Promises and Lies

26th May 1999 (Ron is 19, Hermione is 19)

HERMIONE: I was sleeping when a sudden weight landed on me, causing me to wake up with a yelp, and I saw Ron lying on top of me with a wide grin on his face.

"Have you been away?" I asked him as I rubbed my eyes.

He was still grinning stupidly and nodded. What was he so pleased about I asked myself. I was about to ask him when he lowered his head and kissed me, he was even smiling as he did that, and I decided to go along with this post time travelling euphoria he seemed to be going through. He had never been like this before. I wondered what wonderful thing from his future he had seen. I slid my hand down the side of his body and settled it into the small of his back while he covered me in so many kisses I felt as if there were butterflies delicately flapping their wings all over every inch of my body.

Finally he looked down into my eyes again and stroked my hair away from my face, with his grin mellowing into a smile of contentment now, and wished every trip he took could end this way.

"Don't tell me," I said as I pulled him down to lay right on top of me again, "you've seen a future where the Chudley Cannons win the league?"

He was still looking down at me happily, usually he would be nuzzling me or curling himself around me to go to sleep, but he just kept looking at me.

"Better," he whispered.

Wow, this must be good.

"We live happily ever after in a self perpetuating house of chocolate?" I guessed.

He blinked as he thought about this for a moment.

"Not that but I'll definitely look into us getting one of those," I giggled and he lowered his head and whispered into my ear, sending my toes all a tingle, "and it's even better than that."

"What is it?" I demanded as I ran my hands up his bare back and felt the need to hear exactly what was making him so happy while silencing him until morning with my lips.

He rolled off me, I moaned a little in disappointment at that, and propped himself up on the pillow with his elbow while taking my chin in between his thumb and forefinger and looking at me contentedly.

"Y'know you never stop being beautiful?" he whispered before tilting my face towards him and leaning in to share another brief kiss.

I felt myself blush at this.

"Was that what you were so happy about?"

He shook his head and I turned onto my side so we were face to face and put my hand on his cheek.

"What's so fantastic then, tell me?"

He turned his face into my hand and kissed it before looking back at me and I wondered if I had ever loved him more than I did right at that very moment.

"It's just that I can finally make you that promise."

I stared at him, what promise was this? He beamed again and took my hand in his.

"What do you mean?" I asked him, something in the pit of my stomach making me get very excited indeed.

"I," he began, kissing me on the tip of my nose, "Ronald Bilius Weasley," he kissed my forehead, "can now give you my word," he kissed my left cheek and I felt as if I was about to scream at him to forget the damn promise and screw his brains out, "that I will never," he kissed the other cheek, "ever," he kissed me on the lips and looked deep into my eyes, "leave you."

I stared at him as his face lit up once again, that huge grin of his spreading across his wonderful face and my heart seemed to be beating as fast as a humming bird.

"What?" I said, not daring to hope that he had just said what I thought he had said.

"I will never leave you. I know it for a fact. I've seen it."

I felt a lump in my throat the size of a fist and my eyes began to well with tears as I gripped his arm so tightly I think I might have actually drawn blood with my fingernails.

"Really?" I say with a shaky laugh.

"Really."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

I hug him so tightly to myself that I don't think I'll ever be able to let him go.

"Say it again," I demanded as the first tear fell from my flooded eyes.

He whispered into my hair while curling his own arms around me.

"I promise."

"Say it all, the whole thing, let me hear you say it again," I said as if terrified he was only teasing me and shaking him with fear and excitement.

"I promise you I will never leave you Hermione. I never ever leave you, I know it, I saw it, I promise it. I'll stay with you forever."

I choked on my excess of emotion and rolled him over so he was now beneath me and I kissed him and held him and made love with him until I had nothing left to share with him except my own enormous grin as I rested my head upon his chest and listened to his lullaby while he drifted off to sleep. I curled myself around him and kissed the freckled skin before my lips and wondered how I was ever going to cope with life from now on knowing it was going to be such bliss.

29th May 1999 and 5th July 1999 (Ron is 19)

RON: I had been going through every detail of every mission that Auror Parker had ever been on in his entire career to date and I hadn't been able to find anything suspicious at all.

I had let him get hexed. Whether or not I knew he would be ok was neither here nor there I wouldn't have let that happen unless I was trying to draw my attention to him from the future. I didn't know him very well, not like I knew Harry and not in the way I knew of the kind of people Aurors like Davis and Cavendish were, and he always seemed utterly professional. When he had come crashing into Fred and George's flat and seen me laid out from the cruciatus curse he had done a thorough sweep of the place and been the only one to have shown some degree of suspicion about our Death Eater cover story, demanding all witnesses be made to take a truth serum back at HQ but I had the authority to cancel that as soon as I got my own head together again.

It didn't seem that he was crooked; in fact it seemed more likely that he suspected somebody else of being untrustworthy and on his own little quest to take them down. I wondered if that was the real reason for his being attacked that night.

I was so deeply involved in his paper work that I had spread all over my desk that when Lavender brushed her hand against my arm I flinched so badly that she almost screamed with fright.

"Oh sorry," I said as the two of us recovered from our little shocks, "I didn't hear you come in I was just in my own little world for a minute there."

She laughed and took a step back forward again, her hand over her heart to indicate that I'd scared the wits out of her.

"That's ok I was just wondering if I could get you anything, you've been going without a break for five hours now and lunch has been and gone."

I looked at my watch and cursed.

"I'm so sorry, have you taken your break?"

She shook her head with a carefree shrug.

"No but it's fine, I'll go when you go the same as always."

That was the way it usually worked. I would take my lunch, Lavender would finish up whatever she was doing and go on hers and then when I got back she would already be sat behind her desk hard at it again. She never took a break while I was still working in case I needed her for anything.

"No you go now, I won't be taking one this afternoon I don't think, just leave the door open and if anybody comes to see me I can just shout through to 'em."

Lavender frowned and put her hand on my arm again, I tried not to make a big deal about it, people rub people's arms when they're concerned about them don't they? She was going out with Seamus now and she had been nothing but professional for months. I had nothing to worry about.

"I wouldn't be happy leaving anybody to work through the day without stopping for a bite to eat or something to drink but especially not you Ron, you need your food, you never skip lunch."

I smiled and shrugged; her hand was still there.

"I had a big breakfast and I'll have a big dinner when I get home, don't worry about it, you go and take as long as you want you've earned it waiting this long for me."

Lavender turned and looked at my cluttered desk and began to gather the papers to tidy them away and I sprang up from my seat to stop her, it might look disorganised but I had everything laid out in search of a pattern and I didn't want her to mess it up.

"No don't it's in order," my hand brushed against hers as I tried to keep the paperwork in place and Lavender turned and looked right into my face, only a breath between us and I really hoped she wasn't going to do what I thought she was going to do.

"I'm sorry," she said in a breathless whisper before running out of my office in tears.

I exhaled with a deep shudder and sank back down into my chair. I really had to get some distance between the two of us without tipping her over the edge again. I wondered if I should speak to Seamus about this, no bad idea, nobody wants to hear that their girlfriend's being inappropriate with her boss and especially when that boss if one of your mates.

I rubbed my face roughly and tried not to let myself get stressed about this. I really didn't want to travel today, not while I was going through all this paperwork, and I wondered if I should floo Hermione at work and tell her what just happened. She always insists I tell her everything that goes on with Lavender and I always feel better when I do but she's been so happy this last couple of days and I didn't want to put a dampener on it.

I got up and went over to the fireplace, deciding to floo while I still had the guts, she would get angry with me if she ever found out that I'd kept something from her and we always said that no matter how bad it was the fact I told her made her feel better about how strong we were as a couple. There would never be anything anybody could use against us to come between us. I threw an handful of floo powder into the fireplace and the flames flickered brilliant green and I was hit by the sudden dizziness as the bowl fell from my hand and I melted out of my clothing and fell naked onto a wooden floor with a groan as the feeling of motion sickness wafted away and my vision cleared to let me see I was in an unfamiliar room.

"Ron!" I heard from another room and running footsteps before Lavender appeared at the open door with a delighted look on her face that soon melted into confusion, "Oh, you're younger."

I wondered why she had been expecting me, an older me apparently, and shook my head as I tried to crawl behind the armchair to cover my modesty.

"What year is it?" I asked her as she reached into a small cupboard and pulled out underwear, jeans and a shirt.

"It's 1999 Ron, where are you coming from? Last year?" she seemed anxious as I took the clothes and wondered why she had a bunch of things in my size just readily prepared in her flat.

"No I'm from '99 too, May. What month is this?"

"July," Lavender said as the blood seemed to drain from her face, "You're from May? Two months ago?"

I nodded and wriggled the jeans up my legs before daring to stand before her and put on the shirt.

"Lavender were you expecting me?"

She looked away from me and shrugged.

"You come by from time to time, usually you're ten or fifteen years older, I like to keep a spare set of something for you to put on when you need it."

"What do you mean when I need it?" I wondered if there were times for Lavender when she didn't feel the need to have me dressed.

"When you come of course, now do you want something to drink or eat, I've got plenty in."

She turned to head back into the place she had come running so merrily from when she heard me arrive, I assumed it must be the kitchen, and I followed her with some caution.

"Lavender I've never been inside your place in my life, how can I travel to it at all?"

"You come by very soon, back in May, you come to...see me."

I couldn't understand what was going on. Why would I go to Lavender's place? Why would I go there after what had just happened back at the office? The thing that worried me most was why she had been so eager to greet my older self. What was he up to?

She turned to me and held out a glass of something I didn't recognise with a smile.

"Here, drink up, I know how dehydrated you can become when you reappear."

I declined the drink with a shake of the head. I really was parched beyond belief but something told me not to drink anything Lavender had to give me.

"Of course," she laughed as she banged the glass back down on the kitchen counter, "this is where you disappeared to while I was away at lunch that day, that was why you were so funny with me about the bloody coffee."

She was laughing bitterly and I was starting to fell very uneasy about being here with her.

"Um, I don't drink coffee Lavender."

"Well you certainly didn't drink mine," she looked back at me with her jaw set in a hurt yet defiant way, "you thought I'd spiked it with something and now here you are thinking the same thing about me again."

"Look I didn't say that I just..."

"Why can't you just leave me be to love you? I could've just loved you from afar and never touched you again and never tried to kiss you or tell you how I feel but you've just got to keep making it obvious how much I bloody disgust you! Well that doesn't last forever Ron."

Shit, this was getting scary now.

"This isn't about," I doubled over and clutched my stomach, the nausea was hitting me with a vengeance but I had nothing to regurgitate so all I could do was wince at the pain of the agonising stomach cramp, "Oh Godric!" I gasped as I fell to the floor.

"And there you go, right on queue as ever!" Lavender was saying while waving her arms about dramatically, "You never want me and you never stay long enough to tell me why."

The sight of Lavender standing in her kitchen screeching like a crazy woman blurred into the sight of bright golden flames and I sat up on top of my own previously shed clothing in my office with a grunt of displeasure at the hollow feeling that still made my stomach feel as if there was a knitting needle skewered through my side.

I crawled on my hands and knees, clutching my side as if fearing it would burst, over to the pile of floo powder that had spilled onto the floor when I had disappeared and tossed a small handful into the flames. They flickered green and I crawled forward to put my head in and call St Mungo's for Healer Wanless but a got another spasm of pain and yelped before curling up on the hearth.

"Oh Merlin Ron what's wrong?" Lavender said as she ran into the office and dropped to my side.

"Get away from me!" I said through gritted teeth, causing her to flinch backwards with a start.

"I'm sorry Ron, I just...you look like you're in pain I wasn't going to..." she was almost shaking with anger, "...touch you."

The spasm was easing off now and tried to get myself together and sit up. Lavender picked up my shirt and draped it over me before getting to her feet again and walking out of the office and over to her desk, she came back inside and held out a steaming cup of coffee to me.

"Here, you must be damaging yourself travelling back and fourth on an empty stomach."

She brought the cup to my lips and I shook my head with a grimace of pain, I wanted to tell her I didn't like coffee, I needed to tell her it was because I didn't like coffee.

"No Lavender, I..."

"Don't flatter yourself you arrogant pig!" she hissed at me before throwing the coffee down to the floor and storming out, "Think I'm trying to slip you love potion do you? Well if that's how low an opinion you have of me then you can go to hell!"

She was gone now and the stabbing pain hit me again. I writhed on the floor and forced my eyes closed and clenched my teeth to get through the agony before realising that this wasn't just a stomach cramp from travelling without eating all day. Something was seriously wrong. I tried to gather together another decent sized pile of floo powder from the fireside while edging myself closer to the flames and trying to ride the waves of pain as they hit me.

I hadn't got enough floo powder together and I couldn't reach the bowl where it had rolled beneath my desk to get any more. I was about to try and use what I had, without much hope for the outcome when I heard a voice and running footsteps.

"Mr Weasley?" it was Auror Parker, his face framed by the dark curls of his shoulder-length hair and his black eyes set against his deep olive skin made him look almost like a silhouette.

Oh great I've got all his files strewn all over my desk and I'm naked in front of a fire and suffering from Merlin knows what. This day cannot get any bloody worse for me.

"What is it, are you hurt?" he asked as he crouched down beside me.

"Floo St Mungo's," I managed to say, "I need my healer."

"What's your' healer's name?" Parker said as he crawled over to the bowl with the rest of the floo powder inside it and threw a handful into the flames.

"Wanless," I grimaced as the knife in my side seemed to be twisting.

Just as Parker plunged his head into the green flames I passed out.

HERMIONE: I was sitting at Ron's bedside in St Mungo's when Harry and Neville showed up, faces pale, and I gave the two of them a smile of reassurance.

"Don't worry, it was just his appendix, almost at bursting point and Healer Wanless thinks it might have got aggravated or accelerated by the time travel today."

Harry sat down and breathed a sigh of relief.

"So he's going to be ok?"

"He's going to be fine," I smiled before the anger hit me again, "I just want to know where the hell Lavender was while he was writhing in agony on the floor."

Harry drew in a sharp intake of breath and looked to Neville who was looking at me with a very hurt expression.

"What?" I demanded.

"Lavender, she..." Neville seemed to be having trouble spitting it out so I looked at Harry who turned away and stared at Ron so I turned my gaze back to Neville again, "...Seamus went round to see her after work and found her. She'd taken this potion. She'd tried to...to...She'd tried to kill herself."

I stared at Neville in disbelief and opened my mouth to try to say something comforting to him but he was already backing out the door.

"Don't make a hypocrite out of yourself Hermione, I've got too much respect for you to see you do that, I know you don't like Lavender and never will."

"Neville I would never wish this on anybody how could you think...?" I began to protest.

"Don't alright, just don't, I'm going to go up and see how she's doing now. I just wanted to make sure that Ron was going to be ok that's all, Seamus said she was rambling about him when he found her so I think I'll go and put her mind at ease. As much as I can do."

With that Neville turned and walked out and down the corridor. I bit my lip and looked over at Harry.

"Am I really that much of a bitch Harry?" I asked him sadly.

He smiled and shook his head.

"The thing Neville doesn't know is something that makes me want to go down with him and give that drama queen what for," Harry said with uncharacteristic coldness.

"What are you saying Harry?"

"Parker told me he just passed Lavender leaving Ron's office in a rage and when he went inside Ron was in a really bad way."

I suddenly understood why Harry was being quite as merciless as he was towards Lavender's situation.

"She left him like that?" I gasped.

Harry nodded.

"So it appeared to Parker, and he couldn't have just reappeared in that split second after Lavender left because Parker said that Ron had been gathering a pathetic little mound of floo powder to try and call St Mungo's with," Harry's face twisted with bitterness, "Ron was struggling to get help for quite some time and Lavender just walked out and left him there. Now I'm not pleased about what's happened to her but frankly I don't have a hell of a lot of sympathy for her either."

The two of us sat in silence until Ginny arrived, hugging Harry and kissing him on the cheek before giving me a tight embrace and whispering that her bother was going to be the death of all of us one day. We both laughed and the sound caused Ron to wake up from his post-treatment sleeping draught. He smiled up at me drowsily and took my hand.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey yourself," I smiled and kissed the back of his hand, "How are you feeling?"

"Like I just digested part of myself," he mumbled with a wince.

Harry and Ginny laughed and he turned to see them with surprise.

"Oh hi you two, I didn't see you there."

"Oh don't mind me," Harry shrugged as he pulled Ginny to sit on his lap with a wicked grin, "you just keep flirting with you fiancée, but remember mate, no sex until you're fully healed."

"Harry!" both Ginny and I said with outrage while Ron laughed and whimpered with discomfort at the same time.

I squeezed Ron's hand and he turned back to look at me.

"I know you told me you'd never leave me but that still doesn't mean it's ok for you to start rejecting internal organs on a whim you know?" I teased.

Harry and Ginny chuckled at this and Ron broke into one of his wide grins again before frowning and squeezing my hand in return.

"I think I upset Lavender Hermione, we had a bit of a misunderstanding and..." I put my finger to his lips while Harry looked across at me, a tense expression on his face.

Ron was true to his word as ever about this Lavender thing. He had never once lied to me about any of the awful situations he found himself in with her ever since I had made him swear to tell me everything, even if he knew it would hurt or anger me, and I was so grateful for that. I was so incredibly thankful that there were no lies between us, just honesty all the way.

"So have I missed anything then?" Ron asked me, "Any gossip while I've been out that I need to catch up on?"

I smiled and ignored Harry's penetrating stare.

"Nothing at all."

Yes, just like I said, it was all about honesty.

30th May 1999 (Ron is 19)

RON: I was putting away all of my files and paperwork on Auror Parker when Langley appeared on the other side of my open office door, I didn't think he was actually capable of getting his mammoth bulk through it, and he shouted through at me.

"Good Godric it's true!"

"What's that sir?" I said with a smile.

"Somebody told me you'd come in today and I thought they were seeing one of your other selves but it's you isn't it? You're the present day Agent Weasley."

"That I am sir," I said with a nod as I closed the file and carried it over to my filing cabinet.

"What on earth are you doing in today you stupid boy?" Langley blustered in his blunt and unintentionally patronising way, "You're written off for a week to recuperate and that's an order."

"I know sir, I'm just tidying up after myself, I left a lot of confidential files laying around and I wanted to get them locked away safely. I'm going home now I promise."

"Damn fool," Langley scoffed, "never heard of a locking charm? You could have just got your secretary to do one and get all that done when you came back to work, oh but of course," he said with a slap to his shiny forehead, "she's in the bloody hospital herself isn't she?"

"Excuse me?" I blinked.

"Miss Brown, some kind of incident at home, she's off for a week too. In fact if you are heading out yourself would you mind giving her the paid leave paperwork? She can hand it in when she returns tell her, no hurry at all."

I swallowed and took the piece of paper from Langley's chubby hand and nodded.

"Right well go and do that little errand and then go back home to your wife and relax Agent Weasley."

"Fiancée actually sir," I corrected him as he rolled his way back out of the reception area and into the corridor.

"Don't care," he said with a dismissive wave over his shoulder.

I sighed and wondered why Hermione hadn't heard about anything happening to Lavender, I figured that she'd been a little pre occupied with me, and went down to the apparition point to deliver Lavender's paperwork.

Crack!

As I approached Lavender's front door I felt a little uneasy, I didn't want to go inside, but I knew that at some point in my life I must do as I was able to travel there the day before. I knocked on the door and looked up and down the street, feeling guilty for being there for some strange reason, and waited while fiddling with the leave papers nervously.

The door opened a crack and I saw a curtain of long blonde hair and a bloodshot eye peering out at me.

"Ron?" Lavender's unsteady voice said

"Yeah it's me, I've just got to give you this, we're both on paid leave for a week and I was just on my way home so..."

She opened the door a little wider and I saw her puffy eyes and pale skin and my throat dried up on me. I silently handed her the papers with a smile.

"I didn't know you were dying," she said with her own strained voice as he took the forms from me.

"I wasn't," I said, "It was just an inflamed appendix, I'm fine."

"No thanks to me," she said quietly as she looked down at her feet, "I heard about it when one of the other secretary's sent me an owl and told me you'd been rushed to your healer. I felt so awful. I'd just left you to die on the floor."

She began to cry and I leaned in a little to rub her arm for comfort.

"Don't be silly, it was just a little thing that got out of hand, all a silly misunderstanding about a cup of coffee."

I knew I'd said the wrong thing before I had even said it. Lavender wailed and I glanced up and down the street anxious to make sure nobody was noticing this little scene.

"I just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up, I can't stand that I've lost your trust, it means so much to me Ron," she sobbed.

"Don't be silly, what are you talking about? You're just not very well that's all. You've made yourself sick with worry haven't you?" I said as I rubbed her arm a little more and took a step up onto her doorstep.

She looked up at me and sniffed as she wiped her eyes.

"Sick? You mean you don't know? She never told you?"

"Who never told me what?" I smiled nervously.

"Nothing," she shook her head and smiled back at me, "I misunderstood something Neville said that's all, "he's been coming by three times a day to check up on me."

"That's good of him, what with him and Seamus you must be sick of visitors," I said as I made a move to step back down from the doorstep and back onto the pavement but she reached out and took my hand and shook her head, "I ended things with Seamus. It wasn't fair to him. I wasn't in love with him and he was...he thought more of me than I deserve."

"No don't say that," I said as she began to whimper again, "you've got to stop talking about yourself like that Lavender. Are you still seeing that counsellor at the ministry?"

She shook her head.

"I stopped but they're going to make me go again after this otherwise they won't take me back at work," she said as her shoulders shook with the building emotion that she was struggling to keep a lid on.

"After this?" I asked. I was definitely missing a big piece of the puzzle here.

"I thought I'd killed you and I just didn't want to...I wanted to go with you!"

She dissolved into floods of tears and I suddenly realised what Lavender had done. I also saw that the last thing she needed me to do was to run in the opposite direction, confirming her fear that I detested her existence, but I really didn't want to take that step over the threshold into her flat. The second I did that I could be thrust there any time of the day or night butt naked right under the unstable witch's nose.

The thing was I already knew I did it; I had already done it because I had travelled there so there was nothing I could do to prevent it. She was crying into her cupped hands and I couldn't just say 'get well soon' and bugger off. I stepped inside the door and hugged her.

She began to bawl like I'd never heard anybody cry in my life and held on to me as if I was her life support. I felt so useless. No matter how I treated her it was always going to be the wrong way. There was nothing I could do to make this better for her. All I could do is make it much worse in a variety of different ways.

I heard the sound of a throat being cleared and looked over my shoulder to see a very uncomfortable Neville standing behind me with a bunch of flowers.

"Hey look," I said as I tried to break away from her, "I told you ya wouldn't have time to be lonely, Neville's here."

Lavender let me go and I practically jumped back outside into the street and nodded Neville in. He handed her the flowers and she wiped her face and sniffed a thank you to him before kissing him on the cheek. Neville smiled at her and turned back to me.

"Are you coming in for a cuppa Ron?" he asked awkwardly.

"I'm supposed to be at home right now with my feet up, I've already got a bollocking from the boss for showing up at work, if I don't get back soon Hermione'll go spare."

Lavender turned and made her way up the stairs to her flat while Neville leaned out and whispered to me.

"Are you doing ok mate?"

I smiled and nodded, always worried about everybody else that was our Neville, and I began to walk backwards to the apparition point.

"It's nothing is it, an appendicitis? They're just being careful because of the epilepsy thing."

Neville nodded and waved before closing the front door and I heaved a week's worth of sighs all in one and climbed into the photo-me-quick booth to get myself home for a week of doing nothing.

One thing played on my mind just before I disapparated. How could Hermione not have told me about this?