Love, I don't like to see so much pain,
So much wasted and this moment keeps slipping away,
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival,
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive.
In your eyes - Peter Gabriel
What matters and what does not
Epilogue
St Mungo's. The last place I would want someone I love to be with me; Ron and Harry still have to remain there. I stride the corridors desperately looking for the room, cursing again and again about the Ministry bureaucrats that have kept me back 5 hours testifying. Ginny was luckier and she managed to leave earlier to see her brother.
Voldemort had shot the curse against Harry, but Ron who is used to flying at the Quaffle, had knocked down Harry just enough to receive the worst part himself. Ginny and I, the baits, had witnessed the scene from a green bubble, where the air was increasingly asphyxiating, till we fell unconscious.
At last I see a crowd of redheads in one room. Mrs. Weasley is the first to catch my eye and embrace me.
"Hermione!" I embrace her back trying to distinguish the patients but my tears don't allow me to see anything.
***
When we arrived to Diagon Alley, Ginny was waiting for us: Ron wasn't back yet from the intensive patrol his sister had hurl him to do.
When I felt my feet touch the ground I let go of Harry's hand instinctively and I didn't look in his direction. I knew I couldn't glance at him without fixing my eyes in his and slid them down to his lips. And as I had been telling myself for some hours now, there were more important things.
"Could you two go and see if there's a new broom model?" I spoke staring at Ginny and thinking about Ron who hadn't come back yet. She nodded but Harry entered in my vision.
"What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to talk to Ron. I've to tell him what has happened." I pondered before continuing, "I know you wouldn't like to hide something like this. You cannot lie."
I felt guilty because I expected Harry to tell me that Ron didn't need to know about it, that it could be a secret;
that we could lie to him.
"No. We have to talk to him."
"Harry, I don't…" I broke off, because in that moment I saw Ron appear.
"Everything's ok." He smiled at me and said, "What are you forbidding Harry to do?" His tone was half serious, half joke.
"To go to Quality Quidditch Supplies, he wanted to go with me." Ginny was faster than me with her answer; I faltered a word that corroborated her story, while I wished Harry to understand that I had to do this alone.
"Please..." I whispered to Harry while I pushed him towards Ginny
Ron patted Harry's back and winked at him while he spoke, "Remember you play Quidditch better than Dean Thomas."
'Very subtle, Ron,' I thought. And I noticed that I was jealous, no matter how much Ginny had helped me. "Let's go to have a Butterbeer," was what I said in the end.
***
Fred and George inform me because their mother is incapable to do so at the moment. She can only cry whilst holding her husband.
It seems that Ron is the gravest of them both, though they are motionless alike in their beds. They are under an induced sleep. Harry has a severe burn on his shoulder and Ron has it on his chest. They are magical wounds that tend to extend if they are not treated properly, so Ron's could reach his heart quickly. But first they have to have their bodies prepared for them to resist the treatment.
I hold Ginny's hand; none of us can stop staring at the patients.
***
Seated in front of the Butterbeer bottles Ron had insisted to pay, I breathed, looked him in the eye and I spoke, "Ron, there's something you should know. It's very important".
He glanced at the Leaky Cauldron clients suspiciously and whispered, "Is it related to Harry or… the Prophecy?"
"Somehow yes, with its importance in our lives… But this is mainly about us."
That took him by surprise. "Us? What?"
"I need you to listen to what I'm going to tell you and don't interrupt me." I didn't know how I was going to do that, but I realized I had to do it carefully. Ron's face showed a rising concern.
"All right, what happened?"
"Yesterday… I…" starting was really difficult, "I want you to understand that I'm going to tell you the truth." Then I had a silly idea: "Promise me you'll stay until I have told you everything."
Ron nodded. His expression showed that he was certain that something was wrong; really wrong.
"Harry told me yesterday about the prophecy." I broke off a second to take in air again, I felt it leaking; I was suffocating and wasn't able to speak. Ron was staring at me expecting my words. "He was really down." I didn't want to tell him Harry had been crying; it looked like betraying Harry's confidence. "I embraced him… and well…" I stopped again to breathe.
"Well what?" Ron started to suspect what part of the story was related to "us","I kissed him." His face was distraught like when he thought Harry had lied to him and had put his name in the goblet. "It was my fault. He didn't even know we were dating."
"Can I leave now?" He didn't bother to look at me while asking.
"I haven't finished. Ron, I just beg you to understand that he wasn't guilty at all." I read doubt in his eyes but I kept on talking, "Later, when I realized what I had done…"
"Later…" he interrupted me. I couldn't blame him.
"I hexed him." He looked at me horrified. "I used Obliviate."
"A what? Why?"
"Because he knew nothing about us dating, and when you found out you'd stop speaking to him. And he needs you. After the prophecy, he needs all the help we can offer, instead of being worried because you won't talk to him."
"So he recalls nothing?" He was still looking at me disgusted, but at least he was talking to me.
"Yes, he does. The charm didn't work completely because he's been practicing Occlumancy and he's obliged me to reverse it… He wanted to talk to you with me, but it was my fault and I think I'm the only one who should pay for it." I was firm; I had to make clear that Harry needed him; that was the only important thing.
"Are you defending him?"
"I know it looks like it, but Ron, look at me." he did so with lack of interest. "Do you really think that he would have betrayed you, his best friend, like that?"
He diverted his gaze and concentrated on his Butterbeer bottle. After a while he answered, "I never thought you'd do something like that."
I had no answer. I don't think I have it today.
"Don't be unfair with him, please, the prophecy…" He interrupted me with a gesture while he stood. And he walked away without looking at me, grabbing his bottle.
***
A witch with lime-green robes enters and walks towards Ron.
"You may stay in the room during the cure but, would you mind to leave your wands outside the room? They might interfere with the treatment."
All of us go out and give them to a House Elf that is standing in the corridor with a silver tray.
The first thing I see when I go back to the room is an ice beam coming out from the healer's wand. When it touches Ron's chest it expands on the surface of the burn and then is suddenly absorbed by his skin while light whirls of steam arise.
***
I wandered through the alley avoiding the Quidditch supplies shop and any other I suspected Ron might be inside. After strolling in shops where people whispered and spoke about Voldemort, where people were scared of watching alerted ministry officers patrolling around, I decided I didn't want to be alone and journeyed to the Quidditch shop.
From the shop window I saw Ginny inspecting a broom while Ron and Harry were playing carelessly with a bludger under the frown of the salesman. 'How long had they been on the shop?' But Harry and Ron were smiling, and that partially took a burden from me, and bolstered me to join them.
Ginny told me later what had happened. It seems that Harry, when he saw Ron, asked him if he had talked to me and how he felt. Ron said, to his sister's surprise, that it wasn't important because we didn't date for a long time. He added I had been a fool for hexing Harry and that did make him angry.
It was probably a memorable performance, because Harry needed a couple of weeks to discover that Ron wouldn't speak to me.
***
She's been applying ice to Ron for two hours and the burn has diminished significantly. After Ron's treatment, another healer came to care for Harry; his burns had advanced to his neck. Five minutes ago they've left, assuring us that the patients are going to be fine, but they need to stop the cure for a while or they might freeze their tissues. Over the wounds they've conjured a blue mist to avoid the advance of the curse; it would help to maintain a low temperature. Both of them are conscious now, but very weak indeed.
"Voldemort?" asks Ron. There's a general twitch in the room.
"I finished him off," mutters Harry, turning his head to his friend and startled when he sees Ron's burn, reduced to a half of what it was a couple of hours ago. "Thanks Ron."
Ron smiles weakly and glances at Ginny and me. "Are you ok?" We nod.
Harry's gaze has turned to the window and he's lost in his thoughts. He looks miserable.
I think I know what is bothering him. "You had to do it. There was no other way."
"Yes," he mutters, "sure."
"Hermione," says Ron softly, "I think the boy deserves a prize."
While I turn to Ron with a surprised look, I'm more than certain, that I've turned pale.
"Come on." declares Ron with more strength, "I've been observing you looking each other for two years. Stop it. I don't care anymore, really."
I look at Harry worried. 'What if his feelings have changed?' He smiles at me and says, "Thanks Ron, for everything." I feel relieved.
Now there's only one thing that matters. I smile and forget the room is full of Weasleys, to me there's just he and I. I draw closer to him and kneel in the floor by his side. I brush his frozen lips with mine and I feel he's shivering slightly.
"I'm all right," he assures. And he places his palm on my face, touching my cheek with his thumb. He draws me towards him with more strength than I would expect and kisses me.
When we separate I notice my lips are frozen too, and I hear the twins laughing. "Hermione, he's supposed to be cold, that's not helping!"