Chapter Text
Hermione really expected to feel better after talking everything through.
For a whole day after the funeral, neither Ron nor Hermione could find Harry anywhere. Even though he had been more than distant the entire year, not so much as catching him rounding a corner on the way to class or chatting with him for lunch was unheard of.
Harry had told Hermione something about leaving, cryptically and hushed the night of Dumbledore’s body being discovered at the base of the Astronomy Tower, so assuredly that Hermione feared he may have left Hogwarts altogether in the span of less than a day. But Hedwig was still sitting on her perch, and his favorite sweaters were all sitting, folded in his chest. His bed was unmade, which he never did unless he had woken up late for a Quidditch match; Still, she hardly knew Harry at all anymore, it felt, and she didn’t sleep at all the night before seeing his face again.
McGonagall visited the Gryffindor Common rooms to tell Ron and Hermione personally that they were excused from finals, but more importantly, to tell them where Harry was. Hermione still isn’t sure exactly the course of events that night on the Astronomy Tower, but she knows the way Harry’s knuckles went white at the mention of Snape’s name, trailing off with misty eyes as he explained the way the whole ordeal went down.
She wanted to feel better after talking with Harry. The last month of school was hardly school at all, rather it was a whirlwind of keeping Harry’s feet on the ground while also agreeing with him that, yes, a wizarding war was bubbling just under their skin- Draco Malfoy, their classmate, was a new servant of Voldemort, and Professor Snape was behind it all. There was nothing grounding about that. After Harry told them that Snape was the one to kill Dumbledore, there was no question as to where they went next. It wasn't safe at Hogwarts anymore. Part of Hermione knew Harry wouldn't be returning for his seventh year, but hearing him say it out loud was a much different story. It was scary. The kind of scary that wasn't fast and fleeting, but the kind that creeps under your skin and wraps around your chest, forcing your heartbeat out harder, harder, and harder until you're choking.
The moment the words left her lips, she regretted saying she would come with him. She could never live with herself if she let Harry run off to finish what Dumbledore started, as he said it, and found out months later before winter finals that he’d been murdered. If he’s gonna get murdered, she’d like to be with him.
There was a heavy guilt in her chest knowing that Ron was coming with them for her , not because of any new revelation or confession, but because it's always been that way. He says he’s worried about what his parents might say about him becoming the third Weasley child to not graduate; although, his parents’ positions in the Order made it hard for them to criticize his choices.
The common room feels colder than it usually does at this time of year. It’s almost as if the whole grounds had shifted after Dumbledore’s death, and they very well may have. The flowers about the grounds usually bloomed long before the summer solstice, but none of the buds had blossomed and it was a few days until July. The grass is dry and the trees shake in a way only a late winter chill could move them, nothing like an early summer breeze. Since finals were postponed for the funeral, the students found themselves extending their stay at the castle, chests still unpacked and items sprawled about the living quarters and bedrooms. Hermione has no reason to stay, neither does Ron or Harry, but they make no moves to leave and it’s unspoken and heavy between them what happens the last time they shut the door of the Gryffindor common room. Her whole life has been measured by her schooling, so the end was always graduation. She feels lost. She’s felt unsure before, of course she had, (she had a horrifying thought that due to being apart of Dumbledore’s Army she may not be allowed to take her O.W.L.s), but she has never felt so deeply unsettled before about the future,
The worries wrinkle her brow as she runs her fingers up the spines of the textbooks on her bedside table, sitting for the first time useless. Hermione is sprawled out on her bed- the same bed that she’s slept in for the majority of the last six years of her life. She’s never found herself to be particularly sentimental, but the thought of her never sleeping in this bed ever again twists at her chest in an unpleasant, helpless way. Every summer she returns to a mattress fitted to a smaller frame, and every time it takes only a few nights of tossing and turning to mold it to her body comfortably. On her seventeenth birthday this year, the only thing she could wish for was a larger frame, but suddenly she squeezes her eyes shut and wishes that time would slow to a halt and allow her to fall asleep in this bed for the rest of her life.
Despite it being only six in the evening, there’s an incessant drowsiness urging her to slip into her pajamas and under her blankets. For what it’s worth, there’s no real reason for her to not go to bed now, but her strict sleep schedule is the only thing keeping her life somewhat on track, if it could even be considered on track at the moment. She rarely spends time in the girls’ room anymore due to what had gone down between her and Lavender, because even though she didn’t really do anything, actually, nearly all the girls in their year believed Parvati when she said that Hermione had cast a nasty acne charm on Lavender to disgust Ron. Hermione is relishing in the peace and quiet that an entirely empty dormitory brings, and she also relishes in the feeling that people believe she would be bold enough to do something like that.
She curses under her breath, sitting up to avoid the harsh rays of the sunset that had fallen directly across her nose and into her eyes once the clouds parted outside of her window. There’s nothing to do anymore except be sentimental.
If she had to guess how long she had been laying on her bed, she would guess it had only been twenty minutes since she returned from the Great Hall for dinner. Certainly not a whole hour, but the grandfather clock in the common room chimes for seven o’clock, echoing against the stone walls and up the stairwells into the dorms. The chimes used to scare her when she was younger, and rightfully so. The clock must have been hundreds of years old, so the chimes are wobbly and off-key and it always loses steam right around the fifth chime- it would sound unsettling and out of place anywhere but Hogwarts.
She only gets a minor headrush when she stands up, which she counts as improvement compared to the intense vertigo she got standing at the edge of the Astronomy Tower listening to Harry talk about hunting down horcruxes. That evening, looking over the railing at the Black Lake, she thought to herself that she never once really considered how beautiful the castle is. She never went hiking like some students did over the weekends, she never went swimming in the lake on the first warm day of the year, she cursed most of the sunsets she’s ever witnessed on the grounds because she hated studying in the dark. The normality of it all settled in so quickly, and by her second year she found that marveling in awe at each corner was a waste of time. She crouches down on the floor pillow set by the window between her and Lavender’s bed (put there long before Ron ever joined the quidditch team) to look out the window of Gryffindor tower and try really hard to not think about how many times left she’ll do this.
There’s a purple splotch on the ground right near Lavender’s bedside table where she had painted her nails earlier in the year, back when they still talked, and she had rolled her eyes and said she’d clean it up after class. Hermione drags her finger across the windowsill and rubs the dust collected there, wondering if the students who live in this dorm after next year would ever notice the spilled polish.
Looking out the window, her eyes fall on the small island at the center of the Lake where Dumbledore was buried. It looks so unassuming. In a way, it’s perfect for Dumbledore. If asked before what kind of grave he would have, Hermione would have jokingly said he’d like to be buried underneath the Whomping Willow so any time someone came by to mourn, they’d get knocked fifty feet in the air and regret ever spending time dwelling on the past. But now, an unassuming, peaceful island at the center of Black Lake seems the most appropriate. Dumbledore was an unassuming man in many ways, he was shaky when he walked and spoke in a half-hearted, weak way most of the time, and then he would apparate to the Ministry of Magic to duel Voldemort in a matter of minutes. He was a really good man, and Hermione suddenly has so many questions she needs to ask him.
Her moment of quiet contemplation meets a harsh end as the sound of the heavy chamber door to the common room sounds through the hallway outside, followed by loud chatter and whooping. The last final must have just gotten out at seven, and if her memory of finals past serves her correctly, the rest of the night would be spent quite… enthusiastically.
She didn’t notice the end-of-the-year bash until about her third year, or at least she didn’t fully grasp what happened for the older students until she was a bit older. For the sixth and seventh years, the last final was followed by a drunken party in the common room, sponsored by the seventh year’s newfound ability to purchase muggle alcohol back home. The alcohol at Tesco’s or in the corner of a petrol station was about a hundred times stronger than anything you could find at a pub in the wizarding world, so the seventh years would always smuggle in handles of vodka, whisky, or bottles of fruity drinks that left the coffee table sticky and reeking the next day. For a split second, she thinks that maybe they were just celebrating the end of the year.
The clanging of glass against glass and chorus of ‘cheers!’ proves her wrong.
Hermione has never been adventurous. Despite being best friends with Harry Potter and finishing each school year absolutely littered with scars, bruises, and blood, she still wouldn’t consider herself to be particularly out of the box at all, at least not compared to the other Gryffindors. While even Dean Thomas and Eloise Midgen have relished in their excitement to finally get drunk, as proper as they are, Hermione never thought she would partake.
That was before Dumbledore died, though.
A week ago, Hermione wouldn’t have thought twice about keeping to herself on this night and taking advantage of the bathrooms being empty while she got ready, but something about deciding to drop out of school early, passing up graduation in favor of a wild goose chase that very well may kill her, changes your perspective on things. Maybe a few drinks wouldn’t hurt. At least it would probably soothe her nerves enough to fall asleep for the first time in a few nights. Besides, getting out of her own head is definitely good for her.
After sitting in bed, debating whether to go downstairs for about half an hour more, she slips her shoes on at the door, the worn sneakers that had carried her through the Department of Mysteries last year. The voices are loud downstairs, and it sounds like some of them are already drunk and wild. She can hear Padma’s voice, shrill and giggling above the rest, so the party must really be revving up if they’ve already let the other houses come and join. Half of her hopes that everyone will be too drunk to notice her slip down into the crowd, but the idea of witnessing all of her classmates sloshed makes her cringe a bit. The uncertainty sends her thinking of her security blanket in the form of a lanky, ginger boy named Ron Weasley, and she wonders where he might fit into all of this. She knows that other than Percy, every single Wealsey boy has been the life of the party. Bill knew magic charms that teenagers could only dream of, Charlie would jump off the dormitory landing if the couch looked soft enough, and Fred and George were… well, long story short, Ron has a lot to live up to. He always does.
Harry’s certainly not partaking, he’s probably still in Dumbledore's office, but Ron is impossible to miss once she comes down the stairs to peer over the railing into the common room.
There aren’t many students in their class, but something about seeing them all crowded in one small common room makes it look like there’s about a hundred people. Loud, drum-heavy music plays from somewhere, so all-encompassing that it drowns out the yelling and cheering almost completely. The phonograph that usually sits on a shelf in the corner is missing from its spot, but it doesn’t take long for Hermione’s eyes to drift upwards to see it balanced carefully inside of the chandelier. Neville is dancing with some older students Hermuione hasn’t spoken to, but he’s stumbling so much she doubts he’ll be dancing for much longer. In the corner by the window, Parvati, Lavender, and Eloise are sitting, huddled and drinking from a single wine bottle, and Hermione figures that she would be best off not hearing what they’re saying.
At the center of the room, there is a mass of bodies huddled around the coffee table where Seamus, Dean, and a familiar face are standing, shaking the rickety table underneath them.
Something switched this year. Ron has always been well-liked, aside from catching the strays of being Harry’s best friend, and he’s always been popular amongst their class (excluding the Slytherins, who never saved a breath on mocking him). He always has someone to sit next to, he always has someone to play chess with, and he’s certainly always been charming; however, it’s always been a different kind of charming. It was the kind of charming it is when a young boy swears like a sailor or when he’s teaching you how to play chess like he invented it. Now it’s just different . He carries himself differently now, no longer with the awkward gait of a boy with limbs too long and far too many requests from a family with all too many expectations. The entire room watches him and hollers as he throws back a drink from on top of the coffee table.
Hermione is going to try very hard to be careless, but she can’t help first whipping her wand out to extinguish the flames raging in the fireplace next to what looks to be about eight open bottles of pure liquor. No one notices the fire goes out, and no one notices Hermione watching them.
Per usual, no one notices her except for Ron.
His eyes catch hers and light up, not in a drunken way but in an honest, sincerely excited way like he hadn’t seen her in weeks and wasn’t expecting to run into her. He clambors unsteadily from the coffee table which shakes under his feet as he steps onto the patch-sewn, worn couch, nearly flipping over it as his knees hit the back. Hermione instinctively flinches forward, knuckles hitting the stone railing, even though she is entirely sober and entirely aware that if Ron fell, he was at the mercy of gravity. Even if she was standing down with him, she doesn’t reckon she could catch him anyways. Once he regains his balance, Seamus has already shoved another drink into his hand and he gazes up at her like she’s more than just Hermione Granger.
“Come down! I was gonna come up to see you!” He hollers. The diction in his voice is surprising, either because he is overcompensating greatly, or because Hermione expects a slurred mess.
“How drunk are you?” Hermione laughs. Ron raises his cup to her.
“I’ve only got one shot in my system, this is pumpkin juice! Come here!”
Hermione can argue with Ron all she wants, but she finds it very difficult to say no to him- especially when his cheeks are flushed and his hair is mussed up the way it is. Ron being mostly sober while also being so earnestly thrilled to see her makes her weak in the knees in a way only Ron Weasley can, and it drives her insane to know that most likely he doesn’t have a single clue what he does to her. She rolls her eyes at him but turns to come down the steps nonetheless. Ron meets her at the last step with a cup in each hand, and Hermione fights the way that she notices that he’s wearing Harry’s belt, shoving down the worries of where he is and what he must be doing at the moment. He’s always been able to read her worries like they’re written across her forehead, and his expression softens.
“Harry is in bed, reading. Nothing about magic or anything, Dean had a few muggle books in his trunk he let him borrow. Last time I checked on him, he was sleeping when I walked in.” Deep in her lower back, Hermione feels a knot unravel, and her shoulders roll forward in a sigh that rocks her whole body. She never notices how deeply she carries her anxiety, but she’s always felt it in a way that lets her continue functioning as normal, just with a jaw so clenched she can barely chew and a neck so tense she wakes up with horrible aches. “Here,” Ron holds one of the cups out to her. She takes it, gratefully, and Ron sighs, “He’s actually okay, I think. He was so glad to talk to you. He was worried you wouldn’t come with him.”
“Of course I’ll go with him.” She swallows. “I was worried you wouldn’t come as well.”
“I’ll go wherever you go, Hermione. I wouldn’t survive a day without you.” Ron says, chuckling but entirely serious. His words sink into her chest, and then lower still all the way to her stomach. Suddenly, she forgets all about Harry- or, she decides that worrying about Harry is a waste of time at the moment.
“What’s in this cup, anyways?”
“Firewhisky, someone left some pumpkin juice around that you can-” Ron is interrupted by Hermione retching loudly, senses overcome with the most vile, burning sensation she’s felt in her life. “Did you drink it straight?” He laughs, eyes wide. “Hermione-”
“Go-” She coughs, doubled over with tears springing to the corners of her eyes. Despite most of the drink not making it into her mouth and splashing onto the floor, the amount she does swallow burns a trail down her throat. “Go get- Go get me water, or-” Ron’s already bolted away before she finishes asking. Breathing out, she can taste- no, she feels - the harsh, pungent alcohol on her tongue. Ron returns, knocking the cup from her hand carelessly and firmly planting another one in her hand. It’s water. If Hermione didn’t know better, she would wonder if the inside of her body was literally glowing red with the embers of the firewhiskey going down.
“Bloody hell, you’ve never drank firewhisky before, I take it?”
“I’ve never drank anything before, Ronald.” She gasps for air, relishing the way the water makes the breaths go down cool and smooth, rather than adding fuel to the fire. “Why would you give me that?” She smacks his arm, and he grabs her wrist playfully.
“If you had let me finish, I would have told you that firewhisky should never be taken without a mixer. They only sell it in small bottles because if you drink too much it burns a hole in your stomach, did you know?” He pats her back, drawing her closer to himself and against the wall to make way for younger Gryffindor students trying to make their way up to the dorms through the chaos.
“Thanks for warning me.” She murmurs sarcastically, downing the last of the water. It reminds her of each time a Quidditch match has a particularly eventful ending and the common rooms are flooded with anyone rooting for the winner. The paintings despised the way that with each passing year, the houses fraternized more and more (excluding Hufflepuff during the Triwizard Tournament, when they wanted nothing to do with the Gryffindors). But, unfortunately, as long as they were accompanied, there was nothing the paintings could really do to keep anyone out. “There’s so many people here.”
“Yeah, there are. Neville invited a few friends from advanced herbology, they've been a riot. Don't expect it from Neville’s friends.” Hermione doesn't think her surprise is too evident, but Ron grins, nodding enthusiastically. “Yeah, I’m not kidding. Neville brought the party, and most of them are Ravenclaws .” They lean in to keep their giggling private, but someone approaches and they snap to serious attention. The effort is wasted on a breathless, sweaty Seamus, chuckling as he catches himself on the wall.
Seamus is significantly more disheveled than Ron. He’s still in his robes from exams, but his tie is missing, his undershirt is unbuttoned all the way past the v-neck of his vest, which has a frayed tear near the bottom hemline, although that may have already been there.
“Have you seen Longbottom? He's gone mad, I think.” He giggles something else, punching Ron’s shoulder, and he laughs and nods along to something she knows he didn't understand. He’s slurring his words so sloppily they’re nearly incomprehensible . Hermione bites her tongue before saying they look equally messy at the moment.
“I was just telling Hermione about it. I didn't know he hung out with anyone 'cept for Professor Sprout, much less people he could invite to a Gryffindor party.”
“Ron.” Hermione nudges his waist.
“What? I'm being honest.” Ron nods his head to Seamus, silently asking him to throw him a bone. He offers no support; instead, he’s leaning his cheek against the stone wall and laughing, low and croaked with his jaw hanging open.
“The stone’s so cold , mate.” Seamus groans. Hermione turns her face to giggle against Ron’s shoulder. She’s never been around drunk people before. Maybe at some point during the Triwizard Tournament someone had snuck in something, but if they had she couldn't tell. Even her parents kept their drinking restricted around her, only slipping one New Year’s when her dad had tripped over the bottom step with a flushed face and couldn't speak for a whole three minutes because he was laughing too hard.
“I do have a point, though.” Ron murmurs, just to Hermione. “I know Neville’s gone to a Hufflepuff party before, but that's what I’d expect.”
The Gryffindors have always been notorious for throwing the best parties, or at least the most exuberant ones. Slytherins never had parties, necessarily, but from the rumors Hermione’s heard, they had large house gatherings in the common room that resembled seances more than they resembled parties, chalices of wine, dark robes, and all. Of course, those were just rumors. The Ravenclaws nearly never throw parties in their own dormitories because of how tidy and spotless she’s heard they keep it, but they almost always show up elsewhere. One thing she knows for certain is the Hufflepuffs “parties” that consist of taking trips down to the forest and coming back reeking of smoke and niffler piss, smoking something not quite as pungent as the muggle stuff but still just as unpleasant. She’s positive about these because Neville’s come back to the common rooms with bloodshot eyes and a wistful gaze plenty of times before, and Dean and Seamus always take tremendous enjoyment in casting charms on the chess pieces and acting out little scenes for him- much to the chagrin of the rest of the house trying to get some rest with the trio roaring with laughter in the corner.
She’d take any other kind of party over the Gryffindor style. Even a Slytherin seance might be more enjoyable than the rowdy, clamorous mess that’s going on now that will surely leave them all with a day of cleaning tomorrow.
“I’m happy for Neville. He’s really come out of his shell this year, he’s so confident now.” Hermione watches him twirl around despite her prediction that he’d be off his feet not long after she left her room, and it’s almost like watching an entirely different person. He’s laughing, twirling Ginny around, and despite his clearly drunken state, he’s taking the lead. “Didn’t they go to the Yule Ball together? I can’t remember now.”
“Yeah,” When she glances up at Ron, he’s gazing over at Neville like how Ginny smiled at him after Quidditch tryouts. All the Gryffindor boys pick on him, but it’s never malicious (or at least it hadn’t been since their second year) and always done with the playful affection of a sibling. “He’s not a bad dancer.”
“He really isn’t.”
Neville, much to the surprise of everyone, has gotten quite attractive over the span of the year. She had spent so much time watching and pining after Ron that one day she came downstairs to see Neville had shot up a foot, lost the round, baby face he’s always had, and long outgrown his two front teeth that were too large for his face. It happened under everyone’s noses, so much so that Neville hadn’t really realized it himself, she thinks.
“Do you, uh…” Ron rubs the back of his neck and when Hermione looks at him, he looks away. “Do you want to be here? I kinda feel like I’m forcing you to be down here, we can go, like, to the library or something, or-”
“Now what business do we have going to the library now? At this rate, you may never have to touch a textbook ever again.” Hermione giggles, but Ron’s ears go red and he looks bashfully down at the floor.
“Nah, it’s just… I know you like the peace and quiet more than this mess, and the library will never be this quiet again until next June. Also, uh, I was just thinkin’ that it’s been some time since we hung out and didn’t, y’know, just worry about Harry.” He isn’t wrong.
The strangest, most difficult part of this year wasn’t the actual issues that went on between her and Ron, but it was the fact that she didn’t know what to do with herself all day if he wasn’t around to spend every free minute with her. It was never the obsessive, affectionate, nauseating way that Lavender spent time with him, it was just a natural pull between them. Like gravity, every morning they walked down to breakfast together and every night they came up to sit beside each other on the couch. The greater part of this year was hell for Hermione because she lost that gentle consistency- instead, if she needed someone to talk to, she was left with Ginny or Harry.
Harry sent her into a spiral, and Ginny made her cry because she looks like Ron and Ron was ruining her life. No matter how horrible the rest of the year was, right now, late June, in the middle of the most unruly party of all their time at Hogwarts, Ron would rather go sit in the library because Hermione likes peace and quiet. She thinks it, and then she says it.
“You don’t have to take yourself away from all this to go sit in a stuffy library. I know you love this kind of thing, I’ll go upstairs and we can hang out tomorrow.”
“The train leaves the morning after tomorrow, we’ll have to pack and clean tomorrow.” Ron glances over his shoulder at the crowd. “Hasn’t settled down at all because I’m gone. I’ve got plenty of opportunities to get sloshed when I leave here, when am I gonna be back at Hogwarts with Hermione Granger?”
On instinct, next year almost slips out and she snaps her mouth shut quicker than she opens it. A breath escapes Ron that sounds like he’s been holding it- judging by the way the color drains from his face, he understands exactly what Hermione was about to say. It still hasn’t set in. She glances past his shoulders and time stands still for a moment looking out at the common room she’s spent more time in than she could ever attempt to calculate.
The chess table now littered with cups and bottles is where Ron taught her to play chess only a week or so after they had met. They weren’t friends at that point, but Hermione had never been more fascinated than she was while watching the chess pieces come to life and spring across the board, and Ron was more than happy to explain to her how to play. The circle of armchairs in the corner is where the girls had all shared their dresses for the Yule Ball, except for Hermione, because hers hadn’t come yet. When she put it on in the dorms, Lavender was the only one to see her and playfully remarked that Ron was a moron for not asking her to the dance. The thought sends a sharp pain to her chest.
There’s a deep, hollow feeling in her chest that she can’t exactly place, but the thought of leaving the castle and not returning drops a stone in her stomach. How many times had she walked down each of the hallways? How many times had she seen a sunrise from the windows of the Great Hall and not even taken a second look? Her whole life prior to Hogwarts had been spent wondering where her home was, and now that she’s found it, intentionally giving it up feels sacrilegious. She understands she has to move on, and whether it’s tomorrow that she steps out of the castle gates for the last time or a year from now it’ll be hard, but she just never imagined it would come so out of the blue like this. She wishes she’d known that this year would be the last time watching the courtyard turning into a kaleidoscope of red and orange, then sprouting with green buds so bright in the spring they almost look fluorescent.
She can’t leave tomorrow, not without saying goodbye.
“I think I want to drink.” She says plainly, rolling her eyes as Ron laughs. “Okay, I won’t then.”
“No, no, that just surprises me to hear. That Firewhiskey make you feel anything?” If it is affecting her at all, she can’t tell what she’s supposed to be feeling for.
“Well, most of it made it onto the floor.”
“Most if it made it onto your shirt.” Ron snorts and prods at her chest, leaping away from her playfully as she swats at his hand. The touch sends her stomach swirling and head spinning, Ron not even flinching as Hermione’s whole face goes crimson. Perhaps he doesn’t notice- everyone else in the common room had the same flush. “You stay here, I’ll grab us something to drink.
---
Truthfully, Hermione is not entirely sure she’s been keeping accurate count of how much she’s drank; but, if she had to make a good, solid estimate, she thinks she’s only had two Firewhiskey shots diluted with a bit of pumpkin juice and resulting in a delightful cocktail she’d be glad to sip on, one cup of “Box Wine” as the muggles call it, and she’s nursing some fruity mix that Katie Bell had mixed up. Since she’s moved from her and Ron’s quiet gossipping session in the staircase, she has sunken deep into the old armchair and graciously taken every drink Ron brings back to her, unsure if the alcohol or her exhaustion is what pulls her deep into the cushions.
Ron has been drinking much more than she has, but he is also much larger than her and had been drinking at Weasley family reunions since he was thirteen. There’s a nonstop loop of drinking, putting her cup down, then immediately having another one thrust into her palm for about twenty minutes, but he must notice the way her gaze is misty and how her cheeks have gone significantly darker eventually, because after he hands her the fruity drink he sits down on the floor with his back resting against her knee. This must be the alcoholic delirium everyone raves about, because rather than clam up and freeze at the casual, domestic content, she lounges back further into the couch and lets her knee fall open, her hand moving from the arm of the chair to rest with her fingers barely grazing Ron’s hair.
The seventh-years are engrossed in a wild game of charades, each person mimicking an unconventional and oddly specific scenario like Professor Snape choking on a piece of treacle tart or a kitchen elf applying lipstick. Ron guesses each one wrong, but he howls with laughter all the same at each revelation. Other than her serene calmness at Ron leaning against her, she suspects that the enthusiasm around being drunk may be fabricated. There isn’t a loopy, delirious feeling overcoming her and urging her onto the table.
“Hey,” She leans forward, tapping on Ron’s shoulder and folding over her lap to talk to him face to face. “Do you feel stuff?” The words come out easy enough, though not nearly as eloquently as she expects them to. ‘Stuff’ isn’t a popular word in her vocabulary, and she has to push the words out over her tongue, rather than letting them just pour out as they usually do.
“Stuff?” Ron turns his face towards her with a dopey grin. He gazes at her, misty and almost cross-eyed, and the heat of the common room has manifested as a sheen of sweat across his brow.
Perhaps the alcohol actually was doing something because instead of going weak in the knees (and stomach), a devilish thought crosses her mind as she notices just how easy it would be to lean in and catch him on the mouth and kiss him. Wouldn’t be the first time he gets snogged in front of all of Gryffindor, but the bitter, jealous thought is fleeting as her eyes settle on his tongue darting out to lick the corner of his mouth. She wonders if she did the same, she’d be able to taste the alcohol on his mouth.
“Hermione?” He laughs, sitting up away from her so fast she worries she may have actually leaned in to kiss him and he was rejecting her.
“What?” Usually, Hermione is correcting her tone for being too defensive or too accusatory, but this ‘what’ comes out as a lazy, playful tease more than anything else. She takes back everything. The alcohol was definitely doing something .
“You asked if I was feeling anything.” She did ask that, didn’t she. Ah, to be sixty-seconds younger. She misses the naïvety.
“I take it back, I’m feeling a lot.” She flops back into the couch and her perspective of the room lags behind, sending the room spinning as her head hits the back of the couch. “I don’t know how to feel yet. It’s weird.” Everything she says comes out first and is processed second but in a significantly different way than usual. Hermione is familiar with how it feels to speak and then think, yet this feels as if there’s two versions of her- one that’s speaking off the cuff and boldly, and one that simply watches from the back of her head.
“Lemme get you some water, okay?” When he stands up, Hermione watches him wobble on his feet before catching himself on the back of the couch. Her heart skips a beat as she glances up at him to find he’s already looking down at her, not even a whole bottle of Firewhiskey could keep her stomach from flipping- although the alcohol does make the sensation pretty unpleasant.
“I’m just gonna stay here, if that’s alright.” She mumbles. She draws her legs up onto the couch beside her, shoulder brushing Ron’s arm still braced next to her.
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
Watching him walk away through the crowd of their peers, she suddenly thinks that being alone with him sounds incredibly nice at the moment. Most of the time when she ends up alone with Ron, at least lately, she’s prayed for someone else to walk in and break the tension before she either yells at him or confesses that she’s been in love with him for years. Then again, most of the time she’s sober. There’s a strange confidence blooming in her chest that could either be because of the alcohol or just because she knows that if anything goes awry, tomorrow she can laugh it off because she was drunk. She’s heard a million of those little caveats and each time, no matter what actually happened the night before, everyone accepted it and laughed it off as well.
If she got the chance to tell Ron that she’s in love with him, she could always deny it. Best case scenario, though, he would loudly declare his love for her as well; then perhaps going on a wild goose chase for horcruxes could stand in as the honeymoon they’ll never get because when she really considers it, there’s no way she doesn’t die before the end of the war.
She startles as two bodies flop down into the couch next to her, rattling her brain inside her head and turning her a bit green.
“First time, eh?” Seamus prods her in the arm, laughing wildly as she shuts her eyes and takes in a deep breath. “You gotta get up and take a lap, Hermione, or all the booze goes right to your stomach, you’ll hurl the moment ya’ stand up!”
“That is not true! If you’re feeling queasy, just stay here and take another shot.” Hermione winks an eye open to see Ernie Macmillan a few inches from her face.
“Don’t listen to him! He’s full of it, he’s an imposter, look-” Seamus reaches across her to grab Ernie’s sweater, a maroon turtleneck that looks far too hot for the festivities. “He looks horrible in our colors, don’t you think?” Truthfully, Ernie’s face is tomato red, so he looks perfect in the similar tones. Before she can even muster up a half-hearted joke to play along, Ernie catches Seamus’s arm and swats at him, igniting a childish, slapstick fight across Hermione’s lap. She expects to be angry. Instead, she bursts into a fit of giggles that quickly grows into laughter that makes her breathless.
“Oi!” Ron yells out, shoving Seamus back into the couch away from how he’s trying to strangle Ernie, balancing two cups of water in one hand. “What do you think you’re doin’?” Seamus snickers and goes to poke Ron’s arm the same he did Hermione, but Ron hits his hand away.
“Not messin’ with your new lady, Ron, calm down.” He stands up from the couch and doesn’t give Hermione a second look to see the way her eyes go wide and nonchalantly drift away uncomfortably. “Cormac’s turned you into a wee bundle of nerves, eh?”
“Shut up, Seamus, go bother someone else.” Ron sneers. Ron never fully forgave Seamus for what went down between him and Harry last year, but he probably just doubles down out of guilt for what happened between Harry and himself during the Triwizard Tournament. No matter the reason Seamus gets under his skin so badly, Hermione has never been the biggest fan of his company and is glad to see him walking away towards the aforementioned McLaggen revving up for a keg stand ( how on earth did they sneak a keg in? ) with Ernie trailing close behind. “God, Hermione, I’m sorry about him.”
“I’ve only known him for six years, Ron, you know I'm unfamiliar with how annoying he can be.”
Across the room, there's a loud crash and a swell of wild laughter: Cormac McLaggen drunkenly falls from his kegstand into a group of other seventh-year girls, who sneer at him disdainfully as they make futile attempts to clean their shirts of the drinks splashed on them. She covers her mouth as she laughs, just to be polite to the boy she's put through much embarrassment this year, but when Ron also giggles, she drops her hand and laughs with him. He rarely smiles with all of his teeth, even though he's got lovely teeth, so Hermione savors every moment she gets to witness him shooting a toothy grin her way.
“That’s a sight you like to see.” Ron snorts. He settles down next to her on the couch, close enough that usually Hermione would scoot away to keep their legs from touching, but she stays put. “Here,” He hands her a glass of water, one that looks like it’s from the bathrooms. She takes a long sip, then inspects the detailing across the rim.
“This is from your sink, isn’t it?” Ron nods, and Hermione throws her head back as she laughs. “You shouldn’t bring a glass cup down here, Ronald, Neville is gonna stomp on it. McGonagall doesn’t replace ‘em, remember?” Harry hasn’t had a cup for his toothbrush since their third year when Hedwig spotted “Scabbers” run into the bathroom, flying in and shattering Harry’s glass and two mirrors in the commotion.
“I like when you call me Ronald.” Ron sighs, lazily as he drops his head on the back of the couch. She wonders if his stomach goes all funny the same way hers does whenever he calls her ‘Hermione’, and she knows that it’s just her name, but it just sounds so lovely off of his tongue. The look of him spread out on the couch makes her drunken head spin in ways it’s never spun outside of her bedroom She watches his neck as he swallows and something strange twists her stomach and instead of blushing and looking away, she wonders what it would be like to kiss him right along his Adam’s Apple. He’d probably move away, faster than he ever had- not because he doesn’t like Hermione- but just because she doubts he’d ever bet in a million years that she would ever put her lips anywhere on him. “I won’t be needing that cup next year, who cares if it breaks?”
“I bet it feels the same as when you say my name.”
“What?”
“Huh-” Hermione doesn’t have a clue what he said last. She wonders if it would be more embarrassing to ask, or just pretend she didn’t say anything. “What?”
Very graceful.
Ron sits up to look her in the eye, bursting into laughter as he sees her face. She’s lost all sense of her expression, so she has no clue what he’s laughing at, and she knows he’s still quite drunk because he never laughs so openly and carelessly. She couldn’t care less what he’s laughing at because he suddenly wraps an arm around her shoulders and presses his face against her arm as his whole body shakes with laughter. His hair smells good, not like his shampoo, but like him. Like the way his scarves and sweaters smell- the smell that petrified her as it floated up to her face in the middle of a damn potions lesson.
God , she loves him. Hermione came to that terrifying realization last year, though she knows she’s loved him for much, much longer than that.
There was a moment, standing on the Astronomy Tower with Harry and vowing to follow him to the ends of the earth to destroy the horcruxes, where Hermione hoped Ron would decide not to come with them. Obviously, that hope was in vain, because just as Hermione is hopelessly devoted to Ron, Ron would jump into Hell if Hermione was doing it; But there was a minute where she wanted him to stay behind because it would make saying goodbye so much easier. She could tell him that she loves him, throw her arms around his neck and kiss him the way she’s wanted to for years, and tearfully say that she’ll see him again once the war is over, not unlike the way James and Lily and Arthur and Molly must have done.
Being desperately in love with Ron Weasley has never been easy, though. She’s glad she isn't entirely senseless, because wants to remember every bit of this. Every bit of Ron hugging her and curled up against her in the middle of the common room, broad shoulders shaking with waning laughs that she’d gladly listen to forever.
The commotion over by the (now spilled) keg has settled and dispersed about the common room, with more people crowding around the couch Ron and Hermione had found themselves together on. Ron sits up with a long sigh, wrapping an arm around Hermione’s shoulders. Not on the back of the couch, against her back with one hand gently dragging his fingers up and down her upper arm.
“Do you think any professors are out right now?” Hermione asks, ducking her face as she speaks to him so he can’t spot her smile. It has definitely been pushed to the wayside now that she’s enjoying her time with Ron, but there’s still an anxious pit in her stomach about leaving Hogwarts. There’s nothing she wants to see particularly, just seeing it all one last time could be nice. Even if she won’t actually be able to see anything. The candles typically go out at midnight, leaving the sconces charred with years and years of soot.
“Nah, probably not. They’re probably doing the same thing we are in the kitchens.” The image of Professor Sprout and McGonagall drunkenly rambling and singing the way some of the seventh years were now is hilarious, but Hermione can’t imagine either of them are feeling up for a party. “Why do you ask?”
“I wanna go walk around the castle.” Ron’s hand, which up until now had still been trailing lazily around her shoulder, stills.
“Hermione Granger,” Her heart skips a beat and his hand lights her skin on fire. “I think Harry and I have snuck around the castle at night countless times, and each time you scold us and go back to bed. I’m cutting you off, no more alcohol for the rest of your life.” He teases, tugging a curl of her hair with a playful giggle. Nothing playful about the way Hermione truly thinks, alcohol or not, she would like nothing more than to snog him in the middle of her room right now.
“I’m serious. I don’t think I’ve really processed the whole leaving thing.” She musters the courage to look him in the face. He swallows, then takes the glass of water she forgot she was holding to take a sip. “It might be nice to go look around.”
“Yeah,” His mouth twists into a frown, brow furrowed in a nondescript negative expression. “I… Don’t know why Seamus said what he said earlier. I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.” Hermione had paid what Seamus said no mind until now, where she remembers the way ‘ your new lady ’ drew from his lips and the way Ron’s tone immediately snapped. Hermione has had too many emotional quarrels with Ron for one year- in fact, she’s had enough quarrels of substance with him to last her the rest of her life. She’ll stick with bickering over the nuances of card games and the neatness of the other’s handwriting.
“Do you wanna come with me? Around the castle?” Something about being warm with the burn of alcohol still lingering down her throat and the feeling as if she’s being gently pushed back and forth by waves makes her careless to tact. She’s spent too long monitoring her tone. She wants to be alone with Ron Weasley, and she finally has the courage to flat out say it. She isn’t ashamed to admit it’s due to being intoxicated. Ron’s eyes go wide. They’re big and blue and lined with long, drooping auburn lashes that she’s envied as much as she admires.
“Of course I wanna go with you.” It’s so quiet that Hermione could almost mistake it to be a confession. He’d go anywhere if she asked.
“Then let’s get out of here.”