Title: Instinct
Ship: Ron/Hermione
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1639
Summary: What exactly has got into Hermione lately?
Notes: Originally posted here as a gift for kathybates in weasley_fest 2009. Kathy requested humour and while I did intend to try and make this funny it turned out less so than I'd hoped. Magic of some kind was requested, and Hermione being exasperated with Ron for some reason... so that's kind of entirely what inspired me to write this. Thank you to star54kar for the hand-holding, and the help with batting ideas back and forth and for running such a fantastic fest once again. I think this will be my final fest fic. While I love doing it, I'm a lot less inspired these days even though I miss writing :(. If I write another fic, it will be just because I want to write.


"Ron, I thought I asked you to wash the car," Hermione sighed, as she squeezed through the front door with hands full of shopping bags. She was sweating, her hair sticking to the back of her neck and her forehead, and her fingers were red raw from where the heavy plastic bags were digging into her flesh.

"I did," Ron answered, glancing over his shoulder as he lay sprawled on the couch in his boxer shorts, flicking through the channels on the Muggle television.

"I've only been gone an hour, and the floor isn't wet," Hermione shouted from the kitchen, as she dumped the bags onto the floor and inspected her swollen hands. She winced as she ran her fingertips of one hand over the most reddened parts of the other.

"That's because I didn't do it by hand," Ron laughed, strolling into the kitchen and inspecting the contents of the first bag he came to.

"You know, you don't have to use magic for every little thing, Ron," Hermione huffed, watching as he pulled a bottle of Muggle beer from the bag. "If you didn't have such a physical job, I swear you'd be three stone heavier."

"So you only want me for my body?" Ron asked, chuckling. Before Hermione could even reach to pull the bottle opener out of the nearest drawer, he had pulled his wand from where it was stuffed into the waistband of his shorts, and pointed it at the bottle top which promptly vanished.

"That's what this is for." Hermione glared, holding up the bottle opener.

"Why do we need that when we have these?" Ron smiled, waving his wand. His face fell as he noticed Hermione's injured hand. Taking the bottle opener and placing it on the kitchen side and took her hand into his. "Shit, what have you done to yourself?"

"Nothing, I'm fine."

Hermione rolled her eyes as she tried to pull her hand away, but Ron held onto it firmly and pointed his wand at the swollen fingers which grew very hot, then suddenly very cold. He kissed the newly healed skin, and moved to take the other hand.

"Why didn't you call me to come and get you? Or at the very least shrink the bags, you nutter?"

"You know, Ron, I could have used Episkey on myself," was Hermione's snappy answer. She turned away from him to start taking things from the bags and putting them in various cupboards.

Ron ignored Hermione's irrational response. She'd been in a bad mood for a couple of days now, and Ron usually found that when it was around this time of the month, he was usually best to leave her to it until she realised how she'd been acting and made it up to him. He lifted his wand once again, levitating the newly purchased items to their proper place in the kitchen.

"I'm quite capable, Ron," Hermione barked, and Ron bit his tongue and fought the urge to argue back. He'd got much better at it since they'd moved in together.

Sometimes, he liked to rile her up, liked to provoke her on purpose if she'd let on that he was doing something that particularly annoyed her. He loved seeing her with her hands on her hips, face red and chest heaving with the force of their argument. He felt like he was back at Hogwarts, only this time he knew it would inevitably end up in hot make-up sex.

This week was different though. Ron had no idea what he'd done to annoy her, and they could barely be in the same room for a few minutes without him doing something that caused her to yell at him. They'd both taken this week off work to spend some time together, but Hermione was busying herself doing chores around the house and three days in to their time off they'd hardly seen one another.

Ron returned to the living room, leaving Hermione to calm down in the kitchen before she (hopefully) joined him for some cuddling on the couch. When she still hadn't left the kitchen nearly an hour later, Ron went to see what she was up to.

"Looking good," Ron chuckled, as he leant against the doorframe to observe Hermione on her hands and knees with a dustpan and brush, her arse sticking up in the air.

Hermione glanced over her shoulder, rolling her eyes as she blew a wisp of hair off her sweaty forehead before turning back to the pile of rubbish she was scooping onto the dustpan.

Ron pulled out his wand and flicked it at the pile of debris, banishing it to Merlin knows where.

"Ron!" Hermione growled, turning to scowl at him. "Will you stop it!"

"Stop what, Hermione? Are you a witch or aren't you?"

"That's not all I am. I don't have to whip my wand out for every little thing."

"Why do make things so much more difficult for yourself?"

"It's not what we do, okay? It's just not right."

"What we do?"

"Never mind," Hermione sighed, shaking her head. She stood up and moved over to the sink, staring out of the window to avoid Ron's inquiring eyes.

"What's wrong?" Ron asked, his eyes narrowing.

"Oh, nothing really." She sniffed loudly. "You know what I'm like."

She tried her best to hide it, but Ron saw her lip tremble as she started to rinse the glasses in the sink.

"Hey." He moved closer to her, pulling on her arm to bring her closer. "Tell me what's wrong."

"I'm just being silly, Ron," she said, her voice cracking as she reached to wipe at her eyes with her wet hands.

"If it's making you feel like this, it can't be that silly." Ron pulled her into his arms, wrapping them around her and pressing a kiss to her forehead. He continued quietly, speaking into her hair. "You haven't been yourself since The Burrow on Sunday. What's going on? If it's something I've done, I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, it's not you." Hermione looked up at him with wet lashes. "I'm just… scared."

Ron wrapped his arms more tightly around her, wanting to keep her safe even though he didn't know what he was supposed to protect her from.

"What's wrong? What's happened?"

"Nothing," she whispered. "That's the point. Ginny and Harry told us all about the pregnancy on Sunday. This is their second and we… we haven't…"

"Oh, Hermione!" Ron almost laughed with relief, but he caught himself just in time. "I know it's frustrating, but it will happen for us. It will!"

"How can you be sure? How do you know there isn't something wrong with me? You're a Weasley, it can't you that has the problem."

"Why does anyone have to have a problem? It just takes some people a little longer."

"Ron, I want a baby so badly."

Hermione bit her lip, looking down to hide her embarrassment at being so desperate.

"I know you do," he replied as he lifted her chin. "And you know I can't wait either. You'll be an amazing mum and our kids are going to love you so much. "

He couldn't help but smile at her, excited at just the thought of sharing something so amazing with the woman he loved more than anything.

"But this doesn't explain your sudden hatred of magic. What do you have against magic? Do you think it's something magical that's stopping you from getting pregnant?"

"I don't have anything against magic. I didn't realise until today how ridiculous I was being. I guess I just want to be a mum so badly that I was trying to do 'mum' things the way I know how, the thing's my mum did when I was younger. We didn't have magic, of course, and without a child to look after, this is the only way I know how to be a mum."

She moved to wipe her hands and eyes on a nearby tea-towel.

"I realise I've been silly. Ginny's announcement just came as a bit of a shock I think," she turned to face Ron once again, looking much more relaxed than he'd seen her in days. "You are far too lazy though, Ron. I've really noticed this week how much you use magic for every little thing."

"That's probably true. Will you be happier if I promise to do more things with my hands from now on?" He flashed a cheeky grin and waggled his eyebrows.

Hermione laughed and rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, you can start by washing these dishes for me."

"I did buy a book today…" Hermione began, as she folded her t-shirt neatly on the chest of drawers opposite their bed.

"Shocking!" Ron gasped sarcastically, as he pulled his socks off one by one.

"Oh, ha ha," Hermione said, throwing her own balled-up socks at him. "It's about getting pregnant – the do's, the don'ts, the when's and so on."

"You mean it tells you how to suck all the fun out of sex?" Ron grimaced, dumping his own t-shirt on the floor next to the bed. "I thought we'd learnt from Seamus and Lavender about how dangerous that kind of thing is."

"No," she smirked. "I promise I won't let it take over our lives the way she did. It just tells us how to look after ourselves a bit better; the things to avoid that might affect our fertility. It's just little things to speed things along a little. You couldn't fetch it for me could you? It's on the…"

But before Hermione could finish her sentence, Ron had disappeared into thin air. He reappearing a couple of seconds later with a pop, the book in hand. Hermione couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"Oh, Ron!"

"What?!"