A/N: Here's chapter six! Thanks to everyone who is enjoying this story so far, hope this chapter suits you well!
Disclaimer: Not mine!
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On Ron's first day back from the hospital, he was greeted warmly by everyone. Ginny even seemed to want to be nice for a change, and Hermione hadn't nagged him a single time all evening about his lack of completed homework. His mum had cooked his favorite dinner, and he'd retired to bed feeling quite satisfied and pleased with his return.
However, when he woke up sometime around one in the morning and found himself trying any method he could think of to get back to sleep, he realized that maybe all the resting he'd done at the hospital hadn't been such a wonderful thing after all.
He stared at the ceiling of his room, counting the paint chips that were separating themselves from the roof. When he got to eighteen, he lost count and started over again. When he got to eighteen a second time, he realized how stupid his task was and stopped.
He tried to clear his mind but was reminded of the Occlumency lessons that Harry had taken the year before and decided that he didn't really want to do anything that would even remotely remind him of the reason Sirius was now dead.
Counting sheep was his next idea, but he found this useless when he couldn't picture a single sheep nor lamb. He attempted to count Golden Snitches, which he could see quite clearly in his mind's eye, but they all started blending together in some wild and mixed-up Quidditch game that required too much of his brain to keep up with and, therefore, was pointless.
Sighing loudly, he sat up and stared into the semi-darkness of his bedroom. The moon was coming in through the window, and he noticed that the light rain, which had been falling for almost two days now, had gotten a bit heavier and could be heard pounding on the roof of the house. His eyes glanced around and rested on the empty camp bed that Harry normally occupied; he missed Harry and had written him straight away after getting home, telling him how much he hoped he could come to the Burrow soon. It really wasn't fair for him to be stuck there at Privet Drive when Ron couldn't see why he wouldn't be equally as safe here. After all, if the Burrow wasn't a safe place, they certainly wouldn't be allowing Hermione and himself to stay there, would they?
Thinking of this, of course, drew his mind to Hermione.
He sighed again and leaned back against his pillows, resigned to think once again about his other best friend. It was strange, really, how easily his mind drafted a picture of her; of course, he did draw the image up quite a lot and had been for the better part of the past couple of years. It wasn't his fault, though, that she'd somehow managed to set up a place of permanent residency inside of his mind's eye.
Having her at the Burrow was nice, but, at the same time, it also managed to cause him major distress. It was stupid, he reasoned, that he could live with her for ten months out of the year but somehow feel strange when she visited him during the holidays. The first summer they'd spent any time together had been before third year, but she'd only met his family in Diagon Alley; he hadn't really been forced to quote-un-quote 'live' with her. She came over the summer before their fourth year a few days before the World Cup and stayed until school went back to session. This had been a summer of many revelations for Ron; he snickered as he thought about the list he'd actually made that summer.
Revelation Number One: Hermione is a girl. (And not just a mate who happens to be female, but a real girl).
Revelation Number Two: Hermione has boobs. (Small, but there all the same).
Revelation Number Three: Hermione is extremely irritating. (No real revelation here, as it's been known for three years. Still, it's always worth repeating).
Revelation Number Four: Hermione seems to whisper with Ginny quite a bit. (Note to self: Steal Ginny's diary).
Revelation Number Five: Hermione has boobs.
Okay, so there were some things that caught his attention more than others, but he was a fourteen year old boy so who could really blame him, honestly? But still, despite what he'd 'noticed' about Hermione during the summer, she was still basically just the same old girl he'd known and been friends with for all those years before. It wasn't until they'd gone back to school that term (quite namely, the middle of the year when a certain Bulgarian child molester had tried to lay claim) that Ron had really noticed Hermione. There was a lot more there than just a know-it-all with curly hair.
There were boobs. And straight, small, even teeth. And the possibility of silky smooth hair; of course, you apparently had to be several years older than her and foreign to get her to show this off, but Ron wasn't noticing or anything... But above all of that, there was something else that Ron couldn't quite put his finger on. Whatever it was, though, it drove him crazy and made it incredibly difficult to look Hermione's direction without blushing.
And then came the summer to end all summers: the holidays between their fourth and fifth years. They'd both been sent to Grimmauld Place only two weeks into the break, and a month and a half was a very long time to spend together. Especially when Ron had noticed so much about Hermione the past year. He found it very hard to be too close to her or be alone with her; conversations were often stuttered and sometimes avoided all together. But when they had managed to hold a decent conversation, it was almost like they were... flirting with each other. Ron knew this was silly, of course, but he didn't really know what else to call it; it wasn't like anything they'd ever done before. There were shy smiles and good-natured teasing and private jokes and playful little nudges, and it had been, well, it had been nice. And the school year had included much of the same, only when they were alone, of course, but they happened to have plenty of alone time together, what with all the Prefect duties and everything.
And now Hermione was acting much the same as she had during all those little private times. She was being nice to him, and he was returning the gesture, mostly because it just seemed like it was time to stop bickering with her and move onto... something else. He wasn't sure what exactly it would lead to; he knew, of course, what he would have liked it to lead to, but he wasn't completely sure she would like the same thing. Sure it seemed like maybe she was feeling the same way, but it was impossible to be sure. And he was quite positive that there could be nothing more humiliating than assuming she felt one way and finding out that she felt another.
There were just so many things he liked about her. He liked her smile and her eyes. He thought her curls were cute, especially when they got just a bit too out of control; her hair, all wild and frazzled, seemed so completely opposite of her neat and organized self that it was almost humorous. He liked her laugh, and he liked making her laugh. He loved the way she was so insane about certain things, like house-elves' rights and Arithmancy. He always enjoyed her when she gave up on rules and just turned so sneaky; her fake crying performance for Umbridge had to be one for the books. He was completely awed by how totally brilliant she was and sometimes caught himself thinking up random questions to just throw at her for no other reason than to see if there was anything she didn't know. Hell, he was even starting to find her incessant quoting of Hogwarts, A History attractive.
With a groan he hadn't meant to really exalt, he finally just threw his covers aside and stood up. Thinking about Hermione was definitely not the best method for him to go to sleep with. If he kept it up for too much longer, the thoughts would turn into something else entirely and, quite frankly, he just wasn't up for it right now. He noticed how terrible that sounded and couldn't stop his brain from registering just how easy it would be for him to get up for it, but he chided himself immediately. It was thoughts like those that had made living in the fifth year Gryffindor boys' dormitory quite painful. And the fourth years'. And a bit of the third years'...
A bottle of butterbeer was starting to sound very good, as he noticed that he was suddenly quite thirsty. So, after throwing on a pair of socks from his bedroom floor and cricking his neck a bit, he went downstairs to the kitchen. He got a surprise, though, when he entered the room and found it lit by a single lamp and saw his mum sitting at the table with a cup of tea in front of her and her face in her hands.
"Mum?" he said in surprise, and he momentarily forgot about the drink and went to sit down at the table in the empty chair to his mother's right.
She looked up, shocked, at his voice. "Ron!" Her voice sounded strange, weak and yet falsely fine at the same time. Her face was red, and she rubbed quickly at the corners of her eyes. "What are you doing up? It's the middle of the night."
He stared at her for a long moment before answering. "I couldn't sleep."
"Oh," she said, with that same fake air of cheerfulness. "You must have woken up because of the rain."
He shrugged and studied her closely. "Mum, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," she said, taking a sip of her tea. Her hands were shaking.
"Why are you up?"
"Oh," she said airily, "I don't know. I guess I'm just so glad that you're finally home." She looked at the table and seemed to find something on it incredibly interesting.
"Why are you crying?"
"I'm not..." she took a slow, staggering sort of breath, "... crying." And at this, her face twisted slightly, and tears started forming all over again. She tried to brush them away, but it was useless.
Ron had never really known how to deal when his mother was upset; she was, after all, his mother, and that in itself seemed to make her invincible. To see that she wasn't so invincible was actually quite frightening. "Mum, what's wrong?" he asked again, watching as she dropped her face back into her hands and cried some more.
It took her a few moments to answer, but she finally managed to get out what Ron was pretty sure said, "I just... worry." She sniffed loudly and looked up, rubbing furiously at her eyes as she struggled to get her crying under control. "I worry about everything."
Ron watched her wordlessly, still completely at a lack as to what he was supposed to be doing. Luckily, for him, though, she seemed to actually be glad that someone had caught her crying and was ready to spill her reasons without being prodded much further.
"Your father's..." she sniffed again and shook her head as if doing so would rid her of the tears, "Your father's in trouble at the Ministry."
It was the first time she'd admitted it, but Ron found the normal resentment strangely absent. Instead, he simply said, "I know."
She stared at him, perhaps in surprise that he already knew or perhaps waiting for an explanation of how he knew. When he gave none, she wept on. "And I, I have to worry about all of you."
He started to tell her that they, meaning himself and his siblings, were all fine, but she just carried right on.
"Bill's a very capable man, and I know that, but it's so hard when he's... he's doing dangerous things." She looked up at Ron and shook her head slowly, "He's doing some awfully dangerous business right now, and maybe you don't know that." He didn't, but he didn't inquire. "And Charlie, I always worry about Charlie. Those dragons and now the Order and he's so far away." She sniffled loudly and started rocking back and forth slightly. "And Percy..." Here a small sob escaped her throat, and she pressed her hands to her mouth for a moment. "I don't know why Percy hates us so much." She started crying loudly now.
Ron's first instinct was to tell her that Percy was a senseless piece of shit, but he somehow didn't think that was what she wanted to hear. "Mum, he doesn't hate-"
She shook her head and cut him off, talking through her tears. "Yes, he does. And I don't know why, either, because all I've ever done," another sob, "... all I've ever done is try to love him. I tried to love all of you." She broke off crying again, and Ron felt more hatred for Percy than he would ever have thought possible. "And the twins..." Here came a hopeless sort of humorless laugh. "They don't know how to take care of themselves at all. They think they're all grown up, but there's so much they never learned about being grown up. And I tried to teach them, I really did." She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. "But they were always so interested in mischief and pranks, and... and I know I was too hard on them, but I only wanted them to be the best that they could be."
"But they're fine, Mum," Ron said earnestly, speaking for the first time in a few minutes. "They're doing really well."
"Oh, I know," she said with a shake of her head. "I'm very proud of them for being so successful with their business, honestly I am. It's just that they're so careless and don't really know anything about taking care of themselves. I'm afraid they'll wind up in trouble, and I just want them home. But I know I can't want that anymore because they're all grown up now." She was rambling by this point, her tears fading but her voice still strained.
Ron was starting to get very antsy, anticipating which child's turn it was for her next spill. Surprisingly, though, she made a jump.
"And I worry about Ginny constantly because she's going through so many different things right now, and it's so hard to be a fifteen year old girl." Ron wanted to say that it was incredibly hard being a fifteen year old boy, too, but he somehow didn't figure she was looking for an interjection. "She's turning out to be so beautiful, and I just worry because... because maybe she doesn't know how to handle all that comes along with that. And she won't talk to me about it because she thinks I don't understand, but I do. I really, really do." Again, she was rambling. "And she's got all these boys chasing her round, and I don't know anything about any of them!"
Ron bit down hard on his tongue to keep from stating his opinion of the situation.
"And you..." She looked at Ron, and once again, tears sprung to her eyes. "I have to worry about you most of all."
"No, you don't," he assured her at once, not wanting to be the cause of any more of her tears. "I'm fine."
"No, you're not!" she said loudly, and then crumpled again, crying for a long moment. "You were just kidnapped by a Death Eater! You don't know the things that go through a mother's head as she has to sit there and watch her baby lying unconscious in the hospital."
He opened his mouth to say something, he didn't know what, but she cut him off and rambled right on.
"And that's not even the first time. Ron, you've been hurt so many times," she said helplessly. "Every summer it seems like you come home hurt or just getting over an injury, and this year, it wasn't any different. Nobody even knew what was wrong with you, and we just had to wait for you to wake up to see if you were okay. Do you have any idea how scary that was for me? Ginny was hobbling all over the place on a broken ankle and Harry was off God knows where probably trying to drown himself in guilt and you were knocked out in the hospital wing and there was Hermione the exact same way in the very next bed!" She threw her hands up and then spoke quietly. "It was horrible."
"But we're all okay," he said softly.
She stared at him and shook her head slowly as if there was just so much that he didn't understand. "I never wanted this for you," she said seriously. "I always prayed you wouldn't have to ever know what it was like." He didn't know exactly what she was talking about, but she carried right on, her voice now quiet and a tad bit eerie. "You don't remember because you were too young, just a baby. Bill and Charlie remember, Percy knew it a bit. But you and Ginny and the twins, you don't remember. It was so scary..." Her voice trailed, and Ron realized that she was talking about the first time You-Know-Who had been around.
"Mum-" he said slowly, trying to convey that she didn't have to tell him, as it was obviously very painful. She held up a hand, though, and composed herself slightly.
"It had gotten so bad that by the time you and Ginny were born, we felt guilty about bringing you into that. It was horrible, never knowing who would be next or where they would strike, terrifying and just awful... And then it was just over one day." Here, she looked off into space for a minute and then back at Ron. "Just like that. I woke up one morning and was making breakfast and the post owl brought the paper. And there was the main headline saying that two more people had died, but You-Know-Who was gone. And I was so happy, two people were dead, but I was happy because I thought you'd all actually get to grow up without the fear. I never wanted any of you to have to experience that, so I was happy." She took another moment of silence and stared into her teacup before quietly adding, "I had no idea that you'd grow up to be best friends with the only child of those two people who died that night."
Ron stared very hard at the table, avoiding his mother's gaze and her terrible look of sadness.
"Do you remember, when you were younger, the stories we used to tell about that night?" Ron nodded without looking up. "I remember one time, Bill had you and Ginny outside, but I could hear through the kitchen window. He was telling you about the Boy Who Lived." She smiled just a tiny bit, Ron noticed through the upper part of his lids. "You were tiny, couldn't have been more than three or maybe four. And you started laughing and said that one day you were going to be best mates with him." Ron felt his face grow warm, embarrassed for some reason that he used to idolize the Boy Who Lived like everyone else. "Bill laughed, of course, and so did I. It was cute, you know; we had no idea you were being serious."
She started twisting one of her shoulder length curls between her fingers and took another moment.
"And then when you did become friends with him, I worried that he would be snobby or too caught up in his fame, but he wasn't." Ron shook his head and picked at a loose chip of wood in front of him. Harry had never been like that. Ever. "And you liked him so much, and your father and I were so happy because we know you had it rough around here being the youngest boy. You always wanted someone your own age that wasn't Ginny, and you finally had real friends, and I was so happy for you. And then you came home from your first year at Hogwarts, just bursting to the rim with stories about all these 'adventures,' as you called them. I worried because you came home bruised and beaten up, but you seemed so happy that I didn't see how it could really be all that dangerous. And then you left again, and when your second year was over, I was terrified. Ginny came home a million times more fragile than when she left, but you said you were okay. So I trusted you. Then when you came home for the third summer, you'd just gotten over a broken leg, and I couldn't even drag the details of the year out of you. And then when you were in your fourth year," she bit on her lip and let out a breath, "everything changed. He came back, and I knew things would never be the same again. Everything I'd wanted for you all was gone in an instance, and I realized that you were going to know how horrible it could be and probably in a far more personal sense than I could even protect you from."
Ron didn't know what to say, so he just said the first thing that seemed reasonable. "Mum, I'm not a little kid anymore- none of us are."
She looked up at him and studied him for what seemed like a very long time before pursing her lips and nodding. "I know," she said quietly. "You haven't been for a very long time."
"And I'm fine. We're all fine."
She looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead she just nodded again, very slowly. "You are." Standing up, she steadied herself on her feet for a moment before going to the sink and placing her teacup into it carefully. "I need to sleep now. I love you." She kissed his forehead and left before he could return those or any other words.
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Hermione had gotten lucky.
When her parents had arrived back from their Paris trip the day before, it had not been Alastor Moody who escorted her back to her home via Floo Powder. Mr. Weasley had actually taken the afternoon off to accompany her; she suspected that it was in case her parents had any questions. Luckily, he hadn't gotten angry with her when she admitted to leaving out several rather large details about the reasons she would need to stay at the Burrow. In fact, he'd given her parents a smooth story himself, stating how Hermione was always welcome and how his youngest son was just getting out of the hospital and would enjoy her company ever so much. Her parents had smiled and agreed, hugging her and making her promise to write soon, and she'd packed her trunk full of all her things and scooped Crookshanks into his basket, then stepped back into the fire and gone back to the Burrow.
So, for the second night in a row, she was sleeping in her own nightclothes, something for which she was eternally grateful. In fact, she'd never enjoyed the sigh of her own clothes that much before in her life.
It was sometime well into the middle of the night when she woke up to the sound of pounding rain outside. The bedroom was dark and silent except for the quiet breathing of Ginny in the next bed; Hermione knew she was fast asleep and wouldn't be waking up despite the loud storm outside. In the moonlight-lit room, she could make out Crookshanks sleeping at the foot of the camp bed where she would be spending the rest of the summer. He was curled into a ball and slumbering just as heavily as Ginny seemed to be.
Hermione was more than aware of the chill in the room, and she snuggled further under the covers, pulling the blanket tighter to her chin. For some reason, she was wide-awake and had no idea why.
Just then, though, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs from above. Realizing that Ron must have been awake, too, she debated going to meet him in the hallway. However, his steps passed her, descending to the floor below, most likely to get something to eat from the kitchen; she decided that if she happened to be awake when he came back up, she'd stop him then.
She was so glad that he was finally home. Being at the Burrow with just Ginny and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had been a bit odd; she felt comfortable with them, but she couldn't help but feel a little out of place. Now that Ron was here, though, it was as if she had a reason to be there.
It had been a tough week for her, reliving the memories of Ron clawing at the concrete, his face twisted in pain as the Cruciatus Curse cut through him sharply. She'd been terrified and hadn't recovered much since then. In all truthfulness, she still hadn't completely gotten over the night spent in the Department of Mysteries, and she'd been knocked out for the large majority of the horror.
She'd woken up the next morning in the hospital wing with Madam Pomfrey fussing over her, but all she could see was Ron lying in the bed next to hers, just as unconscious as she'd previously been, with Harry nowhere in sight. When no one had given her the answers she was looking for, she'd quickly gone into hysterics and been given a sedating potion from the nurse. That afternoon, when she woke back up, Ron had been the one to fill her in on everything that had happened; he'd been the one to tell her that Sirius was dead, having just been informed himself a few hours before upon his own waking up. She hadn't believed him at first, but she knew deep down that he wouldn't lie to her. And she'd cried then, and he'd hugged her and told her that things would be okay, even when he knew they would never be truly okay again.
That was the thing about Ron- he could be the world's biggest prat on some occasions and the nicest person she knew on others. It was mostly when they were alone, just the two of them, that he was so completely nice. In fact, over the past year, she'd watched him grow up a lot. And she liked it.
She liked him.
It wasn't something she'd noticed one day out of the clear blue; no, she'd been watching him for years. She'd observed him through all of their school years and knew that he'd matured a lot, even if he didn't always show it. In fact, she'd started wondering what he truly meant to her a long time ago, started seeing the possibility for something more and waiting on him to notice it.
She was fairly sure that he had, indeed, noticed by now.
She wasn't stupid, far from it, in fact. She was definitely not blind to the fact that Ron had been jealous, yes, jealous of Viktor Krum during their fourth year and hadn't forgotten his newfound hatred during their fifth, either. If he'd been telling even the remotest bit of truth about thinking that Viktor was after information on Harry for the Triwizard Cup, he would have absolutely no reason to still hold onto the dislike once the competition had ended. And he had. Every time she'd even so much as mentioned Viktor's name, Ron had gotten all huffy and demanded to know why she was still in contact with him. Of course, she never really did her best to fan out his suspicions, never denying any of his accusations, just simply leaving out several key details.
Like the fact that she was not, in any sort of way, attracted to Viktor Krum.
He was nice, yes, and he was also very intelligent. But he was a lot older than she was, and she just honestly didn't find anything at all cute about him. She wasn't shallow or anything like that, but she couldn't imagine dating someone that she wasn't even a little attracted to.
And there were quite a few things that attracted her to Ron.
Like the way his hair flopped into his eyes when he was actually working intently on an assignment (most often the morning it was due). Or the way he sometimes would lose himself in boredom and start chewing on the end of his quill, only to realize he'd mistook an actual feather for a Sugar Quill. She loved the way he could make her laugh, almost turning anything humorous, even it wasn't always appropriate. And he had a set of dimples that she'd noticed on her first train ride to Hogwarts and hadn't stopped noticing them for five straight years.
She was old enough to start thinking about people romantically, and she felt quite mature enough to be starting up relationships. She was, after all, nearly sixteen years old, and her object of choice had already passed his own Sweet Sixteen several months before. No one could claim that they were too young or anything like that because they weren't. In fact, if Hermione's gossip knowledge was correct (which she was sure it likely was, considering news traveled around Hogwarts faster lightning), she and Ron were the only two Gryffindors in their year who hadn't been involved with someone in one way or another. Well, except for Neville, but that was to be expected really- not that he wasn't a lovely person, mind. Lavender and Seamus had been snogging in secret (and not so secret) places ever since fourth year, though neither of them would admit to dating. Parvati had gone round with four boys so far, none of her 'boyfriends' lasting more than a month at most. Dean had Ginny now, obviously, but he'd also dated a Ravenclaw fourth year named Helen Kelsey for three months toward the beginning of fifth year. Harry, while being a bit behind the others, had still managed to kiss an older girl and had taken her on a (rather unsuccessful) date. Ron and herself, though, fell at the bottom of that list, and she thought it was about high time they did something about it.
Of course, there were a thousand reasons why they would never, could never, possibly work out, or at least that's what everyone else would say. They were opposites of each other, having nothing in common really. She bossed him too much, and he spent too much of his time doing nothing but trying to piss her off and annoy her. They'd grown up in completely different worlds and didn't have any sort of family similarities between them. And, oh yeah, there was that one minor rather major problem of them being best mates.
What if they did decide they wanted to take their relationship one step further, and then they broke up. What then? Would they be able to just go back to being friends like they'd always been? Were they even supposed to? What if they couldn't even bear to speak to each other or be in the same room? She didn't think she could handle that.
But, then again, the hugest part of her brain was screaming that it was time to take some action. She wanted Ron and had wanted him for a long time; there was no denying that. And if there was ever a time to get what she wanted, it was now.
Six days before, she'd been kidnapped and forced to watch her best friend being tortured. A month and a half before that, she'd known death for the first time in her life. What was going to happen a month from now? Six months? A year? Who was going to leave her next? Who would she have to witness being tortured in the future?
She didn't have the faintest clue.
In fact, the only thing she did know was that it wasn't over, nor would it
likely be for awhile. She was in
danger, all of her friends were in danger, her whole world was in
danger. And she wasn't going to stand
by wasting time when there were things she just knew should happen. After all, she'd never been one to sit back
and watch things happen; she was the one who made things happen.
Footsteps once again sounded in the hallway, and she strained her ears to see where they were headed. Surprisingly, though, this pair didn't continue up the staircase to the attic bedroom; this pair stopped on her landing and disappeared down the hallway toward Mr. and Mrs. Weasley's bedroom. Wondering why either of them would be up at this moment, she sat up and Crookshanks stirred sleepily before glaring at her through the darkness and leaping down and scurrying under the bed.
Another set followed, shortly, this one passing this landing and continuing upwards. Ron was going back to his bedroom.
Struck with a sudden sense of urgency, Hermione got up and followed.
When she finally reached the top landing of the house, Ron had already disappeared into his room and shut his door to the hallway. When she saw it, she almost considered backing down, but something somewhere inside of her was Gryffindor, and she knocked softly instead.
It took a moment for Ron to answer the door, and when he did, he stared at her with slight confusion. After a moment, though, he said, "Oh, I thought you were my mum."
It wasn't exactly the reaction she'd been hoping for, but she shrugged nonetheless and said, "I'm not."
Another moment was spent with him staring at her oddly, and she suddenly felt very uncomfortable standing in front of him wearing nothing but her summer pajamas, which consisted of a tank top and a pair of cotton shorts; she was just thankful that she was wearing her own clothes and not Ginny's because that would have been even more embarrassing.
"What are you doing up?" he asked, still watching her carefully.
She shrugged again and lamely said, "The storm woke me up."
He finally tore his eyes away from her and looked slowly toward the window where the rain was pounding against his window pane. "Yeah, it's bad, huh?"
"Yeah, pretty bad." The weather?! That was the best they could come up with? The bloomin' weather?
There was a very long and awkward pause in which they both just watched the rain. Finally, though, Ron cleared his throat and held the door open a bit wider. "Well, you can come in... I guess," he finished, addressing the floor instead of her.
Taking in what she hoped was a silent breath, she stepped inside his small bedroom. For a moment, it seemed he didn't know what to do, but then he apparently decided that it was alright and shut the door. "How did you know I was awake, too?"
"I heard you on the steps," she said, leaving out the part that would incriminate her for actually waiting on him to come back up after she heard him go down. "Figured you probably couldn't sleep, either."
"Uh, yeah," he shook his head. "I mean, yeah, no, I couldn't sleep, either."
Hermione suddenly realized she'd come up here without any sort of a plan. She'd sort of figured that things would just play themselves out, as they were, after all, close friends. However, it was quite clear to her that neither of them could currently bring themselves to say much of anything, nothing logical anyway.
"Wow, the storm's getting worse." She immediately cursed herself for thinking of something that sounded so incredibly stupid.
"Yeah, but I reckon we need it, huh? Been really hot around here."
"Yeah."
They were met with another silence in which they each took to staring at the storm again. Finally, Hermione decided to do what she'd come up here for.
She was going to tell Ron... something. She had to because she certainly had not wasted her energy climbing those stairs to talk about the stupid weather!
"I'm really glad you're home."
There. That was something, right?
He moved his gaze away from the window and met her eyes. He faltered for a moment and then softened a bit. "Thanks."
And then Hermione burst into tears.
She had absolutely no idea why she was crying or where her emotional discord had stemmed from. This wasn't right. No, this was wrong, wrong, wrong!
"Hermione, what's wrong?" Ron looked slightly panicked and took a nervous step forward as if to comfort her; he stopped short, though, and just stared at her.
"I don't know!" she said honestly, covering her eyes with her hands and feeling totally appalled that she was crying of all things!
Ron didn't know what to do, obviously, so he just stood there and watched her. He had the appearance of a person who would rather be anywhere than where he was at that exact moment.
Hermione felt positively awful.
"This is stupid!" she said, infuriated with herself.
"Er," said Ron oddly. "What's stupid?"
"This!" she said, angry that he couldn't read her mind. "I'm happy that you're okay, so why am I crying?"
"I don't know," he answered, totally befuddled.
"Me, either!" And then she cried harder.
"Um, Hermione." Ron looked away and then back at her, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "Don't you think maybe you ought to go to sleep?"
She realized that he thought she was hysterical from lack of rest. For all she knew, he could probably be right. Still, though, she shook her head and sniffled loudly, trying to get her crying to slow down. When she could breathe properly again, she shook her head once more and said, "I just wanted you to know."
"Know what?"
How was it humanly possible for one person to be that incredibly thick? Didn't he have three years of Divination behind him? Shouldn't he have at least learned something from all those useless lessons?!
"That you're my friend."
Her answer surprised her, and she realized she didn't really have the courage to say anything else. She wanted to say so much more, but she couldn't force herself to, not with the risk of breaking down into sobs again.
Ron was silent, and she suddenly grew very embarrassed. He must think she was incredibly stupid for coming up here to tell him that; in fact, he probably thought it was hilarious.
"I already knew." His answer caught her off-guard, and she stared at him, her eyes clearing and the tears stopping, leaving only a sticky residue on her cheeks as reminders.
"What?" she whispered.
"I said I already knew, you didn't have to tell me." He offered her what she knew to be a rather shy smile. "But I'm glad you did."
"Really?" She managed to smile back, wiping the last of her tears away.
"Sure," he shrugged and sat down at his desk. "I mean, we've always been friends, right?"
"Yes," she said decisively. "Always. Even when we fight."
"We don't really fight that much, do we?" he asked, looking up as she perched herself on the edge of his desk and let her legs dangle into the air. "I mean, not really, really."
She thought about the question for a moment and leaned back on her hands. "No. Not really."
He nodded, and they were silent. Suddenly, though, she was talking again. "I mean, we used to fight more, but I think we grew up a bit."
"Yeah, so now it's more like..." he grinned, "friendly taunting."
She grinned, too, and stared down at her lap. "I really am glad that you're okay."
She expected Ron to reply, but instead he just snickered. She looked up to see him staring at her feet, which were dangling close to his shins. "You painted your toenails?" He met her eye, obviously very close to teasing her.
Hermione looked down at the sparkly polish and then frowned at him. "Your sister did. She was bored, and I'm nice."
He laughed again. "Pink, Hermione?"
"Oh, shut up." She lifted one foot and kicked him in the chest with it. Laughing, he grabbed it and held it close to his face, examining the glittering pink polish that Ginny had begged her to experiment with.
"You're such a girl," he said, still holding her foot.
She rolled her eyes and primly said, "Nice of you to notice."
"I notice."
She looked at him abruptly, and felt her throat tighten when she saw that he was being rather serious and definitely not stuttering around to cover up his flub, as they so normally did when something like that slipped out.
"You do?" she asked quietly, and her foot dropped back down to dangle from the desk.
He
nodded, just the very slightest tinge of pink creeping into his cheeks. Hermione wanted very badly for him to say
something, but he stayed silent. It was
then that she noticed something.
Very softly, she said, "You've got dirt on your nose." It rang a bell in the back of her head that this
exact sentence was one of the first she'd ever spoken to him, and she leaned
forward just a bit to wipe at it. It
turned out to be dust and swiped away rather easily.
She didn't lean back up straight away, and for a long moment, they were silent, staring at each other with their faces just inches apart. It was at this time that Hermione felt her newfound Gryffindor courage diminish, and before either of them could say a word, she'd sat back up and slid off the desk.
"Well, goodnight then." She sounded odd even to herself, but as she started toward the door, Ron stood up and relinquished back into the playful mode he'd been in a little bit ago.
"What? Don't I even get a goodnight hug?" He grinned at her and held his arms open. "I've been in the hospital for nearly a week, and all I get is a-"
She cut him off and walked back to him. She still didn't know what was controlling her actions, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. She felt his arms go around her waist and tried very hard not to get distracted.
Do it, she told herself firmly, her brain giving up on logic momentarily.
And before she could lose her nerve again, she pulled him down just enough and pressed her lips very quickly to his own.
Without giving him an opportunity to even process what she'd done, much less comment on it, she let go of him and bid him goodnight in a very businesslike manner.
And with that, she marched straight out of his room and back down to Ginny's. The younger girl stirred slightly when she shut the door, but Hermione couldn't focus enough to be quiet. Her mind was reeling, and she felt... Well, she didn't know how she felt. Part of her was relieved, and part of her was terrified. She didn't know what Ron was thinking or what he would say in the morning. Actually, she didn't even know if he would talk to her in the morning. Oh well, she would worry about that later.
As she climbed back into bed and closed her eyes, she had just one major thought.
Revelation Number One: Being a Gryffindor really does pay off sometimes.
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A/N: Okay, so there it is. I know it's not anything close to the way that they finally got together in "When Things Start to Change," but this is a different story. Different story/different sort of actions. For anyone who might think that this happened too quickly, I want to explain my view on it. I think that even though we didn't actually see what was going on between them during Order of the Phoenix, that Ron and Hermione came to several conclusions about each other. I think they both realize and know that the other realizes as well, hence the way this played out here. Just thought I'd give you a bit of info!
Feedback is appreciated and adored!!!
