It had been almost a week since Hermione had rejected him when Ron decided he had to get out of his room. He was feeling as if he was being suffocated, and the walls of his room were slowly closing in around him.
The sun was shining brightly, and it would be one of the last, beautiful sunny days for months. Ron put on his jacket and Apparated outside, not wanting to run into any of his family.
He appeared at the edge of the forest just down the hill from his house, and as soon as the sun’s warm rays hit his face, he felt a little better. Ron leaned up against the nearest tree trunk and sunk to the ground. His limbs felt a little lifeless, however, the longer he sat outside, and the stronger he felt.
Ron tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He sat there for ten minutes in precious silence, until…
“Ron!”
Ron’s eyes snapped open and he looked up to see Hermione sprinting towards him. He felt a pang in his heart and slowly got to his feet. By the time Hermione reached him, Ron was standing, with his head hung low.
“Ron…oh, I’m so happy you’re out of your room. Listen, I wanted to tell you something really important. I’ve thought over my earlier decision a little more. I was a little blunt, and I can’t just leave with us this way. You mean too much to me,” Hermione said, giving him a sympathetic look. Ron perked up.
“So…you’ll consider taking me back?” he asked, smiling.
Hermione sighed. “No…what I mean is I can’t leave you like this." She took his hand, and led him back over to the tree to sit down. She sighed once more and cleared her throat. “Ron…I actually had the intention to take you back earlier. This morning, when I woke up, I was going to take you back. My mind was made up. But, then I went downstairs, and I looked at a photo of you, Harry and me on the mantel. That photo was taken right before our fourth year, and we looked so happy. I realized that I love the way we were back then. I loved that we were friends, and our relationship wasn’t complicated! As soon as we hit our fourth year, and the Yule Ball, that’s when everything changed. I don’t want that. I want to go back to the way we were. Please Ron, we need to go back to being best friends…it’s the only way. We need to go back to the beginning.”
Ron’s face dropped. “How am I supposed to do that? I can’t watch from the sidelines as you go on with your life! How am I supposed to be a good friend and watch the woman I love with all of my heart, marry someone else, or have someone else’s children?” he shouted angrily, overwhelmingly hurt.
Hermione sighed. “Ron, I never said that I would love another. I just said that I couldn’t be with you again. I want us to be friends, but I need to move on with my life. I can’t look at you and honestly trust you after what you did. That isn’t fair to you and it sure as hell isn’t fair to me.” Ron didn’t say anything. “Ron…I’m leaving tomorrow. I’m going to be a Healer at St. Mungo’s, and for that to work you need to be in my life. I need my best friend.” Water came to her eyes, as she looked meaningfully into Ron’s.
Ron groaned with frustration. “I will never understand women. You know that I will never stop loving you, and yet you want us to be best friends and go our separate ways. That doesn’t make sense!”
“Please, Ron. Believe me; we will both be better off. I don’t think that we’ll move on completely…but it will work out for the best.”
“So, you’ve forgiven me…but you still don’t want to be together…?”
“I know it doesn’t really make sense right now. This is just how it needs to be,” Hermione said softly.
Ron sighed. “All right…I’ll try to do this for you. But just know that I might not be able to get over this for a while.”
Hermione nodded. “I’m going back inside. You should come and have dinner with us,” she said, before kissing Ron lightly on his cheek. She slowly got to her feet, turned on her heel and sauntered gracefully back down to the house.
As she walked away from Ron, Hermione felt assured that she had made the right decision.
Hermione was right, of course. She and Ron never ceased to be good friends. Hermione never loved another, but she managed to surround herself with her family and friends to keep her extremely happy. She even quit Healing when she was thirty and went on to be one of Hogwarts’ most successful Headmistresses. Ron never married; however, he adopted a son because he had always wanted children. He named his son Finn Arthur Weasley, and strangely enough, Finn inherited the famous Weasley red hair.
Hermione was also right about Lily. She had grown up to be the Seeker of the England Quidditch team.
Every month until the day she died, Hermione made a visit to the Burrow and Godric’s Hollow to visit her old friends. And on her desk, Hermione kept a picture of her and Ron, together, hugging and smiling. However, she never looked at it. She just let the dust settle on it…because she figured that was the way it should be.