Second Time Around

8th June 1999 (Ron is 43)

RON: Back at Lavender Brown's flat again. I'm never away from this place these days. It's like the researchers into my condition keep saying to me; the gravity of the situation will pull more and more versions of me toward it. I know why I keep coming back here but I also know that fighting against what is already done is useless.

I am already half dressed from the batch of clothing she always keeps ready for me when she shuffles in from her bedroom in her bathrobe.

"Hello Ron," she smiles wearily.

"Is it early? Sorry go back to bed, I'll be out of your hair in a tick."

"I don't want you out of my hair Ron, you know that," she says quietly as she moves towards me slowly, "and it's the middle of the afternoon so I should be out of bed really. You've just given me the motivation to face the day."

I lace up the shoe I've been struggling with while attempting to maintain eye contact with her and get a read on her mood. Finally I finish the job and stand up straight and begin to suspect what time of year it is.

"You've not done anything silly have you?" I frown as I pull a jacket around my shoulders.

"What like nearly killing you y'mean? Something silly like that?" she shook her head and looked down at her feet.

Yup, I was right, she'd just tried to kill herself. I stepped forward and gave her a hug, I felt her arms snake around me and I rubbed her back in small soothing circles.

"I've already done this but I'll do it again alright? I forgive you. You were upset and you thought it was just a stomach cramp ok? So did I until just after you left. I don't want to hear any more of this from you ok?"

I felt her nod her head against me.

"Lavender," I swallowed, I shouldn't be trying this, and I knew it wouldn't work but I couldn't stop myself, "you'll never know how much you are loved I'm telling you now so you do know alright? You are loved so passionately and fiercely and obsessively that it becomes a force to be reckoned with because you choose to ignore it and waste your love on me. Let your boyfriend love you, please Lavender because he really does."

She looked up into my eyes with red ones of her own and sniffs.

"I don't have a boyfriend anymore Ron, you know that?"

I let her go and lower my head to look right into her eyes.

"What you don't have somebody who is always coming to your door, never giving up on you and falling apart without you because he's fallen for you in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

I see her face light up and she's about to get the wrong end of the stick. Shit, I knew this was a bad idea! Never trust your own judgement as far as Lavender's concerned.

"Oh Ron!" she was almost glowing as she reached for me.

"Wrong time meaning this moment in time when you're convinced that you're meant to be with me. You're not Lavender. We're never going to be an us, not where I'm coming from, not now, not ever."

It was harsh but I couldn't risk her getting touchy like she had done last time, she'd threatened to overdose right in front of me when I rejected her that day.

"But," she looked so lost and confused, "who else is there for me if not you?"

"You know who Lavender, who apart from me is at your door at all hours of the day and night?"

"I hate breaking his heart," she said as she lowered her head, "he was the only person who thought I was worth taking a chance on despite my feelings for you."

I smiled and shook my head.

"From the way I remember it you were fighting them off, don't sell yourself short."

"No, I've got you for that haven't I?" she said with a steely coldness.

"Look I'm sorry I was a bit abrupt in saying no just then but..."

"Not you, the you I have to see at work next week. The you who thinks I'm trying to drug him into sleeping with me."

I was losing my patience with her now.

"Lavender we've had this conversation too many times already as well. I don't drink coffee!"

She lifted her hand to rest upon my cheek and smiled up at me.

"Stay with me until you have to leave?" she pleaded with me.

I took her hand in mine and lifted it away from my face.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea."

She choked back a wave of tears and was about to throw her usual threat my way so I blocked it with my keeper reflexes before she could even form the first word on her chapped lips.

"You won't try it again either! I've fallen for that little game before and we don't play that anymore. I'm going to go and you are going to book some sessions with your counsellor right?"

She swallowed and nodded.

"Good girl," I smiled.

She insisted on showing me out and as I stepped out onto the street and turned back to face her she folded her arms across her chest and leaned out to whisper something to me.

"I'm going to try not to love you so much," she smiled.

I knew it was a lie and couldn't look her in the eye as she told me what she thought I wanted to hear rather than instructed herself to fulfil that hollow promise. I kicked at a pebble and she spoke again, holding her hand out to me.

"Ron," I looked up at her, "come back inside and tell me all the wonderful things I have to look forward to."

I took a step back out of her reach and shook my head to decline her request.

"I think the less time you spend around me the better don't you?"

She lowered her arm and nodded.

She stepped back inside and I was about to turn and walk away when she called back to me with a crack in her voice and tears spilling down her cheeks.

"I do have a future don't I Ron?"

I ran back to her and jumped onto the doorstep to hug her as she cried on my shoulder.

"Of course you do. You have a bright future with lots of fun and laughs and you're never alone, not ever alright?"

She was still crying loudly onto my shoulder, giving me no indication that she was listening to me.

"Alright?" I repeated firmly.

"Yes," she squeaked.

She gripped handfuls of my jacket and shook with sobs as I rocked her gently and shushed her over and over again.

"And do I still have you as my friend?" she said, her voice muffled into my chest.

"I can swear to you on my little girl's life that there is not a single year that goes by when we don't have each other okay?"

This seemed to convince her to let me go. She released me and I stepped back into the street and smiled at her.

"I forgot you have a daughter now, I can't go lusting after somebody's dad can I? That's just disgusting!" she gave a watery laugh.

I laughed a relaxed laugh back at her and pointed at her as I began to walk away.

"Now that's the girl I like. Where did she go?"

9th June 1999 (Ron is 19)

RON: I was about to file all of the paperwork I had hastily jammed back into the filing cabinet on Parker properly when Lavender cleared her throat from over my shoulder and stepped into the office.

"What is it Lavender?" I said as I dropped one of the field reports onto the floor, scattering its contents all over the place.

She rushed forward to help me gather up the papers.

"No don't I'll do it myself," I glanced up and saw her hurt expression, "it's confidential stuff Lavender, that's the only reason I can't let you help me ok?"

She nodded stiffly and took a step backwards while I swept all the papers back into the file and jammed them back into the draw of the filing cabinet, even messier than they had been before. I closed the draw and turned around to face her.

"So what was it you wanted?" I asked.

She was looking over my shoulder at the filing cabinet thoughtfully.

"You're giving up on the investigation into Auror Parker then?"

"I can't tell you that," I said as I moved back to sit at my desk.

"But he saved your life didn't he?" she blurted and I froze on the spot, "Do you think that maybe it's a little unseemly to investigate somebody who helped you in your time of need? Is that why you're putting his files away?"

I ran my hand through my hair and tried to explain myself in the most professional way possible.

"I can't continue the investigation now that there is a real possibility that the person I'm investigating knows he's being investigated. I had my little medical emergency while all his files were lying open and I've got to assume that he saw them there. So no Lavender, I will not be continuing that particular investigation as it's pointless now that the subject is aware of his actions being monitored okay?"

Wow, that was a mouthful.

"Of course, whatever you say sir," oh she's playing the hurt feelings card now, what does she want from me?

"Lavender what...?"

"It was just that I thought if Auror Parker was a nasty character then he would have left you to die when he saw that he was being investigated."

"I'm not saying he's dodgy, I'm just trying to suss him out that's all. Now what did you come in here for?"

She placed a handwritten note on my desk and took a step back towards the door.

"You have a re-briefing with Langley at four to catch up on the week you missed."

I nodded.

"Right thanks Lavender."

She was turning to leave and I was turning to continue on to sit at my desk when something seemed to hit me and stop me in my tracks. It was only for a second but it was as if my whole body was numb and loose. I couldn't finish my journey to the desk and I couldn't make a sound. Suddenly the feeling lifted and I staggered a little as my momentum came back to be.

"Ron?" Lavender asked as she rushed back over to me, "What is it, do you need your healer again? I'll floo St Mungo's immediately."

"No wait," I said as I shook my head to clear it, Lavender stepped closer to me and rested her hand upon my back, "It's fine. I'm fine it's nothing."

She pushed me into my chair and looked me in the eye with curiosity.

"What just happened to you?"

"I just couldn't move for a second, it was nothing, I'm fine now."

"What did it feel like?" she asked.

I frowned up at her. What an odd question to ask me.

"What?"

She suddenly flinched back from me and seemed to catch herself doing something she knew she shouldn't have been.

"Lavender did you...?"

"I think it might be a security ward, somebody said something about a mini ward being set up around your desk while you were away and I thought I'd lifted it but I must have left a little residual...spot. Sorry, it won't happen again."

She spoke at rapid speed and I had barely been able to keep up with her. Before I could process all the information and nod my head to show her I'd understood she was already rushing to the door.

"Hey Lavender wait," I called out, she stopped and turned around to face me with a look of fear in her eyes.

"I'm so sorry Ron," she began to whimper.

I got up out of my seat and rushed to her side to try and find out what the two of us had inadvertently done to each other this time.

"I was just gonna say sorry," I mumbled as I lowered my head to make her look up at me, "it's been a weird day back for you hasn't it?"

She smiled at me and wiped her eyes.

"It would've been an awful day back if you weren't here too."

I took a step back and tried not to make it too obvious that I was attempting to put some more space between the two of us.

"Will you let it go, it was just my appendix, no big deal," I smiled and shrugged.

She laughed and brushed my hand with her fingertips.

"I mean I get to see you every day when I'm at work rather than...once in a while otherwise."

"Look," I could see where this was going and couldn't let the two of us be dragged down that road again, "that's probably not a good thing is it? Considering what's happened I think that maybe you should..."

"Don't transfer me Ron, you promised me you wouldn't!" she said as she gripped the front of my shirt and her eyes went scarily wide, "I'm seeing the counsellor on Thursday I swear."

"Lavender I can't let you keep misreading every little kindness I show you as something else, it's driving me nuts," I said as I struggle to extricate myself from her without much success.

"But I'm sick of waiting Ron!" she said as she practically threw me backwards away from her, "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," I frown.

"You'll come around eventually and I can wait for that day Ron, I can wait as long as it takes, but please don't make me wait alone? Let me at least have this, this job with you, and let me see you every day just to get me through. I can hold on if you just wait with me."

"Lavender it's our first day back, our first day, are you really gonna just throw yourself back into this again?"

"You won't always be so cold to me you know Ron? You won't always turn away from me. You won't always go to your wife first!"

Wife? I huffed and walked over to the extended leave form I had hoped I wouldn't have to use and snatched it up from my desk.

"I want you to take another week off," I said as I handed it to her without meeting her eyes.

"What?" Lavender said fearfully.

"You heard me. I want you to take another week off and bring me a signed statement from you counsellor that you did see them on Thursday or I'll transfer you to another department right now. Your choice."

She was shaking. I held out the form to her and forced myself to look her hard in the eye.

"You're a much kinder person when you're older!" she snarled as she snatched the form from my hand and stormed out of the office, slamming the door.

I put my face in my hands and turned around to face my desk.

"I...don't...need...this..." I lowered my hands away from my face and kicked at my desk, "...shit!"

19th June 1999 (Ron is 42 and Hermione is 19)

RON: I clear my vision and jump when I see Tippy the house elf staring back at me with his massive eyes.

"Would sir like his clothes?" Tippy said while wringing his hands anxiously.

"If you wouldn't mind Tippy, thanks."

I got to my feet as the house elf ran off and saw that I was in Hermione's research lab. Tippy was still here so it must be early on in her career. I saw her inside a soundproof room berating a junior lab technician and reducing her to tears before huffing and patting her roughly on the back by way of comfort. I laughed at this; Hermione must really be stressed at something, as she very rarely makes her colleagues cry.

She looked up at me and looked startled for a moment. I wave and she waves back with a strange smile on her face before opening the door to the sound proof room, a banshee-like scream flooding out of the room behind her, and closed the door behind her to bring us sweet peace once again.

"Did you just arrive?" she said as she pulled out a pair of earplugs.

"Yeah, Tippy's just gone to get my stuff for me," I pointed over my shoulder but Hermione nodded to my feet and there the little house elf was, presenting me my clothing with a deep bow.

I took the bundle and Hermione began a small war about paying him a sickle for his services while I rushed to change before the tears cleared the lab technician's eyes and she saw any of my personals. Tippy disappeared with a pop and Hermione huffed and put the sickle back into her pocket. She looked a little surprised that I had dressed so fast.

"You in a hurry are you?" she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Well I might be," I said, feeling as if I knew what today was already, "you couldn't tell me the date could you babe?"

"It's the nineteenth of June 1999."

Well I was right and what was worse the thing I was about to rush off and do was about to tip Hermione over the edge and proceed to break the heart of my nineteen-year-old self. It couldn't be helped though. I had to do this and I had to do it now.

"Do you need something to eat or drink Ron, you look very pale all of a sudden?" Hermione frowned as she reached out to lay her hand upon my arm with concern.

"No I really have to rush," I said as I trotted to the door before Hermione had even really touched me at all and waved her goodbye, knowing that she was about to follow me but also knowing that I had no time to waste trying to explain this to her, "I've got a thing I have to do. It can't wait. Thanks for the gear love, bye."

I set off running as fast as I could to an apparition point and disapparated over to the photo-me-quick booth on Lavender's street. I jumped out and ran to her front door. I didn't bother to knock, there was no point, and I plunged my hand into the hanging basket for my spare key.

As my fingers found it I unlocked the door and slammed it behind me, running up the stairs to the flat and jumped over Lavender's still form to search for her wand. Eventually I found it and turned back to her and dropped down onto my knees.

"Eructo!" I yelled as I pointed the wand at Lavender's face and flicked it sharply.

The spell hit her and the potions began to expel from her mouth in a noxious belch of stomach acid and homemade poison. I rolled her onto her side so she didn't choke and then back onto her back to open her mouth and check her airway was clear. It was but she wasn't breathing.

"Spiritus lenis!" I said as I flicked Lavender's wand at her chest.

Nothing happened.

"Spiritus lenis! Come on you daft bitch you don't do this today!" I yelled as the spell hit her again and she gasped and opened her eyes.

I threw the wand down and exhaled deeply before rolling her over onto her side again and rubbing her back roughly.

"Ron?" she said hoarsely.

"You know it's me," I said wearily.

"I'm so sorry for trying that curse, I'm so sorry that I even thought about it," she began to cough and cry at the same time.

What's this about? This is something I didn't know and that's very rare for me.

"What curse are you talking about Lavender? You haven't hexed me, I'd remember."

She smiled and tried to sit up. I helped her and leaned her against the wall while wiping the vile residue of whatever she had taken from her chin with my sleeve.

"So you never realised that it wasn't a ward then? Oh good, I'm glad about that. I always worried that you knew what I had thought about doing and that was why you hated me so much these days."

I rolled my eyes and really didn't know what she was talking about now. What wasn't a ward?

"I never hated you Lavender I just, couldn't bear you sometimes that's all."

She coughed and chuckled as she hugged me and broke down into her usual tears and pleas for a future she had convinced herself the two of us have with each other. I hugged her back while wondering just when that day in September was going to come for me.

"Shhhh, it's ok." I whispered into her hair.

"I love you," she whimpered into my shoulder.

"Please don't Lavender, I hate the way things turn out for everyone just because you love me."

Her shoulders shook and I patted her back and rocked her from side to side gently.

"I'm so lonely Ron, I don't like my friends and I don't want to use Neville anymore like I used Seamus and now they aren't talking to each other..."

That was the very unstable future I had been talking about. There was nothing I could do to stop that path of destruction. There was no way to force her to love somebody else.

"Did I ever tell you about Bobby the Buck?" I managed to pluck out of thin air to try and distract her from her self-loathing.

She sniffed and nodded.

"When you stopped me the last time."

"Oh right," I don't remember that, that must be in my future.

"Tell me again?"

I smiled and let her rest her head upon my shoulder while I began to recite one of my daughter's favourite bedtime stories to the first girlfriend I had ever had, three feet away from a pool of vomit, and with my wife-to-be standing outside in tears and on the verge of leaving me.

"Well there was this little black buck called Bobby..."

22nd June 1999 (Ron is 19, Hermione is 19 and 24)

RON: I come home from another day of Lavender-induced hell to see Hermione standing in front of me with her arms folded and a suitcase on either side of her.

"Are you going somewhere babe?" I frown.

"No I'm not," she says with false coldness, "you are."

I drop my jacket to the floor as I blink back at her and shake my head, trying to recall if I have forgotten a trip I am supposed to be taking somewhere.

"What?"

Hermione brandishes a piece of paper and begins to look tearful.

"You're cheating on me Ron, with Lavender, and I can't let that happen so I want you to leave now before it starts."

I felt as if I had just been hit on the side of the head by a bludger.

"I'm cheat- No, what?" I stammer as I move forward toward her but she knocks my arm away and stomps past me and into the bedroom.

"I know you don't know you're doing it now but you will do and I'm not going to wait around twenty years for you to break my heart Ron."

"Are you accusing me of..." my head was spinning and I felt as if a dozen exclamations of protest were fighting to escape my lips at exactly the same moment, "...time-travel cheating?"

"I've seen it!" she screamed at me before slamming the door on my face.

I kicked it wide with my foot, shocking myself that I was able to do that, and stepped into the room to see her face down on our bed in floods of tears.

"I don't care what you think you've seen Hermione, I haven't done anything, I wouldn't!"

"But you do!" she screamed even louder and threw a pillow at me.

I caught it and stepped back over to the bed to sit down and try and work out exactly what future version of myself has got me into this mess.

"Stay away from me!" Hermione warned, grabbing her wand and pointing it at me; "If you thought the canaries were bad you just try and push me now Ronald Weasley. Just you try it."

I took a step back and tried not to panic.

"Listen babe," I began.

"Don't you babe me!" she wailed, "You cheat on me. I've seen you with her all month and you even ran out on me to be with her all day. You never left Ron. I waited outside Lavender's place all day."

Hermione's been staking out Lavender's flat? I ran out on her to 'be' with Lavender?

"None of this is me," I said, my words spilling out of me faster than I could say them because of the fear of what Hermione was thinking and the realisation of what she was doing, "I've been going to work and coming home and going to work and coming home and nothing else Hermione. I don't know what you've been seeing but it isn't me I swear to you. I promise, don't I always tell you everything as far as Lavender's concerned?"

"You do but he obviously doesn't!" Hermione said with a distraught look in her red puffy eyes.

"Who the hell is he?" I exclaim.

"He's you! He is the kind of husband you're going to become Ron and I don't want him! I don't want to let you hurt me like that. I know none of this is your fault but it's going to be."

"What?" I yelped as I felt my world turning upside down and grabbed my head with my hands to try to stop it exploding with all the insanity of this argument.

"I want you to leave Ron. Before you cheat on me I want to end this. I want to stop this mess before we waste out lives on a sham marriage."

Hermione began to break down just as I began to crack up.

"But I haven't done anything!" I yelled at her, feeling slightly sick.

"But you will!" she hollered back at me, looking just as mortified as I felt right then.

"I won't, I don't, I've seen it for Merlin's sake! I don't cheat on you. I've never cheated on you and I never will."

"I've seen the future too Ron," Hermione said as she clutched another pillow from the bed close to her desperately, "I've seen it on Lavender Brown's front doorstep and I don't need to wait twenty years or so to relive that pain thank you very much Ron. I want out now."

"No," I said, as plainly as if we were having a disagreement about how much salt to put into a casserole.

"Yes," she said with determination.

"You can't do this," I said as I felt myself beginning to break inside, "you can't punish me for something I haven't done and would never do."

"You will do it Ron, you will do it and there's nothing you can do to change the future isn't that what you always say?"

"This isn't the future this is a misunderstanding I know it, I would never do this to you. Why are you being like this Hermione? You know me."

"I loved you!" she said with a combination of a scream of betrayal and a cry of pain.

"Loved?" I said as the past tense shook me in a way it had never done before.

"Get out," she threw herself back down onto the bed and buried her face into the pillow.

I took a step forward before feeling suddenly dizzy and nauseated.

"No," I whispered as I tried to ride out the seizure while falling against the wall and sliding down it to the floor.

"And there you go," I heard Hermione wailing, "back to Lavender. Give her my love!" she began sobbing again but I couldn't see anything.

"Please..." I begged who knows what as the room, my clothes and my distraught fiancée were ripped away from me and I found myself on my hands and knees on our living room rug in front of the fireplace.

I didn't care if I was alone or if I had just appeared in the middle of a dinner party full of friends and family, I broke down and wept.

"Ron?" it was Hermione's voice, she sounded concerned and her voice was soft and warm unlike the last agonised screeches I had heard from her.

I looked up at her and blinked my watery eyes back into focus. She was sitting up on the sofa, putting a book she had obviously been reading down at her side and dropping to her knees to lift my head with concern for my state of unashamed devastation. I looked into her eyes and managed to strain out a sentence with my raw voice.

"I never cheated on you. I'll never cheat on you. I never will."

Hermione grabbed me tightly and held me against her while I chocked out another few sobs and I heard her comforting voice hushing me as she kissed me on the cheek and kept me close.

"I know Ron, I know. Oh Godric is this where you came after I did that to you?"

I pulled away; she said she knew I was telling the truth, she believed me.

"How could you think that?" I asked her, unable to hide the hurt in my voice.

She stroked my face and wiped away the tears with her soft fingers.

"Look at the state I put you in," she said while her own eyes reddened, "I'm so sorry for hurting you like that. You'll never know how truly sorry I am. I was just confused by what I was seeing and worried about Lavender and what she might try. I never thought you would cheat on me Ron I was just a mess, I wasn't thinking straight and I am really so very sorry Ron. Please forgive me."

She hugged me again and I tried not to shake with the shock of everything that had just happened to me.

"Oh are you cold?" she pulled back from me and began to rub my bare arms briskly, "do you need to eat or drink Ron? Here let me..." I grabbed her just as she was going to rush to the kitchen to get me some water and I curled my arms around her waist and buried my face into her neck, "...Oh you poor thing, what did I do to you?"

"How do I get her to believe me?" I shuddered.

She was stroking my hair and kissing my shoulder while I spoke and I felt her breath on my skin as she answered me.

"You've just got to give her time, she'll see it soon I promise you, she'll come round and you'll be back the way you were before I swear to you. You'll be even better than you were before."

I sniffed and looked up at her.

"What do I do until then?"

She cupped my face in her hand and looked sad despite the smile she was trying to maintain.

"You wait for me. Promise to wait for me to come to my senses Ron and I'll come looking for you. Just you remember that I'll soon know the truth and try not to let me hurt you any more than I have already."

She pulled my head back into her body and looked up to the ceiling.

"Oh please don't hurt any more than this or I'll never be able to forgive myself."

"I'll try," I said as I squeezed her tightly.

I heard her take a deep breath and let it out before kissing the top of my head.

"Just pick up your things and leave her alone for a while. You know me; I can't be argued with when my head's ruling over my heart. Just look after yourself and be patient alright? I will come back to you I promise you. I will know the truth and I will come back to you. I love you so much Ron, I won't be able to stay away I promise."

I suddenly felt my chest tighten as the memory of what my Hermione had said before I left.

"Loved," I wheezed, "you said you loved me, as if you didn't anymore."

She lifted my face to meet hers and I hiccupped, she laughed momentarily before becoming serious again.

"During that whole fight before I threw you out only one of us told a lie and that person was me."

She leaned in and kissed me on the lips before resting her forehead against my own.

"I will never stop loving you. I will come and find you. I will know the truth and I will marry you."

I wiped my face with the back of my hand and hiccupped again. This time I laughed.

"Most of all Ron," Hermione was saying to me as she fixed my eyes with her own, "I will never ever hurt you like this again. I swear to you on my life okay?"

I nodded and kissed her again.

Hermione reached out for a colourful blanket that looked as if it had been crocheted by my mother and draped it around my shoulders before getting to her feet.

"Right well I'll go and get you a glass of water for those hiccups and I'll see what we've got in the fridge for you to eat alright?"

I nodded and pulled the open weave around me tightly with another hiccup.

Patience. All I had to do was wait. This was going to be hard.