FATHER

Chapter 8 - Hermione

After Elodie was safely tucked into bed, Harry and Hermione backed silently out the room, closing the bedroom door with a gentle click.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked about her father, it's really not any of my business", Harry said, reaching for his glasses and polishing them in his shirt tail.

"It's fine", Hermione said as they made their way into the kitchen. She meant it. Once upon a time those sorts of questions might have made her squirm but it had been long enough now that she could almost kid herself into believing her own lies.

"It's not an unfair question after all".

"Yes but, well, I know you don't like talking about him".

"It's not that I don't like it, it's just that there's nothing really to talk about" Hermione said. She pulled out a mug from the cupboard and proffered one towards Harry. "Want one?"

"Go on then", Harry said, replacing his glasses onto his face and leaning against the kitchen counter to watch as Hermione made tea.

"I'm sorry Ron couldn't make it tonight. He… the divorce has been hard on him".

Hermione turned and placed a mug in front of Harry. She shook her head sadly. "How's he been getting on?"

"Angelina is back with her parents. She took Briar with her. Ron says he's fine but we're worried about him. We try and have him round a couple of nights a week for dinner but I think well, with you coming back… I don't think he really knows how to deal with it all".

Hermione stood silent for a moment, the hot mug burning her fingertips. Once upon a time she had imagined that she might have married Ron, but their burgeoning romance had been swiftly quashed when she'd announced her decision to move only weeks after the final Battle.

He had wanted to follow her.

She had said no.

No one had known she was pregnant back then. She'd not told anyone, not even Harry. Instead she'd made her excuses that she needed to leave to find her parents. It was half of the truth, but not the whole truth. She couldn't bear the thought that her friends would find out about what she'd done, but the thought of terminating the life growing inside of her was worse. There has already been so much death and destruction that she couldn't bare to be the cause of any more.

So she'd moved away from them all and severed the connections as much as she dared.

At first her and Ron had written. He had professed his love to her amongst the folds of parchment. Told her that we would always be there waiting for her. And she had tried to reciprocate, knowing all the while how he would feel when he finally found out about the child growing inside of her that did not belong to him. She had led him on despite knowing it was the wrong thing to do. Ultimately, she had crushed him. He'd believed her lies that the father was someone she'd met at a bar that she'd stumbled into when she'd arrived, drunk on her own loneliness. He'd believed her that the baby had been born early. And though he loved her, told her that he would always love her, her betrayal was too much for him to overcome.

He had stopped writing. The years had passed and her daughter had grown. She heard from Harry than Ron had married Angelina Johnson, that they'd had their own daughter. She'd been happy for him, even as a silent ache deep in her chest had risen its head and spoken to her in a hushed whisper that it could have been her.

It should have been her.

"Does he, um, want to see me?"

Harry smiled sadly at her. "Yes, of course. Just maybe, maybe give it some time".

Hermione nodded. "Of course, whatever's best. Just tell him… that I'm here for him. Please".

"Of course I will". He paused for a moment and Hermione wondered if there was something else, something that he was holding back but then he leant back and sighed, looking around the small flat with a smile.

"It's nice here. How are you getting settled?"

"Fine. It's colder than I remembered that's for sure. I've had the heating on full blast ever since we got here".

Harry chuckled. "Hearing you say that it's like being twelve again. My uncle used to have such arguments with my aunt over the gas bill. I guess I've never really thought about it too much any more. Strange really, to think about just how reliant I've become on magic".

"You've lived with it for longer than without it; it's only natural".

"And you?"

"What about me?"

Harry gestured to the toaster sitting on the side and then to the television placed in front of the sofa on one of the packing boxes.

"You've always had one foot in the muggle world, Hermione. I don't blame you, for wanting to keep that. I always thought of Ron and Ginny as so lucky to have grown up with magic but well, there's stuff that we had that they didn't. Films and music and video games".

Hermione snorted softly. "They had music, Harry".

He waved a hand. "Limited music then, and most of it is terrible. Have you even heard the Willowed Warlocks? Anyway, I guess I'm saying that… it's good, that you're raising Elodie with a foot in both worlds. Looking back, I think if I had a chance to do it all again I might have done it that way".

"If you'd have gotten Ginny to agree", Hermione said smirking over the rim of her mug. "She once told me that tampons were the strangest thing she'd ever heard of".

Harry's cheeks turned a shade of red. It reminded her of just how prudish the wizarding community could be sometimes. She laughed and he caught her eyes, a smile banishing his sudden awkwardness.

"Well, yes, that".

"You're more than welcome, any time, you, Ginny and the boys. You can even plonk yourself down in front of that thing and introduce them to some of the classics", she said, nodding towards the TV. "I'm sure Elodie would like the company".

"How's she settling in? Must be hard leaving everything to move to a new country".

Hermione hummed in agreement. The guilt at pulling Elodie from everything that she'd known still sat like a rock in her chest. But no, this was the right thing. It had to be.

"She's… we're fine. It's just a bit of an adjustment, that's all. It's good for her to get to meet James and Albus anyway and I really mean it Harry, we'd love to have them round sometime. It'll be good for her".

Harry smiled and nodded, promising that he'd see it done.

They finished their tea in the gloom of the kitchen, and after Harry had planted a kiss against her cheek and stepped back into the Floo, Hermione washed up the mugs and then looked in on her sleeping daughter.

The girl lay serenely amongst the pillows and the stuffed animals which she had insisted they bring back despite needing an extra suitcase to do so. Her hair fell lightly around her and Hermione reached out and tucked a strand of it behind her ear.

Elodie Granger. Her daughter. Her world.

But there, in the bow of her lips, the blonde of her hair, the curling of her fair eyelashes, was another. She wondered how soon it will be until they crossed paths. Because she'd lied to Harry. She'd lied to everyone in fact. As far as she knew, Elodie's father still very much resided in England. And as much as she was loath to admit it, wizarding circles were small; it could only ever really be a matter of time until she would be forced to face him and keep a pleasant expression on her face as though he wasn't the man who had fathered her child on the floor of the Room of Requirement.

She wondered what Draco Malfoy would say if he found that he had a daughter.