We said goodbye to Harry and Ginny exactly fifty-two minutes later and headed for the Floo. I put a hand on Ron's arm as he reached for the powder jar. "Wait. We've got a charm to try out, haven't we?" I pulled out my wand, focused on Ron's living room, and turned on the spot, landing right where I intended. Ron appeared next to me with a pop only a moment later. I leaned up to kiss his cheek. "Brilliant. What happens to someone that tries to apparate in who you've not put on the charm?" Ron looked at me as though I had said something terribly profound. "What?"

"Er...nothing, really, it'll just bounce 'em back to where they started." He tilted his head to one side. "Why didn't you ask that before you tried? There's some shields with pretty nasty jinxes out there."

"What do you mean? You wouldn't let me get jinxed." I was clearly missing whatever point he was trying to make.

"What if I'd bungled it?"

"Don't be silly, I trust you." I looked up at him, perplexed by his questioning.

Ron leaned down and wrapped me up in a tight hug, which I returned happily, though still somewhat confused as to what I'd said to garner this reaction. "This is going to be good, isn't it?" he asked, his voice muffled slightly in my hair. "You and me?"

I pulled back to look him in the eye. "Yes," I replied simply. He smiled at me, and I traced the outline of his lips with my finger.

Still holding me around the waist, Ron flopped backwards over the arm of the couch, and I landed on top of him with a squeak before adjusting to snuggle between him and the back cushions. He kissed the top of my head. "So, do you want your Christmas gift now, or at New Year's?"

"Well, I don't have yours with me, so I suppose we ought to wait."

"I bought it a while ago."

"I did yours, as well."

He chuckled and said, "Good. Just didn't want you hacked off at me for not getting you something more..." He trailed off, seemingly struggling with the same words I had been.

"Perfume-y?" I offered with a wry smile.

Ron laughed and trailed his fingers up my spine. "Something like that."

I sat up slightly to look at him. As much as I hated to admit that Ginny was right, we probably would have to eventually talk about some things that, as friends, had long since stopped mattering. I had no intention of spending our last night together on quite such serious issues, but there was one particular thing unsaid between us that I felt I owed it to him to share; a tit for tat, of sorts. "Do you remember," I began, "after that night at the pub in Ottery St. Catchpole, telling me that you smelled that perfume in the Amortentia?" Ron's ears reddened slightly, but he nodded. "Well, there's something else I smelled in it that I've never told you." He scooted back to partially sit up against the arm of the couch and looked at me curiously.

"Is this why you brought it up to begin with?" he asked. I nodded.

"It's, um...well, it doesn't smell the same as it did when we were in school, but at the time..." I reached out and twisted a lock of his hair between my fingers. His eyes rolled upwards, trying in vain to see what I was doing, as if he expected to see an owl or something equally unexpected sitting atop his head. "Your...hair...had a very distinct scent." He sat up fully, shifting my legs so they were across his lap, and looked at me incredulously.

"My hair?" he repeated. "You—you smelled my hair in love potion?" He looked absolutely gobsmacked, his blue eyes wide as he stared at me. Then he chuckled and moved to nuzzle his head under my nose. "How's that then?"

I laughed and swatted at him, and he pulled back with a grin. "I told you, it's not the same. But some of your old shampoo is still at the Burrow, and I smelled it on your pillow. That night after..." Ron nodded, not needing me to say the words aloud. "That's why I asked what you smelled. Not because of the grass."

"Blimey." He shook his head, and there was a trace of sadness in his expression. "I really was a prick, wasn't I?"

"You were young," I said with a shrug and reached for his hand. The canary scars were gone, but I traced where they had been and amended, "We were young."

"Yeah. I s'pose." He turned his hand over to link our fingers together, then pulled our joined hands to his lips and laid a soft kiss on the back of mine. When he looked back up at me, his expression was more resolute. "For what it's worth, though, I am sorry."

I shook my head and scooted closer to him. "Don't," I whispered, lacing my fingers into the hair at the base of his neck. I had heard Ron's apologies for most everything that had ever gone wrong between us when he'd turned up in the Forest of Dean. At the time, I'd been desperately conflicted between wanting to hear him all but beg my forgiveness, and not wanting to be in his presence long enough to let him. But all the terrible, life-or-death things that came after had erased any lingering desire I had for sorry; I knew he was, and I didn't need to hear it, even now. Especially now.

I pressed my cheek to his forehead as his arms wound around me, holding me tight against his chest. "Let's go to bed," I said quietly, and I felt him nod his head. He slid one arm beneath my legs and stood swiftly, picking me up as he did. I yelped in surprise and gripped his shirt. He looked at me fondly and laughed, the serious mood dissipating instantly.

"So you trust my anti-apparition spells but not my ability to carry you?" he teased, starting down the hall to his room.

"Well, you're a bloody tree, it's a long way down if you drop me," I grumbled, shifting in his arms as he walked.

Ron laid me gently on the bed and then snuggled up next to me. "You're stubborn as ever, you know that?" he muttered affectionately.

"Would you have me any other way?" He kissed me in a way that left no room for doubt as to his answer to that.

I woke in the morning spooned against Ron, my back pressed tight against his chest and his arm a comforting weight across my side, and thought immediately how quickly I could get used to this. Except, of course, that I couldn't get used to it; my portkey back to New York left in a couple of hours. I frowned and pulled his arm more securely around my waist, wanting to stay in the bubble a little longer. Three weeks, I told myself. It's only three weeks.

Ron stirred behind me, and I felt him drop a kiss to my shoulder before he pulled away and slid out of the bed. I rolled over to look at him as he stretched his arms high over his head. I had always found Ron attractive, though I had never let myself gawk at him in quite the way I was looking at him now, where the only word circling my head was mine.

If he noticed, he didn't comment. "There's a little cafe in the neighborhood, I thought we could grab breakfast before you go," he said.

"Sure, that sounds lovely." I sat up and ran my hands over my hair. I'd lost another hair elastic during the night; poor Ron was going to be finding them in his bed for days, as I often did at home.

"Okay. Just going to pop in the shower quick."

I couldn't help myself. "Mind if I join you?"

Ron's mouth twitched, fighting a grin. "Mind? Do I mind if my beautiful girlfriend wants to shower with me?" He laughed. "No, I don't mind." I stared at him, frozen. "What?"

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, though my feet hovered several inches above the floor. "Girlfriend," I breathed.

He froze too, and I was sure he hadn't meant to say it. "Oh. Er...sorry. I know we..." He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, a nervous habit that had stuck with him all this time. "We weren't going to, y'know, call this anything. But, well...it's sort of hard not to think of you that way. Now."

I stood, and he met my eyes anxiously. "You're right, it is. You know..." I took a tentative step toward him, then another. "We're not Harry and Ginny. And maybe we don't need to be."

He reached for my hand, closing the remaining gap between us. "So..." he started again, then the corner of his mouth quirked up in a smile. "Girlfriend, hmm?"

I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my cheek against his chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath his warm skin. "Yes, I think I quite like the sound of that," I returned softly. "Now...you said something about a shower?"