A/N: This is Chaser 1 of the Chudley Cannons submitting for the QLFC Practice Round

Chaser 1 Prompt: Halcyon - happy, sunny, carefree

Additional prompts used: 4. Belief 6. Sea green 10. Moth

Word count (before A/N): 2,301 words

Rose is chasing after a moth. Her little hands reach after its tiny frame, her laughter ringing across the beach as she kicks up sand in her attempts to capture the creature in her gentle fists.

To live again in the halcyon days of youth. To run freely without the weight of the world still hanging like a noose in front of me all these years later. It's a chance I'll never get, but I'd give it up gladly over and over just to see her chase this moth every day. Never knowing what came before this moment. So happy. So free.

"Hermione?"

I blink and shake my head. Ron's outstretched hand waits patiently between us, and I take it, smiling. But he already knows.

"Where'd you go there?" he asks, his voice soft enough for just me to hear.

It wouldn't have made a difference if he'd shouted though, because Rose is already at the water's edge, her moth long out of reach. Hugo toddles after her, his two-year-old legs see-sawing their way across the sand.

I stop at the crest of the beach, letting the salty air settle against my skin. Shell Cottage is off in the distance, speckled red and pink in the early morning glow.

"I go where I always go when we're here," I tell him, unable to meet his eyes. He squeezes my hand, and we start walking again, our bare feet leaving behind us an identical path of footprints.

My eyes are trained on Hugo, who, though still wary of the waves, could easily change his mind and decide to take a swim. He hasn't. He's running away from the ebb of the ocean, his eyes locked on me.

I let go of Ron and bend to catch my son with open arms.

"Oh, it's okay," I say, kissing the soft skin of his cheek. His little head is buried in my neck now, and I can feel his tears press into my skin. But he doesn't sob like other babies might. He's quiet, his tears subtle. We rock together for a few moments, and then the fear is gone. His face is up, smiling at my own.

"Again."

"Okay."

And I let him go.

Ron hasn't moved, and now he's behind me, his arms wrapping around my body, his head resting on my shoulder.

"He's like you."

I glance at my husband, watching him take in our children and our life together. His eyes dance across the landscape, and I can't help but sigh.

"He is," Ron continues. "Hugo's brave."

He says this as our son runs away from the water again, only this time he doesn't come to me, instead sitting down in the sand a safe distance away from the water, observing. Briefly I wish he would have run to me again. I would very much love for him to be by my side every day, to hear his tiny voice wrap around new words and phrases. To listen to him explain in his half-gibberish, half-English language the thoughts running through his beautiful mind.

It is my strong belief that Hugo will have even greater things to say one day.

But right now, he's attempting to eat sand, and I'll admit, even geniuses have to start somewhere.

"See?" Ron laughs. "That's my brave boy, right there."

I laugh too, leaning into Ron's chest. And then, before I can catch myself, the words slip out, "I don't feel very brave when I'm here."

I regret it instantly, because Ron spins me around to face him. I love him with my whole being, but I still can't stand feeling vulnerable. Not when I want to be the strong person he believes me to be.

His eyes are already filled with a mix of concern and determination.

"It's this place," my eyes fall to the sand. "I wish we would have came here for the first time under different circumstances, but—"

"We didn't."

I nod.

"And now," I continue, because despite not wanting to be vulnerable, Ron makes it so easy to accept that sometimes it's okay to be, "everytime we're here, it's all I think about."

"Hermione—"

"No, no." I look up into his eyes again, now etched with a hint of sadness. "It's not like it was, it's not as raw. But how can I not be reminded…"

Instinctively, my hand goes to my throat where my scar is still ever-present, a jagged white frown etched into my skin.

Ron catches my hand again before it falls and kisses my palm.

"I still think Hugo's like you. Brave is in your veins, Weasley," he smirks. "On a serious note, of course you're going to think of it. I wouldn't dare tell you not to. As long as you don't hold it in. I—that's a crab!"

Ron rushes past me just as I see Rose about to lift up a rather large crab from the sand. It's claws are already posed to strike, and I laugh just a little as Ron's lanky form stumbles through the sand to stop her from getting pinched.

There's just something about running in sand that makes even the most attractive of us look ridiculous, I think.

It's almost noon by the time Bill, Fleur, and the kids join us. I watch as the girls sprint off toward the water, eager to take Ron's place at entertaining Rose.

Louis immediately drags Bill over to his sandcastle—a project he's been at for all summer from what his mother tells me—and they set to work.

Fleur is making her way over to me, where I sit on one of her beach blankets with Hugo. He's been fussy with me for the last fifteen minutes, and I just know he's ready for a nap, but he's refusing to let me pick him up.

"Look at zis little one!" Fleur says when she reaches us. And without a second to waste, she plucks Hugo up from the blanket. He squirms, but she caught him off guard. "I'll settle 'im in for a nap, no?"

"Thank you, Fleur. That would be wonderful."

"Exzeelent. It gives me quiet time in zee house." She winks as she turns right around. I think that was her plan all along, because I also notice she's not wearing any swim attire.

I do wonder what it must be like to live by the beach. To have it present everyday. Is it as lovely knowing you have it year round? I find it perfect for just one week out of the year. I would never want to clean sand out of everything all the time. That would not be ideal.

Suddenly, the light from the sun disappears. I turn to see a sopping wet Ron standing at the blanket's edge, that same sand I've been thinking about caked up his bare legs.

"May I join?"

"You may," I say with a laugh. He plops down next to me, his skin pink from the sun. He throws an arm over his eyes to block the rays, and I Accio over the sunscreen. I begin to apply more.

"Thanks," he says from under his arm.

"Rose tucker you out that much?"

"She insisted we needed to find Crabby—that's what she named the crab—after I told her that sometimes Crabby just wants to be left alone. So we started searching for mermaids instead."

"Her appetite for creatures is insatiable," I muse, rubbing the lotion into his chest, my hands outlining the white scars still left behind by the brain tentacles from the Ministry. He squirms when I reach his stomach, much like Hugo in Fleur's arms, and I poke at his sides. He sits up, allowing me access to his back.

"You're worse than Mum."

"That's cause I am a mum."

"That's right." He turns to face me, my lotioned hands dropping to my lap. "You are. A bloody good one, too."

"Ron." I know what he's doing. He's trying to bring back the moment from earlier, and while I appreciate it, I'd settled into the day. Those thoughts had quieted for the time being.

I rub the remainder of the lotion into my thigh, watching it disappear into my skin. There was a time, a long time actually, when I wouldn't dare wear a swimsuit. I didn't like to see the way my skin clung against my body. Too skinny, unable to gain weight. It took months to encourage my body to keep solid meals down after the war. I suppose a year spent on odd mushrooms and roots wasn't the best thing, but it's what we had.

And the scars.

Those little reminders of what happened to us.

I look back at Ron, my eyes tracing the pucker marks still captured on his body. They curl across his chest and onto his shoulder, melting into the scar left from where I splinched him. He wears them all with pride.

"When I look at this beach," he says, moving his body so it's parallel with mine, "I still see your face, pale and unmoving. I feel that fear, too."

Breath hitches in my throat, and I reach for his hand without looking. It's there, waiting for me.

"But I also see where we are now. What we have. And that makes it a little better, every time."

"I know," I whisper. "But sometimes I think, what if. What if you hadn't come in time? What if Harry never stuffed that mirror into his sock? What if I let go?"

Because I wanted to, in those brief, few moments, when Bellatrix was torturing me and all I could feel was white hot pain zipping through my blood. I wanted to give up.

And I'm ashamed of it. Of wanting to leave Ron and Harry behind, just to make it stop.

"A lot of random, crazy things had to fall into place for us to get out of there, and I still can't fathom how they all did. It's like a million to one chance, and…"

I feel his hand on my cheek, and a wave of embarrassment takes over. I'm crying, in the middle of a gorgeous summer day, while on holiday, with my wonderful family all within my grasp.

"But none of the what ifs happened. This," he raises our intertwined fingers, "this did."

I smile, because he's right and because I do feel happy, despite everything that's come before.

"I hope you know that I don't just sit and think about all those bad things all the time," I tell him.

"I am well aware that that big brain of yours is constantly thinking about everything, all the time, happy, sad, scary, amazing, mundane. You probably have Hogwarts, A History on repeat when you're out of new ideas." I glare at him and he grins at me, that stupid lop-sided grin I love so much.

"My point," he continues, wiping away my last tear, "is that I know you are genuinely happy ninety-nine percent of the time. And when that blasted one percent pokes its ugly head, I want to comfort you. Remind you of the good. I do it for myself, too."

"You do?"

"Like I said, yeah, I see your face after Malfoy Manor sometimes. Especially there, where we landed." He's pointing over by Louis's castle. But…

"We didn't land there." I take my free hand and point toward a grassy patch closer to the house. "It was there."

Ron sits up straighter, his eyes scanning the ground. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I am." But now I'm not quite as sure. I sit up and start scanning the ground, too, and now I'm thinking that, yes, maybe it was by the sandcastle?

"Uncle Ron! Uncle Ron!" Dominique's voice cuts through our silent debate. "It's Rose!"

My heart freezes, and faster than I've ever moved before, I'm up, running toward the water, Ron at my heels.

Rose knows how to swim. She's only four, but her curiosity has always gotten the better of her, and although we put her in swim lessons from the start, now I can feel the panic hitting me like ice.

But then Ron and I stop, our bodies so close, I can feel his warmth beside me, melting away the terror I felt only seconds ago.

Dom and Victoire are both staring in amazement at our daughter, who is standing in front of a wall of sea green water, her arms stretched over her head, giggles escaping her little body. She sways her hands to the right and the water follows. Then the same happens as she moves to the left.

"Is she—"

"She's—"

"She's using magic," Ron and I say together, our eyes meeting, our laughter joining together with our daughter's as she moves the waves like a conductor.

"Look at her go!" Bill shouts from the sandcastle.

Ron throws an arm around my waist and I lean into him. Suddenly, I'm being whisked around in the air, my body safe in his arms.

"She's using magic!" Ron yells to the heavens. But then he stops abruptly, and I stare down into his eyes, recognition coming over me.

"It was here," I say.

Ron sets me down.

"We landed here."

I watch as he looks right, left, toward Shell Cottage, and back at me.

"Damn near close." His eyes are wide, the joy from Rose's first use of magic still on his face. "But you know what?"

"It really doesn't matter. Because Rose is using magic," I say. And I laugh and run toward the water's edge. Toward my child, with my husband, in this life we've built together, and yes. It isn't all perfect, but for all that I know, it's like Ron said.

Damn near close.