Back to our favourite couple!

~Dot

CW: talk of sexual assault recovery

"And he was dead by the time you arrived?", Hermione asked as she shakily sipped her tea. Harry had arrived minutes before, barely getting in a bite of dinner before being bombarded with questions. He recounted his experience of finding Ron years ago, as a precursor to the new information his team had discovered.

"Yeah, only Augustus Rookwood was alive, and we captured him quickly. When we made it to the stables where Ron was, we found the bodies of Ainsley Selwyn and the other death eaters."

"What do we know about this Ainsley?", Ron asked.

"Not much," Harry said in between bites of tikka masala. "He was the son of Casimir Selwyn, who was also involved and dead by the time we arrived. He only attended Hogwarts in his 5th year, which was the year of your capture."

"That means he was 15?", Hermione gasped, almost dropping her cup of tea.

"That vile bastard," Ron spat. "To do what he did at his age, he must have been born evil."

"But, Ron did he do what the others did?", Hermione asked, lost in thought.

"What do you mean?", he asked incredulously.

"Think about it, did he ever take part in our torture? He was the short one, right Harry?"

Harry nodded.

"That means he was the one who untied us, who gave us water and wrappings. The one who didn't kill me," she said the last part to Harry, urging him to tell them the real reason he was there.

"Right, after analysing his wand, we only found one curse used; the killing curse. We can't tell who- or rather what- it was performed on, but we can tell that it wasn't performed on a human."

"And you're sure that he's the one who Ron saw perform the curse on me?"

"Well, that's a little trickier, all of the death eaters performed the killing curse at one point or another. What's curious, is the spells directly before and after the killing curse. They weren't known to anyone, we even sent it to the library, but no one could figure them out. We ended up having a team analyse them, which is why it took so long to get the information we wanted."

"What did the spells do?" Hermione asked, sitting on the edge of her seat, having given up the pretence of eating.

"Well, the first one was a memory altering spell," Harry said, causing Hermione to gasp again. "We don't know the specifics of the spell, as we can't try it on humans, but we know it can erase memories. And the second was an alteration of the felintas spell, which made it so one's hair colour would change, even when it grows. As far as we could tell, they were both original spells."

The trio sat in silence, each contemplating the significance of what Harry recounted.

"So this child, Ainsley," Hermione asked, breaking the silence, "he saved my life?"

"And fucked up your memory," interjected Ron.

"Yes, but think about it, Ron, he probably had to," Hermione said to Ron a calming tone. "If he had orders to kill me, and I was found alive, he would have been killed himself."

Ron shrugged, not convinced with what Hermione was saying.

"Where is he now?" Hermione asked, turning back to Harry.

"He's buried in the Azkaban graveyard with the other death eaters."

"We need to clear his name," Hermione stated matter-of-factly.

"What?", Ron shouted.

"He saved my life, he did whatever he could to keep us safe, and he didn't participate in our torture. He obviously didn't want to be a part of it," Hermione half-begged, urging Ron to understand.

"Yeah, well he didn't have to stay, did he?", Ron said, crossing his arms.

"Sometimes leaving is harder than it seems," Harry said. "I'll see what I can do, Hermione."

The trio ate their now-cold dinner in silence, the tension from Ron's dissent growing.

"I can't believe you think he was a good guy!", Ron was nearly shouting as the pair got ready for bed.

"That's not what I said," Hermione said firmly, putting on her pyjamas. "I just don't think he should be grouped together with the other death eaters."

"But he was a death eater," Ron rebutted.

"He was a child."

"We were children, Hermione!," Ron shouted, his restraint gone. "When we fought Voldemort and the death eaters- when we risked our lives. I never would have done what he did."

"Well, not everyone is as brave as you, Ronald," Hermione said, emphasizing Ronald so that he knew she was upset.

"What does that mean?", Ron asked angrily.

"Not everything's black and white. He did what he could, not everyone can just sacrifice themselves willy-nilly," Hermione argued.

"He took your memory!", Ron shouted. "He took you from me. But that's okay because he was a child," he said in a mocking tone.

"I don't want to fight with you," Hermione said softly, feeling exhausted from trying to defend Ainsley to Ron.

"I'm going to sleep on the sofa," Ron huffed, walking out of their bedroom.

Hermione woke to an unnaturally cold and empty bed, reaching her arms for Ron, and then remembering their argument the night before. She got up, still needing to get ready for work. She barely had time to look over the descriptions for the jobs Kingsley had recommended for her because she was so focused on what Harry might tell them. The descriptions would have to wait to be read until she got home.

Her chest felt oddly hollow. She and Ron had fought before, but this felt different. In fact, their fights before had been much worse than the tiff they had. But, this was their first fight as a couple. It was their first disagreement really, and it was about something so inconsequential. But then again, most of their fights had been.

Hermione got ready, expecting Ron to still be asleep or even gone, by the time she left the loo. But when she opened the door, there he stood.

"Hey," he said meekly.

"Hi."

"Look, Hermione, I'm sorry," he said regretfully. "I was out of line last night. I was mad at the situation and I took it out on you, I shouldn't have.

"No, you shouldn't have," Hermione agreed.

"I guess I still have some pent up anger towards everything that happened. It's hard for me to think of forgiving anyone who was part of that. Even if they were trying to help. He didn't stop us from going through that."

"I'm sorry too."

"What are you on about?", Ron asked quizzically.

"I shouldn't have egged you on. You have every right to be upset, and I can't pretend to know what you went through. Especially after…"

Ron lowered his eyes, the pair of them standing inches apart but not moving.

"I guess it's good we're going to get our heads checked out then," Ron said with a chuckle.

"Yes, I think it is," Hermione responded with a light laugh, stretching up to give him a kiss on the cheek.

Hermione unlocked the door to her flat, exhausted from a night of poor, Ron-free sleep. She was planning to crash as soon as she got to her bed, having a couple of hours before Ron returned from work.

To her surprise, Ron was sitting on their couch and turned to her with a big grin as she entered.

"Hey," Hermione said in a surprised tone, walking over to Ron. As soon as she made it over, Ron pushed a bottle into her hands.

"What's this?", Hermione asked.

"It's from George, to celebrate."

Hermione took a closer look at the item in her hands. It was a bottle of alcohol-free sparkling cider.

"Celebrate what?" she asked inquisitively.

"My promotion. You are now looking at the new co-owner of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes!", Ron said, standing up straight.

"Oh Ron, that's wonderful," Hermione said before engulfing him in a hug, careful to not hit him with the glass bottle.

She placed the bottle on the side table and the pair sat down on the couch.

"Yeah, I've basically already been co-manager, but this means I now own half of the shop," Ron said, beaming.

"That's fantastic," Hermione said, matching his smile. "I'm so proud of you."

If it was possible, Ron's smile grew even larger.

Before she knew what she was doing, Hermione had climbed onto Ron's lap, her pencil skirt pushed up as she kneeled across his lap.

"We should really celebrate," she said, her voice lowering.

Ron's excited face had been replaced with a shocked one, neither of them expecting Hermione's sudden action.

Hermione was tired of holding back, their recent love-life was something that could easily be in a 12-rated movie. That is to say, it was nearly non-existent. The last time they had sex was the day after she returned to normal. She was terrified that she had done something wrong; that he no longer wanted her.

"Are you sure?", Ron asked.

Hermione sat back on her heels, creating space between their bodies. This is what she was afraid of. He didn't want her.

"What did I do?", she asked in a small voice, urging herself not to cry.

"What do you mean?"

"What did I do to make you not want me?", she said, turning her head away from his face, unable to look at him.

"What are you talking about?", Ron asked disbelievingly, grabbing her around the waist. "Of course I want you."

"Then why," Hermione took a deep breath, "haven't we done anything? Why haven't you touched me?" All of her fears and doubts had sprung to the surface, threatening to break free. Her common sense no longer controlled her mind.

"I - I," Ron stuttered. "I didn't want to hurt you."

Hermione looked at Ron in surprise.

"Last time, well that was the night you had those nightmares. I was worried I caused them. I can't hurt you like that."

Hermione shook her head. "That wasn't because of you."

"But, you haven't had any nightmares since."

"Because I've been taking sleeping drought, you know that."

"Still."

"Look, Ron. It's complicated. There's no way to predict how my brain will react to certain situations. But last time, I didn't have a single flashback. I didn't think about anything but you. You didn't cause my nightmare."

Ron nodded his head unconvincingly.

"I can't guarantee that it will always be like that. But I can guarantee that I will tell you if I do have a flashback."

"And I would stop," Ron said adamantly.

Hermione nodded her head in agreement. "Yes, and you know me. Even if I wasn't able to tell you, you could tell if something was wrong. You know when something's not right with me."

"Yeah, I do."

Hermione wiped her tears off of her face. She couldn't believe that all of this stress and apprehension she had been keeping in for so long could be settled by a small conversation.

She chastely kissed his lips and was pulled back into another, not-so chaste kiss. He pushed his hands through her hair, popping her elastic and causing an avalanche of curls to explode from her head.

The pair laughed at the sight, continuing their pursuits between laughs and giggles.