Displacement

you got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
know when to walk away and know when to run

~*~*~

He was going to tell her.

He didn't know precisely what he was going to tell her, but he knew he had to say something. Anything to help him make sense of the way he felt whenever he was around her. She'd probably be angry with him for springing it on her, or maybe, he added silently, hopefully, his heart suddenly twitching nervously - she'd be angry that he'd waited so long.

She was here now, sitting in the living room of Grimmauld Place, talking with Harry and Fred and George. He'd said a quick hello when she'd arrived, then ducked to the kitchen on the pretext of getting a drink. That had been fifteen minutes ago, and he knew he couldn't hide in the kitchen any longer. If he was going to do this, he had to do it now. Gotta put my cards on the table, he told himself, then grinned. Seamus had taught him that saying last week while playing Muggle poker at The Lion's Head, but Ron hadn't thought he'd be using it again quite so soon, particularly in such a nerve-wracking context.

He hesitated in the hallway, then took a deep breath. He had already died a thousand cowards' deaths on the walk from the kitchen to the living room, but he couldn't turn back now. If he didn't say something to her soon, if he just kept pretending that his stomach didn't tie itself in knots every time he saw her, one day it would be too late.

He saw them as soon as he entered the living room. They were sitting on the couch in front of the fire, their heads close together, talking quietly. It was nothing he hadn't seen dozens of times over the last few years. Nothing out of the ordinary. They weren't holding hands - they weren't touching at all - and although they seemed totally unaware of his presence, they weren't doing anything they wouldn't normally do in front of him. But something - he didn't know what - made him hesitate. Maybe it was because everyone else seemed to have vanished, as though wanting to give them privacy, but he didn't think so.

As he watched, dimly aware that a distinct chill had settled in the pit of his stomach, Hermione put her hand on Harry's shoulder. In a heartbeat, Harry had covered her hand with his own and squeezed it tightly, closing his eyes as though trying to draw strength or comfort - perhaps both - from her touch.

The chill in Ron's stomach suddenly became another ten degrees colder, and it wasn't because Harry was clutching at her hand as though it was a lifeline. No, it was the way Hermione was looking at him. She was looking at him as though nothing and no one else existed, her face aglow, as though something - or someone - had lit a candle inside her.

Ron swallowed hard, but it didn't dislodge the sudden lump in his throat. He knew that look, he realised. He'd seen it on her face once before. A long time ago - a lifetime ago - but it hadn't clicked in his head until this moment exactly what it had meant. He closed his own eyes as a memory from his first train ride to Hogwarts rolled over him with the indiscriminate brutality of a tidal wave.

“I'm Ron Weasley.”

“Harry Potter.”

Completely ignoring Ron, the girl - Hermione was her name, she'd said - gazed at the boy sitting beside him with something approaching rapture, her eyes wide. “Are you really?” she asked breathlessly, her face aglow with excitement. “I know all about you, of course.”

Putting one hand on the door frame to steady himself, Ron opened his eyes and turned away, too numb for the moment to feel anything more than a vague sense of displacement. He'd been right about one thing today, at least. It was too late.

Then again, he realised dully, maybe it always had been.

~*~*~

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