J.K. Rowling is a genius. I just enjoy playing with the other kids’ toys. No infringement is intended.
Thanks to Natalie for all her helpful beta work on this.
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Scenes From Shell Cottage ~ Chapter Five
He heard the front door closing in the distance behind him, and a few moments later the swish of her footsteps approaching through the grass. He wanted her to come and stand with him, share the view... maybe close enough for her arm to rest against his as they stood together. Instead, she stopped a few steps behind him, hesitating for several moments before speaking.
“Ron, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
He turned and saw her face twisted up in nerves and emotion. “Sorry?” he repeated. “What for?”
She wrinkled her nose in confusion and took the remaining steps forward to join him at the sea wall. She stood on his right, turned slightly toward him. “For insisting I set that bone right and then doing a bloody awful job of it, for starters. And for causing you so much pain. I’m really sorry. I never would have pushed if I’d thought for a moment that I wouldn’t be able--”
“I know that,” he said simply, glancing at her.
“You do?”
“Sure.”
“Oh,” she said, watching him. His expression was not what she had been expecting. In spite of the way he’d walked out of the house so abruptly, he didn’t seem angry at all. She studied his profile. He was something, though. She just couldn’t put her finger on it.
“Is it all right now?” she asked him.
“I think. It doesn’t hurt anymore.” He turned his head to her for inspection, giving her a little grin. “You tell me… do I still look ridiculous?”
Her eyes followed the line of his jaw, then across the place that had been broken, and finally, upward to his eyes. She felt the color rising in her cheeks despite the breeze coming off the water. “No,” she stammered. “Back to normal, I think.” Their eyes held, and she wondered for the hundredth time what it would feel like to have his lips on hers. Not just the physical sensation, but what it would feel like to know he had wanted to kiss her enough to actually do it.
She turned and faced the water, breaking eye contact. “It’s truly amazing here, isn’t it?”
He followed her lead and took in the view. “It is. It’s the most amazing place I know.”
“Including your house?” she asked, surprised.
“I think so, yeah.” He glanced at her. “Why?”
“I just love your house. It’s hard to think of anything comparing to it.”
“Really? Why?”
“You don’t think it’s a special place?”
“Well, yeah, but I live there, you know?” he said with a grin.
“I don’t know what it is precisely,” she said, feeling only a little guilty for this small lie. “But I think I’m more content there than anywhere else, even Hogwarts. It’s peaceful.”
“Peaceful?” Ron laughed. “It’s about as quiet as a greenhouse full of second-years repotting Mandrakes.”
She laughed along with him. “Not quiet”peaceful. I suppose I find your family very comforting.”
They looked at one another for a long moment.
“I’m glad,” Ron said, tearing his eyes away and facing the water again.
Flustered, Hermione looked away too, and several minutes passed without either of them saying anything at all.
Finally she broke the silence. “Why did you leave? Something was bothering you all through dinner.”
He glanced down at his hands, thinking.
“Harry told me about Luna,” she added. “That must have been uncomfortable.”
His head jerked up. “What?” he asked nervously. “What did he say?”
“Just that Luna was being Luna and making the conversation uncomfortable… why, what did she say?”
“Nothing,” he said too quickly, looking away again. “Just… you know how she is.”
“Yes,” Hermione said, though she was extremely curious now. She decided not to press it for the moment, but got back to the point. “Look, I know you left because of what I did, Ron. I could tell. I know you.”
He didn’t deny it. “It’s not what you think.”
“What then?”
“I wasn’t mad”I just lost it for a second. Sorry about that.”
“It's all right. I deserved it.”
He looked at her. “No, you didn’t. You were only trying to help.” He turned his eyes out in front of him again as a hard line formed along his jaw. “It’s that bloody wand,” he said in a darker tone.
“The wand? That’s what you were upset about?” She turned this over in her mind a couple of times. “Does that mean you don’t think I was the problem?”
Her question pulled him out of his thoughts and drew his eyes back to hers. “What do you mean? You know the spell.”
“Yes, but what if, after what happened to me… you know,” she paused, pulling the shawl tighter around herself and looking down at the pattern of the stones that formed the top of the wall. “What if it affected something in me… in my head, or in my ability to perform magic the way I could before…”
“Stop it,” he said in a strong voice, turning his whole body sideways to face her. “How can you even think that?”
“Because I should have been able to fix that break so easily! And no one really knows what the long term effects are of repeated exposure to--”
“Don’t say it,” he said quietly, closing his eyes.
“Not saying it doesn’t change anything, Ron.”
“I know. I just… I think it’s the wand,” he insisted. “Have you considered what that wand did for its final act before it became yours? Hermione, you were the victim, not the one who cast the bloody curse.” He hadn’t meant to sound angry”certainly not at her”but he must have done so. Tears were now glistening in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No, I’m sorry.” She wiped her wet cheeks with the edges of the shawl. “I’ve been crying on you all day. I’m a bloody mess.”
“Don’t,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder and squeezing. “Don’t be sorry for that, Hermione.”
She hesitated only a moment before walking into him and putting her arms around his middle. He responded immediately, hugging her back and resting his chin on her head. She buried her face in his sweater and breathed him in. The comfort that came from being in his arms grew large inside her until it completely stamped out the brief humiliation she’d felt in initiating the embrace. She hated how needy she was, hated it more than she could have expressed. Everything was different now”after. She didn’t feel like her old self. She didn’t feel strong anymore. Even here in the safety of this place, with friends she knew would protect her fiercely if necessary, she could not shake a constant feeling of fear and anxiety. She’d slept the afternoon away on the couch because something in her desperately needed to be near everyone else, especially Ron and Harry. And now to discover she couldn’t even trust her own magic? What would be taken away next? Or rather, who? She could not allow her mind to consider it.
Ron loved holding her. He wondered sadly if he would ever get to hold her just for the joy of it, when they were both happy and smiling, or if these opportunities would be limited to moments when it felt the world itself could break apart at any moment.
She pushed back from him and withdrew her arms to wipe away the tears from her face. He lowered his as well, albeit reluctantly.
“I hate being like this,” she said quietly. “I feel so different now.”
“Different?”
“Scared. Emotional.”
“Right,” he said softly. “It’s so unlike you to be emotional.”
She glanced back up at his eyes to see if he was making fun of her. But there was only a gentle, teasing kindness there.
She smiled, acknowledging his point. “You must admit I’m not usually this bad.”
“I know.”
“I’m not much of a Gryffindor today.”
He looked at her hard. “You’ve never been more a Gryffindor than you were today, Hermione. Honestly, I would be much more worried about you if you weren’t crying. It only makes sense for you to feel scared and emotional about it. Besides… bravery happens in spite of fear, not in the absence of it.”
She saw in his eyes how deeply he believed it”that she was somehow brave in the middle of all these tears. The thought strengthened her; it made her wonder if Ron believing it might just be enough until she could believe it herself. The breeze off the water seemed to pick up a bit and Hermione shivered, once more pulling the shawl tighter around her shoulders.
“So you think it’s the wand then,” she said to move the subject away from her current desperate state. “So does Harry.”
“Does he?” Ron said, interested.
“He says I just need to practice until it knows it has to do my bidding. I don’t know though.”
“No, that makes sense,” he said, mulling it over. “It goes along with what Ollivander told us about how they pass from one wizard to another.”
“What if he’s wrong?”
“Ollivander? Wrong about wands?”
“No”Harry. Wrong about this specific situation. Because I don’t think this really fits into any known understanding. How often does someone have to take ownership of a wand that was hours-earlier quite busy trying to torture her to death?”
He winced.
“I’m serious, Ron. What if practicing isn’t enough?”
The vulnerability in her expression mirrored the fears he had been chewing on before she’d come outside. He turned away and faced the water.
“What?” She leaned onto the wall, trying to see his face better in order to read it.
“I didn’t leave because I was angry with you, Hermione. I left because I couldn’t handle the possibility that you may not have a proper wand.”
When she didn’t comment, he turned to meet her eyes briefly before returning his own to the waves crashing against the rocks. He shook his head, trying to make sense of it. “I mean, who would have thought this wand stuff would end up being such a big deal? But here we are, and the only wand we have for you seems hell-bent on destruction and is possibly even antagonistic toward you”at least right now. Not to mention the fact that You-Know-Who now has the one wand that is supposedly unbeatable.”
She swallowed, some of the tension built up by his words slipping away. “Not the Elder Wand again,” she sighed.
“Hermione,” he said, facing her with a harder expression than he intended. “Even if we are successful in getting the rest of the Horcruxes and destroying them… Harry has still got to face him in the end.” His eyes searched hers desperately. “Don’t you see? What do you think is going to happen then? If You-Know-Who has the Deathstick, the wand that beats all others? How can Harry…” Ron broke off, unable to finish the thought.
“But he would have had to break into Professor Dumbledore’s grave, Ron! How could you want that for him when you know how it would damage him to do it?”
“He’s already damaged,” Ron said grimly. “It’s better than dead.”
She had no answer for that.
“I just…” His voice broke, and he turned away again, leaving her with only his profile. She noticed his jaw working to keep his emotions in check. He finally continued. “I couldn’t handle it, Hermione. If after everything, Harry were to… I just don’t think I could come back from it.”
“Ron,” Hermione said gently, placing both of her hands around his arm and leaning into him from the side.
“I’m not naïve,” he told her. “I knew when we agreed to do this that any one of us, or even all of us, might die for it. But now that it’s here… now that I realize I really could lose one of you… I don’t think I can.”
“I know. I feel the same way, absolutely.”
He searched her eyes. She did understand.
She squeezed his arm again. “We’re not going to lose Harry.”
“Do you really believe that? What about the wand?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted, “about the wand. But I have to believe there’s a way, or I wouldn’t be able to take another step. I have to believe we will all make it, or I wouldn’t have the strength to do this.”
The wind caught her hair just right and lifted it away from her neck, exposing the ugly wound left by Bellatrix’s knife. He looked at it and saw again in his mind the moment it had happened. Hermione realized what he was staring at and dropped her chin self-consciously.
“I’m sorry,” he said, cursing himself inwardly.
“It’s all right. I suppose I’ll be wearing my hair down for the rest of my life,” she said darkly. “There’s bound to be an awful scar.”
“Even if there is, no one will notice it.”
She made a sound indicating her profound disagreement with this sentiment.
“People will be looking at your face,” he told her, and his voice held something of a compliment in it, though it technically remained unspoken. She felt warm under the sudden boldness of his gaze as his eyes roamed her face, taking her in. Suddenly, she realized how close they were. She had not removed her hands from his arm, so they were sort of nuzzled side by side, facing the water, touching from shoulders to hips. He’d turned slightly toward her and they held each others eyes, the air around them coming alive.
Ron grew quite nervous very quickly. They had only been talking, and then in a flash they were caught up in that familiar tension they knew so well. It had been happening for years when they made eye contact just so, or when they found themselves too close while going through a doorway. It was this attraction between them that they had always silently agreed to ignore… though Ron found it increasingly difficult, particularly since Hermione’s arrival at The Burrow before the wedding. Not that it had ever mattered”nothing would have happened in those moments because Harry was usually there, too.
But this was different. They were perfectly alone in the most romantic atmosphere either of them could possibly imagine. The moonlight, the stars, the waves crashing kindly against the rocks... surely it was all a conspiracy to force them to kiss as they stood here at the sea wall looking into each other’s eyes. Ron wanted to do it more than anything, but something held him back. She looked beautiful and vulnerable, and honestly, she looked like she wanted him to do it. But would it be wrong to kiss her now when she’d only just told him how emotional and needy and overwhelmed she was? He didn’t know, and he did not want to make a mistake.
She tried to shove all of her heart into her eyes, so he would know. She saw the wheels of his mind turning and silently willed him to quit thinking so much and just do what they both wanted him to do. As if in response, his eyes dropped to her mouth and she involuntarily took in a shuddery breath. He dipped his head down toward her and she lifted her chin slightly…
There was a sudden bang behind them, the cottage door slamming shut. Both startled, Hermione slipped her hands from his arm, and Ron felt the cold for the first time all night. They turned toward the cottage and saw Harry walking toward them. Ron watched in supreme frustration as his friend ambled across the lawn, oblivious to his crime. What unbelievable timing, the git. Ron could almost imagine his hands around Harry’s scrawny throat”ironic, considering he had only moments before been choked up at the thought of his friend’s demise.
Hermione gathered the shawl tighter once again and glanced up at Ron. He met her eyes, giving her a small smile as if nothing had happened. As Harry drew nearer to Dobby’s grave, she said, “Hi, Harry,” with her eyes still on Ron.
Harry jerked back and drew his wand in an instant. He had obviously not seen them.
Ron turned to face him, leaning back on the wall. “Jumpy, are we?”
Harry let his breath out in a whoosh. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were still out here.”
“We were just discussing my wand problem,” Hermione said.
“Right then. What do you think?” Harry asked Ron with interest.
And so they began to talk it over again in earnest, agreeing that until they had reason to think otherwise, it was best to assume practice would yield better results. Starting in the morning, their first priority would be to help Hermione get that wand under control. They had nothing to do until they received an answer from Griphook anyway, and even if the goblin agreed, there would be time for more practice as they made their plans.
As for Ron and Hermione, the moment was gone, and after a while they all went back inside to join the others. Over the next few days, Ron half-expected her to initiate a conversation about what had happened, but she had clearly decided to let it go. In his darker moments, he worried that she now deemed the would-be kiss a mistake and was greatly relieved that Harry had interrupted them. He obviously hoped this was not the case, but had no way of knowing as they had easily slipped back into their normal routine as friends. Even so, Ron had not forgotten how she’d looked when he’d pulled her from the wreckage of the fallen chandelier, nor had his resolve to tell her how he felt weakened in the slightest. He might have missed the opportunity for a romantic kiss in the moonlight, but the more he thought about it, words might be the best way to go. Because if anyone loved words, it was certainly Hermione.
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End Notes: These first five chapters all are set on the day of their arrival at Shell Cottage. My best guess from DH is that the trio remained there recovering and planning the Gringotts break-in for a few weeks. That time passes right here, before chapter six, which occurs on their last night at Bill & Fleur’s. Thanks so much to all of you for reading, and especially reviewing. Chapter six coming soon, followed by a concluding chapter seven, which will rejoin us with JKR’s text as the trio head out for Gringotts.