Once Upon A Tuesday
"Hello! Hun, I'm home!" Ron called to the empty flat. Ron walked into the doorframe. As usual, at 5:01 on a Tuesday afternoon, there was a distinct lack of his fiancée, Hermione. She was probably still at the Ministry, or maybe getting an after work cuppa with Harry or Percy. Which absolutely did not spike a little jealousy spike, at all. Hermione was working as a prosecution lawyer in the Wizengamot, and if she had just started a case she would be busy researching laws or hounding the defence for their case, so she could start her's. But she had been distracted lately. George had said that she was planning to break up with him.
As Ron pulled a half-full bottle of Butterbeer from what used to be known as the re-frig-alator, he wondered if that was the case. He hadn't done anything that he could remember. But wasn't that where all their problems started? On the other hand, Ron had had to lip read George because they were testing the Alternating Falafel Missile, which had required earmuffs. They would work on the name later.
Ron walked aimlessly around the flat, drifting towards the walls occasionally. Dylan, the apprentice had set up an experiment wrong and the resulting magical backfire was slowing making Ron incapable of walking in a straight line. Ron felt mildly drunk. Good thing Butterbeer wasn't strong. He flopped onto his couch and looked at the coffee table. It shifted a leg in discomfort. Ron had mentioned to Hermione that maybe there were too many books on top of it, but she hadn't responded, just picked one up and made notes about a dog-eared page in a leather bound diary that Ginny had given her a couple of months ago. The current book on top was called Terhes Nők, És Hogyan Kell Ezt Csinálni. Ron didn't know what language it was in or what it meant, but it seemed to be written in English as Hermione was able to translate it quickly.
Ron looked at the clock. It was 5:07. Or was it 10:37? Ron was sure Dylan had messed something up. Things had been so much better when Verity hadn't been promoted. She was now running the new Hogsmeade branch of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and while he was happy for her, he also wished that she had stayed and that Dylan had never been taken on. In the part of his head that fought with Hermione, and had abandoned Harry, he thought that Dylan should be fired. Preferably from a cannon, but as the side of him that wore Hermione's voice said, you couldn't have everything.
The hearth sprang to life as the emerald flames of Floo propelled Hermione forward. She took a couple of unsteady steps forward, wobbling in her high-ish heels. Ron leapt up and hugged her, he tried for a kiss, but she turned away and he got her cheek. She let go of him and removed her shoes.
"Those look uncomfortable," Ron remarked. Hermione had assured him they were made out of plastic even though, to Ron at least, they looked shiny enough to be metal.
"They were. But the defence idiots aren't taking me seriously, so I'm intimidating them," she replied airily, walking to the kitchen to make a cuppa.
"It's working, if that helps…" Ron drifted off, as he realised that Hermione wasn't paying attention. She did look intimidating with her hair up in a severe bun and her navy robes tailored and sharp. The shoes looked sharp enough to sever toes if you stuck your feet in the wrong place. Ron picked one up and tried to bend the sole. It seemed to allow just enough room for movement and not enough for anything else. Namely, being comfortable. It looked more like a murder weapon than footwear. Hermione walked to the kitchen and started pulling out bread, mustard, yoghurt and fish fingers. She was making sandwiches, Ron realised as she slathered the bread in mustard.
"Umm… Hermione, this is probably going to sound really stupid, but why are you making mustard-yogurt-fish sandwiches?" Ron asked. Lately, Hermione's taste in food had been off the wall. If Ron didn't know better, he'd say something was wrong with her. Hermione looked down at what she was making and she jerked her head back a little.
"Oh, you know work, it always distracts me a little bit!" Hermione giggled and put the mismatching ingredients back and binned the used bread. Her laugh was off somehow. Ron laughed to humour her and she smiled at him. When her face relaxed, Hermione looked thoughtful and worried. Her arms folded against her stomach. When Ron went to hug her, she didn't unfold her arms, she only leaned against him. What was going on with her?
And then, of course, hell broke loose. The hearth flared up again and this time Harry stepped out. Ron hadn't seen Harry in about a fortnight, as his pregnant sister was busy running him ragged, and would have been happy to see him now, if he didn't look like he'd been attacked.
"Mate, what's wrong?" Ron almost ran to his best friend's side. He put his hand on Harry's shoulder. Harry was bent over with his hands on his thighs.
"It's Ginny! She's having the baby!" blurted Harry.
"When? December sometime?" asked Ron. That was when Ginny was due, right?
"Err… now. That's why I came to get you and Hermione, I thought you guys would want to be there," Harry answered.
"Wait. Why is the baby coming now? It's September," Miraculously, Ron managed to keep his head.
"I don't know! We were having dinner and then her contractions started, and now she's at St Mungo's, waiting for us to get there," Harry replied.
"Let's go, then" Hermione spoke up, from half-way across the room. Ron and Harry Disapparated with a pop and a bang. Ron swayed a bit after being squeezed through the non-existent tube, and looked to his right to find Harry waiting for him to regain his balance.
"Where's Hermione?" asked Ron. The fire in the waiting room hearth flared up and out stepped the bushy-haired woman.
"Why didn't you Apparate?" asked Ron.
"I didn't feel like it," snapped Hermione, still in bare feet. She walked over to the receptionist's desk and asked after Ginny. The blond chewed her Drooble's Best Blowing Gum and mumbled something out of the side of her mouth. Hermione walked over to Ron and Harry, leaving ashy footprints behind. They walked to the elevator and Hermione pressed the Level Two button.
"Why are the maternity wards on Level Two? Isn't it dangerous to have contagious diseases near newborns?" Harry asked Hermione.
"The maternity wards are on every level, it's just chance that Ginny got Level Two both times," replied Hermione tersely.
"Oh," The trio remained in silence. They knew that they didn't have to say anything to each other. When the apparent slowest elevator in the universe stopped. And Harry almost ran out of the elevator until he remembered that he didn't know which room Ginny was in. She'd been dragged off by the nurse and had told Harry to get Ron and Hermione, while Molly had stayed with her.
"Harry! Ronnie! Hermione!" Molly's voice echoed off the sanitized walls of the corridor.
"There you are, dears," She hugged them tightly for a moment and then swept them down the hallway, Ron still zigzagging back and forth.
"Ginny's in Room 16, in the Derwent Ward. Just go in she's waiting for you,". Molly pulled Harry through the doors to Ginny's birthing room, that Ron hadn't even noticed they'd arrived at. He and Hermione sat on some ottomans that she conjured. They sat quietly for a few minutes, listening to Ginny screaming and swearing until someone remembered to put up a Silencing Charm in the room. Hermione spoke up.
"Ron…" The man in question couldn't tell if it was a question or whether it was a plea for reassurance, but he got up and pulled Hermione to her feet and hugged her.
"Ron, I have to tell you something," she continued.
"You're ditching me?" Ron asked. His interpretation of George's answer had been right apparently. He held Hermione and waited for the inevitable affirmation of his fears.
"You git!" Hermione pushed away from him. "I'm not leaving you, you TOTAL, UTTER GIT!" she crescendo-ed. Hermione stepped forwarded and punched him in the chest, but she could've been hitting him with spaghetti for all the damage it did.
"I'M PREGANT!" she yelled and froze, looking at Ron like a Doxy and a spray bottle. Hermione was pregnant. She was having a baby. Inside her, Hermione's, body, there was a child, his child forming. He hugged Hermione to him and rested his head on hers.
"I'm going to be father,".
"That poor child,".
…...
A/N: So… Molly might have been OOC, I dunno. I don't THINK that Harry, Ron or Hermione were, but they probably were anyway. Okay, my first challenge fic, here's to it not crash and burning. – Katie