A/N: Happy happy happy birthday to TMBlue! I hope your day is as fantastic as you are and you get to enjoy many peculiarly-flavored lattes and I do so hope you enjoy this little slice of pitp! 3 you friend xx

The coastal areas that they stumbled upon were the best, in Ron's opinion. Even though the three of them were up north, in the brisk fall air of the Scottish Highlands, the craggy shores reminded him of home, and the air felt cleaner, more rejuvenating somehow. He slept best - better - less miserably, perhaps, was the best way to describe it - in these places, too, so he woke early one morning while Harry and Hermione still slept. Though the locket hung around Harry's neck, which normally meant broken, fitful sleep, he appeared to rest peacefully in his bunk. Over the past six years, Ron had spent more nights sharing a room with him than not, and he considered himself something of an expert in nightmare detection, but all seemed well this morning.

Across the tent, Hermione lay snuggled into her own bed, just her face poking out of the blankets. She always used to share Ginny's room whenever she would stay at the Burrow, so it was only in these recent weeks that Ron had really seen her sleep. He paused in the process of pulling on his shoes and let himself watch her. She was a quiet sleeper, but Ron knew it was not because she was at peace - peace was impossible lately - but because she slept so lightly, constantly on alert for a possible attack. A lock of curly hair had fallen onto her nose, and before Ron could stop himself he swept it away, tucking it behind her ear.

Dragging on a maroon jumper, he stepped outside. He didn't particularly fancy going outside of the protective wards, particularly with an arm that was still half-raw and covered in plasters, but they were going to need to eat eventually. The shores near the tent were fed by a small, crystal-clear stream, and Ron recalled having seen fish bobbing at the surface the night before when they had set up camp; maybe he could stupefy a fish for them to have for breakfast. It might be nice to feel useful, rather than the burdensome lump he had been the past few weeks.

The bed of the creek was covered with dark, smooth stones, and Ron stepped just close enough to the edge that his trainers became instantly soaked. He ignored it: the water was freezing cold, but he could dry off once he caught something.

"Accio fish?" he attempted, aiming his wand at the water.

Nothing happened.

He peered into the water, hoping to see something of value, but mostly saw plants and rocks and a couple of little tadpoles that wouldn't have been worth the effort of capturing them. But he watched, as patiently as he could, hoping for once to relieve Hermione of the responsibility of feeding them.

It took a while, the sun growing bold and yellow in the sky, but he finally saw it - a salmon, or a trout, or something of the like - something big enough to provide nourishment. Holding his breath, he weighed his options. If he tried to stupefy it, and missed, he would scare it off. Maybe he could levitate it out of the water? Would a levitation charm even work through water?

"Wingardium Leviosa," he muttered, waving his wand the way Hermione had taught him all those years ago. It didn't work, and in the next split second, the fish had gone. "Fuck."

"Ron!" called a voice behind him, and he turned to to see Hermione approaching in a dark blue jumper and jeans, her hair pulled back in a thick plait. "What are you doing out here?"

"Trying to be a productive member of society," he quipped, only to be met with confusion. "I thought I might catch a fish for us."

The corners of her mouth just barely tilted up. "I see. Well, we'd need to go further from the shore to find anything."

"Yeah, so I'm learning." He offered her a gentle smile. "You're up early."

"So are you," she fired back. "You can't just leave the tent like that without telling anyone, I nearly had a heart attack when I woke up and you weren't there."

"Oh - I-" It hadn't occurred to him that she might look for him upon waking, but the thought made a sensation of warmth flood slowly through his chest. "I didn't mean to worry you - I won't do it again."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

For a moment they stood together, grinning at each other, and then Ron turned back toward the water, which seemed sadly devoid of fish.

"Well," he said, "I don't reckon you want to eat seaweed."

"No, not today," she replied.

Today. What was today? Ron began counting the days since their narrow escape from the Ministry, but the immediate aftermath of his Splinching had bled the days and nights together.

"Is today your birthday?" he asked, horrified at his own ignorance. "I've lost track of the days a bit, is it really?"

"Yes," she confirms with a little nod. "I'm eighteen."

"Well, shit, I-" Dammit. He was quite sure she'd never forgotten his birthday. "I'm sorry I forgot - not that I'd ever forget - I mean, I just didn't realize the date today."

"Don't be sorry," she shrugged it off. "I almost didn't realize it myself."

"C'mere," he said, holding his arms out to her.

She stepped shyly toward him and wrapped her arms around his torso, fingertips digging into his back. Hugging her shoulders, Ron did his best not to bury his face in her hair, badly as he wanted to - surely that would have been crossing some sort of unspoken boundary between them - and slowly started counting to five. It was the most contact he'd had with her in weeks, her tending to his Splinching wound notwithstanding, and he wanted to make the most of it.

He made it to three and a half in his count when she pulled away.

"Happy birthday, Hermione."

"Thank you."

She looked down at the pebbled beach and kicked a stray rock into the ebbing waves. Ron almost remarked that disturbing the water was no way to attract fish, but they were both in rare good moods and he didn't dare jeopardize it. Instead, he bent and picked up a stone, tossing it into the water. It skipped across the surface six times before sinking below.

"Wow." Hermione looked genuinely impressed. "I didn't know you could do that."

"Yeah, it's one of my more useless skills," laughed Ron, though pride swelled within him. "Charlie taught me when I was… eight, maybe? It's not that hard once you've got the hang of it. I'll show you."

Ron knew better than to think that Hermione Granger, of all people, was actually interested in learning how to skip rocks, but he really didn't want to go back to the tent yet, so he crouched down to search for a suitable stone. To his delight, she dropped down to join him as he sought out a disc-like rock.

"Alright, here's a good one," he began as he stood and handed her the rock. She gripped it in her small fingers the way one would a frisbee. "Don't hold too tight."

"Okay."

He moved to stand behind her, placing a hand on the curve of her hip. As he took her wrist in his hand, he bent his knees, and her body fit perfectly into the curve of his. The scent of her hair flooded his nose, tickling his chin, and he scrambled in his clouded mind to recall what it was they were doing in the first place.

"Right." He cleared his throat. With her hair pulled back, the elegant arch of her neck was exposed, and Ron let himself briefly entertain the fantasy of touching his mouth to the soft, silken skin. He couldn't - he knew he couldn't, not here, not now - but he couldn't stop his imagination running rampant. "The trick is to not think about it too much, just bring your arm back..." He guided her arm out to the side. "And then-"

He gently swung her arm, watching as the rock released from her hand and skipped three times. Ron gave a little nod of satisfaction; for having used someone else's arm, he hadn't done terribly.

Hermione smiled, a trace of mischief on her lips, and knelt down to fetch her own rock.

"So, don't think about it too much, you said?"

She flung the stone toward the open water with reckless abandon, where it plunked heavily below the surface.

"Yeah, perfect," Ron quipped, the grin on his face stretching his cheeks to capacity. He couldn't remember the last time he smiled this much, and it felt good, really achingly good. "You're a natural."

"Oh, stop." She swatted his chest with a playful hand. "Show me how, then."

She was doing it on purpose, then. She wanted his attention, wanted his touch, wanted him near. If he had known she found rock-skipping so charming, he would have been taking her down to the black lake every day at Hogwarts to show off. They were scaring off any fish that might have come close to the shore, but he would have gladly gone hungry in exchange for this moment with her.

The sun crept slowly higher in the sky - Harry would be waking soon - but he wanted to shine the morning on as long as he could, wanted it frozen in amber, this idyllic respite from the relentless doom that had been hanging over them. It was so simple - just tossing rocks into the ocean, laughing and teasing along the way - but maybe that was why it felt so perfect. No pretenses, no obstacles, no drama. Just them.

"It's really beautiful here," said Hermione, casually lobbing a round grey stone into the water and staring up at the dark mountains before them. "Reminds me of Hogwarts."

"Do you miss it? Hogwarts?"

"A bit," she said quietly, plucking another rock from the small pool at her feet and tossing it from hand to hand.

"More than a bit, I reckon."

"Fine, I do miss it." She looked up at him, her brown eyes fixed upon his. "I like school, I'm good at school. I know what I'm doing there. Here, I - I have no clue what to do. I feel like we're lost."

"I know," said Ron. "I know, I feel like there's got to be something else to go off of - y'know, to build some kind of strategy."

"You would say that," said Hermione, and Ron detected fondness in her voice. "But I suppose you're right."

"Yeah. Maybe."

Hermione studied the stone in her palm, turning it over and over as though she might find some sort of answer beneath it, and Ron contented himself once again with watching her. It was one of his simple little pleasures, and had been for years, but the oppressive tension of the tent did not lend itself to much more than bickering and angry silences.

"You miss it too, don't you?" asked Hermione, looking hopefully up at him.

"What, Hogwarts?" He shrugged a shoulder. "Some things about it, yeah."

"Like the Great Hall?"

Ron affected offense. "You're saying you wouldn't want one of those big huge feasts all to ourselves?"

"No, I would," she admitted. "But that can't be all."

"It's not."

Ron spotted another oblong, flat stone on the ground near his feet and picked it up, avoiding Hermione's intent gaze. He had never been the most enthusiastic of students, had never cared much for things like essays and pop quizzes, but Hogwarts had represented a sort of inherent safety, the watchful eye of Dumbledore always there to protect them. There had always been something - Philosopher's Stones and basilisks and disguised Death Eaters - but it had also been a place where he could sit on the common room sofa and eat Chocolate Frogs and pester Hermione while she studied. It had been a place where, for the shortest blip in time, his biggest worry had been whether he would make the Quidditch team.

"It's not the place we left, though," he added, tossing the rock across the water so that it skipped five times before sinking. "Not with Snape in charge."

"I hate to think of Hogwarts like that," said Hermione, "but - but I suppose that's why we're doing all this, right?"

"Yeah." He heaved a sigh. "Sorry, this is a bit of a downer for your birthday, innit?"

"You know I've never really cared about my birthday."

And in all the years he had known her, she had never made a fuss over it, but looking back he thought he should have made more of a fuss over her. Maybe if he had been a bit more obvious, rather than allowing his self-doubt to paralyze him, he wouldn't be in this weird sort of purgatory with her. Maybe he'd have actually made something happen by now, rather than settling for stone-skipping lessons.

"Well - I care about it," he stated. "We should do something. Maybe I'll Apparate to a Muggle supermarket, steal you a cake-"

"You will not," she declared firmly. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Probably," he replied. "C'mon, what flavor do you want? Chocolate? Strawberry? Not vanilla-"

"Ron-"

"Or would you rather have something else? Pie, or - or treacle tart, or something?"

"You are not Apparating anywhere," she told him in the sort of voice she used to use as a prefect. "Just pretend that it's not my birthday, honestly, it's fine."

"It's not fine."

"Why not?"

"Well, because…" Shit. She was going to get him to say the kinds of things he really felt he shouldn't, not here, not with the Horcrux and Voldemort looming over them. "Because you should be - y'know, celebrated, and all of that. You deserve it."

"It's not worth risking your life-"

"Yes, you are," he blurted out in the millisecond before his ears turned crimson. Shit. Shit shit shit. "I mean, it is. It is worth it."

Apparently it was Hermione's turn to go pink in the face, her lower lip slipping briefly between her teeth. She had to stop doing that, it was driving him wild - he very much wanted to replace her teeth with his own - but he immediately snapped himself out of that little reverie.

"I just don't need anything special," she said, regaining her bearings. "It's just been nice to be out here with you - I needed a break from reading about dark magic all the time."

"I aim to please," he grinned at her, delighting in the laughter that spilled out of her. He could easily admit he used humor as a defense mechanism, but if it got her to smile, he'd make stupid jokes all day.

"No, really, thank you," she said sincerely. "I don't remember the last time we just had fun like this, it was really - really nice."

Well - he had already said plenty of things he reckoned he shouldn't. In for a Knut, in for a Galleon, right? "Anything for you."

She stepped forward then and hugged him tightly around the middle, her face pressed into the hollow of his chest. His breath caught, and then he was hugging her back. He rested his cheek atop her hair, savoring the tickle on his skin from the flyaway strands that she could never quite tame. All he wanted was to kiss her, to brush her hair out of her face and press his lips to hers, but then what? They would just go back to the tent with Harry and that little slice of Voldemort's soul? There was too much on the line now and he couldn't risk it, not now, not when she felt so warm and safe in his arms.

And if this was the best he got, it wasn't so bad.

"Ron?" called a loud, male voice. It was Harry; over Hermione's shoulder, Ron could see him standing just outside the tent. "Hermione?"

She jumped back from him, startled. "We should go back, shouldn't we?"

"Yeah," he said with dismay. "Yeah, reckon we'd better."

With a little tug on the sleeve of his jumper, she led the way back to the tent.