Chapter 13: A Little Faith

Author's Note: Yes, yes, finally here. I'm so awful for letting everyone wait *hides* Don't hate me for this chapter. You already do, never mind. Thank you, darling loyal reviewers!

Disclaimer: I had this really witty one all plotted out to "Oops I Did It Again." Then it got stuck in my head and nearly drove me mad. I don't bloody well own it, eh?

If I don't make it known that
I've loved you all along
Just like sunny days that
We ignore because
We're all dumb and jaded
And I hope God I figure out
What's wrong

- Our Lady Peace, "4 AM"

If Ron had thought the school was preparing for the End of the Year Ball before, it was absolutely nothing compared to now. It had been quite preparations, but now the entire school seemed caught up in the bustle and hurry of finding the perfect dress, managing to get that punch stain out of your dress robes, and the everlasting dilemma of locating a date.

Ron had actually put forward an experiment: he had spent an entire evening sitting in the Gryffindor Common Room and observing those who passed by. It had been very amusing. He keep track and found that he had seen twelve invitations to the ball, five of which were accepted, four that were rejected because of prior attachments, and three that received a "With you?"

He watched as boys and girls and young men and women ran to and fro, sending owls to their parents for extra pocket money, to catalogues for things that those they were bought for inevitably didn't notice. He thought it was almost like life, wasn't it, scurrying about for those goals that never really mattered once they were finished, that never really mattered at all.

He nearly promised himself not to waste time on things like that. He realized just before how pointless it was. Everyone promised that at some point, didn't they? Everyone vowed to live their life the right way, to seize every moment for what it was, to only make the right decisions. But it never quite came through. They always slipped away unnoticed, forgotten as their luster grew less alluring and it did not seem quite so pressing to make the best of life while you had it.

                                                                                                ***

Harry was not so caught up in his joy of going to the Ball with Cho that he forgot his friend. Harry had never been like that. He noticed what Ron did; he did not, no matter how long he had looked at Cho across a Great Hall, forget his stolid and reliable friend in the glamour of new love. He hardly mentioned Cho at all anymore. Ron noticed this. He knew why. He was thankful, at heart, but sometimes wished that the absence of Cho was not so obvious. It was like how a cripple feels when people believe they are being considerate for not looking at his differences. The cripple notices, and sometimes he wishes they would just look outright and acknowledge it. He has to live with it everyday, why shouldn't they? In bitter moments, he thought they were only sparing themselves the awkwardness.

But it was probably best, despite that. And Harry did this not for himself, since he did have to live with it as the one caught between the two, equal loyalty and concern for each. He knew Ron – he knew the sorrow was already eating at him like a canker, without the added jealousy, no matter how it might try to be contained because of the friendship, and he did not want to cause his friend more pain.

Ron never knew how much he really meant to Harry. To Harry, a friend had been something he had hardly ever dreamed about. It had been something other luckier people had. He was always amazed, somehow, that people didn't think of him what they had always thought of him in his earlier life; the odd one out, the strange one. On Harry his fame was still resting uneasily, he could not understand that people would want to be friends with him only because of his name. Or maybe he did, and the fact that Ron had never cared about that made the friendship worth as much as it did. Harry saw the insignificance Ron felt next to him, and he wished so much that he could take it away; it was a blemish, an unnecessary and untrue complication that to him had never made any difference in how he saw Ron. But it mattered to Ron, it mattered so much that it hurt Harry sometimes.

Harry knew Ron didn't know this, he knew Ron would never even consider this. Harry thought a lot about what would happen if sometime he didn't have the luck he always had with Voldemort, if one day it all just left him and he became the ordinary boy he knew he was inside. He would die for Ron. He had always known this. But he knew, also, very well, too well, that Ron would see this as a waste: something impractical done to save someone who was inconsequential. Harry hated that more than anything. He hated that someone who meant so much to him, who always would be there as someone who was fiercely loyal in his doubt and the first person Harry had ever met willing to take up that position, would make a mockery of their life. Because it was a mockery, it was a trivialization of something that could turn out to be so much more important that anyone had ever thought.

Maybe Ron got a glimmer of this at times, or maybe he was too blinded by his firm belief that no one would waste their time in caring that much about him.

But Harry couldn't shield Ron from everything. He knew that there were some things he had to do in front of Ron that would remind him of what he could not help remembering, and he did not want to substitute the pain that reigned now with one of isolation.

And so Harry was standing there, trying on his dress robes to see if they still fit. Ron knew they did, and he thought about his midnight blue dress robes given to him on a Christmas a long, long time ago. He thought about who had given them to him. He tried not to let himself sink down. Harry saw his reflection in the mirror.

"Hey, Ron?"

Ron stirred, realizing that sometimes it hurt a little to be dragged out of the depths, implausible though it sounded.

"You coming to the Ball?"

Ron let out a forced, incredulous laugh. "Harry? Are you serious?"

Harry nodded. "I'm very serious, Ron." And he was. Ron could hardly understand why.

"But, why? Is there anything it could possibly do but – mess it all up even more? Remind me of what I, let's face it Harry, threw away like a real idiot?"

Harry didn't even wince. He didn't even cringe at the fact that they had spoken outright about it, taken out his disability to the forefront. It was there, in front of them there – it bothered Ron more than it did Harry.

"Because, Ron. If you don't come you will merely sit here and think about what is happening there. You will think about what could be happening. All you'll do is remember and you'll linger on all the possibilities. And I won't be able to stop you. I won't be able to stop you if you come, as well, but at least I can know that you're not alone with yourself. Alright?"

Ron could hardly think of anything to say to that. He knew that his desire to remain curled up in himself was strong, but he had forgotten that loyalty was stronger. He wanted to be alone with his thoughts. He wanted to remain with not only the ever-present misery, but with the string of hope that he was now spinning throughout the misery, a gently permeating strand.

But he, somehow, couldn't say no. It was difficult to explain.

"Fine. I'll come."

And Harry smiled, as if he knew everything that had ran through his mind.

                                                                                ***

So Ron existed in his fragile world of glass mirrors and dream sculptures, and Hermione existed in her world of dusty books that shielded her from too sharp memories.

And Ginny tried to take her out of the tomes she lived in now. She found Hermione in the library one day (again) and sat down besides her so that the pages quivered in Hermione's manuscript.

"Hi, Hermione."

Hermione looked up, her face like a query, wondering why someone had bothered her in her quiet absorbency.

Ginny saw the look. She rolled her eyes, but not unkindly. "It's Ginny. Remember me? The girl you know once, a long time ago, before you relocated to the library."

Hermione smiled. It was an almost strange feeling. "Really, Ginny, I haven't relocated. But there's a lot of work that I suddenly realized I'd been neglecting."

Ginny raised her eyebrow.

"I know what that means, Ginny. And that's not true."

Hermione looked at her friend, and relented.

"It might be a factor. But it's only a factor."

Shaking her head, Ginny decided that it simply wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth making Hermione admit it so that her thin walls of distance were torn down and her safety taken away. "Never mind, Hermione."

Hermione was relieved, keeping the walls she wouldn't say she had around her, feeling them grow sturdier. They were her protection, her denial. She liked to tell herself she was over it. She liked to think that Ron was something she never should have done, something undeniably in her past, something wrong that she could leave behind.

She was too smart to believe it. But she thought it anyway.

"Hermione, you need to come to the Ball."

Hermione looked up, startled. Of all the things she had been waiting for and preparing herself for, that was not one of them. "What? Is this some sort of –"

Ginny looked embarrassed. "No, it's nothing like that. We all respect your decision. But you can't just spend your life here, Hermione! You're going to get dusty soon! You'll become part of the furniture."

Hermione tried not to think about how that really didn't sound too awful. Libraries were reliable. They were quiet and when you sat very still you could hear the books breathing. She never told anyone that.

"But, Ginny. No! It just – wouldn't work."

"Please, Hermione?"

And maybe it was because Ginny was just a little too much like Ron. Hermione probably didn't know that was why. But it was the red hair, and how the blue eyes were really so similar to something that Hermione tried to get off her mind.

"I'll go, Ginny. But nothing like – you know."

Ginny was grateful. She had nothing planned, except maybe an escape from Hermione's escape. Ginny was afraid the escape would become a cage.

                                                                                                ***

A little later, with the reluctance and offhandedness that comes when we are trying to seem uninterested and detached:

"Hey, do you know if Hermione has a date?"

And with that, the small, knowing smile, concealed for the feelings, yet at the back of the mind a constant worry of what if something goes even further wrong now, what if by telling him I am laying the path that he will follow to further destruction?

"No, she doesn't."

The seed is lain; the curtain is drawn; it is now afoot.

                                                                                             ***

We know what goes on in his mind, how could we not. It is proof – it is inescapable evidence – it is release.

He has no longer doubt in his mind, he has only certainty.

Others could see fallacy in this – Ron could not. To the mind that has been without hope for so long, implausible belief means so much. It can consume. It eclipses reason. It did this to Ron. And who can blame him.

And so, once more, the players on the stage take their places, for it is time for the final act.

                                                                                    ***

Hermione hadn't known that the library could close. She actually didn't think it did. Therefore she eyed Madame Pince with suspicion when she was informed of this.

"Yes, Hermione. Closed."

"But Madame Pince – that's not something I've heard of before –"

Madame Pince came the closest to looking exactly like Hermione when she was angry that anyone ever could. A tendril of hair came out of her usually tight hair twist, and her eyes were furrowed with determined worry.

"It's happening now. Do you realize, Hermione, that –" she stopped, and composed herself. Maybe as Hermione looked up at her, confused and a little frightened almost to be torn away from her life force, she felt a wave of pity for someone who is lost but would never admit it. "It's closed."

Hermione shuffled her books together looking slightly disoriented. She left the library, with Madame Pince remembering Hermione since she had first come here. She never had favorites, but if she did, we can imagine that her pride would go out to the small girl who has grown among the manuscripts. The girl had hardly ever spoken to her, but from the first time she had seen how the brown head bent over the books and the brow furrowed and the hands worked, something had gone out from her to the child.

As Hermione left the library, she met someone she could hardly have wanted to avoid more. A flushed face, like he had been running. Ron looked at her as if the words had flown out his mouth.

Hermione saw him standing there, wanting to say something, and she wanted to move. She almost did. But he saw, and quickly he blurted it out, needing to begin this and state what he intended. This was not an accident.

"Hermione."

Hermione refused to be affected by this. She was above this, she was beyond it all, she was over him. She began to give him a firm nod, expressing this firmly, showing him the finality of it all. He moved between her exit path.

He tried to find something to say to express it all, and then he realized that it didn't matter and he let it spill out in a flow of words that to him was beautiful and free. It made sense to him.

"It can all still work out, Hermione – it's not over, I know it can't be, I'm so sorry, you know that now. Can't we put it behind us? I know we can, I'm sure we can. Let me take you to the Ball, let it all be over. Hermione?"

Hermione was stunned, but perhaps behind her face there was a little bit of expectation. She looked at Ron, the way he was now: tall, gangly, earnest, awkward. He was still so young to her in that moment.

So she spoke the way you would speak to a child that made you uneasy and yet sad. "What? What is it?" Her face didn't hold anything to prompt Ron on, and if behind it there was something else, she did not let it betray her.

"I love you, don't you still love me? Nothing's changed, Hermione. We can go, it can all be over, it's so awful right now and you know it but soon it'll only be the past. I'm sorry. It has to end. It will end. I know it will, there's no way it couldn't, not now at any rate. Not with everything else."

And now Hermione was set at sea. What could he know? For her, the tension crackled in the air around her, she thought her hair was probably making an aura around her, golden brown and electric with the current. Ron did not sense it.

"I saw it, Hermione, I saw it. It was so long ago and I didn't believe it then but what if it's true, Hermione. I saw us at the Ball together and it has to work out then, doesn't it? Together, I saw us, and it was so real, too real, you know what I mean, don't you?"

It was like a lightning bolt interrupting the world around us, when it cuts through the moment and shatter sit with its intensity, the burning now of it, the ferocity that shocks us. But when Hermione was a lightning bolt, it was mixed with something that Ron would not be able to identify. It might have been grief.

"I am not a foregone conclusion, Ron!  I am – not – your – fate!"

When she spun away it was like the tailwind of a tornado that feels the pain of those it has injured.