Looking back he's not just embarrassed because at sixteen he has the emotional capacity of a dead slug, but because it took him three weeks to wonder why.

"It's not…well…because I'm Harry's friend, is it?"

"Of course not," She's taken aback, and there's a flash of something genuine that he hasn't seen from her before, something like sympathy, maybe, and he gets a sneaking suspicion that she might be a real person after all, not just this sea of pink and glitter and girl.

"So it's because I play Quidditch?" he offers, and she nods, says something about liking a man in uniform with a puzzling distant laugh, tells him it's a muggle reference when he's confused. (Parvati teachers her a lot about muggles. That's one of the few things he learns in between what is, all in all, not a very communicative relationship.)

He jokes to Harry that it's because she's got a thing for gingers and Harry makes the obligatory carpet-drapes reference and Ron gives him the obligatory punch in the shoulder, but something in Ron is telling him that no, that's not it. But he's sixteen and they break up and then he's trying to demonstrate to Hermione that he's not a slug (or a teaspoon) and he forgets.

He forgets all about Lavender Brown, for the most part.

Eventually his family separates again. Dad and Charlie and the rest have gone back to fighting, George and Mum and Ginny are left with Fred's body, and he's being largely supported by Hermione as they wander and argue about whether he's in any condition to keep fighting and whether they need to look for Harry.

That's when they see Parvati cradling Lavender in her arms. Ron is bizzarely hopeful at first, but as they get closer he realizes that, of course, someone else is dead.

Hermione promptly begins sobbing. "I tried…I tried…" she keeps repeating to Parvati, who clearly isn't listening.

He wipes away a few tears of his own but can't tell if they're residuals from earlier and awkwardly pats Parvati's shoulder before he (for the most part) forgets about Lavender. Again.

Hermione doesn't approve of Ron drinking alone. Not that he blames her. He doesn't do it often but there have been a few times where he has embellished how long he's been at the shop with George, and this is one of those nights.

This morning Hermione said she was worried he might be depressed. "If I'm depressed what the hell is Fred?" he snaps (and then apologizes for immediately when she looks positively wounded). He can tell already that this is not the end of this conversation.

He's at the dingy pub on the wrong side of Diagon Alley, a place occupied almost chiefly by aging, sad-looking widows and lecherous men. That's probably the only reason he recognizes Parvati ordering at the bar. She's still pretty but she looks rather thin. Not in a fragile way, just sort of closed in.

He waves her over, gives her a one-armed squeeze. She kisses his cheek. He realizes he's sort of happy to see her.

She tells him she's working at St. Mungo's with Cho Chang, says she's seen him in the shop window a few times while out running errands.

"Oh, and you're engaged!" she says.

"Right, yeah. Did you see the Prophet last week, then?"

"Yes, but Cho and I figured you and Hermione would tie the knot soon. Surprised Harry and Ginny were married first, honestly."

"What about you?" he asks. She shakes her head.

"Well, the lads in our year were shit anyway, you remember the Yule Ball." But she shakes her head again, harder.

They move on to more small talk before she comes out with, "You ever think about her?"

"D'you mean…erm…Lavender?"

"Yeah."

"Honestly, I mean, well, I do think about everyone, of course, but it's mostly my brother, y'know, he…"

"Of course," she says immediately. "I'm sorry. I only asked since you were talking about weddings and I was just thinking, you know, about Lavender and whether she'd want to, whether she'd be ready to…well. Anyway."

Something about Parvati's tone makes Ron figure out, finally, what has happened to her. Now that he knows exactly went wrong with Lavender Brown, he wishes he thought about her more. Wishes he'd apologized. He squeezes Parvati's hand, hopes he's somehow telepathically imparting the things he'll never say out loud.

That night he kisses Hermione hello so emphatically that he actually knocks her into the kitchen table.