Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Pairings: Ron/Hermione, implied Harry/Draco, one line of Percy/Oliver
Notes: Written for -TheSingingBlob-. Sarah, you asked for Ron/Hermione, but I think I'm incapable of writing it without adding in some Harry/Draco. :) Reviews are greatly appreciated, especially since this feels a little disjointed, and I'm not sure how it reads.
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Their Sunday morning starts like this:
Hermione mumbles in her sleep and turns over, nuzzles her head into the muscled curve of Ron's shoulder. Ron opens one bleary eye, yawns, and tucks his arm around her side. He checks the hovering clock by the bedside table—twenty minutes more, then Hermione will wake and head for the shower, and ten minutes after Ron will struggle out of their nest of blankets and curse at their Italian wizard-made tea kettle. It's a gift from Harry, who likes to travel the world and buy them strange things that sometimes work, more often don't.
There's bread on the table but it's looking a little off; Ron shrugs, and starts making pancakes. His mum used to hope that Ginny would learn all the recipes passed down in the family, but it quickly became clear that Ron has the family talent in the kitchen, and that Ginny couldn't make toast if she had a wand to her head.
Hermione walks into the kitchen, hair dripping and curling over her robe-clad shoulders, smile curving her lips upward. "Morning," she murmurs, locks her arms around Ron from behind. He leans into her hold and flicks his wand; the pancake flips over and makes its way to the waiting plate on the table.
Ron looks around, at the placemats and the matching plates and the pancakes on the table, next to the butter and syrup, two mugs of tea bumping handles with steam curling up toward the ceiling. It's domestic and both familiar and unfamiliar at once; it's his life now, and Ron finally places that warm feeling rolling through his body as contentment.
***
Monday afternoon and Ron's stuck at his desk with a mountain of paperwork, punishment because Merlin's beard, Weasley, if you go off half-cocked again without proper backup your wife will come after me, and I don't think either of us want that, that's what Kingsley had said, and Ron had winced, and agreed.
He cracks his knuckles and fills out forms carefully—Aurelius Wigsberth, shoplifting, improper use of a Warming Charm, public indecency. The glamorous life of an Auror, they should really display some of these forms on the recruiting posters. Ron would have liked to have known what he was getting into.
It's funny that he's the one that ended up becoming the Auror while Harry travels the world—he's really escaping, both of them know that but neither say anything, and Ron answers numerous postcards with things like watch out for those pyramids, Bill's told me about some nasty stuff and bring me back a belly-dancer from India, yeah? He very carefully does not ask why are you still so hung up on that blond ferrety git? and he does not say I saw him at Mungo's the other day and he looks about as miserable as you were last time I saw you.
Hermione, for once, does not bemoan the fact that they cannot say what they really think, just looks sad and tells him she thinks Harry needs to work things out for himself.
In comparison, Ron thinks he and Hermione have it figured out pretty well, even when he gets so mad he feels like his ears are burning off, even when she slams the bedroom door closed and locks it with charms he wouldn't be able to get past if he had a year and a team of Cursebreakers.
Muse flies in the window and deposits a letter on his desk, glaring at him balefully and pecking at his fingers.
Ron—the letter reads—I have my case in an hour. Honestly, if more people understood Goblin Law my job would be so much easier. Anyway, after that shall we eat out tonight? I know you won't want to cook after all that paperwork, poor dear; I just want you to be more careful when you're fighting off dark forces and arresting shoplifters. I love you, don't forget your hat, it's chilly out even now.
Love,
Hermione
Ron folds the letter carefully, tucks it into his pocket, and smiles.
***
Tuesday night Ron goes home late, blood and sweat painted over his face and back, limbs trembling slightly with adrenaline and horror. Hermione is asleep on the couch, book folded over her stomach, hand slipping down to almost touch the ground. Ron stares at her for a few moments, his beautiful wife, and burned into his mind is the image of the woman he'd found in pieces scattered behind her murderer's house.
He chokes out a breath, clenches his hands into fists, and when he looks at her again her eyes are open, not clouded over with death, but wide and concerned and alive.
"Oh, Ron," she breathes, and pulls him down to her, unmindful of the blood spattered over his robes.
"She had—had brown hair, Hermione, and she thought that bastard loved her, he wrote her letters, said he did," he whispers hoarsely into her shoulder, trembling increased. "I couldn't—if anything ever happened to you—"
"But it won't, Ron. I'm a smart girl, I can take care of myself," she tells him soothingly, and then tips his chin up and asks him archly, "don't you think I can?" Ron looks at her, and his laugh comes tumbling out on the heels of a sob. His Hermione, so beautiful and smart and strong; he presses a kiss to the curve of her cheek, the corner of her eye, and lets her numb the shaking memories of blood and death with the warmth of her arms.
***
"Hey," Harry says Wednesday morning, head poking out of the fireplace, grinning sheepishly, and Ron shakes his head in disbelief, toast clutched in one hand.
"I haven't seen your ugly mug in two months and hey is the best you can do?" he asks, thwapping Harry's forehead with his free hand. Harry laughs, shakes his head, and offers, "Sorry. Where's Hermione?"
"You just missed her," Ron tells him, and Harry sighs.
"Well, I'm just popping in to let you know I'm heading to France for a while. Don't know when I'll see you guys again," he says, tipping his head down so Ron can't see his eyes.
"Weren't you in France only a couple months ago?" Ron asks, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah," Harry says, voice strange, and Ron only says, "Have a good trip, then." Harry smiles up at him and Ron can see that it doesn't reach his eyes. And then he's gone, like that; Harry hasn't been home in a year and a half, and Ron feels a weight lying heavy on his shoulders.
Something draws him to the desk where they keep all Harry's postcards and letters. He flips through them until he finds the one he's looking for; dated two months back, Paris, Harry attached a picture to his letter. In it Harry sits in front of a restaurant with another man. The man is blonde, delicately boned, and wears fine clothing the color of his light gray eyes. But it's wrong—his jaw is too soft, the curve of his body too relaxed. There is a smile on the man's face, and none on Harry's.
He shows Hermione the picture later in the evening, and she wraps her arm around him and says quietly, "He'll figure it all out. When he's ready."
***
Thursday brings rain and an aching in his bones.
The war left its marks and scars, in body and mind and heart, and they're not seventeen anymore. Ron feels twinges in his back, an arm, and the beginnings of a nasty cold. Hermione takes one look at him in the morning and pushes him back down on his pillow, saying firmly, "It's to bed with you, Ronald Weasley. You'll do them no good if you're too busy sneezing and wincing to chase after criminals."
Ron sniffles, grabs at her arm. "You want to stay home too?" he asks a little pathetically, a little mischievously, and it's a sudden burst of nostalgia—they could be at Hogwarts, him pleading with her to cut class for once, her firm refusal. Except now, that refusal is tempered with fondness and a little less rigidness, and Hermione's eyes go soft and she says, stroking his cheek, "I suppose I can't leave you home alone like this. You'd become bored and start taking our house apart."
Ron huffs out a thick laugh and says, "I think we've become my parents, Hermione-love."
"I think it happened years ago, darling," Hermione says, voice amused, and he tugs her into bed and holds her close. The war left its marks, but while some marks linger others have faded, and the ones that remain are diminished in the light of Hermione's love.
***
By Friday Ron's cold is gone and it's back to work for him, but it turns out to be a relatively easy day. He patrols with his partner Danners, and they spend a good part of the day trying to turn a bloke's store sign, currently a large goose, back into its original shape.
They duck into the Leaky Cauldron for a bite to eat, and Ron nearly runs right into Draco Malfoy.
"—Malfoy," Ron finally says. He could find something nastier to say, about how his best mate won't come home and he knows it has something to do with Malfoy, except…well, he knows Harry, knows his insecurities and hang-ups, and knows it takes two people to break something up. Plus Malfoy looks like he hasn't slept right in months.
"Weasley," Malfoy says curtly, and Danners catches Ron's eye, motioning toward the bar, then heads over to it. Ron nods. Malfoy looks away, then holds out a thin stack of papers, elegant writing covering it in lines.
"If it comes from me he won't read it," he says, and then, reluctantly, "please."
Ron takes it. Ron takes it, and sends it with the fastest owl he can find, and goes home to his wife. Ron knows a little bit about the troubles that come about when you struggle with saying the words and feelings that live under your skin, that you wake up to every morning. Ron got it right, after a while, but not everyone is as lucky as he's been.
***
Saturday dinner at his parents' house is one tradition they all try to keep, whoever's in the area. Growing up with a houseful of siblings and chaos and noise, Ron truly appreciates his little house with Hermione and their special kind of order, but he always feels a rush of nostalgic warmth when entering his mum's kitchen.
They all settle around the table, twins surreptitiously adding extra ingredients to the food, crying out their disappointment when Ron doesn't fall for it and only eats what's safe. "Auror training taught me some things, you know," he tells them, voice satisfied. Hermione hides a smile and clasps his hand beneath the table.
Percy is as stuffy as ever, but less obnoxious—the fact that Oliver Wood is sitting next to him with a hand curled on the back of his neck might have something to do with it. Ginny grins and teases him, and fends off their mum's inquiries about when she'll settle down at the same time.
"I'm having too much fun testing the waters, mum," she says complacently, and laughs when all her brothers make uncomfortable faces and try to change the subject.
Ron adds more potatoes to his plate, passes it to his dad, and wishes Harry were there. Hermione presses a kiss to his shoulder and smiles at him, and Ron can't help but wonder how he managed to find someone as wonderful as she is.
"You're wonderful," he whispers in her ear.
"Flatterer," she whispers back, and Ron kisses her full on the lips, then returns to his food.
Their hands remain clasped for the rest of dinner.
***
Ron wakes up late Sunday morning, tangled in the bed covers and Hermione's body. There's an owl perched on his bedside table, inspecting his clock with interest. Ron groans, stretches out. He takes the letter and has to stare at it for a few moments before his eyes will focus enough to read it, and when he does, he reads it again to make sure he has it right.
Ron—it says in Harry's messy scribble, as familiar to him as his own. Ron, I'm coming home.
—Harry
Ron rubs his eyes, and smiles, and thinks about family, with its many definitions, glorious in its twisting, perfectly imperfect nature.
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