She felt an explicable sense of personal guilt about Ron. After the Battle of Hogwarts, during the first few blissful weeks in which they imagined they were free of the threat of violence, she and Ron had basically had the fog of war lifted from their minds. They had decided, by unspoken mutual agreement, that they were not what each other needed in a partner, and it was best to remain friends and not to speak of that kiss in the battle. It had been the rational thing to decide, Hermione knew—and even now, she still realized that. They would not have made each other happy; after all, they never really had been happy even as friends, except when Harry was there to anchor the trio—and sometimes not even then. But she still felt a pang of irrational guilt about the fact that it was Padma Patil who had been with him during the blast while Hermione was working at the Ministry, Padma who had helped him out of the rubble, Padma who was practically living in the Janus Thickey ward now....