A/N: No this is not a hallucination, this is indeed an update on my 100 drabbles more than a year after the last one I posted... What can I tell you, life has been busy and the inspiration has been away... I hope you'll like this little one and let's hope I'm back on the writing train!


63. June

They end up taking a weekend off, just the two of them.

Ron quit the Aurors a year ago to go work with George. And even though Hermione had been a little afraid at first that he would regret quitting, she had been pleasantly surprised to be wrong.

Within days he started to move around with a deep sense of contentment that she hadn't remember him ever wearing. He told her that he had all he needed. He's happy.

It brought contentment and quietude in her life that she didn't know she craved.

And that she misses as she overworks herself.

She's suffocating at work. Working at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures isn't quite what she imagined and she finds herself feeling stuck. Instead of working on things that deeply matter to her, Hermione spends her days swamped in paperwork, trying to accomplish the work of ten people. When she gets home, she can't shake her itch to do something more meaningful so she doesn't catch her breath and continues to writes for hours, this time scribbling pages after pages of a proposition of law defending werewolves.

It has been occurring to her that she should transition toward the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, like Scrimgeour dimly predicted all those years ago. There's only so much she can do in Regulations. Hermione yearns for a more proactive position, but she knows that despite all her accomplishments she still needs to prove others - or maybe it's just herself - that even though she's only 21, she can help shape new laws and help their government evolve to install positive change.

Ron tells her she is more valuable to both department than most their combined staff reunited.

She still feels like she needs to do more.

And she works so much she barely sees Ron anymore. The serenity she has been feeling spread thin because of that, replaced by restlessness and the sensation that her lungs are collapsing.

Ron has always been good at helping her stop spiralling in her own head. But lately he's also been pulling longer hours at the shop. School is about to be out for the summer and lots of Hogwarts students are stacking up for their holidays.

Which is why she's surprised when he shows up at her desk at lunch on a Friday and tells her that he's kidnapping her for the weekend, no work allowed.

She wants to say yes, very much, but she takes a look around the files spread across her desk and there is so many things she still needs to get done.

But before she can tell Ron just that he cuts her off with a wave of his hand, "your work will still be there waiting for you on Monday."

He's been so much better at reading her this past year, warmth pools her insides because she loves him so damn much.

She doesn't take another second to think against it, trusting Ron's spontaneity more than her overworked brain. Hermione sends a note to her head of department to tell her that she will be taking the afternoon off before quickly putting her files in order.

Ron gives her hand a light squeeze as she reaches for him for a quick kiss and they are off.

It turns out he rented a small cottage on the outskirt of Roadford lake. The tiny house is surrounded by trees and has a tiny porch that looks out to the lake.

It's perfect.

And just like that she can breathe again.