Chapter 23 – The Proud and The Stubborn
When Ginny got up and made her way out of the bedroom still half-asleep, she found Harry standing in the middle of the living room. He was sipping his coffee with an amused expression on his face. Ginny followed his gaze and noticed the ashen footprints on their floor, leading from the fireplace to Hermione's bedroom.
They both still clearly recalled yesterday's tension after finding out Ron had disappeared from the party and Hermione hadn't wanted to elaborate on why. Their eyes met and they both laughed, feeling considerably lighter.
It was good to be in love, Ginny thought as she made her way to Harry and kissed him good morning.
It was good to be loved, Harry thought as he wrapped her in closer to him.
It was good when Ron and Hermione were in love, too. Their crazy world finally felt like making sense again.
Ron was falling asleep with his forehead against Hermione's, breathing in her scent. She was sound asleep, hopefully somewhere safe from nightmares. He wondered briefly what it was that had scared her. And somehow, as if plucking the memory of her nightmare from the air, his mind grasped at it as he fell into sleep himself.
He was imprisoned in the dark where the only sound was her screaming. There was cruel laughter above him, darkness below. He was realising he would never reach her in time. All the times she had saved him, he would not be able to save her. All the times he had wasted not being with her, angry, jealous, walking away, it killed him inside.
There was an almost tangible fear stealing into his heart, the knowledge that this might be it...they were all going to die, and she would be first.
Ron woke. He felt pressure in his chest, his breathing haggard and hitched. For a second he couldn't even move to the side, to look at her, to know that she was okay
But she was. Hermione stirred and still in her sleep she moved to him, pressing into his chest. Ron felt the sting of tears upon discovering her there, safe and in his arms. He wrapped his arm around her, careful not to wake her, and buried his face into her bushy hair, glad she was asleep, glad she couldn't see him cry.
When he woke next, he felt even more exhausted. Hermione, miraculously, was still asleep. How tired had she been before tonight? Ron looked around the room.
The mess around the floor once more refreshed his memory of last night. He noticed they had fallen asleep on the opposite side of the bed, their feet on the pillows, heads the other way.
What was the magic that had been in the room with them at night? Was it the sex between them or the power in Hermione waking? He looked at her, lips parted, a crease between her eyebrows, as if she was also thinking when not fully conscious. One curl was in her face, the rest of it a beautiful mess.
Her slender neck and the- Ron traced a line with his thumb softly along her throat. He had almost expected something to be there, but found only soft skin under his touch.
She looked powerful to him even in sleep. All those times she tried and couldn't preform magic didn't matter for a second when he remembered the glow of her eyes from last night, the way the air pressed in on them when she came. Even lying now beside her, he could feel something thrumming underneath her skin. It fascinated him, mesmerised him, terrified him.
How could he ever measure up to that? How could he be worthy?
Ron released a long sigh and looked toward the ceiling. He still couldn't believe that yesterday had actually happened. A tickling in his stomach travelled to the rest of his body. He wanted her again, desired her so much it almost pained him, but he could wait. He'd let her sleep. He needed a bit of stretching, though.
Disentangling from her very carefully, Ron got up and cursed under his breath when a sharp-edged ink bottle found its way under his foot.
"Damn, Hermione," he said as he took in the chaotic result of their passion. He got to gathering everything up and trying to stack it nicely on the desk.
The sun outside indicated it must be late morning, perhaps early afternoon. As he put most of the parchment and notes on the desk, a twinkle caught his eye. He looked closer. It was a glass vial with what appeared to be a memory swirling inside it. It was leaning against a velvet box and a black book with the Hogwarts crest, like a photo album. Ron reached for it and flipped through.
Hermione opened her eyes and blinked. She felt light-headed but in a good way. Her body was strangely delicate yet full of a fire that was hard to describe. She finally felt well-rested.
Memories of last night started pouring into her mind, moment by moment, touch by touch. She smiled, feeling as though flowers were blooming inside her chest and belly. Sitting up, she looked around the room. It was cast in a dazzling light, little shadows of the outside trees dancing on the walls. The mess was cleaned up, there were only a couple of ink stains on the carpet, and quill feathers floating on the air. But Ron wasn't there.
She got up, pulling on a pair of jeans and a jumper. She couldn't find her socks. Opening the door, she was surprised to see Ron immersed in the Pensieve. Still sleepy, and very happy he was around, Hermione walked over to him in a daze and plunged in.
It wasn't her first time in the Pensieve, but it still gave her that lurching feeling of falling. She landed in what appeared to be a battlefield. There was rubble everywhere. The air crackled with flashes of curses, silhouettes and shadows of people running, fighting.
She tread through the memory, searching for a place where the sound was more audible and images clearer. She soon found the memory images of Ron, Harry and herself.
Hermione was struck again by the bizarreness of seeing herself, younger yet so old and haunted in the eyes, covered in soot as well as blood. She wanted to reach out a hand towards that girl and hold her, whisper that it will all be okay. Somewhat anyway, she thought to herself shrewdly. A closer look, however, revealed that perhaps this girl didn't need reassuring. Perhaps the current Hermione could reach out to her to be held instead and be told that she, too, could be so amazingly brave.
Memory Hermione was holding basilisk fangs and a cup dripping with black blood. She and memory Ron were saying something, and Harry was there, too, but the sounds were muffled and she was still apprehensive about coming closer and breaking up the moment.
Memory Ron had said something, about saving the house-elves, but in the middle of his sentence, Hermione's younger version crossed the room in a couple of swift strides and leapt into Ron's arms. Hermione felt herself blushing immediately as their lips met, marvelling at how an act from so many years ago turned her current physical heart and being into an absolute flutter.
She could almost feel the kiss she was witnessing upon her own lips. She stood there, transfixed but feeling stronger, reclaiming a memory that had been taken away from her. She tried to savour every detail.
The way Ron lifted her off her feet as if he had been waiting for this moment for years. They way they fell perfectly into each other. They way she held onto him with absolute surety.
Hermione of the past had known what she wanted, even at a young age. Hermione now wondered if she could be the same. Drinking in the scene, she thought that she finally figured it out.
"Is this the time?" Harry had said and the two pulled apart.
That was when she saw the older Ron across the room and across time, staring at the same scene with eyes slightly wide, face flushed red. She smiled, her heart frantic at the sight of the real him, the now him.
Ron, however, turned away with a stony expression and vanished in the folds of the memory. With one last look around the carnage and the young Ron and Hermione locked in an endless kiss she hated the world for making her forget, Hermione closed her eyes and allowed herself to emerge as well.
As she came up for air, back in the room, Ron stood across the table from her, blue shimmering light illuminating his features.
"So I guess that was it...our first kiss," he said with a hollow voice.
Hermione was confused. A heavy dread fell to the bottoms of her stomach. She wanted to go to him, kiss him, get a taste of last night again, but his body language held her back. Was he shocked to find out they have shared a kiss? That didn't make any sense. Something was off.
A part of her brain was already catching up with what the rest of her had been still too tired to realize.
"Ron..."
"Don't," he blurted out, not looking at her. Again he was taking his eyes away, but this time it was not out of shame. Hermione felt the iron taste of it in the air as he moved to the fireplace jerkily. He was angry. "I gotta go."
Before she found any words to say to him, he grabbed a handful of floo and green flames swallowed him. Hermione stood there for a second, glancing between the fireplace and the Pensieve. Her face, eyes closed, and Ron's face, pressed together, still rippled on the surface.
Then she saw it.
"No, no, no…" The photo album laid open on the coffee table, right on the photograph with her and Ron and the words about their engagement. She ran to the fireplace with the intention to follow him. Reaching her hand into the powder bowl, she found it empty. "Dammit," she cursed. There was no other way for her to travel. She couldn't just go and take the bus to the Burrow.
Harry and Ginny had to have spare floo. She started running around the room wildly. "Think, think, where would they put it?" She opened up cabinets, pulled out drawers, shaking the whole time, tears threatening to fall. She was so angry with herself. She needed to talk to Ron. Now was already too late. She couldn't believe this was happening. She had been ready to tell him, right this morning. Yesterday was just the two of them, a wonderful night, and she felt so beautifully tired after that experience the thought of some past troubling engagement didn't even cross her mind any more, because it no longer mattered.
But now...
"Where's that ruddy powder?" she shouted to the empty room and rattled yet another drawer full of gifted snitches and sneakoscopes. She went into her room and grabbed her wand. This was ridiculous. She was a witch. She had no business rummaging in drawers like a thief.
"Accio floo powder!" Nothing happened. There it was again, snaking around her heart, the helplessness she had felt both in her dream and all those moments when she had failed to produce any magic. She tried to recall yesterday's night, the surge of power she had felt inside like a fire blazing, suddenly out of control. But just like trying to relive fleeting moments of happiness, right here and now it was lost to her.
Hermione let out a roar of suppressed rage, throwing her wand at the floor. She collapsed on the sofa, still shaking. A sob escaped her mouth but she stifled it, biting down on her hand.
That's when she heard a faint click. She lifted her gaze in the direction of the kitchen. A cabinet door was slowly swinging back and forth, as if in a breeze. She rose and walked over in a daze. On the shelf inside was a pouch full of the powder she recognized, on its side and spilling its contents as if it was knocked over.
Not pausing to think about what had just happened, Hermione grabbed it and ran to the fireplace, jumping in.
Bracing herself for the uncomfortable spinning that would take place, she threw the powder in and shouted, "The Burrow!" Coal crunched underneath her feet and she realised she hadn't bothered putting any shoes on.
Hermione was spinning in circles, gritting her teeth and hoping she would get this right. As soon as she spotted the familiar bottom of the living room at The Burrow, she lunged forward and found herself stumbling to the floor.
She coughed and tried helplessly to dust herself off. Immediately she saw Ron standing out in the garden. Hearing footsteps up above, Hermione dashed through the kitchen outside, not really keen on coming face to face with any other Weasley in this particular moment.
She burst through the door and halted, catching her breath. Ron turned around and took an abrupt step backwards as he saw her there.
"I guess I was just blind," he said. "You figured it out. You always do, after all."
Hermione was baffled by the sudden scene. Just two days prior, they were standing in the same spot, him offering her an escape, her taking it. Back then she told herself, no more running. She now realised she should have told him that, too.
"I wanted to tell you," she said honestly.
His blue eyes were wild, and colder than she's ever seen them. There was a haunted shadow in them. It made her feel scared, lonely and humiliated. A voice inside her head was saying, he's going to leave again.
"But you didn't," he spat, his tone acid. "After I've told you..." his voice grew hoarse with emotion, so he swallowed it. "I told you how it hurt, how stupid I felt when I found out Harry hadn't been honest with me. You said you understood, you said you didn't like it, too, and yet you...how long have you known?" he asked with narrowed eyes.
"A couple of days, maybe a week." Perhaps she could've lied, said it's been just yesterday she had found out. But she didn't want to lie any more. As she had expected, this further fuelled Ron's rage.
"So on the hill...last night...you knew we used to be together, that we were engaged, and yet you've said nothing? Didn't think to mention it while I poured out my heart to you, told you everything? And I always felt so guilty for...for trying to get close to you. And all that talk about how we feel close to one another, all very one-sided, then! I feel so stupid."
"I didn't know how to tell you, Ron, okay? It was a shock for me and I had to process it."
"What did you have to process? More importantly, why are you the one who gets to process things while I'm left in the dark like a pillock?" Ron kicked a stray garden gnome. Hermione gasped, but didn't say anything. Now was not the time to tell him off for that, but his growing anger ignited an anger of her own.
"I'm sorry I've had a bit more difficult time adjusting to everything! I wasn't lavished by love and affection by a family you were lucky to find! While you got a mother and a father and brothers to make new memories with, I got a newspaper article saying my parents were dead. Sorry that I had other things on my mind besides your hurt pride!"
Ron stared at her, unsurprised that she was now fighting back, but still taken aback by the sudden fierceness in her voice. There was nothing he could say to that. He screwed up his face as if in pain, battling with all the feelings flooding his insides.
Hermione's emotions were cascading out of her control now, too. It's been days since she had allowed the reality of her parents being gone truly affect her. There was still a gaping hole between her and the ability to process any of it. She felt unfair bringing it up now in a fight with Ron, but his behaviour was opening up old wounds and fears of that loneliness again, of the losses she had suffered and couldn't really remember. She was increasingly more scared of losing him, too.
"I never meant for you to feel isolated," he murmured as he was looking at the ground. "My family was your family, that's how I always felt about it. So everyone else knew, huh? And no one bothered to tell me."
"No one told me either, I found out on my own."
But Ron didn't seem to be listening. Instead he was walking back and forth, waving his arms in the air.
"And that memory just now, Harry gave it to you, not to us, but to you, because you're such good friends, I'm the weak one who leaves, who can't be told things."
"Harry gave that memory to me because you had left that night!" Hermione said, unable to hold off the frustration out of her voice. "You talk so much of how no one's told you that you left, yesterday you said you don't want to be that kind of man, and yet now you're just walking away again!" she shouted. It was a cheap shot, but she was losing her temper. How did he get to stand there and blame her without even pausing for a second to listen to her, to hear an explanation?
"Then why didn't you tell me? Why had it not occurred to you for even a second that this concerns us both? That it is my life, too?" Ron's voice cracked a little at the edges. "I thought we were in this together since the beginning, but clearly you just didn't want me to know because you...because you don't want me." He took another step away as the words he had just spoken and the possibility of them being true finally hit him.
Hermione understood where his anger and worry was coming from, but she couldn't understand this intense insecurity that seemed to cloud all of his judgement. "What...how can you even...Did yesterday mean nothing to you?" she asked anxiously.
Ron paused his pacing and lifted his eyes to meet hers again.
"It meant everything to me."
Hermione shivered at his words and under his stare. She could see a glimmer of rationale in his face, but then the stubbornness poured back in, and eclipsed all of that.
"But now I feel like a fool."
Hermione felt tears sting her eyes. She understood him, even through her own anger she did, and she regretted taking so long to come out with it. She struggled, though, to articulate her own worries and doubts, the fear she had felt of what that knowledge would have created and how she believed it was justified.
"This is exactly why I didn't want to tell you," she croaked, daring to take a step towards him. "Look at us losing our minds over it! It's a huge thing, I almost wish I hadn't found out and I could just be with you as we are, or as we were yesterday," she corrected. Her eyes were definitely brimming with tears now.
Ron fell silent. His hands were in his pockets and his eyes were boring into her. There it was again, a flash of vulnerability hidden among the swirling shades of hurt and anger, a shade of love and longing, calling and reaching out to a longing of her own.
"So do you still want to marry me?"
"What?"
"You heard me, Hermione."
Hermione staggered. Just the sound of her name coming out of his mouth was always enough to set her world spinning. The question itself, spoken with sober seriousness, tilted the earth upon which she was standing.
"You can't be serious..." she breathed, laughing nervously in between words.
"I asked you once, didn't I? I mean, I didn't know that until today, but I'm sure I meant it then, I mean it now."
She hugged herself, shaking her head. "No you can't-"
"Don't tell me what I can't-"
"You can't!" she shouted, voice borderline on shrieking. "We can't just get married, Ron. That's insane. It's in a past we can't remember."
"I don't bloody care!"
"Well you bloody should! We need time, we need to figure it all out. I want us to be Ron and Hermione from yesterday, not these other people we're trying so hard to be."
"All you have to do is answer, do you still want to-"
"Of course not!" she bellowed, trying to knock some sense into him with the force of her words, even if they felt all wrong coming out of her mouth. Ron looked as though she slapped him.
"Of course not," he repeated bitterly. He took a deep breath and looked at her with hollow eyes. "That answers it then, I guess," he said and turned around to walk away.
"Ron, for goodness' sake..."
He spun around abruptly. Hermione stopped in her tracks. Her heart beat so fast and loud she started to feel dizzy, but whatever was going to happen next and regardless of how it would hurt, she knew that in this moment in time, her decision was the right one. The thought of Ron leaving and hating her was far too much to bear, but she wouldn't be bullied by his or anyone else's emotions for that matter.
The air around them stilled as birdsong and distant chicken clucking filled their ears. A strange sense of calm washed over Hermione. Strange because it helped her regain control of herself, but it killed her inside at the same time.
A pained expression settled over Ron, as if he were both devastated and a little ill, regretting he had shouted, regretting his words and that last question. But it all vanished as he kept staring her in the eyes, where she kindled a defiance he knew he'd never be able to defeat.
"Just go..." he rasped, voice at the edge of breaking. "I'm done." With that, he walked past her towards the Burrow, without looking back.
Hermione inhaled the air around her and flexed her fingers. She felt his name in her throat. All of her body was bristling and almost bursting with the desire to run after him, make him see sense in the situation, make him stay. The more she watched him, however, the more her body was giving up that notion, the more her heart had retreated, letting her mind finally be in charge, as it always should have been.
She stood there for a moment longer, unable to tear her eyes away from his back still. Only when he disappeared in The Burrow and slammed the door she felt that there was nothing more to say, at least not right now.
For a second she contemplated just waiting for a while and then sneaking through the kitchen back to the fireplace and back to Harry and Ginny's, but she couldn't face him in there, couldn't handle running into anyone else. She'd rather face whatever was on the other side of this house, this hill and the sight of Ron walking away from her.
With a numb heart and an empty mind, barefoot and unafraid, she turned around and left.
Author's Note: Thank you everyone for reading, please review if you got the time, you have no idea how much that means to me, so I want you to know I really appreciate it immensely if you do. I know the plot was on a bit of a break as Ron and Hermione were trying to resolve their issues, so the story will start picking up on speed again in the next chapter. Hope you liked this one!