Chapter 19: Fidelius

�All right, first things first, you both have got to relax,� Ron said.

If he didn�t know better, he would have thought that his fifteen year old self and Hermione�s younger version were preparing themselves to meet their firing squad, rather than learn an advanced charm. They looked absolutely petrified, the both of them. Even Harry, who seemed to have come out of his shell a lot more since his talk with Ron, was eyeing them with much amusement and seemed ready to burst into laughter at any moment.

�If you don�t relax, this isn�t going to work...�

�He�s right,� Harry said. �And come on, this should be a piece of cake for both of you anyway.�

At this, young Ron unclenched his fists, and beside him, Hermione lowered her shoulders a few millimeters. But neither had any color return to their faces as of yet.

�Well,� muttered Harry, �I s�pose that�s a start..�

Ron had to admit, he was especially surprised at young Hermione�s apprehension; he would have thought for certain that she would be eager to get a good jump on the rest of her classmates by learning this charm that heretofore had been attempted only by full-fledged wizards.

�We�re relaxed,� his younger self said, though his words were betrayed by the tight way his jaw was still set, �really, we are!�

Ron cleared his throat and tried not to smile. He could practically feel Hermione, hidden beside him under her invisibility cloak, straining to keep in her laughter.

�Of course you are,� he said. Well, he supposed he should simply try to ease them into this. �Okay, let�s get started then, shall we?�

Young Ron and Hermione nodded enthusiastically. Harry had been sitting on top of the desk, watching them all this while, his legs swinging casually, and when Ron nodded at him and motioned for him to join them in the middle of the classroom, Harry slid off the desk and walked towards them.

�We�ll have to do this one at a time, so Hermione, let�s start with you first.�

Young Hermione�s face suddenly flooded back with color the moment he closed his hand around her arm. Ron noticed it right away, and apparently, so had his younger self, who rolled his eyes in a not so inconspicuous way. Most unfortunately for young Hermione, this only caused the redness in her cheeks to intensify, so to save her further embarrassment, Ron released her arm.

�Right then,� Ron said, �what I want you and Harry to do is bring the tips of your wands together... Got it?�

�Yes.�

�Good. Now, concentrate very hard, all right? Focus all your energy on shielding Harry, can you do that?�

Hermione nodded.

�Okay, now say, Fidero...�

�Fidero...�

Ron stepped back from the both of them, then turned to Harry. �Harry, I want you to stand behind that screen there,� he said. �And Hermione, when I approach him, I want you to concentrate hard again, and try to make me go in the other direction.�

�You mean I�d be controlling your actions?� she said.

�In a way, yes,� he said. �If the charm has worked, you will in fact be willing me to keep away from Harry. He�ll effectively be hidden from me.�

�Very cool,� young Ron said in awe.

�That it is,� Ron chuckled. �Okay, ready?�

�Ready,� young Hermione said.

Ron started to walk towards the screen that hid Harry. He knew young Hermione was focusing�he could see her face straining with concentration from the corner of his eye�but before long, he was able to reach Harry with no difficulty. He saw her face fall.

She was devastated.

�It�s all right, Hermione. It�s perfectly normal to struggle with it the first few times. Takes a lot of practice.�

She nodded, but it seemed she wasn�t too convinced. Young Ron placed a hand on her shoulder to reassure her, and she gave him a small smile, but it was clear she was still very disappointed in herself.

�Ready, Ron?�

�Sure am.�

�Okay, just as I told Hermione earlier, I need you to concentrate very hard when your wands touch.� He eyed both boys carefully, watching in amazement as he saw young Ron�s face reflect all the focus he was putting into this.

�That�s it,� Ron said. �Very good... Now, say the charm...�

�Fidero...�

�Now, Harry, just as before, I want you to hide behind that screen. And Ron, I need you to concentrate again. The closer I get to Harry, the more I need you to focus.�

�Okay.�

Ron began retracing his steps, making his way across the room towards the screen. Halfway there, though, he felt a strange pull in the other direction. He lifted his foot, but it was as if his body was physically being turned around, and eventually, he did turn completely around. Young Ron�s eyes widened in surprise, and he let out a small yelp.

�I did it!� he said. �Bloody hell, I actually did it!!�

�Super job!� Ron said. �That was a very good start!�

Harry emerged from the screen to slap young Ron hard on the back. �Hey, way to go, Ron!�

�Congratulations,� young Hermione said, joining the other two.

Young Ron looked as if he was afraid to say anything to her, in case he said the wrong thing. But after a while, he finally said, �Thanks... You, er... you did great too...�

�No I didn�t,� she said sharply.

Young Ron�s mouth fell open, then closed immediately as he exchanged looks with Harry, who didn�t seem to want to get in the middle of this one at all.

�Hermione... look, it�s going to be okay-�

�Well of course you think so,� she said. �You did it perfectly! At least Harry can rely on one of us!!�

Harry tried to touch her arm, but she flicked him off.

�Don�t tell me you�re actually going to dwell on this,� young Ron said.

By now, Ron wanted to jump in before things deteriorated any further, but he felt Hermione gently tug on his arm, and so he held back.

�Look, what does it matter which one of us got it right? The important thing is that Harry is going to have a Secret-Keeper, isn�t that what we wanted?�

Young Hermione sighed. �Well obviously you don�t understand,� she said, then she turned to Ron, even as young Ron�s mouth was still hanging open in shock. �Professor, thank you very much for taking the time to work with us on this. It was very nice of you.�

�Sure-�

�I don�t understand??� young Ron suddenly sputtered, obviously in control of his voice once more. �Oh, I understand all right. I understand perfectly! You just can�t stand it that for once in your life, someone else was able to beat you at something!! Face it, Hermione, you�ve always got to be top of the class in everything�well here�s a newsflash: you�re not the best at everything, are you?�

The last comment had clearly crossed the line. Everyone in the room knew it, as young Hermione stared back at him in stunned disbelief. Without a word, she turned on her heel and ran off.

�Bloody hell,� young Ron muttered. �Why did I say that...�

�Ron...�

�I�m sorry, Professor. That was... I know I shouldn�t have said that-�

�I don�t think I�m the one you need to be apologizing to,� Ron said to him.

�This seems to be happening a lot lately,� young Ron said, as if by explanation. �I mean, we�ve always had our disagreements, but lately...�

�Well,� Ron said, �have you ever given any thought to why that might be?�

Young Ron blinked back at him in bewilderment. Beside him, Harry was shaking his head, a knowing smile planted firmly on his face.

�What... what d�you mean, Professor?�

Ron sighed. Blimey, he really was in deep denial back then, wasn�t he?

�I mean... Perhaps you and Hermione ought to have this all out. To clear the air.�

The prospect of that seemed to scare the living daylights out of young Ron. Ron saw his adam�s apple bob up and down as he swallowed hard.

�You think so?�

�But if that�s too daunting a task, you could always try apologizing.�

Young Ron nodded, then let out a heavy exhale. �Yeah, I reckon I ought to do that,� he said quietly. He turned back to Harry, giving him a playful punch on the arm. �Right then, I guess I�ll see you later... I�ve got some business to take care of first.�

Harry rolled his eyes and laughed. �Yeah, all right... I should get going too, anyway. Professor, thanks for everything.�

�Don�t mention it.�

When they had both gone, Hermione slipped out from under the invisibility cloak. Ron was expecting some sort of sign of gratitude�after all, he�d just done the mature thing and pointed out his younger self�s foolishness to his face�but instead, what greeted him was a scowl.

Great. What had he done wrong now?

�What do you think you�re doing?� she said.

Bemused, Ron answered back, �Something bad, I take it?�

�Ron, you can�t be toying with our history like that! Don�t you realize what kind of havoc that could play on our lives?�

What was she playing at??

�You can�t be serious.�

Oh, but apparently, she was.

�Come on, love,� he said, �we�re not talking about monumental changes here! Just a little... nudge here and there. Get him to be aware of what he�s doing.�

�That little nudge here and there might lead to little things changing here and there,� she said matter-of-factly, �and then even bigger things eventually! Ron, you�re playing with fire, that�s what you are.�

�Don�t you think you�re being just a little overdramatic-�

�No,� she said, cutting him off sharply.

�What, you don�t think he ought to ease up on her a little? You can�t tell me you actually enjoyed that tension in those last few months before we finally blew the lid on everything.�

To Ron�s surprise (and relief), she laughed. �My, you do have a way with words, don�t you?� she said.

�Ron, just let them discover it for themselves, all right? They�ll find out about it soon enough. If I recall, Professor Sprout should be giving them detention in a few days...�

�You remember the exact date, do you?�

She arched an eyebrow at him. �You don�t?�

��Course I do,� he said, before she had a chance to launch into an upbraiding. He slid his arms around her waist and pulled her to him, nuzzling her neck. �Mmm, you are a romantic, aren�t you, Mrs. Weasley?�

She let out an involuntary sound from the back of her throat, the kind that made Ron�s skin break out in goosebumps.

Suddenly, he pulled away, earning a whimper of protest from her. �Hmm... I�ve just had an idea...�

�Oh?�

She walked her fingers up his collarbone, teasing him with one of her deadly smile, but Ron was onto her, and closed his hand around hers.

�Sorry, love,� he said, �you�ll have to be patient this time around.�

�This time?� she said, clearly offended by the implication. �Are you saying I�m not normally patient?�

Ron didn�t answer, only kissing the tip of her nose and giving her that grin that he knew drove her mad.

�Ron Weasley, you can be such a prat sometimes, I swear!� she said with mock outrage. But her skin was all a flush, and he knew she couldn�t be that annoyed with him.

�But that�s why you love me, right?� He grinned wickedly, then captured her earlobe in a playful nibble. �Don�t worry, love... I�ll make sure it�s worth the wait...�

Skirting the deserted halls like this with Ron in the half-darkness, with only the fractured light of the moon outside to light their path, Hermione felt like a ghost that emerged only when the rest of Hogwarts had long fallen into a slumber. And in truth, she had been little more than a ghost since she�d come here, shadowing Ron in the daytime under the invisibility cloak, hoping at all times that no one�not a mischievous and extremely meddlesome little poltergeist, nor the very keen and always aware Harry�would suspect a thing and alert everyone to her presence.

She was very aware of the soft tap of her footsteps, and the shuffle of her long robes on the ground. Each sound seemed amplified in the otherwise silent night; she half suspected that Dumbledore would suddenly spring out from the shadows and catch them, though she had a feeling that Dumbledore probably already knew she was here. It would just be like him.

Part of her wondered why in the world she ever agreed to take a risk such as this in the first place, to throw caution to the wind by roaming the halls without the benefit of the cloak hiding her and Ron, but he had taken her by the hand and pulled her along, shushing her with a finger to her lips, and telling her simply to trust him. And of course, she did.

She trusted him with her life.

Besides, this wouldn�t be the first time they�d agreed to a clandestine meeting. In those first weeks after they�d finally found the nerve to tell each other how they felt, they would meet like this all the time: wake up just as the pre-dawn darkness was beginning to fade, and uncover all those secret passageways that weren�t frequented by Peeves or the Bloody Baron, or most especially, Moaning Myrtle, who Hermione had had a nasty suspicion was a bit of a voyeur.

Finding time to be alone at Hogwarts was a challenge to say the least, but even more of a challenge was finding a place in which to be alone. Hermione reckoned that she and Ron had probably found just about every hiding place there was at the castle: abandoned classrooms, hidden corridors, secret dungeons that even Filch did not seem to patrol on a regular basis.

Ron and Hermione had never really christened these secret places with anything more than an intense snogging session, however. Looking back on it, Hermione had to wonder how either of them could have ever resisted the temptation to go further. As teenagers, their hormones had certainly been racing all the time; they had been swept away by the power of a newly-discovered love that was only just beginning to blossom, both of them flush with the possibility and promise of this new adventure on which they had embarked. But somehow they had been able to wait until later�much later, when life and death seemed too large and too blatant to ignore.

Still, that didn�t mean there weren�t a number of close calls before then. Hermione felt her cheeks get hot as she recalled one of them in particular. She was sure the darkness would hide her blushing, until she sensed Ron staring at her, and she looked up to see him grinning as if he could read every thought passing through her mind at that moment.

�So you do remember this room,� he whispered, adding a dangerous wink to that already deadly grin of his.

The man certainly knew how to get to her.

�Hard to forget,� she said. She had tried to say it as coolly as possible, but wasn�t sure she had succeed; Ron let out a teasing laugh in response, and tugged at her hand gently to pull her inside.

They had climbed up to the old observation tower on the north end of the castle, the one that had long been abandoned in favor of the Astronomy tower that was built sometime in the late 1700�s. Ron and Hermione had discovered it late one snowy evening in their sixth year, with Hermione fretting the entire time that despite the invisibility cloak Harry had lent them, they would surely be caught and lambasted by Professor McGonagall. Hermione had been certain that she would lose her prefect badge and had told Ron so in an effort to get him to forget this whole idea and go back to the dormitories, but Ron had quieted her concerns with a searing kiss that seemed to last for hours�and probably did. The kiss was still burned in her memory to this day, which she was sure Ron was well aware of.

�Mmm,� he murmured, �yes it was rather memorable, wasn�t it?� He tilted up her chin with his hand and captured her lips in a way that took her breath away, and made her just as dizzy, just as unaware of time and space as she had been thirty years ago.

When they finally parted, their breath audible as each of them sought air, Hermione gave her husband the slyest of smiles. Even in the semi-darkness, there was no mistaking that hungry look on Ron�s face when she did. He must have had some sort of an idea of what she was about to say next.

�Do you know,� she said, drawing his face towards hers by pulling on his chin, �what I really wanted to do to you that night?�

There was a sharp intake of breath; Hermione wasn�t sure if it had come from herself or from Ron, because a split second later their lips had made contact, mouths fusing into one as neither could get close enough to the other.

�And why am I finding out about this only now?� he managed to say, his hot breath branding itself at the crook of her neck.

She laughed huskily, the laugh she knew drove him wild, and she heard a low groan come from the back of his throat as if to confirm it.

�Because now you can actually do something about it...�

His mouth formed a smile on the sensitive skin at the hollow of her throat. Hermione felt a shudder ripple through her as she leaned her head back and offered him more access, which he took without any sort of hesitation.

The way only a lover who knew every inch of her body would.

She knew right then and there that no matter what kind of danger they were facing outside of these four walls, whatever kind of trials awaited them in the coming future, she was going to savor this moment with the one person who made her whole.

He broke away suddenly, and Hermione whimpered at the sense of loss, but when her eyes fluttered open, she saw him smiling at her, felt his fingers slip through hers as he pulled her towards the desk�one of the few pieces of furniture in this long-forgotten room.

He sat himself on the edge so that he was at eye level to her. They had known each other for so long, known each other�s caresses and looks that they needed no words. He reached up to cup her face, then slowly drew her into him, running his tongue gently across her lips in a silent plea for entry. Instinctively, she obliged, deepening the kiss herself and leaning into him so that she could feel his heart drumming against her chest.

While his hands slid down to her waist, hers traced a well-worn path up his back. She knew exactly how to touch him: feather-light here, more pressure there. His muscles quivered beneath her fingers, as if in anticipation of what was to come, and he moved his hands down to her hips, pressing her against him. She felt his arousal against her hip, as she brought her leg forward in an effort to get as close to him as possible. He swallowed her low moan and replaced it with one of his own; Hermione didn�t think she could get any more aroused than she was already, until she heard his reaction just now.

A wizard�s robes could hardly be considered an inviting piece of clothing, and suddenly she wished she could have been dressed more appropriately�not that Ron seemed to find any complaints with her attire. One by one, the buttons on her robes came undone, as Ron expertly worked his way down. She felt his hands skim her stomach when the last button had been unbuttoned, and she pulled away from him ever so slightly to watch his reaction as she took hold of the top of the garment to slip them off her shoulders. He brushed her hands away gently, though; it seemed he wanted to do this himself, and she was more than happy to let him. Velvet skimmed down her body as Ron let her robes fall to the floor.

His eyes traced her form: lovingly, adoringly. From the beginning, she had never felt embarrassed or exposed with him, and he had never given her cause to feel so. They locked gazes, as she felt his hand travel slowly down her arm, then settle at her waist, his thumb caressing the skin just below her navel. His other hand slipped behind her neck, his fingers twining with her hair as he pulled her close for another kiss. Soon, though, that hand slipped down to her waist as well, and on instinct, Hermione began to tug at his robes.

Unbuttoning them turned out to be a more difficult task than Ron had made it look moments earlier. She could hear him chuckling softly as she struggled with them, her shallow breath becoming even more ragged, not just from their close proximity, but from the frustration of fighting with the bloody things.

�Anxious, are we?� he said, and even Hermione had to smile.

With a grin, he closed his hands over hers, guiding them over each button. At his command, they obeyed, and Hermione whispered in his ear, �I probably should have just turned my wand loose on them...� But soon the feat was accomplished, and his robes had joined hers on the floor.

Ridding him of his shirt ended up being a far easier undertaking, and by the time she had begun to tug on his trousers, both of them were trembling with anticipation. Fortunately, the rest of his clothing seemed far more cooperative than the buttons of his robes.

Ron made no secret of not being able to wait any longer; as soon as they had both been properly shed of their clothing, he lifted her up onto his lap so that she straddled him, and covered her mouth with his. His tongue hungrily probed every inch of the inside of her mouth, and she rewarded him with mindless whimpers that only spurred him on.

Breathless with her own need, she sheathed him completely, swallowing his groan. She wrapped her arms around his neck, then felt his hands slide down to her hips to grip them. He was trying to guide her movement, she realized, trying to establish a rhythm that she followed at first, but soon even that wasn�t enough anymore. She was desperate for release, and so was he. She could feel it.

His fingers danced over the small of her back, lightly teasing her, tickling her. She arched back reflexively into his hands, freeing her neck and collarbone to the wet slide of his tongue, until she felt him raise his head once more to capture her lips with his own. Over and over he moaned into her mouth, until she thought she would die from the sensation of his breath mingling with hers.

The world outside no longer existed: not Voldemort and his impending doom, nor the mission that had brought them here, nor even the winds outside shaking these windows.

All that Hermione was conscious of in that moment was the pounding in her ribs, and the feel of her husband�s skin sliding against hers, and the sweet sound of his groans as she brought him pleasure. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else ever would.

When the tidal wave broke over them, neither of them held back, and as their cries died down and the aftershocks continued to rumble through them, Hermione clung to Ron for support, letting his arm wrap around her back. Spent and trembling, they fell back onto the desk, Ron gently caressing the arm that she draped over his chest.

It was a long time before one of them ended the silence.

�Hermione,� he said, at last, his fingers lazily twirling strands of her hair, �how did you know I was still alive?�

She lifted her head to look at him.

�I just did. And I knew I had to come back here for you...�

He reached up and brushed his knuckles against her cheek. And of all the words she had expected him to say, he picked the ones that surprised her the most.

�Thank you.�