An Eventful Morning
"MOTHER!" a voice called from the top of the stairs. "HAVE YOU SEEN MY RED SHIRT?"
"No, dear," Hermione replied distractedly, without looking up from the hefty stack of paperwork on the table in front of her, "and could you please not shout? If you need to ask me something, then come downstairs!"
This remark was followed by the sounds of a door being slammed loudly and a disgruntled teenager storming down several flights of stairs.
"But Mum, I TOLD you to iron it! I need it for this afternoon, none of my other tops go with these jeans!" Rachel Weasley said, her voice growing more shrill as she became increasingly irate. She placed her hands on her hips and aimed a very hard glare directly at her mother, waiting for a reply. Hermione sighed and put down her quill with the greatest of reluctance. There was no way of avoiding an argument…
"Firstly, if you need your shirt ironed you can do it yourself. I am not a laundry service. Secondly, what do you mean, none of your other clothes go with those jeans? What your wearing just now looks fine!" She paused to watch her daughter raise her eyebrows in an expression that clearly said "Mother, you have no sense of style whatsoever," before continuing. "And thirdly, you aren't going anywhere this afternoon. I need you here to watch your sisters -- your father and I have to go…"
Hermione never got to complete her sentence.
"WHAT? That is totally unfair! I never get to go anywhere cause you always need me to watch my stupid little sisters! Why don't you just get a babysitter or something? Or leave them on their own?"
"I can't leave them on their own!" Hermione said, her face a picture of shock. "They're far too young! I didn't let you stay home when you were 11, and I won't let Abby either."
Rachel let out an agitated shriek. "God, I HATE you Mother! You're such a killjoy! Dad would let me go!"
"Dad would let you go where?" an amused voice said from the doorway. Hermione saw a familiar grin flicker over her husband's freckled face as he walked in on them having yet another argument.
When Hermione spoke again, her voice was dangerously soft. "Oh, hello, dear. Our daughter was just saying that you would let her go shopping whilst we were out, leaving her sisters on their own. Is this true?"
"Of course not! How can you even think that of me?" Ron's voice sounded shocked, but he had a look on his face as though he might not have been entirely speaking the truth. Fortunately he was saved from any further questioning by a loud thud and an ear-piercing scream coming from upstairs.
"Mum, Lucy's hurt herself!" said a voice from above with a note of panic. Thinking that this fact was rather self evident, but nevertheless still concerned, Hermione flung herself up the stairs three at a time, followed closely by Ron. Rachel remained downstairs, still stewing over the injustice of her mother's decision.
Hermione was greeted by the sight of Abby nervously trying to stem the copious flow of blood coming from her little sister's face. Her attempts, however, appeared to be making things worse, if anything.
"Mumby, I bumpd by dose! It's bleedink!" Lucy sobbed, waving her hands about theatrically, her face covered in blood.
"I'm sorry, Mum, it was an accident, I opened the door, I didn't realise she was behind it…"
"… it really hurts, Mumby, amb I goink to be ok? Is it broke?"
"Don't worry sweetie, it's OK…" Hermione said, relieved that the situation wasn't as bad as she had first imagined. "I don't think it's broken, it's just a nosebleed. Sit down on the stairs. Ron, can you get me some tissues?"
"Yeah…tissues…" Ron said weakly. Hermione noticed that he had turned rather pale. She sighed. He was always like this when it came to incidents involving blood.
"Can I help, Mum? She should hold her head back and pinch her nose -- that's what they taught us to do at first aid at school…" Although it would have been quicker to sort magically, Hermione knew that the best way to deal with the situation was to simply let Abby prove that she was right. If they didn't, they would be receiving first aid tips for the rest of the day, mingled with complaints that they didn't think her responsible enough.
"Okay, Abby, you take her to the bathroom and sort her out, and I'll deal with the carpet." Hermione pulled out her wand from her skirt pocket, pointed it at the splodge of blood on the floor and muttered a charm under her breath. Instantly the stain evaporated from the lilac carpet. She checked that Abby had dealt with Lucy in an appropriate manner, and then headed downstairs, hoping to speak to Ron for at least a few seconds before their children successfully created yet another minor catastrophe to divert them.
She entered to see him sitting at the kitchen table, a large mug of black coffee in his hands. A shortage of employees in the department meant that he had been working nights for the past fortnight, much to her annoyance. They had barely spent five minutes together in the past week, and it was at least that long again before he was back to working his usual hours. He yawned loudly, without bothering to cover his mouth, before taking a large gulp of coffee and making a disgusted face. He hated the taste, but he drank it for the caffeine.
She planted a kiss on his cheek as she walked past on her way to the kettle. She was just about to pour herself some tea when she heard a familiar hooting and the dull thud of the mail landing on the table. She turned back to see the family owl, Morven, settling onto her perch, and a large stack of letters sitting next to Ron's mug. Rachel, who had reached a phase of doing as much as humanly possible to irritate her mother, took this opportunity to yell loudly and rather unnecessarily, "POST!"
"Yes dear, we can see that," Hermione replied rather brusquely. Apparently oblivious of the argument developing around him, Ron picked up the letters and began rifling through them, before pausing and turning excitedly to his exasperated wife.
"It's here!" he said, an eager grin on his face.
"What's here?" Hermione said sharply. She was in no mood to play Ron's little cryptic clue game.
"Abby's letter! It's here!"
Hermione finally grasped his meaning. "Rachel, go and tell your sisters to come down!" she said excitedly, almost bouncing on the spot.
Rachel stood up, huffing and moaning, walked to the foot of the stairs, tossed her long dark curls off of her shoulders and bellowed "ABBY! LUCY! MUM WANTS YOU TO COME DOWN!". She then walked back over to her seat, sat down and folded her arms across her chest, as though challenging Hermione to pick a fight. Hermione, however, was far too excited to pick up the argument.
Abby's freckled face poked round the corner of the staircase. "What is it, Mum? Have we done something wrong?"
"What? No, of course not! It's just that there's a letter here that I think you might find interesting…" Hermione said teasingly.
"Oh, Mum! Is it the letter from the school? Is it? Is it?" Abby whispered, her deep blue eyes brimming with anticipation.
"You'll just have to see for yourself," Ron said, unable to hide his delight. "Why don't you have a look…" He handed her the thick parchment envelope addressed to Miss Abigail Weasley.
Unable to contain her excitement, Abby ripped the envelope open, flung it to one side and unravelled the contents. Her eyes rapidly scanned the letter. After a few seconds, she began to jump up and down, her hair flying everywhere, shouting "I GOT IN! I GOT IN!".
Hermione wondered why on earth she sounded so surprised- she had known that she would be going to Hogwarts ever since she had shown her first signs of magic. Hermione could remember it quite vividly- Abby had been five years old when she started to use her powers. She kept doing the strangest things- melting crayons, exploding small objects and turning her juice purple. Unfortunately, she tended to do these things at school, leading Miss Reilly, the teacher of the infants, to believe that she was having a severe mental breakdown, complete with hallucinations, no doubt caused by the stress of trying to teach a classroomful of noisy 5 year olds who really don't want to be taught.
No, Hermione had always known that Abby was magical. It was Lucy who worried her- she was 9 now, and she still hadn't shown any signs of magical powers whatsoever. She knew that this probably wasn't anything to get too worked up about, and that the chances of her daughter being a Squib were fairly slim, but she had a naturally paranoid mind, and the thought worried her greatly. She also couldn't help remembering that children who didn't show any signs of magic until they were fairly old tended to be less skilled at it later in life. Ron tried to reassure her by reminding her that he hadn't shown any signs of being magical until he was almost 9. Oddly enough, this did nothing to reassure Hermione regarding Lucy's potential ability.
A thought suddenly struck Hermione. "You're going into fifth year now, aren't you Rachel?"
"Wow, well done, Mum. Maybe now that you've realised that you can stop treating me like a first year," Rachel replied scathingly.
"There's no need to be sarcastic," Hermione said irritably. "A simple yes or no answer would have sufficed. As I was saying, if you're going into fifth year, you'll find out whether you've been made a prefect or not. Though with your attitude, I suspect it's more likely to be 'or not'."
Ron glanced over at the look on his daughter's face. She appeared to be torn between two very powerful emotions: on the one hand, there was the rare opportunity to prove her mother wrong (an emotion he recognised from experience); but on the other hand there was the pretence of being a rebellious teenager to keep up, which would be somewhat tainted by prefecthood. When he spoke again, it was with a slight note of amusement. "Well, Rachel? Have you been made a prefect or not?"
Rachel gave him an evil glare, which he ignored, before replying in a sing-song voice "Actually, I have."
Hermione squealed in triumph, before leaping up and grabbing her daughter in a giant bear-hug. "Oh, I'm so proud of you, sweetheart! My baby girl, a prefect! Oh, I knew we raised you well!" Ron had a funny feeling that Hermione was exaggerating her sickliness deliberately to annoy Rachel, and from the disgusted look on his daughter's face it appeared to be working.
"Mu-um! Gerroff! It's not that big a- ARRGH!"
A resounding crash echoed through the room. Hermione quickly released Rachel from her embrace and spun to look at Lucy, who was holding Rachel's wand with a guilty look on her face.
"I was, erm, just trying to move the plates over to the table but it, erm, didn't quite work…you can fix it, right?"
Hermione looked from the shattered china on the floor to Lucy's face, unsure of whether to scold her daughter or praise her. She settled for bursting into tears.
"Thank goodness! Oh, I'm so happy! You are magical, after all!" Hermione blubbed. Highly embarrassed by his wife's unusually melodramatic behaviour, Ron handed her a wad of tissues, into which she blew her nose loudly. He then made an attempt to take control of the situation.
"Have you girls all had breakfast? Yes? Well, I'm sure you've got things to do, people to see… go on!"
He shooed his daughters out of the kitchen, pausing only briefly to tell Rachel to call a babysitter for this afternoon, and to make sure she was back from town in time for supper. Once they had dispersed, he headed back to the kitchen table, where Hermione was busy gathering her emotions, looking shocked and slightly embarrassed by her reaction.
"Well, it's been quite an eventful morning! I'll have to write to everyone and tell them all the good news!" Ron said cheerfully.
Hermione gave her husband a small smile. She could see from the look on his face that he was just as proud of their daughters as she was. But she had one more surprise left for him…
"Yes, imagine! All of these things happening on the same day!" she said, a slight note of sweetness running through her tone.
"We really have raised our girls well, haven't we? And you always thought that we were doing a bad job!" Ron said, his voice full of laughter. "Still, the hardest bits are all over, aren't they? We'll never have to change another nappy or teach another child how to fly a broomstick ever again… or at least until Rachel has kids of her own!" Hermione grinned. Now was her chance.
"I wouldn't get too complacent if I were you. You aren't done yet. In fact, you're going to get the pleasure of doing the whole thing over again! Hey, maybe this time we'll have a boy!" She glanced at the bewildered look on his face, before continuing. "And, by the way, I'd get used to the taste of coffee, if I were you. You probably won't be getting a lot of sleep a few months from now, and I expect you'll need the energy…"
And with that remark, she spun on her heel and headed out of the kitchen door, a wicked smile spreading across her face, leaving Ron standing on his own, mouth wide open.
A/N- Hope you enjoyed this; this fic kind of works as a "prologue" for a fic I intend to post soon, called "A Winter's Day", which I hope you will all read...Thanks for reading this!