Chapter 32 - Of Ron and Hermione
The graveyard of Godric's Hollow was empty and peaceful, silent. Even the birdsong became distant once Hermione stepped through the iron wrought gates, closing them behind her with a faint click. The summer was coming to an end, and warmth took longer to manifest, sleepy while the early shadows lingered. But as she stepped into the sun, she felt the heat kiss her skin.
She wore a light summer dress with a sweater over it, long loose skirt a little muddied along the hem.
She sat down on the ground and looked upon their names, trying to raise a feeling inside, yet again her brain failed to truly process the fact and truth of them being gone. Whether it was the missing memory or denial or both, some part of her simply felt as though they were somewhere else, living their life apart from her. They just haven't spoken in a while, was all. The fact she had to remind herself that that wasn't the case hurt more than the reality itself.
She reached out, running her fingertips across the engraved letters. Perhaps she could use that disconnect, imagine they were listening, because who was to say they weren't?
"Hey mum, dad." Her voice didn't sound right, it hardly came out, trapped like a bird inside her throat, but she went on, hoarse, "Harry and Ginny are getting married today. This is not what I'll be wearing, don't worry," she added, feeling a smile forming at her lips as she looked down at her clothes, "it's just something to comfortably get around in while we prepare things, greet guests,. My bridesmaid's dress is safely at the Burrow, and it's quite pretty. I had the cut done similar to the one I found in one of your photos, mum. It's got these fluttering sleeves I know you'd like, you wore them often, with a lot of your blouses."
She huffed out a breath, glancing up into the rustling trees. Maybe this was silly, talking to a pair of cold stones. Pressing her face into her hands, Hermione let out a long sigh. Before she could stop it, however, the next words came tumbling out of her like heavy stones.
"I feel so guilty every time I think of you. It so often feels like I've been robbed of memories, and it hurts more when it comes to you because there's nothing in the now to grasp at, but I think there was distance between us long before I disappeared, a distance I've created."
Hermione was as resourceful as she could when it came to reconstructing her past from the puzzle pieces she had picked up over time - letters, diaries, notes and photographs. When it came to her parents, she managed to piece together a map of that strange part of her life and their relationship, full of gaps and empty places.
"There's letters and letters from you, detailed, long, invested...and mine dwindled over the years, scribbled briefly, dates in between stretched longer and longer. I feel like I've allowed myself to lose you long before I actually did. And to add insult to injury, I wiped your memories, to protect you, and it's almost ironic how the same fate came back to haunt me.
"Was it the same for you, I wonder? Trying to find your way back to a life that had faded away in your absence? Did you also wake up in the middle of the night, not knowing who you truly were? Was it fair of me to do it to you? I'm sure I thought so back then, I'm not so sure anymore. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've neglected you, got so carried away with my magical life, thought you'd just always be there later. I'm sorry I sent you away, even if it was to protect you."
For the next couple of moments she just cried, sobs softly finding their way out of her lungs, until she no longer knew how much time had passed, until she was tired and dizzy and comfortably empty. Perhaps letting all of that go, there was a new space inside her, a space to let some light in.
Taking a second to compose herself, Hermione wiped her eyes with the sleeves of her sweater, pulled her hair back into a top bun and just sat next to them. The sounds of nature, so alive in a deathly place, now reached her with a soft touch. She looked around at the blooming wild flowers, swaying in the wind that rustled the trees overhead, and lost herself in the buzzing of insects. She reached into her bag then and pulled out a small vial with a purple liquid swirling inside. She held it up to the sun. The illuminated liquid showed particles of dust floating freely.
"It took a couple of weeks, but I got the potion, though I'm not sure it'll work. I suspect it'd be unwise to try it first thing and experiment on myself. Apparently I've turned myself into a part-cat once." Hermione's laugh brought some life back to the tips of her numb fingers, "so I may take a more reasonable route this time, give it to the Potioneering Association to test first. It might take a long time to get it ready, longer than I'd like, but...Ron is right, I need to take a step away from the Dust. It nearly drove me insane these last few days."
"Ron...I wonder what he'll say when I show it to him. I mean I hope he'll be happy, feel better. You know, I was so wrapped up in myself again, I failed to see him struggling. And I thought he was always just leaving and hiding. And yes, he has this annoying tendency to avoid things but he's...he's always there, even if it is against his better judgement. He's still there, for me, and all I've thought about was the dust and the house, not pausing to see it was causing him pain. And now, I no longer know what he wants, maybe he knew it once, and I missed that opportunity." Hermione sighed, shivering as her stomach lurched at the possibility of that statement. "I'm so worried sometimes that I am a selfish person, steeped too deep in my own fears."
Her words left her yet the weight of them remained. That was the truth of it, there was no one to tell her otherwise, to reassure her it was not so. Some things you had to work out on your own, who you were, who you wanted to be, and you'd have to do it without crutches of memory and other people to guide you.
"I want to believe it will end well, though. Learning how to move on is not something I found much about in books, but I feel like I have to let go of some of that fear and pain. I'm not here to say goodbye, not really, I guess I'm here to bury the fear and excuses."
Hermione stood up, smoothed down her skirt.
"I have to go now. Thank you for listening." Hermione kissed the tips of her fingers and drew them across the top of the marble gravestones. "I love you and sleep well."
The sun was high in the sky and the wedding marquee was standing in the middle of the Burrow's orchard. Everything was pristine and finally put in its place. Ginny and Molly hovered on the edge, doing a last count of the chairs while Fleur and Hermione were attaching small bundles of baby's breath onto the edges of the aisle seats with their wands.
"Time to get dressed, dear," Molly said to Ginny, removing a loose lock of red hair from her shoulder, tucking it behind her ear. She fixed Ginny with a watery stare, stifling the oncoming sob by pressing a hand over her mouth.
"It hasn't even started yet, Mum," Ginny said with a sheepish grin.
"Oh, I know, I know, it's just..." Molly sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. "You're right. Let's go, I think I've heard the boys arriving. Are you coming, Hermione, Fleur?" Molly turned to look at them.
"We'll be right there, you go ahead," Fleur chirped.
Molly nodded and pulled Ginny after her, shoulders visibly shaking with a new wave of sobs. Twisting her neck around, Ginny mouthed a 'come quickly' to them both.
"The weeping is starting earlier than usual," Fleur said good naturedly in her accent. She flicked her wand and a bottle of champagne zoomed over to them. Hermione grinned and grabbed two empty champagne glasses from a neat glass pyramid on a nearby table. "I am not surprised. I will be reduced to a sopping puddle when it's Victoire's special day, I'm sure. But here, drink, we will need it."
Hermione took the glass and clinked it with Fleur, taking a sip.
"Ah there they are, the handsome gentlemen!"
Hermione turned around to look at who Fleur was waving at.
She saw him across the room and her stomach did a flip. Her sharp intake of breath resulted in her spilling a bit of champagne down her dress and coughing up the rest. Ron was standing next to Harry at the entrance to the marquee, with Bill by their side. Fleur glided over to sweep them into a hug while Hermione just stood lamely in the same spot, blinking wildly. Ron was wearing a white cotton shirt with the collar slightly open, a soft green velvet vest over it. With his suit jacket hung over his arm and hands in pockets, he looked quite at ease. Red hair fell into smiling blue eyes, the ends at his neck wet as if he were fresh out of a shower.
She set the empty glass of champagne down on the table and reached a shaky hand into her handbag where she felt the outline of the vial. She took it out, clutching it tight for fear of it slipping through her nervous, sweating fingers.
Ron and Harry began to make their way in her direction. As Ron lifted his eyes to meet hers, he stopped in his tracks, falling a step behind Harry, staring at her, lips parted slightly. She was startled and felt so very beautiful under his gaze all at the same time.
Harry walked up to her and pulled her into a hug. She could feel her best friend shaking in the embrace and shifted her focus on him. As she pulled away, she saw Harry labouring to smile, though it came out more as a pained grimaced.
"Harry?"
"I need some air. Get me out of here?" he asked the same moment as Ron stepped up to them. Hermione dropped the vial back into her bag. It would have to wait.
Ron nodded his head in the direction out of the marquee and cleared his throat. "Follow me."
He led them around the house until they reached Arthur's old tool shed. All three walked to hide behind it. Hermione put up silencing spells while Ron pulled a flask of firewhiskey from his coat pocket. He handed it to Harry who took it, but didn't take a swig, just leaned against the shed wall and slid down into the grass.
"You don't plan to run out on my sister, do you?" Ron asked in good humour, giving Hermione a secret smile and a shrug of the shoulder. Harry ran his hand through his hair, looking positively terrified.
"I'm surprised she hasn't run out on me!" he said in a choked voice. "I'm...I don't know if this is...if I can do this right. How do you do this right?" he asked, looking up, eyes darting between them both. "I'll have to like, protect her, and this kid, not let him kill himself, or...or wander away! I lost you two, adult people, how can I protect a kid?"
"Harry, look" Hermione said calmly, crouching down opposite him. She took the flask from his hands and took a long swig followed by a cough. Both Harry and Ron raised their eyebrows in surprise. "You will be great at this! I know it for a fact, because you are caring," she said, counting it off on her fingers, "brave and strong. You went through hell, sacrificed yourself for us all and still managed to live on and become a wonderful man with a good heart. You have Ginny, she'll know what to do. You have me, I'll get you all the books you need to help with the technicalities. You have Ron, he'll be the best Uncle there is, and you have the rest of the Weasleys who love you as if you were their own. Not to mention, the perks of that are they'll be competing in who gets to babysit, which will mean a lot of free time for you and Ginny to breathe sometimes."
"Yeah, and you're getting in early," Ron cut in, "this baby's only the second in a row in this family, after the third or fourth it will wear off and we will all start coming up with excuses to avoid babysitting duties," he finished with a nonchalant shrug, but bright laughter in his eyes.
Hermione glanced up at him and couldn't hide her own smile. A flash of a thought crossed her mind - if one of the many children in this family would be his, and if they would perhaps be hers, too. Feeling the heat spread over her skin like wildfire, Hermione looked back at Harry who was taking in deeper and longer breaths, looking considerably calmer.
"You'll teach them flying, blimey, that will be awesome," Ron said.
"And read them bed time stories."
"And show them how big epic magic is done."
"And you can get them some easy school books before they start their first year so they can learn all the little easy spells in advance."
"And buy them some bonkers pet, like a fire lizard or a crup!"
"And take them to all the magical bookshops and I can help them learn runes so they can read all the old fairy tales."
"Better let them know ahead of time that they'll be disowned by their Auntie Hermione if they don't have the wizard's classics read by the age of nine."
"Books are good for children."
"Yes, the ones in foreign tongues especially. Besides, Ginny will obviously be the scary strict one, so you'll be the cool dad."
"Me? Cool?" Harry made a face as if he had eaten something wriggly.
"Of course, mate, you're the...what was it...Boy Who Was Chosen?"
"Boy Who Lived," Hermione corrected.
Harry was looking at each of them in turn, his eyes on the verge of rolling, but no, he enjoyed it, the two of them and their never ending back and forth.
"You two won't disappear on me again?" he asked suddenly. "You'll be there when the baby comes? Always? Like with the Death Eaters, the Horcruxes, the everything? Like with the troll?"
"Wow," Ron whistled, leaning with his shoulder against the wooden wall right above Harry, "comparing the birth of my future niece or nephew to a troll is a bit low. Also, you're not that ugly, mate."
Hermione burst out laughing before Harry could, falling backwards into the grass on her bum, dress and dignity forgotten. Harry snorted and then slowly but surely, he leaned his head back calmly as a soft laugh escaped him too.
"Well, here's to hoping it will take after Ginny in looks anyway," Harry said, raising the flask and taking a small sip, "in everything really. She's the most...wonderful person," he said in a croak, tears brimming in his green eyes.
Hermione reached a hand to stroke his cheek. "Well maybe you should get up to go and marry her then."
"Yeah," Ron said, offering his hand to Harry who grasped it, letting himself be pulled to his feet, "best to save the love confessions for the bride, not the two of us behind my dad's old shed."
Harry straightened up and let Hermione fix his tie. "I'm getting married."
As they turned to go, Harry grabbed them both by their hands.
"Me and Ginny were thinking...we'd like you to be godparents. Both of you."
Ron and Hermione exchanged startled glances. It was hard telling who was redder in the face.
"Yeah, mate," Ron said, looking both stricken and happier than ever.
Hermione's face was unmoving, until she scrunched her lips and brow, two large tears dropping out of her eyes. Without a warning, she pulled them both into a hug, sobbing loudly in between them, "I'd love to."
Ron didn't remember if he ever liked weddings. Perhaps he had always felt about them as he did in this moment – torn. It was mostly too loud and flashy for his liking, too many people he didn't know milling about, constantly in need of something. An abundance of food and drink, but never enough time to just sit down and enjoy it. Too much chaos to really find the people you wanted to be around.
But when it was time for the ceremony to unravel, Ron found himself standing at Harry's side at the end of the aisle. Harry's green eyes found him then, swimming with the last bit of panic and fear. Ron saw there a shadow of doubt and inadequacy, an insecurity he encountered in a mirror often. He bumped Harry's shoulder with his own, trying to pass him a message that he had learned from Harry himself, saying, mate, you're enough, you always were. It seemed to work, because Harry took a deep breath and straightened up, turning his head to look down onto the sunlit aisle.
The music soon began to play, a soft piano and violin tune, which prompted the bride to appear, followed by Luna, Hermione and Fleur as bridesmaids.
Ron felt the corners of his mouth lift into a grin as he saw Ginny walk down the aisle. Radiant she may be, he thought, but in that moment he could also see the spirited toothless child she used to be, with a soul born of frolic and fire, swifter and cleverer than anyone could've imagined way back then. She briefly grinned up at him but then her eyes travelled to Harry, who was positively trembling beside him now.
He knew this moment would come, but when Hermione emerged from behind Ginny, not even a multitude of confunding spells could make him look away. She wore a dress that was perhaps most definitely not lilac, more like she was dressed in the folds of the sky. It looked perfect on her tanned skin, taking him back to a blurry moment in the past, where Hermione also wore blue and he had for the first time understood the meaning of the word beautiful.
Before he could catch Hermione's eye, Ginny made it to the front. Ron heard Harry let out a choked sigh and a shaky laugh full of delight, and so he focused on the two of them, ready in case Harry'd decide to pass out. Bloody hell, he wouldn't blame him, for in that moment all eyes fixed on them, and the crowd fell into a hush heavy with anticipation.
Ginny and Harry interlocked hands and recited their vows while Kingsley presided over the ceremony. Ron caught a phrase or two, 'friendship in love is a blessing' and 'to face struggles always together'. Hermione looked at him a couple of times, flushed in the face but smiling warmly. The glow of the afternoon sun turned her curls into honey, bouncing around her bare neck in the breeze and Ron had to drag his mind back to pay attention to the ceremony.
As stars from Kingsley's wand fell down upon them, Harry lifted Ginny into the air in their first married kiss. Ron laughed and clapped with everyone else, but as he glanced sideways at Hermione, he tried to imagine the two of them standing in that very spot, and he couldn't.
Perhaps one robbed of a past can't see the future.
She would always be his friend, he reminded himself as they hooked arms, following Ginny and Harry down the aisle, walking on the magical stars that crunched under their feet like broken glass. And as selfish as it was, Ron wasn't sure if only being her friend was something he could actually survive.
The day was almost through and sunlight was long gone. Lanterns floated on the air, casting softly scattered shadows on the canvas suspended above the dance floor. Hermione watched the dancing couples from the sidelines. Arthur was twirling Molly around as if they were no older than their twenties. Molly's laughter rang around the room like bells and Hermione noticed how every time Arthur pulled her in, he pressed his face into her hair.
Bill was dancing with Victoire in his arms, her head lolling on his shoulder. His scars were more prominent in the shadows, and yet the smile on his face made them look as though they were nothing but lines of laughter in his skin. Harry danced with Ginny while little Teddy was perched on his shoulders, his hair a messy jet black in that moment, eyes green flecked with brown. Luna was leading a bewildered Charlie across the dance floor, spinning in unexpected patterns, dizzying enough when observed from afar.
Sounds of laughter broke through and mixed with the music. At a table somewhere, Angelina, Fleur and George were all beating Percy at a drinking game.
Hermione's head buzzed with champagne and with want to be a part of it all, to be held and feel home. Just as she craned her neck to instinctively look for him, she felt the ghost of his hand at her back.
"Dance with me?"
It wasn't a whisper, and still the way he asked, it felt like a sigh, an intimate murmur that stirred her very soul.
Hermione let herself be steered gently onto the dance floor. Lights flickered overhead, the air around them alive with music and summer. Hermione wasn't sure why her legs felt so weak and numb, whether it was the long day, the drink, or Ron's hand suddenly clasping hers.
It was the closest she's been to him in days. Truly close, outside of friendly hugs and ceremony. She wanted to lean into him completely, bury her face in the soft cotton of his shirt, lose her mind in the sound of his heartbeat. But for now, she was happy with finding the courage to lift her eyes and find him looking down at her with softness pronounced in his every feature.
This was bliss. A moment she would savour forever. All thoughts and heaviness left her, taking off like birds set free.
Ron bent his head lower and Hermione leaned her forehead against his.
Even in their movement, Hermione found stillness that grounded her to the earth, gave her a place to stand on while the rest of the world fell away. Her senses took in everything, his hand brushing her shoulder blade, then resting on her waist. The tip of his nose an inch from hers. His breath hot on her skin, his chest heaving with slow and deep breaths. This was closer than even kissing, their souls exposed, heartbeats finally in time together.
At a certain point, the music and chatter broke through, though. The noise brought the world back, the world smothered the magic, and the moment was gone. As they pulled their heads away, Ron suddenly frowned, taking a step back.
"I may be leaving for some time," he said.
"What? Where?" Hermione was still smiling, frozen in between the lovely moment and the next. Something wild coiled in her stomach, something she thought she had finally banished. Fear.
"George wants to expand to America. He offered me to go and I'm not sure what to say, but I've been thinking about a yes."
"Oh," Hermione said quietly, looking to the ground. She fixated on her toes, polished beige and reflecting the light, poking out of her open-heeled shoes. Anything just to blink away the sudden panic that flooded her. "That's great," she said, her words directed to the floor between them.
She felt Ron take her chin gently into his fingers, tilting her face up. His face was unreadable, eyes a deep stormy blue, nose close to her own.
"I just thought...maybe with us being so...I mean, still having trouble to readjust, it'd be for the best?"
"How long?" she managed to get out in a hoarse whisper while his thumb still lingered on the side of her jaw.
"Just a couple of weeks. I've been meaning to take a bit of a break from the Auror job anyway, just to figure things out. Also um, we reckon it'd be a great place to open up one of our shops. George said I could run it."
Hermione stopped moving without realizing it. Her hands on his shoulders shivered. She longed to reach out her thumbs to stroke his neck, thread hands through his hair, never let him go, but as close as he was, what she was hearing and feeling left her suddenly hollow and cold. "Wonderful news. It's an um," Hermione cleared her throat and resumed dancing, "such a good opportunity for the business, and you too. I'm thrilled," she said and topped the lie with a cherry of a fake little smile.
"You think I should go? Because if you...I mean, what do you really think?"
Hermione's mind reeled. The depth of emotion in Ron's voice caught her unprepared. Her logic dictated things clearly, pressing words upon her tongue she really didn't want to say, but what else could she say? Don't go, stay here, just for me? Throw it all away when we're both a mess, not knowing how to go on? Was she prepared to take that risk? Who was she to stop him anyway?
"If that's what you want, Ron...it could mean great things, for you and the shop." Hermione vaguely realized she was repeating herself, unable yet to say all the things she truly wanted to say.
Ron sniffed and turned her around the dance floor gently, swerving out of the way of a floating champagne bottle. "Yeah, I suppose it could," he said and looked away. He pulled her into an embrace and sighed into her hair. Hermione pressed her face into his chest, breathing him in and doing her best not to stain his shirt with tears.
The song ended and they stopped dancing but didn't pull away just yet. Was this goodbye, was this a break, was this an end? And she couldn't take it. Not like this. It couldn't possibly end this way.
She looked up and dug deep to find the courage within to form the right words, but at that moment Ron turned away from her and grinned faintly at their friends approaching.
"Sorry Hermione, can we steal him?" Seamus asked as he reached them with Dean and Neville in tow, "it's time for the song!"
Ron gave her an apologetic smile right as Seamus clapped him on the shoulder and steered him away. Even after she had lost the connection to his eyes, he was still holding her hand, but the next second, that slipped out of her reach too.
As if in a daze, Hermione followed the rest of the guests out of the tent. The sky was a sea of stars overhead and the outside breeze was a nice change to the heat inside.
All the Weasley brothers, along with Seamus, Dean and Neville stood there, encircling Harry. Seamus was pouring all of them a glass of firewhiskey. Their groomsmen dress robes were in various stages of disarray.
As the drinks were poured, Seamus started to sing, words thick with his Irish accent, bringing the crowd of people to silence:
"Of all the money that e'er I had
I spent it in good company."
Neville and Dean joined him, singing the next part all three of them together.
"And all the harm I've ever done
Alas it was to none but me."
Charlie disentangled himself from the group and stepped forward:
"And all I've done for want of wit
To mem'ry now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be to you all."
Hermione looked around the many faces in the crowd, as they sat or stood watching the song. The people radiated an intense joy Hermione felt pour into her own face. She smiled while something inside her was silently breaking.
The tune they had chosen wasn't as mournful as she had known it to be, but still carried a certain emotional gravity.
Percy and Bill continued, singing in unison, holding each other by the shoulders as they swayed side to side, whiskey spilling from their glasses:
"So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate'er befall,
And gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all."
George took a step forward, raising his glass in the air:
"Of all the comrades that e'er I had."
He swayed a little on the spot. The first words came out choked, his voice hoarse. He paused for a moment and the night went still around him. But then he looked up at the sky. He seemed to nod the smallest of nods, as if in some mysterious understanding between him and the darkness, and a grin spread across his lips as he sang on:
"They're sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They'd wish me one more day to stay."
He sang louder now, slightly off-key but with a vigour none of the other men could match.
"But since it falls unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all."
He finished his verse off with a dramatic bow to people cheering and wiping tears off their faces at the same time. Molly had her face buried in Arthur's chest, shoulders shaking with sobs, but as she looked back up at the lot of them, she was smiling, eyes lit up by a dazzling glow. Arthur stroked her back, his own expression torn between laughter and crying.
The boys all turned to Harry, red-cheeked, green eyes glossy. When he realized what was coming, he violently shook his head 'no'. George grabbed him by his tie and pulled him to stand in front. Harry floundered on the spot, trying to get back into the crowd of ginger heads but both George and Ron pushed him softly forward. Harry found Ginny's face in the crowd as she beamed at him from her seat. That seemed to do the trick, for he cleared his throat and raised his glass:
"There is a fair maid in this town
That sorely has my heart beguiled."
His voice shook, but with a deep thrilling emotion rather than embarrassment.
"Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips
I own she has my heart in thrall
Then fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all."
The crowd cheered and clapped, and Ginny shot from her seat and in two swift steps threw her arms around Harry's neck and kissed him full on the lips. Harry staggered, almost toppling backwards, but the Weasley boys, his brothers now too, were there to steady them both. As Ginny pulled away laughing, she grabbed his glass and took a sip of the firewhiskey. She then handed the glass to Harry who downed the rest.
Hermione couldn't help smiling, clapping with everyone else. Flashes of cameras lit up the darkened space, blinding her. Just as she thought it was over, Ron stepped up front, glass raised:
"A man may drink and not be drunk
A man may fight and not be slain
A man may court a pretty girl,"
in the briefest of seconds, his eyes fell on her,
"And perhaps be welcomed back again
But since it has so ought to be
By a time to rise and a time to fall
Come fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all."
When Ron finished, smooth and delicate, a sound bordering on sadness and joy, everyone stood up and drank.
Here's to their song, they called, here's to them all, to Harry and Ginny, and to the ones that couldn't be there any more.
Here's to the future and happiness.
Here's to living.
As the last of the guests Disapparated or grasped at portkeys in their various states of tipsy, Molly and Arthur Weasley walked across their garden towards their home, leaning into each other. Molly paused and looked at the outline of the Burrow against the moonlit sky.
"You know, sometimes, with all the towers and when it gets dark, it almost looks like a castle."
"A castle for a queen," Arthur said, wrapping an arm around her waist. He kissed her ear, then her cheek and then placed a quick peck on her lips. He girlish giggle turned into a yawn. "And now it's definitely time for bed, lady," he added, pulling her to the door.
As they entered the kitchen, out of the corner of her eye, Molly spotted a skulking shadow, thinking for a moment that their ghoul had ventured out to join in the festivities. She gave a stifled gasp at Arthur's side.
"Relax, it's me."
Ron squinted into the lights of their wands, shielding his eyes. He sat at the kitchen table, leaning back, a mug of steaming tea in front of him. Molly smelled chamomile and melancholy in the air.
"Are you alright, Ronnie? Why are you not in bed?"
"Percy's there, passed out. I can't sleep."
She looked between her youngest son and husband, and took a quick guess at what Ron might need.
"Well I'm going to bed, I'm completely knackered. Good night, boys." She walked to Ron and hugged him quickly, planting a kiss on his cheek. After a nod and a smile from Arthur, she made her way to the stairs and soon her movements blended in with the creakiness of the house itself.
"Got some more tea?" Arthur asked, taking off his suit jacket and folding it neatly over the chair.
"Sure." Ron walked over to the kettle, pouring his father a cup, too tired to use magic.
They sat down and drank in silence for a while. Arthur watched Ron over the rim of his glasses. He knew life was full of inevitable ups and downs, and yet it still pained him to see any of his children hurting.
"What's troubling you, son?"
Ron shifted in his seat, rubbed his chin and mouth, but said nothing.
"I heard some talk of you leaving to America for George?"
Arthur saw a simmering anger flash through Ron's eyes, an anger he had so often directed at himself even when he was a child. "I made a right mess of everything, that's what I did."
"You'll be glad to learn son," Arthur began, taking his glasses off and polishing them with a dishcloth from the table, "messes can be fixed."
"I don't know dad, sometimes things just don't work out, you know? Maybe we're far too gone, me and Hermione, maybe we're better off as friends." Ron's last words came out more as a breath, spoken through his fingers, gritted through clenched teeth.
"Maybe. And maybe this is all a bunch of tosh."
Ron looked up with furrowed eyebrows.
Arthur sat up straighter. It was time to put on his stern voice with this kid. "Love is a choice, not an equation of some abstract pros and cons. It's a risk. And you have to want it, every day you have to make that choice. Through the fear, through the struggle, through the days when you're so worn out you can hardly walk through the door. There will be doubts, and there will be weakness, but it's the choice you make at the end of the day that matters. You want to gamble your love away at a maybe?"
Ron continued to stared at him in stunned silence.
"You know," he went on, softness sinking into his voice, "I felt like I was maybe the last man prepared enough to make your mother truly happy, to give her what she deserved. We got pregnant earlier than we had planned, and neither one of us knew what to do, what was right, whether it was going to work, whether we were ready, yet I decided that that was exactly what I wanted to do, and that I'd give my all to at least try.
"And everyone kept saying," he said, waving his hand dismissively, "'you're getting married out of necessity, you're getting married because you must, it's not going to last, it's going to be hard'. Only one out of four they got right, because at times it was hard, because everything in life worth keeping is. And we did have options, but we decided that this is what we wanted, and hell take everything else. I made the choice, and, well, I was lucky enough that your mother also decided she'd have me." He smiled and put the glasses back on his nose, taking in a deep breath.
"All you have to do is make a choice, Ron, and let Hermione make hers. No open endings, not waiting for an answer to appear, for destiny to intervene, no more running based on assumptions and guesses. Some things are too important to leave up to chance. There is a time to let things develop on their own, and there is a time to be honest with yourself and risk it all."
Arthur downed the rest of his tea. "Right," he said and stood up, "I think I'm ready to sleep for the next fifteen hours now," he said, as if he wouldn't be the first of the Weasley men to get up and prepare coffee for all his likely to be hungover sons. "Thanks for the tea, son."
He clapped Ron on the shoulder as he passed him on his way out of the kitchen, leaving him alone. His father's words echoed in his head with increasing intensity. White light slowly descended onto the kitchen table in front of him, announcing the dawn of a new day.
In years to come, Ron would think back on that moment often. He'd be forever baffled by how after weeks of indecision, fear and self-inflicted torture, then and there, when he fully grasped and accepted that it was a simple matter of choice and courage, it took him less than a second to grab his jacket and be out the door.
Author's Note: Hello all, thank you so much with all my heart if you're still reading. I was reluctant to post the last two chapters because of worrying I'm making things too dramatic, but I guess I just wanted Ron and Hermione to truly earn and choose each other. There is one more chapter to come and then it's over. I'm both a very yay and :'( about this. Coming back here and seeing that people are still reading and also leaving reviews was the biggest most wonderful blessing a writer could hope for.
The song the boys are singing is The Parting Glass, a tradition Scottish song sung at the 'end of a gathering of friends', you may know it from the Tullamore Dew Whiskey commercials.
Please if you got the time, I'd love to hear what you think 3
Eli