Disclaimer: All things HP belong to JKR; no money is being made, etc.
Author's Note: First posted at the fanfict00bs LJ community.
A 3-part fic dealing mostly with Ron's and then Ginny's take on H/Hr.
Settled With a Hug
Part 1: Friends
Oh God, oh God, oh God…
Hermione paced rapidly back and forth in the safe-house which they were using as their base for the next few days. 10 steps one way, 14 steps another way, swerve around the table, another 7 steps…
She glanced at her watch and felt tears threaten to spill. They'd been gone for more than 4 hours now…
She couldn't decide if she was more angry or more worried-on second thought, as long as Harry-and Ron-came back safely, she decided she'd never blame them for leaving again.
She'd woken up from uneasy sleep and come out of the one small bedroom in the house which Harry and Ron had tacitly given to her, to find them both gone with just a brief note.
Wait here. ~H.
Oh if anything happened to either of them, she would-she would… She didn't know what she would do… She'd never forgive Harry for haring off like this, for just leaving her like this. Knowing him, he must have just seen or thought of something and gone off directly, never stopping to think of anything else. And he'd probably known it would be dangerous and chosen not to take her. She was going to kill him for this…
How dare he just leave her like this, as if he didn't know she would go crazy waiting and unable to follow them because she hadn't an earthly idea where they could have gone…
The next minute she stopped short, her heart stopping as she heard a sound just outside the door-and then the door opened and Ron stepped in, followed by Harry who half-stepped, half-staggered inside.
She barely saw Ron other than to note that he was apparently fine; her attention was fixed on Harry and the bruises she could see on his face, the crack in his glasses… And she was across the room in the space of a second to throw herself at Harry, hugging him hard, burying her face in his shoulder.
All the anxiety and worry and fear she'd felt in the past hours caught up with her and she found herself half-crying as she clung to him, her words spilling out of her and getting half-muffled by his scarf. "Oh, Harry! Thank God you're safe. You prat-I could kill you for taking off like you did; whatever made you do it-I nearly died when I found you were gone and- and- oh God, Harry, I'm so glad you're okay."
She was vaguely aware that his arms had gone around her, were holding her while rubbing her back in a calming motion. "Hermione! I'm fine. Calm down, ok? I'm fine, honestly I am…"
And it was the note of surprised dismay in his tone that finally woke her up to the fact that she had lost control of herself so completely in a way that, at any other time, she would have been ashamed of herself for.
She drew back to study his face, frowning as she saw the bruises and the way his glasses were broken.
The sight snapped her out of her overwhelming relief and she drew back, leading him to the chair, fixing his glasses with a wave of her wand and making the bruises on his face disappear with a Healing Charm.
Ron watched Hermione as she took care of Harry, noting the fleeting look of resignation as Harry shut his mouth and didn't tell Hermione that he was really fine. And he realized to the full what he'd only just begun to suspect: Hermione and Harry weren't just friends. Something had changed, shifted, somehow, in their relationship-whether they had admitted it to themselves or not.
The way Hermione had thrown herself at Harry and clung to him a moment ago had been ample proof of that-as well as the fact that Harry had hugged her back and even, unconsciously Ron rather suspected, brushed his lips against her hair.
Any uncertainty about her feelings had been settled with that hug.
Now, he watched as Harry calmed Hermione down with just a hand on her arm and nodded to himself.
Yes, he still felt some regret that he and Hermione couldn't be together but he knew that it was better this way. Harry and Hermione simply belonged together in a way that he and Hermione never had. And they were still the Trio; that hadn't really changed. So he smiled and said teasingly, "Hermione, he's fine. Stop fussing over him like a mother hen. And since you obviously don't even care that I had to face those Death Eaters too, I'll just go nurse my injuries alone."
Hermione frowned at him. "Your injuries? Where are you hurt?"
Ron made a show of stretching his hand out. "I think I gripped my wand so tight that I'll never be able to fully uncurl my fingers again without pain."
Hermione and Harry both laughed as Harry caught one of Hermione's hands in his, squeezing it lightly.
"I'm sorry you worried," he said simply.
She smiled, belying the severity of her words. "If you ever take off like that again, I'll make sure you live to regret it."
She paused and then asked, more soberly, "Where did you go?"
"An owl arrived from Remus saying he may have found one of the horcruxes," Harry explained briefly. He had finally given in about a month back and told both Remus and Professor McGonagall about the horcruxes, because he knew he couldn't get far without their help, although he'd made both of them promise absolute secrecy. "We apparated to meet him in Hogsmeade and had just made it to the location, a deserted house in a small village in the north of England, when four Death Eaters came out from a Muggle house where they'd killed the inhabitants. It was bad luck-but thankfully since they weren't expecting us either, we managed to put them out of commission without suffering too much. I hit one with a Full Body Bind immediately except I was hit almost by a fluke when the Slicing Curse which another one fired at me hit a tree branch instead and the tree branch somehow knocked me down which is when my glasses broke. Remus got him and another one. The last of them managed to hit Ron with the Leg-locker Curse and was going to do more but I finally managed to grab my wand again and stunned him."
Ron made a wry face. "And for all that, there was no horcrux in the deserted house. It was empty except for one souvenir left behind from when Voldemort used it, one of Nagini's old skins."
Harry sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly, and this time it was Hermione's turn to give his hand a comforting squeeze. "You'll find them all, don't worry. It's only been three months, Harry, and we've already found two of them."
Harry gave her a rather wan, grateful smile.
Ron only watched, struck again with the way Harry and Hermione seemed to communicate so much without words. He had noticed it over the years and the connection between them had only grown in these past few months, just as the three of them had all grown closer. If knocking out a ten-foot mountain troll was something that three people couldn't go through together without becoming friends, then searching intensely for horcruxes while fighting a defensive war was one that would deepen any friendship-and so it had. And for Harry and Hermione, the friendship had strengthened into something more than only friendship-almost inevitably, Ron couldn't help but think. It was bound to have happened with the three of them spending so much time together. He and Hermione still bickered, arguments that had only hurt more as they tried to be together before they'd finally agreed that it couldn't work-and increasingly, Harry turned to Hermione for help because he needed her strength and her cleverness. He needed her and she never let him down.
It was, Ron thought as he watched Harry and Hermione, what had simply been meant to be.