Believe that Magic Works (10/10) - R/Hr - R
Title: Believe that Magic Works (10/10)
Author: shocolate
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Words: 3500
Rating: R
Written for sugarandginger’s Definitive Ron/Hermione Year Seven Novella Challenge
As the Trio set off on their search for the Horcruxes, Ron finally accepts that he wants to look after his two best friends in completely different ways
Chapter 10 : One First Golden Day of Peace
****
I Apparated into the drawing room at Grimmauld Place to find Harry sitting on the couch, head between his knees, with the girls fussing over him.
“Where have you been?” Hermione gasped, standing and throwing her arms round my neck.
“I popped to the Three Broomsticks,” I explained, untangling myself and putting three bottles of firewhiskey and a few butterbeers on the table. “Once word gets around, they’ll drink the place dry.”
“And that was your first priority?” she asked, gawping at me.
“We deserve to celebrate, Hermione,” said in my most reasonable voice, crossing to sit by Harry and putting my hand on his back. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked Ginny, who was stroking his hair.
“Panic attack,” she said.
“He started hyperventilating,” Hermione said. “So I made him stick his head between his knees.”
“He needs a stiff drink,” I said, opening a bottle of firewhiskey and Summoning four glasses from a cabinet.
“I don’t think getting drunk will help,” Hermione complained.
“Or a stiff something else,” I added and Hermione glared at me but Harry laughed hollowly, somewhere down between his legs.
“I can’t believe you said that,” Ginny giggled.
“We decided not to spare Hermione our depravity anymore,” I explained. “So I guess you’re included in that, if you’re back for good.”
She grinned shyly at me and glanced at the back of Harry’s head and I rolled my eyes.
I nudged Harry and he sat up, looking dirty and sweaty and a bit green and I gave him his drink.
“To the Boy Who Lived,” I said, raising my glass.
Hermione and Ginny raised theirs and Harry stared into his, running a finger round the rim.
“No,” he said. “To the three of you.”
He looked up at us and bit his lip.
“You soft git,” I laughed. “To the four of us.”
“The four of us,” they echoed and we all drank. Harry and I knocked back the shot of firewhiskey and Ginny followed suit, blinking rapidly.
Hermione gave me a pained look and sipped it, carefully. She pulled a face. “That’s horrible,” she spluttered.
I refilled the glasses.
“To freedom,” Ginny said.
“No more Prophecies,” Harry said.
“No more Certain Death,” I said and Hermione rolled her eyes. OK, I’d promised not to mention the Certain Death, but I don’t think it mattered anymore.
We drank. Hermione’s eyes watered and she was looking a bit hot and bothered.
“Why aren’t you suffering?” she asked Ginny, indignantly.
“It’s the red hair,” Ginny informed her solemnly. “It soaks up the alcohol.”
Hermione looked at me with narrowed eyes and I leant over and kissed her.
“Bleurch,” Harry said.
I put down my glass and took Hermione’s out of her unresisting hand and pulled her into my lap.
Cupping her face between my hands, I leant down for a lingering kiss, with ostentatious use of tongues.
“Bleurch,” Harry said. Loudly and rather pointedly.
“You know what?” I asked him, wrapping my arms around Hermione and fully aware that I was grinning like a loon. “I don’t care!”
“Don’t care about what?” Harry demanded.
“Don’t care how bleuch you find us. Because I am going to kiss my girlfriend,” I demonstrated thoroughly, “as much as I like. And I don’t have to worry if we’re upsetting you, or making you feel left out. Because the Boy Who Lived crap is over. You’re Harry. Just Harry. Our mate, who goes bleuch when we kiss, but that is his problem.”
His face lit up. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s none of my business. Do it again.”
Hermione laughed as I captured her lips, one hand twisted in her hair to tip her head back and give Harry a good view, the other sliding up inside her t-shirt and cupping her breast.
Ginny shook her head and sighed.
“That is disgusting,” Harry crowed as I kissed her enthusiastically.
He refilled the glasses and poked me. I took my hand off Hermione’s breast and held it out to him. He went a bit pale and gave me my drink, careful not to touch my hand.
Hermione tutted and sat up in my lap.
Harry passed her her glass and raised his own.
“To my best friends’ offensive behaviour,” he said.
Ginny and I laughed and drank. Hermione shook her head and sighed dramatically.
“Come on Hermione, bottoms up,” I said, squeezing her bottom.
Harry raised his eyebrows and sniggered, but she blushed and sipped her drink.
We had another couple of drinks and Ginny snuggled up to Harry on the couch, tucking her feet under her.
This just got better and better.
“And,” I said, poking Harry in the chest, “this just gets better and better.”
“How?” Harry asked.
“Because,” I explained, “I can do this,” I tipped Hermione’s face up to mine and kissed her, “and you are Just Harry and have to live with it. But you. You,” I pointed at him and Ginny, “have to be careful what you do in front of me, ‘cos she’s my baby sister. I am totally in charge, here.”
“Ahem,” Hermione said.
“Hermione is totally in charge, here,” I said smoothly and they all laughed.
Harry took Ginny’s hand and laced their fingers together and I had to swallow hard or I’d have blubbered like a baby.
Hermione elbowed me in the ribs.
“Really,” I said. “Couldn’t be happier for you. You’re like a brother to me, Harry, you know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” he said earnestly.
“Like Bill or Charlie, obviously,” I clarified and Ginny snorted.
“Obviously,” Harry said.
“Just don’t…” I paused.
“Don’t what?” he asked.
“Don’t make me an uncle too soon.”
Hermione said “Ron!” Harry flushed and Ginny rolled her eyes.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t you think I know how to do a simple Contraceptive Charm?”
I squeaked. In a very manly way, obviously.
Ginny laughed at me.
“OK, good,” I said and finished my drink hurriedly.
”Ron, that’s enough whiskey,” Hermione chided me. “You’re drunk.”
“You’ll like me when I’m drunk,” I told her seriously. “I’m very sexy when I’m drunk.”
Harry and Ginny fell about laughing, but tears sprang into Hermione’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“I’m not sexy when I’m drunk,” she said sadly and Harry sat up, gawping at her.
I remembered my promise to get Hermione drunk when it was all over and it suddenly hit me that it really was all over.
“’Course you are,” I assured her.
“No,” she hiccupped mournfully, “I’m not. I should be flirting with you.”
“You’re in my lap,” I pointed out.
“Not good enough,” she sighed. “You pulled me into your lap. I should be unbuttoning stuff.” She reached for the button on my jeans and frowned at it, blinking to try and focus.
“No, no, Hermione,” I said, removing her hands. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Oh!” she said, her face lighting up. “I know what I can do to be sexy. A Muggle trick!”
Much as I loved Harry, I loved Hermione more and I was starting to worry that she’d kill me when we sobered up, for letting her behave like this.
But then she reached up the back of her t-shirt with both hands and released the clasp on her bra and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“Oh, no,” Harry groaned.
She put her hand up one sleeve and, with a bit of wriggling, pulled the strap down and over her hand.
“Hermione?” I said, starting to panic. While a striptease certainly was sexy, I couldn’t think of anything worse than her stripping in front of Harry.
But then she reached up the other sleeve and wriggled and tugged - and the bra appeared in her hand.
She beamed at me and I smiled weakly. Harry’s eyes were popping out of his head and the bra was dangling in his face.
And then.
Then the door opened and my parents burst in, of course.
Thank God Ginny had the sense to grab the bra and drop it over the back of the couch.
I owed her, big time.
“Mum,” I said brightly.
Hermione went scarlet.
“There,” said my dad. “Molly, I told you that they were all fine.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” Ginny echoed.
Hermione buried her face in my neck.
“Fine,” said Harry. “Honest.”
“You’re drunk,” Mum almost shouted.
“Possibly,” I conceded warily.
“It’s not even lunchtime and you’re drunk,” she was working up a head of steam. “You’re…”
“Molly, you weren’t there,” Dad interrupted. “Leave them alone.”
And she burst into tears.
She came and sat on the coffee table and Ginny knelt on the carpet for a hug; Hermione slid out of my lap and Mum pulled me into a hug, too. Then Harry, then Hermione.
Then me, again.
“It’s really over?” she asked me, sniffling and wiping her eyes on a handkerchief.
“It’s really over,” I said.
“I’ve got you back?” she asked. “I’ve got my baby back?”
“Mum,” I complained. “I’m eighteen!”
“You’ve got him back, Mrs Weasley,” Hermione said. “In one piece.”
Mum burst into tears again and hugged Hermione.
I looked at Harry and we both rolled our eyes. “Mental,” I mouthed.
“Come on, Molly, they’re OK,” Dad said, trying to disentangle her.
“No they’re not,” Mum said fiercely, changing direction so quickly my head spun. Though that may have been the firewhiskey. “They are filthy and drunk.”
“And filthy drunk,” Ginny added helpfully.
Mum gave her a dangerously pointed look and cast a Sobering Charm on each of us.
I felt Hermione go rigid next to me, but luckily Mum wasn’t finished.
“I am going downstairs to make you some lunch,” she said. “You are taking showers and will be downstairs in thirty minutes.”
Dad ushered her from the room and Ginny hauled Harry to his feet to follow them.
“Separate showers, for Merlin’s sake, Ginny,” I called. “Mum’s downstairs.”
I looked at Hermione out of the corner of my eye.
She was scarlet.
I sighed.
“It’s fine, Hermione,” I said.
“I stripped,” she muttered.
“No, you didn’t,” I said.
“I nearly did,” she said, hands coming up to cover her flushed cheeks. “I would have done, if your mum hadn’t come in.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” I assured her.
“How d’you know that?”
“Because I would have stopped you,” I said and took her in my arms.
“Oh, Ron,” she wailed. “That just means I am a scarlet woman.”
“No, you’re not,” I said.
“I am!” she cried. “I so wanted to be sexy for you. And I know the Contraceptive Charm, too.”
I swallowed, feeling my collar and my jeans were too tight. “Hermione,” I said, smoothing her hair back and touching her tear-stained face. “You are completely sexy.”
“Am not.”
“You are, too.”
“You don’t have to say that, Ron.”
“Hermione!” I interrupted. “Do you know how often I kick myself that I can’t brag to Harry how hot my girlfriend is? Did you beg me to kiss you in the Restricted Section?”
She blushed.
“Did you creep into my bed and ravish me?”
“Shush!” she said.
”I think you’re the sexiest girl in the world,” I said and she smiled at me and sniffed.
“There,” I said. “There’s my,” I paused and waggled my eyebrows suggestively, “Head Girl.”
“Ron!” she said, shoving me away.
I laughed and she huffed and got up and went to the door.
“Maybe later,” she said and left the room.
oOoOo
One cold shower later, I joined everyone downstairs in the kitchen.
Dad was filling Harry in on what had happened in Little Hangleton after we left.
Voldemort was officially dead.
A good number of major Death Eaters were in custody, including Draco Malfoy.
A good number were dead.
Harry haltingly explained what had happened with Snape and Dad promised to see that his body was retrieved.
Several Aurors were in St Mungo’s, including Kingsley.
Remus and Tonks flooed in at that point, having apparently been making arrangements for Wormtail’s funeral.
And the Minister?
He was livid, according to Tonks.
His Aurors had only been involved because Kingsley had overlooked all departmental procedure and rounded up everyone who’d been in the office when Remus flooed him. Absolutely no one had asked to see the appropriate paperwork when he announced that the Boy Who Lived was confronting You Know Who at that very moment.
Scrimgeour was generously overlooking this breach of procedure.
He was itching to face the press and confirm that a joint mission of Aurors and members of Dumbledore’s Order had tracked down You Know Who and that Harry had duelled with him and emerged victorious.
But he didn’t quite dare do it without Harry standing beside him.
The Ministry had issued a bald statement that You Know Who was dead and that further details would be confirmed later.
And absolutely no one understood what had happened in the duel, anyway.
Hermione and I encouraged him and Harry explained about the Horcruxes.
“He made how many?” Remus gasped.
“Six,” Hermione said.
“Two were already destroyed,” Harry said slowly. “One by Professor Dumbledore and one by me.”
He gave the impression that this had been pretty recent and I raised my eyebrows at Hermione. She shook her head. No. It was probably for the best that no one else knew that the diary had been a Horcrux, especially Mum. Harry could tell Ginny when he thought the time was right.
“Then we found and destroyed two more,” Harry continued.
“The locket and the sapphires,” Mum murmured.
“And we found one that hadn’t been created properly, so that didn’t need to be destroyed,” Harry said calmly and I didn’t have to look at Hermione to know that only the four of us would ever know that Harry had been a Horcrux. “And that left the snake and then he was vulnerable.”
“Just like that?” Remus chuckled.
“Just like that,” Harry shrugged.
“I don’t know what to say,” Mum said.
“Look, the thing is,” Harry went on, “I don’t want all this to go any further than this room. I really don’t want the papers full of my quest to destroy Horcruxes. I especially don’t want any up and coming Dark Lords getting ideas.”
“Good point,” Remus said.
“Enough people saw you kill the snake,” Dad said. “But we can say that You Know Who had possessed it and it was about to attack you, so you killed it. I have no idea why it should have exploded, but that’ll do. And I want to thank you, personally, for killing the blasted thing.”
We all laughed and Mum burst into tears.
oOoOo
Dad, Remus and Tonks left to sort out the Wizarding World and Mum made sure we ate a proper lunch.
A night without sleep and a morning battling evil and drinking firewhiskey was starting to catch up with us and Hermione was drooping into her apple pie.
Ginny yawned hugely.
Mum was eyeing her carefully and I felt Ginny bristle and dig her heels in for battle. There was no way she’d agree to go back to school today, or even back to the Burrow.
“I think you could all do with a nap,” Mum suggested, neutrally, and you had to give her top marks for how well she treated Harry, Hermione and I as adults.
“Ginny?” she continued, ever so casually, and I blinked at her, suddenly realising what was coming.
“What?” Ginny replied, very coldly, and I nearly laughed.
“There’s no point you going back to school, is there? I’m sure Hermione won’t mind if you share her room.”
Ginny’s mouth dropped open, completely wrong-footed and I bit my lip.
“Oh, yes, OK,” she managed to stammer. “I am rather worn out.”
Mum kissed us both and Disapparated.
I finally gave in and laughed at the gobsmacked look on Ginny’s face.
“I thought I was doomed when Dad left,” she said faintly.
“But we can’t do anything,” Harry protested. “Not if your mum knows we’re here alone, and anyway, she said you’re to use Hermione’s room.”
“Well, we might as well. I know Hermione hasn’t slept there for months. And, anyway,” she frowned at him, “where did you sleep last night, Harry?” she demanded.
“Yeah, well, no one knew where we were,” he muttered, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
I got up and went to stand behind Hermione. “Look, after what we’ve been through today, I really don’t care who knows where I sleep, unless it’s Rita Skeeter.” I held my hand out to Hermione and she stood and slipped her hand into mine.
“Let’s go and have a lie down, shall we?”
We left Harry and Ginny frowning at each other, but I was pretty confident that Ginny would wear him down. I shook my head, boggling at the fact that Harry needed seducing. Especially today.
Then I put them out of my mind and led Hermione up to my room.
Sitting on my bed, I pulled her between my legs and looked up at her, my hands at her waist.
“What?” she asked, smiling nervously.
“Would you like to go out tonight?” I asked her.
“Like on a date?” she asked, laughing.
“Ahem,” I said. “I am being perfectly serious here. We’ve never been on a proper date; everyone will be celebrating, it’ll be fun.”
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “Your plan is to make love, have a nap and then go on our first date?”
I felt my ears turn pink, but I manfully persisted. “Well, yes, I think that’s about right,” I said.
“So you think I’m the sort of girl that’ll sleep with you before a first date?”
I slipped my hands up inside her t-shirt. “God, I hope so,” I said, falling back on the bed and pulling her down on top of me.
She braced her elbows on either side of my face, wound her hands in my hair and kissed me.
Hard.
“It’s really over, isn’t it, Ron?” she whispered between kisses.
“Over,” I murmured against her lips. “Finished. Done with.”
“And we can do anything we want, can’t we?” she laughed down at me.
“Absolutely anything,” I smiled.
“Then make love to me,” she said.
Well, I’d do anything she asked, obviously.
She sat up to take off her t-shirt and I was thrilled to see she had left the bra off. I sat up, too, and cupped her breasts in my hands. “God, you’re gorgeous,” I whispered.
“I wish just once you’d be looking at my face when you say that,” she teased and I threw her down on the bed, stretching out on top of her.
“You know I think you’re gorgeous,” I complained looking into her eyes.
She wriggled under me. “Clothes off, Ron,” she ordered.
I stripped as she wriggled out of her jeans and then I stretched out next to her.
We’d never been naked together before, not wanting to get too carried away, and she took my breath away. I propped myself up on an elbow and ran my hand down her body. She was breathing heavily and laughed at the look on my face.
“Wow,” I said.
And then I didn’t say much more, because my hands and my mouth were on her and I couldn’t think of anything else.
I was right that talking would be involved with absolutely everything I did with Hermione, though. I didn’t have to be worried about not getting good feedback, because she made wonderful noises when I touched her. She told me when she was ready for me, she told me when to keep still and when it was OK to move.
And she told me how it felt, how I felt inside her, with a note of wonder in her voice.
God, I loved her.
I loved being inside her.
Making love to her.
No one who hadn’t known her forever would be able to concentrate through the list of instructions.
But that was fine.
Because no one else was going to make love to her.
Ever.
Afterwards she curled up in my arms and I kissed her temple.
“Are you OK?” I asked her.
“Hmmm,” she said, snuggling into my neck.
“It’s supposed to get better,” I said tentatively.
“Oh, Ron,” she murmured. “It was lovely.”
“Hmmm,” I echoed. “We’ve got loads of time to get the hang of it, anyway.”
“Oh, it won’t take all that long,” she said sleepily.
“It’s just that,” I didn’t quite know how to put it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, catching my nervousness and rousing slightly.
“Well, we suddenly have a future,” I said, and now she looked worried.
“You do want a future, don’t you, Ron?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said quickly. “It’s just not something we’ve really thought about before.”
She snorted. “Well, you may not have thought of the future,” she said.
“I don’t mean jobs, Hermione,” I interrupted. “I mean us.”
“Oh,” she said in a very small voice.
“It’s just,” I sighed deeply. “This is going to sound revoltingly sappy, but I can’t think of any other way of putting it.”
“What?” she prompted.
“Well, we are the future, right?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, beaming at me.
“Like, forever, and all that?”
“Yes, please,” she said.
“We’ll take care of each other forever,” I said, smugly, as she threw herself in my arms. “Just the two of us. And what’s-his-name with the scar.”
oOoOo
Author: shocolate
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Words: 3500
Rating: R
Written for sugarandginger’s Definitive Ron/Hermione Year Seven Novella Challenge
As the Trio set off on their search for the Horcruxes, Ron finally accepts that he wants to look after his two best friends in completely different ways
Chapter 10 : One First Golden Day of Peace
****
I Apparated into the drawing room at Grimmauld Place to find Harry sitting on the couch, head between his knees, with the girls fussing over him.
“Where have you been?” Hermione gasped, standing and throwing her arms round my neck.
“I popped to the Three Broomsticks,” I explained, untangling myself and putting three bottles of firewhiskey and a few butterbeers on the table. “Once word gets around, they’ll drink the place dry.”
“And that was your first priority?” she asked, gawping at me.
“We deserve to celebrate, Hermione,” said in my most reasonable voice, crossing to sit by Harry and putting my hand on his back. “What’s wrong with him?” I asked Ginny, who was stroking his hair.
“Panic attack,” she said.
“He started hyperventilating,” Hermione said. “So I made him stick his head between his knees.”
“He needs a stiff drink,” I said, opening a bottle of firewhiskey and Summoning four glasses from a cabinet.
“I don’t think getting drunk will help,” Hermione complained.
“Or a stiff something else,” I added and Hermione glared at me but Harry laughed hollowly, somewhere down between his legs.
“I can’t believe you said that,” Ginny giggled.
“We decided not to spare Hermione our depravity anymore,” I explained. “So I guess you’re included in that, if you’re back for good.”
She grinned shyly at me and glanced at the back of Harry’s head and I rolled my eyes.
I nudged Harry and he sat up, looking dirty and sweaty and a bit green and I gave him his drink.
“To the Boy Who Lived,” I said, raising my glass.
Hermione and Ginny raised theirs and Harry stared into his, running a finger round the rim.
“No,” he said. “To the three of you.”
He looked up at us and bit his lip.
“You soft git,” I laughed. “To the four of us.”
“The four of us,” they echoed and we all drank. Harry and I knocked back the shot of firewhiskey and Ginny followed suit, blinking rapidly.
Hermione gave me a pained look and sipped it, carefully. She pulled a face. “That’s horrible,” she spluttered.
I refilled the glasses.
“To freedom,” Ginny said.
“No more Prophecies,” Harry said.
“No more Certain Death,” I said and Hermione rolled her eyes. OK, I’d promised not to mention the Certain Death, but I don’t think it mattered anymore.
We drank. Hermione’s eyes watered and she was looking a bit hot and bothered.
“Why aren’t you suffering?” she asked Ginny, indignantly.
“It’s the red hair,” Ginny informed her solemnly. “It soaks up the alcohol.”
Hermione looked at me with narrowed eyes and I leant over and kissed her.
“Bleurch,” Harry said.
I put down my glass and took Hermione’s out of her unresisting hand and pulled her into my lap.
Cupping her face between my hands, I leant down for a lingering kiss, with ostentatious use of tongues.
“Bleurch,” Harry said. Loudly and rather pointedly.
“You know what?” I asked him, wrapping my arms around Hermione and fully aware that I was grinning like a loon. “I don’t care!”
“Don’t care about what?” Harry demanded.
“Don’t care how bleuch you find us. Because I am going to kiss my girlfriend,” I demonstrated thoroughly, “as much as I like. And I don’t have to worry if we’re upsetting you, or making you feel left out. Because the Boy Who Lived crap is over. You’re Harry. Just Harry. Our mate, who goes bleuch when we kiss, but that is his problem.”
His face lit up. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s none of my business. Do it again.”
Hermione laughed as I captured her lips, one hand twisted in her hair to tip her head back and give Harry a good view, the other sliding up inside her t-shirt and cupping her breast.
Ginny shook her head and sighed.
“That is disgusting,” Harry crowed as I kissed her enthusiastically.
He refilled the glasses and poked me. I took my hand off Hermione’s breast and held it out to him. He went a bit pale and gave me my drink, careful not to touch my hand.
Hermione tutted and sat up in my lap.
Harry passed her her glass and raised his own.
“To my best friends’ offensive behaviour,” he said.
Ginny and I laughed and drank. Hermione shook her head and sighed dramatically.
“Come on Hermione, bottoms up,” I said, squeezing her bottom.
Harry raised his eyebrows and sniggered, but she blushed and sipped her drink.
We had another couple of drinks and Ginny snuggled up to Harry on the couch, tucking her feet under her.
This just got better and better.
“And,” I said, poking Harry in the chest, “this just gets better and better.”
“How?” Harry asked.
“Because,” I explained, “I can do this,” I tipped Hermione’s face up to mine and kissed her, “and you are Just Harry and have to live with it. But you. You,” I pointed at him and Ginny, “have to be careful what you do in front of me, ‘cos she’s my baby sister. I am totally in charge, here.”
“Ahem,” Hermione said.
“Hermione is totally in charge, here,” I said smoothly and they all laughed.
Harry took Ginny’s hand and laced their fingers together and I had to swallow hard or I’d have blubbered like a baby.
Hermione elbowed me in the ribs.
“Really,” I said. “Couldn’t be happier for you. You’re like a brother to me, Harry, you know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” he said earnestly.
“Like Bill or Charlie, obviously,” I clarified and Ginny snorted.
“Obviously,” Harry said.
“Just don’t…” I paused.
“Don’t what?” he asked.
“Don’t make me an uncle too soon.”
Hermione said “Ron!” Harry flushed and Ginny rolled her eyes.
“Please,” she said. “Don’t you think I know how to do a simple Contraceptive Charm?”
I squeaked. In a very manly way, obviously.
Ginny laughed at me.
“OK, good,” I said and finished my drink hurriedly.
”Ron, that’s enough whiskey,” Hermione chided me. “You’re drunk.”
“You’ll like me when I’m drunk,” I told her seriously. “I’m very sexy when I’m drunk.”
Harry and Ginny fell about laughing, but tears sprang into Hermione’s eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her.
“I’m not sexy when I’m drunk,” she said sadly and Harry sat up, gawping at her.
I remembered my promise to get Hermione drunk when it was all over and it suddenly hit me that it really was all over.
“’Course you are,” I assured her.
“No,” she hiccupped mournfully, “I’m not. I should be flirting with you.”
“You’re in my lap,” I pointed out.
“Not good enough,” she sighed. “You pulled me into your lap. I should be unbuttoning stuff.” She reached for the button on my jeans and frowned at it, blinking to try and focus.
“No, no, Hermione,” I said, removing her hands. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Oh!” she said, her face lighting up. “I know what I can do to be sexy. A Muggle trick!”
Much as I loved Harry, I loved Hermione more and I was starting to worry that she’d kill me when we sobered up, for letting her behave like this.
But then she reached up the back of her t-shirt with both hands and released the clasp on her bra and I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“Oh, no,” Harry groaned.
She put her hand up one sleeve and, with a bit of wriggling, pulled the strap down and over her hand.
“Hermione?” I said, starting to panic. While a striptease certainly was sexy, I couldn’t think of anything worse than her stripping in front of Harry.
But then she reached up the other sleeve and wriggled and tugged - and the bra appeared in her hand.
She beamed at me and I smiled weakly. Harry’s eyes were popping out of his head and the bra was dangling in his face.
And then.
Then the door opened and my parents burst in, of course.
Thank God Ginny had the sense to grab the bra and drop it over the back of the couch.
I owed her, big time.
“Mum,” I said brightly.
Hermione went scarlet.
“There,” said my dad. “Molly, I told you that they were all fine.”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” Ginny echoed.
Hermione buried her face in my neck.
“Fine,” said Harry. “Honest.”
“You’re drunk,” Mum almost shouted.
“Possibly,” I conceded warily.
“It’s not even lunchtime and you’re drunk,” she was working up a head of steam. “You’re…”
“Molly, you weren’t there,” Dad interrupted. “Leave them alone.”
And she burst into tears.
She came and sat on the coffee table and Ginny knelt on the carpet for a hug; Hermione slid out of my lap and Mum pulled me into a hug, too. Then Harry, then Hermione.
Then me, again.
“It’s really over?” she asked me, sniffling and wiping her eyes on a handkerchief.
“It’s really over,” I said.
“I’ve got you back?” she asked. “I’ve got my baby back?”
“Mum,” I complained. “I’m eighteen!”
“You’ve got him back, Mrs Weasley,” Hermione said. “In one piece.”
Mum burst into tears again and hugged Hermione.
I looked at Harry and we both rolled our eyes. “Mental,” I mouthed.
“Come on, Molly, they’re OK,” Dad said, trying to disentangle her.
“No they’re not,” Mum said fiercely, changing direction so quickly my head spun. Though that may have been the firewhiskey. “They are filthy and drunk.”
“And filthy drunk,” Ginny added helpfully.
Mum gave her a dangerously pointed look and cast a Sobering Charm on each of us.
I felt Hermione go rigid next to me, but luckily Mum wasn’t finished.
“I am going downstairs to make you some lunch,” she said. “You are taking showers and will be downstairs in thirty minutes.”
Dad ushered her from the room and Ginny hauled Harry to his feet to follow them.
“Separate showers, for Merlin’s sake, Ginny,” I called. “Mum’s downstairs.”
I looked at Hermione out of the corner of my eye.
She was scarlet.
I sighed.
“It’s fine, Hermione,” I said.
“I stripped,” she muttered.
“No, you didn’t,” I said.
“I nearly did,” she said, hands coming up to cover her flushed cheeks. “I would have done, if your mum hadn’t come in.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” I assured her.
“How d’you know that?”
“Because I would have stopped you,” I said and took her in my arms.
“Oh, Ron,” she wailed. “That just means I am a scarlet woman.”
“No, you’re not,” I said.
“I am!” she cried. “I so wanted to be sexy for you. And I know the Contraceptive Charm, too.”
I swallowed, feeling my collar and my jeans were too tight. “Hermione,” I said, smoothing her hair back and touching her tear-stained face. “You are completely sexy.”
“Am not.”
“You are, too.”
“You don’t have to say that, Ron.”
“Hermione!” I interrupted. “Do you know how often I kick myself that I can’t brag to Harry how hot my girlfriend is? Did you beg me to kiss you in the Restricted Section?”
She blushed.
“Did you creep into my bed and ravish me?”
“Shush!” she said.
”I think you’re the sexiest girl in the world,” I said and she smiled at me and sniffed.
“There,” I said. “There’s my,” I paused and waggled my eyebrows suggestively, “Head Girl.”
“Ron!” she said, shoving me away.
I laughed and she huffed and got up and went to the door.
“Maybe later,” she said and left the room.
oOoOo
One cold shower later, I joined everyone downstairs in the kitchen.
Dad was filling Harry in on what had happened in Little Hangleton after we left.
Voldemort was officially dead.
A good number of major Death Eaters were in custody, including Draco Malfoy.
A good number were dead.
Harry haltingly explained what had happened with Snape and Dad promised to see that his body was retrieved.
Several Aurors were in St Mungo’s, including Kingsley.
Remus and Tonks flooed in at that point, having apparently been making arrangements for Wormtail’s funeral.
And the Minister?
He was livid, according to Tonks.
His Aurors had only been involved because Kingsley had overlooked all departmental procedure and rounded up everyone who’d been in the office when Remus flooed him. Absolutely no one had asked to see the appropriate paperwork when he announced that the Boy Who Lived was confronting You Know Who at that very moment.
Scrimgeour was generously overlooking this breach of procedure.
He was itching to face the press and confirm that a joint mission of Aurors and members of Dumbledore’s Order had tracked down You Know Who and that Harry had duelled with him and emerged victorious.
But he didn’t quite dare do it without Harry standing beside him.
The Ministry had issued a bald statement that You Know Who was dead and that further details would be confirmed later.
And absolutely no one understood what had happened in the duel, anyway.
Hermione and I encouraged him and Harry explained about the Horcruxes.
“He made how many?” Remus gasped.
“Six,” Hermione said.
“Two were already destroyed,” Harry said slowly. “One by Professor Dumbledore and one by me.”
He gave the impression that this had been pretty recent and I raised my eyebrows at Hermione. She shook her head. No. It was probably for the best that no one else knew that the diary had been a Horcrux, especially Mum. Harry could tell Ginny when he thought the time was right.
“Then we found and destroyed two more,” Harry continued.
“The locket and the sapphires,” Mum murmured.
“And we found one that hadn’t been created properly, so that didn’t need to be destroyed,” Harry said calmly and I didn’t have to look at Hermione to know that only the four of us would ever know that Harry had been a Horcrux. “And that left the snake and then he was vulnerable.”
“Just like that?” Remus chuckled.
“Just like that,” Harry shrugged.
“I don’t know what to say,” Mum said.
“Look, the thing is,” Harry went on, “I don’t want all this to go any further than this room. I really don’t want the papers full of my quest to destroy Horcruxes. I especially don’t want any up and coming Dark Lords getting ideas.”
“Good point,” Remus said.
“Enough people saw you kill the snake,” Dad said. “But we can say that You Know Who had possessed it and it was about to attack you, so you killed it. I have no idea why it should have exploded, but that’ll do. And I want to thank you, personally, for killing the blasted thing.”
We all laughed and Mum burst into tears.
oOoOo
Dad, Remus and Tonks left to sort out the Wizarding World and Mum made sure we ate a proper lunch.
A night without sleep and a morning battling evil and drinking firewhiskey was starting to catch up with us and Hermione was drooping into her apple pie.
Ginny yawned hugely.
Mum was eyeing her carefully and I felt Ginny bristle and dig her heels in for battle. There was no way she’d agree to go back to school today, or even back to the Burrow.
“I think you could all do with a nap,” Mum suggested, neutrally, and you had to give her top marks for how well she treated Harry, Hermione and I as adults.
“Ginny?” she continued, ever so casually, and I blinked at her, suddenly realising what was coming.
“What?” Ginny replied, very coldly, and I nearly laughed.
“There’s no point you going back to school, is there? I’m sure Hermione won’t mind if you share her room.”
Ginny’s mouth dropped open, completely wrong-footed and I bit my lip.
“Oh, yes, OK,” she managed to stammer. “I am rather worn out.”
Mum kissed us both and Disapparated.
I finally gave in and laughed at the gobsmacked look on Ginny’s face.
“I thought I was doomed when Dad left,” she said faintly.
“But we can’t do anything,” Harry protested. “Not if your mum knows we’re here alone, and anyway, she said you’re to use Hermione’s room.”
“Well, we might as well. I know Hermione hasn’t slept there for months. And, anyway,” she frowned at him, “where did you sleep last night, Harry?” she demanded.
“Yeah, well, no one knew where we were,” he muttered, looking at me out of the corner of his eye.
I got up and went to stand behind Hermione. “Look, after what we’ve been through today, I really don’t care who knows where I sleep, unless it’s Rita Skeeter.” I held my hand out to Hermione and she stood and slipped her hand into mine.
“Let’s go and have a lie down, shall we?”
We left Harry and Ginny frowning at each other, but I was pretty confident that Ginny would wear him down. I shook my head, boggling at the fact that Harry needed seducing. Especially today.
Then I put them out of my mind and led Hermione up to my room.
Sitting on my bed, I pulled her between my legs and looked up at her, my hands at her waist.
“What?” she asked, smiling nervously.
“Would you like to go out tonight?” I asked her.
“Like on a date?” she asked, laughing.
“Ahem,” I said. “I am being perfectly serious here. We’ve never been on a proper date; everyone will be celebrating, it’ll be fun.”
“Let me get this straight,” she said. “Your plan is to make love, have a nap and then go on our first date?”
I felt my ears turn pink, but I manfully persisted. “Well, yes, I think that’s about right,” I said.
“So you think I’m the sort of girl that’ll sleep with you before a first date?”
I slipped my hands up inside her t-shirt. “God, I hope so,” I said, falling back on the bed and pulling her down on top of me.
She braced her elbows on either side of my face, wound her hands in my hair and kissed me.
Hard.
“It’s really over, isn’t it, Ron?” she whispered between kisses.
“Over,” I murmured against her lips. “Finished. Done with.”
“And we can do anything we want, can’t we?” she laughed down at me.
“Absolutely anything,” I smiled.
“Then make love to me,” she said.
Well, I’d do anything she asked, obviously.
She sat up to take off her t-shirt and I was thrilled to see she had left the bra off. I sat up, too, and cupped her breasts in my hands. “God, you’re gorgeous,” I whispered.
“I wish just once you’d be looking at my face when you say that,” she teased and I threw her down on the bed, stretching out on top of her.
“You know I think you’re gorgeous,” I complained looking into her eyes.
She wriggled under me. “Clothes off, Ron,” she ordered.
I stripped as she wriggled out of her jeans and then I stretched out next to her.
We’d never been naked together before, not wanting to get too carried away, and she took my breath away. I propped myself up on an elbow and ran my hand down her body. She was breathing heavily and laughed at the look on my face.
“Wow,” I said.
And then I didn’t say much more, because my hands and my mouth were on her and I couldn’t think of anything else.
I was right that talking would be involved with absolutely everything I did with Hermione, though. I didn’t have to be worried about not getting good feedback, because she made wonderful noises when I touched her. She told me when she was ready for me, she told me when to keep still and when it was OK to move.
And she told me how it felt, how I felt inside her, with a note of wonder in her voice.
God, I loved her.
I loved being inside her.
Making love to her.
No one who hadn’t known her forever would be able to concentrate through the list of instructions.
But that was fine.
Because no one else was going to make love to her.
Ever.
Afterwards she curled up in my arms and I kissed her temple.
“Are you OK?” I asked her.
“Hmmm,” she said, snuggling into my neck.
“It’s supposed to get better,” I said tentatively.
“Oh, Ron,” she murmured. “It was lovely.”
“Hmmm,” I echoed. “We’ve got loads of time to get the hang of it, anyway.”
“Oh, it won’t take all that long,” she said sleepily.
“It’s just that,” I didn’t quite know how to put it.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, catching my nervousness and rousing slightly.
“Well, we suddenly have a future,” I said, and now she looked worried.
“You do want a future, don’t you, Ron?” she asked.
“Of course,” I said quickly. “It’s just not something we’ve really thought about before.”
She snorted. “Well, you may not have thought of the future,” she said.
“I don’t mean jobs, Hermione,” I interrupted. “I mean us.”
“Oh,” she said in a very small voice.
“It’s just,” I sighed deeply. “This is going to sound revoltingly sappy, but I can’t think of any other way of putting it.”
“What?” she prompted.
“Well, we are the future, right?”
“Oh, yes,” she said, beaming at me.
“Like, forever, and all that?”
“Yes, please,” she said.
“We’ll take care of each other forever,” I said, smugly, as she threw herself in my arms. “Just the two of us. And what’s-his-name with the scar.”
oOoOo