Hermione put the laundry into the washer. She then explored through the clutter for some detergent but it looked as if the place was out of it. She did not give up however and tried to force the leftover detergent from otherwise empty-looking bottles into a small cup. Fifteen minutes' hard work provided good results. She now had enough to give it a go.

She looked around. The bathroom had its share of misplaced stuff. She got hold of one of the dirty glasses and gave it an inquisitive sniff. It smelled of brandy. Ron's choices sometimes amazed her. The place had a washer and electricity and other Muggle-made pleasantries, but most of that was due to her wishes from the start. And even then Ron had not really called into question her Muggle hang-ups. Now it looked more as if he no longer tried to be just generously adaptive but found some way to make Muggle tendencies his own.

Whatever it was, it was wrong of anyone to have once imagined that the post-war life had to be uneventful from next day on. A lot has taken place in the meantime and people had been indulgent more than ever, and even expectedly so because the future lost its dark, foreboding quality. Last great peace was upon the wizarding world; Riddle the Pure-Blood Psycho was dead. The end of the war had a more profound meaning for Harry Potter and his gang however. To this day, it was rather hard to suggest a more grim form of solicitousness than his. And Ron and Hermione were particularly closely exposed to that aspect of Harry's personal difficulties. So when the war was over, their sense of blissful consolation was proportionally greater.

Laughter. Self-serving dopeyness. Love. A promising beginning. Interrogations. Desolate cross-examinations. My very own runway.

Hermione sighed at her own image on the bathroom mirror before she went back to the drawing/sitting room. By the look of it, Ron gave it a real try and the books were off the chairs for a start. But the whole thing looked a scramble. Improvement so far was only tentative. Ron had a cup of tea in his hand, and was at work on a number of bill-like statements. Hermione made a cup of tea for herself too. And sat on one of the kitchen seats in view of Ron. After a couple of nourishing sips from her tea, she took out her wand and charmed the rather stately-looking radio on. It was a Nina Simone song, one of her uncharacteristically happy LPs. 'Here comes the sun, Little Darling' she sang over and over again.

Ron did not react at first but a minute later he slowly began to respond to music's phonetic sweetness. Hermione saw him sip then hum, sip and hum.

Better part of that morning went into making the house a place fit to live in. Perhaps it was a good thing that Ron did not like old, secondhand stuff. A little cleaning was enough to revise the place into its newly renovated shape. Ron definitely had a knack for property-hunting. An innate sense for quality real-estate. For one thing, the real high costs of irrigational slack in an island the size of Britian and in view of the mean rain they had year in and year out did not lead to any advanced discovery in indoor plumbing. But Ron had a very modern perspective on that. Occasional flooding had never made him feel as if he was one of the in-crowd. He was quick to rise above any rot-loving machoism. But finding value property involved many other frustrations, however Ron was decided upon being the most thick-skinned buyer in the market. And things had worked out for them at the end. Even if it was only for a little while.

Now the wash was hang; dishes were clean; the bed was made. And everything was in its proper place. It was already lunch-time, but lunch was complicated. Ron did not have any food in the house. A big downer, he imagined, as he had Hermione over after a year. And especially when she was kind enough to do more than half of his own housework. A feeling of inadequacy was upon him. He did not like that.

'We can go find Rose and Hugo and then have lunch?' he suggested.

'Kids are with Harry and Ginny. I already packed a lunch for us. Molly had made some fried chicken.'

Fried chicken, crisp baguettes, some Camembert and sun-dried tomatoes made for a really good lunch. For Ron, it was hard to be not tempted to stuff his face. But he tried.

After a plateful, he downed his glass of wine. He wiped his mouth. And looked up. Hermione was taking small bites from her second piece of chicken and looking ahead at Ron rather intently. Ron guessed that because she was away for so long that it took awhile for her to take in his festive ways each time she was back. And each time he was a little taken aback by her own small measure of shock.

But today he felt different.

'If you are ready, I can take you to bed' he proposed.