So, this is a follow up to this drabble - the lovely @aloemilk inspired this one (and by inspired, I mean that she gave me the idea, she was like “what if after that, x happened?” and I was like “omg yes!” and then the below happened). Hope everybody likes it! 💕
Hopefully, Hermione thought, it wasn’t too embarrassingly obvious that she’d all but moved into the hospital wing, but what else was she meant to do? Ron had nearly died, would have done if not for Harry’s quick thinking, and her last words to him would have been unnecessarily cruel. And even though he was, by all accounts, going to be completely fine, that knowledge had lodged a very stubborn pit in her stomach, an awful, gnawing sort of guilt that she didn’t think would ever really fade.
And so there she sat in the chair beside his bed, with an enormous stack of textbooks next to her to give the illusion that she was treating the hospital wing as though it were no different than the library. As though she hadn’t come there for the express purpose of watching him lie there and idly flip through Harry’s copy of Which Broomstick. As Harry was holding an emergency Quidditch practice, they were alone, the rustling of pages filling a remarkably comfortable silence between them. In the blink of an eye - in the time it took to shove a bezoar into someone’s mouth - they had dropped whatever animosity lingered between them. Ron had forgiven her for the canaries and for holding a grudge for months and they were friends again, just like that. Hermione almost didn’t want to disturb it.
“You like studying in here, huh?” Ron remarked, setting his book down on his blanket-covered legs.
“It makes for a nice change of scenery,” Hermione replied, opting not to clarify that for her, he basically was the scenery. Not when he still technically had a girlfriend.
“Well, thanks for keeping me company, anyway. It’s boring as hell in here.”
“You must have homework of your own to do,” she found herself saying. Evidently it was rather easy to slip back into her old habit of pestering him about his studies. “Don’t you need to do that Potions essay? I’ll help you now with it, if you want.”
“Oh.” Ron’s lips twitched briefly. “I kind of reckoned being poisoned would get me out of doing homework for a couple days, but - yeah, I finished that already.”
Hermione paused, the pieces falling into place in her forever-racing mind. “You did?”
Two days ago he had stood before her, requesting just a tiny bit of her time, but when she had looked at him all she was able to see was the memory of his mouth glued to Lavender’s and so it was too painful to be around him. But actually, if she was honest with herself, she did miss their little study sessions. She had always been glad for an excuse to smell his hair and sit close to him, glad for an excuse to stay up late in the common room…
Had it been the same for him?
“Yeah, it wasn’t that bad,” said Ron, still shockingly nonchalant about the whole thing, shooting her a smile. “I just sort of thought it might get you to talk to me again. Of course, it didn’t work,” he chuckled as he picked up Which Broomstick again.
“I’d have thought it was obvious how to get me to talk to you again,” Hermione said, biting her lip to keep herself from saying anything more.
“Yeah, get poisoned,” he grinned, holding his book up as a shield as she moved to swat him on the arm.
“You have to admit, it was effective,” he continued, biting back laughter as she glowered at him.
“It really isn’t funny,” she snapped, the force of her words startling him into seriousness. “You don’t know how scary it was, I thought you were going to die thinking that I hated you and I don’t, I - I was just really scared, okay?”
“All right, all right, sorry,” said Ron defensively, holding up his hands.
“And that’s not actually what I meant,” she added. Immediately she cast her eyes down to the textbook on her lap, scared to look at him, scared to see if he’d picked up on the implication.
“Oh.” A silence, punctuated by the sound of Ron nervously clearing his throat, fell between them, and then he spoke. “I really am, you know. Sorry.”
“I am too,” Hermione whispered.
Looking mildly dazed, Ron let a forceful breath out through his lips and mustered up a smile. “So what’re the chances McGonagall lets me out of that Transfiguration essay for tomorrow?”
“You haven’t started that yet?” Hermione exclaimed. “For heaven’s sake, Ron. Come here.”
Taking a sheet of parchment and a quill from her stash, Hermione inched her chair up against the side of his bed. She leaned toward him, watching as he dutifully inked the title of the essay onto the page.
“So, there are five exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration,” Hermione began. “The first one is-” She froze, noticing him smiling at her in a way he hadn’t done in months. “What?”
“Nothing, nothing at all.” He poked her leg through her robes. “Keep talking.”
you can find more four word prompts here!
