A/N:

Third week in a row! I. Am. On. Fire.

As usual, thanks to Cheesyficwriter and RomioneB. They are a warm light of sunshine in the winter of my heart.

Also thanks to everyone that takes the time to read this fic, you da best.

For those who watched the movie, you may have noticed that we've diverged a bit from the plot. Yeah...that will continue happening. I think I should've said this a few chapters back, but totally forgot. Anyway, I'm telling you now.

The wizarding world, characters included, belongs to J.K. Rowling. The only thing I own is a collection of 22 paper models of the Harry Potter films and a lego of Hagrid's hut.

Hermione and I hadn't talked.

How hard could it be to catch the witch for an hour or so to have a chat? Well, bloody hard it was. Hell.

If I didn't know any better, I would say that she was avoiding being alone with me, but I had to admit that the days before they all moved away were exhausting and busy. Since I had to keep up to my promise to teach Hugo how to properly fly before Sunday, the kids and I were at The Burrow almost until their bedtime; and Hermione would spend a lot of hours in their new house getting it furnished, cleaned and ready, so she would not come back to the flat until very late in the night.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, Hermione and the twins were already dressed and ready in the kitchen. I noticed that although the food was served, it remained untouched, and when I asked, I was told that they had been waiting for me to have our last shared breakfast. As we began to attack the food, I couldn't help but feel defeated. I knew they'd done it as a nice gesture, but to me, it was only a reminder of what I was about to lose.

As soon as we finished eating, Hermione grabbed their suitcase, which she'd packed the night before, put Crookshanks in his cat carrier, and left to take their belongings to the new home. With nothing else to do but have fun with the kids, we moved to the sitting room and set the chessboard out on the centre table. Hugo challenged Rose, but she wasn't keen to lose so early in the morning, so instead, she went to grab a book from the shelf as I sat on the floor facing Hugo.

I was watching the little one put the pieces in their place when I felt the weight of a small body leaning against my back. It was Rose, snuggling into me, and just when she stood still – as she found a comfortable position, I supposed – I began to wriggle my upper body to shake her off.

'Stop it! Stop!' she laughed, grabbing onto the sofa trying not to fall. But instead of stopping, I intensified the movements.

'Aahhh, I can't – you're the worst!' she shrieked as she stood up.

'Nah, I'm the best.' I retorted as I looked back over my shoulder.

She grinned. 'Okay, but you're the best-worst. I wanna read, and you won't let me!'

'You don't read; you just look at the pictures.' said Hugo matter-of-factly. Rose moved to the side to peek over my shoulder and stuck her tongue out at him, wrinkling her entire face in the process – Merlin, I was going to miss the little brats.

Instead of saying anything, I sat up straight, looked at Rose and waited for her to catch up with me. When she did, I slowly crossed my arms over my chest and lifted one eyebrow as if questioning her behaviour. I had to resort to the best of my Auror training to keep a straight face as I saw her pulling in her tongue and putting on the most innocent, sweet smile a little girl could have...with two slow, exaggerated blinks for added measure. The manipulative, little – Ah, who am I kidding? She had me in the palm of her hand.

I returned the smile and tucked a curl behind her ear just as Hugo announced that he'd finished setting the pieces. I turned to the chessboard to start the match and felt Rose leaning against me again. This time though, she was standing. She put her arms over my shoulders and hugged me from the back as her chin rested just beside my ear. I bumped my head against her playfully, and she clenched her arms tighter. As if on cue, Hugo looked up and granted me a wide grin.

Bloody hell, I would miss these moments.

As the game went on, I asked Rose her insight on what I should do after every one of Hugo's moves, and taught them both what was right and what was, let's say, less right. We were halfway through the match when Hermione came back, and, as it was time to head to The Burrow, we called it a draw and put the chess set away. Then, Hermione took Rose as I took Hugo on the Floo ride to Sunday lunch.

The family gathering was a success, just as it had been at Harry's birthday. There were no fights, no strained conversations about topics we'd rather avoid, nothing wrong at all. Except for one short, stressful moment when Rose offered George to lend him her twin since she'd heard he'd lost his – absolutely no filter, that one. It is not that we avoided talking about Fred, but every time his name came up, you could see the shift in George's mood, even if he tried to mask it down. But luckily for us, this time was different. Instead of getting sad, George started asking Rose why he should take her up on the offer. It was quite the scene to watch as the girl gave her case to sell her brother with what she thought were his best features – mind you, they were not – trying to convince George that he should take Hugo for a few days, even if he farted too loud.

Afterwards, I asked Hugo if he was sad that Rose tried to get a holiday from him, but I was surprised that he was actually sad that George hadn't taken him in, as he had been excited at the prospect of living in the joke shop. You'd think that after a week living above said shop, Hugo would figure out that George and his family didn't live in the place, but in Hugo's little dreaming mind, he didn't. Kids.

I hadn't thought about it until then, but watching Hugo and Rose joking around made me realise that I'd missed having twins in the family. I mean, of course, I missed Fred – like hell, I missed him. But it was a blast watching the kids share that bond that only they could understand – them and George. Overall, it was amazing to see him teasing the twins and telling them stories about Fred with a genuine smile on his face.

When Quidditch time came, adults got to work preparing the toy brooms, mounting the small rings – only one for each side – and putting on several cushioning charms around the field. Once the kids were ready, Ginny let out the soft, kid-friendly Quaffle, and the game started. It was gratifying to see all the effort Hugo had given the last few days into action, and though he was in no way as good a flyer as the others, it seemed to me that he was the one enjoying it the most. I watched the lot tossing the Quaffle back and forth to one another and felt my chest fill with pride at the sight of the twins. They were doing so well – uhm, at least Rose was. Anyway, both were having fun, and I had been part of that, so I was proud.

After the sun went down, and the game finished, it was time to go home. I'd been dreading that moment because I didn't want to say goodbye to the twins. The time before they'd stayed with me seemed like another life, and I was still trying to figure out how in only seven days they'd turned my life completely around. But as much as I didn't like it, they had a home, and that home wasn't mine.

For now.

Coming home to an empty flat was thoroughly depressing, and in the days that followed, I had a hard time adjusting to living alone again. I missed making breakfast for four, playing with the kids, and laughing with the kids.

And Hermione. Even if we hadn't solved our situation, we would still have a small amount of everyday chat, and it was nice to have her around – bloody hell, it was more than nice. It was right.

Now everything in the flat was so silent, so lonely.

Since I didn't want to spend much time alone in the flat and Hermione was starting her new job at the Ministry, I offered to help her with the kids so she could take a few extra hours to catch up and settle down. In the beginning, it seemed like the perfect plan: I could spend some much needed time with the twins, and I could look for a chance to talk with Hermione about us. But I hadn't taken into account "the Granger factor".

You see, Hermione was still a workaholic, but she didn't put work before Hugo and Rose, so she would never take more than one extra hour of work...at the Ministry. What she did was bring home an inhuman amount of documents to read, and went through them after putting the kids to sleep. As a result, we would spend the evening together – kids included, of course – but at night, Hermione would politely ask me to leave so she could dive into her work, so we never had the proper time for an adult talk.

Some days, I was keen to put up a fight and force the talk, but seeing the exhaustion on her face was enough to make me hesitate and stay back. After all, I knew how much stress she was under; and if I weren't sure that all the Time-Turners had been destroyed during our break-in to the Department of Mysteries, I would be dreading a third-year catastrophe.

Friday came in a blink, and I was about to leave the Ministry to get the kids from The Burrow when Hermione caught me on the Floo line. She told me that she had to stay for a meeting and asked me if I could help her with the kids until she came home. I readily agreed and sent her back to work. I mean, I would stay until they went to sleep either way, so it was not like I was making any kind of sacrifice.

The evening with the twins was one of those smooth days where everything went just fine: no tantrums, no fights and lots of fun. By the end of the day, we were in the sitting room collecting books and toys to start bedtime preparations when I caught sight of a book on the floor beside the centre table. The covers were of a shade of blue I didn't remember seeing on the kids' shelf.

'Hey, Rosie. Is that a new book?' I asked, pointing at it.

'Nah, that's Mum's Happy Book.'

'Her what?'

'Her Happy Book.' said Hugo as he grabbed it. 'She reads it when she's sad, and it makes her smile.'

'But why is it there...?' mused Rose. 'She's always super careful with the Happy Book. She doesn't let us read it alone. We are only allowed to look at it with her.'

'And...what is it about?' I looked from Rose to Hugo, urging them to give me an answer.

Hugo walked towards me holding out the book, and as I took it, he said, 'You.'

'Me? What abou–'

The Floo roared, and Hermione walked out, looking knackered. She greeted me with a smile as she passed to hug the kids, missing entirely the item I held in my hands. I didn't know what came over me, but I hastily hid it under a cushion, then moved closer to the group. As it was getting late, I told Hermione she should put the kids to bed and offered to make her a snack in the meantime – I could bet she hadn't eaten since lunch. I saw from her expression that she was delighted with the prospect of food, so it didn't come as a surprise when she agreed. What did come as a surprise was her hint of where I could find wine in the kitchen. Not bad.

When I was left alone, I turned to head to the kitchen but never made it to my destination. Instead, I stood in front of the sofa, staring at the cushion under which laid 'The Happy Book'. After making sure that Hermione was out of sight, I gave in to the temptation and grabbed the book. I studied it carefully, noticing that it couldn't have been bought in a store as it was handmade. I put it carefully on my lap and saw that the title was written in gold ink. I ran my fingers over the tiny letters, noticing how they stood out over the rest of the cover.

'Our Happiest Memories' I read out loud, feeling a knot in my stomach.

As I went through the pages, I felt tears pooling in my eyes. There were pages and pages full of pictures of me and Hermione. Some of them were from the time we were together, and I could fully remember when we took them, but others were from our Hogwarts years, and I didn't have a clue of where they'd come from. Every picture had a description in Hermione's impeccable handwriting that indicated the date and place where it had been taken. There were also some added messages or notes on the sides with comments or questions, as if she was conversing about the stories with someone – probably me. Additionally, there were tickets, notes, receipts, among a thousand other collectables that complemented the stories behind the pictures.

I was out of words. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was our story, the timeline of our relationship, complete from the very beginning of our friendship up to...to when the love dream came to an end.

I was overwhelmed by all the memories. As the title said, they were the happiest memories, and I didn't want it to end. I didn't think it could get any better – or worse? – than it was until I reached the last page and found not a picture, but a note, a message from Hermione...to me.

Love

Can you believe it? It's amazing, isn't it? Everything we've been through. All those years, it's been so much. So much.

It wasn't long ago that a future together was only an ambitious dream of a couple of teenagers whose destinies were tied to death. The dream to overcome a war, to live and be brave enough to hold each other's hands, and to admit out loud that we didn't envision life without the other.

It wasn't long ago, but it feels like it was, you know? Because being with you is so perfect, so right, that I can't remember how it was not to be able to kiss you, to hold you, to love you.

I've been working on this gift for some months now. I wanted it to be the closure of the first phase of our relationship: meeting, growing together and falling in love. I wanted something to remember how it all happened, and how strong our love is, so now that we are taking the next step, we'll never forget where we came from.

I hope you are as eager as I am for what's to come. And yes, I know you have to go back to New York for at least six more months before we can move in together. But still, I'm up in the clouds thinking about you all the time. Time can't go fast enough for me to wake up beside you every day. It just can't.

Happy Christmas, love. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed making it – the best memories from our past to prepare us for the future.

I love you so much that words can't even cover it.

Hermione

P.S: Will you fill up a lifetime of scrapbooks with me?

I was reading the letter over and over again when a loud gasp broke me out of the charm. I looked up and found Hermione standing at the edge of the sofa, a hand covering her mouth and the other clenched at the centre of her chest.

'How–how did you...?' she didn't finish her question as I stood up in front of her.

'Why is it that I...that I never – why didn't you give this to me?' I asked, holding up the scrapbook.

'I was going to, but I couldn't, Ron. Not after… I can't –'

'No!' I cut her off. 'I'm done beating around the bush, Hermione!' I put the scrapbook on the armchair and rubbed my hands down my face. 'I need to know! Why, instead of giving me this, why you–' I couldn't finish the question, instead turning my head to the side to avoid Hermione's gaze.

I could feel her eyes piercing me. I could hear her breaths coming out short and shaky, and understood the undeniable truth: this was it, the moment I've been waiting for. She knew it too, and she was just as terrified as I was. I wasn't keen to rake up the past, the mistakes, the pain, but I also knew that if there was any chance of a future for us, all of this shit needed to be cleared. So I closed my eyes, allowing myself a moment to collect my thoughts. When I opened them, I found myself staring at the cover of the scrapbook. 'Our Happiest Memories', I read, and it was all the motivation I needed to lift my head, lock eyes with her, and voice the question that'd been haunting me for so many years.

'Why did you break up with me?'