Chapter Two: To Leave Behind The Past
Ron gazed around the common room for what felt like the first time since he'd entered it his first day at Hogwarts. The fireplace and the chairs and the rugs and even the notice board. Everything looked like a memory.
He doubted he'd ever see any of it again.
"Ron, are you ready?" Hermione stood behind him at the portrait hole, the little beaded bag in her hand the only baggage between the three of them. There weren't any trunks to pack or bags slung over shoulders for the train ride home. It wasn't at all what Ron had imagined leaving Hogwarts for the last time would feel like.
Actually, that was a lie. It wasn't what he'd imagined because he'd already said goodbye to Hogwarts a year ago, knowing he wouldn't return. He'd thought it was the first of many goodbyes, but he never got the chance to properly say it to his family before he and Harry and Hermione left. That had bothered him more than anything. He'd worried over his family, needing to know they were safe and okay, because he knew he likely wouldn't be. He knew the odds, and he knew himself. He knew he'd probably die.
"Yeah, let's go." Ron took Hermione's offered hand, and they climbed through the portrait hole together. Harry, Charlie, and Bill stood waiting just outside. With a nod of his head to his brothers, the group set off.
"We'll be Apparating just down the road from home," Bill explained as they picked their way through the rubble, following paths that felt familiar but looked entirely different. "The wards we've got prevent anyone from Apparating inside, just to be safe, and we've disconnected from the Floo Network till the Ministry's back in order."
"Kingsley will get their shit together in no time," Charlie said.
"Kingsley?" Harry asked.
Bill nodded. "He's been named acting Minister. Thicknesse hasn't been seen or heard from since the battle ended. He's not one of the dead, though," he added.
"Not yet," Charlie muttered, plodding ahead of Bill on the staircase they were descending. Bill bristled as he passed.
"What does that mean?" Ron asked.
Bill sighed but conceded. "It's something we all agreed that you three didn't need to worry about it right now," he said pointedly, throwing Charlie a sharp look.
Charlie shrugged. "But everyone in the Order ought to be in the know, right?" All three of them nodded, and Bill begrudgingly also nodded his approval. "Well," Charlie said, "as you can expect, there's been quite a bit of chaos since the end of Voldemort. The entire Ministry is a wreck after being controlled by him for so long, so Kingsley's been struggling with a lack of manpower to deal with it. Even the Prophet can barely keep up with all the incidents. The DeathEaters aren't putting down their wands and coming quietly, as you can imagine. Pius Thicknesse isn't the only person missing at the moment."
"The Order's been helping out, though," Bill cut in a bit more optimistically. "Apparently, it's not so different from the end of the first war: a few weeks of chaos, a few weeks of trials, then everything will settle."
"What can we do to help?" Harry asked, barely letting Bill finish his thought.
"By getting yourselves to the Burrow," Bill said, putting on a voice that reminded Ron of their dad. "Kingsley doesn't want any of you out there in the open right now. You're too big of a target."
"Too big of a liability," Harry muttered to himself, his face clouding over with discontent.
Charlie overhead though. "To anyone you'd be fighting next to, yeah," he said. "If word got out you were out there in the streets, it'd give the DeathEaters a target. They might start trying to organize themselves again. Right now their scattered, confused, mostly alone. Makes them easier to deal with."
"They aren't creatures, Charlie," Bill said in an irritated tone Ron couldn't ever recall his eldest brother using towards Charlie before. The two of them always seemed exceptionally close. "We don't want to give them any hope."
"Hope for what?" Hermione asked.
"That they could keep going without Voldemort," Bill said, taking the lead again as they finally made it to the grand staircase, though it wasn't so grand-looking anymore. They had to pick their way around smashed steps and collapse bannisters.
"It's like a hydra," Charlie said, a bit softer this time and speaking only to Ron, Harry, and Hermione, though Bill rolled his eyes. "We've cut off the DeathEaters head, and now we've got to be quick to kill it before another one grows in its place."
"Before someone else tries to lead them," Bill said, cutting through Charlie's metaphor.
"Exactly," Charlie said, either not noticing Bill's shortness towards him or choosing to ignore it.
Harry held his wand in a white-knuckled grasp at his side. "There's got to be something I, er, we can do to help, though."
Bill stopped in his tracks, causing all four of them to stumble to an abrupt stop as well. "Harry," he said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "you killed Voldemort. No one else could do it, but you did. You've done enough."
Even though Bill took Harry's nod as acceptance, Ron could tell his best friend was still unsatisfied. He felt it too. As much as one part of him wanted nothing more than to finally go home and crawl into his familiar bed with a stomach full of his mother's cooking, another part itched to jump back into the fray. They had always been in the centre of the war, and if it wasn't truly over, it felt wrong staying out of it.
Then again, perhaps the part of him that wanted to jump back into the fight was only being fueled by the refreshed energy he hadn't had in months. He couldn't remember the last decent night of sleep he'd gotten. Not that he could really count the last night as 'good', but his worried brain only woke him about every other hour instead of the usual every half hour. He must have really needed the sleep.
Somehow, though, even that much sleep left him feeling guilty. Hermione's steps beside his were dragging and crooked, and he'd noticed the slight redness around her eyes before they'd left the dorm room. He really should have insisted on seeing Madame Pomfrey for a potion, but at the time, he'd wanted to believe Hermione so much so that he let himself be convinced not to. His relatively sound sleep weighed on him with each of Hermione's sluggish steps.
He'd been hopeful that Shell Cottage would be the end of it, not because he felt any sort of annoyance at bringing her comfort but because he hated seeing her so weak. She was one of the strongest people he knew and watching her relive the scariest moment of her life–the scariest moment of his life–unnerved him. Every time, he wished he could do more.
The grounds at least were less depressing than the castle. No dust hung in the air, and all the fallen trees looked less out of place than crumbled walls. The open-air soothed the tension leftover from their conversation.
Ron still felt confused and perturbed by his eldest brothers' short tempers. He didn't have the energy to be angry over Fred's death. Maybe he just hadn't processed everything that had happened, but all he could really think about was being home again. In his head, he imagined walking into the same place he had left months ago, and only as they walked in silence did he realize that might not be the case.
"How'd the Burrow fair all by itself?" Ron asked, trying very hard to maintain a light lithe to his question. "Make it through all in one piece?"
Bill and Charlie exchanged a look that shredded Ron's hopes of returning to their normal lives so easily.
"Mostly one-piece, yeah," Charlie said with a shrug.
"It could have been much worse," Bill agreed, skipping out on specifics as well. "Most of the damage is superficial and easy to fix; Mum and Dad took all the important things with them when they went to Muriel's."
"Shame the ghoul didn't count as important," Charlie muttered.
Bill bristled and picked up his speed. "They didn't have time to be worrying about moving a ghoul, Charlie. Not to mention the fit Muriel would have thrown."
"Yes, keeping batty old Muriel in a fine mood is much more important than saving a creature from being blasted apart with the attic–"
"What happened to the attic?" Ron cut in.
"Exploded it seems," Charlie answered, his voice booming in the quiet air. "But don't worry, I mended the hole and cleaned up the guts. Buried the poor thing as properly as I could."
Bill huffed. "You can't skulk away, refusing any help, then martyr yourself."
"Would you two stop bickering already?" Ron said, his frustration finally getting the best of him. "You're going to drive the rest of us mad."
Thankfully, neither one of his brothers tried fighting against Ron's point, but they didn't apologize either. Instead, they both sunk into gruff silence again. Ron didn't dare try breaking the tension a second time.
Harry muttered under his breath, "Now you know how I felt for seven years," and chuckled quietly to himself.
"Can't hope they'll just kiss and make up though, right?" Ron replied with a smile. At least he could always count on Harry to be on his side, even if his cause was only to keep the mood as light as possible. Unfortunately, as he turned to Hermione to bring her into the joke, she gave a distracted smile as if she hadn't heard their bantering at all. Damn, he was worried about her. He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze, soliciting a genuine smile from her this time.
Once the group had reached the gates and stepped outside of the reinstated wards, Bill finally spoke again to give them an Apparition point. "The crossroad at Kindle and Dawdle should do," he said. "Do you remember it, Harry?"
"Yeah, I've got it," Harry said, already pulling out his wand.
"Hermione?" Bill asked, turning to her.
"I can Side-Along," she said, taking a step closer to Ron.
"Are you sure?" Ron asked in quiet surprise. Hermione had been to the crossroad enough to get there on her own, and she wasn't exactly a witch her asked for help when she didn't absolutely need it.
Hermione could only respond with a quick nod as Bill had already moved on and was speaking again. "All good then. Let's stagger our timing so no one lands on each other or splinches someone." With that, he spun on the spot and disappeared with a snap. Charlie muttered under his breath–Ron only made out the word 'prat'–before also popping away.
Ron looked to Hermione, about to ask if she was ready, when he finally noticed that both of her hands were empty. "Where's your wand?"
Hermione's fist tightened around his hand. "Our wands are probably still somewhere in Malfoy Manor," she said. "Bellatrix's wand is stored in my bag until we can finally get it to the Ministry."
Guilt and nerves dried Ron's throat and dampened the back of his neck. Just as soon as he felt accomplished at being more sensitive, he went and said something stupid again. "Right, sorry, yeah," he said, afraid to say anything more and muck things up worse.
Harry had frozen with his wand in the air, looking to be contemplating whether he needed to say anything or not. "Go ahead," Ron said, waving him on and freeing him from any obligation to be comforting or insightful. His Apparition pop almost sounded relieved.
"I'm sorry," Ron said as Harry was gone. "I didn't mean to bring it up again–"
"It's fine," Hermione said before he could finish. "I didn't mean to snap at you. I just…" She sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I think everything will be better once that wand is far, far away."
"Yeah," Ron said, a boyish hope sneaking into his mind. Perhaps the wand was like the Horcrux. Maybe once Hermione got away from it, the nightmares would stop just like how Ron realized how much of a terror he'd been once he'd gotten away from the locket. He could hope it would be that simple, right?
"Ready?" he asked, raising the wand he was now painfully aware wasn't his. Hermione nodded, and they stepped together, landing next to the crossroad sign. Bill and Harry stood on the other side of the dirt road that led to the Burrow, but Charlie had already started trudging up the first hill. From gravelled Kindle Lane, the walk home wasn't a far one along the dirt road of Dawdle, but it definitely wasn't a flat walk. Hermione lagged behind, Ron by her side and Harry only a few paces ahead. At least the late afternoon sun hid behind thick clouds and spared them its heat.
As they crested the final hill and the Burrow came into view, Ron expected to see the worst. However, from their distance, the house didn't look much different. He could see where part of the attic had, as Charlie said, been blasted away. There was a gash in the roof lined in black, and a wooden patch much paler than the surrounding structure covered up the missing segment of roof. The rest of the house's exterior looked untouched. Even the chicken coop still stood to one side, though there was no movement inside. A pile of wood and metal stood where his father's garage used to stand. He imagined the Death Eaters scandalized gasps walking in and facing piles and piles of Muggle objects. Imaging their terror almost made him smile.
Charlie went right to what was left of the garage, rolling up his sleeves and putting on a thick pair of gloves before grabbing a slab of wood. Seeing Charlie trudging through a hard labour task that could be done with the wave a wand wasn't an unfamiliar sight, but it had been a long time since Ron had witnessed it. He remembered being nine or ten, catching sight of Charlie hammering together a fence for the chicken coop or pulling up weeds in the garden with his bare hands and thinking how silly it was. He also remembered Bill's comment too: "Just stay out of his way and let him sweat out his mood." Ron had never had the urge to join Charlie before, but at that moment, focusing on a physical task and wearing himself out enough to not think about Fred sounded like a fine idea.
Ron, Hermione, and Harry passed by Charlie and headed inside after Bill. Though Ron hadn't given his homecoming much thought beyond surviving long enough to see it, he never expected it would start with him walking into a dead quiet and eerily tidy Burrow.
The living room, having always been a tight but cosy space, felt massive. The sofa was gone–Ron didn't even want to ask what had happened to it–and the armchairs were pushed against the wall. Where the sofa used to be were a pile of trunks, one of which Ron recognized as his own that he had taken to Hogwarts every year. Only one of the trunks was open and spilling over with old photographs and photo albums. He supposed this was all of the important things that Mum and Dad had taken with them to Aunt Muriel's. Four trunks seemed excessive and not enough all at the same time.
"Where is everyone?" Ron asked, not hearing any of the usual shufflings in the kitchen or footsteps upstairs.
"Mum and Dad are still with Muriel. No one thought Mum should see this place like it was," Bill said, taking the topmost picture from the trunk and placing it on the fireplace mantle. It was their photo from Egypt, a trip that felt like a dream Ron would have loved to travel back to.
Bill paused, staring at the photo a moment more before stepping back. "The Death Eaters seemed to have enjoyed mucking up the place. We've been salvaging what we can all day. Well, Fleur and Ginny have. Charlie's been checking and mending the structure– we're lucky the whole place didn't just topple over. Percy's with George at the Wheezes flat for now, but he's promised to get them both here for dinner." Bill's voice lost its confidence in the last sentence, fading out unsurely.
As if snapping into another mode, he added, "And I've been going back and forth between the Ministry and Gringotts for most of the day. They've refused to open their doors since a certain break-in." He gave them a pointed a look that all three of them avoided.
"Sorry about that," Harry mumbled. "It was sort of inevitable for our mission."
"I don't disbelieve that," Bill said. "The goblins, however, have needed some convincing. And apparently a new dragon."
"No!" Hermione said, the distress in her voice making all three boys jump. "That dragon was being kept in the most inhumane conditions. They can't be allowed to do that to another one!"
Bill didn't seem at all convinced, and in fact looked weary, as if he'd already heard that argument a hundred times. With Charlie around, he probably had. "Negotiations are still pending," he said in a diplomatic tone. "Goblins aren't easy to make deals with, as you should know. Not to mention that Voldemort murdering nearly a dozen goblins after finding out about the break-in hasn't helped us win them over."
"Shouldn't they be on our side then?" Harry asked. "Can't they see we needed to break in to kill Voldemort?"
"Goblins don't differentiate between good and dark wizards," Bill said, taking a seat on one of the armchairs and landing hard with a sigh. "As far as they're concerned, we're all one and the same. Gaining their trust takes a hell of a lot of convincing and often a sign of good faith."
"Like the Sword of Gryffindor." All eyes in the room swung to Harry as he stared down at the table with a furrowed brow as he spoke. "We promised to give the sword to Griphook–to all the goblins, really–if he helped us break into Gringotts. I supposed the promise died with him, but he told us what the sword meant to goblins and how important it was to them. If what Griphook said was true, it'd be a pretty good peace offering."
Bill raised an eyebrow. "Harry, you can't exactly go around giving away the Sword of Gryffindor."
"Actually, it's technically mine to give away." Bill's brow furrowed in confusion, so Harry sat down on the armchair next to him and explained how Dumbledore had willed the sword to him after his death.
Bill paused in consideration, absentmindedly rubbing his hand along the scars on his face. "The goblins would have a hard time saying no to an offer of that magnitude."
"But won't it just disappear again?" Ron asked, stepping into the conversation. "The sword's reappeared in the Sorting Hat twice now, that we know of. What happens when a Gryffindor needs it and it goes missing?"
All three of them exchanged a look before Harry said, "Let's hope no one needs it for a very long time."
"I think it's a great plan," Hermione said, stepping in beside Ron. Talking about dragons and goblins seemed to have ignited her energy again. "They've been oppressed for years. If Kingsley presented the sword with Harry, it could open so many doors for Ministry and Gringotts cooperation. It could completely change the relationship between wizards and goblins."
"I wouldn't be too hopeful," Bill said, "but I do agree it would be a step in the right direction. I'll send the idea to Kingsley, see what he makes of it."
Ron couldn't put into words why he felt such satisfaction as the conversation concluded and Bill got up to find a piece of parchment and a quill. He could feel his heart slowing down again, coming off the rush of discussing a problem and forming a plan. It reminded him of their time on the run: every hurriedly-made plan and strategic discussion. Handing a sword to a bunch of goblins wasn't nearly as adrenaline-inducing as sneaking into the Ministry or breaking into Gringotts, but it still felt good to do again after their couple hours of rest. None of them were used to having such a long period of time not worrying about their next move or their survival. Even preparing to return to the Burrow had been a restless affair full of mindless pacing and quadruple checking they had all their things. Perhaps returning to normal life wouldn't be quite the welcomed reprieve Ron thought it would be.
"Bill?" a familiar voice called from the kitchen as the back door swung shut. Fleur floated in, her blue cloak fluttering behind her. "I knew I 'eard voices in here." Fleur took Ron by the shoulders, kissed both his cheeks, pulled him into a hug, then let go to give the same treatment to both Hermione and Harry before Ron could really react. He didn't know when it had changed, but Fleur's presence brought a maternal comfort that was the opposite of the flustering that her Veela powers used to bring out in him. In fact, his hand impulsively grabbed Hermione's as she looked much more taken aback by the embrace.
"We were just discussing Gringotts," Bill said as Fleur reached him. "Harry's had an idea that could solve everything."
"I told you ze answer would come to you," she said, kissing the side of his head before turning to the other three. "I have just been to ze shop in ze village to buy food to make a proper meal for everyone. We can all eat together again." She smiled at them. "You can settle into your rooms for now. Everything has been cleaned and put away."
"Thanks for that, love," Bill said, but Fleur waved away the gratitude.
"For family, thanks is not needed," she said as she disappeared into the kitchen again, Bill following behind with quill and parchment in hand.
Ron glanced around the living room, not sure he wanted to leave just yet. Everything felt so normal yet abnormal at the same time. It didn't feel right for him to just come home after everything, but the Burrow didn't feel like home. There were too many bare surfaces where useless knick-knacks should be and a larger portion of the floor than he'd ever seen before. The house felt gutted.
"We should at least start unpacking," Hermione suggested, tugging at his hand and snapping him out of his thoughts. "We've got a lot to sort through."
Ron nodded, turning towards the stairs when he spotted a furry blur dart down the steps and brush past his feet. He cursed at the same time Hermione shouted, "Crookshanks!" The moving furball leapt into Hermione's arms, purring with vigour as he jammed his head under her chin.
"Where did he even–" Ron started to say but was cut off by a sudden whistling sound that zoomed right next to his ear. He tried to bat off his tiny attacker, only catching glimpses of feathers as he spun around. The movement was familiar enough to cause him to pause. "Pig?" he said. The little owl hooted as it circled his head once more before crash landing in his hair.
After finally being able to grab Pig and put him on his shoulder like a relatively normal bird, Ron noticed the shadow on the staircase slowly floating down towards them. "You're back," Ginny said, pausing on the last step. Ron couldn't remember the last time he'd heard her voice so faint. This wasn't the little sister that bounded around Hogwarts with her hair up and broom in hand or even the one fighting with their mother in the corridor, refusing to run from battle. Her hair hung heavy around her pale face, her body dwarfed inside one of Charlie's old shirts. She looked eleven again.
"Yeah," Ron said, the word barely out of his mouth before Ginny rushed down the remaining stairs and hugged him. Disrupted from his perch, Pig returned to his fluttering circles while Ron took a moment to react then hugged his sister close. When he first saw Bill and Charlie earlier, he'd done the same thing. He wondered how long it would be before seeing one of his siblings wouldn't be a relief anymore.
"I've missed you guys," she said, pulling free from Ron to embrace Hermione as well. Crookshanks mewed from the floor, displeased at being dropped to the ground. Ginny pat him on the head. "I was just taking Crookshanks out to help me degnome the garden. They've all put set up their own town back there."
Her eyes moved from Ron and Hermione to Harry standing behind them. There was a heavy pause as their eyes found each other, and Ron braced for whatever obscenely affectionate reunion would ensue. But they both hesitated just a heartbeat too long, and the moment passed.
"Do you want some help?" Hermione asked, wading into the tension.
"I'm sure you three have better things to do," Ginny said, stepping back into the shadow of the staircase.
"At least take Crookshanks with you," Hermione offered, scrooping up the cat and handing him out to Ginny. "It's the least he owes you for taking care of him all year."
Ginny pushed Crookshanks back into Hermione's arms. "Don't worry about it. I can handle a few gnomes on my own."
"I can help," Harry burst out, looking surprised at himself. "If you won't take Crookshanks."
A ghost of a smile tugged at Ginny's lips. "Alright," she said.
Another pause hung in the air, and Ron glanced between the two of them, thinking this would surely be the moment. Instead, Ginny walked between him and Hermione, Pig and Harry following behind.
Ron stared after them once they had gone into the kitchen, two parts of himself fighting over what to do. The brotherly half of him wanted to follow and spy and jump out if Harry so much as brushed her hand. The other half was winning, bringing up memories of their sixth year and how oddly nice it had been being around Harry and Ginny as a couple. He couldn't think of anyone he'd rather either of them end up with, just so long as he didn't think too long about them being together.
"We should probably leave them to it then," Hermione said.
And there was the third part of him, the one that overwhelmed the other two. Watching Hermione hugging Crookshanks and staring up at him, he wanted to kiss her. It wasn't a new urge, but knowing he could was definitely new. He still wasn't sure how to handle it. His feelings for Hermione came in two parts as well. One wanted to run with it and act on every instinct that told him to kiss her or hug her or touch her in any way. The other held him back instinctively. He'd trained himself to push away those feelings for years, either not wanting to accept them or thinking it wasn't the right time to act on them. He had put in a lot of work to get here–he read and studied an entire book for her–but he didn't know how to cope with success. That part of him was still waiting to be told he'd been fooled and none of this was real. He needed to think through every action.
He followed her up the stairs to his room, tripping over himself in surprise when he walked in. Unlike the rest of the Burrow, his room looked the same. All of his Canons posters still hung on the wall, and his bed and bookshelf were still in one piece. In fact, the whole place looked tidier than he'd kept it in years. Not only was his own bed made, but a cot for Harry had already been set up and made as well. Either the Death Eaters had been too preoccupied with the ghoul in the attic to tear apart his room or Fleur was that masterful at cleaning spells.
Emotions he'd been pushing to the side bubbled up through his defences as he glanced around his room. For the first time, being home felt like going back in time with one key missing piece. Fred should be here.
He sunk down on his bed, the old springs squeaking. Hermione set her beaded bag on top of his dresser, stepping back with an unburdening sigh. They were putting down their weapons and taking off their armour, and the crushing weight of that transition fell down on him. These were the moments that would mark their life after the war. And their life after Fred.
"Ron?" He hadn't noticed Hermione move towards him, but she stooped down to look at his face. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he said, rubbing the back of his neck to ground himself again. "I just… I already miss him."
Hermione took his hand as she sat next to him, pulling close until his head drifted down to rest on her shoulder. She rubbed small circles against his back that were both comforting and uncomfortable. He had held and soothed her enough times that the switch felt odd but also exactly what he needed. Although he'd run out of tears yesterday when the pain of losing Fred had been fresh, he felt like he might've cried if he could.
They stayed like that for a while. When muffled shouts drifted in through his open window, Ron opened his eyes and realized he had lost track of time passing. He instinctively tightened his grip on Hermione's hand as he straightened, his other reaching for his wand. He exchanged a silent look with Hermione before getting up and approaching the window, keeping her behind him.
"What's going on?" Hermione asked when he stilled in front of the window and didn't say anything.
"I think Harry and Ginny are… fighting."
Below in the back garden, Ginny had Harry backing up as she yelled at him. Her words were muffled, but Ron could tell by the shrillness in her voice he had really pissed her off. "I don't think I've ever seen them fight," he said.
"I wouldn't call that a fight," Hermione said as she stepped next to him to gaze out at the scene as well. Ginny gave Harry's chest a rather violent poke. "It looks pretty one-sided to me."
"He probably deserves it." Hermione swatted at his arm but didn't disagree. They'd both called him a self-sacrificing idiot, even if it had all worked out in the end.
Hermione tugged at his arm. "We shouldn't be spying on them."
"We're not spying," he said, unable to look away. "I'm watching over my little sister. It's my right as an older brother to–oi! OI!" Ron nearly hit his head on the windowpane in his rush to stick his head out. Ginny's verbal attack on Harry had quickly turned into a snogging attack, and he definitely preferred the former. "What're think you're doing?" he shouted down at them.
They both looked around in confusion, Ginny being the first to look up and shield her eyes from the setting sun to see him. "What do you think you're doing?"
"I'd like to be able to look out my own window without seeing all that!" he yelled back, ignoring her question.
"No one asked you to watch!"
"You're kind've hard to miss!"
"What's with all the shouting?" Bill's voice easily carried up to the window before he came into Ron's view. "Mum and Dad will be here soon, so can we stop yelling at each other before they get here?"
Ginny shrugged and muttered something that Ron couldn't here. Whatever it was, it swayed Bill to go back inside. Ron had the feeling he'd get a talk from Bill later about how he'd started it. Then Ginny whispered something to Harry and pulled him away towards the side of the house where Ron wouldn't be able to see.
Ron slammed his window shut, having half a mind to march downstairs and find wherever those two had snuck off to. Then again, he really didn't want to see that. "Gits," he muttered. "He better not do anything to her hurt her again."
Hermione shook her head at him. "You knew they hadn't really broken up, right?" she asked. "I mean, he did, but only because he thought he had to. This was inevitable."
"Yeah, but…" He couldn't find a good argument for why they shouldn't be together, but he still felt entitled to be a little grossed out about it. "I've got to share a room with my sister's boyfriend," he said, motioning towards the cot where Harry would be sleeping. "It's weird for me, alright?"
"Of course it's a little weird," Hermione said with a shrug. "But she'll be sharing a room with her brother's girlfriend too, so…"
As she drew out the last word, what she said hit them both at the same time. It had been only about a day, so there hadn't been any time to sort out the label they were putting on themselves. It didn't feel wrong, though. Or too soon. Actually, it felt like a long time coming.
"So…" Ron said as he tried to think of some way to agree that wouldn't come off childish or awkward. "Yeah."
"Yeah?" Hermione asked. He knew she might have just been repeating and questioning his response, but he didn't think that was what she was asking.
"Yeah," he said with much more conviction, hoping it answered her unspoken question. With the way she smiled at him, he knew he got it right. Filled with confidence, Ron stepped forward and kissed her, for once not worrying about whether it was a good time or about someone coming in and seeing them. He let his instincts take control, and if Bill hadn't called up the stairs to announce dinner, Ron didn't think he ever would have stopped.
Author's Note: As promised, the next chapter! Delving into Ron's perspective for this one, so I hope you enjoyed the change of pace. Also hope you liked this bit of fluff at the end because it's pretty sparse in the next couple chapters. :)
A HUGE thank you to everyone who has followed, favourited, and especially reviewed this story so far. Every single one of you are amazing and warm my heart with your kind words. The next chapter will be posted in two weeks. See you then!
