Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, duh.

A/N: Okay, so, I'm baaaaack. Sorry about the lack of updates. Ummmm there are many, many excuses. So. Uh. Just read the story. It's a good one.

"Where is she?"

"Who, Hermione?" Harry shook his head and dunked another plate into the soapy water. "Sorry, Ron, but she left."

Ron stayed rooted to his place by the counter. He finished collecting the rest of the plates and shoved them over to Harry, trying to act unaffected. "Oh," he said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets.

Harry shrugged. He was tired of this stupid game. It was time for his friend to figure it out for himself.

It took a few minutes.

"Where'd she go?"

"Back to her job. She said her vacation time was over and she had things to clean up at her flat," Harry sighed. He scrubbed harder at the china plates Ginny had insisted on buying last year.

Ron nodded, keeping up on façade. He dipped his head, feeling quiet. He hadn't spoken to Hermione in a while – not at all during the time she had spent with Harry and Ginny. He just didn't feel like going through the motions of seeing her, exchanging small talk, then having her walk out to her better life again. It became tedious and made him feel empty when she took the train back to Bristol.

"She said to tell you 'hello,' and says she missed seeing you," Harry mentioned in an off tone. He threw another dish onto the counter sopping wet. It landed with a crash that would've curled Ginny's toes had she been there. "You must've been awfully busy with that work to not show up again."

Ron's face flushed slightly. He had made that excuse too many times now for it to be believable anymore. Some of it was true – his work kept him at the office overnight a lot of times. The weekend Hermione decided to stay just happened to be one of them. Not really, but he forced himself to work overtime to keep up appearances.

The broad-shouldered redhead cleared his throat, leaning with a hunch against the dimly lit counters of the Potters' kitchen. "Yeah, you know how it goes."

Harry scoffed softly, hiding his voice by running gushing, hot water over the plates. He found himself agitated at his best friend. Ron was thickheaded, just as Hermione had said before kissing his cheek and picking up her suitcase. She had left swiftly, and Harry had not seen the single tear.

There was a long moment of silence. Harry was so focused on his dishes he almost forgot Ron was across the room, sulking. He scrubbed, and the hot water burned his skin, and the soap made the cuts on his fingers bleed, and he must've chipped four of them, and he thought only of how Ginny loved them. He, personally, thought they were ridiculous and he thought it was ridiculous of Ginny to make him wash them instead of just scorgifying them. Yet, he stood in front of the sink and scrubbed.

When Ron scuffled his feet on the wood floor, Harry felt pity for his friend. Ron didn't wash dishes – he was never presented with that opportunity.

"When do you think she'll visit again?" he asked awkwardly.

If there was one thing Harry could depend on, it was Ron being awkward. He had never quite grown out of being a teenager. Mentally, of course, because physically he was a different person. His shocking red hair had rusted, his freckles enumerated to enormous proportions to the point where it looked like his skin was tan from a distance away, his skinny, gangly body had left when his shoulders widened, leaving Ron at six feet, five inches tall. However, no one could say that Ron was a man. He dragged himself around, his head down with his hair uncombed, staring at the obvious wrinkles he left in his clothes. He scuffled his feet and mumbled and whined constantly, even at twenty-two.

Harry shrugged again, now just feeling tired. "She didn't say. You know her; she'll come around again eventually."

Ron nodded again, staring at the floor Ginny took such pride in polishing.

"Right."

Harry felt the agitation in his chest creep upwards. The water seemed brutally hot on his raw hands.

"What'd you guys talk about this time?" Ron struggled to say. "Last time I came it was just politics." He chuckled slightly, "Hope the conversation was less boring this time."

Harry managed a smile, for Ron's sake. "No," he said, throwing another dish to the counter, "Ginny took her upstairs and the two chattered like birds the entire time. I made dinner. When I finally was allowed to talk, Hermione kept on about her flat."

Ron smiled.

"She moved, you know," Harry added, throwing the handle to the water sideways. "Got a smaller flat downtown. Not much difference, but she says she likes the city better."

Ron's smile faded slowly. His fingers wouldn't stay still in the pockets of his trousers. He swallowed, trying to figure out how to bring up his questions casually. Harry seemed too wrapped up in the dinner dishes to bother contemplating why Ron had showed up, or why he would ask questions about a recently-estranged friend, and Ron thought that was his safe zone.

"She mention any family?"

Harry shook his shaggy head. "Nope," he said quickly, wiping his hands on a towel from under the sink. He cocked his head, examining the dripping plates. "Might've said something about her dad. Not much."

Ron nodded again. "She mention anything about me?"

Harry began drying the precious china. "Not really," he tried to convey the same tone of voice. The agitation was seeping through him, making him want to drop the stupid dishes and shake Ron. "Just a question about where you wandered off to this weekend."

Dropping his head even further and making his spine stick out, Ron felt sullen again. He had expected as much, but probably more.

"Why?" Harry asked, moving swiftly through the stack on the counter. He glanced out the window nearest Ron, watching what little sun was left disappear. Ginny loved the view, and it was partly the reason they had bought the house. For a wavering second, he stole a look at his best friend and saw his drawn face. He smiled inwardly. If Ron was going to be stupid, he was glad Ron was having a tough time with it.

Why was a good question. It took Ron a couple of minutes to even formulate a weak excuse.

"She's just on my mind tonight, is all." He looked at his large feet. "I'm sorry I missed her today," he lied quietly. He wasn't sorry he missed her, he had put in extra hours in his little office on purpose. He wasn't ready to see her leave again. Hermione was a girl Ron just didn't want to deal with. She was in his head daily, and it frustrated him to the point where he disliked looking at the dumb picture of the Golden Trio he had placed on his desk years back.

Harry finished with placing the china dishes back in the cupboard above the stove. He tossed the damp rag into the sink and went directly to the small, Muggle refrigerator they kept in the corner of the spacious kitchen to grab two bottles of watered-down firewhiskey. As much as he loved the kick of it, Ginny hated booze and poured glass after glass of water into the bottles he kept. Harry took the whiskey to the table and sat down. He slid one of the bottles across the table to where Ron was standing, gesturing for his friend to take a seat.

Ron gladly accepted with a small smile. A good glass was what he needed about now. He sat and took a drink, grimacing at the strong taste. It felt warm going down, leaving a comforting taste in his mouth. He glanced across the table and saw Harry watching him, not having even touched the lid of his bottle.

Feeling uneasy, Ron drew his gaze back to the red liquid he loved. There was more silence and Ron grew antsy. He never did like serious situations very much.

"You're so in over your head, and the whole world knows it."

Ron looked up immediately to the frowning face of his companion. He was not sure he had heard what Harry had said correctly. His face flushed again, partly because of the drink now.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked in a gruff tone, weighing his bottle in his hand.

Harry's face was like stone, unchanging. "You have no idea," he told him angrily. "Well," he said in a mock-pondering tone, "I take that back. You have the idea – you've been thinking about it for years. But you're being the biggest idiot and everyone can see that but you."

With hard eyes, Ron looked at his unflinching best friend. "I'm no idiot," he said coarsely, feeling the alcohol burning its path to his stomach. "But I don't know what you're talking about." His stomach was sinking, but it was still keeping him uneasy.

Harry almost rose from his seat, his former agitation now running through his veins. He slammed his bottle down on the table. His eyes burned from behind his glasses. He was tired of Ron's stupidity, he was tired of the cat-and-mouse game. Ron wasn't being fair to her, or to him, or to himself.

Realizing this thought tired Harry greatly – to the point where he took his seat without a word. He ran his large hands through his great tuft of black hair, and felt the relaxing sensation of having his hair tugged. He cleared his throat, sighed, and looked across the ever-expanding table at Ron, who was staring back, clueless as to what was going through his head.

"She loves you. She's loved you ever since we were kids. We all thought she made that pretty clear since she realized it herself."

Silence again.

Ron's stomach burned, and his whole body seemed to burn with it. His head felt heavy with the firewhiskey, with sleep, and with sudden, dawning realization. Those were the words he always knew – somewhere in the back of his mind for what seemed forever – but never really put together.

Harry continued when Ron just stared in dumbfounded silence. "At graduation, when she invited you to stay at her flat when you were looking for your own, we thought that'd be when you got the picture. When she helped you find a job. We thought you'd get it when she cried about you leaving to go to that job. You knew she was a wreck the first few weeks without you there. We all figured it was some sort of front." He sighed, remembering the times Hermione would appear in their fireplace in tears at midnight, wrapped in a sweater she had stolen from Ron's suitcase. "Then, after a few years passed and she kept coming home, we figured that was it. You were just going to be an idiot for the rest of your life."

It was hard for Ron to absorb the information Harry was throwing at him. He kept talking, too, again and again about how he had hurt Hermione, how he had made her cry, how he left her in shambles, how he had been such a terrible person to his best friend. The firewhiskey burned everywhere. Ron felt slow and dumb, finally understanding everything that came out of Harry's mouth.

"She's just going through the motions now. It's been a couple of years for her to adjust. She comes and visits still, but she calls ahead and doesn't show up a mess. She's even taught herself not to talk about you anymore. It used to be all she was able to do. I guess not seeing you at all helped. Moving did, too – it was good for her to get out of that place. She doesn't have to walk past 'your' room anymore to get to the kitchen or the bathroom."

Harry finally opened his bottle, feeling sick and lightheaded. He couldn't help but hate Ron for a few seconds for turning such a strong girl into something so needy. Then again, he felt sorry for the brute sitting across from him, so stupid and so clueless. He watched Ron's face as he drank more and more alcohol, taking refuge in the warm, biting taste. It took his mind off things.

Did everyone really know this? Could Ginny and Harry and everyone else see something so personal? Ron had always thought the things between him and Hermione were secret. He thought the fact that he had loved her was something no one knew – not even Hermione, even through all the time he had lived with her. He remembered feeling so empty when he moved across the country. He thought he was pleasing her, going to the job she had found him. Why… why hadn't she just asked him to stay?

Harry grimaced as he finished his swallow, feeling his headache simmer. He licked his lips smartly and looked at Ron. "Why'd you do that to her?"

Ron didn't move. He wondered that question as well. His hands were clenched painfully around his drink, and he was glad the lights were dim. "I," he stared, but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat softly. "I don't know, Harry. I always thought she would just keep me around forever." His eyes lost their focus.

"You know that's not what would happen," Harry told him brutally.

Ron didn't seem to pay attention to him. "When she got me that job and helped me pack up my things, I felt like she was kicking me out. Like she was just moving me around like she did her furniture, putting me in a little organized space that she could call on just whenever she wanted. I didn't like that feeling. I thought she was just sending me away."

Harry didn't mock him this time. "That's exactly what she was doing. You lived there for a year and a half, Ron, but never took a single step. Eventually she got so fed up with you, she gave you a choice without actually saying anything. It was that stupid job or her."

Ron burned. He had stupidly picked the job. The job that kept him away from her that weekend. That stupid job.

"Do you think it's too late?"

Harry almost scoffed, drinking the last of the watered-down whiskey. His eyes watered.

"Probably."

Ron hung his head. Like he always did. He was always being pathetic, throwing himself a pity party when things didn't turn out the way he wanted. Harry hated him again, for a few seconds.

"So get off your ass and get her!" Harry shouted with such animosity, Ron staggered back in his seat, shocked. Harry clenched his fists. "You're such an idiot, Ron! I said probably, not yes! I'm so sick of you treating her like dirt – so go down to Bristol and goddamn it, just tell her you're fucking sorry!"

Ron stood up, fury raging in his eyes. "Don't you tell me what to do, you stupid prick! I know I messed up and I'm fucking going to tell her I'm sorry! I'm not that moronic!" He slammed down his glass, shattering it across the floor. It was his temper getting the best of him. It had been a long night.

"Then why are you still here?" Harry snarled.

Ron opened his mouth to shout back a retort, but nothing came out. In a matter of seconds, Ron was gone from sight, leaving Harry with a migraine and a bunch of glass shards to clean up. He hoped Ginny hadn't woken up from all the yelling. Though he was furious, Harry was proud.

It was a cool night with gusts of wind making Ron wish he had remembered to storm out of Harry's house with his jacket. He had apparated as soon as he had slammed the front door, not caring whether Ginny would throw a fit or not. He was so angry – angry at Harry for yelling, angry at Hermione for never being painfully obvious, and angry at himself for expecting her to be. He found himself in Bristol, standing outside a small apartment complex in a quiet city. He stood on the doorstep, staring at the buzzer labeled 'Granger.'

The night air blew ruggedly past his already red face. Ron's stomach burned still, the comforting taste in his mouth replaced with bitterness. He ran his hands through his hair, rubbing them then across his face and then leaving them hanging at his sides. It was apparent he had not thought this through.

But did it really matter now?

Without thinking – something Ron was good at doing – he rang the buzzer twice in case she hadn't heard it the first time. He stood back from the door with his pulse racing.

A petite, young woman came to the door. She opened it and looked at Ron with the most amazing brown eyes. Though her face was ruddy, her eyes were large and her lips full. There was a Muggle pencil tucked in the bundle of curly hair piled on the back of her head. Her mouth was open, not speaking.

Ron watched as the woman – obviously his Hermione – took a step back, leaving the door open. Her eyes were already welling with tears. Ron, still not thinking, stepped inside the doorframe and took the small woman into his arms. He pressed her tightly to his chest, feeling a surge of adrenaline rushing through him. He had forgotten how much she had meant to him.

Hermione cried, remembering all the things Ron had done to her. Yet, somehow, over the years they spent together, he had brainwashed her with his stupidity and demeanor.

"I'm sorry," Ron said into her hair. He breathed in, and smelled a familiar vanilla scent. She had always liked to have those stupid vanilla candles lit in her rooms when she did her work. "I've been an idiot."

"Yes," Hermione agreed immediately, through her tears. "You have."

"I'm so sorry, Hermione."

Hermione seemed to accept his hug now, wrapping her arms around his middle. It felt so right to Ron – feeling her face against his churning heart, her small breasts against his torso, to feel her feet painfully on top of his, trying to compensate for the drastic height difference. "I love you."

And that was that.

I know, I know, OMG THAT'S SO FLUFFY.But, I love it. I mean, we all know that Ron and Hermione are the one garunteed couple in this series. I am just here to reinforce that fact. Plus, Harry and Ginny. Duh.

Um review! Right now!

ps: i will update my other story soon. PROMISE PROMISE PROMISE.

Okay. Review.