It was August. Harry had fixed up Grimmauld Place and Ron had moved in with him. Hermione was returning to Hogwarts in a couple weeks and since Ron was not, he really couldn't put off telling her felt like he wasn't being fully honest, and in his own mind, for his own wellbeing, he wanted to feel comfortable having everything out in the open between them. He needed to know that he and Hermione were on solid ground before she left.
It was late at night and the two of them were sitting up in Ron's room just talking.
"Umm. Listen, there is something else that's sort of been weighing on my mind lately. That I probably should tell you about." He began nervously.
"Okay." Hermione said softly with concern. "What is it?"
"It's about what the locket showed me. Before I stabbed it."
"Oh." She replied, taken aback.
"I know we've already talked loads about how the locket was affecting me badly and hurting me and how my leaving hurt you. So we kind of worked through that, but I never told you this."
He exhaled, looking uncomfortable. "I don't want to tell you. So that's why I figure I probably should." He sighed.
Hermione reached out to him. "You were there to see what the cup showed me before I destroyed it. So are you thinking it's only fair that you tell me what the locket showed you?"
"I guess. But it's more than that. You're leaving soon, and I don't want it to feel like I'm keeping things from you. I really want things with us to work Hermione."
He was getting emotional and Hermione tried to comfort him.
"I know." She soothed. "Me too. You know I feel the same way. But you don't have to pressure yourself to tell me everything right now if you're not ready."
"No." He insisted, shaking his head. "No, I need to tell you. I'll just…alright." He took a deep breath. Although Ron was now confident Hermione returned his feelings, he wasn't sure of her reaction. He suspected she didn't fully understand the depth of his insecurities or that he'd ever felt jealous thinking she preferred Harry.
"When Harry opened the locket, it was like all my worst fears voiced out loud. Things that I know now aren't true, but at the time seemed completely obvious to me. If you can believe, it said Mom loved me the least. That she'd always wanted a girl instead."
"Oh Ron!" Hermione cried in sympathy.
"I know. Right pathetic innit." He sniffled.
"No. It's not." She said softly.
"And then it sort of transformed into like demented versions of you and Harry. Saying you didn't want me there, that you wanted me to leave, were better off without me, stuff like that."
"You must know that's not true. I couldn't bear it when you left. Nothing worked without you." She said quietly and Ron nodded, before he swallowed and kept going.
"So this evil Hermione said what woman would ever look at me or want me next to the Chosen One."
"Ron." She said sadly, shifting closer to him as she put her hand on his arm.
"Sorry." He muttered as he rubbed his eyes. "Erm…there's a bit more."
He took a steadying breath.
"It showed me you and Harry, at the very end. That was right before I stabbed it. And you were...umm."
It seemed like he couldn't go on.
"I was rejecting you?" She tried to prompt him gently. "Like romantically?"
"Yes. But it was more than that."
He looked anguished. Ron thought that saying the next words to her would be impossibly awkward. She was peering at him with apprehension.
"I'm not going to reject you Ron. I don't." She tried to help. "We're together. We're okay." She rubbed her hands over top of his.
"Yeah. I know."
He plucked up his courage and just said it.
"It showed me you and Harry snogging."
She looked at him in surprised disbelief and then her face fell. He could see her mind turning as she processed this. He wanted her to say something, but he was also afraid to hear it.
Suddenly, without looking at him, she stood up and walked out the door.
He panicked.
"Hermione!" He called after her. She didn't turn around.
"Hermione wait! I'm sorry." He pleaded, but she'd already marched half way down the 'd squared her shoulders, a look of determination on her face as she suddenly barreled into Harry's room without warning.
Harry was fast asleep in his bed and startled awake as she burst in, his bedroom door hitting the wall with a loud bang. Illuminated by the hallway light, Hermione had a demented look in her eyes as she rushed towards him. Before he could say anything, she'd grabbed the extra pillow from beside him and immediately started beating him.
"Oi! Ow! Hermione!"
"YOU COMPLETE ARSE HARRY POTTER!" She yelled.
He put his arms up to shield himself while reaching over for the lamp on his night table. He got the light turned on and his glasses jammed on his face just as Ron came into the room. Ron put his arms around Hermione and pulled her back from hitting Harry.
"After everything, how could you do this to me?!" She screamed.
"What's going on?" Harry sat up in bed and looked between them. Ron was holding Hermione back with panic on his face. Hermione was ignoring Ron, trying to shake off his hands, but she'd stopped flailing for the moment. She never took her eyes off Harry, her icy glare shooting right through him. He glanced at the clock.
"Why are you rowing at one in the morning?!" Harry cried.
"I told her about the locket." Ron said gravely.
"Ohhh." Harry sobered.
"Why did Ron think we wanted to snog?!" She accused him.
"What?"
"What did you say?!" She shrieked, breaking free from Ron's grasp.
"I've no idea..." Harry began. He seemed genuinely bewildered.
"Did you make some comment about me? Was it in Sixth Year? Or before that? Think!" She punctuated the last word with a blow from his pillow.
"What comment? Comment about what?!"
"Don't play dumb with me Harry Potter! I know how boys talk. Did you make some...some comment about me or something? Locker room talk or whatever?"
"No! Of course not!" Harry shouted back.
"I certainly never gave any indication that I wanted to snog you. So you must've..."
"Hermione, he didn't. Really. It's my fault." Ron implored.
Hermione looked from Harry to Ron and saw honesty reflected on both their faces. Maddening! She thought.
With a frustrated cry, she dropped the pillow from her fist, turned on her heel and stormed out. The boys didn't move a muscle as they listened to her footsteps angrily pound down the stairs.
Ron was still in some kind of shock. Harry nodded his head towards the door, his raised eyebrow questioning why Ron wasn't going after her.
"Right." Ron said as he turned to follow her.
He found Hermione in the kitchen sobbing with her hands over her placed his hands on her shoulders.
"Hermione, I'm sorry." He moaned. "I don't know if I ever really thought you and Harry wanted to run off and snog behind my back. That was mostly the locket playing tricks on me. Picking at my jealousy and insecurity about you. You are so brilliant and beautiful and incredible. It was just hard to believe you'd ever want me back."
She pulled her hands away from her face to look at him, wiping her eyes. "I do understand Ron." She said softly. "Whether it was the locket or not, I don't blame you for feeling jealous or…or not good enough. I mean, I couldn't even look at Lavender during that whole time, even though we were dorm mates, because I was so…" She groaned. "Let's just say that expressing my feelings for you through magical birds in a jealous rage wasn't exactly the peak of rational communication either."
Ron smiled sympathetically at her as they joined hands. She continued.
"I get what it's like to feel jealous. That's not why I'm upset. It's because we could've had so much time together. We could've been together for years now instead of only a few months. We could've had prefect rounds and all of Sixth Year with each other instead of the disastrous time..."
"I know." He cut her off sadly.
"It could have been so different." She bemoaned. "I almost want it to be something Harry said as the reason we didn't get together before. It would be so much easier to blame him instead of facing that it was our own faults."
Ron looked at her miserably. He needed to try to explain.
"Please try to understand. It wasn't as easy with you. You're not just some girl I could ask out, where it wouldn't matter if I got turned down. We're best friends. I reckon it's a hell of a lot easier to ask a girl to date you if you haven't already known her for six years. I know...I know I should've done things a lot differently, but I couldn't bring myself to risk losing our friendship, losing you, if you didn't feel the same way."
"I know. Not having your friendship in Sixth Year was awful. After you were poisoned, I told myself that I'd rather stay friends with you forever, even if that's all we ever had, because I couldn't lose you again. I never wanted to not have you in my life again."
Ron squeezed her hands. He felt relieved and somewhat validated that she really did understand. After all, she'd just admitted to feeling jealous too, and it seemed like they'd both been thinking the same way back then about not wanting to risk their friendship. Hermione continued.
"We've already missed out on so much time together and now I'm leaving again soon and are you really sure we can't just blame Harry for the whole thing?"
He smiled sadly at her. "You are going back for Seventh Year and...I'm not, so I just have to know that we're sorted."
"You're right. I don't want any more miscommunications or wrong assumptions between us. It's going to be hard enough being apart from each other. There's no way to properly bicker and make up over owls."
Ron grinned and pulled her in close. "I'm sorry to have upset you. I know it doesn't matter and you're not gonna snog Harry. But I just had to tell you. To be honest."
"I'm glad you were honest. I wish I'd been honest with you too a lot sooner and handled things differently." She cleared her throat. "And I'm sorry about the birds. I never really properly apologized to you for it."
"Apology accepted." He whispered and they kissed tenderly. His hand caressed her cheek and she wrapped her arms around him. After a few moments, he pulled back to look into her eyes as he spoke sincerely.
"The sheer idea that we could even be together now when it seemed so impossible for so long is still effing unbelievable to me. It felt like there were always a million and one things that could go wrong and I guess there still are. But we are together now, and I have to trust that the reason we are is stronger and more powerful than the millions of reasons it won't work out."
She smiled and kissed him again. In his own way, this was one of the most romantic things Ron had ever said to her. Despite their complicated history and how long it took them to act on their feelings to arrive here, his certainty in his belief in them as a couple took her breath away.
There was a knock at the kitchen door.
"Erm...can I come in?" Harry asked.
"Yeah." Ron replied as they broke apart.
Harry stood in the doorway and nervously scratched his head.
"Look, I never meant to...umm...you know. Get in the way of things." He said embarrassed.
"Apparently you didn't." Hermione said tersely. "Ronald has vouched for I'm sorry about earlier."
"It's fine. Is everything…sorted?" Harry asked.
Ron looked at her.
"Yes." Hermione said.
"Good." Harry replied. "That locket was bloody evil. It's caused enough problems so this better be the last row we ever have over it."
"I think it will be." Hermione agreed. "I just wish I'd realized sooner what was going on and seen what it was doing to all of us. Maybe it affected you more Ron because you were injured or perhaps because you're a pure blood?"
"Maybe." Ron agreed sadly. "Or maybe I'm just not as strong as you and Harry."
"No, it's not that." Harry said firmly. "I think it was just designed to bring out the worst in all of us. The thing we hated most about ourselves. So for you, it could be your insecurities. For me, I just remember feeling so angry all the time, like this rage was just bubbling constantly and I couldn't contain it. And I hated the anger, because it made me feel more like him."
"That makes sense." Hermione replied. "Can't say I was exactly cheerful to be around either. I felt like a complete failure whenever I wore it. There was such a sense of hopelessness too, given as it was literally an evil piece of him hanging around our necks. It was definitely fighting back and trying to destroy us before we could destroy it. Although in the end, we won. We destroyed all of them."
"Did the cup put up a fight as well?" Harry asked, moving into the kitchen. "Show you your worst fear? Which, I assume based on your reaction tonight, was also you and me snogging?"
She scoffed and rolled her eyes, but then looked over at Ron. They silently communicated something to each other before she replied.
"Actually it was the same as my boggart." She smirked at Harry. "A piece of homework that only got nine out of ten."
Harry laughed. "Ah, well I don't think that's going to happen. McGonagall better give you straight O's on your N.E.W.T.'s for saving the bloody Wizarding World."
"I don't expect to be treated differently than anyone else."
"Me neither." Harry replied. "And look where that's got us." He was rummaging around in the pantry. "Fancy a snack? How about something that's not wild mushrooms or tinned peaches."
Ron looked between his best mate and his girlfriend and smiled contently. "Works for me."