#msbinns

Do I have a ton of other fics that I haven't even started & should probably read? Yup.

Sorry I didn’t post this like a year ago. It’s been written for over a year. I’m just the worst. 

There’s only one more chapter of both left and it’s the main reason I took so long posting this. I’m terrible at endings. 

Reunited (May) 

Dear Hermione (May)

I was going to wait until March to post the March update, but will have drill that weekend and will probably be too exhausted to post it.  So here is the March installment on ff.net and AO3.

This should have been posted a month ago. Alas, life continues to be crazy.  Here is the February installment of Reunited (ff.net and AO3) and the accompanying letters from Ron (ff.net and AO3).

The cold doesn't seem to dampen Hermione's enthusiasm. She pounces on Ron immediately. He laughs at the way she nearly knocks him off his feet. A month and a half without being able to hold her. It's as long as he spent at training at the start of the year. He hates that being apart from her has become so routine. So he repeats words he's written in every letter for nearly a year just because she's here and he wants to say them out loud. 

She clings to him the entire walk to Hogsmeade. Where propriety would usually have her simply lace her gloved hand in his, she entwines herself around his arm completely and nuzzles into him in a way that suggests more than trying to hide from the chill. She repeats how much she's missed him too, stopping more than once to exchange a kiss before they even reach the High Street. He has a hard time recalling the last time she'd been so openly affectionate and he hates himself for immediately questioning what is fueling it. Because it's more than simply being away from her for six weeks. This isn't like the way they'd reunited in October after six weeks apart. It's more like the way he'd devoured his first real meal after months of living off mushrooms and stolen cans of soup. Like she's been starved of social interaction.

Well, we haven’t had any more glorious snow days to edit this so it could be full of typos, but I’m posting it up anyway! I’m hoping to stick to at least one update a month before I leave for training in May, but I make no promises. I’m a crazy person and I have to write the letters from Ron to plan and figure out how the months flow together. Writing snapshots like this is unusual for me so writing Ron’s POV directly alongside it sort of helps me. Check out the post after this if you want to read them. Anyway, here is a preview of the chapter. It’s a long one (the return of MsBinns’ 10,000 word chapters) because December meansc lots of reunions! Here is my December update of Reunited  on ff.net and AO3

Christmas holiday has him excited enough, but the fact that he and Harry will finally be moving out of the Burrow has him absolutely giddy with anticipation. In two weeks she'll be home and he will be living in Grimmauld Place with its four floors and countless rooms. When she comes to visit him they won't have to hide from the four other people who live there and invent reasons to be alone. It sounds like a kind of paradise after the last seven months.

There are other things to be excited about, of course. The Senior Aurors have finally stopped asking him to get coffee and pastries at work. Dawlish even sent him to Appleby to follow up on a lead he discovered connecting two unsolved missing persons reports with a Muggle homicide in Lincolnshire. Williamson went with him. Since then they have become something of a team. The twenty-eight year old likes the Falmouth Falcons and plays the electric guitar and still proudly wears his Hufflepuff colours. Ron's taken to calling him "Billiamson" because his long ponytail reminds him of his brother Bill. Williamson doesn't seem to mind the nickname and, more importantly, doesn't seem to mind being paired with an eighteen year old.

Harry has, of course, been going out on missions regularly since they arrived in October. Whenever he goes out it's with Dawlish. Though Ron knows he should be jealous of his best mate for going on top missions with the head of the Department, he's not. Harry might get more responsibility and more exciting missions with Dawlish, but Ron likes Billiamson. He feels less like somebody pretending to work in the Auror Department and more like he belongs there with him. Just last week he asked Ron to join him for a pint after work. He's starting to feel like an adult who belongs there and less like a teenager pretending he does.

So as I rambled in my Reunited update. I have to write these letters from Ron to kind of get a feel for what happens each month in that story. My brain does not work in scattered isolated fragments and drabbles. It’s just not who I really am as a writer. I am a planner through and through and - call me crazy - I wrote all these really just for planning purposes. Never really intended to share them, but got convinced otherwise. So here is the next bunch (on ff.net and ao3) of my attempts to fill in the blanks between the events in “Reunited” to help make the story feel more coherent to me. They work pretty well if you read them together. Here is an excerpt.

Saturday 24 October 98

Dear Hermione, Well, I’m an official employee of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Ron Weasley, Auror. Pretty scary, isn’t it? Harry and I start Monday. It’s going to be so strange to Floo to the Ministry with dad in the morning. Sometimes this all doesn’t feel real. Sorry I didn’t write more this week. There was a lot of paperwork and so much classroom time to go over all the regulations and rules and administrative stuff. It was definitely the most boring week of training. Mum made all of our favourites for supper our first night back. It was delicious, but it was probably the most uncomfortable meal of my whole life (and that includes drinking infusion of Gurdyroots with Xenophilius Lovegood). Everything was fine until my arse of a brother asked how you were. Mum and dad didn’t mention Skeeter’s article, but they might as well have. Mum asked how you were, but couldn’t even look at me.I ’ve never wanted to Disapparate from somewhere so badly. I’m glad I didn’t though. Dad said something to me about using better judgment next time, but then said I’m grown and can make my own decisions. I think Harry and George were disappointed they didn’t come down on me harder because it sounds like they’re okay with me shagging you senseless as long as the Daily Prophet doesn’t run an article on it next time. I still think Skeeter is back to being a bug and you should write to Kingsley and tell him. There’s no other way anybody could have known. Unless maybe the cadre tipped her off. They all knew I was going to see you because it’s all I talked about the week before I left. Anyway, I know you told me Ginny gave you hell for the article so I thought I’d let you know mum and dad’s reaction. Love and miss you. See you soon!

AKA what I do on snow days when I actually have free time. 

I’m not sure if people still remember this fic is a thing, but I do have it planned out and have large chunks of it written through June (when there is no more need for reunions). It has been challenging to write because my natural instinct is obviously to tell every detail of every day. The whole purpose of only writing the reunions has been to challenge me to tell more with less.  It might work, it might not, but it has certainly been fun.  I’m editing December right now, which is much lengthier, and will probably have it up by the end of the week. Thank goodness for snow days! Here are the links to this small update on ff.net and ao3 and here is a preview if you can’t read yet of my take on Ron and Hermione reuniting in the month of November 1998:

He has difficulty thinking about Hermione back at Hogwarts studying for exams and going to Quidditch matches when he has a job and coworkers and a paycheck. They call him an analyst and say it's typical for all entry-level Aurors to start as analysts so he tries not to complain too much, even when he sees Harry regularly leave on missions with Senior Aurors.

Ron knows the only way to earn his colleagues' respect and be treated equally is to prove it, but it's hard to prove himself when all he does is fetch coffee and crullers all day. He has trouble spending all day sitting at a desk and thinks even at Hogwarts they had time to get up and stretch between lessons. He writes her a little at a time throughout the day. He imagines her walking the corridors, studying in the library and curled up in the squashy armchair by the window in the Gryffindor common room. He's thoroughly underwhelmed with his first full month at work, more often than not, finds himself wishing he was tucked into the same squashy armchair with Hermione instead of stuck at a desk reading Muggle police reports.