Sweet Nothings and Absent Friends

5th February 1999 (Ron is 18 and 7 months old, Hermione is 19)

HERMIONE: I have been fighting sleep for fifteen minutes or so now. The rain has finally stopped and the sun has forced its way through a gap in the clouds, through our living room window, and onto our faces. Ron is dozing quietly and I lay my head on his chest and try not to let the sound of his heartbeat and the rhythmic rise and fall of his ribcage lull me off into the land of nod myself.

As long as Ron's around there is never any danger of me suffering from insomnia. I once got a little bit giddy and over romantic and told him his life was like a lullaby to me, he laughed so hard and teased me so shamelessly that I wanted to punch him into a time before I had opened my big love-struck mouth, but then he went and did the most romantic thing he had ever done in his life. I look at my engagement ring and all the musical notes engraved all the way around it, an Irish lullaby, and smile.

"I love you Ron," I whisper into his chest.

He chuckles.

"Your breath is ticklish."

I look up, he still has his eyes closed as if he doesn't want to be awake again but still wants to talk to me at the same time. I kiss him on the side of the neck and whisper again.

"I love you."

He smiles.

"Whatever it is you want I'm not doing it."

Typical.

I kiss the nape of his neck and then further up and once again just below his jaw line and I whisper into the tips of his hair where they hang messily before my lips.

"I love you."

He turned his head downwards to press his lips to mine, still struggling to remain in a state of semi-sleep.

"I'll do some things if you're in the mood."

I shift a little further up his torso so I can cover his lips with my own and kiss him into opening his eyes. He moans and I feel his hand in my hair and our lips smile against the others.

"What brought on all the love?" Ron asks as he finally looks at me with sleepy eyes.

"I was listening to your lullaby," I breathed before pressing my lips softly against his again.

"I wrote it just for you," he said as he tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.

"You're a composer?" I laughed.

He nods with sincerity.

"Oh yeah, in fact I was hoping you could help me with this bit of drum rhythm I wanted to get down."

He was up to something, I could see it coming from a mile away, but I couldn't work out what it was.

"Help you how?" I asked with great suspicion.

"Well," he nuzzled into the side of my neck and I nearly lost all reason, "my lullaby for you is played on my heart and my lungs yeah?"

"Uh-huh," he was breathing on my sensitive spot, long hot breaths, I struggled to concentrate.

"This rhythm needs to be played on your body."

My heart did a back flip.

"What's this rhythm sound like then and why does it have to be played on my body?"

He looked so mischievous now I knew I was going to either jump him or kill him.

"'Cause the symbols sound can only be made by a woman."

I raised my eyebrow and gestured for him to demonstrate. That he did.

"Bum-tit-tit-bum-tit-tit..."

I punched him on the arm and he howled with laughter before pulling me on top of him and tickling the sensitive area on my neck with the movement of his lips and the heat of his escaping breath.

"I love you too."

I grabbed a handful of his scruffy hair and held his head firmly in place while I kissed the breath out of him. He was literally gasping for air when I pulled back again and I shifted my weight upon his lap causing him to close his eyes and lift my skirt.

"Don't ever stop loving me," I whispered as I set about ridding him of those unnecessary trousers and pants of his.

"Never," he sighed as I lowered myself down upon him.

"Don't ever stop playing me that lullaby," I started to kiss every inch of his bare skin that I could reach.

"Not as long as I can hold a tune," he mumbled as he rested his hand firmly onto my buttocks.

"Don't ever leave me," I gasped as we started making love.

He didn't say anything.

Long after we had settled into each other's arms and our breathing returned from frantic to normal Ron's eyelids started to drift closed once again. I prodded him hard.

"Ouch, what did you do that for?"

"Answer me," I said, suddenly angry and hurt.

He stared at me and blinked.

"Sorry I must have dozed off, what did you say?"

"I didn't say anything just now, I'm waiting for you to respond to what I said before," I felt myself suddenly shaking.

Ron rubbed my arms and kissed me on the lips with worry.

"I love you, you know I love you I tell you often enough, I told you."

"Not that," I snapped and pulled away from him before shoving him hard and holding him down beneath me. He could throw me off effortlessly what with his rapidly developing upper-body strength but he just lay there, totally submissive, "Promise me you won't ever leave me."

He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh.

"Not this again Hermione please."

"Promise me!" I demanded as I pounded once upon his chest.

"I can't! You know I would if I could but I can't babe, I can't help this happening to me, I can't control it anymore than you can and I never know where I'm going to end up. You know all of this Hermione why are you starting with this crap again?"

"Your coming back to me is not crap Ron!" I tried in vain not to yell, "I'm sick of seeing you in the state you were in last week."

He looked exasperated and I knew I was being irrational but I didn't care.

"That wasn't me!" he growled as he sat up and began to pull his clothes on again.

"But it will be."

He pulled on his trousers and threw his shirt down to the floor with rage.

"Well for somebody who doesn't want me to vanish you're doing a pretty poor job of keeping me here y'know?"

I pulled a throw from the sofa around myself and stormed past him and into our bedroom.

"Don't you dare blame me for causing you stress Ronald. I don't want you to go anywhere and you know it!"

I slammed the door and leant my back against it, closing my tearful eyes and struggling to keep myself together.

"You think I do?" he hit the door with either a fist or a foot, "You think I like getting the shit kicked out of me for suddenly appearing naked in Nocturn bloody Alley? Do you think you were the only one having a hard time with this stuff last week? Three and a half miles in a hurricane I had to walk, naked Hermione, naked and starving and I still don't know where the hell I was and you think I choose to do that?"

I opened my eyes and wiped away the tears that burned. This was so unfair, to both of us, and I hated fighting with Ron like this. It was so pointless and all it achieved was that we both felt guilty afterwards. I gasped as I looked at our bed and saw a small, naked, red-haired baby boy gurgling happily beside a yellow damp patch on our sheets.

"Oh Ron," I sighed as I crossed the bedroom and lifted the little version of my husband to be into my arms, "how long have you been here?"

The baby yawned and curled his entire hand around my thumb and I bit my lip before searching for a blanket to wrap him in. I used one of Ron's old Weasley jumpers that was hanging on the back of a chair and carried him over to the door.

Ron as a baby would occasionally show up in other places outside the Burrow but it was unusual. Molly had told me how terrified she had been every time her little Ronnie had disappeared during the first year of his life until Dumbledore intervened and that she felt some kind of comfort to be there for him when he re-appeared all this way in the future. Baby Ron and adult Ron never seem to be able to travel into a time covered by Dumbledore's spell so the infant Ron Weasley was never in any danger of appearing inside the chamber of secrets with a basilisk for company although he could show up in the chamber of secrets a week next Thursday which wasn't quite so comforting.

I kissed the baby on the top of the head and opened the bedroom door. Ron, the older one, had been leaning against it and fell through the open door onto his back and stared up at the baby and me. He blinked.

"Merlin, how long were you in there babe?"

I rolled my eyes and stepped over him, carrying the baby towards the fireplace and reaching up for some floo powder, before I heard him getting to his feet and joining us.

"Very funny, it's you my dear comedian, I'll get you to your mum's you know how she loves you when you're this age."

I threw a handful of the floo powder into the fireplace and said the name of the Weasley family home. The flames turned green and Ron brushed against my elbow. I turned to look at him, he looked as ashamed of himself as he had done when he had made me cry in the first year at Hogwarts, and my heart melted.

"Hermione I'm sorry I didn't mean..."

I interrupted him by pressing my free hand to his lips and smiling at him.

"I see you hurting often enough without being the cause of it too."

He shook his head adamantly.

"No this isn't your fault."

"And it isn't yours," I smiled sadly, "I'll take the baby to the Burrow and get right back here for a chat alright?"

He nodded and tickled his baby self absent-mindedly.

"I really love you y'know?" he said to me.

"I know," I said before leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.

I stepped into the fire and transported the baby to his mother, be it for five minutes or five hours we weren't to know, and rushed back to Ron without wasting much time on small talk.

As I stepped out of the fireplace I saw the crumpled pair of trousers he had been wearing on the floor at my feet, I picked them up, they were still warm.

He had been taken from me once again; I hoped it wouldn't be too long for either of us.

22nd August 2007 and 26th October 1999 (Ron is 27, Hermione is 20 and 27)

"Shit!"

RON: It had been all I had been able to say ever since it had happened.

"Did you get a look at him Ron?" Harry was saying as he tried to break the steel pipe he was shackled to from the other side of the room, causing his wrist to bleed.

I was about to go under the water again to search for the wire I had just dropped in the middle of picking the lock on my own shackles and didn't respond. I took in a deep breath and exhaled it as I sank down and began to fumble around for the closest thing to a needle in a haystack I'd ever come to have to look for in my career as Auror investigator. The water was too murky and the wire was too small, I was never going to be able to find it.

I came back out of the water, gasping for air and wiping water from my eyes while I heard Harry yelling for help again.

"Eldridge! Davis! Cavendish you bone idle sod where the hell are you all?"

I spat the foul tasting water from my lips and shouted across to Harry.

"I told you, the mole's sent them all to the wrong place, you were supposed to be with them."

"What and leave you on your own to deal with him?" Harry scoffed before turning back to try and loosen the pipe again.

"Fat lot of bloody good you're doing me now Potter!"

Harry glared at me while more water gushed into our underground prison.

"I could have just induced a panic attack and travelled out of here but I can't do that now 'cause you're stuck down here too!"

"Well bloody do it then you great prat, vanish and come back and get me out of here, what have you been waiting for?" Harry snapped, the panic setting in now that the water had risen to our chests.

I kicked out at the wall in frustration before bellowing back my answer to him.

"I could be gone for hours Harry, what good would that do you?"

We both stared at each other for a couple of tense seconds before turning away and trying to find another way to get out of this mess.

I had been after this guy for five years now and I still didn't have a clue who he was or why he was jeopardising the Auror programme with leaks and misinformation. I had finally seen him, from the back and in a hood but I'd seen him all the same, while trying to warn the Auror squad not to follow the bogus order to attack an abandoned temple, which I was still convinced was probably booby-trapped, but the only one I'd been able to get to before they disapparated was Harry.

Just as I was going to instruct him to go after the squad and tell them to abort the mission I'd been stunned in the back and the next thing I knew Harry and I were in some dark underground cell getting the crap beaten out of us. I don't know what happened to our wands but Harry told me that the mole had tried to immobilise him and leave him back at the apparition point, wanting to take me alone, but he had fought him until getting blindsided and the both of us were taken instead.

From what the mole said I'd done something to seriously piss him off and he wanted to bring shame to the whole department in revenge. Revenge for what I don't know. I assumed he was one of many over the years I had exposed and got tossed out of the department. Maybe I'd even got him put away to do some time in Azkaban, that'd cause him to hate me enough I suppose.

"Ron," Harry sputtered across the room to me, shaking out his wet hair and trying to wipe the droplets of water from the lenses of his glasses as he spoke, "listen there's no point in both of us copping it today. Do your thing mate, get yourself out of here."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"And explain to my little sister that I just left her husband to drown? I'd rather die here Harry thank you very much."

Harry laughed and I smiled at him briefly before shaking my head. I pulled at the shackle around my own bloody wrist for a few seconds before looking around the room again for some way to free ourselves or get help.

"Besides," I mumbled with determination as I returned to the brute force plan again and lifted my feet off the floor and planted them against the wall, pushing away as hard as I could while pulling on the pipe with both hands as I did, "I've seen you, I've seen both of us in our thirties, I know we don't die here."

I slipped and plunged back down into the water, the shackle slicing a new cut into my wrist as I fell, and pushed off of the floor and broke the surface again.

"I just can't figure out how we don't die here just yet," I coughed.

Harry was just barley keeping his head above water now, being much shorter than me it was always going to submerge him first and he smiled over at me in between gasps.

"Don't worry, take your time mate."

I was about to answer him when I felt my stomach churn and the cereal I had for breakfast rising up to the back of my throat and tried not to do what I thought I was about to do.

"Oh no, not now please..." I gasped before vomiting and gripping the pipes as hard as I could while the dizziness hit me and my vision blurred.

"Let it take you Ron," Harry was calling over to me, "come back for me, you'll only be gone a minute I know it..."

His voice was nothing but a ghost of an echo as the water and the shackle was sucked away from me and I blinked to clear my vision and find myself soaking wet and bleeding from the wrist in an unfamiliar kitchen. I was sick again.

"Oh feck me Weasley," Seamus' voice exclaimed as he walked through the kitchen door to see me naked and puking on his kitchen floor, "Neville, Ron's just showed up in a right state, get Hermione round here now!"

I struggled back to my feet and slipped, the small puddle of water I had caused on the slick ceramic tile was like ice, and Seamus caught me mid-fall while wincing at his having to hold on to a naked man at the same time.

"I've got to get back," I panted as Seamus grabbed a sheet from the huge pile of unwashed laundry that was stacked up in the corner, completely concealing what was actually a washing machine beneath it, and threw it around me.

"It's alright mate, calm down and let me get you something to put on," he said while Neville ran back out of the fireplace with Hermione rushing behind him.

"No I've got to get back to Harry now!"

"Now is 1999 Weasley, you've no need to hurry anywhere," Seamus tried to calm me down while Hermione took charge and pulled me over to their sofa and Neville ran to his bedroom to grab me something to wear and Seamus set about mopping up his wet, bloody and vomit-covered floor with a pair of Neville's trousers.

I found myself forced down into an armchair where I shook as if I had just be seated in a deep freeze rather than a comfortable spot beside the fireplace and Hermione took my face in her hands and forced me to look at her.

"Tell me what's wrong, tell me what you need Ron."

"I need to get back to him Hermione, I have to go back there now..." Hermione clamped her hand over my mouth before I started rambling in panic.

"You know that the amount of time you spend here makes no difference to the amount of time you're gone back where you're from Ron so stop panicking about that until you get back ok. I don't want to let anything happen to Harry either but you can't do anything about that from here can you?"

I shook my head and she lowered her hand.

"When am I?"

"1999, when are you coming from?"

"August 22nd 2007, tell me to write that down and remember it, tell me there's a mole and to search for an underground cell. You've got to remember to do this Hermione."

She blinked at me and took my shaking hands in hers.

"I will do but you already know that I tell you don't you? You've already been told."

I lowered my head and cursed under my breath. I was already acting on my own tip off as well as the information I had found out that day, there was nothing I could do. I'd already done it.

"How do I stop this?" I pleaded with Hermione in desperation, "I do stop it but I just don't know what it is I'm supposed to do."

She hushed me and pulled me into her, holding me tightly and muttering something to Neville about putting the clothes down on the coffee table as she did, and I felt myself calming down a little more. As Hermione and I broke away from each other Neville grabbed my arm and examined my carved-up wrist.

"This looks nasty, hold still and let me heal it mate?"

I nodded and held my arm in place while Neville set about closing every last deep slice around the raw flesh of my wrist with a mumbled charm I'd never heard of before.

"That looks like you were chained to something Ron," Seamus said with a frown of concern, "do you get captured in the future?"

I looked up at him and shrugged.

"Sort of, ambushed really, and Harry was so bloody stubborn he had to come along for the ride."

"There," Neville said as he put his wand away and I looked at my perfectly healed wrist.

"Thanks Nev..." I felt dizzy again, "...I..."

I felt Hermione lifting my head but I didn't see her as my vision grew hazy and everything went dark. There was a splash and I found myself on my hands and knees, three inches deep in stagnant water, back in the underground cell. I wobbled as I tried to get to my feet and look for any trace of Harry.

"Agent Weasley?" a familiar voice said as I was hoisted up to my feet and pulled out of the cell and up the stairs, "About bleedin' time you came back."

"Harry?" I said vaguely as I attempted to get my head straight again.

"Potter's fine don't worry," the voice of Auror Cavendish said while shoving a bundle of warm dry clothes into my arms and sitting me down in a rickety wooden chair, "put these on and I'll notify headquarters that you're back."

While I pulled the sweater over my head Cavendish tossed a handful of floo powder into the fire and plunged his head into the green flames. By the time he came back out again I was almost fully clothed again, pulling on a pair of socks and staring at him expectantly.

"What happened after I left? How did you lot find him in time?"

"We didn't," Cavendish snorted with a shrug, "you did. Another version of you showed up a fraction of a second after you disappeared and got Potter out just in time."

I nodded to let him know I understood while the broad shouldered Auror pulled a thermos out of a small pack at his feet, poured me a cup of steaming hot tea and then handed me a pumpkin pasty. I almost kissed him with gratitude before downing the tea in one gulp, burning the back of my throat in the process, and tucking in to the pasty as if I hadn't eaten in days.

"Your wife prepared this whole package for you, she said you usually had cravings when you came back, she's been missing you Agent Weasley."

I swallowed my mouthful and looked at Auror Cavendish with some alarm.

"Why, how long was I gone?"

"A week and a half."

I nearly choked, Cavendish laughed and slapped me on the back with his massive, strong hand.

"She's not been fretting over you, don't you worry about that, she said she was with you on the other end of the trip and that you were only there for a few minutes. You got a bit ill, got a bit panicky and then got your wounds treated before coming back. We all knew you'd be coming back ok, we just didn't know when that's all. We've been sitting in that cell in shifts."

"Wow, a week and a half, thanks Cavendish."

"It wasn't just me, I've only been here since noon."

"What time is it now?" I frowned.

"Ten to midnight," he said as if no time had passed for him at all, "eat up now, I've got to accompany you to the apparition point and see you get back to your flat. They're my orders so no arguments right?"

I nodded and stuffed the last of the pumpkin pasty into my mouth before pulling on the trainers Hermione had supplied the Aurors without taking the time to tie the laces.

"Ready?" Cavendish asked, seeming to be checking that I was physically capable of disapparating safely.

"Yeah, let's go."

I apparated into the vandalised phone box at the corner of my street and stepped out to wait for Cavendish to join me. As we walked down the street I tried to find out more about the set up I hadn't been able to prevent.

"Well when Potter didn't join us we hung back for a couple of minutes, it was kind of suspicious in itself that was, and then Bev...Auror Davis I mean," he stammered.

I smiled, I knew Cavendish had a bit of a thing for her, and nodded for him to continue.

"Well she went back and saw signs of a struggle. She reported back to Eldridge and just as we were going to split into two teams, one to continue with the mission and the other to go in search of Potter, the temple blew."

"Blew up?" I asked, my eyes wide.

Cavendish nodded and slapped me on the back warmly, which didn't actually feel all that different to him slapping me on the back to stop me from choking earlier.

"So thanks to your getting there in time to keep Potter from disapparating with the rest of us you managed to save the whole squad. Eldridge kind of felt like we owed you after that so the whole team have been taking it in turns waiting for you to get back, so you wouldn't be stuck down there alone y'know?"

As we climbed the stairs to the front door of our building I began to feel around in my pockets while smiling gratefully at Cavendish.

"Thank 'em all for me won't you? I'll come by and see you all when I get the chance myself but just tell them I said...where's my bloody keys?"

"I've been holding them for you, they were left behind with your clothing when you went," Cavendish chuckled as he tossed my front door keys into my hand, "and I'll tell them, don't worry."

We climbed the stairs, I stumbled over my loose shoelace a couple of times, before reaching my front door and Cavendish knocked as I lifted my key to let myself in.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

He grinned proudly.

"I just want to see the look on her face, eight night shifts I've done in that hole in the ground and I think I've earned it."

Just as I was about to laugh at his need for feel-good kudos the door was flung open by a clearly exasperated Hermione who was huffing and rolling her eyes.

"Honestly Ginny, I'm fine..." her face froze and her eyes grew wide when she saw me, I thought she was going to scream or something.

"Is this yours Mrs Weasley?" Cavendish asked in his most professional Auror like tone.

Hermione inhaled sharply and threw herself at me with a squeal, hitting me with quite some force, and I steadied myself before nodding to Cavendish and carrying my wife inside while she wrapped her legs around me almost as tightly as she was doing with her arms.

"Thanks Lee, have a good night mate," I smiled as I kicked the door closed.

"Will do Ron," Cavendish smirked before catching Hermione's watery eyes, "go easy on him love, he's had a hard day."

A/N Credit is due to the late great Dennis Potter for the bum-tit-tit drum music, delivered by Ewan McGregor in 'Lipstick On Your Collar'.