The Resurrection of the Badger
"The badger lives?" I said, wondering what kind of mystical badger he had managed to find with regenerative powers, "The resurrection of the badger!" I raised both my arms in celebration and the startled looking man smiled at me.
14th April 2025 (Ron is 20, Hermione is 45)
RON: I had been fortunate enough to nab a full set of clothing from a washing line and would maybe have passed for a normal guy on the street if it hadn't been for the bright green flip flops I was wearing on my feet.
I saw Hermione walking along the centre of our street and ran, as fast as a man can run in ill-fitting flip flops, to join her.
"Hey there babe, don't laugh at the shoes, they're all I could manage," I grinned as I walked alongside her.
She smiled at me. I didn't think I'd made her jump by creeping up on her as running in flip flops turns out to be quite a noisy thing to do, and I wondered if I'd arrived at a bad time for her.
"When am I then?" I said after walking quietly for a few seconds.
"2025, April the fourteenth."
Bloody hell, I'll be forty-five in under a month, no wonder she looks depressed, we're getting old.
"When are you coming from?" she asked me.
"May 2000, I just turned twenty, all grown up now."
She chuckled.
"Yes you look extraordinarily mature...in your flip flops."
Yes! I'd made her laugh; she really looked like she needed one.
"Um Hermione?"
"Yes Ron."
"Why are you walking down the centre of the road?"
She gave me an enigmatic smile, why can't I be more enigmatic? I must hone my enigma skills in front of the mirror when I get back home.
"You told me to."
I blinked.
"Why, have I gone mad?"
She laughed again before quickly looking away. I wondered if we'd had a fight or something.
"No, it's complicated, you'll explain it to me better than I can ever explain it to you. Besides, you always find me when I'm out here."
Oh good, she wants me to be able to find her. She must still like me.
"So where are you going?" I ask her, finding that small talk is preferable to the slapping sound of rubber against the souls of my feet.
"Nowhere, I just like to walk occasionally that's all."
I find this quite bizarre logic for Hermione.
"Surely you'd prefer the park for a walk wouldn't you?"
She turned to look at me with a sideways glance and still seemed unhappy. What the hell is wrong with her?
"You'd never look for me in the park though would you?"
She stopped walking and faced me while taking a bracing breath and smiling with a little less sadness this time.
"So how are you doing Ron?"
"Me? I'm fine, it's been a couple of years now but I'm kinda getting used to it."
She shook her head and sighed before letting out an amused laugh.
"Oh my you're still so young aren't you?"
"Did you not hear me? I just turned twenty. I'm getting old!"
She rested her palm on my cheek and stroked my skin with her thumb.
"Are you happy?" she whispered.
This made me worry about her. I took her hand in both of mine.
"Are you unhappy?" I ask.
"No," she sighed, a smile on her face that made her glow from the inside illuminating her whole face, "not as long as you're here."
I pulled her toward me and gave her a tight cuddle that lasted for ages. We rocked from side to side and I felt her hands on my back, she was really clinging to me and I let her, and I was glad no cars came along to interrupt us. Eventually she looked up at me and pushed my hair back from my eyes with her slender fingers.
"How do you even see through all that hair?"
I roll my eyes and tut.
"You sound like mum."
"Ah she never did like you when you were scruffy did she?"
"Did?" I tense up, I hate the past tense when it refers to my future, "she never did?"
Hermione picked up on my panic immediately and shakes her head.
"Oh no Ron, she's fine, everybody's fine and alive and healthy don't worry about that. It's...It's your hair that's in the past tense. You cut it eventually."
I don't like the sound of this.
"Oh no!" I groan, "What d'you mean? Not neat?" I say the word neat as if it's a swear word.
She laughs out loud at me and ruffles my untidy mop of hair.
"Well for you!"
I take that to mean I'm still somewhat unkempt and give her an 'I can live with that' shrug. We set off down the road once again.
"So come on," I nudge her after a while, "why are you so blue? You can't fool me."
"I," she begins and pauses as she stares at me for a moment, "I just miss you that's all."
"Is that it?" Am I gone at this end as well?" I nodded my understanding, "I've been crossing over a lot recently."
She flinches.
"Crossing over?"
"Yeah y'know? Travelling into a place that my other self has travelled out of."
She nods and swallows.
"Yes, you've crossed over."
I take her hand and walk with her some more. We reach the end of the road and stop, turning to face each other.
"So have I been gone a while then? My Hermione hates it when I'm gone all day."
She looks right into me in a really unnerving way.
"You'll leave her for longer than that Ron. You can be gone for days at a time sometimes, weeks, months...it gets lonely."
I understand now and pull her into another hug.
"How long have I been gone for you?"
She sounds muffled but I can clearly hear her answer.
"Too long. A day is too long and you've been gone longer than that."
I stroke her hair and rub small circles on her back. I think she's crying but I decide not to make an issue of it. We hold each other and I sigh the occasional 'shhh' into the top of her head until she looks up suddenly and takes my lips as if they were water to her own parched ones. She pulls me down lower and holds the back of my head so I can't pull away from her. I don't want to pull away from her, she's my Hermione, and I kiss her back, which causes her to moan just a little. I break away to take a breather and as we both take in some much-needed air our lips still touch. Hers begin to move and she whispers into me.
"I love you so much."
My Hermione and me say it to each other but we're not really gushers, we both know and don't like to throw the expression about every two minutes. It's as if it cheapens the whole sentiment.
"I love you, you know I do don't you?" I feel her lips forming a smile against my own and she nods her head just slightly, "In any time and every time I love you okay?"
She kisses me again, trailing kisses down my neck before resting her head against my chest.
"There's my lullaby," she whispers with contentment.
My stomach growls in the loudest possible way and we both crumple with laughter.
"Typical of you to ruin a good moment with your appetite!" she said with a shake of the head.
"I'm a growing boy!"
"Funny you were an old man earlier."
"I'm regressing," I chuckled.
"Oh Godric I've missed you so much!" she sighed as if letting go of an enormous burden.
I can't help but frown.
"How long have I been gone? You never did say."
"I mean the young you, when you were like this," she looked at me as if I was an old school friend she hadn't seen in years and beamed.
"Have I grown old really badly?" I asked, a little anxious as to why my future wife is all over the bachelor version of me, "Am I fat? Oh Merlin, I'm not bald am I?"
She howled with laughter.
"Why is it that whenever the under twenty five version of you comes to a world where you're over forty the first thing you demand to know, after the date of course, is 'am I bald'?"
"Well it's a valid question."
"Forty isn't that old Ron."
"Have you seen my dad?" I ask incredulously.
"You don't go bald Ron...ever! I've seen you at every age in your lifetime and you will never be bald. You are always scruffy though!"
"Am I always hungry?"
"You're hungry at any time you're not eating."
I laughed at this.
"Was that a not-so-subtle hint that you want to go somewhere for food?" she asked me with an arched eyebrow.
I shrug and offer her my arm.
"Come on, let's go and get Cajun food."
"Why Cajun?" she frowned at me.
"Because I don't know what it is and it feels wrong that there's a food that exists that I haven't eaten."
She took my arm and gave it a tight squeeze while chuckling.
"I don't think there is a Cajun restaurant around here sweetheart."
Sweetheart? Does she call me sweetheart in the future? I wasn't sure if I liked that.
"Ron?" she looked up at me with concern.
I stopped walking and forced myself to meet her eyes.
"You don't call me sweetheart," I said uncomfortably and I saw her get this look on her face as if she knew what my problem was before I had even said it, "Lavender...That's a Lavender thing."
She curled both arms around me and rested her chin upon my chest while gazing up at me with those huge brown eyes of hers.
"Lavender does not own the rights on loving you Ronald Weasley. And I do y'know? I love you more than I'll ever be able to tell you. You are a sweetheart, you are my sweetheart and I will call you what I damn well want to."
I let out a strained laugh at this little speech and hugged her back.
"I just never thought I'd be able to hear somebody use that word without feeling ill inside."
"Do you feel ill now sweetheart?" she said as she stood on tiptoes and brushed her lips against mine.
"No."
We kissed in the middle of the street for long enough to make me light-headed from lack of oxygen and I decided to draw her attention back to my insatiable need for food.
"So what do we have at the flat? You know me babe, I can make a banquet from a bunch of leftovers."
"Well all I can think you might be able to put together is steak smeared with peanut butter," she shrugged apologetically.
"We could call that Cajun," I say optimistically.
She tugged at my arm and pulled me out of the road and towards our flat so fast that I lose one of my flip-flops.
"Hold up, I've lost one of me flippers!" I exclaim.
"You won't need it," she said with a determined tone of voice, "come on."
6th November 2024 (Ron is 19, Hermione is 45)
HERMIONE: I was taking a bath. I sank down under the water and came back up to see a white glowing Jack Russell terrier peering over the edge of the tub at me.
I felt my heart leap into my throat and force a squeal and a gasp out of me at the same time. It was Ron's patronus. Ron's patronus was wagging its tail and spinning around excitedly in my bathroom.
With an enormous splash I rose up from the tub and jumped out, slipping on the wet floor and nearly breaking my neck as I landed, and ran. I was naked, dripping wet and my hair was thick with suds but I didn't care. I followed the dog as it ran ahead of me, along the hallway and into the bedroom, and I froze with pain and joy at the sight of a naked Ron looking through the wardrobe for something to put on.
"Ron?"
My voice had barely even been there. It was a scream inside my head that came out as barely a breath but he still heard it and gave me that carefree smile of his that I had been missing so badly for the past six months now.
"Hey there babe, where are all my clothes? I can't find a thing..." he began but my need to touch him overcame my need to hide the heartbreak I was feeling and I flung myself at him and burst into tears before he could finish his sentence, "...hey come on Hermione. What's wrong? Are you okay?"
I began to cover his face with kisses and run my slippery hands all over his body to reassure myself that he was really there. It was really him back from the dead and looking so young and so well.
"How old are you?" I said as I began to laugh and cry at the same time.
He smiled that smile again. It was the kind of smile he used to reserve for times when he wasn't following my logic but going along with it anyway.
"I just turned nineteen, why what year is it now?"
I shushed him and pulled him against me to keep his questions at bay with a long kiss. I knew he'd work it out soon enough and I didn't want him to know. He was so young. It wouldn't be fair to him if he found out what date he no longer existed in. He broke away and looked down at my still dripping body.
"You know usually it's just me that appears naked when you least expect it," he grinned.
I laughed for the first time in months.
"I was in the bath."
"Yeah I kind of guessed that."
His smile, I couldn't stop myself from just drowning myself in his smile again; he wouldn't stop smiling at me. I stole another kiss and hugged him against me again.
"Don't you want a blanket or something?" he was saying with some concern in his voice now, "You'll get cold."
He was just as naked as I was and yet all he could think about was that I might be cold. I couldn't let myself cry. I couldn't let him know that it ends all too soon for him. I couldn't take his entire future away from him like that; he was just a kid for Merlin's sake.
"It's only cold when you're not around," I found myself saying before I could stop myself.
He went quiet. I cursed myself and realised that he was adding it all up inside his head.
"Hermione?"
"Please don't ask me any questions," I begged him.
He rubbed my back and squeezed me tight before saying the words I hated so much.
"I'm dead aren't I?"
I broke down and looked up into his wide vivid blue eyes, the eyes that I had almost lost all reason over when I saw them being closed for the very last time, and stroked his oh-so-messy hair away from his face. I kissed his unresponsive lips. He wanted an answer; I didn't want to give it to him. I pulled his head down so I could look him in the eye directly.
"I miss you so much. You've been gone...you've been travelling," I lied to save him, he was only nineteen and had just pulled himself out of his self destructive alcoholic phase and was soon to be put through the ringer with Lavender and then Seamus, I couldn't take his life away from him, "you've been travelling for such a long time Ron and I hoped I'd get to see you this way. I hoped you'd come to visit and keep me company while I waited for you to come back to me but I waited and waited and you never came. You always came to...Well never mind that but you never came to me."
He wouldn't formally meet Aimez for another year or so; I would have to keep that from him too. I had been living vicariously through her ever since March. He had come to her and explained all about the nature of life and death on the afternoon of his own funeral. She had told him that her puppy had died, already so wise that she knew not to tell him he was dead, and he comforted her about it and when I had come back with Harry and Ginny practically holding me up on either side she had run to me and declared.
"Daddy's never going to be dead mummy!"
"I miss you Ron, I love you and I was so scared I'd never be able to see you again and hold you like this. You've been away so long."
He softened towards me and stroked my hair, shushing me and rocking me in his arms.
"I don't want to talk about you leaving me," I sniffed, "I don't want to remember how you left me. I just want to lay with you on the bed until you have to go back again. I just want to be with you."
"That's okay babe," he said comfortingly as he lifted me up and carried me over to the bed, "I don't want to know the future, I've never made you tell me before have I?" I shook my head, "I'm not going to start now."
As he set me down and lay beside me I felt a tingle all over my skin. Hope fills my heart and I take his hand in mine.
"Is this the oldest you've ever seen me Ron? Tell me all the other times you've seen me."
He notices that I'm shaking and seems to think I'm cold, pulling the blankets over the both of us while beaming his life-affirming grin at me.
"I've seen you loads of times babe, and I've only been at this lark for about a year so far, you'll get sick of the sight of me Hermione I swear."
I laugh while the tears continue to stream and I feel glad to have my back to him right now. I feel his breath on my shoulder and his lips pressing against my skin.
"You promise?" I ask.
"I swear," he chuckles.
I turn over and hold on to him tightly. We move into each other, our shapes still fit together just as perfectly as they always had, and I breathe in his scent.
"What's the oldest you've seen me?" I ask with a delighted sob.
"Hermione what kind of man do you think I am? I never ask a lady her age!"
I laugh and shake him to tell me what I want to know.
"You had grey hair," he said as his eyes stared off into nowhere while he got lost in the memory, "no it wasn't grey it was white, and it was tied back. You had so many lines around your eyes that I couldn't even count them if I tried and you were still beautiful. You were still as beautiful as you are now and as you are back where I'm from."
I kissed him twice on those wonderful lips as they continue to say more of those wonderful things to me.
"You showed me pictures of your grandchildren, our grandchildren, and you and I walked along the beach. We'll live at the beach Hermione and we'll be really happy."
"You don't stop coming to see me? You never leave me?" I said, knowing now where Ron had come back from that night when he had made me that promise that I thought he had broken on his forty fourth birthday.
"I never leave you."
"You'll always be with me?"
"I always have been, always will be."
I looked into his clear blue eyes, the eyes so full of life and mischief and love that had been so dead and empty the last time I had looked into them.
"You promise?"
"I don't have to promise," he said as he kissed me on the lips with a smile, "I know."
18th August 2064 (Ron is 40, Hermione is 84)
HERMIONE: He was overjoyed when he realised that he had finally come to Walton in the summer season and had threatened me with the bumper cars but I had thankfully talked him out of it. Instead he had lifted me onto the merry-go-round and bought me ice cream before ordering me to dip my toes into the sea, as it wasn't a visit to the beach if you didn't get your feet wet apparently.
He had carried me all the way home. I told him to take my wheelchair but he glared at it and declared that he wasn't talking some old woman out for a wheel; he was taking his wife out for some fun. It had made my heart ache to think that he was soon to be restricted to a wheelchair himself, when he allowed himself to use it at all, and I had agreed to let him carry me the whole way just for the sake of enjoying him being so strong and fit and able.
He set me down on the swing chair I had crafted out of iron with both magical and muggle techniques before going into the kitchen to make us both lunch. My Ron, my husband had been with me for a whole week now. He was only gone from me all those decades ago for five minutes. I had slept with my head settled on his chest every night for a whole week. I had woken to watch him sleeping at my side for seven blissful mornings. I had sat up every evening of his wonderful visit and talked and laughed and he had sung to me the way he used to sing to my stomach when I was carrying Aimez. He sang the song he requested at our faux wedding. It was the song he sang to Aimez all her life. It was the beautiful song he had rocked his grandson to sleep with and it had been the song Aimez told me she had sung to him while she held his dying body.
I was so thankful he hadn't died alone that day. I was so grateful Aimez had been there for him. I was grateful that he was here for me now. I knew how this would happen, as I had demanded the truth from Aimez. The truth was such a beautiful thing to look forward to that she didn't fight against telling me it, she just avoided dates and ages, but the details were all there.
"Dad will come to you, he'll be an older version, and he'll spend a whole week treating you as if you were a teenager. On the last day he'll fall asleep on your lap while you sit on the swing chair in the garden and you will drift away mum. When I come to Gorecki you have gone and you have a lovely smile on your face and dad is still sleeping in your lap. He never knows that you've gone. I watch the two of you while the sun sets and dad disappears back where he came from. You get to die with him at your side mum. Just like you always wanted."
Ron steps out into the garden with a cup of tea for me and a bunch of grapes he took from the fruit bowl before turning to go back inside and bring out the sandwiches he has just made for us.
"Ron," I call after him, he turns and raises his eyebrows expectantly, "come sit with me for a while. You've been on your feet all afternoon."
He rolled his eyes but didn't protest as I patted the swing chair beside me insistently and he sat at my side.
"I love you sweetheart," I said as I kissed his smooth cheek with my wrinkled old mouth.
"I love you too beautiful," he says before kissing me back and shifting to lie down on the swing chair and set his head down on my lap.
This is the best day of my life. I will see him soon. We'll be together again for good.
I always knew I could beat time