A/N: As I'm sure has become quite clear by now, I essentially live and breathe for Shell Cottage fics. This one is two parts and the second will go up next week. I hope you like it!

P.S. Please use your imagination for Fleur's accent. ;)

Hermione awoke with an aching throat, hair plastered to her sweaty forehead, and for a moment, before she opened her eyes, she might have been back at Hogwarts, feeling the castle shudder with explosions around her, fleeing Fiendfyre, restraining an enraged, grief-stricken Ron… but despite the fact that her eyelids felt like lead, she wrenched them open to see the concerned faces of Ginny and Fleur hovering above her.

Right. Of course. The war was won, but she was back at Shell Cottage, having been sent with Ron, Harry and Ginny to wait out Bill's thorough inspection of the Burrow. Only when he had deemed it clear of any potential curses (and returned the ghoul to his rightful place in the attic, Ron had added hopefully) would the Chosen One and his accomplices be allowed to return. Until then, the protection of the Fidelius Charm would keep them safe.

Physically safe, anyway.

"I'm fine," she told them instantly, though she wasn't sure how convincing she was when her voice croaked out like she hadn't used it in weeks.

"You had a nightmare," Ginny said sympathetically, her long, vivid hair falling over one shoulder. "You were screaming, I tried to wake you up but I couldn't."

Hermione pushed herself into a sitting position and pulled her sweat-sodden t-shirt away from her chest to cool her overheated skin. "Well, what else is new."

Her brain, she thought bitterly, had probably conditioned itself to have nightmares here. It was about all she'd done in the weeks they'd spent there after escaping from Malfoy Manor, save for the nights when Ron had snuck into her room and curled up in a rickety armchair by her bedside. His low, steady breathing and the knowledge that he was there, and that he was never leaving her again, had been the only thing that had soothed her.

And while she loved Ginny, hers was not the freckled face Hermione wanted to see at the moment.

"I do believe," Fleur chimed in softly, "that we still have some Dreamless Sleep potion in the cupboard-"

"No, thank you," Hermione interrupted, glancing over Fleur's head to the open doorway. Where on earth was Ron, anyway? He and Harry were sleeping right next door - in theory, anyway - and if she'd been screaming, he had to have heard...

"It will help," Fleur said. "And you need something clean to sleep in. I will be back."

As she swept out the door, Ginny returned to the other bed in the room, but sat atop the blankets rather than under them.

"This happens to me all the time," Hermione told her, realizing as she spoke that her words weren't exactly reassuring.

"Then maybe you do need the potion-" Ginny's looked past Hermione suddenly toward the door. "Oh. Hi."

Hermione turned her head to see Ron, in a pair of faded plaid sleep trousers and a grey t-shirt, leaning against the door jamb.

"Are you all right?" he asked Hermione, ignoring his sister altogether. "I thought I heard-"

"Just a nightmare."

There was a creaking of rusty bedsprings as Ginny got to her feet again. "If anyone asks," she said as she padded to the door, "I'm in the loo."

Ron stepped aside to allow her to exit, and then his attention fell to Hermione again. His shaggy hair looked as though he'd been running his fingers through it, and he looked right on the verge of saying something, doing something. But she felt it selfish, in a way, for her to wish that he would act on what she knew was going through his head. The world had not simply clicked back into place after Tom Riddle's death, after all: Ron's family had been irreparably broken, and there were still Death Eaters at large, and clearly these nightmares weren't going away anytime soon.

"Hermione-"

"Here you go," came Fleur's heavily accented voice from behind Ron as she bustled back into the room. In her hands was small vial of potion and a folded garment of palest blue cotton, both of which she set on the bedside table beside a flickering lantern and a stolen wand.

"Thank you, Fleur."

"You are welcome, now, go to sleep," she added with a pointed look to Ron. "You need your rest."

"Right," stammered Ron, "but I just-"

"I'm fine," said Hermione, locking her eyes on his. "I really am."

With a hasty nod, Ron stepped back into the hallway and out of sight.

"Drink the potion," Fleur instructed again, and then she did as Ron had and disappeared.

Hermione regarded these new offerings with what she felt was a healthy dose of skepticism. She was sure she didn't need a sleeping potion if she could only find a way to have Ron in the same room with her, but Fleur was surely under orders from Mrs. Weasley to keep the sleeping arrangements as they'd always been at the Burrow.

And then there was the nightgown Fleur had provided, clearly from the depths of her own wardrobe. Hermione appreciated her generosity, of course, but it really was a fussy little garment, paper thin and edged with lace and falling just above her knees. It couldn't possibly be comfortable to sleep in, but nevertheless, she changed into it and shoved her own pajamas down to the depths of her beaded bag.

Just as she was about to crawl back into bed, the doorknob began to turn, so slowly that Hermione suspected she might have been imagining it.

"Ginny?" she called hesitantly.

"Er-" The voice on the other side was decidedly more masculine. "No, it's me, but I can go-"

"No!" Hermione blurted out. "No, no, come in."

If she sounded over-eager, she really didn't care: she supposed she had practically personified the sentiment when she had flung herself at him in the midst of a battle, and she wasn't too concerned with subtlety anymore. She didn't need to hide how she felt, to toe some arbitrary line they had drawn for themselves. Honesty, openness, that was what they needed now.

And now it didn't seem so selfish to want him here; he clearly wanted it too.

Ron slipped into the room, closing the door soundlessly behind him, his eyes widening for half a second at her attire.

"It's Fleur's," Hermione explained, sitting down on the bed, her back against the headboard. Her legs, marred by bruises and burn marks, extended across the mattress.

"Yeah, I reckoned." Ron's throat bobbed as he crossed the small room and seated himself beside her, so close that their thighs touched.

"I'm sorry that I woke you."

"No, don't be sorry," he replied. "'Sides, I wasn't really sleeping anyway. I was sort of - er, listening for you. Hoping I wouldn't hear anything, obviously, but then when I did - Ginny and Fleur got there first."

"And I told you that I'm fine."

"Are you really?"

Hermione looked down at his hand, his long fingers splayed on his thigh. There was barely a millimeter of his skin that wasn't burned or scarred or scraped in some way. A few months ago - hell, a few days ago, even - she might have kept her distance, allowed all of the reasons for that distance to prevail, told herself that the war was more important, but now everything had changed. In one brutal, monumental night, the war had been won, and their futures stretched out in front of them, long and bright and completely unencumbered.

So she reached over, trying to keep herself from shaking, and let her fingertips graze over the back of his hand. As she reached his knuckles, he rotated his wrist so that their palms met, and his fingers slipped between hers. Her stomach quivered at the contact between them, which she almost couldn't believe. They'd held hands before, several times actually, but it was never like this. They'd never been alone in a darkened room, the sound of crashing waves in the distance, with her in a paper-thin nightgown and absolutely nothing left in their way.

"As fine as I can be," Hermione said honestly. "What about you? Are you all right?"

Ron's thumb drifted over the back of hers. "Dunno," he muttered. "Not really, if I'm honest. I just thought it'd be different, the end."

"I think we all did. Or, at least, we hoped."

"Yeah," he nodded, a bit morose. "Reckon I'm just glad you're all right - y'know, relatively speaking - but I really thought your nightmares had stopped," he piped up suddenly, seeming to just now remember this. "The last week or so, you didn't have any, did you?"

"Oh - well-" Her mind went temporarily blank; Ron had started idly lacing and unlacing their fingers together, and the arresting intimacy of the action forced all other thoughts from her brain. "No, I didn't, but that's only because you were there."

The movement of Ron's fingers slowed, but his eyes seemed to be following the motion of their hands. "Because of me?"

"It helped," said Hermione. "It made me feel safe, knowing you were there… that you'd always be there."

A tension seemed to seep out of Ron then, a sort of weight seemed to lift from him. He pressed his palm against hers, the pads of his fingers digging into the back of her hand.

"I will be," he said, his voice gentle yet firm. "There, y'know, for you - Merlin," he suddenly exclaimed, "why I am such rubbish at this?"

"You're not. I promise you, you're not."

His mouth cracked into a reluctant, crooked smile, and a shaky breath issued from his lips. "Hermione?"

"Yes," she stated firmly.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "But you don't know what I'm asking."

"Still yes."

"I could have been asking if you've ever fancied Mr. Filch."

"But you weren't," said Hermione. "But it doesn't matter, because whatever you're asking me - for you, the answer's yes."

Ron's front teeth grazed along his upper lip, and Hermione found herself mesmerized by the movements of his mouth, trying desperately to recall what he had tasted like earlier that day and how much better it would be now that they weren't fearful for their lives… but she wasn't imagining it now that his face was drawing nearer to hers, and now she could make out each of his eyelashes, and the little cluster of freckles on the side of his nose...

The waves outside crashed harder now, the tide coming in, and Hermione almost leaned in, she almost went for it again - but Ron beat her to it. His breath was warm on her mouth for the split second before his lips met hers, tentative, careful. The hand that had been gripping hers slackened around her fingers and slid up her forearm, leaving gooseflesh in its wake as the kiss deepened. The way his hand shook as it trailed up her skin, Hermione knew he was trying to hold himself back, trying to move slowly. And honestly? He didn't have to.

"Erm," he breathed as he tore his lips from hers, chest heaving, "what if - Ginny - she could come back-" His tongue darted out to wet his lips.

"I don't think she was ever planning to actually go to the loo," Hermione said gently, laughing a bit when Ron winced and leaned his forehead on hers. "So… you should stay in here tonight. With me."

Ron leaned back to meet her eyes. "Really?"

"Yes."

If there was one thing she was sure of, it was him. The world had been turned upside down in the course of a day. She didn't know what would come next for the Weasleys, or Harry, or how she would even begin to find her parents in Australia (it was possible that she had hidden them too well), but she had not a shadow of a doubt about Ron. And she knew, as she picked up a stolen wand from the bedside table and locked the door, exactly what she was implying. And despite the pounding of her heart, and the sudden inability of her lungs to properly draw breath, she still felt certain of what she wanted.

And she kissed him again.

to be continued...

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