Chapter 5

Ron, still half asleep, shuffled from the bathroom and paused in the darkened hallway to lean against the doorframe of his bedroom and gaze upon a sight that still stopped his heart momentarily every time he saw it: Hermione, tucked snugly in his bed.

As she laid there, face lit by a narrow slice of moonlight filtering in through the curtains, it was clear she was sound asleep, and he was glad his need for a dead-of-the-night loo break didn't disturb her slumber. The move from Cornwall was exhausting enough, but the past few days, while exhilarating, had taken a certain toll on her, and she needed her rest. There was still so much unfinished business to attend to — sorting out what to do about her parents in Australia being top of the list, followed closely, at least in Hermione's mind, by the need to begin rethinking her abandoned career. There was the Shraxen prosecution to consider — Ron had fielded a few Auror Corps Owls about the case despite the fact that he was on leave. And there were still painful personal questions to be asked and answered, details to fill in for one another regarding their years of separation.

One such conversation earlier that evening had led, improbably, to something like a row — the last thing he'd been expecting given the closeness they'd experienced since their reunion. But, looking back on it, he reckoned he should have seen it coming. Lavender had always been a sore subject.

It didn't help matters that this particular dialogue had been sparked by Hermione's discovery of a pair of lacy, electric purple knickers tucked away in a dresser that Ron had absent-mindedly offered to Hermione for stowing her things.

"How many more of *these* am I likely to find around the flat," Hermione had asked with a smirk as she twirled the ridiculous undergarment over her head.

"Oh, shit — gods, Hermione, I'm sorry. I had no idea—"

"Were you holding onto this as a keepsake?" she had asked through a smile, though Ron sensed the edge in her voice.

"What? No! I had no idea that was even there, love, I promise. It must have been something she just left behind. I mean, it wasn't—"

"It doesn't matter," Hermione said crisply, cutting him off as she dropped the knickers onto the coffee table in front of Ron and returned to the bedroom.

Ron leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. He heaved himself up from the sofa, Vanished the stupid knickers with his wand, and strode to the bedroom, where he found Hermione seated on the bed, her back to the doorway. Her shoulders were shaking. Blimey, was she crying?

"Hermione, love—"

"Did you call her that?"

"What?"

Pivoting on the bed, Hermione had turned to him then, her glistening face confirming that she had indeed been crying.

"Did you … did you use that *expression* with her?" she asked quietly, her voice trembling.

Ron let out a long breath of air and lowered himself to the opposite edge of the bed, facing her but keeping his distance. "No, Hermione. I never called her that. I never used the 'L' word with her. Not ever."

"But, but…" Hermione shook her head and wiped her eyes savagely with her sleeve. "No, it's none of my business," she said, trying to sound more like herself. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. What happened happened. It's in the past."

Ron realized that if he were a smarter sort of bloke, he would simply agree with her and let the matter drop. But, after taking a deep breath and examining the stitching of the duvet beneath his knee, he exhaled long and hard again and shrugged. "Hermione, love, please listen to me."

She sniffled vigorously in response, then Conjured a handkerchief with her new wand and blew her nose.

He paused to gather his thoughts, looking to the ceiling for a moment before finding the right words and pressing on. When returned his gaze to Hermione's face, he saw from across the great span of the bed that she was listening intently, though her lower lip was still wobbling. Shit.

"I never told Lavender I loved her," he said. "You should feel good about that on one level, I suppose. I didn't feel it, so I couldn't say it."

She nodded slightly, and he took this as a sign that she was trying hard to hear him out.

"But that doesn't make me a hero," he continued, kicking himself internally for saying more than was probably wise. But after all the difficulties he and Hermione had been through, the need to be understood, to shoot straight with her — well, it was almost like a compulsion at this point. After all she'd done for him, he felt her owed her honesty at the very least.

"Merlin knows she tried to get me to say it — over and over again," he added. "I hurt her badly along the way. I know I did. I didn't mean to. So, she basically took what she could get, I think. And I let her settle for way less than love, Hermione. Which makes me a right bastard, really."

Hermione sniffled again and gave a slight nod. Ron couldn't help but laugh softly in response. She was right to agree with him. He wasn't proud of the way he'd treated Lavender — not in the past few years, and not back at Hogwarts. He couldn't explain how it had happened or why. It just … had.

"But why in Merlin's name did it have to be *Lavender,* Ron?" Hermione asked, pulling him from his thoughts. "Of all the women on God's green Earth, why her?"

Ron searched his mind. Why Lavender? Honestly, he hadn't given it a moment's thought until just then. Slowly, however, the answer seeped into his mind. Again, it wasn't the kind of realization that was likely to improve Ron's image of himself.

"Suddenly she was just … there," he said, fingering the stitching on the duvet as if it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen in his life. "She sort of, I dunno, showed up one day and attached herself to me, and I guess I felt … well … I felt sorry for her, honestly." He looked up and saw that she was looking at him directly, paying attention to his every word as if he were giving the most fascinating Arithmancy lecture she'd ever heard.

He gulped. "She'd been hurt at the Battle of Hogwarts. And, of course, none of us could quite remember how she'd survived the werewolf attack — that is, not until you returned to our memories. But anyway…" He cleared his throat and willed himself to continue. "I knew she was funny about her scars, and once we started dating again, I didn't want to do anything that would maker her think … oh, shit, I'm such an arsehole," he said, pressing his fists to his eyes.

"What do you mean?" she said, prompting him to slowly drop his hands and return his eyes to hers.

"I mean, I sound like I'm trying to say I slept with her because I pitied her. Or that it was her fault or some rubbish like that," he said angrily — though his anger wasn't directed at Hermione. It was entirely directed at himself. "The truth is, I don't bloody know why I did what I did. She *appeared* one day and acted like she was my girlfriend again and I played along. I don't know why. I have nothing to say to defend myself, love, nothing."

To his surprise, when he focused again on Hermione, he saw that the corners of her mouth were curled into a slight, sad smile — though tears were welling up in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ronald," she said with a quaver in her voice. "I have no right … no right to interrogate you. I wiped your memory. I left you and I hoped you'd live a happy life without me. And it's wrong for me to resent you for living it, for being happy."

Ron straightened up. "That's where you're wrong, Hermione. I wasn't happy. I wasn't exactly miserable, either. But there was always, *always* something I couldn't quite place … a feeling like, like there was a hole inside me. Lavender couldn't fill it, though great Gandalf knows she tried. And I let her try, because I didn't know…"

He trailed off, his heart pounding as he searched for more words.

"I didn't know that no one could fill it," he said firmly. "No one but you."

They had made love then, tearing at one another's clothes and coming together as hungrily as if it had been the first time, though the truth was that they'd made love more than a dozen times in just the first few days of their reunion, so eager were they to close the gap that had formed between them.

He hadn't been gentle this time. There was a point to be made, and something in him demanded that it be put across forcefully, so she wouldn't forget it.

"Hermione," he'd said gruffly, with a firm grip on the hair at the nape of her neck. "Look at me," he breathed, and she complied, melting completely as he pressed her more firmly into the mattress beneath him, each thrust warming her from the inside out by degrees until she could feel herself brimming over, like a cup of wine on the verge of overflowing. "You're mine," he said, pulling back a bit so she could see his face in the lantern light. "You're mine," he repeated, thrusting again, "and I'm yours. And there's no one else. Ever."

She had crested then, crying out his name, and he followed. Moments later, he collapsed next to her and pulled her close into a side-by-side embrace. As she curled up beside him, her core still throbbing, she realized something big, something ancient, had shifted in her mind: her fear of losing him. Somehow she knew she need never worry about it again — and the conviction was so strong that she wondered how she could ever have worried about it to begin with.

They'd fallen asleep then, wordlessly agreeing that this was the last time they'd ever question one another's true feelings.

"Are you going to stand there all night?" Hermione whispered, breaking Ron from his trance and returning him to the present moment in the darkened bedroom.

Ron straightened up and stepped through the doorway. "Sorry, love, I didn't mean to wake you."

"No worries," she murmured. "Come back to bed."

He climbed in and pulled her close, planting a kiss on her forehead.

"Go back to sleep, love," he whispered.

And she did, smiling at the thought that he'd always reserved that particular endearment for her — and always would.

oooOOOooo

A/N — A short chapter this time. I hope you enjoyed it!

Cheers,

Holly.