And All

And All

He had never told anyone how much he hated being back at the Burrow. It wasn't like Hogwarts where he could be anything or anyone he wanted, and the person he had chosen was so... him. No: now he was in his little-boy element where he still believed in princesses and knights-in-shining-armor and wishing upon a star; he was again thinking that the dark blanket that was night held mysteries and his future.

As long as he was still three, a narcissistic child who believed God owed him so much more than he had even given, he would wish again. He would wish for bravery: courage. He would wish that the life he lived the other nine months of the year would be bestowed upon him once again.

And he had had that feeling of not belonging for so many years that sky immediately adopted him, enveloped Ron in a world of could-be as he strode along the uneven hills of dirt he used to know so well.

He had lost himself throughout the years, but he could never forget the world of nature that had taken him in so many times when he couldn't fit in anywhere else. He hated to feel like that again. But there was the murky pond, almost unintelligible from that around it... so like his former self; and there was the tree he would climb... to find solace in the branches; and over to the right was the stone bench... and all.

Almost as soon as he sank gratefully onto the cold, hard stone he jumped back up. "Bloody hell-"

"Oh!" Hermione had blended in with his thoughts, and he was surprised she was occupying his seat. After taking a moment to recover she moved aside for Ron, and he plunked down with a grin. Finally, something, someone, he could understand.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, folding her bare legs under her and twisting to face him, choosing to overlook his bit of colorful language.

"I'm looking for a star." He smiled sideways and could feel her blush as he looked down into her eyes. "Wish upon a star and all... what're you doing?" He studied the outline of her face and the way her lips moved when she spoke. God, she was beautiful.

"Just sorting through things in my head," came her soft-voiced reply.

He didn't say anything for a moment and then asked, "What are you worrying about now?'" He chastised himself for being so harsh but she didn't seem to notice.

"Viktor."

Viktor wasn't Ron's favourite person in the world, but her earnest expression made him want to listen. He gave up looking for a star - or maybe he had already found her - and instead asked, with concern, "What did he say?" while reaching out to touch her hand. She recoiled and hesitantly glanced into his blue eyes for a fleeting moment that made his heart race and his head spin.

"He told me that he never felt like this before. Like he was in... love." Ron had to steady himself for a moment, and gripped the side of the bench tighter. Didn't she know she was killing him? Instead of acknowledgement, she just sighed and looked up at the full moon, still facing him. "I just... I just don't know what to say to him."

Ron was all set to launch a tirade against Viktor... curse him and say how awful he thought Viktor really was. In fact, he was more than happy to let Hermione have it, too. But when he looked into her face, obscured by absent light, seeming so small and scared and vulnerable, something stirred. This wasn't just about Hermione and Viktor... it really did include Ron: Not just because he was in love with her, but because he was her friend, and he knew, if he told her what he truly felt, she would offer to try and make everything better. It was up to him to return the favor.

He finally realized that; and when he reached out gently to fix the nightgown straps that had slipped from her pale shoulders, he wasn't sure what kept his hands there, or what prompted his next words, simple but heartfelt.

"You'll think of something to say. You always do."

She turned her eyes to his face, and he knew it would be the perfect time to tilt his head down... he could feel his eyes closing; almost taste her lips on his....

But then she spoke. "Really?"

He just smiled. "Yeah... you really do."

She turned away, and he let his hands drift down the curves of her side and back, and Ron didn't notice the shiver she gave before blurting out, "You know, I love it when you just listen like this: When you... try to understand, and you say the right things without even knowing. If you listened to what I said more often... well, Ron, then maybe you'd really like Viktor. Maybe you wouldn't have such a problem with- with... him and me."

Ron felt like he had been punched in the stomach. So he was just another person she was trying to convince that she and Viktor were perfect together? Didn't she see what he, Ron, felt for her? His fists clenched involuntarily: "I heard you just perfectly! So you think I don't listen, but I should clap and throw flowers when you and that bloody git Vicky are a couple?"

She sighed. "No, that isn't it. It's just that you're like a brother to me, and what you think counts, even if you don't see it..."

"So I'm a brother, that's all I mean to you?"

Even through his narrowed eyes, Ron could see Hermione was frustrated. "No, more than that, not a brother exactly, that's Harry's department, I didn't mean it that way..."

She trailed off, and Ron's fists unclenched when she touched his cheek with the fluttering brush of an angel. "I'm really sorry Ron." At that moment he knew that sorry was meant for more than her words.

...But he didn't care. Maybe he was just reckless and stupid, but that finger on his cheek, her face only centimetres away, invited Ron to do something he had wanted to do since the moment he saw her: He bent down and pressed his lips against hers, hard, and closed his eyes without a second thought.

Love drove you crazy sometimes, and under that glowing ball in the sky, Ron thought he should be carted away. He couldn't say why, but he needed to hold onto something sane; so when Hermione parted for air and mumbled, "Ron... what...?" he wasn't keen for any amount of space between them, for fear he would float away. The renewed feeling of his lips on hers, and his hands pressed into the small of her back kept him grounded.

Frustration, anger, fear... everything he had felt pounding around the walls of his soul needed an outlet, but he was surprised to find his face wet with the emotions as he parted from Hermione. She caught sight of the orbs suspended over his pale and freckled canvas... next Ron knew, she had her arms wrapped tightly around him, and his cheek rested against her chest, heart thudding somewhere to his right.

He didn't even realize he was sobbing and muttering, "God, Hermione, p-please, any b-brother of yours would be off his r-rocker to want you this much."

He could have sworn her heart skipped a beat as he shut his eyes against the soft fabric of her nightdress and took in what he had never before been close enough to take in: She smelt of the stale air and perfume he had given her what seemed like a lifetime before; her chest rose and fell simply, abstract compared to her intersecting, busy life. He couldn't be sure, but he felt he was the first person she had ever held like this for the stiff way her arms supported him and the way her fingers couldn't quite find the right spot to rest in his hair. He found it the nicest thing he had ever thought.

"Oh... Ron..." She didn't know quite what to say, and he took her moment of hesitation to search her brown pools and steal a last kiss, softer and gentler than the first. Anger was ebbing away, much to his amazement.

"Ron, I've been... I've been trying for years... to get you to notice- oh, I don't know... well, I mean..." Holding him out at an arm's length, he no longer felt her warmth, her support. "...I mean, this won't work. Not now. Not when I've finally been able to move on.

"You never seemed to want anything, Ron: and even when you did, you never made any move to take what you wanted, even when I... even when I wanted to let you. And now I'm not going to pretend I want you anymore. I can move on... Ron, I need to try and move on."

Not a word of what she said made sense... but when it penetrated his skull, he couldn't think about anything except how empty and hollow he felt without her arms around him. He had gotten what he wanted, after so long... and now it was going to be taken away from him. Forever, it seemed.

She seemed sorry... but Ron couldn't help but think about how sorry she couldn't be when he felt his heart break as she kissed him, let her lips linger for longer than he thought a good-bye kiss should last. He didn't want her to pull away, and he urged subconsciously, just a few seconds longer, and maybe she won't leave at all. Just a few seconds... is all it could take to make a life, to keep her sitting next to him.

But she stood... and his hand fell from her hip, and she smiled bitterly. She said something... but he wasn't listening, as she had accused him of so often. He wouldn't listen to her again; he decided... everything she said just etched away at his world until he was left, abandoned. And sure, he could have stopped her, but what would have been the point? To prolong what would have evidently happened? He scoffed at any of his mates that did that; but here he was, turning into the same simpering messes they had become.

...He tried to search for a star... tried to pick out a twinkling needle-in-a-haystack among the black ink sky, anything to wish upon that could wash this night away and leave him to redo what he had so wrongly done. He peered through the silhouetted branches, dark and dismal against the night... but there was nothing... nostar in the sky, so empty, so like his own soul.

He wanted to damn her, curse her for everything she had done to him, for how she had unraveled his hidden feelings and dissected them until they were nothing, a quivering mass left for her to laugh over. He found he couldn't. She was still his best friend... he would still love her, till the end of time, if that's what it took. But she no longer needed him, like he needed her... and although he was quite sure she wanted him, it wasn't as much as he, himself, longed for her body pressed close to his, her face so close he could examine each individual pore.

But he could never have that, and he stood now, the wind gently twisting each of his hairs, the long, tangled grass climbing and clawing at his legs, almost as if she had put a spell on it, too, and it was also waging war against him. There was no path to the house - the moon only cast its sheen on what it deemed worthy, and at the moment, he knew, without saying, that he was not precious. He just wasn't.

The trek to the back door seemed long, winding, almost as bad as the rest of his life spread before him, a life, he knew, that would be without Hermione. But he started... and he stopped... and he listened to cicadas and Katy bugs in the distance, all buzzing and speaking...

...all saying that night would go on, and that sometime the sun would dawn and everything could be taken in a new light...

...all saying that he, too, would continue, as long as he remembered what he had, and that what he was fighting for could be reached, if only in the dead of night, seemingly untouchable.