Author's Note: am I terrible person? Yes, yes I am and I feel completely terrible about it. This chapter was suppposed to be finished by March at the very latest and now it's May. I'm not going to try and excuse my behavior, but I would like to offer an explanation. However, the only explanation I can offer is that the homework I mentioned in my last author's note sort of consumed my life for a while. I know, I know a lot of fanfiction writers are students and they manage to make it work.
But aside from all that terribleness I am super, super happy that this story surpassed 50 reviews! That feels like a major accomplishment to me, so thank you to all of you who reviewed. And you are: LillyMay77, F Maurice, chavi, and Romione-Percabeth-Tribut-Adict. You guys are super awesome.
This chapter is dedicated to LillyMay77, because you've left so many awesome reviews:) And I want you to know that your suggestion was very fun to write and the lateness of this chapter had nothing to do with it being hard to write. Now that said, I'm sorry it's not a better dedication chapter. I'm not sure about the end...
I have a cover image for this story now! Do you guys like it? The clay Ron and Hermione used in the picture were not made by me but the super brilliant CheerUpGothKid. Photo is by me though. And though I'm sure it comes as a shock to all of you, I am most definetely not JK Rowling, and therefore I do not own Harry Potter.
Reviews would be greatly appreciated:) and enjoy.

-BarbedWire

Without a doubt, Ron Weasley thought as he stepped into the emerald green flames in the fireplace in the corner of his office, coming home was the best part of the day. No matter how much he loved his job; which he did. How could he not? He got to spend his days ridding the world of the evil he had been fighting his whole life. On top of that he got to work with his best friend all day, but even as much as he loved fighting evil at Harry's side as he had since he was eleven, nothing could touch the joy of stepping into his living room to find his family waiting for him.

And today was even better than usual because this was Friday, and Friday was Hermione's short day at the office which meant that both she and the kids would be home. Even the fact that he had yet to formally apologize for the silly fight they'd had the night before didn't bother him—that was why he had slipped out of work twenty minutes early to get the flowers that he now tucked carefully into his jacket to avoid losing them in the Floo.

"I'm home," he announced as he stepped onto the floor of his living room, taking care to brush the ash out of his ginger hair onto the hearth and not onto the wood floor. The only person that he could see in the living room was four-year-old Hugo. His son spared him about half a glance before he returned to his play with the Muggle toy car that Hermione's parents had gotten him.

Watching the boy smash the toy into the legs of the coffee table by which he sat, Ron smiled. He stepped into the room and set the flowers down on the coffee table and was about to sit down upon the floor and ask Hugo about his game when both of their attention was pulled away from the living room by the sudden sound of Rose's screaming and the slam of a bedroom door followed by his wife's voice saying,

"Rosie? Let me in to talk about it?"

Ron and Hugo looked at each other and Ron was amused to find that the look on the little boy's face must have been identical to his own face.

"What's all that about?" he asked hoping that the fact that Hugo had spent the day with his sister would mean that he knew something that Ron didn't.

Ever his father's son, Hugo merely shrugged. Ron was about to ask him how long this shrugging stage was going to last, as that seemed to be his response to everything lately when he once again heard Hermione's voice from upstairs. He stepped through the living room, patting Hugo's head as he walked by. "Stay here, okay Hugo?" he said as he started up the stairs. "I'm just going to see what's up."

"K Daddy," Hugo agreed before resuming smashing the car against the table. Ron smiled at him for another moment before he headed up the stairs to see what was happening with his daughter.

Six year-old Rose was not very much like her brother. Where Hugo was quiet and was often happy to entertain himself with his convoluted and imaginative games, Rose was loud and passionate. She was more often in fights with her brother and her many cousins then not and seemed to possess a destructive mix of her parents' tendencies. She had her mother's brains and her love of being right, coupled with his lack of tact and impressive ability to be offended. He had the unsettling feeling that raising Rose was only going to get harder as she got older.

As he reached the second floor landing he paused outside his daughter's open door. Rose was sitting on her bed, her eyes swollen and red from crying while Hermione stood just inside the room.

"Everything alright?" when he spoke Hermione turned to face him.

"Ron," she said, relief flashing across our lives. "Rose thinks that we fight too much."

"Where'd you get that idea, Rosie?" Ron asked, bewildered at his child's fear.

"You fight all the time!" she wailed burying her face into her pillow.

"That's not true-"

"Victiore's mummy and daddy don't fight all the time!"

"Is that what she said?" Asked Hermione soothingly, Rosie nodded.

"Probably because they don't get weirdly turned on by it-" Ron was not altogether surprised when Hermione stepped unceremoniously onto his foot. "Err, don't get as annoyed at each other."

"Albus says that people who love each other shouldn't say mean things."

"Albus is just repeating what Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny have told James so that he'll be nicer to his brother." Hermione replied gently, taking a seat on Rose's bed beside the little girl.

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "'Sides, what have I told you about listening to Harry's kids?" His last remark earned him another glare from his wife.

This, Ron concluded as Rose burst into tears, was not the moment to be flirting with Hermione by way of annoyingness.

"Shh Rosie," Hermione cooed, ignoring Ron to fuss over their daughter.

"You hate each other! You're going to move into different houses and I'll have to pick a favorite!" Rose wailed, and Ron was not quite sure where she had got this idea.

Okay, so he and Hermione fought. But he had only spent one night at Harry's to cool down since Rose was even born. Usually they only sat in awkward silence for an hour until they swallowed their pride and apologized over dinner, or made up in private. There was too much passion between them not to fight, too much invested emotion and regret and lust and shared history not to overreact sometimes. And of course fighting was filled with lovely nostalgia and the promise of making up later. The idea of leaving after a fight had never occurred to either one of them as far as he knew. That they would make up was a predetermined fact, and neither of them had questioned it. Not since the night he had returned to the tent during the Horcrux hunt and she had forgiven him. Since then he had had no doubts that every rift between them would heal, and he would always love her.

"Rosie," Hermione placed a hand onto Rose's sobbing shoulders. "Mummy and Daddy love each other very much."

"But you're always fighting!"

"And why does that mean anything?" Ron asked his daughter. She shook her head, not even offering his infantile question a proper answer. She was so like her mother sometimes. "Honestly," Ron went on, more than a little exasperated that he was answered with such little respect. "Who do you know who loves each other and never fights?"

Now this Rose did not have such a quick reply to. Proud of himself for having successfully overcome Rose's seemingly endless answers to questions Ron went on. "Do you ever get angry at me?"

Grudgingly Rose nodded. "And your Mum?"

She nodded again.

"I know you can't stand Hugo half the time." His daughter once again agreed and Ron crossed his arms, smiling to himself that his point was made. Sensing her turn, Hermione rejoined the conversation.

"What your Daddy means to say, love, is that sometimes we're angry at the people we love and we fight with them."

"But you and Daddy get so upset!" As their daughter Ron supposed that it was not reasonable to have hoped that she would be anything less than obnoxiously stubborn.

"Yes," Hermione agreed. "And sometimes we say a lot of things we don't really mean and have to avoid each other until we're over being upset. But it doesn't mean we don't love each other."

"But they said-"

"Enough with what they all said," Ron insisted. "Your Mum and I are telling you that everything is fine." Rose looked torn between her desire to be right and her longing to accept the relief that her parents offered.

"So you're not going to split up?"

It sounded ridiculously silly, to hear the question posed from someone so innocent, and even more ironic that it came from someone who was only alive because of the brilliant, passionate union that existed between he and Hermione.

"No." Hermione replied so firmly that it made Ron smile.

"Never?" Rosie pressed and this time Rom took the opportunity to respond.

"Never."

The answering look of adoration and pride that Hermione gave him as she turned to look at him made him the tiniest bit disappointed that more opportunities to tell the world he would never consider living without Hermione did not arise. A single breath caught in his chest as she smiled up at him and he was forced to remind himself that he was standing in his daughter's room at the moment and that the same child was not two feet from him. Instead of all the things he wanted to do, he simply smiled in return.

Rosie seemed to take this as confirmation enough, and nodded at her parents looking relieved. Hermione gave her a quick hug and kissed the top of her head as she began to blush. While Rose was in possession of many of Hermione's traits, there was no denying that she was Ron's daughter as well.

Not only had she inherited the Weasley red hair, she also had her father's mouth (much to her mother's dismay and his amusement), his near obsessive love of the Cannons and his tendency to brood rather than face things head on. He could tell from the look now on Rose's face that she wanted to be left alone to regret weeping to them. She was so like him sometimes. He pushed away all the fears he had about just how many terrible things might befall her because she was so like him. After all, she had Hermione's cleverness and her self-assuredness.

Quietly, Ron and Hermione slipped out of the room.

"What was all that about?" Ron asked as he gently closed his daughter's door. Hermione stood close to him on the narrow landing, still beaming from his declaration of never leaving her.

"While they were at your Mum's this morning Bill stopped by. Apparently she told her cousins about out little disagreement last night, and they couldn't understand why we would fight over such silly things and you know how Rosie is. She reacts before she thinks." It was impossible to miss the unmistakable smirk in Hermione's voice, and Ron knew exactly why.

"Mmm," he grunted in agreement, offering his wife a smirk of his own. "Sounds familiar."

"Doesn't it?" she teased in response.

"Speaking of last night," he began as they started down the stairs. "I brought you flowers."

"So is this your formal apology then?" she asked, and although her tone was serious she could not quite keep the smile off her lips.

Ron nodded in mock solemnity. Hermione paused a step above him and took advantage of the added height it gave her to plant a kiss on his cheek. "That's very sweet of you. But I don't think you need to keep bringing me presents every time we row."

"Never thought I had to, I just like to." He replied as they continued on down the stairs. "'Sides, I left them with Hugo. He's probably eaten them by now."

Hermione made a face. "I don't think our son is likely to eat flowers."

"It wouldn't be the weirdest thing he's ever done,"

"Ron, he's a child, not a dog!" With that they emerged bickering at the bottom of the stairs where the child in question was right where Ron had left him, the flowers untouched on the coffee table.

Ron leaned against the door frame and watched as Hermione scooped up their son and the flowers. The sight brought a smile to his face he could not imagine anyone being a big enough fool to throw away all of this over something as trivial as whose turn it was to dry the dishes or whatever it was they even fought about these days.