"Through the Mirror" - Post Two
Cont. from [ here].
Part 2: Mirrored Lives
Hermione doesn’t remember very much about this particular Christmas but has never really stopped to ponder why that might be. When she did think about it at all, she figured it was because at the time she’d been so absorbed in being miserable about Ron and his adolescent betrayal that it blocked out everything else. And she doesn’t spend very much time thinking about it now either-she’s too overcome with the idea of seeing her mum again, of being able to talk and spend time with her.
She’s very nearly crawling out of her skin with anticipation as she rushes through the train station, searching the crowds for the distinctive shapes of her mum and dad. When she does spot them, Hermione drops all her luggage and rushes toward their distant figures at a very unladylike run, pitching herself into her mother’s arms and practically bowling her over.
“Hermione!” her mum calls out in alarm, but acquiesces to the bear hug. “Are you quite all right, dear?”
“Yes, Mum, I’m fine. Fine. I’m just-happy to see you.” Hermione can feel tears brimming in her eyes but holds herself in check so as not to frighten her parents any more than she already has. Hers has always been a very loving family, but not particularly physically affectionate. In fact, it took her a while to become accustomed to the rampant embraces characteristic of the Weasley clan. For the first few years of her marriage, Hermione was often afraid of alienating the second cousins and relatives by marriage who were always catching her off guard when they’d go for a hug instead of a handshake upon first introduction. She was used to starting the hugging herself-and generally only with people she already felt related to, like Harry. But over time Hermione became less stiff and awkward in those situations, although she still sometimes suspects that one of Ron’s great uncles in particular is verging on getting rather fresh, really.
“We’re happy to see you too, sweetheart,” Hermione’s father says solemnly from behind her mother’s head. He looks so young! Hair mostly brown still and with far less rounded a potbelly than he is to develop later on.
“Hello, Dad!” Hermione answers, smiling brightly as she disentangles herself from her mother to grace him with a more reserved embrace. He coughs and adjusts his glasses needlessly but looks pleased.
“Let’s go home,” Hermione sighs happily. Her father tips his hat like a chauffeur and makes a sweeping gesture with his arm before going to retrieve her discarded bags.
During the car ride home, her parents ask her questions about her studies which she tries to answer as best as she can from the recesses of memory knowing that it doesn’t actually matter all that much as they won’t really understand any of it-they’re just asking because they want her to know that they’re interested in her life. Her dad also asks after Harry and stumbles over his words inquiring about “that Ronald fellow.” Hermione’s glad she’s in the back seat because she can’t help but grin at the memory of her shy, gentlemanly father trying to figure out what to make of Ron’s blustery attempts to win him over when she and Ron first began dating. The two of them finally found a friendly patch of common ground when her dad extended his passion for regular chess to the Wizarding version during Ron and Hermione’s first shared Christmas holiday as a married couple.
“He’s actually a very bright young man,” her dad had whispered to her over plates of Mrs. Weasley’s famous chestnut stuffing and roast turkey, an embarrassed look crossing his face as they both registered the tone of surprise in his voice. “Er, you know what I mean,” he added awkwardly.
“Yes, Dad, I know you what mean,” Hermione had replied with a smile to indicate that she wasn’t offended.
A few days later, they’re cooking a Christmas turkey of their own in her parents’ comfortable flat. Or rather her dad is while Hermione and her mother look on, her mum sipping the one glass of sherry she allows herself on special occasions and Hermione absently leafing through a book at the kitchen table.
“You’d do well to find yourself a man who can cook also,” her mum says to Hermione, her cheeks slightly pink from the liquor.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Hermione replies, remembering the repository of tinned soup in her own pantry. However, Ron is a more enthusiastic cook than she is, if sometimes rather eclectic in his flavour combinations.
“You know, dear,” her mum begins, “It’s all right if you want to squirrel up with that book somewhere. Your father and I can manage alone for an hour or two.” Hermione’s spent far less time this visit hiding in her bedroom with her nose in her schoolbooks than she generally used to during the hols. She just doesn’t want to waste a precious second and can’t keep herself from feeling rather regretful that she hadn’t spent more time like this when she could.
“I’m happy here,” Hermione tells her mother, who smiles beatifically.
“Well, we’re happy to have you. Such a special treat you spending the entire holiday here with us.” Then her mother wrinkles her brow and adds hastily, “Not that we’re angry when you visit with your school chums, it’s just-we’re always happy to have you.” It must have been so difficult for them, Hermione realises, having their only daughter enter an entirely different world at such an early age. And she did spend rather a lot of time away from school over at the Burrow and later at Grimmauld Place. Her mind flashes on Rose then, imagining what it’ll be like for her when her own daughter goes off to Hogwarts, and it isn’t even a foreign place for Hermione.
It’s all so pleasantly ordinary: helping her mum set the table with the good china, waiting with her mouth watering while her dad carves the bird, greeting carol-singers at the door and listening to her mum warble the same tunes just slightly off-key as she tucks Hermione into bed. Hermione feels loved and protected, hardly able to wrap her mind around all of the terrible things she knows are brewing out in the world as she’s clasping her mother’s hand over the coverlet on her old twin bed.
“Mum?” Hermione says softly.
“Yes, dear?”
“I-I love you.” Hermione can’t help herself-fat tears start rolling down her cheeks.
“I love you too. You’re my sweet, brilliant girl, you know that.” Her mum’s voice is faltering a bit. Hermione hasn’t cried in front of her since she was a little girl-her mum must be somewhat taken aback. But if she’s uncomfortable, her mother doesn’t show it, instead just covering her other hand over Hermione’s and her own. “Is everything all right, Hermione? Has something happened?”
Yes, Mum, you left me and I don’t know what to do. But Hermione can’t say that. It’s confusing enough for her parents that her lessons are all about charms and spells and potions. It wouldn’t do to inform them now that she’s inexplicably come back from the future as well.
When Hermione doesn’t say anything, her mother quietly says, “Growing up is hard, my love.” It’s such a clichéd thing to say and yet so true. Hermione wants to say, Yes, and it’s especially hard when you have the fate of the world on your shoulders. When you have to hide your own parents even from themselves in order to keep them safe. She wishes she could say, I’m going to end up okay and it’s in large part due to you.
What she does say is, “I hope I’m as a good a mother as you when I grow up.”
“Oh,” her mother breathes. “You'll be a wonderful mother. You’ve always been so responsible, even when you were just a little one.” Ah, Hermione thinks, but I still needed you to rush over when I was in a panic the first time Rosie got colicky in the night.
“Thanks, Mum,” Hermione sniffles.
“Is there-is there a boy?”
“No, Mum, not yet,” Hermione says honestly. Not yet anyway, not really.
“Well, I’m sure there will be,” her mother says comfortingly. “You’re such a beautiful girl.” Hermione thinks of all the time she spent as a girl fretting about her unruly hair and her over-sized teeth, worrying that she was too skinny in comparison to Lavender and Parvati’s supple curves. But she’d been surprised when she looked in the mirror after her shower that morning to see that really, the things she’d worried about were hardly noticeable to her now. Then she remembers how the first time she’d ever held Rose in her arms, bright red and wrinkled and squalling, she’d thought to herself that she’d never seen anything so beautiful in her entire life.
Her mother’s voice interrupts Hermione’s tangential thoughts. “We wanted you for so long,” she says, and Hermione nods, well-versed in her parents’ fertility problems and why she’d never ended up with the younger sibling she’d always wanted. Her mum was almost forty by the time Hermione was born and had been through the ringer with tests and pills. Apparently her parents had entirely given up hope by the time they finally got pregnant with Hermione. The implications of the story seem even more trying to Hermione now than they did in the past. She’s infinitely glad that it’d only taken three months of being off her birth-control potion before she got pregnant the first time. Of course, it had taken Ron four years of coaxing to convince Hermione to try for children.
“You’re my miracle,” her mum says then, just like she’s said hundreds of time before. “My magical girl.”
Hermione can’t help rolling her eyes like a, well, like a seventeen-year-old. But she makes a quick save, whispering, “Thank you,” so as not to spoil the moment. “Thank you for being my mum,” she repeats and watches as her mother fans her hand in front of her face, almost crying herself but not quite.
“You sleep tight,” her mum says once she’s collected herself, and firmly tucks Hermione into bed.
That night Hermione dreams vividly. Tangled narratives of the type where one scene amalgamates into the next. Unlike the scary dreams she used to have throughout most of her time at Hogwarts which were far too often about failing exams or else having to face Voldemort in her knickers without a wand, these dreams are all about her children. Hermione’s unconscious puts her babies in all kinds of peril but then mercifully allows her to deliver them safely from harm.
She also has a particularly erotic dream about Ron-not the boy who is at the Burrow right now receiving the gaudy necklace from Lavender that Harry accidentally told her about once, but the man who did all the washing and cleaning for a month after her mother’s funeral, only grumbling minorly when he thought she couldn’t hear.
Hermione wakes up the next morning equal parts achingly homesick and reluctant to leave.
*
Hermione can’t stop staring at the man in bed beside her. He has scars on his chest and forearms that she’s sure weren’t there when they all went swimming last summer at the Burrow. The hair’s still the same bright colour; the nose just as long; the eyes the same watery blue. He’s bigger-thick and mannish as well as tall-but there’s something else different she can’t quite pinpoint.
He keeps talking, talking, talking, about this fight they apparently had yesterday which sounds to Hermione like it was just as much her fault as it was his. But Hermione’s more interested in the disagreements they’ve been having in her present-his past. She boggles internally, trying to bridge the cognitive dissonance in her heart as well as her mind.
“Ron,” she says, placing a shaking finger to his lips. “When did you first fancy me?”
His face scrunches up at that, confused. “You know,” he says like it’s a statement of fact.
“Yes, of course, but...remind me.”
“Well, I reckon I fancied you pretty much as soon as I stopped thinking girls were strange, foreign beasts.” He chuckles. “No, before that. Fourth year, I guess, though I was too daft to see it myself.”
Fourth year! Hermione shivers.
“Yeah, and I was right terrified when I did realise it,” Ron continues, pausing for a beat. “You always were a bit scary.”
Hermione instinctively tosses a pillow at him for that, but her mind’s busy. “When exactly did you realise it was me you really wanted?” she asks softly once he’s got in some pillow-fight retaliation.
Ron grimaces. “About when I thought I’d mucked it up with you permanently.” He lowers his voice, “Lavender.” Hermione can feel her brows begin to knit furiously at the sound of that name, and Ron strokes a frizzy curl away from her forehead gently. “Oh love, surely you don’t still have any venom left for that one. You two managed to become mates again, after all, didn’t you?”
Oh. How...mature of me, Hermione marvels silently. Out loud, she says, “Of course not.”
“What’s with the trip down memory lane?” Ron asks, his voice shifting in tone. He strokes the palm of his hand up her forearm and looks at her with a concerned expression on his face. His touch on her skin inflames her with the same curious, itchy longing that Hermione feels sometimes in her own world when she’s just sitting next to Ron in the common room. Like the flushing ache that starts in her stomach and migrates down between her legs during certain kissing scenes at the cinema. Hermione looks down at herself and is acutely aware of her own (altered) physicality: her hips are wider, her breasts feel heavier, and her face-in the mirror it looked like maybe she’d had the beginnings of fine lines around her eyes. But Ron’s looking at her like she’s pudding and he’s a very hungry man so Hermione pushes any misgivings about that aside.
“Are you still here with me or have you gone wandering off somewhere in that big brain of yours?” Ron’s hands move from her arms to her waist with an easy familiarity that has Hermione’s head buzzing, imagining how many times-and ways!-he’s touched her by now.
“I’m okay,” she says, licking her lips, “just tired.” She thinks for a moment, trying to summon up what would be the most likely thing for him to expect her to say. “Work, you know...”
“Yeah, I do know,” he replies with a groan. “And speaking of, I promised George I’d swing by the shop today-it’s a madhouse and he needs help. Wanna come too? If you tackle the Christmas shopping while I get a few things done, that’s all the more time we can spend in this bed minus pint-sized intruders...” His words trail off as he begins kissing her throat, tiny nips that make Hermione feel extremely hot and mildly apprehensive about what kinds of things he’s used to getting up to...in this bed. She wants to know. She can’t imagine that whatever magic brought her here will be permanent and she wants to know before she has to go back. What would be the purpose in making her skip over more than ten years of her life?
“Is that a yes, then?” Ron whispers into her ear, worrying the lobe between his teeth in a fashion that makes Hermione feel like her insides are melting.
“Yes!” she half-says half-moans and he hums a throaty chuckle into her neck. Merlin, she hopes she doesn’t get sucked back through a mirror before he gets to fulfil the innuendo in that laugh.
The shopping list is pages long and heavily annotated in her own handwriting with price comparisons and information gleaned from consumer guide reports. Thankfully it’s also divided into sections labelled by shop as most of them are things Hermione’s never before purchased in her life: various Quidditch-related memorabilia as gifts for any number of Weasley relations, useless Muggle gadgets for Ron’s dad, Wizarding toys for Hugo and Rose that Hermione obviously never had as a child herself. At the end of the list is a brief note scrawled in Ron’s messy hand saying simply, “Go to Flourish & Botts. I put a small fortune down in credit for you so you can have your pick. This way I won’t botch it up like every other year. Love, Ron.” How terribly romantic, Ronald, Hermione smirks gently to herself, more touched than if he'd got her something stereotypically girlish.
When she finally gets to the bookshop, Hermione is relieved to drop her heavy load of packages behind the front desk and wander through the stacks. Weary as she is after trudging all over Diagon Alley and few Muggle shops to boot, Hermione perks up at the heady aroma of new-book smell and her fingers itch at the promise of so many uncracked spines. But she ends up spending well over an hour with the first volume she picks up from a large display for a new updated edition of Hogwarts: A History. There’s an entire section at the end plastered with pictures of herself and all of her friends (and enemies). Hermione sits in stunned, rapt silence turning page after page with fevered intensity. Dumbledore’s death, her and Harry and Ron’s quest, the Battle of Hogwarts, the trials of Reconstruction after-it’s all a lot to absorb at once. She has to sit still for a long spell to settle herself before heading back to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes where Ron guffaws loudly when he sees that Hogwarts: A History is the only book she picked out.
When they get back from Diagon Alley, Hermione’s zinging with anticipation and nerves, but she tries to behave normally, just get ready for bed calmly like a fully grown woman who’s entirely accustomed to sharing her boudoir with someone else. It’s going to be difficult. When Hermione searched the rest of the house earlier it was different-she was still in a confused daze and besides, this is the bedroom-her and Ron’s bedroom.
There are two wooden bureaus set side by side against the wall across from the over-sized four poster bed she woke up in this morning. Hermione gingerly steps toward them and pauses. She takes a deep breath and opens the top drawer of one, finding neat stacks of folded knickers, mostly soft white cotton ones but also a couple of scandalously lace-fringed, silky pairs that make her eyes widen. Well, she thinks, at least she still...takes care with her things.
But it’s not fresh lingerie Hermione’s in search of right now-it’s night clothes. Feeling more nervous about a piece of household furniture than she ever has previously, Hermione eyes the second dresser. Once opened, the top drawer reveals a riotous mess of brightly coloured boxer shorts, some bearing holiday theme prints (cartoonish reindeer and green holly sprigs! Oh Ron) and not a few made of Cannons-orange cloth.
Hermione blushes-she’s never in her life rifled through a man’s collection of...underpants. Of course she hasn’t! She doesn’t have any brothers and has never had any occasion to make any pervy missions into the Gryffindor boys dormitories.
Biting her lip, Hermione quickly shuts the drawer with a loud clap, very nearly catching and bruising the fingertips of her left hand. She shakes her head. Pyjamas. That’s what she needs. Once she’s calmed herself, Hermione finds a comfy blue and white nightdress quickly, feeling a reassuring sense of order due to the fact that her adult self still keeps to the same clothing organizing system: trousers in the bottom drawer, skirts in the one just above, then wrinkle-free blouses and tee-shirts and finally, just below the knickers and socks, sleep-wear. She doesn’t look but assumes that an assortment of robes and dresses hang pressed and ready in the large closet in the far corner of the room.
Shivering, Hermione removes her pullover and pulls the nightgown over her head, wiggling out of her jeans and unhooking her bra once she’s safely encased in flannel. She starts when Ron wanders in through the doorway with a toothbrush in his mouth, clad in nothing but a pair of (apparently uncharacteristically) un-garish faded blue shorts.
“Hullo, love,” he says, brushing lazily and eyeing her up and down. He’s practically naked! Hermione feels ridiculous.
“H-hello,” she answers, wrapping her arms around her chest.
He grins. “Only you can make mum-wear that sexy.” His words are obscured by the toothbrushing, but Hermione can still detect his teasing tone of voice. She wonders if this is a joke between them.
“I am nothing like your mum!” she exclaims.
“No arguments there,” he replies, removing the toothbrush from his mouth as he strides into the adjoining bathroom. Hermione hears him spit into the basin, then water running in the sink and a strange buzzing sound? Oh, it must be the charmed razor she spied last time she had to use the loo. Such intimate sounds.
She’s still standing stock still in the middle of the room when he comes back a few minutes later and wraps his arms around her from behind, nuzzling into her hair. His voice is low when he whispers into her ear, sending a queer fluttery feeling ricocheting through her insides. “You’re the sexiest mum of all-you’re my babies’ mother.”
Every muscle in her body freezes up at that. Ron laughs and rubs his freshly-shaven cheek against her own. “Sorry. Our babies,” he corrects himself.
Suddenly Hermione feels more like a child herself than she has in a long time. She’s seventeen! Usually that sounds old to her, and given what she and Ron and Harry have already been through, she reckons that they’re probably the oldest teenagers ever (even if Ron has been an unadulterated prat of late).
But this Ron is an Adult. He has to shave more than once a day and the arms enfolded around her waist must be twice the thickness of the long, spindly Ron-limbs Hermione’s used to. He’s an Auror. He’s her husband. It makes her feel safe, nervous yet bold.
So she says, “Talk to me, Ron.”
“Yeah, you like that, don’t you?” he whispers throatily. “What d’you want me to say this time? Do you want me to tell you what a lovely pussy you’ve got?” And now one of his thick hands is cupping her in that place where she has become soaking, sopping wet. “Do you want me to talk about how beautifully filthy you look when you’re sucking my cock?”
“No!” she squeaks, taken aback, and he stiffens, his fingers stopping the slow trails they’ve been making over the crotch of her knickers. Hermione doesn’t like that, so she clarifies, “I want you to talk to me about the first time-about our first time.”
“Oh.” Ron lets out a relieved breath. “You mean when you pounced on me in my parents’ attic and informed me where your clitoris was, prattling on about some sex book you’d read before molesting me entirely?”
She turns around to face him, pleased and somehow unsurprised at this revelation. “That was funny, wasn’t it?”
“Best bloody day of my young life is what it was,” he growls, palming her bottom with both hands and walking her toward the bed where they fall down together, Hermione on her back and Ron hovering in a push up above her.
“I have an idea,” she tells him, hoping she’s come up with an ingenious plan that will conceal her inexperience. “Why don’t you talk to me about what it could have been like if it had been the other way round-you seducing me, I mean.” Hermione can’t imagine herself saying anything remotely like any of this to the Ron she left behind at Hogwarts; she can’t entirely believe she’s saying it now either. She waits breathlessly to see how he’ll respond.
Shockingly-considering the kinds of thing he was saying just previously-the first thing Ron does is blush. “Have you been reading the tips in some women’s magazine? ‘How to spice up married sex’ or whatnot? Because Harry let slip the other day at the pub that Gin’s been pulling strange things on him in the bedroom on account of those rags. You know what-never mind. I didn’t want to hear about it when my sister was involved and I don’t care now. We can do whatever you’d like.” Hermione starts to giggle at Ron’s predictable, but apparently mellowed, stance on his sister’s love life, but she’s cut off when Ron brings his lips down to touch hers. For her it’s their first kiss ever but she can feel the years of intimacy on his side as Ron dips his tongue between her lips. He keeps kissing her intermittently as he starts talking again so Hermione only dimly hears it when he says, “Besides, you’re not the only one with ideas. I’ve been having ideas about your arse for decades now.”
“Decades,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Yeah, how ‘bout this,” he says, nudging her thighs apart with his knees and sinking down. “I’ll tell you about how I used to imagine it might happen before it did. When I was wanking every night dreaming of the day it’d be your hands instead of mine.”
“Show me,” Hermione says thickly, her mind flooding with images of the slender boy she hasn’t spoken to in weeks, wondering if he was thinking of her while he was doing that, even after snogging Lavender and making her cry. But she pushes away that train of thought when Ron pulls her hand to the bulge in the front of his shorts, guiding her fingers up and down so she can feel the shape of it.
“Sometimes all I had to do was think of you stroking me like this and I’d go off like a rocket,” he tells her, and Hermione shivers, remembering all the times she’s reached into her knickers thinking very similar thoughts. They could have been doing it at the very same time...
“I always thought of you too,” she says earnestly, then drops in a cheeky addition, “Well, almost always.”
Ron barks a laugh and thrusts into her hand. “But I was better, wasn’t I? Than your fantasy lovers. That’s why you married me.”
“Actually,” she teases, reaching inside the open flap of his shorts to grab hold of him for real, “It was because I wanted a hand-knit jumper with my initial on the front.” His flesh is hot to the touch, hard and so big Hermione’s glad that this body she’s in isn’t a virgin even if she is. This would be confusing if she could really think right now.
“Smart arse,” Ron accuses and pushes the nightgown Hermione took such pains to find up almost to her breasts. “I used to think about that too-you touching yourself. When you were nagging at me about my revising I’d be contemplating whether you could possibly have as dirty thoughts as I did.”
“Well, now you know,” Hermione chokes out as he drags her knickers down her legs, pushes his own underwear down and kneels in front of her on the floor, holding his thing loosely in his hand.
“I do, don’t I?” Ron grins, and it’s the same grin she’s seen on the boy-version of him so many times before that it eases her shock at the fact that there’s a grown man naked and aroused before her. Hermione pulls the nighty over her head, feeling oddly more vulnerable for the two seconds Ron’s blocked from her view by flannel than she does when she’s completely naked and spread out on the bed for him. It’s then that she spies some of the other changes to her body-the faded white stretch marks on her stomach; the smooth, shaved skin of the lips of her vagina-signposts of an inhabited sexuality.
“You’re as beautiful to me now as you were the first time I saw you starkers,” Ron says reverently, as if he could hear her thoughts. “Now, where was I?” he asks, tugging on his erection and looking her straight in the eyes. “It was all relatively simple in my mind-I’d finally grow the balls to tell you I was madly in love with you, you’d admit the same, then I’d kiss you...” He does, in actuality, kiss her then, and Hermione responds hungrily, letting him suck her tongue into his mouth until she moans. But Ron breaks off the kiss and continues, “Right. And then I’d suavely finagle your tits into my randy, teenaged hands.” For the sake of demonstration, he cups her breasts in his hands, at first in a decidedly un-suave fashion, groping roughly before rubbing her nipples with his thumbs until they harden into hyper-sensitive nubs. “Then you’d tell me you wanted me and that you’d never want anyone else but me.”
“I do want you,” Hermione says, searching Ron’s face and finding the slightest hint of the insecure boy who first concocted this fantasy, almost as emotionally needy as it is sexual.
Ron just smiles gratefully at her and says, “Of course then we’d somehow both end up naked and I’d-” He stops speaking for a moment and reaches between Hermione’s legs, tracing the lips of her sex until his fingertips become slick with her.
Hermione inhales sharply and prompts, “Yes?”
“Well, back then I don’t think I thought of checking to see if the er, conditions were right, I just-” He scoots closer to line himself up to where her bum lies flush with the edge of the mattress, leaning his torso down so he can gaze at her close range while he finishes the sentence, “pushed my cock inside you, the most amazing girl I’d ever met.” Hermione arches her back as he does just that, filling her up in one smooth thrust. It doesn't hurt obviously, but it's still a surprising sensation, something for which hushed conversations between older girls and dozens of late-night solitary wonderings couldn't prepare her. When Ron begins to move Hermione follows his lead like they’re dancing, which in her memory they’ve never done before. She hopes they do now.
His breath is warm against the side of her face as he pants with exertion. She can smell sweat and the toothpaste from before and something salty and ocean-like that she knows is both of them.
“I fucked you so many times in my head before I even kissed you in real life,” Ron says, then kisses her hard and wet, his tongue licking straight into her mouth as his hips begin a circular pattern, hitting the good place on each upswing. For some reason it reminds Hermione of that old challenge of trying to pat one’s head while you rub your tummy at the same time, and she almost laughs, but instead cries out his name as tension starts to build inside her body, heading towards the kind of crescendo that until now she’s only ever experienced alone.
When it’s over and they’re entangled in a pile of sticky, exhausted limbs, Ron proclaims, “Well, that was...nostalgic,” even as Hermione’s quaking with the newness of it all.
Hermione sleeps soundly that night with Ron’s arms wrapped loosely around her and his light snoring in her ear-far more soundly than she has this past while at Hogwarts. The next day they hardly get out of bed and Ron further shows her how thoroughly acquainted he is with her body-the things that make it heat up and respond in ways she would never have expected. But also, they talk and laugh and spar verbally, reminding her of the friendship she’s been missing.
“It’s good to hear you laugh like that again,” Ron says out of the blue at one point, stroking her lips with his fingertips. “I’ve been worried out of my head...” And that’s when Hermione learns that her mother died the summer before this. She cries with the shock of it, but Ron doesn’t seem to find anything amiss, rubbing her back like a child and soothing, “I’m here, love, you didn’t need to shut me out.”
She cries again when her father shows up at the Burrow on Christmas Eve, looking tired and grey and glad to see her. The house is packed to the gills with enough Weasleys to man a small army, Weasleys in a wider palette than just pale pink and ginger-Harry and Ginny’s two young sons who look so much like Harry that Hermione has to pause and blink, Bill and Fleur’s golden gaggle of daughters, the impish twins Charlie and Angelina Johnson made with their kinky hair and dark brown freckles over café au lait skin.
Hermione and Ron cram into his childhood bedroom with Rose and Hugo, who both abandon their cots in favour of insinuating their little bodies between their parents on the double bed. Ron’s so easy with them it takes Hermione’s breath away. She’s never seen him even in the vicinity of a baby before and it just-does something to her. Hermione still can’t quite fathom that they’re hers yet; Rose and Hugo are like two very short new acquaintances who pull at her heartstrings and treat her like she’s the centre of their world, especially Hugo. As for the logistics of mothering, there’s a tide of people watching over all children, any children, not least of all Mrs. Weasley. Hermione wonders if perhaps her older incarnation and mother-in-law ever have friction on account of that.
After Boxing Day, they Floo back home and Ron goes back to work leaving Hermione for hours each day with a very precise schedule written in her own hand that maps out everything she and the children should be doing during her “holiday.” She follows most of it, the children’s play dates with the Potter brood and Rose’s piano lessons as well as the long list of work-related reading she assigned herself-she’s fascinated with the kinds of reforms that well, she’s proposing-but a few times when Ron’s younger cousin shows up to baby-sit, Hermione opts for novels instead or just goes out walking around. She has lunch with Luna Lovegood one afternoon and almost tells her about where she came from-if anyone would believe her it would be Luna-but at the last minute opts out.
When Ron’s home, he’s all over her, perking up like an exuberant puppy when she responds to his touching and teasing. She can see in his eyes how distant her older self must have been of late.
She’s happier than she has been in long time, but Hermione still feels like she’s missing something-like her first real kiss with Ron (or his with her), her last year of studies at Hogwarts, her wedding, the birth of her children, and yes, all those scary, dark things she read about in the history book.
Hermione’s not sure what the Room of Requirement meant for her to learn here, but she hopes she learns it soon-she doesn’t want to miss her life.
Part 3: Home Again
The first thing Hermione does when she gets back to school is go to Dumbledore for the answers she’s been putting off thinking about. She has to go to the home of the closest Wizarding family to her parents’ house to gain access to the Floo network for her return as, of course, she hasn’t spent any of the holiday with the Weasleys and this was the year when safety precautions at the school interrupted the Hogwarts Express schedule. It’s odd, having this reminder of how very different her life is now-her real life-the one Hermione needs to get back to: a world in which Hogwarts students needn’t fear attack or poisoning; a world in which Hermione goes to the Burrow every Christmas as a more-than-honorary Weasley.
To her surprise, the gargoyle guarding the spiral staircase leading to the headmaster’s office whispers conspiratorially to Hermione when she gets close, “He’s expecting you. But you still have to say the password. Protocol, you know. It’s ‘acid pops’ but I know you won’t tell.”
The gargoyle winks and Hermione nods dazedly, repeating its words under her breath.
“Professor?” Hermione calls out when she reaches the door to the office, knocking a few times to be polite. She feels shy, never having once been to see Dumbledore on her own without Harry in all her time at school. And she’s bracing herself to see (yet another) ghost.
“Come in, Miss Granger,” he answers, voice kindly.
“You were expecting me, sir?” Hermione says, walking in and closing the door.
“Indeed I was,” Dumbledore replies. “Come and have a seat, my dear.”
Perhaps this is going to be easier than she’d thought. “Does this mean that you...know-?”
“That you’re a long, long time from home?” he finishes for her.
“Um, yes,” Hermione says stupidly, caught by the sudden fear that she’s in trouble for not seeking him out earlier, for being selfish and sentimental and rushing off to her mummy straight away. Perhaps there was some crucial reason she was brought back in time, some crucial battle-against-evil-related reason! But, she thinks crossly, one would think whoever did this to her might have had the decency to tell her if that were the case. It’s an odd blend of rebellion and fear of reprisal that’s coursing through her at the moment, an emotional mixture characteristic of much of her youth, Hermione realises.
“Miss Granger?” Dumbledore’s voice breaks Hermione out of her thoughts. He’s gazing at her intently with both of his hands folded on top of the desk. One is, of course, blackened and shrivelled. The sight of it causes Hermione to shiver.
“You’re going to die!” she exclaims, too rattled to edit herself.
“Yes,” Dumbledore says calmly, “And you’re proof that it won’t be all for nought.”
Tears well up in Hermione’s eyes. She can’t speak.
“You’ve turned out to be quite a woman,” Dumbledore tells her, surreptitiously handing her his handkerchief. Hermione looks down through her misty eyes at the skinny, knobbly knees sticking out below the skirt of her school uniform and laughs wetly. “I always knew that you would,” he continues. “That’s why I’m glad to know that you’ll be at Harry’s side in the years to come-you and Mr. Weasley, of course."
Hermione blows her nose as quietly as she can, feeling overwhelmed. But also-insanely curious. “How did you know that I-? How did this happen? Who did this?”
“One question at time,” Dumbledore says with humour in his voice. “I’m an old man.” Feeling humbled, Hermione closes her mouth and listens. “There is very little that goes on at Hogwarts that I don’t know about,” Dumbledore begins, “especially things involving old, powerful magic. And as for who did this-why you did, naturally.”
“Me?” Hermione asks, even as an answer starts to solidify in her mind.
“Yes, you. In your younger incarnation. I believe you were in need of some perspective,” Dumbledore says matter-of-factly.
“So I’ve been-” Hermione completes the statement with a hand gesture that she hopes indicates a sense of “switcheroo.”
“Indeed.”
“So I’m not here for something to do with the war effort?”
“Not directly, no.” Dumbledore always was somewhat prone to mysterious, cryptic statements, Hermione remembers. His next one is more straight-forward, however. “It’s time for you to return now, don’t you think? The current-issue Hermione Granger will do us just fine. And I imagine you have things to attend to of your own.”
Hermione’s eyes widen as she imagines her seventeen-year-old self at home with Ron and the children, negotiating motherhood and wifely duties (the "work" work is easier to envision). Oh god, “wifely duties.” Hermione blushes. Dumbledore raises a snowy-white eyebrow and she coughs.
“Then do you know how I-how do I get back?” Hermione asks desperately, missing her family like a severed limb.
“Well,” Dumbledore says, “where would you usually go if you needed something very badly?”
*
Hermione picks up the hand mirror the Room of Requirement has provided for her, running her thumb over its gleaming, all-over shine. Inside the oval of reflective glass, her younger self waves at her enthusiastically. Hermione waves back and both versions smile as she’s hit full-on by an explosion of light.
*
Hermione Granger wakes up one morning in her bed at Hogwarts feeling oddly hopeful in a way she doesn’t quite understand. Fifteen years later she emerges from sleep to hear her husband asking her if she had a pleasant dream.
“Yes, I did,” she says, “though I don’t remember what it was about.”
Then she rolls over and kisses him like she feels she hasn’t done in forever.
*
Part 2: Mirrored Lives
Hermione doesn’t remember very much about this particular Christmas but has never really stopped to ponder why that might be. When she did think about it at all, she figured it was because at the time she’d been so absorbed in being miserable about Ron and his adolescent betrayal that it blocked out everything else. And she doesn’t spend very much time thinking about it now either-she’s too overcome with the idea of seeing her mum again, of being able to talk and spend time with her.
She’s very nearly crawling out of her skin with anticipation as she rushes through the train station, searching the crowds for the distinctive shapes of her mum and dad. When she does spot them, Hermione drops all her luggage and rushes toward their distant figures at a very unladylike run, pitching herself into her mother’s arms and practically bowling her over.
“Hermione!” her mum calls out in alarm, but acquiesces to the bear hug. “Are you quite all right, dear?”
“Yes, Mum, I’m fine. Fine. I’m just-happy to see you.” Hermione can feel tears brimming in her eyes but holds herself in check so as not to frighten her parents any more than she already has. Hers has always been a very loving family, but not particularly physically affectionate. In fact, it took her a while to become accustomed to the rampant embraces characteristic of the Weasley clan. For the first few years of her marriage, Hermione was often afraid of alienating the second cousins and relatives by marriage who were always catching her off guard when they’d go for a hug instead of a handshake upon first introduction. She was used to starting the hugging herself-and generally only with people she already felt related to, like Harry. But over time Hermione became less stiff and awkward in those situations, although she still sometimes suspects that one of Ron’s great uncles in particular is verging on getting rather fresh, really.
“We’re happy to see you too, sweetheart,” Hermione’s father says solemnly from behind her mother’s head. He looks so young! Hair mostly brown still and with far less rounded a potbelly than he is to develop later on.
“Hello, Dad!” Hermione answers, smiling brightly as she disentangles herself from her mother to grace him with a more reserved embrace. He coughs and adjusts his glasses needlessly but looks pleased.
“Let’s go home,” Hermione sighs happily. Her father tips his hat like a chauffeur and makes a sweeping gesture with his arm before going to retrieve her discarded bags.
During the car ride home, her parents ask her questions about her studies which she tries to answer as best as she can from the recesses of memory knowing that it doesn’t actually matter all that much as they won’t really understand any of it-they’re just asking because they want her to know that they’re interested in her life. Her dad also asks after Harry and stumbles over his words inquiring about “that Ronald fellow.” Hermione’s glad she’s in the back seat because she can’t help but grin at the memory of her shy, gentlemanly father trying to figure out what to make of Ron’s blustery attempts to win him over when she and Ron first began dating. The two of them finally found a friendly patch of common ground when her dad extended his passion for regular chess to the Wizarding version during Ron and Hermione’s first shared Christmas holiday as a married couple.
“He’s actually a very bright young man,” her dad had whispered to her over plates of Mrs. Weasley’s famous chestnut stuffing and roast turkey, an embarrassed look crossing his face as they both registered the tone of surprise in his voice. “Er, you know what I mean,” he added awkwardly.
“Yes, Dad, I know you what mean,” Hermione had replied with a smile to indicate that she wasn’t offended.
A few days later, they’re cooking a Christmas turkey of their own in her parents’ comfortable flat. Or rather her dad is while Hermione and her mother look on, her mum sipping the one glass of sherry she allows herself on special occasions and Hermione absently leafing through a book at the kitchen table.
“You’d do well to find yourself a man who can cook also,” her mum says to Hermione, her cheeks slightly pink from the liquor.
“I’ll take that under advisement,” Hermione replies, remembering the repository of tinned soup in her own pantry. However, Ron is a more enthusiastic cook than she is, if sometimes rather eclectic in his flavour combinations.
“You know, dear,” her mum begins, “It’s all right if you want to squirrel up with that book somewhere. Your father and I can manage alone for an hour or two.” Hermione’s spent far less time this visit hiding in her bedroom with her nose in her schoolbooks than she generally used to during the hols. She just doesn’t want to waste a precious second and can’t keep herself from feeling rather regretful that she hadn’t spent more time like this when she could.
“I’m happy here,” Hermione tells her mother, who smiles beatifically.
“Well, we’re happy to have you. Such a special treat you spending the entire holiday here with us.” Then her mother wrinkles her brow and adds hastily, “Not that we’re angry when you visit with your school chums, it’s just-we’re always happy to have you.” It must have been so difficult for them, Hermione realises, having their only daughter enter an entirely different world at such an early age. And she did spend rather a lot of time away from school over at the Burrow and later at Grimmauld Place. Her mind flashes on Rose then, imagining what it’ll be like for her when her own daughter goes off to Hogwarts, and it isn’t even a foreign place for Hermione.
It’s all so pleasantly ordinary: helping her mum set the table with the good china, waiting with her mouth watering while her dad carves the bird, greeting carol-singers at the door and listening to her mum warble the same tunes just slightly off-key as she tucks Hermione into bed. Hermione feels loved and protected, hardly able to wrap her mind around all of the terrible things she knows are brewing out in the world as she’s clasping her mother’s hand over the coverlet on her old twin bed.
“Mum?” Hermione says softly.
“Yes, dear?”
“I-I love you.” Hermione can’t help herself-fat tears start rolling down her cheeks.
“I love you too. You’re my sweet, brilliant girl, you know that.” Her mum’s voice is faltering a bit. Hermione hasn’t cried in front of her since she was a little girl-her mum must be somewhat taken aback. But if she’s uncomfortable, her mother doesn’t show it, instead just covering her other hand over Hermione’s and her own. “Is everything all right, Hermione? Has something happened?”
Yes, Mum, you left me and I don’t know what to do. But Hermione can’t say that. It’s confusing enough for her parents that her lessons are all about charms and spells and potions. It wouldn’t do to inform them now that she’s inexplicably come back from the future as well.
When Hermione doesn’t say anything, her mother quietly says, “Growing up is hard, my love.” It’s such a clichéd thing to say and yet so true. Hermione wants to say, Yes, and it’s especially hard when you have the fate of the world on your shoulders. When you have to hide your own parents even from themselves in order to keep them safe. She wishes she could say, I’m going to end up okay and it’s in large part due to you.
What she does say is, “I hope I’m as a good a mother as you when I grow up.”
“Oh,” her mother breathes. “You'll be a wonderful mother. You’ve always been so responsible, even when you were just a little one.” Ah, Hermione thinks, but I still needed you to rush over when I was in a panic the first time Rosie got colicky in the night.
“Thanks, Mum,” Hermione sniffles.
“Is there-is there a boy?”
“No, Mum, not yet,” Hermione says honestly. Not yet anyway, not really.
“Well, I’m sure there will be,” her mother says comfortingly. “You’re such a beautiful girl.” Hermione thinks of all the time she spent as a girl fretting about her unruly hair and her over-sized teeth, worrying that she was too skinny in comparison to Lavender and Parvati’s supple curves. But she’d been surprised when she looked in the mirror after her shower that morning to see that really, the things she’d worried about were hardly noticeable to her now. Then she remembers how the first time she’d ever held Rose in her arms, bright red and wrinkled and squalling, she’d thought to herself that she’d never seen anything so beautiful in her entire life.
Her mother’s voice interrupts Hermione’s tangential thoughts. “We wanted you for so long,” she says, and Hermione nods, well-versed in her parents’ fertility problems and why she’d never ended up with the younger sibling she’d always wanted. Her mum was almost forty by the time Hermione was born and had been through the ringer with tests and pills. Apparently her parents had entirely given up hope by the time they finally got pregnant with Hermione. The implications of the story seem even more trying to Hermione now than they did in the past. She’s infinitely glad that it’d only taken three months of being off her birth-control potion before she got pregnant the first time. Of course, it had taken Ron four years of coaxing to convince Hermione to try for children.
“You’re my miracle,” her mum says then, just like she’s said hundreds of time before. “My magical girl.”
Hermione can’t help rolling her eyes like a, well, like a seventeen-year-old. But she makes a quick save, whispering, “Thank you,” so as not to spoil the moment. “Thank you for being my mum,” she repeats and watches as her mother fans her hand in front of her face, almost crying herself but not quite.
“You sleep tight,” her mum says once she’s collected herself, and firmly tucks Hermione into bed.
That night Hermione dreams vividly. Tangled narratives of the type where one scene amalgamates into the next. Unlike the scary dreams she used to have throughout most of her time at Hogwarts which were far too often about failing exams or else having to face Voldemort in her knickers without a wand, these dreams are all about her children. Hermione’s unconscious puts her babies in all kinds of peril but then mercifully allows her to deliver them safely from harm.
She also has a particularly erotic dream about Ron-not the boy who is at the Burrow right now receiving the gaudy necklace from Lavender that Harry accidentally told her about once, but the man who did all the washing and cleaning for a month after her mother’s funeral, only grumbling minorly when he thought she couldn’t hear.
Hermione wakes up the next morning equal parts achingly homesick and reluctant to leave.
*
Hermione can’t stop staring at the man in bed beside her. He has scars on his chest and forearms that she’s sure weren’t there when they all went swimming last summer at the Burrow. The hair’s still the same bright colour; the nose just as long; the eyes the same watery blue. He’s bigger-thick and mannish as well as tall-but there’s something else different she can’t quite pinpoint.
He keeps talking, talking, talking, about this fight they apparently had yesterday which sounds to Hermione like it was just as much her fault as it was his. But Hermione’s more interested in the disagreements they’ve been having in her present-his past. She boggles internally, trying to bridge the cognitive dissonance in her heart as well as her mind.
“Ron,” she says, placing a shaking finger to his lips. “When did you first fancy me?”
His face scrunches up at that, confused. “You know,” he says like it’s a statement of fact.
“Yes, of course, but...remind me.”
“Well, I reckon I fancied you pretty much as soon as I stopped thinking girls were strange, foreign beasts.” He chuckles. “No, before that. Fourth year, I guess, though I was too daft to see it myself.”
Fourth year! Hermione shivers.
“Yeah, and I was right terrified when I did realise it,” Ron continues, pausing for a beat. “You always were a bit scary.”
Hermione instinctively tosses a pillow at him for that, but her mind’s busy. “When exactly did you realise it was me you really wanted?” she asks softly once he’s got in some pillow-fight retaliation.
Ron grimaces. “About when I thought I’d mucked it up with you permanently.” He lowers his voice, “Lavender.” Hermione can feel her brows begin to knit furiously at the sound of that name, and Ron strokes a frizzy curl away from her forehead gently. “Oh love, surely you don’t still have any venom left for that one. You two managed to become mates again, after all, didn’t you?”
Oh. How...mature of me, Hermione marvels silently. Out loud, she says, “Of course not.”
“What’s with the trip down memory lane?” Ron asks, his voice shifting in tone. He strokes the palm of his hand up her forearm and looks at her with a concerned expression on his face. His touch on her skin inflames her with the same curious, itchy longing that Hermione feels sometimes in her own world when she’s just sitting next to Ron in the common room. Like the flushing ache that starts in her stomach and migrates down between her legs during certain kissing scenes at the cinema. Hermione looks down at herself and is acutely aware of her own (altered) physicality: her hips are wider, her breasts feel heavier, and her face-in the mirror it looked like maybe she’d had the beginnings of fine lines around her eyes. But Ron’s looking at her like she’s pudding and he’s a very hungry man so Hermione pushes any misgivings about that aside.
“Are you still here with me or have you gone wandering off somewhere in that big brain of yours?” Ron’s hands move from her arms to her waist with an easy familiarity that has Hermione’s head buzzing, imagining how many times-and ways!-he’s touched her by now.
“I’m okay,” she says, licking her lips, “just tired.” She thinks for a moment, trying to summon up what would be the most likely thing for him to expect her to say. “Work, you know...”
“Yeah, I do know,” he replies with a groan. “And speaking of, I promised George I’d swing by the shop today-it’s a madhouse and he needs help. Wanna come too? If you tackle the Christmas shopping while I get a few things done, that’s all the more time we can spend in this bed minus pint-sized intruders...” His words trail off as he begins kissing her throat, tiny nips that make Hermione feel extremely hot and mildly apprehensive about what kinds of things he’s used to getting up to...in this bed. She wants to know. She can’t imagine that whatever magic brought her here will be permanent and she wants to know before she has to go back. What would be the purpose in making her skip over more than ten years of her life?
“Is that a yes, then?” Ron whispers into her ear, worrying the lobe between his teeth in a fashion that makes Hermione feel like her insides are melting.
“Yes!” she half-says half-moans and he hums a throaty chuckle into her neck. Merlin, she hopes she doesn’t get sucked back through a mirror before he gets to fulfil the innuendo in that laugh.
The shopping list is pages long and heavily annotated in her own handwriting with price comparisons and information gleaned from consumer guide reports. Thankfully it’s also divided into sections labelled by shop as most of them are things Hermione’s never before purchased in her life: various Quidditch-related memorabilia as gifts for any number of Weasley relations, useless Muggle gadgets for Ron’s dad, Wizarding toys for Hugo and Rose that Hermione obviously never had as a child herself. At the end of the list is a brief note scrawled in Ron’s messy hand saying simply, “Go to Flourish & Botts. I put a small fortune down in credit for you so you can have your pick. This way I won’t botch it up like every other year. Love, Ron.” How terribly romantic, Ronald, Hermione smirks gently to herself, more touched than if he'd got her something stereotypically girlish.
When she finally gets to the bookshop, Hermione is relieved to drop her heavy load of packages behind the front desk and wander through the stacks. Weary as she is after trudging all over Diagon Alley and few Muggle shops to boot, Hermione perks up at the heady aroma of new-book smell and her fingers itch at the promise of so many uncracked spines. But she ends up spending well over an hour with the first volume she picks up from a large display for a new updated edition of Hogwarts: A History. There’s an entire section at the end plastered with pictures of herself and all of her friends (and enemies). Hermione sits in stunned, rapt silence turning page after page with fevered intensity. Dumbledore’s death, her and Harry and Ron’s quest, the Battle of Hogwarts, the trials of Reconstruction after-it’s all a lot to absorb at once. She has to sit still for a long spell to settle herself before heading back to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes where Ron guffaws loudly when he sees that Hogwarts: A History is the only book she picked out.
When they get back from Diagon Alley, Hermione’s zinging with anticipation and nerves, but she tries to behave normally, just get ready for bed calmly like a fully grown woman who’s entirely accustomed to sharing her boudoir with someone else. It’s going to be difficult. When Hermione searched the rest of the house earlier it was different-she was still in a confused daze and besides, this is the bedroom-her and Ron’s bedroom.
There are two wooden bureaus set side by side against the wall across from the over-sized four poster bed she woke up in this morning. Hermione gingerly steps toward them and pauses. She takes a deep breath and opens the top drawer of one, finding neat stacks of folded knickers, mostly soft white cotton ones but also a couple of scandalously lace-fringed, silky pairs that make her eyes widen. Well, she thinks, at least she still...takes care with her things.
But it’s not fresh lingerie Hermione’s in search of right now-it’s night clothes. Feeling more nervous about a piece of household furniture than she ever has previously, Hermione eyes the second dresser. Once opened, the top drawer reveals a riotous mess of brightly coloured boxer shorts, some bearing holiday theme prints (cartoonish reindeer and green holly sprigs! Oh Ron) and not a few made of Cannons-orange cloth.
Hermione blushes-she’s never in her life rifled through a man’s collection of...underpants. Of course she hasn’t! She doesn’t have any brothers and has never had any occasion to make any pervy missions into the Gryffindor boys dormitories.
Biting her lip, Hermione quickly shuts the drawer with a loud clap, very nearly catching and bruising the fingertips of her left hand. She shakes her head. Pyjamas. That’s what she needs. Once she’s calmed herself, Hermione finds a comfy blue and white nightdress quickly, feeling a reassuring sense of order due to the fact that her adult self still keeps to the same clothing organizing system: trousers in the bottom drawer, skirts in the one just above, then wrinkle-free blouses and tee-shirts and finally, just below the knickers and socks, sleep-wear. She doesn’t look but assumes that an assortment of robes and dresses hang pressed and ready in the large closet in the far corner of the room.
Shivering, Hermione removes her pullover and pulls the nightgown over her head, wiggling out of her jeans and unhooking her bra once she’s safely encased in flannel. She starts when Ron wanders in through the doorway with a toothbrush in his mouth, clad in nothing but a pair of (apparently uncharacteristically) un-garish faded blue shorts.
“Hullo, love,” he says, brushing lazily and eyeing her up and down. He’s practically naked! Hermione feels ridiculous.
“H-hello,” she answers, wrapping her arms around her chest.
He grins. “Only you can make mum-wear that sexy.” His words are obscured by the toothbrushing, but Hermione can still detect his teasing tone of voice. She wonders if this is a joke between them.
“I am nothing like your mum!” she exclaims.
“No arguments there,” he replies, removing the toothbrush from his mouth as he strides into the adjoining bathroom. Hermione hears him spit into the basin, then water running in the sink and a strange buzzing sound? Oh, it must be the charmed razor she spied last time she had to use the loo. Such intimate sounds.
She’s still standing stock still in the middle of the room when he comes back a few minutes later and wraps his arms around her from behind, nuzzling into her hair. His voice is low when he whispers into her ear, sending a queer fluttery feeling ricocheting through her insides. “You’re the sexiest mum of all-you’re my babies’ mother.”
Every muscle in her body freezes up at that. Ron laughs and rubs his freshly-shaven cheek against her own. “Sorry. Our babies,” he corrects himself.
Suddenly Hermione feels more like a child herself than she has in a long time. She’s seventeen! Usually that sounds old to her, and given what she and Ron and Harry have already been through, she reckons that they’re probably the oldest teenagers ever (even if Ron has been an unadulterated prat of late).
But this Ron is an Adult. He has to shave more than once a day and the arms enfolded around her waist must be twice the thickness of the long, spindly Ron-limbs Hermione’s used to. He’s an Auror. He’s her husband. It makes her feel safe, nervous yet bold.
So she says, “Talk to me, Ron.”
“Yeah, you like that, don’t you?” he whispers throatily. “What d’you want me to say this time? Do you want me to tell you what a lovely pussy you’ve got?” And now one of his thick hands is cupping her in that place where she has become soaking, sopping wet. “Do you want me to talk about how beautifully filthy you look when you’re sucking my cock?”
“No!” she squeaks, taken aback, and he stiffens, his fingers stopping the slow trails they’ve been making over the crotch of her knickers. Hermione doesn’t like that, so she clarifies, “I want you to talk to me about the first time-about our first time.”
“Oh.” Ron lets out a relieved breath. “You mean when you pounced on me in my parents’ attic and informed me where your clitoris was, prattling on about some sex book you’d read before molesting me entirely?”
She turns around to face him, pleased and somehow unsurprised at this revelation. “That was funny, wasn’t it?”
“Best bloody day of my young life is what it was,” he growls, palming her bottom with both hands and walking her toward the bed where they fall down together, Hermione on her back and Ron hovering in a push up above her.
“I have an idea,” she tells him, hoping she’s come up with an ingenious plan that will conceal her inexperience. “Why don’t you talk to me about what it could have been like if it had been the other way round-you seducing me, I mean.” Hermione can’t imagine herself saying anything remotely like any of this to the Ron she left behind at Hogwarts; she can’t entirely believe she’s saying it now either. She waits breathlessly to see how he’ll respond.
Shockingly-considering the kinds of thing he was saying just previously-the first thing Ron does is blush. “Have you been reading the tips in some women’s magazine? ‘How to spice up married sex’ or whatnot? Because Harry let slip the other day at the pub that Gin’s been pulling strange things on him in the bedroom on account of those rags. You know what-never mind. I didn’t want to hear about it when my sister was involved and I don’t care now. We can do whatever you’d like.” Hermione starts to giggle at Ron’s predictable, but apparently mellowed, stance on his sister’s love life, but she’s cut off when Ron brings his lips down to touch hers. For her it’s their first kiss ever but she can feel the years of intimacy on his side as Ron dips his tongue between her lips. He keeps kissing her intermittently as he starts talking again so Hermione only dimly hears it when he says, “Besides, you’re not the only one with ideas. I’ve been having ideas about your arse for decades now.”
“Decades,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Yeah, how ‘bout this,” he says, nudging her thighs apart with his knees and sinking down. “I’ll tell you about how I used to imagine it might happen before it did. When I was wanking every night dreaming of the day it’d be your hands instead of mine.”
“Show me,” Hermione says thickly, her mind flooding with images of the slender boy she hasn’t spoken to in weeks, wondering if he was thinking of her while he was doing that, even after snogging Lavender and making her cry. But she pushes away that train of thought when Ron pulls her hand to the bulge in the front of his shorts, guiding her fingers up and down so she can feel the shape of it.
“Sometimes all I had to do was think of you stroking me like this and I’d go off like a rocket,” he tells her, and Hermione shivers, remembering all the times she’s reached into her knickers thinking very similar thoughts. They could have been doing it at the very same time...
“I always thought of you too,” she says earnestly, then drops in a cheeky addition, “Well, almost always.”
Ron barks a laugh and thrusts into her hand. “But I was better, wasn’t I? Than your fantasy lovers. That’s why you married me.”
“Actually,” she teases, reaching inside the open flap of his shorts to grab hold of him for real, “It was because I wanted a hand-knit jumper with my initial on the front.” His flesh is hot to the touch, hard and so big Hermione’s glad that this body she’s in isn’t a virgin even if she is. This would be confusing if she could really think right now.
“Smart arse,” Ron accuses and pushes the nightgown Hermione took such pains to find up almost to her breasts. “I used to think about that too-you touching yourself. When you were nagging at me about my revising I’d be contemplating whether you could possibly have as dirty thoughts as I did.”
“Well, now you know,” Hermione chokes out as he drags her knickers down her legs, pushes his own underwear down and kneels in front of her on the floor, holding his thing loosely in his hand.
“I do, don’t I?” Ron grins, and it’s the same grin she’s seen on the boy-version of him so many times before that it eases her shock at the fact that there’s a grown man naked and aroused before her. Hermione pulls the nighty over her head, feeling oddly more vulnerable for the two seconds Ron’s blocked from her view by flannel than she does when she’s completely naked and spread out on the bed for him. It’s then that she spies some of the other changes to her body-the faded white stretch marks on her stomach; the smooth, shaved skin of the lips of her vagina-signposts of an inhabited sexuality.
“You’re as beautiful to me now as you were the first time I saw you starkers,” Ron says reverently, as if he could hear her thoughts. “Now, where was I?” he asks, tugging on his erection and looking her straight in the eyes. “It was all relatively simple in my mind-I’d finally grow the balls to tell you I was madly in love with you, you’d admit the same, then I’d kiss you...” He does, in actuality, kiss her then, and Hermione responds hungrily, letting him suck her tongue into his mouth until she moans. But Ron breaks off the kiss and continues, “Right. And then I’d suavely finagle your tits into my randy, teenaged hands.” For the sake of demonstration, he cups her breasts in his hands, at first in a decidedly un-suave fashion, groping roughly before rubbing her nipples with his thumbs until they harden into hyper-sensitive nubs. “Then you’d tell me you wanted me and that you’d never want anyone else but me.”
“I do want you,” Hermione says, searching Ron’s face and finding the slightest hint of the insecure boy who first concocted this fantasy, almost as emotionally needy as it is sexual.
Ron just smiles gratefully at her and says, “Of course then we’d somehow both end up naked and I’d-” He stops speaking for a moment and reaches between Hermione’s legs, tracing the lips of her sex until his fingertips become slick with her.
Hermione inhales sharply and prompts, “Yes?”
“Well, back then I don’t think I thought of checking to see if the er, conditions were right, I just-” He scoots closer to line himself up to where her bum lies flush with the edge of the mattress, leaning his torso down so he can gaze at her close range while he finishes the sentence, “pushed my cock inside you, the most amazing girl I’d ever met.” Hermione arches her back as he does just that, filling her up in one smooth thrust. It doesn't hurt obviously, but it's still a surprising sensation, something for which hushed conversations between older girls and dozens of late-night solitary wonderings couldn't prepare her. When Ron begins to move Hermione follows his lead like they’re dancing, which in her memory they’ve never done before. She hopes they do now.
His breath is warm against the side of her face as he pants with exertion. She can smell sweat and the toothpaste from before and something salty and ocean-like that she knows is both of them.
“I fucked you so many times in my head before I even kissed you in real life,” Ron says, then kisses her hard and wet, his tongue licking straight into her mouth as his hips begin a circular pattern, hitting the good place on each upswing. For some reason it reminds Hermione of that old challenge of trying to pat one’s head while you rub your tummy at the same time, and she almost laughs, but instead cries out his name as tension starts to build inside her body, heading towards the kind of crescendo that until now she’s only ever experienced alone.
When it’s over and they’re entangled in a pile of sticky, exhausted limbs, Ron proclaims, “Well, that was...nostalgic,” even as Hermione’s quaking with the newness of it all.
Hermione sleeps soundly that night with Ron’s arms wrapped loosely around her and his light snoring in her ear-far more soundly than she has this past while at Hogwarts. The next day they hardly get out of bed and Ron further shows her how thoroughly acquainted he is with her body-the things that make it heat up and respond in ways she would never have expected. But also, they talk and laugh and spar verbally, reminding her of the friendship she’s been missing.
“It’s good to hear you laugh like that again,” Ron says out of the blue at one point, stroking her lips with his fingertips. “I’ve been worried out of my head...” And that’s when Hermione learns that her mother died the summer before this. She cries with the shock of it, but Ron doesn’t seem to find anything amiss, rubbing her back like a child and soothing, “I’m here, love, you didn’t need to shut me out.”
She cries again when her father shows up at the Burrow on Christmas Eve, looking tired and grey and glad to see her. The house is packed to the gills with enough Weasleys to man a small army, Weasleys in a wider palette than just pale pink and ginger-Harry and Ginny’s two young sons who look so much like Harry that Hermione has to pause and blink, Bill and Fleur’s golden gaggle of daughters, the impish twins Charlie and Angelina Johnson made with their kinky hair and dark brown freckles over café au lait skin.
Hermione and Ron cram into his childhood bedroom with Rose and Hugo, who both abandon their cots in favour of insinuating their little bodies between their parents on the double bed. Ron’s so easy with them it takes Hermione’s breath away. She’s never seen him even in the vicinity of a baby before and it just-does something to her. Hermione still can’t quite fathom that they’re hers yet; Rose and Hugo are like two very short new acquaintances who pull at her heartstrings and treat her like she’s the centre of their world, especially Hugo. As for the logistics of mothering, there’s a tide of people watching over all children, any children, not least of all Mrs. Weasley. Hermione wonders if perhaps her older incarnation and mother-in-law ever have friction on account of that.
After Boxing Day, they Floo back home and Ron goes back to work leaving Hermione for hours each day with a very precise schedule written in her own hand that maps out everything she and the children should be doing during her “holiday.” She follows most of it, the children’s play dates with the Potter brood and Rose’s piano lessons as well as the long list of work-related reading she assigned herself-she’s fascinated with the kinds of reforms that well, she’s proposing-but a few times when Ron’s younger cousin shows up to baby-sit, Hermione opts for novels instead or just goes out walking around. She has lunch with Luna Lovegood one afternoon and almost tells her about where she came from-if anyone would believe her it would be Luna-but at the last minute opts out.
When Ron’s home, he’s all over her, perking up like an exuberant puppy when she responds to his touching and teasing. She can see in his eyes how distant her older self must have been of late.
She’s happier than she has been in long time, but Hermione still feels like she’s missing something-like her first real kiss with Ron (or his with her), her last year of studies at Hogwarts, her wedding, the birth of her children, and yes, all those scary, dark things she read about in the history book.
Hermione’s not sure what the Room of Requirement meant for her to learn here, but she hopes she learns it soon-she doesn’t want to miss her life.
Part 3: Home Again
The first thing Hermione does when she gets back to school is go to Dumbledore for the answers she’s been putting off thinking about. She has to go to the home of the closest Wizarding family to her parents’ house to gain access to the Floo network for her return as, of course, she hasn’t spent any of the holiday with the Weasleys and this was the year when safety precautions at the school interrupted the Hogwarts Express schedule. It’s odd, having this reminder of how very different her life is now-her real life-the one Hermione needs to get back to: a world in which Hogwarts students needn’t fear attack or poisoning; a world in which Hermione goes to the Burrow every Christmas as a more-than-honorary Weasley.
To her surprise, the gargoyle guarding the spiral staircase leading to the headmaster’s office whispers conspiratorially to Hermione when she gets close, “He’s expecting you. But you still have to say the password. Protocol, you know. It’s ‘acid pops’ but I know you won’t tell.”
The gargoyle winks and Hermione nods dazedly, repeating its words under her breath.
“Professor?” Hermione calls out when she reaches the door to the office, knocking a few times to be polite. She feels shy, never having once been to see Dumbledore on her own without Harry in all her time at school. And she’s bracing herself to see (yet another) ghost.
“Come in, Miss Granger,” he answers, voice kindly.
“You were expecting me, sir?” Hermione says, walking in and closing the door.
“Indeed I was,” Dumbledore replies. “Come and have a seat, my dear.”
Perhaps this is going to be easier than she’d thought. “Does this mean that you...know-?”
“That you’re a long, long time from home?” he finishes for her.
“Um, yes,” Hermione says stupidly, caught by the sudden fear that she’s in trouble for not seeking him out earlier, for being selfish and sentimental and rushing off to her mummy straight away. Perhaps there was some crucial reason she was brought back in time, some crucial battle-against-evil-related reason! But, she thinks crossly, one would think whoever did this to her might have had the decency to tell her if that were the case. It’s an odd blend of rebellion and fear of reprisal that’s coursing through her at the moment, an emotional mixture characteristic of much of her youth, Hermione realises.
“Miss Granger?” Dumbledore’s voice breaks Hermione out of her thoughts. He’s gazing at her intently with both of his hands folded on top of the desk. One is, of course, blackened and shrivelled. The sight of it causes Hermione to shiver.
“You’re going to die!” she exclaims, too rattled to edit herself.
“Yes,” Dumbledore says calmly, “And you’re proof that it won’t be all for nought.”
Tears well up in Hermione’s eyes. She can’t speak.
“You’ve turned out to be quite a woman,” Dumbledore tells her, surreptitiously handing her his handkerchief. Hermione looks down through her misty eyes at the skinny, knobbly knees sticking out below the skirt of her school uniform and laughs wetly. “I always knew that you would,” he continues. “That’s why I’m glad to know that you’ll be at Harry’s side in the years to come-you and Mr. Weasley, of course."
Hermione blows her nose as quietly as she can, feeling overwhelmed. But also-insanely curious. “How did you know that I-? How did this happen? Who did this?”
“One question at time,” Dumbledore says with humour in his voice. “I’m an old man.” Feeling humbled, Hermione closes her mouth and listens. “There is very little that goes on at Hogwarts that I don’t know about,” Dumbledore begins, “especially things involving old, powerful magic. And as for who did this-why you did, naturally.”
“Me?” Hermione asks, even as an answer starts to solidify in her mind.
“Yes, you. In your younger incarnation. I believe you were in need of some perspective,” Dumbledore says matter-of-factly.
“So I’ve been-” Hermione completes the statement with a hand gesture that she hopes indicates a sense of “switcheroo.”
“Indeed.”
“So I’m not here for something to do with the war effort?”
“Not directly, no.” Dumbledore always was somewhat prone to mysterious, cryptic statements, Hermione remembers. His next one is more straight-forward, however. “It’s time for you to return now, don’t you think? The current-issue Hermione Granger will do us just fine. And I imagine you have things to attend to of your own.”
Hermione’s eyes widen as she imagines her seventeen-year-old self at home with Ron and the children, negotiating motherhood and wifely duties (the "work" work is easier to envision). Oh god, “wifely duties.” Hermione blushes. Dumbledore raises a snowy-white eyebrow and she coughs.
“Then do you know how I-how do I get back?” Hermione asks desperately, missing her family like a severed limb.
“Well,” Dumbledore says, “where would you usually go if you needed something very badly?”
*
Hermione picks up the hand mirror the Room of Requirement has provided for her, running her thumb over its gleaming, all-over shine. Inside the oval of reflective glass, her younger self waves at her enthusiastically. Hermione waves back and both versions smile as she’s hit full-on by an explosion of light.
*
Hermione Granger wakes up one morning in her bed at Hogwarts feeling oddly hopeful in a way she doesn’t quite understand. Fifteen years later she emerges from sleep to hear her husband asking her if she had a pleasant dream.
“Yes, I did,” she says, “though I don’t remember what it was about.”
Then she rolls over and kisses him like she feels she hasn’t done in forever.
*