Look who's back for round 3!
Not to complain...but I'm gonna complain. All you readers out there, I do adore you… but if you like my story enough to favorite it, then I would hope that you like it enough to drop me a review. Just saying. Now, for all of you dear, sweet darlings who have jumped from here on over to read and drop a line or two about my other stories…you are made of gold and I adore you doubley!
And now I will step down off my soapbox and get on with the show. Got a little something-somethin in here for y'all, hope you enjoy!
I own nothing, so here we go!
"We have the answer to all your fears
It's short, it's simple, it's crystal dear"
Spearmint. Toothpaste.
The smell was like home and she breathed it in deeply. Her eyelids fluttered faintly at the sensation assaulting her still-woozy senses, but remained shut against the light. She must have left her curtains open, and she pressed her face into her pillow to preserve the fading darkness behind her lids. A tiny groan escaped her parted lips as felt the repercussions of moving, the aching in her body and throbbing in her head settling themselves into her slowly dawning consciousness, wiping out any lingering desire to stir from where she lay. Besides, her bed was so lovely and inviting that there could be no better remedy for the strange way she was feeling than to stay burrowed deep within its reassuring warmth. She was perfectly content to sleep away the day and let the world outside of her bedroom take care of itself, as long as she could nestle between these coarse sheets and flannel pillow, all smelling deliciously of spearmint toothpaste.
Because she had slept like this before, and it was the most marvelous…
Except her sheets weren't coarse…and her pillow wasn't flannel. She furrowed her brow with dreamy displeasure, hating her brain for analyzing things that should be left alone, but it wouldn't stop. She had trained it too well. And then everything, all the exceptions, came crashing down. Except she used cinnamon toothpaste, and avoided spearmint gum and mints and sweets at all possible costs. Except it was mid-afternoon and she was no business being asleep. Except she wasn't in bed, or even in her own room, but cradled in Ron's arms on the kitchen floor, her cheek against the soft fabric of his plaid shirt and her hands wrapped in the folds of his rough overcoat. The realization hit her hard, and her eyes flew open in shock for the shortest of moments before she forced them shut. She resisted the overwhelming urge to leap away, to grab his wand (so close within her grasp now) and put as much distance as possible between the two of them to defend herself, because there was something she desired even more than her own safety, and for that she made herself stay limp in his embrace.
Because his hands, his large, rough, beautiful hands, which had thrown glasses and pointed fingers and slammed against the counter with such bitter rage, were now the epitome of tenderness. And they had begun, oh-so-gently, to stroke her hair. From her crown they drifted, softly caressing the bushy mess she had never learned to tame before tapering down to the bristled ends, and then back again. They lingered on the tendrils around her face, and she felt the briefest of touches on her cheek before his fingers delved back to trace her curls. A sob rose up inside of her and she swallowed it back down, determined not the let anything break the perfection of this moment.
"Oh Hermione." He said in a strangled whisper, and she couldn't deny the tears she heard in his voice. Was this really the same man, so full of wrath and cruel words just seconds ago, who had reduced her to a such a shattered wreck of a woman that she had crumpled at his feet? They had both been through the full spectrum of human emotion and evidently it had exhausted his fury as much as it had her spirit. Working hard to keep her breathing regulated, she bunched his coat tightly in her hands, desperate to be closer to him. He was compliant to the wishes of her seemingly-dreaming self, and pulled her in snug against his chest. He placed his chin on the top of her head, and his breath ruffled her hair when he spoke.
"You're awake, aren't you?"
So she hadn't fooled him, after all. After all those years of being nothing more than an annoying buzz in his ears, it seemed her days of being unnoticed and neglected by Ron Weasley were over. Now she had a highly trained and observant wizard to contend with, and though the shifting of tides was rather unsettling, she couldn't help but to feel a surge of pride at the man he had grown into. She didn't say a word, content to feign ignorance and sleep for even a moment longer, so great was her desperation to savor every second of having his hands in her hair and her head against his chest. It was a fleeting pleasure, though, and despite her silence she felt his fingers still their ministrations and his grip on her lighten.
And yet, though he seemed about to, he did not let go.
"This feels right." He murmured, thick with yearning. She felt it too, and had to bite her tongue to stop herself from moaning out her agreement. It did, and it was, and yet it couldn't be.
It couldn't be, and she had three years of pain to prove it. To prove that they could be apart, that she could in fact survive on her own without Ron, though she had known all along that he was capable of getting along just fine without her. These treacherous emotions muddling her rational thought process were selfish ones, childish feelings that a grown-up of twenty-two should have outgrown some time ago. She wished with what was left of her heart that he would stop talking, stop bringing up so much that she had dedicated her life to trying to forget, and just let them be two bodies entwined on a kitchen floor for reasons far less complicated. But it wasn't to be.
"What…what happened Hermione? What did I do that was so awful you had to erase my memory and run away? I know I've been dreadful to you before, but-"
She interrupted him, breaking her silence with a yelp of disbelief. "Ron! No…" This was it, this was the moment where she lied, where she made him believe that she didn't want anything to do with him, that it was his fault she left and not a dilemma of her own making. She had set her mind, her broken heart, even, on doing so, but in this instant all preconceived notions and efforts vanished away. Her eyes brimmed with unshed tears. "It wasn't…you didn't…oh please don't. Please don't make me answer this. Can't you just trust me? Can't you just know that it was for the best, for both of us, and let it end with that?"
As if such a thing was ever an option, as if anything between them could ever be so simple.
He ignored her plea. "I missed you. So much. Everyday, of every year. It never got better, and it never will." He dipped his head, rubbing his stubbled cheek against her hair. "Didn't you miss me?"
The sobbing made it hard to articulate. So did the anguish. "Ron…"
"We were…together, weren't we?"
"We were only children." She told him through her tears, and her voice was desperate.
"But we were, though, weren't we? You and I?"
The sound that came from her mouth was barely a whisper. She hesitated, but couldn't bring herself to keep it from him any longer. "Only once." She admitted.
He stopped then, breathing that is. His whole body froze at her admission, and it was almost as though she could feel his turn to stone beneath her. It was then that she realized her mistake, knew that hadn't been the kind of "together" he was referring to. She wished to take it back, to spin a time-tuner for the briefest of revolutions to erase this horrid misstep, but…but then, a small part, a selfish part of her was glad it was out. That she didn't have to lie here wrapped so perfectly in his arms like she had never done so before. He moved slowly to unravel himself their embrace, his limbs working as though they had been filled heavily with lead, stuttering a bit before he spoke.
"Was it so bad then? Being with me? So terrible that you couldn't stand to face me afterwards?"
"Oh no Ron! You must believe me, it was wonderful…too wonderful…" She pressed her face into his shirt and let the fabric grow damp with her tears and muffle her words, knowing that at any moment he would push her away and she would lose her last chance to feel him against her forever
"Too wonderful? So wonderful you had to take even the memory away from me…take yourself away from me?" He asked incredulously, putting his hands on her shoulders and pulling her up so that he could see tear-streaked face.
"Please, please try and understand! It wasn't that, not at all! I never planned on it all turning out like this. But it all happened so quickly that night…" She gulped at the memory, the beautiful, painful memory that he did not share. "And things were dreadfully awkward after that, and we never really talked about what it meant for us, or told anyone, and then you got accepted into Auror training, and…" She gasped, heaving for breath as she felt her body shake quite violently with the force of her tears.
"And what?" He prompted, his voice softer, and almost (but not quite) sympathetic.
"And I couldn't ruin it for you."
"Ruin it? How could you ruin it for me? This is me ruined, now! I can't even imagine how that must have felt, having you and becoming an Auror…hell, all of my dreams were coming true!"
She shook her head emphatically. "No, can't you see? I would have been in the way, a distraction! Things were already so unsettled with the two of us, and I couldn't let what was happening between us hold you back from the one thing you've always wanted!"
"But Hermione, you've got it all wrong. Being an Auror was an ambition, a goal I'd set for myself and I am bloody glad to have achieved it, but it's nothing without you. You are what I've always wanted…what I still want. Can't you see?"
That overwhelming sense of inadequacy flared within her once more, just as it had the night she had apparated from his flat in the dark, leaving dawn to find him alone in his bed. "How could I? You could barely look at me after, or stand to be in a room alone together, and people noticed. Harry even remarked about how odd you were acting, asked me if something had happened between you and I, but I couldn't very tell him the truth, could I? I just…you just…Ron , it was for the best. I couldn't stand to be something you regretted."
"Hermione…" He clutched at her, moving a hand to press against either side of her face as if he were scared that if he let her out of his sight she would vanish away again. His mouth moved but no other sound came out, and a slight moisture seemed to be gathering in his eyes. She leaned into his touch, consequences be damned, and had just turned her cheek ever so slightly to press her lips against his palm when she heard it.
An ordinary sound, a comforting one even, most of the time. Just the jangle of keys at the door and the click and turn of the knob. She didn't know how much time had passed since she had come home to find Ron waiting impatiently outside her door, or how long she had been lost in dreamless sleep here on the floor, but it had been longer than she hoped. Because there it was, this ordinary sound, this comforting sound coming closer, but now it filled her with dread. Her eyes opened wide in fear and locked with his, pleading with his gaze not to turn and face the source of their distraction. She longed to mimic his motions, to hold in face still in her hands, but she couldn't seem to force her arms into movement, and after that everything seemed to proceed in slow motion. Footsteps, tiny footsteps, echoed on the cheap flooring in the hall, tearing around the corner and came skidding to a stop before them. His voice, his beautiful voice, so much his own and yet just as possessive as his fathers, broke the silence abruptly.
"Who are you? And why did you make my mummy cry?"
There you go, does that clear up any of the mystery for you? A bit cliché, I know, but I blame it on KARIANN1222 and that lovely fic of hers HALLOWED HEARTS, making me start thinking about babies and all that…