"Damn it," Ron said as he quickly jumped back, having just over poured pumpkin juice onto the kitchen counter. He hadn't been paying attention when the glass began overflowing until the dripping sound on the floor beneath him caught his attention. He reached into his pocket for his wand and pointed it at the mess. He mumbled, "Scourgify" and the liquid instantly disappeared from the floor and counter.

He took the glass over to the table in the kitchen and sat. His parents' house was eerily quiet, seeing as everyone was still at the wedding. It was a nice relief after what he had just left. His entire family, and most of his friends, had been just as surprised as he had upon hearing what Hermione had said during her toast. Most of them didn't understand what her words had actually meant, but it wasn't hard to tell given their past that it had something to do with their ever present and complicated relationship. That was the problem with having a history like they'd had. People were always suspicious. They always suspected something more was going on. Sure, in this case they were right, but that wasn't the point.

He'd felt a little guilty about leaving the wedding early, but at the same time—he didn't. He had been tired of the questions, tired of the looks, and far too preoccupied with his thoughts to enjoy the rest of his evening as if nothing had happened. Harry and Ginny would forgive him. If they didn't, they would have to be more annoyed with Hermione than they were with him. After all, she was the one who stormed out and said what she had said in the first place. She left before I did, he thought as he sipped his juice.

"Absolutely beautiful," his mother's voice said suddenly from outside, which made him glance towards the door. As the knob turned, he wondered if he was fast enough to make a mad dash for the stairs without being detected.

"It was better than I could have imagined," his father said as he pushed open the door, his hands full of various favors. Both he and his mother stopped and looked at Ron sitting in front of them.

"There you are," said his mother. "You left early."

"Didn't feel well."

She nodded. She didn't look as if she believed this excuse, but she was surprisingly unquestioning as she placed a small covered plate in front of him. "Your father thought we should bring you a piece of cake."

Ron watched them both and wondered when either one of them was going to start making a huge deal about what had happened. They instead just continued to stare at him.

"Thanks."

"I'm going to go and change," his mother said as she stared at him with a softness in her eyes. She turned towards her husband. "It's been quite the day."

"It certainly has," he said as he sat down across the table from Ron. "I'll be up in a minute."

"All right, dear." She cast one last look at Ron and smiled strangely at him before leaving up the stairs. The room became quiet as his father started absently investigating his fingernails. Ron looked down at the plate his mother had placed in front of him and pulled the cover off to reveal a large piece of cake. He contemplated eating it—more as something to do rather than because he wanted to—but he just didn't have the appetite for once.

"It was a good night," his father said suddenly. "A lot of fun."

"Yeah." Ron nodded as he covered the cake back up. "It was."

"And, of course, your sister looked beautiful."

"She did."

"And I suppose Harry officially being family is nice."

"Yeah." He grinned. "I guess it's about time, huh?"

His father chuckled. "That's true." He sighed and rapped his knuckles on the table. "I'm almost curious when I'll be able to say the same thing about Hermione."

Ron's eyes shot toward his father's as he said it, his face now vacant.

"I gather that the whole scene earlier was something to do with you and Paris?"

He nodded slowly.

"Last I heard she had a boyfriend," he continued. "A bit strange that she would make such a public declaration to you if she was only wishing her friend wasn't leaving. I've always taken her as a girl who was more private with that sort of thing. Not keen on making big spectacles like that."

"She's not, really."

"I see," he mused. "That must have meant she really wanted to make sure you knew."

Ron looked down at the table.

Arthur stood up and scratched his head. "I've always liked Hermione, you know."

"So have I," he mumbled.

"I think we all know that," he said with a lazy smile. He suddenly turned and made his way out into the sitting room, leaving Ron alone to his thoughts. After a minute, he also stood, but he walked out of the house and into the back garden instead of into the sitting room. It was a little chilly, and he wasn't wearing a cloak, but he was too lazy to walk back inside to get one. The cool air felt nice as he walked over and sat himself down on the top of the picnic table in the center of the garden.

He looked up at the sky and found himself staring up at the same scattered amount of stars that he had been looking at just hours before. It seemed like there were more of them now. He leaned back and found himself lying on the table top as he absently started connecting the various stars with his finger and seeing what sort of things he could make out of them. It wasn't until one pattern he traced reminded him of an open book that he thought of Hermione again.

She wanted him to come back. That meant that she wanted him here. Did it mean she wanted him…? It might have, couldn't it? He frowned. He'd probably asked himself that a hundred times over the last hour or so, and he still didn't have any better answer now than he did the first time he thought about it.

She had run off so quickly, and had disappeared to who knows where, that he really didn't know what to think. He didn't know if he had come on too strong and scared her off, or if perhaps she had just needed some time to think. He had sort of sprung all of this on her quite suddenly, but it wasn't as if it was out of nowhere. Was it? He couldn't really remember as he started racking his brain over every one of their encounters for the last two weeks. They had been happy and friendly. They had enjoyed each other's company just as they had in the past. It had reminded him so much of their happier times that maybe he had just convinced himself she felt the same way about him? Maybe he'd made it all up?

His stomach started to hurt. Why had he said that to her? Things were going so well between them and then he went and screwed it all up by being an idiot. Obviously they could never be friends without these sorts of feelings resurfacing on his end at least. But what if she wasn't interested in being friends anymore? What if she now wondered how she could tell him off for good?

He sighed as he pulled his wand out of his pocket and started it pointing it absently up at the sky. No. She had asked him to come back. She had said that to him in front of a room full of people. A room full of witnesses! He wasn't making that up. Even his father suspected something. George and Harry and Ginny had picked up on something in Hermione's comment and they didn't even know the whole story. He knew he wasn't—

The door to the house suddenly opened and shut. He pulled himself into a sitting position, lowered his wand towards the source of the sound, and mumbled "Lumos" to see if someone was there or not. Just as he did, a light came shining right back into his face and blinded him. He squinted and lowered his wand.

"Are you drunk?"

He stared straight into the light as he realized the voice belonged to Hermione. "I told you I wasn't."

"Even if you were, you'd tell me you weren't," she said, still pointing her wand directly in his face.

"If I was," he said as he wished she would lower her wand so he could see again. "I've sobered up since and I still meant what I said."

Her light lowered. All he could see were blurry outlines and starbursts of light that were burned into his retinas. He blinked a few times in an attempt to see properly.

"You're an idiot," she finally said.

"I am?"

"You know, I sometimes can't tell whether I hate you or whether I'm madly in love with you and I just can't tell the two apart."

"Can I hope for the latter?" he asked.

"You can hope," she said as she sat down next to him. "I, however, am still undecided."

"If you hate me then why are you here?" he asked with a small smile.

She didn't say anything. Ron picked up his wand and pointed it towards her and saw that her eyes looked puffy from having been crying. Her hair was also now falling messily around her shoulders, but she still looked as pretty as he'd ever seen her. "Nice toast, by the way," he said.

She closed her eyes and smiled sheepishly. "You didn't think it was a tad bit over dramatic?"

"No, I thought it was just the right amount of over dramatic." He smiled. "The dash for the exit at the end may have put it over the top, though."

"I just had to get out of there," she said seriously. "All those eyes staring at me…"

"I left early, too," he said. "I just didn't feel like dealing with the questions."

She nodded.

"So…" he said as he leaned back on his arms and stared at her.

"You failed, you know?"

"I failed?"

"About that whole 'working on not making me cry' thing," she said. "Not even five minutes later, Ron..." She shook her head.

"I did say I'd stop doing that, didn't I?" he asked as he remembered. "Wow, I am an idiot."

"Well, you're not completely to blame," she said. "I did quite a bit more when I went to see Martin."

He stared at her.

"We decided to see other people," she said quietly before she looked at him. "It was a long time coming."

He couldn't hide his smile. "Sorry."

"You're not."

"Maybe I am a little, but you seeing other people is a good thing."

"Yeah, perhaps," she said with a nod of her head and slight smile. "It's not as if I have anyone else in mind, though."

"Nobody?" he asked as he decided to play along. "Not one person?"

She shook her head. "Well, maybe I have one person in mind, but there's a problem."

"What's that?" he asked, sitting up straight.

"He's moving," she said thoughtfully. "He has to leave for who knows how many months—"

"Six."

"Six?" she said, sounding surprised. "That long?"

"It's really not that bad."

"Well, anyway," she continued. "He's an idiot who has to leave for at least six months, and I still don't even know if that's it. He may not even be coming back." She turned and looked at him. "So, the question is, is he coming back?"

"Do you want him to?"

"I'd hope he'd already know the answer," she said, "especially since I declared in front of a room full of people."

"I think it's safe to say he's already thinking about getting transferred back."

She smiled. "So, Ron, do you know this guy? Because I don't think I've introduced you to him—"

He laughed. "Oh, and here I was being thick and thinking it was me." He lied back down on the table top. "Well, I'd love to meet him, then. I'm sure he's incredible. I bet he's probably really handsome and funny, too."

"He can be," she said distantly as she leaned back on her hands and stared up at the sky. "Sometimes he's all of those things…But let's not forget. He's an idiot."

"Obviously."

She smiled. "You must not have been too sold on Paris in the first place."

"I was and I wasn't," he said as he closed his eyes. "I mean, it's really no different than what happens here. Everyone just speaks French. I was only sold on going somewhere else because there was nothing in England worth staying for and I figured why the hell not." He paused. "Now there is."

It was quiet as they both sat there for a long moment. Ron cracked open his eyes and noticed Hermione was staring up at the sky, her right arm just out of reach of him. He picked up his hand and started running his fingers up and down her arm as she turned and smiled at him.

"You see those stars over there," he said, pointing into the sky.

"Which ones?"

"I don't know their names," he said. "You know I was always rubbish at Astronomy." He pointed again. "But the ones just there by that cloud."

She started searching the sky. "I see quite a few."

"Here," he said, scooting over a little. "Lie down."

She gave him a suspicious smile.

"You'll be able to see it better," he said innocently, though she did as he instructed and found herself next to him. "Okay, now over there. That cluster of stars looks like an open book. That just reminded me of you."

He glanced at her as she cocked her head to the side in an attempt to decipher what he was talking about. "Yeah, I don't see it." She turned towards him. "And an open book?"

"I don't know." He laughed as he adjusted his arm so that her head was now resting between it and his chest. It was almost an instinctual gesture, something he had been so used to doing when Hermione was this close that he really didn't think about what he had done until after he'd done it. It was refreshingly familiar as she, too, seemed to be falling right back into old habits. She put her head there just as she had so many thousand times before. It felt as if she'd never left.

"That one over there looks like a really large, burley man," she said pointing up.

"And that reminds you of me, right?" he joked as he started running his fingers through her hair.

"If I disregard all the other really big blokes I know, sure," she teased, reaching up and grabbing at the arm he was using the play with her hair before pulling it down around her.

He closed his eyes again and they both became quiet once more. Even though this was probably the most uncomfortable surface he'd ever been on in his entire life, he didn't want to move. He was far too comfortable with her lying with him. He could have fallen asleep if he tried hard enough; he was almost convinced that Hermione might have too, until he felt her drumming her fingers on his arm.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"I was just thinking about work," she said. "Martin and I work together."

"Oh."

"It might be the push I need," she said with a sigh. "I was thinking about transferring to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I've grown so frustrated with the Magical Creatures division."

"Really?" He opened his eyes and looked down at her.

"It's just a thought I've been entertaining. The department head and I are friendly, and the thought of being forced to see Martin everyday may make me seriously consider it. He's not exactly a good sport."

"I think you should do it," he said as he closed his eyes again. "You'll be head of the Wizengamot in no time."

She laughed as she started running her fingers up and down his arm. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves."

"I'm not," he said. "I just know what you're capable of."

"And that's why I love you."

"So, you love me now?" He smirked. "Is that what you've decided on?"

"I have right now," she said. "Ask again tomorrow and the answer may be different." They both laughed as he shook his head and playfully pushed her away. She sat up straight and looked back at him. "How is it we can just fall back into this so easily?"

"Because it's me and you," he said as he stared at her. "And that's what we do. We fight, we make up, we fight, we make up, we fight, we make up, we—"

"I get it." She smiled. "I was going to say something more along the lines that we've learned to grow with each other."

"There's that, too."

"Is there any way we can break the whole fight and make up a habit and just stay like this from now on?"

He smiled. "I rather enjoy the make ups."

"I rather hate the fights."

He sat up. "I do too, but something tells me we'll always argue. It's part of what makes us, us. We're entirely too passionate and stubborn."

She grinned. "I can think of a few times where that passion wasn't such a bad thing."

"I can too," he said as he shared her smile. "But we just have to remember what's important. I don't want to lose this again. I'll actually talk to you when stuff is really bothering me and not just pretend it'll go away if I want it to. Open communication and all of that."

"I hope you mean that."

"I want to mean—" he began before she leaned over and kissed him midway through his sentence. It had been far too long since this had happened. The recognizable textures, feelings, and technique that made these instances between them so special immediately came flooding back to him. She fit here so perfectly. He couldn't understand why he'd ever let this go.

"We can do six months," she said as she pulled away and looked at him. "We can do six months easily. I mean, you're right, it's just a Portkey away."

"I know it."

"You know," she said with a nod. "This is a good thing. I mean, Martin and just split up, and with you away, it'll let me get my life back in order on my own. If I transfer departments, I'm bound to get really busy, so by the time you get back, things will have calmed down." She smiled. "We can ease back into things."

He smiled.

"It's actually exciting," she said.

"You're still going to come and visit though, right?" he asked. "Because six months suddenly gets a lot longer if I have to go the entire time without seeing you."

"I think I can catch a Portkey or two," she said. "I haven't been to Paris since I was a teenager."

"How about a Portkey or ten?"

She laughed and took his hand in hers. "We'll work something out."

"So, what are we, then?" he asked as he suddenly leaned back on the table on his free arm. "What are we telling people when they ask? Because you know they will."

"We could tell them to mind their own business," she suggested.

"My mother will hit me if I tell her that."

Hermione smiled. "Then let's just tell them it's complicated."