Hermione knows what everyone expects of her: to gain a full set of Outstandings in her NEWTs, to work her way up to becoming the youngest Minister of Magic in history, and to marry Ron Weasley and raise a gaggle of kids with his hair and her brains and not the other way around.

She knows that, knows she doesn’t want it but she can’t articulate why, at least not until the final battle when there’s an explosion and a literal wall falling down and in those few moments until’s Fred hand appears through the rubble, pushing the bricks off him, those few moments where she’s facing a world without him, the answer comes to her loud and clear and she realises with a start that Ron’s not the Weasley she can’t live without.

He’s not the Weasley she expected to celebrate the end of the war with, but when she drags him into the Room of Requirement, when his hand drags up her thigh and his lips drag down her neck, when she arches against him and bites down on her lip so she won’t scream his name, she knows this is right where she wants to be.