Keepsake

She throws another stone into the water and watches the ripples expand, wider and wider, and then disappear. In her morbid state of mind, she can't help thinking how perfect a parallel it is to the weeks looming ahead of her -- how they will get further and further away from each other and then just disappear. Why, by the time term starts, it will be like nothing ever happened, probably. Like they'd never--

"A galleon for your thoughts?" Ron asks, sitting down gracelessly beside her.

She smiles ruefully. "Thoughts are going for a galleon these days?"

"Yours are."

Though she secretly loves compliments like that (and Ron knows it), she doesn't rise to the bait this time. "How did you find me?" she asks, refusing to look at him, to see him.

"Got Harry to take a gander at his map for me."

"You know, it's all well and good when we're looking for Death Eaters, or avoiding professors, but using that map to spy on one's friends, well, it's ... creepy," Hermione finishes, trying to sound offended.

The sun glints off the lake in much the same way she knows it is glinting off Ron's hair, something that has distracted her since she was eleven years old. She looks down and begins methodically shredding blades of grass, her hands as small as she feels, her body unconsciously leaning towards his. He is up against her in a moment, his larger, rougher hand sliding over hers, his nose in her hair and his lips lingering near her cheek.

"You can't fool me. You knew I'd use it to find you here. Hermione, if you want to be alone with me," he says with a small chuckle, "all you need to do is ask, surely you know that by now." When his teasing doesn't elicit the hint of a grin, a comeback, or even a lessening of the sadness that seems to surround her, he sighs and takes her hand in both of his. "Okay, forget about all that. Tell me what's wrong."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Yes, you do." She stiffens. "You do. Let's just jump ahead past all of this and talk. We can do that now, you know. No more misunderstandings, we said," he reminds her, and with that, gently lifts her chin so that their eyes meet.

She looks ... incredibly sad. Not upset, not frantic, not terrified but brave, not furious, not all the ways he's seen her in the past when things aren't right. She simply looks tired and ready to cry, and it's not like her, and that, more than anything else, concerns him. In fact, he's beginning to get a little scared, and then she takes a long, slow, deep breath and says, so softly, in a small voice, "But not over the summer, we can't."

"Why not?" he asks, confused. "If anything's bothering you, just send an owl. Or use a fireplace. You know I'll drop anything to listen."

She sniffs. "It's not the same."

"As what?"

"We won't be together, you prat," she spits out finally, annoyed that he isn't feeling what she's feeling, that he isn't sitting here just as miserable about the prospect of all those weeks apart while she's with her parents. Won't he miss her as much as she'll miss him?

He opens his mouth to snap back at her -- and then catches himself, swallowing the words. In some ways (though he won't admit this to her), he speaks less freely with her now, watches what he says. She wouldn't understand that it's not a bad thing. Before, they yelled and bickered and far too often he spoke before he thought, and said something which hurt her terribly ... It always bugged him, that he'd done that to her, but now he can't bear causing her pain, or risk driving her away (unthinkable), so he tries harder. And it's worth it, every time. Including this one.

"Hermione, you know I'm going to miss you like hell all summer," he says quietly, hitting on just the thing that is making her angry. He feels her relax ever-so-slightly and, encouraged, goes on. "You know me, I'm a selfish, possessive bastard, and most of the time I wish you never left my sight, much less spent the summer holidays far away. But much as I hate to admit it, you were right: you really do need to spend this summer with your parents, away from all this."

She doesn't answer.

"And it's only for a couple of weeks, after all. Basically I figure it'll just be boring and long and dull, and then we'll all be back together again and we can pick up right where we left off."

That seems to get her attention. "That's really what will happen? You don't think...."

"What?"

"You don't think we'll change at all? Get kind of, I don't know, distant?"

He's completely confused. "Distant? From what? From each other? Hermione, every summer for our first couple of years here at Hogwarts, we all went home for the summer and met up again the week before term in Diagon Alley. This will be just like that. What's different now?"

"Us."

He peers at her for a moment, the wheels turning in his head. Finally a light dawns and he can't help chuckling a little. "You've got to be kidding me. Come on! We spend six years circling around each other through danger, death, despair and sheer mule-headedness, we finally take our heads out of our arses two weeks ago and allow ourselves to admit we're basically bonkers about each other, and you think that spending a couple of weeks of summer apart is going to change that?"

"I hate feeling this way," she admits in a low voice of disgust. "It's ridiculous. I don't need you to tell me I'm being unreasonable, it's driving me crazy, but that doesn't seem to do a thing to change how I feel."

He slips his arms around her and kisses her quickly. "I know what you mean, because nothing's going to change the way I feel either. Believe me, all this summer apart is going to do is make me even more insanely in love with you."

When the smile finally blooms across her face, Ron feels like he's won a marathon or a thousand Quidditch World Cups all at once. She pulls his head down and kisses him enthusiastically in a way that surprises him, though they've had plenty of practice in the past two weeks. He still can't believe, sometimes, that she's even willing to let him touch her, much less eager to touch *him*.

They break apart for air, finally. "If that's what's going to happen every time you get uncharacteristically unsure of anything, I'm not positive it's a bad thing," Ron says smugly, pleased with himself. And then he hears his own words echoing inside his thick skull, and an intense wave of instant panic hits him so strongly he drops away from her, lying flat on his back and covering his eyes. "Bloody hell."

"Ron, what on earth is wrong with you?" she asks, puzzled but sounding entirely like her normal self again.

He groans. "Well, it's all well and good, I'll be holed up at the Burrow, bored as usual with just Ginny and random brothers for company, mucking about all day and pining away for you. But you're going to be gallivanting around with your parents, meeting who knows how many other blokes. I can't believe I didn't think about that."

"We're not going to be gallivanting, you know that, it's not safe. I'll be staying home, too."

"Still, blokes could come around. They could! Don't get me wrong," he says earnestly, sitting up again to look her in the eye, "I know *you* would never, you know, I mean, it's not like ... Well, I trust you!" he spits out finally, in a rush. "I know you--love me, I guess."

Hermione tries very very hard not to laugh. "Yes, I do."

"Right," he says back. "But these other blokes, they don't know that. So they'll give it a go. I mean, in a sense, who can blame them? I can't. Well, I mean, *I* can, actually, I can bloody well blame them all the way to Manchester if they think they've got any business even thinking, you know, but I'm just saying ... I'm just saying ..."

"Yes?"

"I'm just saying, as long as you're aware and all, you know, what they're up to, and you stand firm and don't give these fellows even the time of day, well, that should hold them off until the end of the summer at least. Just remember, be firm. Don't be polite, it'll just encourage them. Okay?"

She shakes her head at him, exasperated. "Let's see if I've got this straight. Over the next few weeks, hordes of young men I've never met before and who are unaware that I'm off the market will be knocking at my door at all hours, and I should just tell them to sod off and leave me alone, and while this won't cool their ardor entirely, it should hold them off until I can escape when the new term begins?"

"Exactly," Ron says seriously.

"What?! I was being facetious, you goose. Joking."

"I wasn't. Hermione--"

She cuts him off with a kiss twice as enthusiastic as the one before, quite literally taking his breath away for a moment. "You're really a lunatic," she tells him. "But I do adore you. As for the rest, I get your point. I'm just- -still getting used to all this."

He runs a hand through her hair and nods. "Me, too. And I do wish we weren't being separated so soon after finally getting together this way. But we've been together a lot longer than just these two weeks. You know what I mean?"

"I do," she tells him, her eyes shining.

Ron turns and reaches for his bag, tossing his schoolbooks aside in search of something smaller at the bottom. "Ah ha!" he says finally, handing her a loosely-wrapped flat package. "Here, you'll see."

"What's this?" she asks.

"I was going to give it to you at the station, you know, when we said good-bye, but now's really a better time."

She unwraps it slowly, revealing a small picture frame. The photograph is of her and Ron, last winter, outside in the snow. They're both laughing, and Ron is trying to tickle her through her heavy winter coat. Unsuccessfully, she recalls, but at the time she'd been smiling like mad all the same.

"I remember this," she says fondly. "That was the first snowball fight of the year. Colin took this, of course. That was very nice of him to make a copy. And for you to give it to me like this. Thank you, Ron. I'll keep it on my bedside table all summer." She stops speaking, though she wants to say more--she's a little overwhelmed at his thoughtfulness, as she always has been. So bull-headed and thick sometimes, but other times....

"I'm glad you like it, but--watch," he says, pointing at the picture.

Hermione looks back down at the photograph and is at first confused. They're still laughing and pushing each other around, snow flying and getting stuck in her hair. In a rare moment of self-conceit, she's thinking that it looks rather nice, actually, like a cloud of faery dust, when picture-Ron pulls picture- Hermione closer and buries his face in her neck, pushing her hair aside to trail his lips up her neck. And picture-Hermione isn't letting this go unanswered, either: she's wrapping her arms around him and appearing to quite enjoy his attentions, her head tipping back as their lips meet. And it's a lovely scene, but--

"But--but, we weren't--"

"I know," he says. "we weren't together then. I have a confession to make, I've had my own copy of this photograph for months. I tracked Colin down that very evening and begged a copy from him and I've had it on *my* bedside table ever since. Well, in the table, really, because I didn't want any of the others giving me the mickey about it, but you know what I mean. Anyhow, I'd take it out and look at it every now and then, and after a few weeks they--we--in the picture, I mean--started getting a lot friendlier, like this. And ever since we really did, you know, they're pretty much at it non-stop. But the point is ... sometimes a photograph captures more than we see ourselves, you know? Maybe we weren't admitting it last term, or last year, or whenever, but--we've been together a lot longer than just these two weeks, Hermione. And we always will be. That's what this photo says, and that's what I'm telling you now. I actually had this whole bit planned out, where I'd give it to you on the platform and you'd open it later in your room, and there'd have been this whole amazing letter with it--"

She turns from the picture and takes his face in her hands, stroking his cheeks softly, tracing the contours she's long since memorized. "I don't need a letter. And after hearing everything you just said, I don't think I'll ever need a picture to remind me of just why I love you. But it's still nice to have."

He grins. "Of course, nothing beats the real thing."

"Mmm," she agrees, her lips hovering tantalizingly over his, "I agree. So let's make the most of reality while we can."

-- end