Married life was definitely not something Hermione had ever seriously considered. Oh, sure, it was one of those things she would like to happen; after getting her NEWTS, getting a job in the Ministry and working up the ranks. Those first and then maybe a husband. If she had time. But it turned out that life wasn't quite as well organised as she was and she had ended up with a husband.
Of course, she got a very good one. Ron Weasley. Her best friend and love of her life. And those were sickeningly sweet words she never ever thought she would utter but here she was, with Ron, in their house, married and living life together. It was, quite honestly, great.
Unless said husband did something stupid. Like he was apparently trying to do right now.
"Wait, wait, wait! What are you doing?" She demanded, making him freeze in the middle of the floor, hand outstretched. It was what was in that hand that was giving her cause for concern. As was the direction it was stretched towards.
Ron gave her a bewildered look.
"What? I need to heat up the potion."
Hermione looked between her husband and the potion he was holding
"In the microwave?"
She didn't realise that she could sound so incredulous. Or so high-pitched. You would think with the life she'd led and the people who she considered friends and family that she would have seen and heard it all by now. Apparently not. Definitely not. Especially when her boyfr- no, husband, he was her husband now. Hermione let herself feel all warm and cosy inside for a brief second before pinning her erstwhile husband with a look. A look he should be very familiar with by now as it was her 'you better explain yourself right now' look. Hermione swore her face was permanently in that position during their early teens.
Ron shrugged. "Well, yeah."
Hermione blinked at him. That was not the answer she was expecting even though she had watched him open the microwave door.
"Why?"
Was there really any other question she could ask? There were surely loads but her brain was currently in shock making her lose the ability to think coherently.
Ron looked down at the vial and gave it a shake. "Well, this potion needs to be heated, right?"
Hermione nodded. Now that was something she could answer.
He pointed at the microwave, "And that heats things, right?"
"Yes," she replied more slowly this time, narrowing her eyes.
"Quickly?"
"Yes..."
She really wasn't liking where his thought process was going.
"Quicker than the heating spell?"
"Mostly..."
It depended on the temperatures you were talking about if you wanted to get down to the exact details...
"And that dial there is a lot more specific than what I could probably manage with that spell."
Hermione made an exasperated noise.
"You just need to concentrate a little bit for precision on that reheating spell."
"Eh," he waved a hand dismissively at her. "Sometimes I don't want to concentrate."
"More like most of the time," Hermione unfairly muttered.
She didn't really think that but, in her defence, he had just tried to unwittingly create a bomb in their kitchen. Did wizards even know what bombs were?
"That doesn't mean you can just use the microwave for potions!" She said instead.
"Sure, it does! It does the same thing, doesn't it?"
"Yes, no. I mean... technically," Hermione floundered, feeling herself getting flustered
She didn't like that feeling. She also didn't like the feeling like she wasn't in control of this situation. Which was important because if she wasn't in control it could result in the house blowing up. And that would definitely not be a good thing!
" So, it will work!"
"No!"
Okay, Hermione hadn't meant to shout but Ron was taking this completely the wrong way. Just because you could do something didn't mean that you should and she told her husband as much.
"What's the worst that can happen?"
"Do you like having a house, Ron?" She asked after running a hand down her face.
Ron frowned at her. "Yes. Of course. What kind of question is that?"
Hermione ignored his question and continued, "Because we aren't going to have one if you put that particular potion in the microwave."
"You could have just started with that!"
"You distracted me! And I didn't actually think that you were going to put the potion in the microwave!"
Ron looked at the potion and then looked at her.
"Fine. I won't reheat the potion in the microwave. Are you happy now?"
Hermione held her hand out and gave him an expectant look. With a grumble he handed it over. Her fingers closed around the next of the vial and she heaved a sigh of relief. This one was safe now.
"Extremely," she replied. "Thank you."
Ron grumbled a bit more and gave the microwave a look that did not make Hermione feel very safe at all but he left the kitchen so that had to account for something, didn't it? They had escaped death by microwave incident for today.
She did, however, suddenly feel like she needed to cast a protective ward around their microwave. She had seen the curious and decided look on her husband's face (not unlike George's face when he was coming up with yet another new prank product) before he had left the kitchen. He was going to try heating up something magical in the microwave. It was just a question of what.
"No heating other potions in the microwave either," she shouted at him, hoping to pre-empt any such experimentation.
"Aw, come on!"
"No, Ron."
He came skidding back into the kitchen, this time with a few vials in his hand that suspiciously looked like the ones from their medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
"Surely one of these can be heated up in it?"
Yes, there were. The fever reducer for one but she was not going to tell Ron that. That just opened up the gates for experimentation - something he had really gotten into due to his work at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes. Which was fine as long as he was in the lab at the shop and not in their home.
"No."
"But-"
"No."
"Aw."
Thankfully he shuffled away again and Hermione pretended that she didn't hear him mutter about getting George to do it. Like she said, as long as it wasn't in the house and he took proper safety precautions then she didn't mind what experimentation he did. How they were going to get a microwave working in Diagon Alley was something that she wasn't going to think about because she refused to get sucked into it.
She ran a hand down her face in fond exasperation. It was a good thing she loved that man. There was only really one thing she could do now, wasn't there?
Picking up the phone, she dialled a number she knew by heart. It rang for a maximum of ten seconds.
"Hey, Hermione," Harry greeted over the sound of crying in the background.
"How did you know it was me?"
"Ron still shouts down the phone."
"Of course, he does," she said fondly, hands automatically reaching for the cord to twist in her fingers before she remembered that this was a cordless phone.
Ron still didn't quite understand phones. Oh, he was getting better with all sorts of muggle technology (though they definitely needed to have another word or several about the microwave evidently). Lights were easy, obviously, and he liked the TV (oddly still preferred the radio) and he was right at home with everything in the kitchen (more so than her, to be honest) but the phone was still a bit beyond him. He just didn't seem to understand how a person far away could hear you down a "silly little cable" as he put it.
But she digressed.
"Um, is everything okay over there?" she asked tentatively when the crying in the background didn't stop.
"What? Huh?" he said distractedly. "Oh, he really doesn't like having his nappy changed. Gets like this every time."
Hermione took the phone away from her ear and gave it an incredulous look. Did she just hear that right? Surely Babies would prefer to have their nappies changed? You know what, she had learnt her lesson after the whole debacle with the bottle nipples. She wasn't going to question anything to do with babies, especially her best friend's baby.
"Okay then."
"Yeah," Harry continued, apparently oblivious to her confusion. "I think he doesn't like the sudden cold air around his bum because, to be honest, who would?"
This conversation was devolving faster than she would like.
"Well..."
How were you even supposed to respond to that? Agree? Disagree? She didn't know!
"Anyway, he's all changed now," he was now saying though he was hard to make out over the crying. "What are you calling for?"
The crying in the background became a shriek. Hermione couldn't help but grow concerned. Was that amount of crying normal for a baby?
"Uh, Harry-?"
"Yeah, he didn't like that dummy," Harry grumbled. "Sorry, we have two green ones and he only likes one of them..."
"Why don't you throw the one that doesn't work out?" Hermione suggested.
There was silence from Harry's end and then she heard a slapping noise.
"You're a genius Hermione," he said, chuckling tiredly at himself.
More noise came from the phone as Harry tried to find the right dummy, she assumed. The crying stopped briefly before starting again.
"You aren't too warm or cold, your nappy been changed and you've been fed and you've had your nap," Harry complained. "What do you want?"
Hermione didn't know what Harry had been expecting but she certainly hadn't been expecting the louder shriek in response.
"I'm going to try burping him again," Harry said to himself.
There was huffing and puffing from the other end of the phone as Harry, she assumed, attempted to wrangle Jamie one handed. That really couldn't be a good or safe thing to do but he seemed to be managing it. And Hermione supposed her godson had remained uninjured thus far...
"I'm back!" he said with a triumphant tone and the crying suddenly stopped. "He just wanted out of his cot. I have him on my lap now."
He must have put the phone to Jamie because she got baby babbles and coos in her ear. She couldn't help but grin goofily at the sound of her godson and cooed back at him.
"Sorry about all that," Harry apologised as he took back the phone. "Babies are weird. What were you calling about?"
"Babies aren't the only things that are weird."
"Oh no," he chuckled. "What happened?"
"You'll never guess what your best friend did-"