Whoops, so I forgot an Authors note at the beginning of the last chapter.
This is my first story posted to (Yay right) and it was also the first fan fic I ever wrote, so please be gentle if you review. In saying that I have edited it a few times now, but I can't say I'm really happy with it still.
Also, being a novice at posting here, I really hope that the layout of everything is ok.
"Welcome to Australia! I'm Denise," was the first thing they heard as their feet touched the ground.
"If you'll please follow me in this direction, we can get you sorted out and heading off!"
Ron and Hermione quickly got their balance back and followed the perky young witch, who was dressed in casual muggle clothes rather than robes, down a hallway and through a door marked Wizarding Immigration. Here they found a wizard, also dressed in casual muggle clothes, who was reading a piece of paper that was on the desk in front of him.
"I see from your Portkey application that this has been quite the rushed trip and that your plans are to find your parents, restore their memories and take them back to England. Could you please elaborate on this? Did a family feud get out of hand or was there a spell that backfired?" He asked with an intrigued tone and a smile on his face as though this happened all the time.
"Well actually," Hermione started to explain, "I had to modify their memories to protect them from Voldemort and the Death Eaters so as they wouldn't be able to find them, torture them and use them against us while I was with Harry Potter tracking down what we would need to – "
"Hang on, you're the kids that were with Harry Potter when he defeated You-Know-Who?"
"We aren't kids! And we did more than just go with him!" Ron stated indignantly.
Before Ron could get on a roll Hermione quickly said "Yes, that was us, although his name was Voldemort, or Riddle actually."
Denise's and the wizard's jaws dropped momentarily, followed by a look of respect that left Ron and Hermione feeling shocked. They knew that all over the world, the wizarding community knew what had happened, but didn't think that it would make that much of a difference this far away.
"Well in that case, give us a few minutes to make you copies of the muggle passports and other paperwork you might need if you have to interact with any muggles whilst you're here."
The wizard stood up so quickly that he knocked his chair over, turned around to a filing cabinet and started rifling through it, muttering to himself about the what paperwork they might need.
Denise looked at them curiously. "You know what, I remember seeing your pictures in the paper now when me and Allan were reading about it all. I'm glad he was stopped."
She smiled at Ron, who very suddenly became transfixed with the posters on the walls of witches and wizards doing things like climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge, using bubble head charms to explore the Great Barrier Reef or flying above Uluru on broomstick tours.
Allan turned back with blank passports and other official looking forms in his hands, placed them in two stacks in front of Hermione and Ron, tapped them with his wand and said "There you go, all sorted. Can we help you with any other arrangements to make your journey easier?"
"Uh, no thanks, I think we're all good." Ron replied.
"Well if you need anything, anything at all while you're here, we're just an owl away. Actually speaking of that…" He pulled open a draw and grabbed out a folded pamphlet. "This is a map of Australia, anywhere you want to apparate to, just tap on the location on the map and it will enlarge that area and bring up a name and picture of the closest public apparition point along with owl post locations and such. Denise will show you the way out of the Ministry."
He shook both their hands with much more enthusiasm than what either teen would classify as normal before Denise opened the office door and gestured for them to follow her down the hall.
Once they were in the elevator she said to them "We're in one of the oldest buildings in Sydney here, right next to the harbour, the muggles think this is an old shipping warehouse that's been kept original as part of a heritage listing. When you go out the entrance, turn right and you'll be heading up toward the CBD. We have the usual muggle repelling charms on the building, so they won't notice you until you get to the main path that the muggles walk along to look at all the boats in the harbour and so forth."
They had arrived at the ground floor, as the doors opened an extremely worried looking wizard pushed his way into the elevator past Hermione, nearly knocking her over.
"Gotta get up to Magical Creature Control, a dragon has just gone nuts out in the Simpson Desert, muggle sightings left, right and centre, a bloody tour group got too close to her nest. Something went wrong with the protection charm we had around her. We're going to need everybody on this!" He exclaimed hurriedly to Denise, completely ignoring the other two.
As the elevator doors shut on him, a stunned Ron turned to look at Denise, who said lightly "I hope you weren't planning on heading to South Australia tonight."
Ron let out a weak laugh, Hermione still looked gobsmacked.
Denise quickly led them to a wall on the other side of the entrance hall, "This is the visitor's entrance and you can walk through this wall on either side at this spot."
"Like Platform 9 ¾!" Ron said, as though stating the obvious.
"What's Platform 9 ¾?" Denise asked him.
"It's a wall that we use at the Kings Cross Station to get to the train that took us to school." Hermione cut in before Ron could answer. Now that she was here she was anxious to start looking for her parents and she also had a twinge of jealousy surface as she watched this pretty lady trying to get Ron's attention, who seemed quite happy to entertain her.
"Thank you, Denise, but we really must be going now." Hermione said pointedly looking at Ron as she finished her sentence.
"Of course, have a safe journey; I hope you find your parents soon. I'd best be going back in to see how I can help with the dragon. See you." Denise replied, smiling at Ron again.
"See you later." He said, smiling politely back.
Ron and Hermione turned around and walked through the wall, emerging into the evening, a cool breeze blowing off the water sending a slight shiver through both of them.
They paused for a moment; adjusting to the fact that less than an hour ago it had been a sunny morning for them. Grabbing a jacket for each of them out of her purse, they turned and started to walk up the path.
Suddenly realising that they had never been this alone before, with no friends or family in the next room, Hermione felt quite awkward as she handed Ron his jacket.
"What's wrong?" Ron asked after noticing that she pulled her hand away from his quickly when he reached out to hold it.
"Nothing," her voice slightly higher than normal, "I'm just keen to start looking for my parents, that's all."
She walked over to a seat on the edge of the path nearby and pulled out the map of Australia, then the photo of her parents. Under the orange glow of the light next to the path, she could see that the faint outlines of her parents had re-appeared and that their arms were pointing in a north-westerly direction.
"This is hopeless, do you realise how many towns there are north-west of here?" She asked Ron, the tightness coming back to her throat.
Ron sat down beside her and looked at the map and the photo, then into her eyes. "It's alright, I've got a plan. We'll just pick out a town, say, about one hundred miles from here, apparate there, check the photo again and see what it says. It's just going to be a process of elimination. It might take a little while longer than we hoped, depending on where they are, but we will do it."
She smiled at him, and then quickly looked down again, embarrassed at how nervous she was to be alone with him and hoped that he wouldn't see it. Covering her actions by picking up the map and the photo and placing them into her pocket, she looked back up at him.
"I suppose we should find somewhere to disapparate from?"
"Yeah, of course." Ron responded.
He stood up, turned sightly, took a few steps over to the railing and started watching the ferry's coming in past the Sydney Opera House, hoping that Hermione wouldn't realise that all his talk and plans were just his way of trying to cover up how awkward he felt around her as she shuffled some things around in her purse. He, too, had realised that this was their first time without Harry or his family around them, there was no one else now to pick up the conversation when there was a lull, or to cover up his moments of stupidity. He was crazy about her and he was terrified that she would soon realise that he wasn't good enough for her.
Hermione looked up from her purse and saw Ron staring across the water with a look on his face that could only mean he was deep in thought. She worried that he would soon come to the conclusion that she was too neurotic for him, that she was too nerdy and didn't know how to relax and have fun, that she wasn't the type of person he would want to be with.
She got up off the seat and walked over to him, vowing then and there that she wouldn't be so uptight.
"Maybe we should go get a coffee before we head off? You know, give us a chance to adjust to the time change first." she asked him.
Ron started, brought back to reality by Hermione's words. "Yeah, sure. If that's what you want to do."
He was surprised, as only moments before she had been eager to start the search. He walked toward her with the intention of kissing her, but then chickened out. They walked silently side by side along the foot path toward the busy quay ahead. Choosing one of the many coffee shops along the tourist strip, they ordered and sat silently at a table outside while they waited for their order to come.
The sign over the ferry terminal said Circular Quay; all Ron could think was 'If Harry was here, I'd make a stupid joke about it not being round.' But he didn't say it out loud because he had decided that if he had any chance of staying with Hermione he would have to start being more serious.
Hermione tried making a number of jokes about people they saw walking past, but when she didn't get a reaction from Ron she fell back into an awkward silence.
After their coffees arrived Ron started desperately fishing for something smart to discuss that he thought Hermione would find interesting until he landed on the dragon incident they had just heard about, deciding that she was always interested in how situations like that were handled.
"Do you think they will be sorting out that dragon problem yet? Denise must be quite busy working in both the Portkey Office and helping to control situations like that."
Hermione felt her heart drop to the pit of her stomach as her throat tightened up.
Here he was talking about how great another witch was, another lady who was much prettier than she was, Hermione thought miserably.
"I'm sure they'll have it sorted out soon enough." Was all she could say.
Ron just looked down at his coffee, feeling hopeless. If he couldn't even find something for them to talk about, what chance did he have?
"I was thinking, maybe we should go back to the Ministry before we get too far so I can send Mum a message to let her know that we got here safely, then we can just apparate from there." Ron suggested to Hermione, with a sort of hopelessness in his voice.
A surge of jealousy rushed through Hermione, bringing back unwanted memories of how she felt the night Lavender first kissed Ron after the Qudditch match. That turned her jealousy into anger and she yelled at him "Fine! Go back to Denise; tell her how great you obviously think she is! I saw the way you two were looking at each other!" And she promptly burst into tears.
A group of three girls about their age that were sitting at a nearby table glared at Ron and started rapidly whispering to each other.
Ron, looking shocked and uncomfortable said to her, "That's not what I meant, calm down, please? I just meant that –"
"I know full well what you meant! Off you go, I don't want to see you ever –"
"But I love you!" It had slipped out before he could stop it and much louder than he would have liked. The three girls stopped whispering and looked at a gobsmacked Hermione and a sheepish looking Ron.
Ron, realising that there was no going back now, said in a much calmer, though slightly embarrassed tone, "Ever since the first time you kissed me, I've been waiting for you to realise that I'm not good enough for you, that you can find someone smarter than me who can have a conversation without cracking jokes every few minutes, someone who's more suited to you than I could ever be."
He looked at Hermione, still sitting there with a stunned look on her face, hoping that he hadn't just blown any chance he may have had of a future with the woman he loved.
"Well?" One of the girls at the other table said to Hermione. It seemed to be enough to bring her back to reality and realise that thirty or so cafe patrons were staring at her expectantly, not to mention the almost ill looking Ron.
"I love you too! I love you so much!" She exclaimed with so much happiness and relief in her voice.
Ron stood up from his chair, took a step toward Hermione and took hold of her hands. She stood up, looked into his eyes as he wrapped his arms around her and he kissed her with all the passion he had been holding back for the last year. Applause broke out from some of the surrounding tables, someone even let out a wolf whistle as Ron and Hermione stood there, blissfully unaware of what was going on around them.
"It's just like a scene from the end of a movie." One of the girls said to her friends.
They pulled apart, looked at each other and took each other's hands.
"Come on; let's go find your parents." Ron mumbled when he realised that they were the centre of attention.
They found a dark alley that no one would be able to see them in from the road, pulled out the photo and the map again and agreed on apparating to a town north-west of where they were called Dubbo. Once there, Hermione eagerly looked at the photo again, but whilst the picture had lightened ever so slightly, it was still pointing them to the north-west.
From Dubbo they went to a town called Walgett with no discernible change to the picture. They moved onto the next town they had agreed on, a place called Charleville.
There, Hermione's heart leapt with joy, for although the colouring hadn't changed much, the arms were now pointing nearly due north.
"Look!" She squealed at Ron, who whipped out his wand, ready to defend them against whoever was coming at them, before realising that she was pointing at the photo.
"Don't do that to me, I thought we were under attack!" Ron exclaimed, adrenaline pumping through him.
Hermione looked at his expression and burst out laughing, "I'm sorry. I just got so excited when I saw it pointing us in a new direction."
She kissed him as he lit his wand for them to be able to see the map better. He considered it for a few moments and said to her, "I know it looks like a small town, but let's head to Blackall next, we don't want to go too far and then have to back track."
At Blackall the picture started taking on shades of grey, while the arms still pointed them north.
The next stop was Charters Towers, followed by Ingham, where the colouring of the photo was nearly back to normal.
At Innisfail, the arms adjusted themselves to point Ron & Hermione slightly to the west and the whole photo had taken on a pinkish hue.
Hermione was so excited that it took her nearly ten minutes to calm down enough to be able to apparate, as it was Ron gripped her hands tightly and held her close because he was worried she might splinch herself as they disapparated to the next town, Cairns.
Here, Hermione's hand shook so much when she looked at the picture that she dropped it and Ron had to quickly use a summoning spell to bring it back before the wind carried it away from them. When he looked at it, he saw why. The photo had turned a vibrant shade of deep pink.
"They're close!" Hermione gasped. "They're in this town!"
Her smile said it all; all Ron could do was hug her and grin as well.
After a quick dinner at a nearby take-away shop, Ron went into the motel that was next door and came out carrying a local map.
"This way we can mark which way the photo is pointing at different spots and really narrow down our search area quickly without going back over the same areas." He told her.
"That's a great idea, although I could have just transfigured this map into a local map."
"I know that, but I just really wanted to do this for you."
He pointed at the map with his wand and two small red dots appeared at the southern end of town.
"This is where we are now." He said.
Hermione looked at the photo and with a tap of her wand on the map, the two red dots turned to red arrows pointing north whilst the rest of the map below that spot filled itself in with black.
"So where do you think they might have wanted to live?" Ron asked.
"Well, when I modified their memories, I made it so part of the reason they wanted to come to Australia was because of the beaches and the relaxed lifestyle, so I don't think they would have wanted to live in the centre of town. Let's try one of these beach side areas first."
She consulted the map more closely. "Let's try this little place first, Palm cove."
Once they were there though, they quickly realised that they had gone too far north as both her parents were now pointing south-east and to Hermione's disappointment, the photo was now a few shades lighter than it had been moments before. She tapped the map again and everything north of where they were turned black, as it had done before.
"I think that judging by the way the arms have pointed both north and south of where we've been, we can probably rule out a fair bit west of here too." Ron added as he watched her adjust the map.
"You're right, but not too far west though, just to be safe."
She tapped the map again, leaving them with a strip about twenty miles wide in from the coastline that hadn't been blacked out as well.
"I could have probably removed more than that." Hermione remarked worriedly, looking at Ron for his support that she was doing the right thing by not removing too much of the map.
"This is fine, look at how much we've narrowed it down by already!" Ron told her, giving her a reassuring smile then looking closely at the map.
"So we've obviously come too far north and I'd reckon by a fair way, looking at the colour of the picture. If you want to try another beach let's head down to Machan's Beach and see where we head from there."
They apparated to Machan's Beach and pulled out the photo to check it. It was the deepest pink they had seen so far and was now pointing them in a southerly direction. Ron tapped the map again and the area north of them turned black.
"We must be so close, a few miles, if that. Let's head to this residential area near the water at the north of Cairns and see if they're around there."
At the next stop they were both surprised to see that it was again pointing them north and was still the same shade of pink it had been at Machan's Beach.
"But the only thing between here and Machan's Beach is... the airport! Oh no, Ron if they get on a plane somewhere, I might never find them!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Ron grabbed Hermione's hand and apparated them both to the airport.
"Look, it's pointing to the international terminal!" Ron exclaimed.
They hurried in through the doors, Ron looking in all directions as they went, Hermione's eyes glued to the photo as it turned from the vibrant pink to a dull shade of red.
"We must be so close!" she exclaimed, full of anticipation. "This way!"
She pulled Ron's arm and pointed to the departure lounge. They hurried over to the short line, looking anxiously as far ahead as they could toward the people sitting in rows of hard, plastic chairs.
They got to the security guard standing next to the x-ray machine.
"Empty your pockets into the tray and please show me your boarding passes." He said to them in a bored voice.
"But we're not catching a plane, we're just looking for someone, uh, her parents left something at the house that they really need." Ron told him.
"No pass, no passing me." The guard smiled at his own stupid joke.
"Please sir, it's really important!" Hermione pleaded.
"I said no... problems what so ever, please just step right through here, for something as important as this, I can make an exception."
Surprised, Hermione looked at Ron who gave her a small smile, then she realised that his hand was in his pocket. She looked back at the guard and into his eyes, now realising that they had the slightly confused look that went with being confounded.
"Thank you, sir, we really appreciate you making an exception for us." Ron told him, smiling.
The security guard behind the hand luggage x-ray machine looked up as the x-ray scanner went off twice as Ron and Hermione walked through.
"I'm sorry, you'll have to go back through, empty your pockets, take off your belt and anything else metal then try again." He told them.
Ron looked at him with his hand in his pocket and muttered something that only Hermione heard.
"But sir, we just did all of that." Ron said as innocently as he could.
"I'm sorry, there must be a small glitch in the machine then, you're free to go." He told them, smiling blandly.
They quickly hurried away from the guards and the other people that were lined up behind them, who were now trying to figure out what had just happened.
Hermione pulled the photo back out of her pocket to use it to guide her. It turned ruby red and pointed straight ahead of them. As she looked up, Ron grabbed her arm.
"There they are!"
Her heart skipped a beat as she saw them; tears welled up in her eyes. She hadn't realised just how much she missed them until that moment. Pulling herself together, she quickly grabbed Ron's arm as he was about to wave and call out to them.
"They won't know who we are yet." She reminded him quietly.
"Oh, yeah, sorry, got caught up in the moment." He said sheepishly.
Taking his hand, they walked as casually as they could toward the couple that were sitting down, reading, at the end of a row of seats. Hermione sat down on the seat next to her mother and whispered "Muffliato," ensuring that no one other than the four of them would hear what happened next.
Ron looked at Hermione, about to ask a question, but she held up her hand and said "Let me concentrate, I can't get this wrong."
He immediately silenced the question he had forming and sat very still, watching intently.
Hermione shifted in her seat, looking to anyone else like she was trying to get more comfortable, but Ron knew that she was getting a better angle on her parents with her wand that she was gripping tightly in her pocket and began moving her lips in a mumbled incantation.
Monica Wilkins looked up from her book and gave a small smile to the young couple that had just sat down beside her and then went back to reading, wondering why they had chosen to sit so close when there were plenty of empty seats. At the same moment she felt the same pang of sadness that had plagued her and her husband, Wendell, for nearly a year. She glanced at him and the look he gave her told her that he felt it too.
Almost immediately after that a new feeling of being happy and whole again washed over them both as she and Mr Granger both realised at the same time that the young lady sitting next to them was in fact their daughter, Hermione, and that their names weren't Wendell and Monica Wilkins.
"Hermione!" Mrs Granger screamed, pulling her into a tight hug, looking stunned.
She looked at the smile on her daughter's face and then realised that the young man beside her was actually her daughter's friend, Ron, from school.
"What are you doing here?" Mr Granger asked, looking thoroughly shocked. "What's going on? We were about to get on a plane to England to come look for you."
With tears streaming from her eyes, Hermione looked at her father, "You mean you remembered me?"
He paused, "Well, now that I think about it, no, I didn't remember you. We didn't know why we wanted to go back to England, just that we had to."
Mrs Granger still hadn't let go of her daughter, fearful that if she let her go she would disappear again, however Hermione pulled herself from her mother's grip just enough to hold out her other arm to her father, who gladly joined the family hug.
Ron, who had been watching the family reunion with a stupid grin on his face, suddenly felt like he was intruding on a very private moment of Hermione's and turned away, thinking that he should walk away for a few minutes, but before he could do that Hermione pulled back from her parents and said "Let's go somewhere more private so we can tell you what's going on and everything that's happened."
Wanting to feel useful, Ron quickly stood up and took both of the carry-on bags that the Grangers had with them so each parent could walk next to Hermione and hold her hands freely.
They quickly went to the check in desk and informed the staff member that they would no longer be getting on the flight and organised for their check in baggage to be returned to them. All four people fidgeted and kept glancing at each other as they waited, not really knowing what exactly to say at that moment.
Once they were in the taxi, Mr Granger gave the driver their address in Palm Cove. Both Hermione and Ron burst out laughing at this, but wouldn't explain why just yet.
Back at the Grangers house, before they had even put the kettle onto boil, Hermione had launched into her explanation of what she did and why she'd done it. With coffees made a few minutes later, all four of them sat at the kitchen table, Mr and Mrs Granger listening intently whilst Hermione and Ron told them the story of what they had been doing for nearly a year. They talked for over an hour and finally with a voice that was getting quite hoarse, Hermione finished with "I would have been here sooner but some of the trials needed me as a witness to ensure a guilty verdict and that a maximum sentence was given."
She looked at her parents, her eyes begging them for forgiveness from them.
"We understand, sweetie. Of course, if something like this happens again, maybe you could make sure that we get a choice about it before you do anything? We don't want to miss out on any more of your life; the last seven years have been more than enough time apart."
"So, in other words," Hermione said, "Next time, don't do it. Not that there will be a next time. I just couldn't bear going into hiding, knowing that if I never made it out of the fight that you might never know what happened to me. It was better for you not remembering me."
Mrs Granger looked at Ron and Hermione and said, "Well I guess it's our turn to tell you what we've been doing?"
"Yes please, Mum." Hermione told her.
"It's so good hearing that again. Well obviously you know how it starts, you planted the idea. But your father and I always had this feeling that something has been missing from our lives. We've been happy here; don't get me wrong, but the empty void that we couldn't seem to fill was always there at the back of our minds. We got jobs here at a local dentist, met lots of new friends in the local village. You were right, neither of us wanted to live in a big town and being so different from home, this place felt right at the time. Our new friends would ask us why we never had children and we could never really tell them why." Mrs Granger had to stop here, both her and her daughters' eyes were filling with tears again and her voice had choked up.
Mr Granger took over telling the story, while Hermione moved closer to her mother and put her arm around her.
"About a month ago, we decided that we would go back to England for a while to see it we just missed home and if that's what the problem was. We were planning on moving back in a few months when we could have everything organised properly. We knew that whatever it was that we were looking for was back in England and we weren't going to stop until we found it. Who knew that what we were missing was our daughter that we'd forgotten about."
"I'm so glad we found you before your plane left tonight, it would have made it much more difficult to find you if it had." Hermione told them.
"How did you find us?" He asked her.
"The ministry has a new spell that Professor Dumbledore made before he died. They've been using it to track down the Death Eaters who managed to escape." Hermione got out the photo to show her parents, it was still a vibrant shade of red and both arms were pointing at her parents next to her.
"That's what we looked like for the first few weeks after we got here." Her father joked.
Hermione smiled, then added, "Ron got this map and had the idea of charming it as we went, so we wouldn't go back over the same area in the search."
She looked across the table at Ron with love in her eyes.
"I notice that's not the only thing he's been charming." Mr Granger said with a knowing smile to his wife.
Ron turned his trademark shade of magenta as he searched for something to say. Hermione and her parents all started laughing at the same time at Ron's obvious discomfort.
"That's alright; I was the same way when I first started dating Hermione's mother."
They talked until nearly midnight, adding bits to their story that they'd forgotten to mention earlier, when finally, Hermione couldn't go more than a couple of minutes without yawning.
"Time for bed I think, we'll have plenty more time to talk tomorrow." Hermione's mum told them all.
While Hermione headed to the bathroom for a quick shower, Ron reached into her purse and pulled out his sleeping bag.
"Where are you going with that? We have a spare room." A surprised Mrs Granger told him.
Ron, turning bright red again, tried to talk but all that came out was an unintelligible mumble that ended with being fine in the lounge room.
Mrs Granger looked at him with an understanding smile, "She's had quite the emotional day, I think she could do with the extra support and comfort tonight."
Ron sat back down, dumbfounded, unsure how to respond when he looked from the understanding face of Mrs Granger to the slightly stiffer face of Mr Granger. He knew that he looked like an idiot and must be making a very poor impression on his girlfriends' parents.
Hermione came back out a short time later and looked from Ron to her parents, "What's happened to him?" She asked.
"He's feeling a little bit awkward about your mother telling him he can sleep in the same room as you." Her father replied.
"Yes, he's a bit funny about those sorts of things. He wouldn't even tell me that he liked me the entire time we were out on our own with Harry." She said smiling.
Hermione's comments brought Ron back to reality.
"Only if it's ok with you?" He questioned her, with an awkward smile as she nodded at him.
"And sweet." Her mother added.
Feeling a bit better after Mrs Granger's comment, he smiled at all of them, his gaze lingering on Hermione a moment longer.
"I'll see you in the bedroom then." Ron said, winking and smiling at her, which turned to a laugh as the magenta hue worked its way back up his face again, then the laugh stopped suddenly when he saw the look on her father's face. "That was just a joke, I would never... err." He trailed off feeling more awkward than he had moments ago.
"Err, goodnight, Mr and Mrs Granger." Ron said very formally and then added, "I might just go have a shower if that's alright?"
"Of course it is." Mrs Granger told him. "We'll see you in the morning."
He stood up and shook Mr Granger's hand, not meeting his gaze, hoping that this small action would earn him some small reprieve with the father of the lady he loved.
Hermione grabbed his pyjamas out of her purse for him and he disappeared down the hallway.
She hugged her father again. "I've missed you, Dad, more than I think you'll ever know. Thank you for understanding about... everything."
She had been about to say about Ron, but lost her nerve. She knew just as much as her parents did that seven years away at school had meant that she had matured more than they probably wanted to accept and that was hard for them, especially her father.
"He really is the last person who would make jokes like that, normally. He's actually the one to get the most embarrassed by that sort of talk."
"Well I'll put it down to exhaustion for tonight, but I'll be keeping a very close eye on him for now." Her father responded.
"I suppose we'll have to organise new plane tickets now." Mrs Granger said to the both of them to change the subject.
"Actually, I'm going to organise our trip home tomorrow, it might just take a few days to happen though." Hermione told her parents, stifling another yawn.
"That's fine; you can tell us all about it tomorrow after a good night's sleep, now go to bed."
She gave her parents another hug each and then went to the spare bedroom to wait for Ron, noticing that the decor was almost identical to her room at home.
'I guess love really is the strongest magic of all.' She thought to herself.
Ron walked into the room a few minutes later, glancing over his shoulder up the now dark hallway as he was at the doorway. "Maybe I should sleep in the lounge room." He told her worriedly.
"It's fine, Ron, just leave the door open, if you're that concerned."
"Well maybe I should conjure myself a camp bed; I can put it here at the end of the bed, that way I'll still be close to you. I mean, I really screwed things up with your parents tonight, I don't even know why I said it, I was just so nervous and I don't want them thinking that I'm the type of guy who's just in it for the, uh, for the, well, that side of things. I love you. Gees, I didn't even tell your parents that, but I guess tonight wasn't the time for that, I'll tell them tomorrow, but then they'll think I'm just saying it because of what happened tonight."
He was rambling, wringing his hands, still standing just inside the doorway as though there was a shield charm blocking his way.
"Ron, they understand. Just please come to bed."
He took a few tentative steps toward the bed then stopped suddenly, his face draining of colour.
"My mum will kill me if she finds out about this," He croaked, "You know she wouldn't even let Bill and Fleur share a room when they were engaged."
Hermione smiled at him, "I promise I won't tell if you don't, please just come over here, it's late and we have a lot to do tomorrow."
Ron, seeing the look on her face, realised he was being a bit over the top and took the last few steps to the bed, but still cringed as he climbed in, as though he was expecting to be hit by a shock spell. When that didn't happen he relaxed slightly. Hermione moved closer to him, lifted his arm around her and cuddled into his chest.
"I love you." Was all that she said.
"I love you, too."
He bent his head down to kiss her on the top of her head just as she lifted hers to kiss him. As their lips met he tensed again, but relaxed quickly when Hermione dug her elbow into his stomach.
"Thank you for coming with me." She said softly after the kiss.
"You're welcome. I'll follow you anywhere, any time, you know that right?"
"Yeah, I do."
They kissed again and then Hermione turned her head back and cuddled into Ron as close as she could.
"Goodnight." She said sleepily.
"Goodnight, sweet dreams." He replied quietly and kissed her on top of her head.
As her breathing changed to a slow, steady rhythm he whispered "I love you and I hope that I'll get to do this with you every night for the rest of my life."
He clicked his deluminator, causing Hermione to stir.
"I'd like that." She murmured and they both fell asleep happy and comfortable.
In the next room, after hearing Ron and Hermione's conversation, Mr Granger looked at his wife and said to her "I think our little girl has found a keeper in that one."
His wife smiled. "That she has." She replied.
They kissed each other goodnight, turned off the lamps beside them and for the first time in nearly a year, they fell into a deep sleep that was peaceful and not full or fragmented dreams that they couldn't remember in the morning.
Ron woke before Hermione in the morning; he quietly got up and went into the kitchen with the intention of brewing a pot of tea for everyone, but was instead left stumped by the electric kettle on the bench top. As he picked it up to investigate it closer, knowing that the switch on the side should make it work and thinking that he might be better off to just sneak back into the room to get his wand, he heard Mrs Granger laugh behind him. He quickly put it down again and turned around.
"I thought I'd make tea for everyone, but I think that your kettle is broken." He told her.
She walked up to stand beside him and flicked the power point on the wall.
"Not broken, just off." She said, laughing again.
Ron looked at her, incredulous. "You mean the wall makes it work?"
"No, but the electricity coming through the power point does. I though your father studied these sorts of things?"
"He does, but I've never really bothered listening to him, I didn't think that I'd want to use it." He turned red admitting this.
"Not to worry, there's plenty of time to learn these things."
They made a pot of tea together and had just sat down at the table when they were joined by Hermione and her father.
"How did you all sleep?" Mr Granger asked everyone as he poured his tea.
"The best in a long time." Hermione told him.
"I second that." Mrs Granger said.
"Uh, fine, thank you." Ron told him solemnly.
Hermione, wanting to change the subject to save her boyfriend said to her parents "I have to go to Sydney today to organise the trip home with the Ministry. I know they can transport mugg- people if there's an emergency and I hope that under the circumstances, they will allow us to take you back home magically."
"Do you have to? I know it's silly, but I don't want you out of my sight just yet, can't it wait a few days?" Her mother responded.
"I can go Hermione, it's no problem." Ron jumped in.
"No, I don't think so, Ron. I'd like to spend some time getting to know my daughter's boyfriend. How much experience do you have with deep sea fishing? I've come to quite enjoy it since moving here. It's so quiet out in the middle of nowhere, a man can really find a lot out about those around him." Mr Granger stated with an intimidating look.
As Ron gave Hermione a terrified look, Mr Granger looked at his wife and winked. There was no need for Ron to know just yet that he didn't need to do anything more to prove his love for Hermione.
"Come on, hop to it! We've got a boat to catch." His voice stern again. "I've got a friend who runs a deep sea fishing boat charter company and he always has an extra couple of spots available for his mates."
Ron raced to the bedroom and got dressed in record time while Hermione cooked him a few slices of toast which he took from her with a grateful smile as he said goodbye and went to the front door.
"Don't worry, I'll be nice to him, Hermione." Her father told her with a reassuring smile.