Ron was absolutely dumbfounded. He stared across the table at his daughter, who was nervously biting her lip in the same way her mother did and staring back at him. "Holly?" he breathed. But that was impossible, wasn't it?
She gave a tiny nod of her head. "Rose and I, we—we met at school, at Beauxbatons, and the whole thing just sort of spilled out." Rose—no, Holly, apparently—covered her face with her hands and muttered, "Please don't hate me."
Ron barely let her finish the sentence before he was out of his chair, pulling her into a hug. His daughter. His other daughter, that is. "I could never hate you," he promised. "I've loved you since the minute you were born, all these years." Holly was crying softly into his jumper now.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry we didn't just tell you that we'd met." Holly pulled away from him and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. "It was...well, sort of Rose's idea. To trade lives for Christmas."
He couldn't help but chuckle. "Merlin, why doesn't that surprise me? So, wait, then Rose is…?"
"With Mum, in New York."
"And your mum has no idea?"
Holly shook her head, and Ron sighed heavily. He had to tell her. Ten years they hadn't seen or spoken to each other, and this was the first thing he had to say to Hermione.
"Can we just finish out the holiday?" Holly asked timidly. "I mean, I really wanted to spend time with you and everybody, and Rose will kill me if her time with Mum gets cut short."
"Well…" Ron said slowly. "Technically, you belong to your mum, and Rose belongs to me. I don't think it's fair to your mum that we don't tell her what's going on."
"His and hers kids," Holly scoffed, blowing a frizzy red curl out of her face. "No offense, Dad, but this arrangement really sucks."
Ron laughed, though it wasn't really funny; she was right. "I agree, it totally sucks. Listen, let me get in touch with your mum, and we'll see what we can do, okay? Don't worry about a thing."
Holly hugged him again as Harry entered from the backyard and eyed the pair of them curiously. "Everything okay in here?"
"Holly, why don't you head back out and watch the match and let Uncle Harry and I chat for a bit?" Holly nodded and headed out the back door, as Harry's eyes widened.
"What'd you just call her?" he asked incredulously.
"Tell me you didn't know," Ron replied darkly in answer.
"Know what? Is that really—? But how did—?"
"Hermione sent Holly to Beauxbatons, too. Tell me you didn't know."
"I—Ron, no, of course not." Harry held his hands up in surrender. "She didn't tell me. I would never do that to you. To either of you."
Ron sighed and pulled a bottle of firewhiskey from the pantry, pouring them both a glass. "They met at school. And apparently they take after Fred and George, because instead of confronting us about it, they decided to just switch places." Ron knocked his drink back and poured another. "I—I need to get in touch with Hermione."
"Well, you're in luck." Harry downed his whiskey as well. "She's in London." Ron looked up at Harry, suddenly pondering the merits of drinking straight from the bottle. "She and Holly—shit, she and Rose, I guess—are spending Christmas with her parents." Ron swore softly. He couldn't keep this from her, but he had hoped he could break the ice with a trans-Atlantic phone call before he actually had to see her after all these years. "Want me to go with you?"
Ron shook his head. "We've been avoiding this too long. I need to take care of things myself."
That afternoon, though, as he walked up to the Grangers' front door, he was regretting not taking Harry up on his offer. He forced himself to knock on the door before he lost his nerve. It only took a moment before the door swung open to reveal Hermione's dad, his eyebrows shooting up towards his hair as he saw Ron standing there.
"Ron?" Hugo asked disbelievingly, stepping out onto the front porch with him. "Is everything alright?"
"I'm sorry to just turn up like this, but I need to speak to Hermione. Please."
"She's not here. She and Holly and Jean are out hitting the Boxing Day sales. Is everything okay? Is Rose okay?"
Ron nodded. "Rose is fine." Rose was, apparently, hitting the Boxing Day sales with Hermione and Jean.
"I'll tell her you stopped by, if you like?"
"I'm, er, headed to work. Could you ask her to come by the shop? Wheezes, I mean. I'll be there the rest of the night."
Hugo nodded. "I'll tell her."
"Thanks." Ron was down on the sidewalk before Hugo spoke again.
"Ron?" He hesitated and turned to look back at Hugo. "It's good to see you, son. You don't have to be such a stranger, you know." Ron felt a renewed pang of guilt, at what they'd done not only to their daughters, but to their parents who had both lost a grandchild in the ordeal. His parents had treated Hermione like one of their own, and her parents (though they couldn't have been thrilled with his part in their only daughter's teen pregnancy) had never been anything but wonderful to him and supportive of them both. He owed it to all of them to make things right with Hermione—or, at least right enough for them to have a relationship with both of the twins. Which was, of course, what he really wanted too.
"I'll keep that in mind." Ron gave him a small smile as he turned again and headed up the sidewalk to the secluded spot he had apparated to. He had done what he could for the time being. Now he just had to hope that Hermione would come.
Jean had gone overboard as usual, and Hermione was fully expecting some good-natured ribbing from her dad when the three of them returned from shopping late that afternoon laden with bags. But Hugo looked very serious as they entered, and the tone of his voice as he suggested Holly go wash up before dinner had Hermione instantly concerned. "What's wrong?"
"You may want to…" Hugo gestured vaguely at the pocket where Hermione kept her wand. "Mute the room."
Hermione frowned but cast a silencing charm around them. "What's going on, Dad?"
"Ron came by here to see you."
Her dad had never been one to mince words, but she occasionally wished that he would; Hermione felt suddenly faint. "Why?" she gasped. "Is it Rose? Is she—"
Hugo shook his head. "He didn't say why, but I asked the same thing. Said she's fine, he just needs to speak to you. He'd like you to stop by the joke shop tonight."
Hermione sat down hard on the couch and rubbed at her temples. Ron came to see her. Ron. She couldn't fathom what he could possibly have to say to her; it surely couldn't be anything good. What if he had met someone, was getting married? Surely Harry would have given her some kind of heads-up if that were the case, though Ron was strictly left out of any communication she had with him, as were the girls. But maybe he wanted to see Holly, wanted to be a part of her life, and that would necessarily include Rose as well. Merlin, what would Holly say when she found out she had a twin?
She felt her parents sit down on either side of her on the sofa, and her mother's slender arm wrapped around her shoulder. "You can't avoid him forever, darling," she said soothingly. "At least go and find out what he wants." Hermione shook her head, forcing back the inexplicable tears she could feel threatening.
"How did he seem?" she asked, turning to her dad.
"Well, a bit nervous. But imagine how you'd feel turning up at Arthur and Molly's after all these years." Hugo paused. "He wasn't wearing a wedding ring, if there was a hidden question there."
Hermione smiled slightly. "There wasn't, but that's good to know, I suppose." She sighed. "I've got to go, haven't I?"
"It must be important, for him to come to you out of the blue," Jean replied with a nod. "Come on dear, let's have dinner, and then you can get going. We can entertain Holly just fine for a few hours while you're out."
Despite her mum's assurances, Hermione could barely eat dinner, and afterwards, she spent an uncharacteristic amount of time in front of her bedroom mirror studying her appearance. She wasn't normally one to agonize over how her hair looked, or what to wear—and, frankly, never had even when she was with Ron, because he had always told her she was beautiful no matter how she looked—but she hadn't seen Ron in ten years. And besides, the longer she took to get ready to go, the longer she could delay the inevitable.
She took her time walking down Diagon Alley when she arrived. There were still people around, but it wasn't crowded by any means. She supposed people had finished their post-holiday shopping earlier, and she wasn't sure if it was better for them to have whatever this conversation was in private or with an audience.
Hermione finally stood outside the loud exterior of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes and looked in the window. She saw Ron immediately, helping a customer by a display of fanged frisbees, and her heart stopped. It wasn't fair, she thought irrationally, for him to look so good. He was still tall, of course, but he wasn't so lanky anymore; he wasn't a boy anymore. She had half a mind to turn around and walk down to the owlery and just send him a note, but she hadn't been sorted into Gryffindor for nothing.
She pushed open the door, and true to the twins, instead of a normal bell to signal the arrival of a customer, George's magically recorded voice called loudly into the shop, "Welcome to Wheezes!" making Hermione jump in surprise.
Ron must have been quite used to this, because he barely flinched at the sound, just the slightest flicker of his eyes toward the door before he refocused on the man he was talking to. But then it was as if his brain registered what his eyes had seen, and he turned his head to really look at her, his blue eyes as intense as ever. He nodded absently to the customer, who thanked him and took a green frisbee to the register.
Hermione forced herself to take a step, then another, until she was close enough for them to hear each other, though Buckbeak could have still comfortably fit between them; if she got any closer to him, she might spontaneously combust.
They both stared at each other for a long moment before Ron finally broke the ice. "Hi."