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Ron slowly wandered up and down the corridor. Not many people came here anymore, not since the rebuilding of Hogwarts had started. It was as if being merely in the presence of the Room of Requirement reminded people of Dumbledore's Army, the secret meetings, hiding out there during the height of everything in their final year, the battle.
For him, it was the only place where Harry left him alone.
As much as he loved his friend, he was driving him absolutely ballistics right now. Over Christmas it hadn't been that bad, good almost to have someone else with him who also had to come to terms with everything. Someone who shared his anger and confusion at Hermione's new life and her decisions.
But now.....
Now, he simply wanted to be left alone. To be able to think things through and figure out where everything stood. He knew that he needed time alone in order to be able to deal with everything, to process it. It wasn't only Hermione after all. His entire family's dynamic were changing. Some were older, some were stuck. Some of them were dealing, others were not.
He wanted things to go back to the way they had been, back before all of this had started.
He sank to the floor, curling up as his back rested against the wall and he pressed the heels of his hands into his to prevent the tears from falling.
But they wouldn't stop.
Once they started they just kept on coming. His throat started to burn as he felt the sobs trying to break free and the backs of his eyes screamed in pain. The tears ran down, past his hands and finally the first sob escaped from his mouth. He took a shuddering gasp and a deep breath, trying to prevent the second one from escaping. But just like the first one, it hissed involuntarily past his lips.
He tried to muffle them further by curling up even more and pressing his face between his knees. Nobody could hear. Nobody should have to hear him falling apart. Not when everyone was hurting just as bad as him.
He startled when a hand dropped onto his shoulder and his mouth was open, ready to tell whoever was there to fuck off and leave him alone. Couldn't they see that he was in pain, that he just wanted to be left alone?
But all of that died when he saw the tear-streaked face of Pansy staring back down at him. Her eyes were red and swollen and snot was running from her nose, which she was desparately trying to wipe away with the tissue in her other hand.
She sank to the ground next to him, her legs folding delicately beneath her, her hand never leaving his shoulder.
And as his sobs continued to wrack his body, causing him to jolt against the wall with his back rather painfully, she cried silently next to him, the breath escaping from her lips in a muted hiss.
~.~.~.~.~
And after it was all done, they sat there and did not move. It felt as if all of the tension had finally left their bodies.
But both of them knew, that it would all be back before the morning came. It always was.
~.~.~.~.~
"Some mint tea, if you would be so kind." The softness of her voice surprised him as he stepped into the kitchen after tickling the pear.
"Parkinson." He said in greeting, dropping his head in a nod as she repeated his movements back at him.
"Weasley." Her voice was still just as soft.
"Oh Mr. Weasley! What can we do for you today?" One of the multitude of house elves piped from down near the ground and Ron turned to look at her.
"Hello Poppy. Some chamomile tea would be great, please."
"Of course, young sir!" She sang back and went about making his cup of tea. Ron sat opposite Pansy at the table as he waited for his to be made and she waited for hers to cool.
"Can't sleep?" He finally asked and she looked up at him from where she had been staring at her tea with an intensity that would have led him to believe that she had been trying to divine her future from it, had she been anyone else. But she wasn't.
"I never can anymore." She responded and her honesty did not surprise him. Why lie when the one opposite you looked just as you did and was where you were for the same reasons?
Simple. There was no reason.
"I used to be able to sleep through everything." Ron responded quietly, watching Poppy pop the leaves into his tea.
"The Dungeons were never quiet, no matter what anyone said. The chatter of the first years was calming." She rotated her spoon around twice clockwise and once anticlockwise.
Ron knew that they were quiet now. There weren't many, if any, first years left to fill up the empty silences.
"Millie and I often gossiped through the night." Pansy continued. Twice clockwise, once anticlockwise. "She always seemed to float through the dorms, she was so quiet when she walked. You wouldn't have thought it, seeing what she looked like." Pansy swallowed and Ron swore he could see tears gathering in the corner of her eyes. "But once she started talking, there was no stopping her. She loved to gossip and always seemed to have a knack for finding out what people didn't want to admit to or say."
Twice clockwise and once anticlockwise the spoon went again.
"She- she loved the moonlight and how it reflected off the lake." Pansy sniffed quietly. "She loved cats, especially hers. But really just all and any. She even fed Granger's cat a couple of times." She sniffled some more. "But really- she really- she loved them and-" Pansy hiccuped.
"She really loved lavender flowers." Pansy was crying again.
Twice clockwise and once anticlockwise it moved around.
"And she- she-" Ron put his hand on her one that was not turning around the spoon.
"Hermione tried to turn into her in second year." He said quietly and Pansy looked up at him through red-rimmed eyes. And he launched into the story about their rather disastrous second-year foray into the wonders of the polyjuice potion and when Pansy smiled slightly at the end of it all, Ron felt some of the weight that always sat on his shoulders these days lift.
~.~.~.~.~
The next day, there was lavender found in every corner of the castle.
Pansy cried until her lungs felt as if they were being hacked out of her body. It was the first day she didn't take a sleepless draught in order to fitfully rest for that night.
~.~.~.~.~
Ron heard her before he saw her. He looked up briefly to see her settle next to him, their legs brushing as they dangled over the edge. She was quiet as she looked out onto the lake, her hands wrapped around the two tea cups she held in her hands.
She passed one over to him and he nodded at her in thanks. She whipped out a spoon and began to stir her tea.
Twice clockwise and once anticlockwise.
"How's Harry?" She asked after what felt like half the night. Going by the coldness of his tea, it may well have been. But seeing as she had only taking sparing sips of her tea, maybe it was not.
"Well enough to fly again tomorrow." He responded, an angry current underlying his words.
A soft hum was his reply.
Silence settled over them again.
Twice clockwise and once anticlockwise the spoon went again.
"It would be easier sometimes, wouldn't it?" Pansy finally broke through it.
"What?" Ron turned to her, thinking that he knew what she meant but not entirely sure either.
"Falling." She whispered and looked over the edge. "Sometimes.....sometimes I think it would just be easier to let go of it all."
"Maybe." Ron replied. "Maybe it is. We would fall. Briefly. It would be quick." He looked over the edge himself and ignored the welcome the darkness below was offering him.
"But it would also hurt." Pansy said softly and the haunted look in her eyes spoke of experiences that Ron was ashamed to realise he shared.
"It would hurt those around us more." He replied.
Twice clockwise and once anticlockwise. Quicker this time.
"When you're falling in a forest and there's nobody around, do you ever really crash or even make a sound?" Pansy whispered and Ron startled as those words coursed through him.
"We fall. Whether anybody's around or not, we always make a sound when we fall." He finally responded and Pansy wore a sad smile.
"It took me a while to figure that out." The breeze brushed past them and Ron looked up to see the leaves dancing in the wind.
"Yeah, me too."
And silence settled over them once more.
He reached over and held her hand, stilling the twice clockwise and once anticlockwise stirring of her tea. She turned her palm up and their fingers entwined.
"Eventually Harry will realise that too."
He merely tightened his grip in response and she returned the force.
They spent the rest of the night with their legs dangling over the edge.
~.~.~.~.~
And when Ron saw Harry the next day, his arm still in a sling as it was still tender and bruised from his fall the previous day, Ron did not ignore the even darker rings under his eyes and the distant look dancing around in them. He told him to get some fucking sleep, he'd deserved it and all the rest that they were finally entitled too.
And he sighed when Harry laughed hollowly and said he wasn't that tired at all.
Eventually he would realise that Ron would always be there waving back through that window at him, waiting for him to acknowledge that he was and always would be there.
He was seen.
~.~.~.~.~
"You bloody bastard! What the hell was that for?!" The man was clutching his nose as Ron shook his hand out, his knuckles stinging in pain as Pansy stared at him in shock.
"The war's been over for ten years, get over yourself already you wanker." Ron retorted and the man ran red and purple.
The bartender looked over his nose at them and told them to get out. He wouldn't allow for such antics in his establishment.
Pansy linked her arm with his and dragged him out of the pub as the other man began to throw expletives after them, which were only stopped by the bartender telling him that he had meant him as well.
"What was that?" Pansy hissed, her eyes alive with anger as she glared at him.
"He was being a wanker." Ron shrugged and stuck his bruised knuckles in the nearest heap of snow. Snow in February, it was quite this year.
"He was telling the truth. I am a pureblood." She retorted back at him, infuriated by his blasé attitude to it all.
If only Blaise and the others hadn't decided to go to that fair an hour ago, she thought. Maybe then this could have all been avoided.
"You're not a whore and you're not a traitor-" Ron began.
"But I am!"
"Have you been selling your body for money?"
"No!"
"Then you're not a whore." Ron shrugged. Pansy stared at him, completely gobsmacked at this point.
"And you're not a traitor either. Yeah, you tried to convince people to hand over Harry during the battle but only to save the people already there. I know that it wasn't as self-serving as you're been trying to make everyone believe it to be."
"You- You- You're impossible!" She finally screeched.
Her hand gripped his elbow tightly. Her thumb was moving in circles, twice clockwise and once anticlockwise.
"You couldn't just let it be?" She deflated and he looked at her, taking in her defeated and hunched posture. "I'm not worth it."
"I get to decide what's worth it to me. And if anything, I wasn't worth you shouting at my sister for last week when she kept trying to get me to smile. She already doesn't like you all that much."
"Charming Ronald, real charming." She retorted, but there was a smile lurking at the corner of her mouth.
"I try." He grinned back at her and suddenly the whole situation seemed absurd. If she didn't, she may start to cry.
They were in the middle of Muggle London after being kicked out of a rare wizarding pub in Chiswick because he had decided to punch a man for insulting her.
She couldn't help it, she began to laugh. It was too ridiculous not to.
His grin widened and he joined her in her laughter and amusement and eventually it petered out as the cold air bit at their cheeks, staining them a bright, glowing red.
"You're not half bad Weasley." She stated, her nose scrunched together as she grinned at him with her entire body.
"You too, Parkinson." He held out his arm and she linked her through the gap, her hand resting on his now injured one.
"I do believe that this is the start of a wonderful friendship."
"We not to stop watching those films."
"Indeed."
"How about that one Blaise recommended, 'Sleepless in Seattle', tomorrow?"
"It's a date."
"Oh shut up."
Her hand remained on his as they bickered all the way back to the apparition point, her fingers dancing in circles across his knuckles.
Twice clockwise only.
~.~.~.~.~
The next day McGonagall stared in annoyance at the letter received from a well-known wizarding pub in London detailing the altercation between some of her students and a rather inebriated Ministry worker.
Really, couldn't she let them go anywhere without them causing some sort of trouble?
~.~.~.~.~
"Can't sleep Parkinson?" She looked towards where she'd heard his deep voice coming from and smiled slightly as he settled next to her with his back against the wall.
"It's my mum's birthday today." She replied and his arm slipped around her shoulders easily as she settled against his side, not even consciously thinking about it anymore. He was simply too comfortable to resist.
"Where do you think they are?" His hand was tracing circles on her shoulder. Twice clockwise and once anticlockwise.
She smiled.
"Probably somewhere warm and sunny. Somewhere where my dad can send my mum out to go shopping and spend the entire day drinking."
"So Spain or Argentina or the Maldives? Really, any warm country in this world?" Ron asked and laughter escaped from her.
"Yeah, that sounds about right."
It was strange how the thought didn't strike her as sad as it once had.
"Ron?" She asked a while later.
"Yeah?" The sleepy mumble that came as a reply had her smiling again.
"Do you want to go out on a date? A proper one?"
The circles on her shoulder stopped briefly before resuming. There they came again. Twice clockwise and once anticlockwise.
"We go on those at least twice a week already." Came his reply.
She grinned.
"I guess we do."
"Good that you see it like that too." He kissed her on the crown of her head. "Now go to sleep Parkinson."
"Oh shut up Weasley." She snuggled deeper into his side and finally her eyes closed and she fell asleep.
~.~.~.~.~
When Poppy found them there two hours later, as she always did these days, she merely sighed and covered them with a blanket.
Why they couldn't choose a place that was slightly less drafty than this corridor she would never know.
The wooden door that blinked into existence once she left creaked slightly as it opened and closed again.