See You Around
8th June 1999 (Ron is 19 and 43, Hermione is 19)
HERMIONE: I had finally escaped work to grab a bite to eat when I bumped into Parvati Patil, quite literally, on the street.
"I'm sorry I...Hermione!"
"Hello Parvati, sorry about that I was miles away," I said as I twirled my finger around at the side of my head to indicate the direction my thoughts had been spiralling out of my head.
"No it was my fault, I was just rushing and not paying attention to where I was going, I'm sorry."
I laughed at this.
"Well let's say we're both sorry then."
"Okay," she smiled before heaving a deep sigh and looking suddenly tired, "So I take it you heard about Lavender? Everybody else seems to have."
I bit my bottom lip and nodded.
"How's she doing now, Ron's still on sick leave so we haven't heard anything about how she is right now."
Parvati slapped herself on the forehead.
"Of course, Dean told me about that, poor Ron eh? Lucky somebody found him in time wasn't it?"
I didn't think Dean and Parvati had been told about Lavender leaving Ron in pain the way she did and I didn't see any point in bringing it up now so I just nodded and smiled a relieved smile. Parvati gestured for me to walk with her and we continued on down the street chatting.
"So he's still off work, Ron I mean, that's unusual isn't it? Appendicitis can be dealt with within the day by the healers at St Mungo's. Padma was in an out in an afternoon with hers I remember."
"Well he has another condition that they didn't want to aggravate so..."
I flinched as Parvati slapped herself in the head again.
"Godric what's with me today? The epilepsy thing, of course, oh just don't bother with me today Hermione I can't pull it together at all."
I gave her a smile of sympathy and listened as she explained her predicament to me.
"I don't know if you heard but Lavender and I kind of...fell out over the way she was behaving," Parvati glanced at me, not knowing whether or not I knew what Lavender had done to Ron or not, "and then Dean came back from visiting Neville and Seamus and he told me what she'd done. I just felt sick Hermione. She's not been well and I just cut her loose like that."
I rubbed Parvati's back to comfort her.
"Oh come on now, it's hard to know what is the right thing to do in these circumstances, don't torture yourself over it."
Parvati shook her head and shrugged.
"Well anyway I'm going over to Lavender's now to see her for the first time since I called her all the despicable names under the sun and turned my back on her. I'm kind of nervous."
I hadn't realised Lavender lived around my place of work.
"Well good luck, I hope she's doing better now, I really do."
My old roommate smiled at me and rubbed my back in return.
"I know you do Hermione. You haven't got a spiteful bone in your body. I know that her actions must have hurt you but nobody thinks you're glad to see her in this state."
We walked a little further before reaching a crossroads and paused.
"Well I go this way," Parvati said as she pointed to her left.
"I go straight on," I smiled before hugging Parvati and stepping back to cross the road and visit my favourite cafe.
I'd only just looked left and right to check for traffic when Parvati called back to me.
"Hermione, is that Ron?"
I spun around, expecting to see a naked travelling version of my fiancé who I knew to be lounging around the flat at home. I had flooed him just before I left the office and saw that he was asleep on the sofa and decided not to wake him. As I followed the invisible line drawn from Parvati's finger further down the street to my left I saw Ron standing on a doorstep talking to somebody.
He wasn't naked and he wasn't looking lost but he was looking a lot older, about forty in fact, and I took a step closer to Parvati as she lowered her arm and looked at me with a frown.
"It's a different one, he must be travelling," I mumble, "I'd better go over there and see if he's alright."
"That's Lavender's place he's just come out of," Parvati said as she looked back and I froze on the spot.
Sure enough, as Ron stepped off the doorstep and onto the pavement Lavender leaned out the door wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Her arms were folded across her chest and she looked quite dishevelled but was smiling at Ron. Ron looked down at his feet and kicked absent-mindedly at something as the two of them spoke about something and Lavender reached out her hand to him. He took a step away from her and shook his head. She let her arm drop and nodded sadly.
I felt Parvati staring at me with her mouth hanging open.
"He doesn't have a choice where he appears," I began to explain to her while feeling empty inside to think that all those years in the future Ron has to deal with the Lavender problem.
Just as Parvati was about to respond I saw Lavender sink back inside and Ron run back to the door and jump inside. Before I knew what I was doing I was leaning over to try and see inside the open door and I could just make out Ron's back and Lavender's arms around him. I couldn't see their faces. I felt Parvati gripping my hand.
"Oh Hermione I'm so sor-"
"It's not what you think!" I snapped; my hands balled into tight fists, "she's just upset and he comforting her, that's all it is. He's just comforting her."
"Of course, I mean she's just tried to kill herself, of course he's just consoling her. I didn't mean to imply there was anything going on."
"Forget it," I said, unable to tear my eyes away from the embrace in the open doorway that was still going on.
Why hadn't the broken apart yet? Why wasn't Ron backing away from her again? Why was he letting Lavender pull at his clothes like that?
"I just meant that it must be hard to see him with Lavender while she's in the middle of her infatuation that's all," Parvati was still covering her tracks but I wasn't listening to her anymore.
I was just waiting for that damn hug to end. He wasn't pulling away from her. He wasn't tensed-up and he wasn't pulling away from her. What was going on over there?
Finally, after what felt like hours, Ron hopped back out onto the street with a genuine smile on his face. Lavender said something to him with her own real smile and Ron let out a laugh while pointing back at her with delight shining in his eyes.
"Now that's the girl I like!" he beamed.
Parvati gasped and I almost screamed out loud, covering my mouth and muffling the next thing that Ron said with equal joy evident on his face.
"It's a mistake," I said as I turned and ran back in the direction of my lab.
"Hermione wait!" I heard Parvati calling from behind me.
She ran to catch me up and I picked up my pace and tried to regain my composure.
"We didn't see the whole thing, we only know the half of what went on there Hermione, don't think the worst," Parvati said breathlessly.
"I'm not, it's a mistake, I told you. It's not what we thought we saw," I said as I broke in to a slight jog to try and lose my companion, "It's not."
"Hermione wait, where are you going?" Parvati wheezed as she pulled up with what I suspected was a stitch in her side.
"Go and visit your friend," I yelled over my shoulder, "I'm sure she'll give you all the juicy gossip you need!"
I broke into a run and ran all the way back to the lab, jumped over Tippy the house elf and hurled a handful of floo powder into the fireplace.
"The hornet's nest!" I shouted as the green flames engulfed me and spat me out into my own living room.
Ron jolted awake from his spot, reclined on the sofa, and I dropped to my knees and closed my mouth over his and kissed him with almost territorial ferocity. He didn't really respond to the kiss, still partly asleep and partly in shock at my sudden appearance, and I pulled away from him and stared him directly in the eye.
"You know I love you don't you Ron?" I said, holding his face with both my hands.
"Yeah," Ron said, as if fearing his answer might anger me while trying to understand my uncharacteristic behaviour.
"You know I trust you don't you?" I said, maintaining my intense focus on him.
"Yes, Hermione what...?" he began to try to find out what had upset me so much but I had one final question for him before I let him go and went back to work without another word.
"You know that, no matter what happens, I will always love you and trust you and you will always be mine and mine alone right?"
"Always," Ron responded with a fearful kind of sincerity.
He really meant it. I just hoped that he still meant it in twenty years time.
9th June 1999 (Ron is 19 and 41, Hermione is 19)
HERMIONE: I don't know why I was doing it. Well I do, I know exactly why I was doing it, but I don't know why I putting myself through this torture. What did I expect to see?
Ron was back at work now and I wanted to find out if Lavender was too. Not that it would be of any comfort to me to discover that she was of course. That would just mean she was with my Ron, risking his life or trying to seduce him again, rather than her Ron from the future.
I mentally kicked myself. What was I thinking? He wasn't her Ron, Lavender never had a Ron, and he wasn't even her Ron when they were going out at school. I hated myself for thinking about what I saw yesterday. I don't want to ruin the trust I've built up with Ron over this whole Lavender thing by getting obsessed with his future travels. Future travels that he has no control over I might add. He can't help appearing in Lavender's flat can he?
I was deliberately passing by her street for the fifth time that day when I saw something out of the corner of my eye that made my heart constrict in my chest. Ron was peering around the side of somebody's house, wearing a white bed sheet he had obviously had to steal from a muggle washing line, and running across the street to Lavender's front door to knock while glancing up and down the street to make sure nobody had seen him.
He was another older version of Ron. In his late thirties or early forties by the width of his shoulders and style of his hair. He knocked on the door again before stepping back and looking up at Lavender's window. I wondered why he was trying to get into Lavender's place rather than disapparating to our street or the ministry to get something to wear.
I hid behind a bright red post box as I saw him glancing up and down the street again before reaching up into a hanging basket of flowers and pulling out a silver key. He opened the front door and disappeared inside. I felt my knees go weak.
Ron and Lavender had a secret key. Ron knew where to find the spare key to let himself into her flat whenever he showed up on his travels. Lavender had hidden it there just for him. They had some kind of arrangement that I didn't know about.
I went to the nearest apparition point and disapparated over to the ministry. I passed Seamus along the way up to Ron's department, he said something to me but I just motored onwards to get to Ron's office.
"...Longbottom's just come back down," Seamus called after me, "ever since he started working here he's up there talking to Lavender five times a day, I wouldn't worry about your man there Hermione!"
He sounded bitter. He had ever right to be. He had been rejected in favour of Ron and usurped as Lavender's second choice by Neville. I hadn't really spoken to either of them since Lavender's suicide attempt but I got the feeling that they weren't going to remain flat mates for much longer. Not if Neville wanted to bring Lavender round to stay.
I almost seethed at the idea of Lavender cheating on Neville behind his back, and then remembered that if she was she was doing it with Ron. I almost threw up in the lift as it jerked to a halt on the top floor and I leapt out and rushed towards Ron's office.
Lavender's desk was empty. I didn't know if that meant she was at the flat with the older Ron or inside Ron's office with his present self. Either scenario made me fume.
"Lavender I can't let you keep misreading every little kindness I show you as something else," it sounded like Ron, I froze and bit my lip, choosing to eavesdrop outside the door rather than go inside, "it's driving me nuts."
I heard movement and glanced through the crack in the door to see Ron squirming to get Lavender's hands off him, before she shoved him roughly out of view and stomped towards him. I felt a fire ignite inside me and tried not to scream.
"But I'm sick of waiting Ron!" Lavender was shouting at him, "I know you end up with me. I know we can be happy together. Why else do you keep coming to me more and more?"
"I'm not coming to you," Ron says with exasperation.
I can't listen to this anymore, I need to talk to the present day Ron about the activities of his future self and take a step towards the door.
"You'll come around eventually," she said with steely determination that made my blood run cold and took the wind out from my sails, "and I can wait for that day Ron, I can wait as long as it takes, but please don't make me wait alone?" I couldn't hear any more of this and turned to run as far away from this office as possible, "Let me at least have this..." Lavender was saying as my own footsteps drowned the sound of her voice out completely.
She was making a play for both Ron's. She'd already got her man in the future it seemed and I was going to be damned if she got him in the present as well.
June 22nd 1999 (Ron is 19, Hermione is 19)
HERMIONE: I have the sightings all written down in front of me.
Most of them I have made myself. I have become such a mess over all of this that I have now begun stalking my own fiancé.
13th June - Leaving Lavender's flat while still getting dressed.
15th June - Storming out of Lavender's flat while being chased by semi-clad Lavender. They have quite a debate in the middle of the street before Ron looks up at the sky and shakes his head, gives her a hug and walks back inside the flat with her as she puts her arm around him and smiles.
17th June - Another marathon hugging session on her front doorstep.
19th June - A Ron who had just appeared moments earlier at my lab and got dressed quickly before asking for the date rushes out 'to do a thing', takes Lavender's door key from the hanging basket and lets himself inside.
20th June - Ginny mentions that she spotted Ron sitting the park with Lavender, hugging her and mumbling things into her hair while she nodded and smiled. Ginny is, "...sure he was just comforting her while she was off on one Hermione."
Yesterday - Neville comes to our front door in a hell of a mood and demands to see Ron, who is travelling, and tells me that he has just been asked to back off from Lavender by a forty one year old Ron and is looking for an explanation.
And so we reach today. The day I cannot deny the evidence any longer. The day I must protect myself from the future heartbreak. The day I ask Ron to leave.
I go the wardrobe and take out an armful of his clothes before transfiguring two suitcases from a pair of tattered old shoeboxes.
I begin to pack Ron's bags.