Why are you baking muffins at three in the morning?
Pairing: Ron x Hermione
Word count: 668
Summary: Ron gets up at 3 in the morning, thinking the neighbors are drilling in the wall again, but it turns out to be something else entirely.
Rating: K
Read on: fanfiction.net
A/N: like about a month ago I wrote this romione piece, and this one has been finished since about then when @karkaroff got pissed of at my torturing of these poor babies, so this happened
Ron woke up to what sounded like someone drilling into a wall. He was gonna kill those bloody neighbours. He didn’t care anymore that they were in their eighties or that they always invited them over for tea, or that the lady baked incredible cookies. This was the third time this week they’d seemed it fit to put up shelves at three in the morning. Doing his best not to wake Hermione up, and resiting the urge to just bang a wall, any wall, he got out of bed and pulled his nigh-robe closer around him as he walked down the hallway.
The drilling had stopped and as he walked across the cold living room floor. The kitchen light was on. That was odd. Hermione was always careful to turn off all the lights before they went to bed. Then, he saw the shadow in the door opening.
“Hermione?”
She looked up from whatever she was doing over at the counter. There was flour on her cheeks and she sported a wide smile. Her eyes sparkled. “Hi.”
“What…what’re you doing?” Ron looked around at the kitchen. The sink was filled with cups, bowls and what looked like a large torture device.
“I’m baking.”
“You’re… it’s three am.”
“I’m doing muffins.” She jumped up to sit on the kitchen counter and smiled at Ron.
“Why the bloody hell are you baking muffins at three in the morning?”
“Because.” She dangled her legs an there was a light thod each time they hit the counter“I felt like it. Why are you awake?” She pulled him towards her. “Couldn’t sleep without me, could you.” She leaned forward and rubbed her nose against his.
“Sure.” He kissed her lightly. “No, the neighbours are drilling in the bloody wall again.”
“Really? I didn’t hear anything?”
“You must be deaf. I heard it all the way from the bedroom.”
“Ronald…” She shook her head and reached over to the sink. Taking the torture device in one hand, she plugged it in with the other.
“Woah, you don’t have to dig out my insides! I won’t complain about the drilling, or call you deaf-”
She turned it on, laughing. At him, he assumed.
“This.” The noise was still going. And it sounded weirdly like…a drill. “Is an electric mixer.” She turned it off.
“I’m an idiot.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “But you’re my idiot.” She pulled him closer to her and wrapped her arms around his neck. He leaned in and kissed her. Slowly and softly. Her hands moved up and were combing through the tangles in his hair that was overdue for a haircut. She drew in a sharp breath as he stroke his hand along her jawline and down her neck.
When the timer went off, he wanted to ignore it. He didn’t want it to stop.
“Ron.” She pulled away slightly. “The oven.”
“It can wait.” Ron kissed her again.
“Are you mad? We’ll burn the house down?”
“Right.” He pulled away enough to allow her to jump down from the counter. “Wouldn’t want that.”
“It might shut the neightbors up.” Hermione laughed and bent down to open the oven door.
“Oh shut up.” Ron poked his tounge at her.
“What if I won’t?” She straitened up again, showing off a tray of perfectly made muffins.
“Wha…wait, you can bake? Why am I always the one baking?”
“You never asked if I could do it.”
“No…I mean. I didn’t think…”
“Honestly Ronald. You read in the book, and you do what it says.”
“Of course there’s a book.” Ron muttered, smiling.
“There’s always a book.” She took a muffin from the tray and bit into it.
“You’re beautiful.” Ron let the words slip out.
“You’re beautiful too.” Hermione leaned against his chest and he leaned forward to kiss the top of her head. She looked up and, standing up on her toes, she pushed her lips against his.
“You taste like cookies.” Ron mumbled into her lips.
Pairing: Ginny x Harry
Word count: 671
Summary: Years after the battle of Hogwarts, Harry has pulled himself away from most thing, to heal. Ginny haven’t seen him in years until, all of a sudden, he’s serving her beer.
Rating: K
The pub was almost empty when the redhead stepped through it.
“A beer please” She plopped down a one of the bar stools, sliding a note over the counter. The bartender nodded, he had his back towards her, busy putting classes on a shelf. Ginny thought there was something familiar about the way his hair stood up in the back.
He turned, and Ginny thought if he’d still been holding onto a glass, it would’ve broken against the floor as he dropped it.
“Hi.” His mouth wasn’t hanging open, but close to it.
“Do I know you?” She’d definitely seen him before, she just wasn’t sure where.
“It’s Harry.” He reached his arm over the counter for her to shake. That’s when she noticed the eyes. Still the same green colour, behind the same round spectacles.
“…Potter. Right.”
“You remember.”
“Of course I remember you! I had a crush on you for like a month back when I was thirteen.” Ginny stifled a laugh.
“After that too, I hope.” Harry smiled, pushing a beer cup across the counter at her.
“Of course.” Ginny took a sip of the beer.
“I saw you’re playing for the Holyhead Harpies. Congrats.”
“I’m just a backup.” Ginny shrugged the compliment off. She still couldn’t believe this was happening. Harry had been such a big part of her life, her whole families lives, for all of her Hogwarts years. After the battle though, he’d pulled back, telling them he needed time to process what had happened by himself. Her mum had still been sending him Christmas and birthday cards, and Ron was still in touch with him from time to time. But really, Ginny hadn’t had anything to do with him since that week after the battle. The time when they’d been in love, and thought they could work it out themselves.
“You were always brilliant, you’ll be on full-time before you know it.”
Ginny smiled, a tad self-consciously. “What about you? How are you doing?” She noticed her voice soften, and she thought he did too.
“It’s been…up and down,” he admitted, pouring himself a drink. “How’s the family?”
Ginny notices the ‘the’, not ‘your’, because they were the family for Harry. They were his family too.
“They’re good. Bill and Fleur are having their third kid. Charlie is still working with his dragons, and Percy got Married just last year, they have a baby daughter. George…he and Angelina are getting married a few months from now. And you know all about Ron, of course.”
Harry nodded.
“I’m heading to the burrow now, for dinner. I’m sure mum would be thrilled if you came.”
“Oh…I don’t think I can.” Ginny noticed his hands shaking as he quickly busied himself whipping of the counter.
“That’s fine.” She put down her now empty beer cup and made a move to go. “It was nice to see you Harry.”
“Yes, you too, very much.” She thought that would be it. At least for another year or so. Until his voice came again from behind. “Hey, Gin. If you’ve got nothing to do Saturday night, maybe we could go out for drinks?”
She turned. Looking straight into those eyes (green as a fresh pickled toads) for the first time in years, and for a moment she was thirteen again, glancing at her brothers best friend from the corner of her eye. Then she was fifteen, sitting under a tree during lazy Saturdays at Hogwarts, his hands running through her hair. She was sixteen, fighting a battle she thought she was losing at the same time he fought the same battle, but miles and miles away.
“I’d love to.” She walked over to the bar and scrabbled down her cell phone number on a piece of paper. It had been her dad’s idea, getting phones for all of them, so they could communicate.
“I’ll call you,” Harry promised, and when the door swung close he was still standing at the counter, watching as she went.
Pairing: Ron x Hermione
Word count: 1194
Summary: Hermione is sick, and she asks Ron to make her up a future.
Rating: K
Read on: fanfiction.net
Beep - beep - beep. The heart monitor was teasing him, reminding him that the time was running out. And quickly. But then again, every beep signalled another second. Another heartbeat. Just another second before the rest of his life. But what kind of life? When the monitor stopped its steady beeping, it would be over. The months of ups and downs. The medication. The late night rushes to the hospital. Her life. It was too soon. They’d made it through, they’d lived when they shouldn’t have. Both of them. But life just wasn’t that kind. Beep - beep - beep.
Her eyelids flickered and opened, her eyes meeting his.
Beep
“Hi.” She smiled weakly. No longer the wide, open smile that showed off the front teeth that had been altered by Madam Pomfrey; this smile was reserved, closed.
Beep
“Hi.” He reached out and took her skeleton-like hand. “How are you?”
“It hurts.” She closed her eyes and when the monitor skipped a beat, so did Ron’s heart. It fell a thousand miles in the blink of an eye and he felt sick. He’d lost her. He’d lost his chance to tell her what he’d wanted. Then:
Beep
And her eyes opened again.
“Oh thank…” He breathed in sharply. “I love you Hermione.”
Beep
“I love you too.” She smiled again. Her new smile was growing on him.
Beep
“We lost so much time.”
Beep
“What’re you talking about?”
Beep
“All those years. At Hogwarts. I mean. We could’ve had so much more time together.”
Beep
“Why is - you’ve never - where is this coming from?”
Beep
“I didn’t think it’d matter. A year here or there, what would it matter when we were old? We’d laugh about it.” He bit his lip. “How young and silly we were.”
Beep
“You still will.”
Beep
“You won’t be there.”
Beep
“You’ll have Harry, and Ginny. And your brothers.” She closed her hand around his.
Beep
“Your parents were here earlier.” He changed the subject, he wasn’t ready to imagine a life, a world, without her. Not yet. “They’d come back later.”
Beep
Hermione nodded calmly.
Beep
“I’m sorry.”
Beep
“For what?”
Beep
“For being a pain in the ass.”
Beep
Beep
“Stop talking about the past, I could be dead in a matter of hours… make me up a future.”
“I…I don’t want to.”
Beep
Beep
“Why?”
“Because…I know it won’t be real. It will never be real. You won’t be there. You won’t be real.”
“Ronald,” she said softly, rubbing his hand. “Please.”
“Okay…er…We’d get married. A September Sunday, in that little church where your parents got married. And everyone we loved would be there, and they’d cry. And you’d look more beautiful than you’ve ever done as you walked down the aisle. The church would be filled with autumn leaves and flowers. Everywhere. Along the aisle, in the ceiling, on the walls. Then we’d have the reception in a tent, like Bill and Fleur had, and it’d be full of light and laughter and your parents would hold toasts, and the nieces and nephews would run around and laugh, and hide under the tables. But no one would mind. And we’d dance, long after everyone had left, or fallen asleep. I’d spin you around on the dance floor, and you’d wonder when I learnt to dance.” He paused. Hermione’s eyes glistened with tears. “Are you alright?”
“It’s beautiful. You’ve really thought about this.” Beep
“Of course I have.” He leaned forward and stroke a wet curl of hair from her face. “You’re the love of my life, Hermione.”
“What then?” She dried her eyes with the back of her hand.
Beep
“Well, we’d move to that town by the water, the one we stopped in on the way to your parents. And we would have a cottage, up on the hill, with an extra room, where our parents could stay when they came to visit. And a cat, with a little kittie door so it could hunt mice in the grass. Then, we’d have two kids. Rose, after your nana, and -”
Beep
“And Artur,” Hermione added, smiling. “If my family’s getting a name, so is yours. That’s only fair.”
“Yeah.” Ron was caught of guard. “I s’ppose so.”
Beep
“More?”
“Er…of course. They’d be best friends, and have lots of cousins, and we’d be at the burrow for Sunday dinner and they’d all play Quidditch in the garden together. Then, when they went of to Hogwarts, you’d cry, and I’d cry even more.”
Hermione chuckled again, drying her eyes.
“And every break when they came home, they’d rush into the house, and after five minutes, it’d have been like they never left. I’d bake, and you’d sit and read in front of the fireplace, or on the pateo. We’d eat together, and they’d talk over each other, telling us about everything they’d been up to at Hogwarts. All the mischief.” He smiled and rubbed Hermione’s hand. “They’d move out, and the house would be quiet. So we’d get a dog, a large one that we could go on walks with and it’d run across the moors. Then the kids would get married, and have kids. And we’d love our grandkids as much as our parents would love our kids. And we’d be having Sunday dinners at our place and get to see our grandkids grow up, maybe even meet a great grandchild or two, until, after a long and happy life, we’d pass away peacefully in our sleep. And those who were left would be sad, of course, and they’d miss us. But they would know we had finished our business because to the well organised mind, death is nothing but the next great adventure.”
“Did you just quote Dumbledore?” Hermione raised her eyebrows and chuckled slightly, and it was almost like having the old, bubbly, argumentative, Hermione back.
“I guess so.”
Beep
He’d forgotten about the monitor, about the hospital bed, about the inevitable.
Hermione drew in a sharp breath and a quiet sob escaped.
Beep
“Hermione!” He leaned forward, grasping her hand. “What’s wrong.”
“That’s how it was supposed to be.” The words caught in her throat. “It shouldn’t end like this.”
Beep
He rubbed her hand and leaned in to kiss her forehead.
Beep
“Maybe it won’t.” He’d dared to speak the possibility.
“Hope is the last thing that leaves you.”
“Look, now you’re even lecturing me about things I don’t understand.”
She wanted to smile, he knew it.
“I’m not crazy, am I?”
“I think you are. You know, there are only like…2% that even survive.”
“Well there you have it. You’re always the top two percent. Well, except in quidditch I mean, but this isn’t Quidditch.”
“Ron…please don’t. I…I can’t get my hope up…not again.”
She leaned back in the hospital bed.
Beep
Beep
“Okay, I won’t.”
She nodded.
“I love you, Hermione.”
“I love you too.”
Her eyes closed slowly. Every time, they seemed to get slower. Like even her eyelids knew. They knew it would be over. That one day soon they wouldn’t open again, and that’d be the end.
