23 years later...

“Mu-um! Da-ad! We’re going to do presents without youuuu!”

Likely still half asleep, Ron’s only response to this threat was to reach out and tug at the blanket so that it covered them more cosily. Hermione’s arm, slung over his waist, had begun to retreat as he shifted. He grabbed her hand and encouraged it back into position. 

Hermione squeezed him in a contented hug.

“Christmas,” she mumbled against his back.

“Christmas,” he returned drowsily.

For a peaceful moment, there was nothing else than the sound and feel of his even breathing. But when he began to snore again, Hermione gave him a nudge.

“Hmm.”

“We have to get up,” she pointed out, though she was still clinging to him and her nose remained buried in the fabric of his shirt between his shoulder blades.

She could hear the smile in his protest: “Why? I already know what everyone’s getting.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Eh? Weren’t we literally just laughing about this the other day?”

“Yes, but I never did find out what the other part of my present was.”

“The other — ” Ron threw a bemused look over his shoulder. “How’d you find out about that?”

“Because the other time, you said in your note to me that you had something else but couldn’t give it to me in front of the kids.”

“Did I really?” he said slyly. “Well, that was saucy of me.”

“Yes, it was. So what is it, then?”

“What’s what?”

“My other present.”

“Who said I’ve got you another present?” Ron propped himself on his elbows. His hair looked a little mad from sleep.

“You practically did just now, asking me how I knew about it. So now I don’t want to wait, where is it?”

Her early morning brain caught up more fully, and before Ron could respond she added, “And if you tell me it’s in your pants, I swear to God — ”

Ron succumbed to laughter and entirely forgot to pretend to be annoyed when a familiar scratching sounded at the door a short moment later. With a casual motion of his hand, the door obligingly opened and the cat bounded impatiently into the room and onto the bed.

Some things had turned out differently — things that weren’t insignificant, necessarily, but hardly life-altering, either. The cat was grey and white, not black. In spite of — or perhaps because of — Ron’s disclaiming any interest in the animal, she’d decided long ago that Ron was her person; she was presently kneading his stomach into something suitable for her to nap on.

The kids were both in Ravenclaw, though the Hat had apparently taken quite a long time to decide for Rose. And Hugo favoured the Kenmare Kestrals, which according to Ron was maybe a step above the Tornados.

Iffley Village was the same, but the house was a different one on an adjacent road, as they’d missed their chance at the other one. Their next-door neighbour was a Muggle bachelor whose brother was a wizard, and who therefore knew what they were all about. Ron was still the go-to cook, though Hermione’s own cooking had markedly improved (if for no other reason than that she irrationally couldn’t stand Ron being so much better at it than she was).

And still there were things about this life that had thrown the world as they thought they knew it — past, present, and future — off its axis. Fred being the most important, perhaps the most enduring, and certainly the most senseless. But if they’d come to learn anything about futures and fates, it was that very little was certain; even prophecies that came true did so in unforeseen ways; and the slightest change in choice or circumstances could quite literally be the difference between life and death. In the end, what happened to Fred may very well have been the result of a delay of two seconds, or stepping to the left rather than the right. Ron found it easier, for a long time, to blame Percy, in a way that he couldn’t properly express or support. But the truth was, they’d never know.

It challenged everything they’d become so optimistic about — that entire year had, and the years immediately following. (Harry had not been lying when he’d said they picked a hell of a year to skip.) As loathe as Hermione was to believe in anything like ‘fate,’ she did believe in control. During the most trying times and biggest disappointments, when things didn’t go as perfectly as they ought, when she felt that control slipping away and was confronted with the unknowability of the future, it was all too easy to fall victim to doubt.

But throwing something away because you were afraid of losing it, hurting someone before they could hurt you, letting expectation be the enemy of reality — these were the sort of mistakes they’d been forced to reckon with early on. And as it turned out, once you’d told someone that you did choose them, that you wanted and loved them, it only became easier to do it again and again — most emphatically, as Ginny had once (or perhaps never) reminded Ron.

Hermione had never forgotten the way Ron had looked at her the first time they’d had this particular Christmas, when he’d read her note and stared at her like he’d never seen her before. She never knew what ‘she’ had written in that note to prompt such a reaction. She’d come close to prying once or twice, but it felt intensely private, like the one she’d received from him but also not really from him. She’d wondered more than once, whether this otherworldly Hermione could somehow have been better than her at making Ron happy.

In the end, after a great deal of overanalysing how on earth she could ever live up to the standard set by a version of her that didn’t exist, Hermione had scribbled the one line that kept pushing its way to the forefront of her mind, no matter how silly or saccharine it sounded.

And when they were finally sat downstairs, cradling large cups of coffee, and the kids had opened their gifts and Hermione had opened hers (confirming, yes, she was apparently due some other secret present at some point), Hermione watched expectantly as Ron unfolded the note attached to his gift. 

It didn’t actually matter when or how, it was always going to be you.

Ron’s face bloomed with that look he always got whenever ambushed by unexpected praise. Then he sent her a knowing smile, and it was better than anything else she could have imagined.

“Ugh, could you not?” protested Rose.

Bemused, they both looked around at her, catching her exasperated glare upward.

Evidently, Rose thought one of them had been responsible for the mistletoe that had begun unfurling from the ceiling whilst they’d been making eyes at one another.

Ron scooted closer to Hermione, reaching for more gifts under the tree and lobbing one over his shoulder to Hugo.

“Hugh, here you go, mate, from Luna. Maybe open it outside, though, you remember last year. And… here’s one for Rosie, from… Aw, it’s from Scorpius — that’s nice, I didn’t know demons celebrated Christmas!”

Rose caught it with an indignant little sound but said nothing else as she began tearing into it.

“Let me just…” Ron pretended to reach across Hermione for something, until he was fully in her space, and whilst he was there he planted a chaste but insistent kiss on her lips.

She smiled and returned it, for a moment taking his face in both her hands, no matter how gross her children might have thought it. Because for twenty-three years they had never again — not once — failed to kiss under the mistletoe.