The Wrong Time

A Much Needed Discussion

Hermione washed her hands. She had just finished making dinner for herself and Josiah when there was a knock at the door. She dried her hands on a dish towel and drew her wand. She didn’t know what to expect when she opened the door, but it certainly wasn’t a disheveled Ron standing there, eyes red rimmed.


“Ron? What the hell are you doing here?” she asked him, lowering her wand.


“Hermione, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I know I can’t take it back, but I want to. I think we should work things out,” He said, looking at his shoes.


Hermione moved aside so he could come into the cottage.


He walked in, looking around uncomfortably.


“What are you talking about? Since when do you want to ‘work it out?’” Hermione asked him incredulously.


“Since I had a talk with Mum, and she made me see that letting you go like this is wrong. I promised to be there for you in sickness and health until I die. Well, I’m not dead, and so I figure we have to work this out, because we promised to,” Ron said sheepishly.


“Well we also promised to be faithful to each other, and to love each other too,” Hermione said quietly.


Ron looked crestfallen. Then his face lit up.


“What if we do, you know, what the Malfoys did? What if we stay married, since we promised we would, but we are free to see other people?”


Hermione’s fingers twitched reflexively around her wand. Was he bloody kidding?


“If you think for one second that I would be okay with something like that, then you never really knew me to begin with,” Hermione said evenly.


“But Mione--”


Hermione held up a hand to silence him.


“Think about what you are saying, Ron! You haven’t said once said you want to work it out because you love me. You said you want to work it out because your mother told you to! When I look at you, all I can see is five years of betrayal. All I can see is the man I stopped loving three years ago, not the man I fell in love with over twenty years ago.


“I don’t want to say we made a mistake in getting married, because then we wouldn’t have three beautiful children, but staying married would be a mistake. I know that you are probably getting ostracized right now because of this, but so am I.


“It’s not as if I am not paying for this too. This will all blow over, and you will marry Lavender, and will once again be seen as a man worthy of respect. Just deal with it for now, because I don’t want to hear any more talk of working things out,” Hermione said, forcing back tears.


Ron looked defeated. He knew she was right. As much as he wanted things to go back to the way they were, he really did not. He didn’t love her. There was nothing there to rebuild or to salvage. What he wanted was for society to ignore his personal life, and to move on with Lavender.


“Where’s Joe?” he asked her.


“He is playing in the back yard,” Hermione answered. They walked outside together.


Josiah ran up to Ron and threw his arms around him.


“Daddy!”


“How’s my boy?” Ron said, hugging his son tightly.


“You wive hewe too now?” Josiah asked innocently.


“No, no son. Daddy is going to live in the house, and Mummy is going to live here,” He told his son.


“Why, Daddy?”


Ron looked at Hermione for help.


“Well son,” Hermione said, crouching down so she was level with him. “Sometimes mummies and daddies live apart because they don’t want to be together anymore.”


Josiah looked confused.


“You no wove Daddy no mowe, Mummy?”


“Of course I love your daddy, Baby. Sometimes grown-ups have problems that they can’t fix. Like when we had to throw away your train, you remember when your train broke, Baby?”


Josiah nodded.


“Daddy tried to fix your train, but it was broken too badly, so we had to throw it away. Well this is like that,” Hermione finished, hoping he could understand.


He was very smart for his age.


“You gonna fwow Daddy away?” He asked, looking scared.


“No, Baby,” Hermione said with a chuckle.


“Mummy and Daddy are just going to live apart now,” Ron said. “You will get to stay with Daddy sometimes, and with Mummy sometimes, it will be fun.”


Josiah did not look very convinced, but still nodded.


“You stay out here and play some more while Mummy and Daddy go back in the house,” Hermione told him.


Ron followed her back inside the cottage. She poured two cups of tea and they sat down at the table.


Suddenly there was a whoosh and several letters were dropped down the fireplace and stacked in a neat pile in front of it.


Ron looked at the pile, and his ears turned pink. He recognized several to be howlers.


“Blimey, I had no idea you were getting letters,” He said, and took a sip of his tea.


“Well, they come about three times a day,” Hermione said, aiming her wand at the pile and setting it on fire.


She cleaned up the ash.


“I’m thinking of going to Italy,” Hermione said.


Ron nearly choked on his tea.


“Italy? What’s in Italy?”


“My work. I think it would be good for me and Josiah to get away from all of this. At least for a little while.”


“But what about the children?”


“Well the place I would be staying has ample room for them, and I could have the floo network connected to the house so that they could come see you when they wanted to. It will be a longer floo trip than they are used to, but it would still allow for them to travel back and forth, and of course, one of us could accompany them.


“Well, I don’t want either of us to be shut out from their lives. None of this is their fault, so they should not be punished for it,” Ron said.


Hermione nodded in agreement.


I suppose that we should have them come home this weekend so we can talk to them about all this,” Hermione said.


“I’ll have Lavender stay at her flat on Saturday so that we can tell them alone,” Ron said.


“Thank you,” Hermione said gratefully.


They finished their tea in silence.


A/N: Thank you all so much for the reviews! It really makes my day to read them. I hope you enjoyed that, and as always, please review!