Blossoms

Disclaimer: It all belongs to JKR.

A/N: This was written as a gift for morethansirius and mollyssister and was originally posted on the morethanmolly LJ community (check it out!). My thanks to Shug (sshg316) for giving it the green light.

The sand is dry, grainy – rather like the heat that crackles in the air and stretches across the skin. But the water is cool, the drinks foamy and smooth, and the view from the cottage is nothing short of a vista.

“Take her away from here,” was what the doctor said. Words like “high risk” and “injury” and “likely complications” had punctured his reality, not that there was much air in his balloon to begin with.

So he took her away – to here – to the coast of some godforsaken Latin American country, that’s what he’d called it then –

They stayed. When it came down to it, their roots in England weren’t as difficult to dredge up as they feared – had been surprisingly shallow, come to that. The unspoken word had unrooted and unsettled them both long ago. War.

Versus peace. Peace – here – now…

He sips the cold beer in his hand, the beads of sweat from the bottle soaking into his cracked hands. He follows her as she walks along the hot sand – he can almost feel it beneath his bare feet here on the wooden veranda. Her sarong swishes with the breeze, coquettishly twisting around bits of bare leg – her hands grasp the chubby hands of their one-year-old son, who takes uncertain steps on this uncertain ground –

“Bloom where you’re planted,” is what Neville had told Hermione before they left.

Hmph. Well –

Well then.

His son squeals as the tide washes in. He dances a bit before his diapered bottom hits the sand. Hermione picks him up and, settling him on her waist, starts to walk back towards the cottage. She smiles at her husband.

His lips curl into what may be a smile. Or not. Only she knows.