Discalimer// JK is the proprietor of everything HP. Well I am a fan, ain't I?

The revelry in the Burrow was as stark as a picnic in the Antarctic, now that the twins –Madeline and Adele- were back from Berlin for the summer. Their grandparents and the larger family spoiled the girls continuiously with bottled-up felicity until they and their father, Ron Weasley, sneaked away for some alone time before bed. Twins were ecstatic over that part of their homecoming the most because when their mother, Hermione Granger, interviewed them about it, the rehearsal of already well memorised hours with their father would increase the lightness in girls' feet.

Ronald Weasley, senior prosecutor for the Ministry of Magic, was 36 now. He had two eleven year old daughters and life after Riddle the Wizard Hitler pleased him. That is, it pleased him despite the fact that he was unmarried, a little overweight, and his children spent most of the year in Germany with their mother who was the Spokeswoman and Top Negotiator of the World Wizarding League. Nine years without Hermione always next to him often brooded Ron when he considered the circumstances of their most atrocious row and implicit break-up. At such times, he would sulk into the idleness and loneliness of abstract thinking that contrasted with his former sheepishness. No one really nagged him about it. In fact, Ronald Weasley, the man, had little patience for the shrew that had a redundant fever for the redundant fuss.

Two days before Madeline and Adele travelled to the Burrow, Hermione had owled Ron her courteous yearly letter of thanks. Ron often read the part about the girls' allergies or imperatives of parenting Hermione had always mentioned before he tossed it to Ginny or Mrs. Weasley who would owl her back another letter of cordiality. Hermione herself always stalked her daughters to the Burrow a week before they all headed back to Berlin. For a week, she would socialise with the Weasleys, the Potters and her parents, and spend seven nights of erotic intimacy with Ron. Their tacit agreement on this brief gallivanting was most peculiar. Though it scarred them further, they never abated those rounds of quizzical fornication, mostly because of the unknown of an otherwise future.

Ron walked into the Burrow's kitchen. It was early morning and others were still in bed. He breathed the briskness of oxygen until his blood throbbed enough nourishment into his no longer knocked-out vim. He heated some water for one of Molly's morning draughts, then sat down and re-read Hermione's letter.

Dear Ron,

Girls will be there on the 7th of July. I am sorry that I had not owled you about this earlier. I want to be there at the Burrow for my back-together week. However, I plan for a longer sojourn this time since I want to be with Madeline and Adele till they board the Hogwarts Express for their first year at school. My parents are here with us now, and will most likely tour Germany after I am gone until late September.

Girls are really great. And they are first-class swimmers now, thanks to you. Still they do not have to spend all day at the pond, because they often forget about snacks and their afternoon naps when they are in the water. And please be careful about those sunburns. I thought you would be wiser about the fairness of skin in a redhead. Remember, a parent has always the right to a definitive 'No'. Twins still read as much as I do, but you will not have the usual cargo of books shipped this time. I bought them a copy of Hogwarts: A History. That should do it for now, but it is always best if you have an extra book when they are particularly restless. I absolutely do not agree with George that Maddy and Adele would be great as BEATERS! I would be most solemnly displeased if I see another bludger bruise on my girls. Remember, a brother has the right to a murderous 'No' or a spiteful hex when his daughters' uncles are out of line. And please do not make me owl Ginny.

I will be with you on the 14th of August. My best to Arthur, Molly, Harry, Ginny and others. Talk to you soon.

Yours

H

Somethings never change. However these are the shimmering pieces of metal on a river bed that you would descry but cannot touch because of the gushing, jetting, and later glaciating estuary. Titanic extent of the ever-changing otherwise mocks the generous glow of the unchanging. Ron drank from his cup and then peered into the bottom of it where twigs of herb swimmed and dyed the hot water. His headache suddenly whirred a less jabbing buzz and he inwardly thanked his mother.

It was the 14th of August. His daughters' sunburns were whole lot better and they snacked and slept well enough. Harry had charmed two plastic balls so that these, and not the real bludgers, would harass the girls. So far so good. Of course, none of that was a breakthrough. Madeline and Adele would run to their mother when she was here with the glee of the happiest of children, and then Hermione would forget all about Ron's weaknesses as a parent. Hermione forgot about a lot of things, in fact, or did not remember them as well as she used to. Nor did Ron. He and she were now the pathetic dodgers in the London of their ongoing epic, and it was always the children who withstood the unpleasantness and the lather in those fables. Ron bit the flesh of his thumb and slacked into a semi-obscurant hypnosis.

A little later Ginny and Hermione simultaneously sauntered into the kitchen and immediately resorted to a merry roar. They greeted each other with the friendliest of anticipations. Much of their enthusiasm truly eclipsed the stillness of the morning. The two ladies later adjourned their hurrah as Ron sat up. He sidled over to Hermione and they clumsily kissed.

'Welcome back,' he said soberly and exited for the garden.

Ronald Weasley once had been the ardent votary of a goodnight's sleep, long afternoon snoozes and fugitive naps of sheer leisure. In short, he was fond of hybernation in any of its myriad formats. That had been so until their potions professor murdered Dumbledore and he, Harry and Hermione embarked on an expedition that was the Horcrux Battue. Ron had never tucked himself in for sleep before his two friends did for two years. It had been a very abrupt change, but then Ron was never seemingly sorry about it.

Ron prowled into the bedroom after his latenight shower as Hermione rubbed some moistener over the skin between her knees and her ankles. Ron on the other hand toweled the moist in his short hair.

'Did you get my letter?' said Hermione languidly.

Ron tugged in for the letter he had earlier pocketed in his bathrobe and wagged the parchment before he chucked it onto the bed's sheet.

'Did you read it?' she scolded.

'I did.'

'And?'

'Well, it was very concise, was not it?'

'Concise?' Hermione bickered.

'It had not said much.'

'At least I still send you letters.'

'What do you want me to do? Become a bloody Gildroy,' Ron shrugged.

'You are not fooling anyone, Ronald. If you do not want me to be here for more than a week, you might as well be honest about it.'

'Bunk with us as much as you like. I am more than happy to do my bit.'

'What is that supposed to mean?'

'It means that I never was the one who shooed you away.'

'You know what you are supposed to do, if you want me back,' Hermione snorted.

'I want you back. And the girls to be with me all the time. But I am not going to do more than what I think is right. You have always known that, and it is still up to you. So do not push it unless it is up the hill.'

'It is never going to be over with you, is it?' Hermione said with a gashing burn in her throat.

'What are you on about?' Ron inveighed.

'To you, all has been downhill for so long, Ron. And I do not mean us. Your Moody makeover is almost at its finis.'

Ron undressed his bathrobe violently. He was almost reckless with the sad piece of garment.

'I do it so that someone won't hex me or some other innocent bystander into extinction in some tower or in the peace of their home when that someone should have been in Azkaban all along and not herd with soon-to-be casualties,' he argued madly.

Hermione's hands lingered on her womb, then she hove and snivelled quitely into the softness of her knees. Ron could have snubbed it all, however he was not ready for that bit of stale cruelty. So he cowered next to her, groped her thighs and cuffed her into a firmament of tenderness. Hermione did not balk, the multitude of tears that now salted her skin had been there for some time. And she wept nothing in excess of that latent sorrow as Ron salvaged the moistener tube, squirted some of the oily coldness into the pit of his palm and rubbed it in over Hermione's legs gently.

Somethings just thin out as hair does or the mascara does. Time in fact is the thinner of all things. Nothing withstands the flood of time and its shredding procedure. And the real bite is in the ridicule that is the nothingness of all things vis-a-vis time. There had been all this time for Ron and Hermione and now there was never enough time for the two together. With time, they bowed to the sickness that is the middle-age and the ever-shortness of time itself for a rebirth no longer vexed them. There was not enough time so that they together would do something about the things that have for so long thinned out between them.

The thick door opened and in walked Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived Longer Than Anyone Thought He Would.

'Hey,' he saluted, 'Are not you Hermione Granger, my other best friend?'

'Hey you,' said Hermione and walked over to him for a decent greeting.

'Long time no see.'

'You always say that.'

'Well, that is because it is always true,' Harry announced matter-of-factly.

'I am sorry, Harry.'

'Yeah, you are sorry that Ron is a git. Right?'

'Please don't,' Hermione rebutted and lowered her head so that her sniffs would be inaudiable.

'What is wrong? What did he do this time?' Harry was curious.

'Nothing. He did nothing,' she sighed.

'He did nothing, that is what he did wrong,' Harry grimaced to himself and thought worse of self-censoring as Hermione coughed a laugh.

'Ginny taught you well. That said, you two should not be that close. Think about it, she is still very much a Weasley.'

'Hey, I am a blissfully wedded man and my wife is the most heavenly redhaired woman with the sweetest of temperaments that ever lived in the British Isles and perhaps in the far territories of the world that I have never been to, so so much the tosser..'

'Good for you,' Hermione bantered half solemnly.

'I am not indebted to Ginny alone, you know. Other Weasleys have been there for me as well. One in particular had done so much. And he can still humour the mickey out of me sometimes. He is our Ron yet.'

Hermione nodded a trivial nod.

'Harry, I am not here just for the girls. I have some business at the Ministry as well. League Secreteriat wants me to lobby for certain changes in the penal and legal system over here. And I do not think Ron is going to like it.'

'When did Ron ever like anything the League has come up with?'

Hermione was quiet.

'How bad is it?' Harry's juvenility suddenly stagnated.

'Reforms for trial procedures, for arrest and custody, for the terms of prosecution. Wizard Rights thorough and thorough. It is about real change, Harry. So that we can finally live our future.'

'Did you talk to him?'

Hermione was once more quiet.

'Talk to him, Hermione. Better sooner than later,' Harry said.

'That was my plan as well. Oh, Harry. I am such a child. When he is next to me, everything that once was right and ideal strays into a corridor with gray walls and ... and memories spoil all my efforts ...,' Hermione was ecstatic, 'my efforts at ...'

'Love?' said Harry.

'Or deroling,' she finalised and sat down. Harry knelt next to her, touched her knees and stared at her with understanding.

'Be ready for some real shenanigans, Harry. I am going to be really selfish. He says he wants me back. Well, I am back.'

'Is that what the bags are for?'

'Quite right. Girls and I will be at Ron's house for some time so he can kiss his bachelor days good-bye.'