Scattered

Hermione closed the door behind Bill, Neville and Ron and sighed a bit in relief. Ever since the day of the attacks, she hadn't had much of a moment to herself. Before that, really, because the entire summer she'd been cooped up with Ron and Ginny. She wasn't complaining about the company in either situation, but what she'd really been longing for was a long, quiet evening with a relaxing bath and no distractions... no worrisome distractions, no loud boy distractions, no red-headed distractions...

So, after volunteering all afternoon at the library and feeling a little tired and worn-down, she'd gone home and broken the news that she wouldn't be joining the boys on their big night out. Ron, as expected, hadn't taken the news well.

She should be flattered that he wanted to be with her all the time. On one level she was. He seemed so focused on her lately, and it was a heady experience. Ron was a volatile and... passionate person. She loved that about him. But having all of his attention directed at her could be overwhelming at times. She just needed a break, some time to think... about where they were headed and what it all meant. And, of course, there was also the war. If you could call it that. Is it still a war when one side has been all but obliterated? Was there still a battle left to fight, really? Or just a life spent in secrecy?

None of them spoke much about the future. Bill seemed focused on the safehouse, keeping busy, keeping safe. Neville was doing the same. Ron... Ron had been near-impossible to read these past few months, and she knew him, supposedly, best. Even at night, when they were alone, he seemed miles away.

Hermione walked up the stairs slowly, feeling a now-familiar warmth flush through her body. It happened whenever she thought of Ron: her heart would start to beat a little faster and she'd get an unsettled feeling in her stomach. Ginny used to say it felt like butterflies, she thought. More like butterflies with the stomach flu, in my opinion. Is that really what love feels like? She stepped into the loo and began running the water for the tub, adding some of the bath salts she'd purchased last week. When the tub was full, she pinned up her hair and stepped carefully into the near-scalding water. Fully immersed, she reached for her, cast a warming charm so that it wouldn't cool off prematurely, and laid back, trying to relax.

She could, in fact, remember a time when Ron Weasley didn't make her pulse race. First year, second year. She and Ron and Harry, best friends. Those two boys, they'd meant the world to her. She'd adored Harry -- she still adored Harry -- and felt close to him instantly. He'd grown up in the Muggle world as well, and he knew what it was like to be an outsider, looking in. He'd never questioned her friendship, her value... not the way Ron had. Eleven year-old Ronald Weasley had caused her to shed more than a few tears, and she'd privately called him every permutation of "prat", "git" and "insensitive boy" that she could think of, alone in her dorm room, while Parvati and Lavender were fast asleep. Ron helped save her from a troll, it was true, but he also sometimes made her feel like she was on probation for membership with him. He was her friend, and she his, but there were times she wondered if, without Harry, they'd ever have bothered. If she'd have bothered. Definitely if he would have bothered.

Third year was when she learned the answer to some of her questions, at least. Those long lonely weeks when Ron and Harry hadn't been speaking to her, and all over a broomstick, of all things... it hadn't been only Harry she'd missed. She'd made other friends and gotten to know Ginny a little bit better, and Neville. Even talked to Parvati and Lavender more, though with less enthusiasm. She'd visited Hagrid, helped him with Buckbeak's case. She'd been fine. But not really fine. Harry, she'd known, would come around eventually. Ron? She hadn't thought he would.

But he had, and that's when she'd fallen just the first little bit for him. Just a little at a time, and in the years that followed, a little bit more. By the time she was ever-so-briefly Viktor Krum's girlfriend, it was too late. A first kiss spent kissing one boy and thinking of another... hardly ideal. She broke up with Viktor and decided it was better to wait, wait until Ron grew up a bit and realized just why they fought all the time.

Last year at Hogwarts, their timing had been off. She didn't like to think of the months she'd spent keeping a stiff upper lip whenever Ron and Lavender were around. She had begun to feel like two people: a fake Hermione who held her head high, and a sad, miserable girl that only Harry and Ginny ever saw. When that... issue... had mercifully been resolved, Hermione had found herself still a little bit angry, and a little unsure. Ron had been glad to be her friend again, to be sure. But so much else had been going on, and then her parents had been forced to go into hiding and Hermione had felt herself torn in two yet again.

She could have gone with them. She'd sat down with Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, and her parents, and they'd talked about it at length. The Fidelius charm would have protected her as well. She could have gone away, gone back, and left the wizarding world behind. She could have been with her parents always, safe and happy, grown up a normal British girl, going to normal schools and with normal Muggle friends. She could have been with her parents. Always.

Obviously, she couldn't do it. She couldn't give up the wizarding world, having lived in it. She couldn't turn her back on the battle they all knew was coming. She couldn't give up on her dreams for the future. She couldn't leave her friends. She couldn't leave Ginny, and Harry. She couldn't leave Ron.

So instead she said goodbye to the two people who loved her most in the world, the only family she had left. She'd taken Crookshanks in her arms and whispered long and hard, words of love and affection and trust, and asked him always to watch over them. He'd purred against her hand, pressed his wet nose to her cheek and lapped at the tears he'd found there. He'd left her with a final caress and gone to her mother, rubbing against her leg and sitting at her feet, already on sentry duty, as asked. Hermione had never cried so hard in her life, and she wasn't sure she ever would again.

She shook her head and tried to push away the memory of that day. There were so many other, happier times with her parents; she knew she should try to focus on those, rather than the last sight of her mother's tear-stained face and her father's fierce hug. With a sigh, she stood carefully and climbed out of the tub, casting a drying charm and putting on an oversized, fluffy robe. She tidied up in the bathroom quickly and went out into the bedroom, changing into her pajamas and trying not to dwell on sad memories.

She'd been giving herself much the same advice for months now. The Burrow had been warm and humid all summer, and Hermione had felt sluggish and tired. She'd recognized that she was grieving and depressed, but there hadn't seemed to be anything she could do about it. It was only when she'd noticed how pale and sad Ginny had become, in the wake of her separation from Harry, that Hermione gave herself a shake and started to come out of her own shell. Helping Ginny mattered more than anything else, and, with Ron, they'd passed the summer together slowly, each learning how to pick up the pieces and go on.

Ron had been there for them both all summer, Hermione realized. He'd teased and harassed Ginny as usual, but she'd seemed to welcome the bickering and the arguing. Hermione suspected Ginny had known her brother was just trying to be there for her, in his own way and in the Weasley tradition of bemused affection that in fact ran deep.

With Hermione, he'd been light-hearted and friendly. They'd fought as always, but it seemed every argument had ended with one of them breaking into laughter, and the other following suit. They'd been quieter with each other, but closer. They'd been headed somewhere, she was sure of it.

And then the Headmaster had died, and the war begun and over before they could do anything about it, and they'd come here, to the safehouse, and everything had changed.

She took the pins out of her hair slowly and began brushing out the day's tangles. Her hair -- she smiled. It was still prone to frizz, but the outright bushiness seemed to have been her own personal rite of passage through puberty. Other girls got acne. She got huge hair. It was probably a huge trade-off in her favor, especially now that it had settled down in a nice way. The same could not, after all, be said of Susan Bones' spots, she thought sympathetically. Ginny was always saying how she wished her hair would curl like Hermione's.

It was strange, really, how something she'd once nearly detested had become something she rather liked, a lot.

Hermione put her brush away. "Nox," she whispered, and slipped her wand into a drawer in the nightstand. She climbed into bed, pulling the light blanket up to her chin and curling on her side.

The safehouse had become their new home, whether they wanted it to or not. Hermione guessed that Bill was more homesick than he liked to let on. Neville, she knew, didn't care much where he was, but he worried, frequently, about his grandmother. And Ron? It seemed as if he hated the safehouse and everything it represented.

As for herself, Hermione didn't hate living there. She'd grown used to the house, gotten settled in. She liked the neighborhood. She was comfortable enough. The home she'd grown up in had been sold to a new family, after all. Hogwarts was crawling with Death Eaters. The Burrow was destroyed. All the places she'd ever considered home were lost to her. So why not be here, then? Here as well as anywhere else, after all. Any other place that still wouldn't fill the empty place in her heart, or in Ron's, any better.

At least they had each other. That's what they'd been saying for weeks now, from the start. And she was grateful. She tried to imagine being somewhere else, at another safehouse, without Ron... or, even being here without him. Bill and Neville were wonderful, really. But truth be told, if she'd had to live here without Ron, shut away from everything she loved, alone, she might have gone mad.

But she wasn't alone. Ron was here with her. Ron was here with her, in this house, in this room... in this bed. She felt warm and flushed again, and realized that those infamous "butterflies" really only made an appearance whenever she thought of... that. Because things had changed, and abruptly, at the safehouse.

She'd told herself, naively, she knew now, that it wouldn't be such a big deal. They'd share a room. They'd just sleep in the same bed. They were in special circumstances. They needed each other. She loved Ron. He loved her, she knew he did. They were, after all, headed in the kind of direction where such a thing wouldn't be so strange. But... she couldn't wait for that anymore. She needed him. She'd asked him to stay. He'd said yes.

Hermione wasn't stupid. She knew it was... intimate. That she'd upped the stakes on their relationship. She knew Ron wanted more from her than friendship. And she wanted more, too. It would happen. She wasn't sure when, but it would, in its own time. There was no need to worry about it.

They got along better than ever. They never fought, not since that first fight at the safehouse. Ron teased her mercilessly and flirted the same way, and she gave it right back. Things between them were wonderful, except that Ron didn't tell her what he was thinking, anymore. He'd gotten a bit better of late, but all too often he still seemed closed off, brooding. She knew he was upset and worried and possibly scared, but he wouldn't admit even a hint of those emotions to her, no matter how hard she tried to get him to talk. Contrarily, he worried over her constantly to the point of making her feel smothered, though she knew it was out of love and concern. That was fine. She understood that he needed to worry about her right now. The problem was, he wouldn't let her return the favor.

Even late at night, in the dark of their room -- that was when it was hardest to get Ron to say anything. He always waited until after she was already in bed, and then he'd come in quietly, navigating his way around the furniture by memory, now, and slip into the loo to change into his plaid pajama bottoms and a t-shirt. He'd climb into bed next to her and he'd mumble good-night. Sometimes, she could keep him awake and talk to him about the events of the day, a book she'd read, volunteering. Sometimes she could tell him something Bill or Neville had done when he wasn't around, something funny. He'd laugh, and answer her, and eventually they'd both quiet, and go to sleep. Sometimes in the night he'd brush against her, or she against him. Sometimes he'd get up and sit in the chair by the window for awhile. Sometimes she felt him move closer behind her, and she'd feel his breath against her neck. Sometimes, when she couldn't sleep and he was sprawled on his back, she'd reach for him, wrapping her hand around his arm and tucking her face into his shoulder. Sometimes he'd turn his head and brush his lips across the top of her head. Sometimes she'd wake up in the morning and find him brushing the hair back from her face, and he'd smile.

Those silent moments in the night, just the two of them... That's what made her heart race and her skin feel warm. Those moments, filled with meaning and heavy with possibilities... so removed from all that had come before, for them. The natural progression of years, the childhood squabbling and the bonds of friendship, the crushes and the arguments and the hurt and the caring... they were what had brought them to this place, those nights and this bed. What she felt between them there was something separate from their shared childhood and, though formed of the past, spoke only of the present and, perhaps, the future. Love, need... desire.

Hermione sighed and wished, hazily, that Ron had come back home from the pub... that he was lying there beside her, now... She felt herself drifting off and smiled, thinking that when she awoke, he would be there...

...They were back at Hogwarts. She was wearing her uniform, but Ron's tie was undone, dangling around his neck, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up. She frowned and he laughed, pulling her up out of her chair and running, running past Madam Pince and out into the halls. She called for him to wait, breathless, but he kept running. He turned back to look at her and his eyes were bright and his hair wild... they reached Gryffindor Tower and The Fat Lady opened the door for them without a word...

Ron pulled her to the sofa and she fell beside him, the room warm and cast in late-afternoon sun, slanting through the windows. She looked around; there was no one there.

"You should run more," Ron said to her. "You look amazing."

"Amazing?" she said.

"Alive," he told her, and reached out for her. He pulled her close against him and she ran her hands up and down his arms, his shirt, the sleeves rolling and unrolling with the passage of her hands. His tie was gone.

She moved back to tell him and he tugged at her and she fell, forward, forward, until she was sprawled above him, her hair getting tangled and hanging over her face. She pushed it aside and his mouth was so close to hers...

They were outside and the sun was warm on her back. Her arms were bare and he grasped them with his hands, fingers tickling her lightly. He was laughing again, and she saw herself reflected in his eyes, so much more beautiful than she knew she truly was. He reached for her...

"Ron," she said, "not here." They were in the garden at the Burrow; out of the corner of her eye she saw a grinning gnome slip away through the hedges. "Someone could... we're in plain sight, anyone could..."

"No one's home," he told her, curling a lock of hair behind her ear. She hovered above him, his body just beneath hers. "They're all gone. Remember? It's just you and me."

She frowned, and a cloud seemed to pass swiftly by overhead, a dark shadow that moved along the ground. She watched it go and felt the world shifting beneath her. Ron took her face in his hands and pulled her down to him, gently. Ron's legs tangled up with hers and his hands were buried in her hair. "Hermione," he whispered, and he kissed her.

His lips were soft and warm and she wrapped her arms around him, her body arched beneath his and...

Hermione blinked fiercely, half-sitting up, startled. Ron's dark form stumbled against the bed and the mattress dipped as he settled beside her, close.

"You're here just like you said you'd be," he said, his hands groping at her waist.

She pulled back slightly, trying to get a look at him, but the room was dark and her brain was still fuzzy with sleep. "Ron, what are you--"

"Missed you tonight," he muttered, pushing his face into her neck. She froze, stunned, and felt his lips move wetly there.

"Ron, are you--"

"Shhhh," he said, and brought his mouth crashing down upon hers.

Hermione couldn't move. She felt the memory of her dream tugging at her, and remembered the look in Ron's eyes just before he'd kissed her... but that had been part of the dream, not real at all. Here, now, his lips were moving frantically against hers, urgently, inexpertly. Her hands were braced against his chest loosely and her mind struggled to catch up.

He nudged her mouth open slightly and abruptly she felt as awake as if she'd been doused with a bucket of cold water. There was a bitter, awful taste in his mouth and the smell of... beer. She gasped against him and he brought his hand up from her waist, gliding swiftly upward, fumbling awkwardly and just brushing against her breast.

"Ron, you prat!" she yelled and, shoving him away fiercely, she sprang up from the bed. "How could you!"

Ron sprawled across the bed, breathing heavily. She still couldn't see his face and grabbed her wand from the nightstand. "Lumos."

He looked, in a word, terrible. Clothes askew, hair a disaster, eyes bleary. He blinked up at her and as she watched, a look of abject horror overtook his features. "Hermione..."

"What's the matter with you? Are you drunk?"

He rubbed his face in his hands. "Hermione, I'm sorry."

"Why did you do that? Like this, now, when you're drunk? When it doesn't mean anything and it's terrible and... it wasn't supposed to happen like that!" she sobbed, feeling miserable.

Ron stumbled to his feet. "I'm sorry--"

"Stop saying that!" She backed away from him and grabbed a pillow from the bed, nearly throwing it at him. "Go. Just go. Go sleep somewhere else."

"Hermione, don't throw me out," he said, his face contorted in remorse.

She took a deep breath. "Ron, I can't talk to you right now. Please, just go."

"Will you talk to me, though? Tomorrow?" he asked sadly, desperately.

"Yes," she said, her voice shaking. "Yes. But not now, with you like this. Ron, please."

He stood there for a moment, clutching the pillow in one hand and the bedpost in another, staring at the floor, unable to meet her eyes. Finally he nodded and shuffled towards the door, fumbling for the knob and closing it clumsily behind him.

Hermione sank down on the bed and sobbed quietly. As the minutes ticked by she felt filled with remorse and regret. She hadn't meant to scream at him like that. She loved him so and she knew he felt just the same... but she thought of her dream and cried all the harder.

That's how they were supposed to fall in love. At school, at the Burrow, as the people they'd always been, in the homes they'd always loved. They were supposed to be happy, and excited, and carefree. Instead, they were fugitives huddling in this miserable place, clinging to each other in the dark and trying to forget about everything they'd lost.

Eventually, she cried herself to sleep, and that night she had no more dreams.