A/N: Hope you enjoy! This is written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition Round Six! Please review!
Title: Changes
Team: Montrose Magpies
Position: Chaser One
Prompts: #1 Milk, #4 "I have no money left, and #11 Perfume
Words: 2,604
Assigned Genre: Soap Opera
Characters: Hermione, Ron, Harry, and Ginny
Hermione Granger Weasley stared at the pregnancy test in front of her. Pregnant. How could she have been so stupid? They were only together for one night, and yet that night had changed her life forever. There was no way she could hide this fact from her husband, Ron Weasley, any longer than she already had. It was only one time, sure, and they were also both drunken idiots, but now she was pregnant, and Hermione knew she couldn't keep this quiet for much longer.
Finally, she left the bathroom and entered her master. The pregnancy test was properly disposed of, the evidence removed. Ron wouldn't know until she told him that she was pregnant, and Hermione was determined to keep it that way. On their master bed, seven-year-old Rose was sitting and pouting about how she had to go to bed and didn't want to go, while five-year-old Hugo was trying to help Rose but was also falling asleep.
Hermione smiled as Ron tried to persuade them to go to bed, putting on a show for them and reading them stories, all trying to make them tired. He's such a good father, Hermione thought, but then she felt really guilty. If he's such a good person, then why did I cheat on him? Tears sprung to her brown eyes as she realized exactly how stupid she'd really been. Blaise would be nowhere near as good of a father as Ron was. Maybe she'd just let Ron believe the baby was his. The only problem with that plan was if the baby looked exactly like its father.
With a shock, Hermione realized that Ron had noticed that she was watching them. He grinned at her, his blue eyes sparkling, and then he returned to entertaining their two children. Hugo was now fast asleep on their bed, while Rose's eyes were drooping. Ron smirked triumphantly, picked up both of them at once, and then retreated to both of their rooms to put them to bed. In no time at all, he was back in the room.
"Hey, gorgeous," Ron said, coming up to Hermione and kissing her on the lips. Hermione tried to smile at him, but she soon found that it was pretty much impossible. "What's wrong?" Ron asked her, looking concerned.
"It's… it's nothing, Ron," Hermione said, looking to the floor as she lied through her teeth.
Ron frowned. "Come on, Hermione, I know you. I know when something's up. What is it? You can tell me anything, I promise." Hermione shook her head, biting her lip and refusing to look at her husband. "Do you have some strange disease I don't know about? Are you secretly a man? Do you have the ability to grow watermelons in your stomach? Do you—"
"I'm pregnant," Hermione whispered, interrupting Ron's rambling.
"What?" he asked. "I didn't catch that last part."
"I'm pregnant, Ron. And the baby isn't yours."
LINE BREAK LINE BREAK
Harry Potter was studying his youngest child, four-year-old Hadley, and he noticed something he'd never really focused on before. Her eyes… Her eyes were not a pale blue like the Weasleys before her. No, they were piercing gray, and Harry recognized them from somewhere, but he didn't know where.
Harry had always had a nagging sensation that there was something different about Hadley. She behaved differently than even her two brothers and one sister, who were polar opposites of each other. Five-year-old Lily was kind, considerate, and loved to help people and did all she could to stop her older brothers from fighting. Seven-year-old Albus was quiet, insecure, and liked to remain by himself when possible. Eight-year-old James was in everybody's business all of the time, loud, and a prankster. Hadley, however, was very judgmental and seemed to think she was better than other people, and she had a very prominent smirk that she used whenever she knew something no one else did, or when she outsmarted her brothers. Something about her personality had always struck Harry as odd.
As he was watching Hadley, she came to realize that he was watching her and came up to him. "Hi, Daddy," she said, smiling sweetly at him. Harry couldn't help noticing that despite the red hair, his daughter looked nothing like a Potter or a Weasley. How very odd… He also noticed that her gray eyes seemed to peer into his soul, and she had a calculating look on her face, as if she were thinking hard about something. Harry noticed something else in her expression, something that made him think of an old Hogwarts rival, but he couldn't put a finger on it…
"Daddy, do you want to have some mud pie that I made?" She asked, grinning at him.
"Uh, sure, sweetheart," Harry said, thinking it would be rude if he refused. Hadley, smirking now, walked over to where she had been sitting in the mud just moments before, and pulled out a very tall, very gross-looking mud pie. Harry took one look at that thing and just knew that Hadley was going to make him eat every last bit of it.
Harry groaned, knowing that his daughter had outsmarted him. Then, he froze. That's it! He thought, and Harry rose at once and marched inside. "Daddy, come back here right now! You didn't eat your mud pie!" Hadley screamed, and Harry winced at her anger, but he knew that he had to confront his wife right now.
"Ginny!" he screamed up the stairs when he entered the house from the backyard. "I need to talk to you right now!" He heard a scuffling of feet and resolved to sit in the kitchen while he waited. Hadley was still outside, but he wasn't worried about her—the backyard was fenced in. He knew that Lily was upstairs playing in her room, Albus was over at his cousin Lucy's house, and James was over at his cousin Fred's house. Finally, Ginny reached the kitchen.
"What is all this yelling about?" she asked. Her hands were on her hips, and her red hair—so much like Lily and Hadley's—was a mess. She was wearing an apron, and had a feather duster in her hand. It appeared that this was a cleanup day in the Potter household. Harry couldn't help thinking that his wife was beautiful, even though he was very angry at her at the moment. He'd just discovered that she had lied to him for over four years.
"This is a conversation that needs to be held, Ginny," he said sternly, glaring at her.
Ginny looked taken aback. It was usually her that was mad at Harry. "What did I do this time, Harry?"
"You lied to be about the paternity of my daughter!" he shouted, his face growing red from the strain. "Hadley isn't my child!"
LINE BREAK LINE BREAK
"What do you mean you're not pregnant with my child?" Ron asked, appearing to be extremely bewildered. Hermione realized that he was having trouble comprehending what she'd told him. She sighed.
"I mean, Ron, that…" She winced. This was going to be harder than she thought. Hermione didn't want to do this to him—he was such a good person, he didn't deserve this. Finally, Hermione decided that she just had to rip that band-aide off, so she said, "I'mpregnantwithBlaiseZabini'schild."
Ron frowned, trying to understand what she'd just said. "Can you repeat that, please? I didn't catch it."
Hermione took a deep breath and then said, slower this time, "I'm pregnant with Blaise Zabini's child."
Ron froze, and opened his mouth as if he was going to say something but then closed it when he realized he didn't know what to say. This happened a couple of times until Ron regained his composure. Then, the yelling started. "WHAT? WHEN? WHY? HAVEN'T I BEEN GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, HERMIONE?"
Hermione froze up and stepped back, as if in a trance, to get away from his yelling. She felt a warm tear slip out of her eye, and soon she was crying. Ron had no sign of guilt that he'd made her cry, but instead looked even angrier. "WHAT MAKES YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO CRY? YOU'RE THE ONE THAT DID THIS TO ME!" Hermione finally stopped crying and whispered the answers to his questions.
"I never wanted to hurt you, Ron," she began, whispering so quietly that he could barely hear her. "I was at a Ministry party last week, when you were out of town for an Auror mission and Ginny was keeping the kids. I had a little bit more to drink than I would care to admit, and Blaise did as well. We kind of got a little bit carried away, and soon enough we were in a room ripping each other's clothes off. I didn't know what I was doing, Ron! I'm… I'm really sorry," she finished, looking down at the floor so that she wouldn't see the look on his face.
Ron was disgusted by the many details of the night Hermione had provided him with, and when Hermione saw that she thought that she might have told him a little bit too much. However, she just wanted to make sure that he knew that she wasn't lying to him anymore, so she told him the complete and honest truth. To say that Ron was beyond angry would be a severe understatement. But however angry he was, he couldn't help but notice how amazing his wife was. She had curly, luscious brown hair, deep brown eyes, and a smile that he loved. He also could smell her perfume from where he was standing, and she smelled like watermelons. However, Ron knew what he had to do. He couldn't continue to be married to someone who was pregnant with another man's child.
"Sorry doesn't cut it, Granger," Ron snapped. He noticed Hermione wince when he called her by her maiden name, but even she must've known that she was not going to remain a Weasley for much longer. Ron also wasn't about to let her be around Rose and Hugo, at least not until they had to go to court over the issue. "You're out. I want you gone. Stay with your parents for the night, stay in the Leaky Cauldron, I don't care. Just get out of my sight."
Hermione looked up at him, startled that he was kicking her out so soon. Ron was looking in the other direction, obviously refusing to look at her. "Ron," she whimpered, "surely you don't mean that! I can just stay in the guest bedroom! You're being a little hasty, don't you think?"
Ron snorted, obviously not impressed with her argument. "Granger, I think you'd best pack your stuff and leave at once. I'll see you in court."
Hermione sniffled, grabbed her trunk, filled it with as much as it could carry, and walked out the door. Who knew that one mistake could cause me to lose my husband? Hermione thought. Then, she looked down at her stomach, where the tiny thing that had cost her everything was currently residing. "Don't worry," Hermione murmured as she called for the Knight Bus to take her to the Leaky Cauldron. "I'll take good care of you."
LINE BREAK LINE BREAK
"What makes you say that, Harry?" Ginny asked, tilting her head to the side, confused at her husband's odd behavior.
"Her eyes are gray!" Harry shouted. "She doesn't act like either of us, she doesn't look like either of us except for her red hair, and she is very self-righteous! I don't think she's my daughter!"
"Harry, you can't think she isn't your daughter by all of those facts. I'm sure at least one if not both of us has someone with gray eyes in our family, her personality is her own, she has your nose, and all four-year-olds are self-righteous! Harry, you must be out of your mind," Ginny said, frowning at him as if trying to work out what was wrong with him.
"Ginny, you can't be serious! Her nose is nothing like mine; she has pointed features! Even Lily, who looks pretty much like a replica of you, has my feet! Hadley has nothing of mine! Therefore, she is not my child!" Harry raged, and Ginny feared his head was going to explode because he was so angry.
Finally, she gave up. Looking deflated, Ginny whispered, "You're right, Harry. About five years ago, I had a brief affair with Draco Malfoy a couple of months after Lily was born. We were only together for three months, and we only slept together three times, but then I ended up pregnant, and instead of divorcing you I called it off with Draco and told you that Hadley was your daughter. I know it was wrong of me to do, but Draco was already preoccupied with his family—he had a wife and three-year-old son at the time, too. I never wanted to hurt you, Harry."
Harry seemed at a loss of words. He hadn't expected her to give up the story so quickly, so once she did he was understandably shocked. Finally, he regained his composure and resumed his yelling. "I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT! YOU CHEATED ON ME FOR MALFOY? HOW COULD YOU? I WANT YOU OUT! YOU AND YOUR DAUGHTER!"
Ginny froze when he yelled the last sentence, and she couldn't believe her ears. "Harry… How can you kick me out? I have nothing! I'll have no money left, no food, no water, and no place to live! How am I supposed to provide for Hadley?" she asked him.
Harry shrugged, his green eyes narrowing with anger. "That's your problem. I don't want to speak to you again until we hear the judge's verdict. See you in court to sign the divorce papers, Weasley."
Ginny burst into tears and fled the room, accidently knocking over the carton of milk that had been sitting out on the counter as she left. Quickly, she packed hers and Hadley's belongings into two suitcases, and then walked out of her room and into the hallway. Five-year-old Lily was standing there, frowning at her mother. "What are you and Daddy fighting about, Mummy?"
Ginny brushed away her tears. "Grown up stuff, Lily. Nothing for you to worry about."
Lily's lower lip quivered. "Are you and Daddy going to get a divorce?" she asked, sounding on the verge of tears.
Ginny's voice caught in her throat, and it took a second for her to respond. "I don't know, Lily. I don't know. I am taking Hadley to the Leaky Cauldron for the night, and I'll know more in the morning, okay?" Lily nodded, and Ginny kissed her good-bye before walking down the stairs to where Hadley was standing in the foyer. Harry was there, too, but he refused to look at Ginny.
"Come on, Hadley," Ginny said, holding out her hand for her daughter. Hadley took it reluctantly and followed Ginny, who was pulling their suitcases behind her.
"Where are we going, Mummy?" Hadley asked, looking up at her mother with fear in her gray eyes.
"We're going on a vacation, Hadley," Ginny said sadly. "We're going to stay at the Leaky Cauldron for awhile."
"Oh," Hadley said. "Why isn't Daddy coming with Lily, Al, and James?" she asked.
Ginny sighed. "Mummy and Daddy are taking a break right now, Hadley. I'm taking a break with you, and he's taking a break with Lily, Al, and James."
"Oh," Hadley said. "Okay." The Knight Bus finally arriving, and Ginny hopped on without looking back.
