The HP Muse
Jan. 7th, 2004 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thrihyrneThis is probably just for my own jollies. I just don't know what the heck should happen next. It could be soppy/lusty, or horror/angst, I have no idea.
There was a small crack! as Ron apparated into their cramped house, shaking off the chill of the blustery evening he had left behind in the windy streets of Glasgow. The rooms were dark, but cozy in a decidedly intimate way that made his blood rush, and for a wild minute he contemplated shrugging off not only his robe, but all of his clothes. The youngest Weasley son had learned some restraint over the past few years, however. After taking a moment to get his bearings in the – scented, he now noted – dimness, he padded toward the bedroom.
Christmas music wafted down the hallway, the words and tune unfamiliar to him. He tread quietly to the doorframe, and out of long self-unnoticed habit, tugged through his long hair, currently pulled back from his face in a ponytail. There was a bit of unruly curl to it which manifested itself the more he let it grow, but continued protestations that he was only “wearing it Black” meant that for the most part, his parents had finally stopped giving him grief about it.
Hermione had never complained.
Ron stood, shadowlike, looking in on her. She lay on their blanket-covered bed, the green cabled throw being her first large knitting project. Her eyes were shut, and her normally shockingly errant mane was restrained by several clips. Instead of her wand, she had a Muggle apparatus pointed at their stereo. As the pale-faced young man lingered, he suddenly knew that he had heard that song before.
It was mere moments prior. Hermione had the one anthem set on repeat. It was one of several aspects about her that threatened both to drive him raving mad and simultaneously wish to drown in her idiocentricities. The latter was a word she had accidentally fabricated, and it well explained some of her complicated Muggle/Wizard attributes; a kind of muddied sense of notions that Ron had never had to worry about, being from a wizarding family.
His rather soggy mind began to pick up on the words of the music in their decidedly non-magic loop.
No sad thought his soul affright, sleep it is that maketh night;
Let no murmur nor rude wind to his slumbers prove unkind...
Ron walked softly into the room and gingerly sprawled his rather gangly body near Hermione’s, hoping not to disturb her. As the harmonies continued through the tonal paths written by their composer, he took a quick glance to the side table and saw with stifled satisfaction that the flowers he had ordered were there. The glass vase which held them subtly changed hues from scarlet to deepest violet and back again. Inside were tiger lilies. Her favorite.
With fingers confident in their familiarity, he traced the smooth skin above her eyebrows, not wishing to wake her, but rather to ground himself. So much had been taken away from him, and from her, as the war with Voldemort continued to rage on uncountable fronts. Sequestered away, for a quiet moment he reflected that he was the luckiest man alive. He shared her passion, her sacred everydayness and even occasional haughty barbs which fell accidentally from her tongue, reminding him of their days at Hogwarts when they were young, and so innocent despite the trials they had undergone.
Recklessly Ron leaned into Hermione. He closed his eyes, breathing in the jasmine scent of her hair (“Something to smell like summer, Ron; you just aren’t affected by day after day after day of grey skies like I am, you lucky git!”), and laid fully on his side, his fingers loosening two fasteners so that he could entangle his hands in her frizzy hair.
This is good, he reveled. He cracked one eye half-open to gaze at her, then at the flowers. It was their first wedding anniversary. The week before Christmas, much to his chagrin. But he had never been able to wait, to keep his foot out of his mouth, always spouting off, speaking before thinking –
And so, in his seventh year, he had been flabbergasted to discover that beyond their intense bickering lay a longing so profound that even after it had been sealed by several “Oh, shut up, Ron!”s, all affectionately said by a breathless Hermione, and his being branded by her searing kisses, he had been rather undone by it all.
He, Ron Weasley, one time “ickle prefect” as named by his older twin brothers (one who had even dated Hermione for a short time, though she now swore it was due to some inexplicable Charming concoction that George had tried on her, but Ron was never sure of that), was married to her. He had proposed a year and five days ago. With Ron’s heartfelt request, Hermione had discovered an unexpected and vibrant romantic streak. They had eloped and were married only days later, shocking most of their friends and crushing her parents’ hopes for a church wedding. That, despite their acknowledgement that their daughter spent most of her time in the Wizarding world, not Muggle.
The song began again. Ron was starting to get a slight headache from the powerful cranberry scent of the enchanted tapers which glowed, hovering above their chest of drawers, when Hermione opened her eyes.
“’Mione,” Ron breathed, caressing a cheekbone. “Happy Anniversary.” He paused a moment, then said, “I love you.”
A slow smile warmed her face. “And I you, Ronald Weasley.” She gazed at him for a few moments, then leaned over to place a soft kiss on his lips. “Thank you for the flowers, they are simply glorious. I watered them.” They both glanced at the gift arrangement, the glass container still shifting its hues in a gentle pattern.
She took his hands in hers. “Still nothing,” she murmured.
Ron bit down on his lower lip in frustration and anger. It had been over three months since anyone had heard from Harry, who had disappeared. It was bad enough that Hermione, his heart’s desire, was an Auror, but Harry, still his best friend in the world, was one as well, and for him simply to vanish -
Just at that moment, two loud noises simultaneously shattered the reverent mood. The telephone near their bed rang, and an owl tapped its beak on the window.
“Gah!” Hermione squealed, as Ron shot up, exclaiming, “Fuck!”
As Hermione gave him a reproachful look while leaning over to answer the phone, Ron tumbled over the blanket, stretching to the window to let in the owl. He half-listened to Hermione, who was speaking to her parents, apparently; he had yet to get used to that particular device, despite his own father’s obsession with Muggle artifacts.
Ron didn’t recognise the owl, which gave him his second affronted glance in mere seconds. After giving the bird what he hoped was a reassuring smile and stroked its head, he removed the parchment from its leg.
“Ron,” Hermione said, relief poorly disguised in her voice, “Dad’s ill and can’t come over with Mum tonight. Do you mind if they reschedule for dinner?”
“No, bright eyes,” he replied.
She smiled in response, having been called by her favorite nickname.
As she brought the conversation with Mrs. Granger to a close, Ron mouthed the words “I’d forgotten, anyway.”
She nodded, placing the handset on to the receiver while Ron unrolled the recently arrived paper, quickly scanning its news. He scrunched up his eyes and held the parchment close to his face, trying to read the scrawled message. After a few minutes, he lowered the page.
“Well, what is it?” Hermione demanded, now flustered and somewhat anxious.
Ron shook his head, his facial expression incredulous, but also furious, as though he had just seen his beloved Chudley Cannons almost win the Quidditch Cup, only to falter in the last seconds of the game.
“Malfoy,” he spat, handing her the page. “Draco, that is. He’s changed sides and since he provided so much information, they’ve let him go.”
Hermione’s jaw dropped. “Let him go?” she repeated, disbelievingly. “Just go, free, just like that?”
Ron nodded savagely. “They reckon he’ll leave the U.K. - maybe even Europe.”
“Who’s it from?” she asked, a slightly officious tone creeping into her voice.
“Longbottom.”
With slightly trembling fingers, Hermione reached over to the bedside table to pick up her glasses, put them on, then read the parchment as Ron gnawed on an already well-bitten fingernail. She had not needed glasses at Hogwarts, despite all of the hours spent in the relatively dim light of the Gryffindor common room. It was only after she had been ambushed earlier that year, her first as an Auror. Ron had spent seventy-two anguish-ridden hours at her side at St. Mungo’s unsure how much of the damage sustained by the multiple crucio curses inflicted on her would be permanent. After three days of intense work by the Healers, it appeared that Hermione would recover, but her eyesight had never been the same.
Hermione had, rather to Ron’s displeasure, gone to Bulgaria to attend the wedding of Viktor Krum. While sightseeing for one day in Sofia, she had been savagely attacked. It was only thanks to Neville Longbottom, who had been sent to the Balkans as part of the war on Voldemort, that Hermione had survived at all. Neville had kept his interest in herbology, but in his last two years at Hogwarts he had also decided to become an Auror and revenge his parents. This decision had happened to coincide with a rather sudden growth spurt and a supportive girlfriend, Muriel Finnigan, a cousin of Seamus. Hermione had been within Neville’s sights on the cobbled street, meeting him for coffee, when a Death Eater suddenly appeared.
Now Ron curled up behind her, re-reading the page over her shoulder and stroking her back. After a couple of minutes she put the paper down as well as her glasses.
“Kiss me?” she asked plaintively, and with longing hands, he turned her face to his. Their lips met, warmth on cold, and Ron closed his eyes. He deepened the exchange, his tongue running around her lips, then seeking the heat of her mouth as his left hand found a familiar lodging on her right temple, her wiry hair sheltering his fingers. He breathed in her exhalations as they kissed, each small wave of heated air lighting fires which smouldered in his groin. His long fingers slowly, but with purpose, traced achingly familiar curves of her chest until she began to moan quietly.
Ron cradled her as he rolled onto his back, and Hermione raised up from him, chilled currents taking the place of her familiar and suddenly-missed flesh. He began to breathe more shallowly, the heat from between her legs under her skirt radiating into his now-throbbing member. Her dextrous hands started at his neck, unbuttoning his green buttondown shirt.
As she did so, she shook her head, and Ron raised himself up onto his elbows. “What?” he asked, his voice a convoluted mixture of lust and insecurity.
Hermione continued to undo his Oxford with painstakingly regular movements, her short fingernails occasionally raking across his fiery chest air, usually followed by a delicate tongue-flick, making Ron’s breathing even more irregular. For a brief moment, she sat upright, answering his question with her own.
“How is it that someone with your colouring ends up looking rather ill in green?”
She trailed her index finger across the image above his heart: a knight who went through a continuous, but repetitive, range of motions; parrying right, then hopping astride a broom and catching a Snitch, then dismounting and parrying left, again and again. It was the emblem of the newest fledgling Quidditch team in the British Isles, the Green Knights of Glasgow, who had hired Ron to be their assistant coach.
Ron rolled his eyes, then grabbed Hermione’s hands and clutched them, pulling them behind his head so that he could kiss her again. They spent several minutes in that fasion, Hermione straddling him, feeling the straining warmth of his affections against her midsection, even as she freed her hands to undo the rest of his shirt, tugging it off of him. They rolled sideways on the bed, their hands greedily searching for warm skin, when Ron mumbled, “What? What is it, ‘Mione?”
Leaning back to look into his eyes, she replied, “Nothing! I wasn’t saying anything.”
Then they both heard it. Ron’s name was being called from the tiny living room, where they had an even tinier fireplace.
“Bollocks,” he swore as Hermione affectionately thwacked his head. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, not bothering to dress as he got up from the bed, a mournful expression on his face.
“Ronald Weasley, the Glaswegians have made you quite the foul-mouth!”
An irreverent grin twitched at the corner of his lips as Ron jogged the few steps into the next room where he collapsed ungracefully on his knees before the fire grating. It was Fred.
Fred Weasley.
Ron’s older brother gave him a quick going-over from the fireplace, then shut his eyes in mock horror. “Please, Ron- don’t you ever wear a shirt? A man could go blind looking at your pasty…”
“Piss off!” was the hasty reply. “It is my anniversary, after all.” As soon as Ron had uttered the words, he regretted it, and began spluttering, “Not that I’m going to talk to you about it, I’m not telling you a fucking detail-”
“Ron!” Fred exclaimed. “The last thing I want to hear about - ever - is your love life.”
The head in the fireplace shuddered, then looked back into the room. “I thought you should know that Malfoy-”
“Free,” Ron said venemously. “I know. Got an owl from Neville.”
Fred made an appraising sound, then looked puzzled. “Longbottom?”
“Yes,” Ron replied, wrapping his lightly-muscled arms around his now very cold chest. “He thought Hermione should know.” A self-indulgent thought crossed his mind. “Would you like to tell her as well? She does happen to be winning ‘most popular Weasley’ this evening.”
Fred looked cross. Behind him, Ron could just see some of he shelves from the newly-expanded shop being restocked by his fiancée, an impossibly tolerant Muggle named Jane McLaughlin.
“Sure,” Fred replied. “Anything to keep from seeing your scrawny-”
“Hermione!” Ron yelled. “Fred wants to talk to you.”
Ron’s pale face beamed as she shuffled in, wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe and looking rather morose.
“I’ll be outside for a few minutes,” he said, winking.
“Oh Ron,” she sighed, then sat down before the fireplace. Magical Christmas lights blinked red, gold, green and violet in a sophisticated pattern that Hermione had created, a nod to her affections for arithmancy and ordered chaos in general. A miniature menorah also stood on the mantle, the candles unlit.
“Filthy habit, you know!” her voice arched toward him as he dug through a kitchen drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He delved around some more and found an ancient lighter, but as he shook it, he saw that the contents had evaporated. Shrugging, he decided to take his chances and use his wand to light it on their small porch.
“I am pretty sure that I tasted Grand Marnier on your lips, my dear,” he said, making a brief reappearance in the living room to kiss her on the forehead. “A habit is a habit.” Then he went back to their room, stretched a well-worn tracksuit top over his head, donned his coat, complete with Green Knights of Glasgow green and white striped scarf, and left the house to go smoke in the cold air.
*the song is by Ralph Vaughan Williams from his "Hodie- A Christmas Cantata," text by anonymous
to be continued
It's a bad thing, going from one fandom to another. But here we go, I've added some more stuff. Must say that it's a bit liberating, going from Middle-Earth to the wizarding world. People wear watches. ;0
My mom arrives tomorrow and will be with me through the weekend. I probably won't get any writing done (damn!) but it's always good to see her.
Jen, thank you for the newest beta chapter. Your observations are, as always, astute. And I *love* your unique fic- more gushing later. But I really felt as though I were in the Dairy Queen. Can't wait to read more!! And I'm so glad you like the soundtrack for AHD. I'm listening to it now, when it's not being drowned out by my swearing at our dial-up which keeps disconnecting every three minutes.
Must be time to go to bed, cozy up and keep re-reading OotP and wonder if I'll ever write something that isn't fanfiction.
Nah.
There was a small crack! as Ron apparated into their cramped house, shaking off the chill of the blustery evening he had left behind in the windy streets of Glasgow. The rooms were dark, but cozy in a decidedly intimate way that made his blood rush, and for a wild minute he contemplated shrugging off not only his robe, but all of his clothes. The youngest Weasley son had learned some restraint over the past few years, however. After taking a moment to get his bearings in the – scented, he now noted – dimness, he padded toward the bedroom.
Christmas music wafted down the hallway, the words and tune unfamiliar to him. He tread quietly to the doorframe, and out of long self-unnoticed habit, tugged through his long hair, currently pulled back from his face in a ponytail. There was a bit of unruly curl to it which manifested itself the more he let it grow, but continued protestations that he was only “wearing it Black” meant that for the most part, his parents had finally stopped giving him grief about it.
Hermione had never complained.
Ron stood, shadowlike, looking in on her. She lay on their blanket-covered bed, the green cabled throw being her first large knitting project. Her eyes were shut, and her normally shockingly errant mane was restrained by several clips. Instead of her wand, she had a Muggle apparatus pointed at their stereo. As the pale-faced young man lingered, he suddenly knew that he had heard that song before.
It was mere moments prior. Hermione had the one anthem set on repeat. It was one of several aspects about her that threatened both to drive him raving mad and simultaneously wish to drown in her idiocentricities. The latter was a word she had accidentally fabricated, and it well explained some of her complicated Muggle/Wizard attributes; a kind of muddied sense of notions that Ron had never had to worry about, being from a wizarding family.
His rather soggy mind began to pick up on the words of the music in their decidedly non-magic loop.
No sad thought his soul affright, sleep it is that maketh night;
Let no murmur nor rude wind to his slumbers prove unkind...
Ron walked softly into the room and gingerly sprawled his rather gangly body near Hermione’s, hoping not to disturb her. As the harmonies continued through the tonal paths written by their composer, he took a quick glance to the side table and saw with stifled satisfaction that the flowers he had ordered were there. The glass vase which held them subtly changed hues from scarlet to deepest violet and back again. Inside were tiger lilies. Her favorite.
With fingers confident in their familiarity, he traced the smooth skin above her eyebrows, not wishing to wake her, but rather to ground himself. So much had been taken away from him, and from her, as the war with Voldemort continued to rage on uncountable fronts. Sequestered away, for a quiet moment he reflected that he was the luckiest man alive. He shared her passion, her sacred everydayness and even occasional haughty barbs which fell accidentally from her tongue, reminding him of their days at Hogwarts when they were young, and so innocent despite the trials they had undergone.
Recklessly Ron leaned into Hermione. He closed his eyes, breathing in the jasmine scent of her hair (“Something to smell like summer, Ron; you just aren’t affected by day after day after day of grey skies like I am, you lucky git!”), and laid fully on his side, his fingers loosening two fasteners so that he could entangle his hands in her frizzy hair.
This is good, he reveled. He cracked one eye half-open to gaze at her, then at the flowers. It was their first wedding anniversary. The week before Christmas, much to his chagrin. But he had never been able to wait, to keep his foot out of his mouth, always spouting off, speaking before thinking –
And so, in his seventh year, he had been flabbergasted to discover that beyond their intense bickering lay a longing so profound that even after it had been sealed by several “Oh, shut up, Ron!”s, all affectionately said by a breathless Hermione, and his being branded by her searing kisses, he had been rather undone by it all.
He, Ron Weasley, one time “ickle prefect” as named by his older twin brothers (one who had even dated Hermione for a short time, though she now swore it was due to some inexplicable Charming concoction that George had tried on her, but Ron was never sure of that), was married to her. He had proposed a year and five days ago. With Ron’s heartfelt request, Hermione had discovered an unexpected and vibrant romantic streak. They had eloped and were married only days later, shocking most of their friends and crushing her parents’ hopes for a church wedding. That, despite their acknowledgement that their daughter spent most of her time in the Wizarding world, not Muggle.
The song began again. Ron was starting to get a slight headache from the powerful cranberry scent of the enchanted tapers which glowed, hovering above their chest of drawers, when Hermione opened her eyes.
“’Mione,” Ron breathed, caressing a cheekbone. “Happy Anniversary.” He paused a moment, then said, “I love you.”
A slow smile warmed her face. “And I you, Ronald Weasley.” She gazed at him for a few moments, then leaned over to place a soft kiss on his lips. “Thank you for the flowers, they are simply glorious. I watered them.” They both glanced at the gift arrangement, the glass container still shifting its hues in a gentle pattern.
She took his hands in hers. “Still nothing,” she murmured.
Ron bit down on his lower lip in frustration and anger. It had been over three months since anyone had heard from Harry, who had disappeared. It was bad enough that Hermione, his heart’s desire, was an Auror, but Harry, still his best friend in the world, was one as well, and for him simply to vanish -
Just at that moment, two loud noises simultaneously shattered the reverent mood. The telephone near their bed rang, and an owl tapped its beak on the window.
“Gah!” Hermione squealed, as Ron shot up, exclaiming, “Fuck!”
As Hermione gave him a reproachful look while leaning over to answer the phone, Ron tumbled over the blanket, stretching to the window to let in the owl. He half-listened to Hermione, who was speaking to her parents, apparently; he had yet to get used to that particular device, despite his own father’s obsession with Muggle artifacts.
Ron didn’t recognise the owl, which gave him his second affronted glance in mere seconds. After giving the bird what he hoped was a reassuring smile and stroked its head, he removed the parchment from its leg.
“Ron,” Hermione said, relief poorly disguised in her voice, “Dad’s ill and can’t come over with Mum tonight. Do you mind if they reschedule for dinner?”
“No, bright eyes,” he replied.
She smiled in response, having been called by her favorite nickname.
As she brought the conversation with Mrs. Granger to a close, Ron mouthed the words “I’d forgotten, anyway.”
She nodded, placing the handset on to the receiver while Ron unrolled the recently arrived paper, quickly scanning its news. He scrunched up his eyes and held the parchment close to his face, trying to read the scrawled message. After a few minutes, he lowered the page.
“Well, what is it?” Hermione demanded, now flustered and somewhat anxious.
Ron shook his head, his facial expression incredulous, but also furious, as though he had just seen his beloved Chudley Cannons almost win the Quidditch Cup, only to falter in the last seconds of the game.
“Malfoy,” he spat, handing her the page. “Draco, that is. He’s changed sides and since he provided so much information, they’ve let him go.”
Hermione’s jaw dropped. “Let him go?” she repeated, disbelievingly. “Just go, free, just like that?”
Ron nodded savagely. “They reckon he’ll leave the U.K. - maybe even Europe.”
“Who’s it from?” she asked, a slightly officious tone creeping into her voice.
“Longbottom.”
With slightly trembling fingers, Hermione reached over to the bedside table to pick up her glasses, put them on, then read the parchment as Ron gnawed on an already well-bitten fingernail. She had not needed glasses at Hogwarts, despite all of the hours spent in the relatively dim light of the Gryffindor common room. It was only after she had been ambushed earlier that year, her first as an Auror. Ron had spent seventy-two anguish-ridden hours at her side at St. Mungo’s unsure how much of the damage sustained by the multiple crucio curses inflicted on her would be permanent. After three days of intense work by the Healers, it appeared that Hermione would recover, but her eyesight had never been the same.
Hermione had, rather to Ron’s displeasure, gone to Bulgaria to attend the wedding of Viktor Krum. While sightseeing for one day in Sofia, she had been savagely attacked. It was only thanks to Neville Longbottom, who had been sent to the Balkans as part of the war on Voldemort, that Hermione had survived at all. Neville had kept his interest in herbology, but in his last two years at Hogwarts he had also decided to become an Auror and revenge his parents. This decision had happened to coincide with a rather sudden growth spurt and a supportive girlfriend, Muriel Finnigan, a cousin of Seamus. Hermione had been within Neville’s sights on the cobbled street, meeting him for coffee, when a Death Eater suddenly appeared.
Now Ron curled up behind her, re-reading the page over her shoulder and stroking her back. After a couple of minutes she put the paper down as well as her glasses.
“Kiss me?” she asked plaintively, and with longing hands, he turned her face to his. Their lips met, warmth on cold, and Ron closed his eyes. He deepened the exchange, his tongue running around her lips, then seeking the heat of her mouth as his left hand found a familiar lodging on her right temple, her wiry hair sheltering his fingers. He breathed in her exhalations as they kissed, each small wave of heated air lighting fires which smouldered in his groin. His long fingers slowly, but with purpose, traced achingly familiar curves of her chest until she began to moan quietly.
Ron cradled her as he rolled onto his back, and Hermione raised up from him, chilled currents taking the place of her familiar and suddenly-missed flesh. He began to breathe more shallowly, the heat from between her legs under her skirt radiating into his now-throbbing member. Her dextrous hands started at his neck, unbuttoning his green buttondown shirt.
As she did so, she shook her head, and Ron raised himself up onto his elbows. “What?” he asked, his voice a convoluted mixture of lust and insecurity.
Hermione continued to undo his Oxford with painstakingly regular movements, her short fingernails occasionally raking across his fiery chest air, usually followed by a delicate tongue-flick, making Ron’s breathing even more irregular. For a brief moment, she sat upright, answering his question with her own.
“How is it that someone with your colouring ends up looking rather ill in green?”
She trailed her index finger across the image above his heart: a knight who went through a continuous, but repetitive, range of motions; parrying right, then hopping astride a broom and catching a Snitch, then dismounting and parrying left, again and again. It was the emblem of the newest fledgling Quidditch team in the British Isles, the Green Knights of Glasgow, who had hired Ron to be their assistant coach.
Ron rolled his eyes, then grabbed Hermione’s hands and clutched them, pulling them behind his head so that he could kiss her again. They spent several minutes in that fasion, Hermione straddling him, feeling the straining warmth of his affections against her midsection, even as she freed her hands to undo the rest of his shirt, tugging it off of him. They rolled sideways on the bed, their hands greedily searching for warm skin, when Ron mumbled, “What? What is it, ‘Mione?”
Leaning back to look into his eyes, she replied, “Nothing! I wasn’t saying anything.”
Then they both heard it. Ron’s name was being called from the tiny living room, where they had an even tinier fireplace.
“Bollocks,” he swore as Hermione affectionately thwacked his head. “I’ll be right back,” he promised, not bothering to dress as he got up from the bed, a mournful expression on his face.
“Ronald Weasley, the Glaswegians have made you quite the foul-mouth!”
An irreverent grin twitched at the corner of his lips as Ron jogged the few steps into the next room where he collapsed ungracefully on his knees before the fire grating. It was Fred.
Fred Weasley.
Ron’s older brother gave him a quick going-over from the fireplace, then shut his eyes in mock horror. “Please, Ron- don’t you ever wear a shirt? A man could go blind looking at your pasty…”
“Piss off!” was the hasty reply. “It is my anniversary, after all.” As soon as Ron had uttered the words, he regretted it, and began spluttering, “Not that I’m going to talk to you about it, I’m not telling you a fucking detail-”
“Ron!” Fred exclaimed. “The last thing I want to hear about - ever - is your love life.”
The head in the fireplace shuddered, then looked back into the room. “I thought you should know that Malfoy-”
“Free,” Ron said venemously. “I know. Got an owl from Neville.”
Fred made an appraising sound, then looked puzzled. “Longbottom?”
“Yes,” Ron replied, wrapping his lightly-muscled arms around his now very cold chest. “He thought Hermione should know.” A self-indulgent thought crossed his mind. “Would you like to tell her as well? She does happen to be winning ‘most popular Weasley’ this evening.”
Fred looked cross. Behind him, Ron could just see some of he shelves from the newly-expanded shop being restocked by his fiancée, an impossibly tolerant Muggle named Jane McLaughlin.
“Sure,” Fred replied. “Anything to keep from seeing your scrawny-”
“Hermione!” Ron yelled. “Fred wants to talk to you.”
Ron’s pale face beamed as she shuffled in, wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe and looking rather morose.
“I’ll be outside for a few minutes,” he said, winking.
“Oh Ron,” she sighed, then sat down before the fireplace. Magical Christmas lights blinked red, gold, green and violet in a sophisticated pattern that Hermione had created, a nod to her affections for arithmancy and ordered chaos in general. A miniature menorah also stood on the mantle, the candles unlit.
“Filthy habit, you know!” her voice arched toward him as he dug through a kitchen drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He delved around some more and found an ancient lighter, but as he shook it, he saw that the contents had evaporated. Shrugging, he decided to take his chances and use his wand to light it on their small porch.
“I am pretty sure that I tasted Grand Marnier on your lips, my dear,” he said, making a brief reappearance in the living room to kiss her on the forehead. “A habit is a habit.” Then he went back to their room, stretched a well-worn tracksuit top over his head, donned his coat, complete with Green Knights of Glasgow green and white striped scarf, and left the house to go smoke in the cold air.
*the song is by Ralph Vaughan Williams from his "Hodie- A Christmas Cantata," text by anonymous
It's a bad thing, going from one fandom to another. But here we go, I've added some more stuff. Must say that it's a bit liberating, going from Middle-Earth to the wizarding world. People wear watches. ;0
My mom arrives tomorrow and will be with me through the weekend. I probably won't get any writing done (damn!) but it's always good to see her.
Jen, thank you for the newest beta chapter. Your observations are, as always, astute. And I *love* your unique fic- more gushing later. But I really felt as though I were in the Dairy Queen. Can't wait to read more!! And I'm so glad you like the soundtrack for AHD. I'm listening to it now, when it's not being drowned out by my swearing at our dial-up which keeps disconnecting every three minutes.
Must be time to go to bed, cozy up and keep re-reading OotP and wonder if I'll ever write something that isn't fanfiction.
Nah.
Hurrah!
Date: 2004-01-12 06:24 pm (UTC)Re: Hurrah!
Date: 2004-01-13 09:21 am (UTC)So nice to see you, I Voted for Mayor Gamgee. ;)