Written for Pili204´s birthday

Thanks so much to amazing Willow_Wand for her beta work and for putting up with my... anxiety ;)

A/N: All characters belong to J. K. Rowling. I´m just playing and enjoying with them.

And the moment is here

Third time in a week.

It was the third time in a week Ron entered his room above the shop to find Hermione wrapped in one of his t-shirts and sleeping on his bed, their bed, he thought with delight.

A year and a half since the end of the war.

A year and a half since the first time they had properly shared a bed.

A year and a half, less four days, since the first time they had made love in the semidarkness of his room at the Burrow, the dawn following the funerals.

Since Hermione had finished her studies at Hogwarts two months ago, she had tried to make up for lost time with her parents by spending more time with them. She had thought that living at their house again would bring back part of the intimacy a family was supposed to share.

She had been sorely mistaken.

Hermione was in her twenties now. She had been given a great opportunity to work at the Ministry, but her schedule was a busy one. She had just spent a pretty lonely year at school without the two guys that were just as much a part her family as her parents, and suddenly she had found herself uneasy with being practically locked up in a house without magic.

After her second week back, she had understood what the longing she had felt during the whole term had hinted.

She wanted a life with her parents.

She wanted to live with Ron.

As he had found it totally inappropriate to Apparate to her bedroom every night, she had started to Apparate to his, to his great joy and relief.

"You're home, love" she murmured sleepily.

Those simple words, so full of meaning, hit him in that way in which feelings become stronger than thoughts.

"I'm home" he confirmed in a whisper.

As he settled on the mattress behind her, pressing her back against his chest, he recognized Hermione had used the perfect expression: He was home. He was home with her; and it was undeniable that she was home with him… so what the hell were they waiting for?

It wasn't about marriage. Neither of them wanted to get married yet.

Mature as they were; they were still too young. But both of them had that visceral need to… sleep together. It wasn't about sex… well, the sex was bloody brilliant, for sure; but it was about safety.

They felt safer in each other arms. They felt loved in each other arms.

And they had fought hard enough for that right.

He slid one arm beneath her pillow, cradling her neck, while his other arm went directly to the same place he always positioned his hand since the very first night they had started sleeping together: under her shirt, and resting closely below the underside of her right breast, where his left thumb lingered till he dozed off to sleep.

"I want to sneak my hand under your shirt every single night," he confessed, nuzzling her ear.

Hermione´s eyes popped up open with a hopeful spark, and she pressed herself deeper into his embrace.

"And I think that we could find an arrangement," he continued, his hand now caressing her stomach, causing her breath to hitch. "We could have brunch at the Burrow every Saturday, we could have lunch with your parents every Sunday because you really need them, love, and… we could find a place to spend every day and every night, just you and me, so I could put my well-earned privilege of sneaking my hand under your shirt to practice."

He finished with a grin that reflected in his eyes when he felt her grin tugging at her lips.

First night in a week that defined the rest of their lives.