V.
Harry felt a rush of exhilaration and almost skipped towards the corridor. This is why Ron used the Time Turner, this is why I don't remember him kissing Hermione! He decided it was a huge mistake, and came back to fix it! He turned around at the doorway to see that Other Ron had apparently decided to prove his Ron-ness one last time, and dashed back for final words and another kiss. Harry couldn't help grinning at the sight, especially when the basilisk fangs clattered to the floor. A voice behind him made him jump.
"Just be calm, Hermione. You can do this. You've known him for seven years. It's Ron, for goodness' sake. It doesn't have to be like it was with Viktor..."
Harry turned to see no-one but Hermione. She was talking to herself as she finished combing her fingers through her hair, which had achieved getting rid of nearly all the bits of Hogwarts that had become tangled in it; and also really brought out the bushiness. Harry wasn't sure if Hermione had been aiming for the latter, but it was certainly striking.
He realized that he'd never properly watched a girl when she thought she was unobserved. He saved the sudden resulting revelation that possibly, maybe, owning the best ever cloak of invisibility for nearly a decade and not once using it to watch girls, just might be a pointer on his sexual orientation issue, to think about later.
Hermione was now muttering under her breath as she fussed with her shirt buttons. He caught the words "...can think circles around Lavender Brown," and "...knew I should have worn the other bra," as she did something mysterious with first one hand, then the other, down the front of the shirt. She craned her head to see Other Ron approaching, and hastily undid another button.
"Sorry," he grinned, looking flushed and breathless and not the slightest bit sorry. "Dropped the teeth."
"Fangs. I mean, um, thanks. Thanks, Ron. They're great, really great. Lovely," said Hermione, not looking at Ron's armload, and then tightening her mouth as though inwardly berating herself.
"Yeah, lovely," agreed Ron dubiously, looking down at the cracked, greenish-yellow enamel with tatters of decayed gum flesh still clinging to it. He dumped the fangs next to where his broomstick leaned against the wall, and then turned to face Hermione, brushing himself off and clearing his throat a little nervously. She looked at him expectantly, as did Harry (who had decided to just think of him as Ron again- it was too confusing to think of him as Other Ron when he could only see one of them).
Is he going to tell her now? Just like that? By the way, 'Mione, before we return to saving Hogwarts I just wanted to let you know I'm gay, now let's go kick some Death Eater arse?
Ron looked at Hermione, took a deep, resolute breath and said "I have to tell you something."
She took a step towards him. "What is it, Ron?" She looked eager, somehow, and a little unsure. Harry felt a sudden pang of sympathy: she was one of his dearest friends, after all, and she was about to be disappointed. Watching Ron kiss her had literally brought him to his knees. He hoped that whatever she was about to hear would be easier to take.
Ron cleared his throat again. He looked at a loss for words now that the moment had come, then blurted out, "We have to get the house-elves out of here, so they'll be safe. We- we can't order them to die for us, can we?"
"What the fuck?!" exclaimed Harry in outrage as Hermione flung herself at Ron. But Ron was ready for her this time, and with the kind of move that had finally made him a Keeper to be reckoned with, he caught her at arms' length and turned the embrace into a clumsy hug. Harry felt a huge wave of relief. Ron was holding Hermione so firmly that she couldn't actually get her face near his, half-buried as it was in her hair.
"Oh, Ron!" she squeaked ecstatically, trying to turn her head.
Ron hugged her tighter, and said, "And I like boys."
"You- what did you say?" Hermione stilled her head and released her grip, and Ron slackened his hold so that they could look at each other.
"The house-elves, we need to-" Ron's words failed in his mouth at the strength of her glare. Professor McGonagall would have been proud.
"I like boys," he quietly repeated. Hermione looked at him for a long moment, scrutinizing the emotions that flickered across his face, and slowly nodded. She had been his friend long enough to know that on a subject of this sensitivity, those three words were the most elaborate explanation she was going to get for now. Deliberately, almost carefully, she hugged him again and pressed a kiss to his cheek.
"Are you okay with- with it?" he asked, relief and disbelief mingling in his tone.
"Oh Ron, of course I am!" she replied, releasing him and turning away as though to start picking up the fangs. "I think it's great. I've thought it, actually, for quite a while. I mean, it's quite obvious, isn't it, and I am the brightest witch of my age, after all." She sounded just the right mix of airy, casual, and smug; but Harry could see her face.
"Really? Wicked!" grinned Ron, who couldn't. "I knew you'd be alright about it." The relief with which he said this didn't make it sound like he had known that at all, but Hermione let it go. She donned her Expression of Extreme Efficiency and turned back to Ron.
"So, the Cup?" she said.
"Being gay doesn't change how I feel about Quidditch- oh, that Cup," said Ron, actually blushing a bit and digging the golden chalice out of his pocket. He set it on the stone floor of the corridor. They all looked at it. Harry thought (not for the first time) that if he had been a Dark Lord hell-bent on world domination, war, and chaos, prepared to rip his very soul to shreds and hide those shreds to avoid death, he would have chosen as a receptacle something a bit more impressive than a small cup with badgers on it.
"Oh, right. Hermione, you should destroy this one," said Ron, like an actor suddenly remembering his lines.
She nodded vigorously without glancing at him, and Harry thought she really looked like smashing something to pieces might make her feel better. Ron watched her pick up a single fang, and as she straightened and turned he said, "I do- you know- you're really- I-"
"Well, thanks for clearing that up," she snapped with false brightness, and then relented at the hurt expression that flashed across his face.
"The cup!" yelled Harry suddenly, forgetting that they could neither hear nor see him. It was slowly filling from the bottom, welling up with a dark, thick liquid that looked like blood.
"Sorry," Hermione apologized. Ron looked at her with a rare expression of utter seriousness.
"I do love you, Hermione. I love you like a sister, and I hope whatever happens-"
"Look at the frigging cup!" Harry shouted uselessly. He could see a pair of all-too-familiar brown eyes glinting on the surface of the liquid, as though reflected.
"I love you too, Ron. And I'll try to love you like a brother-"
"Very bad things are going to happen if you don't stab the cup!"
"I never meant to hurt you, Hermione. That's why I had to tell you now-"
"Merlin's balls, will you two shut up and destroy it?"
"Oh, Ron-" Her eyes were glinting with tears.
"Oh, shit!" Ron had finally noticed what was happening to the Horcrux. "I forgot- you have to stab it right away, before-"
Two waving, pale figures ballooned suddenly and hideously up between them, ankles tapering together into Helga Hufflepuff's golden cup. Ron's mouth dropped open as he regarded the Voldemort versions of Harry and himself, red eyes glaring, sneering at Hermione as they loomed towards her.
"You're useless when we don't need you to do our homework, why don't you go away?" taunted the Voldemort-Harry. "You're so annoying with your know-it-all attitude. I'm the Boy Who Lived, do you really think I need some prattling bookworm to back me up?"
"Yeah, sod off," agreed Voldemort-Ron, gazing at a picture of Neville Longbottom that he had produced from a pocket. "We know you're frigid anyway." His red eyes fixed on her. "Viktor Krum couldn't do it for you, could he? Big macho Quidditch pro, all the girls said he was sex on a broomstick, logic says he should have made you wet-"
"Shut up!" screamed Hermione, raising the fang two-handed and plunging it down through the swaying figures. They dissolved before it without resistance, and her impetus brought Hermione to her knees. The cup cracked and buckled as the deadly tip plummeted into it, the liquid oozing out and then splattering as Hermione raised the fang and brought it down again and again. "Shut up! Shut up! I hate you! You lie! You lying, stupid, worthless, arse! Seven years of your shit-" Blood sprayed her contorted face and flying hair. All trace of her usual control had vanished as she stabbed the cup over and over, and with each stab a word spat from between her bared teeth. "You-made-me-live-in-fear. You-made-me-fail-exams. You-broke-up-my-family. You-broke-up-my-sex-drive! Now-will-you- just-FUCK-OFF!"
The cup was a mangled, twisted wreck. The basilisk fang had actually cracked. Hermione sat back on her heels, breathed in deeply, and gave a great sigh of relief.
Ron still had his mouth open. Harry wanted to close it for him.
"That's better," said Hermione, as though she'd just relabeled one of their old star charts. She drew her wand, pointed at herself and said "Scourgio."
"Brilliant, but really, really fucking scary sometimes," Ron said quietly.
Harry found himself nodding in agreement, then jerked in shock as he felt a firm grip on his elbows and plunged backwards, out of the memory, out of the Pensieve, and into Ron's arms.
"What did you see? How much?" demanded Ron in a low growl, spinning Harry to face him. "What's the last thing you saw?"
He looked utterly furious.