Chapter Text
Ron couldn’t believe he’d forgotten his gloves. And on today of all days. It’d been miserable enough in London, but he wasn’t even there, sent to bloody Moscow on a tip that the wizard he’d been hunting for weeks had been spotted.
It was a small comfort that Edik Ivanovich had indeed made an appearance, justifying why Ron found himself about to freeze his fingers off in the middle of a stone alley in the heart of Moscow’s wizarding market. Wearily Ron watched the blonde wizard as he exited the posh robe shop he’d spent a good quarter of an hour perusing.
“Come on,” Ron muttered to himself. “Just make the bloody transaction so we can both go home.”
He had the extradition order in his pocket, only needed to witness Ivanovich breathing around the gems he was known to smuggle and then he could be back in London, hopefully with all of his fingers intact. But Ivanovich clearly had no sympathy for Ron or his lack of appropriate winter wear for instead of making any meaningful progress, he continued down the alley, looking interested at the apothecary next door.
“Bloody hell,” Ron muttered, shifting his weight to keep warm.
He should have just gone home to fetch his gloves, Ron decided for the dozenth time as he brought his painfully white fingers up to his mouth to warm them. Never mind that the reason he’d been in such a hurry this morning was to avoid his wife for fear that they would resume the spectacular row they’d gotten into the night before. He hadn’t even known what he’d done but he’d come through the fireplace grate to a pissed off Hermione and spent the night having the stupid argument with her.
Okay, he knew what he’d done. The debate over doing the dishes was a long-standing one with them. He still maintained that she was never happy when he did the dishwashing charm. And she still argued that it was his house and he ate off as many dishes that she did. She had a point. But it wasn’t like he was useless around the house, he did the sweeping and cooked more nights than her. He just happened to be useless with the bloody dishwashing charm and she happened to be brilliant at it.
Ron pushed thoughts of his wife from his mind as his target gave up on the display and glanced down at a pocket watch. Careful to make sure that he hadn’t been spotted Ron moved from his hiding place and turned onto the main street, tailing the platinum hair that so reminded him of the Malfoys. He’d have to ask Hermione if there was any relation. Once she was done being cross with him of course.
He’d been so focused on the wizard that Ron hadn’t looked where he was going and stopped just short of knocking over a woman pushing a cart twice her size stacked dangerously high with knick-knacks.
“Sorry,” he muttered in English, forgetting where he was as he tried to move past her.
Up ahead he watched his mark pause, glance down an alleyway and then pull up his hood, making it much harder to distinguish who it was in a crowd of black cloaks. If Ron lost him now...
“Vive?” the woman asked, refusing to let Ron get around her.
“What?” he asked, glancing down just as she took his hand in hers and placed a clunky bracelet in it.
“For vive,” she said firmly, closing his hand around it.
“No, sorry,” he said, trying to hand it back to her. He could just make out Ivanovich in the distance, at least he was pretty sure it was him.
“For vive,” the woman repeated. For a tiny witch, she had a surprisingly strong grip, her fingers holding his fist tight. “Make happy.”
“I don’t-“ Ron said, trying to peer around the cart, but he knew it was already too late.
“5 gold” she said to him.
“I don’t have any money,” he said irritably to her.
“5 gold” she repeated, holding out her other gloved hand expectantly.
Ron yanked his hand out of her grasp.
She began shouting in her native language, words Ron could only just make out.
“I’m not paying you 5 gold pieces for this rubbish,” he said angrily, tossing the bracelet to the ground.
Immediately he regretted it. While she’d been putting up enough of a fight cornering him, tossing her rubbish aside was clearly a mistake. Instantly she began to scream, pointing at him and making a sound as if he’d just assaulted her. The passerby who just seconds ago had been pointedly ignoring her now seemed ready for vengeance for his disrespect of the peddler.
Ron was no Harry, but inevitably someone always seemed to recognize him when he didn’t want to be and he hadn’t been too creative with his disguise, thinking he’d have a hood covering his face. His target was lost and by the looks of the crowd, he was about to be a very unpopular visitor.
Before the wizards who’d been slyly drawing their wands had a chance to make an example of people who upset tiny old women, Ron grasped his own wand and disapparated back to his own country. To face his own upset boss.
Gawain hadn’t yelled, which somehow made it all the more worse. In fact, he’d had the nerve to look amused when Ron had told him why exactly he’d lost sight of Ivanovich on the first real lead they’d had in weeks.
“Couldn’t defeat a tiny old lady?” Harry said with a smirk.
“What was I supposed to do?” Ron asked, “Curse her?”
Harry shook with silent laughter.
“And what are you doing in here anyway?” Ron snapped, “Don’t you have your own case?”
Harry’s smile disappeared. He’d been having about as much luck as Ron had been having to chase down Ivanovich. Harry’s problem hadn’t been finding Mr. Aubin, but rather catching him doing anything illegal. Like selling off the cursed books they knew for a fact he’d had a wand in crafting. They were sure he’d been tipped off somehow, leaving Harry to watch him as he went about a perfectly normal routine.
“Our friend Mr. Aubin has decided to take a trip to visit family in France until he returns we’ll have to trust our counterparts there on keeping track of his social calendar.” Gawain said, “I was hoping until Aubin’s return that Harry would be able to lend you an extra pair of eyes.”
“Well sure, I’d be happy to show him the ropes,” Ron said mockingly and Harry glared at him.
There was a knock at the door and they turned to find Darcy, a new junior Auror standing in the doorway.
“Very well, take the afternoon to fill him in,” Gawain said dismissively, beckoning Darcy in.
Harry and Ron took their leave, hurrying out of the office as Darcy rather looked on the edge of tears.
“I didn’t think you’d be back,” Neville said, looking up as they passed his cubicle. “Hermione stopped by a couple of hours ago, I told her you were out.”
“Thanks,” Ron said and then shyly asked. “Er-did she seem alright?”
“Fine,” Neville said with a shrug.
“You two fighting again?” Harry asked, looking at him knowingly.
“Why do you say again like that? We don’t fight very often,” Ron said defensively. Neville and Harry shared a look and Ron added in a warning tone. “Not anymore.”
Harry looked amused but too quickly Neville returned to the anxious look he seemed to be wearing most of the time Ron came across him.
“You alright Neville?” Ron asked of him, concerned.
“Yeah,” Neville shrugged, gesturing down to the stacks and stacks of paperwork. “Just this case.”
Ron peered over at his cubicle wall where a map detailed each and every last dragon sighting from the past five years. Neville, most, unfortunately, had been caught in the middle of an illegal dragon egg purchase while investigating an old murder. The Auror who’d been slacking on the case for the past five years had been all too happy to hand the entire file over.
“Anything we can do?” Harry offered.
Neville shook his head. “Darcy’s supposed to be helping me, but I don’t know where she’s run off too.”
Ron was about to tell her that they’d just seen her when Harry shot him a warning look and he had the sense to close his mouth. Neville had become increasingly irritable in the six months since he’d taken on the case and was prone to be short in his frustration. It was no wonder he rotated through junior Aurors at least every fortnight.
“No,” Ron said, not appreciating that Harry had stepped on his foot to make his point. “I’ll let her know you’re looking for her if I see her though.”
“He’s thinking of quitting,” Harry said in a low tone as they bid Neville goodbye and continued towards their shared cubicle.
“What?” Ron asked in surprised and Harry nodded gravely.
“Hannah’s pretty well fed up with him being irritable all the time and told him that he either needed to make a change or she was going to break up with him.”
“He has a ring,” Ron said in surprise.
“And Hannah said she wouldn’t accept it because she wasn’t going to marry someone she couldn’t stand being around.”
“Shit,” Ron said, dropping into his chair. “Where’d you hear all this?”
“Ginny stopped by the pub for lunch yesterday,” Harry explained. “She asked how things were going and Hannah burst into tears, told her everything. Mind, I don’t think she wants everyone knowing.”
Ron snorted. “Who am I going to tell? Besides Hermione of course.”
“Just don’t let it get any further,” Harry warned.
Ron nodded, looking up at Harry. He had yet to sit down and was hovering suspiciously by his cloak. Ron raised an eyebrow at him.
“Speaking of Ginny, mind if I leave early?” Harry asked. “She’s got the next three days off, I was hoping to get home before she did.”
Ron shrugged. “I don’t see why not. You already know as much as I do about Ivanovich”.
Even though they weren’t formally partnered on their cases, they talked through it like they talked through everything. Harry knew Ivanovich’s slippery habits just as well as Ron knew Mr. Aubin’s bridge schedule.
“At least it’ll be an easy couple of weeks,” Harry said, pulling on his cloak.
Ron nodded. “There’s that. Tell Ginny I say hi.”
“You two should come round for dinner tomorrow,” Harry offered, pulling on his gloves. “But only if you’re not still fighting.”
“We could go over the file,” he said warningly but Harry merely grinned and waved goodbye.
Crookshanks was the only thing there to greet him when Ron gave up on his report a good hour later. As he’d hoped, Hermione was still at work and it gave him plenty of time to finish off the source of their argument before it started up again.
It was a stupid disagreement really. But they seemed to be having a lot of stupid arguments as of late. He wondered, for just a moment, if he was becoming irritable like Neville. Would he even notice himself becoming miserable to be around? Or would it take Hermione threatening to leave him for him to realize the damage his job was doing? The thought was sobering and was why he’d rushed the last half of his day so he could surprise her.
The cat meowed in greeting as Ron toed off his shoes.
“‘Lo,” he said, taking off his cloak carefully putting it in the right place. He bent down to scratch the cat behind the ears and followed the cat into the kitchen where he sat down in front of his bowl and looked at him expectantly.
“You know you don’t get fed until we do,” he reminded the cat, bending down to fill his water dish. His first silent aguamenti produced nothing but his second audible one gave a stream of water that quickly replenished the dish. “Hermione doesn’t want a house we have to put work into, but I’m sure you wouldn’t mind a house with plenty of mice.”
Crookshanks meowed again, looking interested and Ron chuckled as he straightened.
He turned to the sink and predictably found it just as full as it had been the night before. He cast the dishwashing charm at it hopefully and while the sink obligingly filled up with soapy water, it didn’t seem to be getting the dishes very clean. In fact, when he picked a cleaned plate up to rinse it, he found it sticky with some dried substance.
“Bloody useless,” he grumbled, cursing his wand and how much easier this all would be if Hermione just waved her wand.
For perhaps a solid minute he glared at the dishes. Leaving them like this would only lead to another fight because Hermione wouldn’t believe he’d attempted to finish them. Truth was, looking at it, if he didn’t know any better he wouldn’t have even thought he’d done anything either. Upset that his wand hadn’t worked he pushed up his selves, waved the water to a more acceptable temperature and set about doing it the muggle way.
Consumed by the pointless task, he hadn’t heard her come in and was surprised to feel her hands slip around him from behind, pressing herself to his back. Determined to stay cross at her for at least as long as it took to finish, he acted as if he hadn’t noticed her at all.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered a moment later.
Her voice was muffled from her face being pressed into his shirt and he softened, reaching for a towel to dry his hands before turning to face her. She loosened her grip only for him to turn and then lay her head on his chest.
“I shouldn’t have gone off on you yesterday. I wanted to apologize this morning but you’d gone and when I stopped by at lunch you had already left for the day.”
“I got sent out first thing,” he explained.
“That’s what Neville said,” Hermione replied, peeking up at him. “I’m so sorry, Ron. I’ve been dealing with those entitled prats in Magical Games and Sports all week and I shouldn’t’ve taken it out on you.”
“It’s alright,” he assured her, giving her a squeeze. “I use as many dishes as you, the least I can do it clean them.”
Hermione gave him a relieved smile leaning up to kiss him.
“What do you say we go out?” he proposed. “No dishes and you can tell me all about those arseholes in Magical Games and Sports and I’ll tell you all about this pushy witch that I encountered.”
“Could we go someplace muggle?” Hermione asked. “I don’t think I can stand hearing one more word about Quidditch.”
“Any excuse to get you into a pair of jeans,” he said suggestively, reaching down to squeeze her bottom.
“Ron,” she said in surprise, giving that little laugh he delighted in. She kissed him again before finally letting go.
“Would you mind feeding Crookshanks?” she asked, making her way towards the bedroom. “I won’t be a minute.”
They ended up in a corner booth at a pub just down the street, far from all the other patrons who were gathered at the bar, watching the match on the telly. It was good they were so secluded because after Hermione had her first glass of wine she positively went off about how those arrogant, entitled pricks in Magical Games and Sports had the nerve to demand expedited permits to build a new stadium on land that has been protected as a breeding ground for Thestrals for centuries.
Ron listened intently for the first half-hour, “mmh-ing” and gasping at all the right parts, but as she began mumbling to herself about some obscure laws he let his mind wander, knowing he wouldn’t be much help. He glanced over at the screen just as another goal was scored, prompting a disappointed outburst and groans from the small crowd. His mind drifted back to the last time he’d been at a bar, feigning an interest in football. It’d been on his first solo case. Now, with several dozen beneath his belt, his insecurities seemed silly. In fact, he and Harry were among the most successful in the office.
“Ron?” Hermione asked, drawing his attention back to her. She looked a little upset. “What were you thinking about?”
“The night I propose to you,” he answered truthfully enough.
Her disappointment vanished and she looked amused. “Really?”
“Mmh,” he agreed, settling back against the booth and knocking his foot against hers. “I was sitting at a bar, not so different from this one and looking ‘round at the blokes and I thought to myself that if I ever messed things up with you that I’d hate to see you here. So I went home and tricked you into marrying me so I wouldn’t have to follow you around to bars like some crazy person.”
“Some trick that was,” Hermione answered, smiling. He felt her foot pull away and then a second later it ran against the inner part of his leg.
“Greatest trick I ever pulled,” he said, dropping his voice. “You might even say I’m a wizard.”
Hermione giggled, just as the barman came over to their table.
“Everything alright?” He asked of them, looking pointedly at Ron’s plate that was only half-eaten. “Could I get a box for you?”
Hermione looked down at her finished plate expectantly and then over at Ron’s and frowned.
“That’s alright,” he replied. He’d never had much luck warming up muggle leftover containers. The few times he’d tried the boxes had just melted. “We’ll just take the check.”
The man nodded and left. At once, Hermione rounded on him.
“Are you alright?” She fussed. “You barely touched your dinner.”
“I just wasn’t hungry,” he shrugged.
“Did you have a big lunch?” She questioned and he shook his head.
He’d snagged some ice mice when he’d followed his target into a store in hopes of overhearing his conversation only to be cornered by a clerk.
“I’m just tired,” he explained, “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Which was true enough. It had taken him forever to fall asleep and then he’d woken up early to sneak out while she was in the shower.
“Let’s get you home,” Hermione said, looking worried. “You can take a nice hot shower and we’ll turn in.”
Ron smiled to himself. He’d never admit it out loud, but he rather liked it when she fussed over him. It’s what made his increasingly frequent injuries bearable. The barman returned with their check and Hermione quickly counted out the right money and set it on top of the bill.
“Trying to get me in the shower are you?” He teased, stretching as he stood and gathering their coats.
“Ron,” Hermione said sharply.
“Oh, come on, that wasn’t even that dirty. You-“
“No, Ron look!” Confused, he looked to where she was pointing.
His sleeve had ridden up when pulling their coats from the hooks. To his alarm he saw that his freckled forearm had a sickly grey hue, extending up into his sleeve. It was like looking at his skin through a pair of tinted glasses and a wave of nausea passed over him looking at it.
“Don’t touch it,” he said sharply to Hermione as reached for him.
Hermione withdrew her hands, looking up at him anxiously. “I think we’d better get you to the hospital.”