Title: Death and underpants.
Fandom: Harry Potter
Characters: Hermione, Ron and Lavender
Prompt: 80 Why?
Word Count: 1533
Rating:K+
Summary:Missing Moment. Lavender asks Hermione why she fell in love with Ron instead of Harry. Post battle in DH.
Author's Notes: This is dedicated to Avanell to whom I accidentally mistook for the annoying troll whose been flaming me. I asked her what her demands were for forgiveness and she requested a sequel to 'Hindsight' so tada *jazz hands* this is the sequel.
[Insert normal rantings about loving reviews here.]
Death and Underpants.
Hermione surveyed the chaos around her and had to admit it was a slight improved from the previous day. Then the hospital wing had just been a vast sea of injured. Today while it was still crowded there was an obvious method to the surrounding madness. She was currently attending to those whose wounds needed balms and solvents. She wasn't a healer of any sort so things involving more skill was out of the question but they were short on trained help right now so she'd volunteered to do the more menial tasks. When she reached the bed of her old dorm mate Lavender Brown she was relieved to see her sitting up in bed instead of unconscious like the previous day.
"Why haven't you been taken to St. Mungos? I thought everyone conscious was being transferred?" Hermione pour out some of the contents from a large blue bottle onto a rag and began applying the potion on the deep bite marks that ran up and down her once pristine skin.
"It seems as though I am too much of a contamination risk?" Lavender shrugged as if this was every day news she was bored of already.
"That's completely absurd! You weren't bitten by a transformed werewolf, it wasn't even a full moon! Besides that what do they think, you plan on biting every person who gets close enough! Whom ever said your a contamination risk is going to have to hear from me! It's unthinkable to..." Hermione was cut off though by Lavenders amused chuckles.
"Still the same Hermione eh? Don't freak out about it please, I'd rather be here then Mungos anyway. Something about being here makes me feel like I'm still in the loop ya know." They shared an small chuckle.
"Still the same Lavender eh? Always in the know on the latest gossip."
"Yes, I do like a juicy little tidbit to chat on. Where as you were always more interested in being the topic of gossip though." Lavender poked Hermione in the side, teasing her playfully. Hermione startled at the accusation.
"I never sought out any of the gossip I was subjected to. I was never the topic of anything that shed me in a flattering light anyway so why would I go and seek it out." She was a little stung. Even though she knew Lavender was teasing, she still didn't like the idea of people thinking she'd sought out the spot light.
"You may not have sought it out but it did have a way of following you. You were always part of whatever was going on at the time. Not to mention Victor Krum." Lavender wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at her as she pretended to fan herself and neither girl couldn't stifle the giggle that followed.
"Honestly, I never understood why it was such a big deal. We talked in the library and went to a school dance together. Everything in 'Witch Weekly' about how I ensnared him in my lecherous trap as a plot to date famous men was ludicrous." Hermione dabbed one of Lavenders cuts rather forcefully and the injured girl winced with a loud gasp. She instantly felt bad about letting her frustration get to her she softened her touch. "Sorry about that. I'm a bit touchy about the whole thing."
"You do have a taste for famous men though, don't you?"
"Do you need me to poke you again? Because I'll do it."
"Alright, well at the risk of further injury I have been dying to ask you one question for quite sometime." Hermione rolled her eyes and let out a long sigh.
"You might as well now that my curiosity is peeked. So help me though, if it has anything to do with what sort of underclothing Harry or Victor wears I will feel no guilt in jinxing an injured woman." Lavender laughed at Hermione's threat.
"Nothing like that. It just, well, I can't help but wonder about it. Why Ron? " She felt her hand twitch in the direction of her wand. "Don't get me wrong. Believe me I get that he's a great catch. It's just, why not Harry? Isn't it usually the guy that gets the girl, not the sidekick."
"Ron is not a sidekick." Hermione insisted. Lavender snorted softly and rolled her eyes.
"Ron's a little bit sidekick." Hermione felt her body relax and she sat down on the edge of Lavenders hospital be. She though for a moment before responding.
"Don't get me wrong, Harry is a great guy. He's brave and noble and much too willing to sacrifice himself for the greater wizarding world. It's just that, well when your there, when it's unfolding around you, it doesn't feel like at all like Harry's the great hero, while Ron's the plucky sidekick and I'm 'the girl' he gets. We are just friends and we just did whatever it took to get our friends out alive.
"I have no doubt Harry's the tragic hero. He's been through more than anyone can imagine. I've watched him through most of it and I don't think I even understand. It's just that, well, when Harry and I got here we were both new to this world. Both of us so lost, new and alone in a place that still seemed all fantasy and make believe. We both needed connections, a foundation to steady everything upon.
"It's always made sense, him not seeing me as 'the girl he was bound to get'. We are part of this found family, in his eyes I am a sister and to me he's the brother I never had. I met him before I really understood the whole 'the boy who lived' thing. To me he's just Harry 'the boy too lazy to revise'." Lavender seemed deep in thought at the end of Hermione's long explanation. It was a long moment before she spoke again.
"Alright, so I can see why not Harry. But then, why Ron?"
"There are so many ways for it, that on the outside it seems like they should be the reason, but there not. Ron has bravely stood between me and impending doom more times than I care to recall. He's faced his greatest fears for me, with that among so many other reasons it seems like if I was going to be in love with him then that should be why, but none of those things matter at all. It can't be quantified. You can't convince yourself about being in or out of love with someone, believe me I've tried."
"Well, since that really wasn't any sort of answer at all could I ask another one?" Lavender's eyes were wide with curiosity. Hermione rolled her eyes and for the first time accepted it might be fun to just sit and gossip with Lavender.
"I don't see why not?"
"When? You two always just seemed like you just put up with each other because you were both friends with Harry. Bickering constantly, neither able to keep a civil tone. I had no idea about any of it until all the sudden you were crying and attacking him with pigeons."
"Canaries, it was a flock of yellow canaries." It was Lavender's turn to roll her eyes in exasperation.
"Whatever, that's not the point. When did you know?" Hermione thought for a long time at the question. She'd never confided this to anyone before, not even Ginny, it was just so humiliating, but she'd already made her decision and she was done regretting not being honest with Lavender.
"Bickering for Ron and I was like foreplay, we just never got around to going past that. I think we bicker because of how we feel not despite how we feel." Lavender's expression let her know she was waiting for the answer though. "For me it was the summer before our 4th year. He'd invited both Harry and I to the Quidditch world cup with his family and it was just a regular day doing regular household chores. We were having the most asinine fight about folding socks of all things. Socks! Who falls in love over folding socks, it's quite embarrassing really.
"We got into this shouting match about it and I just remember having this overwhelming desire to know what his lips tasted like, right there in the middle of his laundry room. Something about the fire in his eyes as we bickered, it riled me up somehow. I remember having this mental image of throwing him against a wall and snogging him senseless. So I just froze in the middle of his tirade and ran upstairs. I couldn't even process what had just happened or anything, but for me, that was it. I've been head over heels with the prat ever since."
"That is pretty damn unromantic, I mean, you said something about him facing death for you or whatever, that would make a much better story." Hermione began pulling little balls of fuzz of the the plain infirmary blanket and smiled to herself before answering.
"Yes, well maybe from now on when I tell the story I'll pick something much more heroic like sorting underpants."