Part IV - July 3, 1997
"How are you doing?"
Hermione jumped slightly, turning around with a hand pressed to her heart. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was just Ron, coming to check up on her.
She was sitting in one of the armchairs of the common room, absentmindedly playing with the hem of her black dress. It was a Muggle dress, the only black thing she had brought with her to Hogwarts that weren't her school uniform. She felt horrible, wearing a Muggle dress to a wizard's funeral, but it was already done.
"Hermione," Ron spoke up again, now putting his hand on her shoulder.
Hermione looked up at him and gave him a small smile that Ron couldn't help but notice didn't reach her brown eyes. "I'm fine. Just waiting for it to all start." She looked down once again.
Ron felt a strong surge of pity and admiration for Hermione. She had been keeping it together as long as she could, for Harry and, he suspected, for him. She was the one who always tried to keep her head on during the situations they always managed to get themselves into. And now, when Ron thought that Hermione needed to let go of herself the most in light of the tragedy that had struck Hogwarts, she still kept herself together.
"Where's Harry?" Hermione asked as Ron settled himself down on the armrest of the chair she was sitting on. Ron shrugged and looked away, and Hermione knew that Ron had probably stayed up waiting for Harry to come back to the dorm, but fell asleep. She wondered if Harry had come back at all only to leave early in the morning, or if he had stayed out all night.
Hermione put her hand on his arm comfortingly, forcing him to look at her, seeing her eyes soft and warm. "It's gonna be okay," she said.
"Are you sure?" Ron responded, letting some bitterness seep into his voice. "Because I don't see how anymore."
Hermione shrugged, and something about her casual movement angered him.
"I just do," she told him. "It's Harry. He's survived everything people have thrown at him since he was literally a baby. I have faith in him. And Dumbledore's death. . .A tragedy nobody will ever forget. But I think we'll all learn something from it."
"Yeah," Ron said sarcastically, folding his arms over his chest. "Never trust Snape. That's what I've learned from it, not that I didn't know that from the first time I walked into his class six years ago. But nobody listened to me, or you, or Harry, when we said he was bad news."
Hermione leaned against his arm, resting her head on his shoulder and they didn't talk for a few minutes. They just sat there, thinking that there was something terribly wrong with this world they were forced to live in.
"At least Harry has you," Ron said quietly. Hermione looked up at him, and vaguely realized she wasn't surprised to see the tips of his ears turning bright red. "And Ginny," he added on quickly when he felt Hermione's gaze on him. "He's lucky to have you guys there to always keep him on his feet. He'd probably be dead without you guys there."
"And what about you?" Hermione said. "You were Harry's first friend. And not just here, you were his first friend ever. You mean so much to him and you don't even realize it."
Ron looked down at her from his perch on the armrest, with eyes shining with a fierce kind of pride burning in them.
The portrait hole swung open and their conversation was suddenly broken.
Lavender Brown walked in, wearing long black robes. Her blond hair was tied up in a bun, and her face was clean of any and all makeup. She looked very humble standing there, and she seemed to have not noticed them until she looked up and her eyes locked with first Hermione, then Ron. She opened her mouth to say something, paused, and then closed her mouth for a few seconds.
"Hi, Lavender," Hermione said softly.
"Hi, Hermione," she said back. "Are you going down soon?" she asked.
Both Ron and Hermione could tell she was trying to force a conversation out, and it was obviously not doing well for her.
"We were just waiting for Harry to come down," Ron told her.
Lavender nodded slowly, eyes going back and forth between the two of them. "Okay, she said in a low voice. "Tell Harry I'm. . .I'm sorry."
She doesn't have anything to be sorry for, Hermione thought to herself. So many people told me and Ron to say they're sorry to Harry. For what? They didn't kill Dumbledore, Snape did. He should be apologizing, and if he did, it would never be enough. But Hermione didn't repeat her thoughts to Lavender. Instead she just looked at her and told her she would do just that as soon as she saw him, even though she and Ron both knew it would mean nothing.
Once she was gone, Ron relaxed his stiff body and relaxed against the side of the chair once more, letting Hermione fit herself back to her previous position.
Hermione kept quiet for a few minutes before the question nagging at her brain finally made itself know. "Have you talked to her at all since she broke up with you?" she blurted out.
Ron looked over at her, startled, and she worried for a minute that she had hit a nerve, one she wouldn't be able to fix with a simple I'm sorry. But Ron just kept looking at her with a bewildered expression on his face. "No," he said. "No, I haven't. She's been ignoring me since that night. Can't say that I blame her. I mean, what must it have looked like to her, us coming down from my bedroom like that?" He blushed once again and Hermione couldn't help the heat spreading across her own cheeks. She would never forget Lavender's screaming when she saw them walking down the stairs as casual as can be.
"Pretty bad, I suppose," Hermione said, shrugging her shoulders and avoiding Ron's eyes. "And everybody else, too. They probably all thought we were having some kind of affair behind Lavender's back."
Ron snorted. "Affair? You make it sound like some trashy romance novel." He laughed once more before rubbing his eyes tiredly. "Anyway. There's really nothing we can do about it now. If Lavender ever wanted to. . .get back where we were, she'd do something mental like tell me not to see you anymore."
Hermione jerked back, eyeing him wearily. "Why would she do that?" she asked, feeling a sense of panic rising in her even though she knew Ron and Lavender were broken up and her friendship wasn't in danger from her anymore. "I mean. . .six years of friendship. You'd think even Lavender would know better than to break that up, right?"
"I suppose. I'm just saying, it sounds like something she'd do, doesn't it? It's why I'm planning on staying away from the jealous ones for the rest of my life. In the beginning, it's rather fun, but after a bit, it's just annoying."
Hermione didn't want to let her own jealousy show, but she found it a bit ironic that Ron was talking about not wanting to date any jealous girls when she was always worrying about him and his own inferiority complex with Harry. But she wasn't stupid enough to say anything like that to him.
"So you're planning on dating other girls, then?" Hermione asked in what she hoped was a teasing tone.
Ron didn't look her in the eyes as he nodded sheepishly. "I'd like to, yeah."
Hermione ran her hands through her messy hair nervously. "Well, then, unsure how to respond without sounding plagued by envy. "Where's Harry?" she asked, quickly changing the subject.
Ron shrugged. "I don't know. Suppose he'll be down here any minute. Funeral should be starting soon."
There was such an empty ring to his voice, something that broke Hermione on the inside. She took a shaky breath, turning to face the window. The sun was impossibly bright today. How could it look so cheerful today?
"What do you think we'll do now?" Ron asked after a few more minutes of silence.
Hermione shook her head. "I don't know anymore. I suppose we'll go home after this. Come back for seventh year and finish school. And Harry will defeat Voldemort, and we'll help him any way that we can, and everything is going to be okay."
Ron smiled down at her, his eyes too bright for the situation they were in right now. "You're so positive. How do you know we're gonna make it out of this war alive?" he asked her.
Hermione scoffed once, giving Ron an incredulous look. "I don't. But I'd rather be positive about it all than sit and think about the fact that my death could come at any second. I don't want to think about that. I want to forget about it for a while."
So they did. They didn't speak and for the first time in what felt like years to Hermione (but it was really only since they had become friends again after Ron almost died), they were able to sit in silence comfortably without the pressing need to fill it with awkward conversation as they skipped over the one topic they both knew they needed to discuss but were too scared to do so.
During their time of peace, Ron slipped down beside her on the chair, and Hermione moved over a little so they could have enough room to sit comfortably. He put his arm around her shoulder and Hermione leaned into it, resting her head on his arm again.
"Hermione," Ron spoke up.
"Yes, Ron?" she replied with her eyes closed.
"I need you to promise me something."
There was something in his voice, something that made Hermione look up at him with curiosity filling her up. "What is it?" she asked as she saw the protectiveness that was clouding his expression.
"I need you to promise me that you'll be careful. And if me and Harry, well, if we don't want you doing something. . ."
Hermione immediately blanched. "Are you crazy? You think I'll let you all risk your lives while I'm stuck doing absolutely nothing but worry?"
Ron slid off the chair and went down before her, crouching on his knees so they were eye level. "I can't let you do it. I can't willingly put you in danger when I don't know if I could ever see you again."
Her eyes softened and she reached out to put a hand on his cheek. "I'm going to be fine. We're all going to be fine. Trust me when I say you'll live a long life filled with me nagging you." Ron let out a soft laugh and Hermione found herself comforted by the sound.
He leaned up so he was still a little taller than her, and took her hand off his cheek to hold it in his own hand. Hermione's hand felt like it was burning, her heart was racing, and she was barely able to process the fact that Ron was leaning in. He was leaning in and she wasn't doing anything because she was too stunned to tell her damned brain to move so she could close the very small distance between them.
And when she finally did move, when they were barely an inch apart, the portrait hole opened once more and Harry finally stepped in.
Thoughts of a maybe-kiss fled out of their minds. They jumped apart without even fearing if Harry realized what he had just walked in on. They scrambled up to run over to him.
Apparently, Harry had absolutely no idea what he had just interrupted. His expression was alarmingly blank, and he didn't seem to register the fact that Ron and Hermione were right next to him.
"Are you ready to go, Harry?" Hermione asked carefully, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder.
Harry nodded without looking at her, at either of them. He just nodded mechanically. They both had the feeling he'd been doing that a lot, but knew better than to tell him so. So they led him out of the common room and down the stairs to go outside where the funeral was being held. And at the same time, they glanced up at each other and shared a glance over the top of Harry's head. They wouldn't be alright just yet, but once this war was over, they'd make sure to get there.