As Ron entered the kitchen he could smell dinner cooking and he knew Hermione had been home for some time. If she had a chance to get dinner to this point she must have been able to get out of the office a bit earlier than usual. Between the two of them, they struggled to have family dinner prepared before 7pm each night, but it was just now 5:30pm so they were in a good place already.
"Hey." he always felt happier when he came home and she was already here.
Hermione was standing at the sink, cutting up vegetables with a knife, "Hey yourself." she smiled at her husband and within two seconds he had his arms wrapped around her waist planting kisses on her neck from behind. The kisses tickled her neck; "Ron, I have a knife here!" she giggled and tried to steady her arm.
"Why are you doing it like that, did you forget you can do magic?" He was always amazed at how frequently she did things the Muggle way. He supposed growing up with Muggle parents did that to you.
"I don't know, sometimes this idle work just helps me unwind." she replied as she concentrated on the task at hand.
"I have other ways to help you unwind." He said mischievously.
"Well, maybe I'll take you up on that later." She told him, giving him another broad smile. "But first, I need to feed our son."
Two year old Hugo sat in his high chair looking up at his parents with wide brown eyes. He had his mother's eyes but his hair was distinctly Weasley. He had deep red hair, the same color as his Aunt Ginny.
"Daddy go!" he pointed at Ron and directed him out of the room. It was not an uncommon request these days. Recently, anytime Ron put his hands on Hermione, showing her any kind of affection, Hugo would tell him to leave. Ron had to chuckle and he stepped away from Hermione to greet the boy.
"Daddy stays. Daddy loves Mommy. Daddy loves you too." he bent down and gave Hugo a kiss on the cheek and a scruffled his hair. Hermione smiled at Ron and said, "You know it's just a phase right?"
"It bloody well better be a phase, what am I going to do when he's a giant bloke kicking me out of my own house?!" Ron said in a snarky tone.
"Ron! Don't call our son a bloke!" she exclaimed. He chuckled again and looked over at the stove where there were two separate kinds of pasta cooking.
"What's going on here – strands and spirals?" he asked curiously.
"Oh, he won't eat the strands, he only likes the spirals." Hermione answered nonchalantly.
Ron leaned against the sink next to her with a smirk on his face. "You're kidding me right?"
She gave him an innocent look, "What?"
"And you don't think he's a bit spoiled? Hermione, my mum would have never cooked two separate types of pasta if one of us refused to eat, she would have just said, ok, then don't eat, and sure enough we would eat." They had this conversation before.
"Well Ron, your mother had six boys to feed, I only have one, so I can indulge him if I want." She moved the vegetables over to the stove as she spoke and then leaned over and kissed Hugo's cheek giving him a loving tuck under his chin. Hugo gave his dad a look that clearly read, nice try-she works for me.
Ron felt a bit of a tug at his heart when she said "I only have one…" He knew that if it were possible, Hermione wanted to have four or five children. She told him that early on. He assumed that being an only child; she wanted the opposite for her own family. But Hugo was a big baby and his birth really took a toll on her body, she was unable to deliver him naturally and there were complications. As a result, they were not able to have more children. She was heartbroken. It was hard for Ron to comfort her because he actually felt that two children was a perfect amount. Having grown up in a very large family, he saw the downsides. However heartbroken she was, or continued to be, she didn't really let that get in the way of caring for her family. She was an amazing wife and mother and Ron was in constant awe of her.
"Where's Rosie?" Ron asked Hermione. Rose, their five year old daughter, was usually sitting at the counter while Hermione or Ron prepared meals, talking incessantly to them about something. She had a new obsession every week it seemed. This week it was unicorns. Hermione had read her some unicorn legends and it was all it took to light up her fascination.
"She wanted to stay at your mothers tonight. It's supposed to be a clear night and your dad wants to show her star constellations." Hermione answered him while lifting Hugo from his high chair. "Oh my he's getting heavy!" He was a big boy Ron noted. He watched as she carried Hugo over to the kitchen table, pulled out a chair, unbuttoned her shirt and began to let him nurse. It was a familiar site to Ron, he watched her nurse Rosie for a full year and half and now Hugo for two years. It seemed like she had been nourishing their kids forever. Ron always felt a wave of affection and emotion when he saw her do it. She always hummed the same song very quietly to both of them when they nursed and it was a very comforting experience for Ron, being in the presence of Hermione with their children during those moments.
Hermione noticed Ron staring at her. "I know, he is too old. You can say it." she smiled at Ron.
I must have been staring, he thought. "No, I wasn't thinking that…but now that you mention it-yeah he is a bit old don't you think?" Actually, Ron had this thought many times in the past few months but didn't say anything to her about it, he figured it was the mother's role to decide when to stop.
"Yeah, he is. I just don't want to stop cold; we need to ease out of it I think. He's not like Rosie; she was just all of a sudden-done. Didn't need much weaning. I've been trying to do less with him the past week and I think he's getting there." as she spoke Ron realized how tired she sounded. He quickly shifted into gear and started picking up where she stopped with dinner.
"Ron, he's falling asleep. Maybe if I can get him down we can let him nap for an hour and we can have a quiet dinner?" She sounded excited at the prospect.
"Yeah, that would be brilliant." Ron told her. She carefully stood and carried Hugo down the hall.
A few minutes later she returned. "Success!" she whispered happily. "What needs doing?"
"Nothing, I think we're all set." Ron turned to face her and noticed that her shirt was still undone. Her hair was pulled up loosely, he knew she probably pulled it up just before starting dinner; she usually wore it down to work. He was taken aback by her beauty. It happened to him a lot. One minute he would be doing something, he would look in her direction and it would strike him like a bolt of lightning. She was always pretty, but as they got older and as she became a mother, she just had this beautiful glow about her that seemed to get brighter each year.
Ron knew that most husbands probably felt their wives were beautiful. But he also knew that his wife was the real deal. It was no secret that Ron Weasley was one of the most envied men who worked at the Ministry. Since they had first started dating, right after the war, Ron had dealt with one guy after another coveting his girlfriend who eventually became his wife. She was known across all the Ministry departments for her brilliant legal work and there had been more than one occasion where Ron had punched a bloke in the face for staring too long at her or saying something about Hermione that just didn't sit right with Ron. Luckily, Hermione was not aware of these occasions, or she would have probably scolded Ron for being stupid. He knew that she loved only him, but she didn't understand that sometimes a man needed to defend his own honor as well as the woman he loves. Mostly she existed in her own world, which luckily included him, where she was oblivious to all the second looks and attention.
Ron felt the familiar heat of desire pull him away from dinner and toward her. She could see the look in his eyes and a smile spread across her face as he stood in front of her and lowered his head to kiss her neck and then her chest. She realized she had left her shirt undone and had to laugh. Doesn't take much, she thought.
"Don't laugh at me." He told her, smiling, between kisses.
"I'm not laughing at you, I'm just happy that you love me even when I'm in this end-of-the day, disheveled state." She reached her hands up behind his head and ran her fingers through his hair while he continued kissing, which always drove him toward intensity. He pulled back and started hastily loosening his own shirt buttons.
"I like you in this state-its sexy." he told her wagging his eyebrows.
She laughed out loud, "You needn't flatter me Ron, you know I'm pretty much putty in your hands."
With that admission he grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up to carry her to the living room where they melted into each other on the sofa, savoring the quiet moment they had to themselves.
After dinner, Hermione wanted to phone the Burrow to check on Rose. The families had a real Muggle telephones installed in all of their homes to stay immediately connected, much to the delight of Mr. Weasley, Ron's father, who was fascinated by Muggle workings.
"She's probably fine. Mum probably has her put to work." Ron told Hermione.
"I know, I just want to check on her that's all. I miss her." She did. When Rose was a baby, Hermione stayed at home with her for a full year, even when she went back to work, Hermione took Rose with her three days a week and worked from home two days. Rose was such an agreeable baby she would sit quietly in her bouncy seat or wrapped against her mother's torso in a sling while Hermione read, researched and worked on her cases. It wasn't until Rose started talking that the situation called for changes. Rose was so talkative that Hermione had some difficulty concentrating and her co-workers spent much of their day listening and trying to formulate responses to Rose's infinite curiosity about the world around her. Finally, when Hermione's presence was more needed at work, they decided that it was time for Rose to spend her days with her Weasley grandparents, who had looked forward to having their granddaughter with them. Hermione stayed off work only three months with Hugo and when he started spending days with the grandparents, it was a very difficult for him to separate from her. Hermione supposed that was another reason she indulged her son, she felt he was somewhat short-changed of attention from his mother.
She was slightly disappointed to hear from Mrs. Weasley that Rose was outside with her grandfather and hadn't mentioned anything about missing home.
"She's fine. She's like you-independent." Ron was trying to cheer her up as he could tell that she really did miss their daughter. "She's probably dragging dad around chasing garden gnomes." They both laughed.
"I know she's too independent-she's not my baby anymore." Hermione said sadly. Then she turned her attention to Hugo, who had woken from his short nap and was having his dinner now.
Just then, Hedwig appeared at the kitchen window with a note for Ron from Harry.
Ron,
Can you meet me at the Leaky Cauldron for a drink in an hour?
Harry
"What's up?" Hermione asked Ron.
"Harry wants to meet for a drink in an hour. Ugh, I don't want to go out again." Ron said with disdain. He was hoping to just spend a quiet evening with Hermione; it was rare that they only had one child to manage. He also wanted to announce his surprise to her tonight. Her 30th birthday was coming in a couple of weeks and he had a very big surprise for her indeed.
"Well, maybe it won't be too long." She told him. "I mean, I hope it won't be too long." She winked at him and smiled as she removed Hugo's tray from his high chair.
Ron grinned and shook his head. "What are you doing to me?" he asked playfully. But he was aroused at the thought of her looking forward to another go with him. He made a mental note to keep it short with Harry.
Hugo had been released from his chair and flew over to Ron, grasped Ron's finger and pulled Ron toward the living room to his train set. "Daddy play trains." It was his favorite thing to do these days and Ron had to admit it was fun watching his son get so excited about rolling the trains along the track. Hermione came and sat close by, with a book in hand, but Hugo pulled her over by the finger too and encouraged her to play also. "Mommy play." He instructed. She smiled and obliged.
After about a minute of the three of them playing nicely, Hugo began to push Ron's train away by crashing and smashing at it. "Hugo, be nice, daddy wants to play too." Hermione told him patiently. Ron was amused and gave her a sideways look, "I'm in trouble." He said with a smirk.
