A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Maddie (overstreets). Keep smiling, darling. :)

Unable to find the one person he really wanted to be with, Ron gave up and slumped into an armchair. He felt like he was invisible as the rest of Gryffindor house, old and new, made its way up to bed and left Ron by himself. He relished the silence; that, more than anything else, reminded him that the war was really over.

"Ron, mate, are you okay?" came Harry's concerned voice from afar.

Ron's eyes were brought back into focus as he saw that Harry and Ginny had entered the common room, which was now deserted other than them. They were holding hands, he noticed, and he surprised himself as his face instinctively relaxed into a smile. Despite his overprotective older-brotherly feelings, it made sense for him to be happy for them. He had never seen his sister, or his best friend, happier than they had been in those couple of months at the end of their sixth year. They deserved to be happy again, after all that both of them had been through.

"I'm fine," Ron assured him, realising that he had been staring blankly into space as the common room had emptied around him. "Just... thinking." There was a pause. Ron felt slightly guilty that Harry was worrying about him; Harry, of all people, deserved the chance to relax now. "Have either of you seen Hermione?" Ron asked hopefully.

Harry shook his head, and Ginny said, yawning, "I think she went up to bed a while ago. Which is where I really need to be now. See you in the morning," she said, kissing Harry quickly (despite giving them his blessing, Ron still had to look away for that), waving to Ron and heading up the staircase to the girls' dormitories.

Harry stood in front of the entrance to the boys' staircase, fiddling with his hands awkwardly. He seemed to be waiting for Ron to pass judgement.

Ron sighed. "You won't mess her around again?" he asked. "None of this protecting crap again? Because she can look after herself. She's tougher than she looks. But that doesn't mean you can mess with her feelings."

"No," said Harry firmly. "I love her, Ron, and you know I could never break her heart like that again."

"Good," Ron said. "Then I'm happy for you, mate." Harry grinned at him. "So how does it feel, being free of all this?" Ron asked, grinning back himself.

"Amazing," said Harry, sounding dazed. He yawned. "And... exhausting," he admitted. "I'm going to bed. You coming?"

Ron shook his head. "I'll stay down here for a bit," he told him. Harry nodded, yawned again and went upstairs to bed, leaving Ron to work out his own feelings.

The night after the Battle was just a blur of feelings for Ron. There was so much happiness and sadness all at once, and he didn't know which was supposed to dominate. Insomnia ruling him again, he didn't even bother to go up to the boys' dormitory (where the combatants were temporarily staying), and had just stayed downstairs in the common room, wondering how all those emotions were supposed to fit together in his head.

He needn't have worried; soon, the very person he needed to puzzle his feelings out with emerged from the spiral staircase leading up to the girls' dormitories.

"Can't sleep either?" Ron asked.

"No," Hermione told him, sighing, the worry lines that had become a permanent feature of her face over the past year still ever present. "I just… I can't believe it's all over," she said weakly.

"I know," Ron sighed as Hermione took a seat by his side and he wrapped an arm around her body. "But it is, Hermione, it is, and you don't need to be the responsible one anymore. We don't need to keep looking behind our backs for… Voldemort." It was the first time he'd said the name. It still felt so odd. But he supposed there was no reason to be afraid of it any more, and Hermione had always been telling him how stupid it was, anyway. "Everything's okay now." He wished he believed that.

Hermione settled down and rested her head on his shoulder. "I wish it was that simple," she said quietly. "There's so much to sort out before we can move on. The Ministry's a mess, the castle's in ruins, and so many people are… Fred is…"

Ron's heart almost stopped. There was just so much to cram in; his brother hadn't been taking up nearly as much of his thoughts as he should have been. His parents would soon have to bury the body of their child. He now had four brothers, not five. How would George cope without his twin?

He glanced down at Hermione and saw that a tear was glistening on her cheek. He wiped it off carefully. She looked up at him in surprise; this was very un-Ron-like behaviour. She seemed to like this new, sensitive Ron, he noted proudly.

"Well maybe it isn't okay, yet," he conceded. "But it will be, I promise."

"How do you know?" she whispered, her insecurities surfacing. It wasn't meant to be this way round - Hermione was meant to be the rational, sensible one. She wasn't meant to be the one who needed looking after. But all the responsibility she had over the last year would be enough to crack anyone, and this was her moment of weakness.

But Ron had changed from that adorably ignorant fifteen-year-old who had the emotional range of a teaspoon. He knew how to handle this. "Because I've finally got you," he said simply.

Hermione beamed, and Ron pulled her in nearer and kissed her tenderly as she melted into his arms. It was slow and gentle; it couldn't have been more opposite from the raging passion that they had experienced during the Battle. But it was perfect for the moment, and Hermione visibly relaxed.

"There," he said, after they'd broken apart. "That should have been our first kiss. Years ago." Hermione looked slightly put out by this, so Ron quickly added, "Not that I was disappointed by the one from earlier. It was bloody fantastic," he said, and he meant it. "I just mean… that we should have had many more before then."

Hermione's eyes softened, and there was a moment's silence before Ron allowed the guilt to flood out.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione."

"You don't need to apolo-" she began.

"Yes, I do," he insisted. "I'm sorry for everything I've done over the years that's prevented us from being together. Being sore over Krum... the whole thing with Lavender... just general bickering... and of course leaving you and Harry to find the Horcruxes by yourselves. I'm not trying to excuse what I did, of course I'm not, but I just want you to hear -"

"Ron," Hermione said gently. "Do you really think three in the morning is the appropriate time to be discussing this?"

He sighed. "Maybe not. But I just want to say, really, that I've been a total git these past few years."

"True," Hermione granted. "But I've hardly been innocent in all this. McLaggen, for example? And I was hardly fair to you over poor Lavender," she said guiltily, thinking of the state Lavender was in now. "And... just not speaking up and saying what I feel about you. I could have made the move as easily as you could. Neither of us has handled it particularly well, have we?"

Ron grinned. "We're useless, aren't we?" he said, laughing, unsure why he found it funny. "All this time, and if we'd just said... Hermione, let's promise to be straight with each other, starting from now. Agreed?"

"Agreed," she said, and it was like a great weight was lifted from both of their shoulders. Ron grinned at her, but Hermione's returning smile was tired and he noticed the dark circles under her eyes and the pale and fragile appearance of her face.

"Want to go to bed?" Ron asked her gently, nodding towards the girls' staircase.

Hermione shook her head. "I don't... I don't really want to be on my own," she admitted. "Can we stay down here?"

It broke Ron's heart to see how vulnerable she looked. "Of course we can." She curled up against him, and before he knew it, her breathing slowed and she was fast asleep.

Ron couldn't even think about sleeping, though. Talking with Hermione and getting all that off his chest had reassured him, but there were still so many disjointed thoughts buzzing around in his head, and he couldn't quiet them, even to get some rest for just a couple of hours. Hermione... Voldemort... Harry... Ginny... Fred...

Hermione shifted in her sleep. Her sleeve had rolled up a little. The scar on her forearm glistened in the moonlight; Mudblood. Ron flinched. There was still so much to set straight, but for the moment, Ron decided that his priority was to be there for Hermione, and to make sure that he could never get as close to losing her as he did at Malfoy Manor again.

A/N: Well this is my new big project! I'm very excited about this as I haven't written a multichap in about six months and can't wait to get stuck in! This story will be Romione-focussed, but will also feature the other canon pairings and anyone else I feel like putting together. :) Rating it T just in case as I haven't 100% decided where it's going yet.

And the good news is that this is for the Long Haul Competition on HPFC, which means that you will be getting an update every week! Huge thanks go to my amazing beta, kci47, without whom I definitely would not be able to do this.

Disclaimer: All of this belongs to J K Rowling.