I started this last week because I was desperately searching for something to occupy the three days remaining until the release of Book 5; I didn't want to concentrate on updating "Learning to Live," as those require several drafts and more revision. As it turned out, however, Phoenix came and this was still incomplete, so I went back, finished it, and did some small revisions to include Book 5 in a couple of places. It also helped me to accept the death of my 2nd favorite character, though I'm not really sure how. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys this.
*****
It was the summer after her seventh year when she started getting the letters. Hermione was spending her days in various places, enjoying her time off before she was due to start her job as a Magical Detective for the Department of Mysteries. Having recently procured her apparition license, she was enjoying her new ability to travel quickly and easily and was visiting different people at her leisure. She spent most of her nights at her home with her parents, who wanted to spend obscene amounts of time with their only child, knowing that she would soon be leaving them. However, at least once a week she and Harry would both apparate to the Burrow and spend carefree day playing quidditch, engaging in practice duels, and chatting congenially. She also spent some time every week looking for a small house or apartment to move into. She was planning on moving soon after she began work; it was more practical to live, as well as work, in the wizard world. Harry had, understandably, already moved out of Number 4, Privet Drive, and was currently living in a small flat in Diagon Alley, until he could "find something better."
The letters had been coming in every day for the past week. They were always short, rarely longer than two lines, in a handwriting she didn't recognize. The strangest thing was that they were all romantic in nature and metered like poems, but more prosaic. She knew there had to be some clue in the six letters she had thus far received as to who could be writing them and she'd spent long hours poring over each of them individually and then reading straight through all of them, looking for something unusual or some kind of pattern, but she never got anything more than a headache. The one thing she had noticed was that they had started arriving the day after her last visit to the Burrow.
The sun was bright and the day was cloudless on the morning of the seventh day. Hermione got out of bed and looked out of the window with a happy sigh. It looked as though the weather would be perfect for today's visit to the Weasley home. A nervous, tingly sensation started in the pit of her stomach and spread through the rest of her abdomen and chest. Thinking about the Burrow made her think about Ron, and thinking about Ron made her feel childishly excited, breathlessly happy, and miserably heartbroken all at once. She closed her eyes and let the vision of his long, freckly nose and red hair swim in her mind.
Hermione didn't yet know what love was. She considered herself too inexperienced to have a foundation on the meaning of that mysterious word and no amount of reading had made it any clearer. However, she did know that this sensation that was permeating her body, mind, and soul was stronger than anything she had experienced before. It was this feeling that made it painfully obvious why she had broken things off with Viktor Krum. She had loved Ron as a best friend, as a brother, for over 6 years now. She knew that much. But she wasn't sure exactly when it had started changing. It was sometime in 3rd year, she supposed, remembering when he had forcefully agreed to start helping her with Buckbeak's case. And it had definitely intensified during fourth year, though she hadn't really understood it at that time. All she knew then was that her spirits brightened every time she saw him, that there was something reassuring in his familiar lanky form, that she inwardly marveled at his relaxed attitude toward school work, even while she berated him for it, and that she was secretly flattered by his jealousy of Krum.
Hermione was soon forced to open her eyes; tears were pushing at her eyelids. The longing was almost painful. She had hoped for a few brief seconds that the mysterious letters she was receiving were coming from Ron, but she no longer allowed herself to entertain these thoughts. She knew Ron as well as she knew herself. He would never write anything like this; he couldn't come up with such words. And she would know his handwriting at a glance, even if he tried to disguise it.
Checking the clock on her bedside table, Hermione saw that she had slept until 10:00, meaning that she was due to be at the Burrow in an hour. So she took a quick shower and used magic to dry her hair. Then it was time for breakfast with her parents and leaving for the Burrow. Her parents were still fascinated by the idea of magic, and one thing that seemed to give them a great thrill was the sight of their daughter simply disappearing into thin air. Thus, they always insisted on watching Hermione apparate, glowing with pride and she focused hard on her intended destination.
"Alright," Hermione said, "I'll just nip upstairs to get my wand, then you can see me off." She climbed the stairs to her bedroom, simultaneously dreading and anticipating a day with Ron. She pulled open the bottom drawer in her study desk and took out her wand. One minute, she was looking lovingly at her wand, but the next, she had dropped it in surprise when a large owl flew through her open window. She wouldn't have recognized this bird if it hadn't been to visit her 6 times in the past 6 days. She reached out and took the parchment tied to its leg with trembling hands. She unrolled it slowly, wondering if she dared to read it and deciding she did. It was the shortest note she had yet received.
It is time.
Suddenly, Hermione felt the telltale pull from her stomach area and knew that she had been had. The parchment was a portkey.
*****
Ron awoke with a start because of a shriek from Pigwidgeon. He was becoming accustomed to waking in this manner; his owl considered it his duty to make sure his master maintained a regular sleep schedule.
The seventeen-year-old redhead stretched and yawned sleepily, then made his way down the steep crooked staircase of the Burrow. His mother was busy rattling around in the kitchen when he sat down at the scrubbed wooden table. She greeted him cheerfully and scraped some eggs and sausages onto his plate.
"Harry and Hermione are coming today, aren't they, dear?"
"Yeah," said Ron, blood rushing to his face at the thought of Hermione. He turned away from his mother abruptly, hoping that she wouldn't notice. But he should have known it was no good.
"Oh, honestly Ron," she said, amusement distinguishable in her exasperated tone. "Why don't you just ask her?"
"Because, Mum, Hermione is not a normal girl," he answered, growing more embarrassed by the second. "And she's not interested anyway," he added.
"Well, you'll never know unless you ask, now will you?" Mrs. Weasley pointed out before letting the subject drop.
Ron finished eating and climbed back up the stairs to his room. He sat down forlornly on his bed and ran a hand through his hair. His eyes roved over his dresser and fell on a picture of himself with Harry and Hermione at Platform 9 ¾ after getting off of the Hogwarts Express for the final time. In the picture, Ron was standing in the middle with his arms around his two bests friends' shoulders. Harry and Hermione were both waving and beaming, but Ron was looking steadily down at Hermione. He put the picture carefully into a drawer and his hand brushed across a small stack consisting of 6 sheaves of parchment. He didn't know what to make of the mysterious letters he'd been receiving. The handwriting looked vaguely familiar. He felt as though he ought to recognize but couldn't somehow. But he wasn't the type to become obsessed with something he couldn't explain. He smiled slightly, imagining what Hermione would do if she were in his situation. He could almost visualize her sitting with her forehead furrowed, poring over the parchment for hours on end and insisting she needed to visit the library.
A kind of burning in his stomach made him wish desperately that he could change his train of thought. But he couldn't. Everything he tried to focus on somehow brought him back to Hermione.
It was so much better while we were still at Hogwarts, Ron mused. He couldn't believe how much he missed the school. He had had some of the worst moments of his life there. But then, all of the best moments had occurred there, too. He'd spent seven years there; it really had become a home. And at Hogwarts, being in love with Hermione hadn't been so bad. At least then he'd been able to see her everyday. Now, not only did he long for her, but he missed her, too. Ron was bothered by the fact that he missed Hermione so much more than he missed Harry. But this was perhaps explained by the fact that, over the years, Harry had become much closer than a friend. He was a brother now, one of the family. And he didn't really miss Bill or Charlie or Fred or George when they were gone for short periods of time (he never really missed Percy). He had noticed how Fred and George became markedly more subdued when they were separated from each other, but they were identical twins. And there was also the fact that Ron wasn't in love with Harry.
Ron opened the window and looked out into the bright sunshine. He could see a few clouds starting to roll in from the East. It would probably be raining by that evening.
Ron watched as a large owl flew into view and over the grounds. Expecting it to fly toward one of the lower windows, he jumped back in surprise when the owl flew into his window. It perched on top of Pigwidgeon's cage and held out his leg for Ron to remove the small piece of parchment and flew off immediately. Ron unrolled the note and read the words "It is time" in the same handwriting that he knew he'd seen. Seconds later, he felt the jerk in his navel and heard the wind and saw the swirling color.
*****
Hermione landed hard in a dark, musty smelling room. There were only a few rays of sunlight coming in through the small windows, which, Hermione noticed with a jolt, were boarded up. There was a small fireplace on one wall, but she didn't see any Floo Powder, and she didn't have her wand with her to light a fire anyway. She rose and tried the door on the wall opposite her. It was locked.
"Alohomora."
Still, the door didn't budge. Anxiety began to settle in. The war with Voldemort was over, but that didn't mean that all of his Death Eaters had been rounded up. There were perhaps still some out there, ready to show that they hadn't yet given up. Hermione didn't have long to worry, though. Seconds later, there was a flash of light as another figure was portkeyed into the room. It didn't take Hermione long to recognize that red hair.
"Ron! What in blazes going on?" She yelled, before he had even gotten to his feet. Ron looked around, raising one eyebrow in his adorably cute manner.
"Your guess is as good as mine," he said.
"Do you mean to tell me that you didn't send me that portkey?"
"Portkey? What – You mean you got one, too?"
"Yes," said Hermione slowly, still suspicious.
"A piece of parchment?"
"Yeah, how'd you know?"
"I got one, too. This is weird."
"Yeah." Hermione slowly slid down the wall to sit on the floor. "The door is locked," she said, "I think we've just got to wait for something to happen. I imagine that whoever did this put a silencing spell on the room, too, so we can't hope that someone will hear us and come help."
"I suppose," said Ron. Both were quiet for some time, staring nervously around at the dank, wooden walls and the boarded windows that were reminiscent of the Shrieking Shack.
"Hermione," said Ron suddenly, after many minutes, "Do you think we've been set up?" His face began to redden almost as soon as he had spoken, but he determinedly kept up eye contact with her.
"What do you mean?" she asked, startled. Could he possibly mean…But no, there was no way…Was there?
"You know. Someone sent us those letters – Wait, did you get letters, too?"
"Yeah, I did."
"Well, what if someone sent us that stuff to, erm, get us together?"
"What do you mean?" she asked again, her heart racing.
"Well, Harry always says – I mean, a lot of people, my mum even, say that we should, you know, erm, be together. And I was just thinking that someone maybe sent us here, er, for that reason."
Hermione tried valiantly, but couldn't decide on something to say. If Ron had made the slightest indication in his speech that he agreed with the "lot of people," she would have gotten everything off of her chest and fallen gratefully into his arms at that precise moment. But he hadn't. So she settled for remaining silent while begging him with her eyes to keep talking. After a little while, he said
"Do you think we give people that impression?"
"I don't know, " she replied, "I've never thought about it, really. I'm not the type to be affected by what other people say."
"Yeah," said Ron with a slight smile, "I know. I just thought that, if we do, " he was turning red again, "we might want to be more careful. You know…so that people don't get the wrong idea."
That set Hermione off. She was sick of playing games. Even if Ron couldn't reciprocate her feelings, she wanted everything in the open. And she was angry.
"And what idea is that, Ron?" she demanded, getting to her feet and putting her hands on her hips, almost like Mrs. Weasley. "That we like each other? Yes, God forbid people think that. I don't know what I would do if anyone thought I liked you! Because I'm finding that I don't like you very much right now! Or, I don't want to, anyway! But I do, still," her voice was quieting as her anger died away, "and I can't help it, and I almost don't want to anymore, but I can't help it." Hermione was going to stop talking at that point, but she had more to say, and since she was already halfway there, she couldn't see any reason to break her momentum. "Don't you get it, Ron? I don't know how you don't see it, unless you're just ignoring it on purpose. You're all I think about lately. All I want is to be with you, all the time. You really annoy me sometimes; you can be an absolute prat, but even when we get mad at each other, even when I can't imagine how it is possible for you to be so irrational, I'm always torn between wanted to hit you and wanting to kiss you. Now, I don't know if you feel this way, too, but even if you don't I'll be glad to have got this in the open. And even if you don't I'll never stop believing that you are the one for me. I'm in love with you, Ronald Weasley. I'm not really sure what that means, but I know its true and I want more than anything to hear you say the same thing back to me, but only if you feel that way, too." When she finished her speech, her lip was trembling. She could feel her toes curling in her shoes from a combination of mortification and the worst nerves she had ever felt, but she stared determinedly into his surprised eyes, afraid that he would doubt her words if she didn't.
*****
Ron felt his jaw dropping more and more as Hermione continued talking. When she finally finished, half of him wanted to jump up into the air with a quick succession of joyous whoops, but the other half was afraid to believe his own ears. He looked to her brown eyes and saw her looking forcefully back at him. Suddenly a rapid fire slew of images of Hermione was playing in his mind. Hermione looking doubtfully at him after he had tried to turn Scabbers yellow… Hermione glaring at him and Harry when the issue of the Polyjuice Potion was being debated… Hermione telling Harry that he shouldn't ride his Firebolt… Hermione pleading with him to make up with Harry in his fourth year… Hermione kissing him on the cheek before his first Quidditch match…
"What are you smiling about?" A sharp voice interrupted his daydream. He looked up to see Hermione glowering down at him. There was fierce energy in her eyes, but she was chewing her bottom lip in an almost fearful way. Ron stood, brushed himself off and looked directly into her eyes before saying
"You."
"M – Me?"
"Yes. You. Everything you just said, Hermione, I could say right back to you. I just want to know why this has taken us this long." He watched with some amusement as Hermione's hard expression melted into one of weak relief.
"Oh, Ron…" she sighed. Ron was startled to see tears forming in her eyes.
"Why do you always do that?" he asked, half-exasperated and half-jubilant.
"I don't know!" she said good-naturedly, choking slightly. Ron gave a small sigh and took a step closer to her. He reached out with one hand and tilted her chin slightly upward, using his thumb to wipe away the single tear that had streaked down her cheek. He inclined his head toward hers and moved slowly down to her, his heart threatening to break out of his chest. He stopped moving for a second and opened his mouth, intending to elaborate on what he felt for her, but she suddenly rushed up to him and covered his lips with hers. For a long moment, they stayed like that, neither of them daring to move, as if this long-awaited moment were so fragile that a sudden movement would break it. His hands had settled on her waist and hers were around his neck, holding his head to hers. But Ron hadn't stopped enjoying the kiss, hadn't even begun needing air, when he heard the raucous cheers of two very familiar, almost identical voices.
"About time!"
"Yeah! They never could have done it without our help!"
"Always dancing around each other like that!"
"Hmmm… We'd better break this up, though, that can't be healthy."
"How would you know, it's not like you've ever done that."
"I beg your pardon? Of course I have!"
"Lee doesn't count, George!"
Ron and Hermione had broken apart and were surveying the twins with a mixture of amusement and embarrassment.
"You set us up, did you?" asked Ron, "Well, exactly how much did you see, then?"
"Everything," said Fred and George in unison, with malicious grins on their faces.
"Where are we, anyway?" asked Hermione. She seemed rather keen to steer the conversation in another direction.
"The new location of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!" said Fred enthusiastically.
"Took all of our savings for the first month's rent, but we reckon business will be good enough here to make up for that."
Hermione had wandered over to peer out of the crack between the boards in one window.
"Hogsmeade," she said, "Impressive. I imagine you had to get Dumbledore's permission to use the Shrieking Shack?"
"Actually," said George, "it was his idea. We were down here a few weeks ago, looking around, and he was at the Three Broomsticks. Never strays far from Hogwarts, even during the summer, does he? Anyway we told him we were looking to open a shop here and he said that he was sure business would thrive, because no one in 3rd year and above had forgotten the way we tortured Umbridge two years ago… " George smiled as though the memory gave him great pleasure.
"But he thought we would be even more successful if we used the Shrieking Shack, because students have always been dying to see it from the inside!" Fred finished happily.
"We'd better get home," George said after a minute, "Harry and Ginny are going to want all the details. We offered to let them come along. Ginny seemed to want to, but Harry wouldn't hear of it; I think he was quite glad to have almost everyone out of the way for a few moments… If they can keep out of Mum's way, mind you."
"Ron," said Hermione suddenly, "Why didn't we just apparate out of here?"
Ron's brow furrowed for a moment, as though trying to find a reason that apparition would have been impossible, but when he could think of none, he simply smiled sheepishly.
"Maybe," he began slowly, "neither of us really wanted out of that room."
He grinned more broadly as Hermione rushed forward and took her in his arms, noticing with joy that she seemed to fit perfectly tucked up against him. He kissed the top of her head and suggested that they go home.
Upon apparating into the kitchen at the Burrow, they were greeted by anxious looks from Mrs. Weasley. Ron put his arm around Hermione without speaking, trying valiantly to look annoyed with the unhindered interference in his love life. He couldn't keep from smiling, however, when Mrs. Weasley broke into joyous exclamations.
"Oh! My youngest son and my adopted daughter! This is just too wonderful. It's a day full of happy news!"
"What do you mean, Mrs. Weasley?" asked Hermione cautiously. Mrs. Weasley looked fondly over at Harry at Ginny before replying.
"It's my youngest son and my adopted daughter," she said, "and my only daughter and my adopted son. Oh! I'm all of a flutter!"
Disbelieving, Ron grinned.
"Bit slow on the uptake, are we Mum? It's only been a year and a half since Harry and Ginny –"
Ron broke off as Harry strode over and, quite seriously, asked Ron to be his best man as his upcoming marriage to Ginny Weasley.
*****
And there you have it. I really enjoyed writing this, it was so much fun! Anyway, seeing some reviews would be nice… (hint, hint). Reviews are fun! I hope everyone enjoyed Book 5 as much as I did, even if I cried for hours… And there are several things I don't understand that I'd like the opinions of others on, so if you'd like to discuss the fifth book, feel free to e-mail me or IM me.
Also, I'm considering writing a second-part of sorts to this. It would be Harry's proposal to Ginny. If I get feedback, I'll do that. I might anyway, as I really enjoyed this one. Thanks for reading, everyone.