The car braked suddenly. Their front bumper stopped a measly few feet from the back bumper of the car in front of them, and the seatbelt bit into Hermione's chest.
"Ron!"
"Relax," he laughed. "I stopped in plenty of time."
"You could've stopped earlier!"
"Didn't need to stop earlier, did I? There was three feet there, Hermione."
"I'm only saying that with the fog so thick today-"
"You act like I'm the worst driver in the world!"
"I do not!" He wasn't the worst on the road with them, even. She'd earlier seen a little orange sport car go across three lanes all at once and come dreadfully close to clipping the back of a lorry. Ron drove not like a maniac, but like a man who'd just got his license and wasn't taking the task as seriously as he ought. "But cars are dangerous, Ron. Muggles may do it all the time, but a handful of them die at it every day. Traffic fatalities are one of the leading causes of accidental death."
"Good thing we put those safety charms on the car, then."
"I put them on, Ron. Not we, I, while you made cracks about my being paranoid. And they're all very well for us, but how about the people in the car we crash into, or in the accident that we cause but aren't actually a part of?"
"Damnit, Hermione, I'm not going to cause an accident! I passed that test, didn't I? You spent days and days saying you didn't think I was ready and I ought to practice more, but I was plenty good enough for the muggle examiner, wasn't I?"
"I didn't say you wouldn't pass. I just said more practice would be a fine idea. And passing's a minimum not a laurel!"
"And you didn't think I'd reach the minimum, did you? Seems I'm a better driver than you think."
Hermione bit back her retort. She really did feel guilty for doubting so much that he'd pass, and he'd been holding it over her ever since. It was about time he stopped bringing it up, but better not to have that discussion in front of the kids.
She glanced over her shoulder. Rose and Hugo were in the backseat, faces carefully blank.
"Nothing to worry about," said Hermione. "Just a friendly disagreement."
They nodded wordlessly. Her darlings knew all about their parents' 'friendly disagreements,' and she only hoped that they knew this wasn't how friendly disagreements were supposed to go. She'd done lot a bit of reading on healthy relationships, everything from pop articles in Witch Weekly to muggle scholarly journals. She'd even nagged Ron into going through a couple's workbook with her. But she could never bring herself to admit to her children that their parents were not, in fact, a good model for dealing with interpersonal conflict.
She clenched her hands in her lap, which she had discovered was a good deal less obvious than clenching her fingers into her cheeks, and bit back anything else she wanted to say. A quick Supersensory Charm made her feel better. This way, if Ron did make a mistake, she could shout out a warning that much faster.
The rest of the ride passed with no speech and no trouble. Ron did seem to be leaving himself more space, and she felt bad for snapping at him, and guilty for the Supersensory Charm, as if it meant she didn't trust him.
They reached the station in plenty of time — she reminded herself that Ron had grown in this way for her, early in their relationship. He'd learned to be prompt, at least so far as they were concerned. He made allowances for her, so why did she find it so hard to make allowances for him?
The mist was even thicker on Platform 9 and three-quarters, strange and otherworldly. A shiver went up her spine, but a quick wave of her wand showed it wasn't a spell.
"Nothing to worry about," said Ron, taking her hand, and she relaxed a little at his easy recognition that all these years later, she still got terribly nervous of being attacked at the first hint of something off kilter, at his attempt at comfort.
They waited by the last carriage, loading Rose and Hugo's trunks into it. It wasn't long before the Potters showed.
"Parked all right, then?" Ron asked Harry. "I did. Hermione didn't believe I could pass a Muggle driving test, did you? She thought I'd have to Confund the examiner."
"No, I didn't," said Hermione. "I had complete faith in you."
Ron helped Harry with Albus's trunk, and whispered to Harry. "As a matter of fact, I did Confund him. I only forgot to look in the wing mirror, and let's face it, I can use a Supersensory Charm for that."
Hermione heard it only because she hadn't yet dropped her own Supersensory Charm, not in this obscuring mist. She clawed her palms with her nails again, but she didn't castigate Ron right then. In public, they were the perfect little family. Her career required that. The argument would come later. She already knew exactly how she'd torture him for holding that over her when he hadn't really passed, not properly.
But as for Confunding the examiner, Hermione didn't care anymore. She had once — she'd written impassioned editorials — screeds, Ron said — on the evils of using Mind Magic on muggles without good cause, on how simple convenience was no excuse. But these days, the idealism of her youth seemed a pettier thing than any of Ron's reasons. If she was no Gryffindor anymore, that was just as well, for she was no longer 11. It wasn't as if she hadn't Confunded people herself, as Ron liked to point out, and whenever she professed a desire to hold herself to a higher standard, he told her not to be so hard on herself.
Still, a part of her waited with bated breath for Harry's response, but he only shook his head with an amused smile. After all, he had never minded her being the butt of jokes. As for his job as Head Auror, charged in part to stop people from casting magic on muggles for pure convenience — well, she had told him a hundred times that the sort of favouritism he practiced was exactly how the Ministry had become corrupt in the first place, but he only ever got angry with her, or else didn't say anything at all.
More the later. Ginny claimed he was ever so much more willing to open up these days, but Hermione couldn't know if that was true. It was years since they'd had a real conversation, just the two of them. Even when it was the four of them and they broke into conversation pairs around the table, she tended to speak either with Ron or Ginny.
When Ron jokingly threatened to disown Rose if she were sorted in Slytherin, quite ignoring the editorials Hermione had written on breaking down the barriers of inter-house prejudice, Hermione's response was automatic and tepid, amusement warring with exasperation, for that passion too belonged to a girl who'd died years ago.
But her eyes misted as her darlings waved goodbye from the door. Her hands twitched, and her feet pled to follow them, to sit on the train and pull on that uniform and let out a happy giggle at her reflection in the window, to be a student once more with all the possibilities in the world stretched out before her, nevermind the hell that was sure to follow. Tears ran down her cheeks.
"It's alright," said Ron, slinging an arm around her shoulders. "We'll see them at Christmas."
/
/
Canon makes me sad. Now you can feel sad too, maybe.
(Seriously, if either I or my girlfriend of 2 years did what Ron did in that tiny little epilogue, it would easily make it into "the top five fights our relationship," list and probably compete hard for the top spot. What am I supposed to assume but that the only glimpse the author gives us is a representative one, especially when it's consistent with the previous seven years of their relationship?)