DISCLAIMER: Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and all other Harry Potter characters are property of JK Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. Thanks Jo, for being an author who allows people like me to have fun exploring the different paths your characters could travel down.
They all said the second baby would be different. It would be more relaxed. It would be easier. They would know what to expect. But nothing about the experience feels at all the same. Where Rose had arrived after eight hours of labor, he had been barely two. She had come into this world screaming, but he has made no noises aside from a few small 'mews' that sound more like a kitten than a baby. She was a healthy eight pounds and he was a few ounces shy of six. She arrived on her due date and he was a week early.
Everything about him is a surprise. Everything about him is perfect.
Ron hardly lets anybody else hold him. He gives his mum and dad a quick turn and obviously surrenders him to Hermione, but otherwise the tiny pink baby hardly leaves his arms.
"Isn't he perfect?" Ron mumbles to nobody in particular. He's not even sure who is still in the room anymore. His parents have come and gone along with at least one of his brothers. Harry and Ginny are supposed to be by with Rose any time now. "Look, he's looking at me!" He calls excitedly each time his son opens up his eyes even though Hermione tells him his eyes can't even focus yet. "And look how strong he is!" He jabbers excitedly each time he pulls his arms out of the swaddle. He's quiet and willful and strong, Ron can see already. He's full of personality and will completely change their lives. He needs a name befitting of all that.
They've discussed names plenty over the last nine months, narrowing the girls and boys names down to five apiece. There's Theo and Owen and Alfred and Lewis. He doesn't even have to ask Hermione. He looks down at his son and then back at her and she just smiles and nods her head.
Of course, it's Hugo. Tiny, perfect Hugo. Their son.
Hermione is glowing. She recovers quicker than she did with Rose and she looks fresher, eyes sparkling with happiness and beaming with joy while Hugo nurses. He remembers that amazing moment when Rose first latched to Hermione's breast and she first transformed from a woman to a mother. He forgot how perfect a sight it is.
He can't stop staring at his wife or his son.
"He's so perfect," he repeats for the millionth time.
When Ginny and Harry arrive with Rose and she eagerly climbs up onto the bed to sit next to her mother.
They're a family of four now.
He's an easy baby. He doesn't cry much and sleeps so well that Ron wakes up numerous times in the night just to make sure his son is still breathing. He's struck with the same wonder and amazement as when they had Rose. He still can't believe they made him. That he and Hermione and their lovemaking made this perfect little boy. That the tiny foot pressed against his palm is the same one he felt kick inside Hermione for the first time outside Flourish and Botts.
He constantly pulls his arms out of his swaddle and though he doesn't cry often, when he does Ron is quite sure his parents can hear it all the way over in Devon. He's a fussy eater too and has difficulty nursing. Though Ron hates the tears and frustration it causes Hermione, he delights in the opportunity to share the time feeding his son that he didn't get with Rose until much later.
Rose is a good big sister. She's grown used to being the only child and her behavior upon Hugo's arrival had been a major point of concern for much of the nine months leading up to his birth. Ron knows some of her good behaviour has something to do with the sweets he brings her from the shop every day and tells her are from Hugo, but the rest is genuine love for her baby brother.
She asks constantly how long it will be until Hugo grows up and though she gets frustrated that all he does is lie there Rpn knows it's just because she wants to play with him. She likes to help though, running to fetch his bottle and burping cloth whenever Ron or Hermione pick him up. She even picks up her favorite books and pretends to read to him, which delights Hermione to no end.
Ron cherishes the moments he didn't know he missed, waking up at three AM to change a diaper and make a bottle. It's nights like those when he's feeding Hugo out in the sitting room in the dark and Rose climbs down the stairs to join them that he can't believe this is his life.
Hugo is five weeks old when he smiles for the first time. Once again, Ron's forgotten what a perfect sight it is. It's Hermione who sees it after a midnight feeding and diaper change. She rouses him out of the bed and, at first, he's in a panic that something is wrong.
When she tells him Hugo is smiling, he grumbles at her, only because every time he's called her over for a smile she's insisted it's only gas.
"You're sure it's not just gas again?" He rubs his eyes blearily.
"No, he's clearly reacting to external stimuli." The matter-of-fact statement makes him grin. Despite being a mother of two now, she still so often reminds him of the swotty girl he met on the train when he was eleven. "Watch!" She coos in a soft nonsensical manner, babbling rhymes and nonsense words at the baby. He knows their children are the only people who will ever hear such nonsense come out of her mouth. He loves hearing it. So does Hugo. His son's perfect pink gummy smile lights up the room.
The first time Hugo sleeps through the night Rose begins having nightmares. Then when Rose's nightmares - which he's pretty sure are the fault of her cousins' stories about trolls and banshees - end, Hugo goes back to only sleeping four hours a night. He swears his children are in collaboration together. Their sleep cycles are so out of sync it has to be deliberate. Sometimes the cries of one wake up the other. Sometimes one goes to sleep right when the other wakes up. No matter what it means night after night of little sleep.
It's after one of these sleepless nights where Hermione goes upstairs to soothe Rose and Ron goes to the kitchen to make a bottle for Hugo that he proposes the idea. He asks if her parents still talk to the young man for whom their son is named. Hermione, eager to fall back asleep, just mutters that she doesn't know. It's been a long time since either has talked to him.
The idea of a trip right now when their lives are so chaotic seems like madness. They have difficulty just getting away for trips to see the grandparents. Ron can't shake the idea though. He spends all night thinking about the young man who changed their lives and has a hard time believing it was ten years ago.
"We can't even find time to get to Harry and Ginny's for tea!" Hermione scoffs when he pitches the idea of journeying across the world the following morning.
"What if we left Rose here?" he maintains. "Your parents would love to have her to themselves for a week."
"We haven't talked to him for years, Ron!"
"You know that wouldn't matter."
We don't have time. It's too expensive. He's too young.
There's a million reasons not to go.
Her parents are instrumental in helping with the logistics. They have an address and a telephone number, though they warn them it's a few years old. It's been years since even they have communicated with him and even then it was always through letters. The number works and Ron finds himself oddly choked up when he hears the voice on the other line. He associates the voice, more than anything else, with those first few painful weeks after his brother's death and it takes him a moment to splutter out his own name.
"It's Ron." He wonders if he needs to say more. "Ron and Hermione."
Hermione's mum and dad grin at the exuberant response that even they can hear through the telephone on the other side of the sitting room. There's no hesitation. Ron can tell, even through the phone, he's exactly as he remembered.
Numerous phone calls follow and working out the details is tricky. He can tell her parents are a bit jealous. They've done more, after all, to keep in touch with him than he and Hermione have after all these years. He's even heard them talk about going back before. He and Hermione need this trip though and her parents can see it. So her parents gladly take a tearful Rose and bid goodbye as he and Hermione journey once again to Australia.
He lives outside Sydney now and part of Ron wishes it was Brisbane or Perth, some place he might remember and not this completely foreign city. He's strangely nervous as they approach the house and he can tell so is Hermione. It's been a decade since they've seen him after all.
A pretty blonde woman answers the door to welcome them inside. She has a plate of giant prawns in her hand and a small dark-haired child clutches her leg. The floor is littered with children's' toys and Ron can't help but grin at the familiar sight as she leads them through the maze of puzzles, building blocks and stuffed animals to the garden.
He has a dark beard covering his cheeks and he's standing over the grill with another child, a boy about Albus' age, while two other older children kick around a football. Ron can't see him very well and the knowledge that the man surrounded by children is the same lonely stranger they met in Brisbane ten years ago is hard to comprehend.
He can tell Hugo must be thinking much the same thing when his eyes rest on Ron and Hermione. His eyes light up when they fix on the child perched on Hermione's hip. They didn't tell him about the baby on the telephone.
"You've got a family!" Hugo remarks jovially, eyes full of joy.
"And you!" Ron remarks with a wide grin, looking at all the children. They laugh and step toward each other and the hug is automatic. Ron tries to remember the last time he saw him as he feels Hugo's arms embrace him.
He moves to hug Hermione next, but baby Hugo interrupts to grab at her hair and they both share a laugh at how much has changed since they last saw each other. They'd been teenagers then, nervous and awkward, with sounds still raw from the war.
"Ah, you two look exactly the same," he grins widely.
"You too," Ron remarks happily. He finds the sight of his still chipped tooth comforting, assurance that despite all the differences this is indeed still the same man who had guided them to her parents. Hugo hurries to introduce his four children and his wife and Ron looks to Hermione with anticipation, waiting to introduce him to their son. He can barely contain his grin as he says the words.
"This is Hugo."
They share stories about their kids and talk about her parents and reminisce about their trip across the Nullarbor ten years ago. Hugo has spun the tale now so that they subsided entirely on Vegemite and Freddo Frogs for the entire cross-continent trip. Ron wonders somewhere through the meal if Hugo ever told his wife about any of it. Past the road trip and the reunion with her parents, he wonders if he ever shared the more mysterious parts of their sudden appearance in his life. His wife treats them both the same way Hermione would treat Seamus or Dean if they stopped by for supper, like old school friends he'd grown up with.
When he hears a mention of Uncle Brandon, Ron's face lights up.
"You found your brother then?"
"Sure enough." Hugo smiles back. "Wasn't hard once I moved back to Sydney. Just asked around really. How are you brothers?"
"All married, but one," Ron informs. "So lots of cousins running around when we all get together."
"So where's your oldest?" he asks.
"With my mum and dad," Hermione informs and Hugo smiles at the mention of her parents. "Thought it might be a bit much with two."
"I hear that," Hugo laughs. "You gonna have anymore or is this one it?"
"We'll see." The question is one Ron and Hermione are both used to by now. Sometimes they both think about having more, especially when he sees Harry with his litter or Hugo with his four kids, but mostly he thinks his life is perfect exactly where it is. "What about you?"
"Not if this one has anything to say about it," he snorts and looks to his wife.
"Four's quite enough, thank you!"
He's not sure why the sight of Hugo with a family warms him so much. Maybe it's because the young drifter he remembers had so clearly craved the sense of family Hermione's parents had briefly provided. Maybe it's because, after all these years, when he sees Hugo he feels like he's being reunited with a brother.
They pass Hugo off to his namesake after dinner. He bounces the baby on his knee and sings a song Ron's never heard before about a "home among the gum trees".
"I've been around the world, a couple of times or maybe more," Hugo sings softly to the smiling baby. "I've seen the sights. I've had delights on every foreign shore."
His kids all seem to know the song too and they giggle and mime actions along with the words. Baby Hugo is smiling as wide as Ron thinks he's ever seen. Hugo hands him back to Hermione so he can join his kids in acting out the words while he sings.
It's a song about home, Ron realizes. About a clothesline and a rocking chair and the place he adores more than any other.
They reminisce some more once all the kids are down and Hugo's wife has turned in for the night, leaving them all alone out in the garden beneath the stars. It's been a long time since Ron's been filled with such nostalgia. Since having Rose, his teenage years seem like another lifetime. He can tell Hugo is enjoying recounting the memories too.
"Remember how scared you were to brunch with her mum and dad?"
"Remember how pissed we got at the hotel bar?" Ron counters.
"Remember asking me for sex advice?"
"I never did that!" Ron snorts.
"Sure as shit, you did!" Hugo roars at Ron's denial and opens up another beer. Hermione inquires about just what input Hugo gave and they all share a laugh over how insecure they'd both been.
Hugo starts rattling off things to do in the upcoming days, a trip to the aquarium, a barbie on the beach. Ron knows immediately that more trips to Australia will follow this one. He wonders why this trip took so long to take. He wonders how it was so easy to let their lives get away from them. Australia had been a part of him and Hermione both. It got to the point those first few years where Harry and Ginny tired of hearing stories that started with 'one time in Australia'. But then came careers and children and buying a house and their trip across the world faded from their memory. Maybe next time they'll bring Rose or perhaps it will be a trip both his kids can take with their grandparents when they get older, but they'll be back. He knows, looking at Hugo, that it's a certainty, just the same way it had been when he was eighteen.