So now I'm confused, are soap operas good or bad? I've never seen them, but my cousins (who watch the soap network ALL THE TIME) were having a mini-discussion about one of their shows. It was a parody of my own family. XD
Disclaimer: Still not mine.
Chapter Three: Unwelcome Houseguests
The sight made her go ghostly pale. Her mouth dropped open, then shut, then open again.
"Close your mouth Hermione, you look like a fish." He joked uneasily. "An armed fish."
"Ron!" Hermione gasped, gripping the edge of the counter until her knuckles turned white. "What the – why on earth are you here?" Her face lit up for a moment; it was a pleasant surprise. Then a second thought hit her and her glee turned to anger. "Ron, get out of my house!"
"Put down the knife Hermione! What are you going to do, stab me - one of your old mates?" She looked somewhat stunned. She forgot that was still holding a large knife. She quickly placed that on the countertop. She stared dumbfounded at her old friend. The tall redhead was not quite as gangly looking as he was at seventeen. He had filled out somewhat, and become more muscular, but still overall very thin. What kind of work does he do now? She wondered. He still had that same boyish face and long nose spattered with a shock of freckles. As she thought about it, they had both probably changed a lot in seven years. She began to wonder what everyone else looked like. She quickly cleared that thought. She did not want to see any of them, and now she had to deal with Ron Weasley.
"Pleasure to see you too Hermione." He chided, putting his arms out in front of him and casually brushing the snow off his jacket. His clothing looked surprisingly normal for the most part, besides the wand sticking out of the back pocket. "It's been only – what – seven years?"
"Ron?" She wanted to ask him a million questions, but all she could manage to say was his name.
"Nice place you have here."
"Ron."
"It has a kinda cozy feel to it." He continued, blatantly ignoring her. He walked around the house tracking wet, snowy footprints onto her freshly cleaned carpet – save for a few stray popcorn kernels that took flight when Hermione jumped earlier.
"Ron!" Steam was about to come out of her ears.
"Yes?"
"Shut up and stop trying to make small talk. What the hell are you doing here?"
"Playing mail carrier. You haven't read your letters." He answered calmly. "I found these in the garbage outside – unopened." He pulled out a stack of stiff, icy letters out of his jacket pocket and shoved them into her arms. "Oh wait, that's right, you don't associate with us." He finished with biting cruelty.
"You were going through my garbage?" She questioned, tossing the freezing envelopes onto the table.
"You're not going to read them now?" Ron speculated. "Hermione, they're important dammit!"
"No. Is that what you came for?" She paced around the kitchen and rummaged through drawers until she produced a small silver cigarette lighter.
"You have a putter-outer too? I always thought Professor Dumbledore's was extremely rare." Ron shouted in amazement, momentarily distracted from his detestable duty. She found Ron to be comparable to a two year old, easily sidetracked by small, shiny objects.
"It's not a putter-outer. It's a common household device that you wouldn't know about."
"That's not fair. Just because I don't know what your clicky, silver thing does - " He trailed off and watched as Hermione fumbled around with it, clicking a small button and producing a flame. "It's a fire clicker!"
"It's going to be the click of death for these letters."
"Go ahead. If that would make you happy." He said acidly, snapping back to the angry Ron she had seen a few moments earlier. Taking a seat at her kitchen table, he watched her, almost daring her to burn the letters. "Always taking the easy way out, now?" Seven years of anger were slowly simmering to the surface.
"Who said this is easy?" Hermione felt a sudden pang of guilt as old memories washed over her. It was something in his tone that set her off these thoughts, like an old movie film. Ron's icy glare hacked through her like a knife. He would not forgive her. Ever. Everything muddled together into an indecipherable blur of motions, sounds, and lights. He had been trying to be nice to her when he had no reason to. Well sort of nice. Technically, she was the enemy. He should rip her head off her shoulders and feed her to the dementors. Cold, dark, painful memories filled her mind. She could feel the dementors coming closer by the second. Their haunted voices shrieked, Murderer! She tried to shut off the thoughts, but the ethereal voices echoed in her head like grating metal, sending shivers down her spine.
"Hermione, make this as painless as possible. Come with me to the Ministry. We need you. Harry wants to see you." He pleaded, trying to make his voice sound calm. She could hear the hateful undertone. His voice no longer sounded heartfelt. He was merely a puppet carrying out Harry's orders. He had always been in the shadow of the Boy-Who-Lived.
She glared daggers at Ron. She left for a reason, and here he was, ruining her life just when things were going right. Her mind seized with panic. They will kill me. "I'm not coming!" Hermione shouted rather childishly. She tried desperately to push away the matter at hand. "Who is this we? You don't need me."
Ron looked blankly up at her from his seat at the table. "Do you think I want this? Stop wallowing in the past and do something about it." He paused for a second before shouting, "Stop being a coward!"
"Do NOT call me a coward Ronald Weasley!"
His face was beet red. "You're just sitting here feeling sorry for yourself. Everyone is sorry! Trust me! I'm more sorry than ANYONE that things turned out as they did!" He was simply livid. "You weren't the only one to screw up Hermione Granger!"
"Except I made the biggest screw up of all! Getting involved in all of this in the first place!" She threw the lighter at Ron and ran down across the hall to her bedroom. Ron guiltily followed her and stopped outside of the locked door. He was not sure why he felt responsible. After all she had done, he had every right to hate her. And then she left. He had to pick up the mess alone. Seven years had given him just enough time to forget that he had a best friend, but that was only temporary. Soon enough, this time was bound to come, where he would have to see her again. And she was his best friend. Best friends deserve second chances. He sighed loudly. Seven years – it seemed like yesterday – and seventy years would never be long enough to erase all memory of the past.
"Open up." He spoke evenly and calmly.
"No!"
"I can apparate…"
"Not in here you moron!" She shrieked.
"I am coming in on the count of three."
"Ron!"
"One…"
"Ron!"
"Two…"
"I will kill you Ron Weasley. Don't think I won't." He paused for a second. Murderer rang out in her head. Her thoughts were swimming around frantically. This is your fault. You are a coward.
"Two and a half…"
Never. She ran to the door trying to clear her head. "Three!" Hermione shouted and slammed the door open into his stomach, causing Ron to double over in pain. Panting and catching his breath, Ron caught up to her.
"Hermione, I'll be the first to admit that meeting Harry and me on the train probably got you involved in way more than you could have possibly imagined. But you can't discredit seven years of your life. Hogwarts is part of you. You're a witch." He sounded frustrated. "How can I make you understand? Tell me."
"Who asked me if I wanted to be a witch?" She had a perfectly normal Muggle life, just like she was always supposed to. She had a job, and a house, and a half-witted but very charming Muggle boyfriend, and she could be there for her family. Her Muggle family. She was going to be married. She was going to have kids, and be a mum. Everything was ruined. Yet again, it felt as if the "real world" had been put on hold. "I wasn't asked Ron. I was told. And it came as quite a shock to my family. Why didn't anyone ask me?"
"That's something we're both wondering right about now." He breathed hard, trying to calm himself. "Please Hermione. For me."
It was a mixture of guilt and respect that caused her to reluctantly nod her head. If anything, she owed this to him, as a friend. She knew this could not be put off anymore. Eventually the Ministry had to catch up to her, and now was time.
"C'mon now, truce?"
"If you stop all of this magic talk."
"I'll do what I can for now. Someone's going to need to update you though." He reached his hand out to put it on her shoulder, almost comfortingly. She was afraid despite his caring action. A nagging voice in her head said RUN! Leave while you still can. He leaned in close to her but instead quickly whipped his hand back and grabbed her arms.
"What are you doing?" She interrogated.
"Taking you with me."
"People will look for me! This is kidnapping!"
"You would have to be a kid for that. Gosh, what a brain you are." She screamed but the sound could only be heard for a second. With a pop, the two disappeared leaving a very empty living room. The fire still crackled. There was a dim glow in her bedroom, like a faint firefly trapped beneath a heavy object on her desk. The picture in its frame emitted a faint beam of light. The Hermione in the picture stopped scowling and the look in her eyes seemed to say Welcome back.
A/N: Will sing for reviews. Don't make me do it. Please tell me what you think. You'll hear what Hermione did soon enough (evil grin). And I realized there's a chunk of dialogue that's missing from the middle of this - I tried to patch the edges as smoothly as possible and I'm reading and rereading my story to make sure I didn't lose anything essential - I guess if I end up editing something back in, I'll let you know but there doesn't seem to be an issue.
I know this is my shortest chapter yet (for the above reason) – they're getting longer as we go. I emailed the next group to my pseudo-beta (she's not really my beta, I've recruited her). I haven't gotten those back yet so there may be a day or two before chapter four. But I essentially sent her a quadruple length chapter – so based on where I see fit, that might get broken up to smaller pieces.