"Open my gift last, Bonnie!" A girl in black pigtails shrieked. The little child named Bonnie giggled, her blue eyes flashing with excitement. She tore off the paper to reveal a miniature broomstick just the right size for a six year old. Bonnie smiled even wider, turning and raising the gift up to a woman with brown, bushy curls, whose name happened to be Hermione Granger.
"Look what Lillie got me, mommy! Look at it! Can I ride it?" She flashed her smile, her freckles dancing on her cheeks. It was true that Bonnie was a beautiful child. She had curly red hair, a splatter of freckles, and baby blue eyes that caused her mother to always give in to whatever she wanted. Slowly, her mother nodded. Bonnie shrieked and tossed her arms around Hermione, laughing. "Thank you!" She called behind her as she began to run. Her mother sighed.
"I know a wonderful gift you could have given her." Hermione jumped, looking behind her to see Harry Potter. He was looking at her with a sad expression on his face, and he placed a hand on her shoulder. "A father." Hermione's face fell and she swatted Harry away.
"Stop that. I thought you would have learned by now." She looked up to see her daughter soaring on her broomstick, being chased by her uncles Fred and George. Amazing, how skilled she was at such a young age. She tried to smile, but a smile wouldn't come. "See? You've just ruined it all. Now I'm depressed."
"He's been trying, Hermione. All he needs is that push. Just a little push could trigger everything. You, Bonnie, your life with him... it could all come back." Harry looked at his best friend with sympathy and care. "She's going to ask about her daddy someday. She'll see me with Lillie and James, or she'll see Fred with Macy, or Bill with one of his kids... she'll know something's missing." Hermione's face grew blank, and she swallowed hard.
"I'll tell her when the time is right." She answered emptily. "But now isn't the time." She wanted to tell Harry that there would never be a time, because Ron would never remember her. And as long as that was so, then she wouldn't tell her child about her father, the father that didn't know who she really was.
"When is the time, Hermione? When he's decided that he has no romantic past and decides to go off with some random girl and get married and have his own new family? When, Hermione?" Harry asked, placing a firm and unmoving hand on her shoulder. She blinked, a tear rolling down her face. She didn't tell Harry that she had the intention of never telling Bonnie who her father was.
"He has memories of Ginny. He remembers a little about you. He doesn't remember me as we were. I'm just his friend. The bookworm he hung out with in school. Not his girlfriend, not the mother of his child. Just a friend." Hermione tried to keep in her tears; this was a birthday party after all.
"Just one thing, Hermione. A memory, a statement, a touch; the healers even said so." Hermione stood up and turned to face Harry, a look of desperation and hurt in her eyes.
"I'm not going to force the memory on him." She whispered. "If he really, truly loved me, he'd know. He told me that he'd love me no matter what, that he'd come back to me no matter what happened. And he hasn't come back." She paused, then turned and began to walk away.
"Think about Bonnie!" Harry called out, and Hermione stopped dead in her tracks. She spun and glared back at him as though he had just cast an unforgivable curse. "Growing up without a dad, with just one parent! Think about her, Hermione!" Her heart physically ached.
"That's why I'm doing this." She answered through her tears, before disappearing into the house.
Author's Note: First of all, thank you guys for reading this! It means a lot. Second of all, a little backstory on this story: I started writing it before Deathly Hallows came out so yes, it is AU. However, only the first three chapters were written before my old computer crashed and deleted everything. Recently I've been inspired to pick the story back up where it left off. I've done little editing to the first few chapters, and I will let you all know when the new writing starts. Once again, thank you so much for reading.
