Hermione shot awake at the sensation of someone shaking her. The world around her was bitterly cold and dark. Looking around, she started when she couldn't ascertain where she was. Fear coursed through her as she turned to look at who had awoken her. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Harry kneeling beside her with a thick woolen blanket. She must have fallen asleep. Through the haze of her sleep-addled brain came an image of Ron with his back towards her, walking resolutely away in the dimming grey of twilight. Maybe it had all been a bad dream. A glance at the cold tattered ground cloth beneath reminded her otherwise. A painful pang spread through her as heart-wrenching reality struck again.
Snow was falling and leaving a thin layer of white dust around them. She wondered how long she'd been out there. The murky darkness and the aching cold in her fingertips suggested longer than what would be considered ideal. Harry wrapped the blanket around her and picked her up. The twisting feeling of apparition pulled in her gut and instantly they snapped into existence just outside the burrow. Warm yellow light poured onto them from within as Harry carried her toward the worn wooden front door. He pushed it open and warmth spread across her face as they crossed the threshold.
Ginny was standing in the kitchen with her back turned to them. Once he had placed her in front of the fireplace, Harry rushed off towards Ginny and returned shortly with a piping hot cup of tea. Hermione reached a pair of shaking hands from inside her woolen cocoon to accept it. The tea spread warmth through her body as she drank. Feeling began slowly returning to her toes and fingers.
Harry watched her from a couch nearby, his expression drawn and melancholy. As she warmed by the fire, they sat in silence, interrupted only occasionally by faint clinking or bumping sounds as Ginny tidied up the kitchen. After a few minutes of this, Ginny joined them, taking a seat by Harry on the couch. When Hermione finally stopped shivering, she broke the silence. "Thank you."
Harry shook his head, as if indicating for her to think nothing of it. "Warming up alright?"
She nodded. Then, knitting her brows together, Hermione inquired, "Do you know how long I was out there?" Harry's jaw clenched as a steely look reflected from his eyes.
"Hard to say, but I reckon probably around two hours. That's about when Ron came back. Merlin, was he in a right state. Stormed about the house collecting his things and shoving them into his bag, mumbling to himself all the while. Mrs. Weasley dared to ask what on earth he was on about but he only snapped to tell her that he was leaving immediately. We were all wondering where you'd gotten to and Ginny remembered seeing the two of you leave just after dinner, so I confronted Ron about it but he wouldn't tell me where you were. Said you were a grown woman and didn't answer to him when you wanted to go somewhere.
"So instead, I asked him where he was going and he told me he'd be at Grimmauld place until I came home after the holidays. Said he couldn't spend another minute in the house and disapparated. Poor Mrs. Weasley nearly had a mental breakdown. Ginny and I waited around for you, but something felt off about the situation. After a half hour or so had passed and you still hadn't come back, we were getting worried and decided to look for you. Since there was still a decently good chance you were still out there, we walked around outside and called for you, but didn't hear any response. And still, something about the whole situation just felt off. But we couldn't waste time scouring the whole field because the snow was already starting to fall, so we decided to try Ron again.
"We went to Grimmauld place to confront him, but he was so furious he pulled his wand on us and tried to hex us from the house. He and I disarmed each other and ended up in a fist fight. If it wasn't for Ginny, we might not have found you in time, or at all. She managed to successfully find the memory of where the two of you had been last using the legilimens charm. She was absolutely brilliant, as usual." He cast a proud glance in his girlfriend's direction. Ginny blushed faintly and finally spoke up.
"I can't believe I pulled it off either, seeing as I've never done it before. I'm glad it worked though, otherwise you'd still be out there." She paused to look over at Hermione, sympathetic eyes aglow with the reflection of the burning fireplace. "Please don't be mad, but Harry's already told me what happened. I will say, I'm a little disappointed you felt like you couldn't tell me about it, but I understand why you didn't. Still, it was a drunken kiss for crying out loud. Not really something to get your knickers all up in a twist about."
"I'll keep that in mind," Harry said with a smirk. Hermione cracked a slight smile as Ginny shot him a contemptuous glare before turning back to address her.
"Really, I'm just furious that Ron would leave you out in the cold and refuse to tell us about it. We didn't know where you were or whether you needed help. It was lucky we decided to go looking for you at all. Most of the time we give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you can take care of yourself. Don't worry though, Ron's got his comeuppance. After we petrified him, I hit him with a few nice stinging jinxes. He should be feeling those really nicely by morning."
Hermione's lips morphed into a half-hearted smile, masking the dull ache in her heart. A yawn forced its way from her as she was suddenly overcome by exhaustion. The combination of the warmth of her blanket and the tea in her tummy were getting to her.
"We can talk about this more tomorrow," Harry said. "You, need to get to bed and have some rest." He walked over to her and picked her up again. Ginny trailed behind them as Harry ascended the stairs and helped open the door to the bedroom Hermione was staying in. Harry laid her gently on the bed while Ginny blew out the lamp on her bedside table. The two bid her good night and closed the door as they left.
Hermione had no time to reflect on the day's events, for no sooner had the door clicked shut than her eyelids drifted slowly down and sleep took her.
She awoke the next morning with little beams of sunlight sneaking their way through cracks between the room's orange curtains. Sitting up in bed, her neck and back protested with a chorus of sharp snaps and cracks. Her head thundered with a massive headache and her limbs ached from the shivering she had done the day before. Such a waste, she thought to herself. It's like I've got a hangover but I haven't even consumed the alcohol to justify it. If she didn't already feel so rotten, she might have considered remedying the injustice.
Instead, she dragged herself out of bed to rummage about her trunk for her store of pain-alleviation potion. She found the bottle stashed carefully in a small wooden box at the bottom and took a swig of the gritty green liquid. Most healing potions were fairly nasty and this one was no exception. She winced as the taste of burnt iron spread across her palette, but she choked it down and stored the bottle back where it had come from. The headache immediately became more bearable.
Hermione checked the watch sitting on her bedside table. It was right around lunchtime. The stairs creaked beneath her as she made her way downstairs. At the lunch table, Harry and Ginny sat talking over sandwiches. On the other end of the room, George sat reading a magazine in a cushy armchair across from Mrs. Weasley, who sat in a rocking chair knitting what looked suspiciously like next Christmas's sweaters and chirped a warm good morning when she noticed Hermione step into the room. It was evident that she knew nothing about what had gone down between Hermione and her youngest son which instantly relieved Hermione's conscience some.
Hermione made her way into the kitchen, put together a sandwich for herself, and then took a seat at the table. Both Ginny and Harry gave her a smile as she joined them.
"Feeling alright this morning?" Ginny asked.
"Much better. Thanks to you two." Hermione smiled at her.
"Good." Ginny smiled back, then looked over at Harry with a serious expression, as if urging him to say something, and then back at her. "Harry and I have been thinking, and we want you to know that we think that Ron's bound to come around eventually."
Immediately, Hermione's stomach twisted and her appetite disappeared. She didn't want to talk about Ron. She didn't even want to think about him. Just the mention of his name sent guilty shivers running through her.
Harry nodded eagerly in ascent. "Yeah. I mean, you know how Ron is. He gets jealous at the smallest things. He'll remember how crazy he is about you. You'll see."
Hermione appreciated their attempts to make her feel better, truly she did, but she didn't find their comments at all encouraging. Part of her felt like maybe she deserved the abandonment. She had just broken his heart after all, he didn't owe her anything. But part of her was scared. He'd left her out in the cold, refused to tell anyone where she was, and didn't care enough to see to it that she made it home safely.
Of course, this was Ron they were talking about. He probably hadn't even realized she was in danger. If he had known she was actually in any trouble there probably wouldn't have been any need to force the memory out of him. Still, a little part of her couldn't help but feel uncertain. Conflicting emotions and multiplying thoughts were causing her head to spin, so she did her best to gather them up and push them as far back into her mind as she could. She didn't want to think about him at the moment, it was far too painful.
"Yeah, maybe," she said, trying to sound upbeat. She took a bite of her sandwich, feigning the normalcy of actually having an appetite, and attempted to change the subject. "So what are we going to do on our last two days, Gin?" Distraction. That's what she needed.
"Well, I don't know about the two of you," said Ginny. "But there's a good amount of snow on the ground, and I'm dying to go out and take advantage of it." She got up from the table while taking a last swig of orange juice. "Feel free to join me." Harry waited with Hermione as she finished her lunch, effectively foiling her plans to ignore her body's basic needs in favor of feeling sorry for herself, and then set off with her to get changed into their warmer winter attire.
The snow outside looked beautiful, blanketing the plains around the burrow with several inches of pure white powder. The three trudged about in the snow for hours and, mercifully, Hermione's mind was given enough freedom to temporarily forget and simply enjoy herself with her friends. They made snow angels, built a family of adorable snowmen, and attempted to build an igloo, though their poor attempt ended up in a sad heap.
At one point in the day, Harry had even dared toss a snowball good-naturedly at Ginny. But when nearly a hundred were pelted back at him by both girls holding their wands, he conceded defeat quickly and the short-lived snowball fight was over.
Soon the sun was setting in the western sky and Mrs. Weasley poked her head out to beckon them in to get out of their snow things and get ready for supper.
Despite all that was looming in the back of her mind, Hermione was surprised how much she had enjoyed herself outside. It was lovely to spend some time with two of her best friends, something the three of them hadn't had a chance to do for too long.
At dinner that evening, the family even managed to pretend that Ron wasn't missing. Everyone laughed and joked merrily over their bowls of Mrs. Weasley's delicious pumpkin soup and talked about Ginny and Hermione's return to Hogwarts.
George and Mrs. Weasley left once dinner was through- she was visiting him for a few days for some mother-son time- and Mr. Weasley disappeared to his workshop, leaving the three of them together again.
That evening they sat together in the downstairs and played a few board games together, including a particularly heated round of wizard's checkers, until it occurred to Hermione that perhaps Ginny and Harry would want some time to be alone together, since both girls were leaving the day after next. She needed to get her things in order for school anyways. N.E.W.T.S were coming up after all, and she hadn't yet made a single study schedule. She bid them an early goodnight and excused herself to her room.
In solitude, thoughts of Ron swam threateningly towards the forefront of her mind but she did her best to push them away and focus on what she had to get done. She managed to draw up a few sheets before she became too tired to continue and climbed into bed for the evening. Emotional stress was doing her one favor at least, for she fell asleep quickly both that night and the next after a day consisting almost solely of packing. Soon, she and Ginny were bidding Harry goodbye on platform 9 3/4, as he was the only one who could make it to see them off, and they were on their way back to school.
Hermione was more happy to get back to her textbooks than she had been in a long time, which was saying something. She needed an excuse now more than ever to distract herself and get her mind off Ron. She knew she was putting off the inevitable. That, sometime in the, probably, near future, it would all come bursting out of her in a flood of emotion she couldn't control. But she didn't want to handle it. Not if she didn't have to.
So, with her mind set firmly on the academics ahead and her mind barred from the distractions of her past mistakes, Hermione threw herself back into her school work, relieved by the distraction that school offered her once again.
A/N: So, this story hit 100 followers over the weekend, and I think I can definitively say that that is, in fact, probably my greatest accomplishment in life thus far. Obviously I lead a very exciting life. I actually squealed with joy when I logged on and saw the number. Cause when I thought about it, I was like, if we were all in one room together, 100 people is actually kinda a crazy number. I started writing this story cause I had a lot of feels and nowhere to put them and I never actually thought I'd really have many people reading it. So, I'd like to take another opportunity to thank you all again for the reviews and the favorites and the follows that you guys contribute in support of this story. You're all spectacular.