A Time to Fall by Ron x Hermione
Chapter Notes: This was written for the SPEW 007 on the forums. My pairing is Ron and Hermione. This is my first prompt, Blossom. I hope you enjoy! Thanks to harry_kissed_ginny for beta-ing this chapter.
“Ron . . . I think I-”
“What?”
She stared at him for a moment, tears slowly running down her crimson cheeks.
Ron looked into her chocolate eyes, searching for what she was trying to say.
She turned on her heel and ran out of the room.
~ * ~
“Hermione! Hermione!” he yelled, trying to make some sense of the situation. He had run outside after her, but his search was now futile. He had walked around for about half an hour now, and he still hadn’t found her. She was in a great hiding spot.
He threw his hands in the air, giving up. He decided to go back into the house and hope that she showed up sometime soon. The clouds were forming in grey clusters overhead, and he felt a few drops every now and then on his nose.
By the time he had gotten back to the house, the rain was coming down in vast sheets. He had covered his head with his hand-me-down jacket and ran to the back door, eventually throwing it open to find an angry-looking Mrs. Weasley.
“Ronald! You’ll catch your death out in this storm! It’s supposed to rain the rest of today. I don’t want you going back outside anymore, do you understand?”
Ron shook the raindrops out of his hair and matted it down with his hand and took off his soaked jacket.
“Yes, mum,” he said, irritated. He hadn’t wanted to go outside, it had just happened.
“Hermione’s still outside,” he uttered, and Mrs. Weasley turned around.
“For Merlin’s sake . . . What is she doing?”
Ron didn’t feel like voicing his entire conversation with Hermione; it made him sad and angry to just think about it, no less say it again. He decided to ignore the question.
“I went after her, but I lost her somewhere near the garden.” He tried to plaster a worried look on his face. He was concerned, but he knew why she was out there.
“Well, Ron, would you mind going out and searching for her? It’s supposed to really storm up here, and I don’t want her catching cold or getting hurt. Take her a jacket-” She whipped her wand around and a pink windbreaker appeared. “-That’s a good boy,” she said as Ron took it in his hand. “Take Harry with you, I’m sure that two heads are better than one.”
“Yes, mum,” he said, switching the jacket in between two hands.
Harry suddenly came down the stairs, smiling. It appeared that he had just come from seeing Ginny. They had made up nearly a month after his and Ron’s sixth year. Ron figured that they had both realised that love would make the upcoming Final Battle that much easier.
Ron envied them tremendously.
Mrs. Weasley told Harry what Ron had told her about Hermione. She suggested that Harry should help Ron in his search. He agreed, and ran upstairs quickly to get his coat.
After he had returned, Ron and he looked at each other, then looked out the window at the storm. They shook their heads disapprovingly at the mighty rain and wind hitting the house, making it feel as if it were going to fall apart, but it held strong.
Ron turned the knob and the door pushed back against them. He pushed harder and the door eventually flew open, allowing him and Harry to exit the house. They took off in different directions in the yard, hoping to be quick in finding Hermione. The water was freezing as it fell off Harry’s glasses and Ron’s nose.
Ron went to the left side of the backyard, the opposite direction of which he had gone earlier, wishing that Hermione would just pop out so he could go back inside and get warm. His teeth chattered in the cold weather. Even though it was summer, it still felt like autumn the way the wind grazed his shoulders and the rain came down from the heavens.
“HERMIONE!” he shouted loudly, but his voice still was not louder than the wind. He cupped his hands around his mouth as he ran towards a grove of trees, yelling even louder. “HERMIONE! IT’S RON! WHERE ARE YOU?”
He stopped dead in the yard, looking around him for any signs of movement. He saw a few squirrels scurrying up into a tree for shelter, a bird pecking at its nest to feed its babies . . . but no Hermione. He was starting to feel a bit helpless; he knew that Mrs. Weasley wouldn’t let him back inside the house until she was found, no matter if she was distraught and wanted to be alone or not. He had to find her.
As he searched for a few more moments, squinting into the darkness, a clap of thunder rumbled overhead. He hoped for half a second that lightning wouldn’t follow, but a great, white bolt clapped somewhere a few miles off. He desperately hoped that Hermione was all right.
“Harry!” He ran over to a tall Weeping Willow that showed a human sitting underneath it. As he grew closer, though, he found that it was Hermione. Her bushy hair was stuck on the leafy wisps of the tree, and she was reaching to get it out. She was soaked from head to toe in her pink t-shirt and jeans, and her shoes seemed to have disappeared. They were probably stuck in the mud somewhere.
He peered cautiously over at the tree, finding that she still hadn’t seen him. He ran over to her, and slid under the leaves of the tree. She jumped and scrambled up.
“No, no, Hermione!” he said audibly. She stopped dead, wiping the water out of her face. It seemed that she was out of breath, and freezing. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to get warm as she sat down and curled up into a ball.
“Hey, here,” Ron told her, jutting out his hand with the soaked windbreaker. “It’s still dry on the inside.” He gave her a grin and she smiled weakly at him as her teeth chattered with cold. Silence followed for a few moments, and Ron finally sat down next to her under the tree. It kept out a bit of the sprinkles of rain, and the ground was dry.
“Look, Hermione . . . I didn’t mean for you to have to-” He stopped, mid-sentence, still trying to discover what he was trying to say.
“It’s nothing, Ron. I just . . . I don’t know,” she finished. It seemed as if both of them didn’t know what to say.
“Well, why did you run away, if I can ask?”
She looked up at him slowly, as if she were embarrassed by her appearance.
“I . . . Ron, I see Harry and Ginny together all the time. I want that so badly . . .”
Ron found it rather odd that she had run away because of Harry and his sister.
“Have they teased you or something? Because you can just tell Harry to-”
“No, no, that’s not it. I just find that with the last battle with Voldemort coming up-”
Ron gave a small squeak and she rolled her eyes, continuing.
“-coming up that we need more love in this world. I want that so awfully, Ron . . . I just don’t know what to do.” She sniffed, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She silently prayed that Ron wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from a raindrop.
“Hermione . . .” he said, reaching up to wipe the tear out of her eye, “You’ll- you’ll find someone. It’s just a matter of time.”
“I’ve already found him. I just don’t know what to do about it.”
“Well . . .” Ron couldn’t find the words to express his self at that moment. He wanted to be that person, but he guessed that Hermione had already found another. His heart jumped angrily and he wanted to throw something, but as he looked around, there was nothing. He decided to keep listening.
“What are you going to do?” he asked her, trying to hide his disappointment.
“I want to tell him, but I don’t know if he feels the same way.”
“You can just tell him. As long as, you know, it’s not Harry. I’m sure that Ginny would have something to say about that-”
Ron suddenly felt something push against his lips. As he looked down, he saw, to his ease, Hermione pressed up against him. He kissed her back deeply, only wishing that he would be able to remember this moment forever.
~ * ~
As he and Hermione walked, hand in hand, back to the house, the sun was just starting to poke through the clouds. Mrs. Weasley looked out the window and saw a very happy Ron. Harry and Ginny grinned as they saw the two coming up the walk.
Ron and Hermione had found each other.