A/N: So sorry for the long wait. I've been really busy with the holidays, and my toddler, and trying to get some other stories together to get on some other sites. Checkmated seems to hate my stories, and keeps denying them, which makes me really sad, 'cause I love that site. Thanks so much to all the readers and reviewers, you guys are all amazing.
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Hermione sat on the stone floor of the Twins' shop; cold despite the hot, muggy August weather in London. The room was surprising quiet, after all the activity of the last few hours. An argument between Harry and Ginny; a battle with Death Eaters; the Aurors scrambling everywhere, taking pictures, hauling the fallen Death Eaters to St. Mungo's or to holding cells in the Ministry; Mrs. Weasley yelling at the top of her impressive range, and then falling into desperate sobs, clutching the shirt that had fallen off of Ron when he'd gone.
Gone. Hopefully not forever. She swallowed. She'd shared her theory with Harry, who'd given her an odd look that said he likely thought she'd gone spare, but it had brought him out of the morose funk he'd fallen into, that he always fell into whenever bad things happened to people he loved. He'd offered to wait with her, but she'd shooed him off, telling him to comfort Ginny and Mrs. Weasley upstairs in the loft, where the Twins had taken the family. The Aurors were mostly gone, except for a few standing guard outside the repaired storefront window. Truly, it was amazing what magic could accomplish in less than two hours.
Two hours. It was one hour and fifty seven minutes after his dramatic disappearance. She promised herself that she'd wait until two hours and fifteen minutes had gone by, and then she'd go upstairs, or go back to Grimmauld and weep, or go home to her parents and let her mother hold her while she tried to find a reason to go on living. If she was wrong….and she probably was. It did seem so unlikely that the Twins' timer charms could somehow circumvent a curse thrown by an Unspeakable, but she clung to that hope anyway, willing it to be true. She had to believe that Ron was stuck somewhere living out some silly fantasy, rather than….any of the alternatives. If she was wrong, then…
What was that? The air in front of her seemed to shimmer a little, like a mirage in the heat. Was she just imagining it? Was she too desperate? Of all the times for the room to finally be empty….
She clutched at the folded clothes in her lap, running her hands over the faded Muggle jeans, and even…the underwear that had been left in the pile on the floor. Mrs. Weasley had made off with the shirt, but Hermione had gotten up the nerve to pick up the rest, touching them, wishing that she could get as close to his body as these garments. She'd blushed a bit when she'd picked up the underwear, thinking that she'd imagined very different circumstances in which she'd find out what he wore under his clothes. Simply white boxers suited him well, and let her imagination give her a much needed break from the incredible tension of waiting. Now, her nails practically tore the fabric as she gripped the clothes with considerable strength, willing the shimmering in the air to be real.
And then, something appeared, a tiny dot, that grew steadily in size while making a faint whistling noise in the quiet room, like a far away wind. Hermione forced herself not to blink, and held her breath while the shape became recognizably human, perceptibly red-haired, and undeniably Ron.
Time slowed as he floated horizontally a few feet off the floor, an odd look on his face as he reached out toward something that was no longer there, as though pleading with it, his blue eyes filled with a mixture of raw honesty and confusion. Then, with a soft pop, time seemed to speed up, and he fell the few feet to the floor, letting out an "Omph!" of pained surprise at the impact. He let out another "Omph!" as she tackled him, crossing the distance between them with a pounce that would have made Crookshanks proud.
He was here, and he was alive! Either she had completely descending into insanity, or this was the wonderful moment of her life. She covered his face with kisses inhaling the scent of him, the feel of his skin under her lips, the look of his eyes as he moved from confusion and disorientation to desire. His arms came up around her, and he clasped her to him, closing any distance between them as she held his face in her hand and kissed him with abandon. His lips tasted like heaven, and he smelled musky sweet, of sweat and something else…something that tickled the back of her brain with familiarity, but she couldn't identify. She was suddenly achingly aware that he was completely nude, and she was straddling him in a brazen fashion. Still, she couldn't bring herself to care about propriety at the moment, her heart filled with the immense happiness that was the existence of Ronald Weasley in her life.
They rolled about on the floor, and she felt his weight pin her to the stone floor, and felt the hardness of his body under her hands. She suddenly wished that her jeans were gone, that everything separating them was gone, and she let out a moan at the desire that pooled in her with that thought. In response to her sounds of longing, he broke away, passion and something else, something serious, lingering in the blue pools of his eyes.
"I love you."
She gasped, blinking at sudden tears. She had hoped…but it had been too soon….but then he was gone….
"I love you too." What else could she say but the truth? She could not stand to be separated from him another moment, and there was no use keeping up mythical barriers when they might be torn apart at any moment. She knew that she couldn't deny herself any longer.
He gifted her with an immense lop-sided grin, melting her heart with its lazy power. He was about to say something else, when there was a whistle from the doorway leading from the stairwell to the Twins' upstairs flat.
"Ah, Ronniekins, we wanted to see you, but not that much of you!" Fred announced, and Ron whipped his head around to look at the door. There were the Twins, both smiling widely, but with hands over their eyes.
"I could have gone another decade or two without seeing his naked arse, that's for certain." George added. Then, there was a shriek, and Mrs. Weasley appeared, pushing Fred aside in her eagerness to look through the doorway.
"Ronald Weasley! You get off that girl this instant! And where were you, I'd like to know? You gave everyone the worst shock." Molly Weasley ran across the intervening space as Ron scrambled up from the floor guiltily, trying to cover his nakedness, and in contrast to her angry words, she embraced her tall son with gusto.
Hermione got up slowly, her cheeks scarlet from blushing, and she looked intently at her feet so that she didn't have to look at any of the Weasley clan. Harry and Ginny came running after hearing Molly's shouts, along with Remus, Tonks, and several other Aurors. Soon enough, Ron was dressed, Mrs. Weasley having conjured up a screen of sorts to allow him a bit of privacy. There was a heady sort of joy in the air; that Ron was all right; that there was a bit of hope amongst all the pain and tragedy that had happened in the months and years past. Hermione was over the moon with happiness herself, although a little piece of her wished that everyone would have just left them alone a bit longer.
Soon, after the Aurors were satisfied that Ron was not a Death Eater in disguise, and the Ministry officials from the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad had finally arrived and given Ron a clean bill of health, the members of the Order, both old and new, went to have a bit of a celebration in Grimmauld Place.
Hermione had been heartily congratulated for her wisdom in figuring out what had happened to Ron when everyone else had given up hope. Harry spent a good deal of the time slapping Ron on the back and beaming, and the rest of the time clutching Ginny's hand, unwilling to be away from her for a moment. The Twins spent a good deal of time debating in loud voices which other curses might be circumvented by reacting with various products in their repertoire.
"I think that Canary Creams might be the perfect answer to the Incarcerous spell, heh Forge?" Fred said smugly.
"Absolutely, Gred. Just keep one in your mouth, and if someone tries to bind you up, just sprout feathers and fly away!"
A good deal of Butterbeer and Chocolate Frogs had been consumed, and Mrs. Weasley had tried her level best to get the Trio to return with her and Ginny to the Burrow, which had been put under Fidelius charm. Harry almost looked tempted, but had declined, and Ron had stood firm in his determination to stay with Harry.
He was equally firm in not saying a word about what he had experienced for those two hours he had disappeared from Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, despite having the Twins offer increasingly larger bribes and resorting to slipping him some Firewhiskey while their mother wasn't looking. Hermione was equally curious, wanting to know what had driven him to say those magical words to upon returning. Had he meant what he said? Had he been under the influence of whatever he had experienced?
Her stomach twisted in knots with nervousness, and she tried to find a place to be alone, and resorted to picking up dirty plates from the drawing room and taking them down to the kitchen. She had just set a cleansing charm at them in the sink, when she jumped at the sound footsteps entering the kitchen behind her.
"I meant it, you know."
She closed her eyes, the sound of his voice warming her heart, and replacing her nervous flutters with and entirely different kind of fluttering. Desire pulled at her and she felt his hands on her hips, and his breath on her neck.
"I love you, and I don't think I'll be able to stay away from you. You told me not to wait."
She turned to look in his face, an unspoken question evident in her eyes.
"I dreamed of you, of us. At least…I think it was a dream. And you told me not to wait, to tell you how I felt." His hands still held her hips, and he pulled her closer to him, where she could feel how much he wanted her.
"Am I always so wise in your dreams, Ron?"
"You know you're brilliant, luv. How could you be any less in my deepest fantasies?" He arched an eyebrow at her, a playful smirk teasing her to distraction.
She licked her bottom lip and smiled back, hoping that she looked half as seductive as he did at the moment. "What else did I do in these fantasies of yours?"
He gulped a bit, and his ears turned red, and she laughed. She was surprised that the low, sexy sound came from her lips, and she was even more surprised when he pulled her hard against him, and crushed his lips into hers, taking her breath away with an intoxicating kiss.
When he broke this kiss, she was panting, her nipples taut, her knees weak with wanting him. He ran tiny kisses along her cheek to her ear, and then whispered to her, his breath sending delicious shivers down her spine. "You taught me everything I know about how to please a woman."
She gasped, stiffening in his arms as her eyes widened. His voice, his words, everything about him was manly, irresistible. She was shocked at how badly she wanted him, how she would let him take her against the kitchen counter in a moment unless she did something to back away.
He drew back to look in her face, and he misread her stark desire for something else. His confidence seemed to ebb away, and the stuttering boy was back. "I'm…sorry 'Mione. I didn't mean…I….I just didn't want to wait to tell you how I felt. I don't mean that we have to…I don't mean to rush you into anything…"
She brought her hands up to cup his face, and kissed him quick and hard, stepping backward, away from him and leaving him blinking in confusion.
"I don't want to wait too long either, Ron." She said in what she hoped was a low, sexy voice. "Still, I think I need to do a bit of research first."
The confident smile of Ron Weasley, the great prat, was back. "I don't think you can learn this from books, 'Mione." He stated with certainty.
Little did he know. Still, that's not what she had meant. "Oh no, Ron. I was simply thinking that if I taught you everything about how to please a woman, then I need to find a reciprocal teacher to learn how to please a man."
She sauntered past him and out the door, her ear strained to know when he stopped mulling over what she had said and chased after her. It didn't take him long, but she was already back in the drawing room when he showed up, eyes wide, and panting with either exertion or indignation. She gave him a half smile, and relished being able to tease him again, when she had thought him lost to her. Whatever the outcome of this new round of their game of teasing, she knew that it would be different, ending in a deeper connection between them no matter who won.
He smirked back at her, and waggled his fiery eyebrows, and her stomach fluttered again with pangs of desire. Neither of them would sleep much that night, whether they were in their own beds and thinking of each other, or together and acting out their fantasies. Ron didn't say another word to her, but walked across the room, getting into a debate with Fred and George over something or other.
She had a sudden flash of what he would be like when he was older, more confident, able to hold his own with the best and brightest of the wizarding world. She wanted to be there at his side to see him and his sexy smile, and she knew he would make them a wonderful life together if the world was free of Voldemort once and for all. No matter what happened, she believed that somehow, he would always come back to her, and that knowledge filled some quiet corner of her heart, giving her the confidence and courage to face whatever the next months of struggle would bring.
A/N: No, this is not the end, we still have to find out what really happened…..one more chapter to go