Work Text:
He said, "Let's get out of this town
Drive out of the city, away from the crowds"
I thought heaven can't help me now
Nothing lasts forever, but this is gonna take me down
Ron stared at the train, bright red and gleaming, suddenly wishing that he hadn’t come at all. He was going to miss Ginny, but more than anything, he was going to miss Hermione. He didn’t know why she wanted to go back, Hogwarts didn’t belong to them anymore. In fact, they had been the reason why it was destroyed in the first place.
“I’ll miss you.”
Ron blinked and turned to look at Hermione, taking in her dark brown eyes and wild curly hair, remembering their month in Australia. Remembering how dark her eyes became and how wild her curls got. Stress was never well suited for Hermione, she carried it too hard to be healthy.
He remembered long days spent searching, stress and heat making them go crazy. Greif and wanting making them snap, then argue, and finally scream. Ron had regretted it all, he missed Fred, he wanted to be home with his family, but Hermione…Hermione, she had been worth it all.
He had loved her for so long, and had wanted her even longer. Everything about her, from the curls that never stayed tamed on top of her head to her small delicate hands to her always bruised knees, he loved all of her. She was smart, funny, brave, kind, and beautiful, so beautiful.
But as quickly as it started, it all came to an end. Here they were, saying goodbye, going their separate ways. Hermione would be going back to school, to Hogwarts, and Ron was going to the Aurors, and staying home.
He missed his family, and there was nothing left for him at Hogwarts. Seeing the school in shambles, in absolute ruin, it had changed something in him.
“Soon enough,” mumbled Ron before leaning forward and kissing her forehead. “We’ll see each other soon enough, ‘Mione.”
He breathed in the smell of her hair, a warm spice like cinnamon or cloves, and something sharp and citrusy, like orange. She always smelled good, even after being on the run for a year and living out of a tent, even after a month spent in dust and sweat, even after everything they done and been through. There was something so comforting in the smell of her, and he loved that about her.
He adored her.
“I’ll write, I promise.”
“Promise,” repeated Ron, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to.
He's so tall and handsome as hell
He's so bad but he does it so well
I can see the end as it begins
My one condition is
Hermione stared out the window of the train and tried not to cry. She was going to be on her own for the first time since she first came to Hogwarts seven years earlier. She knew that she was going to be by herself, Harry could never come back, and Ron refused to even talk about it. They were just going to have to be separated for a while, but soon enough they would be a trio again.
She could never stray too far from her boys, Harry was the little brother she never got to have, and Ron…Ron was…he was everything. She didn’t know if it was a love on first sight, or if it was something that grew and blossomed and bloomed into something fully beautiful.
She was in love, pure and simple and wonderful, but she was in love. It wasn’t easy, she didn’t know when it even happened, but it did.
Eleven when they met; twelve when they became friends; thirteen when he first defended her; fourteen when he told her he was hopeless; fifteen when he had his first growth spurt and made her knees go weak; sixteen when he smiled at her just to make her blush; seventeen when they weren’t talking and it hurt to not hear his voice; eighteen and he kissed her more than once.
She didn’t know when she fell in love, only that she had.
Ron was so much, so much that she wanted and needed in her life. A king among mere men, tall and kind and handsome and good to a world that wasn’t always good to him. He cared more than anyone she knew, cared about his family, his friends, her. He cared about her and it was obvious, so obvious that she had missed every sign.
She had always been good at reading, but…but sometimes she missed the meaning.
“It’s not going to be the same,” whispered Ginny, and Hermione nodded as Ginny rested her head on Hermione’s shoulder. It felt so strange to have someone that wasn’t one of her boys touch her. Ginny had been her friend for years, they had been there for each other through more bad than good and Hermione loved her as she did Harry. A little sister that she never had and always wanted.
“Ten months,” mumbled Hermione, letting the tears roll down her face. “Ten months and we can graduate and never go back.”
Never be away from them, the two boys that could barely function without them.
Say you'll remember me standing in a nice dress
Staring at the sunset, babe
Red lips and rosy cheeks
Say you'll see me again
Even if it's just in your wildest dreams, ah-ha
Wildest dreams, ah-ha
Ron jerked awake, his head spinning and grasping for the smell of cinnamon and oranges, warm and comforting and delightful. He didn’t know what was worse, the nightmares or the wild dreams of Hermione. Either way, it was impossible to get any sleep.
He reached for one of the letters on his bedside table, and read through the scribbled words. Hermione wrote like she was running out of time, running out of words, she always had so much to say. She always wanted to tell him everything.
She wrote to Harry too, but Ron saw those letters too, they were shorter and full of questions. What she wrote to him…it was like she was trying to tell him everything he was missing while they were away from each other.
He wished that he could bring himself to write back to her, to pick up a quill and tell her the news, but it was different talking to her than it was to write to her. Talking to her, he could look at her, see what she was thinking and feeling, see her, all of her.
Ron could see her in her words, sitting in the library she loved and learning everything she could. He could see her stacks of books, like walls to her own fortress, guarding herself from the world.
He missed being one of the only ones allowed inside of her walls, there was a comfort behind the books. She never needed any really wards, she kept them hidden enough, herself hidden inside the pages and bindings and glue.
There had been nothing better though than finding her after dinner, the castle quiet, and her at her favorite table in the back of the library. The sun low, all reds and oranges, bouncing off of her skin and hair, making her brighter, even more beautiful.
She was more than a dream, more than a girl with her stacks of books and righteous love for those less fortunate than her. Hermione was a voice that had always rang out loud and clear, in whatever language she chose to scream in.
And Ron missed her, he desperately missed her, all of her, and he loved her, all of her.
I said, "No one has to know what we do"
His hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room
And his voice is a familiar sound
Nothing lasts forever but this is getting good now
Hermione rolled over in her bed and closed her eyes tight, she felt tired, exhausted. She wanted Ron, she wanted to hear his laugh, see his smile, feel his hand brush along her jaw and cheek and back into her hair. The warm and familiar callous of his hands, his fingertips shiny from burns and long healed cuts, and the scars all over his arms and wrists and hands.
She had never thought that hands could be so attractive.
Hermione groaned and rolled back over in her bed, reaching up and pulling her headscarf off. She was tired of being alone, she’d rather be stuck in the tent with Harry and Ron, the three of them crowded around the table arguing with each other, needing each other close.
She missed them being piled on top of each other, completely dependent of each other.
“Move over,” whispered Hermione, pushing herself into Ginny’s bed and curling herself around the smaller girl. Ginny groaned quietly, but didn’t wake up at all, and instead just let Hermione wrap her arms tight around her.
Hermione felt a small bit of comfort as she held Ginny, the red hair and freckles were familiar, but the rest was all wrong. Ron always held her close, his whole body wrapped around her and keeping her warm and safe.
“I dream of him on bad days,” mumbled Ginny, as Hermione closed her eyes and pressed closer to her. “Off being stupid and noble and dying on me while I’m…I’m stuck here.”
“Me too,” whispered Hermione putting her face into Ginny’s hair and trying to hold back the tears stinging her eyes.
He's so tall and handsome as hell
He's so bad but he does it so well
And when we've had our very last kiss
My last request it is
“Bloody hell!” cursed Ron as he got hit by a stinging jinx. He shot back a stunning spell and quickly fixed the pain in his arm, before shooting off a disarming spell and putting up a shield charm around himself.
He was going to get points knocked off again for tending to his injuries, but he didn’t care. He was miserable, he missed Hermione, and he already knew everything they were ‘learning’ being ‘trained’ in. He had lived through a war, had spent seven years dodging curses and figuring his way through puzzles while he was in school or should’ve been in school.
He was eighteen and had lost a brother, fought in a war, and fallen in love, and yet none of it seemed to matter.
Hermione mattered, that was the truth of it all. She mattered, with her dark curly hair and deep brown eyes and her bright full smile. She mattered and he loved her and he missed her.
“WEASLEY!!”
He wished that he wasn’t so noticeable, tall and red haired and freckly, he wished that he was average, that he could blend in. He wants to be unnoticeable, nothing compared the rest of them. Harry is short enough to fall in with the rest; Dean is quiet with Parvati loud enough for the pair of them; no one can sneak up on Susan, she knows everything before it happens; Sue has such sharp eyes that it isn’t worth crossing her path; and the rest are just that, the rest of them. Ron knew that the Aurors were going to be a challenge, but not this much of one.
He misses Hermione, and her endless letters about her time away make him sad and even more miserable. He doesn’t know how to write back to her.
So much in his life is changing, Bill and Fleur are having a baby, Charlie went back to Romania, Percy reopened the joke shop, while George is still huddled in his room, and Ginny is away with Hermione at Hogwarts. His family is in shambles, but also not at the same time, half of them are moving forward and the rest of them are stuck.
He feels lost without her.
Say you'll remember me standing in a nice dress
Staring at the sunset, babe
Red lips and rosy cheeks
Say you'll see me again
Even if it's just in your wildest dreams, ah-ha
Wildest dreams, ah-ha
“He misses you.”
Hermione looked up from her book as Harry sat down across from her, two cups of tea in his hands. She took a cup from him and set it down on the table by her book, she missed quiet afternoons with just Harry, but she missed the days the three of them, her and Harry and Ron, would spend together more.
She loved Harry, always would, but he wasn’t Ron.
“He doesn’t write.”
She turned back to her book, but a moment later Harry reached forward and took it out of her hands. They could count on one hand the amount of times he had ever tried to do this, let alone been successful in doing so.
“I’ve missed you too,” said Harry, and Hermione looked up at him, reaching across the table to take his hand. She had missed Harry and Ron like breathing, and Ginny did too. Hogwarts wasn’t the same without them, she didn’t feel safe following after Neville and being at Ginny’s side every day. They weren’t her boys, they didn’t give her the same comfort.
She was used to being tucked in between Ron and Harry, both of them taller than her and thinner and their arms always wrapped around her to keep her close to them. They were always close together, the three of them could never survive on their own, with each other.
“You’ll come to graduation, right?” asked Hermione, picking up her tea cup and holding it in both of her hands. Just feeling the heat in her hands was enough, comforting enough for her, but having Harry close by was even better.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” said Harry, and Hermione felt him squeeze her fingers softly, they never really needed to talk, but every word said was needed. Harry was her brother in every way except blood, and it honestly made them closer that they weren’t related.
“Are you okay with us being…being…” trailed off Hermione, unable to get the words out. She didn’t know what she and Ron were, they hadn’t spoken in months, he never wrote her back, but she still loved him and hoped that he loved her just as much. He was still her closest friend, her family even if nothing worked out for them.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” asked Harry, hearing what she couldn’t make herself say, ask of him. “The two of you have been dancing around for so long, it was bound to happen at some point.”
“I wish he would write back something,” whispered Hermione, before finally taking a sip of her tea, she just wanted to know that he was getting her letters if anything. “Even if it was just his name.”
“He reads them over and over and over again,” said Harry, and Hermione knew that Ron would be embarrassed if he knew Harry had told her this. “He reads them until they become flat and the creases won’t fold anymore.”
Hermione felt herself blush, she wondered if he kept any of the photos that they took while they were away in Australia together, just the pair of them. She wanted to know if he dreamt about her like she did, curled up tight and tired and missing her as she did him.
She wanted to know if he loved her as desperately as she loved him.
Hermione took a sip of her tea and remembered Ron in the sunset, his hair a glow of red and orange, his skin reflecting the color, and then when the sun went down, his freckles looked the same as the stars above them.
It was how her best dreams remembered him and how her nightmares twisted the image into something to torture her.
You'll see me in hindsight
Tangled up with you all night
Burnin' it down
Someday when you leave me
I bet these memories
Follow you around
You'll see me in hindsight
Tangled up with you all night
Burnin' it down
Someday when you leave me
I bet these memories
Follow you around
Ron opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling of his childhood bedroom, a year ago, everything had been different, had been about to change and end. And he could feel another change coming quick.
“’Elp!”
A blur, just like that day a year ago, it was all a blur of light and sound. He didn’t know how it would end, how it would go from moment to moment, how it would all change.
One moment, he was just a kid ready to run to school and follow after his brothers, then he was a teenager and falling in love for the first time, then he was a man and the war was over and he was left to pick up pieces. He wasn’t eleven or fifteen or even seventeen, he was nineteen and an uncle.
An uncle to a little girl with red hair and blue eyes and freckles and a smile that he never imagined a ten minute old baby could give. She’s perfect, and he loves her more than anything else he could imagine, he can’t believe that he loves anyone like he does her, with her little hands and ten perfect fingers, her little feet and ten perfect toes. She is so incredibly small and wonderful and lovely that he can’t imagine a life without her.
“Te quiero bebe,” whispered Ron, remembering what Hermione had said to him the last night they were together. He smiled at little Victoire in his arms and kissed her little forehead, before cuddling her in his arms.
He wanted this for himself, with Hermione of all people, with the one person he had been in love with since he was fourteen. He could see it, in their future, a little girl with red curls and a little boy with brown eyes. He could see it, Hermione in a white dress walking down a long aisle to him. He could see it all, years in the future, him and Hermione together.
Ron would carry this moment for the rest of his life, holding this little girl and feeling at home, feeling warm and comforted. He would know that this was the moment that he knew that he couldn’t live without her, Hermione was his dream and he would make all of her dreams come true.
“Te quiero.”
Say you'll remember me standing in a nice dress
Staring at the sunset, babe
Red lips and rosy cheeks
Say you'll see me again
Even if it's just pretend
Hermione opened her eyes and curled up into herself, holding her legs into her chest. Ginny had received a letter full of photos, all of them of her new niece and goddaughter Victoire. All of them had made Hermione’s heart beat faster, but none had made her heart stop like the last one, Ron holding the little girl with a big smile on both of their faces.
Ron kept looking up from little Victoire in his arms to whoever was taking the photo, a big smile on his face that Hermione had seen a thousand times. He looked adorable, so handsome and happy and familiar, and she could imagine the baby in his arms being a few shades darker, closer to her own coloring.
She had exams coming and then would be graduating. Harry would be there to support her, and she knew that the rest of the Weasleys would come to see Ginny.
She knew that Ron would be coming.
Her visit with Harry a few weeks ago just made her miss Ron even more. She knew that if Ron had been with them, the conversation would’ve never stalled, they would’ve been laughing and joking together, it would’ve been normal.
Hermione had never imagined that she would be ready for school to be over with, but she felt restless waking up every day and going to classes. She felt stuck behind her stack of books in the library. And going into the Great Hall was getting more and more suffocating with each day.
She loved Hogwarts, but she felt like she didn’t belong again, just like when she was little first year and Harry and Ron weren’t her friends yet. She was marked and scarred, she had fought in the war and had seen it’s end, and she had come back despite it all.
But this wasn’t the Hogwarts that she had known before, this castle was broken and damaged, and had seen death and darkness. It wasn’t the home that she had loved and found at eleven and had grown with at fourteen.
She was ready to be done, to graduate, to not be at school anymore.
She was ready to be with Ron again.
Say you'll remember me standing in a nice dress
Staring at the sunset, babe
Red lips and rosy cheeks
Say you'll see me again
Even if it's just in your (Just pretend, just pretend)
Wildest dreams, ah-ha
In your wildest dreams, ah-ha
(Even if it's just in your)
In your wildest dreams, ah-ha
Ron was dreaming.
Hermione was standing in front of him, her bushy curly hair wild and flowing down her shoulders and back. She had taken off her robes, revealing a dark red dress the same color as her lips while the sunset made her skin rosy and warm.
She looked beautiful and real and whole. So beautiful that he almost didn’t recognize her.
He couldn’t believe that it had been ten months since he had last stood in front of her and stared at her. Since he had spoken to her, felt her hand on his shoulder and fingers in his hair. She was real and here and he loved her.
“I missed you,” whispered Ron, wishing that he had wrote her, that he had understood what her last letter had said. She had finally written him again, all in Spanish, with the only few words he had understood being their names and the simple phrase ‘te queiro’.
I love you.
“Te queiro,” whispered Hermione as Ron hugged her, and in the next moment, she was kissing him.
“I love you too.”
In your wildest dreams, ah-ha
Hermione stepped off the scarlet train for the last time in her life, years from now, when her daughter, and later son, were eleven and ready to go to school, she would be back on the platform, ready to say goodbye.
But that was years from now.
Years and a million dreams away from what she had now.
“You ready?” asked Ron, holding his hand out to her, and Hermione nodded as they walked together along the platform, and disappeared together out of the barrier.
They were on the way to starting all the dreams they had put off, wild and carefree, the pair of them together for the rest of their lives. Just as she had imagined, just as she had dreamed, just as they both wanted since they had met all those years ago.