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[Jul. 30th, 2007|11:58 pm] |
title: moments in second person (2/12)
rating: r
pairing(s): ron/hermione
summary: a year of romance, in song lyrics and sotto voices. because you never really know what's going on inside a person, do you? [rxhr, hxg, nxl]
spoilers: many. be warned!
a/n: this is to satisfy my yearning for romance in deathly hallows. for ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) fireworkfiasco…’cause of her love of r/hr's bang-up timing. this one is expressedly for you, baby! (but other people are allowed to read as well...) wasn’t too sure about how it turned out…leave feedback please! Enjoy.
[1: ron]
ii. june
so i put my arms around you, around you
and i hope that i will do no wrong
my eyes are on you, they're on you
and i hope that you won't hurt me
- - -
Lately, your thoughts turn towards time more often than not.
Which is ridiculous--abstract concepts like that get someone like you so agitated. You need clear-cut answers, a very definite beginning and end. No strange tangents into existentialism or religion or any branch of convoluted philosophy. But still, there it is, echoing in the hollows of your mind, clinging to your brain like a colicky baby that demands your care and attention.
Tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick---
You're glad of being seventeen, not least of all because you've really been able to put your Silencing charms to full effect since you've been home.
There are measures of time everywhere it seems-- the digital alarm flashing on your bedside table, the old grandfather clock sitting in the front hall, the microwave timer blinking away in the kitchen. And of course, the watches slung around your parents' wrists, the gold Rolexes, the ones they sometimes fasten with wondering gazes of ownership. One would think, at first glance, that it's obvious what they covet--the shine of the gold, the status provided by the brand name and expensive nature of the watch. But you know better.
Human beings think they own time itself, don't they? Think they can stop it and start it at will, that the world will turn by their whims. You lay awake at night and stare out the window. Once, moons marked the passage of the days, and you wonder if death is a way to punish mankind for their hubris.
You watch your mum and dad, watch them go about their day in leisure, in blissful ignorance, and it's all you'll ever want for them, but the ticking of the clocks drive you mad sometimes, pounding at the back of your skull, reminding you that as much as Mummy likes to say you have all the time in the world, you know--
You hardly have any time left at all.
Ron held your hand on the Hogwarts Express. Ron held you at Dumbledore's funeral. Everything you've been wishing in your heart of hearts, every girlish fantasy and wistful dream, seems just on the cusp of being realized. But it's too late; it's much too late for all that. You have a mission now, a goal that's different from scoring highest on the NEWTs or keeping your boys from being expelled or getting Ron to finally notice you.
Your mission is to destroy Voldemort, and perhaps (probably) die trying. Time or opportunity for teenage flirtation rarely seems to manifest in situations so dire such as that, you're sure.
In any case, it seems Ron already does notice you. His eyes when they catch yours, the bright, dangerous blue of them...something snags in your breath when he look at you. Something that whispers you are made for him and him for you, and fate has never frightened you so much as when you are so near to Ronald Weasley that you feel as if you're a part of him. The idea that you could be destined for this man, that your life's meaning is to stand (to die) beside him makes you sharply, acutely aware of how very much you have to lose.
You wave your wand and the pages of your wall-calendar fall like leaves. How easy it is to rip apart days and months and scatter them to the wind, without a care as to what you're throwing away, what you're leaving behind. May drifts to your feet, and June teeters on the windowsill. The rest of the year lies in a pile on the floor, lost in the swallowing darkness, indiscernible to your eyes.
Yes; you think about time quite a bit, these days. How much you've wasted, how much you still want, how much you will lose with the only boy you've ever loved--
Although, really. You knew from the very beginning how it would have to go, didn't you? You may not be very adept at Divination, but...somehow, you knew. And Ron did, too. The two of you are more alike than you ever knew, risking everything like this-- not only your lives and your family's lives but the lives you could have, somewhere distant in the future. And even though you knew in the pit of your stomach that it may play out this way, you never said a word, because Ron didn't either, and that's the way it's always gone. You're both willing to give up a thousand tomorrows to make sure today is worth living.
"We're with you whatever happens," is a promise that's as good as an Unbreakable Vow. After all--
(since you were eleven, you've known that you belong to Harry and Ron as much as, if not even more than, to your parents. You've known that some selfish, inexplicable part of you can bear to part with your Mummy and Daddy, but never, not ever, from these boys, these best friends who took you in and made you family.)
--Harry is the brother you never had, really, and Ron is...
Ron is. Ron is. He just is, he is ever-present, always there, as reliable as he is temptuous. He stands shoulder to shoulder with you even when he is not physically near, and now, with your ruined calendar mocking you with its sense of haunting prophecy, with the clock beating away in counter-rhythm to your erratically-pumping heart, his voice is the only thing keeping you from crying out.
His voice is the only thing that can still make time stop for you, even for a second.
He said he had faith in you, back at King's Cross, though you took no pride in his words. Only found strength in them, which you suppose is just as well. (You'll use that strength for what comes next.)Because you don't know if you deserve the sentiment, that unshakeable belief, you only know that you need it like the air you breathe.
If you are the mind and Harry is the hand, then Ron is the heart of your trio, and he would know more than anyone whether you are being noble and true.
Ron, who would rage at Harry's fame and your own criticism, but who would take up the load of talking Harry through his visions, of defending a hippogriff from slaughter just because you cared. Ron, who would cringe at speaking Voldemort's name, but who would stand in defiance against a regal, deathly chess Queen, against a basilisk, against Sirius Black, against Death-Eaters. Ron, who acknowledges his weaknesses, but fights with all of his strengths. Perhaps more than being noble and true, Ron is human. As human as they come, and you feel more human than ever at this very moment, overcome with uncertainty. Would he understand what you're thinking? What you're plotting, for the greater good?
Books and cleverness, indeed. There are other things that matter more...friendship, bravery. You are honoring those things as well as you know how, but your duty to your parents binds your wrists behind your back--
(To cut away those ropes, you will do what you know to do. You will use magic. You will spin a story and effectively make yourself as much of an orphan as Harry. You will send your parents so deep into the reaches of a fantasy world you have created that they will never be used against you. You will become the master of time, in the space of one moment, manipulating your parents' lives so that all the years they have spent raising and loving a daughter named Hermione Granger will mean nothing. Because those years will be gone in a blink of an eye, buried under new motivations, new names, new faces, new aspirations. They will begin a new life, your parents, while you work slowly towards an end in your own.)
--and so you are trading your Mum's comforting perfume for Ron's grass and earth and clean-boy smell, giving away one home for another. You allow yourself a split second of pleasure at the thought of travelling with his hand securely in yours, sharing adventure with him in the same way Harry always used to, the same way of which you secretly used to be so jealous.
Then the second is gone, the time to be selfish spent thinking of the one thing you want above all:
Unbidden, the Burrow comes to mind. The image of sitting with Ron at the kitchen table, a laughing family surrounding you. Your hand in his, his pulse steady and strong against your thumb. The brilliance of his smile and the warmth of home, and somewhere in the muddle, a sense of real, true belonging. A brush of your Mum's hand over your cheek, the grins shared over coffee by your dad and Mr. Weasley. Mrs. Weasley misty-eyed over her youngest son's impending nuptials. The smell of flowers in the air and the feel of Ron's lips on your own, and the blinding, blessed sunlight--
You slip out of bed and sit at your vanity. Slide open the drawer and pull out a book. And then, the month of June slipping out from the windowsill, into the infinity below, you open Moderne Memorie Modifications and begin to read.
The life that you want with Ron, you may never get. And now, the life your parents gave to you, you want to give back. You are ready to forsake everything, even that golden future with gardenias in your hair, if you can find the courage and will to keep time from slipping through your fingers before your goals are complete.
You don't know what the year will bring, but you know it will be worth this. It must be worth this. You tap your wand against your thigh, on the downbeat of each pulse pounding in your throat. Seconds turn to minutes turn to hours. The sun rises. You think of Ron's smile, his hair, vivid and bright like the dawn.
And you keep watching the clock.
[3: ginny] |
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