Lumos
by : epiphanies
It had been a year since she'd seen his eyes.
The sky was fuelling up with lightning and fire. Thunder clouds rolled ahead and all of the lights suddenly flickered and turned out.
"Lumos," whispered Ron as Hermione gasped sharply. They were alone in the Weasley house. The rest were at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place in London, or at Hogwarts, or even a few at the Ministry. The war was in full throttle and they should not have been alone. But they were.
Hermione wished that they were, too, in London, but the Floo Network was untrustworthy - it had been proven brutally so when Fred and George became prisoners, and ultimately victims, of war on their way home from the joke shop the month before. The Weasleys were broken, as they had never been. Without Percy, they'd cracked. Without the twins, they positively shattered.
"Do you think everything is ok?" Said Ron worriedly, and Hermione shrugged, trying to send away the tears that were suddenly filling her eyes.
"Oh, Hermione," Ron sighed awkwardly as the tears beat her will and began to stream down her face. He drew his wand closer to it, so he could see all of her. She coughed and squinted in the bright light.
"Stop it," he frowned, wiping a tear from her cheek, "I don't want to see you cry."
"And why not?" she retorted, blowing her nose and shifting where they sat on the floor (when the lights went out, it had just felt safer there.)
"Why are we even here?" she sniffed, and he smiled in the dark.
"Because Charlie and Bill volunteered us to come and get Errol."
"Well, we haven't found the bloody bird," Hermione muttered, "And why not anybody else?"
He shrugged and looked away from her, "I dunno."
"They've been acting oddly around me."
"I wonder why that is."
"I dunno," she replied quickly.
The weather roared fiercely and a spatter of water dropped onto Ron's cheek. He rolled his eyes upward.
"Great," he sighed, "A leak."
Hermione sighed in procession and fingered her own wand.
"What do you suppose is going to happen?" she asked as he got up and started to examine the ceiling. She pulled him back down by the shirt and he raised his eyebrows at her.
"About what?"
She cocked her head, "The war."
He went quiet for a moment, then said,
"I sure don't know, Hermione."
"Do you think we'll win?"
"Hope so."
"Do you think we'll be back at Hogwarts in September?"
"We had better, or you'll have a goat, won't you? No seventh year would kill your future."
She winced, then wrung her hands, "I need to give the House Elves the frocks I made for them this summer. They're for the less cold weather."
"That's good."
"Really?" She eyed him suspiciously, and he smiled in a kind of warm way.
"Yeah, Hermione," he nodded, "I mean, you care about something,whatever it is, and you won't give up. Even when people call you crazy."
"Who calls me crazy?" she said sharply, and he laughed.
Another slice of lightning lit the Burrow and Ron gulped, his smile vanishing.
"So," she crossed her legs and after whispering, "Lumos," she looked away from him.
"Why do you suppose they sent the two of us?"
"So Harry would still be protected," he suggested.
Hermione resisted rolling her eyes, "Because he's the only important one."
Ron gaped at her.
"Well," he started carefully, "He had loads to be protected from, doesn't he?"
She sighed, "Well I - I know, Ron, but it's not as if the rest of us aren't people too. People in danger. And I'd cry just as hard if you died as if Harry were to."
"Really?" Ron was surprised, "But we always fight."
"Well, that's because you're so daft that you don't realize most very obvious things."
"Like what?"
"Like," she glared at him as if he were an insolent child, "when you get mad that I write Victor-"
"Well-!"
"And when I told Harry," she shook her head at his purpling cheeks, "that of course he's not a terrible kisser-"
"I was interested," he insisted innocently, "on how you knew such a thing!"
"I didn't, I was just being nice, Ron. That's what friends do, don't they? I sped his spirits."
"Well, Hermione, you know what friends don't do, if you're so smart?"
"What?"
"Buy each other perfume!"
And with that, Ron stood and Hermione watched soundlessly as he stomped up to his bedroom in the dark.
Buy each other perfume.
She was by herself, but went a horrible, embarrassing shade of red. She touched her cheeks self-consciously when suddenly, her wand dimmed and then went out completely.
Her eyes widened.
"Ron?" she whispered, a touch of fear in her voice, "Ron, are you there?"
The stairs creaked. She froze, holding her breath, unable to see and closing her eyes to comfort herself.
Ron, are you there? she thought frantically. Her palms sweated and when a hand touched hers, she nearly screamed.
"Ron?" she gasped hopefully, and a streak of lightning confirmed her hope. She hit him, hard.
"Ouch!" he hissed furiously, recoiling, "What was that for?"
"For scaring me to bloody death, that's what!" she hissed back.
Then they realized that they were holding hands.
"Did your wand flicker?" he asked quietly, and she replied,
"It dimmed."
"What do you think-"
He stopped, and then she heard exactly why.
There were voices outside. Male and quiet.
"Do you think they're here, Lucius?"'
"I'm sure that they are, Nott, but they're most likely under the Fidelus. Perhaps we should burn it down."
"For safety?"
"For laughs."
Hermione felt Ron's pulse quicken under her fingertips and she squeezed his hand.
"What can we do?" she said in a below-whisper. He shrugged and said nothing.
She could remember his eyes, through a crack in the window where the moon shone through.
"Hermione," he whispered, "If they burn this place down, we're done. We'redead. There's no escape, they'll have all of them covered. They'll find us, wherever we go."
"They'll torture us," she felt the tears return. His eyes were wide.
"I don't want to die, Ron," she heard herself say. She felt his hand touch her cheek, a movement so tender she thought her skin would melt.
"I kind of like you, Hermione," he confessed.
She snorted, stupidly, "Likewise."
Suddenly, her hands were in his hair and lips were everywhere. Hands moved like liquid and the world became a very foggy place. Hermione felt warmer than she'd ever felt and Ron was the sweetest thing since the final pumpkin juice last June.
That taste was tainted with copper when she awoke.
She had been pulled from the smouldering pile with a slight damage to her lungs the next morning. She had been pushed to the outer limit of the house.
A very white Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had asked her,
"Had Ron left before you, dear?"
Tears were shed enough to bathe Buckbeak that day, and Hermione never felt so far away from the world in all her life.
Harry walked into the biscuit carpeted living room and gave Hermione a peck on the cheek.
"Malfoy family finally had a reunion today," he said happily, obviously referring to the Daily Prophet headline reading 'Youngest Malfoy Kin Found Guilty in You-Know-Who Support Ring.'
"Now all we need is them saying the dreaded V-Word," he said lightly, and she raised her eyebrows at him. He sighed.
"Oh, Hermione," he sat on the ottoman in front of her, his brow creasing in a painful squiggle, "Tomorrow... I know you miss him. So do I. Tomorrow we'll go over and...."
She tuned out her husband and continued to stare at the child sleeping in her arms. Only three months old.
Harry leaned down and gave Aurora a kiss on the forehead before heading upstairs to bed.
Harry had been kind enough to marry her. He could have married Ginny, but he instead sacrificed any happiness he could have had to keep her (and his best friend's child) safe and sound. Hermione owed so much to Harry, and she knew that he meant well, but watching he and Ginny avoid each other since his proposal broke her heart. She had thought many times about telling him that she was ok if he was with, or wanted to be with, Ginny.
And yet, if not Harry, who could Aurora call 'Father?'
The child's eyes opened slightly and Hermione instinctively smiled down at her. Her hair was brown and her skin was soft, but when her eyes opened, an ignition of blue erupted the entire world...
"If the morning comes, Hermione, tell them I..."
"Tell them what, Ron? Ron? Ron...."
As she delighted her daughter by playing Peek-A-Boo, her eyes filled.
"Oh, Hermione. Stop it."
Aurora gurgled happily.
"I don't want to see you cry."
The stars twinkled down in a familiar way.
"You care about something, whatever it is..."
Hermione traced the line of Aurora's nose with one finger, carefully.
"...and you won't give up...."
"Perhaps we should burn it down-"
"...even when people call you crazy."
"For laughs."
Aurora's eyes slid shut in the comfort of her mother's gentle touch. Hermione brought her slowly up the stairs and slid her into the bassinet.
"Goodnight, Aurora," she whispered as she slid into her own bed, and gazed out the open window to the very brightest shining star.
Call me crazy, she thought.
"Goodnight, Ron."
-
end.