A/N: I was feeling kind of emo and...girly...? last night, so I wrote this.
"Ron," she sobbed into her hands, shoulders quivering. "Ron, what if w-we d-die? What i-if only o-one of us-s d-dies? What about H-Harry?"
"Hey," he said, pulling her gently into his arms, "We're going to be okay. Everyone's going to be okay, Hermione."
"Y-You can't say that! You c-can't promise!" she hiccupped.
"No, I can't," Ron said. "But I can promise you that I will do absolutely everything in my power to keep you safe. And if not, safe, alive."
"Oh, Ron!" She threw her arms around his neck and embraced him back, rather than just clutching the front of his shirt pathetically.
'I love you," He whispered into her hair softly. So softly, in fact, that he wasn't even sure that she'd heard him at first. But then she was pulling gently away from the comfort of his arms and looking up at him with those big brown eyes. Her cheeks were tear-stained, her curls were a mess, and her eyes were rather red and puffy, but she was still Hermione – his Hermione, he had to keep reminding himself – and that made her even more beautiful than ever.
"What?" she asked softly, as though not daring to hope that he'd just revealed to her what he had.
"I – he gulped – I love you."
For the second time that evening, her eyes filled with tears, and she threw her arms around him again.
"Oh, Ron," she murmured, blinking up at him through the tears. "Do you really? I mean, are you sure?" He took her face gently, in his big hands, and kissed her softly, slowly. It was different from how he usually kissed her – roughly, almost hungrily, bruising her lips with his own. .
"I've never been more certain of anything in my life."
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