Hermione awoke with a Weasley draped over her. It was not Ron, It was Ginny.
“Urgh Ginny, you accidentally fell off your bed again,” Hermione said, shaking her awake.
“Sorry,” Ginny said groggily. “I didn’t sleep well, the scary image of you eating my brother’s face, on my bed, kept popping into my head. I had nightmares,”
Hermione scowled, but started freshening up for breakfast.
Once the two girls were presentable, they headed down to the kitchen. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were already sipping coffee, as were Harry, Ron, and Charlie, who had just arrived that morning.
“Charlie!” Ginny exclaimed, running to hug her second oldest brother. “I didn’t know you were coming today!”
“Your brother has a week of holidays and he came for your birthday party this weekend,” said Mrs. Weasley.
“What birthday party?” Ginny asked suspiciously.
“I planned a party for your eighteenth this Sunday night. We already sent the invitations to all the family and your Hogwarts friends,”
“Wow mum, thanks! It’ll be amazing!”
“It’s not every day my little girl turns eighteen! You’re really growing up, Ginevra!” Mr. Weasley beamed.
“Dad,” Ginny smiled and hugged her father, letting him use her full name, just this once.
“If you two are finished your love fest,” said a tired looking George, emerging from the staircase. “I’ll just be eating my cornflakes.”
With that, everybody stopped talking and tucked into their bacon and eggs.
“Hermione, what’s that on your neck?” Harry asked innocently, after eating the last tasty morsel off his plate.
“Where?” Hermione asked, craning round to check. When she found the right angle she saw the hickey forming on her collar bone.
Whipping out her wand, she preformed a quick non-verbal spell to banish it. Thankfully no one mentioned it again, but Ginny saw Charlie giving Ron a low five under the table from the corner of her eye.
Time was passing quickly and before they knew it, it was Wednesday afternoon. Bill and Fleur had come round, with their ten week old baby girl, Victoire. She was very tiny and already looking a lot like Fleur. Bill couldn’t take his eyes off the little thing.
“Well, I am thinking she is the most beautiful leetle baby in zee ‘ole world,” Fleur boasted.
“She is a sweetheart,” said Mr. Weasley. “But I don’t look that much like a grandfather, right?”
“Nah, dad. You don’t have to worry about that until she learns to talk and can call you grandpa,” said Bill.
“She’s quite younger than Lia, but maybe when they’re older they can be friends,” Hermione said thoughtfully. She had filled Bill and Fleur in earlier about her one year old baby sister.
“Oh you should invite your parents to Ginevra’s party thees weekend. They can bring zee child and she can meet our leetle Victoire!”
“Would that be all right Mrs. Weasley?” Hermione asked.
“Of course it is, dear. Arthur and I would love to get closer to your parents,”
Hermione and Ron hadn’t told either of their parents about their plans to move in together the coming month. Both of them agreed that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley wouldn’t be much of a problem, Ron and Hermione had practically lived together the year previously, on the hunt for Horcruxes. But Hermione’s parents had been under the influence of her memory charm at that time, so Hermione had warned Ron they might be a bit difficult.
“What do you mean by difficult?” Ron asked her one evening.
“Well, mum and dad are very protective of me; they always wanted me to do things properly. That’s one of the reasons they wanted me to go to University in the first place.
“What does that have to do with-?”
“I’m not sure if they’ll think it’s proper for a young wizard and witch to move in together!” Hermione fretted, grabbing Ron’s hand. “But I need you! I know I could just Apparate to The Burrow everyday, but it’s not the same! Everything’s starting to look up now, and with you starting work and me starting college, we’ll never be able to see each other, and I don’t want that to happen!”
“It’s okay, once we tell them together with my parents they’ll understand! We can tell them this weekend, they’re coming for Ginny’s party right?”
Hermione nodded, she was showing a rare vulnerability, and Ron wanted to show he was there for her. He took her face in his hands.
“It’s going to be okay, alright?”
“Oh, Ron!” Hermione flung her arms around his neck and kissed him fully. The kiss intensified and Ron’s arms snaked up on the inside of Hermione’s top.
“Ron, we’re in the living room,” Hermione mumbled.
“I don’t care,” he mumbled back.
“Me neither,”
“I do,” said Mr. Weasley, who had just arrived from outside where he’d been tending to the gnomes.
Hermione gasped and slapped Ron’s hands away from her.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t see that,” Mr. Weasley said kindly. He’d prefer to turn a blind eye to this, he’d rather see it than see his daughter with Harry. “Be careful around your mother, though,” he warned Ron. “She won’t be as understanding,”
“Ron!” Hermione whispered after his father had left the room. “This cannot happen when my parents are here!”
Ron’s ears were bright red. “It won’t,” he muttered.
“Do you think we should talk about it?” asked Hermione tentatively.
“About what?”
“About what could’ve happened before your dad walked in.”
“Oh…” Ron’s ears went red again.
“I think we should talk about it!” Mrs. Weasley demanded to Mr. Weasley.
“About what?”
“About the fact that we’re losing our two youngest children?”
Mrs. Weasley had tears in her eyes now.
“Molly, Molly,” Mr. Weasley soothed, petting her hair. “What brought this on?”
“Ron’s going to move in with Hermione, isn’t he?”
“Well don’t you think we should?” Hermione asked, looking up at Ron.
“I don’t know,”
“Do you think we’re ready for that?”
“Do you think you are?” Ron asked, meeting her brown eyes with his blue.
“Yes,” she answered simply. “But not right now. When we move in together,”
“Okay,” said Ron, kissing her cheek.
“Yes I suspect they’re moving in together. I just saw them snogging in the living room, plus Ginny told me they were snogging in her bedroom last night. They seem to love each other,” said Mr. Weasley.
“You really think so?” Mrs. Weasley asked skeptically.
“I do. And Hermione’s a great girl,”
“Yes, she is,”
“I have a feeling they’ll end up married, and they kind of remind me of…”
“Of what, Arthur?”
“Of us.”
“I love you,” Ron said to Hermione.
“I love you, too.”
“Oh Arthur, you’re right,” said Mrs. Weasley. “But I don’t want our little Ronniekins leaving us! Not when we just lost Fred!”
A few tears trickled down Mr. Weasley’s cheek.
“And Bill has Victoire to look after now, he’ll barely ever visit! Charlie has to go back to work with the dragons after Ginny’s party, Percy is proposing to Audrey on her birthday, and that’s in November so they’ll be engaged soon! George is so cut up he never wants to come home! And Ginny, well, her and Harry could run off anywhere at anytime! They’re free spirits and you know it!”
“There, there Molly. It’s going to be alright! Do you remember what you said to me when you were trying to convince me you wanted seven children?”
“Yes. I said, “Just think of all the grandchildren,”.”
“And we already have one! You’re looking at the kids getting married as a bad thing. It’ll be a lot less hectic around here,”
“But I’m going to miss hectic! It’ll be so strange with none of the scuffle to get to Kings Cross on time this year!”
“I know, I know. But in then more years, we’ll have a new batch of little ones off to school!”
“I suppose you’re right. I’m going to go make dinner,”
“Alright dear, I’ll be in the shed,”
“Not tinkering with Muggle artifacts are we, Arthur?” said Molly strictly.
“No, Molly dear,” Mr. Weasley oblidged.