e x p e c t a t i o n s . u n f u l f i l l e d

Expectations Unfulfilled
[by victoria p.]

Rating: PG

Summary: Well maybe I'm just too young / To keep good love from going wrong

Notes: Written for tarie, who wanted a Ron story based on the above lyrics from Jeff Buckley's "Lover You Should Have Come Over."

Date: October 22, 2004

Ron looks around at the boxes piled up at the doorway, the windows bare of curtains, the room empty of furniture. The apartment they never actually lived in together, though he'd spent enough nights here over the past year that it should have felt like home.

"So this is it," Hermione says, and he remembers her under fire, in the heat of battle, calmer than everyone else, all emotion leached out like poison, to erupt in private later. He can't count the number of times she's come apart in his arms. He thought he'd have that the rest of his life, but apparently not.

"Yeah."

She shifts from foot to foot, and he smiles a little at that, glad that he's not the only one feeling awkward. Uncertainty doesn't look right on Hermione, though. He thought she always knew what to do, always had all the answers. Just another thing he was wrong about.

She twists the ring around her finger, and he remembers picking it out, he and Harry and Ginny in the Muggle jeweler's, acting as if they knew what they were talking about.

Cut, carat, clarity, Ginny kept repeating, as if it were a spell, the secret key to making Hermione happy.

He'd spotted the delicate filigreed ring with the small square-cut diamond amidst gaudier displays of platinum and jewels, like a Golden Snitch hidden behind the quaffle. It was small, but beautiful, and he'd worked double and sometimes triple shifts to pay for it. Harry'd covered for him, and offered to help out, but Ron had wanted to do it himself, to give her something that he'd worked for, sweated for, and, given the nature of being an Auror, sometimes bled for.

"I guess this is yours," Hermione says, pulling it off her finger and offering it to him. He's tempted to let her drop it to the floor, but he's grown beyond that, and holds out his hand. He knows this is his fault. She drops it in without touching him, which hurts even more.

"Hermione, I--" I'm so sorry, I know I've said it a thousand times, but I really am. "I always thought we'd be together. Everyone thought--"

She shakes her hair back, straightens her shoulders. "Everyone thought wrong, Ron. They usually do." She almost sounds like her old self, exasperated and bossy. Part of him wishes she'd just tell him he was wrong, he was stupid, hadn't he read Hogwarts, A History? Except that there's nothing in her books about what he's done, about dealing with the promise he's broken.

"Maybe Luna will like it," she says, jerking her chin at the ring lying in the palm of his hand.

He closes his fist over it, willing his temper down, because he was wrong, and there's no excuse.

"I never expected--" To cheat on you. To get caught. That it would end like this.

"Maybe this whole thing was based on false expectations," she says. "'Everyone thought we'd be together. Everyone expected it. Ron and Hermione, they go together like toast and tea.'" She slings her purse over her shoulder. "Harry has my new address, but I don't think I've missed anything."

She turns away and has her hand on the doorknob when he says, "Hermione." His voice is low, ragged, and he wishes he could put a million apologies into it, take back the pain he's caused. He wishes for the Time-Turner, so he could go back and tell himself not to be an idiot, not to take Luna home, not to lose the best thing in his life over a stupid argument.

She turns and looks at him. Her eyes are bright, and her voice is thick, but steady. "I never expected you to hurt me," she says, "but you did."

He takes a step toward her, feeling like she's stuck a knife in his gut. "I'm stupid. You know that."

"You're not," she says, a ghost of their old bickering shining through, giving him a brief flash of hope before she snatches it away. "You knew exactly what you were doing, Ron. And that's why it hurts so much."

She doesn't let the door slam on her way out, but the low click sounds like the gates of a prison clanging down around him.

He never expected it to end like this.

end

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