So here's Hermione! This is a lot of Ron/Hermione stuff, because I really do love them a lot. They're my favorite. Unfortunately, I haven't read CoS in a while, so my facts are a bit mixed up where the actual Chamber is concerned, but work with me, here! Please read, please enjoy, and (above all) please review!

Also, this one is less angst and more fluff. You were warned!

It's hard to describe what I'm feeling right now. Before this…second, really, it was all so simple. I was scared when curses and hexes were flying at my face. I was angry when Bellatrix Lestrange screamed at me that I was a dirty mudblood, and made me miss when I aimed a Stunning jinx at her. I was out of my mind with grief when I saw Hagrid walking up to the castle, carrying Harry's body.

But now, things are too quiet and calm for me to be able to work out what I'm feeling. Harry's alive—thank Merlin, thank God, thank anyone up there who's listening—Voldemort's dead, Bellatrix is gone, the threat of the Death Eaters is over. So, part of me is, frankly elated.

But Fred, Tonks, Lupin, and so many other people are also gone. And that's where I start to feel uncertain. This past year has been such a trying experience for me, and nothing sums it up quite like losing three of the most important people in your life. I grimace and push a loose strand of wavy brown hair out of my face.

It was all so much simpler when it came from books. I have to admit, that was what I liked most about Hogwarts (aside from the people, of course). There I was, eleven years old and suddenly exposed to a world unlike anything I'd ever dreamed of. Magic, goblins, dragons, giants—it was like it had stepped out of a fairy tale into the real world. For an eleven year old, maybe it's a bit easier to cope with, but it was still hard. I will never forget the day that Professor McGonnagall knocked on my parents' door with a letter written in green ink and beckoned me off to a life that I did not understand.

I drowned myself in books, in the rules, trying to make sense of this alternate world. And then I met Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived. And I met his best friend, Ron Weasley, the Boy Who—

Well, the Boy Who Can Kiss Like Anything. I grin, despite my conflicting emotions, because here I am, standing in the wreckage of the Great Hall, surrounded by bodies and mourners, and what is the most on my mind is how good Ron's arms feel when they're wrapped around my waist. I can hear him whispering into my hair, but I can't understand what he's saying.

An edge of something metallic digs into my hip, and I move backwards. Ron pulls half of Hufflepuff's cup out of his pocket, and I do the same from mine. We look at each other, and I'm willing myself not to remember what happened in the Chamber of Secrets, but it's too late.

I was amazed that anything had happened as a result of Ron's strangled hiss—it had just sounded like gibberish to me. But the sink had moved aside, and Ron held out his hand to me, eyes focused downwards on the gloomy dark below. I grabbed his hand, linking our fingers together, and he smiled at me before stepping out over thin air—and we both plummeted down, cushioned by Ron's Floating charm.

The tunnel ahead was blocked with a pile of rubble, but I cleared it aside with a flick of Bellatrix's wand, which still felt so alien and horrible to me. Ahead, we saw a large, empty chamber. I gulped, my eyes drawn to the huge skeleton lying right in the center. The Basilisk.

"It's skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever," I heard Ron mutter, and I felt his hand tighten around mine. "C'mon."

Together we approached the dead snake, and I was the one to reach forward first and carefully tug a tooth free. I grimaced, showing it to Ron, who in turn, held forth the cup.

"I did the locket," he said, looking pale. "Now you've got to kill the cup." I nodded tensely, not knowing what to expect, but fearing the worst. Ron caught my chin in his free hand and forced me to look at him. "Hey," he murmured. "I'm right beside you. Just—don't listen to anything it says. And do it quickly."

I looked apprehensively back at the small cup, which had started to glow sickeningly in Ron's hands. Then, with an explosion of silence, two figures erupted forth from the engraved letter H—one was my mother. The other was Ron.

"Hermione…" my mother's voice echoed through the cavern. "Hermione, your father and I—we just wanted you to know how happy we are in our new life. We're as happy as we ever would have been if you'd never been born."

"When I walked out," Ron's doppelganger was saying, "I found out that I don't need you. You're always bossing me around, trying to control me…and you're so thick that you don't realize how much I hate it."

"Hermione!" This was the real Ron, looking even more pale and urgent. "Just stab it! It's not real!"

"Don't come back, Hermione," Mum said, and Ron's voice faded away. "Don't take away our happiness out of your selfish need for us. We're so peaceful without you. We'd be happy if we never saw you again."

"So would I," said the Horcrux-Ron, smiling in a way that made my heart twist with despair. "Lavender Brown would probably take me back. I've never forgiven you for last year, you know. Those birds…those long months of silence…your complete and utter lack of trust…"

"Stab it, Hermione!" the real Ron screamed, and with a cry of anger and fury, I lunged forward, plunging my arm downwards.

There was an ear-splitting scream, and for one sickening moment, I thought that I'd missed the cup and stabbed Ron by accident. But then the faces of Mum and the fake Ron exploded, leaving only the golden cup, cloven in half by the basilisk fang.

My eyes met Ron's, just for a moment, before I collapsed against him, shaking, the fang falling from my nerveless grasp.

"I saw you and Harry." His voice was hollow as he wrapped his arms around my shoulders. I could feel the cold metal of the cup pressed against my cheeks. He was still holding onto the Horcrux. Ron sighed. "You were saying that you never…felt anything for me, that you were happier with him." I looked up at him, about to protest, but he silenced me with a look. "He explained it wasn't true," he told me, smiling slightly. "And when I saw you again, and you were angry at me…well, something in me knew that Harry was right." He pulled back from me and held me at arms-length, hands on my shoulders. "You are perfect like you are, Hermione," he told me, shaking me slightly. "Bossiness, moodiness, bookishness and everything."

I can feel tears dripping onto my forehead, and I know Ron is crying. I don't say anything—I just hold him a little tighter, trying to offer him what comfort I can. It's been a long year for us all—hell, it's been a long seven years for us all. But I know that whatever comes next, Ron will be there for me. And I plan on being there for him, too.

Oooh, fluff. I love to write fluff. Review, please!