Chapter 1

The soft clap of her boots on the corridor's marble floor echoed off the stone walls, setting a mournful tempo that gradually overtook the muffled murmur of the crowd behind Hermione as she slowly wandered away from the Great Hall and toward … well, she wasn't quite sure where.

The sound of her steps was soothing in its way, the slow rhythm mimicking her own steady heartbeat and distracting her mind from the noise of the battle still ringing in her head. But nothing could quite drive from her mind the memory of Ron's half-swallowed sob as he, Hermione and Harry rejoined the rest of the Weasley family after the battle. Ron had dropped to his knees to cry for Fred, draping his arms across Fred's lifeless chest and sinking his forehead against his dead brother's neck. Threaded with sorrow and desperation, the noise Ron made then was a lower-decibel version of the cries that rung out to Hermione from the basement of Malfoy Manor. She reckoned she would never forget either sound, but forced herself for the present to push both memories down, to catalog them for later review.

Why was she walking the corridors, like a prefect working overtime, when every living creature still left in the castle was either gathered in the Great Hall mourning the dead, scrambling about the infirmary nursing the injured, or otherwise making themselves useful in the kitchens or on one of the randomly formed cleanup squads?

I don't bloody well know, do I, she thought, smiling at the way Ron's habits of speech had so thoroughly become mixed in her own, at least in her head. Thus allowing herself, Ron-style, to do something so purely senseless, she continued walking, figuring she would eventually find whatever it is she was looking for. Perhaps, she thought, she simply needed to do her own mental inventory of the places within the castle that mattered to her most.

She hadn't meant to break away from the group like this — not consciously, anyway. And, of course, she couldn't have walked off even if she'd wanted to earlier. Harry had had things he needed to say and do in the immediate aftermath of the battle, business to settle with Dumbledore regarding the Elder Wand, and he plainly wanted Ron and Hermione by his side when he did it. And then there was Ron. He'd held her hand so tight from the moment Voldemort fell until the moment he knelt beside Fred and finally let himself open up the floodgate of tears for his fallen brother. And even then, when she'd pulled away slightly to give him space and some semblance of privacy to grieve, he'd swung his hand out wildly for her without looking, seeking and then finding her arm, wordlessly pulling her close to him. She had been privately pleased that he'd wanted her at such a moment, then, as she bent and settled her hands on his quaking shoulders to soothe him, she quickly chastised herself for her selfishness. But it couldn't be helped. He needed her — and, at last, he seemed to know it — and her heart thudded a few beats at the realization.

After a few more minutes and a few more absent-minded twists and turns through rubble-strewn corridors and up hidden staircases, she acknowledged to herself where her feet were taking her: to the Library. Her sanctuary. And she supposed that some part of her had craved a look, to do her own private inspection, to be sure the place that meant more to her than perhaps even the Gryffindor Common Room was still intact.

It was, thankfully — and surprisingly. Yes, several rows of bookshelves had been toppled, no doubt by the explosions that took place outside during the final battle. But aside from that and a few broken panes of glass in a window facing the Astronomy Tower, there was remarkably little damage inside Hermione's most prized haven.

She was drawn almost magnetically to the little table by her favorite window in the far corner of the Library. This had been the study spot she always used ever since she realized it afforded a splendid view of the distant quidditch pitch beyond the Great Lawn — not the entire pitch, mind, just the northern goal post, the one that Ron typically manned during practices and games. She touched her finger to one of the diamond-shaped panes of glass, wiping away the layer of dust that had collected there no doubt during the battle and the year of neglect that had preceded it, and squinted to get a better look at the rings just visible over the horizon. She remembered leaning and peering just so, craning her neck to get a good look as the Gryffindor team's brooms bobbed and weaved in the distance. In those awful months when Ron was dating Lavender, the glimpses she caught of him from this vantage point, the flash of his red head just a dot on the horizon, were the only ones she'd get for days or even a week at a stretch — barring classtimes and awkward comings and goings in the Common Room, of course.

She felt a familiar pang in her chest at the memory, a sharp reminder of how much she missed him — and oddly, she missed him even now, though her rational mind knew that was ridiculous. He was just downstairs in the Great Hall, wasn't he. And besides, things were different now. Quite different.

But then … were they?

Turning toward the toppled bookcases behind her, she paused to consider. She extracted her wand from her back pocket — still Bellatrix's, she thought with a grimace — and waved it distractedly, setting the shelves to right and restoring the heaps of books to their proper place with a few efficient flicks and a muttered "Reparo" or two.

Her mind wasn't really on her work, of course. How could it be?

As she mended the remaining bookshelves, she replayed the kiss in her head — the one she'd planted on Ron's lips inside the Room of Requirement. She had most definitely initiated it, but Ron had kissed her back, and with great enthusiasm. So yes, things *were* different now. She'd felt Ron Weasley's lips on hers, had known the feeling of his arms wrapped tightly about her back, pulling her close. They were sensations she'd craved for years and, like most cravings, one taste was hardly enough to satisfy. She longed to touch him, to kiss him again, to find the answer to the question that she couldn't answer alone, that they'd had no time to stop and discuss: Now what?

"I had a feeling I'd find you here," came a voice from the direction of Madame Pince's desk, and Hermione whirled to see who spoke, though of course, she would know that voice anywhere.

"I'm ridiculously predictable, I suppose," Hermione said, tucking the wand back into her pocket.

Ron stayed where he was, across the room from her, maddeningly far away, and looked her over. She knew she was as begrimed and quite possibly as smelly as he was, not having had a chance to freshen up since the battle ended. And then she saw it — the small glimmer of a smile that curled up just one corner of his mouth, despite his reddened eyes and the tracks of tears that cut through the dirt and dried blood on his cheeks.

"You're anything but predictable, Hermione Granger," he said in a tone that one would use when speaking at a much closer distance — say, when holding someone in one's arms, low and intimate. And yet, she heard him perfectly, and couldn't help but smile in return.

oooOOOooo

A/N — Hello, dear readers!

In my first fic, I pictured what would have happened if Ron and Hermione had begun their romantic relationship MUCH sooner than they did in JKR's original story. The result was "All In," roughly 275,000 words of multichaptered madness, which you'll find right here on FFN if you care to look.

In my second fic, "One Punch: A History," I explored what would have happened if Hermione hadn't gotten up the nerve to kiss Ron in the Room of Requirement.

So, I figured it was time to challenge myself to do something canon-compliant. And here it is! Stay tuned for more chapters. In the meantime, please review!

Thanks for reading …

Holly.