Chapter 25

Ron awoke the next morning to a stirring sight: Hermione Granger, in his bed, wearing one of his old Auror Corps workout jerseys. She was leaning against a mountain of pillows and quite intently reading a book that she'd propped up against her thighs in the bright mid-morning light streaming into the room.

"Ah, I see you've discovered my bedtime reading," he said sleepily as he stretched and reached out to rest a hand on her knee, causing the bedsheets to fall away and reveal his bare chest to view, a sight that caused Hermione's cheeks to pink up.

"Mmm, rather heavy bedtime reading, it must be said," she replied after a moment's distraction. She flipped the giant book over to read the title again. "'Elemental Magic: Practices, Permutations and Philosophies.' It's fascinating stuff. I started from the beginning but I can see that you've dog-eared several pages."

He yawned and rubbed his hand through his hair and over his face, pulling himself up to sit next to her against the pillows while planting a small peck on her cheek. "Erm, yeah," he said, "this was recommended reading from none other than Fleur."

"Fleur? Your sister-in-law?"

Ron nodded and laughed. "She's not in the habit of assigning me reading, mind. It just came up the other day over dinner — while she was in the middle of one of her regular rants about how crap British wizarding schools are next to French ones. It blows her mind that we're not taught more about elemental magic."

"Well, seeing as I've not been taught much about magic of any sort, I can't say whether she's right or wrong," Hermione said with a grin.

"Oh, she's right about this, actually," Ron said, realizing that for days he'd been dying to talk with Hermione about this entire subject, something he'd been reading up on every night in bed for days but he'd been too distracted by the mission set for him by Hugh to have the opportunity. "I know I said once that elemental magic can't really be learnt from a book — and I still think there's some truth to that — but obviously Fleur disagreed with me and pointed me to a bunch of books on the subject. It honestly is quite amazing that they don't teach more about elemental magic at Hogwarts, but I think most British wizards think of it as a lot of voodoo nonsense."

Hermione shook her head. "I don't see why. I'm only two chapters in, of course, so I'm no expert, but it seems fairly obvious that there are animating forces at work in the universe, moving the planets, setting our paths."

Ron murmured his agreement. "My friend Luna Lovegood — you met her at the Hogshead, remember? — anyway, she's quite keen on this subject, too. She's always on about it — though she'd be the first to say that we all have freedom of choice. But still, she'll talk your ear off about how certain things are pre-ordained, and how you can tell, and on and on."

Hermione felt a tingle run up her spine as a delicious suspicion overtook her. "So, why did you and Fleur get into such an intense conversation over dinner about elemental magic of all things?"

Ron felt his ears heat up a bit at this question, and Hermione noticed, the tingling increasing as she sensed her happy suspicion was spot on. "Well, she certain ideas, most particularly about you and me, you see," Ron said, a small, crooked grin lifting a corner of his mouth. "The French are big on this stuff. Old magic and all that."

Hermione smothered the urge to bubble over into girlish giggles and instead managed to limit herself to a sly smile to match his.

"Give it here," Ron said, reaching for the book. Hermione handed it over and watched as he flipped it to one of the dog-eared pages further in. He stuffed a few more pillows behind his back and, propping the book on his lap, he gathered her in his left arm and pulled her close to his chest. She settled herself next to him and dropped a hand on his chest, toying with the few ginger hairs there until he snickered and said, "Oi, that tickles."

"Sorry," she said, though she kept right on doing what she'd been doing.

"I'm trying to think, woman," he said in mock annoyance. "Blimey, where was that passage again," he breathed absent-mindedly as he flipped through the book. "Ah, here it is."

Placing his thumb on the page, he noticed a little shudder run through Hermione. He tipped his head to see her better and said with a sheepish grin, "I reckon I might as well just say it: Fleur has a theory about you and me."

Hermione laughed openly then, unable to contain her mirth — or her curiosity – any longer. "I guessed as much," Hermione said. "She certainly hinted heavily at it when we met."

"Did she?" he whispered before he had a chance to stifle the urge, then he silently kicked himself for sounding so silly.

Hermione nodded. "You feel like a bit of a clot for even entertaining her notion, don't you?"

He chuckled softly and shrugged. "I did for a while, but then I started reading and … well … now I think she's on to something."

He directed his attention to the page, the better to quell the fluttering he was feeling in his heart — though he was aware that his ears had heated up by several more degrees, and he was finding it difficult not to smile like a nutter. He'd been eager to share this insight with her, but now that he'd had the opportunity to tell her about it, he prayed it didn't sound silly or self-indulgent.

"There's a lot of stuff in here I haven't sorted out yet from ancient times — the tales of Isis and Osiris, some stories from that old Greek bloke Plato, even some Rabbinical stuff that my old classmate Anthony Goldstein used to prattle on about. Anyway, it turns out that there is indeed a … well … an experience people have, and we've talked about it a little bit already, I think," he said, pushing himself to continue despite his sudden bout of embarrassment. "You've heard of déjà vu probably, yeah?"

Hermione smiled and nodded, silently urging him to continue.

"Well," Ron said, "there's a similar thing folks who study elemental magic talk about — it's here on this page," and he took a moment to look and refresh his memory. "Déjà vu is the feeling that you've seen or done something before, even though you know in your head that there's no way you could have seen it before, right?"

"Mmm hmm."

Her smiled warmed him and gave him the courage to continue. "Anyway," he said, "there's another phenomenon kind of like that, but it isn't talked about as much because, well, I guess it's much rarer than déjà vu. See here?" he said, pointing to the page, "it's called déjà connaissance. And uh, the literal translation isn't very helpful, I reckon, but there's a larger meaning the elemental magic texts talk about. The French also call it une ombre de savoir, or something like "a shadow of knowledge" or somesuch. It might sound mental to you, but it's the feeling that you recognize someone, but not because you've seen them before. You recognize them from your future. They're someone who is going to be very important in your life going forward, and you feel it the moment you lay eyes on them. It comes over you sort of suddenly, and, erm, it draws you in, more or less, like you've been Accioed to that person, maybe, and you just have to know them even though you … oh bugger, even though you already sort of know them."

Recognizing someone from your future. Hermione couldn't help it — his halting description of a sensation that she had most definitely felt toward him at first sight, and which she had reason to believe he had felt toward her, was so adorable, it was making her toes curl. It took every bit of self-control she could muster to keep from flinging herself at him and covering his face with kisses, but her desire to hear more overruled that impulse for the time being. Instead, she found the presence of mind to ask, "So, is that the, um, is that the thunderbolt feeling you told me about?"

He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

"Oh," she whispered. "And what — what does that mean? When you feel the thunderbolt?"

"Hmm," he said, closing the book and setting it beside him on the bed. "Well, it means a lot of things. I still have a ton of reading to do to sort it all out, but the most important piece, I reckon, is this." His voice trailed off, and she saw that he was looking away from her, watching his fingers trace the letters on the cover of the book.

"It means you've met your soulmate, you see," he said after a time, still looking away. "Or âme soeurs, as Fleur and other believers in old magic would put it. And, you know, a lot of people think finding your soulmate means you've found the person who completes you, but that's bollocks. You're already complete. Your soulmate, according to the old magic at least, is someone you have an ancient bond with, the person who helps you become your best self. Soulmates are rare, but if you find yours, that's the person you're meant to be with. If that makes any sense."

As she sat listening, Hermione felt her heart thudding in her chest, so moved was she by his words, by his tone. She leaned toward him and, reaching out with her free hand, she cupped his cheek, turning his face toward hers. A shy smile blossomed on his lips as he saw the look of wonderment on hers. "Everything you've said makes all the sense in the world to me," she murmured, and she tipped her face upward to kiss him gently.

Ron pivoted then, pinning Hermione beneath him in one swift motion, and as he pressed his lips to hers and tightened his arms around her back, she savored the feeling of being entirely surrounded by Ronald Weasley — her Ronald Weasley, the first and only man she had ever wanted in this way, and she sent up a silent prayer that the sense of belonging she felt now would always remain.

Ron, meanwhile, was overtaken by the same powerful feeling that seemed periodically to crash over him in waves whenever he was this close to Hermione, and he was beginning to wonder if it would ever cease: A tidal surge of elation, desire, a yearning to be one with her again and again. He could hardly believe how powerful it was, and yet it kept happening. Could she possibly feel the same? Judging by the way she surrendered to him so completely, so trustingly, he suspected that she might feel at least a fragment of the passion that so consumed him.

She answered his unspoken question in some small measure with a soft moan and with the movement of her little hands, which had slid down his broad, bare back and edged themselves beneath the waistband of his pyjama trousers, tentatively exploring the muscular curve of his bum. Soon she made to push his trousers aside, and he helped her, shimmying out of them and tossing them away. As he did so, she lifted his navy Auror Corps jersey up and over her head, revealing her naked form to his eye in the warm morning light.

He laid on his side next to her then, and the two of them stretched out facing one another, about a foot apart, and took time to explore the terrain of one another's bodies in a way they hadn't done the night before. Where he was ginger and fair and freckled, she was tan and caramel and creamy. Where he was large and lanky and bony, she was petite and delicate and compact. She ran her fingers over his arm and raised an eyebrow questioningly. "Battle scars," he answered, and she nodded sadly, leaning forward to drop a kiss on them before settling back to her side. He trailed a finger over her cheek, down her neck and to her breast, watching goosebumps rise on her flesh. He lightly grazed her nipple with the back of his index finger, and she inhaled sharply in response. "You're beautiful," he said, returning his gaze to her face, and an intense blush crept over her where the goosebumps had receded. "You don't see it, do you?"

She shook her head slightly, but before he could say anymore, she reached out and touched his forehead, running the pad of her finger over one ginger brow, then the other, sighing as she traced the angle of his cheekbone. Her touch continued downward, over his scruffy jawline and over the center of his neck. She watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed the lump in his throat, and her finger then touched on the divot at the base of his neck, then followed the line of his sternum and rolled ever downward until she reached his erection. "You're beautiful," she said softly, and he felt his ears heat up. "Stunning," she added as she touched the tip of him, and he drew in his breath and bit his lip as she took him in hand more firmly. He reached for her then and pulled her to him, swinging a leg over her hip and an arm under her head to encircle her in his grasp, and moaned in near helplessness when she answered the thrust of his tongue by sucking on it soundly. "Hermione," he breathed between kisses, "I want you always."

"And I want you," she answered, her breathing shallow and labored. "Only you, Ron."

He reached down and touched her then, drawing a long, shuddering sigh from her, and she buried her forehead into the valley between his neck and his shoulder as she let him stroke and caress her and whisper her name into her ear, deep and low, until she cried out against his skin, which was dewy from the rush of her breath. She pulled him to herself then, almost desperately, her need overriding her instinctive shyness, and she laid back, wanting to be covered by him, wanting to be possessed by him, wanting to belong to him. He obliged, positioning himself above her and pressing forward, his forehead angled against hers, crying out her name in a long, strangled wail as he thrust himself within her as far as he could go. He settled into her then, slowing down, withdrawing slightly and entering again before lifting his head to look into her eyes. "Stay here with me," he said pleadingly. "Don't go back. Stay here."

She understood the full extent of his request, and somewhere in the haze of desire she could hear the echo of her logical mind bringing up things like jobs and leases, contracts and expectations, but the noise of it was quickly cancelled out by the pull of his voice, the depth of his eyes.

"Be mine," he continued, his rhythm increasing ever so slightly. "I love you so. You belong with me."

She nodded. She knew it was true. There was no point denying it. She was sure what he was proposing would somehow work out, and she didn't care how just then, just that it would. It was right. He was right. She belonged with him.

He lowered himself over her then, resting the full weight of his body on top of her, and she marveled at how cozy and safe and inevitable it felt. He lowered his lip to her ear, continuing his entreaties, though she was already more than convinced. "I don't want to be apart anymore. I want to build my whole world around you. Stay. Please stay."

oooOOOooo

A/N — Your reviews make my day. Follows and Favorites are lovely, but there's nothing like a good old-fashioned review. I live for them. Please let me know what you think! In the meantime, thanks for reading and sharing this story with your Romione-loving friends.

Holly.

P.S. — I owe a shout-out to Ginger Lust, who pointed me toward a great French language resource that came in handy in this chapter. Cheers, Ginger!