I link all of my stories together in subtle and not so subtle ways. If anyone can catch how this ties into 'As Is' (there are two places where it does), I'll write you a drabble of your choice. A drabble, mind you. Otherwise you'll be coming at me with whips for abandoning 'World Enough and Time' because all of your ideas are far better than mine. FYI: Drabbles can be found in a separate fic under my profile named 'Spare Parts'. Enjoy!

For some reason, this fic knocked me around emotionally so I will give myself a day or so before starting back on the other story.

Hour Follows Hour

Epilogue

Hour follows hour like water in a river
And from one to the next we don't know what each hour will deliver
We just call it like we see it, call it out loud as we can
And then afterwards we call it all water over the dam

Ani DiFranco

.

I came to Hermione in a whirlwind of blood and screams; at the time, I was on the brink of death. I was dead. To this day I do not understand how it was that I came to, safe within her wire thin arms. I did.

My beautiful, sweet girl.

I can tell her, now. I do. I wake in the morning and freeze my bollocks off because she's stolen the bedcovers and still I say, "Beautiful girl, sweet girl, give me back the bloody blanket or I'll push you out of bed."

Or something that is as equally charming.

She brought me to Australia, the clever little minx. I haven't ever asked how she managed to bring me back to life, but she mumbled something once like, "Bezoar, mouth to mouth, bezoar, dittany, mouth to mouth and sheer Gryffindor determination you grumpy old sod." I didn't ask, not really, because it took my voice months to return and such an inane question wasn't worth the effort, not when I could use my throat to push out, "I love you, foolish woman," instead.

I received an Order of Merlin, then promptly sent it back when my wife (yes, fuck you Albus – she married me in a sticky, humid room in Bali) was sent a second class next to my first.

It was a tame option, considering Hermione threw hers into the Bass Strait.

The Bass Strait is the body of water that divides our home from the mainland. We live at the end of the world, now. Or at least it seems that way. Tasmania is as low as we could get, as far away as we could get, and bloody hell, it feels like it. Sometimes it gets colder than winter at Hogwarts used to be; the enchanting thing is that when we're feeling adventurous, we Apparate into Hobart on hot summer afternoons and meander through Salamanca markets and can be back in time to feel the chill descending on our property on the far North coast of the island. It gets pretty bloody cold at night, to quote the locals.

Hermione hasn't changed, not really. She's still slim, still witty enough to have me gawking and speechless. Her hair crackles with her indignation when Weasley falls through our Floo, but Harry and Ginevra have her spinning circles and shrieking with joy. Poppy, too, which is always amusing to watch. She comes once a month, with Hooch and Sprout in tow. I make sure to add extra silencing charms to the boundaries of our wards every time; those women together (including my demure wife) are worse than a pack of hyenas. Still, I brew the beer and they compliment it profusely, so I have no complaints.

My wife is still a lover of everything small and helpless. She drags me down to the beach at least once a week to watch the penguins make their way out of the water and into the grass. When a stray penguin found its way under the front tyre of our battered four wheel drive, she had me up all night searching for the spell that would link it with its mother.

A penguin.

Bloody hell.

I love her bleeding heart.

We have three cats and one yapping dog that stays outside. Mostly. She wanted a horse, so I drove south one day and came back with a lamb. She didn't take kindly to naming it 'Lunch', but the name stuck. Lunch was soon joined by Breakfast. Her latest mission is to convince me to go and buy her Dinner. I'm thinking about it.

Hermione goes out in the mornings and fills up the bird feeder, and birds of every size and colour flock to fill their bellies. She once even tried keeping fish, and I built her a fish tank large enough to satisfy her desire to 'free the poor things from their pet-store cages'. Until, somewhat inevitably when one considers my track record as a boy, they all ended up buried in the backyard. I have never, ever met a woman that couldn't stand to see a gold fish flushed down the toilet.

We don't talk about the fish anymore.

The plot of land we bought five years ago is far enough away that there are no neighbours in sight, but close enough to be able to drive to the store twenty minutes from here and still be home in time to make sure I make the breakfast and not Hermione. Merlin – that woman burns water. Water.

I love her, and her terrible cooking.

I brew for the Magical school on the mainland, under a pseudonym (Hadrian Prince, nice to meet you). Hermione – or should I say, Perdita Glover - has a part time position researching with the Australian Ministry; she's already hell bent on changing around a few of the Department names. My spitfire woman.

They've worked it out of course, our fake names; it helps that Hermione and I fall under the banner of recluses, rather than murderer and accomplice, thanks to Hooch's tell-all in the Quibbler a year after Riddle's demise. She put it so articulately – what was it…

"Love?" I call to Hermione who is painting on the dunes a few steps from the back door. She has charms to stop the cheap art paper from flying away in the wind that whips around us constantly here on the coast. I am standing on the balcony, having abandoned the casserole for the moment. She looks up and brushes a hair out of her eyes – a losing battle – and her gold wedding ring glints in the sunlight.

Always so beautiful.

"Hmm?" Hermione answers everything with 'hmm' these days.

"What did Rolanda say in the Quibbler again?"

Peals of laughter ring out through the air. Which is, of course, the entire reason for asking; Hermione always gets such a perverse kick out of quoting Hooch.

After a moment she turns to face me fully and says, "That Albus would've thrown himself off of the Tower if you didn't play your part."

I nod and dip my head. "Of course. Are you about finished?"

She cups her hand around her eyes to shade them from the late afternoon sun. "Are you?"

Without giving her an answer, I stroll back inside and turn down the heat on dinner. It will simmer in the oven for a couple of hours now. The dinner table is already set, with a single empty wine glass waiting for my one nightly indulgence.

I can hear my wife making her way up the stairs; she is slower these days, but I value my prick far too much to risk it being hexed off if I ever lose my head enough to bring it to her attention.

"So you have a spare thirty minutes or so…" her voice says softly from behind me. Slim arms snake around my front; her nest of wild hair is buried between my shoulder blades. Her belly pokes into my back. Hands delve from my chest to trail a path lower, then lower still. After six years of marriage and a lifetime of waiting, the touch of her hand on my erection still pushes a hiss out of my mouth; there is none better suited to me than her. My Hermione.

"Thirty minutes…" I rumble and sigh as she begins to unbutton my jeans. "That's a bit… short."

Her giggles are muffled by my jumper, but I smile at them nonetheless. I'm too old for the floor now, and she's never been very flexible, so I lead her to the bedroom. A wave of my hand has half of the candles lit.

Our clothes are removed with the flick of a wand, and there my wife is, bare to me on the bed. I catch her eyes roaming over my chest and soon we have matching flushes of anticipation on our bodies from examining the other.

The first time we came together again after the enforced separation, I lasted three thrusts and two breaths. Mortified that I hadn't given her the attention that I had dreamed of giving her, I ran her a bath and left her in it for long enough to find a book that'd never be on the shelves in Hogwarts. Even looking at it sent my heart thudding and my cock twitching back to life.

A good book, that.

I like to think that since that hour of self-instruction, I've become a dapple hand at making my wife lose control.

She squeals when she sees the look in my eyes, something she's named "a sexy gleam" before. Too fucking right, wife.

I approach her squirming form, lacking only the purring to complement my prowl. She plays shy for a few long seconds, but the minute I touch her thighs and settle between them, her legs fall open with a pleased sigh that makes me groan in pleasure from the first touch of my tongue to the exact spot that will begin a sweet, sour rise within her.

My wife; my beautiful wife.

What did I do to deserve you?

Steady suckling has her writhing underneath me, and I catch the moment just in time to sink into her as she climaxes, her cries filling the room as eagerly as the way I fill her.

For a year I couldn't stop myself from pushing into her heat quickly; I was terrified that each time would be our last, and fixated on all of those years that I was forced to live without her.

But now – no. Now I take minutes, hours, to devour Hermione, to map her body, to memorise each new change that emerges on her skin. Because now every hour is followed by another, and there is nothing to take my sweet girl away from me. She is ensconced within my own skin, as I am hers.

Now, we have time.

fin.