A/N The second chapter, everyone; as I don't really remember where I had cut-off my original chapters, this one will have less divisions than the original, I think, but it's still all here with just slightly longer chapters is all.
Disclaimer: Harry Potter, etc, are the intellectual property of JKR; no infringement is intended.
Chapter 2
When Ron woke up that morning he felt more at ease than he had in weeks. Coming to the decision that he would talk to Hermione and come clean about his feelings for her had lifted a weight off his chest that had been there for so long he'd forgotten what it felt like not to have it there. He was once again his cheery self as he made his way to the kitchen where Loren was presently reading the newspaper. Charlie was nowhere in sight; he was probably in the sitting room looking at Loren's collection of Muggle books. Charlie had always been good at school; it was no wonder Hermione and he got along so well despite their age difference. They had met for the first time in the summer of Ron's third year at the Quidditch World Cup but hadn't really gotten to know each other then. Even Ron hadn't been all that close to Charlie then, but he supposed that as he got older and matured, their relationship had gotten stronger. Over the years, Hermione and Charlie had gotten almost as close as Ron and Loren were, except of course for the fact that Loren was Charlie's girlfriend and Hermione was not Ron's.
"Good morning, sleepy head," Loren greeted him and handed him a cup of thick brown sludge—something Muggles liked to call coffee—and he drank it down in one gulp, his face screwing up at the bitter taste. "You're up late," Loren remarked, looking at the flashing numbers on a nearby digital clock. It was nearly eleven, which was actually incredibly early for Ron who usually slept-in much later.
"Late? This is what I call early; besides, I had a bit of a hard time sleeping," he said. Loren looked worried for a second.
"Were you thinking about Hermione?" she asked him, concerned, but Ron shook his head.
"I kept waking up to some very suspicious giggling coming from the next room." Ron told her, a teasing grin crossing his face; he knew he'd hit pay dirt when Loren's face turned a deep shade of crimson. She was so easy to embarrass, it was obvious she'd only grown up with a younger brother rather than five older ones. Ron laughed at her discomfort. "Just so you know, miss psychologist, I'm scarred for life," he told her, still smiling at how deeply she was blushing, and at how she was averting his eyes. Charlie chose that particular moment to walk into the room with a bounce in his step.
"Good morning, everyone," he said, looking and sounding particularly chipper, he completed the package by beginning to whistle.
"Apparently," Ron remarked, winking at Loren and only succeeding in making her blush more. If Loren sunk any lower into her chair, she would be sitting on the floor. "So, old chap, how'd you sleep?" he asked his brother, raising his eyebrows in a suggestive manner. Charlie looked back and forth between his girlfriend's flushed face and his youngest brother's not so subtle body language, quickly getting the drift.
"Oh, sod-off Ron," Charlie said, with an even wider grin than before. He bent down to kiss Loren on the lips, and whispered something in her ear. Loren's face became redder than Ron thought was even possible before she turned around and busied herself in fixing Charlie a cup of coffee, making a show of stirring in milk and sugar to Charlie's taste.
"Loren, do you mind if I grab a quick shower before we go back?" Ron called to her over Charlie's shoulder.
"Not at all, Ron," she told him, turning briefly to face him; at least her face was back to a seemingly normal colour. "Everything's ready for you in the bathroom. You know the way," she told him, taking a sip of Charlie's coffee to verify its taste before handing it to her boyfriend.
"Alright, then; I'll see you in a bit. Do try to behave yourselves while I'm gone," he said, not able to resist just one last stab at the woman who would surely be his sister someday.
He made his way to the bathroom, hearing a muffled "I am so embarrassed" behind him. He risked a peek and chuckled at seeing Loren's face buried in Charlie's chest, her hands over her face. Charlie put his arms around her and placed a kiss on the top of her head, but even he was trying to hold back a chuckle. Loren noticed and slugged him slightly, muttering something that Ron didn't catch as it was muffled by Charlie's shirt. Ron smirked mischievously before continuing on to the bathroom. In the shower, he let the hot water wash over him for several minutes as he thought of what he would do when he got back to England. He knew Loren was right, and as scared as he was, he was a man with a mission now.
~*~
Ron took a deep breath before knocking on the front door of Hermione's flat. When Charlie and he had left Loren's apartment that morning, Loren had given him a hug and whispered her good lucks to him with the threat that if she didn't see Pigwidgeon soon with details of how it had gone, that she'd personally go all the way to London to lecture him. How was it that she always knew what Ron was thinking? Sometimes Ron could swear that Loren had a bit of a psychic side to her even though he knew the idea to be ridiculous. Either Loren was incredibly perceptive or Ron was just incredibly transparent. He smiled at the thought…so Loren was certain that Ron was finally going to come clean to Hermione. Well, Ron couldn't disappoint her, now could he? Besides, he knew that if he didn't say something soon, that he might never have the courage to say anything at all. Ron took another deep breath. His courage was quickly failing him.
"Hermione, you in there?" he asked, knocking once more and crouching down to peer in the mail slot. He thought he could hear Hermione inside, but couldn't see her. He opened the mail slot a bit more widely and squinted…all he could see was the wooden floor of her flat and some haphazard books spread about. Hermione hadn't changed even after all these years of being out of school…she still always had her nose buried in a book. Ron called out again and heard a soft mutter as he shut the mail slot and began to dress himself up. He had to move quickly to avoid being knocked unconscious as the door violently swung open. He straightened abruptly, a scowl on his face. "What'd you do that--" he started before realising that there wasn't actually anyone standing at the door. With a frown on his face he looked at the numbers hidden behind the door. Yes, this was the right flat…what was going on? "Hermione?" he asked, walking into the flat's living room, stepping over books and magazines. Hermione was the most organised person Ron knew, but when one owned several hundred books, one only had so much room to store them all. Hermione had used-up her allotted wall-space and shelf space a long time ago. Now she was forced to stack books up wherever there was spare floor room. She had once asked Ron if he would let her keep some of her books at his own flat, but had quickly realised that it might not be the greatest idea; like most men, Ron wasn't the greatest of housekeepers.
"Is that you, Ron?" he heard Hermione ask from the kitchen; he answered in the affirmative, shutting the door behind him. "Well do me a favour, and go away will you? I'm still not talking to you," she told him, her voice edgy. Ron completely ignored her request and walked into the kitchen, greeted by the most bizarre sight he had ever seen when it came to Hermione.
"What ARE you doing?" he asked her, frowning as he watched her on all fours, madly scrubbing the floors with a bristled brush. Her wild brown hair was messier than usual, and a large portion of it was hiding her face. She was wearing typical clothes, a pair of jeans and soft pink jersey knit top that, although they were not in the least bit tight or revealing, gave Ron shivers. Even then, she looked breathtaking to him.
"What does it look like I'm doing, you twit?" she asked, her voice harsh; she was obviously still angry with him and apparently she had been at this for a while. The entire kitchen gleamed like Ron had never seen it gleam. Hermione was indeed organised and she was neat but never to an extreme. She liked things clean, but never to this degree…at least not on any normal bases, and that could only mean one thing. Something was obviously very wrong; Hermione always went into fits of cleaning when she was upset and the fact that she was doing it without magic, essentially reverting back to her Muggle ways, was indication that she was particularly irked.
"Hermione," Ron started. She was still scrubbing the floor, although not as vigorously as she had been a minute ago. The floor was dry, and only the spot that Hermione had been scrubbing was wet. Ron took a few steps cautious steps in the room. It looked as if she'd been scrubbing that one small expanse of floor for a good while.
"What?" Hermione asked in a tone so bitter, Ron flinched. He walked more closely towards her, and dropped to his knees, placing one hand on her wrist to stop her from wearing a hole in the linoleum.
"What's wrong? Surely you're not cleaning because of what I said to good old Shawn," he said the name with an edge of disgust. Shawn was the name of 'what's his arse'. "That was three days ago; what happened to make you this angry?" Ron asked, becoming a little bit worried. Hermione had gotten angry with him before, and the worst it had ever gotten was that fateful row they'd had in third year when they hadn't spoken to each other for nearly two months. Since then, however, their fights had never ever lasted more than a week. Ron hated to admit it but he just couldn't stay mad at her for more than five minutes and even though he was just as stubborn as he'd always been, his humility usually took a back seat to his desire to see Hermione and he usually apologised within a few days although by then, the row had already been forgotten. Maybe it was wishful thinking on Ron's part, but it seemed as if Hermione too was less likely to hold grudges against him these days. When, after a few minutes, Hermione still hadn't answer Ron's question, he became even more ill at ease. She hadn't looked at him, and Ron couldn't see what she was thinking because of her bloody hair hiding her face. He made a gesture to brush it out of his way but before his hand had made contact, Hermione spoke.
"Leave me alone, Ron Weasley. I don't want to talk about it," she told him. Her voice sounded oddly congested, as if she'd been crying. The anger was no longer there, but Ron now wished it would return. He could deal with Hermione being angry with him, what he couldn't deal with was seeing her distraught over something he couldn't fix. Determined to get to the bottom of this, he tenderly took her chin between thumb and forefinger and lifted it, forcing her to look at him. His worst fears were confirmed whe he saw that she had tears streaking down her face. Her hair was still in the way, blocking Ron's view of her eyes, and he pushed it aside, tucking it behind her ears. The strands were soft between his fingers and even from where he was he caught the faint aroma of the shampoo she had used that morning. Ron shut his eyes for a moment, wishing that somehow all of this could be different, but when he opened them up again and saw Hermione's red, swollen eyes, and the streaks on her cheeks, the sight of her in such distress was like a swift kick in the gut; all he wanted to do then was make her pain go away.
"Hermione?" he asked, wiping away a tear with his thumb. It wasn't the first time he'd comforted her while she was crying, but every time he was in a situation like this he felt even more helpless than the last. Hermione's cheek was like silk under Ron's palm, and he longed to draw her face to his and kiss her troubles away. The tenderness Ron exuded towards her and his tender gesture were just too much for Hermione, however, and she broke down once again, burying her face in Ron's neck and letting the tears fall anew. Ron's arms instinctively wrapped around her and held her there until she was ready to speak. This was the position they had found themselves in every time one of Hermione's relationships had failed. For some reason she never went to Harry for these things, but always to Ron. When her father had suffered a minor heart attack, two years before, it was Ron that she had called in the middle of the night, sobbing, and it was he who had gone with her to the hospital, who had assured her when she had been afraid to walk into the critical care unit that just because her father was sick he was by no means a different person. Ron held her then, and was reminded of all those times and like the night before a feeling came over him, a knowledge of sorts that this was where he was supposed to be and that out of all the uncertainties in his life, Hermione was the one thing he knew was right.
"Oh, it was horrible, Ron," Hermione told him between sobs, getting control of her emotions. Her voice was slightly muffled, her face buried in the crook of Ron's shoulder. Ron could feel her tears starting to make their way through the thin shirt he was wearing, could feel their warm dampness slowly seep through the fabric, over his heart. "Everybody thought—they all said—and Harry was out--" she started, not making any sense.
"Shh, tell me what happened," Ron whispered soothingly, not resisting the urge to place a kiss in her hair, breathing in the scent that would always remind him of her. His arms wrapped around her more tightly, the instinct to protect her stronger than Ron had ever felt it.
"Shawn told everyone--" she started, but didn't finish as Ron interrupted her, her words breaking the trance he'd been in as his temper got the better of him. He didn't wait to hear what else she had to say; she had said the name that he hadn't wanted to hear. She knew, somehow, that Shawn had hurt her, and just as Ron had always intervened when Malfoy had taunted her, the urge to protect her from her ex-boyfriend was stronger than the urge to comfort her. Anger had won over compassion yet again.
"WHAT?" he shouted, his eyes opening. He let go of Hermione, who slumped to the floor surprised at being released so quickly. Ron stood up, and began pacing the kitchen, his face becoming red as he fumed. "Why the bloody wanker, the--" he yelled off a string of curses. He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he'd practically forgotten that Hermione was even in the room.
"Ron, wait; listen," Hermione said, standing up and trying to get through to him, but Ron was in such a fit of rage that he didn't hear her. He was still pacing, oblivious to Hermione whose tears had by now subsided. She looked at Ron with a mixture of worry and annoyance; she had told him time and time again that he should control his temper, and if there was any time where she really needed for him to listen to her it was now. "Ron, please stop it," she pleaded, her voice cracking as more tears threatened to fall. Ron either did not hear her or did not let his anger subside enough to respond. He wasn't angry with her, it was true, but whenever his temper got the better of him, he was simply impossible to be around.
"I'm going to kill him." He stopped in the middle of the room, placing his arms on her shoulders and looking into Hermione's eyes. "I'm going to find him, I'm going to torture him, and then I'm going to kill him," he promised her, and Hermione could see that he was perfectly serious. She tried to say something, and opened her mouth but all she could do was gape at him like a goldfish out of water, her gaze captivated by his blue eyes. How many times had she looked into those eyes she didn't know, but never before had she realized just how beautiful his eyes really were. Hermione was reminded of her situation when Ron squeezed her shoulders slightly. The anger that had been on his face moments before had lessened a little and a look of longing replaced it; placing a brief kiss on Hermione's lips, Ron turned and walked out the door without a backwards glance. Hermione stood dumbstruck for a second…had he just kissed her? He surely had never done that before. Hermione pressed her lips together to assure herself that, yes, she really had just been kissed by her best friend of twelve years. Convinced that she wasn't dreaming, Hermione shook herself…then ran after Ron.
She was too late; Ron had already disapparated. He could be anywhere, and worst yet who knew what he would do. He had threatened to kill Shawn, and for the first time in her life Hermione was afraid that he was really going to go through with it. She had never seen him that angry, had never seen him lose his temper to that extent. He had been so volatile, he might explode if he really were to run into Shawn. Hermione, frightened to tears at what might happen if Ron didn't get control of his temper, ran back into her apartment, and threw some powder into the fireplace. Harry's face appeared a few seconds later.
"What's wrong, Hermione?" he asked, seeing the stricken look on her face. His first question would have been to ask her how it was that she knew to summon him at Ginny's flat, but the matter was quickly forgotten when he saw her puffy red eyes and her body shaking. "What is it? Is it Ron?" he asked, a little bit more worried now. Hermione didn't usually call him when she was upset; even if she happened to be furious with Ron it was still him whom she turned to at times like these.
"He's really gone and done it this time, Harry," she said, her voice shaking as badly as her body. She just couldn't seem to get control of the shivers. She briefly recounted what had happened, and managed to do so without breaking down completely; she'd never been this worried in her life, not even when they'd faced the Dark Lord.
"I'll be right over," Harry promised when she'd concluded. If he was shocked, he didn't say anything, but his expression had become significantly more grim after Hermione had finished.
Harry was true to his word, and within minutes he was standing in the middle of Hermione's living room, a little sooty and slightly the worst for wear. He hated travelling by Floo Powder, but apart from Apparating, which he didn't want to risk what with Hermione's books changing places all the time (he'd learned this the hard way), it was simply the quickest way to get to Hermione's. He replaced his glasses, and tried to calm Hermione who was pacing furiously. He'd never seen her that worried before. She had always been the model of composure…except of course where school was concerned.
"Oh, that Ron," she was muttering angrily, "always jumping to conclusions--wouldn't even let me finish what I was saying--couldn't even wait two seconds for me to finish, and now he's out God knows where, doing God knows what to God knows whom," she continued, speaking to herself. She suddenly stopped pacing, and brought the tips of her fingers to her lips. Harry frowned, not knowing just what that meant, but he decided not to ask. "Oh, Harry, we have to find him before he does anything stupid," Hermione exclaimed as if suddenly realising that Harry was there. Harry was confused, she'd been furious before, but now she looked exhausted, worried, almost dejected.
"Have you no idea where he was headed when he left?" Harry asked, hopefully even though he knew that given Hermione's state it would be difficult to get any straight answers from her.
"Well I suppose he might have gone to try and find Shawn, you know, that would make it easier to kill him," she replied sarcastically and rolled her eyes.
"Right," Harry said, ignoring Hermione's outburst, "well a simple location spell should do it," he continued. Hermione, surprised at why she hadn't thought of that, burst into tears and threw herself into Harry's arms, thanking him. Much as Ron had done in third year, Harry awkwardly put his arms around her and pat her on the head.
"We have to find him Harry; if we don't, and if something happens to him—" she broke off, extracting herself from Harry who looked a little uncomfortable but who tried his best to assure her.
"We will, Hermione, we will," he told her, smiling briefly before reaching into his robes and pulling-out his wand.
