After the Fighting by Viper714
Disclaimer: see part 1
Author's note: I'm sorry about the inexcusably long delay with this chapter, but for the longest time I found it impossible to write anything that treats Deathly Hallows as if it has any business being included in the Harry Potter series whatsoever. Then my hatred of that book and Rowling's behavior since it came out led me into a completely different sort of writing project.I believe the end result of this project will be of great interest many people who visit this site. Titled Broken Wand (Or, How J.K. Rowling Killed Harry Potter), it can be ordered via http://sbpra.com/timothyawolf/ and should be available through regular booksellers within the next 4 - 6 weeks (though some might take up to ten).
That's right, guys. I got so sick of Rowling's self-serving antics that I wrote a book exposing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, as the mass of continuity errors, inconsistant characters, and self-plagiarism that it is -- and it's just been published.
As for this fic, I'm officially ending it with this chapter. There are other stories I want to get on with writing
but couldn't with this left unfinished. Most notably, I'm now working on the fifth chapter of a continuation of
the story from Lies and Illusions with the working title Lines in the Sand. The two of them together
will be intended to completely replace DH with something that actually makes sense. I've also gone back and
re-edited Lies and Illusions into a second edition form, especially in the early chapters which I later felt
had some room for improvement.
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Part Three
Ron & Luna
Life is what happens while you're making other plans.
John Lennon
Ron had no idea where Luna had picked up that Muggle saying, it pretty much summed up what had happened to him over the past nineteen years. If someone had told him how everything would play out right after You-Know-Who's downfall, he would have laughed in their face.
Everything seemed so simple back then. You-Know-Who was gone for good, and everything would be fine and dandy once they tied up a few loose ends. Ron had been more than happy to do his part to help, all the while envisioning a future with Hermione.
Of course, things didn't work out that way.
***********
Although he didn't know it at the time, the last major task Ron performed for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was escorting Draco Malfoy to his sentencing hearing for arranging the Death Eater attack on Hogwarts and multiple counts of attempted murder at the end of November. In truth, he actually volunteered to do this today. For, in his opinion, there were few things more satisfying than seeing slimy little wankers like Malfoy get what was coming to them.
While becoming an Auror had sounded cool in his mind, Ron had never given the idea of working for the Ministry much thought. His dreams had been more along the lines of playing professional Quidditch than doing what his dad and Percy did. But when Kingsley had personally asked Harry, Hermione, and him to help rebuild...well, they just couldn't say no.
Returning to their office, Ron found Hermione filling out paperwork.
"I've got good and bad news. The good is that Malfoy got thirty years in Azkaban," he announced.
"And the bad?" a disinterested Hermione asked without looking up.
Ron blinked at her less-than-enthusiastic response before saying, "They'll let him out in ten if he behaves himself. Not that the berk would survive half that long if Kingsley hadn't decided not to have the dementors guard the place again."
"He made the right choice, if you ask me," said Hermione. "They're horrible creatures that the Ministry should never have associated itself with. You were unconscious when a hundred of them tried to attack us by the lake. If Harry hadn't known how to conjure a Patronus -"
"Yes, of course," Ron said, recalling tip number twelve in Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches: When in doubt, just agree with her. "Anyway, what do you say we go out and celebrate?" he then asked brightly.
"I see no reason to celebrate someone going to prison, no matter what they've done." Hermione sighed, finally putting her quill down. "Have you seen Harry? We need his signature on these," she added, holding up a sheaf of parchment.
"Afraid not. He might have gone home early," answered Ron.
"You don't believe that any more than I do," Hermione stated. "He's been acting very oddly lately. Withdrawn, almost. Has Ginny written anything to you? I figured that he went to see her in Hogsmeade last month, and might have...."
Ron tried not to grit his teeth when she said that. Admittedly, Harry had been a little off ever since Ginny had gone back to Hogwarts in September. Working long hours, not socializing, going on endlessly about his responsibilities to Teddy Lupin.... If Ron didn't know any better, he'd swear his best mate was starting to act like Hermione...a thought that made him feel more than a little queasy.
"If he did, he didn't tell me," he said slowly, shaking his head. "Anyway, I'll see you later. I think I might have forgotten to log it in when I returned Malfoy to his holding cell."
Just to remind her (and himself) of what they were to each other, Ron leaned in for a quick kiss before he left, but stopped short when he saw the berating look she was giving him.
"You really need to pay more attention to your job, Ron," she firmly told him. "The last thing we need is for some Death Eater or, heaven forbid, the next Dark Lord want-to-be to go free because somebody didn't do their paperwork."
Rolling his eyes, he left the office. Figures, a part of Ron's brain that remained unchanged from their time at Hogwarts was saying. First she spends six years yelling at me for not doing my homework right, now she's telling me how to do my job!
Making his way to the lift, Ron couldn't help feeling that something was going on with her as well as Harry. He had no idea what, but it sure was putting a damper on their relationship. Their disagreements were popping back up again. Following the advice in his book had kept them from having any real rows so far, but only just. And all the while, that same rebellious voice in his head was getting ever more sick and tired of having to bite his tongue all the time.
Weeks passed, leading up to their first post-war Christmas. During that time, an idea started forming in Ron's head. That maybe all their relationship needed a little push to get it moving forward again. If so, he might have an idea....
Although he regularly saw his father at the Ministry, it wasn't until Christmas that he was able to really talk to him.
"Um, Dad, what would you think if I asked Hermione to marry me?" he said, standing in the doorway of his old room.
Arthur was just a little surprised by the question. "What would I think? I'd say that if the two of you really love each other and wish to take that step together, go ahead. Your mother and I would be overjoyed to have her in the family. Is there reason why -" Unknown to his son, he'd just seen a mass of bushy brown hair turn around behind him and disappear.
"No, no reason...." While this was pretty much what Ron had expected his dad to say, it wasn't quite the answer he was hoping for. "It's just -"
"Just what?" his dad asked.
Ron shrugged. "I don't know, but it's like we've gotten stuck somehow. And she's been going on about Harry's behavior a lot lately...."
"So what are you saying? Is this unusual for her or something?"
"No," Ron weakly answered. "Not really.... But with the war over and You-Know-Who dead, what's there to worry about anymore? And if Harry's having some kind of problem, shouldn't he be going to Ginny with it?"
Arthur didn't answer him right away. Years later he would admit that, as much as he loved his daughter, he'd always doubted her ability to truly help Harry deal with the problems in his life. That she was too hung up on the legend of The-Boy-Who-Lived to see the person he really was. For now, however, he kept this opinion to himself.
"Look, Ron," Arthur finally said, place a hand on his youngest son's shoulder. "I've never told any of your brothers how to live their lives once they left this house, and I'm not going to start with you. If you want to ask Hermione to marry you, go ahead and ask. Just be sure that you're doing it for the right reasons. Because if you're thinking that proposing is the solution to some kind of problem the two of you are having, I'm afraid you're going to be very disappointed. Marriage is many things, more than you know, but a solution to a couple's personal problems isn't one of them."
Ron nodded along with his father's words even though they weren't enough to make him change his mind.
**********
1999 came in, bringing their transfer to the Department of Magical Relations with it. As a sign of how important he felt this was -- or rather, how important he felt Harry was -- Kingsley Shacklebolt personally led them to his office to inform them of the move. Initially, Ron went along with the whole thing but came to regret move before January was even half over.
He'd been happy in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, liking the excitement that came with hunting down wizard criminals and tossing them in Azkaban (he still couldn't decide who he was happier to see hauled away in irons: Draco Malfoy or Dolores Umbridge -- they were both so loathsome). But now he was spending his days wading through an endless sea of parchment looking for ways to improve wizards' relations with the other intelligent races of the world.
Of course, once they actually started talking to various people, it soon became clear that the main reason for those poor relations was because most non-wizards saw them as a bunch of arrogant berks who sat on their arses while You-Know-Who took over their country. It wasn't something that went over well with the human magical community, especially among those who had fought in the Battle for Hogwarts...yet it was hard to deny that there was more than a grain of truth in those accusations.
More bothersome than his dissatisfaction at work, however, were the changes that started happening between Ron and his friends.
He saw Harry only once away from work over the holidays, the day before Ginny went back to school. It wasn't a happy meeting by any stretch of the imagination. Because the only reason Harry had for coming to the Burrow that day was to tell her that he was ending their relationship permanently.
The announcement had completely floored the Weasley family. None of them knew of any problems between the couple. Hell, Molly had been making some not-so-quiet wedding plans for the couple once Ginny finished Hogwarts. What's more, Harry seemed unwilling to talk to anyone but Hermione about it -- and the most any of them could get out of her on the subject was, "You'll have to ask Harry about that." It was a combination that guaranteed to raise suspicions in people's minds.
Nor did it end there, because Hermione had also started acting strangely over the holidays-- well, stranger than usual, that is. She'd never been the most sociable of girls to begin with, preferring to spend time with her books or that beast she called a cat, lately she'd been pulling back from their relationship. The fact that this had started right about the time he first voiced the idea of proposing to her wouldn't occur to him for the better part of a year.
Despite this, Ron went forward with his plan to "pop the question". Because romance wasn't really his strong point, and the book the twins gave him didn't quite get up to the proposing stage, he wasn't sure when or where to do it. Twice he took her out with the intent of doing it, only to get cold feet at the last minute. The third time was about to end the same way until they reached Hermione's flat.
But just as he was starting to blurt out the little speech he'd thought up, Hermione held up her hand.
"Ron, stop. I know what you're about to ask and I'm very flattered." She had to pause a second before saying, "But while I care for -- while I love you -- a great deal...I'm not ready. Marriage is the most serious commitment two people can possibly make. It should only be entered into if both parties are absolutely certain it's what they want," Hermione then said three words in barely more than a whisper, "and I'm not."
But none if what she said after "stop" fully registered in Ron's mind. He couldn't hear anything over the pounding in his ears or the pain of having his heart shattered into a thousand pieces. When Hermione tried to explain further, it all became too much for him. Before she'd gotten her next sentence out, he turned and stomped out her door without saying another word, never seeing the tears in her eyes.
**********
Why these memories chose to crop up now was a mystery to Ron. All Hermione did was casually mention the possibility of having another baby to Harry. Nothing to get excited about there, given how much had changed since -
"You're drifting, Ronald," Luna said beside him, interrupting his train of thought.. "And don't try to deny it. I know every expression your face is capable of."
"I think I'm cursed to be surrounded by brilliant witches my entire life," he said without thinking.
Where Luna would have once broken into hysterical laughter at just about anything he said, now she just chuckled lightly.
"Very patient ones too," she said brightly. "You require a lot of patience."
"And a thick skin," Ginny muttered as she passed behind them.
Ron threw a rude gesture at his sister that she didn't see, fortunately. Otherwise, she probably would've hexed him across the platform.
Still, Luna had a point about a woman needing a lot patience with him. Then again, few witches knew the value of such things better than her.
**********
Although he didn't want to admit it, Ron knew that his relationship with Hermione was over the moment she turned down his proposal. Everything continued to fall apart between them over the following months. At the same time, he also couldn't help seeing how much closer she seemed to Harry: the two of them exchanging looks and little gestures of affection. While he might not be the brightest bloke in the world, he could still put two and two together.
By the time spring had turned to summer, the pain he felt at her rejection had long since transformed into anger. It simmered just below the surface, threatening to erupt at any moment. Work had become nothing short of torture as his two "best friends" tried to explain away their behavior. On and on it went with no end in sight, until he literally bumped into someone in the aisle of the rebuilt Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes one day in early July.
Bending down to help her pick up her things, he muttered, "Sorry, I wasn't watching...."
"You really should be more careful, Ronald," came a quiet, airy voice. "Most girls don't like being trampled on."
Ron blinked at the voice. "Luna? I haven't seen you in ages. How was your last year at Hogwarts?"
"Much better than the previous one. I was a bit worried about all the time I missed, but then Professor Flitwick told me in private that they were disregarding everything taught under that 'vile, murderous pile of thestral droppings'. I believe he was referring to Snape."
Laughing for what felt like the first time in years, Ron shook his head and muttered, "Glad to hear that someone still remembers that slimy git for what he was. I swear, Harry's parents must've rolled over in their grave when he spouted all that rubbish about what a good guy Snape supposedly was. It's like he doesn't remember all the hell that evil bastard used to put us through!"
"True, Snape was a very unpleasant person and a horrible teacher," she said, "Do you know I still have a mark from when his friends took me off the Hogwarts Express? Here, I'll show you...." Luna started to undo the top button of her blouse.
"Wha...uh, hey...I don't think-" Ron stammered.
Luna looked at him in the oddest fashion. "Are you alright, Ronald? You're acting very strangely all of a sudden. Almost like my father. He's been in a state all year, hardly letting me out of his sight except for when I went to school. Now he's telling me that I can't go to investigate the scuffalump migration by myself."
"The scrupawhats?" Ron asked, totally lost.
"Scufflelumps. I think I have some drawings with me." Luna dug through her handbag. "They've been spotted in the Black Forest recently and...ah, here we go!"
Taking the parchment, Ron tried to make heads or tails out of the drawing. Squinting and turning it to one side, he thought he saw something that might be a snout....or was it a tail?
"Ah, that's...um, very interesting," he said, trying not to sound too bewildered.
"Aren't they? I admit that it's lacking in certain details, but it gives you the general idea." Luna took the picture back. Then, without any warning, she asked, "Would you like to go with me? I'm sure Daddy would feel a lot better if I wasn't alone."
Coming out of the blue like this, Ron had no idea how to respond to Luna's offer. The thought of quitting his job at the Ministry had repeatedly crossed his mind over the past few months. Especially after seeing Hermione fall all over Harry after his disastrous meeting with the goblins back in May. Pride was the only thing that kept him from actually doing it. In his mind, he had equated leaving the job he'd come to hate with totally giving up on himself and Hermione...something he was loath to do.
"Well, I -- I'd have to think about it. When do you plan on going?" he asked.
Excitement danced in Luna's eyes. "Beginning of August. I still have to arrange transportation, though. I don't think I like Apparating much. There's something very unnatural about it if you ask me."
The two of them talked a while longer before going their separate ways. Returning to his flat, Ron tried to figure out what just happened. Unfortunately, deep thinking wasn't one of Ronald Weasley's strong points. Mostly, it just left him going around and around in circles.
When he went into work the next day, he found Harry and Hermione already there discussing their upcoming talks with the centaurs and merpeople at Hogwarts. Nothing new there, they'd been trying to arrange these talks for months now. What caught his attention was that they were sitting on the office sofa instead of at their desks.
A wave of jealousy washed over Ron as he watched his best friends together. They looked so comfortable in each other's company, talking with an ease that he could never hope to match. All morning he watched them with hardly a word, even when they asked his opinion on something.
Noon came, and Harry and Hermione went off to lunch. On her way out, Hermione turned to ask Ron if he was coming.
"Sorry, I've got something to do," he said in a rather surly tone.
Hands on her hips, Hermione glared at him. "You do know that we'll have to talk eventually. Giving me the silent treatment all the time won't solve anything."
The only answer she got was a hard look. Throwing her hands up in frustration, Hermione stormed out of the office. Once she was gone, Ron slowly counted to one hundred before heading up to the atrium so he could Apparate to Luna's recently rebuilt home.
"Hello! Anyone here?" he shouted, coming up the walk.
The front door opened and Luna's face appeared, much to Ron's relief. Besides Luna being the one he came to see, he was still nursing a grudge against Xeno Lovegood for trying to turn them over to the Death Eaters during the war.
"Ronald."
"I just came by to tell you that I'll go with you," he told her simply. "If you're still going, that is."
Luna broke into the widest smile Ron had ever seen.
***********
And that was it. Ron's time at the Ministry was over, and with it went any hope he had for a future with Hermione. Of course, there were a few formalities to take care of first. Kingsley tried to talk him out of handing in his resignation without success, but in what Ron felt was a very half-hearted manner. Truth be told, he suspected that if any one of the famous trio had to leave government service, he would have been the Minister's choice.
Far harder was telling his friends and family about his decision. It spoke volumes about their relationship that Hermione had immediately started lecturing him about his responsibilities. Then Ginny had to toss in her two knuts, which incited an argument that led to him getting slapped across the face. Harry and Hermione left right after that, but not before his best mate coldly told Ron off.
The words continued to burn his ears after they'd left. Then, to add insult to injury, his dad came looking for him right afterwards.
"What's going on around here?" he asked. "Did you know that Harry just walked out on his own birthday party?"
"Yeah, Hermione and him probably have some important shagging to do," Ron snapped just before Apparating to his flat. Once there, he wasted no time in throwing his essentials into a knapsack Luna had provided and making his other arrangements. No sooner had he finished than Luna came by with her own pack and a Portkey and they took off.
Weeks had passed since then. Weeks of tramping through the wilderness and living out of a magical tent with Luna. Once a week they would journey to a wizard village about forty kilometers from where the German, French, and Swiss borders met for supplies. But other than that, they didn't see too many people. For a brief time, Ron got scared that this would bring back bad memories of the last year of the war -- most of which Harry, Hermione, and him had spent on the run. Luna, however, quickly distracted him from those concerns.
One thing he just couldn't get over was just how serious, yet very...Luna, she was about the whole business. She would go about planning the deployment of her special wizard cameras with nearly as much concentration as Hermione had used on her schoolwork. Then, when they were setting them up, she would give each one a few special words of encouragement and a little pat or kiss after tapping them with her wand to turn it on.
The combination both cheered him up and made him depressed at the same time. That, in turn, reminded him of a fight he'd once had with Hermione about not being able to feel so many different things at once. It seemed that he'd finally gotten past having the emotional range of a teaspoon.
Soft giggling met his ears when Ron stepped out of their tent. Nearby, Luna was sitting on a log, laughing at the contents of a book spread across her lap. Curiosity getting the better of him, Ron leaned over to see what it was -- only to stop short when he realized that it was Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches.
"W...wh...where did you find that?" he asked.
With an airy giggle, Luna said, "Saw it in the rubbish bin when I picked you up at your flat." Reading another passage put her into hysterical laughter for a minute. "Can you believe that a boy would be silly enough do actually these things just to get some girl? All they'd do is make themselves miserable."
Ron just stood there for a minute, clutching his fists. He'd tossed the stupid thing out for a reason, mostly because he got so mad looking at it that he couldn't hold his wand steady enough to vanish the book or set it on fire.
"Whatever," he said, turning his back on her.
Luna tilted her head to one side. "Ronald...."
"YOU'RE RIGHT, OKAY?!" Ron rounded on her. "I WAS STUPID! I THOUGHT THAT HERMIONE WOULD WANT ME IF I FOLLOWED THE ADVICE IN THAT LOUSY BOOK! SATISFIED?!"
An odd look crossed Luna's face as Ron started to stomp off into the woods with the intent of Disapparating. But before he got very far, Luna took the wand from behind her ear with a disappointed sigh and a shake of her head, twirled it three times in a slow, deliberate manner while muttering a spell, and then yanked it up and back like a Muggle fishing pole.
"Wwwaaaahhhh!!!!" Ron's scream echoed off the thick pine trees as he suddenly found himself flying backward through the air. He came to a stop a a couple of feet in front of Luna, dangling upside down with his arms and legs bound tightly together.
"What on earth are you doing?" he cried, wiggling against his unseen bonds. "What kind of ruddy spell is this?"
"Mother invented it when I was little. She used it to get Father's attention when he'd get too involved with his printing press," Luna said in her normal, not-quite-there tone. "Anyway, you should know by now that you can't solve your problems by running away from them any more than you can build a lasting relationship through seduction."
It was only natural to look somewhat flustered while suspended upside down in midair, your body slowly rotating on an unseen thread attached to your ankles, but Ron managed to look even more so as he said, "What the ruddy hell are you talking about? I never tried to seduce Hermione!"
"If you were following the advice in that book, you were," Luna replied simply. "The author's attitude really isn't all that different from the sorts of witches who use so-called 'love potions' to get men who would otherwise have no interest in them."
From a distant corner of his memory, Ron recalled the time he accidentally took a love potion in his last year at Hogwarts. Well, "recall" wasn't really the right word. The whole thing was more like a drunken blur. Regardless, he was quite certain that he never wanted to be under the influence of one ever again.
Deciding that he'd calmed down enough, Luna gently turned Ron right side up and released him from the spell. Now that he was looking at Luna's face instead of her toes, he contritely muttered, "I couldn't really have been that stupid, could I?"
"I wouldn't be too concerned about it," Luna told him. "Even Ravenclaws can be a bit thick when it comes to love and relationships. You wouldn't believe some the schemes I used to hear around our common room and girls' dorm."
That brought the smallest hint of a smile to Ron's face. "Yeah, I'm sure. Still, I really would like to get rid of that load of codswallop," he said, referring to the book.
"Easy enough to do," Luna said. Turning around, she picked up the copy of Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches and waved her wand over it. When Luna turned back to him, Ron saw her holding a rock instead.
"Here," she said, handing it to him. "Now, throw."
Ron stared at the transfigured book for a second. "Huh?"
"Pick a direction and throw. Then it'll be gone," Luna explained brightly.
Realization dawned on him. Smiling, Ron picked a distant mountain as his target, wound up as if he was throwing the Quaffle to a Gryffindor Chaser clear across the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch, and threw the rock with all his might.
Luna watched the erstwhile-book disappear among the treetops. "Feel better?" she asked once it was out of sight.
"Oddly enough, I do," he answered.
Luna nodded. "Good. Let's go swimming."
Ron blinked at her sudden change of subject.
"Swimming? But I didn't bring a bathing suit," Ron said.
"Why would you need a suit to bathe in?" Luna said, giving him a perplexed look. Giggling, she took his hand and said, "Honestly, Ronald, you have some of the oddest notions...."
Ron stared at Luna, mouth agape and his face turning the most remarkable shade of red, as she pulled him in the direction of a pond she'd found their first day there.
**********
The two of them returned to England in the middle of November. Although Luna wasn't able to find her scuffalumps, she didn't let it get her down. "If they weren't very hard to find, everyone would know about them and they'd be a lot less interesting," she said brightly while writing up the article for her father.
Although Ron was happy to be home, he also had some mixed feelings about returning to England. Despite the fact that he didn't know what to make out of her half the time, he had enjoyed his adventure with Luna. He also wasn't too thrilled by the prospect of seeing Harry and Hermione again.
But after some gentle prodding from Luna, he sent Pigwidgeon to Harry to let him know he was back. Ron really wasn't expecting to hear back from him or Hermione, but to his surprise received an invitation to meet them at the Leaky Cauldron that Friday evening. Unfortunately, Luna wouldn't be there because her father was taking her out to celebrate her first article.
Tom welcomed him with his toothless smile and pointed Ron to the back of his pub. There he found Harry sipping a pint of warm butterbeer, his outer work robes folded over the back of his chair.
Approaching the table, Ron said weakly, "Hello, Harry. Aren't we missing someone?"
"Hermione had some last-minute paperwork to take care of," Harry replied. "She'll be along soon."
"Sounds like her," Ron said as Tom set his tankard of butterbeer in front of him. "How's she doing?"
Harry paused a moment before answering. "Okay...now. She was pretty upset for a while after that last fight of ours. Then your mother started giving her a bunch of grief on top of it."
"Yeah, Mum's good at that," Ron said quietly, not looking at him. If he had, he would have seen Harry staring worriedly into his drink.
"So, did Luna and you find what she was looking for?" asked Harry.
With a shrug, Ron replied, "What do you think?"
"I think a lot of people would be very surprised if she did," Harry answered dryly.
Ron chuckled -- it was hard to deny the truth of that statement. Unfortunately, yet another of those long, uncomfortable, silences enveloped them once the laughter died.
Taking a deep breath, Harry finally blurted out, "Hermione and I started dating last month."
Though long suspected, the news still hit Ron like a thunderbolt. Hermione had moved on in his absence...to Harry. Several minutes passed before Ron could bring himself to respond.
"Is that right?"
"It is," Harry replied softly.
Silently wishing that he'd ordered something a lot stronger than butterbeer (arsenic sprang to mind), Ron very carefully asked, "And how is - ?"
"It's good. Very good," Harry answered very softly. Swallowing another sip of his drink he then said, "Look, Ron -- I know you probably won't believe this, but I didn't steal her from you. Hermione was helping me with some personal issues that came up after -"
Ron held up a hand to stop him. "Stop, Harry. Just...just stop, okay? You've got nothing to explain," he said.
Neither of them spoke again until Hermione walked up to their table.
After exchanging a warm greeting with Harry, she turned to Ron and asked, "So, how was your trip with Luna?"
"Not what I thought it would be," Ron replied. "I was thinking that we'd just wander through in the woods, waiting for something to jump in front of us. But that only lasted until she found places to put these special cameras of hers...." He stopped suddenly, seeing that his friends were paying more attention to each other than to himself. Ron downed what was left of his butterbeer before saying, "If you two would rather be alone -"
Hermione's head snapped around. She tried to stammer a few words of explanation, but Ron held up a hand to stop her
"You don't have to say anything, Hermione. Harry already told me and I'm okay with it." Ron then took a deep breath and did something he still wasn't very good at, despite all the practice he'd gotten over the years. "If anything, I'm the one who owes you an apology. Harry was right. I should have known that you would never cheat on me, or anyone else you were dating. I'm sorry I said what I did."
Even as he said it, Ron felt embarrassed by how he'd acted -- as he usually did in these circumstances. A passing waitress refilled his mug as Hermione opened her mouth.
"You shouldn't feel too bad, Ron. I could have handled things better too," she said. "Maybe if I'd just told you about what was going on instead of trying to drop hints -"
"I would have gone off even sooner than I did," Ron finished for her.
Hermione nodded with a wry smirk. "Come to think of it, you probably would have. So, did you learn anything interesting in Germany?" she asked, changing the subject.
"Would not underestimating Luna Lovegood count?" asked Ron in return. The last hints of discomfort between them vanished as Ron told his best friends some of the funnier things that had happened on his trip with Luna.
But he didn't mention the swimming.
***********
The platform was rapidly clearing out when Harry and Hermione came over, holding each other like a pair of lovesick teenagers. And they wondered why their kids gave them the looks they did.
Of course, that turned Ron's thoughts to another matter....
**********
Time passed, and things slowly changed.
Harry and Hermione continued their work at the Ministry, yet even his renewed friendship with them wasn't enough to convince Ron to return. He more than had his fill of the place, and had a better offer to boot.
The ink was barely dry on her article for The Quibbler when Luna started planning her next expedition. Something to do with a southern relative of her crumpled-horned snorkacks...or was it the blibbering humdingers...or - ? Eh, never mind. The important thing was that she invited Ron to go with her again and he accepted. She would repeat the offer later, when planning her third adventure but not for her fourth. By that time, Ron had told her it wasn't necessary. All Luna had to do was let him know when they were leaving.
It was a wandering sort of life they lived for the next several years, filled with adventure and exotic locales. Still, they always came home to England. Harry and Hermione, in particular, were always happy to welcome them back and exchange news. Molly Weasley, on the other hand, spared no effort in letting her youngest son know exactly what she thought of him giving up a promising career at the Ministry of Magic to chase a bunch of imaginary creatures with Luna Lovegood. Not that anyone would expect otherwise, given the old-fashioned sort of witch she was.
Unfortunately for his mum, Ron grew immune to her rants over time. It was his life and he was enjoying himself. Quirky as she may be, Luna accepted him for what he was while asking no more than that in return. For a young man who had always felt overshadowed by his friends and family, that seemed a pretty good deal. And as his life with her showed him the benefits of not worrying so much about how other people saw him, Ron's temper cooled quite a bit.
Eventually, of course, they became much more than just friends and traveling companions. There was no one event that marked this transition. No candlelit dinners or dances under the stars (neither of them were really into those). Yet, sometime between when Harry and Hermione announced their engagement and their wedding, Ron came to realize that Luna Lovegood had, slowly but surely, wiggled her odd little way into his heart.
Needless to say, Luna had a completely different way of putting it. Something to do with the habits of an extremely unlikely burrowing creature that...well, you get the point.
But oddly enough, this revelation didn't bring about any drastic changes in their life. Ron and Luna had already been spending half their time effectively living together in a magical tent, so deciding to share a flat the rest of the time felt only natural. Of course, this unconventional lifestyle of theirs was yet another thing his mum didn't approve of. It was a matter that often came up between them and eventually came to a head when she learned of the next surprise life threw at her youngest son -- some five and a half years after Voldemort....
**********
In the years following the fall of Voldemort, Britain experienced what Hermione dubbed "a wizard baby boom". Up and down the country, young witches and wizards were having kids at a rate that promised to make Minerva McGonagall a very busy headmistress in about another ten years or so. As so many pure-bloods had been lost to the war and Azkaban, so-called "half-bloods" were making up an even larger percentage of the new population than before Voldemort while Muggle-borns remained about the same. Not that you could tell that by visiting the Burrow at Christmas.
Five young kids, three of them Weasleys, spent the entire morning running all over the place playing with their new toys -- including a pair of toy broomsticks that had collided with five walls and eight pieces of furniture before being sent outside.
By two in the afternoon, however, things had calmed down for a while as the three young Weasleys were upstairs napping. Only Teddy Lupin, who was spending the holidays with his godparents (even though Remus and Tonks never officially named her Teddy's godmother, Hermione had no qualms about assuming the role) because his gran had come down with a nasty case of wizard flu, was still down here. Although he was curled in a chair, his eyes kept flicking open beneath a lock of his (currently) mousey-brown hair whenever someone moved.
While there was no doubt that the boy had definitely inherited his mum's sense of humor along with her Metamorphmagus ability, as he grew older he'd also started displaying a couple of things from his dad's side too. Not full-blown lycanthropy, thank Merlin, but a very wolf-like territorial streak and tendency to only take to certain people: specifically his grandmother, Harry, Hermione, and their kids.
A soft cooing sound drew Ron's attention to where Hermione was settling three and a half-month old Amanda Potter in the new Muggle baby carrier they'd gotten from her parents. The odd plastic contraption had caused quite a stir around the Weasley home, almost as much as the baby herself. Dad had been beside himself examining the thing, and Luna had been reading the instructions Hermione produced for her with rapt attention when she wasn't looking at Amy or her sixteen-month old brother, Sam -- who was using his dad's leg as a pillow while the half-eaten Christmas biscuit he'd gotten from "Granny Molly" dangled precariously from his tiny hand -- in a very peculiar sort of smile on her face.
Leave it to Mum to spoil the kids rotten, even those who aren't really her grandchildren, Ron thought to himself. Whatever happened to that short, plump, saber-toothed tiger who used to terrorize us?
Well, the answer was that she'd outlived one of her children. And while time had healed most of the pain of losing Fred, it couldn't fill the hole his death had left in the Weasley family. To this day, George always pulled an especially elaborate prank in his twin's honor on their birthday, and got piss drunk on the anniversary of his death. Ron had joined him in the latter "tradition" the last time around, and ended up needing Luna to guide him home.
In the midst of all this pondering, the aroma of Christmas dinner drifted through the room. Ron's stomach growled in anticipation, but a glance over at Luna showed her to be going rather pale before suddenly dashing off to the bathroom with a hand over her mouth.
Of course, Ron was the first to meet her when she returned a few minutes later.
"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked.
"Oh, yes," Luna answered. "But I must say, I'm finding the term 'morning sickness' to be very misleading."
A loud crash drew everyone's attention towards the kitchen, where Molly was standing wide-eyed.
"You -- you're pregnant?" she stammered at Luna. Then her tone turn accusing, "But you're not even married! How can you possibly be pregnant?!"
Luna's response was typical Luna in its airy directness.
"Ronald and I had sex."
Stifled laughter was heard even as Molly's eyes flicked over in Teddy's direction. However, any concerns she might have had about him hearing Luna mention the word "sex" were unwarranted. He'd been told the basics of where babies came from shortly after Hermione had announced she was pregnant for the second time.
Then Molly turned her attention to her youngest son.
"Ronald Weasley, I assume this means you will finally be giving up this irresponsible lifestyle of yours and marry this -"
Furrowing her brow in puzzlement Luna interrupted her by saying, "Well, that's not your choice to make, is it?"
Molly froze in mid-rant, along with just about everyone else in the room.
"I don't think you under-" Molly started to say.
"You think we have to get married this instant because of some silly, old-fashioned notion of propriety you have," Luna said softly. All around her, the Weasleys hid their faces...save Fleur, who was practically cheering Luna on (memories of her own early problems with Molly having never really faded), despite being seven months pregnant with twins. "If we're happy living our lives the way we are, that's all that counts. Should we decide to get married later on...well, that'll be good too. Either way, the choice is still up to us. Besides, people place way too much importance on the act of getting married. It's like they think that it's some kind of goal or ending, when it's really more of a beginning," Luna added.
"Boy, has she got that one right," Harry whispered into Hermione's ear. She gave him a sideways look, then smiled when he took her hand and kissed it.
The argument didn't end there, of course. It went on all through dinner, and right up until Ron and Luna decided it was time for them to go home.
Entering the little cottage the two of them shared, Ron took Luna into their living room to talk. But before he could even get his mouth open, she beat him to the punch.
"I really hope this isn't what I think it is, Ronald," she said, "because we're not getting married."
Echoes of his disastrous proposal to Hermione tore at Ron's heart. He'd been thinking of asking Luna to marry him off and on for some time, and seriously since she'd told him she was pregnant. And now....
"We...we're not?"
Luna rolled her eyes. "Not now, we aren't. And certainly not because I'm having a baby. Why? Do you...?"
Ron tried to sound casual and shrug the whole thing off. "Well, it wouldn't be such a bad idea, would it?"
"No, it wouldn't," said Luna, her head bowed in thought. Then she smiled and said brightly, "Tell you what...ask me again after River's born. Then I think I'll say yes."
"River?" said Ron, his heart and mind struggling to catch up with her sudden reversal. "Isn't that a girl's name?" he asked weakly.
"Of course. My body wouldn't accept anything else the first time around." she said with a radiant smile. "Want to go practice making our next one?"
As she led him into their bedroom by the hand, Ron decided that not only would he never understand Luna, but that it didn't really matter if he did.
**********
In the end, River Cameron Weasley was nearly four years-old when her parents finally got married. Sadly, though, it seemed that she was fated to be an only child in a clan of large families. For despite their enthusiastic efforts, Luna didn't get pregnant again. It was one of those things that set Ron an Luna apart from many of their fellows.
With a little help from Harry, Ron got a job testing broomsticks and Quidditch gear for Quidditch Monthly. The job turned out to be a good fit for them, giving little family a steadier income than Luna's Quibbler articles did while leaving him free to join her and their daughter on their expeditions. This included the one two summers ago when River had found her beloved pet. A bizarre creature the size of a terrier whose face and horn made it look like it had smashed headlong into a brick wall.
Seeing his little girl off to Hogwarts again made Ron think back over his life. It may not have turned out anything like what he'd envisioned after Voldemort's defeat, but it didn't matter. He was happy, and that's all that counts.
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The End
Author's note II: Okay, so I named Ron and Luna's daughter after a psychic killer-woman and a Terminator, both played by Summer Glau. At least it's better than the ones Rowling came up with.