A/N: So this was intended to be a full, single chapter for "August," but it got really, really long and I decided to split it up while I finish the second half. Thanks for reading!

August 1998

He'd been home for four days, but she'd been locked up at the Leaky, pouring over books. The part of her that needed to be with him was fighting intensely with the part that recalled, too vividly, the way he'd looked at her the last time she'd seen him.

She'd been to see everyone else she could think of at the Ministry. She'd met again with Roger Anson - whom she had learned was one of only five people in Magical Law who had known the attack was coming - and she had spent considerable time arguing with the healers at St. Mungo's, who had released Ron hours after the attack.

She'd met with his parents, at Mr Weasley's office, collecting news of his state of mind, the terrible way he'd been, sealed up in his room, shouting at anyone who came up to check on him. She'd have gone, immediately, to his side, fearing for his sanity, if not for Harry... who was now pacing her room at the Leaky, back and forth at the foot of her bed, hands shoved deep into his trouser pockets.

"And then he threw a bloody chair at me. I disapparated immediately, but it caught me across the shoulder before I was gone. So no," he sighed, "I haven't tried to apparate directly into his room again since."

She took a deep breath to focus, shuddering at every piece of news that solidified Ron's illness.

If it could be called an illness, anyway...

"What about the mental health ward?" she asked, flipping through the piles of notes that littered her bed. She was sitting in the centre of them, cross-legged, stacks of books jostling on the mattress as she moved.

Harry shrugged and slumped down into an armchair.

"Unless he's actually insane, or proven very dangerous, they'll only see him voluntarily. And can you imagine what it would take to convince him to do anything we ever asked him to do?"

Hermione ripped open a large book at random, trying to gather her thoughts.

"Right. He hasn't lost his memory. He knows exactly who we are and what we were to each other. But now, he just hates us... for no explainable reason."

"Yep."

"Well," she huffed, "could you tell the Aurors to get off their arses and do something?"

Harry suppressed a grin and toed off his shoes.

"To their credit, they've got a huge team assembled to find the bloke who they think organised the attack," Harry put in, "if only they were sure it was him, in the first place..."

None of this was working, her body resisting her efforts to stay calm, to remind herself that this was real...

"I can't take it anymore, Harry," she said, quietly, rubbing her eyes. "We're no closer to figuring it out, and I can't keep hiding here."

"Parents still upset?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, wary.

"You have no idea. I thought I'd gotten through to them, just before this happened, but apparently not. As soon as I told them I had to leave to help Ron, they made me out to have been completely mental and delusional to have cared about him in the first place. It's almost as if they think he's truly as awful as he's acting now..."

"Doesn't make sense," Harry countered. "They know Ron. They've spent time with him since you've been back. And surely they know you're smart enough to choose good company. Besides that, they've never seemed the type to be so-"

"But they don't trust me anymore, after what I did," Hermione cut over him, sighing, chest aching, overwhelmed. "And I can't see them right now if they want to stop me helping Ron. I've explained it to them. I can't do anything else, can I."

But she wasn't sure she could take another day of news secondhand, either. And as she closed her books, one at a time, she knew she had to go now, no matter how hard it would be to face.

"I've got to see him, Harry," she said, in a tiny voice.

Harry nodded.

"You know, Mrs Weasley asked me again to see if you'd come stay with us at the Burrow."

She swallowed, feeling nauseous.

"Aside from the chair," Harry continued, "he hasn't tried to hurt anyone. But we know nothing's changing like this. He's still shouting about the same things. Bloody Earl Grey..."

Her heart skipped a beat.

"What did you just say?"

"He was complaining again about the taste of Earl Grey tea."

"Bergamot..." she breathed.

"What?"

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, opening them again to a hazy dance of dark spots.

"Hermione?" Harry got up from his chair and moved to kneel in front of her, concerned. "When was the last time you ate something?"

"Nevermind, Harry," she brushed off, not stopping to contemplate how long it had actually been. Sod food, at a time like this. "The last time I saw him, at the Ministry, before the explosion, Ron mentioned that I-" but she broke off, overwhelmed. The sweetness and gentleness of his words and his tone and the bloody perfect scratchiness of his voice reverberated inside her.

You taste amazing.

Tears pooled in her eyes, and she blinked them free.

"He kissed me," she whispered, "and I'd just had Earl Grey for breakfast. The bergamot in the tea... he liked the taste of it."

Harry's eyes widened, and he puffed out a heavy breath.

"That's really strange. It's a very specific taste, isn't it."

Hermione nodded, clenching bed covers in her fists.

"I told you about the violets," she recalled, "what he said when I first saw him, during his interview with the healer?"

"Yeah," Harry confirmed, "only I assumed it made sense he'd smell your shampoo, the way you explained he was holding you, during the attack. But now..."

"Maybe it means something else."

Harry nodded.

"I'm coming with you, today, back to the Burrow," she said, sliding off the bed and flicking her wand, sending her books and notes into an organised, mid-air dance toward her bag.

"Hermione..."

She looked up to find Harry staring across at her, from the foot of the bed. The sympathy in his expression made her eyes water.

"He loves you. He's just forgotten what that means."

Tears slipped free to roll hotly down her blotchy cheeks as she nodded, roughly wiping her face with the back of her hand.

"Percy's the only one who can stay up there with him longer than a minute," Ginny was saying, "which is odd, considering their relationship."

Hermione glanced up from unpacking, watching as Ginny tucked fresh sheets into the camp bed Hermione would be using in Ginny's room for the time being.

"Actually," Hermione considered, "maybe that makes a lot of sense. He wasn't close with Percy, and now he doesn't have as strong of a pull with him to feel the opposite."

"That's a good point..."

Ginny tucked in the last corner of the sheets and sat on the edge of the now-made camp bed, staring up at Hermione as she finished unloading her books and notes onto the bedside table.

"What?" Hermione asked, catching Ginny watching her closely.

"Just..." Ginny trailed off, shrugging. "Be careful, will you? If your theory's correct, that he feels more intensely hateful towards the people he loved, and it's not just blind rage, then he'll feel it the most with you. Just don't want you getting hurt. I know you trust him, and it's hard, but that's not Ron up there. Not really."

Hermione stilled the trembling of her hands by pressing her palms to the cover of the book on top of the stack she'd made. Holding her breath, she nodded, looking away.

She had absolutely no plan whatsoever. She was standing on the landing outside his room, heart pounding a hole through her chest. It was so quiet, she wondered if he might be asleep...

And it was the thought of being able to see him that way, unconscious - without the harsh words and vile expression she'd seen from him before - that urged her forward, reaching for the handle and easily opening his surprisingly unlocked door.

But he wasn't asleep.

He was standing by the window across the room, boxes stacked against the wall to the left. His bed was stripped bare, and one of his dresser drawers was still gaping partly open, as if it had been shoved shut too hastily to properly close all the way.

She breathed unsteadily as she stared at his back from the doorway. It was much too easy, seeing him like this, to imagine that everything was normal... that she was merely here with him now after a short time away, waiting for the moment when he'd turn around and smile at her.

He did turn, then. But the expression he wore instead, before really seeing her, was one of utter annoyance at the intrusion... morphing quickly to sheer disgust as he fully took in the sight of her.

"What the hell do you want?"

She relaxed her gaze, allowing him to swim out of focus in front of her. She saw him now as only the blurry outline of his physical self. This way, maybe, she could forget, only for a moment...

"I see you've packed."

"Well spotted," he replied, sharply.

She resisted the urge to flinch. Or to run. She could choose to recognise his words as an echo of the ones she had said to him, fourth year, the day he'd made that very astute observation... that she was a girl.

Or she could swallow the scream that threatened to boil up inside of her and speak to him again, ignoring the constant re-breaking of her heart...

"Where are you going?" she asked, forcing her voice to remain calm and level, despite the catch in her throat.

He laughed coldly, and she blinked, bringing him unfortunately back into focus. His cruelly burning eyes flashed back into hers, and she clenched her fists at her sides, focusing a part of her mind on her wand, tucked neatly into her back pocket, waiting.

"Have they sent you up, then?" he asked, a harsh sort of growl buried in his deep voice. "It's a useless waste of time. I'm moving out, and they can't stop me. You can't stop me."

She shook her head, focusing everything now on responding to his words with a gentle tone, one that could at least make him hear how much she cared for him, whether or not it would matter... whether or not he would even notice.

"No one's sent me, Ron. And I'm not trying to stop you from doing anything. I only wanted you to know that I'm here, and I- I care so much about you. I love-"

Two strides. All it took were two, and she was frozen, his tall frame now halfway from the window to the doorway, where she still stood. He was partially silhouetted by the late afternoon light from the window behind him, and she noticed, absently, how his hair, glowing amber, gave off a strong impression of being currently on fire.

"Don't," he demanded.

Her feet were going numb, shock dulling her nerves as she resolutely stared back at him.

"You need to leave," he instructed, but she gave the tiniest shake of her head, and he advanced, two more paces.

She was holding her breath, then, so close to him that he was able, now, to almost whisper... and she could still hear him. Too clearly.

"Do you want me to make sure you go? I can do that. You care about me? Well, I despise you. The greatest achievement of my life would be never having to see you again. Are you starting to understand?"

He suddenly made a disgusted face and turned abruptly, reaching for a half-full glass of water sitting on top of his dresser. He drank quickly, eyes squinted shut, and let out a heavy breath, turning back to face her.

"Do you get it? Or are you just too thick? Get the fuck out of my house."

Small sparks danced mesmerisingly before her eyes, and her knees buckled.

"I don't care what you say," she whispered. "I know you're still here... I love you, Ron."

And the last thing she saw, as she fell to the floor, was his now-empty glass shattering violently as he threw it against the wall.

It couldn't have been long at all before she woke, sun glowing a deep red-orange through his bedroom window. Aside from the hardly changed light, she'd made a deal with Harry and Ginny that one of them would come for her if she was gone more than a quarter of an hour. And, as if on queue, she heard the thundering of concerned footsteps ascending the stairs.

Harry appeared suddenly in Ron's still-open doorway, kneeling quickly by Hermione as she pushed herself to sit up.

"You were right, Harry," she said, weakly. "I should have eaten something first."

"What happened?" he asked frantically, eyes darting from her surely pale face to the shards of broken glass scattered round to her left.

"It's alright," she said as she pushed up onto her knees, pausing briefly as a wave of dizziness passed through her. "He didn't hurt me-"

But that was when it occurred to her. She had passed out, as he'd been at the height of his anger toward her, worse than she had expected. And now, he was gone. But he hadn't harmed her. He'd done nothing.

"Harry." She stood too quickly, swaying slightly. Harry joined her and took her by the arm. "Did you see him leave?"

"No, he must have apparated straight from here to- ...wherever." Harry glanced around the room, eyes scanning over Ron's packed boxes. "I don't imagine he shared with you where he was planning to go?"

"No," she sighed shakily, "only that he was packing to move away. I don't expect he has any intention of giving us more information than that. And, of course, he left his room while I was unconscious, so your guess is as good as mine for where he's gone now."

"Wonderful."

"But, Harry," and she turned, leading him out of the room and onto the landing, "we should start making documentation of everything he says and does when we see him. He could have thrown that glass at me. He was just mad enough to do it. But he didn't. And I was helpless, after that. He could have done anything he'd wanted, with me unconscious... but he left, instead. I know it probably doesn't mean much, but if he resisted... Well, it could be significant, if we can figure out some kind of a pattern."

"Maybe," Harry said, looking thoughtful as they started down the stairs, "but he didn't hesitate with the chair, remember?"

She chewed her lip, considering this conveniently forgotten piece of information. But figuring out his motivation was only a piece of it now. Worry crept through her empty stomach, a weight settling more noticeably in the centre of her chest.

"What do you think he's doing, right now?" she asked, not expecting a real answer. "I don't like not knowing where he is. He could be in trouble..."

"I know. But I don't think there's anything we can do about that," Harry sighed. "He's got to come back for his boxes, right?"

"I guess so..."

"We could snoop around his room while he's out," Harry suggested, apprehensively, "see if we can find anything that might point us to where he's planning to move, at least."

Hermione nodded vaguely, still feeling entirely too lightheaded.

"First things first," Harry added, glancing sideways at her, "Mrs Weasley's made a roast. We should eat... get some strength back..." But he seemed a bit uncomfortable all of a sudden, as if he wanted to say more but wasn't sure how.

"Go on," she urged, pausing at the next landing. "What is it?"

"Well..." he looked down at his feet, adjusting his glasses. "Don't hex me, but are you sure the only reason you fainted was lack of food?"

"What do you mean? I'm sure it was a lovely combination of that and the way he was..." She swallowed, wishing to push his words as far to the back of her mind as possible. "He wasn't exactly polite."

"But you couldn't be... I mean, I've heard, sometimes, that when women are... Well, dizziness or feeling nauseous is-"

"Harry," she interrupted, catching on, "I'm not pregnant."

He looked relieved, but maybe a bit sceptical.

"Really. I can guarantee it, considering we never slept together..." she clarified, blushing.

He raised his eyebrows... cleared his throat.

"Oh."

"Bloody typical..." she sighed, prompting Harry to scratch his ear, puzzled.

"Typical?"

And she suddenly found that the tears she hadn't realised were coming had made a very dramatic appearance. Her vision blurred, and words rushed to the surface.

"W-We were supposed to spend the night together, the same bloody day he was p-poisoned!"

She trembled, and Harry winced apologetically.

"What if this is it?! What if we can never fix him, and he hates us for the rest of our lives? I know it's a bit ridiculous - we'd only been together a couple of months, really - but I honestly thought... Harry, I was done. I was going to spend the rest of my life with him, as long as he still wanted..."

But she couldn't finish that sentence, knowing now how true it had become... that he really didn't want her, anymore.

"I need a minute," she said, "before we go down."

"Yeah."

And they sat, together, on the edge of the landing, Hermione sniffing as Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"I'm really sorry," he said, softly. "We will figure this out."

"I'm not the only one he hates," she reasoned, and Harry nodded.

"True, but I know it's different, for you."

"Maybe not so much different than it is for you, Harry." And she attempted a smile as he glanced over at her, replacing his glasses over his ears. "He's your best friend. Your brother, really."

"Yeah..." he smiled back, sadly. "Well. He loves us both... as much as we love him. And that's not gone. I know it isn't. Ron's still in there, and we'll find him."

It was well past midnight before he came back.

Harry and Hermione had cautiously returned to his room after dinner, to search through his belongings, in hopes that they could piece together where he was planning to move. The guilt at snooping through his personal items was outweighed only slightly by their need to keep him safe.

By the light of her wand, Hermione was staring, glassy-eyed, at a parchment from Gringotts, stating his vault balance and recent transactions. She felt her stomach twist, mentally apologising to him for looking at the document behind his back. But then she quelled her shame by acknowledging the fact that could Ron speak for himself, as the person he really was, he would surely want her to do this... to do whatever it took to bring him back.

"It's not specific enough, Harry," she sighed, blinking for the first time in too long, eyes burning. "He's taken out galleons yesterday, but it was a simple coin withdrawal, and there's nothing on file about his reasons for-"

A loud crack startled Harry and Hermione into jumping up from their positions, wands at chest height, aimed, they immediately recognised, for Ron's tall silhouette, where he was now suddenly standing in the centre of his room, backlit by moonlight flowing in through the window directly behind him.

"Expelliarmus!" he cried, before either of his opponents could respond. Gasping, Hermione stumbled backward, almost losing her balance as her wand flew from her grasp to roll across Ron's bare mattress.

"Ron-" she started, but Harry had put up a frantic shield charm, at the same instant that Ron had disarmed him as well. The shield charm wavered, blocking Harry temporarily from the other two.

"Hermione!" he shouted, glancing from Ron to her wand, where it had rolled to a stop, stuck in the space between Ron's mattress and the wall.

"Sod you both," Ron swore roughly, vanishing his stacks of boxes with a flick, a few stray papers floating to the floor.

Hermione had no time to turn her back to retrieve her wand. She saw only one thing, knew only one thing... in an instant. If he left again now, with no reason to return to the Burrow, she might never find him again. Panic filled her as she watched him brace himself to apparate.

"Ron, WAIT!"

But she knew that he wouldn't.

She knew the risk. In the back of her mind, there was a very real chance that she could splinch and bleed to death...

But she did it anyway.

Ron's body was twisting, already disapparating, when she threw herself at him, clinging on to his shirt and scrambling for the flesh of his arm, beneath the hem.

"Hermione, NO!"

But the frantic sound of Harry's voice was abruptly cut off by the crack of her own body already being sucked away, nails sharply digging into Ron's bicep as she closed her eyes...

They arrived with a startling gust of wind, as if the physical space taken up by the air they had entered was literally hurled aside to make room. She stumbled to the floor as Ron glared down at her, panting fiercely, wand still tightly held aloft in his hand.

"Are - you - out - of - your - fucking - mind?!"

For a moment, she was sure she'd been splinched. It was the only logical reaction to have, after what she'd done, and the shock of her own decision. But, moving tenderly to sit upright again, she noted no signs of injury. Nothing. Not even a scratch or a missing fingernail.

She stared up at Ron's red face, lips parting.

"You could have killed me!" she whispered, now overwhelmed with a different kind of shock.

"What?" he growled.

"Ron. You could have splinched me! But you brought me with you, and I'm fine!"

He breathed heavily for a moment before taking a step back.

"Don't know what you're on about... You're mad!"

She scrambled to her feet, standing before him as he lowered his wand and shook his head. Tears welled in her eyes as she stared up at him.

"You can't side-along someone unless you're really focusing," she started, trying her best to keep from crying in front of him now, "and why should you bother doing that? But you protected me! You were splinched, last year, doing the same thing! You hate me... and you saved my life! I couldn't have helped you do that!"

But he shook his head again, as if he hadn't really heard her.

"Ron?" she tried, voice shaky from shock. "Ron, can you hear-"

"What the bloody hell did you think was going to happen when you came here?" he interrupted, something oddly pitched about his tone, as if an unaware part of him was struggling furiously. "Fantastic. You see where I live now. Good luck walking home. You left your wand in my old bedroom, if you hadn't noticed..."

He turned his back on her and crossed the room, which she now saw was a rather cozy looking sitting area with a small fireplace, adjoining a kitchen on the far side. As she watched him walk to the sink, she tried to breathe, to consider her options. He was right. She had left in such haste, so desperate to maintain a link to his location. She hadn't considered how she would get back... only that she had to go with him.

She heard him spit violently into the sink, watching curiously as he made his way to a small box on top of a round table, reaching in and retrieving a glass before filling it with water... which he gulped down so fast she was afraid he might choke. Panting again, he lowered the glass with a shaky grip to the tabletop, and she was frozen as she watched him trembling, clutching the edge of the table as he slumped to sit on a ladder-backed chair.

"Hermione," he choked out, voice alarmingly deep, "what the fuck do you want with me? Why are you still here?"

She couldn't speak. The sound of his voice across her name that way... And she realised, just then, that it was the first time he had addressed her by name, since the attack. At the Ministry.

Since he had changed.

"You can walk to the Ministry from here," he continued, pressing his palms to the top of the table in front of him. But when she didn't move, he turned abruptly to glare across the room at her. "GO!"

His eyes seemed to glow in the darkness, like bluebell flames. Her ribs were crushing her lungs beneath, surely. But the tone of his voice, demanding and with no room for conversation, had set her moving toward the door, without conscious thought.

With shaking hands, she managed to undo the latch, stepping out of his sight and into the corridor on the other side. Closing the door behind her with a soft click, she remained frozen, just there, leaning against his door for support, as she listened to the sound of his now-unfamiliar voice setting the wards inside, shutting her out more securely.

She took a final, shuddering breath before turning and taking note of the number on his flat door... 378. And, as she descended two flights of stairs, her mind began to clear, to return to the truth she had discovered... the one she now felt desperate to rush away and tell Harry and Ron's family all about.

Without her wand, he could have splinched her, or changed course and taken her somewhere else.

But he had brought her home. In quite a startling way, he had basically saved her life.

After some frustrating attempts to explain herself, she had finally managed to secure a way back to the Burrow. By using the Ministry's visitor's entrance and happening across someone she knew at the check-in desk, she was able to get in contact with a second shift wizard in maintenance who remembered who she was and was on his way out for the night. He'd flagged down the Knight Bus for her, to which she had been overwhelming grateful, and she had arrived in Ottery St Catchpole, at half past three in the morning.

Exhausted, she walked the short distance down from the village to the Weasleys' property, stepping through the wards and sighing with relief as she spotted Ginny sitting inside by a glowing fire.

As she walked inside, Harry's anxious face came into view, from around the corner.

"Oh, thank Merlin," he breathed, running a hand through his messy hair. "Ginny! She's back!" Ginny bounded into view as well, wide eyes landing on Hermione as she shut the door behind her and closed her eyes briefly.

"Oh my god, what happened?!" Ginny's face was even paler than usual. She moved closer to inspect Hermione, as if Hermione could be ready to literally fall apart on the rug at her feet.

"H-He d-didn't splinch me," Hermione whispered.

"We can see as much," Harry put in, stepping up closer as well, "but it's a bloody miracle."

"Harry," she said, more firmly this time, "he didn't splinch me!"

Harry took her by the arm and nodded.

"Come sit down. We were so damn worried about you. I was about to suggest we go to the Ministry for help, but we couldn't honestly figure out what the hell anyone would be able to do."

Silently, she followed Harry to the sofa, organising her thoughts. Then, she told them, in more detail, about her realisation, and what it could mean. Something in him may have fought to protect her, against the poison... against his illness.

After easing out the words she had to recall to explain, she went up to bed, shaking.

Morning came too quickly, and she had hardly slept. But Harry was dressed and ready to go by the time Mr Weasley left for work, and Hermione saw no reason to waste time trying to sleep when her body and mind would not fully let her rest anyway. Not now. Not like this.

They apparated together to a small copse of trees she had spotted at the end of Ron's block. Their plan today was only to get inside the building long enough to figure out the layout of Ron's flat. If they could do that, it would be easier to keep up with him... and to spy on him. His mother had wanted to see him, asking to come with them to confront him, but after discussing what had happened each time Hermione had seen him, they had reasoned that it might not be best to give the impression of ganging up.

Hermione could easily understand his mother's point of view, wanting more than anything to be there for him and to help him, but stalling at her own inability to set aside how it made her feel to hear him shout, harsh words of disgust from his voice and his lips, toward her. And Hermione had sensed a bit of relief at Mrs Weasley's agreement to stay home and to let Harry and Hermione continue to do whatever it took to fix him. The trust Mrs Weasley placed in her almost made her feel queasy, taking it as a burden she couldn't shake to call him back from whatever had taken hold of him, the moment he'd sacrificed his life for hers.

The knowledge that he hadn't known what that gas would do to the one who breathed it made it so much more weighty, in her mind. He hadn't known if he would suffocate, had likely accepted the possible outcome of his own death before doing what he had done... giving up his mask, the only defense he had, to guarantee her safety. It wasn't the first time he'd done such a thing for her. But she was seeing, now, the first serious consequences of such a choice.

She was lost in thought, then, when Ron suddenly appeared on the sidewalk, much too close. She clutched Harry's arm too hard, and he winced, freezing a second later as he saw what she had seen.

Ron was standing in front of his new building, talking to an older gentleman with wavy blond hair. Thinking fast, Harry grabbed Hermione by the wrist and ducked behind a long row of thick bushes, moving closer to overhear Ron's conversation, hidden from his view.

"...and I'll let your second room to the next applicant, unless you have someone in mind?"

"No," Ron answered, "that sounds fine."

"Let me know, of course, if you have any trouble with the room. You've paid through the end of August, so if there's nothing else, I'll see you on the 1st of September."

"Thank you, sir."

Hermione squeezed Harry's arm again, struck by Ron's politeness. A moment later, they could hear his footsteps, receding down the street, and Hermione sat back on the ground, rubbing her throbbing temples.

"Well," Harry sighed. "It's becoming pretty clear you were right about his attitude now being based somehow on important people in his life from before. He has no former connection to someone he's never met, so he's got no reason to hate them now."

Hermione nodded, considering something else. There was no point now in going inside, not if her plan could work.

"Harry, it sounds like he's got a second room in his flat for let."

"Right."

"Then you know what we have to do. We've got to find someone he doesn't know, but someone we can trust, to move into that room."