Tree Houses and Daisies

little_bird

Story Summary:
Ron and Hermione, in the months after the war.

Chapter 08 - Turn the Page

Posted:
03/02/2008
Hits:
2,182


'It's about time you came home,' he said, before kissing her. She tasted of rain and tea.

Hermione broke the kiss. 'I agree.'

Ron pulled her back into a kiss, lifting her off her feet. He overbalanced and fell backwards, Hermione landing on his chest. Ron mentally shrugged, and wound his hands into Hermione's wet hair, and began to make up for lost time.

******

Ron rolled Hermione over, ignoring her slight squeak of surprise. 'I missed you,' she murmured against his lips.

'I missed you, too,' he admitted, gasping as her hands slipped under the hem of his untucked shirt and into the back of his jeans. 'I missed that, too.' He kissed the tip of her nose.

Hermione grinned and wound her fingers into his hair, pulling his face back down. 'So did I.'

Ron came up for air. 'You smell different,' he informed her.

'Bad different?'

'No.' Ron nuzzled the skin under Hermione's jaw. 'Just different.' He bent his head to kiss her again. 'You taste different, too.'

'Blame Percy. He's the one that stocked the kitchen for us. Different brand of tea, but Mum won't just get rid of it and buy the usual.'

'I'll have a word with him at lunch tomorrow,' he promised, his lips grazing the skin of her collarbone, giving her a hard, sucking kiss at the base of her neck.

'Are you two going to come inside, or stay out here snogging all night?' inquired an amused voice above them. Ron and Hermione looked up guiltily to see Harry standing over them, his wand alit.

'Erm...' Even in the dim light from Harry's wand, he could see Ron blush.

Hermione reached up to brush Ron's now soaking wet hair from his eyes. 'We'll go inside,' she said, smiling at Ron.

Ron scrambled up, helped Hermione to her feet, and picked up her knapsack.

The three of them ran into the kitchen, the door slamming behind them, and Hermione turned around, throwing her arms around Harry. 'Hi,' she said, then pulled back so she could look him in the eyes. 'How are you?'

'Better.' Harry shrugged. 'Good days, bad days...' He self-consciously squeezed the water from his shirt. Then with a quick look at Ron, he bent to gently kiss Hermione on the forehead.

'Hey, now,' Ron protested, with a twinkle in his eyes.

'What? I can't kiss my sister hello these days?' Harry demanded jokingly.

Hermione blinked back sudden tears. 'Really?' she whispered.

Harry looked down at her, before gathering Hermione into a hug. 'Yeah. Really.'

'Why are the two of you soaking wet? Go change into something dry so you don't catch cold,' ordered Molly, coming into the kitchen. She hadn't seen Hermione yet. Ron and Harry stood in front of her, blocking her from Molly's view.

'We heard something outside, Mum,' piped up Ron.

'We went to check it out,' added Harry.

'Probably just thunder,' Molly said, stirring a pot of stew on the stove.

'Thunder? Well, maybe. She can be pretty loud when she wants to be,' said Ron, throwing a grin at Hermione over his shoulder.

'She?' Molly turned around, hands on her hips. 'What are you two on about?'

Ron reached back and pulled Hermione forward. 'Guess who's home,' he said gleefully.

'Hermione,' breathed Molly. 'Arthur! Arthur! She's home!' Molly called, before she enfolded Hermione into a hug. 'Oh, dear. Why are you soaking wet? And how on earth did you get leaves in your hair?' Before Hermione could answer, Molly was pushing Hermione toward the stairs. 'Go on up to Ginny's room, dear and put something dry on.' She looked at Ron and Harry, both dripping on the kitchen floor. 'The two of you as well. And don't dawdle. Dinner will be ready soon.'

Harry lightly ran up the stairs to the attic, while Ron and Hermione followed more slowly. 'So I brought my diary with me,' Hermione said.

'Switch later?'

'All right.'

'My room. After everyone's gone to sleep.' Ron cupped Hermione's head in a hand, as he kissed her, softly, sweetly.

'Mmmm-hmmmm,' she agreed, head spinning.

They parted when they heard a discreet cough from the stairs above them. 'Keep on like that, and you won't need dry clothes,' Harry said dryly, as he stopped on the landing by Ginny's room. 'Oh, and while I'm here...' He lightly punched Ron on the shoulder. 'That's for pawing my sister. And if you hurt her...' Harry paused menacingly. 'I know someone who can teach me a good Bat-Bogey Hex.' He looked at Hermione, who was blushing as hard as any Weasley by now. 'It's about time you came home,' Harry said, starting to go back down the stairs. 'He was starting to droop like a wilted lily or something.'

Ron caught Hermione's eye. She was giving him a look. 'What?' he asked.

'Nothing.' She grinned. 'Go get dressed,' she said, taking her knapsack from his hand. She slowly closed the door and leaned against it, taking a moment to catch her breath. Hermione opened the knapsack, and quickly pulled out a dry pair of jeans and a jumper. She peeled off her wet clothing, and dressed, draping her wet clothes over the chair at Ginny's desk, so she could perform a Drying charm on them. She brushed and dried her hair, then pulled a pair of socks on her bare feet, and padded to the kitchen.

Ron was helping Molly dish up dinner. The sight made Hermione stop in her tracks. 'Who are you?' she asked, her mouth open.

'I can cook, you know,' he said.

'Actually, no. I don't.'

'Recent development,' George said from his place at the table, unwinding Teddy's fat fingers from his hair. 'He hasn't poisoned anyone yet.'

'He's not bad,' Harry said, taking Teddy from George, dodging Teddy's attempts to grab his glasses.

Ron set a basket of bread on the table. 'Thanks for the support, guys.'

'Anytime.' George grinned, but it still had a tinge of sadness behind it.

Arthur came in from the sitting room, his nose buried in a Muggle refrigerator manual. 'Molly, who did you say was home?'

'Hello, Mr. Wea - Arthur.' Hermione waved from her chair.

Arthur smiled. 'Oh, Hermione.' He planted a kiss on top of her head. 'Good to see you, dear.' He turned a page of the manual. 'How do these things work?'

'It's like a Cooling charm, but with electricity,' she said.

'Oh, electricksity,' Arthur said, nodding sagely.

Ron put a bowl of stew in front of Hermione, and slid into the seat next to hers. She stirred it a few times with a spoon, and Ron rolled his eyes and leaned over to whisper in her ear. 'It's okay. I didn't put anything funny in there.'

Hermione's startled gaze flew up to meet Ron's amused blue eyes. 'You did this?'

'Mostly.'

She cautiously tasted what was on her own spoon. 'It's good. Really good.'

'Told you,' Ron said smugly.

******

Hermione sat on Ginny's bed, wrapped in her dressing gown, her diary in her hands. Molly and Arthur were usually in bed by ten-thirty. Harry had gone to bed when he put Teddy down for the night. George was still awake. He was at the table with Ron discussing a few ideas for the shop.

She still couldn't believe Ron was working at the shop with George. Not that she minded, after seeing Fred and George in action two years ago, but she hadn't thought George would make Ron a part of it.

Hermione checked her watch and began to pace, tracing a path around the small rug in front of Ginny's bed. She stilled when she heard the stairs creak softly, and George and Ron's baritone whispers. Hermione checked the time on her watch. I'll give him ten minutes, she thought. She sat nervously on the edge of the bed, and opened the diary. She'd written in it almost every day she'd been in Australia.

The ticking of her watch sounded unnaturally loud in the small bedroom.

Hermione looked out the window, after checking her watch for what seemed like the hundredth time in the last two minutes.

It was still raining.

Finally, the ten minutes were up, and Hermione silently crept up the stairs to the attic. And Ron.

She pushed open the door, and closed it behind her. Ron was sitting cross-legged in the middle of his bed, clad only in a pair of boxers. He looked up from his own diary. 'Hi,' he said softly, a smile lighting up his face.

'Hi,' she replied.

Ron unfolded himself from the bed, and reached for Hermione's hand. He pulled her closer, and frowned at her dressing gown. Ron's hands came to rest on the sash, silently asking permission to untie it. She nodded her assent, and Ron slowly untied the sash, his hands sliding up to Hermione's shoulders, and pushed the dressing gown to the floor, his eyes never wavering from hers. Her diary fell to the floor with a papery thump.

He glanced down, distracted by the sound. He blinked a few times. 'Is that what I think it is?'

'Yeah,' Hermione giggled. 'I came up here after dinner that evening and put it in my handbag.'

'You took it with you to Australia?' Ron asked in amazement.

'Yep. I slept in it. Almost every night,' she confessed.

'Why would you do something like that, you daft hen?'

'It smelled like you. For the first few days anyway. It reminded me of you. And after sleeping with you for the last year, it was weird to sleep without you.'

Ron drew Hermione to the bed and pulled her down with him, settling her so her back rested against his chest. 'I looked everywhere for that bloody shirt,' he chided.

'Sorry.'

'Don't be.' Ron's fingers traced patterns up Hermione's leg, coming as far as the edge of her knickers. Merlin, Ron, what are you trying to do? She just got back. Ron started trying to create a mental catalog of every item in the shop they could safely ship to Hogwarts.

Hermione shivered. She could feel the heat of Ron's body through the thin cotton of the t-shirt. She glanced down. It wouldn't be hard to slip a hand through his boxers... She squeezed her eyes shut. You just got back, Granger. Give him some time to get used to you again!

'Mione?'

'Hmmmm?'

'Do you want to trade diaries now?' Ron tried to keep his voice from cracking under the strain of trying very hard to not to pull the t-shirt from Hermione's body. His hands roamed over the contours of her, skimming over her like he'd done so often in his dreams.

'Not particularly,' she said huskily.

'What do you want to do?'

'Erm...' Hermione blushed, her hand sliding just inside the leg of his boxers.

Ron drew in a deep breath. 'You're joking.'

'No.'

'But - I thought - Girls...' Ron sputtered. 'I mean, I know I think about it a lot, but girls...' He gestured helplessly.

'We do.'

'Oh.'

Hermione turned so she faced Ron. 'We don't have to right this second.'

'Right.' The blood was slowly draining from Ron's head. 'But what if I want to?'

Hermione sighed in relief. 'Thank God, because I do, too.' When Ron looked at her with a raised eyebrow, she snorted. 'A girl has needs, Ron.'

Ron reached into the drawer of his night table. 'Good thing I went to get these yesterday,' he said, pulling a condom out. 'Constant vigilance.'

Hermione smirked at him. 'Ron?'

'Yeah?'

'Shut up and kiss me already.'

******

Ron glanced up from Hermione's diary. Her bare foot was propped on his chest. He ran his thumb lightly down the sole of her foot. Her foot twitched, and he experimentally did it again. 'That tickles,' she said, not looking up from his diary.

'You're ticklish?'

'A little,' Hermione admitted sheepishly. Ron's fingertips danced over the foot resting on his chest. She looked up from her position at the foot of the bed. I can go read this in Ginny's room,' she said pointedly, tugging her ankle from Ron's grasp.

He let go, grinning at her. 'No, that's all right.'

'You really did start learning how to cook.'

'Always the tone of surprise,' he said with a smirk. 'Yeah. Right after you left. It was a good distraction.'

'Can you do other things besides stew?'

'Of course I can!' Ron said indignantly. 'Just came easily for me,' he said shrugging. 'Like flying is for Harry or reading for you.'

'I didn't even think about using the telephone,' Hermione said sadly, gesturing toward a page in the middle of Ron's diary.

Ron laughed. 'Not surprising, given my previous experience.' He turned a page thoughtfully. 'You eavesdropped on the Australian Minister?'

'Um. Yeah.'

'Her assistant didn't try anything, did he?' Ron asked his eyes narrowing.

'No.' Hermione giggled. 'After she warned him off me, he wouldn't even look at me.' She lost the battle to keep from laughing out loud. 'She's right, though. I would have hexed his balls off.'

Ron's hand darted to cover his own. 'Remind me not to take the mickey out of you when you're in a bad mood.'

'Good advice,' she murmured. She closed Ron's diary. 'When did he stop having nightmares?'

'Who said he stopped?' Ron twisted the strap that held Hermione's diary closed. 'They're just not every night anymore.'

She looked around the room. It wasn't quite as orange as it used to be. 'The camp bed wasn't here before.'

'Harry started sleeping in here before his birthday. He's only in Bill's room tonight because of Teddy.'

Hermione rolled over onto her back. 'So much changed when I was gone.'

'And so much stayed the same.'

Hermione fingered the diary resting on her stomach. 'I can't believe she slapped him,' she said softly.

Ron didn't need to ask who she meant. 'I don't think she did either.' He was quiet for a moment. 'Harry knows,' he said suddenly.

Hermione eyed him. 'Knows what?'

'This,' Ron mumbled, making a gesture encompassing the two of them and his bed.

'Oh.' Hermione blushed. 'So does my mum,' she said to the cover of the diary.

Ron sat up, the sheet falling in folds to his hips. 'You told your mum?' he asked in a scandalized whisper. 'Oh Merlin, Hermione.'

'She's...' Hermione searched for an appropriate word. 'Not fine with it really, but she understands. And as long as we're taking precautions.'

Ron flipped the diary open. He seemed to remember skimming over something about that. 'I can't believe you told your mum,' he muttered as he found the page in the diary. He read the page this time, taking his time. 'Do you mean it?' His quiet voice carried in the silence. 'Having a life with me?'

'Yes.'

'Seriously?'

'Yes.'

Ron looked down at the words in front of him. He allowed himself to think about what she meant by a normal life. Normal... We could get married; have a couple of kids... Ron could picture it, too. A little girl with Hermione's wide brown eyes, a sprinkle of freckles across her nose, and a riot of strawberry curls. Maybe one day soon, he thought, a blunt-tipped finger tracing over the words.

He looked up. Hermione was asleep. Ron gently took his diary from her slack hands, and put it on the night table, then put hers on top of it. They could finish them tomorrow. He eased out of bed, and picked up the quilt off the floor. Ron spread it over Hermione, then crawled into the bed next to her.

*****

A buzzing sound filled Hermione's ears. 'Uhhhhhhhhnnnnnn,' she groaned, and tried to burrow back into the warm quilts.

'Mione, you have to go back to Ginny's room.' Ron's husky voice was muffled by the pillow she had pulled over her head.

'Don't want to,' she whined, arching against Ron.

Ron let out a strangled groan. Neither of them had put anything on again last night before they began to read the diaries. 'Mione, please, don't do that again,' he begged. 'Not unless you want us to get caught.'

'I'll be quiet,' she said hazily. 'So quiet.'

'It's not you I'm worried about,' Ron growled.

'What time is it?'

'Five.'

Hermione wrapped her arms around Ron's waist. 'I like naked Ron,' she purred.

Ron blinked. 'Hermione!' he whispered. 'Wake up.'

Hermione frowned slightly. 'I am awake, Ronald.'

'I don't know about you, hen, but I don't want to be here if Mum finds us, naked, in my bed, having obviously spent the night doing what we did. She'll go spare.'

'Thirty more minutes,' Hermione begged.

Ron looked down at her. Hermione was still warm and pliable with sleep, and her hair was spread over his pillow. 'I can't promise we'll actually sleep,' he said.

True to his word, Ron helped Hermione into her dressing gown, and escorted her back down to Ginny's room. They managed to avoid the creakiest of the stairs. 'Why can't we put a Silencing charm on them?' wondered Hermione.

'You can't,' Ron said simply. 'Mum and Dad put some sort of charm on them when Bill was fourteen. We can't do anything to them to make them quieter.'

'We'll have to remember that,' Hermione said. They came to a stop at Ginny's bedroom. 'I'll see you in a bit,' she whispered. She slipped into Ginny's room, and closed the door. Hermione looked at the clock and sighed. She had a couple of hours to get some sleep.

Hermione pulled on her pajamas and crawled into bed. She couldn't sleep. Even as tired as she was, she hummed with restlessness. Hermione had slept some the night before, but she spent a good portion of the night wide-awake, doing a host of other things besides sleeping.

Flashes of what he'd written in his diary paraded through her mind.

His not wanting to be an Auror, for one. Hermione knew it was something he had wanted since their fourth year, and now he'd been given the chance to be one, even without N.E.W.T.s, he'd turned it down. She knew why she had sent Shacklebolt a firm 'no' to his invitation to join the Aurors, but she never dreamed Ron felt the same way.

Going into the shop with George. Hermione wasn't sure how she felt about that. While the amount of advanced magic the twins used in their products was impressive, she wasn't certain it was what Ron would be happy doing. She made a mental note to talk to Ron about it. If he could reassure her he was in the shop for his own purposes, and not to try and take Fred's place, she would be satisfied.

Finding out how Ron cried as a child. Hermione smiled in the dark. It was something he would never admit to her in person.

How uncomfortable he was with the idea of Harry and Ginny doing something more than snogging. Hermione giggled softly. It was rather hypocritical, really, considering they'd spent most of the night entwined around each other. But from what Ron written in the diary, Harry wasn't really comfortable with the idea of her and Ron doing anything beyond kissing. 'Boys,' she said wryly.

Harry's realization his scar no longer hurt.

Percy and his Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle boxers. Hermione smiled. She'd never be able to look at Percy again with a straight face.

George remembering how to laugh. And that it was Fred who helped.

The one line she remembered clearly was one of the last entries he'd written. Begging her to come back, nearly praying she hadn't forgotten him.

Hermione lay staring at the ceiling, before she gave up trying to sleep and stole downstairs to make some tea. She stopped short in the doorway. 'Oh!' Ron was already at the sink, filling the teakettle. 'I couldn't sleep,' she confessed.

'I couldn't, either.'

Ron told her to sit down, and she watched him make a pot of tea and a plate of toast. He sat in the chair next to hers, levitating the cups, teapot, and plate of toast to the table. Molly came into the kitchen a few minutes later. They didn't hear her.

Molly took the time to examine them closely, without their noticing. There was something different about the way they sat near each other, bodies instinctively curving to accommodate each other. Their hands rested on the table, fingers entwined. It looked innocent enough, but Molly saw something in the way Ron's thumb rubbed the underside of Hermione's wrist. The way Hermione's head rested on Ron's shoulder, and how his lips brushed over her temple.

When Ron left the kitchen to dress for the day, Molly leaned across the table. 'Hermione?'

'Yes?'

'I didn't set a curfew for Harry and Ginny because they were together all night,' Molly whispered conspiratorially.

'Oh?' Hermione's eyebrow lifted.

'I did it because they stayed outside all night.' Molly sat back and sipped her tea. 'Not that I'm giving you permission, mind you.' She shrugged. 'But both of you are of age, and Merlin knows you two were meant for each other.'

'Oh,' Hermione breathed.

'Just...' Molly hesitated. 'Make sure you take care of things, Hermione. Arthur and I are too young to be grandparents.'


A/N: I've never been able to buy the idea that Molly's some sort of Puritan about sex, so while she may not particularly like the idea of Ron and Hermione shagging, she's a realist and a pragmatist, if nothing else. If you've read Nightdress, Ron doesn't know Molly knows. I like the idea of Hermione 'forgetting' to let Ron in on it. :) Kinda diabolical, but hey, we've all got quirks. lol! And Ron would probably faint from shock if he realized Molly wasn't going to slap chastity belts on them all. Someone pointed out to me that it's Martin Miggs, the Mad Muggle, so I've fixed it in the last chapter, and it's correct here.