Godric's Hollow - Chapter Fourteen : If - H/R - PG-13
Title: Godric’s Hollow
Author: shocfix
Pairing: Harry/Ron
Rating: NC-17

This is my Big Damn Table, turned into a multi-chaptered novella.

One hundred stories inspired by Broke Back Mountain.

Ron looks back on his life with and without Harry.


Chapter Fourteen : If

How
Yes, I know I was thinking in circles.

How could I leave and be with Harry?

How could I give him up and stay?

So, I let things muddle on, of course.

Over the next couple of years I did make more of an effort with Hermione.

It broke my heart that she seemed pleased but surprised if I treated her nicely.

Especially when I took her away, no expense spared, for our thirtieth anniversary.

To Paris.

Romantic, huh?

We had a great time, even if she watched me carefully, with a tiny frown, as if expecting the second shoe to drop.

But even I knew that you didn’t take your wife away to Paris to tell her that you had a boyfriend.

And my boyfriend?

He gave me exactly the same look as Hermione did when I told him I was taking her away.

I felt vaguely hysterical.

Like I couldn’t even tell them apart anymore.

They were both so important to me.

How was I ever supposed to chose between them?


If
Sometimes I didn’t even think there was any choice to make.

Harry never, ever pressed me to leave anymore.

He had his new life.

The one we could have had together, if I’d ever taken the risk.

And I think.

I think.

That, if I’d asked him, I could still have gone with him.

If I’d ever been able to give up everything else in my life.

But he didn’t ask.

And nor did I.

And time passed.

And Teddy was Head Boy, just like I could have been, and had all his life before him, and I wanted him to appreciate the simple life I’d managed to cock up.


And
Sometimes.

When Harry managed a few days at home, and I sat in the kitchen with him, and he sparkled as he told me how much he was enjoying his work; when he unconsciously took my hand and stroked it as he talked; when he touched my face.

Sometimes, I thought I could ask him.

To take me with him.

Sometimes.

When Hermione and I were babysitting Arthur and he was curled up in her lap for a bedtime story; when I lay in bed and watched Hermione brush her hair; when we sat in the lounge in the evening, Hermione curled up with a book in her lap.

Sometimes, I thought I couldn’t manage without her.

And sometimes I wondered what would happen if I told her and asked if it was alright to love them both.


He
What was it about him?

From the first moment I met him, I’d have done anything for him.

He never asked it of me.

Anything.

So, when he kissed me for the first time, well.

If Harry needed it, then I would give it to him.

He didn’t mean to control my life; I don’t think he even noticed that he did.

But if he came to me – for friendship, for comfort, for love, for sex – I gave it to him.

He didn’t come to me often, anymore.

He had new friends, in his new life.

But he came straight to me, whenever he was home.

He apologised for being so busy.

He hugged me.

He loved me.

But he didn’t rely on me, anymore.


She
What was it about her?

From the first moment I met her, she challenged me like no one else.

She made me do my best at everything.

She made me want to impress her.

And I may have married her because everyone expected me to, but I had never been anything but awestruck with her.

I had the most amazing wife in the world.

She’d raised five children while running a department at the Ministry.

OK, Harry had actually done quite a bit of the raising.

And she’d put up with me for over thirty years.

Well, she’d been married to me for that long, she’d put up with me for a lot longer.

And she deserved more than half my heart.