He was still on edge, still stuck thinking about the thing that'd attacked them, even if Hermione'd said she wasn't going to go back there. It'd be easy to think that after as many times as it'd happened to him, to Harry and Hermione, that nearly dying would get easier, but it was always just as mental, and it always set his teeth on edge.

Though, the more Hermione went on, the less he felt like someone had repeatedly hit him in the gut with a bludger, until she added the last bit under her breath.

The brilliant thing about it was that Ron didn't even have to think before he answered her. It wasn't because it was the sort of thing they said to each other all the time-- at least not in the way he was sure Hermione meant it just then-- but because it was something he knew he really meant. He'd known it for a while now, but it'd been when he'd heard her voice come out of the Deluminator that it'd really, actually sunk in. And maybe it was only because of how mad the day had been, but he was reminded of that, of that whisper of her voice he'd heard last Christmas morning that'd brought him back.

"I love you too, Hermione," Ron said, and he didn't have to think about the words before he said them or about whether or not Hermione'd lecture him about whether or not he should sit on the mattress in his wet trousers, or about whether or not he should kiss her right then.