A/N: First of all, I want to apologize to everyone whose updates I've been neglecting this week. I've got an incredible amount of stuff going on. I promise I'll hurry, though, and you'll all get the reviews you deserve.
Second of all – here you are. Finally. This is for everyone who has been waiting for this chapter. Now you have it. I hope it at least sort of lives up to your expectations and hopes.
Day 0. Ron/Hermione.
It isn't midnight yet, and somehow they must have decided to meet here without words, because when he enters the common room, she's waiting for him by the fire.
"I couldn't sleep," he offers gruffly as an explanation as he slumps down in the chair next to hers. She just nods, solemnly, searching his face. (She's not sure how to act. This is Ron, for Merlin's sake. And she kissed him today. But that doesn't matter, does it – nothing like that matters in a world without Fred. And she doesn't have any idea how to help him through something like this. Even if it is Ron. Especially because it is him.)
"Is – is Harry up there?" she asks, because the air craves words and it's not letting her breathe properly.
"Yeah. Dunno if he's actually asleep, though."
"No." They have been up how many hours now? She has lost count. And yet, despite her whole body aching with exhaustion, she's not the least bit sleepy. She can't imagine Harry is either.
A frown appears between his eyebrows, and because it's him, somehow, she knows. (She recognizes the unthinkable in his eyes, from that moment, that moment when her mind went blank, grey, white, black, and she actually had to fight with all her not-remaining strength to keep her knees from buckling – because that was Harry.)
For some reason (maybe because it finally is over now, no matter how unbelievable it seems), she finds her mouth forming words she hadn't planned on ever speaking aloud. "I – honestly, I never could see the three of us making it through all this." Her voice doesn't tremble, but it's not hers. It's unsure and way too quiet. (He just wants her to sound sure and bossy and know-it-all-y again, because this isn't right and he needs her to be Hermione, needs something to rely on, needs her eyes not to be shining like that.)
"I did," he replies, and his voice isn't right either; hoarse and without that touch of a smirk or smile. "I had to. If I hadn't, if I'd let myself – I couldn't've…"
He breaks off, but doesn't look away. She swallows, and her hand flicks as if it wants to take his, but it stops itself midair, instead making an attempt to run its fingers through her hair. The attempt fails as she gets stuck in the tangles from the too many hours of sweat, wind and despair said hair has seen without a hairbrush.
His gaze follows her hand curiously. It is she who nervously averts her eyes.
"Before – you kissed me." His tone holds some sort of bemusement (lighter than he feels, because he needs to keep something about this night not unbearably heavy), and she can feel her cheeks reddening rapidly.
"Yes, yes, I did," she affirms to the floor. "Listen, Ron, I'm so sorry. I didn't plan it or anything, it just – sort of came over me," she blurts out, and would be unsurprised if smoke was by now puffing out of her ears. "It won't happen again, I – "
"Hermione," he interrupts her with a glint like amusement in his eyes. "I didn't say that I minded it. I mean – couldn't you tell?"
"Well…" (He did seem to enjoy it, at the time – but it was just the moment, wasn't it, the battle, the rush. And well, what boy reclined a crazy girl attacking him with kisses when he was in all probability moments from death? It didn't have to mean anything, did it? Not to him. Sure, her imagination has been reading his signs all year, even before that. She has believed she has seen it in him, and she usually reads him so well… But, even if there was something there earlier, who is to say that it hasn't changed now? Everything has, hasn't it?)
"I didn't, okay?" he continues, with a faint almost-grin. "Seriously, Hermione – you're supposed to be the good one at this stuff, aren't you?"
(Not when it comes to him. She has always lost her mind and all of her senses and every ounce of intelligent fibre in her being when he's involved.)
"I was just saying," he goes on, his ears giving him away when his voice and eyes don't (she takes comfort in the fact that he's not really as unbothered by this conversation as he pretends to be). "We… don't usually do that. Snog, I mean."
"Um, no," she whispers, slightly mortified by his bluntness. "But it was just a slip of – of the moment, and I won't…"
"Hermione," he interrupts her again. "I suppose I just kind of wanted to, you know, thank you. For snogging me when I was too thick to, well, come around to doing it myself."
"Wh-what?" (He grins at her surprise, and it's almost real, almost, at least if she doesn't look too closely in his eyes where the rest of the night is lurking. Right now, she'll keep him focused on this good part, because she's starting to realize that it was a very good part, and her blush is fading.)
"It wasn't just the bloody moment. Come on, Hermione, you know it wasn't."
"I – yes," she admits. "It wasn't. But it doesn't have to mean, you know… I mean, if you don't…"
"Hermione. Shut up."
He kisses her this time, and it's lips fumbling with lips, it's a little wet and too short, but it's his lips against hers and his hand clumsily brushing away a large chunk of hair from her face. She curses it, silently, because it would have been so much more romantic if he instead could've smoothly brushed away a silky bang. Then he intensifies the kiss and she forgets everything else.
"I want this," he continues, leaning back, his grin fading. "Hell, I think I might need this," he stops himself, shrugging away unbidden thoughts about why exactly he might need her to keep himself above the surface. "But if you don't – I mean, after last year, and this winter – I get it," he finishes, his voice low, his head bowed.
"Ron, don't be stupid," she whispers, still not having quite gathered herself from the actions of his tongue and touch.
"I'm serious," he urges, his eyes in hers for a second, pleading, then turning back to the floor. "I'd understand if you can't, you know, forgive me for – all that. I mean, I know you sort of did, before, but things were so – anyway, it's different now and well… I get it."
The sincerity in his voice makes her eyes water. Determinedly blinking it back, she replies softly. "It's okay."
He shakes his head. "It's not. It wasn't. But I – I won't let it happen again. I won't. I promise."
There's a fierceness in his vow that makes her just want to hug him and tell him it's okay over and over, a million times, and that it'll always be okay, even if it isn't.
"Okay." It's all she can manage, but this time, her hand doesn't stop itself before it takes his. She has to bite her lip, and she has to force herself to meet his gaze. She already knows what she'll find there, but it's worse than she imagined (as she knew it would be).
Her warm hand finding its way into his is what does it. That hand speaks more than touches and kisses, because now he has said everything he needs to (but hates that he needs to make sure of), and she's still here and she's holding his hand tightly and that's what does it. The distracting worry of her maybe-or-maybe-not forgiveness is erased and the silence that follows echoes between his ears and it's pictures, images and numbers (six siblings, five brothers – no, never again – he'll have to get used to only having four brothers, and he who used to wish they weren't so many, and now four seems like absolutely nothing).
She watches, her heart almost stopping, as his eyes cloud over, and she knows, knows all too well. She squeezes his hand, but it's not enough. Somehow – because of his assurance, his promise – she ignores her hesitation and inner protests that Ron won't want her to see him like this, won't accept her comfort, would want her to just leave him alone. And she finds her way over to his chair, sliding down next to him, half in his lap.
She's there, suddenly, not just her hand, but the whole her. Her arms creep around him, and it's her warmth and closeness and he can't do this anymore.
"I – I can't – I can't even p-picture it… being six…"
She hushes him, gently guiding his head towards her shoulder. He gratefully buries his face in her shirt, and at a loss for words, any words at all, she just tightens her hold of his shaking shoulders.
Somehow, it's lips again and the comfort turns into a passion that she of course knows is only a distraction, but it's not just that and she is happy to provide him with anything that will take his mind off this kind of reality.
As their cheeks touch, the wetness falling down his that she isn't supposed to be noting mixes with the tears she stubbornly will not allow to fall in his presence (he, after all, is the one who has lost a brother).
Interruption comes with careful steps in the stairwell that carries too much loss and heartache, and Hermione gestures quietly out the portrait hole. No matter who the intruder is, they are in agreement – they don't want anyone to walk in on them like this.
Hand in hand, they silently walk out into the night, together.
A/N: So, how was it? As some of you know, I'm way too in love with this couple to write them, usually. But I had to try. It wasn't easy, but something I had to do. And now I need to know how I did. Please, be honest, brutally so. I'm a perfectionist with this pairing, but I really do want to learn to write them.
