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The first night, he wasn’t sure his mum had even noticed.
They were all grieving from the loss of Fred and the others, and the house was full as there had been no question of any of them leaving Hogwarts for anywhere but the Burrow in the aftermath of the battle, and even the Lovegoods were there since their house had exploded earlier in the spring, so Luna was sleeping on what was usually Hermione’s cot in Ginny’s room, and Ron was sure nobody with the possible exception of Harry had noticed that Hermione was staying in his room. With him. In his bed.
It had happened quietly, without question, without any fanfare, and without any of the awkwardness that Ron had long assumed would naturally accompany the process of beginning a romantic relationship with his best friend. They had simply trudged up to Ron’s room in the attic, the three of them, and Hermione had slid under his covers without a word. He had slid in beside her and wrapped an arm around her, and she turned her head to kiss his cheek with a whispered goodnight, the whole routine as effortless as if they’d been doing it for years.
The second night, he thought that his mum probably had noticed—nothing ever did get by her, really—but was letting it go on account of Hermione’s nightmares.
Ron had gone downstairs in search of another blanket, because despite the rising temperatures of the encroaching summer, Hermione never could seem to get warm, and all the blankets they’d had on the hunt were currently hanging out to dry after a much needed wash. He’d been on the landing, about to head back upstairs with the old afghan, when the voices of his parents, Bill, and Fleur drifted up from the sitting room.
“Still don’t know exactly what happened to them out there,” Bill was saying, “but they were in bad shape when they turned up.”
“ ‘ermione was tortured,” Fleur put in. “I am certain.”
“The poor dears,” Molly sighed, barely loud enough for Ron to hear. “Hermione must be having nightmares about it all. Hopefully staying with Ron and Harry helps.”
Ron had hurried back up the stairs then, feeling slightly guilty. It wasn’t that it was un true; Hermione had been having nightmares most nights since Malloy Manor, and Ron and Harry were frankly no strangers to them either. It’s just that that wasn’t exactly the reason she was sleeping in his bed, either. The real reason being that they were simply so happy to be alive that any minute they didn’t spend together, awake or asleep, felt like a waste. And if much of the time they spent awake when they should have been sleeping was consumed with exploring their newly formed relationship, who was Ron to argue?
It wasn’t until the third night, when his mum very nonchalantly suggested that he add a couple of drops of Dreamless Sleep potion to the bedtime cup of tea he was making for Hermione, that it occurred to him. Even though they hadn’t exactly been hiding it, they hadn’t really been flaunting their new relationship either. His mum knew that Hermione was sleeping in his room, but for all she knew, Ron still just had his two best friends up there; it may as well have been Harry and Neville for all the fuss she’d made. He had no intention of letting Hermione be forced to sleep anywhere else, but he needed to at least be honest with his mother.
“Mum? I need to talk to you about Hermione.”
“Yes, dear? What about her?”
They were alone in the kitchen, and Ron turned anxiously to face Molly, who was looking at him seemingly without the slightest inclination of the salacious news he was about to deliver. “We’re er...well, we’re together now. And I just thought you should know that, since...y’know, she’s sleeping in my room and all.” He felt his ears reddening, but he met his mother’s gaze determinedly.
To his astonishment, Molly just laughed lightly. “Is that all?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Maybe she hadn’t understood. Maybe she was delirious, sleep-deprived. The past few days hadn’t been easy on any of them. Maybe he needed to be more straightforward. “Hermione’s my girlfriend. My girlfriend is staying in my room.”
“Yes dear, I understand.”
“But…” Surely she had explicitly outlawed this very act at some point in his life. With his siblings, if not with him—after all, his only other girlfriend had never even been to his house, much less slept there. “Aren’t you upset? It’s not...I dunno, proper or something.”
“Well, honestly, I’m not sure how much trouble the two of you could get up to, sharing a room with Harry,” Molly replied with a chuckle as she stood and filled her own mug with tea.
“What if Harry starts staying with Ginny when Luna goes home?” Ron asked, more out of curiosity as to how far he could push this topic than anything else.
Molly patted his cheek before turning to head upstairs herself, calling over her shoulder as she went, “Then you and Ginny both know where to find me if you need a refresher on contraception charms.”