"Do you want to walk with me," he said, after a while.

Hermione looked up at his open expression, and nodded.

She followed Ron as he led her leisurely down the list of names, and down to the steps to the grounds. They were quiet together as they walked along the treeline — something they'd never had in the past, but she decided to accept it as long as it would last.

It wasn't until they rounded a large tree and Ron's feet halted that she realized they were at the pumpkin patch. What remained of Hagrid's hut was in a pile of wood and dirt, but she could just make out where his brick steps had been. The Forbidden Forest had grown forward around it, but someone had replanted the pumpkins.

Hermione looked back at the long distance they'd walked. She could just make out the Black Lake, a white marble grave on the shore.

"I've been talking to Ginny again."

Hermione nodded, wrapping her arms around her waist. When she looked up, she found him gazing intently at her.

"Good." She managed a small smile.

"She said it was wrong of them to put you in St. Mungo's. And I agree with her now." He sniffed once and glanced at the castle. "I'm sorry I didn't realize that sooner, or…"

Her stomach twisted, turning over itself. There was no getting around it all. They needed to do this.

"Ron, I understand. You were…" She looked around, searching for the words. "You were working off the information you had at the time. But you were missing the most crucial piece of it all."

"And what's that?"

Hermione choked down her nerves. "I had feelings for Draco before all of this. At school. Before he took the Dark Mark and even before Voldemort came back…" She shook her head. "I never told you or Harry. I kept it for myself." Her eyes pricked, and she brushed her knuckles across her lashes. "You can imagine my surprise when I learned he had feelings for me, too—"

Ron scoffed and turned to lean against the large tree. "Yeah. I know." He reached up to adjust his eyepatch, and Hermione gaped at him.

"You— what?"

"He watched you. He was…" He waved his hand. "Let's just say I recognized it in him. Though I never imagined it ran that deep."

Hermione's cheeks flamed. She bit her lip, trying to tread carefully.

"I want you to know that… it doesn't discredit what my feelings were for you. I did care for you, Ron. I still do."

His jaw ticked as his gaze roved the horizon. "Just not enough. Not like I want you to."

The truth drifted over them with the summer breeze, and there was nothing she could do to change it. Nothing she would do, even if she could.

Ron pushed off the tree and looked down at the grass.

"I think…" His throat bobbed. "I think that's all I can hear about it for right now. I never met this version of Malfoy you fell in love with. And I just can't stomach thinking of you with the version in my head." Hermione swallowed, her eyes welling with her shame.