Author's Note: This takes place the morning after Chapter 1. Just a load of fluff really, because I like thinking about these guys living their best, slightly awkward, lives after the war.
Ginny and Hermione had fallen into an early-morning routine during the very first week of term. Hermione had always been an early riser, even before months on the run and the horrors of conflict had played havoc with her sleep patterns, and she arrived each day in the Great Hall as soon as it opened for breakfast, armed with a book to read during the meal.
Ginny didn't share Hermione's drive for an early breakfast - the idea of an hour in the library before classes started didn't hold the same attraction for her. But she'd noticed after a few days that the owls that Harry and Ron dispatched from their auror training camp almost every evening arrived early the next morning, and were waiting to deliver their letters at breakfast-time.
"If you tell Harry that I'm getting up early every morning just to read his letters, Hermione," Ginny had said with a sheepish grin as she joined Hermione on the staircase down from the Griffindor tower on the fourth morning of term, her long red hair still wet from the shower, "I'll - I'll - well, it's difficult to think of a way to wreak terrible vengeance on the brightest witch of her age, but I'll come up something really horrifying. I could hex Ron's bits off, perhaps."
Hermione had laughed easily as they entered the Great Hall, and replied "Anything but that!" with only a slight blush. She wasn't a natural at Weasley-esque banter, but she was getting there. And ever since, Hermione and Ginny had enjoyed companionable breakfasts together every day.
So when Hermione didn't appear at breakfast on a fine Friday morning of autumnal mists, Ginny was surprised. She ate her porridge and joyously read the letter from Harry which his owl brought her directly on cue, forgetting the world around her as she did so. It brought particularly wonderful news - he was off unexpectedly and free until Monday, if McGonogall would agree to Ginny visiting for the weekend. When Ginny looked up from her letter with her blue eyes shining, she saw the empty seat opposite her where Hermione should have been sitting reading a letter from Ron. Ginny grinned to herself because she knew exactly what Hermione would have been doing - alternately tutting at Ron's language, smiling at the jokes which peppered his letters or blushing at the suggestive descriptions of the sorts of things they might be doing if they were only together. Come to think of it, Ginny reflected, it was a bit weird that Pig hadn't appeared with a letter for Hermione. She looked at her watch thoughtfully, and began to get worried as she ate her toast, looking up now and then to greet friends as they trickled into the hall chattering and laughing. Stuffing Harry's letter into her robes to be re-read at her leisure later, she grabbed four slices of toast, hastily buttered them and spread them with jam, and made her way back up to the Griffindor tower and towards the staircase that led to the Head Girl's chambers. At the top of the winding staircase, she opened the door. She and Hermione had shared a room so many times at the Burrow that it didn't even occur to her to knock.
"MY EYES!!!" bellowed Ginny, almost dropping the toast she was carrying as she registered the sight before her in Hermione's room. "MERLIN'S BALLS, RON, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?"
"WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M DOING, YOU CRETIN, DANCING A BLOODY POLKA?" Ron shouted back, even louder.
Actually the situation could have been far worse: exhausted by their very energetic night, Ron and Hermione had only recently woken up and had got no further than sleepy, smiling kisses. But they were both naked and wrapped around each other when Ginny came in, and not pleased to be interrupted. Ron immediately pulled the blankets further up over them both, and carried on shouting. "WHO BARGES INTO SOMEONE'S ROOM WITHOUT - wait, is that toast?"
"Yeah, but it's for Hermione, you greedy git," Ginny retorted, depositing the little bundle on the large oak desk by the window. "It's not like her to be late for breakfast. I just came up to check that you were okay," she carried on, looking apologetically at Hermione. "Didn't realise you had a visitor. Dunno why but you seem to like him, so I'll leave you to it. See you at potions."
"Bring us up some tea and some more toast, and I'll love you forever," Ron suggested hopefully.
"Get dressed and get your own toast, you lazy tosser," grinned Ginny, and she rattled down the stairs and left them to it. Ron grinned, too, and Hermione shook her head, half amused and half exasperated. She didn't understand it but she knew that she'd just witnessed an extremely affectionate reunion, in the peculiar idiom of the Weasley siblings.
Ron looked at his own watch and then raised his eyebrow at Hermione. "I reckon we've got ten minutes until breakfast's over," he said. "Do you want to -?"
"I'm not that hungry," Hermione broke in, smiling shyly at her own eagerness.
"For once in my life," replied Ron, the tips of his ears red but the inimitable disarming smile on his lips as he leaned to kiss her, "neither am I."
Half an hour later Hermione was running across the hall and down staircase to her potions lesson, throwing herself into her seat next to Neville with twenty seconds to spare before she was officially late for a lesson for the first time in history. A ripple of whoops and wolf whistles broke out among the benches and Hermione blushed furiously. It was obvious that Ginny had told everyone about Ron's visit. Ginny winked and shot her a sheepish grin which, as she well knew, reminded Hermione of Ron so strongly that she was almost powerless to resist it. Hermione ignored her friends' cheers with as much dignity as she could muster and got out her quill, outwardly poised as usual to take notes and answer every question.
Nobody would have guessed that she could almost still feel Ron's morning stubble against her cheek and her body, and that she could still smell the scent of him upon her, unless perhaps they observed the slight dreamy smile playing across her lips every few minutes. Even for Hermione a smile like that probably couldn't be explained by the detailed list of shelf-lives of every single potion the students had ever learned to brew.
Hermione had been the one to eat almost all of the toast in a breathless post-coital haze whilst she hurriedly dressed, wriggling laughingly away from Ron's attempts to immediately remove every item she put on. She'd tried to make Ron eat it, well aware of the awe inspiring amount of food it took to maintain his hollow-limbed body, but he'd refused.
"Nah, you have it. I can start my tour of inspection of the safety charms in the kitchens, can't I? It'll be weird to be there without Dobby. But I bet all the elves'll be happy to rustle something up for me. 'Sides, if I'm not hungry I'll be way too tempted to go back to sleep until lunchtime. I wouldn't want McGonogall to think I'm taking the piss or anything."
Ron had gone rather pink as he'd said these last words, veering awkwardly between his old teenage "I don't care" swagger and the seriousness of the responsible man he was becoming. He'd given Hermione a self-conscious shrug and she'd swallowed hard, concentrating on buttoning her cardigan. She'd known that if she looked at him that she'd be overwhelmed by affection and desire and pull him towards her and back into bed.
The morning dragged on, even though Friday morning's double period of arithmancy was normally one of the highlights of Hermione's week. As she and Luna walked into the Great Hall for lunch, Hermione scanned the hordes of chattering kids for a sight of Ron. She sighed in disappointment - his bright red hair and non-uniform clothes would have made him easy to spot even if he hadn't towered over pretty much everyone at Hogwarts. She felt a tug at her sleeve and looked down to see one of the impossibly tiny Gryffindor first years nervously gazing up at her, looking awed to be addressing the head girl, famous Hermione Granger.
"What is it, Joel?"
"S-sorry to bother you, but Mr Weasley asked me to give you this." The little boy held out a piece of parchment with a shaking hand.
"Mr Weasley? Did he tell you to call him that?" Hermione's eyes were twinkling as she took the parchment.
"No, he said to call him R-Ron. But it didn't seem right..." Joel squirmed awkwardly and Hermione smiled, imagining how a tall man with stubble, dressed in non-uniform clothes, couldn't help but seem like a grown-up through a first year's eyes. His voice barely louder than a whisper, Joel added "He's my favourite hero. I've got all the articles from the Daily Prophet about all three of you in a scrapbook. My mum says she's ordering five boxes of chocolate frogs when the new cards come out at Christmas so we can make sure we get at least one with him on."
Hermione's smile broadened. "Thank you for the note, Joel. And do call him Ron next time. It's not that long ago that he was collecting chocolate frogs just like you."
Joel scuttled off and Hermione opened the note, reflecting that even now Ron wouldn't be averse to five boxes of chocolate frogs. She read: Gone to Hagrid's for lunch. He says he's got some exciting creatures to show me (!) that he has to go home to feed every lunchtime so if you never see me again, remember that I love you madly. See you after your lessons finish. He hadn't signed it but there was a clever little doodle of a very small Ron cowering beneath a giant snake-like creature with enormous claws shooting out of its sides and Hagrid beaming beside it. She laughed out loud and showed it to Luna, then folded it neatly and put it carefully in her pocket. Joel wasn't the only one who could keep scrapbooks.
"I wonder if Hagrid really has got something like that," Luna said thoughtfully. "I've heard of them, but I've never seen an Ursoserpent."
"I think it was just a joke, Luna," Hermione replied quickly. "Ron was just imagining the kind of horrifying thing Hagrid might be harbouring. You do know that the creature he drew doesn't really exist, don't you?"
Luna smiled vaguely and Hermione decided not to worry too much about whether that meant that she agreed or that she thought she knew better and was having happy thoughts to herself about a fictitious monster. The friendship which had grown up between her and Luna depended strongly upon Hermione quashing her instincts to ensure that everyone agreed with her at all times.
She and Luna were joined by Neville as they sat down to their shepherd's pies. They all agreed at any rate that a morning in which Ron had, presumably, been given a vast amount of food by the Hogwarts elves was the right morning to have lunch at Hagrid's, and spent a happy lunchtime swapping affectionate stories about questionable homemade treats they had been offered by Hagrid over the years.
Charms was after lunch, and after that Hermione's week of classes was finished, though a good deal of the seventh years trooped off to Muggle Studies. Any student who didn't have a least one muggle parent was now required to take muggle studies up to NEWT level and Hermione had spent some time over the summer with Professor Brooker, the newly appointed Muggle-born replacement for the much mourned hero Charity Burbage, helping to redesign the syllabus so that it highlighted much more the many achievements of muggle science and all that the wizard of world could learn from it. Honestly, though, Hermione had to admit that the delivery of an enormous television and a video player to Hogwarts halfway through September and the institution of a weekly film night for each year had probably done the most to challenge the insular perspective of the pure blood wizards. The film nights were a raging success, although Hermione and Dean had been forced to seize control over the programming after Professor Brooker had inadvertently shown the first years a long portion of a film called "Trainspotting" before realising that it wasn't going to teach them much about muggle transport, but that it would teach them an awful lot about recreational drugs.
There was no sign of Ron in the Griffindor common room, so Hermione headed to the library to make an early start on the homework which she would normally have spent most of the weekend doing. She strongly suspected that she'd be rather distracted this weekend.
She stopped dead as she came into the library, standing in the doorway with her mouth open. Ron was sitting at one of the desks by an arched window and wearing a blue and white striped shirt which she didn't recognise, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow and the collar open at the neck. It wasn't surprising that he was there - it would obviously have been the most sensible place to wait for Hermione. The astonishing part was that he was poring over a vast leather-bought book which was laid out in front of him, seemingly so absorbed that he hadn't noticed the only other occupants of the library, a pair of Slytherin fifth year girls who should have been in a history of magic lesson, unashamedly staring at him and whispering to each other, or even the entrance of his girlfriend.
"Ten points to Slytherin if you girls leave right now," Hermione said to them in a low voice. Astonished at being rewarded by the punctilious head-girl, who must have realised that they were skipping a lesson, they packed up their books and left, giggling. The commotion roused Ron and as he looked up his face broke into the huge lop-sided smile which was like the sun coming out from behind a cloud and always made Hermione feel several degrees warmer.
"Hello there," he said. "Come here often?"
"What are you doing, Ron?" Hermione asked, coming close enough to see that the book was an advanced textbook on spell formation.
"Oh, nothing much," Ron rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "Hagrid was showing me the wall of expulsio charms round the castle grounds boundary and I was thinking about this thing we do in the Aurors where you put up a repelling charm so anyone trying to infiltrate gets actively pushed back- like they're being kicked in the stomach - and I was wondering if you could combine it with an incarcero. It's probably a stupid idea..." he trailed off unhappily. "Why are you staring at me like that?"
"It's not a stupid idea," Hermione replied. "And I'm staring at you because I've literally never been this turned on in my entire life."
Ron laughed in affectionate relief. "You're absolutely mental, Hermione. But if that's what you like..." he looked at his watch and went slightly red around the ears. "I've still got twenty minutes before I need to make my initial report to McGonogall, and Madam Pince has gone to the Astronomy Tower to have a cup of tea with Professor Sinistra. She left me in charge. So..."
"Colloportus," Hermione flicked her wand at the door without looking at it.
"Bloody hell," Ron said, and swallowed hard.
She stepped closer to him. "Ron, you can't be surprised that you, me and this library have been the mainstay of my sexual fantasies since I was fifteen."
He stepped closer to her so that there was no more than an inch between them, breathing unevenly. "Yeah, I might have thought about it once or twice myself. And by once or twice, I mean every bloody time that I set foot in the bloody place. Or that anyone mentioned it. Or that I saw a book."
Twenty minutes later, Ron ran like a streak of blazing lightening out of the library and towards McGonogall's office, tucking his shirt into his trousers as he went. A gaggle of first years who had been sent to the library to learn research skills and had been worrying that they had failed before they'd even begun by being unable to get into the locked library poured in to find Hermione sitting primly at a desk, quill in hand. If anybody noticed that her hair was somewhat disordered, or that the book in front of her was upside down, nobody dared to mention it.
