Things that Fall Together
(or the one in which I ship the oddest ship I have ever shipped. It works out well. Thank heavens.)
Disclaimer: not mine, clearly
Warnings: Alcoholism, references to torture and PTSD
It doesn't work out between Ron and Hermione. Theirs was a grand love story, forged in war and trial and tribulation, but that's where the damn problem is, isn't it? Because they're good at sacrificing themselves for each other, good at holding each other through the nightmares, good at helping each other forget, and burning the pain away in a flood of skin, and soft sighs, and open-mouthed kisses placed tenderly on vulnerable skin.
But they aren't good at… domesticity.
Ron is careless, and swears too blue, and is terrible with getting his laundry done, not to mention his godawful obsession with Indian food.
Hermione is hard to live with - everything must be 'just so', or she frets and gasps and sinks to her knees and can't breathe. Her schedule is maintained with religious fervour, and Ron's impulsiveness has no place in it.
So one July, four months after the war, after getting their own place in Hogsmeade so they could stay near the rebuilding efforts at Hogwarts, she links his fingers through his, tucked into his side where they sit on the damp green lawn of the Hogwarts grounds, and says, "This is… Are we… Did we mess this up?"
She looks up at him, big doe eyes and a resolute bottom lip that refuses to tremble.
"I don't… know? Ah, damn, sweetheart," he sighs, and gathers her in his arms, tipping his head back against the giant oak, her face buried in his shoulder, to gaze through its foliage at the star-studded night sky. "We could've been alright you know? If it hadn't been for… well, all this." He waves a careless hand towards the ruins of Hogwarts, still covered in scaffolding and marred with the ash-black of explosive destruction.
"But…," she pulls out from under his arm, to grasp both his hands in hers and look steadily at him. "But we can't be, can we? We can't be alright." Her expression is a little bleak, a little mournful, a little wry and all Hermione. He smiles back at her - a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes - and that is answer enough.
A/n:
Tiny, fledgling, bite-sized chapters of a tiny, fledgling baby story. Updates every other day. Thanks for reading!