I Learned Your Pulse

"Ron?"

Ron was, per usual, silent.

"Ron, did you see Draco's badge?"

He shook his head, not even bothering with words.

"He's Head Boy."

Ron nodded.

Hermione was slightly angry with him. And then she remembered his reason for silence.

She stopped walking and made Ron stop by tugging him back to her. She raised her hand and used her thub to stroke his cheek gently. His eyes widened a little.

"It's okay, Ron, it's okay."

"No, it's not."

Okay, so that was definitely not what she wanted to hear, but it was still voiced out loud. The people walking around them kept going, some glancing back, but mostly continuing to the common room. Ron's blue eyes studied her face, watching for any sign of falseness or empathy instead of sympathy. He found none. She looked him dead in the eyes, and threw her arms around him, hugging him close, his body shaking the tiniest bit, her face burried in his mane of red. "It is, Ron, I know it hurts," she whispered, "but it's okay. I'm here, I'll help, you know Harry will help, too."

"I miss him," Ron whispered, his voice breaking twice and laced with sorrow. Hermione felt her heart break. Tears rose to her eyes, but she fought them down. Now was not the time to let Ron see her cry - not when he needed her to be strong.

"I know you miss him, Ron. I miss him too. But I think George might miss him most."

Ron chuckled and stopped the little shakes he was doing. Hermione pulled back to look in his eyes again.

"Fred and George were just two halves of the same whole," he said, explaining his laugh. "George misses him the most, because he lost half of himself."

Hermione waited.

Ron realized what he'd said and dropped his face to his hands, shaking again. Hermione gently removed his left hand from his face, and then his right. He offered no resistance. She replaced where his hands had been with her own, and guided his face slowly upward, once again fighting back the tears. "I love you," she reminded him. "And Fred does, too, even if you can't see him."

"Ron? Hermione? Oh -" Harry came into view of Hermione's peripheral vision, hand-in-hand with Ginny, and seeing them, stopped mid-sentence. "Should I leave?"

Hermione looked right at him, saying with her eyes what she couldn't with her mouth.

He immediately crossed the hallway to Ron and put his hand on his back. "Ron," he said, "C'mon, mate. We've got a common room to see."

Ginny tapped Hermione's shoulder, and when Hermione looked, gestured to take her place. Hermione nodded and slowly let go of Ron's head, moving out of the way slightly and taking his hand, instead. Ginny stood directly in front of her brother, hands on her hips, looking exactly like Mrs. Weasley when she was about to scold someone. And that's exactly what Ginny did.

"Ronald Weasley," she chastised, "You are about to cry. I am not about to cry. I am the youngest member of the family, Fred's only sister and a girl, for crying out loud - wait, I'm not crying out loud, and I'm not crying in silence either. We have time to do that at bed, but you are a prefect and you will not ruin how you look to the younger students as a role model because you lost someone in the war."

He looked taken aback. "Ginny -"

"Here's something for you, Ron," she continued, "most of them lost someone too. If they see you handling it like this, they're going to handle it like this, and it's going to be absolutely no fun whatsoever to go around a castle where there are tiny children breaking down in tears everywhere."