Behind Closed, Locked, and Soundproofed Doors

Arthur Weasley was rarely seen kissing his wife.

Those of high breeding and high-arched eyebrows whispered out of the corners of their pasted-on smiles that, even if they couldn't fathom his unfortunate Muggle fetish, they could understand the distaste he must feel for his dowdy, dumpy wife. They tsked haughtily and gossiped on about the terrible way she had let herself go after the third child, not that she'd ever had anything in the way of beauty or charm, mind you.

His colleagues at the Ministry murmured with small, sad smiles in sympathy and pity. They knew (who didn't?) that he had more than enough to worry about. With his surplus of children and scarcity of money, who could blame him for being too tired and too preoccupied for the exertions of intimacy? Besides, neither he nor Molly would win any prizes for looks.

Other, more intimate acquaintances smiled patronizingly and talked about a love that fit like a well-worn slipper and had transcended the base physicality of youthful lust. They spoke of his devotion to his family, his unflappable demeanour in the face of his fiery-tempered wife or their explosion-mad twin sons, and his fervent dedication to justice. And though it perched vulture-like upon their hearts, they didn't whisper a word about the strain of tension-tattered nerves and fatigue-stricken limbs that grew like thornbushes between them and their own lovers.

Arthur Weasley was rarely seen kissing his wife, and no one ever asked him why. Too entangled in their webs of faux politeness and too comfortable with their own versions, his colleagues and friends, his enemies and acquaintances never bothered to enquire whether he fit in the neat little boxes they'd constructed for him.

Entirely oblivious to the drone of rumours and mutterings that babbled around him, Arthur Weasley was rarely seen kissing his wife. He worked hard and earned little, dreamed much and gossiped rarely, loved his family deeply and the Order only slightly less so. He had no time or inclination to notice idle speculations, so he continued living as he always had.

When all the excess was stripped away, Arthur Weasley was rarely seen kissing his wife because her lips tasted of raisins and cinnamon and desire. When he kissed her lips, he could feel his hands rising to curl and clench in her disheveled hair. If they did so, all was lost. With one hand buried in the red tangles, his other soon strayed down familiar slopes and curves to tease milktooth-scarred nipples through the knobbly knit of her mismatched jumper. When she began to moan and tilt her hips just so, nestling the warm, soft curve of her belly against his arousal, it was only a matter of minutes before a hodgepodge of robes and jumpers and knickers adorned the nearest furniture. At that point, a Muggle flying machine could crash outside the window and he wouldn't give it a second glance, lost as he was in the wonder of her ever-changing, ever-beautiful body.

Arthur Weasley was rarely seen kissing his wife because, despite society's considerably relaxed mores, it was still considered unseemly to publicly ravish one's own wife deeply and well.