Author's Note: Thanks for all of the positive feedback on the last chapter. I'm absolutely beaming with pride. I promise that I'll have a longer flirtation filled chapter coming up soon… probably later tonight or sometime tomorrow. Enjoy, loves!
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November 20, 1996. Days missing: 3.
Ron woke up with a start that Saturday morning, drenched in sweat. His breathing labored, he sat up and grabbed for one of the posts on his four-poster bed. Squeezing the cherry wood until his knuckles turned white, he closed his eyes for the briefest of moments before gaining the composure to stand and get dressed.
Harry, Dean, Seamus, and Neville were all still asleep, Neville muttering something as Dean let out a snore. Ron glanced over at Harry, who lay there tossing and turning. Deciding to riddle this one out on his own, he stepped down the stairs and into the Gryffindor common room. The day was a foreboding gray as he stared out the window at the grounds. Grabbing his jacket from the corner coat rack, he walked outside into the chilly autumn morning.
Ron walked down to the lake and took up shop next to a tree—not the Whomping Willow, of course—and sat there for the longest time without a single cohesive thought running through his mind. A jumbled-up mess, he didn't really know how to account for his feelings. He missed Hermione, that was certain—the nightmare he woke from justified that emotion. The dull ache in his heart reminded him of when he got frostbite playing in the Christmas snow as a young child, taking off the mittens his mother had forced him to put on. First his hands felt raw, then they burned and went numb before he could scarcely feel them at all, the dead weight of his fingers a reminder of his childish error.
But, it wasn't like they hadn't been separated before. Christmas and summer holidays, periods of fight and then making up—absence really wasn't a stranger to their friendship. Something about this situation and the depth with which he longed for her company felt different to him. Ron picked up the nearest stone and threw it angrily at the lake, shivering as he pulled his jacket more closely around him.
He leaned back against the tree and closed his eyes, picturing his two best friends in happier times. Harry and Hermione were everything to him—a fact that his non-emotional front had a hard time swallowing. As he watch the scene unfold in his mind, Harry and Hermione laughed, a smile spreading across her face.
Ron found himself smiling then, at this innocent memory. The smile warmed him from the inside, the pain temporarily washed away in the image of her smile. It was only then that Ron thought guiltily about Lavender. The smile vanished from his face as he turned once more to blankly stare at the castle grounds, images from his nightmare replaying in his head.
Turning a few minutes later to the sound of leaves crunching on the ground behind him, he saw Harry walking down the hill. Harry solemnly looked down at his friend and asked, "How are you holding up?"
Ron responded, his words weighted with his confused thoughts, "I miss her." Harry said nothing but nodded in agreement, joining his friend on the hard cold earth.