Before the night of seven Harrys…
She was sitting at the kitchen table, studying. End of the freaking world, and there she was. Studying.
Yesterday they'd gone out in the summer air, and he'd been goofing around, making dumb jokes and she'd laughed, and it was sunny, and the feeling of it had hit him so hard he felt it in every part of him.
It was a little escape from reality, when he could make her laugh.
He was supposed to be polishing the cutlery for Bill's wedding. Well, they were both supposed to be polishing it, but he'd said he'd do the lot if she wanted to get back to the horcrux research. She was still a little… off kilter. When she had to do something boring.
Ron thought maybe focussing on reading kept her mind off her parents.
He wouldn't have had the nerve.
He felt a hot rush of affection.
She was so… ruthless, and brilliant, and kind.
And he could make her laugh.
He mindlessly polished teaspoons and let himself look.
Ink- stained fingers gripping a quill a little too tightly. Wild springs of hair. An enormous leather-bound tome. An abandoned cup of tea.
Hermione.
He polished a couple of cake forks and put the rag down.
"Hermione?"
"Mmmm?" she didn't look up.
Probably just as well.
He was going to say it.
Something, at any rate.
Words he should have said before maybe, if he could work out how to put it into words, that feeling that made his spirit hum when she was around and choked the breath out of him when she wasn't. Life was just too dangerous.
"It's pretty risky, this plan."
She glanced up at him, and back to her book.
"Anything is risky at this point," she said, "And there's no reason to think anything will go wrong."
"That's not what I meant."
Her quill paused, then resumed taking scratchy notes slowly, as though she was having to force herself to concentrate on writing.
"Hermione, I-"
"Don't say it!" she said quickly, suddenly frozen in place, head down, quill paused on the parchment, ink pooling at the tip.
He gave a little ha of startled amusement.
"You don't know what I'm going to say," he said, wondering if maybe she did somehow know… had she been learning legilimency on the sly? But then… "I'm not sure I know,"
She let out a breath and looked up.
"You don't?"
Earnest brown eyes. Anxious. Confused.
He should have kissed her yesterday, in the sunshine, in the laughter.
"I mean… not exactly. I just… you know, things were rubbish with us last year, and what with all the mortal peril and everything, I thought, you know, I mean, I should tell you-"
"Don't tell me!"
He paused.
"But I-"
"Don't!"
Unshed tears in her eyes.
"What's the matter?"
She looked away, blinking furiously, and then spoke in a firm decisive voice that would have been compelling if it weren't for the wobble in it.
"I find you very distracting, Ron, and I have a horrible feeling I'm going to need to stay focussed if we want to have a chance of destroying these horcruxes. So… so whatever it is, it'll have to wait until, until after because I just can't- I- there's just so much going on I feel like my head's going to explode-"
"Ok, ok, I won't say it." He paused, considering her. She let out a breath and gave him a weak smile, which seemed ridiculous given the circumstances. She must know.
He went back to polishing soup spoons.
Distracting.
Hmmm.
They would go and get Harry. They would help him with whatever mission Dumbledore had left to him. And they might die.
It gave him a sick feeling to think of her dying alone. Not that she would be alone, exactly, but her parents wouldn't grieve her, and if he and Harry were dead as well…
He could see that it was a bad time to start something. It was just that it might be the only time they had left.
He stared down at the spoon in his hand.
Total waste of time.
He stood up abruptly and dumped the rest of the unpolished silver back into the box.
"Oh, Ron, don't, I didn't mean to upset you,"
"S'not that," he said, tossing the rag into the bin, "It's just I remembered I don't need to do this the muggle way any more; I'm seventeen. I'm going to take the lot outside and charm the tarnish off,"
"Oh, right, of course," She tried to tuck her hair back, inky fingers through wild curls.
A thought occurred to him, and he grinned.
"Stupid of me, really, but then, you're here,"
"What?"
"Well, you know," he rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly nervous, "You're very distracting,"
She looked up sharply, colour suffusing her cheeks.
It hurt him.
He couldn't say what it was exactly, but he knew with a dreadful certainty that she loved him.
He hadn't realised how much it would hurt, to know that, to know that they could-
They had to stay focussed.
"You let me know," he heard himself say quietly, "You let me know when you're ready for a distraction,"
Her eyes were brimming with tears again.
He swallowed hard against his heartbeat and took the silver out into the yard.
*.*.*
Months later…
He lay on the camp bed and vaguely wished he was dead.
He'd imagined it.
It had happened, that conversation over the cutlery, and he'd misunderstood.
She'd just wanted to get on with her book, and he'd interrupted.
What a fucking moron.
*.*.*
After the funerals…
Strange to be back at the Burrow.
His feet were cold. Dangling in the pond. Black trousers rolled up. Hairy ginger legs.
It was quiet. Not noiseless, just the kind of quiet that you get outdoors. Birds. Insects. The odd frog. The breeze rustling leaves.
Light footsteps on wooden planking.
Shoes slipped off.
He closed his burning eyes against the scent of her.
Intoxicating.
"I know now is not the time," she said quietly, settling down beside him, funeral skirts rustling, "But Harry told me about the horcrux, and I just wanted to tell you-"
"Don't," he croaked, surprised that he'd managed to respond fast enough. He wasn't ready for this yet. "Don't tell me."
She paused.
"Ok. But Ron… will you… will you tell me? When you need a distraction?"
His stomach gave a strange lurching leap.
He couldn't face her.
He nodded, staring down at his scarred hands on his knees.
She let out a long slow breath, and leaned her fuzzy head against his shoulder, loosely holding on to his arm and reaching for his hand.
Fingers interlaced.
His eyes prickled with tears, unshed.
It can wait a little longer now.
We have time.