Against the Rules - R/Hr - PG-13
Title: Against the Rules
Author: shocolate
Pairing: Ron/Hermione
Words: 1485
Rating: PG-13

Hey lovely hpuckle, it is your birthday!!

I am lazy and it is a part two to Together, which I wrote for Cork's birthday, so go and read it, first... we'll wait...


Against the Rules
****
There wasn't time to get my hands on Hermione, not with a battle to clean up after, but we sat with my family and she held my hand until she cut off the blood supply to my fingers and soon it was decided that we'd return to the Burrow and she never left my side. No one had been in the house for nearly two months and my mum went overboard with the cleaning spells and George was a dark cloud in the kitchen, refusing to discuss funeral arrangements with anyone, Charlie had stayed at the school, to help Hagrid, and Dad, Bill and Percy were at work, trying to sort out the world.

Kingsley had firmly told the three of us he didn't want to see our exhausted faces at the Ministry, and we'd gone from being the world's only hope, to getting under Mum's feet and she'd cleaned the sitting room and stuck us in there.

Where Ginny was watching Harry, and Harry was watching me.

And I was sitting on the same couch that we'd squeezed onto, not even a year earlier, to be given Dumbledore's ridiculous bequests. My Deluminator was in my pocket but I couldn't reach it, and not because Hermione had dressed me in too tight jeans, again, because I was far too skinny and none of my jeans were that tight, but because Hermione had fallen asleep with her head in my lap, and I was winding a lock of her hair around my finger, my other hand resting at her waist, my fingers touching bare skin where her shirt met her jeans.

Harry was watching me stroking her, a dazed look on his face, obviously unable to believe we'd gone from years of sexual tension to being so comfortable together.

Ginny was watching him, a patient look on her face, obviously pleased that he wasn't wallowing and suffering and blaming himself for everything, and waiting for him to realise that mine weren't the only fingers that were allowed to wander.

Mum managed to scavenge something for supper, around George and from preserved food in the larder, and I shook Hermione awake for sandwiches and tea.

Dad wasn't home, yet, but his hand on the clock pointed to 'work', and ours to 'home', and Mum couldn't keep her eyes off it.

"Harry, I've put your things in Percy's room," she said, and Harry smiled and nodded and politely thanked her, "and Ron, your room will need airing for days, because the ghoul was in there for months and the smell is appalling."

"OK," I said, through a mouthful of cheese and pickle.

"You can sleep in the... in George's..." she trailed off, looking stricken.

"Absolutely," I assured her, swallowing hard. "Not a problem."

She blinked rapidly and sighed and Hermione leant into my side and I squeezed her tight with the arm that was permanently around her shoulders.

"Hermione, dear, I just need to get out a camp bed for Ginny's room," Mum went on, getting to her feet.

"That's alright, Mrs Weasley," Hermione said calmly, "I'll sleep in George's room."

Mum froze.

She had Rules about girlfriends Sleeping Under Her Roof. Even Bill humoured her, and the engaged Fleur had slept in Ginny's room. Well, she'd had a camp bed erected for her in Ginny's room, 'though I was pretty sure she snuck into Bill's room, during the night, where he erected something else for her.

Mum and Hermione looked at each other.

As equals.

Women.

Blimey.

We were eighteen, we'd been Out From Under Her Roof for the best part of a year, possibly sleeping beside each other. Mum didn't know when we'd actually got together, she didn't know how far we'd gone, but that was irrelevant, according to the Rules.

She was a veteran at ignoring what happened Out From Under Her Roof.

But.

I could see her wavering.

Realising that Hermione and I had been through too much to want to humour her on this. That we were in no mood to giggle and sneak into bedrooms. That we could as easily be parted as she could go to bed before Dad got home.

"I'll..." She looked back and forth, between us, which wasn't hard on the eyeballs as we were welded together. "I'll make up F... the other bed."

"Thank you, Mrs Weasley," Hermione said, gracious in her victory and allowing her opponent the pretence that we'd use twin beds.

Mum nodded and left the room and Ginny snorted loudly.

"She's letting you sleep together?" she demanded, her eyes sliding to Harry.

"She can't stop us," Hermione said.

"She can," Ginny protested.

"Not if she wants us to stay here," Hermione said firmly.

"Wow," I said, looking down at her. "Have I told you how fantastic you are?"

"Actually, no," she said. "But we've been busy; that will have to change."

"But what happened to the Rules?" Ginny insisted. "Even Bill and Fleur didn't sleep together, not officially."

"Well," I said, pulling my official girlfriend closer. "The Rules were there to set a good example to all the younger brothers, weren't they? And we've run out of younger brothers – I don't have anyone to lead astray."

Ginny glared at me, but a quick joint glance at Harry showed us he hadn't realised he was gonna be led astray.

"Will you be OK, Harry?" Hermione asked.

"Me?" Harry said.

"Alone," she explained. "You can have F… Fred's bed, you don't have to sleep alone."

Harry's eyes finally flicked towards Ginny and he shook his head emphatically.

"No, really," he said. "I can sleep without Ron."

"Good," Hermione said, her face flushing lightly, "because I can't."

I tried hard not to grin like a lunatic.

It had been an insane few days.

I'd broken into Gringott's and escaped on a dragon; I'd returned to school and watched Seamus explain the whole goat thing to a blushing Hermione; I'd spoken Parseltongue and returned to the Chamber of Secrets and flown through Fiendfyre and killed Death Eaters.

And then I said goodnight to my mum, who was sitting calmly in the kitchen, waiting for Dad to come home from work, just like it hadn't been an insane few days.

As I went up to bed with my girlfriend.

Insane.

Harry cast a nervous glance at Ginny as he went into Percy's old room and I met Hermione's eyes and shrugged and nodded and accepted that my sister would be the one sneaking into bedrooms.

Well, if she must.

It was Harry.

I changed into my pyjamas and stood at the window and looked down at the garden and actually ached with Hermione's absence, as she changed in the bathroom. How was I supposed to enter Auror training, with one hand clasped in Hermione's?

I heard the door click closed and turned to look at her.

She wore a sensible nightdress, that I'd seen a hundred times before, and her hair was tied tidily back in a thing and she sat on the edge of my bed and my heart thumped.

"Should we… mess the sheets on the other bed?" I asked.

"No," she said firmly, climbing into bed. "I'm not going to pretend we didn't sleep together. It's not as if we're going to even do anything."

"No," I said hurriedly, "of course not."

I tried not to look too disappointed and she rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Come to bed," she said.

"Wow," I croaked, the fourteen-year-old Ron in my head blushing scarlet as the fifteen and sixteen-year-olds linked arms and did a gleeful victory dance and the seventeen-year-old tried to look all nonchalant and man-of-the-worldish, and failed miserably. "Say that again."

She tried not to smile.

"Come to bed, Ron," she said.

"Excellent," I said, finally crossing the room and climbing into bed, beside her.

It was only a single bed, and we took a little while to organise our arms and legs, but we really were a perfect fit and I looked down at her and touched her cheek with the backs of my fingers and tried to think of something moving and profound to say.

"I thought it would be harder than this," she blurted out.

I raised my eyebrows and cleared my throat.

"Give a bloke a chance, Hermione," I joked. "We're not supposed to actually do anything."

She blushed beautifully.

"Being together," she said. "I thought we'd still be dancing around each other and not knowing if we're supposed to kiss and…"

"We haven't," I interrupted her. "We haven't kissed since we kissed."

"We can't have kissed since we kissed," she protested. "That doesn’t make any sense. There always has to be a last kiss."

I gave her a pointed look.

"No," I said firmly, and, I thought, rather movingly and profoundly. "We'll never have a last kiss."

"Oh," she said, her lips round and beautiful and kissable.

So I did.