We Have All the Time in the World

Rating: T

Synopsis: Hermione is worried about finding her parents while Ron is also worried about finding "their" song. Along the way, they "find" what's most important.

Disclaimers: Don't own a damn thing but this plot. Just another fan putting in my two cents but not even making two cents off of it, so please don't sue.

Author's notes: Could easily fit after "Walking Wounded" and "The Best Laid Plans," but since I'm trying to stick to canon, you don't need to read either one first to get this. I'm still working on the crossover fic "Magical Mystery Tour de Force," but I don't want to mess it up, so it's taking longer than I expected. This is inspired by a song of the same name as the title, but I think it goes a little beyond the normal songfic. While the original song was the end title theme to the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the version I have in mind for Ron and Hermione is the cover by Fun Lovin' Criminals, which is more hip for our young couple (though I adore the original sung by Louie Armstrong). Broaden your musical horizons and listen to both, which you can find on YouTube and iTunes. Reviews (kind words and thoughtful but not vitriolic critiques) are greatly appreciated. This is the first of two parts. Enjoy!

Ron had agreed to help Hermione find her parents in Australia, though it meant he'd have to fly in an airplane (Hermione wasn't completely comfortable with apparating over such a long distance to a place neither she nor Ron had been before), camp even more (he'd had his fill after the previous year) and spend a lot of time looking for and chasing leads regarding her parents' whereabouts.

There was, however, a major upside: serious alone time with Hermione.

In the week leading up to their departure, Ron and Hermione spent a considerable amount of time looking at maps, practicing driving a rented Jeep off-road (Hermione had obtained her license before the Horcrux hunt, while Ron didn't have one yet had driven the Ford Anglia), and packing. Hermione had once again employed the undetectable extension charm on each of their backpacks, but still wanted to keep their loads to a minimum. Hermione had everything she wanted to put into her bag spread across Ron's bed in tidy rows and piles. He picked up an black and silver rectangular object that fit easily into his hand.

"Hermione, what's this?"

"It's called an iPod. If you connect with headphones or speakers, it plays music, audiobooks, and podcasts – if you can record it, you can play it on that."

"How?"

Hermione thought about Ron's question for a minute.

"Well, you've seen my laptop, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I hook up my laptop to the Internet-"

"What's the Internet?"

"Honestly Ron, you really should have taken Muggle Studies-"

"Why take Muggle Studies when no one can teach me more about Muggles than you?" Ron had been honing his skills in the area of heading off potential arguments by complementing Hermione. He was getting better at it by the day.

Hermione blushed slightly and grinned at his compliment.

"The Internet's kind of like a worldwide library that just about anyone can add to and just about anyone can access – if you know how and have the tools and proper connection. Anyway, through the Internet I can buy music and other content and download it – which means to transfer it – to my computer, then to my iPod."

"So then you can take the music and whatnot with you."

"Exactly. If what I say isn't enough to remind my parents who they are, perhaps some music from their past might fire up their synapses. See," Hermione said while touching the control wheel of the iPod, "I put together a playlist of songs for them, including the one they called 'their song.'"

"Which one is that?" Ron asked.

"'Lost in Love' by Air Supply. The keyboards are a little cheesy, but the lyrics are lovely."

"What do you mean by 'their song'?"

"Every great couple has a song, Ronald! You know, like in the movies, when the man or the woman of a couple says, 'They're playing our song,' and it always leads to some romantic exchange, like a dance, or a kiss, or . . . something else."

Ron waggled his eyebrows and leaned in.

"Like what kind of something else?"

Hermione then began to lean in as well and whispered, "You damn well know what kind of something else," then kissed Ron on the lips.

Ron broke it off to tease her. "Hermione Jean Granger, you dare to kiss me with such a dirty mouth?"

"If my memory of the other night serves me correctly, you had no trouble with all the things I did with this dirty mouth."

If Ron had known what a tiger had been hidden behind the visage of his bookworm, he'd have snogged her silly years ago. He consoled himself that they would have been too young for it to work for the long haul and was doing everything he could think of now to make sure they'd always be together.

"Point taken," Ron relented, and was about to kiss her again when Harry walked in.

"Um, sorry, should have known, you two would be busy . . . 'packing,'" Harry said while making air quotes with his fingers.

"C'mon in, Harry," Hermione chuckled and waved him inside.

"So, you're off tomorrow. Got everything?"

"Almost," Hermione said. Just need to put organize these items, then pack a small carry-on. Oh, I'd better make some sandwiches!"

"Molly's beat you to the punch. She's wrapping them up now."

"Bless her," Hermione said. "Oh, we need our passports. Ron, where's yours?"

"In my backpack," he said.

"Well, we need to show it at the airport, so I'd better put it in the carry-on. I'll get mine from Ginny's room."

After Hermione left the room, Ron asked Harry a question.

"Harry, do you and Ginny have a 'song'?"

"Not yet," Harry replied. "But after our long weekend by the seaside, I hope that will change . . . along with some other things."

"You couldn't wait to get my baby sister alone once she turned of age, could you?"

"We won't see much of each other before Christmas once she leaves for her final year of Hogwarts in three weeks," Harry said. "Besides, once she's of age, she's not really your baby sister anymore, is she?"

"You know what I mean. Just be good to her."

"You do the same with Hermione. She's like my sister, you know."

"Of course." They briefly laughed at their mostly-mock warnings about the women in their lives, and hugged.

"You sure you don't want me to go with you two to Australia?" Harry asked.

"And ruin your plans with Ginny? No. You saved the bloody wizarding world – I think you deserve a holiday," Ron said.

"We saved the bloody wizarding world – together. Don't ever forget that," Harry replied.

Hermione walked back in to find her boyfriend and best friend hugging.

"Am I interrupting a bromance moment?" she asked with a smirk.

The two broke apart quickly, protesting in the deepest voices they could muster with a series of "no's" and "of course not's".

Harry reached out, grabbed Hermione's arm, and initiated a group hug.

"Be careful, and let me know if you need anything," Harry told them, then withdrew to find Ginny to put the finishing touches on their plans.

While Hermione finished packing and Mrs. Weasley made dinner, Ron wandered out to his father's shed where he kept his Muggle contraptions. Hermione had converted a small portion of her winnings to Muggle money to buy for Arthur a small petrol-fueled generator that would make some of his Muggle gadgets work. He'd spent nearly every free moment in the shed since, trying to figure out how electricity worked. Hermione had tried to explain to Arthur that while Muggles had harnessed electricity, even they didn't know how it worked, but to no avail. Arthur was determined to work it out for himself.

"Hey Dad," Ron said while knocking.

"Hello, son – ready for the off tomorrow?"

"Just about." The dusty old phonograph player caught Ron's eye.

"Hey Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"Did you and Mum have . . . a song?"

"Do, son, do. 'Happy Together' by The Turtles."

"How does it go?"

Arthur dusted off the phonograph, plugged it into the generator like Hermione had taught him, grabbed an equally dusty vinyl album, put it on the turntable, put the needle in the groove, and these lines filled the shed: "I can't see me lovin' nobody but you for all my life/When you're with me baby the skies will be blue for all of my life . . ."

"Why is this your song?"

Arthur settled back on his stool, and a silly schoolboy smile formed on his face.

"It was during a Hogsmeade weekend. I had convinced your mother to apparate with me into a nearby Muggle village – she had never been to a Muggle pub before. I surreptitiously cast a charm to get the jukebox to play this song that I had heard on a radio weeks earlier. I asked her to dance, and she agreed. At first, we were the only ones dancing, but then we were joined by some other couples. We ended up dancing until the pub closed. We had a marvelous time. We almost got caught getting in past curfew. It was the night I knew I'd marry your mother."

"So that's when you decided this would be your song? Because you knew then she was the one?"

"You don't really choose your song, Ron. Call it destiny, fate, favorable coming together of circumstances – you just know. Just like you know Hermione's the one for you, you'll know which song reflects who you are as a couple."

Ron blushed deeply, because he hadn't actually told his Dad he thought Hermione would be his daughter-in-law someday.

"Don't rush it, don't force it – it will come to you. Just like love does," Arthur said while ruffling Ron's hair.

Ron smiled at his Dad. "Thanks. I'd better check on Hermione – see if she needs anything."

"See you at dinner," Arthur called after Ron.

As Ron made his way back to the shed, he heard that his Dad had restarted the song, and could hear part of the refrain.

"The only one for me is you, and you for me/So happy together . . . ."

That really does suit them, Ron thought as he grinned to himself.