Author's note: I love thinking about the muggle world interacting with the magical one, and about Ron and Hermione living long happy lives together, and this story is a bit of both.
Elinor Spencer had been a primary school teacher at St Matthew's Infants School in the lovely Devonshire village of Upper Whittlington for six years, and she had loved almost every moment of it. And this morning she got to do one of her favourite things - the home visits to the children who would be the tiny four year olds in her class when they started reception come September. Miss Spencer loved this, because she got to meet all the kids she'd be spending the next year and to get them excited about starting school. And, of course, she got to see their houses and meet their parents, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't nosy enough to find that interesting.
She looked at the list in front of her as she got out of her car. Most of the visits she could do on foot, but this last child lived in an old slightly rambling house in the outskirts of the village, backing on to meadowlands with a gentle hill rising in the background. All she knew about the children before she met them were their names, and this one was - what was it? Rose Weasley.
She rang the bell, noting with approval the look of the house. It was well kept but not over manicured - the wisteria over the door seemed to be going wherever it wanted to without being held back and there were all manner of untrimmed trees and wildflowers along the front garden. There was an old blue car in the drive, with toys - a hula hoop, a little toddler car, a bucket and spade - strewn around it in a way which suggested that it wasn't much used. It looked a happy, lived-in house.
Miss Spencer rang the bell. A long pause followed. Just as she was about to ring the bell again, the door was opened by an extremely tall man with bright red hair and a squirming toddler on his broad shoulders.
"Hi," he said in a friendly voice, and he smiled an easy, slightly lopsided grin. Miss Spencer felt that she was going to like this Dad. She'd noticed more and more dads being the ones to drop their kids at school and collect them over the years and she thought it was fabulous - for the kids, the families in general and, frankly, for her when they looked like this. She had no interest in a relationship with any of them, of course, and she was happily engaged, but she didn't mind a bit of eye candy at each end of the day. This Dad was dressed in jeans and an orange t-shirt so faded that its slogan was hard to read (something about chutney, she thought?), and he had extremely blue eyes.
Miss Spencer stopped staring and assumed her friendly, professional air. "Hello there, I'm Miss Spencer from St Matthew's. I'll be Rose's teacher when she starts school in September."
"Ah! That's lovely!" The toddler was now putting his chubby little hands over his dad's eyes and convulsing with delighted laughter, so Mr Weasley's ability to have a conversation was slightly hampered, but he sounded genuinely pleased to see her.
"Hang on a mo," he said, and lifted his son with practiced ease up off his shoulder and over his head, then flipped him upside down and held him dangling whilst the toddler whooped with laughter. Mr Weasley smiled at her disarmingly, shrugging a shrug which effectively communicated the message: "kids, what can you do, eh?"
"Mr Weasley," Miss Spencer resumed, "did you get the letter from the school about our visit today? That I'd like to meet Rose and have a chat with her parents."
"Oh blimey, was that today?" Mr Weasley looked less concerned than his words suggested. He looked like a man who was not easily flapped or upset by trivialities. "I thought it was next week."
"No, it was today. The twenty-fifth. Is now a good time, Mr Weasley? Can I come in?"
"Call me Ron," Mr Weasley said, absently. "Yeah, now's great. Just... give me a second."
He ushered her into the hall and rushed into the next room. Through the crack in the door she could see him turning some photographs on the wall over and closing a child's book which was open on the floor, then sweep the room with a glance as if checking for anything else to hide. This struck Miss Spencer as odd - what could the photographs have been of? - but not that unusual. She'd been in many houses where she could see that the parents had inexpertly tried to hide empty wine bottles in the recycling boxes or even things like unhealthy snacks from their child's new teacher's eyes, not realising that she was not there to judge their lives or their parenting.
Mr Weasley - Ron - opened the door and ushered her in with that same boyish grin. She looked around the room with interest. There were a lot of bookcases, a lot of small children's art work,and a lot of toys. It wasn't exactly tidy, but it felt cared for, comfortable and as though it were a home hallowed by a great deal of laughter.
"It's great to see that you get the children to help you with the housework, Ron," Miss Spencer said brightly, pointing to two little old-fashioned toy brooms in one corner. "Such a good learning activity for them!"
Ron looked confused for a second and then his face cleared. "Housework, yeah," he grinned. "That's right. They love it. Would you like a cup of tea?"
Miss Spencer normally didn't accept drinks at prospective children's houses - she wasn't there to make more work for their parents - but she was enjoying herself with this slightly scatty but engaging man, and looking forward to meeting her new charge. Besides it was her last visit of the morning and she had time before heading back to the school for lunchtime playground duty.
"Yes, please. That'd be lovely." She followed him through to a big, light kitchen, cluttered but clean enough and with the same air of happy family life. She sneaked a look at the book he had hurriedly closed and hidden as she walked past it. Something innocuous about a rabbit, from the cover. It was funny the things that parents felt embarrassed about sometimes.
This man didn't seem embarrassed, though. He was delightfully easy going - Miss Spencer found she felt more relaxed just from being in his company - and he chatted amiably whilst he pottered around making tea in a beautiful forest green teapot. She wondered if they'd recently moved things around in the kitchen. There was something about the way he did it which suggested that he were used to making tea in a slightly different way, somehow. But she could see he was a great dad, from the way he got the toddler, who he called Hugo, to help him put the teabags in the teapot and the way he called to his daughter, who was out in the garden, that she could either come in now or in five minutes to meet her teacher. "I like to give Rosie a choice about things," he explained. "She's absolutely brilliant but she's got a very strong independent streak and she responds better when she feels like she has some control. I suppose you could say she's spirited." His grin was wider than ever as he added, proudly, "She takes after my wife."
"Is Mrs Weasley around?" Miss Spencer liked to meet both parents ideally, but of course it wasn't always possible - not everyone could take a morning off or work from home.
"Nah, I'm afraid she's been at work for ages. I could -um- send her a - um - a text message, I'm sure she'd love to meet you, too. She's going to kill me when she finds out I messed up the dates of your visit." He smiled happily, and it didn't sound as though the idea of his wife's wrath actually worried him at all.
"Does she work nearby, Ron?"
"No, it's miles away," Ron seemed surprised at the question. Miss Spencer replied "Well, then, best not bother. I won't be here long so she'd never get back in time, but I'll look forward to seeing her on the welcome day."
At this point Miss Spencer noticed movement outside the large kitchen window. A small figure in red dungarees scrambled down from a tree halfway down the garden and came towards the kitchen. Her hair was extremely curly, auburn in colour and quite wild. The child looked a bit like a letter i, with the shock of hair so much bigger than her body. Miss Spencer's attention was all on little Rose, as Ron scooped his daughter up and kissed her, and then sensing that Hugo wanted to be involved, scooped him up in his other arm. Perhaps it was the hearty way all three of them laughed in this enormous hug that meant Miss Spencer didn't hear any doors open, or anything at all apart for a faint popping sound somewhere, until she suddenly started and turned at a female voice.
"Ron, I -" the voice began in the slightly harassed tones of someone in the middle of a busy day, and then stopped as the voice's owner noticed Miss Spencer.
Miss Spencer stood up from where she was sitting at the kitchen table, and extended a hand to the woman who had appeared so suddenly. She observed the woman while Ron explained who their visitor was. Mrs Weasley was much shorter than her husband and very neatly and smartly dressed in a crisp pale blue shirt and a pencil-skirt, her hair in an efficient bun though with two or three strands of curls escaping and framing the woman's pretty face. She had the most peculiar object in her hand, something long and elegant looking, though she hastily shoved it out of sight. Was it a 1920s-style cigarette holder? There was an air of slightly frenetic energy about her, in contrast to the laidback vibes her husband gave off. But she smiled pleasantly at Miss Spencer and seemed to become more relaxed too as she walked over the her family. Ron handed his wife an excited Hugo, and Miss Spencer noticed his hand lingered on Mrs Weasley's waist lovingly as he did so. There was a very faint flush on the woman's face as she introduced herself as Hermione.
"And this is Rose," Ron said, gently lowering his daughter to the ground. Miss Spencer crouched to the ground, smiling encouragingly at the little girl, and started a conversation with her about favourite stories, places, foods - a tactic to get kids to open up to her and give her the opportunity to say something like "great! We have toy dinosaurs/football/sausages for lunch/whatever at school, too."
Rose seemed a confident child, and if her favourite animal was a bit unusual (not many children gave much thought to nocturnal animals they'd never see like owls) it wasn't the wackiest Miss Spencer had heard. As they chatted, Miss Spencer paid half an ear, as every teacher can do, to the other conversation happening in the room. "It's lucky you're back, love. I'd completely forgotten it was this week for the teacher visit. What are you back for, anyway?"
"Oh, I forgot that file I brought back home to read last night, and I need to sign off the legislation today."
"Oh yeah. You never did read it last night, though. Sorry about that." Through the corner of her eye, whilst nodding enthusiastically at a long story Rose was telling her, Miss Spencer could see that Ron was not sorry, and his wife flushed and smiled again, though shooting her husband an admonishing glance and a half-gesture towards Miss Spencer herself. "Never mind," Hermione replied. "I'd already done one read and I have a review slot in my calendar today."
"You're mental, you are," her husband replied, but he said as though he were repeating a catchphrase that was a family joke, rather than as though he meant it, and put his arm around her so that his hands were perilously close to her bum. She giggled and wriggled away. Rose finished her story triumphantly. "So actually giraffes do have vocal chords and so they can make noises and they sound like this: urghleee ghirghleee uuurrrrggghhlllle".
Miss Spencer looked suitably impressed and stood up. "I think we should do a little play about giraffes at school, would you like that?" Rose nodded seriously. "Can my Daddy be in it? He's got the completely really absolutely best giraffe impression in the world."
Ron's eyes crinkled as he laughed. "I think I'm a bit big, rose-petal," he said. "But we'll come and watch, and I'll teach you how to do it." He picked his daughter up and held her so she was looking down at him, then stretched his neck and pretended to nibble leaves out of her bushy hair until she was giggling so much that he had to put her down. Miss Spencer smiled. Turning to Hermione, Miss Spencer saw that she was smiling, too. The tension she'd given off when she come in (well, appeared would have been a better word since Miss Spencer still couldn't see where she'd come in from) had completely vanished.
"What do you do, Mrs Weasley?" she asked, politely, as she finished her tea. She found that high-powered parents, as this one obviously was, were normally only too eager to tell her about their important jobs, but Hermione said simply "I work for the government." She said it politely but it was clearly not an invitation to ask for more details.
"Well, it was lovely to meet you all, and we'll look forward to the welcome day at school on the third of September. Little brothers can come too," Miss Spencer said, smiling at little Hugo who was still in his mother's arms, playing very gently with her necklace.
The family saw her to the front door. She noticed a large quantity of brightly coloured long cloak-type garments in various materials hanging up on the hall amongst a jumble of coats. Were they perhaps the sort of people who dressed up as characters from Lord of the Rings, or something like that? Anyway, the whole family was delightful, although she somehow had an impression that they weren't quite seeing them as they normally were. It was a bit like visiting families who spoke another language as their first, but politely engaged with her in near-faultless English.
As she walked down the path, she puzzled over how Hermione could have got home from the work Ron had said was miles away given that there was no additional car in the drive and the village was notoriously poorly connected by public transport. From the open window in the sitting room, she could hear a conversation between the two parents. Hermione's voice was slightly exasperated as she said "Honestly, Ron, how could you have forgotten the teacher visit? I'm very cross with you."
"Nah, you're not," came the reply and the smile could be heard in his voice. "You haven't even called me Ronald. Anyway, it was fine. She seems really nice, doesn't she? And we didn't even have to obliviate her. Let's talk about how nice it is for you to be home unexpectedly."
At that point the conversation stopped and Miss Spencer heard no more until she was closing her car door, and the piping tones of Rose came floating through the open window. "Yuk! Stop that kissing now, and be a giraffe again, Daddy!"