Chapter Fourteen

It didn't take much these days for Hermione's head to wander and then soon after finding herself distracted completely. Even the novelty of the work she was doing at the Department of Experimental Charms had worn off somewhat. The truth was no matter how hard she tried to keep a positive mind about the situation with Malfoy, she was beginning to feel that there would be nothing any of them could do to stop the trial from happening. Even worse was when she allowed herself to consider the possibility that Ron would be convicted. There was just too much damaging evidence that she wondered if he would even get a fair trial, especially if Narcissa Malfoy was pulling the strings. She was careful not to breathe a word of this to Ron, but judging by his defeated attitude the other night he had come to the same conclusion.

"Do you have a copy of the initial testing reports for the artifact?" Jack asked, walking into her office.

Hermione had to shake herself back to reality. She aimed her wand at the filing cabinet on the other side of her desk and the bundled pieces of parchment flew out into Jack's hands.

"Thanks. I'm hoping once I show Cynthia our last set of tests, she'll allow us to begin searching for the appropriate candidates to try them out on."

She acknowledged his words with a nod, but said nothing.

Jack went to leave, then turned back around. "How are you doing? I know it's probably none of my business but you seem kind of down lately."

"I'm sorry, I've been distracted," she admitted.

"That's perfectly understandable considering what your friend Ron is going through."

She didn't bother correcting him, because everything was such a complicated mess right now she really wasn't sure what she and Ron meant to each other anymore.

"Maybe this will help," said Jack, reaching inside his robes and pulling out a folded piece of parchment.

She took it from him, her mouth slightly hanging open in surprise when she read it.

"I'm giving you a raise," he said unnecessarily. "I've seen the work you've done and everyone here has nothing but brilliant things to say about you. I can't think of anyone else who deserves it more."

"Thank you," she said, tearing her eyes away from the parchment to look at him.

He smiled warmly. "I was more than happy to give it to you."

Hermione didn't know how to react. She was already being paid decently, and now after only four months of being there she was getting a pretty gracious raise. She hadn't taken on the job for monetary reasons, but it helped since she was living on her own at Remus's without the aid of her father, and she hated having to ask Remus for anything.

"Who are you looking into testing it on?" She asked, changing the subject.

"The Aurors, naturally," he said to her. "I don't think this early on we want to risk it on anyone else other than a pureblood one."

"If you tried it on an Auror and someone else at the same time, you would be better able to compare the effects," she suggested.

"Go on," he said to her.

"I think in order for you to fully understand what the artifact does, you need to try it on two completely different individuals to see the effects of it. One of those candidates being a pureblood and the other being a muggleborn, especially since based on all the reports I've read it's only been tested on half bloods before."

He raised an eyebrow at what she was suggesting. "I know you have this theory that it will work better with muggleborns because they don't have any other generation of magic in their bloodstream, but are you sure that's something you want to test out on yourself?"

Remus had told her she couldn't go around testing spells on other people, so why not do try this one out on herself? "I don't think the test subject should be anyone outside this office or the Aurors for security reasons. I think since I've been working on this I at least deserve the choice of whether or not to participate."

While Jack was pondering a response, Ginny Weasley burst into her office clearly out of breath.

"Hermione – " She stopped when she noticed Hermione was not the only one in the room.

"Ginny, what is it?" She knew in her gut it was not good news. Ginny would not come all the way down to the Ministry in the middle of the day when she was supposed to be in lessons with Remus otherwise.

"Hermione, we can finish this later," said Jack, noticing the urgent look on Ginny's face.

When Jack was gone, Ginny began again. "I'm sorry to just barge in. There was no one at reception, but I couldn't wait," she babbled.

"What happened?" She braced herself for the worst.

"There's not going to be a trial. Malfoy dropped the charges," she exclaimed, breaking out into a huge grin.

When the shock of what the other girl was saying had worn off, Hermione burst out grinning as well and hugged Ginny excitedly. She pulled away a moment later. "Wait a minute… I don't understand. Two days ago Malfoy regained consciousness and was pressing charges. What changed?"

"No one really understands it either," Ginny told her. "Tonks was just at the house and she told us Malfoy dropped the charges but gave no reason. She needed to stop by the Auror Department to drop something off, so I came with her," Ginny explained. "But you know what's even stranger? Jeffrey Moore is missing. The Healers went by to discharge him this morning and he was gone, so without his testimony they've got nothing on Ron now that the charges have been dropped."

"They don't think Ron had anything to do with Moore's disappearance, do they?"

Ginny immediately shook her head. "He was at the law office in London all morning with Mum and no one they questioned at St. Mungo's has seen him there."

"Does Ron know?"

"Remus went down there to tell him as soon as we left the house."

Hermione shook her head in amazement. "I still can't believe this… Ginny this is wonderful news."

"I know. I wish I could have been there to see Ron's face when Remus told him," she said, still grinning. "Listen, I should get going. Tonks is probably waiting downstairs for me, but you should stop by the pub tonight. I think that's where everyone's going to be."

"I'll see if I can get away from here," she told the younger girl.

Ginny gave her another quick hug, saying, "I know Ron would want you to be there."

After Ginny was gone, Hermione's feet seemed to be rooted to the floor in her office. If she had been distracted before, it was nothing compared to what she was feeling now.

Ron couldn't describe what he was feeling. Relief, excitement, suspicion, and about a dozen other emotions were going around in his head. He was never one to over analyze anything, but he couldn't wrap his head around why Malfoy would let him off the hook. Malfoy, who was finally going to be able to ruin his life beyond torturous insults and yet he had backed down. He just didn't get it – not to mention the fact that Jeffrey Moore had disappeared without a trace. But he couldn't discuss this with anyone. His family and friends were too happy to see him a free man that he couldn't bring himself to spoil their thrilled state by questioning his freedom. There was one person he could go to, but she hadn't even bothered to show up at the pub.

He still had his Auror training, at least, but now he was almost three weeks behind everyone else. He had gone down to the Ministry to speak with Mackenzie once Malfoy dropping the charges had been made official. He was half expecting her to say he had missed too much time and would have to start over, but she had said nothing of the sort. He was going to have to put in some extra training time during the weekends, but she wasn't going to hold him back for what happened. In fact, she wanted him to take a couple of days off before coming back to work. He couldn't understand the logic in that, but Mackenzie's word was final so there wasn't a lot he could do about that.

He had left the celebration going on down at the pub shortly after eleven. The weeks of anxiety and sleepless nights had finally caught up with him now that he knew he could rest peacefully for a change.

He was almost home when he saw movement on the front porch. Instinctively, he reached for his wand, almost drawing it when he recognized who the person was a moment later. He quickened his pace until they were both standing on the illuminated porch.

"Are you mad? You shouldn't be standing out here alone at this time of night," he said, taking out his keys to unlock the door.

"I'm not defenseless, Ron," Hermione reminded him.

"I don't understand why you would wait out here when Harry gave you a key." He tried not to sound angry. He didn't want to end off the first great day he'd had in weeks by fighting with her.

"I'm sorry I didn't show up at the pub," she apologized.

"It's not a big deal," he said, shrugging.

"No, it is. I know how hard it's been for you and when you finally got some good news I wasn't there."

"You were there when it counted," he said, dropping his voice. "So everything's okay on the Azkaban front, but I guess we're still a mess, huh?"

She was looking at him, but she didn't say anything.

"I know you don't trust me anymore – and that's my fault. I was so sure I was protecting you I couldn't see that what I was doing was wrong," he said, meeting her gaze. "I'm sorry for everything."

"I don't think sorry can make everything we said to each other go away. Can you honestly say you can forget all that?"

"Hermione, we were both really upset. I don't even remember half the things we said," he told her. He was lying – every hurtful syllable they had yelled at each other had been permanently etched into his brain.

"What if Harry was the only reason we even talked to each other all these years?"

"Hermione, that's not true," he said quickly, moving to stand in front of her. "Maybe in the beginning we tolerated each other because of our mutual friendship with Harry," he conceded, "but I know these feelings I have for you have nothing to with being forced together all these years. We fight because that's what we do. I don't regret one second of the time I've spent with you. What I regret is wasting so much time being an arse and a prat to do anything about it."

He reached out to touch her face with his hand and she let her eyes momentarily fall shut.

"Maybe it's asking too much for you to forgive me right now, but I can wait. I don't want to lose you, Hermione."

He leaned down to kiss her, his face slowly inching closer to hers until their lips finally touched. It only took a moment for Hermione's lips to eagerly search out his but then she quickly pulled away.

"This doesn't change anything," she said, looking up at him.

"I know," he breathed, fisting his hands through her hair and pulling her towards him.

When Ron opened his eyes to the morning sunlight creeping through the partially drawn shades, it was the first time in quite awhile where he didn't feel like going back to sleep and shutting out the rest of the world. There was no way he wanted to shut any of this out. He looked down at Hermione who waslying snuggled against his chest. He knew things weren't exactly right between them, but they were a lot better then they had been in quite some time.

He felt her stirring and leaned down to kiss the top of her head.

"Morning," she said, moving off of him to rub the sleep out of her eyes.

"I missed this," he said to her.

"Me too," she admitted with a smile and clasped her hand over his. She looked passed him to the clock on his dresser and sighed. "I have to go."

"What? Why?"

"Because I have to go to work."

"Can't you call in sick?" He asked her. "I mean you did that once before," he added quickly seeing the expression forming on her face.

"That was different. I had a good reason."

"This is a good reason," he said with a grin, leaning in to kiss her.

"Ron, I can't," she said, when they finally broke apart.

"It won't change anything, if that's what you're worried about," he said, gently stroking her face.

She sat up and hugged her knees to her chest. She didn't understand what was wrong with her. She had been miserable when they had been apart, and now they had a real chance to work things out, she wasn't sure if that's what she wanted. Why was she having these doubts now?

"Hey, what's wrong?" He asked, sitting up. "Hermione, tell me," he said, sweeping her hair to the side and kissing her shoulder.

"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea."

Ron froze. He stopped touching her and let his hands drop to his sides.

She turned her head back to look at him. " I just don't – I don't know - "

"Don't know what, Hermione?" He demanded.

She just sat there, staring down at the bed sheets. She knew she loved him, but she didn't know if this was the right thing for either of them right now. The last two months had been an emotional roller coaster and last night had been the result of all that finally coming to an end.

She felt the mattress shift as Ron got up.

"You should go. You're going to be late for work," he said, pulling on his trousers.

"Ron – "

"You don't have to say anything, okay? I get it. Last night was a mistake."

He was hurt and it made her heart ache. She didn't want things to be like this. If he would just give her a chance to explain, he would understand why last night had just added to the confused mess that was their relationship. If she had been stronger, she wouldn't have let last night happen. But she had missed Ron too much, had wanted to be with him so badly that she hadn't been able to stop herself.

She dressed quickly, but Ron was already out of the bedroom.

"Ron, please we need to talk about this," she said racing out into the hall after him.

The front door opened then and Harry stood there, his eyes moving from her to Ron and back again. She knew what it must look like, her standing there wearing her wrinkled clothes from yesterday and Ron shirtless, but it really wasn't any of Harry's business.

"I have to get to work," she muttered, and brushed passed the two boys and out the door.

Ron moved into the kitchen to get away from the watchful eye of Harry.

"Did she spend the night here?" Harry asked, joining him in the kitchen.

Ron nodded and reached for the carton of orange juice in the fridge.

Harry leaned against the doorframe. "So does this mean you two are back together?"

Ron scratched the back of his head nervously. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to be having. "One thing lead to another and it just sort of happened. I really don't know if anything's changed," he admitted.

"So you two are just shagging buddies, is that it?"

"Back off, Harry," he warned. "Whatever Hermione and I do together is none of your business, but it's nice to know you think so highly of me. Fuck, Harry, I would never screw around with her like that."

"I know that," Harry said after a moment. He sighed. "You're right, it is none of my business."

"Where were you last night?" Ron questioned him, looking to change topics.

Harry stiffened. "Out."

Even for Harry, that was an extremely vague response, but he didn't press the matter. If Harry didn't want to be forthcoming with the details that was his prerogative. "Did you make sure Ginny got home?"

"Yeah, she got home all right."

Ron regarded him carefully. It wasn't as if it was unusual for Harry to act withdrawn, but he had been acting this way a lot lately. "Are you all right?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know," he said with a shrug. "You've just been kind of, I don't know, out of it since you found out – you know, about Lupin and your mum."

Harry's jaw clenched. "I don't care about that," he lied.

"Lupin's a good guy," Ron said, knowing he would have to tread around the subject carefully.

Harry snorted. "Yeah, he's such a great guy he betrayed his best friend so he could shag the one woman that was off limits," he bit off angrily. "I'm going for a run," he finished and took off before Ron could say another word.