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title: when it all falls into place
pairing: ron/hermione
rating: pg-13
summary: after the end, life continues on.
note: because i’ve recently found that fics written in second person are really, really powerful.
1.
It came at an impulse, though you had wanted to do it for years. When he lifted you off your feet, you forgot everything around you. And even after Harry had dented your ephemeral utopia and the two of you had reluctantly pulled away, you still couldn’t breathe.
Now, as you run through the corridors of your old school, dodging curses and hexes, you realize you are alone and he’s not by your side. Neither of them are. You try to form a coherent, logical answer as to where they might be and whether they are safe, but you can’t think right now.
Your lips are still tingling from that kiss.
2.
Afterwards, when everything is over, a white mist hangs over the grounds. Dawn is coming quickly and the sky is pink. You’re tired, disheveled, and—for the first time in ages—strangely calm.
He comes up behind you, slipping his hand into yours. It’s warm and rough like you expect and know it to be, and you squeeze a little. He squeezes back.
“This is it, isn’t it?” you ask him, staring out at the misty morning sky.
He moves closer to you, so close your shoulders brush and you remember that kiss (but how could you forget?), and says, “Yes, it is. It’s over.”
“It’s the end,” you add.
But no one ever told you what happens after the end.
3.
You weave your way upstairs, all the way up to his room. It’s been a long day, and your head hurts.
The celebrations aren’t over, and they won’t be for a while, but this feels like the millionth celebration party you’ve gone to, and now they’re really all the same.
You sit down on his bed, and the mattress groans slightly under your weight. The camp bed that Harry used once upon a time, back when Bill and Fleur’s wedding still hadn’t happened and you were tossing books into one pile or another, not knowing what you’d find out there, is still set up on the other side of the room.
You lie down and smell his pillow. It smells like his hair, and you’re smiling now because that’s the smell in your love potion. Only the thought of sharing that aloud makes you go pink, and it’s almost too terrifying to think that with Voldemort gone you two might actually have a go at a proper relationship.
Because with you’re whole lives being mapped out by Voldemort, this strange new freedom isn’t something easy to become accustomed to when you two have always been putting Harry before anything else.
You close your eyes, remembering the smiling faces of the remaining Weasleys and Order members, and your parents when they saw you after you lifted the spell and didn’t suspect a thing, and Ron when you had come up and held his hand during the first night after Voldemort, when everything still seemed so scary and surreal and you were wondering if all those poor people were really dead.
There’s a knock, and your eyes fly open, your limbs preparing yourself to fling yourself off the bed if needed.
Instead it’s just him, and he smiles and closes the door after stepping into the room. You smile back and watch as he crawls up behind you on his bed and puts a large freckled hand on your stomach, pulling you to him. He audibly smells your hair, and murmurs, “Coconut,” which is the scent of shampoo you use.
“Mm,” is all you can say, because you don’t want to ruin this moment.
4.
When you wake up the next morning, he’s still behind you and you’re both still in your clothes from last night. You feel incredibly light and happy, but that shouldn’t be allowed because today you know is Fred’s funeral.
By the time it comes, you’re dressed in black and wishing you could be anywhere but here, because the sadness is overwhelming and too much to handle.
He’s crying and trying not to show it, and you go to him and touch his forearm lightly. He looks up and you just stare sadly into his eyes, which have faded to the dullest of blues.
“Ron,” you whisper, his name so familiar on your tongue. “Ron.”
He looks away, and it’s enough to make you wonder whether you should really be here, with him, at all. So you leave him alone, to cry and mourn silently, and you go off and find Harry, who is staring at a wall.
“Harry,” you whisper, but not like you whispered Ron’s name. “Harry.”
Vaguely aware of your presence, he turns and you see his eyes are holding back tears. And that’s too much for you, because you’ve already lived through Tonks and Lupin’s funeral and Snape’s and Colin Creevy’s and a dozen others, and it’s enough to make you sick to your stomach because of all this death.
Standing up, you leave and sit outside in the garden, letting the rain soak your favorite black dress. But you don’t care, because out here is better than in there, and for the first time in your life you hate that books haven’t lived up to your standards.
That they haven’t taught you how to deal with this.
5.
He’s passive and distant for many, many days. You return to sleeping in Ginny’s room on the camp bed. Sometimes she goes up to Ron’s room, where Harry is now sleeping, when she’s positive Ron’s not up there.
Eventually you begin to realize that soon it will be time to move on, and, as you eat the breakfast you prepared yourself, you vaguely wonder what you want to do with your life.
One night, when Harry and Ginny go to the garden to escape the dreary place the Burrow has become, you sneak up to his room and knock twice. There’s no response, so you let yourself in, and he’s sitting on the bed staring at the wall like Harry had been doing at the funeral.
You don’t say anything, just sit down next to him and listen as the mattress groans under the addition of your weight.
It’s quiet that night. Both of you just sit together in the silence until he eventually takes your hand and looks at you, the smallest of smiles on his face, and the two of you fall asleep next to each other holding hands.
And you know that’s his way of telling you he needs you.
6.
By the time the last of the funerals are over and the Wizarding world is stabilizing itself, you’ve won yourself a job at the Ministry. Harry and Ron have, too, and it’s almost agonizing to be back in a place that has such a history as the Ministry does.
You concentrate on House Elf Rights while Harry and Ron both work with the Aurors. And each day after work the three of you meet in the same lift and head down to the Atrium together, Ron’s hand holding yours.
Every night, when you come back to the Burrow, because you’re still staying there, Ginny’s already home and changed out of her Quidditch uniform, and Mrs. Weasley is preparing something for dinner, and according to the clock everyone else is at work.
Harry and Ginny leave soon after, because they’re looking for a flat to share. And Harry is also secretly shopping for an engagement ring as well.
And night after night you sleep next to Ron, sometimes just holding hands and other times doing so much more, and it’s enough that you’re comfortable and happy and wonder if this is what happens after the end.
Because you didn’t expect it to be like this—but you didn’t really expect anything at all—and you’re able to say that you’re happy and carefree and there isn’t a thought or feeling of danger or fear in your body.
And it crosses your mind sometimes that this is what you must have felt a long time ago, when Voldemort didn’t exist and you were still in the dark about what you really were.
7.
You’re in the garden, where the two of you are fooling around against the side of the house, out of sight from everyone. It’s springtime, and the flowers are blooming and the gnomes are digging there way out of the dirt after a long, long winter.
He runs a hand through your frizzy curls and smiles, kissing you again and again and again until your lips are have turned numb, but not from the impending cold.
It’s dark when you finally decide to go back inside, and your hands are frozen and your cheeks pink from the chilly air.
Mrs. Weasley smiles at you as you come in, pretending she doesn’t know what you were just outside doing. Then she gets you some dinner before whisking you upstairs to go to bed.
You change into your pajamas and he changes into his, and you sit on his bed and look through the photo album he received days ago for his birthday: a collection of pictures of the three of you through the years. It’s enough to make you want to cry, especially because back then you were all so innocent and had no idea of what was to come.
Eventually he closes the album and puts it back on the nightstand.
8.
His bedroom is now yours as well, and you put your books onto his dusty bookshelf. Next to the bookshelf is his dresser, and you close the half-open drawer that he’s left open, smiling to yourself as a giddy rush passes through your head. Then you go back downstairs to help Mrs. Weasley with dinner, pretending you didn’t just see the ring box hidden in the corner of the drawer.
9.
After it happens, and you’re wearing that shiny engagement ring on your finger, you can’t help but Apparate to your parents’ house at once. They’re older now, and greying and wrinkled, but still so very much in love.
Your mother and father approve, of course. They’ve approved of Ron since the very beginning.
Before you leave, you eat dinner with them. You can’t help but notice how madly perfect they are for each other, and you secretly smile to yourself and hope and wish and pray that you and Ron are like that, too.
But you will be, because he’s Ron and you’re Hermione and you realize that the two of you deserve it after all these years of waiting. Because some people are just destined.
what is meant to be will be,
you can’t escape your destiny.
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