Left Me Behind

  "Hermione?" the door creaks open and Ron Weasley's face peeks through. Hermione is sitting with her back to him, staring out of the window.

  "...Hi." she says softly, but there is something wrong, and Ron knows this because Ron knows her.

  He comes and sits down next to her, crossing his legs and staring at her. She refuses to turn around and face him.

  "What's wrong?" he asks.

  There is silence. A dust mite skitters across the floor from underneath the bookshelf to the far right. The table they are sitting around is covered with a layer of dirt, but he doesn't mind. This is nothing compared to the battle grime that covers them both, a sign of the war they had just been through.

  "Why?"

  Her voice is eerily loud in the silence, cutting through the air like a silver blade on paper, and Ron starts, staring at her, with a question written on his face.

  He does not need to speak. Hermione knows what he's thinking. She always does.

  "Why would you go?"

  Ron feels a cold heavy weight in his stomach. He knows what she's talking about, of course. He still remembers the weight of the Horcrux on his neck, the anger he had felt, the day he stormed out on them in the middle of their Horcrux hunt.

  "I--" he begins, but she raises a hand to stop him, and for the first time since coming here, she turns to face him, and he is shocked to see pale tears streaking down her face, shining silver in the moonlight from the window.

  "You left us," she says quietly, but there is pain in her voice, and another tear silently streaks down her face. She closes her eyes and a soft, quiet sob escapes her lips. "You left me."

  She wraps her arms around her stomach as if protecting herself. It tears Ron apart because it is him who is making her feel like this and this is all him and it is his fault. He almost wishes she was screaming and shouting at him again like she did when he first came back.

  He doesn't say sorry, because it would sound fake, no matter how sorry he actually was. 

  Instead, he begins talking.

  "When I left," he pauses now glancing at her carefully. Her face is still tear-streaked, and her eyes are still closed. But she does not stop him, and he takes that as an incentive to keep speaking.

  "When I left, I was angry. I wandered through the forest in a blind rage, paying no attention to where I was going."

  He isn't excusing himself. He isn't trying to. There is nothing that can excuse himself for what he has done.

  But he keeps speaking, because she has to know, she had to know what happened.

  "After what felt like forever, I realised that I could apparate. And so I did, but not to my house."

  He smiles softly at the curiosity on her face. Just like she can always tell what he's thinking, he can do the same with her. He knows now that she's wondering why he didn't Apparate back home.

  "I meant to, of course, Apparate back home, " he says. "But for some unknown reason, I ended up in a dark alleyway, a little ways away from my house."

  "I didn't want to go back home." he says sadly. "I only realised it when I was close to there, that home wasn't where my family was..." he pauses, looking her straight in the eye. "Home was where you were."

  She opens her mouth to speak, but he stops her, because he needs to get this out of his system.

  "I felt horrible." he says. "I had just abandoned you both to god-knows-what. All I had in mind was getting back. So I Apparated out of the place, and managed to come back."

  "Hermione," he says seriously, taking her hands in his. "You--you need to understand, Hermione..." he takes a shuddering breath. "I would do...anything... just to make sure you were safe. I--I couldn't stand it if you...if you were to--"

  He cut himself off. It was too painful for him to say the word. 

  A warm hand covered his own. He looked up to see Hermione, with a wan smile etched onto her tear-stained face.

  "I won't." She says, simply. 

  "I won't leave you." Ron says, fervently. "Ever again."

  She smiles. "I wouldn't let you." she says.

  Ron stares at her for a moment, his head tilted to the side. "Hermione?" he asks.

  "Yeah?"

  "I think I'm in love with you."

  And then Hermione's lips were on his and Ron felt warmth blossom in his chest because this was Hermione and Hermione chose to be with him even through all of the idiotic things he'd done and this is Hermione and she is kissing him and they are covered in dust and there is a cut on the side of her face and her lips are chapped but that does not matter because this is Hermione and he is pretty sure that he loves her.

  She pulls away, and her eyes are bright with more tears, but this time they are tears of happiness, not grief. 

  "I think I'm in love with you too."

  When they emerge from the room, hand in hand, with big smiles adorning their tear streaked faces, Ron silently vows to never leave her behind ever again.

  And a year later, when he slips the ring onto her finger with a smile threatening to split his face in half, he is glad he didn't.

Fin.

___________________________________________________________

A/N

I feel like there aren't enough Romione fanfics in the world, so here is one for all you Romione shippers. I know it's short, but I hope you like.

Read, Vote and Comment please!

~riya19528