A/N: Wow! The response was very exciting. I'm glad that many of you didn't see my little surprise coming. That made me happy. So much gratitude for not being a Dramione (which I actually enjoy quite a bit-Dramiones that are well done). Of course the website only allows me to tag four characters in my summary, and I didn't include Fred.
I even got a Hermione hater who wishes that Ron doesn't forgive her. I have many chapters already in the works, so I want it known that there will be no big plot changes from what I have originally envisioned. So some of you will be happy and some of you will...not...be. I'm not saying who gets what though.
So, here we go with Chapter 2!
I wasn't aware of where I was going until I ended up there. I pounded on the door because I had to hear it from his lips.
"What the bloody hell?" Harry called through the door of 12, Grimmauld Place. I could hear him thumping and cursing as he tripped his way to the door in the dark.
"Hurry up! It's bloody cold out here," I called. It was still technically summer, but I wasn't wearing much when I apparated and the night air was damp and chilly.
"Ron?" He asked as he finally got the last deadbolt unlocked. I never understood why he bothered with all of those muggle locks especially with all the magical concealments there were on the place and I asked as much when he finally got the damn door open.
"Because, you great prat, we didn't want anyone bothering us!" My sister yelled from behind Harry's half-naked body. He was only wearing pair of boxers and Ginny was wearing one of his quidditch practice jerseys—and nothing else. I wondered if I was the only one not having sex on the planet.
"Ginny, what the hell? Does mum know you're staying here?" The wand that had dropped to her side rose again and pointed at my heart.
"No, nor will she if you know what's good for you!" she hissed.
"Gin." Harry pleaded and turned back to me. "It's not what it looks like," he looked down at himself, "and I see it looks pretty bad."
"It doesn't matter what it looks like," Ginny interrupted. "What the hell are you doing here? Where's Hermione?"
"Well, dear almost-naked sister, she's at her flat where I left her after she told me about shagging our brother." I pushed my way in and headed down the narrow hallway to the kitchen. I needed a drink. I went straight to the cabinet that I knew held the fire whiskey.
"Ron?" Ginny followed me and her voice had lost its irritation and was weighted with concern. "What are you talking about?" I found a glass and poured the amber liquid almost to the top. Still standing at the counter, two gulps were all I could take before I stopped for a breather. I wasn't a drinker.
"Ron?" Harry asked. He had summoned a pair of trousers from his bedroom and pulled them on.
"Did you know?" I asked Harry turning away from the cabinets and towards the man who was supposed to be my best mate. "Did you know that Hermione was shagging Fred?"
"No," Harry spluttered shaking his head. "I didn't know that. I know she's been off for a few weeks, but she wouldn't tell me what it was about." I knew Harry was telling me the truth because I believed that Hermione wouldn't tell him for exactly the reason she stated. "Plausible deniability" she'd called it. And, as much as I was hurt, I trusted Hermione. I slumped down into a kitchen chair which scraped loudly across the wooden floor. I took another pull from my drink, and I let the warmth of the fire whiskey relax me as it wound its way through my insides. I looked at Ginny who was shifting from one foot to the other.
"Ginny, quit biting your lip and tell me what you know," I said as I winced through the last of the glass in front of me. She always bit her lip when she was hiding something. The hollow thunk of the empty glass on the table resonated in my aching heart. I reached for the bottle and poured myself another.
"I don't know much." She admitted. "Hermione never told me anything. I…" she was searching for words and I looked up at her. "I walked on them snogging one time in the kitchen. I waited for her to tell me something and she never did so I just figured it was a one-time thing and she was embarrassed about it." Harry sat down next to me and Ginny took the stool across from me. "I mean, it was Fred. Who took him seriously?"
"She shagged Fred?" Harry asked to himself quietly and a little confused. It looked like he was trying to put things together in his head, too. "What did she say?" He looked up at me. "I mean, why did she reveal this now?"
"She said that she couldn't let things go any further without being honest with me. She said that she loved him." I choked up a little bit. When I tried to figure out all the things I felt, that was the part that hurt the most. She loved Fred and had a relationship with him. "If it had just been sex or just one time, I think I could handle this better. But she loved him." I took another swig of my fire whiskey and laid my head on the table.
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Ginny said. "You're saying you'd rather her sleep around than have something meaningful with someone as cool as Fred?"
"That's the problem, Ginny!" I yelled, raising my head and letting out some of emotion I was trying to keep bottled up. "How am I ever going to compete with that?"
My voice echoed through the kitchen, ringing in the late night air of the stale and musty kitchen. Neither one of them said a word. My whole life had been in the shadow of my brothers and now my love life was going to be in the shadow of the dead one who has become a national wizarding martyr. I downed the rest of the glass and I didn't care that it set my throat on fire. I half wished I could oblivate my own memory. I poured myself another in an attempt.
"Ron, you're not going to have to compete with anyone." Ginny's voice was soft again. "Hermione's mind doesn't work like that. Her heart doesn't either." I didn't look at her. I took another drink. Some tiny part of my mind knew she was right, but the message hadn't reached my heart. And, I wasn't done wallowing. I was good at wallowing and I knew it was what prolonged my agony many times over the years. Why couldn't I just let it go? "Ron." She waited for me to look up at her. I ignored her for a few seconds and took another drink. "Ronnie." She repeated and I grudgingly looked up at her hating the use of my childhood name.
"What?" I knew what. But I was too stubborn to give in.
"Don't disrespect Hermione or Fred that way. I know you're hurting, but don't do that or you'll kick yourself later." Ginny said. I just grunted because, again, I knew she was right. I took another drink.
Harry still seemed lost in his thoughts. "I've been worried about her for weeks and now this all makes sense. Ron, I think you should probably talk to her about this, but not tonight. Go take one of the spare rooms and go back to see her tomorrow." Harry urged. I knew the effects of the whiskey I had hastily swallowed would hit me fast and hard and I didn't think mum would be too chuffed to find me sloshed.
"Fine." I finally agreed. "I'll share a room with my sister who I'm pretty sure should be at Hogwarts." I gave a protective fraternal glare. "How did you get here anyway?" My words sounded a little garbled because they felt too big for my mouth, like they wouldn't fit in there.
Ginny blushed a little. "Kreacher." I didn't understand the reference so I just stared at her.
"House elves can apparate and disapparate from Hogwarts and we were testing to see whether or not they could do side along apparition from there. That's why she's dressed like that." Harry blushed, too. "We were talking and wondering how we could possibly see each other before the first Hogsmeade weekend." I knew that they had the two-way mirrors and used them to chat while Ginny was still at school so I decided to believe them.
"I guess I should head back before I'm missed." Ginny said and she reached up to kiss Harry. I was beginning to feel the fire whiskey now and it made me rather sluggish. Harry bent down to kiss her and it wasn't as chaste as a brother would wish to see. They whispered sweet little nothings to each other and I thought about what I had been doing earlier that evening, before Hermione's confession, and then I started to get angry all over again.
"Bloody hell, knock it off already!" I yelled through my irritated haze and my words sounded even more slurred and garbled. They broke apart and Ginny glared at me.
"Ron, you better get this thing sorted. Hermione levels you out and tonight is proof." Ginny said and before I could reply she called for Kreacher. "Hey, buddy. Can you take me back?"
"As you wish, Miss Ginny. I will serve your pure blood until Master Potter says I mayn't." Kreacher croaked and bowed low. He'd been much more pleasant since we told him the Regulus had been vindicated. With one more kiss to Harry's lips and a nod to the knobbly little elf, Ginny and Kreacher disappeared with a crack.
"Come on, mate, let's get you upstairs." Harry said to me as I staggered up out of my chair and took a few wobbly steps.
"Merlin, I love that woman, Harry. Why did she have to love Fred first?" I asked. I didn't understand why people drank to numb the pain because I was feeling it all right now and I had no ability to stop it or the words that accompanied them. "Why do I always get my brother's hand-me-downs? Their sloppy seconds?" We had made it to the first landing and my mental pain seemed to keep me from climbing the stairs normally.
"Ron, don't be silly. You had Hermione's heart long before Fred did." Harry tried to placate me.
"Then why did he get to kiss her before me? Shag her before me? Why didn't I get to be her first?" The hot pricking of tears behind my eyes eased as the pools accumulated and spilled over the dams of my lids.
"Because Ron, you gave your firsts to Lavender. And Hermione was hurting. I guess he helped her, Ron." Harry said flatly with very little compassion. I didn't deserve any and I knew it. I had given my firsts away. He pulled me up another flight of stairs and into the bedroom we shared when this was the headquarters for the Order. And, if I was honest with myself, the only reason I got together with Lavender was because Ginny goaded me into it. I was sick of being left out and Ginny reminded me that I was the only git who hadn't snogged anyone. Lavender had fancied me for a while and I knew she'd be up for it so I thought I'd give it a go. I didn't know it would push Hermione into Fred's arms. Dammit! I knew this was my fault—all of it was my own fucking fault. She had kissed Krum before Fred, though.
"But she kissed Krum before me, too." I whined grasping for one last straw that this wasn't my fault. I fell back into the bed as Harry took my shoe off.
"Yeah, because you waited too long to ask her to the Yule Ball. She waited for you to ask her for weeks. Quit taking her for granted and quit being a great, bloody prat." I could always count on Harry to be honest, even when it hurt. He took off my other shoe and let it drop to the floor with a clunk. My feet, like all my excuses, reeked.
"I do always take her for granted, don't I?" And then my body began sobbing without my permission. I don't remember much else from that night. I remembered crying to Harry that Fred was gone and feeling guilty that I hated him for shagging my girlfriend. But that morphed into how much I missed my brother even if he took the mickey out of me the majority of the time that he was alive.
I don't know how much longer I blathered on to Harry before I finally fell asleep or how long I slept before I woke with my mouth as dry as a desert and tasting like my rank foot. I looked over at the night stand and Harry had placed a glass of water there for me. He really was a great friend. I chugged the water and fell back into the pillow and sleep. I dreamed this time.
The dream was an blend of scenes from the Battle of Hogwarts mixed with my fears that Hermione wouldn't make it out alive. The dream reminded me why I chose the middle of the battle for our first kiss. I had known that if I waited, I might never have the chance; and I never wanted that to be a regret I had if I lived through the battle and she didn't. It was one of those realistic dreams had on the edge of consciousness.
The memory of the night after Fred's funeral played behind my lids unaltered as well. Hermione and I had only kissed a few more times after the war and they were short and sweet. It didn't seem appropriate for anything more. She crawled into my bed that night and cried herself to sleep. I had cried with her, both of us finding comfort for our combined grief in each other's arms. When mum found us the next morning she didn't say a word—her own eyes red rimmed and puffy. Whatever part of my mind that was aware of my dream suddenly understood Hermione's inconsolable grief that night. She had loved Fred in a way no one else had. And Fred had been unafraid to show her how he felt about her—and she had lost him. It left me wondering why I couldn't be more like Fred. I needed to be more like Fred.
The last dream that I remembered, and the one that woke me up, was the memory of the time we almost made love. The whole family was at the Burrow helping with the rebuild and Hermione and I snuck off in the early evening for a picnic. It was about three weeks after Fred's funeral and I remembered being intoxicated by her scent. I could almost smell it in my dream.
"And the look on her face when they exited the Great Hall on their broomsticks!" Hermione snorted and I laughed along with her as we tried to cling to the great memories that the infamous Weasley twins provided for a whole generation of Hogwarts students. "If I had a Pensieve, I'd bottle that memory and watch it over and over again." Our laughter calmed a little and she looked serious. I knew she wanted me to kiss her so I leaned in and ran my nose along her neck. She shuddered at the contact and whispered my name.
We both lay on our sides facing each other and I placed my hand on her hip while I nuzzled her neck. She sighed so I knew I was doing okay and my lips used her jaw line as a path as they kissed their way to her lips. Her hand found its way to the back of my neck and she pulled me closer and I rolled on top of her kissing her deeply. My mind let me relive the memory of her hands pulling my shirt over my head, momentarily breaking our lips. Her fingers explored the little definition I had developed during quidditch practices helping Ginny train while my fingers mirrored hers as she showed me what she wanted and what was permissible. The only difference between the dream and reality was, when I finally settled between her legs,which she willingly parted for me, and began a rhythmic motion that her sighs indicated was pleasurable, dreamland Hermione said, "That's not how Fred does it." It made the actual situation sting even more because in reality she stopped us soon after telling me she wasn't quite ready for more. I now knew why she wasn't ready.
I woke with an aching heart and a pounding head. I knew mum would have some potion to help my head, but I knew that I needed to talk to Hermione to help my heart. I felt every ounce of love for her today that I did yesterday, before she told me. I needed her to know that. I just needed some time to process this. The unclear memory of Harry telling me to quit taking Hermione for granted seeped through my mild hangover. I had to get over there, but I had to shower first. I was going to be a new Ronald Weasley and that began with looking like someone who gave a damn.
So? Drunk Ron? Kreacher fetching Ginny for Harry? Guilty repentant Ron? Give me your thoughts, people.
Y'all made my week with all the responses from last chapter! Help me have another good week with just as much (if not more) love.