Disclaimer: You will be utterly baffled to find that Harry Potter and all its affiliated trademarks, action figures, softdrinks and soul-ownership deals do not belong to me, a mid-twenties student. Le shock. I also make no money from it. Nor do I plan to in the future. Which might also explain why I don't have any money.
Mid-August
When she came back from the village she found him alone, his hands coated in buttery dough.
Because whilst she had spent two months trying to put a family back together that had been cracked even before she dropped it, he had seemed hell-bent on rebuilding his from scratch using only the power of his mum's pantry.
So, unless you count his rhubarb-crumble-tart – which she always did – there was no romantic dinner. No candles. Though there were a handful of fireflies dancing across the pond's surface as they sat on the dock, scooping warm crumble straight from the pan. No flowery words, either, in case you were wondering.
They never were that kind of person to begin with, and together even less so.
Thus – without any angels pitching into high chorus – as a curious result of going through old maroon jumpers, gold-and scarlet scarves, moth-eaten, tiny, grey school robes and dancing shamrock hats in search of a blanket to ruin in the dewy evening grass, they found themselves alone on top of a bed in a room on top of an empty house. They had not planned on it, but then again you will have to forgive them their negligence; making plans was not a luxury they had indulged in during the recent years. Add that to the list of things they needed to learn again.
The bright orange of the walls was muted by the dark outside, their year of neglect and the faded rectangles where posters of childhood heroes used to be. In the corners of those shadows, pegs remained. After a decade and a half, they had been reluctant in letting go of either wall or posters as they were torn down, and sparse bits of paper remained. The first time she had come home to the empty room, it had broken her heart a tiny bit. It still did. As did the pile of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes march shoved out of sight under his bed.
Yet, here they were. The scent of baked butter still clinging to his hair and her hands, at last, covered in ink again.
His hands shook as his fingers ghosted up and down and back again over her sides, playing her rip bones like a harp. Finding each individual arc too easily, still, he resolved to make more tarts. She nuzzled his collarbone, made absolutely certain no new freckles had appeared since last Sunday.
The croaking of frogs, the chirping of crickets and a single firefly came wafting into the room through the open window, accompanied by the smell of honeysuckle and, yes, freshly cut grass.
He murmured his "I love you"s into her fifth year scar, where it intersected her sternum; she hers into the nape of his neck, where he sometimes still rubbed his skin to relieve the chafe of a necklace that had long gone.
One flight down, the sleeve of a maroon jumper poked out of her half-packed school trunk.
It happened on an ordinary night in mid-august. Completely, ridiculously ordinary.
And that was, perhaps, the greatest blessing of all.
The book of love
Is long and boring;
No one can lift the damn thing.
It's full of charts
And facts and figures
And instructions for dancing
But I love it when you you read to me.
And you can read me anything.
- "The book of Love" Peter Gabriel -
A/N: I have totally incorporated what JKR said about her original plan of having the Grangers get a divorce into my head-canon. Especially because in the light of a possibly stressful home life, it makes at least some sense that Hermione spends the majority of her holidays away from her parents, which always struck me as odd (not from a "we don't have page time to give her a thorough background, as well" POV. I get that. Just in an "I live in my own la-la-land where all characters need a full rainbow of motivations" way). I also still maintain that a curse that had her unconscious and then bed-bound for days (weeks?) and necessitated taking multiple potions for god knows how long would leave a mark. Hence, in my head-canon, Hermione has a scar across her chest from Dolohov's curse at the DoM.
Finally, I just had too many FEELINGS about this ficlet to just drop it into my drabble-dump. So it gets its own story post. :)