Hermione closes the door behind her as silently as possible, brown eyes tightly shut, a steady, hard breath filling her lungs. There, amidst the darkness drenching the landing of the first floor, she feels afraid, happy, terrified, insecure even, all of those and all at once.
Mrs Weasley's disappointed face is all she sees as she creeps up the stairs, floor by floor, until she reaches the fifth. She's been careful to avoid all the shabby ones, bare feet treading gingerly on every step. And the farther she goes, the faster her heart beats, wildly and madly in the middle of the night.
What if Mrs Weasley wakes up and finds her? What if he wakes up and demands that she go back? She'd never be able to live with it, the guilt and bruises on her ego. But what else can she do? Certainly not take refuge on the couch - anybody'd wander in and what could she possibly say? That Harry and Ginny are blissfully happy, snuggled together, disgustingly in love and domestic? That they need each other because otherwise the horrid dreams and insomnia and all the obsessive, soul-numbing thoughts that have been keeping them all awake become too much to bear?
But what about her? And her painful nights, her sleepless, screaming nights, when Bellatrix twists the biting metal of her dagger under Hermione's skin, digs deeper underneath and on and on she spins it? What about the twilight hours when the guilt and shame threaten to eat her from within, when all she can see are her parents' faces, their voices dancing in her mind until she can't keep her sobs at bay? They're still so far away, her parents… And it's still not safe to bring them back. Not yet.
Hermione draws in another breath before her fingers clench around the handle and give the door a subtle push. Every muscle in her body tenses in the spare second it takes to shut the door, looking back over her shoulder to make sure.
Make sure that he's sleeping, that her presence is unnoticed, that she'll crawl into Harry's vacant bed and remain there until sunrise, ardently praying that day will come and the Burrow's inhabitants will be none the wiser of her whereabouts.
A dream that dies before she even touches the springy old mattress, her heart sinking endlessly with Ron's half-muffled drawl (he's always slept with his face pressed hard into the pillow), "I wouldn't sit there if I were you. Who knows what that prat did with my sister."
A timid smirk dangles at the corner of her lips when she recovers, "Did I wake you?"
"Nah," a yawn, "My best mate did when he snuck out to snog my baby sister. I was wondering where you'd be."
Hermione's heart skips a beat. "You did?"
"Yeah," Ron simply says and she sees him scoot to make room for her as he holds a corner of the sheet up in invitation. She swallows hard, brushes her toes against one another and finally walks.
One step, two steps, three. One knee up onto the hard cotton bedding and then the other. Thoughts, mad, savage thoughts pound against her eardrums like stones even before her curly locks hit the pillow. Thoughts of insecurity and safely hidden flaws, thoughts of want and thoughts of lust. Soon enough there'll be those unforgiving thoughts that travel as far as Australia and with them a flood of tears. She needs to fall asleep.
A "goodnight, Ron" quickly murmured from the tips of her lips and she commands her eyes to close, her mind to stop its stirrings, her heart to quiet down.
When she wakes up at dawn, Ron's back is almost touching hers, mere centimetres left between them. Her lips leave the ghost of a kiss on the freckles of his cheek before she returns four landings below.
Hermione isn't particularly expecting Harry to show up the second night, a fact unsupported by the sudden spring in her step as she leaves Ginny's room and starts her careful descent. Nightgown glued to her thighs in the mid-summer heat, her legs move in sync with every inhale and exhale, the soles of her feet rapidly tapping down each of the forty steps separating the two younger Weasleys' bedrooms.
She stops, takes a long look at the wooden thing, then cracks it open. A moment, a steadying breath and here she is, right next to him, no questions or small talk this time.
"Hullo," he whispers as she draws the covers over herself.
"Hello," Hermione smiles and it comes more naturally this time.
A smile that grows wider when his shy fingers spread and stretch until his arm's draped round her and his chest is flush against her back. Falling asleep comes easier.
Hermione nearly bumps into Harry on the third night, both escaping dangerous collision as one steps in and the other one out. She's thankful that the witching hour's black hides the red blush on her cheeks from two pairs of knowing eyes. Although judging by the speed with which Harry and Ginny become glued to each other, Hermione figures that she really needn't worry. They'll forget she was even there five seconds later.
This time, her route is pleasantly unencumbered by tormenting visions of Mrs Weasley. This time, she's mostly looking forward to the feeling of Ron next to her and her heart beats in anticipation rather than fear and oh, it's wonderful not to be afraid, to relax, to be safe.
When she crawls next to him, he tells her he'd been waiting. "I'd happily get used to this," Ron grins as he holds her, his fingertips more confident now.
"I'd love you to," she says, her palms squeezing his, twining their fingers together.
"Yeah?" His mouth disappears into wild bushy hair, searching for her temple.
"Yeah," Hermione calmly sighs into his sweet, chaste kiss. "I can sleep now," she explains and feels content.
"Me too."
Goosebumps hit her flesh instead of slumber when a blistered palm touches her stomach, rests nervously underneath her shirt.
"Is it - s'it alright?" A wary voice dares ask the question.
"Yeah," she swallows, heart drumming madly in her chest, like a frightened bird or a cornered beast. "Yeah, it's alright."
Neither moves for a time. Slowly, gently, they both remember to breathe, their hearts slow down their beats. They fall asleep.
The fourth night catches Hermione reading on the living room couch, inky scribbles on whites pages lit by a slowly dying fire in the hearth.
"You - erm, you coming?" Ron's ginger head appears in the door frame, lanky limbs showing underneath pyjama boxers, freckled cheeks slightly flushed pink.
And hers are equally so when she closes her book and steps onto the wooden floor to join him. Neither speak as they pass each door and landing.
Forty eight, forty nine, fifty. They've arrived. Ron smiles nervously as he holds the door open for her, a small display of gallantry passed down from mother to son. She returns the smile, her small hands busy taming down the bushy strands framing her face. Clumsily, they take a seat on his unmade bed.
The moon's reflected in his bright blue eyes when he looks at her and tells her that he'd always hoped she'd let him be with her and Hermione feels an urge to kiss him breathlessly.
And so she does, harder every time they break for air to come back together heartbeats later. Her hands are in his hair when his repeat their path from the night before, travel awkwardly inside her shirt and stop as soon as flesh meets flesh.
Quietly she does the same, feels the violent scars burned on the skin of his arms, tenderly caresses them.
He breaks away to throw his shirt aside, then falls with her onto the pillows. Thoughts of war, loss and sorrow melt away inside her mind when he's rolling up the cotton of her shirt with trembling fingers. She'd always imagined that she would recoil in fear of rejection when he'd finally see her body for the first time. Strangely she doesn't and slowly eases into the new sensation of his thumbs feeling her breasts, discovering and learning.
She doesn't even when his mouth sucks on her neck. To her, it's odd that lucid, rational Hermione cannot think anymore, can't process much else aside from Ron, Ron, Ron and his hands and his lips and his knee pressed hard between her legs.
"Sorry, I shouldn't - Sorry," he mumbles and retreats.
"It's fine, I -" She wants to say as she gets up.
"No, really, your parents - you're sad, miserable, I saw it and I shouldn't have -"
"Ron, I'm fine -"
"You're not! Hermione, I know you, I watch you every bloody day since that bloody war and I know you miss them and I want to help -"
"Ron -"
"I want to help, Hermione. I promised myself I'd help you protect them and get them back safely -"
"Ron -"
"And after, when they'll be safe and you'll be happy, then maybe we can give us a chance?"
"Ron…" Her voice trails off this time, bare chest full of love and deeply hurting for this boy.
"Would - would that be alright with you? Us, I mean?"
Even in the dark she notices how his face reddens and his eyes scan her frantically, hoping against hope she'll agree, doubting that she will.
"I don't need us to stop," Hermione finally says, and it's never been clearer to her.
"You, uh, you don't?"
"I miss them, yes. And I want them back, yes. And there are days and horrid nights when the war's the only thing on my mind, and Bellatrix, and I can hear them all dying," she inhales, shudders, and exhales. She needs to be able to keep talking. "It's hard for all of us, yes, but us is what makes it easier, each day easier. I want us to happen now. I can't trust we'll have a later."
For a moment he says nothing and all the old fears start to bubble just beneath the surface.
"Brilliant," he mouths just as she's about to blurt out words like vomit. His face lights up when he grins and she does too because another barrier has fallen between the two of them. Another victory.
"Sleep?" Ron asks, offering her her shirt then puts his own back on.
"Sleep," Hermione agrees.
It's barely minutes later when they fall asleep safely in each other's arms.
They both wake up at dawn, an anomaly determined by the ever looming threat of the matron's vigilance and expectations of her youths' general behaviour. As the sun rises and then disappears behind the orchard, Ron and Hermione's day is strangely devoid of other interactions, as if they'd suddenly become the last two people on the planet.
They can't quite remember much else than each other and a day spent together: thinking, talking, planning, reminiscing, enjoying the luxury of having one another. They understand that us became much stronger.
And stronger it grows with every boundary that falls along the way. With his kiss as they go comfortably to bed together, with her palm against his chest, roaming around and suddenly south, with his deep groan at a new feeling, with her moans as he mirrors her gestures. With rollercoaster after rollercoaster of emotions and ever more into the stillness of the night, us becomes much stronger.
The seeds of trust, nurtured by solace found and cherished in each other's presence, bloom on the sixth day and night. Fred's death, a topic immediately turned taboo inside the Burrow's walls, was never touched before.
What makes Ron unburden himself, Hermione does not know. All she can do is hold him, his head rested on her lap, as he talks about his brother's death, the feeling of despair and self-loath that tried him at the funeral, the memories of their childhood, the injustice of it all. All she can do is listen, stroke his hair, his cheeks as he dives further and further into the depths of his soul, wipes his tears when there's nothing else to say. It's nearly impossible to carry such misery and pain all by yourself, they understand. The load is lighter when there's two.
His mouth starts to explore when he ceases to talk, as hers sinks its teeth into the pillow, her nerves ablaze, her feet trembling madly.
Hermione feels her limbs like rags when Ron cradles her to sleep that night.
"I love you", they tell each other early in the morning and once more when they crawl into bed at dusk. It's hard to remember there's another world aside from the one they find in each kiss and embrace that they share. And, quite frankly, it's irrelevant for the here and the now that they are living, for the us that keeps on growing.
"I never told you, but I always thought you're beautiful. If only I'd told you sooner," Ron smiles shyly, freckled forehead pressed against her own.
"I never told you, but I always thought you're brilliant and kind and selfless. If only I'd told you sooner," she mimics, fingertips caressing one bright ginger temple.
"Well that was a bit stupid of us," Ron laughs, traces his lips over hers.
"Which part? The one where we said nothing, the one where we were afraid because of how the other might react or the one where we denied having feelings for each other?" She smirks, snuggling closer to him.
"Alright, that was absolutely stupid of us," he laughs. "Think of the time we wasted! Think of the Prefects' bathroom and all those different kinds of bubbles and whatnot it had. Imagine us, naked and alone," Ron sighs dramatically and she can't hold her laughter.
She feels her bruised heart heal every time he makes her laugh. "It does sound rather tempting."
"Ah, so I could have painted a convincing picture, then. I've always wondered if you'd accept if I did try," he goes on, willing his voice to remain even, his hands not to shake, his mind to stay focused.
She takes a minute to respond, words rolling out with heavy breathing, "I would have."
The world seems to stop and fall to deafening silence in the seconds that tick away and endlessly linger between her response and his.
"Would you still?"
"Yes."
Two whispers in the dark, two hearts ignite to flames, two pairs of lips melt together in the chaos that comes next.
"Positively sure?" Ron asks, fearfully searching for signs of hesitancy or doubt.
"Yes," Hermione nods her resolution, holding him tighter, closer.
Hands squeezed together, he inhales deeply. "Yeah, me too."