A/N: The initial rules for the flash fics on the now-disappeared-site said that we could write for thirty minutes. No editing past that. I've tinkered a tiny bit with this since then, but this is basically the flash fic I wrote for Pagan Ianthe's prompt.

And no sooner do I post the second flash fic than I have to change the rating... Yeah. Sorry?


Regrets

Hogwarts/Deathly Hallows AU

Pairing: Harry/Hermione, Ron POV

Rated M for, well . . . you'll see.

Prompt: Unrequited Love

. . . .

It didn't hit him for about a week, what he'd done to them. Leaving them. The pair of them. Alone. He'd been distraught, furious, under the influence of a dark object when he'd broken promises to them. But he had broken them. Had he broken them? Hermione and Harry?

The questions clawed at his brain even in the relative safety of The Burrow.

"Ron?"

He blinked, shaking himself back to an awareness of the present. The kitchen. His family. Warmth and comfort.

His mother smiled tentatively and spooned some more stew into his bowl. "Ron? You could do with some more meat on your bones," she said. It hurt him to hear the hesitance in her voice, but he tried to smile and eat.

He'd been hungry for so long.

"You know," Mum added, "whenever you want to talk about . . . anything or everything . . . I'm here for you. Or you can talk to your dad, or I bet even Fred or George, if you'd rather not talk to a parent. D'you think you'll be going back to school?"

The rich, meaty stew tasted like wet dirt all of a sudden. He forced himself to swallow. "Er, no, Mum. I, I'm okay. It's good to have your home-cooked meals again, though." He nodded at her and wiped his mouth with a napkin.

Funny, how that sort of thing became important after months of not having napkins to speak of.

He tried, for weeks and then months, he tried. He tried to forget how he'd felt with the locket around his neck. The dreams, though, wouldn't stop.

He and Harry had guarded Hermione's privacy, but bloody hell, they were only human, weren't they? Ron had peeked; he'd bet his best mate had, too. She maybe even guessed that they had; she was a smart girl. But she'd never said anything. Privacy was a luxury and they had bloody few of them. Cleanliness was another one, but they would take turns washing up as they could.

Hermione would whip off the threadbare jumper before sliding from her faded denims, stepping a bit into a cold stream with only hasty warming charms to keep her from freezing. She was too thin, but Ron hadn't cared. It was Hermione. He'd loved her since, well, he didn't know when, exactly, but he'd had to face it as Bill's wedding, hadn't he? When Krum danced with her.

He'd been so sure she'd go away with the Quidditch star. But she stayed. And Ron knew he'd want to be with her always.

In the dreams, though, Ron watched Hermione taking off her clothes in the water to wash her underthings. He never had seen that in person, but in his dreams, he did. He watched her with suddenly appearing soap in her hands, lathering her body and making soft, happy sounds.

Ron knew his dream-self got guiltily excited as he watched, but he never moved. He just stroked himself, uncaring if she saw him as well. His dream-self was bold and daring, even going so far as to moan a little when Hermione slid lather between her thighs.

And then, she whispered, "Coming to join me?"

And his heart pounded. Every single time.

And he moved. Every single time.

Only to see him. Harry. Entering the stream behind Hermione and wrapping his arms around her. Moving to cup her breasts and kiss her neck. Ron had once watched Charlie make out with a girl behind the shed at the Burrow, and Harry moved like his brother had done, then.

"No!" he shouted in his dream. "No, you can't!"

Hermione didn't even look surprised to see him. "Of course he can. He has for months, Ron. You left us, remember?"

Though it killed him, just about, to watch, Ron did. It was his dream, after all. He watched Harry take Hermione from behind, in the stream. Merlin, he even came himself.

And every time, he woke up hot, sweaty, sticky, and heartbroken.

"I love you," he whispered into the dark room.

Finally, he had had it. It found the Deluminator—how had he forgotten the Headmaster's bequest to him?—and at length heard her voice . . . Hermione's voice . . . say his name.

Using it, he found his way back to her.

"I'm so sorry," he practiced saying, over and over. "I am. Hermione, I, I love you. I won't ever leave you again. I swear."

The words remained locked in his chest, though. For he found Harry, saved Harry, but still had to deal with that gods-damned locket and there, his worst fears were visualized.

Hermione. And Harry. Together.

He didn't have a chance.

Hermione walloped him, threatened to hex him, and gradually came to forgive him. Harry embraced him like a brother.

But Ron knew. Or thought he knew. He saw how only one bed was being used in the tent Harry and Hermione had shared. He saw her things mixed with his.

"So, er, where's my cot?" he ventured to ask after Hermione had left the warded area to get some water.

Harry's cheeks flared with a blush. "Right. That. Er, here." He tossed Ron a tiny cot and wandlessly enlarged it. "We kept it for you. And Ron," Harry went on, crossing the tent to envelope one of Ron's shoulders in his hand. "About what the locket showed you—"

"No, it's good. Fine. I figured as much and all. I mean, what's a bloke to do, yeah?"

Appearing relieved—his best mate had always been too quick to take his word, Ron guessed—Harry nodded. "All right then. So long as you're okay."

"Great. I'm great, Harry."

"Good."

"Yeah."

Hermione returned later and exchanged a quick communication with Harry. Their eyes met, her brow furrowed, he nodded and gave her a small, reassuring smile. They never had to say a word. The new confirmation sliced Ron up all over again; they'd always been able to do that, he felt. Always had a connection.

He was pretty sure Harry and Hermione had never been intimate, though, before he'd left them. My own fault, he repeated silently during the night. My own fault.

Would it have been different if he'd stayed?

He would never know.


A/N: Unrequited love is always kind of sad, isn't it?