Let's See How Far We've Come
Title: Let’s See How Far We’ve Come
Pairing: Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Through Deathly Hallows (book canon, by and large).
Summary: In the aftermath of battle, Ron Weasley contemplates stupidity.
A/N: Title from Matchbox Twenty’s song of the same name. Also, how do you British. My God.
Ron Weasley has watched a great many people do a great many stupid things over the years. It’s what Hermione likes to call an “occupational hazard” of being the youngest son: there are five boys ahead of him who tend to learn through mistakes. Bill, with his penchant for flirting with all the wrong girls, occasionally winding up with a broken wrist for his troubles. Charlie, who spent a summer learning to ride a broomstick with his feet instead of his arse, only to fall twelve feet straight down into brambles. Percy, whose mouth runs and runs until he’s tweaked half the world exactly the wrong way. The twins, whose every move seems to have been crafted from a mold labeled “Do Not (Under Any Circumstances) Attempt.” All things considered, it’s a magical feat in itself that his brothers survived childhood at all, much less their recent wades into the waters of adulthood.
(Fred’s grinning face flickers through his mind; Ron winces and pushes the thought away.)
Ginny, too, has made her share of mistakes, none more dangerous or thrilling than pursuing The Boy Who Lived. Ron loves Harry more than almost anyone in the world, loves him like yet another brother to lean on and compete with, but he sees the chip on his best friend’s shoulder, the chill in his eyes when he looks at people lately. Like he’s silently tallying up a list of everyone who has ever been damaged by Good Saint Potter over the years. Like he’s going to at any moment begin seeking atonement he will never grant himself.
Ron loves Harry, but in truth, his best friend is something of a miserable git when he gets this way. The idea that his sister is willing to devote her life to trying to fix that is just…
And the others, they’ve made some sincerely harebrained choices over the years, too. He supposes everyone has, that it’s probably a part of growing up, and he thinks that’s pretty royally stupid. It leads to pain, to broken bones and shattered hearts, to nights spent crying silently into a pillow and praying that no brother will come tramping in to intrude on the moment. It leads to watching from afar as things go wrong, so thoroughly wrong, and knowing it’s his fault. It leads to listening to her weep, watching her face crumple, hearing her scream in frustration his name over and over and over-
Seven years of sheer stupidity and rare moments of tranquility, and now here he sits at the end of the world. One brother dead, and not just him. Friends. Peers. The castle in shambles around him, and his best friend having just saved the whole bloody world, and Ron sits here staring out at what remains.
He can’t explain it, but he feels as though a vast cloud still rests just above them, prepared to at any moment unleash a snap of lightning that will blow the whole thing wide open all over again. You-Know-Who-Voldemort, he reminds himself, shivering childishly on instinct-is dead, his followers slowly dispersing, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. Not yet. Not with Fred lying on a slab, George pacing back and forth mere inches from his side. Not with Lupin and Tonks’ son sleeping in Molly Weasley’s arms, unaware of his newly orphaned status. Not with McGonagall slumped against a table, her face in her hands in a rare and unprecedented moment of exhaustion.
Voldemort is dead, and isn’t that just the peak of stupidity right there: the man who gave it all for glory and power and hate. Of all of them who have ever made foolish decisions, Tom Riddle more than likely capped it off. Not that Ron has it in him to feel expressly bad for him for it, but he supposes a better man would tap into a smidgen of sympathy. Maybe.
He feels the footsteps falling just behind him and closes his eyes, praying that it won’t be his mother. He doesn’t have the energy to handle that right now, the glazed look in her eye as she surveys her youngest son for injuries, the misery in her smile as she grieves for one lost. Looking into her face would only draw forth the boyish need to fling his arms around her middle and weep against her chest, and he can’t do that yet. Not at this age, not after all they’ve been through tonight, not when he knows he needs to push himself back onto wobbling feet and go off in search of the pieces of Harry Potter soon. It’s a best friend’s duty, and he’s all too willing to do it, but he won’t be able to if he lets himself fall into family first.
The footsteps stop at his side, a shadow casting seconds before she drops down beside him. He closes his eyes in relief, exhaling shakily, and blindly gropes for Hermione’s hand. This, yes, this he can do. Hermione, the best woman he’s ever known-and the company she keeps on that list is beyond admirable; he hopes someday he’ll have the words to tell her-the best friend he’s ever been daft enough to fall in love with. Hermione, who at once personifies the best and worst choices of a lifetime, who makes him feel unbearably strong and impossibly thick all at the same time.
Anyone who has ever made a ridiculous decision in their life cannot possibly measure up, he thinks with a slim smile, to the “occupational hazards” of falling in love with a best friend. And, no less, a best friend like Hermione, who is mad and infuriating and stubborn and brilliant. Who keeps her own opinion regardless of their taunting, who will fight to the death to defend what she holds dear, even if it’s him she happens to be fighting. Hermione, who has cried for him, and laughed at him, who has smacked him in frustration and stood three inches away, shouting until she’s red in the face.
The Hermione he hurt. The Hermione he teased. The Hermione he left. The Hermione he has needed every day since he was eleven, who he has loved every day since he hated her.
The Hermione who kissed him just a few short hours ago, the way a person kisses when they are certain death is just around the corner. He’s never been kissed like that in his life, and the idea that she might do it again anytime is just…
He squeezes her hand and breathes, feeling her shoulder against him as she pulls his arm around her. Her hair tickles beneath his chin, her head warm and heavy as she nestles in. Her fingers wrap around his, threading through and holding tight, and all at once he could cry with the security of it all. She isn’t dead. She isn’t dead, isn’t hurt beyond some minor cuts and bruises, isn’t running screaming away from him now that the danger has passed. He wasn’t even aware of fearing that until just now, but the relief that stems from the realization is enough to bowl him over.
They don’t speak; words feel heavy in his throat, lodged under a boulder-sized amount of fear and exhaustion. She likely feels just as wild-eyed and haggard, her clothes singed and in need of mending, her hair splashed through with blood and soot. All the same, she’s beautiful beyond reason-and, he thinks wryly, has been ever since telling him witheringly about the dirt on his nose seven years ago.
Hermione Granger is the most foolish thing he has ever done, not because he is in love with her, but because he spent years disassociating himself from that fact. Because he used her, because he raged at her, because he bickered and shouted and argued himself hoarse with her, instead of falling to his knees, wrapping his arms around her, and holding on for dear life. Because it took him seven long years to kiss her and hold her exactly like this.
Harry Potter saved the world tonight, and he will need them. Soon, in all likelihood, he will come dragging into the Great Hall, face worn the way an old soldier’s is, and they will follow him. All their lives, they will follow Harry, because Harry has always been that person, the one worth sacrificing eternity for. He is their best friend, their reluctant leader, and the greatest hope their world has ever required. They will follow him.
But not yet. First, they will sit among friends and family, grief and triumph alike shining on every battered face. He will hold her close, feel the patterns her bitten nails trace into his scratched skin, smell the scent of terror and exertion on her, and begin to trust that everything will mend one day. Life does that, he thinks, whether or not the Dumbledores of this world survive or the Voldemorts take power instead. Life moves on, patches itself, gives you reasons to press onward.
Hermione lifts her head from his shoulder, brown eyes warm and wet around the edges, and he bows his head to hers. Foreheads resting together, they sit and slowly breathe one another in, relishing the moment of serenity they haven’t known in months. Her lips bend up in a ghost of her usual beaming smile, the one he has realized is reserved for him alone, and her gaze flicks upward. His eyes nearly cross staring back, and she laughs, fingers wrapping around matted ginger hair and holding tight.
She thinks he’s an idiot, probably, and he doesn’t blame her for that. He is kind of an idiot, and if the past seven years are anything to show for it, he always will be. He will make stupid decisions, say the absolute worst thing, muck up everything she tries to put right-it’s just his way. Impossibly, tremendously, she seems not to mind all of that. She seems, somehow, to love him for it.
He may be an idiot, but he’s her idiot, and he’s the idiot who will kill to keep her safe and happy. He’s the idiot who will do anything to prevent her pain. And he’s the idiot who gets to hold her now, bend his face to hers, and accept her kiss with all of the love and madness they’ve been storing away for nearly a decade. He feels her lips press and release and come back again for more, tastes the sigh she releases when he moves to pull her closer, cherishes the humming ecstasy that comes with her hands in his hair.
He’s an idiot, sure, but he’s pretty damn positive she sees him as her king. And if that’s the stupidest decision he’s ever made in his life? He can certainly live with that.
Pairing: Ron Weasley/Hermione Granger
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Nothing owned, no profit gained.
Spoilers: Through Deathly Hallows (book canon, by and large).
Summary: In the aftermath of battle, Ron Weasley contemplates stupidity.
A/N: Title from Matchbox Twenty’s song of the same name. Also, how do you British. My God.
Ron Weasley has watched a great many people do a great many stupid things over the years. It’s what Hermione likes to call an “occupational hazard” of being the youngest son: there are five boys ahead of him who tend to learn through mistakes. Bill, with his penchant for flirting with all the wrong girls, occasionally winding up with a broken wrist for his troubles. Charlie, who spent a summer learning to ride a broomstick with his feet instead of his arse, only to fall twelve feet straight down into brambles. Percy, whose mouth runs and runs until he’s tweaked half the world exactly the wrong way. The twins, whose every move seems to have been crafted from a mold labeled “Do Not (Under Any Circumstances) Attempt.” All things considered, it’s a magical feat in itself that his brothers survived childhood at all, much less their recent wades into the waters of adulthood.
(Fred’s grinning face flickers through his mind; Ron winces and pushes the thought away.)
Ginny, too, has made her share of mistakes, none more dangerous or thrilling than pursuing The Boy Who Lived. Ron loves Harry more than almost anyone in the world, loves him like yet another brother to lean on and compete with, but he sees the chip on his best friend’s shoulder, the chill in his eyes when he looks at people lately. Like he’s silently tallying up a list of everyone who has ever been damaged by Good Saint Potter over the years. Like he’s going to at any moment begin seeking atonement he will never grant himself.
Ron loves Harry, but in truth, his best friend is something of a miserable git when he gets this way. The idea that his sister is willing to devote her life to trying to fix that is just…
And the others, they’ve made some sincerely harebrained choices over the years, too. He supposes everyone has, that it’s probably a part of growing up, and he thinks that’s pretty royally stupid. It leads to pain, to broken bones and shattered hearts, to nights spent crying silently into a pillow and praying that no brother will come tramping in to intrude on the moment. It leads to watching from afar as things go wrong, so thoroughly wrong, and knowing it’s his fault. It leads to listening to her weep, watching her face crumple, hearing her scream in frustration his name over and over and over-
Seven years of sheer stupidity and rare moments of tranquility, and now here he sits at the end of the world. One brother dead, and not just him. Friends. Peers. The castle in shambles around him, and his best friend having just saved the whole bloody world, and Ron sits here staring out at what remains.
He can’t explain it, but he feels as though a vast cloud still rests just above them, prepared to at any moment unleash a snap of lightning that will blow the whole thing wide open all over again. You-Know-Who-Voldemort, he reminds himself, shivering childishly on instinct-is dead, his followers slowly dispersing, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. Not yet. Not with Fred lying on a slab, George pacing back and forth mere inches from his side. Not with Lupin and Tonks’ son sleeping in Molly Weasley’s arms, unaware of his newly orphaned status. Not with McGonagall slumped against a table, her face in her hands in a rare and unprecedented moment of exhaustion.
Voldemort is dead, and isn’t that just the peak of stupidity right there: the man who gave it all for glory and power and hate. Of all of them who have ever made foolish decisions, Tom Riddle more than likely capped it off. Not that Ron has it in him to feel expressly bad for him for it, but he supposes a better man would tap into a smidgen of sympathy. Maybe.
He feels the footsteps falling just behind him and closes his eyes, praying that it won’t be his mother. He doesn’t have the energy to handle that right now, the glazed look in her eye as she surveys her youngest son for injuries, the misery in her smile as she grieves for one lost. Looking into her face would only draw forth the boyish need to fling his arms around her middle and weep against her chest, and he can’t do that yet. Not at this age, not after all they’ve been through tonight, not when he knows he needs to push himself back onto wobbling feet and go off in search of the pieces of Harry Potter soon. It’s a best friend’s duty, and he’s all too willing to do it, but he won’t be able to if he lets himself fall into family first.
The footsteps stop at his side, a shadow casting seconds before she drops down beside him. He closes his eyes in relief, exhaling shakily, and blindly gropes for Hermione’s hand. This, yes, this he can do. Hermione, the best woman he’s ever known-and the company she keeps on that list is beyond admirable; he hopes someday he’ll have the words to tell her-the best friend he’s ever been daft enough to fall in love with. Hermione, who at once personifies the best and worst choices of a lifetime, who makes him feel unbearably strong and impossibly thick all at the same time.
Anyone who has ever made a ridiculous decision in their life cannot possibly measure up, he thinks with a slim smile, to the “occupational hazards” of falling in love with a best friend. And, no less, a best friend like Hermione, who is mad and infuriating and stubborn and brilliant. Who keeps her own opinion regardless of their taunting, who will fight to the death to defend what she holds dear, even if it’s him she happens to be fighting. Hermione, who has cried for him, and laughed at him, who has smacked him in frustration and stood three inches away, shouting until she’s red in the face.
The Hermione he hurt. The Hermione he teased. The Hermione he left. The Hermione he has needed every day since he was eleven, who he has loved every day since he hated her.
The Hermione who kissed him just a few short hours ago, the way a person kisses when they are certain death is just around the corner. He’s never been kissed like that in his life, and the idea that she might do it again anytime is just…
He squeezes her hand and breathes, feeling her shoulder against him as she pulls his arm around her. Her hair tickles beneath his chin, her head warm and heavy as she nestles in. Her fingers wrap around his, threading through and holding tight, and all at once he could cry with the security of it all. She isn’t dead. She isn’t dead, isn’t hurt beyond some minor cuts and bruises, isn’t running screaming away from him now that the danger has passed. He wasn’t even aware of fearing that until just now, but the relief that stems from the realization is enough to bowl him over.
They don’t speak; words feel heavy in his throat, lodged under a boulder-sized amount of fear and exhaustion. She likely feels just as wild-eyed and haggard, her clothes singed and in need of mending, her hair splashed through with blood and soot. All the same, she’s beautiful beyond reason-and, he thinks wryly, has been ever since telling him witheringly about the dirt on his nose seven years ago.
Hermione Granger is the most foolish thing he has ever done, not because he is in love with her, but because he spent years disassociating himself from that fact. Because he used her, because he raged at her, because he bickered and shouted and argued himself hoarse with her, instead of falling to his knees, wrapping his arms around her, and holding on for dear life. Because it took him seven long years to kiss her and hold her exactly like this.
Harry Potter saved the world tonight, and he will need them. Soon, in all likelihood, he will come dragging into the Great Hall, face worn the way an old soldier’s is, and they will follow him. All their lives, they will follow Harry, because Harry has always been that person, the one worth sacrificing eternity for. He is their best friend, their reluctant leader, and the greatest hope their world has ever required. They will follow him.
But not yet. First, they will sit among friends and family, grief and triumph alike shining on every battered face. He will hold her close, feel the patterns her bitten nails trace into his scratched skin, smell the scent of terror and exertion on her, and begin to trust that everything will mend one day. Life does that, he thinks, whether or not the Dumbledores of this world survive or the Voldemorts take power instead. Life moves on, patches itself, gives you reasons to press onward.
Hermione lifts her head from his shoulder, brown eyes warm and wet around the edges, and he bows his head to hers. Foreheads resting together, they sit and slowly breathe one another in, relishing the moment of serenity they haven’t known in months. Her lips bend up in a ghost of her usual beaming smile, the one he has realized is reserved for him alone, and her gaze flicks upward. His eyes nearly cross staring back, and she laughs, fingers wrapping around matted ginger hair and holding tight.
She thinks he’s an idiot, probably, and he doesn’t blame her for that. He is kind of an idiot, and if the past seven years are anything to show for it, he always will be. He will make stupid decisions, say the absolute worst thing, muck up everything she tries to put right-it’s just his way. Impossibly, tremendously, she seems not to mind all of that. She seems, somehow, to love him for it.
He may be an idiot, but he’s her idiot, and he’s the idiot who will kill to keep her safe and happy. He’s the idiot who will do anything to prevent her pain. And he’s the idiot who gets to hold her now, bend his face to hers, and accept her kiss with all of the love and madness they’ve been storing away for nearly a decade. He feels her lips press and release and come back again for more, tastes the sigh she releases when he moves to pull her closer, cherishes the humming ecstasy that comes with her hands in his hair.
He’s an idiot, sure, but he’s pretty damn positive she sees him as her king. And if that’s the stupidest decision he’s ever made in his life? He can certainly live with that.