Disclaimer: all characters and the wider wizarding world belong to J. K. Rowling.

Hermione refused to speak to Ron for the remainder of the day. When he approached her after dinner to ask for help with his potions essay, she screamed at him that she was not an encyclopaedia, and even if she did know the answer, she was rather disinclined to help him, and stormed up to her room.

He flopped back onto the sofa next to Harry as Ginny got up to follow Hermione to her room.

"I'll speak to her," she muttered to Harry. "If she doesn't calm down, she'll need a draught before bed and that'll only piss her off."

"Thanks, Gin, see if you can talk some sense into her! Probably woman's stuff, right?" Ron mumbled to Harry. "Wrong time of the month and all that."

Unfortunately for Ron, his sister was not quite out of earshot.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley!" She screeched, looking every inch Molly Weasley's daughter. Some younger years fled from the common room to their dorms while others turned to get a better view.

Ron paled and looked to Harry to back him up in proving his sister wrong. Harry simply ran his hand through his hair and suggested they all took this to the seventh-year boys' dorm.

After a long and torturous walk up the stairs, with Ron threatening anyone who looked at them too long, they finally made it. The boys' room was mercifully deserted, and they all sat on the end of Harry's bed.

"Ron this has got to stop," Ginny huffed. "The war is over. The guilty parties are locked away or dead. Hermione has led by example and made friends of those who found themselves on the other side of a war they had no control over. You should support her in that, not do everything in your power to make it harder for her."

Ron had the good sense to blush as his younger sister pointed out facts he wanted to disagree with but knew he couldn't.

"I know, alright, and I'm not against the snakes in general. Nott seems like a good guy, from what I can gather." He paused and ran a hand over his face. "But Malfoy-"

"Malfoy was acquitted," Ginny reminded him.

"And he said he wanted to turn over a new leaf," Harry added.

"But he was a Death Eater! Took the Mark and everything! Nearly killed me - and I'd have pushed to have his bloody wand snapped for that if you and Mione hadn't convinced me not to! And he tried to get us expelled, and he hexed us in the halls, and he called you and Mione horrid fucking names…" His voice petered out and Harry and Ginny watched in stunned silence as tears started to fall down his cheeks. "How comes I'm not good enough for her but he is?"

"Oh Ron!" Ginny exclaimed as she wrapped her brother in a huge hug.

"Mate, I thought you both agreed it was best? Best friends forever, just not the best suited to being a couple and all that?"

Harry patted his friend on the shoulder as he cried into Ginny's hair.

"I know, Harry, and we did."

Harry ran a hand through his already messy hair. He wasn't sure where to go from here. He knew Ron had bottled up a lot since the war but the breakup with Hermione seemed to be one of the most open things about him.

"Then what is it? Try and explain it to me, mate."

Ron wiped his nose on his jumper and rubbed his face. Taking a couple of deep breaths, he calmed down considerably.

"You're right. She's right. We were too different. I could barely understand her half the time and she found the stuff I found interesting boring and simple. It wasn't all bad, I mean, it was bloody great at times, you know?"

Harry made a face that implied he knew exactly what Ron meant but didn't need to think about it.

"But we both agreed we couldn't see it working out. I think we were both a bit heartbroken, but it was the right thing to do.

"Maybe I didn't handle the break-up the best. I mean, I thought we were doing alright, but then the whole thing happened with Malfoy at Christmas and I guess I was just ignoring it."

Ginny and Harry shared a look over his hunched shoulders.

"But that's not working, is it?" He sobbed.

Two heads shook at him, their eyes sad.

"She's moving on, and I'm ok with that, I think – that's why I asked Luna to the ball. I mean, before, when I was with Lavender, she put up with that when there was still a possibility, so I should be able to cope with her moving on.

"And I think I could if it weren't sodding ferret-face."

"Why?" Ginny asked. Harry scowled at his girlfriend, but she just shrugged.

"Because if I'm not good enough for her, and Malfoy, cowardly-Death-Eater, ferret-boy is, what does that say about me?"

"Oh Ron!"

They snapped their heads in the direction of the door. Framed in the doorway was Hermione, tears staining her cheeks.

"Ron it's not like that at all!" She wailed.

"But it is! You can forgive him everything because he makes nice for a few weeks and goes all gooey-eyed at you at Christmas, but you can't get over the fact that I'm simple-"

"It's not about that Ron-" she tried as more tears fell. Ginny and Harry looked on silently, the latter casting a subtle silencing spell around the room and its occupants.

"No!" Ron shouted suddenly, getting to his feet, and turning towards the door. "It's not is it? It's because I left - once - and I came back. And somehow that's worse than if I'd taken the bloody Dark Mark!"

"Because you shouldn't have to come back!"

Ron was stunned by the outburst and toppled back into the bed. He paled at the sight of one of his best mates struggling to control her anger. Magic was crackling around her, her hair even more chaotic and unruly than usual, framing her red, tear-stained face.

"You always come back, Ronald, but you shouldn't leave in the first place. Maybe it's unfair of me to expect such things of you when I had no such expectations of Draco, or Theo for that matter, but I cannot spend the rest of my life holding my tongue and toning down my own opinions and intelligence because I'm afraid if I push you too hard you'll leave!"

Hermione took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her face in an attempt to calm down.

"We both agreed, Ron. I love you and I will always love you, but as a friend.

Please, I need my best friend back."

Ron wiped his face with his sleeve and sighed.

"I'm sorry, 'Mione, I'll try, but I just can't make any promises when it comes to him."

Hermione nodded sadly and left, Ginny following her. An uncomfortable silence descended on the room. Harry shifted so he could put a hand on Ron's shoulder.

"I think you need to talk to someone, mate. What about Bill?" Harry suggested.

"Bill? Why Bill?"

Harry ran a hand through his hair nervously.

"I dunno, because he's your brother? Because he's here, in the school? Because he doesn't seem to have a problem with Malfoy, despite what happened with Greyback? I just thought maybe he might be a good person to talk to, more impartial, you know?"

Ron looked deep in thought for a minute, and Harry thought he was about to reject the idea outright, before he smirked.

"Can I borrow your cloak?"


Ron arrived at Bill's chambers shortly after curfew and knocked softly in case he wasn't alone. The door opened and a very confused Bill looked on the empty corridor before the disembodied head of his youngest brother appeared before him.

"You're going to get me in serious trouble if Minerva sees you out here," he grumbled, pulling Ron into the safety of his room, and shutting the door.

Ron stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. It wasn't an incredibly big lounge, but it had a comfortable sofa and he'd already visited his brother several times this year to escape the common room and feel a bit closer to home. Bill ushered him into a seat, sensing that Ron's mind was elsewhere, and ordered some tea from the kitchens.

"What's so important that you'd break curfew to talk to me?"

Ron blushed and folded his hands in his lap.

"Bill, why'd you let Malfoy take your class? You could have said no, right? I mean, after what he did, what happened to you, you could have turned him away. Why didn't you?"

Bill had been expecting this, but he honestly thought Hermione would have to drag him when his anger got too much. Maybe he was maturing. Or maybe that public fight with Hermione had shaken him more than he'd like to admit.

"He came to see me, that first night," Bill explained. "After the feast, I came back here and was preparing for the next day when there was a knock on the door, and it was him. He asked if he could talk to me, and I have to confess I had my hand on the wand in my pocket, but he just came in and took a seat and straight up apologised."

Ron's eyes practically bulged out of his head.

"Malfoy?! Apologising? Never!"

"I swear it, Ron, he apologised for his actions - said he hadn't known about Greyback until he'd come through that damned cabinet, but it didn't matter because if he hadn't done it then I wouldn't have got injured and he apologised again."

Ron made a low whistle.

"Yeah, that was my reaction. I thanked him, and as he got up to leave, I asked him if he would be in my class. He looked at me as if I had three heads. Said he assumed he wouldn't be welcome. I decided if he could be mature enough to apologise then I could be mature enough to put it in the past.

"His work has been second only to Hermione's every week."

Ron made a face at that and Bill held his hands up.

"Honestly, Ron. Did you never think about what having Voldemort living down the hall must have been like? I'd say he's probably the most anti dark arts pupil I teach."

Ron paled at that. It's not that he hadn't considered it. After all, Hermione and Harry had both made that suggestion when they defended the Malfoys in the Wizengamot, but to hear someone who had no connection to them say it too was sobering. Perhaps he had been a bit harsh on Hermione.

"So what brought you here, really?" Bill asked, tentatively.

Ron dropped his head into his hands.

"I might have had another fight with 'Mione."

Ron's heart constricted at the very recent memory of her tear-stained face, the fact that he was to blame, that his anger was pushing away one of his closest friends.

"I'm just so angry all the time, Bill. I'm angry about the war, I'm angry about things ending with Hermione, I'm angry because we lost so much, so many, Fred-"

A sob tore from his throat and Bill moved quickly to put a reassuring arm around his little brother's shoulders.

"But the worst bit is I'm really bloody angry at myself. I left them. In the middle of a bloody forest, when we were on the run. My best mates – we agreed to do it together, that impossible task and I left them! What does that make me?"

Bill comforted his brother as best he could, as sobs wracked his body. Ron didn't know how long he sat on his brother's sofa and cried, but he was exhausted when he finally stopped. Bill set aside the tea, got up from the sofa and poured two small glasses of firewhiskey.

"Minerva would kill me if she knew I was giving this to you, but in the circumstances, I suspect Poppy would approve."

He handed one to his brother and watched him take a sip.

"Ron, I know you're angry and upset. We lost so much in the war. Losing Fred still hurts – I can only imagine how George and Mum and Dad get through the day sometimes – but you were just a kid and you were expected to shoulder so much."

He sipped his drink and let it burn. He knew Ron needed some tough love.

"Too much."

Ron's cheeks blazed.

"I know this may be an unpopular opinion, but Dumbledore put far too much on Harry, and you and Hermione by association. He left the whole thing to you. He gave you hardly any instructions – and I say this with love, he's part of the family now, especially if Gin has anything to say about it – but Harry's hero worship of Dumbledore forced you to do it all without help. It's a bloody miracle you all came out alive, frankly."

Ron's mouth hung open as he gawked at his older brother. Nothing he'd said was wrong, but it still hurt somehow. Bill took another sip and continued.

"The three of you fought the hardest in this war – a war that shouldn't have been yours in the first place. You were children, used as pawns in his game. Godric, even Malfoy was screwed over by his machinations."

At Ron's scowl he explained.

"Dumbledore knew what was happening in the months before he died, but rather than offer Malfoy a way out, he made a secret plan with Snape. Sure, he didn't have to cast the killing curse himself, but who lets a 16-year-old boy suffer for months on end?"

Ron shuddered as he downed the last of his drink. He'd bottled up so much since the end of the war that he really hadn't thought through any of this. It was clear his brother had had plenty of time to think it over – and he had opinions. Ron wasn't sure he had the energy to deal with all of it tonight.

"All of you kids were dealt a bad hand, but you made it through and that's the important thing. But if you're struggling, I have the name of a mind healer – well, she's actually a squib, but she trained in the muggle world in order to help witches and wizards with this sort of non-spell related mind trauma. You could floo call her from my quarters if you'd like."

Ron nodded. He was too exhausted to do anything else, the anger having left, and his brain too full to process anything further.

Bill finished the last of his drink and pulled his brother to his feet and into a bone-crushing hug.

"It's a lot to think about Ronald, but you can't do it here. Now put that damned cloak on and get back to your dorm before Minerva catches you and I lose my job."