Wake Up
Disclaimer: I wish I owned Harry Potter. Then not only would I be a multi-millionaire AND live in Europe, but I would have published a best-selling series of books that has changed literature forever. Obviously, I’m only a fifteen-year-old J.K. Wannabe. Don’t sue me”I know as well as anyone else that anything to do with HP belongs to our Heroine, Joanne Kathleen Rowling.
”*”
She didn’t look any different than she normally did on that rainy Tuesday, but I can remember thinking she’d never looked more beautiful. She and Harry were staying at my place before we all took off to Merlin-knew where”mostly because I wanted to be there for Bill’s wedding, and Hermione couldn’t bear to leave without saying goodbye. Harry, though he did often say the Burrow felt like home, would probably have been happiest leaving as soon as he’d gone back to Privet Drive and done what he’d promised Dumbledore, but it didn’t take too much prodding to get him to wait for a bit. At the Burrow, after all, was Ginny. He had sworn that he would not date Ginny any longer for fear of Voldemort’s wrath, but it was obvious he was still in love with her, no matter what the bloke said. I may be a bit thick at times, but I’m not outright stupid.
Anyways, it was on a Tuesday at the Burrow a few days after Bill’s wedding that I finally got tired of what my brother Charlie likes to call “life slapping me in the face.” I was in the kitchen at about seven thirty in the morning, unable to sleep, thinking about Hermione and eating an orange, when Hermione herself burst in from outside, completely soaked from the rain, her brown, curly hair pulled back into a messy, frizzy bun. I stopped eating my orange right there, mouth hanging open.
God. She was beautiful.
“Ron,” she gasped, and I realized for the first time that she was actually bloody crying, “Ron, come quick.”
“Hermione, what’s happened?” I asked, throwing down my orange. “Is someone hurt”?”
“No, no,” she cried, shaking her head rapidly so that water droplets flew everywhere. “No. It’s just that”oh, Ron, please”!” Without another word, she turned and bolted out of the house. I raced after her, partially confused, partially terrified. What in the world was going on? I didn’t have to go very far”Hermione was sitting on the front porch, head in her hands, a few owls perched on the porch railing, their heads cocked in curiosity. A mug that had presumably held tea was lying, cracked, as though somebody had thrown it, on the road in front of us.
“Hermione?” I whispered, coming to sit down next to her. She looked up, but didn’t respond, merely watched the rain fall in sheets. “ Hermione,” I tried again, “please. What’s happened?”
“The owls,” she said hoarsely, gesturing to the birds sharply. “They have letters. Letters, Ron.” It seemed to me now that she had perhaps gone a bit mad, as Hermione so often tended to do, so I patted her hand reassuringly.
“Yes, Hermione, that’s what owls generally have. Letters. Remember, they carry the post?” She threw me a glare that would have frozen over hell, then jerked her hand out from under mine.
“Look,” she whispered, reaching into the pocket of her shorts and pulling out a crumpled, rain-soaked piece of parchment. “Read that, Ron.”
“Ok…” I agreed, completely nonplussed, accepting what I presumed to be a letter. I’ve learned it’s best not to argue with Hermione when she gets like this.
“Read it aloud,” she directed shakily as I fumbled to unfold the soggy parchment. “Please.”
“All right. Ah”let’s see. ‘Dear Miss Granger, We are de-de’”blimey, this word’s all smeared”‘delighted to inform you that have been chosen for the position of Head Girl for your upcoming seventh year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Your outstanding academic achievements and exemplary behavior have proven you to be an excellent choice for the position. We look forward to seeing you this year, as Hogwarts as chosen to re-open, despite the tragic death of our beloved headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, and we have enclosed a list of books and items you shall need. Have a pleasant summer, and keep safe. Most respectfully, Professor Minerva McGonagall”Headmistress.’” As I finished reading, I chanced a glance at Hermione, whose shoulders were shaking. “Well, what’s so horrible about that?” I dared ask. “You were made Head Girl, Hermione, and a better choice they couldn’t””
“I’ll never be Head Girl, Ron!” she shrieked. “I’ll never finish my schooling, never go back to Hogwarts, never become anything grand. Never!” She buried her face in her hands again. “I know what I have to do,” she mumbled at once. “Don’t remind me. Harry is my best friend. I have to stand beside him. And I have to fight for what’s good, try to stop Lord Vo”Lord Volde”Lord Voldemort. But it just makes me so miserable because I’ve been working my arse off for six bloody years and for what? For WHAT? Nothing. And it’s all Voldemort’s sodding fault.”
“Hermione,” I said softly, grasping her hand firmly, “all that hard work isn’t going to come to nothing. You’re the brightest witch I know; the brightest witch anyone knows. Look at you. You’ll do grand things always, no matter what, because you’re too smart to let this stop you.” She glanced up, her face tear-streaked and red.
“I’m just a know-it-all, Ron,” she whispered. “What would I be with out my books and all my scheduling? Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“You are a know-it-all, Hermione,” I cried exasperatedly, dropping her hand. “You know every damn thing there is to know in the whole bloody world. That’s what you are. That’s what you do. That’s what makes you insufferable, nose-in-a-book, always-has-the-answer-to-everything Hermione. That’s why Malfoy hates your guts and Snape wants to pound you into the ground every time he looks at you and all those other teachers respect you and Harry’s your friend and I lo”” Abruptly, I stopped myself, inwardly cursing the day I was born. Stupid, stupid, stupid Weasley! Shut up, already!
“You what?” Hermione asked quietly, staring at me with an odd expression on her face.
“I…I…nothing,” I finally managed. “It isn’t important. What’s important is that you know that if you weren’t a know-it-all, you wouldn’t be Hermione.”
“But…I don’t want to be just that,” she murmured, squinting into the rain. “I want to be more. I don’t want everybody to get annoyed with me because I have the answer”
again. I don’t want to be this stuffy, intolerable, unlovable person. I don’t want you to…you to…hate me.” As she said this, she seemed to flush, red spreading from her cheeks to the very tips of her ears.
“Hate you?” I asked blankly, feeling an awful plummeting sensation where my heart should have been. “What in Merlin’s name gave you the idea that I hated you?”
“Oh, come off it, Ron,” she spat. “Let’s not play games anymore.” My heart was racing, my thoughts swirling. Wake up, something seemed to pound in my brain. Wake up, you bloody idiot. “You argue with me all the time, you get mad at me for no reason at all, you call me a know-it-all, you don’t even think of me as a friend!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked angrily. “Of COURSE I think of you as a””
“Don’t sit there and lie to me when you just told me yourself that you didn’t!” Hermione hissed waspishly. “You just said, ‘Harry’s your friend’ and then ‘I’ and you wouldn’t finish, and I know why!”
“You do?” I whispered, terrified.
“Yes. It’s because you DON’T think of me as a friend at all”you hate me”and you didn’t have the heart to break it to me.” That she could think this infuriated me so much that I did the only thing I could do, because I am Ronald Bilius Weasley and that is the way my brain works.
I started a full-fledged screaming match with her.
Jumping to my feet so I at least had the advantage of height, if not brains, I glowered down at her and bellowed,
“And what about you, eh?! You and your, ‘Oh, Harry’s my best friend, that’s why I have to stand beside him!’ and all that nonsense. I suppose that’s because you think of Harry as your only best friend. That’s what you say all the time! It’s always, ‘Harry my best friend that’ and ‘Harry my best friend this’ but when you talk about me, I’m just Ron. Just Ron! How do you think that makes ME feel?” Hermione was now standing too, and she was crying again, an expression of horror on her face.
“How can you possibly think that?” she cried. “How in Merlin’s name?! All those times I fight with you, it’s because YOU start something. It’s because I’m just not good enough for you! I’ve always been less than adequate to you compared to Harry and you know it!”
“HOW CAN YOU THINK THAT?!” I outright screamed, and to my surprise, I felt my throat tighten. How could she think that I considered her somehow less than Harry? With all her ingenuity and sensitivity and brains, how could she NOT know that I thought about her more than I thought about food? About anything?
How could she not know that I was hopelessly and completely in love with her?
“HOW CAN I NOT?!” she screamed back, her fists clenched.
It was too much. Without another word, I turned around and fled, straight into the oncoming downpour. I had to get away. Get away from her before I did or said something I seriously regretted. She hated me, I thought bitterly as I charged through the steady shower of rain. She absolutely loathed me, that was all there was to it.
And after all, who could blame her? After how I’d treated her all these years, with my senseless jealousy, and my constant arguing, and the very worst, most gut-wrenching thing of all”dating Lavender Brown, who didn’t have even a fifth of Hermione’s brains or beauty or kindness or passion. How could she love me as I so loved her? I had thought for awhile during and at the end of sixth year that it was possible she might. She had been so angry about Lavender, she had asked me out to a party, she had visited me every day when I was poisoned. But maybe she was just being a good friend”something I had never been to her. I had been so wrapped up in me and how I felt about her that I had never stopped to think for one moment that the way I acted might actually affect her, too.
In any case, if she’d ever had any feelings for me, they’d long since died. She’d moved on, and rightly so. I didn’t blame her. I would hate me, too. I’d lost her, lost anything I could ever have had with her, and I had nobody to point fingers at but myself. As the rain pounded down, I stopped running, took a deep, shuddering breath, and looked around for the first time. I was standing near a grove of trees next to what my siblings and I used for a Quidditch Pitch, and it felt somehow right to be there right at this moment. I collapsed on the ground next to a tree, and buried my face in my arms.
“Ronald Weasley,” I told myself in a hoarse, angry whisper, “you are a git if there ever was one. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“No, you’re not,” said a small, quiet voice. I looked up, and there was Hermione, rain water trickling down her face, thoroughly soaking her hair and her clothes. And she was beautiful. Wake up, wake up, wake up, my brain seemed to pound again.
“Hermione,” I said, hurrying to stand. “I’m sorry. I’m so bloody sorry, Hermione, I””
“Sh,” she interrupted. “Look, Ron, I’m sorry. I’m the one that started this whole mess. I took out my emotions about the letter on you, and I shouldn’t have. You reacted normally. You have nothing to blame yourself for, and I don’t want us to be angry at each other. Can we please be friends again?” And it could have all ended right then. Everything could have been over. I needn’t have worried any longer. I could have taken the easy way out. Wake up, you prat, my brain pressed. And then”something else. Something new. Don’t let her slip away. So I chose the hard way.
“No,” I told her, “we can’t.” Even as I said it, I could see the hurt in her eyes, the pain that ripped at her. I had never seen Hermione look this upset before…except for maybe when I had kissed Lavender.
“Why not?” she whispered, shivering in the cold breeze. “Ron, if you stop being my friend…”
“Then what?” I demanded. “What will happen?” I took a step closer, taking a breath as I did so.
“I’ll”I’ll”” she floundered. “I’ll…miss you.”
“Will you?” I asked, taking another step closer. “But why? Don’t you hate me”hate me for always arguing and being stupid and jealous for no reason and…and going out with Lavender?”
“No,” Hermione whispered. She shivered again, grimacing. “How could I…how could I possibly hate you? We’ve been through this.” Her eyes met mine, and this time she took a step closer. “Why do you hate me?”
“I don’t hate you,” I said firmly. “I’ve never hated you Hermione, and I’m sorry you’ve ever thought it.”
“Then why won’t you be my friend anymore, Ron? Is it just because of some stupid things I said”?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head rapidly. She stared at me, waiting. “Hermione, I can’t be your friend anymore because…because…” She looked so beautiful standing there, staring up at me, her hair completely soaked and plastered around her face.
“Why, Ron?” she whispered, taking yet another step closer.
“I just…I…” her eyes met mine once more, and I took the final step. The one that meant there was no turning back now.
“Does this have anything to do with Lavender?” she asked, raising an eyebrow a fraction of an inch.
“Dammit, Hermione,” I groaned, “I love you.” And I grabbed her by her shoulders, drew her to me, and kissed her. I remember being terrified at first that she would pull away from me in disgust, screaming,
“Ron, stop it. You’re like my brother!” but she didn’t. Instead, she wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed me back. My fingers curled into her hair and I allowed myself to get lost in her and the rain and just forget about everything for a little while. And then, when she drew away finally and buried her face into my shoulder, wrapping her arms around me, the rain seemed to pound just a little harder, but I didn’t mind.
I’ve always liked rain, you know.
“Ron,” she said into my shoulder, a break in her voice, “it’s about bloody time.”
I drew away from her a bit, smiling.
“I thought you thought I hated you.”
“Well, there were times I did,” she admitted, blushing again. “And it wasn’t as obvious to me that you…didn’t…as it was to everyone else, because it was me you were getting angry with and my date to the Yule Ball you hated all of a sudden, etc, etc. And I was so in love with you that I didn’t think it was possible you could ever…well…feel the same way about me.” I sank to the ground again, catching her hand as I did so, so that I pulled her with me.
“I’m sorry, Hermione,” I said quietly. “I was stupid. Completely in love. I had no idea of what to do, and I couldn’t go to anyone for advice.” She blushed again, smiling a bit.
“Not even Harry?”
“Especially not Harry!” I cried. “You must be bloody joking me! You’re like his…his sister! That would be like him coming over and talking to me about Ginny.” I made a hideous face to drive the point home, and Hermione smothered a laugh.
“Somehow, Ron, I don’t think it’s quite the same, but…”
“Oh, believe me, it is,” I said, nodding feverishly. “But anyways, that’s not the point. I obviously wasn’t very good at hiding my emotions because everybody seemed to figure it out.”
“Except me,” she said thoughtfully.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Except you.”
“Nearly seven years, Ron,” she said, looking at me strangely. “That’s how long it took us to get to this…this…whatever this is. The question is, where do we go from here?”
My brain, thankfully, already had an answer.
“I love you, Hermione,” I said firmly. “I’ve know that I liked you since I was twelve, and I knew I was in love with you when I hit fourteen. I’ve wanted a…a…relationship with you for I don’t even know how long.”
“So is that where we go?” she asked. “I love you too, Ron, with all my heart, but this…this war. What happens if one of us doesn’t survive it? What happens if we both don’t survive it? I don’t…I don’t think I could bear it.”
“But if we had a relationship, Hermione,” I said earnestly, “wouldn’t THAT be better? Because even IF one of us or both of us don’t survive, then we’ll still have had something when we had the chance. We’ve loved each other for this long. It doesn’t seem fair that Voldemort should get in the way of it. We’ll need love more than ever now. That’s what Harry keeps telling me.” Hermione smirked.
“So you HAVE gotten advice from him.”
“Only when he’s opted to give it himself, the great prat,” I muttered irritably. “It’s always, ‘Oh, Ron, don’t miss your chance, the both of you will need love now that there’s a war on,’ and ‘I saw the way you looked at her when she was doing that bit of ‘light bedtime reading’ tonight. Haven’t you made a move yet, you git?’” Hermione burst into laughter, leaning into me a little.
“He’s a good friend,” she murmured.
“Yes, he is,” I acknowledged. “But you still haven’t decided. Do we or do we not have a relationship, Hermione?” Her brown eyes met mine, and she smiled.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Of course we do, Ron.”
It felt like my heart was soaring, the kind of feeling I get when I make a particularly good save in Quidditch or when I look at Hermione out of the corner of my eye in Potions’ or when I find out something really, REALLY good has just happened. Except nothing this good had ever happened before, so it was like I was about to explode with happiness. Her hand met mine, clasped it, and our fingers intertwined.
“You look rather pleased,” she murmured.
“Of course I am, you bloody know-it-all,” I responded, and I swooped down and kissed her once more.
We walked back to the Burrow just as the rain began to subside, both of us sopping wet, but we were grinning like morons, and her hand was in mine. Everything felt right. We entered the kitchen in the Burrow to find Ginny and Harry there, Ginny looking upset, Harry half-stricken, half-confused. As we came in, they both looked up, Ginny setting down her tea mug and gazing the pair of us up and down.
“What in the world,” she said, “were you two doing out in the rain? You must be freezing and”” Her eyes darted to our interlocked fingers. “Oh, my God. Harry. Harry.” Harry, who had been busy staring agitatedly out the window, jerked his head up.
“What?”
“Look! It’s a miracle!” Ginny indicated Hermione and me, a grin slowly spreading across her features.
“What in the”Good Merlin! Don’t tell me!” Harry cried, and his eyes lit up for the first time in months. Then, pretending to be thick or something, he asked, “So, Ron, mate, what’s happened to you this morning that’s got you up this early and in such a good mood?”
“If it makes any sense at all,” I told him, gazing at Hermione, “I finally woke up.” And to the sounds of Ginny and Harry’s self-satisfied whoops, Hermione pulled me in, and kissed me again. And even though there was a war on and everything should have been bleak and hopeless, it wasn’t for me.
Because for once in my thick-skulled, way-too-tall, redheaded, argumentative life, I had finally done something right.
Fin