You're gonna be bothered by how cool I am.

This is my first attempt at a Ron/Hermione fic and only about my fourth fic ever. I'm not sure why I feel the need to qualify, except that there are genuine fic writers in the fandom and I don't really consider myself one of them, since I do it so rarely. Thanks to tartanboxers and angua9 for the beta suggestions.


Title: The Secret
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Rating: PG-13, for mild language and innuendo
Disclaimer: Jo owns everything, yadda yadda yadda

*******

It had been three months since the battle and there seemed to be a new definition of normal. Hermione's parents had been safely delivered back to England from Australia, Harry had begun to report to the Ministry on a regular basis (occasionally accompanied by Ron and Hermione), and most of the heavy lifting of reconstructing Hogwarts castle was complete. All that remained before students would pour in through the gates in a few weeks was to put furnishings and statues and other assorted ornamentation (what was left of it, anyway) back in their proper places, and the small army that had helped to restore Hogwarts to as much as possible of its former glory had been whittled down to a few dozen people.

Four of the five beds in one of the boys' dormitories in Gryffindor Tower were empty, bed clothes undisturbed. The fifth, a bit small for even its one regular occupant, was dwarfed by a very grown-up Ron and Hermione, kissing passionately and trying not to roll off onto the floor. They'd been at it for a while - at one point a couple of months ago they had made a game of seeing how long they could keep going before circumstances forced them to stop.

Which is perhaps why Hermione was a bit put out when Ron, for no apparent reason, stopped kissing her and shifted her weight so that they were sort of side-by-side - as much as was possible in Ron's too-small bed.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked.

"Nothing, I just want to look at you a minute," he answered, his face breaking into an infectious smile that she caught instantly as his hand caressed her face.

"Tell me something," Hermione said.

"What?" Ron replied after a moment, waiting for a question.

"Anything."

This made him laugh.

"What?" she asked, bemused.

"Nothing, just - I thought you were going to, you know, ask me something particular."

"Tell me a secret."

Ron said nothing. Hermione knew, on some level, that she was not being terribly helpful, but she wasn't sure how to articulate what she was searching for.

"Tell me something I don't know about you." She paused, thinking. "Something ... maybe I wouldn't like."

Ron narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "And why would I tell you something you wouldn't like?"

"Because we love each other and you trust me."

Ron snorted very much in the manner Hermione would have if she were just about to zing him. "So I should just arrogantly say something to make you pissing mad and think 'Eh, she loves me, she'll deal with it'?"

"No, I just want to - I want to know you."

Ron's head jerked back in surprise. "You've known me for seven years, Hermione."

"Yes, thank you, I remembered that much. But--"

"And there's been plenty about me that you didn't like, as you no doubt remember."

"So there's nothing you've kept secret from me? Nothing you were embarrassed about or - afraid to tell me?"

"This conversation isn't going anywhere good."

"So there is something?"

"Hermione, wh--"

"I don't mean some other girl or something."

"Thank Merlin for that," Ron spat.

"Unless there is some other girl, in which case I'd very much like to--"

"You're mental, you know that? Absolutely, bloody mental."

She changed tack a bit. "I'm sure Harry knows things about you that I don't."

That was it. She had awakened the gazebo.

"You know, you're probably right, Hermione. Harry knows all the stuff I don't dare tell you. Ask him about my stash of soppy romance novels or how I just pretend to be afraid of spiders because girls think it's sexy."

This was sarcasm, and Hermione was not going to take it. She got up from the bed and started to leave.

"Why the hell does this mean so much to you?" Ron said, throwing up his hands. "Look, you probably know more stuff about me than anyone, including Harry."

"What, like what happens to your ... wand when you--"

"Hey!"

"Just forget it," she sighed.

"Like hell I will! What's the matter with you?"

"No, no, Ron, I was just hoping for a moment of real intimacy with my boyfriend, but he's not interested."

"Intimacy!" Ron sputtered, stunned. "What do you call what we've been doing the past few months? I mean, we haven't ... you know, but we've still--"

"That's not all it means, Ron." Hermione was in her element now. "I want to know you better than anyone. I want to learn what you want, what you need, what you're afraid of. Besides spiders."

Ron narrowed his eyes. "You almost make me sound like a - a book."

Typical Ron. Hermione left the room with a roll of the eyes and went to the girls' dormitory. She started to pick up the book on her nightstand, but it instantly reminded her of Ron's comment, and she huffed at it as if it too had reproached her. Lying on her bed, she tried to be grateful for the time to herself. She'd had precious little of it since just before she and Ron and Harry had gone off in search of Voldemort's Horcruxes, and she had spent almost no time since the battle absent from Ron's company. The gentle pressure of his arms around her had become quite a familiar sensation and one that she longed for at odd moments when she did not feel it. Why did she have to pick a fight with him? And, perhaps more importantly, why could he not answer a simple question?

Hermione knew she was being silly. All Ron had done was to stop kissing her and instead gaze adoringly at her. She was the one who couldn't bear to let a silent moment whoosh by without filling it. And this time she had just insisted on filling it by asking her boyfriend to bare his soul so that she could brush off whatever it was indulgently and congratulate herself on their having communicated and shared and all that other stuff Real Couples did.

*******

As there were so few people staying in the castle at present, dinner was a more intimate affair in the kitchens. Hermione sat next to Ron at the one long table, but they didn't speak. Later, as they sat in the common room with Ginny, Harry and Neville, Ron suddenly stood up, took Hermione's hand, and led her to the portrait hole.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to give you your secret, that's what," he said, now leading her out into the corridor.

"Ron, I'm sorry about this afternoon. Really, forget it. Please."

"No, I understand, I think. I want to do this. Only it isn't something I can really ... explain. I'll have to show you."

She asked no questions as he dragged her to what was formerly Dumbledore's office. It was emptier than it had ever been - no delicate instruments, no telescope, not even the portraits of the former headmasters, which had been removed, along with the Sorting Hat and several other items, to a safer place during reconstruction. Only the desk, a chair, and a tall cabinet in the corner remained.

Ron looked around. "It must have been moved."

"What are we looking for?"

Ron turned and spotted the cabinet. "No wait, maybe--"

He opened the door to the cabinet to find a large stone basin - the Pensieve that Harry had told them both about. Ron pulled out his wand, unsure of what to do next.

"You're going to show me a memory?"

"Yeah, only I'm not sure how to--"

He put his wand to his temple. Nothing happened. He squinted harder in concentration.

"I think you just have to--"

But before Hermione could finish trying to help, a silvery white substance formed at the tip of Ron's wand. He drew it slowly from his temple and dropped it into the basin. He looked apprehensively at the Pensieve, then at Hermione. "Whatever you see - I mean, however you feel about it - I love you, Hermione." This was not the first time either had said "love" to the other, but Ron looked at her meaningfully and she instantly regretted having made him feel this was necessary. Her curiosity, however, was now piqued.

"Are you coming with me?" she asked, searching his face for some vague idea of what she was in for. He took her hand and nodded. She gave him a brief, sweet kiss of thanks and encouragement, and they turned back to the Pensieve and leaned forward together until their faces touched the surface of the basin's shimmery pool.

After an unpleasant falling sensation, they found themselves in the Forest of Dean, in the middle of winter. Their feet landed in the snow without making imprints, and in front of them stood another Ron, pulling a sleeping bag from his rucksack.

"This is the night you came back," Hermione realized aloud. "The night you destroyed the locket."

"The night you beat the shit out of me," Ron finished the series of facts for her.

She laughed, thinking briefly to herself that she had never expected to find that situation worthy of a laugh before. But looking at the other Ron, her heart suddenly swelled at the thought of him sitting in these freezing woods all day, waiting for the slightest opportunity to find his way back to her and Harry. She turned to say something to the real Ron, but his attention was drawn in another direction. She followed his gaze to a dark, cloaked figure in the distance.

"That must be Snape!" she gasped.

A sudden burst of white light that could only have come from a Patronus confirmed this, and Hermione and Ron watched in silence, unable to comment on what they both now knew that all of this meant. The doe came out of the trees, followed at a distance by Harry, and Hermione watched as the scene she'd only heard about played before her eyes. She watched the other Ron watching Harry, unsure of whether to make his presence known, and said nothing until Harry jumped into the icy water. Her inner mother suddenly awoke.

"Wait - he stripped almost naked to jump into freezing water, and left the locket on?!

"I know," said Ron, shaking his head as the other Ron jumped into the water as well. Hermione gripped Ron's hand and, though she obviously knew that the other Ron and Harry were both going to come out again, the wait for them to come to the surface was agonizingly long. She and Ron moved closer to the water's edge and watched more of the scene unfold. As Harry began to insist to the other Ron that he should be the one to destroy the locket, Hermione looked bewildered; this was not new information.

"Ron, you already told me all of this."

"Not all of it."

She soon realized this was true when the other Ron began to protest and talk about the locket's effect on him. The fear in his face touched her, and she dropped the real Ron's hand to get a closer look at the scene.

"I have seen your heart and it is mine," said a high, cold voice.

Hermione's eyes grew large. All she had known was that the locket was opened and Ron stabbed it. She had not expected a confrontation.

"Don't listen to it!" she heard Harry say. "Stab it!"

"I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears. All you desire is possible, but all that you dread is also possible."

Hermione felt her stomach drop. Was this not the exact thing she had pushed Ron to reveal earlier? She no longer wanted an answer and indeed could have kicked herself for interrogating Ron earlier, but she couldn't stop watching.

"Least loved, always, by the mother who craved a daughter..."

"Ron," Hermione said as her eyes began to fill with tears.

"Least loved, now, by the girl who prefers your friend..."

"Ron!" she said in a strangled sort of voice. She turned to look at the real Ron, but her attention was immediately drawn back to the locket when two figures began to emerge from its tiny windows. A hideous, distorted version of Harry and herself, each of them with gleaming red eyes. She wanted very much to scream, but could not. Ron looked on stubbornly, masochistically.

"Why return?" said the Riddle-Harry. "We were better without you, happier without you, glad of your absence."

"OH!" Hermione groaned in indignation.

"We laughed at your stupidity, your cowardice, your presumption--"

"Presumption!" echoed the Riddle-Hermione. The real Hermione turned to this evil bastardization of herself. If she had heard any real person say such things about Ron, she would have given them a hefty piece of her mind and likely a well-placed spell to whatever part of their body would hurt them most. On one level, she knew this was Voldemort's version of her, but he was not the sole architect of this abominable vision. She wanted this to stop, right now.

"Ron, why are you just standing there?! Why aren't you killing this ... this THING!??!"

"Who could look at you, who would ever look at you, beside Harry Potter?" Riddle-Hermione continued, while the real Hermione's insides squirmed and she suddenly felt as if she was going to be violently sick. "What have you ever done, compared with the Chosen One? What are you, compared with the Boy Who Lived?"

"SHUT UP, YOU STUPID COW!" Hermione screamed above Harry's continued pleas for Ron to stab the locket. She forced her eyes shut, unwilling to witness any more. But more came.

"Your mother confessed," taunted Riddle-Harry, "that she would have preferred me as a son, would be glad to exchange..."

Before Hermione could scream again at this cruel, unjust picture, Riddle-Hermione interjected again, "Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him."

Hermione roared in outrage. Throwing her typical reason and logic aside and forgetting that this scene was just a memory, she hurled herself at the floating figures as they began to kiss. With nothing to hit, however, she staggered and landed on her knees, sobbing, the grotesque scene now behind her, and she heard but did not see Ron finally stabbing the locket.

"After you left," Harry began, "she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn't want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other."

Hermione sobbed even harder. The memory of Ron's leaving, combined with the injustice of this horror show of Ron's deep-seated fears about her and Harry, was almost too much to bear. Harry's voice trailed off, and Hermione felt an ache in her chest as she recalled painfully how devastating Ron's absence had been. She steeled herself and finally turned around to face the scene again to see Ron standing on the other side of it, still staring obstinately.

"She's like my sister," Harry continued. "I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me."

"It's true, Ron," Hermione said, not yet prepared to look him in the eye. She felt a multitude of emotions in that moment. She felt compassion for Ron's insecurity, but she could not forget what it allowed him to fear about her. And while she watched Harry and Ron reconcile and hug, a new emotion took over as she suddenly thought of the moment, a million years ago now, when the three of them had conquered a mountain troll and become friends in the girls' bathroom.

She and Ron suddenly found themselves back in the headmaster's office, and neither of them said anything for a long time.

"Well," began Ron tentatively, "was that what you had in mind?"

Hermione's rage returned, and she pushed Ron so hard that he nearly fell to the ground.

"What? It's what you were after, wasn't it?"

"How could you think those things?" she asked incredulously. "How could you think that about your mother, about Harry - How could you possibly think that about ME?!"

"I didn't, I--"

"Yes, of course. That was Voldemort's version of us. But - but you believed it! You believed it enough to use it as a reason to abandon us!" She could tell Ron wanted to get in a word of self-defense, but she was determined not to let him. "We were never - NEVER - better off without you. We were miserable at best, and at worst a complete and utter disaster. If you hadn't come back--" But she was not going to give him the satisfaction of finishing this statement.

There was another brief moment of silence. Normally, when Hermione was angry, he could cajole her or kiss her out of it, but she was glad to see that this seemed to be the last thing on his mind.

"You've got some serious inferiority issues, Ron. I understand it, I really do. You've lived your whole life in the shadow of all those brothers, and you've always felt you could never measure up. You spent seven years with Harry Potter as your best friend and everyone constantly interested in him and impressed by him and concerned about him and not even realizing you're there. It would be a miracle if all that didn't fool with your head." She paused, considering him a moment. "Look, I'm going to say this, and not for the last time, but I need to make this clear right now."

Ron made a face, as if preparing himself for something unpleasant.

"I love you, Ron," she said firmly but affectionately. "I want you."

"Why?" he said, half-laughing.

"Because believe it or not, I think you're amazing. You're brave, and funny, and smart, and--"

He snorted; Hermione glared at him.

"And this is clearly more than you deserve right now."

"Right." He took her hand. "So, I guess we need to talk about this?"

"Not right now. There are more important things to deal with at the moment."

"Like what?"

"Like finding some way to erase the image of me kissing Harry from my brain. That was perhaps the worst horror of all."

Ron smiled, a little too satisfactorily, Hermione thought, but she let it pass. "And how do we do that?" he asked.

"We'll think of something," she answered, the corners of her mouth twitching, betraying her attempt to be serious as she tugged his hand and led him out of the office.

"And what are you thinking?" he asked, innocently.

"That I want you to do something really amazing to my body." She looked at him, unable to stop herself from grinning, and suddenly, for the first time in a long time, Ron's ears went gloriously red.