AN: Surprisingly this was more difficult to write than I thought it would be...and I hope I didn't absolutely butcher this pairing for anyone. I apologize for the delay as well, my muse wandered off for a moment or two but luckily it returned.
"It wouldn't kill you to learn how to dance." She teased as they fumbled around the small studio, her hand held tightly in his while he mumbled obscenities at his two left feet.
"Right, the last place we tried dancing was Bill's wedding and we barely scraped out of that bloody mess alive. Bollocks!" He swore again when his actual left foot dragged clumsily across the wooden floor. She sighed and rested her forehead on his shoulder, her hairline meeting the side of his jaw tenderly.
He had never danced so effortlessly as he did then.
Ron Weasley stared at the picture on top of his dresser, the framed memory of his last dance with Hermione captured forever in the confines of a delicately decorated silver frame, hidden behind a thin pane of perfectly cleaned glass. It had been at Ginny and Harry's wedding, this picture, when Ron had actually been light on his feet and had been the first to pester Hermione about a dance. She had of course accepted, her sapphire bridesmaids gown gloving her trim form expertly as he twirled her like a professional. She had come up from his first dip with a peal of girlish laughter, so unlike herself, and, delighted, kissed him square on the mouth before he took her for another turn across the floor. It was the moment immediately following the kiss that the photographer had snapped, when they had broken apart and were still smiling goofily at each other.
"You're home early." Leanne observed as she popped into the flat beyond the doorframe. Ron snapped out of it, putting the photo back down behind a more recent one of him and Leanne at Ginny's last birthday party. He stepped into the living room quickly, dropping an affectionate peck to the girl's temple. "Did Kingsley send you home or something?"
"No, I just had a headache and felt like taking off the afternoon." Ron said as he settled onto a barstool at their kitchen counter. Leanne leaned over from the other side of the counter, hands balancing her upper body weight easily. "Let's go somewhere for supper, yeah? I don't much feel like staying in here all night. I need to get out."
"Sure. Let me just freshen up." Leanne positively beamed at the redheaded man across from her and then danced off in a rush to their shared bathroom, no doubt applying even more makeup than she already wore.
Ron sighed for what seemed like the millionth time as he lounged in the recliner of Hermione's apartment.
"I can hear you!" She snapped, pausing in her attempt to apply mascara to her eyelashes. "Stupid…bloody….stupid bloody makeup. Ridiculous!"
"Darling, you don't need makeup, I think-"
"Oh shove your rotten compliments right up your arse, Ronald Weasley! I will wear this makeup if it damn well kills me!"
Ron chuckled and laced his hands together behind his head, checking the clock on the mantle to see how much time had actually passed.
Ten minutes later Hermione emerged, triumphant but royally angered, with only the smallest smudge of charcoal eyeliner off the corner of her left eye as battle damage.
"You look like perfection." He smiled into the neatly piled curls at the back of her head as she fixed her coat, peering over her head at their reflections in the dresser mirror. She opened her mouth to retort, but quickly shut it and melted back into his chest with a content noise.
"You've been distracted all evening Ron, what's the matter?" Leanne asked as they walked, arm in arm, down the street back towards their apartment. Ron shook his head and tried his best to smile convincingly.
"Nothing." He leant over and pressed his nose into the dark hair that curled over her ear. "I'm just exhausted."
"Maybe you should ask for a few days off. You've been out of sorts, for you, anyway." Leanne rubbed her hand up and down his arm in an attempt to comfort the redheaded man.
"Yeah, we'll see."
"It wouldn't kill you to take a week off work, Hermione. All I'm asking for is a nice vacation with you. We deserve it."
"I can't, Ron. They need me working these cases."
"They have five other people that can sort through them!"
"It's more than sorting, Ronald! I'm sorry I care about my job!"
"I care about mine too! I just want to spend some time with you, you bloody infuriating woman! I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks and we live in the same damned house!"
"I'm infuriating?" She laughed bitterly. "Says the man who comes home so royally sloshed he can barely stand on his own two feet."
"Ginny is having a rough time-"
"And she doesn't need your help diving deeper into alcoholism!" Hermione shrieked. Ron stared at the curly haired witch in silent rage, his mouth set in a thin and furious line.
"My sister is not an alcoholic." He finally said quietly, pointing a finger at the woman he loved. "And you would do damned well to not speak of her like that again."
"If you can't face the truth, Ron-"
"Shut up! Just shut up! Goddamnit woman! All I wanted to do was have some time alone with you, somewhere nice, and you've managed to fuck all of it up because you don't give a damn about me and what I want!"
"What you…" She trailed off, her eyes losing their fire as they filled with tears. "What you want? I don't…I can't." She waved her hand as the tears began to fall and Ron sighed, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows in frustration. "I can't do this right now. I have to go."
"Hermione, stop."
"I have to go. I can't do this." She gathered her coat, keys, and purse. She crossed the room, left a cold kiss on his cheek, and walked out of the door. Ron heard the pop of Apparition and sank into a chair at the kitchen table.
He stared into the darkness of the bedroom, up towards the ceiling, with one arm curled around Leanne's bare back and the other folded behind his head. Often he and Hermione had fallen asleep like this, her waterfall of unruly curls draped over her shoulders and his arm and the next pillow. He shifted, his chin bumping along the top of Leanne's head. She murmured something in her sleep and nuzzled deeper into his chest, her fingernails lightly scratching his sternum before she let loose a long sigh and relaxed against his side. Ron let his fingers drift through her straight hair, the strands falling limp on her back. After a few more minutes he finally closed his eyes and tried to give in to sleep.
As he threw the jacket over his shoulders he cast a final glance back towards the bedroom door, knowing Leanne still slept soundly despite his absence.
"Ron?" He hadn't been out of bed for thirty seconds. He couldn't help the grin that spread across his face as he popped his head back into the bedroom from the bathroom.
"Yes?"
"You left." Hermione pouted at him from the comfort of the seven pillows she insisted on keeping in the bed. "Do you have to go today?"
"I'm filling in for Neville, since he took that nasty hex last week. His patrol was only scheduled for four hours." Ron sighed as he pulled on the thick leather gloves he had grown used to wearing. They were part of an old Auror uniform he and Harry had found weeks prior, stuffed into a chest in the Room of Requirement. They had been patrolling the grounds there when Harry suggested they visit the room, for old times' sake, and as they had been accompanied by six others to the school, no one would truly mind if they snuck off for a bit.
"You'll come back?" Hermione asked, her eyelids already dropping closed. She had taken watch the night before, sitting for hours in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place in case anyone returned from a patrol or mission injured or in need of supplies. Ron sat on the edge of the bed, leaning over until he could place an arm on either side of her body and drop his head onto her shoulder. She hummed at the feeling of his forehead on her skin and tilted her head to kiss his temple.
"I always come back." He dotted tiny kisses over her collarbone and she giggled quietly, one hand lifting into his hair to bring his mouth to hers for a lazy kiss. "I love you."
"I love you too."
AN: Please leave me a review and tell me what you think!