Ron

The entire time he'd been gone, it'd been simple.

Get back to them.

Get back to Harry.

At least, that was most of it.

There was also the burning ache of being away from her.

And there was guilt.

So, it had been simple.

Relatively.

The sound of the rain gently pattering on the tent, the way the air felt musty and damp despite the warming charms, the prickle of wool against his neck, the grey darkness, the feeling of being trapped… it was all like coming home to hell. Familiar, but awful.

She hated him.

And fair enough.

Although not fair enough! Storming off was always the default, it was just that this time he'd got stuck. How dare she blame him for that!

But it was his fault, though, really. Shouldn't've let Harry get to him.

It had always been the two of them, looking after Harry.

Evenings in the common room, by the fire, talking it over in low undertones, that look of determination when they'd worked out a new approach… getting off-topic, making her laugh…

Ron curled his toes into the end of the too-short blanket and tried to stretch it out diagonally to cover as much of him as possible.

The icy glares had left him feeling chilled to the bone. Practically snap frozen.

He should sleep.

Or at least, pretend to be asleep when she came out of the bathroom. Save her the trouble of demonstrating exactly how studiously she was ignoring him.

The insane giddy part of him was still excited to be alone with her.

At least she was still alive.

That was something.

He could hear her, in the bathroom. Brushing her teeth, the muggle way.

The searing pain of loss hit him hard, out of the blue, and he gasped.

He'd lost her.

He held his breath for a moment and focussed on the truth.

She is alive. She's still alive.

Wandlight faded in from the bathroom, and he closed his eyes, trying to breathe slowly, give the illusion that he was drifting off.

His ears strained to take in every detail, every rustle and scuff, every clue.

Brisk, sharp movements. Precise. She was stacking books by her camp bed, straightening the covers, deciding it wasn't good enough and remaking the bed from scratch. She flumped up the pillow, and he could hear her breath catch… more secret crying.

He hated that most of all.

Scraping, as she lined up her shoes. Creaking as she climbed into bed. The quiet sound of her hair being flopped out of the way.

Silence.

At Bill's, he'd thought he'd be able to sleep easy, if only she was in the same room again.

Now he couldn't shake the feeling that he might never sleep easy again…

The rain. The stifled sounds of her tears. The emptiness as they slowed and stopped. The absence of sound from her. No rustling bedclothes, no sighs or snores or yawns… and if she was breathing, the constant patter on the canvas was covering it.

He could picture her. Huddled under the blankets, curled around the pillow, hair splayed out in a wild tangle.

Sometimes when she slept she looked peaceful.

Mostly though, there was a line of worry, and the small fretful movements of nightmares.

He tried to pretend it would get easier.

Told himself that he could love her for all that she was, and all that she could be, and that that was enough. That to know her was enough.

Then he told himself firmly that he was only allowed to think about quidditch, active immediately, or he'd end up sobbing into his pillow and make things awkward.

The flump of bedclothes being thrown off caught his attention.

It was too dark for her to know he was watching now.

She paused, pulled the bedclothes brutally into place again, and turned.

He froze.

She walked over to his bed, and stood there, gazing down at him in the dark. She must've been, anyway, he could barely see more of her than the dark shape of her, dappled with patches of grey light leaked in from outside.

"Hermione?"

"Shut up," she hissed, reaching for the edge of his blanket and pulling it off his shoulder.

"What are you-"

"I said shut up." She had a hand on the bed now, and a knee…

She was climbing in beside him.

"Herm-"

"I'm not talking to you, so shut up."

Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Ron shifted as far over as he could to make room.

She pulled the blanket up, flung her hair back, pulled his arm unceremoniously out of the way, and put her cheek on his chest. He got a nose full of hair, and instinctively pushed it out of the way. She shifted in closer, draped one arm across him possessively, and gave a shaky sigh.

Ron found he was hugging her and stroking her hair.

He didn't particularly like sleeping on his back, but this was something he was sure he could get used to.

"I'm really sor-"

"Do you want me to leave?"

"Uh… no…"

"Then shut up and go to sleep."

She was warm, and solid, and alive, and breathing, and as he stroked her hair and inhaled the particular smell of her, the one that made his heart race, hope started to surge in his chest. Optimism, and desperate need for things to be back to normal… back to normal but better…

With his heartbeat loud in his head, and his senses fuddled, and that overwhelming hope, it took a while before he realised. Dampness had leached through his jumper, the dampness of tears.

She wasn't sobbing. Just silent tears, slowly soaking through the fabric.

Somehow it was worse.

He didn't have the words to explain why it was worse, it just was.

That she should be so angry with him, and that she should climb into bed beside him and weep…

This was a new kind of torture.

He held her close and stared into the grey night.

By the time he woke to take the next shift, she was gone. Back in her own bed.

If it weren't for the damp patch on the front of his jumper, he would've thought he'd dreamt it.

He didn't mention it to Harry. He had the sense she wouldn't want him to.

It was one of those things they shared, just the two of them.

Hermione

She couldn't talk to him.

He spent so much time moping about looking hopeful it actually made it worse.

But he was alive.

After a month of crying herself to sleep, clinging to the fantasy of him, she'd had enough.

Figured the important thing was to survive.

To survive, she needed to sleep.

It was a pragmatic solution, really.

Because she couldn't forgive him. Not yet.

Not for storming off, that was irrelevant.

The discovery that he could be lost, perhaps forever, had done something to her, ripped her apart, broken something.

That was very hard to forgive.

She couldn't speak to him.

But at least this way, she could sleep, and hopefully, he would understand.

She couldn't forgive him.

Not yet.