "It's now or never, isn't it?".
fin