I edited this in places, not too much to really alter anything.
Enjoy.
Ginny could tell when her Mother was on edge.
It often involved random conversation and the constant clatter of household items.
At that moment, sat in the kitchen of the Burrow, slipping her spoon in and out of her cereal, Ginny checked off all the pointers to her Mother's distress.
The aged woman had her back turned to her daughter and was hurriedly cleaning plates twice over.
"James is doing well isn't he? He looks more like you, you know, he's getting-hmm" Molly had to shout slightly over the noise of running water and the constant shift of cutlery. Her voice was artificial with cheer.
Molly helplessly tried to cover up her intended questions, but Ginny had already guessed what she wanted to say.
"I'm not leaving Harry Mum" Ginny sighed and pushed the half eaten bowl of coco-puffs away from her.
Molly's shoulders slumped.
"I know that tone Ginny"
"What tone?" Ginny's voice rose an octave.
"That!" Molly turned, whirling a dish cloth with lethal vigour. "That tone, you are lying to me young lady!"
"Young lady?!" Ginny scoffed.
"A Mother's habit" Molly shook her head, her greying hair was still streaked with ginger and fierce upon her head.
"I'm not leaving the boys and Lily" Ginny continued and peered at the golden band around her finger.
"Is there someone else love?" Molly slid in the chair next to Ginny, the legs screeched against the tile. Ginny ducked her head.
"Not anyone new" she said numbly. "I'm not cheating on Harry Mum" Ginny couldn't let the next few thought sentences be told, information about such acts she had carried out with her husband would tip the scales of the conversation. Upon seeing her daughter struggle she just nodded slowly.
"Love?" Molly mumbled.
"I said something I shouldn't have" Ginny picked at her nails while she spoke, her eyes gravitated to their shoddy appearance.
"What did you say?" Molly's eyes widened and her brain soon scrolled through a back catalogue of profanities that could have caused her daughter to come running.
Ginny inhaled and felt the words drip from her lips with ease, like liquid mercury.
Arthur was busy cleaning out the fireplace when he heard his wife shout from the kitchen.
The sound shocked him to the extent of emptying the ashes in a poof all over his face and torso.
"Well, at least she's not pregnant again" he muttered to himself and shuffled across the room, leaving a trail of black ash behind him while the conversation roared.
Molly had risen from her seat and flung her arms around her replicating a windmill of a sort.
"You're making it sound like I've slept with her!" Ginny shouted over Molly's ramblings.
"You might as well have done!"
"Cheers Mum" Ginny rolled her eyes and returned to eating the coco-puffs in large mouthfuls, just so she didn't have to respond.
"You've been in love with her for this long?" Molly squealed. Ginny gulped the clump of cereal down.
Ginny remained in a stubborn silence.
Molly had settled into a quick pace, her slippers slapped loudly on the tile of the floor, breaking their silence. "You've had three children with Harry and now you say you don't love him!"
"I do love him Mum, just, just not physically"
"Merlin's bollocks" Molly rasped. Ginny's jaw dropped.
Arthur walked back into the living room, only to hear the profanity bounce around the house. Wide eyed, he stilled.
"Gardening, gardening is good" he made a hasty escape to the garden.
Ginny rose from her seat.
"I said I'm not leaving him"
Molly wrung her hands.
"You just say you are sorry about it"
"So what? I say I'm sorry about screaming Hermione's name and refuse to have sex with him ever again?"
Molly paled and grimaced, hearing that from her daughter was a shock to the system.
Ginny ran a hand through her hair.
"What about the boys? What about Lily? What do I tell them? Oh yeah, hi kids, just letting you know I actually love sleeping with women, but I still love your father?"
"Now you are being drastic and dramatic Ginny" Molly tapped her foot and narrowed her eyes in concentration.
Both women stood in silence for while, until Molly shook her head.
"Do you want a cup of tea?"
The air of irritability lifted somewhat at the mere suggestion of tea. Ginny found it oddly reassuring.
"Sure"
Hermione landed on Harry's doorstep, clad in a grey jumper, black jeans and a large parka.
Clothing to protect her from the weather and comfort her.
Hermione knocked on the door, barley through the third knock, the door crashed open and Harry stumbled in front of her.
"You look-hung over" Hermione said reproachfully and she brushed the bottoms of her shoes on the 'welcome' door mat and closed the door behind her.
The house was bustling with the morning routine, except Ginny was absent.
Harry hadn't changed out of last night's clothes and he stunk of fire whisky mixed with what Hermione could distinguish as cum.
Hermione made a note not to mention his aroma.
Lily cut past Harry saying a quick sorry and ran at Albus to snatch her shoe off him.
"You drank it off I take" Hermione sat down on the sofa and Harry grumbled something about the mess then sunk down on the other end of the sofa, his hand clutched to his forehead.
A headache throbbed in his skull.
"Dad!" Lily called her voice carried with a urgent tremor, but he just ignored her and stared ahead of him.
"Have you told them Ginny has gone?" Hermione quizzed and Harry nodded.
"I told them she was getting a few things from Molly's"
"What happened?" Hermione urged the conversation on. She had fathomed that the pair had, had sex and it wasn't just the mulberry coloured bite mark just above Harry's collar that gave it away.
"Ginny screamed out your name" Harry said, deflated.
"What?" Hermione's stomach lurched and her brain seemed to press to the front of her skull.
"When we had sex last night, she screamed out your name" Harry dropped his head into his hands. Hermione looked around them, worried that such a blatant statement would trouble Lily or Albus. James was still up stairs, she knew this from the lack of swearing.
Harry had dark purple rings under his eyes and dark stubble upon his chin.
"Are you planning on seeing her?" he yawned through his words and rubbed his jaw.
"Don't you think you should?" Hermione muttered and glanced back over her shoulder just to check there were no prying ears or eyes.
"She ran from me"
"So run to her" Hermione soon wanted to reel her words back in, she sounded too dramatic, she reminded herself too much of a teen romance novel. "I mean, this is between you two, not me"
"You're in this Hermione, whether you like it or not" Harry sat up straighter than before and stared at his best friend. It was apparent that Hermione did not like being part of it all, she was staring at him with acute displeasure
Harry let the next sentence slide from his lips."What went on between you two?"
Hermione raised her eyebrows and licked her lips before saying.
"Nothing"
"All those years you two were inseparable, then you two just stopped talking" Harry growled his words. "What happened?"
"Nothing, nothing happened, we grew up, we both got families, that's all" Hermione drew her words out carefully.
"Then why the hell did she call your name?"
"I have no idea, I have no bloody idea Harry" Hermione stood up suddenly, she pulled her wand from her coat's inside pocket.
"What are you doing Hermione?" Harry felt a spring in his joints, so bounced to his feet.
"Getting Ginny" she snapped and quickly disapperated with a loud crack before the man could stop her.
A spiteful wind had picked up by the time Hermione arrived at the Burrow.
Hermione spotted Arthur in the garden, knelt near a rose bush arguing with it.
Hugging her parka closer to her, she soon regretted arriving as Molly ran out or rather hobbled out to usher her inside.
In a flurry of hands and rushed words, Hermione was stood in the Burrow.
The scent of freshly baked bread proved to be a distraction, so did the bottle of wine sat on the coffee table, uncorked and half drunk. Hermione couldn't get a word in, for Molly cut across her quickly.
"Ginny needs to speak with you" was the only hello Hermione received.
"So Ginny is here then?"
"Yes, yes she is dear"
Hermione was striped of her coat before she could even counteract Molly Weasley.
"Ginny! You have a visitor!" Molly called up the stairs. Hermione suppressed a grin, she was reminiscent of the summers she used to spend huddled in the Burrow with Ginny's many siblings. Hermione fondly remembered the days when she would arrive unexpectedly and give Ginny tiny heart attacks.
"Hermione?" Ginny called from the top of the stairs, Hermione walked numbly to the foot of the stairs and Molly stood beside her as if she were a trophy.
Ginny walked down the stairs and stood on the step just before the level floor, making her inches taller than the brunette.
"Mum, could I have a word with Hermione, erm, alone in the kitchen?" Ginny's face was rich with a look of ire, Hermione tired to avoid looking too relieved to see her.
"Yes, yes" Molly parted ways with the two women, she walked up stairs, as Ginny stood out of her way.
"Harry sent you?" Ginny walked ahead, she didn't care to cast a look back to see if Hermione was following.
"I sent myself" Hermione spoke sternly, her vocal chords were rough, only then did Ginny turn.
"How considerate" Ginny snapped.
"Ginny, stop it, just stop it" the brunettes motherly tone was well used and didn't fail to make Ginny cringe away from it, but listen non the less. "Harry told me what happened last night"
Ginny's face was soon ablaze with a crimson blush, it caressed her skin like a bruise.
Hermione felt a smug smile creep onto her lips, silencing the redhead was one of the few pleasures she had.
"You still have feelings for me then?" Hermione leant back on the counter. Her hands pinched the edge and she arched her back out, to flush her chest.
With intention or without, she was unsure.
"Don't flatter yourself" Ginny snapped and attempted to preoccupy herself with the stove. Hermione narrowed her eyes and crept over, the soles of her shoes padded along the floor, detected by Ginny, but ignored.
As Ginny fiddled with extra dials and buttons she had never seen in her life, her hands shook and sweat glazed her palms.
Hermione slunk her arms around Ginny's midriff and dragged her backwards.
Crushing Ginny's back to arch into Hermione's front, the brunette smirked as she was rewarded with a shocked yelp.
The redhead was then attacked by a feeling, similar to a curse rippling through her body.
Ginny turned her head to verbally assault the brunette when Hermione planted a soft kiss on her lips.
Ginny's limbs liquidized and she kissed back with a quiet, throaty mewl.
Their noses brushed, their skin caressed by motherhood and age.
The redhead's brow knitted in estranged concentration her lips were captured.
With a parting peck, Hermione stepped away and watched Ginny's expression carefully.
"Do you still have feelings for me?" Hermione questioned with a softer tone and waited patiently.
Ginny shook her head clumsily, her hair swished over her face and her cheeks flushed. Hermione felt as if she were talking to a three year old about stolen cookies. Ginny's bottom lip began to quiver slightly and her eyes soon grew moist and large.
Emotions ran over her as if she was being submerged in icy water, in hope to overcome them, she looked to the ceiling.
"I don't, I don't know" Ginny whispered, her throat dry and her breath came in slow, almost pained gasps.
Hermione chewed on the inside of her cheek and dropped her gaze.
She soon had no idea what her motive was to kiss Ginny, it was more than a simple urge, but
Hermione was far from sorry.
Hermione was far from anything.
"Don't you think you should get back to Harry?" the brunette cleared her throat and avoided looking at Ginny. Harry's name grated her throat and made her tense with anger.
The kitchen soon seemed like a barren land, with only two women to scarcely fill it. Like ghosts they stood, silent and both wavering figures, peered upon through stubborn tears.
Between Ginny's heart and lungs she was acutely aware of a gap.
She needed something to fill it, a need similar to food, similar to water.
Suddenly, Hermione soon became the one and only to fill that hole inside her chest.
Suddenly, Ginny lips were the only ones Hermione wanted to kiss again. Possessive and slightly vexed, Hermione remained silent in waiting.
Ginny walked her fingers to her pocket and plucked her wand from inside. With a swift swish, she was gone in a ripple of a grey warp.
Harry was surprised to see his wife pass under his bedroom window.
Approaching the front door, Harry never thought he'd consider his own wife a stranger to their stoop.
The man rose from the bed and launched himself down stairs.
He had no idea what to say or think as he skidded into the hallway, just in time to witness Ginny opening the door carefully.
Bloodshot eyes met cold ones.
Harry fabricated his own version of the night to patch up his wife's threadbare morals.
"You're back" Harry spoke.
Ginny closed the door and nodded, already in a bee line to the living room, then to the stairs.
"You're not even going to explain?" Harry followed her, Albus and Lily turned to them, no longer concerned by their game of cards.
"I don't need to" Ginny hung at the stairs for a moment before trudging up to their room.
"You do" Harry pursued her.
Nightmarish fantasises swirled in Harry's head as he followed his wife to their bedroom.
After years of marriage, she was simply going to walk out on him after a slip of the tongue or was she already having an affair with her brothers wife.
"Gin, talk to me" Harry slid into the room before Ginny could shut the door on him. Exhausted, Ginny lay down on the bed and curled up into a ball.
Harry stood over her and watched in silence as his wife began to let tears streak down her face.
He was at loss of what to say. No words formed in his mind to leak from his dry lips.
Ginny felt the mattress dip and Harry's arms slunk around her, his body moulded around hers clumsily.
She closed her eyes and pressed her face against the sheets, letting half of her face soak in the warmth.
After minuets of silence, Ginny calmed down. All her tears had crusted into the duvet and Harry was breathing into the shell of her ear.
As irritating as it was, Ginny was too spent to pull away.
"Harry..." Ginny mumbled into the bed. The kiss she and Hermione had shared was racing through her mind, this scene provoked the sentence I don't want to sleep with you again.
Whereas the fact that she and her husband had three children clogged up her mouth with a sob.
She wasn't ready to leave her children nor where children ready for her departure.
"Yes love?"
Ginny waited a few more seconds, each of them dragging out with the weight of her options. The burden weighed her down like an anchor.
"I never meant to run. I panicked. I'm sorry" she forced the words out, as if the truth made her drunk to spill lies.
"Can you tell me one thing?" Harry rubbed his hand up and down her arm. When he gained no response, he continued . "Do you love me?"
Ginny felt the knife stab and twist in her chest.
"Yes" she was crippled, as she thought back to the boy Harry had once been. No parents, a teen with the burden of the world.
Harry craved love and Ginny was ill to deny him it.
"I love you" Ginny closed her eyes once more and let fresh tears slide down her cheeks. She felt Harry's lips press to her neck, words replaced a kiss.
"Do you love her?"
Ginny let out a whimper as his arms tightened around her, he was physically tearing the answer from her body.
No answer came.
No answer was needed.
Harry uncoiled his body from his wife's and he lay by her, not touching her, he was soon restless with a prickly distaste.
"I'm going to go for a walk, will you be here when I get back?" his tone was patronising.
"Maybe" Ginny let the tone wash over her like a rash. It rose bumps on her skin and it sparked a fight reaction. "Or I might be between some woman's legs"
Harry gritted his teeth and set his jaw, but didn't retaliate.
"The kids are in just remember that"
Harry cooked that night.
Ginny didn't make the effort to even emerge from her room.
As Harry chopped up half an onion to mix in with the tomatoes that was bubbling in the pan, he tried to secure as many words as he could and fit them into a sentence.
After a row, there always had to be some form of truce.
Harry had tried to gain some common ground before being forced to make dinner.
He'd crept into their room and had only just stood in the doorway when he heard Ginny croak a string of 'leave me alone' and 'you cook, I'm not hungry'.
Harry was making Spaghetti Bolognese, the only meal he had been able to successfully cook
with his scarce knowledge of any other recipe.
Lily was setting the table as Harry finished off the meal by summoning a few herbs to throw onto the bubbling sauce.
Sending the plates to the table, Harry walked slowly after the hovering meals.
As they clanked down onto the table, James took his place next to Lily.
Albus joined them, with torrents of questions about their absent mother floating around in his mind.
Harry tucked into the food with distaste towards his own culinary skills.
They ate in silence for several minuets into the meal.
Rigid with concern, Lily kept her eyes down to her plate and eyed the food.
"Is Mum ill or something?" Albus spoke before stuffing a clump of gooey pasta into his mouth.
"She's tired" Harry mumbled. James shot a wary glance to his father then his brother.
Lily preoccupied herself by eating, anything to avoid the conversation.
"Mum's never tired" Albus challenged. Harry was quick to damn his genetics and how his own curiosity had been replicated into Albus.
James rolled his eyes and took the situation.
"She's allowed to be"
"But-"
"Don't you ever stop?" James barked at his younger brother. Albus silenced, his face reddened with irritation.
"I was just asking" Albus turned to Harry and eyed the man suspiciously. Harry pressed his mouth into a hard line.
"Yes, well-" Harry dropped his head for a moment, his whole body tense and bulky. "Don't"
Curled up in Ron's favourite arm chair by the fire, Hermione tucked herself away and inside the pages of a book.
As the fire crackled and popped to her right, the mixed sounds of Hugo and Ron's game of chess played on her left.
The room was dim with a warm orange glow. It was cast over the hardwood floor and the timber beams on the roof, often flickering.
Hermione's eyes poured over different symbols within the text and constructed the scenarios and varying concepts they conveyed to her.
With each ink letter, another phrase bore into her.
Hermione began to cry.
Horrified and embarrassed by the lack of control, she hurriedly dabbed her moistened cheeks with her sleeve.
Hermione then bowed her flushed face further behind her book.
Her tears were persistent.
Words span around her skull taunting her, coaxing some disfigured emotion from her body.
There was a hard clump of sound trapped in her throat, she was careful to avoid letting it out and appear like she was slowly dying, much like a beached whale.
Ron's chair scrapped back. Hermione tensed.
She hoped to Merlin he was walking from the room, but when a heavy hand dropped on her shoulder and Ron's face became level with her own, Hermione knew she'd lost.
With soft, concerned eyes Ron looked at his wife's tear stained cheeks.
Hermione blinked away the tears, neither of them spoke a word.
If only their relationship could distil into simple gestures, without speech or any sound, Hermione knew it would fair her well.
Ron softly cupped the side of her face. Hermione flinched from the sudden contact.
"What's up love?" Ron mumbled. Hermione fixed her gaze on her lap to avoid any more tears spilling.
Hermione gave no answer, but tried to create a suggestion of her problem though subtle changes in her posture and expression.
But she hardly thought contorting facial muscles would convey 'Ronald I'm still in love with your sister'.
Ron appeared to understand that his wife needed some time alone when Hermione finally closed her eyes and shifted further back into the arm chair.
He huffed and went back to the chess game without a single word questioning or hinting to Hermione's distress.