(A/N - apologies if it's rubbish - it's my first fanfic, which I wrote in about 20 minutes after listening to the song and thinking, oooooh. Set near the end of the seventh year, R/Hr. If anyone is interested, the song is Too Close For Comfort by McFly)
Too Close For Comfort
I never meant the things I said
To make you cry, can I say I'm sorry?
It's hard to forget, and yes I regret
All these mistakes
These words had finally come back to haunt him, echoes of a past he'd tried so hard to forget. But his shame would not permit him to, and Ron winced whenever he thought of all those times she'd needed him, needed his friendship, and he'd not helped her. When she'd needed support and he'd laughed at her. When she'd tried to do the right thing, and he'd turned on her, picking at her determined facade until he broke her defences and made her cry. He'd almost ruined everything.
But over the summer that had followed their fifth year he'd had time to reflect on his treatment of her. When she came to stay at the Burrow, he noticed, as if for the first time, the air of change about her. It was nothing obvious - she was the same old Hermione she'd always been, fussing over him and spooning food for him and worrying about Harry, stuck at the Dursleys. But it was as though a switch had been flicked in Ron's head. A completely new person seemed to have crept into him, a person who noticed absolutely everything about her and liked what he saw. The bushy brown hair that had taken her so long to tame for the Yule Ball shone like a beacon to him. Her constant nagging at him to do his homework, be nice to his sister, don't swear, once the bane of his life and a source of constant irritation, now were things that endeared her to him. Things he looked forward to, found himself missing. He even liked watching her study, for goodness sake.
For the whole of their sixth year, he fought against the feelings inside him - feelings he couldn't even begin to put words to, let alone act on. And to tell her! No way…completely out of the question. What would she want with someone like him, when she had already attracted the attentions of someone as famous and as talented as Viktor Krum? And they always seemed to be arguing, too. For the longest time, they could scarcely look at one another without one or other of them letting fly. He took it all in his stride for the most part - it barely affected him, but Hermione was often reduced to tears or an anger that prevented her from speaking to him for long periods of time.
Ron had decided he had no chance, so when Parvati Patil, giggling furiously behind her sleeve, cornered him in the common room one night and told him that Lavender Brown (who'd gone very red and pretended she was studying, clearly oblivious to the fact her book was upside down) fancied him, he decided to go for it. Can't lose what you never had, can you? he'd reasoned darkly.
Hermione's reaction, however, was one he neither expected nor hoped for in his wildest dreams. But she was by now so mad at him that he decided that whatever chance he may have had, he'd ruined. His arms bore the scars of her worst attack as proof of that.
And then all the stuff with the Ministry, and Harry and Voldemort had happened and he'd put it to the back of his mind, Harry's safety being clearly more important than such trivialities as Ron's love life (or attempt at one). At Dumbledore's funeral though, Hermione had clung to him and he had said nothing, but let her cry into his shoulder, trying to hide how pleased he was to have the excuse to hold her.
That summer, he'd fought with himself and finally decided to go for it. He took her, ears burning scarlet and hands shaking slightly, for a walk in the grounds on the first day of term and silently handed her a note that had kept him awake for the past two nights as he wondered desperately what to say. How did you tell your best friend you loved her? How did you even begin to word that? She had read it all without a word, and stood looking silently beautiful for so long that Ron felt himself panic and all his meticulously-rehearsed lines evaded him as he hastened to explain. He started to tell her everything. Everything he'd been feeling. How sorry he was for hurting her in the past, how much he regretted it, how much he cared for her, how sorry he was for putting her on the spot like this - when, to his utter shock, she cut off his speech mid-word with a cautious kiss.
From then on, they'd been inseparable. Their names became linked in other people's minds, like one single word - RonandHermione. Where one went, the other soon followed. But it couldn't last.
I don't know why you're leaving me
But I know you must have your reasons.
There's tears in your eyes, I watch as you cry.
But it's getting late
Ron blinked back the tears angrily, carefully hiding them from her view.
'W-what?' he finally stammered. If he was right, if he'd heard her correctly, then the bottom had just dropped out of his world.
'I'm sorry, Ron. It just…it isn't working.'
He stared at her, trying to understand what it was that was happening. This was Hermione talking to him. His Hermione, girlfriend of the last eight months, with whom he'd fought the darkest wizard the world had ever known so many times, who he'd cried for and been cried over by, whose gentle kiss could cheer him from the deepest gloom, whose enveloping hug could make even the worst Quidditch loss seem to him as good as winning the World Cup. This was Hermione. And she'd just said she was ending their relationship.
His head reeled. What had he done, to make her change? Last month, just last month, they'd been sitting by the lake, just the two of them, enjoying the March sun. She'd turned to him, liquid eyes shining and said seriously that he was the best thing that had happened to her in a long, long while. That she'd been waiting for this for the past three years, that she'd almost given up on him ever seeing her as more than another Harry with longer hair and more curves. That she still couldn't believe it had finally happened.
Was I invading in on your secrets?
Was I too close for comfort?
You're pushing me out
When I wanted in.
What was I just about to discover?
When I got too close for comfort,
Driving you home,
Guess I'll never know
And now - now, she stood before him, hair blowing slightly across her face in the breeze, calmly telling him that she was going away and leaving him. He watched, incredulous, as she lifted a hand to brush the hair from her eyes and his disbelief turned to anger. Inwardly he raged against her for hurting him like this and not even seeming to care. What had he done to make her change like this, when they'd been so happy? At least, he'd thought they were happy.
Hermione stood before him, beseeching him with her eyes, pleading with him to understand. He couldn't, wouldn't, meet her gaze. His mind was in overdrive - a feverish hash of memories tumbling about his head, memories of their time together, happy hours spent just being with her, just watching her.
Remember when we scratched our names
Into the sand, you told me you loved me.
But now that I find that you've changed your mind
I'm lost for words
As she moved her hand to her face again he watched expressionlessly, and was surprised to see that what he'd taken to be another attempt to tame her curls was in actuality a move to wipe her eyes. Clenched in her hand was a piece of paper, slightly tattered, reminding him with an unpleasant jolt of their second year, when Hermione lay Petrified in the hospital wing, frozen fingers curled tightly around the slip of paper that had held on it Harry's and Ginny's destinies. This one, though, he recognized carried his own untidy scrawl across it, and felt his insides squirm uncomfortably at the realisation of what it was.
And everything I feel for you
I wrote down on one piece of paper,
The one in your hand, you don't understand
How much it hurts to let you go
Seeing the tears start in her brown eyes he felt something within him melt and he moved to hold her, something he'd grown so accustomed to in the last eight months that it was almost second nature. But she shrank from his touch, eyes wide as though he'd made a serious faux pas, and he dropped his hands dejectedly, feeling as though he'd been punched in the solar plexus. Finally he found his voice and managed to squeak out miserably, 'I don't understand…what's wrong? What did I do?'
Was I invading in on your secrets?
Was I too close for comfort?
You're pushing me out
When I wanted in.
What was I just about to discover?
I got too close for comfort,
Driving you home
Guess I'll never know
She sighed exhaustedly, running her fingers distractedly through her hair. Her voice cracked slightly as she spoke, betraying the true feelings inside of her that she had tried so hard to mask.
'Ron, I - I've tried so many…this can't happen anymore…it's just not…oh God, this is so much harder than I thought it would be…'
She broke off and turned away from him so that he wouldn't see her cry. The clouds rolled around above them in a moody grey sky, slashed with pink and Ron felt something catch in his chest. He watched her back with sad blue eyes, watched her tremble slightly and tried in vain to control the palpitations of his own hands. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and kiss whatever was troubling her away, make it better for her with soft, candy-round kisses as he'd done so many times before.
All this time you've been telling me lies,
Hidden in bags that are under your eyes.
And when I asked you I knew I was right.
But if you turn your back on me now
When I need you most
But you chose to let me down, down, down
Ron needed her, desperately. How could he go on normally, knowing what they'd once shared, what his life would become? He didn't know what was happening, why she was doing this; all he knew was that he had to persuade her otherwise, make her reconsider. But how? He could think of nothing to say, nothing to do. Only one word came to his mind, and he whispered it now, the last desperate plea of a boy who knows that he has lost.
'Please?'
Won't you think about what you're about to do to me
And back down...
When she didn't reply, but began to walk away from him, Ron felt the tears finally overflow from eyes too stubborn to let them fall. His breath caught in his throat and he wiped his nose on the back of his hand, not caring who saw, what anyone thought of him. Without Hermione, he was nothing - who else was there to worry about, besides Harry? Who else could make him feel like he was truly alive? He stood outside for long moments, not noticing the heavens finally opening and pouring down on him, soaking him to the skin, his robes sticking to his lanky frame.
Was I invading in on your secrets Hermione walked away, feeling as though her heart would break. She cried without restraint now, her face masked with tears that poured relentlessly and she wished with all her heart it could have been different. But she had already seen too many people hurt, too many relationships broken, too much life lost, thanks to Voldemort.
Was I too close for comfort
You're pushing me out
When I wanted in
What was I just about to discover
I got too close for comfort
You're pushing me out
When I wanted in
She wasn't about to let Ron become another casualty of a war they should never have had to fight. But the pain on his face as she'd ended it had hurt her more than she could ever have imagined. She wished that she could have explained, but he would only have tried to talk her out of it. And it would all have ended so much worse.
Better to hurt him with words than with wands.