Chapter 6: Reasoning
Ron paced in his room. The Weasleys had all just discussed what to do with Ginny's situation, his parents stressing that they must not make her feel worse and only support her now. That also included being as nice as they could towards Harry.
"What's done is done," Mrs. Weasley had said. "All we can do now is love them like before."
Ron, however, was blistering mad. As he paced he muttered things like "best friend," "my own sister," and "gonna tear…" angrily. However, he hadn't hit Harry that morning, a decision he both regret and understood. If it had only been another day, he would have pounded Harry.
"Like he deserves," Ron muttered. But it hadn't been another day, and after what had happened last night…
"Ron! I didn't know you had gotten a job at Hogwarts! Why didn't you tell me!" Hermione had said.
"Yeah, well, if I told you then you would probably go on lecturing me about how I'm unqualified to be a teacher and then start planning my lessons for me…" he drifted off noticing she was still staring at him with a huge smile plastered to her face. With a squeal she jumped and threw her arms around him.
"Well done Ron! I know I probably should say those things, but somehow I'm just very proud!" She kissed him on the cheek, and walked away still smiling, but a hint of rose now graced her cheeks.
His stomach flip-flopped. The way her eyes had lit up when she was proud of him…he stopped the thought there. As he watched her walking away, he tried once again (uselessly) to convince himself to let go of his feeling for her, because Hermione obviously didn't feel the same way. Finally, he lost her face to the crowd as his family came over to congratulate him.
About an hour later, he realized that he hadn't seen Hermione since Dumbledore's spech. He searched the crowd and the house, but he couldn't find her anywhere. Using a handy spell he had learned while practicing for the 3rd Triwizard Task, Ron whispered "Excutio!" to his wand, initiating the Locator Spell.
Following the magically lit path, he found Hermione sitting on the same rock she had found him on that winter. He sat beside her.
"Hey, what are you doing here?" he asked. Then, as he tried to make eye contact, he noticed her eyes were red. "Are you okay?" he asked quickly, with concern showing in his own. Taking a deep breath, Hermione answered.
"I just realized," she said slowly and shaking, "That this is the end. You go back to Hogwarts, I go to the Ministry, and Harry's off to Auror training." She was quiet a moment as the realization that things were never going to be the same hit him too.
"Promise me, though, Ron, that we'll always be friends?" she still hadn't looked at him.
"Always," he whispered, and hesitatingly put an arm around her shoulders. "I promise things won't change between us, Hermione," he said more assuringly.
Finally she looked up into his eyes, her own beginning to fill with tears.
"What if I want things to change?"
Suddenly Ron understood. He was finally hearing what he had assured himself he never would. As soon as the brief second of shock left him, he pulled her close for the kiss they had both been needing for so long.
Ron thought he might melt from the softness of her lips, the way her tongue caressed his own. Running his hands through her hair, he felt he had been granted the greatest gift the world could offer.
"I don't deserve you," he whispered softly when they paused to breathe. Cradling his head between her hands she asked,
"Ron, do you love me?"
"Yes," he answered unhesitatingly.
"Then what does anything else matter?" she said sweetly.
"But I've been such a…"
"Prick? Jerk? Idiot? Yes, yes, I know. Believe me, I've noticed," she said dryly. "But you did it because you were in love with me. And frankly, I wasn't all that kind at Christmas, flaunting around like that. I should have noticed, Ron…and I don't just mean that I should have noticed your feelings for me, I mean I should have noticed my feelings for you…"
"You…" he looked at her in awe. "You are amazing," he finished. "I'm sorry I hurt you, though."
She looked straight into his eyes.
"Just don't do it again," she said seriously, then broke into a grin and pulled him close again.
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That night, Ron had lain in bed awake for many hours. He couldn't think about anything other than how stupid he had behaved recently, and how much he needed Hermione now. How had he survived without her this close? The thoughts continued to race though his head.
When he heard Harry leave for the bathroom in the middle of the night, he quickly arranged his pillows to make it look like he was still sleeping and apparated to Hermione.
With a CRACK he landed in the dark corner of Ginny's room, next to her bureau. He noticed that the door was ajar, and Ginny was away from her bed. "What luck," he thought, and began to tiptoe to Hermione's sleeping form. As he began to lean over her…
"INCERCEROUS!" Hermione had flipped over and pointed her wand at his face with amazing speed, and now long ropes sprang forth to tie Ron tightly. She jumped from her bed as he hit the floor saying "Lumos!" to see the face of her presumed attacker.
"RON!" she whispered loudly. "What ARE you doing here! You can't just apparate into my room in the night! What did you think? That Ginny and I wouldn't wake up? You're damn lucky she's not here right now…and you think I'm not going to think that someone apparating into here is trying to hurt me! Come on, Ron, how thick can you get? You half scared me to death with this little stunt, not to mention what would happen if someone were to find us in here! To think the trouble we would get into! I certainly don't want to anger your parents after all they have done for us with this party and keeping me here as a guest…I mean they went out of their way to do this for us, and shouldn't we show them a little respect? Hmm?" Ron simply looked at her, since the ropes were tied tight around his mouth as well.
"Bah," she
sighed and rolled her eyes. "Evanesco," she muttered and the
ropes disappeared. Ron got to his feet grinning foolishly.
"I just wanted to see you, Hermione. I couldn't sleep…All I could do was think about you and…" at this Hermione sighed again.
"Alright, Ron…I admit I couldn't sleep either, okay? But promise me you won't be this stupid again, alright?" He nodded. "Well, since we're up, why don't we go someplace…where we can be…well, you know." Alone. He realized she meant. He grinned as she blushed.
"Hold on while I…" she waved her wand, "Abeo Discumbo! There," she smiled looking at her handiwork. Her spell had achieved what Ron's pillows had done for him. Her bed now looked occupied.
"Where do you learn all these spells?" Ron wondered aloud.
"From books, Ron. You know…I read them. You should try it sometime," she said raising an eyebrow, but then smiled and pulled his hand. "I know the perfect place to go, come on!"
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Hermione had ended up taking Ron to her house. Her parents had gone to visit family for the week, so they had the house to themselves. They had Flooed there (Hermione had gotten her house hooked up to the Floo network) since Ron had never been there before, and apparating to a place you didn't know could be dangerous.
It was a nice house in the suburbs complete with a picket fence. The place was also spotless. Although it was a bit scary for Ron, he didn't care. He and Hermione had the whole night to themselves. She had taken him to her room where they had talked for hours, finally settling down together on her bed, just for the sheer joy of being near each other. As Hermione dozed off, he traced the lines of her body with his fingers. He kissed her neck and shoulders, and tried to quell the strong desire he felt growing inside of him to be with her…completely. If only she would just turn around and kiss him and then…
He realized later that he was thankful she hadn't woken. He didn't know if he could have controlled himself. She was too wonderful.
They apparated back to their rooms that morning, planning to tell Ginny and Harry (if they woke to see them apparating in) that they had been downstairs and had just come up. However, they were lucky, and when they arrived, Ginny and Harry both weren't in their rooms.
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Ron had to sympathize with Harry and Ginny's plight a bit after his occurrence the night before. He realized that there was no way the same thing could not have happened between himself and Hermione if they had had the drink Harry and Ginny had. He hated this fact almost as much as he hated Harry right now. Well, he thought, finally arriving at a coherent thought. I don't have to pound him, but I also don't have to speak with him! Mum and Dad did say to be nice to him, but I don't think that anything I could say would be polite.
With that, Ron made his way downstairs for breakfast.
Authors Note: I tried really hard this chapter to get the R/H relationship more believable. Someone mentioned to me that Hermione and Ron's dialogue didn't seem quite right, so I hope I fixed that here. I also want to say that a couple of the spells are real from the books, and the others are combinations of Latin words that have the basic meanings for the spells (like JK does for her books). Also, thanks to wickedharrypotterfan who made me realize that I needed to justify my decision for having Ron not pummel Harry. But don't worry, he's not going to be particularly nice to him in the future ;)
I also want to say that I am SO SORRY that this Chapter took so long to go up : ( I have been swamped! I now have a middle and end for this story, but I'm working on the fillers to those points now. I hope to have the next chapter up this week, especially since this once is so short.
Thanks again for reading, and I hope you take the time to review! I would love to hear your feedback!
Zoë
