Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and no profit is being made through the writing of this, monetary or otherwise.
A/N: Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry's July Fortnight Two, Going Postal. Sending the Letter: Prompts - letter and stamp. This is set in the same 'universe' as "Dear Dream Diary," "Pay Attention to Me," "Like a Lost Puppy," "A Future Not so Dark with Him By My Side" and "Content to Stay Forever Locked in His Embrace" in which Ron is infatuated with Draco because of a dream that he had. This is the culmination of all of those.
Ron picked up the mail that was scattered in front of their door beneath the mail slot as he entered his home. There were the usual pieces of junk mail, some official looking letters, and what looked like a Muggle letter in the post. It was addressed to his husband. He turned it over in his hand. It had childish lettering and Ron wondered who it was from. He placed the mail on the table beside the door, and toed off his shoes.
He stretched and sighed. It had been a long day at work, and he was looking forward to unwinding with a glass of firewhisky and perhaps, if his husband was home, a nice massage to ease some of the ache in his muscles. Sometimes Draco arrived home before he did and napped, completely oblivious to things like mail delivery.
A quick perusal of their small cottage home revealed that Draco was not home, and Ron frowned. It looked like he was going to have to take a long, hot shower to ease his aches and pains. Draco was more than likely caught up in a family court case. From experience, Ron knew that his husband probably wouldn't be home until much later in the evening and started planning what he'd make for dinner. These types of cases often took a lot out of Draco, not that when they were kids, anyone would have believed that Draco had a heart, let alone cried in his husband's arms after he worked with children from homes where they experienced abuse.
Ron decided that a short, rather than long, shower was in order if he was going to make one of Draco's favorites for dinner, mint crusted rack of lamb, parsley potatoes, rye bread, and custard pudding. Ignoring his aches and pains in favor of assuaging whatever guilt and pain his husband would bring home with him this evening, Ron quickly showered and set about making dinner.
The table set with their good plates and silver, freshly gathered flowers (he'd have to remember to apologize to their gardener when he saw her next) set in a crystal vase they'd gotten as a wedding present from Hermione, candles flickering in the dimly lit dining room, wine breathing, and a warming charm placed over dinner, Ron finally sat down and stretched out his aching limbs.
Ron wasn't even aware that he'd fallen asleep in the armchair, a tumbler of firewhisky dangling precariously from his fingers, until the tumbler was lifted from his fingers and a kiss was placed on his lips.
Ron blinked the sleep away, and mumbled words that didn't make any sense whatsoever, causing Draco to smile and chuckle. There were tight lines around his eyes and mouth, betraying the tough day that he'd had at work, and Ron's heart hurt for the man he loved, wanting to take away Draco's pain.
"What happened?" Ron asked around a yawn.
Draco shook his head, lips in a tight, thin line. Ron would have to wait to talk to him until after dinner and possibly a shower.
"You made dinner," Draco said, sidestepping Ron's question, giving Ron a genuine, if tired, smile.
"I did," Ron said, returning Draco's smile and letting the other man pull him up from the armchair. Merlin, he felt old.
"Thank you," Draco said. "It smells wonderful."
"You're welcome, sorry I fell asleep," Ron said, though the rest had done him a world of good and some of his muscles felt loose. He stretched, giggling when Draco trailed his fingers over the exposed skin on his stomach from where his shirt rode up.
"It's good that you got some sleep," Draco said, searching Ron's face and frowning at whatever he saw there.
"You work too hard," Draco said, and Ron laughed.
"Me? I get home before," Ron looked at the clock, "ten PM most nights."
"But your work is hard, physical labor," Draco challenged.
"And yours is emotionally draining," Ron challenged back.
"Fine, we both work too hard," Draco conceded. "Feed me."
Laughing, Ron plated dinner while Draco poured the wine. They ate in companionable silence, every now and again glancing up from their meals to smile at each other or just look their fill. It was not as lively a meal as they had when they were at the Burrow, but it was intimate and it was preferable on many levels. Ron enjoyed sharing companionable silences with his husband.
"Before I forget," Ron said, rising from the table to fetch a piece of Muggle mail that had arrived in the post that day. He mentally chided himself for not having it out and sitting on the table next to Draco's plate.
"What's this?" Draco asked, frowning down at the envelope Ron had handed him.
He turned it over in his hands, much as Ron had done earlier, and then he smiled, and in that moment it was as though a load had been lifted from his husband's shoulders. He looked younger, the lines around his eyes and mouth gone.
"It's from Jilly and Tad, you remember the abuse case that I handled almost a year ago, where two wizarding children were adopted by a couple?" Draco asked, looking up from the letter, fingering the picture on the corner of it. It looked like some kind of sticker. Ron would have to ask Harry or Hermione about it at work tomorrow. They'd know what it was.
Ron thought back to all of the heartbreaking cases Draco had come home to him with, and then he remembered the case. It had lasted for weeks. Draco had lost sleep and weight and so had Ron. It had been awful.
"Yeah," Ron said. "They'd been chained up in the basement, right?"
Draco nodded, a sad far away look on his face that lasted for just a moment before he shook it off and opened the envelope, carefully preserving it and the flowered artwork in the upper right hand corner of the envelope.
"Social services was able to find the mother, a Muggle woman, who'd put them up for adoption," Draco continued the story, a small smile playing about his lips as he held up a hand drawn picture of a house, what appeared to be a boy and a girl holding hands with a lady. All of them had smiles on their faces, and there was a crudely drawn tree and a smiling sun set in a blue, cloudless sky.
"She wanted them back, right?" Ron asked.
Draco nodded. "She hadn't wanted to give them up in the first place, but the courts were reluctant to hand two wizarding children over to a Muggle."
"But, you convinced them otherwise," Ron said, love welling in his heart.
"I've worried about it almost every day since," Draco said, thinking, no doubt of other cases where wizarding children had to be removed from the custody of Muggle parents (where was someone like Draco when Harry was growing up?) because they'd thought they could 'beat the magic' or 'freakiness' out of their magical child.
"Looks like you don't have to worry about them anymore," Ron said, hoping that was the case.
Nodding, Draco read through the letter (it was written in crayon) and then handed it to Ron. It was a letter thanking Draco - a 'superhero, like superman' - for saving them from the 'bad people' and for giving them a 'good mother' who 'lubbed' them very much.
When Ron looked up, he saw tears in his husband's eyes and rounded the table to pull Draco into his arms and hold him. "I'm so happy," Draco said, words muffled by Ron's shirt.
"Me, too," Ron said. "I'm married to a superhero."
"And don't you forget it," Draco said, hugging Ron to him tightly.
"I'm not likely to," Ron said, pressing his lips to the top of Draco's head.
Dessert could wait.