Separation
14th February 2009 (Ron is 28 and 26, Hermione is 29)
RON: It's Harry and Ginny's tenth wedding anniversary. I've been dreading this day.
What could I have done? What should I have done? Would warning them have helped or would it have just made things get worse a hell of a lot quicker? I have so many questions that I don't have answers to already but this whole Harry and Ginny thing is a real toughie.
Hermione and me are going over to their place for a big party, family and friends will all be there, and not even she knows. I can't think what good it would do to tell anyone. I really wish I didn't know.
HERMIONE: Ron has been acting so strangely these last few weeks and this morning he woke up as if he was going to face a firing squad. I've tried to get him to talk to me about it but he won't. Days when he's like this worry me so much. It's days like this that something bad always seems to happen, usually to him, and I realise that he knew all along that nastiness was on the horizon and was just waiting around for it.
I hope he doesn't get hurt. I hope he doesn't go missing. I hope he comes back to me within minutes rather than hours or days or weeks. The very few time's he has left me for weeks have been the hardest of my life.
I hope this day isn't ruined for everyone.
RON:I can't be the only one to have noticed things going sour but I was the only one looking for it so early on. I've tried to get her to loosen-up and let a few things go and I've tried to get him to stop burying himself in work just to avoid going home but nothing can hold Ginny's tongue and nothing can make Harry put up with it any longer.
She's a fiery one my little sister. We all are, it's the Weasley temperament, and it's in our genes just as much as it is for me to suffer from time epilepsy. The thing is the male temper differs slightly from the female. My brothers and I will stomp, sulk, snap, huff, puff, punch and seethe. Nine times out of ten those traits will lead us into foolish territory that we will later regret and spend several days, weeks and years apologising for, especially if it's to a female Weasley.
The women in our family get riled-up in a whole different way. I'm not talking about my mother's rages to us, that maternal and that's a whole other species in itself, I'm talking about when they are faced with somebody the really don't like or who has ticked them off to such a degree that they unleash the fire-breathing dragon that is the Weasley rage. With the females in the family you can expect spite, derision, mental cruelty, callousness, heartlessness, vengeance and the psychological equivalent of a kick in the knackers with a steel toe capped boot.
When Hermione and I fight, and we still do of course, we can still upset each other but the pain is there because the love still is. I can only hurt her because she loves me and vice versa. Harry and Ginny fight to hurt each other. They fight because Ginny's temper takes that cruel edge and Harry has lost the patience to be able to shrug it off.
As we walk up to their flat I grip Hermione's hand and take a deep breath. She knows something's up and she knows I've been dreading this party for days now. She never once asked me to unload my lone burden on her despite the fact that I know she would take it all from me if I let her. She stops walking and pulls me to a halt by doing so.
"What's wrong babe?" I don't even try to smile.
"We don't have to go inside if you don't want to," she says anxiously as she pulls me back towards her and encircles my torso with her arms, "I can tell them that you went travelling and I have to stay at home because your baby self showed up. We can turn around and go home Ron."
I smile at long last; she is the single sweetest person I have ever had the good fortune to meet.
"It'll still happen whether we're there or not."
She looked up at me sadly.
"But you don't have to be there when it does do you?"
I swallow and look up at their window, I can see the silhouettes of the guests that have already arrived, I know people will be drinking up there because I've made such a big deal about how ok I am with people drinking in front of me. My family and friends and my wife will all stand in stunned silence while this whole thing erupts and I will dragged right into the middle of it.
"No I don't."
"Well come on then," she begins to pull me away from the flat but I shake my head, "Why do this to yourself Ron? Why can't you just look out for yourself just this once?"
I put my hand into my pockets and kicked at a pebble lazily.
"I'm going to be there, I show up, that's how I know what's going to happen at that party tonight Hermione. I've got to be there to look out for myself because I already was there don't you see?"
She looked so sorry for me I almost laughed and she took my hand and led me back to Harry and Ginny's front door.
HERMIONE: I can tell something's up as soon as we walk into the living room. For a start Fred and George look way too pleased to see us.
"Hermione, Ronniekins, thank Godric you're here!" George said, his eye pleading with me to save him from this hell-hole.
"Something up George?" Ron asked rubbing his hand up and down the small of my back.
Fred looked very serious and nodded over his shoulder to the 'happy' couple that were scowling at each other in between talking to Molly and Arthur and a frightened looking Neville.
"They've been at it as soon as we arrived and I don't just mean in the usual way they go at it I mean really bad this time."
"Charlie made a comment about ten years with Ginny being worse than a death sentence, as a joke y'know?" George explained, I looked offended on Ginny's part while Ron simply nodded, "Well Harry laughed a little too heartily at that and it all kicked off from there."
Ron pulled me a little closer to him as he looked at the twins grimly.
"It hasn't even started yet."
"Ron!" Ginny said, playing the delighted hostess with almost ferocious enthusiasm, "Hermione! I was afraid you weren't going to make it, Harry seemed to think that you were just running late but I'd assumed that maybe Ron didn't feel welcome at this party."
Ginny had directed the last part of that sentence over her shoulder at Harry who glared at her while Neville spilled his glass of mead down himself. Dean and Pavati were shifting uncomfortably in the corner while Bill seemed to want to hide behind Percy and Charlie who were both looking very awkward indeed.
"Why wouldn't Ron feel welcome at...?" I began before Ron cleared his throat and shook his head.
Ginny took a step toward him and hugged him with a mortified look on her face. Ron looked as if he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him.
"I saw how upset you got when Harry first mentioned this party, I told him over and over again that he was being thoughtless but he wouldn't listen," again Ginny turned to direct her next comment at her husband, "Thinks he's knows you better than me you see? My own brother's a stranger to me apparently."
"I didn't say that!" Harry growled back at her while Arthur tried to divert his attention away from Ginny's little digs and towards a muggle television repair shop he had spotted through the window.
Ginny looked back at Ron and smiled sadly.
"But I knew you'd still come. I knew you'd come for me despite the...thoughtlessness."
"Right that's it," Harry barked as he pulled away from Arthur and stomped across the living room towards Ginny.
At the same moment Harry lifted his finger to point accusingly into Ginny's face while he gave her a good talking to and Ginny rounded on his and drew herself up to her full height in readiness for his verbal attack something smashed and Fleur screamed in shock.
"There I am," Ron mumbled before breaking away from me and pushing his way past Charlie and Percy to find Bill crouching over a naked and coughing version of himself.
"Ron? Are you alright? Are you hurt?" Bill was saying while Molly threw a blanket to him to wrap Ron with.
"He's got the flu," Ron said as he crouched down and smiled at himself.
"Hey mate," the other Ron said before coughing again, "you look like the Cannons just decided to call it a day."
My Ron smiled his first real smile in days and I tried to get to the two of them to help but Harry and Ginny were battling each other to get to him first.
"See now there's two of them," Ginny snapped at Harry while shrugging off his hand on her arm at the same time, "you're taunting two of them now!"
The fluish Ron looked to his other self with confusion and my Ron shook his head as he had done with me.
"Don't," he sighed, "just don't ask."
"You know what Gin," Harry said with narrowed eyes and his body rigid with the rage he was trying to release in slow regulated spurts rather than one big explosion, "for somebody who claims to be so concerned about the welfare of her brother you're quite neglectful of him when he's sick and in the middle of a seizure on your living room carpet aren't you?"
"Harry..." the sick Ron began, obviously thinking that his best friend was being a little harsh with his little sister.
"Don't," my Ron said once again, "Let's just get you to the bedroom yeah?"
Bill slid the ill Ron's arm over his shoulder while the present Ron did the same on the other side and they lifted him.
"You hold that blanket up for us Ron," Bill smiled, "you want to save yourself a little scrap of dignity for once don't you?"
Both Ron's smiled at their older brother as they made their way forward but found themselves blocked by a Harry and Ginny face-off.
"Don't think I don't know what all this show is about Harry Potter," Ginny raged, "you keep trying so hard to convince everybody, even yourself, that there isn't a problem and there's nothing to worry about when it all boils down to this...you wanted alcohol at this party to alleviate your guilt for being the one to give him a drinking problem in the first place!"
My Ron look to the floor with a weary sigh while his other self looked shocked and appalled at this statement. The rest of the room fell into a shell-shocked hush and Harry turned to look at his present best friend who was raising his head again, knowing exactly what was to come next.
"Look at him Ginny, look at how happy and normal your concern has made him at this party. You want to know why he's been dreading it? Because of you that's why! Not the booze, not temptation as you put it, but you and your need to own and run and destroy everybody else's life!"
"Harry what the hell are you," the fluish Ron began before his cough silenced him again and Bill decided to take charge of the situation.
"Right you two can have a public barney if you want to but get the hell out of our way and let us get him to bed, he's not bloody well!"
Harry and Ginny were pulled away from each other so the two Rons and Bill could pass between them before they stepped back into their toe-to-toe war.
"How dare you," Ginny seethed, "how dare you tell me I ruin people's lives."
"I didn't say ruin," Harry said with a cold laugh, "I said destroy. You can ruin something without destroying it but that's not good enough for you is it Gin? No, total destruction of all who know and love you that's your aim!"
"I didn't tell him he could find the cure for his epilepsy at the bottom of a bottle!" Ginny hollered back into Harry's face.
"Will you both shut up?" the room was silenced by the boom of a voice none of us had ever heard shouting like that before.
In fact I don't think I'd heard Percy shout once in all the time I've known him.
"Percy!" Molly let out a tiny whisper of disbelief at seeing her prim and proper boy go all, well, Weasley on her.
"What is wrong with the two of you?" he said, his face boiling with fury and turning almost purple, "If you really want to fight and you really want to fight in front of people then that's fine but don't you dare go dragging any of us into it and especially not Ron. Did it never occur to either of you that the reason he didn't want to be here wasn't Harry letting people drink or Ginny being impossible to be in the same room with? It was probably because he's been through this nightmare of a party with you both once already, as a time traveller, and was dreading having to live through another night like that!"
I saw Ginny's eyes glisten and Harry turn away to look at the wall and felt myself swell with pride for Percy. I wanted to thank him and applaud him and...and...find Ron and take him home.
I went into the bedroom where Ron was quietly talking to his sickly other self, watched by Bill who leaned against the wall with his arms folded, and I sat down beside him on the edge of the bed.
"Let's get out of here Ron."
I curled my fingers around his wrist and gave a tug as I got to my feet.
"Oh no," he said bitterly, "Ginny's got to ask me a question first."
I frowned just as Ginny's voice sounded from the open doorway.
"Ron can I ask you a question?" she said with a sniff as she hugged her arms to herself.
I looked back at Ron who was staring at his sister and begging her not to do what he knew she would do anyway.
"Do Harry and I have an eleventh wedding anniversary?"
Ron swallowed and looked down at his hand, still suspended before him in my grip, and didn't say a word.
"Do we get divorced?" she asked with a quiver in her voice this time.
Ron rubbed his free hand over his face roughly before looking down at his other self.
"Tell yourself this was just a bad dream," he whispered to him, "it makes it easier to live with."
Ginny burst into tears and ran out of the flat, followed by Molly and Fleur. I gripped Ron's wrist with even more determination to get him home and just lay with him in the dark until morning. He looked me in the eye and shook his head with a heartbreaking smile.
"I'll meet you at home babe, you go on ahead."
"Surely you don't want to stay here do you, not a second time?" I frowned as I gave his arm another gentle tug.
"I don't stay here Hermione, I do this."
His wrist slipped away from my hand and his face faded out of my sight until all that was left of him were his crumpled clothes and an indentation where he had been sitting. I looked at the other Ron who stifled a cough and rested his hand on mine.
"Go home, he's the only one in this place who actually knows what he's talking about."
I smiled and leaned over to kiss him but he put up a warning hand and shook his head.
"You really don't want what I've got."
"I want everything you've got," I smiled as I pressed my lips to his and turned away, wiping my eyes.
Bill smiled at me and nodded out the door.
"Fleur and me are going back to turn the babysitter back into a real person and not a snowman, Cam thinks it's funny to melt them when they try to send him to bed, wanna walk to the apparition pint with us?"
I nodded and followed him out, closing the bedroom door behind me and seeing that Ron was already asleep.
Harry had already gone.
16th June 2017 (Ron is 37 and 39)
RON: I am writing frantically while the thoughts are still in my head. I know him too well for his own good. I can beat him at his own game the slimy little git. He's not a mole he's just reject with somebody to blame for all his troubles.
Unfortunately that somebody is me.
At least I know who I'm looking for these days, it doesn't make it any easier but it's always a great help when you know that the person you had been trusting to watch your back when you needed them was really the person ready to stick the knife in it.
I was about to predict his next move, this human chess game had been going on for far too long now, when a hand slammed upon my desk and I saw another version of myself pulling himself up from my office floor.
"Blimey, how long have you been down there?" I asked as I leaned forward to see if he was hurt at all.
"Just got here," he muttered, "when is it?"
"2017," I said as I opened a filing cabinet and pulled out a spare set of clothing for him.
"What day in 2017?"
"June the sixteenth, why?"
He smiled and shook his head.
"I won't bother putting those on then, I'm only here long enough to tell you to put your affairs in order."
I sat back in my chair and tried not to seem too alarmed.
"You make it sound like I'm gonna die."
"Un-clench mate, you're alright, but Hermione's about to have a rough time of it."
I sat forward again and felt my stomach shrink down to the size of a cherry stone.
"What's wrong with her, don't you dare tell me there's nothing we can do," I warned him.
He smiled.
"Calm down, she's just going to be a bit lonely for a while. You're going to travel this evening and while you're only gone for a weekend, and quite a nice one actually, she'll be without you for three months."
"Three months?" I exclaimed.
This was unimaginable. I'd never been gone so long before.
"And the thing that makes it tougher is no version of you travels back to this time to keep her company at any point. She's without you for the whole three months."
I put my elbows on the desk and my head in my hands as I struggled to take this in. I was going to leave my wife on her own for three months. How the hell was I going to break this to her?
The door to my office clicked open and my newest secretary, an older woman called Frances who was very efficient and utterly nonplussed by my nudity, came in with some notes I had requested typing up.
"Agent Weasley I've done them with and without the spelling mistakes, I didn't know if it was some kind of secret code, and I'd like to remind you that some words are spelled phonetically you know. You have rather over-complicated things in this paragraph here," she leaned over my nude other self who smiled up at her, "would you excuse me alternate sir? Just here you see?"
She pointed out my abysmal spelling and I nodded impatiently.
"Thank you Frankie but could you give us a minute please?"
Frances sniffed and nodded curtly.
"Would either of you like some tea brought in?"
I was about to say no when my other self beamed and nodded.
"If you could bring my friend here a very sweet one that'd be great, he's going to need it."
"Of course Agent Weasley the second," she said as if this was a regular experience she had with employers all the time.
"Excuse me," he said, a little offended, "I'm the first, I'm older I'll have you know Frankie!"
"You are not older than me sir."
My other self chuckles before turning to me as she closed the door behind her.
"She sticks around that one, you treat her right."
I waved my hands as if this whole Frankie distraction was a fly buzzing in front of my face.
"Yeah fine, can we get back to this please? I'm going for three months straight?"
"Yep so you've got to go to Langley and tell him you'll be missing work for a bit, set up some nice stuff for while you're away, and then you've got to break it to Hermione which is not fun."
"Set up nice stuff, what does that mean?"
"It means book some flowers to be delivered a couple of weeks into the break, get dinner sent to the flat after work so she doesn't have to cook yet another meal for one. You know what she really got a kick out of? Letters. You can give a bundle of letters to the post office in Diagon Alley and write dates of delivery on them so she'll get a letter from you every other day or so. She keeps 'em all mind you so make 'em good."
"Flowers, food, letters..." I recited back to myself as Frances came back into the office with my cup of extra sweet tea.
"There you go sir, and will there be anything else?" she smiled.
"Yeah Frankie," my other self said with another broad grin, "take the next three months off on full pay. Sail around the world or something."
Frances raised an eyebrow into an elegant curve.
"And what am I to do with the other ninety days sir?"
My other self looked back at me with a chuckle and a shake of the head.
"She's funny."
Frances left the office again and I took a gulp of my super sweet tea.
"So what else then?"
"Use your imagination!" he huffed.
"I don't need to I've got your memory!" I snapped back.
He grinned a smug grin and sat back in the chair.
"Not anymore you don't."
He faded away and I was left with three months to fill in one evening.
First thing's first, I had to get writing.