Harry frowned, shifting his weight from foot to foot and scratching the back of his neck.
"I don't know about this, Hermione," he said, tapping his toe against the red 'L' badge on the front of Ron's old silver "dad car," as he'd once called it. "Wouldn't you rather learn from a Muggle driving instructor? I mean, they're qualified. I'm...not."
"No," she replied with a decisive nod. "Ron was going to teach me, eventually. I want someone who loved him to do so in his place. It just feels right."
Harry's dubious expression softened into one of pained fondness. "All right," he murmured, brushing a brotherly kiss against her forehead. "Get in. I'll do my best."
Hermione slid into the driver's seat, feeling a pang of loss as she moved it forward to accommodate her shorter legs. With some patient direction from Harry and much grinding of gears, she managed to pull the car out of its parking space next to the Burrow and bumped down the dirt road that led away from the house, moving in jerking stops and starts. It was rocky going, but it wasn't until they were crawling along the paved road to Ottery St. Catchpole that they encountered a real problem.
Hermione clung to the steering wheel with white-knuckled desperation, as though she thought holding onto it would be her only chance of surviving a crash. As she hunched over in her seat and ground her teeth together, she had a sinking feeling that she looked exactly like her grandmother.
"Oh my God! It's so fast."
Harry glanced at the speedometer "You're going 10 miles an hour."
"Hmph. It feels a lot faster when I'm the one behind the wheel. Harry. Harry, there's a sheep in the road. HARRY. What do I do?
"Well, don't hit it."
She leaned on the horn, but the dingy white lump of wool in the middle of the road only blinked a few times in response.
"It's not moving!"
"Forget it. Hit the damn thing. We'll have lamb chops for dinner."
"Harry! That is not a constructive answer."
He clapped a hand over his mouth in a failed attempt to smother a laugh. "Okay, okay. Just stop here, and I'll get out and try to chase it off."
The sheep wouldn't be moved by flailing arms, shouting, or stomping feet. In the end, Harry had to resort to taking out his wand and levitating the animal into a nearby pasture. It kept the same sedate, bored expression on its face the whole time.
"All right," Harry said as he hopped back into the passenger seat. "Now that the sheep is out of the way, do you want to try going a bit faster? Maybe aim for within ten miles of the speed limit?"
"Are you insane? It's 60 on this road, and there's barely enough space for two cars to pass each other."
"It's perfectly safe, Hermione."
"It's worse than a broom."
He grinned. "I could always try teaching you to fly instead."
"I think you know the answer to that."
"Come on, just try going a little faster?"
Holding her breath, Hermione pressed down on the accelerator. Every twitch of her hands seemed to send the car wavering back and forth. If she hadn't been so afraid of glancing away from the road, she would have shot Harry a venomous glare for his cheery announcement of, "Oh, look, we're in America," after she drove on the right side for a few seconds.
The first bend in the road brought a bushy end to Hermione's first driving lesson. When writing out reports at work or brewing potions, she had the steadiest hand in the world, but put her in charge of heavy machinery and suddenly she was the portrait of jittery and nervous. Harry grabbed the steering wheel and tried to correct it when Hermione didn't turn quite hard enough, but they still went veering into the shrubbery that lined the road and came to a jarring stop.
"Err," Harry said, snorting out a laugh. "That went well."
Something was different.
Hermione tiptoed through the sodden, decomposing remnants of the fallen leaves from the previous autumn, examining the flowerbeds in the fading evening light as she went. Unless she was mistaken, there were markedly fewer weeds. Some helper had swooped in whilst she was out and cleared away enough nettles to give the neglected roses room to breathe.
She had a pretty good idea who the culprit was.
After marching into the house, she fished around in a side table for a quill and parchment and scribbled out a quick note to be carried to its recipient by her owl, Perdita.
Neville,
Don't think I didn't notice that my garden had been tidied when I came home. You are too sneaky and too sweet for words. Thank you.
Love,
Hermione xx
PS: Next time, you should wait until I'm around to help.
As Perdita soared towards the horizon with the letter clutched in her talons, Hermione climbed the stairs to what was now her bedroom. Crossing her arms, she stared at the big bed that dominated the room with its snowy white sheets and puffy duvet. Bill, George, and Ginny had helped her move it and a few other things from the house in Fulham earlier that afternoon.
She'd tried to exhaust herself with driving lessons and running errands all over the place, thinking all day about how good it would feel to collapse into her familiar, soft bed and drift off to sleep.
It hadn't worked. She still couldn't stand the thought of sleeping alone in such a big bed. She didn't even want to stretch out and read a book. Grabbing a novel from the bedside table, she went back downstairs and situated herself on the sofa with Neville's conjured tartan blanket draped over her lap.
It still smelled like a room that hadn't been aired out in years, but the sofa was almost as wide as the last bed she'd shared with Ron.
Hermione let out a startled squeak, clinging to her husband to keep from tumbling out of bed as he rolled over. They could have — and probably should have — cast an Expansion Charm on the narrow single bed in his childhood room before she climbed into it with him, but she relished the feeling of being pressed up against him like this. It reminded her of the early days of their relationship, when he still lived with his parents and they had their whole lives stretching out in front of them.
"All right, love?" he asked, his voice hoarse and weak.
Sighing, she smoothed a hand over his sparse ginger hair and kissed his forehead. He should have stayed in St. Mungo's, really, but he insisted on spending his remaining days at the Burrow.
"I'm fine," she replied.
"Mhm." With a wink and a chuckle, he grabbed a handful of her arse. "So you are."
She cracked a smile, but it vanished with his next words.
"Listen, when I'm gone—"
"Ronald—"
"No. Let me say it. We both know it's coming. Why dance around it? I want you to be happy, okay?"
"Shh." Leaning forward, she silenced him by pressing a kiss to his chapped lips. "If you don't hush up with that sort of talk, I'm going to sick a flock of canaries on you."
He let out a raspy imitation of a laugh, his breath rattling in his chest.
"All right, all right. Keep your damn birds to yourself. Just promise me one thing?"
"Anything."
"If you do end up...err...happy again, just make sure it's not with old Vicky." He paused, seeming to mull over Hermione's potential future suitors. "Or McLaggen. Or any of my brothers. Or anyone who was in Slytherin."
"Okay," she said, rolling her eyes and letting out an affectionate chuckle. "I promise."
She woke up just before dawn on the first day the kids were home for Easter, her dreams of happier times interrupted by the obnoxious BEEP BEEP BEEP of her alarm clock. Her back ached from too many nights spent on the sofa, but she clambered to her feet and dressed as quickly as she could.
Breakfast consisted of a smoothie and a yogurt gulped down whilst standing in front of the fridge. Before apparating down to Devon, she crept into Rose and Hugo's bedrooms and kissed their cheeks as they slept — something she hadn't done since they were very little.
By the time Hermione's trainer-clad feet landed on the dewy grass near the Burrow, Luna was already waiting for her, looking like something out of a 1980's Muggle fitness video: sweatband, legwarmers, and all. For their inaugural jog, Luna had fashioned a strange device to strap Lorcan and Lysander to her back. Both boys were fast asleep, their thumbs resting in their open mouths and their heads drooping against their mother's shoulders.
"Hi, Hermione!" Luna said, performing a series of bizarre stretches.
"Morning, Luna. Thanks for doing this with me."
"Oh, it's no problem. It'll be fun. I haven't gone running since Rolf and I were on our honeymoon. That wasn't so much running for recreation as it was running for survival, though, so this probably won't be quite as exciting."
"Err, yes. I imagine it won't. Shall we?"
Luna didn't so much run as skip. Hermione huffed and puffed along next to her, struggling to remember why, exactly, she'd wanted to take up jogging.
The plan was to alternate their runs between Ottery St. Catchpole and Attenborough, trading off which jogging partner had to travel to the other. Hermione's calves ached and her lungs burned after just one loop around the village, but she forced herself to run after Luna up the steep hill that led to the tiny, ivy covered cemetery where Ron's body had been put to rest. On their way, Luna paused to pick a clump of fuzzy, hideous magenta and orange flowers.
The sun was still in the process of rising, casting everything in a soft pink glow. As Hermione unlatched the creaking iron gate, she stopped short at the sight of a familiar head of platinum blond hair.
For reasons she couldn't fathom, Draco Malfoy stood over Ron's grave.
Luna and Hermione had opted to visit Ron early in the morning because it was convenient, but Hermione was certain that Draco chose a time when most people were still asleep because he didn't want to risk being seen.
The last time she'd spared her former classmate a second thought had been the day Ron saved his life.
"Y'know," Ron said, pausing to kiss Hermione as he flung his coat over the banister and toed off his boots, "between me and Harry, Malfoy is going to end up owing about a million Life Debts."
"Really?" She raised her eyebrows. "What happened?"
"There was a really nasty fight in Diagon Alley earlier. I had to save the git. Some bloke who evidently had a bit of a grudge managed to get out 'Avada Ked—' before I Stunned him."
"Wow. I wonder what Malfoy did to him."
Ron shrugged. "No idea. Probably something to do with the war. There are still a lot of people out there who are pissed off that he didn't serve any time in Azkaban. Anyway, what's for dinner?"
Luna sauntered up to Draco, an enigmatic smile plastered on her face. For his part, Draco did a remarkable job of imitating a deer caught in the headlights of a car.
"He was, wasn't he?" Luna murmured.
Draco and Hermione exchanged a confused look, the former switching back to an expression of alarm when Luna wrapped her hand around one of his clenched fists and pried his fingers open.
There, resting in the centre of his palm, was a Weasley is our King badge that had seen better days.
Humming the old taunt in a voice loud enough to echo in the morning hush, Luna traced her fingers over the badge, rested her bouquet of ugly flowers against Ron's headstone, and pranced back down the path that led to the gate.
"Weasley is our King," she sang, "Weasley is our King. Weasley will make sure we win. Weasley is our King."
Draco gave Hermione the same curt nod he'd offered her at Kings Cross three years prior. Dazed and still panting from her run, she only just managed to nod back before spinning on her heel and hurrying after Luna.
She was certain she wasn't meant to see it, but right as Hermione stepped through the gate she caught a glimpse of Draco placing his old badge on top of Luna's flowers.
A/N: The lyrics from Weasley is our King were, of course, written by JKR.