Chapter Text
A month, and then two, pass this way. It’s a lazy rediscovering of each other through quiet conversation, through sex, through small moments spent in the simplicity they’ve curated.
Hermione tears through her reading list at a record pace, and Ron puts on a surprising amount of muscle from all the time he opts for Muggle manual labour over magical assistance. She learns to cook almost exclusively for the enjoyment his appreciation becomes. They share their mornings and afternoons, evening and midnights. They refine wine preferences and cleaning routines. They grow a garden. And one day, Ron comes home one day with a cat cradled in his arms because she’d mentioned offhandedly that while she loves this oasis of theirs, it could use a little more life.
“You were supposed to pick up bread and produce.” Hermione smiles through her half-hearted admonishment.
“You brought up Crookshanks twice in the last three days,” Ron says, holding up a beautiful blue-grey cat who seems to have zero qualms with being handled.
Hermione is so touched she struggles to speak through the tension constricting her vocal cords. Crookshanks had disappeared during the war, yet another loss, and one with no closure. She’s missed having a furry companion around.
“He’s a chunky boy, isn’t he?” She grins as Ron deposits the cat in her arms.
“The muggles in town said he’s a stray, but they’ve all been feeding him well. They think his owners left him behind when they moved.”
“That’s horrible!” Hermione hugs the creature in her arms a little tighter, turning to enter the cottage.
At this, the cat squirms, wrenching from her grip.
“Ah, yeah. They said he’s an outdoor cat too. And since we’ve got all this land I thought…”
Hermione smiles as the cat trots over to Ron and winds his way between Ron’s ankles.
“He’s adorable,” Hermione says. “I love him already.”
They spend their afternoon bonding with their new fat cat who is desperate for attention, but not so desperate that he’s willing to go beyond the doorstep and into the cottage. Hermione tries luring him with treats and conjured toys, with blankets and bedding. He’s clearly not a house cat, but with enough determination, Hermione wonders if she can change his mind with trust and affection.
Nearing sunset, she looks up from where she’s sitting in the grass and using a feather toy to rile up the cat—who she’s now taken to calling Pickpocket at Ron’s suggestion, owing to his ability to snag treats from wherever they’re hidden. Ron leans against the cottage door, watching them.
He’s all soft posture and warm affection: arms crossed, head tilted, gentle smile pushing up sun-pinkened cheeks.
Her heart skips a beat at the sudden flush of attraction that overtakes her. He’s always been good looking, she knows that. It was one of many things that made such frequent close proximity to him as a hormonal teenager so difficult. But the way he’s looking at her now, it feels dangerous. It steals her breath.
Pickpocket settles in her lap and Ron’s smile grows.
“What?” she asks.
“Nothing.” He pushes off the door and approaches them. “You’ve just—always been good at nurturing things, that’s all. Idiot teenage boys included. I think you’ll win him over.” Ron nods his head at the cat in her arms.
Hermione smiles back up at him. “I hope so.”
—
On a particularly hot and muggy day in midsummer, Hermione is especially grateful for her rotation of breezy sundresses and endless opportunities to wear them. Summer is sizzling, so she’s grateful to slip on something light and lovely.
She’s long since decided that bras are pointless. Even with breasts as generous as hers, she can’t find the requisite discretion to feel like she needs to wear one when its only her, Pickpocket, and Ron (who happens to be extremely fond of said breasts in whatever way she chooses to present them) out here in the middle of nowhere.
Besides, it’s so hot that the fewer layers she has on, the better.
Ron has already given her a kiss goodbye and headed across the property to work on his many projects of interest when Hermione decides it’s too hot even for cooling charms and cross breezes in the cottage.
Armed with a blanket, some snacks, a book, and today’s sundress (which is a lightweight, gauzy ivory with a low neckline that takes ample advantage of her bralessness), she heads over to the small pond near the edge of their property line.
She lays her blanket on the overgrown grasses beneath the shade of swishing willow tree and sets herself up for a relaxing afternoon in repose by the water. Being a creature of leisure never appealed to her much before this, but she’s beginning to see the draw. It’s a kind of intoxication, being fully present in her own life, living it moment by moment.
Two chapters into her book and she’s already too hot to focus. Even in the shade, she feels overcooked, pink and panting. Sweat drips down the centre of her back, down the sides of her temples, accumulating in the crooks of her elbows and knees. It’s the kind of muggy heat that feels like walking through water. With that in mind, walking through actual water feels like a natural next option. And much more rewarding.
She goes to stand with her toes in the shallow part of the pond, delighting in the small conveniences magic affords her. Without it, she would have had to endure the loamy pond bottom squishing between her toes, but with a quick impervious charm, she’s protected from the unpleasant squish.
She hikes up her skirt and wades a little deeper, swaying gently with the water up to her shins. She feels absolutely divine. Even better when a breeze blows through, coasting coolness across her skin.
Her hair flies around her, picked up by the wind, curls catching on her face. Out of instinct, she reaches up to battle them back and ends up dropping the bottom of her dress into the water. She looks down once the gust has died to find the bottom third of her skirt soaked. She expects to care but…she doesn’t.
There’s something delightfully freeing about being able to wade through water and not worry about her clothes. To not worry about anything at all. It’s liberating in the strangest way. Who’s to say she can’t take a dip in the pond while wearing a pretty sundress? She feels like a picturesque protagonist from one of her many novels, enchanted by her own whimsy, the heroine of her own story.
She walks deeper, refreshed. It takes barely more than a second of consideration for her to fully commit. She bends her knees and sinks her waist. She leans her head back, letting her hair dip into the water, letting the surface of the pond kiss the back of her skull. She lifts her legs from the bottom and floats, sun beating down on her, water holding her up with its cool embrace.
“Hermione?”
She looks up to find Ron standing at the edge of the pond, watching her with a soft smile and a questioning expression.
“It’s hot,” she says weakly.
“I know.” And suddenly Ron is pulling his shirt over his head, chucking it into the grass. He pulls off his trousers too, wearing only his boxers as he wades into the water with her.
“You’re still in your dress,” he says as if that isn’t wildly obvious.
Hermione adopts an indignant expression as she winds her arms around his shoulders. “There are no rules here.”
He laughs. “There aren’t. You’re right.”
And he pulls her closer, body flush to his. She wraps her legs around his waist, something of an ordeal with her skirt catching around her shins and ankles, but she manages to anchor herself just as he leans in for a kiss.
It’s a light, bright feeling. Citrus in her veins. She can barely breathe through the intensity of his kiss, the demanding want in it, holding her close, fingers squeezing her bum.
He begins walking them towards the shoreline, a slosh through water until gravity pulls Hermione down. Not enough though. All this hard labour he’s been doing has taken Ron’s lean form and added enough layers of muscle that carrying her out of a pond evidently requires minimal effort. Even with soggy shorelines squelching beneath his feet.
She slides from his grip once they’re on the grass. Hermione is absolutely dripping, and in more ways than one. Her dress clings to her body, wet fabric moulded to every curve on her skin. Wet, ivory has gone almost completely sheer. Ron has obviously noticed.
He reaches out and gently traces a nipple through the soaked fabric, grinning at her sharp intake of breath.
“You’re stunning,” is all he says, stepping forward to more intensely cup her breasts, thumbs swiping over her hardened nipples with purpose. She’s two overflowing handfuls and Ron seems determined to keep hold.
He makes a strained groaning sound as he winds one arm around her middle, pulling them flush again. Water drips, wrung from her dress when he squeezes her arse again, pinning her hips to his.
He’s hot and hard and the way he’s looking at her has Hermione feeling more desirable than she has any right to on a miserably warm day. Ron dips to kiss her neck, her collarbones, and then he’s dipping lower still, gathering the fabric of her skirt and hitching it up.
“We’re outside,” she gasps, realising he has no plans to wait until they return to the cottage.
Instead, he’s walking her towards her blanket beneath the willow.
“And?” he asks. “There’s no one around for miles, Hermione. We can be as loud as we want. No one will hear.” He squeezes the meat of her thighs. “No one will see.”
She requires very little convincing, reaching down with the intent to pull her sopping dress over her head. But Ron halts her with gentle pressure on her wrists. He meets her gaze with serious, sparkling blue eyes.
“Leave it on,” he says. “Please? You look—” he breaks off, blowing out a breath.
It flushes Hermione hot, seeing how openly he wants her, even in a soaked dress and looking like a drenched mess. So instead of pulling her dress off, she reaches for the scoop of her neckline and pulls it down, letting her breasts spill free.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ron hisses, immediately reaching to palm them. “These are just —fuck, so perfect. I can barely take it.”
Hermione feels powerful, beautiful, as they sink onto the blanket. She directs Ron to lay on his back and with her wet dress still clinging to her, breasts exposed, she straddles his hips and sinks down onto him. Grappling for as much contact as possible, she feels a little mindless, overwhelmed by an intensity that needs Ron’s skin against her own, needs him inside her, holding her, consuming her.
Ron pushes himself up enough to nip at her breasts. He toys with her, swirling his tongue around her nipple the same way he does with her clit. It has Hermione whimpering as she bounces, absolutely brimming with desire, with the ragged thrill of fucking him right there in the open because they couldn’t wait a second longer. And when they finish, so hot their dip in the pond has been fully negated, Hermione stays on top, letting him soften inside her as she relishes their connection.
Ron, for his part, mumbles delirious words against her chest. She thinks she’s rendered him partly speechless, because he’s speaking little more than an incoherent string of things like yes and stay just like that and don’t let any out and keep you nice and full.
He finally sounds more composed on “Merlin, you’re perfect.”
I love him, she thinks, kissing the incoherency from his lips.
She really, really does. And it’s getting too big to contain. She can’t keep it inside. Not for much longer. She fears she may burst.
—
Summer days are long and warm, punctuated by occasional breezes that break the heat and shelter sought in the shade. Hermione perfects her wandless cooling charms and even manages to teach Ron his own to a serviceable degree. It only takes three days and a substantial amount of grumbling for Ron to get it right. And then suddenly his frustrations and insistence that he’s fine without them flips to this charm is a lifesaver.
He must realise he’s ridiculous because he kisses Hermione on the cheek and thanks her for her patience and brilliance, hands lingering at her waist in a way that suggests a more thorough thanks later.
Hermione spends most afternoons trying to lure Pickpocket inside, and with very little success to show for all her effort. He’s a furry little ball of affection and suspicion and Hermione falls head over heels for him. For this place. For Ron.
And it’s all so lovely she’s not sure how to contain such vibrant, unexpected enthusiasm for her own life. What is she meant to do with an abundance? She’s used to operating at a deficit; the last time she remembers having more to give than she requires simply to exist was in her early years at Hogwarts. Then, she’d turned her overflow into productivity, an outlet for her desire to learn everything.
Hermione shifts to her knees on the cottage doorstep where she’s being attempting to bait Pickpocket with some fresh chicken she prepared specifically for him. His interest appears limited to a haughty sniff and a derisive swish of his tail.
A nearby sound grabs her attention, and she looks up to see Ron leaving the old barn in the distance. As he begins walking the short path to the cottage, it takes until about the halfway point for him to look up and lock eyes with her.
The smile that breaks out on his face is one of devotion and familiarity.
Pickpocket goes to meet him with an adorable waddling trot, greedily accepting scratches when Ron leans down to greet him. Moments later, Ron is sinking onto the doorstep beside Hermione.
“Any luck?” he asks.
With a sigh, Hermione’s posture sinks. Handing him her bait, she says, “You try.”
Ron dangles the chicken, waves it around a bit, and tries his hand at sweet talking an animal clearly accustomed to doing things his own way. Ron’s stamina for cat dismissal appears much lower than Hermione’s, and he admits defeat quickly.
“Have you tried tinned fish? Wasn’t Crookshanks big on that?”
“He did like salmon. Actually, I think we might have a tin of tuna in the pantry. I’ll be right back.”
Hermione leaves Ron with Pickpocket and goes to rummage for the can she’s almost certain exists somewhere behind the tea and their old noodle packages. She returns triumphant, a single can of tuna clutched in her grip.
Pickpocket’s ears perk up instantly.
Hermione holds the can out and can’t help but gasp when he not only sniffs it, not only licks it, but actually takes a bite. She barely avoids the swipe of his paw trying to steal the whole tin for himself.
With what she could probably call a slightly-too-frantic energy, Hermione begins dropping a little trail of tuna globs leading into the cottage, unconcerned for the smell or the mess. Her only focus is Pickpocket.
And he follows, meandering from tuna-breadcrumb to tuna-breadcrumb, greedily gobbling it all up. He puts a paw out, touching the threshold between the cottage and the outside world, eyes target-locked on a globule of tuna ahead of him. A breath later, he makes the decision to prance inside as if this moment hasn’t been weeks in the making.
Hermione sucks in an excited breath and drops another dollop of tuna onto the ground.
“Should I…close the door behind him?” Ron asks.
“No, no. I don’t want to scare him. I want him to want to be in here.”
Ron nods, watching as Pickpocket slowly approaches where Hermione is now crouched beside the kitchen table. He finishes the last pile of tuna on the floor and eyes Hermione’s outstretched hand with his feline suspicion. He steps forward enough to butt his head into her palm and then immediately slinks away, back out the door before Hermione can so much as blink.
Her shoulders slump. Ron stares down at his own feet like he can believe how quickly the cat just darted between them.
“Okay,” Hermione says. “Okay. That was progress.”
Ron closes the door and casts a cooling charm, banishing some of the summer stagnation from their small cottage.
“You know,” he begins, “we had a few strays around The Burrow when I was a kid. And I remember them really liking bologna. Bacon too. At least, that’s what I used to sneak them.”
Hermione shrugs, standing. She sets her half-empty tin of tuna on the table. “We could try that. He’s clearly food motivated, just picky. I could grab some at the market tomorrow. I wanted to get us some summer squashes for roasting.”
Ron picks up the tin and relocates it to the Muggle refrigerator Hermione insists on using. She’ll cover it later so the whole thing doesn’t end up smelling like fish, but she appreciates Ron trying to help, even with a Muggle thing he still doesn’t fully understand.
“Squash sounds great,” he says, turning and leaning with his back against the fridge. “I—thank you for doing all this cooking. I know it’s kind of a dumb thing but it, uh, it’s really comforting.” He clears his throat. “I just wanted you to know. I appreciate it. And I was thinking—I’m really pants at cooking, both the Muggle and magical way. But for tonight, what if I apparated into town and got us takeaway from that little pizza place we spotted the other week? I want to help, you know? And a little Neapolitan style pizza in the middle of nowhere England? Could be great. Could be terrible.”
“It sounds wonderful. Thank you, Ron.”
“Yeah?” He smiles like he didn’t expect her interest. He always seems to look at her like he doesn’t expect her interest. “Great,” he finally adds. “Well, I’ll get cleaned up and then head out.”
“I could…join you. If you’re showering. I’ve got tinned tuna hands that could do with rinsing.”
It’s a flimsy excuse and they both know it. The sink is right there.
But Ron’s smile turns knowing, excited, as he pulls her to the bathroom with him.
—
Ron wakes Hermione in the middle of the night with soft hands trailing up her arms and softer words that require several blinks to comprehend.
“What’s that noise?” she asks, still coming out of sleep and wriggling beneath the sheets against his warm hands.
“Sounds like…yowling, maybe? I was thinking I’d go check it out but I figured you’d be cross with me if I didn’t wake you too.”
Ron’s fingers pulse quickly against her side, a pretend tickle. She’s not especially ticklish, that’s him, but she sees the attempted humour for what it is: a way to soften what could be seen as an accusation.
She doesn’t take it as an accusation. Maybe in a different place, as a different version of herself, one wrapped up in too much work to ever unclench her jaw and lower her shoulders, she might have sniped at him for suggesting something even remotely unbecoming about her. Because that’s how she would have seen it. Him pointing out some of her more controlling tendencies.
Now though, stretching against her sheets and feeling more relaxed than she has since she was a child, she chooses to see it as him knowing her. He knows she wouldn’t want to be left out, especially if he planned to do something even remotely dangerous. Strange noises in the middle of the night could be concerning, and she would hate not to be there if it ended up being anything insidious.
“Is it Pickpocket?” Hermione asks.
“Maybe. Hard to tell.”
Ron begins untangling himself from her; they’ve been little more than overlapping limbs since falling into bed together after a late night of chatting and cuddling by the fire. Too tired for sex, but not so tired that they didn’t want to be close, that their clothes didn’t come off anyway, that they didn’t spend several languorous minutes pressed flush together, exchanging soft, sleepy kisses and holding each other.
Hermione rises and throws on a long, lightweight robe, cinching it tight around the middle. Ron is still groggily searching for his trousers when he looks up at her, eyes flicking to her chest where the deep vee of her robe descends between her breasts before being fastened by the belt. His face morphs, hunt for his clothes entirely abandoned as he approaches.
He loops a finger in the belt loop and pulls.
“Gods,” he breathes, fingers dancing up her skin, “what a sight.”
The belt loosens and her robe sags. It takes a single smooth movement for him to cup her breast, standing close enough that his breath drifts across her cheek and jaw.
His thumb brushes over her nipple, ripping a shiver from her spine. Ron looks like he’s about to say something, probably something horribly compelling that will have her wanting to crawl back into bed with him, but the yowling comes again.
They snap out of it, but not before he gives her breast a solid squeeze. She doubts he even realises he groans while he does it.
But they rose at this unholy hour for a reason, so they return to dressing themselves in the dead of night.
—
Their search for the source of their middle-of-the-night disturbance is remarkably short. When they open the front door to their cottage, they find their cat.
Their cat who they’d thought was a hefty boy but had clearly been a heavily pregnant girl judging by the litter of kittens surrounding her.
It takes Hermione the span of a breathed “oh my god” before she’s in motion. Checking on the kittens, checking on Pickpocket, cleaning them of blood and birthing mess.
She hardly knows what to do, marvelling at four newborn kittens sitting right there on her doorstep. They seem well enough, just new to the world and worn out, at least according to the basic wellness spells she casts.
She brings them some food and water and a saucer of milk because she thinks they deserve options and a little bit in decadence. Giving birth and being born are both tremendous accomplishments, she rationalises, heart soaring with delight.
Ron appears from inside the cottage behind her holding a tube of ground beef.
“What are you planning to do with that?” she asks, smiling up at his absurdity. He’s fisting a cylinder of raw meat like it’s a reasonable response to finding kittens on one’s doorstep.
“I thought they might be hungry?”
“I already grabbed Pickpocket some tuna, and the kittens will nurse. I’m…not sure what anyone is going to do with raw beef.”
Ron looks from her to the tube of meat in his hand and back to her again. “Right. This isn’t as helpful as I was hoping it would be.”
“You could help by seeing if we can get them inside. I know she’s…skittish of the indoors but I don’t want to leave them outside all night. What if a predator hears?”
“Okay, what can I do?”
“Grab me something I can transfigure into a bed?”
Ron disappears back into the cottage and emerges a moment later with one of their many cosy blankets in hand. A couple quick spells later and it’s a soft bed she’s using to coax Pickpocket and her kittens onto something safer and more comfortable than a stone doorstep.
With some gentle encouragement, Hermione lures all five of them onto the bed, which she then levitates and directs inside. Pickpocket’s head and ears perk up as they transition into the cottage, but otherwise she puts up no fuss. Hermione’s heart swells with the implied trust she’s finally earned.
She sets them down by the fireplace, gets a small fire going, and sinks into a pile of blankets beside them, watching these new little lives with a smile on her face.
Ron joins them a moment later with the food and water she’d left outside. Settling beside her, his presence is a warm, comfortable thing. It’s familiar and reassuring and there’s no one she’d rather share this experience with.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ron says, tucking several of her flyaway curls behind her ear.
“It is.”
—
Hermione must have fallen asleep right there by the fire, because she opens her eyes to soft morning light streaming in through the windows and quiet shutter clicks happening somewhere above her head.
She looks up to see Ron kneeling opposite her and holding an old camera.
“What are you—”
“Careful,” he says. “Don’t move. You have kittens sleeping in your hair.”
Still a bit groggy, Hermione turns her head just enough to see two different kittens snuggling in a nest of her curls. Either from the conversation or the movement or the dawn of a new day finding them, the cats begin rousing.
Hermione keeps her face pressed against the blankets as Ron helps her two stowaways escape her bramble of curls and return to nurse with their mother.
“I made you tea,” he says, disentangling a tiny paw from a particularly clingy curl.
Hermione smiles, thanks him, and floats along a current of affection and ease as she rises and readies for the day.
As Hermione is sipping on her tea from the sofa, attention still stolen by her new furry friends, Ron comes up from behind and massages the muscles at the base of her neck with strong, calloused thumbs.
“Can I show you something? Do you think it’s okay if we leave them for a bit?”
“I think so,” Hermione says, standing. “Pickpocket has done an excellent job taking care of herself all this time. I think her babies are in good hands.”
She makes sure they have fresh food and water before she follows Ron outside. He walks them along the path beside the little garden they planted together, now in overflowing bloom with tomatoes bearing fruit and herbs so lush and wild they’re beginning to flower.
Further, he walks by the fence he built by hand in the first week they were here, stopping at the old barn adjacent to it.
“Do I finally get to see what you’ve been working on?” Hermione asks. The cosmetic changes on the outside of the building haven't escaped her notice.
Ron smiles at her. “It hasn’t been a secret.”
“No, but it’s been yours. I thought you deserved to have something that was entirely yours until you decided you wanted to share it…if you ever did.”
Ron wraps an arm around her waist, leaning close. He kisses the crook of her neck in a lingering moment of affection that would have been far too intimate for their day-to-day not so long ago. Now though, it feels perfectly placed.
“The paint looks nice,” she says. “I still don’t know what use we have for a barn, but you’ve done a great job sprucing it up.”
Lacing his hands through hers, Ron tugs her to the door and swings it open. “It’s not a barn anymore.”
As Hermione steps inside, her breath and her heart and her thoughts all catch, stuck on the remarkable sight in front of her.
It’s a house…a home. A real home, and so much more impressive than their tiny cottage. The first thing she sees is another fireplace, much bigger than the one in their cottage. There are squishy sofas and a living room stocked with wizard’s chess and gobstones and exploding snap, plus rows and rows of built-in bookshelves stuffed to the brim. Across from the living room, a huge open kitchen welcomes her with windows overlooking the field beyond the barn. This space alone is nearly twice the size of the entire cottage.
And then there are stairs. A second floor?
“What…what is all this?” It might be the dumbest question she’s ever asked, but she has to ask it.
“This has never been temporary for me, Hermione.”
His language is ambiguous, something that might normally irritate her, but she thinks maybe he means many things by this. Them. This place.
“If you want,” he continues, “we could live here. I made sure the fireplace is large enough for floo regulations, and it would be easy to set up a connection to the Ministry once your sabbatical is up. I could do the same into Diagon Alley.”
Ron shifts his weight when he talks, glancing around this entire home he made for them like he’s uncertain of it, of himself. He can’t quite seem to look at Hermione directly.
“But what I’m saying is that we could live here. We could live here all the time. This…doesn’t have to end,” he says.
Hermione is stunned to speechlessness. She literally cannot form words; her brain is nothing but static electricity jolting with sudden bursts of unexpected emotion. Gratitude. Love. Affection. Love. Astonishment. Love.
Lacking the words to respond to this act of devotion in front of her, she throws her arms around Ron’s neck and kisses him. Pouring her appreciation into the rhythm of a kiss meant to translate the overwhelming emotion thudding through her veins.
Ron responds in kind, as if he’s been primed and desperate for permission to touch her. He pushes her up against a nearby wall, body pinned by his as his mouth and hands wander.
“Did you…did you build this wall?” she asks, panting.
“I did.”
“You’re kissing me against a wall you built.”
“I am.” And he groans when she hitches a leg up around his hip.
Something about the idea of being pinned to a wall he built liquifies her insides. He built it for her. Them. For a life they could live here, a place that could be theirs.
“I love you,” she breathes because she can’t not say it for a single second longer.
Ron’s weight sags against her. Instead of spurring him on with her declaration like she’d hoped, he slows, eventually stilling. He pulls back to look at her, a strange mix of wonder and sadness seeping from his eyes. He kisses one side of her temple. Then the other. Then rests his forehead against hers, eyes closing as it sounds like he’s struggling for breath.
“I—” he starts, still pressed close, fingers at her waist flexing as his mouth contorts, evidently searching for the right words. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to earn your love for so long.”
“Oh, Ron, no,” Hermione gasps. She reaches up, sliding her palms up his collar, resting against the side of his neck. “It’s never been about you. It’s always been…feeling like I don’t know how. I just, I didn’t know how to make room. I didn’t even know how to breathe. But you’ve always been such a wonderful constant and you’ve given me the space I needed.” She sucks in a breath. Ron’s eyes are still closed, lingering close but feeling distant. “It’s not that I didn’t love you before. I did, I do, I—think it. I think it all the time and I’m sorry I never said so earlier. I didn’t know—”
“Hermione,” he interrupts, finally looking at her. His face fills with warmth again, the hint of a smile, evidence of his love. “I love you too. You know that right?”
“I do. You’ve told me in so many ways.” She can’t help but glance around the home he literally built for them.
“I have. But I never said it either. I was—scared, I think. Of loving you more than you love me and that’s…not how I want to live anymore. Hey—don’t cry. We’re supposed to be happy right now.”
She had no idea she was crying in the first place. But sure enough, Ron lifts a hand and wipes a tear from the top of her cheek.
“We are happy,” she chokes out. “We’re so happy.”
“You know what else I built?” he asks, smiling gently at her.
“What?”
“A bedroom. Upstairs. Let me show you.”
Hermione follows, hand cradled in his, as he leads her up the stairs and into a fully furnished bedroom. It’s bright and sunny and perfectly captures mid-afternoon light through delicate curtains blowing in the breeze. The windows are thrown wide open and it’s a little warm, but it’s also lovely. So lovely. And theirs.
She smells wildflowers somewhere in the distance.
“I love you,” Ron says from behind her, hands tracing her silhouette like an artist determined to memorise every tactile detail. She melts into it, head leaning back to rest against his shoulder.
Ron takes his time slowly stripping her of her clothes, leading her to the bed.
“Stay here with me,” he begs. And perhaps in emphasis of his desperation, Hermione finds herself standing at the foot of this beautiful, enormous bed, bracing herself against one of the posts.
Ron settles onto his knees and drapes one of her legs over his shoulder. “How long can you stay standing?” he asks. And before waiting for an answer, he kisses her inner thigh, nipping at her skin.
Barely a breath later and he licks a broad stripe up her cunt that has Hermione’s head rolling back, grip on the post tightening. She wobbles. And in the end, she can’t stand for very long at all. Ron seems more than happy to let her settle onto the soft bed with his warm, comforting weight above her.
She squirms when he sinks into her, panting with more sensation than she knows what to do with. She clings to him, whimpering with every thrust of his hips, pulse sparkling with the anticipation of impending pleasure.
“Look at you,” he says, out of breath as he grips her thighs and snaps his hips. His thumb finds her clit, unrelenting. All Hermione can do is whimper and whine and try to drag enough air into her lungs that she doesn’t pass out. “So beautiful. So full.”
She babbles an agreement, knowing exactly what he means because she feels it. And gods, does it feel good.
His hands drift higher, palms across her stomach. “I’m gonna fill you up —fuck.”
“Please,” she begs, only partially certain she’s done so out loud. The begging is a cacophony inside her head. “Please, please.”
“Who would have thought,” he says, bringing his mouth to her ear. “I had a pretty active imagination as a teenager, but I never could have dreamed you’d be like this. Begging for me, looking like this. Letting me fill you up.”
“Yes, please. Gods, Ron.” She clenches, head thrown back against a pillow and pleasure zips up her spine, electricity in her nerves, sparks beneath her skin.
Ron makes a groaning sound as she comes, stuttering several more broken thrusts before he finishes too, words reduced to incoherency as he compliments everything about her. From her body to her brain to how beautifully she begs.
He pulls out slowly, making another noise as he swipes his fingers through the mess between Hermione’s legs and presses his fingers inside her; she flutters and clenches around him.
“Still so sensitive—Merlin, you’re everything.”
That’s the last thought meandering around her head as she slips into the haze of an afternoon nap with him pressed against her side. This is everything, and she could choose to keep it that way.
—
It’s an easy decision in the end, one she barely has to make. With magical transportation being what it is, there’s no reason she and Ron ever need to leave this little paradise they’ve made for themselves, even when slowly reentering the flow of normal society again. They simply don’t have to live in or near a city unless they want to. And they don’t want to.
Ron begins working with George near the end of summer, and Hermione returns to the Ministry at the beginning of autumn. She begins with half days, then eases herself into a normal, full time routine. On the surface, it looks very similar to her life before she took her sabbatical, but it’s different by orders of magnitude.
She only allows herself to work late two days a week, which means if she stays late Monday and Tuesday, she has a hard cut off time for the rest of the week. Her life is now about compromises made for the sake of her sanity, and for the life she’s realised she can live, and wants to live, outside the realm of her professional accomplishments.
As autumn kicks into full gear, Hermione finds she loves this little countryside place of theirs just as much as she did in the summer. They have several kittens plus Pickpocket to keep them company. They’re still mostly outdoor cats, but Hermione is doing her best to change feline hearts and minds on that front, and predominantly for her own selfish purposes of kitten cuddles by the fire late at night.
It’s almost astonishing how different her life looks and feels from earlier in the year, how much happier Hermione is with herself and how much more secure she feels in her relationship.
During dinner one night, a dinner she and Ron share on the porch while they watch the cats play and the sun slowly sink beneath the horizon, Hermione is overwhelmed by a sense of contentment. Ron is delighted by the roast she made, and she’s delighted to have him appreciate her cooking. It hasn’t gotten old yet, that rush of appreciation. Plus, there’s something compelling about building a skill purely out of love. She thinks it’s not unlike how he learned to build them a house.
As the sun sets and their meal is done, she curls up beside Ron on the massive swinging bench on their porch (his latest project and massive hit with both Hermione and the cats). A sudden question springs from her that she’s not sure she intended to speak out loud.
But ever since her I love you broke free, she finds it more and more difficult to keep anything of consequence from him. Her thoughts needn’t be exclusively her own; she has a partner.
“Do you think we should get married?”
Ron turns to her with a kind of shocked awe warping his features. “I’m not sure what to say to that,” he finally manages.
Unexpected self-consciousness tangles in Hermione’s throat. “That you don’t hate the idea would be a good start.”
He grins, pulling her against him. “I don’t hate it. I don’t hate it at all. I’m very happy to live a life with you however you want it, though I am partial to the idea of calling you my wife. But—and maybe you’ll think it’s offensively traditional of me—I always expected I’d be the one to bring it up. You know, with a ring and on one knee.”
Hermione’s heart rate calms. For a terrible series of seconds she’d thought she ruined everything. “Couples do discuss their futures before official proposals are had, you realise.”
He chuckles quietly before saying, “I know. I know. And I shouldn’t be surprised you beat me to it.”
She shifts, moving to straddle his lap, swing gently swaying beneath them. Ron’s grip on her waist descends, a quick trip to her hips where he grinds her down against him.
“You know,” he starts as his hands begin ascending again, this time tackling the buttons on the front of her shirt dress one by one, slowly revealing her skin. He cups a breast, stiffening her nipple with slow, persistent circles with his thumb. “If we were married, it would be much more readily expected for me to do all the things I want to do with you.”
Hermione’s head lolls, a quiet whine slipping from her throat as Ron leans forward to put his mouth on her, determined tongue doing the same work as his thumb.
“Like what?” she manages to ask on a gusting exhale.
“Like bending you over every horizontal surface I can find.” There’s a brief pause before: “Populating this place. With more than just cats.”
It’s the first time the dangerous game they’ve been playing is spoken into reality with them. Hermione isn’t so prudish not to have figured out the specific proclivity they share, and all the ways it has permeated their sex life. But they’re still learning the best ways to communicate about some things, and sex has been something so easily conducted through touch that the status quo has been a wonderful, wonderous thing.
Ron’s teeth sink into the flesh above her breast, not especially hard, but enough to pull her from her thoughts.
“I like the thrill of pretending,” he says. “Even if it’s just in the moment, even if you’re on some other contraceptive. But gods, what I’d give for it to be real.”
“I’m not on any contraceptives.”
She assumed he knew. They weren’t casting them like they usually did, and so she thought he knew the risks they were assuming. She had no idea he’d thought she was only indulging in a fantasy, that she’d been taking care of contraception another way. And yes, they should have had this conversation the very first time it happened. But some things, some kinds of communication, were happening without words, reconnections they were making with their bodies. Risks they were taking. And this was one of them.
Ron’s eyes blow wide. “You’re not?”
She shakes her head, entertaining in that moment the end of all this, ruined by a conversation that never happened but should have.
“Oh, fuck,” Ron breathes, hands descending to her hips again, rolling her against him. “You’ve been letting me come inside you this whole time? And you’re not—” he breaks off, groaning. Rather than continue, he kisses her, frantically gathering her dress fabric.
Hermione can do nothing but kiss him back, and with similar intensity. She knew they were on the same page about this, even if it had all been left unspoken.
Ron’s hands finally meet her arse, squeezing. And then he’s unbuckling his belt and shoving down his trousers enough to thrust up into her the moment he has her knickers pulled to the side.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he pants with each thrust. The chains on their swing creak ominously, his construction skills put heartily to the test while Hermione grinds herself atop him, whimpering helplessly when he squeezes her arse. Her breasts.
His mouth drags across every exposed inch of her as he mumbles filthy, wonderful things against her skin.
“I’m going to fill you up. So full, fuck. You’ll be glowing with our baby inside you. We’ll be so happy. So happy here.”
“Yes. Yes,” she breathes. They will be.
And they are.