Forcing It

"Hermione, Hermione dear," her mother was shaking her awake very gently. "Hermione, Ronald's here and he's very upset. He's asking for you."

Hermione sat bolt upright and threw off the bedcovers.

"Where is he? How long has he been here?"

She was pulling on her dressing gown and stepping into her slippers, on the wrong feet, before her mother could even respond. She ran down the stairs and into the living room and saw him hugging his arms to himself and pacing up and down, chewing on his thumbnail and shaking all over. As soon as he saw her he stopped and let both arms drop to his sides, shaking his head hopelessly, and spoke with a kind of whimper.

"I di-didn-didn't know where else to g-go!"

Hermione opened her arms out wide and stood on the spot.

"Come here."

Ron crossed the room in two strides and threw himself into her body, hiding his face in her hair and wrapping his long arms around her tightly, and she slowly curled her arms around him and held him gently. He was shaking worse than ever now and had started to cry but she knew it was what he needed so she didn't try to comfort him or calm him down; she just stood there with him for as long as he needed her.

"I ca-can't b-be around pe-peopl-ple. I can't do it!"

"You don't have to do anything. You decide what you do." Hermione said as she rocked from foot to foot on the spot. "You decide everything."

"I can't...I can't...I hurt people!" Ron choked on his own devastation.

"You haven't hurt anybody, Ron," Hermione soothed him with a kiss through his hair onto the side of his face.

"I hit her!" he gasped and sobbed into her shoulder.

Hermione had seen Ron at his worst through his recovery but this really stunned her. She had never seen him crying so openly and completely.

"Who?" she asked, for want of anything else to say.

"I k-killed somebody. I'm a...I'm a murderer."

"No, I saw it in the memory you gave to the court and I saw you defending yourself and surviving."

"She just wanted to flirt with me and I hi-hit her," Ron babbled. "I thought it was him."

"Wait, what are you talking about? You're jumping from one conversation to another and I'm not in either of them, Ron."

Ron sniffed and wiped his eyes against the shoulder of Hermione's dressing gown. She steered them both over to the sofa and eased them down, Ron's face still hidden in her hair, breath warming the side of her neck, and she waited for him to calm down enough to respond.

He was breathing raggedly, as if he'd run all the way to her house carrying a troll on his back, and his fists were gripping handfuls of her shabby peach dressing gown as if he wanted to make sure she couldn't pull away and see him properly. He was hiding within her comforting hug and he wasn't ready to come out just yet.

"Sh-She was...I hi-I hit-I hit..."

"Take a breath," Hermione ordered tried to steady his nerves with a closer hug.

"Hitawoman!" Ron blurted as his whole body slumped into her heavily and his shakes worsened.

"Okay," Hermione said calmly, "how did that happen?"

"Shewa-She...Shwas touchin' me!" Ron shuddered.

"Tell me," Hermione said as she lightly stroked Ron's hair for the first time in ages, this was the longest he'd ever allowed her to hold him and she was determined to make her touch feel as reassuring as possible.

"Seam-Seamu-mus-Seamus was techin'us...sho-showin'us how t-to pl-pl-pl-play p-p-p..."

"Dutch Ron, speak Dutch for a minute!" Hermione interrupted, worried at how much worse his stutter was getting.

The Healers had told her at times like this Ron was at risk of hyperventilation or stress-induced seizures because of his head injuries and she wasn't going to let things get any worse for him than they already were.

"Ze kwam uit het niets en drukte zich tegen mijn rug," Ron said quickly."Ik boog over de tafel en ze zal overal aan me."

Ron's shoulders shook and Hermione could hear his stifled whimper before continuing.

"Het was net als hij!"

"Don't tear yourself up, just let it all go in your own time, I'll still be here." Hermione said as she planted another kiss through his hair.

Ron lifted his head and looked her in the eye with his bloodshot ones, eyelashes darkened by tears and face flushed with embarrassment and emotion.

"Ki-Kissme properly," Ron said suddenly.

"What?" Hermione blinked.

"I w-wanya t'kissme!" he blurted so fast she could barely understand him.

"Are you sure?" Hermione said, eyeing him warily.

Ron nodded his head emphatically. Hermione leaned in and brushed her lips against his before leaning back again and smiling.

"There."

"Properl-ly," Ron said with a full body shudder.

"Ron, I don't think..."

"Please!" he begged her. "Just ki-kiss me like I'm normal."

Hermione felt her heart ache and cupped his face with one hand before leaning in a little way and tilting her head to one side. Ron's eyes closed and he parted his lips just a little. His breathing picked up speed, his full body tremors grew worse and he was half pulling her towards him and half pushing her away as he waited for her to kiss him.

He was waiting for her to kiss him.

"Ron," Hermione said softly.

"Uh?" he replied, eyes still closed.

"Meet me half way."

His eyes opened and he blinked at her.

"Huh?" he panted.

"I'll move forward this far," Hermione leaned in and licked her lips before continuing, "and you move in and meet me half way. You kiss me as well, Ron."

Ron swallowed and looked terrified. He gripped the back of her dressing gown even tighter and leaned forward ever so slightly before jerking back and letting her go, running shaking hands through his hair and hissing disjointed swear words at himself.

"I'm not going to force a kiss on you, Ron, not before you're ready, not ever." Hermione said sternly.

"But how am I supp-p-pposeda be ready if I never get used to being t-t-touched?" Ron growled into his trembling hands.

"You can't make yourself get over this, Ron."

"But I wanna," Ron yelped like a dog who'd just had his tail trodden on. "I wanna ki-kiss you!"

"Why didn't you?" Hermione asked, throat knotting up inside.

"'Cause he...you're...it's dirty!" Ron said as he slumped over, elbows resting on knees and head supported in his hands. "As soon as she touched me...I felt sick."

"Where did she touch you, Ron?" Hermione said, voice hoarse.

"M-My back," Ron pointed over his shoulder and avoided eye contact, "'n she pu-pushed me into the table, pushed aga-gainst my arse."

Hermione felt angry for the first time since Ron had arrived.

"Was she trying it on? Flirting?"

Ron shook his head.

"Her fr-friends were but...but she was...didn't even see her. 'N she..." Ron shuddered, closed his eyes and waved his hand over his right shoulder, "...he was...they were in my face an-and I hi-hi-hit'em."

Hermione finally understood. She shuffled closer along the edge of the sofa and opened her arms to him again.

"Let me hold you again."

Ron tipped himself sideways into her arms and she let her hair fall forward to hide him like a fuzzy, brown veil. She whispered how much she loved him and how long she was prepared to wait for him. He didn't say a word, just clung to her as his breathing slowed and deepened, and so he wasn't shaking as badly as before.

"I know you just want to smash down all those walls you had to build around you to stay sane but I won't force you, Ron. I'm not going to kiss you while you just sit back and take it and I'm not going to push myself into you and wear you down with physical contact."

Ron tightened his grip around her waist and didn't say a word.

"I want you to enjoy being intimate with me. I want you to get the same thrill out of touching me as I do from touching you. I will not kiss you while you tense up and get upset about it. I won't push my tongue down your throat so you have to kiss me back. I am never going to be able to make you feel better, I can help you but I can't...I won't ever make you."

There was a long silence before Ron settled down on the sofa in a foetal position and laid his head upon her lap, face buried into her stomach, and his voice rumbled against her body like a purring cat.

"Can we stay here tonight?" he asked as he shifted into a comfortable position. "St-Stay like this 'till morning?"

Hermione stroked his hair and nodded, unseen to Ron's closed eyes and hidden face.

"We can stay like this forever, Ron."

The room was bright, but slightly chilly. There was a blanket draped over the two of them. Ron's head was heavy on her lap and he snored softly into her body. Hermione had slumped over against the armrest a little in her sleep and there was a note stuck on the coffee table in her father's handwriting.

Your mother sent word to Ron's parents that he was here and he was safe. We don't want to spook him, so we'll stay out of the way in the morning. There's plenty of food and milk in the fridge.

Please try to get him some professional help, sweetheart. I know you want to be the one to help him but this is too much for the both of you to handle alone.

Dad.

Hermione scrunched up the paper and threw it into the waste paper basket. The movement caused Ron to stir in her lap. She looked down at his peaceful face and sighed.

"Thank you for coming to me," she whispered to him.

"Mmm?" Ron's eyebrows crinkled and his long freckled nose scrunched up.

"Morning, darling," she chuckled softly to herself.

Ron's eyelids fluttered before opening and he squinted up at her. He looked a little bewildered for a fraction of a second before groaning and wincing as he turned his head back into her body.

"Oh no!"

"It's alright, my parents didn't mind."

"No, no, no!" Ron murmured into her belly so deeply that it tickled.

Hermione giggled and Ron peeped back up at her with a resigned sigh.

"I lo-lost it good and proper, didn't I?"

"You held yourself together admirably, Ron."

"Admirable?" Ron exclaimed as he sat up and ran his hands through his scruffy hair. "I smacked a girl and then showed up he-here drunk and crying...on your mother!"

Hermione laughed again.

"It's not funny!" Ron huffed as he swivelled on the sofa to set his legs on the floor and scan the room for signs of damage.

"I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing because I'm happy." Hermione beamed.

"Ha-Happy about what?" Ron frowned.

"I was happy that you chose me to talk to last night and I was happy that you trusted me enough to sleep with me and I'm happy that...well, that it seemed to make you feel better to let some of that go for once."

Ron rubbed his temples tiredly.

"You're happy I completely humiliated myself?"

She put her hand upon his knee and ducked her head to force his gaze to meet hers.

"You trusted me enough to fall apart, Ron. I love you for that. I love you."

"You love me in pieces?" Ron snorted lazily.

"I love every single piece of you," Hermione said with proud contentment.

Ron turned his head to look at her and blinked. She smiled at him. He leaned towards her and tilted his head to one side. His lips parted and his eyes began to close. Hermione gasped and his hand settled upon her thigh and slid slowly up as he moved closer.

"I said no forcing it, remember?" Hermione spoke into Ron's warm morning breath.

"I'm meeting you half way," he whispered against her mouth.

Hermione angled her head and pressed her lips against his. Just lips gently pushing together, no tongues, no movement, just contact and then withdrawal. Ron let out an awed breath and shivered.

"Wow!"

"Uh-huh," Hermione nodded in agreement.

"I probably should've b-brushed my teeth before I did that," he said earnestly.

Hermione giggled and hugged him, head resting upon his chest, and she felt his arm around her back.

"So looks li-like I'm gonna be oka-kay now then, huh?" Ron said with relief.

Hermione felt her happiness leave her. She bowed her head, still pressing it against his chest, and sighed.

"So nothing's going to happen the next time somebody grabs you from behind then?" she asked quietly. "And what about when you hear the word Firebrand?"

Ron drew in a sharp breath and his whole body went rigid.

"Don't."

"I'm sorry," she whispered and wove her fingers between those of his free hand, "but you can't get over everything overnight, Ron."

"I could, you don't know I couldn't." Ron said with childish defiance.

Hermione released Ron's hand and settled it back on his knee before slowly easing it up his thigh towards his groin. Ron's heart thudded against his chest and his breathing became shallow.

"You're okay with me touching you like this then?" she said, hating herself for having to do this to him to prove her point.

"S'fine," Ron forced himself to say between short panicky breaths.

"What if I sat in your lap? What if I sat in your lap facing you and started whispering into your ear?"

Ron's squirmed beneath her.

"Don't," he begged her pathetically.

"I'm not going to," Hermione said as she put some space between them. "I was just letting you see. Starting to climb a hill doesn't mean you're practically over it."

"Why the fuck didn't I take the Ministry up on the memory modification?" Ron snapped as he jumped up from the sofa and started chewing on his thumbnail again.

"You wanted to remember everybody who died for you all," Hermione said proudly. "That was what you said, wasn't it? You said you wanted to remember your friend Cormac McLagglen and your friend Auror Maccario, didn't you?"

"Can't..." Ron waved his hand over his right shoulder hopelessly, "Can't they just take...? Why isn't there a sp-spell or a potion or...? Why can't Mum just flick her wand at me and make everything better again like before?"

Hermione got to her feet and held out her hand to him.

"Come and sit back down with me, Ron."

Ron sighed deeply and sank down to sit on the edge of the coffee table. Hermione sat opposite him on the sofa.

"I know of somebody who can make it easier for you, not as fast as you'd like but it's better than nothing, right?"

"S-Somebody who? How do you know them?" Ron frowned.

"It's a specialist Healer for problems like yo-"

"No way!" Ron sprung to his feet again and Hermione was up again just as fast.

"Sit down, Ron. Sit and talk to me. It's still just me and you and we can talk without anybody pushing you into anything, can't we?"

Ron's shoulders fell and he sat back down again, so hard Hermione guessed his buttocks would be bruised, and he worried his hands in front of himself. Hermione sat down yet again.

"Remember how you felt about the speech therapy? That ended up helping you, didn't it?"

"I hated it," Ron mumbled as he looked at his feet.

"You did?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

"Just...made me feel useless. What kind of n-nutjob can't even talk properly jus-just 'cause they got scared? It didn't hap-happen to any of the others."

"The others didn't get sexually molested, Ron," Hermione said, devastated that Ron took his trauma to be a sign of weakness. "The others weren't tricked into killing someone. The others didn't get singled out and tortured for hours on end and..."

"They all got buried alive!" Ron snapped his head up and stared at her with those piercing blue eyes.

"And you dug them all up with your hands only to be accused of being a Polyjuiced Death Eater by the only person who was keeping you sane!" Hermione said fiercely.

"Lee thought he saw me dead, it wasn't hi-his fa-fa-fault!" Ron said angrily.

"And you had extenuating circumstances, too, so why is Lee given slack and you're not?" Hermione demanded angrily.

"Because...'Cause they...They're...They were gonna be..." Ron seemed to give up trying to understand his own head and set upon his stump of a thumbnail again with his teeth.

Hermione knocked his hand away from his mouth and took it with both of hers.

"How about we move towards you seeing a Healer slowly, then? What if you talked to me until you felt like talking to a stranger instead and then..."

"I couldn't tell a stranger what I did…they wouldn't understand…they'd just lock me up."

"They wouldn't, I guarantee you they wouldn't."

Ron lifted his head and stared at her.

"What can a Healer do for me that you can't?"

Hermione felt her heart ache as she realised that she couldn't be the person Ron needed her to be.

"A Healer, a stranger, wouldn't be distracted by wanting to kiss you," she said apologetically, "And you wouldn't try to get out of confronting things by asking a Healer to hold you down and kiss you so you could trick yourself into feeling normal for a second or two."

"Can't I just...go off somewhere by myself and wait until it all fades away?"

Hermione sat with him in silence for five minutes before realising that the option of Madame Boo and her Healing techniques had to be something Ron asked her to set up for him rather than she asked him to do for her. What Ron needed to do first, before he considered anything else, was to open that box he'd stuffed all his pain into and organise the contents a little better so the box wasn't bursting at the seams any more.

"Ron," she spoke up at long last and waited for him to look at her before continuing, "tell me about what happened when you were tied down to the table in the torture room."

Ron visibly squirmed before her.

"You kno-know what happened. You sa-sa-saw."

"I watched your memory and Lee's memory along with everybody else at the trial of those Death Eaters and I saw every single thing he did to you both," Hermione said, fury boiling within her. "But you felt it, Ron, you lived it and you've never talked about it with anyone."

"W-What's to talk about? Everybody saw, everybody knows, you all w-watched it. Wasn't that humiliating enough?" Ron hugged his arms to himself as he spoke.

"We all knew what happened to Harry when he last Sirius, when Cedric died, but we made him talk to us about it anyway. You need to tell me what happened. Forget that I saw it, it doesn't matter that I saw it, just tell me how it was for you. You didn't see it, Ron...you felt it. For you it was real."

Ron loosened his folded arms and rubbed his hand down one of them to rub around his bony wrist.

"He chained my arms together under the table," Ron said in barely a whisper. "I was bent flat over the side of the table like I was presenting to him...like a fuckin' dog or som-something."

"I can't imagine being stuck in that position unable to get out of it."

"I think...I think I held it together okay up until he forced my legs apart and fixed them to the table legs," Ron said as if he was back there, looking himself in the eye and reading his mind as it was that day. "There's silly little details I keep thinking of too like...a burn on the table a few inches away from my face and how it smelled of tobacco."

"Maybe somebody cleaned their pipe out on that table?" Hermione suggested with a small smile of encouragement.

"Maybe," Ron nodded, "never s-saw anyone smoking the whole time I was in there bu-but maybe, when they were relaxing." Ron laughed bitterly. "Imagine that, relaxing between murders with your mates around the table."

"Strange to think of the Death Eaters as people, isn't it?" Hermione said faintly.

Ron nodded.

"Lee kept threatening him and I knew he'd play us off against each other but I couldn't get him to stop. I couldn't get Lee to listen to me. Still can't."

Hermione smiled sadly.

"I was trying to tell him but the Puppet Bastard started touching me with his wand and then he ripped off my t-shirt and neither of us could think straight." Ron rubbed at his face before continuing. "I was-wasn't even thinking about what if he does it...I was waiting f-for him to start. He was gonna...gonna... It was gonna happen and Lee was gonna wa-watch."

"That must have been terrifying," Hermione spoke just for the sake of reminding Ron he was with her and not back in that room.

"I wondered if it would hurt more if he did it fa-fast or slow. Lee was shouting for help and I was trying to...warn my body to expect something bad. I was willing all my nerves to stop feeling. I was willing myself nu-numb."

"Did it work?"

He shook his head.

"Lee wouldn't stop shouting at him and I was spread out waiting for him and I didn't want him to be angry when he did it because...It had to hurt more. I was trying to get Lee to stop, but the fucker gagged me and my whole mouth suddenly tasted of his foul hand. It was leather but it tasted of him, it felt like him, it was warm, like his fu-fucking hand."

"You're in my house, remember?" Hermione whispered nervously. "You're with me and you're safe and he can't touch you. He isn't touching you."

"I felt his hands dragging down my back and I tried to squirm out from under him but he was sneering into the side of my face and stroking me and I could feel everything. I co-could feel his breath and his hands and the hairs of his eyelashes on my cheek."

"He didn't get to go any further though did he, Ron?" Hermione said, needing to inject that ray of light back into Ron's mind.

"If it we-weren't for a bloody mouse, he'd have..." Ron swallowed against his dry throat. "He was pushing his hands under me and grabbing for my...f'my..." Ron's breathing grew shallow and he supported his head in his hands.

"Okay, that's enough for now. Let me get you a glass of water or something." Hermione got to her feet anxiously and wondered if she'd done more harm than good.

"Hermione," Ron looked up at her and blinked, "that mouse saved my life."

"I know," she nodded.

"Is it stupid that I feel bad for leaving it there? Leaving it behind in Holland?"

"No, Ron, it's not stupid at all."

"'Cause a cat could've eaten it," Ron said thoughtfully. "Imagine that, the reason I'm still alive, the thing that means I'm sitting here talking to you, could've been eaten by a cat."

"Life can be strange like that," Hermione conceded with a nod.

"'S cruel," Ron said sadly, "'S cruel is what it is. A cat didn't eat Pettigrew and yet...where's my little Shocolate mouse right now, eh? Probably dead."

"I wouldn't bet on it, Ron," Hermione smiled. "I think she's probably out there saving somebody else now. I think she could be such a powerful Patronus that she became solid and unstoppable. Don't you worry about her."

Ron smiled and hugged a cushion to himself while she went through to the kitchen to get his water. When she came back he was sleeping once again. She set the water down, perched herself on the arm of the sofa, and burst into tears.

A/N Several of you have asked so I'll just clear things up.

Ron and Hermione weren't boyfriend and girlfriend before Ron was taken hostage but they had had sex.

In Within These Walls Hermione, Ginny and Molly perform a locator spell using memories of Ron and Hermione visualised losing her virginity to Ron and worried about Molly seeing it.

This is why Ron has seen Hermione naked before.

I hope you enjoyed a whole chapter of just the two of them.

See ya in two days!