Warning: This chapter deals with grief, miscarriage and closure. This will be the last chapter that majorly focuses on the topic (I mean it this time). We are 100% on to happier times next chapter, beginning with Ron's birthday!

Chapter 78

The wardrobe in their bedroom had become a dumping ground for them. Well, for Ron more so than Hermione, who was naturally a very neat person. Over the years of being in the house, he'd managed to accumulate a lot of things that he'd gradually thrown in there as it was somewhere to put them.

The important things sat on the table beside where he slept — his wand when he didn't need it and the photo album Hermione had given him as an engagement gift many years ago — but everything else was unceremoniously thrown into the back of the wardrobe behind his clothes.

He didn't even know what was behind there anymore, but now after deciding — or, more accurately, Hermione insisting — that he sort through it and get rid of anything he no longer needed, he was finding things he'd forgotten all about.

There was the old shoebox he'd charmed and used to keep Hermione's engagement ring in. He'd kept the ring box, too, for some reason, and although his brain told him it was completely unnecessary to keep either, he couldn't quite bring himself to part with the ring box. It was just a box, but it held a lot of value to him still. Not only had it contained the ring that he'd given to his now wife, it had been his first real purchase as an adult. Well, the first significant one. And the one that meant the most to him.

He also discovered a whole bunch of actual shoe boxes, which he did dispose of. There were also parts of reports from work, training notes, clothes he had forgotten all about. He found the letters he'd written to Hermione while she completed her final year at Hogwarts and set them beside the ring box in the never to throw out pile he was accumulating. He wasn't sure he'd ever read them again, but they were letters filled with I love yous and other things that were far too special to go in the garbage.

Usually, he wasn't a sentimental person, but with her, he always had been and had come to accept that about himself. She was the best part of his life and he wanted to remember every moment spent with her. Maybe one day, when he was old, he'd lose his memory and these things would be the only things he had to remember the life that he'd created with her.

He was just about finished when he discovered amongst the remainder of junk, a tiny wrapped gift box.

At first, he had no idea what it was. Finding a wrapped gift at the back of his wardrobe was unusual to him — he opened everything he was ever given almost immediately. And he definitely hadn't forgotten to give Hermione a present… right?

When he touched it, a memory suddenly came back to him, and he sat back, staring at the box in his hand. The gift Hermione had given him when they lost the baby. He had had every intention of opening it at first. He'd kept it with the album and wand, but after a few days of constantly seeing it and knowing she'd bought it with the idea that they were going to have a baby, he'd put it away to deal with later.

And then he'd forgotten all about it. She had never even asked him if he'd opened it.

But there it was, sitting in his hand, another reminder about what had happened. It seemed that every time he tried to move on, something always came back to prevent it. The topic of losing the baby had been fresh again, too, after their visit to the Burrow, and seeing this box felt like a kick while he was already down.

They were trying again, and he was happy about that, but it didn't feel like last time. Despite the months of disappointment, there had always been hope that one day it would happen. Always an element of excitement with each passing month to elevate the previous disappointment. But now, there was grief and dread mixed in. There was a fear that he'd not felt last time — a fear of what happened to their baby happening again. He didn't want to admit it, but sometimes, now, he was relieved when Hermione said the tests were negative.

He hated that feeling just as much as any other, because the desire within him to have a baby, to be a father, was still so strong it consumed him. He was more than ready for this step in their lives — he wanted to have a child or children, he wanted to love them, to do everything for them. He wanted to be that person who took them to King's Cross when they turned eleven and wave to them until the train disappeared. He wanted to take them to Diagon Alley and get them their wand, an owl, to buy them ice-cream. He wanted this more than he'd ever wanted to become an Auror or win an Order of Merlin award. And for some reason, it seemed to be the hardest one for him to achieve. He was an Auror, he had the award, and in that moment, they felt so insignificant he would have gladly given both up if it meant they could get their baby back.

He was still staring at the box when Hermione came in.

"Did you get lost in everything you found?" she asked, smiling. "I thought you'd be done within minutes." She sat down on the bed, and Ron turned to face her.

"What's that?" she asked, her eyes falling on the box. It took her only a moment to understand. Her smile vanished.

"I never opened it," he whispered. "I… couldn't. And then… then I forgot about it."

She sat there, not speaking, but her eyes were fixed on the gift she'd so lovingly put together months ago now.

They really were doing well, but it was little reminders like this that still sometimes made it difficult.

"Should I open it?" he asked after a moment. He looked up at her, searching her eyes for anything that would tell him what to do. He felt lost, confused. What if what was inside brought everything back again? What if he was taken back to that afternoon where he'd come home excited to tell her about his successful mission and found her crying in bed, still in the same clothes from when he'd left? He had no idea what was in there, but what if it was clothes, so small to fit a baby he'd never get to hold?

At first, Hermione didn't answer. But then, she came over to him and knelt on the floor beside him and nodded. "I think you should."

Ron wanted to ask why. Did he really need to? Was it that important that he needed to be reminded of what they would never have? Why had he even suggested opening it in the first place?

But there was a part of him that desperately wanted to know what was inside. There was a part of him that wanted to be reminded — so he'd never forget.

Maybe, he thought, it could help process the grief he couldn't shake. Maybe.

"Do you want to?" Hermione asked gently. She reached out and touched his hand and hers closed around it.

Ron shook his head. "I don't know."

"It was as much your baby as it was mine," she said. "You need to deal with this, too, and I know you haven't. Not properly."

"What do you mean 'not properly?'" Ron asked. "I've cried, I've been angry… I've been by your side the whole time."

"And you being by my side has helped me in more ways than you could ever imagine, but it's time to do that for yourself, too. To finally seek that closure."

"I have closure," Ron insisted.

Hermione's expression was gentle. "Do you? Fully?"

Ron didn't speak. He just stared down at the box in his hand.

Yes, he told himself. I have accepted it. I have.

Maybe.

"And this will help?" he asked after a moment. "Seeing this?"

She shrugged. "It's something you'll still be able to keep. Forever. No matter what happens."

"What is it?" he asked.

"See for yourself." Her tone was soft and gentle.

Ron looked at the box for another moment, wrapped in white with a yellow bow, debating over what to do. He hadn't expected to find it and it had thrown his morning. It had been a good morning, finding the ring box and all the happy memories. He realised now that he still wasn't fully ready to move on.

Shaking his head, he set it down in the discard pile. "Maybe some things are better left unknown," he said, a lump forming in his throat.

Coward.

Hermione watched him do it without reacting. He wondered what she was thinking.

After a moment, she kissed him, smiling. Her eyes then drifted to the much smaller pile of things he intended to keep. She picked up the empty ring box. "Are you planning on needing this again?"

Ron laughed, glad for the sudden change of topic. He tried not to look at the gift and watched her instead. "I hope not. Seeing it just reminded me of our past, and everything we did to get to the point we are at now."

"I thought the real thing would be a better reminder," Hermione said, holding up her left hand.

"Oh, it is," Ron assured her. "It's just… I'm fond of it. I'm fond of how it happened — on this very floor we are on now, to be precise. That's all. I want to keep it."

"You keep a box, but not all your Auror notes." She picked up a stack of parchment, her eyes scanning the discarded papers.

"Ron! These are reports."

"Relax, would you?" Ron said, snatching the papers from her. "They're discarded ones. Ones I started over and rewrote. Don't worry, I'm not skiving on my workload. As for the Auror notes? Why do I need them anymore? I know how to be an Auror, I know all the spells, all the moves."

"And if you forget one day?" Hermione questioned.

"I ask the abundance of other Aurors I sit feet away from to remind me."

Hermione glared at him, but when she apparently couldn't find any fault in his logic, she allowed him to put the stack back in the pile that was going in the rubbish.

"That's what's hiding up the back on your side, isn't it?" Ron asked after a moment, biting back a laugh.

"What is?" Hermione questioned.

"All our school exams, everything you ever wrote down. I bet you kept it all, down to the notes you took in History of Magic."

Hermione refused to answer, which was enough answer for Ron.

He chuckled, looking her in the eye and grinning. "I've never loved you more," he said, this time pulling her in for a kiss.

"I have other things there, too," she said after a moment.

"Like?" Ron began to gather up the things he was keeping and put them back.

"Like every letter you ever sent me. Even the ones you wrote when you were eleven, all the way to the ones you wrote me when I went back to Hogwarts. I kept them all, and they're really special to me."

"Really?" Ron asked, surprised. He only had ones she'd written when they were together.

"Yes." She smiled. "Maybe even then I knew we'd get married one day, because I really don't think I kept every letter Harry wrote me."

"Well… that's sweet," Ron said. "I never knew."

"Well, now you do."

Ron was thoughtful for a moment, and then asked, "What else do you have?"

Her eyes widened, apparently under the impression that he'd be satisfied with her answer of his letters. But he wanted to know, mostly just to annoy her, but partly because he was curious.

"I don't know… just… important things, I guess. Things that mean something."

"You're not going to tell me?" Ron asked.

"They're personal." She turned faintly red and Ron smiled.

"Alright. As long as they're all things from me, and not any other blokes who sent you love letters or anything like that."

"Who else is going to send me love letters?" Hermione asked vaguely. "I've kept things from you, and maybe a few things from my parents, and all the Hogwarts stuff. That's basically it."

Ron felt extremely curious to know what she'd kept from their relationship, but he also knew she'd never forgive him if he snooped. They kept their relationship pretty open, so if she didn't want to tell him then he knew it must have been something important to her. He just couldn't remember all the things he'd given her in the past for him to even begin to try and guess.

A thought then occurred to him. "Did anyone else ever send you love letters?"

"What?"

"Did anyone else?" Ron pressed. "You know… like Krum? Did he ever do that?"

"No," Hermione answered quickly, and Ron wasn't sure whether to believe her.

"You're lying," he said. "You can tell me, you know. We're married now, I don't care anymore. I'm just curious… I know you wrote to him."

For the longest moment, she didn't respond, and then she shook her head. "Not really. He always liked me more than I liked him. And," she said before Ron could respond, "he understood that and respected that. All he said was that he was interested in me, and I said while I thought he was nice, I didn't return any feelings. That's honestly it."

"Is that when he stopped writing?" Ron asked.

"Our lives dictated that more than anything else," Hermione confessed. "You don't really have time for letter writing when you're out searching for Horcruxes. And, we didn't exactly have a lot in common." She frowned, looking at Ron. "Why are you asking?"

He shrugged. "I'm just curious. You never really talked about him."

"I was under the impression you didn't want to talk about that."

He shrugged again. "Well, as I said, I don't care anymore. I know you love me."

"Oh, really?"

"Of course! I know you very well, and under no circumstances would you ever willingly choose to have a baby with someone you didn't love and trust entirely."

She gave a small laugh. "So, after all our time together, all the things we've done, that's what finally convinced you?"

"Nah, I've known for a while. So, did you snog Krum?"

"Ron!"

"Did you?"

"I refuse to answer that question," Hermione said, gathering everything in his discard pile into her arms. "Let me take these out for you."

"I thought we told each other everything," Ron called after her. "Your silence tells me that you did." He watched her leave, smiling at the banter and thankful for the distraction. It was just what he'd needed in that moment to forget about the box.

The box! She'd taken it with her. He felt a prickle of guilt now that it was gone, but he'd made up his mind. He didn't want to know.

He finished packing everything away and then made his way back downstairs where Hermione was just coming back in from the bin outside. She smiled at him, which he returned.

"So," he began, wrapping his arms around her waist and thinking it wise to not continue their previous conversation, "are you glad I finally bothered to do some cleaning?"

"Of that? Yes. We were running out of room."

"Yeah, but you do know that now that we have all that space, I'm just going to toss more junk in there, right?"

She reached up and kissed him. "I know," she said. "But at least you no longer have a stack of half-finished reports sitting back there."

"Among other things?" Ron guessed.

She didn't answer, instead pulling away. "I'm going to have a shower. Can you start on dinner?"

Ron nodded and waited for her to leave before heading into the kitchen. He was just thinking about what he was going to cook tonight, when something stopped him. He spotted it from the corner of his eye, carefully placed by the fruit bowl.

The tiny little box stared back at him, this time accompanied by a small note from Hermione, which read: For closure.

She was sneaky. And so smart. She'd known that even on the short journey downstairs, a sliver of regret had crept into him about deciding not to keep it.

He looked over his shoulder, half expecting her to be standing behind him, but he was alone. She'd left him alone to deal with this.

He picked it up. Suddenly, he realised that it wasn't about what was inside. He didn't care what she'd actually given him. It was about accepting the fact that what they'd had, they'd lost. This was another reminder of that. Right now, he had the hope needed to try again, the hope that one day they might still get to have their own children.

What if seeing the gift intended to celebrate fatherhood dampened that hope?.

Yet, maybe Hermione was right. Maybe whatever was in there would finally help him to let go, to actually stop going through the motions of trying again and to want to do it. He wanted a baby more than anything, but he did not want to lose them. He didn't want to see Hermione lose herself, or to feel so helpless like he had been. He didn't want to feel such loss ever again, and yet he knew that neither of them had any control over it.

So lost in thought was he, that he startled when Hermione appeared again beside him, already showered and cleaned up for the night. He'd promised to cook dinner, but he hadn't even started.

She was beside him then, her hand covering his and the box.

"We'll do it together," she whispered.

He nodded, blinking away tears he hadn't realised were there.

Then, together, they pulled at the yellow ribbon that had been neatly tied around it. It fell to the bench.

His heart pounding in his chest, he lifted the lid, never feeling more frightened than he did right then. He couldn't stop himself from knowing that whatever was inside the box, something Hermione had bought in her excitement. She'd bought something to give him when she thought she was sharing good news with him.

"It's okay," she encouraged, helping him to completely remove the lid.

Ron stared inside for a moment, and then he lifted out something the same size and shape as a Snitch.

But this wasn't a Snitch. He turned it over in his hand, a small light glowing from within. And then he saw three letters come into focus.

D A D.

He closed his eyes, feeling the tears again, but this time it was Hermione who held him. He gripped the ball in his palm as her arms wrapped around him. Seeing it, feeling the weight of the gift, Ron finally felt relief mix into his grief.

"One day," Hermione said softly, "it'll make sense."

He clasped the ball in his hand even harder, letting the tears fall. He finally believed those words, though it still stung. "I just wish it made sense now," he whispered.

"Me too." Hermione pulled away, reaching out to wipe the tears from his face. The palm of her hand rested on his cheek and she smiled sadly at him. "I love you," she said.

He nodded, but for the first time ever, he didn't say it back. Not because he didn't feel it, but because he knew he didn't have to.

Thank you all for your amazing feedback and support! If you don't follow me on instagram, I made an announcement that chapters will be more sporadic for the time being as I was finding it super stressful in pressuring myself to get a chapter out on time when I didn't actually have the time, so now it's just when I can find the time, which I still do hope to be fairly regularly. Just not as regularly. Not to mention I was using my only free time to post rather than actually write so I'm gradually closing the distance between chapters ready to post and chapters written!