Chapter 3

She was scraping mushrooms together again, for soup. It was tiresome, always knowing that there was little she could actually do to cook anything better for them than thin, slimy bits of fungus, soaked in fire-heated water. She'd added a few dandelions this time. Miracle she'd managed to find them at all, given the continuing cold weather. But she had, and it had made her feel some small ounce of relief at being able to offer something that, at the very least, would not taste exactly like yesterday's food... and the day before... and the bloody day before that...

Ron walked up behind her and lightly cleared his throat. She knew he wanted her to turn around, but she would not indulge him. She was busy, after all.

"What, Ron?" she asked, scraping bits of freshly chopped mushrooms into her cupped hands.

"How'd you know it was me?" he asked, sounding far too skeptical. She rolled her eyes, though he could not see her, and she dumped a large handful of mushrooms into a pot of steaming water to her left.

"I always know," she said, simply and cryptically, having no interest in getting off subject. He'd come here for a reason. Let him spit it out, already.

He sniffed lightly before walking closer, almost cautiously. Of course it wasn't as if he'd been playful with her lately. Perhaps he'd tried. But she'd responded much less than enthusiastically. Though she'd let her guard down, she wasn't about to just go back to how things were. Not yet, anyway.

"I found something I thought you could use," he started, and she finally did turn around to face him, to see what he was referring to.

He was holding a small bundle, something wrapped up in what looked like his pillow case.

"What is it?" she asked, softly, as she closely studied him untying the fabric at the top and opening it for her to see.

"Wild asparagus! And there was a patch of clover a few yards outside the perimeter," Ron exclaimed, excitedly. "Mum once told me you could eat those, clover. I'd uh, had a few when I was three or four, and Fred and George tried to convince me I'd die from them, so Mum set them straight..."

Hermione's eyes widened as she looked inside the case, noting Ron's dirty fingernails - he'd been out foraging for her. She knew Harry had been reorganizing their notes and paperwork across the tent, through the kitchen flap. And... so what, then? Ron had done this, alone, all for her?

"Lucky," he went on, "but yeah, it's bound to taste better than just those measly mushrooms and boiled water."

And suddenly, she was no longer softly moving closer towards him, heart melting at his gesture.

She was borderline furious.

She knew, on some level, that it was wrong of her, that her completely out of balance schedule and diet had made her snappy and moody, more so than she would have ever been, even given what he'd done... given that he'd lefther. But she could just as well stop herself now as she could find and kill Voldemort all by herself, this very night.

"Measly?" she gawked, chest heaving as she took a step back from him, watching his smile disintegrate as he stared down at her. "How many times are you going to act like such a prat over what I'm cooking, Ron? ! I spend hours - hours! - trying to find enough dandelions to alter the taste so you won't think it's just the same rubbish we've been having, so you... so you won't leave again!"

His eyes widened significantly and she watched his ears flush lightly as he visibly swallowed. She was hurting him...

"Do you think I enjoy this? Is it all still just a bloody stupid game to you? Oh, we're out here for a laugh, is that it?" Tears welled her eyes as her cheeks burned with rage, increasing as she continued to shout, mounting in a way that she could not suppress. "I can't do any better, Ron! Don't you think I want to be able to? I hate the way you save all of your words to me for these ridiculous, shy little chats, or for complaining that I'm not making you happy!"

Unshed tears had built to an irreversible stage, and her eyes burned as he blurred out of focus through salt water. But she could make out the image of him tossing his pillow case full of plants to the table carelessly, stepping a tiny bit closer.

"Hermione," he said, so soft and scratchy, as if he'd been crying himself, already. "Do you think I really left because of sodding mushrooms and dandelions?"

She shut her eyes from him and allowed her tears to gush free, rolling in hot patterns down her cheeks, off her jaw. She felt his body heat nearly encase her as he stepped a bit closer. She could feel the tension between them, how cautious he was of breaking her.

"I wanted to help you," he said, voice cracking slightly. "I never meant to offend you. I wasn't saying what you do isn't good enough. Of course it is. You're far more clever than I am. I was afraid you'd tell me all of what I brought back wasn't edible for some really complicated and life-threatening reason that I'd overlooked because I never really paid attention in herbology..."

She wiped at her face, eyes still clamped shut. He was being too nice. Fight back, damn it.

"Are you going to look at me, at least? Have a proper row?" he finally said, voice floating towards her from too close now...

She opened her eyes and tried to glare at him, little puffs of unsteady oxygen flowing to and from her lungs too quickly for her to properly take them in. But as she met his eyes, he almost seemed to be literally knocked off balance. His whole face softened before her eyes, and his brow slanted with such sadness.

"I was so effing wrong to go. I'll apologize for my whole life if it means you won't stop letting me come around you," he sighed. "Are you tired of hearing me say it yet?"

She couldn't move, frozen to his words and to her spot here in the middle of the tiny tent kitchen.

"I need to tell you exactly why I left, and I will… Soon. I know you can't understand it really until I do. Even then, it's not ever going to be an excuse," he explained. "I know that. But I never want to hurt you again. I would never have left you if I'd been in my right mind, if I really thought you would care. I don't think that way, at least not anymore. You've got to know that. I'm not Draco bleeding Malfoy..."

She held her breath as she imagined all of the things that were too difficult for him to say, the things he'd held back from her. And what did Harry know that she hadn't yet been told? She'd suspected more had happened there, at Ron's return. She'd suspected that while the locket had something to do with his departure, that some other, much deeper running thread of year after year after year had built to a breaking point, sent him flying away from her with no clear logic or reason.

But he'd had a reason, hadn't he?

"What's happening to us?" she nearly whispered. "Everything's so difficult between us." And he licked his chapped lips before jerking his eyes away from hers and blinking too rapidly.

"Do you want me to leave you alone?" he asked, breathing shortly through his mouth and staring off at something to his left as he waited, so impatiently, for her reply.

"Am I supposed to?"

"You're supposed to want whatever you want," he said, and she might have laughed if she hadn't been falling apart.

He wanted to be good for her. And how had she not noticed before how insufficient he had seemed to be in his own eyes? She'd cast everything he'd done in a negative light, a place from which he had never come in the first place. He was here only to show her he cared.

"I'm not going to say everything that I want to say," she sniffed, and she could feel bits of ice chipping away from her heart as he visibly trembled. "I'll wait, until you've told me the truth, the rest of why you left. But Ron..." and her tears re-doubled at the sound of her voice and his name, mingling together, "I cared so much. I missed you more than I could ever explain. Every day, I begged for you to come back, even though I never said your name. Even though you couldn't have heard me."

"Maybe I could have," he interjected, shoving his hands into his pockets again, a gesture she now recognized as not only something to avoid the cold but a sign of shyness and awkwardness over this new territory. "Heard you when you did say my name at last, didn't I."

Her lips quivered. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his discarded pillow case full of unwashed plants, hastily picked just for her. He removed his left hand from his pocket, scratching the back of his neck for something to do. And she couldn't take it any longer.

In one swift movement, she burrowed into him, hugging him tightly under his arm, wrapping her own arms around his waist as he gasped and tensed at her touch. She pressed her chest to his warmth, just beside his furiously beating heart.

And, at last, he relaxed, all through his body, as he dropped his left arm around her, suddenly clinging to her with a relieved sort of intensity. And she closed her eyes as his other arm learned what to do, wrapping solidly around her and holding her against his chest as tightly as he could without squeezing her breath away. She cried out her own relieved sob, closing her eyes and sucking in such a deep, refreshing breath of him. She felt his head duck over her own, and then, his nose was buried in the top of her hair, and she was sure she could feel his own tears wetting their way through her thick curls.

Things couldbe easier. Couldn't they?

He felt strong and alive and warm and perfect. And she fit so wonderfully against him. She'd wanted his touch, craved it more than oxygen. Why could she not have this, just this, in the midst of so much chaos and fear and uncertainty?

He was showing her that she could. If only she'd let him.

When finally she pulled back from him, her arms were stiff from being positioned for such a prolonged moment around him. And he seemed much the same, muscles locked from holding her so tightly. He was smiling as she looked up at him, eyes drooping as if drugged. He breathed deeply, and she brushed her hair away from her face, only mildly embarrassed for him to see her skin surely so blotchy and reddened with crying over something that now seem quite trivial.

Cynically, she knew he'd seen her at her worst, and that this was most definitely not her worst. But optimistically, he didn't seem to give a damn. In fact, he almost seemed glad to be there with her through her worst, if that made any sense at all…

As a piece of her hair fell away from her ear again, he reached up to fix it, staring intently at it as his neck moved with a small, nervous swallow. She felt her heart stop and soar away from her as his fingertips brushed her jaw before he dropped his arm to his side again.

They stared into each other's eyes. She couldn't break away from him. She felt that nothing in the world could ever-

The rustling sounds of Harry working across the tent sent a spark of logic back in her direction. The mushrooms were soaking themselves to pieces behind her, and they had too much work left to do.

"Ron, thank you," she whispered, as he rubbed at the side of his face, across several days worth of stubble. "I mean it."

"For what?" he breathed, giving her a beautifully lopsided smile, and she couldn't help but grin back up at him.

"Grocery shopping," she teased, glancing towards his pillow case of plants.

"Make me a list next time," he grinned back, tension melting completely away from his features now, and she felt light with the knowledge that he was no longer burdened by her hurtful words from before.

She laughed before reaching for his pillow case, shuffling the plants around inside.

"Well," she puffed, "don't just stand there. Find a small bucket and fill it with water and get to washing these."

He laughed in return, nodding.

"On it," and he set off.

And over her shoulder, she glanced to watch him remove his wand from his back pocket, taking small, familiar pleasure in listening to his spellwork, noting the way his trance-inducing voice caressed Latin before her eager ears.

She was going to forgive him alright. Very, very soon…