Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or it's affiliated characters and creations, and I am not profiting from this work.

Notes: So a lot of reviews have asked for longer chapters, I hope you're happy with this one :) Thanks so much for all your reviews, it really does mean the world: Points to Moi (again!) for picking up on subtleties ;)


Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

Robert Frost


Hermione was still awake when dawn crept in through the kitchen window. Curled up on the hard backed wooden chair, Hermione fought off the swirling wisps of exhaustion that threatened her vision, begging her to shut her eyes and lay her head on the table. She felt like she'd been emptied. Like there was nothing left.

But still she sat at the table and refused to take her eyes off the front door, waiting for Ron to come back. To walk in with his sheepish grin and pretend nothing had happened. Because that's what Ron was. That's what he did. Even when he'd spent weeks ignoring her existence, sending her through sleepless nights and weak weepy tear sessions, he'd come back and pretend everything was all right again; 'sure I'll help you with Buckbeak's case'. 'Of course Harry didn't enter his name in the goblet of fire.' 'Lavender was just a phase.' 'I wanted to come back as soon as I'd left, I just didn't know how to find you.'

No matter what, Ron had become a constant of her life. He always came back. She might have been left sitting, cold and miserable in a dark, empty kitchen for the rest of the night. She might have had to face the awkward glances and measuring stares of his brothers and parents. But when Ron came through that door Hermione was sure he'd pretend that none of it had happened. That their relationship was fine just as it was and none of this was really happening. And for all she knew it wasn't true, it's what she needed right now. The illusion could takesome of the sting from reality if she tried hard enough.

Still starring intently at the door, Hermione nearly kinked her neck at the flaring of the hearth.

"Ron?" She cried into the green flames, forcing the words out past the lump in her throat. As the spinning head stopped, the untidy hair and familiar features of Harry came into focus. Hermione couldn't help but slump back against the stiff chair.

"Hullo Harry." She greeted glumly, attempting to manage a smile.

As his lanky form unfolded from the grate, Harry walked over and pulled her from the chair, enveloping her in a much-needed hug. Hermione was forcibly reminded of their time on the run after Ron's departure.

"How're you Hermione. Really?" He looked down at her, before taking his own seat and holding her hands over the table. Hermione collapsed back into her chair and took a shuddering breath before apologising.

"I am so, so sorry Harry. I should have told you, I should have told all of you. It's just everyone assumed it was for Mungo's and Ron kept arguing about it and I knew he'd be more upset if he thought I just didn't want to spend time with him- and it's not that I didn't want to spend time with him Harry! It wasn't! It was just something I needed to do, you know? For me. But most of the time he seemed fine, helping George or watching Quidditch or just going out with the boys and I didn't really enjoy those sorts of things anyway so I'd just go and read. It just dragged out and then the night before the article came out, we'd had a row and- Oh Harry; I've ruined everything."

Hermione hated herself as her body betrayed her and dissolved into great heaving sobs at the kitchen table. Harry awkwardly patted the back of her hand, not having got a word in edgewise.

As Hermione struggled to calm down, Harry attempted to soothe her.

"Come on Hermione, it's alright. You haven't ruined anything okay? It's you and Ron. You always fight. You always will. It's not like he didn't know you'd always love books and research. It's not some big surprise that you suddenly hate Quidditch. I mean you've still got other things in common you know." Harry stalled here, still petting her hand. "Like family and friends and stuff, and I mean, well… well you both care about each other so there's that… and…" Harry trailed off again and Hermione looked up to see a faint crease between his eyes, as though he was lost in a troubling thought. Sensing her gaze on his face, he snapped out of it, giving her a grin. "It's not ruined. You know Ron. He always comes back."


Ron was sat, skin drenched in the dawn sun and morning dew, his head resting directly under the Burrow's kitchen window. His long limbs were cramped and his trousers were sodden from the tall damp grass. His hands and face were numb from exposure to the biting cold wind. It had been dark when he stumbled up the grassy slope; just metres from where he'd knelt hours before. He'd just been able to make out Hermione's form swathed in a warm glow through the opaque glass window. With each step closer, the blurrier her image became. He wasn't sure if it was the tears or whisky.

In the end, it took him five minutes to make it to the door. Five bloody minutes, only to slide down the rough stonewall and sink to the grass. With his head resting just below the kitchen window, he could hear all the creaks and echoes of the old house. He could hear the faint snoring drifting down from the upper levels, and if he strained his ears hard enough he could just make out the drones and thuds of the ghoul in the attic.

But it was the lack of one particular sound that droned the loudest. Pressed against the wall, with only bricks and mortar separating him from the Kitchen, and Ron couldn't hear a peep. It was eerie. To be so close to Hermione, and at the same time, so very, very far.

Ron wasn't sure what he was listening for at first. It's not that he wanted to catch her crying, to hear her sobs. He wasn't listening to prove he was the only one upset. No. The longer he sat there, ignoring dawns slow passage through the garden, the louder and louder that silence grew. He just wanted to hear something; anything. He wanted to know what was going on in that head of hers. All he wanted was to understand what he had to do, what he needed to say or give to make this better.

Because the truth of it was that silence had been growing between the two of them from the very beginning. It was why they always seemed to surprise each other: why every touching word or action seemed to come straight out of the blue. Because neither really knew what the other was going through, what they were thinking or feeling. They had known each other for years but it was all still so foreign.

Ron sighed quietly and cracked his neck, before stretching his arms and legs out in front of him. When he'd first left, he'd apparated on instinct to Diagon Alley. With no-where else to go, the narrow cobbled street seemed as good a place as any. His feet carried him down the same well worn path, past the ghost-like façade of Grignotts, white marble glowing in the shadows, past the ever dusty windows of Ollivander's, and up to the purple crooked structure of his brother's shop. He still thought of it that way, for all the improvements he'd made. He'd spent a good hour simply pacing around the back room. Then he'd reached for the fire-whisky kept for 'emergencies' in the cupboard under the sink.

He shuddered now to think of the thoughts that raced through his head. Hermione not wanting him. Hermione never wanting him. No-one ever wanting him. He imagined his family laughing at him behind his back, his brothers chalking it up as yet another of ickle ronikins shortcomings. There'd been a mad moment where he'd pictured Hermione studying with some faceless healer, with a lockhart profile and wide smarmy grin as they laughed at her stupid gormless boyfriend waiting at home.

He wasn't proud of any of those thoughts. Even now he was awash with self-hatred for not going inside. But the more he had drunk, the faster and faster those thoughts formed, entrapping him and seeping doubts through the cracks of his mind. It wasn't the first time it had happened, and he supposed he was lucky that this time he'd been at work, too far away to let his insecurities ruin his life once more. He couldn't count the times they'd run him under and caused him to fuck it up with Mione. He'd been lucky that she hadn't left him really. That when he came in the next day they could go on like nothing had happened.

Fuck. Ron thought.

Then he thought it twice over for good measure.

Running his fingers through the stubble at his chin, Ron wearily attempted to think up a plan of attack. He just needed a mode of strategy: A nice, basic Chess play. The trouble was, in wizard's chess at least; the King's never took the Queens. In fact, for a King to take the offensive at all meant the game was already half lost.

Deep within his chest, a nagging twinge seemed to grab at that thought. That he was well on his way to losing Hermione for good. Gritting his teeth, Ron refused to give in to the dark thoughts that sought to tear his chest apart from the inside out.

He and Hermione were meant to be together. It was always supposed to happen this way.

Scrap the King idea then. That's all he had to do. He'd come at the problem like the Knight. Drop in from the side with something she wasn't expecting. Well. That wasn't too hard he supposed. She was probably expecting him to go in piss drunk. Luckily he'd only had 5 or 6 – he was perfectly in control of himself. Mostly.

She was undoubtedly waiting to apologise to him. So all he had to do was apologise first right? She wouldn't be expecting that. Ron could come off the martyr, willing to forgive her deception. So long as she agreed to spend a bit more time with him of course. He just needed to convince her that she no longer needed to prove herself, no longer need to be the smartest, or use her brains 24/7. She had him now.

Ron smoothed his hair flat, before breathing into his palm and smelling his breath. Mhmm. Maybe she wouldn't notice the stale smell of whisky from afar. He'd just give it a while before he went in for a kiss.

Brushing the dirt off his shirt and trousers, Ron got ready to face the kitchen. It'll be alright this time. She'll have calmed down. Thought it through. Ron ran this mantra through his head, repeating it over and over. Pushing his weight onto his hands, he rose to his knee's when he heard Hermione shout from inside.

"Ron?"

He quickly ducked down again. What the fuck? The witch had the eyes of a bloody hawk! She was going to skin him alive when she found him kneeling out here by the window.

Ready to throw his arms up in protection, he watched the back door, waiting for his witch to rocket out, hexes flying from her wand. The door sat silent, staring back at him and it was then Ron strained to hear low voices coming from inside.

Thank Merlin's favourite tea cosy.

Pressing himself back against wall, Ron caught the higher tones of Hermione, mid conversation.

"…so sorry Harry. I should have told you, I should have told all of you. It's just everyone assumed it was for Mungo's and Ron kept arguing about it and I knew he'd be more upset if he thought I just didn't want to spend time with him- and it's not that I didn't want to spend time with him Harry! It wasn't! it was just something I needed to do, you know? For me. But most of the time he seemed fine, helping George or watching Quidditch or just going out with the boys and I didn't really enjoy those sorts of things anyway so I'd just go and read. It just dragged out and then the night before the article came out, we'd had a row and- Oh Harry; I've ruined everything."

Ron was utterly thrown. He didn't know what to think, what to feel. Resting his head in his hands he concentrated on the deeper, calmer voice of his best mate.

"Come on Hermione, it's alright. You haven't ruined anything okay? It's you and Ron. You always fight. You always will. It's not like he didn't know you'd always love books and research. It's not some big surprise that you suddenly hate Quidditch. I mean you've still got other things in common you know."

The pause stretched on for an eternity as Ron strained to listen.

"Like family and friends and stuff, and I mean, well… well you both care about each other so there's that… and…"

And what? Part of Ron was begging, pleading for Harry to continue.

He didn't.

"It's not ruined. You know Ron. He always comes back."

Ron wasn't sure how long it took him to stand and enter the kitchen. Time seemed displaced, shattered by the very same conversation that had torn his mind in two. The fireplace was cold, floo powder still dusted on the floor and Ron knew, vaguely and inexplicably, that he had missed Hermione by some length of time. The sun was shining directly through the mangy lace curtains now and it would be mere moments until his mum would be down for breakfast.

Ron moved as if in a dream, feet guiding him aimlessly through the house and up the creaky wooden stairs until he found himself staring at Percy's door. Without thinking of what drew him to it, Ron pushed the dark oak door aside and took in the room before him. Books were piled everywhere, dwarfing the bed, dresser and wardrobe. The old wooden desk was an island in the sea of books, but that to was drowning in pages and pages of handwritten notes. Collapsing into the only free chair, Ron peered down at the all too familiar handwriting.

It didn't matter that the letters swam before him, blurry and indistinct. Even as the tears flooded his vision, the words rang out crystal clear.

You've still got other things in common you know

Even on the yellowing parchament, the echoing pause somehow found purchase.

Like family and friends and stuff, and I mean, well…

-Well you both care about each other so there's that… and…

It's not like he didn't know you'd always love books and research. It's not some big surprise that you suddenly hate Quidditch.

The words ran and streamed, over and over, coursing through his mind even as the room and the desk and the papers blacked out from his vision. It's not some big surprise. Why hadn't he seen it then? Why did it hurt so fucking much? Why, when he closed his eyes and thought back, did he see Hermione decked out for the Yule Ball, dolled up for his brothers wedding? Why did he see her with a head full of sleek-eazys?

Ron felt, as if from a long way away, his breathing turn to short, shallow breaths. He could dimly feel his heart thundering, his pulse beating as thought filled with fire. Before his eyes flashes of a Hermione he'd somehow forgotten, buried up to her nose in books in the corner of the common room, always the last to leave the library, toting round a bag of books heavier than she was. He'd been so thick. Everything was falling apart and he was far from guiltless. He'd fallen in love with the idea of Hermione, not who she really was. She'd probably done the same with him. That's if she even loved him at all. As the memories came faster and faster he felt his breath shudder and his throat close, his vision swimming before everything was awash with a fiery red veil. He felt the dull thud of his head meeting the floor before everything went black.


Molly awoke to the smell of smoke. Grumbling into her pillow, she hoisted herself over the side of the bed and shuffled into her slippers. Breakfast burning. She made it all the way to the hallway before she remembered she hadn't started breakfast yet. Panic setting in, she followed the smell of burning wood, racing up the stairs before she crashed into Percy's old room.

There on the floor lay Ron, flames running up his right arm while the desk in the far corner went up in smoke. Swiftly brandishing her wand, Molly doused the room with a high-powered spray of water. Kneeling over the now moaning Ron, Molly couldn't help but note the reek of whisky on his breath, or his wand, lying untouched in his trousers pocket. Grasping at her boy's burnt arm, Molly spared no thought for the blackened notes spread upon the burnt desk, reduced to nothing more than ash. All that mattered was getting her poor foolish, dolt of a son to St Mungo's. Everything else could wait.


Note: Please read and review! Also thank you to everyone who hit follow or favourites, you have earned my eternal love :)