A/N: So, this one sort of came out of nowhere. I had never imagined this taking place at this point in DH before today, but thanks, song prompt! It borderline doesn't fit into canon, but I read the RoR / Room of Hidden Things scene over again in the book, and you could possibly stretch the timeline while Harry's separated from them + getting accosted by Malfoy to include time for this to go down. It was also the last place for them to have a very brief acknowledgement of their status before Fred dies :(

Hope you enjoy! x

Prompt: "Talk Too Much" by COIN

Prompted by: hello-blue-roses

They were rummaging through piles of junk, rusted old bottles and sconces, torn books, furniture missing a leg… The Room of Hidden Things seemed to stretch on endlessly before them, and they had separated from Harry to cover more ground. At least they had a plan and Harry had seen the diadem before, Ron reminded himself, as Hermione reached up to push a small stack of filthy, wooden boxes to the side to see what was behind them.

"Ron… I'm sorry," she sniffed, not looking at him, "f-for, you know, kissing you like that."

These weren't the words he wanted to hear after the best few moments of his life, but he hadn't entirely ruled out this possibility, so he managed to answer her, trying to stay at least partially distracted by their search.

"S'alright-"

"It was a bad time to- but I just don't care about that anymore."

She shifted stacks of torn parchment atop a small mound of what basically amounted to trash, sighing.

"Yeah, I-"

"But those fangs could have killed us," she interrupted again, "and I don't know what's wrong with me… why I've got to find the worst possible moment for everything. We were living in a tent for months, then all those weeks with your brother and Fleur…"

He couldn't really bring himself to admit that he hadn't even thought about the fangs, completely oblivious to the potential for one of them to stab through a leg in her haste to throw herself against him. He waited in silence for another moment, correctly suspecting that she hadn't finished talking yet.

"I just wasn't thinking," she sighed again. "Sorry."

He busied himself with a shuffle through a small collection of scorched cauldrons until he sensed that she was actually done this time, and he scratched the words out through his raw throat, more worried about leaving her to feel like she owed him anything than he was focused on the way his heart was sinking to the pit of his stomach, wondering why she thought she needed to be sorry in the first place… that maybe she'd made a mistake.

"I get it. We might die. You just… did something spontaneous."

"What?" she half-whispered, moving toward him before he could comprehend what she was doing.

Her eyes flashed over to his, and a strange sort of deep gaze penetrated him, like she could read his mind. Perhaps he wasn't hiding it well at all, too distracted with their task, aisles and aisles of endless rubbish, with the sounds of distant fighting echoing through the stone walls. But he tried to hold on to the way her lips had felt, her arms around his neck, rather than showing her how scared he was that she'd done something she didn't really mean, in the middle of a war…

She pushed him back against a crumbling column, and, for a second, he tensed, thinking it might collapse under their sudden weight. Her hand was on his chest, which he tried not to focus on as she almost glared up at him.

"You think that's why I did it?"

He licked his bottom lip, at a loss for what to say. He didn't know what the correct words were, and he was too full of adrenaline and dust to think straight.

"Well, it's not," she answered for him.

"But you just said… Look, I'd understand, if it was."

He thought back over her apology, not quite ready to commit to believing he might have missed something. The important thing was that they had to focus on the bloody Horcruxes, and she really had picked a terrible time to snog him and then say she was sorry for it…

"We can talk later, when all this is over, if- if we survive," he said. "But it doesn't matter right now."

"Doesn't matter?"

"I just mean… bloody hell. Honestly, if we are gonna die, I'd rather just think you wanted to do it 'cause you-" He broke off and cleared his throat. "Y'know, that you'd have done it whether or not we were in this shit right now. I should just tell you, anyway, that I'm fucking glad you did it. I mean, you know me. I'm not sure I've done that great a job hiding it lately, but I've fanc-"

Her fist tightened in his shirt and she tugged him toward her, kissing him again. It took him several seconds to comprehend what was happening before he gripped the back of her neck with his right hand and kissed her back. She pressed her body all along the front of his, standing up on her toes to reach him. And then, too soon, it was over. He opened his eyes and blinked down at her flushed face.

"I didn't want to say the wrong thing again and confuse you," she whispered, trying to excuse herself. "And, we've got a Horcrux to find."

He was finding it hard to remember how to breathe, but she'd immediately pointed out, without needing to explain in words, that all his doubts about how she felt were entirely self-driven. Her apology now looked like something different. They could have spent months together, if they'd just done this before, when they'd had an endless stretch of quiet nights together in a tent, weeks of safety at Bill and Fleur's. Now, they'd managed two effing kisses, and he might not live to see the sunrise.

"That's twice you've done that now. Isn't it my turn?"

"I can't believe you thought it was just spontaneous."

"We were in the middle of a conversation. Both times, actually."

"But does it still count as spontaneous if I've been wanting to do it for about three years now?"

He felt his lips twitching, the dread that had lodged in his stomach earlier had completely dissipated, and he was pretty sure his arms were coated in goosebumps. They really ought to be searching for the damn diadem…

"Diadem, snake, Voldemort, Prefect's Bath," she said quietly, clearly agreeing with his unspoken words, reluctantly letting go of him and backing up a small step.

His grin spread slowly across his face as she shyly chewed her lip and abruptly turned around, rummaging through old jewelry boxes as they could finally hear Harry moving on the other side of the aisle again. Ron walked up behind her to reach a tray of silver goblets over her head. Evidently surprised by his proximity, she turned around under his arm, gazing up at him. He kept his eyes on the silver he was looking through as he felt her watching him.

"Not up there," he said.

He reckoned they should both really stop talking so much and start just doing what they actually wanted to do. So far, that had worked out far superior to all the overthinking and jealousy they'd gone through for years. And he was free, knowing she returned the feelings that, for him, had grown to surpass love, even.

"We have to win," she said.

"We will," he answered, and she ducked under his arm to break free, opening cabinet doors across the aisle and peering inside.

"Not here either."

They might not have time to put words to everything it meant, but he wasn't even sure if they really needed them, anymore. He took hold of her hand and ran his thumb across her knuckles, encouraged by the way she smiled, determinedly tugged him further down the aisle to keep on looking.