Author's Note: Hi! This is just a little one-shot that came to mind. It's really out of character for me: it's in the first person, it's a bit off-canon, and it's a little angst-y. I am not doing a great job selling the story!
Please read and review though, like I said, it's out of the box for me, so I'd love to get opinions!
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Seven days, eleven hours, thirteen minutes, and twenty three – no – twenty four seconds. I have been back seven days, eleven hours, thirteen minutes, and twenty four seconds. And I can feel every moment of it. I can feel it in the way she glares at me, or the way I would ask her a question and her silence would weigh heavily on my ears. I could feel it yesterday when we had both been in the kitchen, and my elbow had brushed hers as I reached up for a glass. She had frozen, her fingers slackening and dropping the dish she had been holding. It had crashed to the floor in thousands of tiny pieces, shattering around her like a halo. I could feel it last night when I had walked in from sitting guard outside the tent and she had been curled up on her bed, sobbing. The moment I entered she turned her face, hiding from me, but I can still feel it. Her eyes, streaming with tears, had been burned permanently into my brain, punishing me.
I wondered if it was ever going to get any better – if there would be one day where I could look at her and she would not sear me with her eyes. If one day I could talk to her, make her laugh again. I wondered if one day I would be able to reach out and hold her hand in mine.
Seven days, was that long enough? I had hoped at first, that things could just go back to the way they had been before I had left, but it had been a foolish assumption, a pointless dream. I deserved those icy stares and pointed silences. I just hoped that one day they would stop. She didn't know (how could she) what she did to me.
Or did she know after all? Did she know that sometimes I had dreams about her, dreams that made me very thankful that Harry could just hear thoughts, and not read them himself? Did she know that sometimes, she would lean into me and all of the nerves in my body would ignite, and my heart would beat so hard and fast I was scared that she would hear it? Did she know that every time we have a conversation, I would replay it in my mind, going over what I had said, and if I had done anything stupid.
No, she couldn't know, because if she did, she would know what she did to me every time she glared at me, every time she ignored my voice, every time she pretended I didn't exist. If she knew how I felt about her, she wouldn't be like this. Because she would know that it tore me apart, the way she was now.
It was raining again, the heavy raindrops beating down on the canvas of the tent and then running off in streams down the sides. The storm sky swirled overhead, the different shades of grey mixed together. Hermione had conjured several of the small, portable fires she was so adept at producing, but no amount of fire could keep out the chill that had permeated the tent. The bad weather matched our moods, making things duller and more miserable.
Harry was sitting guard at the mouth of the tent. I could just make out his mop of untidy black hair. Hermione was sitting in the living room, a book perched on her drawn legs. I doubted she was actually reading it; for one thing she hadn't flipped the page in the last ten minutes, and it does not take her that long to read. She was also holding the book upside down. I didn't want to go into the living room area, because it was too close to her, and to get back to my bunk I would have to pass her. So I stood in the kitchen, cursing my cowardice and playing with the sleeve of my shirt because I could think of nothing else to do.
Hermione slammed her book shut and threw it aside. It hit the opposite wall of the tent and bounced off, falling heavily to the floor and opening to the middle. She got out of her chair, and then looked back at where I was standing. Giving me a cold, hard look that stopped my heart, she crossed the tent very quickly and left, storming past Harry and into the rain.
I watched her go, both completely confused and slightly uncertain. Surely I had not done anything, standing here. So why on earth had she just jumped up and left like that? Harry walked into the tent, looking over his shoulder at the spot where Hermione had disappeared. He looked apprehensive and perplexed.
"Did you say something to her?" he asked me; I had finally been freed and had walked out of the kitchen.
I shook my head. "No, she was just sitting there, pretending to read, and then she got up and stormed out," I said, shaking my head. "I didn't do anything!"
Harry nodded, his eyes narrowed in thought. He looked up at Ron expectantly. "Maybe one of us should go out there. You know, to make sure she's alright," he added.
I swallowed hard. "Yeah, maybe you should do that," I said softly.
Harry rolled his eyes and gave me a look that quite clearly said better-you-than-me and I sighed deeply. "Fine. Fine! I'll go out there. I don't see how much good it will do. She won't even look at me, much less talk to me," and my words stuck deep in my throat at this last sentence. It had been said offhandedly, but it didn't make it any less painful.
I walked out of the tent, my heart pounding as if I were about to fight off a stadium full of Death Eaters. Quite honestly, I would have much rather have faced them then her right now. They might jinx me or curse me, but what Hermione was capable of doing was much worse. Who cares if your face has been Transfigured to look like a bat's when you feel like you've been punched and your head feels empty?
She has her back to the tent, so I can't see her face but I know she's crying because her shoulders are shaking. My first impulse is to go and hug her, but I obviously can't do that. If I hadn't ruined everything, I might have done, but then again, if I hadn't ruined everything, she wouldn't be crying right now.
I walk closer to her and I can hear her hitched breathing over the rain. It makes me want to hold her even more, so much I have to clasp my hands as to not embrace her. She has her face in her hands, and her sobbing is the worst sound I have ever heard. Because I am the thing that is making her cry.
"I kn-knew you'd come out after me," Hermione says, and I startle because I didn't think she had heard me, and this is the first thing she has said to me since I got back.
"You did?" I manage to get out feebly. Brilliant. Out of all of the things I could have said to her, I chose that.
Hermione turns to look at me. Her face is wet with tears and rain, but somehow I can tell which ones are tears. Again, I am overcome with the urge to wipe them away and embrace her, but I don't. I cross my arms instead, anything to keep me from touching her.
"Of course you would, Ron. You're a masochist; you'll reopen wounds until you can't hurt yourself anymore, and then you'll do it again because you just don't know when to stop. Why do you think we're still arguing about Viktor?" her words are like knives, I can feel every one of them drive deep into my skin.
His name makes me clench my fists, but the rest of what she said goes straight to my head. Do I really do that? I don't know whether to be hurt at what she's just said or overly relieved that she's talking to me.
"Yeah, well…" I say, and I mentally hit myself for not thinking of something cleverer. At this rate, we'll never have a full conversation because I can't get out a single, bloody cognitive thought.
She seems to be thinking along the same lines, because she rolls her eyes at me. She's stopped sobbing, but there are tears still in her eyes. She must be waiting for me to mess up and say something stupid again, so she can go on crying. Knowing me, it's only a matter of time.
I stand there hopelessly, waiting for something to come to me, but I've got nothing. All that floats to my mind are jokes, and even I know that now is not the time. Somehow, I don't think it would loosen her up to tell her the joke Charlie told me about the dragon and the barmaid.
She turns her back on me again and I can tell she's started to cry. I panic, wishing more than anything that I could replace her with a dozen Dementors or a few Death Eaters. I'd take those Snatchers on in a heartbeat. Anything but this horrible, billowing silence. It's me that needs to talk – we both know that – but I can't say anything.
The silence gets longer and longer. My shirt is soaked through and sticking to my skin. It's cold and uncomfortable, but I'm not registering things in the same way. We could be standing in the middle of a bonfire and I'd hardly blink.
She turned on her heel and pushes past me, knocking against my shoulder as she goes. I can see the tears glaze her face as I catch a glimpse of it. I've disappointed her…again. My heart falls down into the ground, and my vision goes a little fuzzy. I caused this, I did this.
"Wait!" I shout, panicking. I didn't mean for it to be so loud, but my nerves got caught up in my throat so I shouted at her. In my head it sounded a lost softer and a lot less commanding.
It does the right thing though; she pauses a few feet from the tent, frozen. Then, slowly, she turns to me. She pretends that she hasn't been crying, but this only makes me feel worse.
"I – I want to tell you something," I said, sure that she can hear my heart pounding in my chest over the pouring rain. She takes a step closer, her eyes wide. I know what I'm going to tell her, what I need to tell her, and the anticipation gets to me.
"'Oh, I don't know! Rack your brains Ron, that should only take a couple of seconds,'" I repeat in a very low voice, and it sounds pitiful even to my own ears.
Hermione furrows her eyebrows, confused. "W-what?" she asks, and she takes another step closer to me.
"It's what you said to me, the night I got back," I say in that same low, serious voice. Her eyes shine with recognition, then darken again as all of those horrible memories come flooding back. She's right, I am a masochist; I won't leave well enough alone.
"I don't understand," she says slowly, and her voice doesn't waver, even though it's a bit shaky at the ends.
I look at her, I look deep into her eyes, and for a split second I feel as if she knows what I am going to say before I even say it. "I love you," I say, and this time my voice is loud and clear, not low and ashamed.
"W-what?" she says, and this time her voice is broken from shock, not tears.
"When you said that to me, well, I was in shock. I knew I needed to say it, but I knew it a second too late, so I couldn't," I choke out, and I know I'm rambling. "I've been wanting to tell you for so long, I've been wanting to tell you for years. And I know this might not be the best timing, but it's true. I do. I love you and…" but I don't get the rest of it out.
She launches herself at me, but it's not in the way I want her to. She balls her hands into fists and starts beating at my chest. I can hear her sobbing hard now, her crying reaching my ears and tearing me up. I don't resist her because I can't feel it. It doesn't matter if she'll give me bruises, I don't care anymore. I just stand there as she beats me over and over again, because I know that she'll run herself out, and it's best not to stop her when she's got all her steam bottled up.
Every blow is a regret, every time her fist connects I lose a bit of myself. And all I can hear in my head is You deserve this, you did this over and over, a constant beat as she hits me. And I don't know when or why but I'm crying too, which is not a good thing.
Ginny once told me there are two types of criers: the ones who can do it in public and the ones who can't. The ones who can are the ones who look alright when they cry; they're face doesn't get all crumpled and they don't get weird red blotches. She told me she's one of those criers, as are Hermione and Harry. She told me I'm one of those who can't do it in public. She says I try to be all masculine and pretend I'm not crying, which apparently ends up looking strange and unattractive.
I cry into the rain as she repeatedly balls her fists and drives them into my chest. It doesn't even hurt anymore, I can't feel anything. It's not that she isn't strong – Jesus, she is strong – but I don't care anymore. I've gone so numb.
And then something worse happens. She melts away. One second she's hitting me and the next she's sobbing into my chest, the most shattered sound I've ever heard. She's clinging to my sopping shirt, her face buried in my chest and the voice in my head says, Bloody hell, what are you waiting for, hug her damn it! But I can't, because I'm too shocked, and she feels so broken.
I put my arms around her awkwardly, but it's the wrong thing to do. She pushes them away and takes a few steps back. Ginny's right; she's beautiful when she cries. She's looking at me angrily, wiping her tears furiously as she glares.
"What was that for?" I asked weakly. Somehow, when I envisioned the moment I confessed that I loved her, it did not involve her attacking me.
"Y-you s-said you loved m-me," she sobs, not even trying to hide it now. She's got her arms and her chin is pointed upward. Jesus, she's so sexy when…no, stop it, now's not the time I think.
"I do," I answer weakly, but it doesn't help. She only starts to cry harder and I stare at her in wonder. Why is everything backfiring; you'd think that when you tell a girl you love her she'd be happy, even considering these circumstances. Then again, Hermione is not just "a girl".
"I c-can't be angry with you when you say that. And God, I want to be angry," she cries. "I w-want to hate you. I want to never care about you again. B-but you said you loved me and when I told you that, all I wanted you to say was that you would never leave me again, not that you l-loved me," she shouts, and she collapses to the ground, burying her face in her hands again.
I take a step back, away from her. "You hate me?" I whisper, and I can hear my voice shake. Oh, no Ron, not now.
She looks up at me reproachfully. "That's why I hit you. You make it so hard for me to hate you, because…well, you get me all confused," she said softly, and she does not sound angry anymore. "One moment I hate you because you left, and the next moment I love you because you brush my elbow when you get a glass and you tell me you love me," she admits, biting her lip.
I inch closer to her and then sit down across from her. Instantly, I regret it because the ground is very wet, and the water soaks right through my jeans. "I'm sorry," I say softly, and I try and put as much feeling behind those two small words. She looks up at me, finally, and it as if she is reading me, every single secret of me.
"I know," she whispers. "But it's still so hard to forgive you. I was ready to never forgive you, but of course you had to come out here and say you loved me and ruin everything," she says reproachfully.
I don't say anything because quite honestly, I am confused. She's confused. I can't tell what she's thinking or feeling, mainly because even she doesn't know. She wipes her eyes and sniffs audibly. I move a little closer to her, shaking my soaking hair out of my eyes, even though it just gets pushed forward as the rain pounds down.
We don't say anything, but maybe that's alright. It's going to take her time to forgive me. And when she's ready, I'll be right here, next to her.
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Author's Note: Hm, I don't know… the beginning was how I wanted to start if off but it didn't end in the way that I planned. Please tell me what you think! I don't mean to beg or anything but I'm SO out of my element here, so I want to know if it was a mistake, posting this.
If anyone didn't know, that quote was from the chapter in Deathly Hallows, The Silver Doe, when Hermione's yelling at Ron. I've always wondered what she wanted him to say. I think she'd want him to say "I love you" even though she denied it in this one-shot. Anyway, that's my opinion, does anyone have another?