A/N: Thank you so much for your support and just general wonderfulness on the last chapter! It absolutely meant the world to me. Like I said before, updates will be coming along more slowly but hopefully they'll also be a little longer, like this one is. I hope you like this next one!
Hermione had never eaten so much in her entire life. No Hogwarts feast could possibly hope to compare to Molly Weasley's Christmas Eve dinner and leaving the table without second and third helpings of every dish, from roast beef to mince pies to trifle, was simply unacceptable. There were so many people crammed around the kitchen table at the Burrow and so many plates brimming with deliciousness that it was almost - almost - possible to forget that there was one very glaring absence. It was jarring, still, to look at George and not see his mirror image beside him, but the Weasleys seemed to operate with a dogged determination to have, despite everything, an objectively good holiday. For Mrs. Weasley, that meant food. Lots of it.
"I'm never eating again," Ron groaned, falling onto the sitting room sofa beside Hermione.
"That's likely," George scoffed from across the room.
"Is it possible to die from eating too much?" Ron continued on as he leaned his head back.
"No," Hermione chimed in. "You would probably throw up before that happened."
She did, however, find herself rendered incredibly sluggish from the sheer volume of food she had consumed, and she curled up into a ball against the arm of the sofa, her knees against her chest, her eyelids heavy. In the days that had passed since the hearing at the Ministry, Hermione had spent her nights sneaking over to Grimmauld Place to see Ron, where she only ever managed about four or five consecutive hours of sleep before she had to return home. Still, it was better than not being with him at all. She would be doing enough sleeping alone when she went back to Hogwarts.
Tonight, however, Ron was planning to spend the night at the Burrow, which meant that privacy was entirely non-existent. Perhaps it was for the best, anyway. She couldn't start taking his presence for granted, not when the Christmas holidays would end in ten short days and she would, subsequently, board a train that would take her hundreds of miles away from him.
In a way, Hermione detested herself for her own melodramatics over the whole thing. She did not need a man to make her feel complete or make her happy, even if said man was Ron, her best friend, the love of her life. She could return to school and accomplish the goals she had always had for herself, and she could also be with Ron. She could have both, even if it meant she would see him less than was ideal. There was no need for her to act like he was heading off to war for five years when the truth was that she would likely see him in a month or two. She loved him and she wanted him in her life, but that didn't mean she couldn't survive - or thrive - without seeing him every day.
Curling up against Ron's side, she allowed herself to succumb to the drowsiness clouding her skull. The events of the evening washed over her, dreamlike: Bill challenging Percy to a chess match, which the latter won; Ginny stringing up fairy lights across the walls; the refilling of glasses of wine and cups of tea; Harry and Ron hotly debating the merits of the Sloth Grip Roll; Celestina Warbeck singing in the background the entire time. Here it was safe and warm and comfortable, and she was content to let the night unfold around her, to revel in the sight of Ron's relaxed, easy smile as he joked with his brothers and conversed with his parents. Hermione leaned her head on Ron's shoulder and let her eyes slip shut, breathing in the scent of his hair mixed with the aromas still lingering from dinner. It was a rare peaceful moment in what had been a rather eventful year, and she was grateful for it, more than she could say.
"She sleeping?" George inquired at some point during the night.
"Nah," Ron replied, "you'd know if she was. She snores."
In retaliation, and to prove her own consciousness, Hermione reached out a hand and pinched him hard on the leg.
"Oi!"
"I do not snore," Hermione said primly, nestling further into Ron's side. Sleep really didn't sound like the worst idea, since she and Ron were prone to distraction whenever she spent the night at Grimmauld Place with him, so she let her eyes close again.
"Yes, she does," Ron said in a loud stage whisper.
"And how exactly would you know?" asked George."I didn't get the impression you did much sleeping at the Three Broomsticks."
"Shut up," Ron hissed. Hermione couldn't see him, but she could still picture the heat rising in his face. "And in case you've forgotten, we lived in a tent together for the better part of a year."
"I do keep forgetting you don't actually live here anymore," George said. "Probably because it's taken you so long to finish Hogwarts-"
"It wasn't by choice!" Ron shot back, though Hermione could hear laughter in his voice.
"You could always follow in the family tradition and drop out. Best decision I ever made."
"I…" Ron stiffened. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet."
"Why the hell would you go back?" asked George, sounding terribly impatient. "You have not one but two very lucrative job offers and you want to, what, go to Herbology class?"
"Will you drop it?"
"No, because I don't understand why you won't just come and work for me."
Because of me, Hermione thought glumly. It was solely because of her that Ron was even considering returning to Hogwarts. Try as she might to get him to make his decision as though she didn't exist, he hadn't been able to do that. And if she truly wanted to be selfish, she could ask him to go back with her and he would do it in a heartbeat, but she couldn't let that happen. She wanted him to be happy, but she didn't want to be his only source of happiness.
"At least come by and take a look at the shop," George was saying. "I'm still getting everything set up, but you should at least see the place."
Ron agreed, rather readily, and a plan was made for a Saturday trip to Diagon Alley. The conversation turned to other topics, nothing that interested Hermione nearly as much as Ron's vocational opportunities, and so she did drift off for a period of time into a sort of hazy half-sleep, where the scene around her blurred with lucid dreams until Ron tenderly nudged her awake.
"Everyone's going to bed," he told her. "Are you going to stay here?"
"No, they're expecting me home," said Hermione, blinking away the bleariness in her eyes. "Let me just say bye to everyone."
There were hugs and well-wishes all around, and then Ron and Hermione stepped out into the crisp winter night, heading to the boundary of the wards that still guarded the Burrow.
"Come with me to the shop on Saturday," said Ron, his breath fogging before him as he spoke. "I want you to see it too."
"George won't care?"
"No, he said to bring you."
And Hermione knew why. George was, first and foremost, a salesman, and a good one at that. He knew his target, and so he was well aware that if Hermione felt positively toward the shop, it would be that much more appealing to Ron. At the same time, however, she was genuinely curious to see the place, and so she agreed.
Ron dipped his head and pressed his lips warmly to hers, then pulled her into a hug. "I love you," he said into her hair.
"Love you too." She rose up on her toes to kiss him again. "And if you need me tomorrow, let me know."
"Okay." He gave Hermione one last kiss, and then she stepped outside of the wards and turned on the spot.
•••
If Christmas Eve at the Burrow was warm, crowded, buzzing with energy, then Christmas Day at the home of the Grangers was decidedly… well, Hermione hated to admit it, given that she hadn't spent many Christmases with her parents over the years, but it was a bit bland in comparison. The magic of Christmas morning - the gifts under the tree, the elaborate breakfast, the annual matching pajamas - had all begun to fade around the time Hermione had gone to Hogwarts. And now that they were all adults, she didn't need them to put on any sort of festive facade for them, not when there was still an Australia-sized elephant in the room most of the time.
Not everything had changed, though: her father still made the best pancakes in England.
"Do you want any more, dear?" asked Simon, holding up the mixing bowl of batter and a spatula.
"No, I'm so full, thanks," Hermione responded, glancing down at her syrup-streaked plate.
"Well, what time is Ron coming over? I can make more when he's here."
"Oh." Hermione suddenly felt the gaze of both of her parents upon her. "I don't think he'll be coming over today, actually."
"Why not?" asked her mum from across the table. "Is everything okay?"
"Everything's fine," said Hermione quickly, "it's just that - well - as it's the first Christmas since his brother died, he just thought - and I thought - that he should probably stay with his family."
And there it was. The thought of Fred - the thought of how much had been lost in the war - had introduced a now-familiar tension into the room.
"He did want to come over," Hermione added into the silence, "but after everything-"
"Oh, we understand," her dad said amiably, setting down the mixing bowl and seating himself at the table.
"I don't know if you do," Hermione found herself saying, causing her parents to look to each other in surprise, "and maybe that's my fault, maybe I haven't explained it as well as I could have, but it was - it was a lot worse than I ever let on, and it was happening for years."
"What do you mean?"
Hermione steadied herself, closing her eyes momentarily; she couldn't bear to look into her parents' eyes and explain just how deep the lies had run. Her first few years at Hogwarts, she spent her holidays with her family gushing about her new life. She took them to Diagon Alley, told them all about her friends - how funny Ron was, how and why Harry had grown up without parents, the brave things they had done together - but then Voldemort had risen again and she knew she could no longer be so cavalier. There had been too much at stake, and so she had started doing everything with the Weasleys and with Harry, because the greater the distance, the safer they would be.
"Do you remember during my fifth year, when I said I was staying at Hogwarts to study for my OWLs?" Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione saw them nod. "I wasn't at Hogwarts, I was in London with the Weasleys - Ron's dad was attacked, he almost died, and - and there were other things, too, and I can tell you all of it - but I need you to understand how bad it was."
"So tell us," said Mary, folding her hands on the table. "What made you decide to do what you did to us?"
"I didn't do it to you," said Hermione, almost wishing she had never gone down this road. The forced politeness had almost been better, in a way. "I did it for you, to keep you safe-"
"Yes, but sweetheart, safe from what?" No one could ever say Hermione hadn't gotten her stubbornness from her mother. "Because when we came back, nothing had changed."
The divide between them had never before been more clearly spelled out. In the year between Dumbledore's death and Voldemort's death, Hermione's life had changed so much that she was still reeling from it and yet her parents had returned from Australia to an untouched house, to a version of England that had just kept on going without them.
"You're Muggles," Hermione said gently. "Everything bad that was happening, you wrote it off as fluke accidents or odd weather patterns but it was wizards, dark wizards, and - and that's exactly what they wanted, for the world not to realize the sort of danger it was in, but you were in danger."
"So how bad was it?" asked Simon. "You said you would explain."
"They knew I was best friends with Harry, they were after anyone who associated with him, and they - they'd have stopped at nothing to get the information they wanted and when you didn't have it-" Her breath hitched in her throat. "They'd have killed you."
"And you couldn't have told us this before?" asked Mary. "We had a right to know what was happening-"
"No, I couldn't," Hermione insisted. "Because you might have taken me with you, and Harry needed me. The three of us were the only ones who knew how to end it, and - and bad doesn't even begin to describe it." The words were suddenly fighting to escape her, overflowing, she couldn't speak quickly enough. She had done a bit of explaining back in Australia, enough to smooth things over, but it was only fair that they knew everything. "Even Ron's family had to go into hiding, his brother died because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was nowhere that was safe, not even Hogwarts at the time, and I couldn't - it wasn't your fault," Hermione said as she watched her empty pancake plate blur before her. "You never intended to have a witch for a daughter, and I didn't want that to hurt you, so I used it to protect you.
"And I'm sorry," Hermione concluded in a choked voice, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I'm sorry I spent all summer keeping so much from you - there's still so much more, but I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do."
What followed constituted the most exhausting Christmas of Hermione's life, including the Yule Ball, including the time she spent panicking in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom because she had given herself whiskers and a tail. She explained everything, from Horcruxes to the Cruciatus Curse to the Deathly Hallows. Every question she answered only sparked more questions, but she sat, while holiday films played on the television in the background, and tried to let her parents into her world. She even showed them magic - the simple, positive things, like conjuring a bouquet of flowers with her wand and summoning a book from her bedroom. It wasn't much, but it was her only option to at least try to include them.
But in the same way that Arthur Weasley would always marvel at a dishwasher or an ATM, her parents would never fully understand the magical world. There was so much that they would never see, never experience, never share with her. They could try - and Hermione wanted them to - but as much as things looked like they had always been, they would never really be the same.
•••
As it turned out, Ron was silent for all of Christmas Day. Hermione decided to view this under the old adage that no news was good news, especially considering how well Christmas Eve had gone, and felt optimistic as she Apparated to Grimmauld Place on Boxing Day. Ron, Harry and Ginny were all in the basement kitchen when she arrived, picking at what appeared to be leftovers from Christmas dinner.
"Hey, you hungry?" Ron asked as Hermione walked over to the table, pecking her on the cheek as she sat down.
"No, not really."
"Oh, come on, have something," Ron urged, pushing a bowl of potatoes toward her. Hermione couldn't help but smile: he was certainly his mother's son.
"How was yesterday?" asked Hermione, ignoring the bowl of food.
"Er, it was all right," said Ron with a shrug. "Had worse Christmases." He shifted in his seat to face Hermione. "Sorry I didn't make it, I hope that was all right."
"It was fine," Hermione said quickly. "They understood. Anyway, we ought to get going," she said to Ron. "George'll be waiting."
They stood and bade Harry and Ginny goodbye, and Hermione managed to hold her tongue until they had Apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. Ron placed a light hand on her back to guide her through the pub.
"Was it really okay yesterday?" Ron asked as they gave a friendly wave to Tom, the bar owner.
"It was fine, but it's probably best you didn't come over, actually. I talked to them. My parents. Probably more than I have in years."
Exiting out of the back of the pub, Ron took out his wand and tapped a few bricks in the wall.
"That's good, isn't it?"
"It was just really intense."
"Maybe that'll help, though. Y'know, make things better in the long run." Ron gave Hermione a one-armed squeeze and kissed the side of her head as they walked through the archway into Diagon Alley.
"I'm sure you're right."
"Like I always say," Ron grinned, "I have my moments."
Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes wasn't quite as vibrant and energetic as it had been when it first opened, but it still remained a bright spot amongst stores that remained boarded up. The front door was open, as George had told them it would be, and he stood near the till, sorting through stacks of trick quills. Somehow he seemed unfazed by his surroundings, which were in absolute disarray. A Portable Swamp had evidently been deployed at some point and covered the back half of the store, Muggle Magic Tricks floating upon its murky surface. Half of the shelves had caved in, scattering products all over the floor, most of them broken, and burn marks marred the walls from detonated fireworks.
"Oh, hey," George greeted them. "Did I mention the place got ransacked after we went into hiding?"
"No!" Ron exclaimed, gawking at the mess. "For fuck's sake, George, why didn't you say anything?"
"Would you have come running back to help me any faster if I had?" George asked, a knowing brow raised. Before Ron could answer, he continued on. "I've cleared up the offices and the storage room, in any case, so come take a look."
He beckoned them behind the counter, leading them to a blank section of the back wall. Aiming his wand into the corner, he murmured an incantation under his breath and a small door appeared. It opened up to a narrow corridor with two doors on the left and two doors on the right.
"So, over here," George said, gesturing to the doors on the left, "are the offices. This first one's mine." They entered to find a small, drab room containing a wooden desk and a filing cabinet. "Er - if you decide to come work here, we could share it for now. Add another desk or something. And these are the ledgers," he added, picking up a heavy, leather-bound book. "This way, we keep track of what's selling out so we know what to produce more of, and what people aren't buying at all."
"Yeah, that makes sense," said Ron amiably with a glance to Hermione, who nodded her approval.
"Okay, so then over here," George went on, slipping past Hermione to exit the office and unlock the door across the hall, "is all storage."
The room was bewitched with an Expansion Spell, surely, because the ceilings had to exceed fifty feet and the walls were stacked with crates and boxes bearing labels such as Shield Hats or Punching Telescopes. Against one wall sat a large metal cage, the floor of which was lined with straw.
"That's where we had kept the Pygmy Puffs," George explained. "Unfortunately they didn't survive the summer, so… I don't think we should start to breed them again until we're completely ready to open."
He spoke, Hermione noticed, using 'we' instead of 'I' when referencing plans for the shop, and she couldn't help but wonder whether it was a residual effect of being a twin or because he was picturing Ron in these plans.
"You can really sell through all of this inventory?" Hermione asked, surveying the sheer magnitude of the storage room.
"Oh, yeah," George said at once. "Especially back when the Ministry was ordering the Dark Arts defense items - you know, before they fell. But I reckon they might want them again."
"That's impressive," she couldn't help but say.
"And one last thing," said George as he guided them back into the hallway. The door next to that of the storage room was made of iron and padlocked shut. "This is the Product Development Room. There's not a whole lot going on in there at the moment, obviously, but if you get an idea, you can test it out in there. The whole room's made of stone, so you won't burn the place down or anything."
Ron nodded, his lower lip between his teeth; he appeared on the verge of some monumental decision. "Tell you what," he said finally. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet, but I'll help you out here for at least the rest of the holiday. Starting now."
"Yeah? Brilliant!" George smiled widely at his younger brother. "I think the first thing we should do is sort through all the products that Transfigure to make sure the spells haven't worn off, I'll teach you how, and then…" He rambled on about the expiration dates of Skiving Snackboxes as Ron glanced over at Hermione.
"You don't mind, do you?"
"No, not at all. I think it's great."
"And the Wildfire Whizzbangs," George went on, "we can probably test those in the Development Room, it's safest in there…"
Ron laughed, shaking his head in amusement. "Come over tonight?"
"Of course."
He gave her a quick kiss goodbye as George dragged him off, speculating about the best way to dispose of their long-expired stock of Love Potions.
•••
"Ron," Hermione panted, her breath issuing in sharp spurts from her throat, her fingers tangled in his hair. "Ron, oh God…"
He looked up at her from his position between her thighs, lips glistening. "You okay?"
"Don't stop," she moaned, guiding his face back where it had been and sighing as his tongue dipped into her again. Her mind was a whirlwind of sensations, lust and desire clouding her brain until all she could think about was his tongue and his lips and his fingers delving inside her. With a gasp and a full-body shiver, she tightened around him and let her hands drop limply to the mattress.
Ron took his time kissing his way back up her body, nibbling her hipbones, trailing his tongue up her torso. As her mind cleared, she remembered distinctly that the end of the holidays was fast approaching; there was barely a week left, and the opportunities to be alone together were rapidly dwindling - but then his lips closed over her nipple and she stopped thinking again.
Before she knew it, he was moving inside of her, groaning at the intimate contact of their bodies, driving her into the bed. It was pure, raw bliss, the closeness, the dizzying pleasure of his skin pressed to hers. Hermione snaked her fingers through his hair and pulled him down into a scorching kiss, their breaths mingling. From there, it wasn't long until he spilled into her. She clung to him, trying desperately, and not entirely succeeding, to stop the moment from slipping away.
"Hermione," he breathed, lying on his side next to her and slowly moving his hand over her hips and stomach. "How am I supposed to be away from you?"
"Well…" She wasn't about to let on that she had been thinking the same thing about him. "You went eighteen years without sex, what's a few months?"
Her attempt to infuse lightness into the situation went mostly unnoticed. "I don't mean that," he said. "Okay, so I don't not mean that, but - look, I spent a lot of time at Hogwarts just wishing I could be with you, hold your hand, kiss you whenever I wanted - and now we have that. And I don't want to lose it."
"And you won't," said Hermione. "It's not like we're breaking up."
"I know, but... I can't imagine not seeing you every day."
"But think logically about it, what would be the benefit for you if you went back?"
"Being with you."
"What else?"
"Being with you," he repeated stubbornly.
"Exactly, you have no reason not to go back."
"What?" Ron's hand froze, hovering over her ribcage. "Why would you say you're not a reason? You're a huge reason!"
"You said so yourself that going back to Hogwarts felt like going backwards!" Hermione argued. "Why would you want to keep going backwards?"
"I don't," he conceded. "I want to help George, I don't want to leave him to deal with the shop all by himself. But I also - last year I told myself that if I ever found you, I was never going to leave you again and it feels like I am-"
"No," Hermione interrupted forcefully. "It's completely different, if anything, I'm the one who's leaving you."
"Doesn't feel that way." Ron shifted his weight toward her and kissed her softly. "Are you going to mind telling people that your boyfriend is a Hogwarts dropout?"
"Not at all." Hermione touched her lips to his again. "Are you going to make a dramatic exit like your brothers did?"
"Nah, they only did that to stick it to Umbridge, McGonagall doesn't deserve that. I doubt she'll be surprised, anyway."
Hermione moved to kiss him, the odd pang in her chest that she'd felt after the hearing magnifying tenfold. She had just convinced him to stay, to be away from her for months. Rationally she knew it was for the best, but she had an irrational side too, the side that melted a bit every time he touched her, the side that compelled her to kiss him in the middle of a battle, and it was screaming at her now. There would be no more partnering up in Potions class, no more nights studying in the common room, no more stolen shags in his dorm room during the lunch hour. But Ron didn't deserve to be unhappy or to have to put his life on hold. She wouldn't let him do that just for her.
"You came over early tonight," said Ron when they broke apart. "Not that I'm complaining."
"My parents had to go to a holiday party for the dental practice," explained Hermione. "So I didn't have to sneak out for once."
"Are you hungry?" he asked. "My mum sent us home with all of the leftovers, I think she worries Harry and I will starve living here."
"Yeah, let's go."
They vacated the bed and quickly dressed, Hermione snatching Ron's t-shirt to wear before he could get to it. When he playfully tried to object, she simply told him that she would need it to sleep in at school, which immediately placated him. After descending several flights of stairs, Ron stopped her outside the entrance to the basement kitchen.
"I like you in my clothes," Ron mumbled, taking her waist and kissing her. "Though…" Their mouths still close, he walked her into the room. "I think I…" A kiss, soft, slow, enticing. "Like you better…" Another kiss. "Without any clothes…"
"Ron," she laughed, finding it very difficult indeed to stop kissing him. "We literally just-"
"Oh, don't mind me," came Harry's voice from the wooden table near the fireplace. Hermione jumped away from Ron to see Harry sorting through an enormous stack of parchment at the kitchen table.
"Sorry, Harry," said Hermione, discreetly wiping her upper lip as Ron surveyed the array of leftover desserts on the work surface.
"Actually, I'm glad you decided to come up for air," Harry said, "because you should look at this stuff, Ron."
Ron turned, a biscuit between his teeth, and walked toward Harry, crunching as he went. "What is all that?"
"The Ministry," Harry began with barely-suppressed glee, "sent over the forms we need to submit our names for consideration for the Auror program - y'know, we have to document the extraordinary circumstances that make us qualified to skip NEWTs. But it looks like that's just a formality because they've also sent over training schedules, course summaries, everything we'll need."
Any lightness, any relief that Ron had exhibited after his decision not to return to Hogwarts was abruptly extinguished at this news; he slowly sat at the table and picked up a slip of parchment from a stack.
"They sent this to both of us?" asked Ron, his face ashen as he reviewed the form in his hand.
"Yeah, there was so much stuff they needed two owls," chuckled an oblivious Harry. "Training starts the eleventh of January, but we have to have the form back to them by the fourth. Here." He tossed a self-inking quill in Ron's direction. "We can send ours back together."
With a meaningful glance back at Hermione, Ron shrugged and picked up the quill.
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