Her mother shouldn't have bothered with deadbolting the door and barring the windows. Hermione wouldn't have moved from her bed anyway.

She had been curled up in her bed, a tangle of inert limbs, for the last four days now, refusing to budge even the slightest. When she had gotten home after a drive in icy silence, her mother had superfluously told her to go to her room, as if she would've wanted to be anywhere else in the house anyway. She got to her room only to find a slew of vertical iron bars blocking her view (and her way) out of the window. She had flung herself into bed, balled herself up as if it would help her squeeze the pieces of her heart back together, and dissolved into all the crying she'd refused to do in the car. She barely registered the click of the lock (from outside, obviously), which she only assumed was her mother with a key in hand. Fine, she had thought spitefully to herself. If she wants me to stay put, that's exactly what I'll do.

And she had. The lock had clicked and the door had opened a few times a day since then, but Hermione hadn't given her mother the satisfaction of even flinching at the sound or showing any sign that she'd heard it. She could almost see them, congregated at the door: her mother in the front line, then her father's sad, gaunt face, and Orlando's concerned one. Sometimes, judging by the chatter at the door, it was her mother and a maid, come to bring her food. But she hadn't touched any of it. The pang in her stomach was an easier pain to bear than the one in her chest, and it distracted her from the latter. After two days, when three full plates had lined up by the door, she had stopped hearing the telltale clang of the dish against the ground as it was set down. From then, the visits were briefer, and she only felt her mother's eyes bore into her back from the door before the door shut again, the lock clicked, and Hermione was left alone.

Alone, and immobile, exactly as her mother wanted her.

She only moved once, on the third night since her return. A metallic thud had come from the window, as if something had hit the bars. Remembering the time Ron had coaxed her out with pebbles, she sat up and had a foot out of bed, her mind racing (it's Ron it's Ron of course he found me, of course he came back for me), before she heard the sound again. Then she looked at the window and she saw the branch swaying in the wind, knocking against the bars that now protruded from the window to be finally in its reach. So it wasn't Ron after all. Her eyes filled with tears and she folded herself back onto her bed, into herself, and cried all the tears she didn't think she had left in her.

On the fifth day, the door clicked open again, and judging from the sound of the footsteps—she was getting really good at telling—, it was Orlando and her mother looking in at her.

"She looks awful," Orlando remarked quietly, and Hermione had none of the energy required to twist around in bed and fire back some witty retort. "Maybe a doctor should examine her, mother."

Her mother wavered before weighing in. "I don't know."

"So you're planning on torturing her?" Orlando said. "Mother, she hasn't eaten in days. She hasn't even moved from bed. Besides, you left her wrist bruised up pretty badly." Her wrist, as a matter of fact, had stopped smarting a couple of days ago, but Hermione pictured the sour look of guilt on her mother's face and felt a stab of pleasure. Way to twist the knife in, Orlando. "Mother, I know you're trying to punish her, but trying to kill her goes a little far."

Again—even then!—her mother hesitated. "All right," she acquiesced. "I'll get your father to phone in Nurse Pomfrey."

Nurse Pomfrey was the town's foremost medical expert, with all the medical training of a physician but without the gender sadly necessary to be duly recognized as one. Still, she was a harsh, serious woman, and Hermione cringed at the prospect of having to endure an examination from her always, let alone in this state.

But Orlando's voice came again: "I happen to know that Nurse Pomfrey is very busy this week with an outbreak of measles at the clinic. I think it's best that we avoid contagion."

"Who, then?"

"There's a fellow in town, come from London for a few weeks. He's a young doctor, and I'm sure he'll be able to do just fine."

"You know I don't like letting too many people into house affairs, Orlando."

"Measles it is, then."

"Fine," Lady Amelia said, not a hint of pleasure in her voice. "You can bring this... this doctor of yours. But you're entirely in charge of this, Orlando. I don't want to see him, and I don't want him to see me, whoever it is. We've had enough prying eyes around Rosebury as it is."

And if Hermione hadn't been too consumed in the dread of having a complete stranger come prod about in her heartbreak, she might have been able to pick up, before the click of the lock, Orlando muttering, "Even better."

When the click of the lock came again, Hermione recognized Orlando's footsteps but couldn't quite place the second pair. They were too heavy to be Lady Amelia's, but too clear to be Lord Philip's (whose tendency to drag his feet was given away by the rustle of his soles against the carpet). But there was something familiar about them. Still, her sorrow far exceeded her curiosity, and she did not budge.

"Hermione, the doctor's here," Orlando said quietly from the doorway.

"I don't want to see a doctor," Hermione responded. Her voice, unused for days, came out raspy.

"I think you might like to see this one."

And then a voice she never thought she'd hear again: "What seems to be the matter?"

Only then did she shake off the days of utter inactivity, whipping around so fast it was like she had a spring along her spine and running off the bed into the arms of the tall man in a suit and top hat next to Orlando. He dropped his square leather doctor's bag to return the embrace.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, her words coming on muffled where she was nestled against his chest.

Ron freed a hand from the embrace to sweep the hat off his head and hand it to Orlando, revealing his freckled face and blue eyes; then, he replaced his hand where it had been, where it felt right in its place. "Come to see you," he answered, as if it were the world's most natural thing. "Last time ended rather abruptly, don't you think?"

Hermione laughed, the shaking from her mirth mixing with the shaking from her sobs, come just as strong but born of an entirely opposite emotion to sorrow. She grabbed Ron's lapels and nestled closer to his chest. Leave it to him to crack a joke out of something as horrid as that day at Grimmauld Place.

Orlando witness the embrace with kind eyes, as if he hadn't orchestrated it. "I'll leave you to it," he said softly, placing the top hat on a dresser by the door. "A doctor's visit is twenty minutes tops, Ron. Any longer and the house staff will suspect."

"Got it," Ron said. "Thank you so much again, Orlando."

"Don't mention it. Just be quick," Orlando said, twisting the doorknob and stepping out. Her ears keenly accustomed to this by now, Hermione heard him take a few steps down the hall, away from the door to give them privacy but close to stand guard. Her little brother had never been anything if not decent.

Ron looked after the door as it closed and then turned back to her, disentangling one of his hands from behind her back to cup her chin with. He swept over her face with his eyes, and for an instant, Hermione worried about what spectacle she presented: her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, her hair was matted all along the right side on which she'd lain, and she was sure whatever the 'I've been in bed for five days' smell was, it wasn't one that anyone would be rushing to bottle into an eau de parfum. Ron frowned, and Hermione held her breath preparing for anything he might say.

"You haven't been eating."

That wasn't what she expected, but she felt her shoulders loosen. "Haven't had an appetite."

He didn't scold her. "Orlando says you've hardly moved since you got back."

"Hardly is an overstatement. I haven't moved at all. Except," she said, and she felt her voice choke at her throat with the unbridled return of emotion, "except for one night where I heard something tap against the window, and I was sure it was you and your pebbles, so I got up to check."

Ron let his hand drift over her cheek again and again, stroking it gently, Hermione nestling ever so slightly into his touch. "You weren't the only one that wanted it to be me and my pebbles. But your mother... She said if I stepped foot on Rosebury, she would—"

"And yet you're here," Hermione cut him off, not even wanting to entertain the most fleeting hint of that horrible thought.

Ron smiled, and even with the grief on his face, there was a hint of his characteristic roguishness in there. "Well, of course I am. It's you I came to see."

Hermione sniffled, loosened her grip on Ron's lapels, and smoothened them with her palms. "This doctor's look suits you."

"Too bad. I don't imagine I'll be going into the medical profession anytime soon."

"Mm, you should consider it. For the suit alone, at least." Ron snorted, and it was the sound that broke whatever illusion the giddiness of their meeting had woven around them. "But you're not here to take my temperature and give me a tonic, are you."

The grief was back on Ron's face now. "No," he said, and led Hermione by the hand toward the bed. "I think it's best we sit."

The two sat at the edge of Hermione's bed, the plush duvet sinking a few inches under their weight. Ron took both of her hands in his now, and locked eyes with Hermione.

"Hermione..."

"Yes?" she said, and the expectation shimmering in her eyes was too much for Ron to bear. Surely she couldn't think anything good was going to come from this? Still, he was going to have to break the heart of the woman he loved, and he couldn't think of a more painful irony for life to twist for him. Still, the fact remained that he loved her, and that was why he had to do this.

"Hermione, you know I love you. I love you more than life itself. I love you as the wild roses love the garden fences, and I love you as the sawdust in the shed loves to cling to my workclothes. I love you with every bit of me that knows how to." Suddenly it was all too much for him, and he had to stop to gather himself. He didn't know whether Hermione's brown eyes, trained on his, were giving him strength or sapping him of it. "Hermione, I— I love you this much, and I need to make sure you know that, because I need to make sure that what I'm about to say is coming clearly from no place other than love."

"Ron, you're scaring me."

"Hermione, I—" And then the tears were pricking at his eyes, and he let them roll down, not daring to let go of Hermione's hands to dab them away. "Hermione, I think we should break this off."

Hermione's hands went cold in his. "You can't possibly mean that."

"I wish I didn't. But I have been nothing but trouble for you since we've been together, and I can't live with myself knowing that all I bring into the life of the woman I love is disgrace."

"You'll bring disgrace into my life if you go through with this," Hermione said, and thought her voice sounded surprisingly stable considering the steady flow of tears that had begun to flow from her own eyes.

"I don't want to, Hermione, you have to know that," he said, almost pleading. "But I just don't see any other way out of this. I can't keep forcing you to choose me, when it makes your life miserable."

"Don't you see? It's you that makes it wonderful." She undid one of her hands from Ron's grasp and placed it on his cheek, over the still-warm trails from his crying, a mimic of the gesture he'd used on her scarce minutes earlier. "Ron, you've put your feelings beautifully, and I'm going to put mine very simply. I can't live without you. That's it. You know I'm an incredibly wordy person, but there is really no other way to say it. So if this is what I have to do to be with you, I'll gladly bear it. We'll do it in the dark if we have to, for as long as we need to. But I don't want to lose you."

Ron was still crying, but his breath had slowed somewhat. He closed his eyes as if that would rein in the tears. "If you're sure."

"I'm completely sure. But what about you? I don't want to keep you from happiness, either. And if breaking it off is what would make you happiest, then—"

"No, of course not. No option that involved putting any distance between you and me would ever make me happiest." With his free hand, he reached up to his face and swiped at the tears with his sleeve. "So what now?"

"We wait," Hermione sighed. "First, for my mother to become convinced I'm not going to try anything funny again, next for her to start letting me out of her sight, next for her to start letting me take, say, chaperoned strolls with Orlando, next... Well, I don't know, but we figure it out."

"Until next 'next,' then," Ron said, and the reference to that day in the stables, what seemed like all those months ago, coaxed a smile out of the two of them.

"Until next 'next,' yes," Hermione smiled, and again took up his free hand. "But it's going to be a waiting game, Ron. I don't want to ask you to play it if you aren't certain."

"What I'm certain of is I'll do anything for you. And that any waiting is worth it if I get to sit by you like this for just a minute."

A knock at the door came, startling them both; however, it was only Orlando's voice that came through the sliver to warn them: "Five minutes, Ron."

The hateful constraint of time closed around them, and though they turned to each other with the knowledge that they'd see each other again, it was small comfort for the lack of knowledge of when that would be. Slowly, savoring every second they had left, Hermione leaned in to close the gap between them. The feeling of Ron's lips on hers was restorative, and as Ron drew her closer to kiss her more deeply she felt more herself than she had in days. They held the kiss without counting down the seconds, keeping the dread of the hourglass out of it, so when the sand finally finished piling up at the bottom it wasn't the dread of the separation they'd remember but the bliss of all the instants before it.

Still, the separation came, announced by another knock and then Orlando stepping in. "Time's up for the doctor's visit."

Ron drew away from her gently, both of their lips remaining parted to drink in the last dregs of this kiss—the last kiss in how long?

"I love you," she was the first to say, and he returned the words before he stood from the bed and went to collect his hat. Orlando's hand was already on the doorknob when Ron turned to her again.

"Oh, and one more thing."

"Anything."

"Promise me you'll eat," he said, keeping his gaze fixed on Hermione.

"I promise."

"Okay. A healthy broth might turn out to be just what the doctor ordered." He smirked at his own joke, joined by both of the Granger siblings, and then set the top hat squarely on his head. Orlando opened the door, and before Ron stepped out, he turned to Hermione once more: "I'll be waiting. Whenever you come calling, I'll be waiting."

"I'll find you," she said, and she hoped her promise sounded like one.

It was good enough for Ron. Blowing her a kiss, he took up the square leather bag again and stepped out of the room. Orlando eyed him and prepared to go after him, but a word from Hermione kept him a moment longer. "Orlando."

He looked toward his sister, still sitting on the bed where Ron had left her. Her face was still gaunt from the days of not eating, her wrinkled dress and messy hair bearing the brunt of the hours she'd spent curled up, but it was the first time since Grimmauld Place that his sister had looked like the Hermione he knew. He knew what she was going to say before she said it. "Thank you."

He just shot back a kind smile, knowing she needed little more, and then stepped out into the hall after Ron closing the door behind him.