Hermione had made it all the way to the Ministry of Magic (which wasn't that impressive as she'd just apparated to a kebob shop nearby) before she turned chicken. She was standing in the little stall with her hand on the lever when she realized how incredibly silly it was of her to just waltz right into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and say hello. Who did that? Who just popped in for a quick chat after fifteen years apart?

An irritated witch's pounding on the stall door had been the final straw. She'd stepped out of the little toilet bowl and ducked her head to avoid the glare of the witch on the other side of the stall door. She'd then walked very quickly towards the bathroom exit and made her way out onto the street.

But Hermione needed air. She needed to sit a moment and try to screw up the courage again. Her steps were that funny mix between a walk and a jog as she hurriedly moved down Whitehall and onto a side street before catching sight of the Thames. That funny smell owned solely by big dirty bodies of fresh water caught in her nose. She crossed another less populated street and went down a few steps onto the promenade that stretched along the coast of the river.

It was mid-afternoon. Politicians and the more gainfully employed were all wrapped up in their offices and meeting rooms leaving the promenade to be populated by a few smokers, bums and teens avoiding school. She looked for a free bench but instead found something more unexpected.

His back was to her as he was also staring out at the Thames, but she recognized the hair. It was still as red and shaggy as she remembered it. They were closing in on forty but from where she stood it looked as though he'd still avoided the early gray hairs most gingers seemed to be afflicted with. She slowly came around the side of the bench to watch him in profile. He looked good. He had a beard, something she wasn't crazy about, and it looked a few shades darker and redder then the hair on top of his head. His eyes looked dark and his mouth was set in a grimace. She half expected him to bring a cigarette or a bottle of beer to his lips. But his hands were empty and wrapped into fists between his legs.

He must have felt her stare because he looked up sharply. She had no idea who he'd expected to find there, but it couldn't have been her. It hurt, the amount of time it took him to recognize her. It wasn't instant as it had once been. Their familiarity had been lost to time.

He seemed confused at first. Then he realized he really was staring at who he'd thought he was staring at and his look turned to wonder. "Hermione?"

"Hello Ron." He stood. Started forward and then stopped. His hands were outstretched a bit as if he meant to hug her. She took it upon herself to close the distance and embrace him. "It's been a while."

"Years," he managed to croak out. They broke apart and he looked around, perhaps expecting more company. "Did you come looking for me," he asked.

"I was going to the Ministry actually. Thought I'd find you and Harry. Promptly realized how silly that was."

"It wouldn't have been silly."

"Just a bit."

He shrugged a little, "Maybe a little." He stepped back to get a better look. Then said softly, "You look wonderful Hermione."

She reached up and lightly stroked his beard, "I was thinking the same." Ron pulled just out of her grasp and she let her hand fall to her side. It had been a bit presumptuous of her, touching him like that. "You're married right? I seem to remember getting an owl to that effect?"

He immediately brightened at the mention and went into great details over how he'd met his Muggle doctor and how'd she been delighted by his magic and then curious. He told her about the twins, Edmund and Robert, and about the third one on the way. Lot's of children like he'd always wanted. A wife not irrevocably changed by a war. It stirred something in her to watch him be so animated about his life.

There was some regret. Could things have been different for her in England? Maybe she could have found some handsome Auror or gentle doctor of her own. Maybe if she'd stayed she wouldn't be a widow before she was forty. A single mother living with her parents. But she would have lost so much. Chiefly Rose and Hugo. They were what mattered. They were what she had to cherish.

"Why are you in town," he asked. Ron had never been very good at reading Hermione's emotions. It was what had kept them apart in school and what had been a major contribution to their separation as adults. If her expression was forlorn he never noticed.

"I moved back." She tried to sound cheerful. She knew she had to get used to sounding happier then she was. It worked because his face brightened.

"Really? This is brilliant. We'll have to get the gang together and show off the kids. They're here too right?"

"Yes. We're staying with my mom and dad until things are a bit more settled."

Something seemed to dawn on Ron and he lowered his voice, as if the smoker leaning against the rail and staring at the river might have been a spy, "Do you need a job?"

She smiled. "No. I've still got one actually. I worked for an import/export company in America. My boss has finally seen reason and is having me open up a warehouse here." She looked down at her wristwatch. "And in fact I'm to meet my PA out at a location she's scouted in a bit. I'm not especially clear on where it is so I should probably go."

"Oh." When Ron Weasley wanted to he could really look forlorn.

She looked at him a moment. The breeze off the river was doing things with their hair causing even Ron's shorter locks to fly about their faces. She brushed her hair back behind her ear and looked beyond Ron to the further reaches of the walkway. "You know, I suppose I'd have enough time for a quick drink. Maybe a cup of tea. Just you, me and a city of Muggles."

"I think I'd like that."

#

They ended up having coffee instead of tea. They'd been walking by a chain rather familiar to Hermione and she'd found herself suddenly sick with longing for America. Ron had balked at the idea of drinking the stuff, and after one taste declared it burnt and bitter, but it hadn't been enough to drive him away.

Coffee in hand they'd settled at another bench overlooking the Thames. It was significantly cooler then the coffee shop, but more private, and though neither said it, they didn't want to be caught by some erstwhile wizard and find themselves in the next issue of Witch Weekly.

The conversation had been a bit dark at first. Ron had asked about her husband and she'd told him exactly what she'd told Ginny. Part of her wanted to make a big sign saying, "My husband's dead so I've moved back to England. Thanks for asking," but then people would just ask why she felt the need to wear a sign, and she didn't have a single pair of shoes that would look becoming beneath a giant placard.

She'd have to just get used to it. In the coming weeks she'd be dealing with more witches and wizards then she'd dealt with in months, and unlike the wizard population of America, these people would all know a great deal about her. There were books about her. Ron insisted the Skeeter biography was not fit to be read and that he didn't even read the love scenes. Knowing her former boyfriend's healthy libido she doubted that assertion. She'd largely left because of the fame.

When she'd been holed up in Hogwarts with Harry and Ron and books she hadn't thought too much about it. Sure the fame had inconvenienced her a few times. That Christmas in her fourth year had been especially miserable, but for the most part it had been easy to ignore. The Hogwarts bubble had kept her safe.

After school, and after the war it had all changed. She couldn't go to Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley without people approaching her. The owls that had swooped in with love letters from barmy looking wizards had gotten to be such a nuisance that she'd actually locked up the windows. And her poor boys. Harry and Ron had been forced to spend all their time training to be Aurors or avoiding droves of lovesick witches. There'd been no time for just them.

By the time she'd boarded a plane for America she'd grown so distant that she hadn't even missed them all that much.

Yet a simple coffee with Ron made her forget the last fifteen years. Except for the wrinkles around their eyes, and the very different rings on their fingers she could have closed her eyes and been back in school.

Ron snapped his fingers directly in front of her. "Hermione?" She looked at him in confusion. "You faded out a bit."

They'd been talking about Harry and Ginny and whatever woman that had apparently come between them. Never one for social gossip she'd gotten caught up in staring at a bird trying to fly away with a pastry far to big for it's small frame. "I was just thinking about when we were kids."

"I'd rather you didn't. It may shock you to know that I was a bit of a git in school."

"Oh I know. Many tears were shed over it."

There was an enormous grin then on Ron's face. It was so big and happy that it terrified her a bit. "What?" She said, her tone caught up somewhere between a question and a laugh.

"Maggie's going to love you. I've mentioned you a few times, and I think she's got it in her head that you don't really exist."

"It's not that bad."

"It is! George calls it the 'Legend of Hermione Granger.' You're like some sort of academic bogey man for the Weasley kids."

"That's awful."

"Well you could be Harry. Since the divorce he's the butt of every joke George can think of. Ginny's prepared a hex just especially for Christmas. Next joke at Harry's expense and my dear brother will be a woman."

That was certainly impressive. "Ginny can change his sex?"

Ron shrugged, "She claims she can. And has told him as much. I'm rooting for her. I've always wanted another sister."

They settled into an amiable silence. Finally she admitted, "You know Ron, this whole time I was terrified of seeing you, but here you are perfectly fine. You haven't even shouted at me."

He leaned back on the bench and settled his arms on the back of it. "I used to think about what I'd say to you after you left. Sometimes I'd get really angry about it. Other times I'd cry more then a girl with her funny business. But I'm really happy now Hermione." And he looked happy. He was staring back a the river and with the collar of his coat turned up, that carefully trimmed beard and his posture so relaxed he looked as happy and as adult as he sounded ("girl's funny business" aside). "Besides," he continued, "Times have changed. I think…I think I'm over you." That made since. Fifteen years was a ridiculous amount of time to pine for someone. "Besides Harry's who you should worry about. I thought I held a grudge? Nothing on him."

She looked up in confusion, "Harry's mad at me?"

"You two had that row or whatever at his wedding and then you left. And then on top of that the only owls you send him are addressed to him and Ginny."

She had never considered that. Harry had always seemed a bit exasperated with her letters, and when she'd left he'd been so busy with his work in the Ministry. And after their little row at his wedding it wasn't like they'd been as close as they'd been during the war. It had only seemed natural to be a bit standoffish. It was what they'd both needed.

Right?