Author's note: Well, here's the last "happy" chapter for our favorite couple. Please read the last author's note as well. Thanks for all the reviews. I really do appreciate them and read each and every one of them. So, when you finish reading the chapter, please leave me a little something to let me know what you thought (Good, Bad, or Indifferent. I can take it!) And yes, I am bringing back my song thing before each chapter…it was missing before, but it's back.
Chapter Three
Everlasting Love
"When life's river flows
No one really knows
Till someone's there to show
The way to lasting love
Like the sun that shines
You always will be mine
It's eternal love
When the other loves are gone
Ours will be strong
We have our very own
Everlasting love"
(Carl Carlton, "Everlasting Love")
"I know I've said it before, but I really don't think I can take it anymore," Ron said, as he helped Harry put some drop cloths down on the furniture. Ron had volunteered---no he was actually strong-armed by Hermione---to help them straighten up their new cottage. He'd asked them why they didn't just use magic to knock the job out in a few short minutes, but Hermione had steadfastly refused. She insisted on doing this the old-fashioned Muggle way and wouldn't be deterred. Her enthusiasm in buying paint and brushes and rollers in a London hardware store was almost inspiring. Yet, Ron still didn't know what he'd been thinking when he'd agreed to help them out.
The cottage was very nice and quaint, but it did need an awful lot of work and Ron honestly didn't know if the three of them were capable enough to handle the job on their own. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Ron relished any opportunity to get out of the Burrow these days.
"I love my nephew, I do," Ron said seriously to Harry and Hermione. "But I swear to God I'm going to kill his father."
Harry guffawed.
"You wouldn't be so amused if he was living in your house," Ron said crossly. "Everywhere I go, there he is. And Mum has suddenly become his biggest fan. She keeps telling him that he's her favorite son-in-law."
"He's her only son-in-law," Hermione said, taking the last drop cloth and draping it over a coffee table.
"And he is your sister's husband and your nephew's father," Harry reminded him.
"And your brother-in-law," Hermione said, putting a comforting arm around him, which he promptly shrugged off, annoyed. As if he needed anyone to remind him of this sad fact.
In an effort to stop what looked to be the latest round in the Hermione-Ron row to end all rows, Harry stepped between them and looked at Ron. "You could always move in with Fred and George until you find your own place."
Ron rolled his eyes. "Have you gone around the twist? If I move in with those two wankers, I'd be their personal guinea pig for their next joke shop product. I may not be the smartest person around, but I'm not completely insane, Harry."
"So, either way you look at it," Hermione said, winking at Harry. "You're screwed."
Before he could respond, Hermione gave him a sweet smile. "You could always move in here with us. We do have the extra bedroom. "
"Oh, yeah," Ron said with a laugh. "Like I really want to walk in as the newlyweds our christening
yet another room in their house?"
This time it was Hermione who was taken aback by his remark. One look at her and he knew he may have overstepped his bounds by his comment. He was about to apologize when she leaned in and gave him a syrupy sweet smile and Ron waited for her response with baited breath.
"Oh, Ron!" she said. "We've already done that!"
Ron winced and covered his ears.
"Stop!" he exclaimed. "I don't want to hear anymore! That's way too much information. Way, way, way too much information!"
A few moments later all three of them were ensconced in painting. Hermione had delegated Harry and Ron to paint the sitting room while she tackled the kitchen. It was quiet as the two men set to work. The only sound coming from the kitchen where Hermione had turned the radio on and they could hear her humming along to the music.
Ron had watched his two best friends all day. While he'd appreciated their offer to let him move in, he knew he'd never be able to intrude on their new home; especially now when the two of them were still so obviously in their newlywed-honeymoon stage.
The thing that was mainly holding him back from moving out of his parents' house was the fact that in his 19 years on this earth, he'd never once lived alone. He'd always lived in a house full of brothers and a sister. At Hogwarts, he'd shared a dorm with Harry, Neville, Dean and Seamus. He honestly wouldn't know how to live alone. It was a foreign concept to him. But, the more he shared living space with Draco Malfoy, the more the idea appealed to him.
In the silence, Ron had time to think about everything that had happened over the past few months. Malfoy had predictably been disowned by the remaining Malfoys. His father, still imprisoned in Azkaban had sent him a number of letters telling his son how he was dead to him and how he'd brought shame to the family by associating with a family that was so far beneath his own. To his credit, Malfoy had stood by the Weasley family. As a result, he'd not had a place to call home or any money to support his new wife and son with. Molly and Arthur took pity on them and asked them to stay at the Burrow until Malfoy was able to buy a place of his own. Begrudgingly, Ron had to admit that since the birth of his son, Malfoy had shown a great improvement in his overall demeanor. As Ron had joked to his brothers, it's hard to go any lower once you've hit rock bottom.
Yet, to Ron's surprise, Malfoy did seem genuinely appreciative and thankful for the help that Arthur and Molly had extended to him for the sake of their daughter and their grandson.
Draco Malfoy Jr. (or D.J. as they all called him) was as close to a perfect child as you could get, Molly always said. The entire family had fallen in love with the little boy the moment he'd arrived. As Fred and George joked to Ron, the kid really couldn't help who his father was---he'd had no say in it. D.J. had the trademark red hair of the Weasley family, but had the eyes, nose and chin that were unmistakably a Malfoy's.
Ginny, too, had grown up considerably with the birth of her son. She really was great with him and having him in her life had made her quite a bit more mature and responsible. She was truly trying to put what she'd done behind her and grow from it. She would have graduated from Hogwarts in June had she not had to take time off from school to have the baby. As it was, she was to begin her final year at Hogwarts in September. Dumbledore had agreed to let Ginny attend classes in the mornings and afternoons and have her travel via portkey back to the Burrow. Molly was more than happy to help take care of her first and only grandson during the day.
Arthur had used his Ministry connections to help land Malfoy a job in the Department of Magical Games & Sports. Malfoy hoped to have enough saved away in a couple of months to afford a flat.
Despite all of this, Ron was still annoyed at having to see Malfoy day in and day out. There was still a lot of bad blood between them and Ron really had no idea if it would ever truly go away. All the horrible things that Malfoy had done weren't something you could just sweep under the rug. It certainly wasn't helping matters that they were all living under the same roof in such close quarters.
Ron's thoughts were interrupted by someone running a paint roller over his face. He jumped, startled. Thankfully, the roller didn't have any paint on it and Harry grinned at him.
"You better get to work, mate," Harry said, pointing to the paint tray at Ron's feet. "If Hermione comes back and finds you daydreaming, there'll be hell to pay."
Ron looked around the room. "Where'd she go?" he asked as he got to his feet again and placed his paint roller in the tray.
"Lunch," Harry said. "She apparated to Hogsmeade to pick us up some sandwiches."
"So let me get this straight?" Ron asked, as he began to paint the wall. "She left us to do all the work? See, I think I've caught on to her master plan, Harry. She just wanted to do this the old-fashioned Muggle way because she'd be able to delegate and assign. This kind of thing puts her right in her element. She probably has list upon list about how we'll do it, what we'll do it with, when we'll do it. I bet she has it on a schedule down to the exact time in hours, minutes and seconds."
"Hey!" Harry said, pointing his paint brush at Ron. "We are talking about my wife here!"
"I'm telling the truth about your wife," Ron retorted with a smile. "And you know it!"
Harry laughed but continued to paint, but stopped when he felt Ron's eyes on him.
"What?" he asked, turning to face his friend.
Ron shrugged. "It's just a little surreal for me. My best friends are married. My sister is married, albeit to the greatest horse's arse in the world, but still-"
"So, you thinking of taking the plunge, too?" Harry asked. "You and Luna?"
Ron vigorously shook his head and waved his hands. "We've talked about it, of course, but we're in agreement that we like things the way they stand now. We have what we have and we each have our own lives. There's no pressure. I mean, she's busy writing for her dad's paper and I'm happy, sort of, with my job."
"Why don't you just tell your parents that you don't want to work at the Ministry and you want to make a go of Quidditch? You know it's what you really want to do."
"Try telling that to Mum," Ron said, shaking his head. "I mean, its okay for my dad and Percy to spend their days cooped up in an office staring at a cubicle wall all damn day, but it's not for me. And I'm really afraid that I could actually die of boredom there, Harry."
Ron began his job at the Ministry in his dad's division shortly after graduation. Nearly a year into the job, he was still nowhere near satisfied. He spent the majority of his work day, doodling away on parchment or staring up at the ceiling.
"You can't live your life according to what your parents want," Harry chided him.
Ron scoffed. "You should talk, Mister-I'm- Going- to- Be- An- Auror. You have to admit that a part of you is doing that because it seems like something your parents would have wanted you to do? I mean, if they were still a-" Ron's voice trailed off. He looked over at Harry apologetically.
Harry gave him a reassuring smile. "You were about to say that if my parents were alive, they might have pushed me into doing something like this. Its okay, Ron. You didn't mean anything by it."
Ron visibly relaxed.
"I suppose in some way I am doing this because of them, but it's really not just that. I feel as if it was something I was born to do. I think I'll be good at it."
"Damn right you will," Ron said.
Harry blushed.
"Hermione can't be too keen on you leaving for a month for your training."
"Well, I'm not too keen on it myself," Harry admitted. "But she'll have classes starting soon at University."
"When is it that you leave?"
"Two weeks," Harry said, just as they both heard a loud "pop" in the foyer. Hermione entered the room a few seconds later, her arms laden with bags of food.
"Is this all you two have done?" she asked, setting the bags down and surveying the room.
"You weren't here to supervise," Ron said, greedily tearing into one of the bags for a sandwich. He quickly unwrapped one and had taken two bites before Hermione even had a chance to respond.
"You never change," she said, staring at him in disbelief, disgust and amusement, as he took another huge bite of his sandwich.
Harry came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. She laughed as he tickled her neck with kisses.
Ron looked over at them and this time it was he who looked at them in a look of amusement and disbelief.
"Hey!" he said pointedly at them, hoping that they would stop. But, they had either chosen to ignore him or hadn't heard him at all. Hermione had turned to face Harry and they were full-on snogging to Ron's utter horror.
"Hey!" he exclaimed again, louder. "I'm trying to eat here!"
He might as well have spoken in Russian for all they heard. They continued to kiss and touch and…Ron couldn't take it anymore. There were some things that friends should just not know about or see. He shook his head at the two of them and knew that his presence was no longer needed or required. He walked toward the door, but doubled back when he thought of something. Careful to avert his eyes from what his friends were doing, he grabbed the remaining bags of food. It was only fair after all.
*******
Crookshanks purred at Hermione's feet, but she didn't hear and didn't notice. She was too busy looking up into her husband's green eyes to even care. Seeing that he wasn't going to draw his mistress' attention away, Crookshanks sauntered out of the room.
"We're never going to get the cottage finished if we keep getting distracted," Hermione murmured as she rested her head on Harry's chest.
"You started it," he said with a laugh.
"You were the one who started kissing me," she said. "I just came in here with food and the next thing I know you've---. Wait a minute! The food."
She pulled away from Harry and looked at the place on the floor where she'd put the food down. It was gone. As was their red-haired friend.
"That little bugger!" Hermione said exasperatedly. "He stole our food!"
"So he did," Harry mused. "So he did."
Hermione rolled her eyes. "He's always doing stuff like this, Harry. You know the whole world could be crashing at his feet and he'd be looking for the nearest restaurant so he could stuff his face before the end of the world. And do you know what kills me about him? He's still as skinny as a rail. He never gains a stone! It's not fair."
Harry looked at his wife with a goofy grin on his face.
"What?" she asked him.
"Nothing," he said, shaking his head and going back over to the paint tray and kneeling down. "This just seems so normal."
"What does?" Hermione asked, her brow furrowing. "Me talking about Ron? Because, you know that I'm right on this. That boy would probably delay his own wedding for a meal."
Harry laughed. "Not Ron, Hermione. This."
He motioned around the cottage. "This place. You and me. Everything just seems so normal. It's perfect."
Hermione couldn't help but smile. This was what he'd always wanted. And now they had it. Normality. Being who he was and what he was, that might not always be the case, but right now normality was as close to perfection as either of them had seen in quite some time.
"It is nice," she said, picking up her own paint brush and getting back to painting.
*****
By nightfall, they were still painting. They'd ordered out for pizza and hungrily devoured it and Harry gave Hermione some good-natured teasing about Hermione being the pot calling the kettle black when she'd finished off her third piece of pizza.
Despite the hard work, they'd both had a wonderful time listening to the radio and talking as they painted. Hermione had nearly laughed herself silly when Harry had tried to dance.
"What?" he asked her, taken aback. "I am actually quite good at this."
She patted his arm affectionately. "You're good as long as the song is a slow one. Otherwise, you have two left feet and you know it. There are some things that we just can't do. For me, it's cooking. For you, it's fast dancing."
Harry dropped his paint roller. "Hermione! You cannot tell me that you don't think I can bust a move!"
Hermione stifled a laugh. "Oh, you're busting something, alright. But it's not a move, Harry. It is most definitely not a move."
He looked taken aback and tried his best to look affronted, but he knew Hermione was correct. He could do many things, but dancing wasn't one of them. He was man enough to admit his shortcomings, but he did like to tease Hermione. She was always ready to rise to the occasion.
Hermione laughed at him. "I'm not saying that you should never dance again. You can dance all you want. I just wouldn't do it in public. I could just see the articles in the newspaper now with photos, of course. It's not something I think you want to get out."
"Okay, okay," he said, walking over to her. "I promise never to dance like that…in public, if you promise never to cook that stuff that was posing as spaghetti for me ever again."
He took his wife's hand and twirled her around and started to dance with her. She was laughing but she looked up at him and placed her hands on her hips.
"It wasn't that bad," she said defensively.
"Hermione," he said, giving her a stern look. "Spaghetti's isn't supposed to be crunchy."
"In some cultures, I'm sure it is," she said defensively. "I followed the recipe word for word. I just thought I'd save some time by not waiting for the water to boil before I put the pasta in there. It was an honest mistake!"
"Even you have to admit it wasn't good," he said.
She relaxed and grinned sheepishly at him. "Okay, okay. It wasn't one of my better moments. Okay, I promise not to cook that for you ever again. If I can't microwave it, it's probably not a good idea for me to try it. I guess we'll be eating out a lot. And you'll be doing the majority of the cooking."
"I think that's a fair trade," he said, twirling her around again.
Hermione yawned and looked down at her watch. It was nearly midnight.
"Sleepy?" he asked her.
She nodded. "I think we've done enough for the day."
He pulled her to him and shook his head.
"We haven't done enough for today?" she asked him in disbelief. "Surely, you don't want to continue painting?"
He shook his head again and leaned in to kiss her. It was a long, slow, deep kiss that left her somewhat lightheaded and dazed.
"Oh," she teased. "I guess you wanted to put together those bookshelves, then?"
He kissed her again.
"Or maybe it was assemble the entertainment center?'"
Again, he kissed her, and pulled down the strap of her camisole top and placed soft, sweet kisses on her shoulder.
"Or," she said breathlessly. "Was it more painting?"
He looked at her in mock exasperation. 'I'm trying to seduce you."
"Oh!" she said, taking her hand and slapping her forehead. "I should have known! How could I have been so stupid! You'll do anything to get out of doing any extra work, won't you? Well, I guess I'm stuck with you now---"
She was cut off by her husband picking her up and putting her across his shoulders.
He made a movement toward the bedroom with his wife protesting all the way.
"This is totally barbaric," she said.
"And you love every minute of it," he teased.
"Well," she said, hitting him on the back. "I just wanted to voice my opinion on it."
"Duly noted, sweetheart," he said, as he kicked open the door of the bedroom. "Duly noted."
Author's note: Well, that's it for now, guys. The next chapter will take place five years in the future…I hope that you won't be disappointed with me. Stick with me, people. Stick with me. Please. Please? Come on, you know you want to! Don't leave me alone out here! Stick with me. It will be worth it.