~ Chapter Seven – Mauled by a Manticore~
Gryffindor girls dormitory, Hogwarts
July 1999
There was no one around her. She was entirely alone, and for some reason this frightened her. She couldn't see anything besides the sky; there was too much sky. It was the strangest colour – a faded blue that was almost oyster and flecked with gold all over. She reached up to touch a hand to it but it seemed to evaporate, like smoke, slipping through her fingers and hurtling away from her, so that darkness wrapped around her abandoned figure, silhouetting her, and though she tried to run to escape it, to chase the retreating light, the sky was far beyond reach now.
And then it was gone, and all there was was darkness, and nothing, and only her, left all alone and with no idea how she was going to find her way back home again.
"Wake up, get up, quick!"
Ginny's voice sounded panicked. It snapped into Hermione's consciousness, pulling her sharply and easily from her dream. Hermione squinted in the sudden light cast from her awakening and then sat bolt-upright, afraid. "Why? What's happened?"
Ginny ran across the dormitory at a pace that shouldn't have been normal for a human being and pulled the duvet back from Hermione, who was still frowning sleepily. "Fleur's having the baby, we've got to go, c'mon. I've put some clothes on the chair for you – we have to get going, Bill's asking for us."
Hermione sprang into action; kicking off the duvet she clambered out of bed, rushing around their dormitory as quietly as she could and dressing haphazardly. Ginny was already fully dressed but she was taking no such care to be quiet. Hermione could already see Lavender and Parvati stirring in their beds and she pointed this out to Ginny with a cautious glare. Ginny merely stared at her in response, incredulity twisting her pretty features.
"Are you mad?" she whispered, and her face split into a grin so wide it should have been illegal. "Fleur's having the baby – I'm about to be an auntie, I couldn't care less if I wake up the whole castle!"
"Wait – Ginny, we can't just leave, what about -"
"Professor McGonagall already knows, Mum told her, and our exams aren't for three days," Ginny said quickly, without looking up from stuffing robes into a little rucksack. Hermione couldn't argue with this, though she tried; Ginny was right, the baby was more important than one day of missed revision.
Ten minutes later, Hermione had managed to calm Ginny a little, but she was still fizzing with excitement, and so Hermione managed to elicit only broken fragments of explanation from her; apparently Ron sent his Patronus to her to say that Fleur had gone into labour and to come to St Mungo's as soon as possible. The two of them rushed downstairs to the Common Room, fully dressed, and made their way to the fireplace. The plan, Ginny hissed happily to Hermione, was to use the Floo Network to get them as far as the Burrow, where Hermione would then transport Ginny via Side-Along Apparition to St Mungo's to meet everyone else.
Ginny gripped Hermione's hand and squeezed tightly, her eyes shining happily in the firelight.
"Ready?"
"Ready."
~ OoOoO ~
"I didn't know babies being born was so….disgusting," Ron said flatly. He was staring at the faded blue linoleum of the hospital floor, the long fingers of one hand wrapped around a polystyrene cup of coffee. His dark red hair was sleep-sculpted and stuck up at the back.
"Ah, the joys of sex education," said Hermione half-mockingly, rubbing her tired eyes with the flat of her palm, and Ron turned his head to face her, his incredulous expression almost comical if she hadn't been so exhausted.
"What are you talking about?" he said. "I never got sex education – all I got was Mum telling me about when two people love each other very much and are married - she always emphasised the married part - they decide to have a baby. She never said anything about blood, or how slimy they are, or that it makes women sound like they're being mauled to death by a Manticore!"
Hermione suppressed a smile; Ron was still clearly shell-shocked by witnessing the birth of another baby as everyone apart from Bill and Mr and Mrs Weasley were ushered out of Fleur's room. An hour later, Fleur was still struggling to give birth, and Ron, bored, had turned to talking about his earlier trauma.
"Surely you realised where they come from though?" asked Harry, half-grinning and half-disbelievingly. Then again, it wouldn't have surprised him if Ron didn't; he could be surprisingly obtuse, even now, after almost a year's worth of Auror training.
"Well, yeah, but when I thought about it I never really pictured it actually..you know...exiting." Ron's voice dropped to a horrified whisper at the final word, causing Harry, Ginny and George to roar with laughter, to the disapproval of two passing Healers. Their laughter was cut short by the sound of stampeding feet; Bill had practically thrown himself down the stairs in an effort to reach them, and the joy in his voice snagged on his teeth so that as he smiled wolfishly they could see it plainly.
"We've got a little girl!" he cried, and then he gestured upstairs, cutting short the little group's shrieks of happiness. "Come and see her, come see my daughter – but try and be quiet, Fleur's exhausted."
Ron thought this was a little hypocritical of Bill, considering the fact that he was practically shouting about his daughter's birth, but he let this slide and did not comment but traipsed up the stairs after everyone else. At the threshold to the door he hung back, saying his shoelace needed tying, and as everyone else entered the little room and the door swung closed he stooped to his shoes.
"You're such a bad liar."
Ron looked up in surprise. Hermione was standing there, arms folded, an eyebrow raised quizzically.
"No, I'm not," he started, indignant. "How do you know I'm lying?"
"Easy," said Hermione. "You're wearing slip-on shoes."
"Bugger." Ron straightened and leant against the smooth beige surface of the wall.
"Do you want to tell me why you're making excuses not to see your niece?" asked Hermione, resting against the wall alongside him.
"Not particularly," sighed Ron. Hermione felt for his hand and took it, squeezing gently.
"Will you?"
Ron looked at her carefully. He was silent for long moments, but for once Hermione did not pry or nag; she only looked at him, as if she were afraid that to speak would frighten away any answer he had to give. He took a deep breath. "I'm rubbish with babies."
He waited for her to laugh. When she didn't, he pressed on. "I don't know what to do with them, I can't stand it when they cry, and I know Bill'll want me to hold her but I'm terrified I'll drop her."
"Ron…" Hermione began, but Ron cut her off.
"Don't say it, Hermione. Don't say that I'll be fine, and it'll come to me, and don't say that I've done harder things than hold a baby, okay? Just – just don't."
"I wasn't going to," said Hermione coolly, and when Ron looked at her, confused, she continued. "I wasn't going to say anything at all, actually. Except that you're nowhere near as useless as you seem to think you are."
"I don't think I'm useless."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
"Don't lie to me, Ron."
There was a long moment in which Ron simply stared at Hermione. She could see the muscle working in his jaw and knew that every word he wanted to say was collecting at the base of his throat. She could see his pulse beating there, making the spattering of freckles dance along the column of his neck, and she focused on that, one of her favourite parts of him, so that he had time to answer her or to change the subject if he wanted to. To her enormous surprise, he didn't want to.
"If I'm not useless, how come it took me three years even to realise I liked you and then another two years on top of that to even get anything started with you? If I'm not useless, then how come out of all three of us, I'm the one who abandoned you two when it got a bit difficult?"
Hermione smiled and stood on her toes to kiss the tip of his nose. "That doesn't make you useless," she said confidently. "It might have taken you a while, but you did get things started with me. And you came back, even though it was difficult. That makes you a bit slow, maybe, but definitely reliable. You're not useless."
Ron didn't answer her but pulled her close to him, wrapping himself tightly around her so that he could breathe the scent of her hair in. "What would I do without you?" he murmured.
"You'd have to go back to kissing your Aunty Muriel," Hermione smiled and pulled back from him. "Now, are you going to see your niece or not?"
~ OoOoO ~
"Mum, it's been three hours now," said Ginny. "Seriously, stop crying."
"I can't help it," smiled Mrs Weasley, staring down at the little bundle in her arms. Her new grand-daughter kicked and squirmed, the hair that sprouted from the top of her pink little face like silver strands of silk, her eyes wide and deep blue. Reluctantly she passed the baby back to Fleur, who nestled herself more comfortably in her pillows, supporting her daughter's head carefully.
"Have you thought of a name yet?" Mr Weasley asked Bill, and he shook his head.
"No, and I won't," he said, and the happiness that lit his face seemed to diminish the scars that zigzagged across it. "I'll love any name Fleur gives her."
"Well, I 'ave thought of sometheeng," said Fleur, smiling softly. "Tomorrow eet ees one year since ze Great Battle. I would like to honaire ze courage of ze people 'oo died by naming my daughtair Victoire."
She looked around at the assembled group, wearing a haughty expression as if daring them to question her choice of name, but all of them were nodding gently in agreement.
Mrs Weasley was crying again. "It's perfect," she said, staring down at her first grandchild with a wondrous expression on her tired face. "Victoire Weasley."
"Weasley?" asked Ginny, looking up at Fleur and Bill. "Aren't you having a double-barrelled name?"
Bill shook his head. "Nope. Victoire Delacour-Weasley's a bit too much of a mouthful, don't you think? At least, Fleur seems to think so."
"I 'ave taken my 'usband's name and before zat I took my father's name. My daughtair will do ze same." Fleur said the words so matter-of-factly that no one bothered to argue, though this might have had something to do with the fact that, at that moment, Victoire decided to display her first yawn, which sent most of the room into raptures over how exquisite she was.
~ OoOoO ~
"God, I'm glad that's all over now," said Ginny, collapsing beside Hermione. The two of them were stretched out beside the Lake, soaking up the last of the sunshine before the sun set. "Just think – we never have to take an exam, ever again!"
"And we'll never come back here again, either. Or, if we do, we won't be able to just lie out here like this. What will you do once we've finished properly?" asked Hermione lazily. She couldn't remember the last time she felt so relaxed.
"I have no idea. Steal Victoire and go on the run with her?"
"Somehow I don't think Harry's ready to adopt a child with you," laughed Hermione, and Ginny nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, that plus the small problem of what Bill might do to me for stealing his first-born!"
"It's so weird thinking that this time last year everything was so different," murmured Hermione pensively. She turned onto her stomach and picked up a blade of grass, rolling it carefully between her thumb and forefinger.
"I know," replied Ginny solemnly. Then she brightened. "But that was then and this is now. Positive thinking, right?"
Hermione nodded, smiling. "Right."
"Anyway, talking of positive thinking, what're you and Ron doing for your one-year anniversary? It's soon, isn't it?"
Hermione smiled. "I have absolutely no idea. Knowing Ron it won't be anything at all."
"Well, you never know."
"True."
~ OoOoO ~
One week later
"Quick, they're coming – hide!"
Harry closed the door carefully behind him and hurried to crouch behind the sofa. At his fevered hiss, there was a flurry of movement as everyone else rushed to find a hiding spot before the door was opened; this was not so simple for Hagrid, who looked around helplessly before shrugging and folding his arms, grinning apologetically at Harry. The silence was taut in the room as all eyes stared intently upon the moulded chrome of the door handle, so that Harry could hear voices before he saw the handle twist.
"I still don't see why we had to come to Grimm – oh!"
"Surprise!"
Ginny's petulance died in her throat as she took in the scene before her, whilst Hermione simply rounded her mouth in a perfect O of surprise. The living room of Grimmauld Place had been utterly transformed; paper banners were strewn from wall to wall; brightly coloured balloons had been strung up from every available place in the room; dozens and dozens of candles had been bewitched to float above their heads, their gently pulsing flames changing colour every few seconds, so that the room was tinged green, violet, rose. On the far wall, opposite the door, an enormous banner had been put up, reading in flashing foot-high letters Congratulations! The room was filled with people, so many of them that their anticipation, barely contained, seemed to fizz in the air around them all. There was Hagrid, beaming from ear to ear, his beard trimmed and his beetle-eyes crinkled. There were all the Weasleys, including Charlie and Percy, Fleur nestling baby Victoire close to her chest like a precious secret. Hermione's parents stood in the centre of the little crowd, looking awkward but proud and smiling at their daughter with the whole of their hearts; there was Andromeda Tonks holding Teddy high as he gurgled happily and clutched at the balloon above his head; there were Neville and Luna, the latter of which was staring dreamily at the ceiling, frowning slightly as if unsure if she'd sighted something strange.
"Oh my…" breathed Hermione, as Mrs Weasley pushed forward to press a kiss on both their cheeks.
"Well, you didn't think we wouldn't celebrate you two graduating, now did you?" she smiled, and stepped aside as Luna moved forward to say hello.
"How did you get here before us?" asked Ginny incredulously. "You were on the train with us!"
"Is that why you insisted on taking us for ice cream in London before we could come home?" Hermione asked, turning to Ron who merely grinned. "So there was time to plan all this?"
"It's also why I pretended to lose my wallet and made you look for it," added Harry with a faux-apologetic look, and Ron stared at him.
"You told me you really did lose it! You made me pay!"
"Yeah, well, I got a free ice cream out of it, didn't I?" grinned Harry, and Ron punched him lightly on the arm.
"Don't get too cocky, I'm charging interest now."
The next few hours passed by in a blur as Hermione and Ginny moved around the room, greeting everyone and receiving their congratulations. Baby Teddy, in particular, seemed to take a liking to Ginny, and howled when Andromeda lifted her arms to take him from her, screwing his face up in an expression that could only have meant how could you do this to me? and clutching the straps of Ginny's sun-dress with chubby starfish hands and all the determination of a drunk spying an unattended bottle.
"He definitely takes after his mummy, doesn't he?" smiled Andromeda, folding her arms in resignation – her grandson would not be moved. "I remember when Nymphadora was little – you couldn't get her to say or do anything she didn't want to, no matter what you did."
"That's all right," said Ginny, making faces at the chuckling baby who, realising his position was no longer threatened, loosened his grip a little and relaxed in her arms enough to pull faces back at her. "Maybe I'll steal Teddy and Victoire and go on the run with both of them."
"Planning your own school then, Gin?" asked Harry, sidling up from nowhere, a drink in his hand and, soon, Ginny's hip curved into the other. "A little petting zoo of babies you've stolen."
Ginny shook her head in mock solemnity. "No," she smiled. "Just Teddy and Victoire. I'll run away to the mountains and raise them to be just like me."
"Well, at least you won't have to worry about protecting yourself, then," grinned Harry. "You're scary enough on your own, but if all three of you use the Bat-Bogey Hex…"
"Shut up, you," laughed Ginny. "Or I'll start Teddy's education early by demonstrating it on you."
Harry pulled a mock-frightened face but inside he was jubilant. It had been seven months since New Year's Eve, seven months in which he had wanted nothing more than to pick up from exactly where he and Ginny left off, which of course had not been easy, since she had been at Hogwarts the whole time. It was less difficult than he thought it would be, for the simple reason that Ron was in the same situation as him, but still, now that he had her home properly, he would not let her out of his sight. At least, he mused now, not if he could possibly help it.
She didn't know it, but he spent every spare second (spare only because he wasn't thinking over and over of how best to distract her and Hermione in order to allow their secret party to be prepared) mapping each and every detail he could find about her. As a result, if he was asked to describe the exact colour of her hair, he could now say that it didn't have one, because it was like gold-spun fire; he could tell you the pearly frequency of her laughter; he could place the constellation of freckles that powdered her face and tell you how many there were between the lower edge of her left eye and the corner of her smile.
He could tell you that when she smiled she smiled from the bottom of her heart, and he knew this because her happiness caught in her teeth, so that was plain to see; he knew this because it was the smile she handed to him when she lighted from the train and into his arms just hours before. He could say that she would always ask for chopped nuts on her ice cream and then pick each one out, so that she could pop them into her mouth one by one long after the ice cream had been eaten. He could describe the patch of skin on her jaw line that was a different colour to the rest of her face; the way the viola curve of her body seemed to fizz with a kind of restless energy when she was still, as if she were always anxious to be moving, to be living life; the way her eyes were a different colour depending on her mood, and that the best colour was the bright ash brown when she smiled her first smile of the morning, the kind that let him see straight through to the other side of her heart, the kind that tugged at his own.
Ginny knew none of this, but then that didn't matter very much, Harry reasoned, because there was plenty of time in which he could tell her everything. Why rush what would take a lifetime to say? So for now, he contented himself with wrapping his arm carefully around her and watching her mothering Teddy, jiggling him on her hip and charming a brightly coloured ball so that it hovered above his head and he batted delightedly at it.
Across the room, Ron was wiping his sweaty palms down the sides of his loose T-shirt and trying very hard to look like he wasn't. Robert seized the opportunity when Hermione left Ron to talk to Hagrid about her plans for the summer, and pulled him aside for "a quick word", and Ron, being Ron, could not think quickly enough of a polite way to say a very firm "No thank you, I would rather eat my own head than hear what you have to say, because it doesn't sound good," therefore was currently looking Hermione's father in the eyes and hoping very hard that he didn't look like he was staring.
"There's no need to look so scared," began Robert, smiling reassuringly, but Ron's terror doubled. This is definitely not good, he thought. They always reassure you when you're in trouble, not when it's a 'how-are-you' chat.
"I just wanted a little chat, that's all," Robert continued, and Ron attempted a smile, but changed his mind half-way through when he realised it would look like a grimace, with the subsequent result that he appeared to have suffered a mild stroke.
"Oh…er…erm…what – what about…?" said Ron vaguely, and then he frowned slightly as if expecting an answer, trying to give his flimsy response some weight. Luckily, Robert accepted it.
"Look," he sighed, wearing a defeated expression. "I always said to myself that – and I'm sure when you have children of your own you'll be the exact same way as me – when my daughter started dating properly I would have the proper Father Warning Chat." Something about the way he said the words made Ron imagine that they were capitalised, and therefore very important. "You know, casually cleaning a shotgun or working out when she introduces the boyfriend, and then warning him not to make her cry or I'll make him cry."
There was a brief silence, in which Robert collected his thoughts and his words and Ron tried not to look too alarmed at the mention of both "children of your own" and "cleaning a shotgun".
"So normally, I'd tell you to look after my daughter and treat her properly," said Robert finally, looking Ron straight in the eyes. "But by the looks of it, you've been doing that for years anyway."
Ron tried not to fall over with surprise. He didn't trust himself to say anything, so took a long draught from his goblet of pumpkin juice instead.
"Hermione doesn't need me anymore, I realise that. She proved that by sending her mother and me away for all that time. But she definitely needs you, and you seem to have risen to the challenge admirably. So thank you, for everything you've done for her." He extended a hand to Ron, who took it carefully, and squeezed strongly. "She's a wonderful girl," he said, and Ron nodded.
"She's amazing," he said. This time, when Robert smiled it wasn't so tightly laced; his eyes seemed warmer somehow now that the difficult part of the conversation was over, and the tired grooves around his mouth and eyes seemed shallower, his skin smoother and brighter with relief.
"Never forget that," Robert said. "Ever."
"I won't," promised Ron, aware as he spoke that he was making a binding promise, one that would last for the remainder of his life, and not caring one bit. He had no intention whatsoever of abandoning Hermione now that she was finally his, and the thought of ever having to was what kept him awake at night. He had barely had an opportunity to speak to her today, and as Robert made his way across to his wife, deep in conversation with Ron's mother about the merits of adding garlic cloves to certain dishes, Ron headed straight for Hermione, who, mercifully, was hovering by the drinks table, pouring more pumpkin juice into a glass.
"Hello, you," he said, standing behind her and whispering into the shell of her ear, his hands wrapped around her middle. She snuggled into him, feeling the way the contours of her body fit the spaces between his perfectly.
"Hello yourself. Where've you been, anyway?"
"Having a nice, friendly chat with your dad."
"Oh God, what's he said?"
"Oh nothing. Just something about shotguns -"
"Shotguns?!"
"Yeah, nothing major."
"You're calling talking about shotguns 'nothing major'?!" Ron couldn't see her face but he could draw from heart the incredulous expression that he knew was misting it now.
"Oh, details, details," he said airily, flapping a hand nonchalantly in the air. "Anyway, I want to talk to you."
"What about?"
"Absolutely nothing whatsoever, my nosey little squirrel, but that doesn't mean I don't want to talk to you."
"Alright, we'll go in the garden then."
She led him by the hand through the throng of people and out the back door into the garden where, immediately that they turn the corner out of sight, he spun her around and backed her against the wall of the house, stealing her breath as he did so.
"What did you want to say, then?" Hermione asked, knowing full well what the answer was going to be and tipping her head slightly to receive it.
"This," Ron breathed and he lowered his head to hers, capturing her mouth with his and stealing the breath from her once more, his body pressed close to hers so that she could feel his heartbeat racing alongside her own. She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, pulling him so close she swore she could almost feel his skin melting into her own, so close she could hear the notes of his pulse in her ears and her stomach, as she felt his mouth moving hot across hers.
"I've been wanting to do that all day," Ron breathed when they finally broke apart. "Happy anniversary."
Hermione beamed. "Happy anniversary," she repeated.
"I didn't get you anything," Ron admitted, unashamedly. "I was going to, but then I remembered you've got me, so what more could you want?"
"Funny," said Hermione. "I didn't think we were making too big a deal out of it anyway. And I already have a party, so it all worked out great for me."
Ron kissed her once more, slowly, so that this time she could taste the passion and the longing on his breath instead of just being caught up in the tide of it. He pulled away, biting his lip.
"Actually, I lied," he said, and Hermione frowned, confused. "I didn't get you anything, but I do have something for you."
"What is it?"
There was the briefest of pauses as Ron's courage caught in his throat, before he forced the words up.
"I love you," he said and he didn't close his eyes, though he wanted to, because he was watching the way her eyes changed colour as he said the words he had been thinking for months and been too afraid to voice. For a moment he thought it was the silvery reflection of the moon shining pearly in her eyes, until he looked closer and realised that the new brightness he saw was glowing straight from her heart.
"I love you," she whispered back, offering the words up like a prayer, and his heart soared at her words because he knew they were true, because she didn't say "I love you too", an automatic obligatory response, because she said them so slowly that each word seemed to reverberate from the force of her feeling. And suddenly all the words he had agonised over for the past few months, every word he discarded for not being big enough for what he wanted to say to her, all of them seemed to dam in his chest as they fought to be said at once, as they rose and swelled like a balloon, and his breathing constricted as he realised what had passed between them tonight, so that the only thing that made sense was to pull her close to him and hold her tight, hoping as he did so that she would somehow understand everything he couldn't say.
And, somehow, she did.
