A/N :
I don't know where this came from, I was on the bus, listening to "How to save a life" by The Fray (live acoustic version from Webster Hall in 2009) and this popped up.
I don't own Harry Potter.
Thank you to 'if you ask me if I love him' for reviewing and correcting my grammar and punctuation :)
She is sitting on the couch when he comes down from his room. The war has been won 4 days ago and it hasn't stop raining ever since.
Right now, in the darkness of the night, the sound of the rain falling on his childhood home is soothing. Cleansing even. The whole house is asleep. So why isn't she sleeping? Why isn't he?
She isn't even reading, just staring into empty space. He clears his throat softly and she turns toward him, startled, wand in hand.
Right. She can't sleep, neither can he, the night is too dark, the memories too vivid.
"Why aren't you in bed?" he tells her, even though he knows the answer.
"Why aren't you?" she returns.
"Hermione" he says, a bit stronger than he meant, "you haven't slept since..."
Since when exactly? Since before Gringott? Malfoy Manor? Bill and Fleur's wedding? Since their first year?
She looks at him defiantly now, daring him to finish his sentence. But he sees beyond her pride and reads the fear in her eyes. She hadn't looked this vulnerable since he held her weak body on the beach last March. He came so close to losing her that day. He's sitting beside her on the couch before the vivid memory of her dreadful screams finish flooding his mind.
"I'm scared too." He ends up telling her in a raspy voice, grabbing her right hand. Her breaths come out more shallow as if she's suffocating.
"It's stupid really." She manages to breathe out.
"You're afraid you're going to have nightmares." He says knowingly, sounding so much like her when she states facts. It makes her smiles, she noticed too.
"No, it's not that. We're bound to have nightmares, I know that" she frowns, "it's supposed to help dealing with all of it."
"Then, what is it?"
She squeezes his hand softly, avoiding his eyes. He studies her face, a light blush coloring her cheeks. She sighs, bracing herself as if she's ready to fight another war.
"I kissed you." Her voice is strong and her eyes find his again.
He feels the blood rushing to his face to the tip of his ears, and he clears his throat before answering, he's not even sure she asked a question.
"You did."
He's a prat. His heart is about to burst out of his ribcage, she's sitting so close he can smell her shampoo – passion fruit –, and all he wants to do is kiss her to the next day. Hell, the next decade, and all he manages to word is those two tiny words.
She licks her bottom lip, her eyes darting to his mouth before meeting back his gaze, it's making him absolutely mental and he cannot control the sounds coming out of his mouth.
"I love you." He blurts.
Her eyes go wide, her mouth forming a silent "Oh!"
He let go her hand and fumble with his hair. Feeling suddenly too nervous to keep touching her or even look at her. His eyes find a hole in his pajama pants and gathering all his Gryffindor courage, he elaborates.
"I've been in love with you for so long Hermione. I...I can't...can't even describe it. You know how bad I am with words. I've made so many mistakes and I mean, I... I'm just a nobody and –"
Suddenly, she's laughing. He's so startled that his head snap back up, eyes on her face that filled with pure joy. He feels his heart sink, and starts to slowly move back on the couch.
"No!" She stops all at once, grabbing both is hands, her wand still clutched in her left hand. She looks at him half-amused, half-infuriated and he can't help but think it's an odd combination but one that fits her perfectly.
"I am not laughing at you, Ronald Weasley" She tells him firmly, knowing him too well, her eyes boring into his. Her face soften, then she adds gently "I love you. I've loved you for so so long. Gosh! I'm not sure I can remember how I felt before I started loving you."
Relief floods him, he can feel the mad grin filling his face, his heart pounding in his chest, buzzing in his ears. He's feeling dizzy all the sudden and he's pretty sure you can be drunk on a feeling because Hermione Granger just told him she loves him.
Before he has time to second guess himself or what she said, he kisses her. In their passionate embrace, their chests meet and he's not sure whose heart it is he can feel beating too rapidly and he doesn't care. His hands find her hair and she moans against his lips, it's all he needs to deepen their kiss.
She backs away an infinite time later, her lips swollen, hair all over the place and a brilliant grin on her face. Her hands are on his shoulder, burning his skin through his t-shirt.
"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?" She asks quietly.
And despite everything that just happened, he reads the vulnerability once again in her eyes and he knows why she came downstairs earlier. Why he felt compelled to leave his room in the middle of the night too.
"You don't want to sleep alone." He states once again, he's good with facts tonight. And even though he knows that technically she's not sleeping alone as she's sharing Ginny's room once again, he understands.
She shakes her head and he caresses her cheek.
"I know the feeling." He tells her smoothly.
She puts her wand on the carpet next to them and they lay down on the couch, his arms holding her protectively. With Hermione's head on his chest, her hand over his heart and her legs betweens his, they sleep peacefully at last.
...
She barely sleeps when he's away on missions. She takes care of the kids and when they are safely tucked in their beds, asleep and oblivious to the world, she immerses herself into work. Strangely, those are the time when she is the most productive, pushing aside scary thoughts of what could happen to Ron, noting down laws and reading court files reports, finding something to work on to built up one of her many cases.
When Ron comes home in the middle of the night, his eyes burdened once more by the atrocities that he had to fight, that's how he finds her, her nose in her books, putting her brilliant mind into the work for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.
Her eyes are red from lack of sleep, his are dark from the nightmares he's trying to fight. They fall into bed and when she holds him, his head buried into the softness of her neck, he breathes her scent and murmurs hoarsely.
"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"
"Always," she tell him soothingly, kissing his forehead and holding him tighter.
...
"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?" Hugo asks Ron.
Usually he's the one that is away, when he's on missions for the Auror Department, letting Hermione to deal with the kids by herself. Tonight is different though, it's a big night for her. And it's already way beyond his children bedtime, that's why he came home alone to tuck them in bed. Rosie was already asleep on her feet at the party, but Hugo is still too excited to calm down long enough to relax and fall asleep.
Tonight, his mother has been made Minister of Magic.
Tonight, Ron's buck-toothed bushy-haired know-it-all 11-year-old friend became Minister of Magic, at the fabulous age of 38. The youngest Minister their world ever had and his heart his bursting with pride.
His brilliant wife, the smartest witch of her age, is now the first Muggle born Minister of Magic. And with 'mudblood' still angrily carved on her left arm, this nomination speaks volume on how much she changed things and on how many more are going to change if she can help it. The Wizarding world listened to her and trusted their future into her hands.
"Of course I will Hugo." He tells their nine-year-old son.
...
Hermione finds them a little while later, snuggled together in Hugo's narrow bed, both peacefully asleep. With a smile on her lips and tears threatening to fall happily on her cheeks, she goes to check on Rosie before coming back to wake her husband, there's more celebrating to do.
Later on, when they are both spent, their breath still coming short, covered in sweat and their body interlaced, after he jokingly stated she was killing him, with a smile on her lips, she softly mumbles against his heart.
"Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?"
"Always."