A/N: Hi everyone, i'm terribly sorry this took so long, i don't really have an excuse so i'm not going to feed you some stupid reason. I did however slightly rush this chapter but i did try and make it a relatively decent length for you.

Also, still searching for a beta, please let me know if you are interested or know of someone who would be.

Thanks, hope you like.

Chapter 18

I didn't mind the numb sensation that had essentially taken over my body, in fact I was quite happy to remain in this state for the foreseeable future if it meant I no longer felt as though I had a dozen knives buried in my chest. I realise that going about my day this way is not exactly healthy, however, I believe that it will pass just as the sharp stabbing sensation had.

And whatever came after this numbness I would deal with it when it came.

All I had to do was keep busy, if I kept busy I wouldn't have the time to think about them or remember the words they had spoken with distrust and shame. And it wasn't as though I was running short of things to do, I had finally unpacked my beaded bag and cleaned, washed, returned and organised every little thing that had been stashed in there over the last year. From this task had sprung the idea to clean and organise the boys' room. As I had cleaned and washed their clothes and other various items I saw no sense in returning them to a pigsty of a room, thus their room was stripped, cleaned and put back together with all of their things in a sensible and practical order.

When Harry went to spend time with Teddy I went along to help Mrs Tonks with her gardens as it was something that she no longer had a great deal of time for now that she had Teddy.

When Mrs Weasley needed some chore crossed of her list I volunteered, however after a while she told me she had nothing left for me to do. This, I did not entirely believe as she always had stuff that needed doing, but as I can relate to just trying to keep busy, I let her go about her work alone.

I even spent half a day with Mr Weasley going through a mound of muggle devices, helping identify their name and purpose. My favourite was the stapler, when I simply stapled his many sheets of parchment together his delight at the convenience of having such things bound together was truly hilarious.

I did attempt to watch Ron, Harry and Ginny play some quidditch, however this allowed me too much thinking time, so instead I headed into the tiny shed that held all their brooms and other quidditch accessories and cleaned and organised them. The place gleamed for the first time in living memory.

I listened and absorbed every word that Kingsley and Professor McGonagall spoke when they gave us options for our futures. Kingsley offered all three of us a number of jobs at the ministry despite not having any NEWTS, this pleased the boys immensely and I tried to return the smile Ron sent me when Kingsley said he would be happy to have him start in the Auror training program.

McGonagall explained that if we wanted to attend Hogwarts when it reopened to do our seventh year she would be glad to have us back. If we didn't want to do an entire year we were also given the choice of just sitting the exams. These would be held in January as to give us a few months preparation; she pressed the point on the importance of NEWTS as they were required for a number of jobs that Kingsley was not offering as well as jobs outside the Ministry.

After they had left there had been hours of discussion between everyone in the house. Everyone wanted us to hear their opinion on what they think we should do, there was also a never-ending stream of questions they would ask, plus I had Ginny in my ear raving on about how cool it would be to be in the same year as me.

The last few days had definitely not been slow or boring.

Every second we were alone Ron kept trying to talk to me about mum and dad, but as that was something I didn't want to think about I quickly either found some mundane task to do or gave his mouth something to do other than talk. Since I was clearly not going to discuss the topic I assume Ron and Harry have been behind my back. I gather this because every time I walk into a room occupying just the two of them a brief, awkward silence fills the room before either Harry or Ron pick up some conversation about quidditch, Auror training or Hogwarts.

Do they really think I haven't noticed?

Another thing I have noticed is that Ron seems to disappear for times when I have distracted myself with some unexciting task. It's not as though I need him about 24/7 or that he has to tell me everything he does, it's just that he has always been there and he has always told where he was going or what he was doing. I also hadn't realised up until now how aware of him I have always been. I've never really thought about it, but if someone had come to me in the past and asked what Ron was going or where he was I would have had an answer.

I was not going to ask and risk coming across as some overbearing, annoying girlfriend.

"What are you up to dear?" came Mrs Weasley's voice, pulling me out from my thoughts.

"Oh, nothing really, I was reading over some of the information McGonagall gave us."

At least that was the plan before I zoned out.

"That's a great idea. I've been trying to get Ginny to go over the NEWT requirements for a number of careers but she just keeps telling me that you don't need NEWTS to play Quidditch. Do you think you could maybe convince her to at least have a back up plan? I think having you in her classes will probably help too."

"I don't know if I'll be going back."

The look of utter disbelief on Mrs Weasleys face was probably mirrored by my own as I was just as surprised by my own declaration as she seemed to be.

"Oh, sorry… I just… I guess we all assumed…"

"I always assumed I would to…but now I just don't know."

"Are you thinking about joining the boys in Auror training?"

"No." I said it softly and gently yet the firmness behind it wouldn't have been missed.

"What did you have in mind then?" she asked honestly caring about what I may choose to do with my life.

"I really don't know yet… can you not tell anyone? It's just… I don't know… I want to think about it a bit more."

"We never had this conversation," she said as she rose from her seat beside me, "but Hermione… if you need to talk, or just want to talk… you can come to me anytime… you know that right?"

I just nodded, my heart was in my throat and it felt like I was choking on it. The knowing look in Mrs Weasley's eyes had mine watering up, so I pushed up out if my chair and headed out into the back garden.

As I walked through the yard I thought about how everyone had been treating me since Ron and I returned from Australia. Despite returning well before expected and clearly without my parents the Weasley's had not mentioned a single word to me about it. They have not asked when they are coming home, they have not asked when I will be returning to my parents house, they have not asked if we had a good trip, they simply have acted as if Ron and I never left. I assume Ron filled them in at some point and specifically asked for them to not mention it.

Not that he was sticking to this. He wanted me to write them, go see if they have returned to my childhood home or even go back to Australia and see them again. I was not going to do any of these, it was clear how they felt and no amount of nagging on Ron's behalf was going to convince me otherwise.

"Hey, what're you doing out here?"

Speak of the devil.

"Nothing much, just thinking about stuff McGonagall said."

It wasn't really a lie, I had very briefly thought about it… before I came outside. Okay I lied.

He sat down beside me, "I'm gonna miss you." he said quietly and without making any eye contact.

"What are you talking about? Where are you going?" I was a little mortified at how easily I became distressed over this statement.

"Me? I'm not going anywhere. I'm talking about when you go back to Hogwarts." He replied as his head whipped around to face me.

As I began to calm down some, I nodded slowly thinking about what I had told Mrs Weasley only minutes ago.

"Umm, Ron, I don't know if I'm going to go back to school." I said opting to be honest with him. There was no point in avoiding the conversation.

"WHAT?" in a move that was as quick as lightning he was on his feet, his eyes were wide and his mouth was hanging open wide enough to fit his fist into it.

"I don't k-know if I'm going to go back-"

"I heard what you said. Have you lost your mind?"

"Excuse me?" I said, getting to my own feet as temper began to boil beneath the surface.

"I said, have you lost your mind?"

"My mind is perfectly fine thank you. Yours I'm a little concerned about though, why the hell are you screaming at me, you just said you'd miss me, you're supposed to be glad I'm not going back."

"You're to bloody smart to NOT be going back."

"If I'm so BLOODY smart I don't need to go back, I'll get my NEWTS."

"Of course you'll get your NEWTS, you're Hermione the smartest witch of the age Granger, which is exactly why I don't understand why you're not going back. You love school."

"I loved school, when that's all it was. When it was a place I could do you're homework for you and I could watch you annihilate Harry in chess. . I loved school when it was a place I could watch my two best friends play quidditch, then most likely end up in the hospital wing where I could bring you more homework that I would end up doing for you anyway."

"You don't want to go back because Harry and I wont be?" he asked with concern.

It took me a moment to realise why his face had softened and he was no longer yelling. I had tears running down my face.

"Partly. You're right I loved school but I don't think of Hogwarts as school anymore, I think of it as a place of battle, a place of terror and fear and I don't want to go back alone. Plus I'll be way older than everyone else, I was already one of the oldest in our year, add another year onto that and I'll be nearly two years older than some in my own classes. I don't belong in school anymore."

I let more tears slide down my face as that last thought occurred to me and Ron pulled me into his arms.

"I'm sorry for yelling," he mumbled into my hair, "it's just that I was shocked, and I don't want you to regret this decision. Maybe you should just think about it some more before you really decide, decide when you don't have other things on your mind."

He was talking about my parents again.

"Ron, I don't want to talk about mum and dad. And I don't want to argue about it, especially because you apologised for something already and you've never done that so quickly."

"Okay, I won't push it… right now. But I really want you to keep thinking about Hogwarts, it's a big decision not to go back."

"It wasn't a big decision for you." I mumbled back sounding like a sulky child. I didn't care.

"Of course not," he said holding me away at arms length so he could look at me. "I suck at school, as you just recently pointed out. Plus I'm not going into the Auror program straight away."

"What?" I asked seriously confused.

"Well, I still want to help George get on his feet again with the shop… if he wants to, and it'll give me the chance to save some money like I originally planned. I'll become an Auror… just not at the same time Harry does."

He didn't look sad or angry or jealous as Ron often does at the mention of Harry doing some thing first or better than him, in fact he looked happy, content… even proud.

"If that's what you want to do then I think it's a brilliant idea." I said and moved back into his arms.

When Ron said he wouldn't push the mum and dad thing for the moment, I kind of thought he meant for more than 4 hours. It was after dinner and everyone had scattered themselves around the house in small groups. Mrs Weasely was cleaning up with Mr Weasley reading the Prophet at the table, Harry and Ginny were who knows where doing who knows what, George was in his room, Percy and Charlie were playing chess and Ron and I had headed up to his room. The second we got up there he suggested that I go to my parents house in the morning to see if they have come back yet.

"I doubt they are back, Ron. They had a whole life to pack up and move across the planet."

"You never know and it'll only take a couple of minutes to apperate over there and back."

"Ron, if they were back and wanted to see me they would have contacted me. They would know where I am and know exactly how to get in contact."

"Maybe the flew powder dad gave then a couple years back got destroyed or taken when those bastards got into your house. Maybe they can't contact you even though they want to."

"Ron, the flew powder was still there when we fixed the house up. It was up in their room where it always is. They don't want to talk." And neither did I.

I lent over the bed and gave him a very suggestive kiss hoping that he would drop the conversation.

"You're trying to distract me." he mumbled against my lips.

"So?"

"I should be telling you that we have more important things to do and talk about, but you don't make it easy."

"I don't want to talk."

"I can see that." He said as I began to kiss his neck.

"Then why are you still talking?"

"Good question." He finally surrendered and took my lips with his own.

"What on Earth are you doing?" I asked Ron when I woke and found him going through his old school things.

"Nothing." He said and came and sat down on the bed with me.

I gave him a look of disbelief hoping he would understand it and fess up to what he was doing.

He didn't. "What you got planned for today?" he asked

"Umm, I'm not sure. Ginny said something about convincing your mum let us go into Ottery St Catchpole."

"Hmm, okay sounds good-"

The door burst open and in strode Ginny, "you better get your butt down there, Hermione, since mum didn't find you in our room this morning she's bout to come looking for you."

I quickly jumped out of bed and grabbed some of the spare clothes I had stashed in Ron's room.

"Where was Harry?" Ron asked as he also pulled some jeans over his boxes.

The grin that spread over Ginny's face was priceless, "he hid a broom under my bed and when we heard her coming he jumped out the window."

"Unbelievable." I muttered but with that image in my head I couldn't wipe the grin of my face before dashing out the door and heading for the bathroom.

When I went downstairs I found it empty but for Mrs Weasley and Ginny, "Where are the boys?"

"Oh they went over to see Teddy." Mrs Weasley said while loading a plate up with bacon

"Ron went too?" I asked in surprise. He isn't exactly interested in babies and even if he was he usually didn't leave without at least asking me if I wanted to go along.

"Yer, said something about how he had to see Harry taking care of a baby, I don't think he believes it's actually possible Harry does an alright job at it." Ginny explained.

I was just about to ask why Ginny didn't go because she usually does when she continued talking, "So because the boys are gone we can check out some new clothes in town without the boys nagging us."

"We can go?" I asked looking over to Mrs Weasley expecting a comment about how there is no possible way of us leaving the house without Auror protection.

"Yep." Ginny answered when her mother didn't.

I wasn't all that interested in looking at clothes when I had no money and I usually don't have much interest in aimlessly walking about a little village but the thought of finally getting out of the house was exciting. Which I now realise is terribly depressing.

"Great, I'll be right back." I said then dashed up the stairs to change into a nicer top and grab my bag and wand.

Ginny was already waiting outside by the time I got down the stairs so I hastily grabbed a piece of toast Mrs. Weasley was offering and bolted out the door.

"Mum didn't let us go without Aurors you know?" Ginny said as soon as we began our walk down the lane towards the town.

"Yeah, I noticed." I said glancing back at the two men following us in ridiculous muggle clothes.

Seriously, couldn't someone have told them that you shouldn't wear ugg boots with board shorts and that singlet's don't usually get worn with dress pants.

Grinning like a lunatic I turned back around and continued the walk with Ginny, I was just glad to be getting out of the house to do something.