One Day In September

14th September 1999 (Ron is 19)

RON: I had come to work just like normal. There was nothing remarkable going on at the department today. I had no cases pending and even Parker had seemed normal with me at the water fountain. Lavender had been quite professional too, the only indication that things were still a little strange between us was her pointed little remark about me moving out of my brother's house and getting a place of my own.

"I have a place of my own Lavender."

"Then why aren't you welcome there?" she asked me quietly before stepping out of the office without waiting for the answer I was struggling to give her.

She had stopped answering her door to both Neville and Seamus now and when I saw Parvati and Dean a few days ago they said that Lavender had declined all invitations to come to their place for dinner. Parvati had mentioned something about feeling slightly responsible for my break up with Hermione but I didn't want to hear it and made my excuses to get back to the office and away from another set of reassurances that Hermione would come round soon.

It had been nearly three months. I didn't know I would have to wait this long. It was getting harder and harder to stay away from her. I wanted to plead my case and get her to see sense but she had become cold and bitter towards me now. Apparently she wouldn't even give the time of day to my other selves if we happened to appear in the flat. This is what Harry and Ginny had told me anyway. They've been stopping by almost every evening to make sure Hermione isn't lonely and I've been busy helping Fleur with the baby when I get back from work while Bill's away this week.

Of the few things that Lavender and I have in common loneliness has become one of them. We both get to work too early and stay too late because we don't have anything waiting for us at home and we can't stand to be around our friends because they just remind us of what we don't have.

She had stepped into the office with a strange look on her face this morning.

"Do you ever get tired of waiting Ron?" she asked me with a detached look in her eye.

I knew she was just hoping for me to get over Hermione and move on but that was never going to happen.

"Of course I get tired of it but I'll keep doing it for as long as it takes," I replied while looking at some paperwork rather than her face.

"Well I've decided not to wait for you anymore Ron," she said, causing me to look up and see her smiling sadly, "I've decided to take control of my life at last."

I actually had a little hope on hearing that.

"Good for you."

She had stepped out of the office and I hadn't had any need to call her in again since.

I must have fallen asleep at my desk because Harry was tapping me on the side of my face and I sprang up to attention and felt my chin for drool.

"Shit nobody saw me sleeping did they?" I asked him in a state of panic, "It's the baby, he was screaming all night. None of us slept."

Harry let out a deep sigh and straightened up with a smile.

"Ron mate, do you know what time it is now?"

I blinked as I looked up at him, turned to the clock on the wall and then back to my friend again.

"It's a quarter past six why?" then I did a double take and looked at the clock again, "It's quarter past six! I slept the whole afternoon? Langley's gonna kill me!"

Harry slapped me on the shoulder to reassure me that I was not in any trouble with anybody before shoving a piece of paper under my nose.

"Just sign that for me and then you're coming to have dinner at our place alright?"

I took the paper from him and frowned when I saw it was a transfer request.

"Where do you want to transfer to?" I asked him.

"No it's not mine, it's Lavender's. She's decided to start over in a different department."

I re read the piece of paper and felt a years worth of stress leave my body all at once. She had really done it. She was really letting go at long last. I signed the form and put it on top of my out pile with a smile as I got up from behind my desk and caught the coat that Harry had just thrown at me from the cloak stand.

"She's really trying isn't she?" I said happily, "I didn't dare hope after what she said this morning but..."

"What was that?" Harry said, turning on me suddenly with wide eyes.

"Um," I hadn't expected Harry to get so rigid all of a sudden, "she just said that she wasn't going to wait around for me anymore. Y'know like she was getting over it all. Finally," I said as I pulled on my coat.

Harry seemed to relax again as he turned away from me and lead the way out of the office.

"It's good that you're both...free of each other now."

I wondered what Harry was being so weird about as we headed downstairs to check out for the weekend and floo over to Harry's flat.

"I can't believe I fell asleep for six hours!" I said with a shake of my head.

30th September 2023 (Ron is 19 and 43, Hermione is 44)

HERMIONE: Harry came by to drop the kids off; they have been playing with Aimez and Ron while I made Harry a cup of tea.

"So you and Ginny are finally going to have a night to yourselves are you? That must feel novel for you both."

Harry rolled his eyes while Lilly screamed with delight from the other room.

"Do it again Uncle Ron!"

I heard Aimez and Sirius laughing about something while Ron and James found another grotesque thing to entertain them. The last time we baby sat for the Potter kids James found a way to make it look as if Ron's stumps were snakes and a whole puppet show was devised.

I closed the kitchen door with a chuckle so Harry and I could have some peace to talk. Something had been troubling Harry recently and Ginny had asked me to get to the bottom of it for her.

"What's this then? The pair of you are ganging up on me now are you?" he said as he folded his arms defensively.

I looked around myself and shrugged innocently.

"I don't see Ginny anywhere in this kitchen. Nobody's ganging up on you as far as I can tell."

Harry snorted and took a gulp of his tea before walking over to the window and looking out over the rooftops thoughtfully.

"Seriously Harry, something's really troubling you and everybody's noticed it so tell me or tell Ginny, tell anybody for Merlin's sake," I huffed as I stepped alongside him to stare up at his face, he looked very dark, as if he was under a permanent storm cloud, "I'll even go in there and face the minions alone just so I can send Ron in to..."

"No not Ron," Harry said, suddenly fearful, "Ron can't ever know."

I took Harry's arm and pulled him to sit at the kitchen table with me.

"So this is about Ron?" I frowned.

Harry stared at his tea and frowned so deeply that he looked fifteen years older.

"As much as I never want him to know what happened that day and I know he'd hate for you to know about it too but," he seemed to be struggling with something inside himself before reaching into his pocket and placing a small bottle on the table in front of me.

"Is that," I began as I squinted at the silver vapour inside the glass bottle, "a memory?"

Harry nodded and rubbed his face roughly.

"Whose is it?" I asked as I picked up the bottle and examined it against the light, it seemed to be quite old but extremely well preserved.

"Lavender Brown's," Harry said as if he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

I suddenly didn't want to touch the bottle any more. I put it down and slid it back over to Harry who had suddenly started rambling nineteen to the dozen.

"See I knew this was a mistake, I should never have kept it once I found out she died. I mean I only took it in the first place to blackmail her into transferring away from Ron that day but then everything with Seamus started up and I think that's all my fault as well Hermione. I think he knew it was me who drove her to it as much as he thought Ron had done. That was why he was against the whole Auror division and not just Ron y'see? He wanted to avenge Lavender's death and he blamed the whole department."

"Whoa Harry just slow down for me will you?" I tried to calm his verbal runaway train but he just couldn't stop himself now that he had started.

"And how am I supposed to ever tell Ginny? How am I supposed to tell her what I saw and what I knew and what Lavender did to her brother that day, that I let her get away with it? She should have gone to Azkaban for that Hermione and maybe if I'd got her arrested she would have or maybe she would have been put into a facility to help her and then she wouldn't have been able to go home that day and kill herself."

"Harry I am not following any of this? Are you saying Lavender did something illegal the day she died? Are you saying she did something illegal to...to Ron?" I felt myself struggling to hold on to my composure.

"I've kept it from Ginny and I've kept it from Ron and I've kept it from you all this time and I almost put it away in my mind as if it was just a nightmare I once had but then last week..." Harry had his head in his hands and seemed to still be struggling with himself whether or not to confide in me at all.

"Harry, what happened last week?"

"Ron came," he said as he looked up with a pained expression on his face, "Neville had just come to the flat where he was having dinner with me and Ginny and told us that Seamus had found Lavender dead at her flat. She had killed herself with the killing curse and not left a note or anything. There was nothing to go on other than what had happened to her that day at work and all anybody knew was that she had requested a transfer from Ron's employment and told him that she was going to stop waiting for him."

I nodded. This had shaken everybody who knew any of the hurt parties involved and it had been the thing that had set Seamus on his vengeful campaign against Ron, the person who had driven Lavender to kill herself. The news that a portrait had later reported that he had been present for her death as a traveller made Seamus even less able to think clearly and tipped him over the edge. A nineteen-year assault on the ministry had erupted and too many innocent people had been caught in the crossfire. Ron had all but fired Lavender Brown and later that day he watched her die without lifting a finger.

We all knew why that was now of course. Ron wasn't able to walk and he still hadn't been transported into that flat on that day in September 1999. He wouldn't have been able to get up and he wouldn't have had a wand to disarm her. He would have only been able to try to talk her out of it and had clearly been unsuccessful.

"So he had a seizure right then and there didn't he?" Harry said to me.

I hadn't been there when the news of Lavender's death had been delivered. I was still estranged from Ron at the time and only found out from Parvati late that night via floo.

"He left for eight hours and he came to me Hermione," Harry looked as if he was shaking, "he came to me last Thursday."

I rubbed Harry's arm. It was strange how Harry could almost handle it when Ron came to him from the past badly hurt and sometimes on the verge of death but when Ron came to him in any kind of emotional distress Harry was at a loss and always somewhat traumatised himself for days afterwards.

"That must have been a rough conversation for you both to have had to put you in this state?" I said with sympathy.

"But the thing is," Harry said, going pale all of a sudden, "he kept asking me what had happened that day and rambling on about falling asleep at his desk."

As Harry said this he pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes roughly before continuing.

"He was tearing himself up because he didn't even remember the conversation with Lavender about her leaving. He didn't remember saying goodbye to her or anything about that day other than his first interaction with her that morning when she said what she did about not waiting any more."

This had always troubled Ron over the years, he had never had anything like that happen to him before or since.

"The thing is," Harry said as he put his glasses back on with a shaking hand, "he...it wasn't...It's my fault she killed herself that day and it's my fault Seamus went bad the way he did."

Harry blurted this so clearly that it surprised us both.

"Harry what are you saying?" I asked as I looked back down at the bottle containing the memory again.

"I obliviated Ron so he wouldn't remember what happened that afternoon," Harry said, looking as if he was about to be sick.

I shook as if a sudden icy chill had just swept through the kitchen. I tried to say something but I couldn't think of anything to say. There were so many questions and protestations and proclamations of outrage but all I could do was gape at him like a grounded fish.

"He can't ever know Hermione," Harry said with as much determination as his sickened face would allow him to muster, "I still don't think I'm doing the right thing in telling you but no matter what happens Ron must never know what she did...tried to do...whatever. I know what he's like and he wouldn't...he couldn't..."

Harry's head fell into his hands again and he growled into them while gripping his grey-flecked hair with his pale fingers.

"Harry what did she do to him?" I asked, my throat was suddenly dry as I heard the sounds of Ron and Aimez howling with laughter from the other room.

"He came last week and he was talking about waiting for you and being so lonely and now he had killed somebody without even remembering, without even noticing it and he looked me in the eye and," Harry looked up and saw me staring right at him, demanding an answer to my question, "and he said that she deserved better from him and maybe you did too."

Harry seemed to glare at the glass bottle between us now.

"If only he knew, but he can't know it'd kill him and he wouldn't keep it from you. He never broke that promise he made to you to tell you everything about the Lavender issue you know that don't you?"

I knew, I nodded but my voice was absent still so all I managed was a humming sound as I urged him to get to the damn memory.

"I blackmailed her with that memory, the memory I forced her to extract, and I got her to fill in that transfer request and I threatened her with Azkaban and the dementors for what I'd caught her doing when I came to the office that day. I drove her to it and Seamus knew something like that had gone on. He knew that the department were involved in a cover up and he didn't buy Ron's story of falling asleep for six hours either. He knew somebody had him obliviated but he didn't know who it was. Everything that came out of that mess was all down to the way I handled things on that day Hermione. Everything's my fault and I think you should know what really happened before I destroy this memory for good."

I reached out and took back the bottle while trying to read Harry's facial expression with my narrowed eyes.

"Seamus is in prison, Ron is retired and Lavender's dead. I think it's time we put this whole thing to rest for good but I can't do it while I'm still the only one who knows the truth and Ginny would just explode if I confided it in her. I love her but you've seen how she gets when she's being protective over her brothers. She loses all sense of reason."

I gripped the bottle harder in my fist now and both longed for a dreaded the moment I found a pensive to use to share Harry's burden of the truth of that day in September.

"You're my best friend Hermione. I need you to see what I did and why I did it. I need somebody to forgive me and the only person left who can is finally happy and I can't do this to him now so I have to ask you and I'm so sorry Hermione," Harry dropped to his knees and hugged me, "I'm sorry."

14th September 1999 (Ron is 19 and Hermione observes at 44 from a pensive)

Lavender has filed away all her work for the day. She has tidied her desk and written a small note to hang upon the door of Ron's office declaring 'Confidential meeting in progress - DO NOT ENTER' before knocking and stepping inside.

Ron is balling up a piece of parchment and tossing it into the fire when he turns and sees Lavender closing the door behind her and performing a silent locking charm upon it. Ron steps away from the fireplace and seems to be very uncomfortable.

"Um did we get an owl from the minister or something because...?" he began.

Lavender smiled and pointed her wand at the door again. This time the shimmer of a silencing charm formed a tight seal over the door. She looked back at Ron and took in a deep breath before letting it out again.

"What were you burning Ron?" she said calmly.

"I...Just a private correspondence. Lavender what's going on?"

Lavender put her finger to her lips and shushed Ron with a smile. Ron looked nervous now and he swallowed before edging back over to his desk where his wand rested so near but so far.

"Were you about to write another begging letter to Hermione again?" Lavender said in a playful little voice that made me as sick as Ron looked.

Ron glanced back to the flames in his fireplace and was about to respond when Lavender gave several disapproving tuts.

"You shouldn't have to grovel to her Ron. She doesn't deserve your dignity anymore than she deserved your love or your loyalty."

Ron made a definite move for his wand now and Lavender summoned it into her own hand and shook her head.

"Now we don't need that do we Ron?"

"I was just gonna sit down," Ron smiled uneasily.

There was something about Lavender's unfaltering smile that made me feel woozy. I knew I was watching a memory but I just wanted to scream at Ron to floo out of there at once but he was right at his desk now and far from the fireplace. What was she up to?

"You see she doesn't want you and you say you don't want me yet the three of us are all hurting so badly it's a wonder none of us are in St Mungo's. We're all lonely Ron and it doesn't have to be that way now, not for us, not now that Hermione has let you go. You're free now and I'm free now and it's like I said this morning..." her smile became one of determination now, "...I'm sick of waiting. No more waiting Ron."

Ron was about to say something, he was already shaking his head and trying to think fast, but Lavender pointed her wand at his face and uttered a word that made my scream cause the image of the memory to ripple around me.

"Imperio!"

It had only been a whisper but it had done the trick and Ron was immobile. Lavender looked so happy she was on the verge of tears. Then she did burst into tears and her smile disintegrated.

"Look what you've made me do Ron. Look at me!" she screamed as Ron stared right at her with unblinking eyes, "I don't want you this way. I don't want to become this kind of person but this is the only kind of person who can ever get you away from Granger. I know you love her and it's wonderful how you're loyal and patient and waiting for her but she doesn't deserve it Ron. You've done nothing wrong and she's still punishing you anyway so I figure we may as well go ahead and do what you're being punished for."

I couldn't move, I couldn't speak or scream and shout, and the only thing I could do was think where was I? Where was I while this crazy bitch was throwing unforgivable curses at my husband?

"I almost did it before you know? That ward that hit you after we both came back to work from our...illnesses. That was me trying out the curse to see if I could do it and it worked. But then I felt so disgusted with myself I went straight back home and one of you came and found me. You always find me just in time Ron. If you didn't like me at all then why would you come to save me every time? It was almost as if I was doing it to get you to come."

I felt tears rolling down my cheeks and looked at the locked door, preying that Harry came bursting in to save the day just in the nick of time, but there was nothing. I looked back and saw Lavender taking a step closer to Ron's desk.

"Come here," she said with a tiny voice and seemed to wince with pain as Ron obeyed without a flicker of emotion or any kind of struggle.

"No," I gasped hoarsely and looked back to the door again, "Harry when do you come? Where are you? Why aren't you stopping this?"

Ron stood before Lavender just in front of his desk. They were only inches apart and Lavender wiped her welling eyes with the heel of her palm before resting her free hand upon Ron's cheek.

"I'm so sorry but I can't stop myself Ron," she whispered, "please don't hate me."

"Don't," I began to shake my head and cover my eyes, "don't let this happen, don't let this have happened, please don't..."

"Kiss me like you love me," Lavender said breathlessly.

I dropped to my knees and screamed into the carpet as Ron pulled Lavender towards him and kissed her with a hungry passion. Where was Harry? How long did she get to use him like this before they were interrupted? Why couldn't Harry have just told her that this happened? Why did she have to see it?

At the sound of the quills and ink bottles going flying from the desk top I looked up to see the two of them on top of Ron's desk, Ron flat on his back and Lavender on top of him and they both kissed with painfully convincing passion. I couldn't watch. I tried to pull myself out of the pensive, I'd seen enough, and I couldn't bear to wait for Harry any longer.

"Tell me that you love me," I heard Lavender whispering as Ron caressed her neck with his lips.

"You're sick!" I screamed over to the memory of Lavender, "There's something wrong with you. How could the ministry have let you get this far? How could nobody have put you away or got you help before this?"

"Tell me you love me," Lavender demanded again with a breathy moan.

That was when I realised; Ron hadn't done as he was told that last time.

"Lav..." Ron seemed to be grimacing, he was fighting it, "...wait, no."

"Get off him!" I found myself yelling at such a volume I even surprised myself.

"Ron?" Lavender frowned as she looked as Ron tried to wriggle out from under her, "Imperio!" she said fearfully as she reinforced the curse on him.

She plunged her mouth over his again and began to tug at his shirt while they kissed with the same ferocity as before.

"Come on Ron," I found myself trying to make myself heard some twenty-four years too late, "Harry's on his way, don't give up please."

As Lavender pulled Ron's shirt off him and set about undressing the rest of him she tried to force him to give her what she needed more than kisses and physical intimacy one more time.

"Tell me you love me Ron."

"I..." Ron panted as Lavender lifted her skirt and wriggled up to rest both her knees upon the desk and lower herself down onto him.

"Tell me you love me," she instructed again after sealing his mouth with her own for a second and pulling her underwear down to her knees.

"I love..." Ron gasped and his foot kicked at the chair beside his desk, sending it to the floor with a loud thud.

I heard the locking charms being lifted and looked hopefully to the door as Lavender hit Ron with the curse for a third time and growled down at him at the same second Harry burst into the room.

"Make love to me as if I'm Granger!"

"I love you," Ron gasped as he pulled Lavender closer and she wriggled her hips, about to take what she wanted for so long.

"Expelliarmus!" Harry roared and Lavender's wand flew across the room and she screamed with shock as Harry stunned her and the room went black.

I was in the darkness with my hands clasped to my face and almost breathless at everything I had just witnessed. It had taken three curses to get Ron to submit and even then she had to make him think she was me. It was with a revolted kind of pride that I burst into tears just as the pensive lit up again and I was back in the office with Harry, Lavender and Ron.

Lavender was looking groggy and Ron was in his chair at his desk, face down and apparently asleep.

"Ron?" Lavender said with a frown as she glanced around Harry to see where he was.

"Sleeping charm, I've wiped his memory of...of that," Harry spat with disgust, "How could you do that?"

Lavender broke down in tears and Harry scowled at her with no sympathy whatsoever.

"I should call the rest of the Aurors and get you locked up with the Death Eaters or bundled into a ward with Lockheart and the Longbottoms for what I just caught you doing to him now stop grizzling and give me a reason not to drag this through the Prophet and your reputation through the mud."

"No," she sobbed and buried her face in her hands.

"That's not a reason Lavender!" Harry hissed.

"But R-Ron," she said as she looked up through her tears and pointed to his slumped figure at the desk, "you took his memory. You don't want him to know what I did. You can't tell anybody or he'll know."

"Don't pretend you care about Ron's feelings!" Harry barked at her.

I'd never have thought that Harry would hit a woman but this Harry was looking as if he really wanted to right now.

"I do though, and you do Harry, he'll feel so...so..."

"Dirty?" Harry offered and Lavender broke into wails of self-pity and nodded her head.

I was shaking with fury and willed Harry to hex her into shutting up. What did she have to cry about? Did she expect pity, mercy, and understanding? I knew she was sick but I never realised she was dangerously so. I couldn't believe what had almost happened and thanked Godric that Harry had come along when he did.

"Right well we agree on one thing anyway," Harry said as he sat down across from the whimpering Lavender and pushed her wand into her hand, "Ron can never know about this so you will extract that memory for me and drop it in here."

Harry held out the bottle and Lavender gripped her wand tightly and frowned.

"But why...?" she began to question his motives.

"You will put your memory of what you've just done to him in here and then we can negotiate a way to keep the Aurors and the press and everybody else but you and me out of this for good."

Lavender swallowed before sniffing and nodding her head. She extracted the memory and let it fill the glass bottle that Harry put a stopper into and then protected with a magical seal before putting it into his pocket. I wondered why I was still able to watch after this had happened.

"Now you are going to do what I say otherwise Eldridge and Langley are going to watch this whole thing and decide what to do with you."

"No!" Lavender sobbed with horror at what the head of Aurors and Ron's immediate superior would do to her when her indiscretion was discovered, "Please don't tell them, you promised Harry. You said you wouldn't, for Ron's sake."

"You," Harry said as he pointed a finger into Lavender's face with a livid look on his face, "don't dare talk to me about what is best for Ron understand?"

She nodded and sat rigid in her seat. I felt like cheering Harry on as he put the crazy little strumpet in her place.

"First you will fill this out for me," Harry pulled the transfer request out of his pocket and shoved it into her hands, "this isn't just a transfer downstairs, this will get you reassigned to a part of the building where you'll be lucky to see daylight again let alone bump into Ron in the corridors."

She shuddered as she nodded and reached out a shaky hand for a quill.

"You will clear your desk and go home before he wakes up and if he comes to you in his travels you will remember that I still have this," he tapped his pocket with the bottle inside, "and I see future versions of him too. I will know if you try this again and I will make you pay for it."

She made a whimpering sound and nodded her head again.

"I don't want to see or hear of you coming anywhere near any of my friends ever again do you hear me?" he said as he pointed his wand into her face and she nodded for a third time, "If you think I've been hard on you just imagine what his family will have to say about this so you had better keep your mouth shut for the rest of your life so I don't have to let them ever find out."

"Harry I didn't want to hurt anybody," Lavender began to say shakily.

"Not even Hermione?" Harry blinked coolly.

"I didn't," she insisted, "I just can't settle for any old body. I wanted somebody to love me the way he loves her."

Harry put his wand away and got to his feet with a scowl.

"Love isn't transferable Lavender. Now get out and stop making excuses, if I want bullshit I'll go to a farm."

Lavender stood up and gestured over to Ron's sleeping form.

"Should I say goodbye or resign officially or something?" she sniffed.

"You don't ever speak to him again. As far as he's concerned he fell asleep and you stopped being his problem. It'll be like waking from a long nightmare I assure you."

Lavender rushed out of the office and began collecting up her personal belongings while Harry put his own wand to his head and pulled out the glass bottle. He was adding his own perspective of this to the memory and as soon as the silvery wisp of thought left his temple I fell back out of the pensive and stumbled back into the wall.

I watched as the images I had just been tortured by swirled around inside the pensive and took out my wand to destroy that last evidence of that awful day in September.

I just hope that when Ron eventually puts that day to rest once and for all he doesn't find out about this. I just hope that long hellish day ends for us all soon. I hope that Ron's final visit to Lavender Brown isn't as bad as Seamus made it out to be.

I hope the summer of 1999 will end soon.