Author's Note:

As I'm sure a lot of you know, when I first started writing this story, Hermione's true age, while debated, had not yet been revealed. Like many of you, I assumed that she was the youngest member of the Trio, based in large part on Dumbledore's comment at the end of CoS. That being the case, I had Moody make reference to Hermione being 15 in one of the early chapters. Of course we now know that she is, in fact, the oldest member of the Trio, not the youngest, so I've decided to up her age in this story to follow along with cannon as closely as possible.

I will not be changing Moody's comment however. As my wonderful beta, Amelia, pointed out, a lot of us assumed that Hermione was younger than she is, so why couldn't Mad-Eye make the same mistake? Fifteen or sixteen, in the end it didn't matter because she was still too young to legally apparate. So for the sake of argument, let's just say Mad-Eye wrongly assumed that she was the same age as Harry and given everything that had just happened, no one bothered to correct him. There were far more important things to focus on, like how she escaped, and whether or not it was even the real Hermione, to get sidetracked with a discussion about her age.

But since we now know that she is the oldest member of the Trio, at this point in the story (Christmas) she would be 17, and that changes things in some significant ways. The most important one being that she is able to use magic away from school without any repercussions.

Thanks, Amelia, for all your suggestions and help. The story really wouldn't be the same without all the hard work you put into it and the invaluable input you give me.

Chapter 68

After midnight, Ron groaned in his mind, after flipping over to look at the clock resting on the bedside table in his room at the Burrow. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning and he still couldn't sleep. Harry didn't seem to have any problems though. His breathing had been deep and steady for the past forty-five minutes and somehow that only seemed to make Ron feel worse about his own insomnia. How was it that his best friend, who had so much weighing down on him, could sleep peacefully on a cot, while he spent an hour and a half tossing and turning in a comfortable bed, brooding about something as trivial as the fact that he hadn't been able to be alone with Hermione since they left school? His problems were insignificant compared to Harry's, and yet he was the one awake.

Maybe I ought to give those Occlumency exercises a try, Ron thought, flopping over on his back and staring up at the posters of the Chudley Cannons that were pinned to the ceiling above his bed. But all I do is think about her when I close my eyes. Not that it's entirely my fault, he reminded himself. I'm not the only one doing it, he thought, taking solace in the fact that Hermione, at least, was just as frustrated and wide awake as he was. The difference was, she was trying not to focus on her unfulfilled urges anymore. As if that's going to work, Ron thought, picturing her lying on her cot in Ginny's room, trying to distract herself by reading over the apparation booklet his father had gotten for her from the Department of Magical Transportation for the hundredth time.

Like you don't have the ruddy thing memorized by now, he said in his head, almost as if he thought she'd be able to hear him and rather than continue to study, she'd see reason, throw her study materials down, and meet him in the bathroom for a late night tryst.

If only she would. It had been five days. Five bloody days since they'd been together in that way and it was starting to wear on him. Hermione had practically moved into his dorm room when the rest of the students went home for the holidays, but that all changed when Professor Dumbledore called the four of them to his office on Christmas Eve and created the portkey out of a Christmas cracker so they could return to the Burrow. He'd gone from spending every single night with Hermione, to sleeping alone again, and he was not happy about it.

Not that Ron was really alone. Harry was there, of course. But that caused a bit of a problem in and of itself. Not just for him, but for Harry too, no doubt. It wasn't that Ron minded sharing a room with Harry. It was just that there was no way for either of them to have any sort of privacy in his bedroom at home. So as frustrated as Ron was at the moment, he was unable to take the matter in hand so to speak and alleviate the problem himself. In his bed at school, with the curtains drawn and silencing charms cast was one thing, at home, without spells to hide what he was doing, was quite another and it was not going to happen. Not even with Harry sound asleep.

Maybe a cold shower, Ron thought, climbing out of his warm bed and throwing a dressing gown on to stave off the chill. Or a not so cold shower with Hermione, he amended. It was the dead of winter after all. He might be thick at times, but he wasn't daft enough to actually use the cold water method if there were other options. And Hermione was still awake, which meant he might be able to convince her that they did have other options. It wasn't like Fred and George were going to apparate in on them this late at night.

Bloody Tossers, Ron groused. The fact that Hermione flat out refused to be alone with him in his room was entirely their fault. They just had to go and apparate into his bedroom when they left their shop on his first night home. They never stopped to think that it might not be Harry he was with. Nor did they have the decency to look ashamed or even apologize when they caught him and Hermione in the middle of a snog. They simply stifled their sniggers and proceeded to gush about how good it was to see them. It wasn't until Hermione recovered from the shock of being interrupted and told them point blank that they were wasting their time sucking up, because Ron had already given what was left of his reward money to Bill, that they reverted to their normal, smart arse selves, made half a dozen remarks about how whipped he was, and walked out of his room, leaving the door wide open. Bloody wankers.

But all of his meddlesome brothers were asleep now. Which meant they didn't need to worry about any of them apparating in on them unannounced. Then again, they did all share the same bathroom. What if one of his brothers needed to use it? They weren't going to bother knocking this late at night. They'd just pop right in and that could be bad. Really, really bad. Especially if he actually managed to get Hermione in there with him. If one of his brothers saw her starkers she'd blame him for it. There was no doubt about that. But some risks were worth taking and it wouldn't hurt to ask. Not as long as she was up anyway.

Fortunately Ron realized rather quickly that Hermione was not, in fact, in his sister's bedroom once he knocked. If she had been, he would have felt her react to the unexpected noise, but she didn't react. She wasn't startled or surprised. All he sensed from her was the same restlessness and frustration he'd been feeling ever since the two of them had gone to their separate beds. So rather than knock again, and risk waking his sister, he went to the next logical place, the room with the most books in it, and looked for her there. Only when he reached the living room, a quick scan was all it took to see he'd chosen the wrong place, which meant there was only one spot left to check.

"There you are," Ron said, after pushing the kitchen door open and spying the familiar head of bushy hair hidden behind a massive book.

"What are you doing up?" Hermione asked, lowering her copy of Hogwarts, A History to the table as she reached for the steaming cup of hot cocoa that was resting in front of her.

"Gee I wonder," Ron said sarcastically, as he pulled the chair closest to her away from the table and fell down on it. "Say, you don't mind if I borrow this for a minute, do you?" he asked, snatching her book up before she had a chance to protest. "It's exactly what I need. If this boring old thing doesn't put me to sleep, nothing will."

"Hardy har har," Hermione groaned. "Your wit never ceases to astound me," she said, trying to grab her book back, only to have Ron jerk it away. "Now if you're quite finished making fun of my choice of reading material, I'll take that back."

"Aw, what do you want to read this dreary thing for?" he asked, hiking the book over his head when she leaned into him, so he could keep it out of reach. "How many times have you read it anyway? A hundred?"

"Give it back," Hermione hisses, leaning forward even further, causing Ron to lean backwards in his chair in order to keep possession of the object clutched in his right hand.

"But you didn't say the magic words," he retorted, unceremoniously dropping the book on the floor behind him, wrapping both of his arms around Hermione's back, and using them to pin her against his chest. "And now you'll have to pay," he said, just before he kissed her.

"If you've ruined my book, you're the one that's going to pay," Hermione threatened, once she regaining enough of her wits to jerk her head back and put both of her hands on his chest for leverage so she could push herself away from him.

"Funny," Ron retorted, tightening his grip as she struggled to break free. "You seem to be the one having trouble here, not me."

"Just you wait," she said, feeling far more confident than Ron thought she should. He was the one that had the upper hand, wasn't he?

"You wouldn't seriously curse an unarmed man?" he asked, diverting his eyes to the tabletop and scanning it for her wand, because he now knew that she had it somewhere close by. She wouldn't be feeling so sure of herself if she didn't. "That's bloody unfair, you know?" he said, using his right arm to hold her in place while he searched the pockets of her dressing gown with his left. "Aha," he cried triumphantly, when his fingers closed around the object he was looking for and he dragged it out of her pocket. "Now I have you completely at my mercy," he joked, releasing his hold on her and jerking her wand up so it was between them.

"You're forgetting one very important thing," Hermione shot back, still as smug as ever and just as aroused as he was.

"Oh yeah?" Ron asked with a cheeky smile. "And what's that, love?"

"In order to properly ravish me," she said, as she slid off her own chair and onto his lap, causing the familiar ache building inside them both to increase significantly. "And I know that's what you intend to do," she added, placing one hand on his chest and burying the other in his thick red hair just as she felt his lust course into her body and combine with her own. "Someone has to shield the room. And since you can't do that yourself without receiving an official warning, you're going to have to give me back my wand so I can do it. And when you do that, your arse is mine."

"Merlin, I love it when you talk dirty to me," Ron groaned, darting his tongue out to wet his lips, as he stared at hers with a hungry look in his smoldering blue eyes.

"That wasn't dirty."

"Sure it was," Ron insisted. "You just threatened to have your wicked way with me and I'm not fool enough to pass up an offer like that. You win," he said, flipping her wand over in his hand and offering it back to her. "My arse, and the rest of me, is all yours."

¤

As the green flames surrounding him dissipated and he stepped from the hearth into the kitchen of his family home, Charlie Weasley was met with a sight that was so inconceivable, that for a moment he actually thought he might be have floo'd into the wrong house by mistake. If the half dressed figure leaning over the kitchen table, snogging the living daylights out of a girl, who was mostly hidden from view, hadn't had the tell tale Weasley red hair, Charlie might have actually tried to make a discreet exit before being spotted. But as the figure did have red hair, and Charlie was fairly certain he was in the right place, he just stood there, rucksack in hand, and tried to make sense of what he'd floo'd in on.

From the looks of it, one of his brother was about to shag in their mother's kitchen, on the very table his family was going to congregate around in the morning to eat their breakfast. What kind of daft fool did something like that? No one in his right mind would violate their mother's space in that fashion. It had to be Bill. It was the only logical explanation. Bill and that Veela girl he was dating. She'd turned her powers on him and now that he was bewitched, he'd completely lost his mind and forgot where he was. That had to be it. The problem was, the person trying to tear the clothing away from the girl splayed out on the table had short hair. He was tall enough to be Bill, but he had short hair and that changed everything.

"HOLY SHITE!"Charlie shouted, dropping the bag he was holding to the ground in shock when he realized he was about to see far more of his baby brother than he ever wanted to see. "RON!"

"WHA!" Ron yelped in surprise, as Hermione shrieked beneath him and madly tried to sort out her nightgown. "CHARLIE!" he cried, after standing upright and spinning around to see who had unshielded the room and interrupted them. "Where'd you...what are you doing here?" he asked, his entire face flooding with color as the mortification Hermione was feeling surged into his body.

"Bloody hell, Ron. Have you completely lost your... your..." Charlie started to say, before his eyes fell on the silver charm hanging around his brother's neck and his mouth fell open. "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?" he demanded, even as Ron realized what his brother was staring at and slapped his hand over his bare chest to hide the talisman.

"Hold on," Ron said defensively, taking a step backward and colliding with Hermione, who was now standing beside the table clutching her dressing gown closed at her neck. "Just... let me explain. It's not what..."

"IT BETTER NOT BE!"

"No, wait!" Ron cried, only Charlie quickly realized that the comment was directed at Hermione and not himself, because even as he said it, Ron spun around to face her. "You can't," he insisted, stepping in front of her and blocking Charlie's view of her once more. "He's my brother."

"He won't remember that I did it," Hermione stated, the embarrassment she'd felt upon being caught in a compromising position having diminished when she realized Charlie had seen Ron's charm. There was a bevy of emotions surging through her now. Fear, no doubt from Ron. Shame, desperation, but along with those there was resignation and a good deal of guilt, because Hermione knew what she had to do. She didn't want to do it, but the situation had to be dealt with before it got out of hand and she was the only one that could do it.

Won't remember that she did what? Charlie thought. None of this made any sense. His baby brother had something that looked suspiciously like a Lànain talisman hanging around his neck. But that didn't make any sense. Ron was a bloke, and those despicable things were only used to collar women. But if it wasn't a Lànain talisman, then why was he going to such efforts to hide it? And why was Hermione clutching her dressing gown to her neck as if her life depended on it?

Something very dodgy was going on here, and there was more to it than the fact that Ron had something around his neck that he didn't want anyone to see. He'd been snogging, no, damn near shagging, his girlfriend on their mother's kitchen table. A girlfriend who Charlie remembered as a sweet, albeit bossy, little girl, who always toed the line and followed the rules. She was supposed to keep his brother out of trouble. But apparently Ron had more influence over her than she did him, because somehow he'd gotten her to break the mother of all rules, and in his parent's house no less. And now... Holy shite... now that sweet little girl had her wand out and pointed right at him.

"Get out of my way," Hermione said to Ron, although her eyes were riveted on Charlie's hands as she said it. "It'll be better this way."

"No, wait," Ron implored, holding his position between them. "At least let me try and explain first and if that doesn't work then you can do it."

For a second there, Charlie was actually worried that Hermione was seriously going to attempt modifying his memory, but then he remembered they were only sixth years and sixth years couldn't do magic away from Hogwarts. It was a bluff. A damn convincing bluff, but a bluff none the less. When did Ron become such a good actor?

"Nice try," Charlie said, unwilling to let their not so subtle threat distract him. "I might have even fallen for it if it weren't for the fact that..."

"Shut up, you moron," Ron cried, doing a bang up job of looking genuinely concerned. "If you dare her to do it, I won't be able to stop her."

"You know, this whole good prefect, bad prefect routine you have worked out to intimidate the ickle kiddies at school isn't going to work on me. Now stop stalling and start talking. That better not be what I think it is," Charlie said, making the mistake of closing the distance between them and reaching around Ron to get at Hermione in order to see if she had something similar hanging around her neck. "And you better pray that I don't find one of them on..."

"Back off," Ron warned, cutting Charlie off before he had a chance to finish his own threat. And no sooner had the words left Ron's mouth, then Charlie discovered he had no choice but to comply. The instant he touched Hermione's shoulder, the painful buzzing sensation that shot through his arm, forced him to let go.

"GOD DAMN IT, RON!" Charlie cried out, as he yanked his arm back. "That hurt!" he said, shaking his hand as if it was asleep and he was trying to get his circulation flowing again.

"Yeah, well, I told you not to do it," Ron replied, evidently not feeling the slightest bit of remorse about what he'd just done. "Consider yourself lucky we worked out how to repel people without sending them flying clear across the room while we were having those extra defense lessons with Tonks," Ron added, when his brother's mouth fell open and he continued to gape at him, "because I could have done that if I'd wanted to. Hermione was afraid of what you'd find if you searched her and that fear was all it took for me to perceive you as a threat and trigger the magic. I don't need my wand to do it, so I won't get in any trouble. If you had been a Death Eater, you'd be flat on your arse, halfway across the room by now. But as you're family and all, I went easy on you," he said, "but I trust you got the point."

"You're mad!" Charlie said, his blue eyes wide with horror now that he had proof positive of what his brother had done. "You can't use a Lànain talisman on a Muggle-born."

"Obviously I can," Ron retorted. "The magic works. You just saw it."

What the hell was he supposed to say to that? The magic works, Charlie repeated his brother's asinine statement over in his head as he tried to wrap his mind around what he'd just discovered. His baby brother had gone around the bend. He'd slapped a Lànain talisman on his girlfriend. The same girlfriend who was obsessed with freeing House Elves. She was going to bloody well kill him when she found out that wasn't just a pretty necklace she was wearing. And if she didn't, his mother would.

"Oh God," Charlie moaned, as an even more horrifying thought occurred to him. "You haven't... you aren't..." But he saw the truth on his brother's face before he even finished asking the question. "You consummated it?" Charlie cried in disbelief, causing both Ron and Hermione to blush again. "How could you do something like that without telling her what it would mean?"

"Why is it that you all think Ron is capable of doing something like that?" Hermione asked. "Why do you just assume that I don't know what we've done? Do I come across and particularly gullible or uninformed? Maybe it was my idea. Did you ever even consider that possibility?"

If he had been just a bit closer to the table, Charlie might have actually considered banging his head against it to make this nightmare he was stuck in stop.

"So you ... you do know what it means to..."

"Of course I know," Hermione sighed, before he even had a chance to finish the question.

"And you're ok with that?" Charlie asked incredulously.

"Why shouldn't she be?" Ron said defensively.

"How about the fact that you're both sixteen for starters."

"Actually, Hermione is seventeen," Ron corrected.

"What?" Charlie asked, goggling at his brother as if he were speaking Gobbledegook. "What the hell does that matter? You're still too young to be..."

"Well, it does matter, see," Ron stated. "Because she isn't just pretending that she's going to curse you, she really is going to do it if you're not careful. She's thinking about doing it right now, as a matter of fact. I can tell because she's feeling guilty again."

"Oh by all means," Charlie cried, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation, "be my guest. In fact, if you don't do it, I might just do it to myself. I just had to come home for New Years," he ranted, as he began pacing back and forth in front of them. "Thought it would be nice to surprise Mum, but nothing's going to top your surprise. Hi Mum, nice to see you. Nothing new with me, but hey, guess what? Ron has some news. He slapped a Lànain talisman on Hermione and now the two of them are married. Isn't that great? You're a dead man. You realize that? She's seriously going to kill you."

"Not if you don't tell her," Ron said almost instantly.

"So she can kill me when she finds out I knew and kept it from her?" Charlie retorted. "I don't think so. Unless..." he added, coming to a halt in front of Ron and looking at him intently. "Unless you're willing to compromise. If you take those things off right now, I won't say a thing."

"Well?" Hermione said, crossing her arms in front of her chest and looking pointedly at Ron.

"What?" he asked in surprise. "Are you turning this into some kind of test or something?"

"He's just the warm up act for your mother, so how are you going to respond?"

"Bugger off, Charlie and keep your nose out of our business. There, are you happy?" he said, glancing at Hermione and rolling his eyes.

"You can't say something like that to your mother," Hermione shot back.

"But he's not my mum and I can tell him to bugger off all I want. Besides, you can't exactly modify her memory after she finds out, so what are you going to do? "

"Nothing. You're going to handle your parents and I'm going to handle mine. Unless you'd rather be the one to explain all of this to my father."

"How's that fair?"

"Will you two give it a rest?" Charlie snapped, unable to believe how easy it was for them to side track one another with their bickering. Unless, he thought, they aren't distracted at all and they're simply trying to throw me off.

"Fine," Hermione snapped. "You want me to take care of your family too; I'll take care of your family. What Ron meant," she said to Charlie, "is that we have perfectly good reasons for doing what we've done and you aren't going to be able to change our minds or talk us out if it. You're just going to have to trust that we know what we're doing and it's better for everyone if you don't say anything about it right now. If you don't believe me, you can ask Dumbledore," she added, almost as if she hoped dropping his name would add some validity to her claims. "He'll tell you what he thinks you need to know and anything he doesn't mention, he's keeping quiet for a reason."

"Wait? You expect me to believe that Dumbledore knows about this? He knows that you two are... married."

"Dumbledore, Snape, McGonagall and Tonks," Ron replied.

"And Harry and Ginny of course," Hermione added.

"You told Ginny?" Charlie said in disbelief.

"Don't look at me," Ron sighed, the instant his brother's eyes widened again. "That was her brilliant idea," he added, nodding his head in Hermione's direction. "But that ought to tell you something. Ginny is ok with all of this, now that she understands why we did it."

"Enlighten me then. Why exactly did you do it?"

"I'd think it would be fairly obvious," Ron responded. "I mean I just showed you. We did it so we could protect each other," he said, looking at his brother as if he were dimwitted. "I told you what I would have done to you if you'd been a Death Eater. They can't touch her now," he stated. "Those bastards will never touch her again. Not as long as I'm alive to prevent it. Don't ask me to take that thing off and make her vulnerable again, because I won't do it. I can't. When she escaped I made a promise to myself that I'd keep her safe and that's exactly what I'm going to do. I don't care what it takes."

"But you didn't have to consummate the union for that part of it to work," Charlie said, his voice softening significantly. He knew about Hermione being taken prisoner of course, and he knew how badly Ron had taken it. Bill had told him everything, including what he'd seen in Dumbledore's pensive after she'd escaped. "I mean you could have just remained betrothed. You still would have been able to protect her. You didn't have to..."

"We wanted to," Ron interrupted. "We've wasted enough time. So much that we almost lost the opportunity to be together at all. I'm not going to waste anymore. This is what we both want, Charlie. You don't have to like it, but you do have to accept it, because you're not going to change my mind. Hermione and I are married and that makes her family. And it doesn't matter what you say," Ron said, "I know you aren't going to run to Mum and tattle on us like Ginny used to do when we were kids. You and Bill have always looked out for us when you could and I know you're not going to stop doing that now. There might be part of you that wants to tell Mum, but you won't. Seriously," he said to Hermione, "he won't. He's just blowing smoke. Must come from being around all those dragons. But he won't rat us out, trust me."

"All right," Hermione said, using her wand to lower the shield on the kitchen door, before squirreling it away in the pocket of her dressing gown. Ron believed what he was saying. She could feel his confidence in his brother and that was good enough for her at this particular moment in time. She just wanted to duck away somewhere and pretend this awkward conversation had never happened. "In that case, I'm going to bed."

"Alone?" Ron whined. "Oh come on Hermione. Don't do that. Charlie is leaving. Aren't you?"

"No, it's late and I'm tired," she said, moving towards the door, throwing it open, and pushing through it, before he had a chance to argue any further.

"Oh that's just great," Ron said, turning away from the empty doorway and glowering at his brother. "I hope you're happy. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get her alone in this house? Now that you've ruined everything, I might as well go to bed too," he added, spinning around and stomping towards the door himself.

"Thanks a lot," Charlie heard Ron mutter as he ducked through the door, and then it was silent. Or it would have been if his heart hadn't been thumping wildly against his chest and his mind hadn't been racing with a whole host of information, most of which still didn't make all that much sense.