Curtains

A/N: Not what you were expecting, I think. But necessary.

My thanks to Ana, Annie, Indy, Karelia, and Melenka for alpha- and beta-reading. Special thanks to Melenka for a crucial insight and to Annie for coming up with the title for this chapter. :)

18: Curtains

... it had been him all along.

His world exploded outward and he cradled her against him with unthinkable tenderness, the benighted spirit of a haunted murderer surging powerfully within the glorious wonder of her thoroughly impossible heart.

-----

"Oi, Hermione."

At the sound of Ron's voice at her door, Hermione froze.

"Ron?"

"Yeah, 's me – all right?"

"I..."

Severus stepped away, his invisible face thunderous.

Bereft of the feel of him in her arms, Hermione muttered, "I'm in hell."

An answering mutter from the opposite corner of the room, "Nor am I out of it."

Hermione raked her hair back into a quick knot and went to the door. "Ronald..." She quickly undid the locking charm.

"All right?" Ron asked again as the door revealed his open, freckled face.

"Um..." I am so screwed. "... all right, yes... sort of."

"Not like you to ditch without word. I stuck around and waited for a while..."

For years, she added mentally. A strange feeling in the back of her throat as she realized fully that she'd been seduced not by passion but by habit, by a sort of post-war... apraxia. She closed her eyes briefly and opened them to find Ron looking at her, his concern plain on his face. "I'm sorry, Ron... I honestly don't remember making plans for tonight."

"Well, no, but... it's Friday."

Mimi crept around the corner and, catching sight of Ron, froze mid-step.

Ron glanced over Hermione's shoulder. "Cheating, are you?"

Her mind stumbled haphazardly. "I... what?"

"Crooks won't like that."

"Oh... OH. That's just Mimi. She's... um... she's just a stray." Grateful for any reason to turn away, Hermione went to the kitchen archway and picked up the kitten. "I'm so sorry..."

He looked at her oddly on his way in the door. "It's only pub night, Hermione – everyone pops in as they can, yeah? But you usually send an owl if you're working or something. I just wanted to make sure you were okay." He closed the door behind him.

"I'm fine," she said, concentrating on any sound of movement from the other corner.

Ron came over, opening his arms to embrace her.

Mimi snarled.

Hermione shot a glance toward the corner.

"Not the most friendly sort," Ron said, stepping back.

"No... Mmm, what? No... yes... well, she may have been mistreated."

"Aw. Poor thing. Put her down so I can..." He grinned, lopsided as always. "You know." A wide, inviting smile.

She held the kitten more tightly.

Mimi glared balefully at Ron.

"What's wrong, then?" Ron asked, looking more closely at Hermione. "Say... have you been moping?"

"No, Ron, I..." She stepped away from him and set the kitten down.

Mimi scampered immediately to the corner where Severus was standing.

Hermione leaned back against the kitchen archway, determined to keep Ron's focus away from that corner.

She thought she heard a rustling, but, raising her eyes to the ceiling, hoped it was just Mimi in the curtains. She spoke quickly to cover any sound. "Ron, I..."

"Been working too hard, have you? Your eyes are all funny. Maybe you need glasses. That'll be rich – you and Harry will be twins."

Ron's smiling, open face was too close, and, for an instant, her chest tightened, then she shook her head. "No, Ron... it's not work. It's..." She closed her eyes, knowing what she had to do, desperately wishing they didn't have an audience for this. "I'm sorry, Ron. This isn't going to work."

"What isn't?"

Hermione nearly whispered, "Us."

His brow furrowed. "Us? Not going to work? But... we've always been... for years."

"I know." She smiled sadly. "But we're... we're better as friends." Her heart ached.

"I know this speech," Ron said slowly, backing away a step and drawing himself straighter.

Hermione's voice was soft. "I know."

"They told me this would happen... Harry and Ginny... I didn't believe them. I laughed at them. Laughed."

"They did?"

"Yeah... said it wouldn't work. That you're too swotty for someone like me. But... but years, Hermione. Everything we've done together? Been through?" He looked at her, his struggle to understand the impossible clear in his eyes.

"I know, Ron, and I've always cared for you, deeply... I still do..."

Ron paused, then looked again at Mimi. "When you thought I'd been here... Hermione... I have to ask." He swallowed, tilting his chin up a bit. "Is there someone else?"

---

Yes. Severus's eyes were boring holes in Ron's back. Leave.

The cereal on the table-top re-arranged to read, "Oh noes."

---

"Someone else?" Hermione repeated. To her ears, her voice sounded small. She shook her head.

"Yeah. It's someone else, isn't it?" His blue eyes begged her to tell him otherwise.

"It." She blinked. "Ron, please. I should have said something years ago."

"You've been with some other bloke for years?!" Ron turned away, his hands flexing.

Mimi growled low.

Hermione flashed hotly. "You know that's not true Ronald."

"I don't know what I know right now," he said quietly, his voice shaking.

"I understand," she said softly.

"Is it Krum?"

A sharp involuntary laugh was out before she could stop it. "He's happily married, Ron. He and Ekaterina are perfectly suited; you said so yourself when we visited them last Christmas."

"Christmas." The color drained from his face. "Hermione, we've always been like family. I don't know how to do this with anyone else... I don't want to. How can you change all that so fast?"

Her throat tightened. "I – I don't know. But I have to – some of it. I just can't let you go on hoping..." Her vision blurred. "I don't want to lose everything we've had, but... Oh, I'm making a hash of this – you and Harry have always been my best friends; you know that."

Ron stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked at the carpet. "If you tell me it's Harry, I'll kill you."

---

Over my dead body. Severus's lip curled. Conveniently, a zero risk proposition...

---

The cereal scraped again.

"What's that noise?" Ron said, glancing irritably at the table that held the cereal.

Hermione glanced down. "Kil?" She swept the cereal into her hand and pocketed it. "Nothing. Just a Charm I've been working on for George."

Ron laughed – a short, broken laugh – and looked at the ceiling as if there he might find air. "Please tell me it isn't George."

"Don't do this, Ron, please. We've been through too much – there's no wizard alive who could mean as much to me as you and Harry and all your family. It's just not..." not enough "... not working."

"This is the part of the speech where you tell me it's not me, it's you."

---

It's you. Leave.

---

Hermione shook her head. "No, Ron. It's neither of us. It's both of us. It's..." The most important thing she'd ever had to tell him, and she didn't have the words.

Ron looked at her quizzically.

She could see the shutters falling in his eyes, the mask of lightheartedness with which he'd kept the worst of what happened in the war at bay. "I can't change your mind on this, can I," he said.

As gently as she could, she said, "No."

"Yeah, well, can't blame a bloke for asking. Every year." He shook his head roughly. "Dunno what to do now, do I? Guess I can't ask you. Well. Okay. Right now, I hate you, but... but we've always been mates, the three of us, first and forever. Just... just give me a decade or so before I have to remember that I really am your friend, okay?" He shot her a pleading look through his shaggy hair, and she nodded. "We've been best mates. Still are. I just..." He turned suddenly and started for the door. "I have to go."

Then he stopped, his back still to her. "Let me tell Harry, okay?"

"Of course."

"He won't say I told you so."

"No, he won't."

"Gin probably will."

Hermione didn't know what to say to that.

"Just... give me a decade or so. Maybe not that long. Maybe a year." Ron shot an attempt at a smile over his shoulder. "I'll let you know, all right?"

She nodded slowly. "Okay," she whispered.

Another attempted smile, a flash of his blue eyes, and he was gone.

---

At the sound of the outside door closing and Ron's retreating tread on the stone stair, Severus stepped out of the corner.

Hermione glanced at the corner, her expression hooded. She held up her hand. "I'm sorry. Don't say anything. Please."

Severus moved to stand before the window and nodded. The Weasley boy hadn't required killing after all; weak, but not without dignity. And she –

"A favor, if I could?"

He nodded again.

"I'm going to bed with a pint of ice cream, a bad novel, and... and if I could borrow Mimi?" She tilted her head back and sniffed.

"Meee?"

"Of course," he said quietly.

"It's what we do. Witches, I mean. I – I'll see you in the morning." Without looking at him, she went to the kitchen.

He heard her open a drawer and heard her mutter an incantation or two in which the Latin word for "chocolate" figured rather prominently.

He gestured softly with his fingers and heard a soft "Oh" of surprise from the kitchen.

She poked her head back into the living room. Mimi was twining about her ankles, looking up hopefully at the bowl she held.

"Thank you for the brandy," she said softly. "I... the timing couldn't be worse. I will still be here in the morning, and I do intend – and want, very much – to... Just... just not tonight. I can't."

"Of course."

"Right." She stood for a moment as if she would say more, but finally just smiled half-heartedly, lifting the brandy snifter in gratitude.

He inclined his head.

A small laugh. "Thank you."

She disappeared through the kitchen; Mimi padded after her, still tracking the bowl with her luminous eyes.

Very softly, "Goodnight, Doctor Granger."