It takes place in the kitchen.
He and his mother haven't really had the time or the opportunity to talk. There were the days right after the Battle. Funeral plans. His mother cried a lot. He cried a lot, too, but more quietly. Then there were the days after the funeral, where she tried to come to terms with it.
Fred's dead. George is cooped up in Bill's cottage because he refuses to go home. Ron doesn't know if seeing George would make Mum feel better or worse. He figures George doesn't, either, but the only people George will talk to these days are Lee and, on occasion, Bill or Percy.
It's about two in the morning, and he's given up trying to fall back asleep. He has nightmares, sometimes. He wakes up breathing heavily and can't get himself to close his eyes again.
Tea, he thinks. Tea. Maybe some cake or something. It's two in the morning, nobody will have to know. And it'll calm him.
But the kitchen isn't, as he'd assumed, empty. His mum is there with her own cup of tea. He evaluates his options. He can have a conversation with his mum, or he can run upstairs and hide until morning.
"Hey," he says, just so she'll know he's there, and he takes the few steps to the table and sits across from her. She glances up, and he sees, without really being surprised, that she's been crying. It's been awhile since she hasn't looked like she's been crying.
"Ron," she says. "I'm sorry, did I wake you up-"
"No, no, I woke up myself," says Ron. He doesn't elaborate. He probably doesn't need to.
"Yeah," she says. "Tea?"
He half-smiles. He's tempted to refuse, if only because his mum is a firm believer that tea shouldn't have more than one lump of sugar in it, and he's a firm believer that tea needs at least three lumps and a bit of milk to be drinkable. But he hasn't sat down and talked to his mum in forever, and oh, bugger, she's already making him a cup while he's been zoned out thinking about it.
Typical.
It's bitter, but he takes a long sip and sighs. "Why are you up so late, Mum?"
She gives a little half-laugh. "Oh, you know…"
He waits, but she doesn't add to it. Even so, he does know. "Me too," he says. They both take a sip at the same time; it'd be funny in another time. There's a moment where he remembers, fleetingly, laughing at Ginny and Hermione because they'd made the same face at the same time, both with forks raised halfway to their mouths. He'd told a joke. Or said something stupid or something. It'd been a disapproving but amused face. He got those a lot.
Not even Hermione has given him one of those faces recently.
"Mum," says Ron, and then stops. He had meant to ask if she was okay. It's a dumb question, when he thinks about it. Everything he can think to say these days is a dumb question.
"I think I'm in love," he blurts, instead.
He hadn't meant to say that. In fact, he hadn't realised he thought he was in love.
But then, it's true, isn't it? It had to be that he was in love, the way her smile, her laugh was the most important thing to see, the way he caught himself thinking Hermione would like this at the tiniest things, the way she made his stomach turn and his heart beat faster and everything else he'd once scoffed at. Those things are for kids' stories and romance novels, he'd thought. Maybe they aren't. Maybe he's in a kids' story or a romance novel. Maybe he's been in love so long he never noticed.
"Oh, Ron," says his mum. She looks like she's going to start crying again, goddamn it. He's an idiot. This isn't the time to talk about things like that.
"Life goes on, doesn't it?" says his mum, and she sighs. "Have you told her?"
Of course not, what kind of idiot does she think he is?
"No," he says.
"Life goes on," she repeats, not really paying attention to him. "Life goes on."
"Yeah," says Ron. "Yeah."