Chapter Text
Of course, Molly Weasley starts it.
Hermione dubs the dinner The Last Weasley Supper. Unfortunately, the joke is out of place with her current target audience - an equally irritable Ginny, an absolutely blitzed Harry and Ron, and Marcus Flint, Ginny’s new boyfriend, who, for his part, is trying to desperately maintain some sort of face for Molly.
“I don’t understand it,” she snarls. “You two were looking at rings,” she says too. “Rings! I even stared growing the flowers for your bouquet, Ginerva. Fertility flowers for my grandchildren. Grandchildren.”
“Mum.” Ginny pinches the bridge of her nose. The truth of the matter is simple: they were trying to hide their broken engagement from Molly, but a Prophet story threatened a very private, very new relationship between Ginny and Marcus. Ginny could care less who knows that she’s dating Marcus, but there are other people and then there’s Molly. Hermione watches Ginny sigh a little, her shoulders squaring up. “People are allowed to move on. I am allowed to move on. Life happens.” Her mouth sets into a firm line. “Harry gave us his blessing too,” she says, as if that will ensure some form of solidarity.
Ginny and Marcus even smile at each other. Or, well, Ginny smiles and Marcus sort of grimaces. Next to her, Ron nearly chokes on a piece of questionable roast. Everything has been sort of funny to him so far. The mash is equally questionable; Hermione’s gone and built a tower on her plate.
“Gin and I have thought this through,” Harry adds in. He sits on the other side of Hermione. His face is flushed. He uses all token interrogation techniques: soft voice, straight stature, firm gestures. The alcohol makes his eyes glisten. Or they’re just watery. It is an early spring. “It’s best for the both of us,” he says. “I’m not saying that it’s not hard, but we made sure to really lay all our cards on the table. I would rather not resent her, you know? We could be good friends.”
Molly moans. Or shrieks. All the sounds are the same, if Hermione is honest. She even balls her fists together for dramatic effect. She’s almost irritated that she’s on call tonight, taking on an extra shift in the Emergency Ward at St. Mungo’s to give herself a free weekend. The alcohol would have made this more tolerable.
Arthur is suspiciously missing. Coward, she thinks. No one talks about the box in the kitchen, filled with scraps and ideas for a summer wedding, a rewrite if you will, given how Fleur and Bill’s wedding was a precursor to war. Or an omen, if you ask Molly on a good day.
“I knew it!” Molly holds up both hands. Bewildered, Hermione stares. Ginny backs away, gripping Marcus’ hand. There is a set of wedding bands clenched in between her fingers, both gold but neither are ornate nor jeweled. “I should have given you the family rings, but Arthur told me no, no Molly the kids have to make their own choices. Life is different now.” She takes a step towards Ginny’s side of the table. “They’re an heirloom. They’ll let you know if you’re making the right choice —”
The rings fly out of her hand.
It’s an egregious look, honestly, the idea that Molly had these rings for this particular moment. It’s something to unpack, of course, for later. Right now, Hermione is mostly offended by Ron’s table manners and reconsidering her decision to introduce meat back into her diet. At least, they never lived together in a non-traumatic state. But the rings have another idea, zipping through the kitchen with the same, manic speed as a snitch and the same, mad intention to boot. They spin around Marcus and Ginny, swing around Ron who, for his part, eyes them warily, and finally Harry and Hermione, only to drop unceremoniously onto their fingers sans a Weasley cohort.
Hermione blinks. Harry stills.
The ring is tight on her finger. Like death-grip tight. Oh. Oh.
She stares back at Ron, whose wide-eyed, horrified face does nothing for him. Or the situation. She looks back at her hand. Then looks to Harry who, like her, is holding his hand up in wonder. Her hand gravitates to Harry’s, but he pulls it back, staring at the ring. Then at Hermione.
“Mum,” Ron says dangerously. “You’re not supposed to have these pieces. They were supposed to stay in Egypt. You know. Where they belong.” His chair shuffles back. “Bill told you, mum. You can’t mess with jewelry from the market, no matter how they try junk—”
“They’re heirlooms. Heirlooms, Ronald,” his mother corrects. Her eyes are wild. “I’ll take those back.” She stands over Ginny’s head, her hand extended in Hermione’s direction. Ginny mouths I am so sorry and Hermione cannot even begin to wrap her head around what’s happening. The ring feels snug. “Give it, here,” Molly says, impatiently.
For his part, Harry does try to humor Molly. He spins the ring on his finger, attempting to push the band up. Then again. Except it doesn’t budge. At all. His eyes widen a little, panic starting to grow.
Hermione is a bit more measured in her approach. She can already feel the band shrink even further and size itself over her finger. The band thins a little too, matching one of her mother’s rings that she wears around her index finger. There’s no immediate sensation of danger. It unsettles her a little. The air is shifting. Her magic seems to surface as a result, reaching out and tethering itself to Harry’s.
“Oh,” she says, out loud.
“Mum,” Ginny says warily. “What is going on - Hermione, you’re a bit pale.”
Harry’s fingers graze her shoulder. She doesn’t look at him, staring at her finger. She hasn’t received a new Weasley sweater in two years, she thinks with amusement. Why that’s funny now, she doesn’t even know. Seems appropriate though, given the situation.
“I’ll take those back,” Molly repeats. Her hand remains outstretched, her fingers wiggling as if she were the problem. Harry could literally kill someone at family dinner and all would remain well. That’s another separate conversation. “Or Harry can pass his along to Ronald and we can —”
Oh no, she thinks. Nope. What she’s not going to do is sit here and listen another historical rewrite of why Ron is the only one who ever listens to his mother. Instead, Hermione decides to toss her own grenade into the mix. She smiles.
“Ron and I? We broke up two years ago,” she says.
-
“Married,” Hermione says flatly.
Bill stares right at her. Ron looks at Harry. Harry looks at her. Neither of them has sobered, although she suspects that Harry is further along. The ring remains attached to her finger and subsequently, its pair remains attached to Harry’s finger. Ron is still picking out the mashed potatoes that Molly threw at his head from his hair.
What she expected is some large, sweeping romantic story about how the two rings belong to two lovers that were hoping to find each other in some other lifetime because they loved each other that much. Granted, the story is a little cheesy for her liking. However, it’s better from the second recount of a Very Weasley Family Trip to Egypt that involved Fleur making a clumsy attempt to bond with her mother-in-law, despite her mother-in-law’s distain for her – which, of course, is reciprocated while Bill runs off to try and work. The rings were from some vendor who sold some kind of story to Molly who, of course, decided that she would pass said rings off to whichever of her children would get married next. She supposes that this is where the heirloom discussion came from, weirdly enough. Fleur told her that the objects felt off so she tried to be as polite as possible in refusing them. Molly told her that she and Bill didn’t have to worry because they were in love, thus prompting another argument. It sounds like a sweeping version of hell for Hermione and of course, Harry too, who is surprised enough to share some sort of oof, we dodge some sort of bullet look.
“Married,” Bill repeats. He sighs, rubbing his face. “Look,” he says, “I know mum’s a lot. I’m sure, in her head, she meant well too.”
Ron chokes. Harry hits his stomach.
“I think grief does funny things to people,” Bill murmurs. Behind him, Fleur snorts. She is balancing their Victoire on her hip. They share a look. “Mum’s a planner,” Bill continues, ignoring everyone but Hermione. She knows he’s trying to appeal to her more rational side. “And despite everything being wrapped up, the future she saw for her family…”
“Is dead,” Hermione says flatly.
“Hermione,” Ron says. He’s aghast. Or trying to sell it. She can’t tell anymore.
Harry’s mouth does twitch though.
Ron continues too. “Shouldn’t, you know, be a little more panic-ky?”
Hermione sighs loudly. “I mean, sure.” She shrugs. “I suppose I’d be more prone to panicking had it been you and I and you still can’t tell your mother that we’ve been broken up for a little over two years, you know?”
“Ripped that band aid off though, didn’t you,” Ron mutters, narrowing his eyes. There’s a small pile of potatoes on the kitchen table next to him. Picking them out is a nervous tick, she guesses. “Couldn’t have let me explain,” he says.
“I usually like to pick my own poisons,” she counters.
Harry sighs. “Anyways,” he says to Bill. “Do we know what they do?”
“No more than what you already know,” he answers, taking her hand and then Harry’s. He studied the rings. “I assume they bind you together in some sort of way. You said you felt a bit of a pull, Hermione?”
She nods. She’s not truly certain what she felt. Her magic definitely tethered itself to Harry’s and his responded in kind. The same, unsteady sweeping sensation of butterflies in her stomach seem to remain too. Or maybe she’s really just catching up to her body.
“The ring definitely sized itself to my hand,” she murmurs.
“Mine too,” Harry agrees. He swallows. “I thought it was the drinks I had with Ron before dinner, but then I felt it… I don’t know shape itself?”
Hermione nods. “I didn’t feel like a binding, per say.” She studies her hand. Harry’s hand gravitates to hers. His fingers brush over her knuckles. Her breath catches a little. “I’m trying to remember how the locket felt,” she says quietly, “but this feels a little different.”
“Settled?” Harry asks.
“Settled,” she answers.
Ron stares at them both. He looks a little green. Or confused. Or both, honestly. His hands push at the table. Behind him, Victoire is cooing to her mother.
“Do you remember what the vendor said to mum?” Bill asks him, studying his brother. Ron, for his part, shakes his head. “Short of going to look for the bloke, I’d say the two of you are going to have to plan to not be apart for a bit.”
“I’m on-call,” she says. Her eyes narrow.
Harry sighs. “We’re in the middle –”
“I’m sorry,” Bill says sympathetically. “If I knew exactly what these were, I could really discern next steps. You’ll have to test things out. Proximity. Your body’s response to the ring. Your magic’s response to the ring. I think there was a similar incident in my fifth year when, erm, one of the girls attempted a surprise love potion in a secret vial –”
“That’s not really helping,” Hermione says dryly.
Bill shrugs. “You could ask Flitwick to run a charm diagnostics test. I’d say go to the Ministry,” he says, “but that’ll be messy…”
He trails off. Because Molly would have to be involved. Hermione lets out a loud sigh. God forbid, she thinks, that there are consequences to any sort of actions. She tries not to let it consume her. A large part of her has always understood that she is not Molly’s favorite person. She’s not even Ron’s favorite person, if they’re honest and it’s a good day. She tries not to rehash the breakup either. They had both agreed that the safest thing to do was to breakup, not because they wanted to see other people or grow or find their way back to each other – no, that was nonsense. For her, it was really to salvage a friendship that really should have just remained a friendship in the end.
Harry sighs. “We’ll keep it to ourselves,” he says finally. He brushes her knuckles with his own. She looks up, startled. “For now,” he says too.
Ron rubs his face. “We should have had that extra drink, mate.”
Harry snorts.
“I need to use the bathroom,” she mutters, and shifts to stand. Fleur sends a sympathetic smile in her direction. Shell cottage is always a strange place to return to, but she knows it like the back of her hand. From the kitchen, it’s the sitting room and the sitting room to a set of stairs where the first-floor bathroom sits and waits. It’s painted with blues and greens, an homage to the sea. Fleur wanted to do nautical themes throughout the house, she supposes.
But no sooner than she stands and takes a few, awkward steps to the door that leads out into the living room, she’s flung backwards.
The table and chairs fly everywhere. Everything smashes against the wall. Glasses shatter. Bill immediately launches for Fleur and Victoire, his arm shielding them from the spray of splitters and screws that fly into the air. Ron stumbles to the ground, covering his head. And Harry has a firm arm around her waist.
Hermione’s eyes are wide.
She’s breathless, her back glued to Harry’s chest as they face the wall. His mouth is set against her neck and he’s gripping, unsteadily, but she’s anchored to him. Their hands are linked together too, tight and resound.
“Okay?” Harry murmurs, for her and only her. He’s breathing heavily.
Her heart is racing. “I think so,” she says, just as quietly.
They stare at each other. Her magic is reactive again. It sinks into the tips of her fingers. Her skin is buzzing, crawling in vibrations. Her body shudders a little and Harry tightens his arm around her waist, suddenly as sober as can be.
“Bill.” Hermione doesn’t recognize the sound of her own voice. Her ears are ringing. “While we can agree, collectively, that your mother is wildly inappropriate at times, do you really think she had any idea the ramifications of what –”
“No,” Bill says quickly. His eyes are huge. Harry’s fingers are pressing into her hip now too. “I don’t think she would,” he says too. “I’m telling you, Hermione. It’s like some sort of antique piece dropping into some sort of Muggle shop and vendors sell things with a story. It’s the risk.”
“Must have been some bloody story,” Ron says. Weren’t you there, she wants to argue. But decides against it. He brushes his hands over his knees. His face is cover in dust. The chair he occupied is shattered and split. He looks squarely at her, then Harry over her shoulder. Ron’s expression is grim now too.
The implications of the rings are too insane to say out loud. She squanders away a comment about the Weasley family and cursed object because, frankly, she isn’t ready to be that petty yet. Instead, she wills herself to relax against Harry who, for his part, relaxes his grip around her hip, his fingers starting to stroke her skin through the gap between her trousers and blouse. Her skin flushes. She bites the inside of her mouth.
“We need to separate them,” Ron says to Bill.
“I can’t even go to the bloody bathroom,” she snaps. “What makes you think it’s that easy? Want to cut off my finger and reattach it too, Ronald?”
“He’s right,” Harry murmurs. His mouth is way too close to her ear. She sort of jumps and he chuckles, just a little. Her skin feels warm. “The caseload I have right now… isn’t exactly conducive to any of this.”
“Harry,” she says calmly. Maybe too calm. There’s a sharpness in her voice. “I’m on call. As a healer. In the emergency ward at St. Mungo’s. Whatever dark wizard lore the two of you are trying to hide from isn’t going to do it right now, in this very moment, because I could get called at any time and it looks like you’re going to have to come.”
Bill sighs. “I can’t.” He points to both Harry and Hermione. “And now, they can’t either. We don’t really know what the scope of those rings is until they go get someone to look at it. Either you’re going to have to go take some sort of trip into Knockturn Alley or, if it were me, I’d head to Hogwarts. Flitwick is half-goblin.”
This isn’t a solution. In fact, it more than irritates her that no one is presenting any sort of solution outside Ron and the obvious. Flitwick is a solid solution though, given his notoriety. She doesn’t trust anyone at the Ministry. It’s like throwing excrement against the wall and watching it stick. Well dart, she thinks. Her eyes wander back to Harry. He offers a slight smile. Her heart starts pounding again. Definitely darts.
The kitchen in the cottage works itself into being good-as-new, a quiet Fleur swinging her wand around the room to patch the mess of chairs and the table. Ron is stewing and Hermione can feel it. But frankly, right now, she does not care. Her eyes dart to her hand and the ring. She touches it with her free hand, frowning. The gold is cool to touch. It no longer holds the same weight as before, where the band felt as if it was piercing into her skin. Or squeezing her finger off. She doesn’t know what to think.
Her shoulders slump, finally. She looks back again.
Harry is grim now, meeting her gaze. “I guess you’re sleeping with me,” he says.
-
Grimmauld Place still smells like Ginny.
It makes her uneasy. There are personal touches here and there. A random mug. A jumper strewed off the side of a box that reads last things and if she were an outsider, she’d wager that Harry’s either divorced or has a dead ex. Or both.
But there’s no time to process any of that. Ron follows and frankly, looks like he’s ready to burst. Harry is suspiciously calm, but holding onto her hand like a lifeline and Hermione is suffering through ages of flashbacks where her siding with Harry was the beginning of some sort of Greek Tragedy for Ron.
“I have a headache already,” she mutters, out loud. Ron glares. Harry shifts his weight, sliding between the two of them. She looks up, surprised. He doesn’t look at her. Hermione forces herself to swallow. “Look,” she says, “if you’re mad, be mad at your mother.”
“Oh.” Ron’s eyes narrow. “Believe me, I am.”
“What’s wrong?” Harry steps into the conversation this way. They are both lucky she hasn’t been called into St. Mungo’s so far.
“I don’t know,” Ron snaps. “This. You two. The fact that life isn’t what everyone wants it to be and yet, here we are trying to make it fit in some kind of way. The fact that my bloody sister is dating Marcus Flint who is a brute instead of my best mate. The fact that you two didn’t even look the least bit sad to break up and announce it to my crazy mother who, obviously, is devastated. The fact that Hermione doesn’t even blink when she could potentially be attached you for fucking life, but if it were me, she would be sawing off her right arm.”
Hermione tries her best not to be callous. Her throat is heavy with a laugh. It could be cruel, honestly, to react like that but she’s been here before, many times, staring at Ron as he rants about how much he hates change and how everyone else is to blame. Harry is usually the one that talks him down, placates him and the two of the bound off, sans her, to do something stupid as boys do because Harry is the best friend and she is just herself.
“I think the arm is a little dramatic,” Harry says gently.
“Sure,” she agrees. “I’m a bit more pragmatic than that – it’s easy to stitch someone up with four fingers anyhow.”
Harry glares, but his mouth is twitching again. Ron snorts. Personally, she thinks she’s hilarious when the time calls for it.
“You see,” Ron says too, looking at Harry. “Hates me.”
“I would say that I hold space for a healthy amount of disdain for you,” she says easily. “But I still care about you and wish you well. I just don’t want to kiss you. Like at all.”
No sooner than the word kiss is uttered, Harry’s arm is around her waist and in lockdown, pulling her into his side. She’s wide-eyed and flushed, staring up at him. His eyes are dark and his mouth twist, in that same soft smile he usually gives her – but just with an edge.
This time she is very much aware of his magic, how it sort of shifts and swallows her, surrounding the space where they stand. Ron must of feels it too because he stumbles back, staring at them. Her head starts to spin. Her heart is racing too. She isn’t sure what to do and slowly, the need to touch Harry starts to push at her head. She isn’t close enough. He isn’t close enough. Ron shouldn’t be here.
“I think we need to go to my place,” she says quietly.
Harry blinks. His hand is flushed against her hip in the very same spot, the exposed patch of skin for contact. He’s stroking her skin with his fingers too. It creates a pleasant buzz.
“Why?” Ron, not Harry, speaks up.
“It’s my place,” she answers. “You were never there.”
“I have been,” he argues.
But Harry seems to get her conclusion. “It’s neutral,” he says. Her place is hers. There are no ghosts, no past relationships, and no surprises. He heaves into a sigh. “You’re right,” he says too. His face clears into some sort of mask and she knows she’s looking directly into Auror Potter’s poker face.
“Then what,” Ron asks, “you sleep in the same bed?”
“My place is expensive,” she says dryly. “I’m not blowing up a wall.”
“It’s nothing we haven’t done before,” Harry murmurs, and the atmosphere gets a little heavy. It’s a trigger, for sure, the sudden, dangerous smell of evergreen, the air feels wet, and her head a little funny as if it’s ready to walk her back into those memories. Harry’s fingers tighten into her hip again. “At least,” he says, “until we figure this out.”
Ron rubs his face. “Fine,” he says. “I’ll see if dad has any recollection of that portion of the family trip. Maybe Gin too, if I don’t feel like punching bloody Flint in the face. Not that it would do anything, his face is smashed as it is.”
He doesn’t wait for any of their comments, jumping back into the fireplace, presumably to floo back to Bill’s place. Her shoulders sag with some relief. Ron’s anger is a wildcard, even more so as an adult. It makes him a force as a member of the Hit Wizard squad, but as someone out of uniform, she is waiting for the day that control decides to snap.
Then there’s Harry.
He remains at her side, his hand warm against her skin. His fingers splay out and they finally have the chance to look at each other after a whirlwind of a day. They are going to have to talk about this, she thinks. Plan. This is insanely dangerous, given what he does and of course, what she does too. There is no room for mistakes.
She looks up at him. He’s watching her. It feels like there’s a livewire embedded in her belly, crackling as her heart begins to race. His mouth curves into some kind of smile, something serious and lazy and all together something that sets her on an edge. She’s forgotten what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Harry’s gaze, where the room starts to fade into the background and everything else stops existing.
“Hi,” she says softly.
“Hi back,” he says. His hand reaches up and his fingers tuck some hair behind her ear. She swallows. “You’re putting your claws away,” he murmurs.
Her eyes narrow, but she’s blushing. “For now,” she says.
He lets out a low laugh, nothing heavy but something enough to take that livewire in her belly and make her buzz. She feels like she’s deep in some sort of sensory overload, as if everything he does, even the simplest of movements, is ready to consume her. And she might let him.
“Let me pack some things,” he says, taking her hand. Tonight is not that night. Their fingers lace together. They pass the box of Ginny’s things, heading up the stairs. She starts to breathe a little, even as Harry squeezes her fingers. “Then we’ll head over to your place?”
“Yes,” she says. “Of course.”
It’s not a question. She guesses all the same.