A First Time For Everything

6th September 2003 (Ron is 18, Hermione is 23)

HERMIONE: I have owls coming at me left right and centre, my parents are coming on Sunday for a big roast dinner that's Ron's having to prepare in advance because he's warned himself he won't be here on Sunday and I have to be fitted for my wedding dress before the good people at Pronuptia give my design away to a bride-to-be who actually shows up when she says she will. I have so much to do and yet I can't leave the flat.

Ron's coming for the first time.

Well it's obviously not his first time and it's definitely not mine but it will be the first time he remembers and understands. He's talked about that day with me so many times over the last four years that I've become kind of anxious about it the nearer it gets. He tells me I was brilliant, that I made it all make sense and that I gave him hope for a normal life, and now the time is nearly here my mind is a complete blank. I have no idea what I'm going to say to him.

I realise that the first thing I need to do is fetch him something to wear when he shows up, something to eat too he's always either hungry or thirsty after time-travelling.

I buttered some bread and rummaged through the fridge for some leftovers. There's some roast beef and lettuce, I grab some mustard and make him a roast beef sandwich.

There was a thud in the living room, followed by a loud gasp.

"Hermione?"

Godric he sounded so confused, I ran to him, I remember that first time I watched him disappear right in front of me. He looked so scared. To him this was a split second later but to me it was over five years. I saw him on his hands and knees, naked and nauseated, I smiled and threw a blanket over his shoulders.

"I've got you some clothes, I'm sorry I forgot how skinny you used to be, they might be a bit too big on you I'm afraid."

I rushed at firebolt speed to grab the jeans and sweatshirt from our bed and back to Ron before he could really process that he was inexplicably naked. He stared at me as I knelt before him and pulled the sweatshirt over his head, his hair was even scruffier than it is now, and he shivered. I knew he wasn't cold but I rubbed his arms briskly with my hands anyway and tried to stay bright and breezy in the face of his heartbreaking bewilderment.

"What happened, I felt sick and everything went blurry and now I'm naked again," his voice sounded similar to that time he had spoken to me after his dad had almost been killed by that snake outside the department of mysteries, "Why do I keep waking up naked Hermione? What do I do when I pass out?"

I hadn't seen this kind of vulnerability in him in a long time, I couldn't help myself and grabbed him and held him close to me, and I suddenly knew exactly what to say.

"You don't pass out Ron, you disappear," I could feel him pulling back to look me in the eye as if I was crazy so I held him even tighter and kissed the side of his head through his hair, "Shhh, it's ok don't worry, just listen."

I loosened my grip on him and he gave me a nod before suddenly looking embarrassed and pulling on the jeans as he got up off the floor to sit in his armchair.

"So this is how it is," I began, "you are a time-traveller. It's like a physical condition, kind of like epilepsy, and can be triggered by flashing lights or stress or exhaustion and it's nobody's fault ok? Especially not yours."

He swallowed and looked at his hands.

"But I didn't do anything, I was just, we were just talking and then you..." Ron frowned at me and examined me with great curiosity before saying, "...your hair's longer."

I smiled and twirled a loose curl around my index finger.

"I've been growing it for the wedding."

"Who's getting married?" he asked as he searched his mind for a conversation he may not have been paying attention to.

"Ron that's not the point, the point is you need to warn everybody about this so they can help you when you get home. You need to tell your mother that this explains all those times when you were a baby and you used to go missing all the time."

Ron was about to interrupt but I had certain information I needed to pass on before I forgot, he told me there was something really big that I forgot and I didn't want that to happen this time. Though that's part of the problem, this time has already happened for him, I've already neglected to tell him whatever it was. I raised my finger and put it to his lips, silencing him immediately.

"Just listen for a moment Ron, please don't let me forget this really important thing I have to tell you. Now, first things first, your mother got help from Dumbledore. She didn't know what it was that he did for you but it turns out he was stabilising you in the right time line and when he died he only had you covered until your eighteenth birthday. When did you turn eighteen Ron?"

"A couplea weeks ago," he said with a weak breath of disbelief.

He looked as if I'd given him a puppy and then shot it.

"And when did you first 'wake up nude'?"

He went an odd shade of green.

"March the third."

I sighed and gave him another hug, he looked as if he really needed it, and I found myself kissing him. Then I caught myself in the act and thought, wait a moment my Ron didn't tell me anything about this!

"I'm sorry Ron, I don't know what..." I began before he put his hand in my hair and held my head close to his.

"Don't stop," he breathed, "I want to feel something good right now, I really need to feel something...else."

I kissed him and watched as he closed his eyes and let himself go. He had such an innocence about him that I lost myself for a moment and pushed him backwards and straddled him with my usual lusty dominance. As I began to unbutton his jeans he jerked his head away and grabbed my wrist firmly but gently with his left hand.

"No I didn't mean it like that, I know you want to wait."

I laughed out loud before seeing the shock on his face and I moved my hands away from his fly and rested them on either side of his face.

"Oh you poor thing, I completely forgot what I put you through that first few months when we moved in together, I'm still making you wait aren't I? The old me, your Hermione."

Ron nodded and looked even more confused than before, but only for a few seconds, and then his eyes widened and he looked back down at his groin in a comical cartoon like way.

"You mean, we do, I mean you and I do...out of wedlock?"

I laughed so hard at this I nearly cried and kissed this oh so much younger Ron on the lips before shaking my head.

"Well the truth is I lost my virginity to you when you were married to me so it wasn't really out of wedlock at all, although I wasn't your wife yet. I'm still not."

"You mean?"

I nodded.

"I lost my virginity to an older you, a thirty-two year old married you."

His face looked childishly disgusted on hearing this.

"Yeach!"

I slapped him on the arm.

"It was not yeach, it was lovely, you get better with age I have to say."

Ron shuddered and I took his hands in mine.

"As for you Ronald Bilius Weasley, you lose yours to me when I'm engaged to you and you've just turned eighteen."

He blinked and his face went slack.

"What...?"

I suddenly realised what today was, why Ron had insisted he not be there to explain it to himself, and why I was about to forget to pass on that last important message.

"You told me when I came to you in tears and confessed I had cheated on you with yourself. We laughed about it and then we started sleeping together in all our out of wedlock glory!"

I watched as he struggled to process all of this information and saw him coming to the conclusion that he had gone insane. He warned me about this and I acted immediately.

"You know what Ron, this is scary sometimes and this is hard for both of us. You sometimes come home bleeding and beaten or freezing cold and upset and you tell me things, things that I should warn you about but then there are other times Ron, other times when you wouldn't give this gift up for the world."

"Gift?" he snapped at me, now there's the eighteen-year-old Ron I remember, "You're calling my appearing naked in different periods of time a gift Hermione? One of us is definitely insane here and I'm beginning to suspect that it ain't me!"

I laughed so hard at this that he lost the wind from his sails and gawped at me as if I'd had a personality transplant. Well what do you expect when you live with a, Ron Weasley, b, a time-traveller and c, a time-travelling Ron Weasley? I can't be the same old rigid Hermione Granger I used to be, she wouldn't last five minutes living this life of mine, that Hermione almost didn't stick at it.

I'm glad she did.

"You're the strange man who took your mother to the hospital when she went into labour with Ginny."

He looked as if he had no blood left in his face as he remembered the old family story. I continued.

"You're the homeless muggle man with the limp who taught Percy to play chess when he was five years old."

"But Bill..." Ron began, ears flashing crimson now as the blood rushed back to his head as if he had been turned upside down along with the rest of his world.

"That's right," I nodded sadly, remembering the awful state he came back to me in that day, "Bill thought you were a dirty old beggar and beat you up. That's why your mother was always so wary of you, Ginny and the twins consorting with strangers when you were children, she thought that Percy could've been kidnapped."

"But I was only a baby when that happened, and Ginny..." Ron tried so hard to make sense of it all, "I was there when Ginny...before she was even born?"

I nodded.

"You can travel anywhere within your own lifetime as far as I can figure out, although we think there may be a cure because the oldest any of us have ever met you is forty three."

Ron's eyes lowered as he had the same thought I had when I heard that fact.

"That could mean I don't live past forty-three."

I brushed my hand against his cheek and we rested our foreheads against each other's, closing our eyes for a moment.

"I prefer the cure theory myself," I whisper.

"You're still an optimist then?" he muttered and I opened my eyes to look back into his blue ones.

"I'm marrying you aren't I?"

Ron seemed to be both scared and happy as he parts his lips to speak but I press my own against his and we both lost ourselves in this most bizarre moment. I was kissing my future husband, my fiancé, the man I have loved since I was eleven years old, and he is kissing the stranger who so closely resembles the loving and petrified girlfriend he left back in 1998. It was tense, wonderful and passionate. I reach to unbutton his jeans once again and he pulled his lips away from mine just long enough to pant.

"But she doesn't want me to..."

"And you won't until she's ready," I smile as I caress him between the legs, "but I want you to Ron. I want you now."

I kiss him again and feel him moan into my mouth as I wriggle down his jeans and straddle him once again.

When I wake it is to a pile of crumpled clothing beside me on the floor and I realised that I never did finish making that sandwich. As I put away the bread and the mustard Ron came wandering back into the flat. He leaned against the kitchen doorframe with his familiar broad shoulders, much more substantial upper arms and an enormous grin on his face. I can't stop myself from smiling.

"Well," he asked with a wicked little flicker in the eyes, "how'd it go?"

I actually find myself blushing.

"You know how it went Ronald Weasley. I forgot to give you your sandwich."

Ron reaches out for the plate and took the sandwich he should have eaten five years earlier. He took a large bite.

"Mmm, worth waiting for," he smiled as he chewed.

"I have to say that I miss your wiry little body," I moved across to him and circled my arms around his waist, "though the muscle tone is still very much appreciated."

Time travel does tend to require a certain level of physical fitness and, despite still being quite svelte, the Ron of September 2003 has a subtle little six-pack and a pair of arms to die for.

"Hey maybe this is the thing you forgot to tell me, about the sandwich I mean?"

I suddenly realised what it was I had neglected to mention.

"Oh no, I didn't warn you!"

Ron blinked at me and swallowed his mouthful.

"Warn me about what?"

I wondered if he'd be angry with me for keeping this to myself.

"Warn you about Lavender."

March 10th 1998 (Ron and Hermione are 18)

RON: I felt dizzy and sick but more than anything else I felt as if somebody had just introduced me to my own life and instructed me how to live it. I groaned, as I got up shakily, naked again, what is it with the naked thing? Something smashed and Hermione screamed. I blinked and looked around for her.

He was pulling her head out of the fireplace, the green flames fading away, and crawling across the rug on her hands and knees in tears.

"Oh thank Merlin you came back," she gasped as she hugged me so hard I worried that I might puke all over her back.

"I was...I was gone?" I said, still unable to get my head around this shit, I had been in the flat the whole time.

"You just disappeared, you were feeling ill and you fell down and you just...you just...and all that was left was your clothes on the floor. Oh Ron I was so scared, I didn't know what had happened to you."

I stroked her hair and shushed her a few times while feeling slightly uncomfortable for two reasons. One being that I was hugging my girlfriend of barely a year completely starkers and the other being that I had just lost my virginity to her...without her actually being there with me.

"It all happened so fast," she sniffed as I rocked her and rubbed her back, "we were talking and then you fell and you were gone and I flooed Harry and before I even got to tell him what happened you were back again."

I pulled away and stared at her face.

"I was only gone long enough for you to floo Harry's place and not get a word out?"

She wiped her face and nodded.

"Why, how long was it for you?" she said with another sniff.

"I don't know," I shrugged, "but it was longer than that, half and hour maybe, an hour?"

Hermione bit her bottom lip and suddenly jumped to her feet to grab a towel from the clothes horse where it had been drying after her bath and handed it to me. I had just wrapped it around myself when the fireplace exploded with green flames and Harry ran out with his wand drawn.

"What happened Hermione? What's wrong with Ron? Where did you go?" he blustered before seeing me staring back at him in shock wearing nothing but a damp towel.

"He came back Harry, it's ok, I'm sorry I just left you like that but I wanted to make sure he was alright," Hermione said frantically as she gathered my clothes up from the floor and shoved them into my arms.

"What do you mean he came back? Is this another fight? Shit you two I thought you were being attacked or something!" Harry huffed angrily as he put his wand away.

"Sorry Harry, look I don't know what happened exactly but..." Hermione began.

"Listen let me get dressed and then I'll explain it to you ok?" I said as I backed into our bedroom in a daze.

Hermione turned and stared at me in wonder.

"You know what happened to you?"

"Yeah, you told me," I knew that would just open up a whole avenue of confusion and closed the door on the barrage of question that were about to come flying.

I rested my head against the door and tried to go over everything that had just happened in the last hour that wasn't.

I was a time traveller.

Bill was going to beat me up.

I was going to take my mum to the hospital while she was in labour with Ginny.

I was going to marry Hermione.

I just had sex.

I slid down the door and let out an amazed exhalation.

I just had sex!

A/N Well I'm pretty sure the readers of my last three longs fics have noticed that I'm going somewhere a little different with this one. I don't want to be one of those fic writers who go all soft porn on their readers, I can't stand that crap myself, but I also don't want to deliberately avoid intimacy just because I feel weird writing it.

I think you know me well enough by now to expect some angst here and there...well everywhere! But there will also be more of what you got in The Man Who Wasn't There, Ron and Hermione shipper bliss!

I'd appreciate it if you could give me a soft porn alarm (S.P.A.) if I ever go over the top...of course if you are left wanting more I could suggest you get out there and find a real life person to get up to mischief with. I kind of have one myself now and he's younger than me by quite a bit, I'M A CRADLE SNATCHER! (Don't laugh Scrib, if you knew how much of my writing imitated life you'd be very very worried for me!).

Shari (Solstice Muse)