"This road is anything but simple, twisted like a riddle I've seen high and I've seen low. So loud, the voices of all my doubts. Even so, I had to believe, impossible means nothing to me."

-Kate Voegele, Lift Me Up

Ron stayed distant over the next few days. Though he seemed to have no intention of leaving again, he rarely went a moment when they were all together without thrusting his disapproval in their faces. Hermione shouldered through the sarcastic replies and disdainful glares, knowing it had to end sometime, even though he had refused to talk to her all day so far. His silence was deafening.

She sat on the shoreline, letting the water rush over her bare feet, face turned up towards the weak sunlight. She knew it was useless, crying, yet the tears would not stop. Her younger self would have scoffed at how very much she seemed to cry now, saying it would be much more useful to go read a book dealing with whatever was bothering her. But she doubted there was a book detailing her current situation.

There came a noise from behind her and one hand plunged into her pocket, intending on getting her wand and hexing whoever dared disturb her.

"Er- If this is a bad time…" Harry backed away with his hands in the air, eyes trained warily on her wand.

She let out a soft laugh and lowered her wand.

"Sorry. I was expecting someone else…"

He nodded. It was just like when Ron had left, with them unwilling to even utter his name.

Harry sat down next to her, putting one arm around her and pulling her close. For a while they didn't speak.

"How do you do it?" She asked, penetrating the soft quiet that had surrounded them, like a blanket, warm and close.

"Do what?" His head lifted from where it rested atop hers so he could look at her.

"Seem so happy when everything feels like it's falling apart?"

He didn't answer immediately, his eyes scouring the waves as if the right words would appear out of them.

"Because it'll end soon, either way."

She wasn't sure whether he was talking about Ron or the hunt for Horcruxes, but didn't question it. She supposed the answer fit both.

"This is my fault. Ron would be talking to us and things would be going smoother if it weren't for me." Hermione grimaced, realizing finally that the thought was what was plaguing her the most in the shadows of her mind.

"Don't go blaming yourself, Hermione-"

"Oh, Harry, admit it. You know it's because of me."

The warmth of his arm suddenly left as he pulled back to give her a stern look.

"I'm just as much at fault."

Hermione's mind flicked back to the first time she had met Harry, scrawny with glasses broken down the middle, looking thoroughly out of place. Although he looked nothing like that now, he had hardly changed inside. Still pure. Still completely, frustratingly selfless. And maybe that was why she needed him so much, like she drew strength from him whenever she was near. But she doubted that was the whole of it.

"Maybe this is a bad idea, think of Ginny- and Ron. Maybe we should just- just-" What they should do, was beyond her. All she knew was that she needed to do what was right, before she got to far attached to stop this dangerous path.

"Have you thought of yourself? Maybe we should start there."

His words staggered her. Think of herself? What did she want? Well, that was plain as day. She wanted- needed- Harry.

"But-"

"Hermione, you know how you asked what I saw in you?"

She nodded mutely.

"I see my best friend. I see the girl that's been by my side every time I need her, the one I can count on when I need to know something-" He smiled impishly, "-And now, I think I'm starting to see something more. Don't make me throw away this new image."

Her thoughts whirled and dived incoherently around in her head. She didn't know what to feel, what to think. But Harry decided for her.

His lips were soft on hers, without the desperate forcefulness that had been their first kiss. One hand found its way to her back, pulling her closer, while the other still cupped her chin gently. It didn't take long before she responded, kissing him back with the emotions that had been running amok within her ever since that night of the dance. The first kiss may have felt like a forbidden secret for only them to know, but this was something even better. It was the kiss signaling a beginning, and in some ways an end. The ending of pain and loneliness. And the beginning of the possibility that was no longer impossible.

A/N: I'm well aware they sound kind of out-of-character in this one. Sorry, but I simply couldn't get it right. And sorry for no updating for a few days, but school comes first. I don't own the song. Review! Thanks!