~*All You Wanted*~
Chapter Six: A Bushel of Bananas
Dove: It's dark and depressing! With bananas!!! Ahem, yes. Mostly the hospital here, though a couple of France scenes as well, and one more disappearance. One of our favorite characters apparently vanishes for the duration of the chapter, and banana fun abounds… myself, I don't know why Alex didn't strangle Parvati over it. I would have.
Bena: Yes, but I wouldn't have, I would have laughed hysterically, and since he's my character... yes, I am intent on making this all about me for some reason. Blame it on my tragic lack of sleep and the fact that I feel like annoying everyone. I wrote angstiness, though! Be in awe and prepare for the apocalypse! *Hides from the incoming meteors*
Disclaimer: This is an A/U. Sirius is alive. Considering that fact, wouldn't you rather we owned it?
"Giving birth is like taking your lower lip and forcing it over your head."
Ron dashed into the waiting room of the hospital. "Where is she?"
Parvati and Alex both gestured in the direction of the swiftly approaching screams without looking up from their coffee mugs. Alex flicked his eyes upward through his lashes. "You might want to step out of the way, Ron."
Ron did so, blinking, trying to orient himself. "Why? How did you two get coffee so fast?"
"Lavender," they answered in unison as Hermione, several Healers, and a rather large portion of the Ministry burst through the door and began racing down the hallway towards Maternity. Hermione's angry yells echoed back at them.
"I'm already bloody well into labor and you take time to fit me into a bleeding hospital gown and fill out several dozen charts? Bloody imbeciles!"
"She's even overly articulate when giving birth," Parvati said wonderingly. "How do you put up with it, Ron?"
Alex took the rather startled yet-again-father-to-be and led him briskly down the hall. "Come on, they'll need you there."
"Of course she'll need me there," Ron spluttered, somewhat recovered from his earlier disorientation caused by being yanked out his brothers' shop rather abruptly and being all but thrown into the entrance to the hospital. "She's my wife..."
"Not Hermione, the Healer." Alex released his arm and gently pushed him forward as they neared the parade. "Someone'll need to restrain your darling wife, and it might make birthing rather difficult if half the Healers are unconscious or bleeding from the ears."
"Alex!" Lavender grabbed his arm and yanked him into the fray. "You got him here!"
"Thankfully, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes has several built in fireplaces. It was one of the first things Hermione insisted on them doing when she landed her job. Can't have Muggles seeing magical flames spouting out of brick walls from buildings that aren't supposed to be there, after all."
Hermione screamed again. "Run faster, can't you move faster? Bloody hell, I could get down there faster than you and I'm giving birth for-"
"You've so ruined her," Lavender said sadly. "I certainly hope the children don't learn all your little verbal habits."
Up next to Hermione, Harry squeezed her hand. "Hang on, Hermione, we're almost there."
"Do you realize," she growled through clenched teeth, "that I have yet to actually give birth while actually in Maternity?"
"And it hasn't hurt the other children at all, has it?"
Ron, who had just gotten to his wife's opposite side, froze, and went pale. "Oh, God, I forgot the kids..."
Hermione sat straight up, gasped, and fell back again. "You left the children at that joke shop?"
"Er, no..." Ron caught back up again, and smiled weakly. "They're at home, actually."
"Alone?!"
"Alex," Lavender ordered, "go play baby-sitter. You're good at that."
"Made half my pocket money watching kids during school," Alex answered with a wink, and promptly Disapparated.
"Oh," Ginny said in surprise, "so you do have a job, Lavender."
"Delegating Mrs. Weasley's responsibilities. It's what I get paid for."
"I thought it was the coffee," Ron responded, trying to avoid his wife's heated gaze.
"No, that's only the bulk of it."
Harry wondered who would get the points for that exchange, then remembered Parvati was back in the waiting room with Fred... and that this was hardly the time to be keeping score.
If they had been, Hermione would have been way ahead as it was.
Ron kept looking around. "Where's Malfoy? I thought Alex said he came with Ginny."
"Haven't seen him
since the shuffle in the Floo rooms," Ginny responded.
"I hope he ended up in Sussex somewhere."
Hermione squeezed her husband's hand savagely, and pulled him down so they were face to face. "I'm in labor and all you can think about is Draco Malfoy?"
"We shouldn't have sent Alex away," Lavender mused; "he understands hormones much better than the rest of us."
Hermione's only response to Ron's inarticulate disclaimers was a scream of anger and a cry of pain as they finally burst into Maternity.
It took the nurses a full ten minutes to clear all but Ron from the birthing room. They would likely have failed even then, except Hermione began railing that anyone she could still see within the next ten seconds would taste her full and righteous wrath. Seeing the look of pain on Ron's face as she nearly broke his hand in her grip and the look on her face, which didn't bear describing, the others cleared the room quickly enough after that.
Outside, Harry paced the waiting room, clearly worried over more than just Hermione's screaming. Lavender and Parvati sat in one corner, and were both sipping espressos, though when and where Lavender had managed to procure good coffee would likely stay a mystery for all time. Ginny paced in opposition to Harry, but she was muttering angrily about dumb blonds and it not being so hard to bloody be where one had promised. Parvati deduced this was to do with the as-yet missing Minister Malfoy.
Fred wasn't there, of course. He had run off in the opposite direction, chasing Emma Dobbs, who seemed unwilling to say anything else to him before speaking to Minister Malfoy, who everyone had thought was on his way to the hospital. Now that he had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth, Ginny was grumbling, Emma was still likely fleeing from Fred, whatever she had found, and…
A scream came from the birthing room, one that sounded suspiciously like Ron, interspersed between the many screams, some of them quite inappropriate, from Hermione. Harry started.
"Don't worry, Harry," Lavender said with half a smile. "She probably just broke his hand. She did that when Molly was born a couple years ago. They'll fix it."
Parvati laughed a little and patted Lavender's hand. "I'm fairly certain that's not what he's worried about." She looked towards the closed door, her eyebrows going up at a particularly obscene phrase screamed at the top of Hermione's considerable lungs. "I need to remember that one," she mused. "In any case, Lavender, what we have here are two people worried over… well, Ginny's worried about Draco, of course-"
"Bite me," Ginny commented , but never stopped pacing.
"-And as for Harry," Parvati said, not breaking stride, "well, I could figure it much better if Harry wasn't always gone, but… Harry, who did leave that lipstick on your collar?"
"Red," Lavender commented. "Classy, but risky. Most other colors wouldn't show as brightly on a white shirt."
"Well, if I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing in my spare time, I would check my collar for lipstick before leaving the comforts of… wherever," Parvati mused. Lavender choked down a laugh. "Hypothetically, of course," Parvati added, her expression not changing a hair.
"What is this, a bloody beauty parlor?" Harry finally growled.
Ginny turned to him, her eyes narrowed. "Yes, well, if that lipstick came from where I think it came from, I think it's safe to say you're dead, whether by means of Minister Malfoy or your own stupidity, I can't say." She glared at Parvati and Lavender. "Go take a coffee break." Realizing they already held coffee, she managed to look even more menacing and authoritative. "Or something."
"I like 'or something'," Parvati said decisively. The two of them sauntered away, laughing over something or other.
Even as Hermione continued screaming her anger at Ron for everything from the first time he had ever smiled at her onward, Ginny took Harry's shoulders in hand and pushed him down onto one of the hard hospital chairs. "Talk," she said, her tone a clear warning.
"I have nothing to say," Harry said firmly.
"You… that woman is a suspect, Harry."
"What woman?" he said, his voice deceptively mild.
"The one that bloody well left her lipstick on your clothes, you great buffoon!"
Harry's eyes narrowed. "You're prepared to prove this, Virginia? I don't recall giving you permission to meddle in my affairs."
Ginny recoiled as though slapped. Her voice was laced with hurt as she said, "Well, you've always needed someone to tell you when you were being an idiot. But I guess everything changes, doesn't it?" With that, she stalked out of the waiting room in the opposite direction from Parvati and Lavender, leaving Harry alone.
***
Fred stood next to Emma and stared at the ground. "So where did you find her?"
Emma's reply seemed to come from a distance, and after a very long time. "Washed up on the banks of the Seine. It's not pretty."
Fred nodded, and didn't reply. After a moment, a soft touch brushed against his arm. The fingers were cold from the rain. "I'm so sorry, Fred."
The rain had soaked them thoroughly, leaving Emma's hair straggling around her face and Terrence's standing up in wet spikes from running his fingers through it nervously. Fred's hair was slicked against his head, the water turning it dark red, crimson, like blood.
"Are you sure you want to see?" Terrence asked softly.
"Yes." Fred looked up, the heaviness of his soul making even that small movement hard. "I want to see her. She's my wife."
"She was your wife," Terrence muttered softly as he led them towards the bank of the river.
There weren't many people standing at the railings overlooking the river because of the rain. The three of them began their descent down the slope with no witnesses. Emma had already spelled the location so no one else would disturb Angelina, who could not be moved until all the investigative formalities were observed. The rain made the grass slick, and the mud washed up from the rising water line left slimy globs along the shore. Terrence slid a few steps from the edge of the river and barely regained his balance as he grabbed Emma's arm. Her feet scrabbled on the slick ground, but held.
Fred followed just behind them, and when he slipped, he did fall. And he didn't get up.
Emma turned. "Fred? Fred!"
Both Aurors hurried back to where Fred lay on his back in the mud and water. "Are you okay, Fred?"
He blinked, the rain falling into his eyes blurring his vision. It didn't help, and he blinked harder until he realized it wasn't the rain.
Fred sat up, wiping the tears hastily from his eyes, and stood. "I'm fine. Just a little stunned."
Emma's eyes were dark with concern. "We could turn back if you like. Terrence and I can bring her back ourselves. You can see her after-"
"I want to see my wife now."
Emma looked away, and Terrence nodded slowly. "We're almost there."
They walked along the edge of the river a little longer before Emma stopped Terrence and pointed. He nodded, and turned to Fred. "She's just over there."
Fred could barely make out something sprawled halfway out of the water. He stumbled over, some crazed part of him unbelieving, convinced there'd been a mistake, or she was just hurt...
He stopped just short of what remained of the body.
"No."
He couldn't even look at his wife's battered and destroyed face. It was Angelina... but it wasn't his Angelina. It wasn't his wife. It was... death.
"No."
He whirled, slipping in the mud but not falling, and stared at Emma and Terrence with wide eyes. "No. No."
Emma stepped forward, eyes filled with aching sympathy. "Fred..."
He stepped back, slipped again, and this time he let himself fall. "No! It's not her; it can't be her! That this is not my wife! No!"
Terrence put out a hand to stop Emma, and shook his head. Reluctantly, she stepped back. Fred continued to stare up at them, eyes pleading. "There's been a mistake. There has to have been a mistake..."
Neither Auror spoke. Fred dropped his hands to his side in defeat.
Their silence was enough to tell him there was no chance.
***
"Point me in the direction of Virginia," said the Healer Su Warrington, looking very frazzled, as she stood looking down her nose at the seated Harry. The woman had been in his year at school, a Ravenclaw, and maintained close ties with Cho Chang. She had seemed mostly quiet back then, but having made her acquaintance the last several times he had been here, Harry knew better.
"You might not want her," he said. "She's not in a good mood."
The diminutive Healer let out a breath. "Yes, well, she's in a better mood than Mrs. Weasley, who just broke her husband's hand… again. And won't let it go. We need someone to go sit with her while we take him to get his bones mended, and she's a prime candidate. Unless you'd rather go."
"That way," Harry pointed immediately. Sitting with Hermione while she was in labor was too much for even his Gryffindor self to handle. The small Asian Healer took off down the hall, running. Clearly, she wanted to be back in the birthing room as soon as possible, likely before Hermione managed to destroy something, or someone. Arthur and Molly were supposed to be on their way, but it was anyone's guess when they'd get there. Harry privately thought that Molly might have been called to France to take care of Fred. What he had heard of the situation sounded grim.
Su came back with Ginny, and even though Ginny was not a tall woman, Su was still a head shorter. Still, her stride was full of purpose as she ushered Ginny through the doors, saying something about Ginny's sister-in-law making her scared to death now that she was pregnant herself, and considering breaking Cassius' hand on the general principle of the thing.
Harry was alone in the waiting room a few more minutes before Alex came in, holding the hand of Ron Jr., with Molly on his hip, sucking her thumb and looking around curiously through big, brown eyes. Ron and Hermione's children didn't seem at all affected by the atmosphere. In fact, Ronald Jr., all of six years old, relaxed visibly when he heard his mother's voice.
"They wanted to see Mummy," Alex said exhaustedly. "I had to bring them in or suffer their tantrums. They can scream as loud as she can." He jerked his head towards the direction of Hermione's voice. "Did I miss anything?"
"Parvati managed to piss me off, I managed to piss Ginny off, and Hermione broke Ron's hand. Again."
"Sounds like the usual day at the zoo," Alex said, plopping down on a chair next to him. "I need to donate to this hospital once I win that betting pool just to get some decent chairs, for Merlin's sake. Why are they always so uncomfortable?"
Harry shrugged. "Law of the universe."
It was a good quarter of an hour later before Parvati and Lavender returned, bearing more coffee which they grudgingly shared with the men, and relief that Ginny, who was obviously in a rare mood, wasn't there. "Alex, why did you bring the kids?"
"Because they told me to," Alex told Lavender tiredly. "They're being quiet." Indeed, Molly had crawled onto "Uncle Harry's" lap and promptly fallen asleep, and Ron Jr. was studiously coloring something that looked like a hippogriff hit by an Engorgement Charm and several of the nastier hexes.
"You should go buy us food, or something," Lavender said. "We did bring the coffee."
"I have a banana in my ear," Alex said coolly. "I'm afraid I didn't hear you."
"Perhaps if you removed the banana from your ear and shoved it into some other orifice, you'd be in a better mood," Parvati said, smiling sweetly. "And we're hungry."
Harry, seeing a fight brewing, quickly set Molly down on Lavender's lap and excused himself to find a vending machine.
"That," Alex said frostily, "was highly uncalled for."
"I'm afraid I didn't hear you, as I am currently fainting from hunger and will be unable to hear a word anyone says until the situation is remedied."
"I didn't think you liked bananas, or anything of the like."
Lavender failed to hold back, and began giggling uncontrollably. Alex looked around. "Has Malfoy shown up yet?"
"Not yet." Parvati stopped glaring at her superior long enough to take a calming sip of coffee and answer. "I'm hoping Ginny's rather creative curses as he tried to come here with his arms around her sent him flying somewhere into Beijing. Don't take that as an invitation," she added dryly as Alex opened his mouth, "that's not an excuse for you to go to China again."
Lavender
continued giggling as she spoke. "I've never heard of anything that
anatomically impossible being shouted during floo trips. I wonder if Minister
Malfoy is experiencing any of those effects right now?"
"If so, it's probably with his
head one place and the rest of him somewhere else. That would certainly make
those threats possible."
"There are children present," Alex reminded them.
"Oh, we haven't said anything they'd understand yet." Parvati rolled her eyes. "I'm not that uneducated."
Little Ron Jr. looked up from his artistic masterpiece. "When's Mummy going to come out again?"
Parvati looked about ready to snipe at Alex again, but Lavender elbowed her and she changed her words mid-thought. "We have no idea. Sometime soon, I'd expect."
Alex shook his head. "It'll be a while yet. Ron's broken hand usually comes pretty early on, if I remember the last couple of times."
The child tilted his head, and raised an eyebrow. "I thought I was one of the couple of times?"
Alex shot Parvati a look that very clearly said, I told you so.
A scream of rage echoed down to the waiting room, and everyone winced. Harry came back carrying an armful of food. "Are we really only about halfway through? She hasn't started cursing us all to the lowest reaches of he-"
"Children," Alex reminded a bit testily.
"To extremely painful and prolonged deaths," Harry amended, "and it's been quite a bit longer than usual."
Parvati lunged. "I don't care, you have food and you're not giving us any why?"
Harry tossed a chocolate bar at Ron Jr., and distributed the other bits of food among the others. Parvati eyed the yellow-wrapped bar he'd given her along with everything else. "What's this?"
"Energy bar." Harry grinned evilly. "I got you banana."
Alex stuck out his tongue and Lavender snatched the bar from Parvati. "I want! Gimme!"
The chocolate-covered child in the room raised his face again and asked rather stickily, "If Mummy won't be out to see us soon, when will she stop screaming?"
"Never," Alex, Parvati, and Lavender chorused in unison.
"What is this you're teaching my grandson?" Everyone turned to the door to find a very tired-looking Arthur Weasley in muddy robes.
"Nothing, sir," Lavender said soothingly. "At least, nothing I didn't know at his age."
Harry, sensing dangerous ground by Parvati's sudden fit of giggles and Alex's overly bland face, walked over to the retired Ministry member and offered his cup of coffee. "You look like you could use this," he said. "Where's Molly?"
"Paris," Arthur said shortly, his eyes tight.
Harry decided not to say anything. It was clearly bad, and he was really overdue at the site himself, but he had never been missing when one of Ron and Hermione's children was born. He was their godfather, after all. "Do you need to sit down? Ron's still getting his bones mended."
Arthur nodded. "About halfway, then?"
"Sounds like," Parvati said. "Alex, these kids are going to be learning much worse things than Lavender and I can teach them if they keep listening to their mother as raptly as Junior is doing."
"They heard it all when they were born themselves," Alex said reasonably. "Besides, you underestimate yourselves, and I don't want to deal with their tempers if I tried to take them home. Do you want them, Grandpa?"
"Not right now, Alex," Harry said softly. "Sit, Arthur. Really. Here, drink something." Forcing the half-finished coffee into the older man's hands, Harry sat back and closed his eyes. Angelina… why Angelina? What did she know?
***
The paperwork was unending. Seeing as a foreign government official had been involved, the French side seemed frightened they were to be blamed, and the English mostly were too shocked or angry to think of placating them. It wasn't anyone's fault, Emma thought. If anyone could close a case quickly, Harry could. She almost wished she had been partnered with him, instead of Terrence. She did like Terrence, but the man was always so restrained. At least, she decided, that meant he could stay inside the morgue to finish the parley and she could go outside for a much needed breath of air. At least the rain was over, and Fred's mother had arrived to take the grieving man out of her hands. Now, she had a few minutes to compose herself.
Leaning against the wall outside, she rubbed her temple. She was developing a terrible headache from all of this French, and the weather wasn't helping, and Angelina… well, she wouldn't think of Angelina.
She felt something warm and furry wind between her legs and opened her eyes to find a sleek black Abyssinian cat looking up at her from unblinking eyes. Emma summoned a smile for the animal. "Hello, kitty," she said softly. "Or I should say bonjour, I suppose."
She knelt down to stroke the cat's soft head when suddenly, it wasn't there anymore. She looked up, wide-eyed, with a mix of wariness and respect at the man that stood in its place. "Mi-"
"Dormimus," he said shortly. She felt her eyes closing, though she fought the sleep spell. But there was no helping it. She slumped on the ground at the feet of the smiling man.
***
Ginny's mouth moved rapidly, eyes blazing. Harry frowned. "What?" he yelled.
She gestured again, pointed at her ears. Harry blinked. "Oh. Right." He pulled out the earplugs. "These work much better than silencing charms, really."
"Where the bloody hell is Draco?" Ginny screamed, her voice adding to the chaos and noise of the hospital.
"Does it matter?"
"What?"
Harry sighed inwardly, and raised his voice to be heard over Hermione's screams. "Does it matter where he is?"
"Yes!" Ginny had to raise her voice even louder as Hermione's screams escalated for a moment and were joined cries and orders from the doctors and others in the delivery room. "He could order those idiots to not take any of us in there! Ron's pretending his hand still hurts so he can stay away, the cheap bastard!"
"Oh," Harry shouted back. "Right."
A banshee scream issued from the delivery room. "You sadists, what the hell do you mean telling me to just try a little harder? I'm in bloody labor, you think I'm not trying to get this thing out of me?!?!?"
"I don't blame Ron in the least, either," Harry commented. "I think missing all the bones in my body would be less painful that being in there right now."
"What?" Ginny shouted.
"Nothing!" Harry yelled back.
"Where's Alex?" Ginny winced as a crash sounded from the Healers' torture chamber. "Maybe he could deal with her!"
"Who knows? I think he was smart enough to take off a long time ago!"
Parvati entered the room just then, carrying a tray of hospital coffee.
Ginny snatched the tray away, and pointed the secretary towards the delivery room. "There. Now. Wear protective covering."
Parvati blinked, then sneered. "I knew there was a reason Lavender told me to take over coffee duty."
Mr. Weasley shook his head. "Perceptive girl, that Lavender. She volunteered childcare duty before any of us."
"Out of the line of duty." Ginny groaned. "I don't remember either of the other children taking this long."
"Oh, they didn't. But she was noisier."
"How do you deal with it?"
Mr. Weasley smiled wearily. "I don't. That's the father's job."
"The father who is very intelligently keeping his hand broken," Harry said with a smile.
Ginny let out a scream to rival Hermione's. "The bloody coward! And where the bloody hell is Draco?"
Mr. Weasley's eyes narrowed. "Minister Malfoy? Since when are you two on
such cozy terms, Virginia?"
"Oh, do I win the parental learning pool, too?" Alex breezed in. "Oh, good, coffee!"
"Where have you been?' Ginny demanded, ignoring her father's extremely purple face. "I just had to send Parvati in to stay with Hermione in your place!"
"Did you? It'll do her some good, I say." Alex sat back, breathed in the smell of the coffee, and sighed into the Styrofoam cup. "Hazelnut. Life is good."
"Why the hell are you so happy?"
"We're lucky Lavender took the kids away," Harry mused in a voice just inaudible under Hermione's steady stream on threats and curses.
Alex, meanwhile, shot Ginny a tired glare. "Look, I need a break, all right? I just had to sit with Fred when he got back to the port where I was waiting in France before making sure he got home safely-"
"When did you go to France?" Harry asked curiously.
"Unlike most of the Ministry, the International Affairs division has learned the convenience of pagers. I got beeped, I went to France, now I'm back."
Alex took a drink, closed his eyes, and paused for a moment. "So, as I was saying, Virginia, I have just finished a rather trying day, more if you include searching for… searching for Angelina… and to top it off, one of the wizards we sent with Fred seems to have wandered off. Her partner is looking for her right now."
Alarms went off in Harry's head. "Who?"
"Emma Dobbs. She tends to do this pretty often, at least in France. We figure she's just off helping take another litter of abandoned kittens to a kitchen or something. But it's a strain on Ministry resources right now, what with… everything… the dolt couldn't have picked a worse time to run off."
Alex look at Ginny in the eyes now. "So in answer to your question, I'm not happy, I'm just trying to relax, so feel free to bugger off."
Mr. Weasley's mouth dropped open, and Ginny's lips went into a tight, hard line. After a long moment, she spoke.
"Fine."
She picked up her own cup, and sat near Alex. "I'll just join you, then."
Harry's instincts, meanwhile, were screaming frantically.
***
It was several hours later when a field office of sorts had been set up in the waiting room. Harry had retreated into a corner with a stack of papers and a very leaden, unpleasant feeling in his stomach. Even Hermione had quieted down, after Ron had at last been forced into the room by Ginny and Mr. Weasley, pushing together, their differences forgotten for the moment, though there was no doubt in anyone's head Ginny would be getting a piece of her father's mind soon enough.
Emma Dobbs was now listed as missing.
What had happened to Angelina had come out, when Terrence had dropped in, exhausted, lines around his eyes. Harry had somehow found himself running the Auror division by default, though it was clear that Ginny, for one, would rather see him on probation until his brains were unscrambled. Still, what had happened to Angelina hit him like a bucket full of ice water, and that with the details he was sure Terrence was withholding, considering the presence in the room of other parties. That was when Ron had stopped struggling quite so violently against going in to his wife, and when Parvati had stopped with the pithy remarks, and when Ginny had gone silent as the grave, though her eyes still spoke volumes. She was the authority in the room until Draco, wherever the hell he had gotten himself to, reappeared. Harry was surprised she hadn't yet told him to take a hike.
It was going on night now, and it was dark. Harry had little Molly in his lap again, asleep, her arms wrapped around him. Somehow, he still managed to work without disturbing the child. Ron Jr. was also napping, his head leaning against his grandmother, who had appeared less than an hour ago, her expression hollow, though she had hugged all the members of her immediate and extended family fiercely. Now all was relatively quiet save for Hermione, and Harry's muttering into a small portable telephone which connected him, albeit shakily, with Minister Poulain. There was simply no place for a fire here. Muggle conveniences would have to do. He hung up, his headache progressively worse.
A sandwich and a cup of coffee appeared almost magically on the table in front of him. He looked up with surprise to find Lavender, her eyes kind. "You look hungry."
He discovered he was, and bit into the sandwich. "Thanks, Lavender," he said. In retrospect, he realized that often, when the voice of reason (namely Hermione) wasn't around, or was, for one reason or another, out of commission, Lavender took her place seamlessly. "What time is it?"
"Nearly midnight," Lavender said, shoving some papers off a chair and sitting down next to him. "They should be just about done in there." She stretched exhaustedly and glanced down the hall. "She's too upset to be really… upset anymore. We all loved Angelina. Poor Fred."
Harry nodded numbly. "No one can find Emma, either. This isn't going well at all."
"Do you… mind if I ask?" Lavender said cautiously. "I know I'm only a secretary, but what, exactly, has been going on over there? The pieces I have make no sense."
"Neither do the ones I have," Harry said exhaustedly. "Don't ask until I figure it out." As it was, something was tickling the back of his brain. Something about Emma, kittens, and a flower shop he had recently visited. It wasn't coming clear to him yet.
"And the woman?" Lavender asked. "It was the one from the dinner in China, wasn't it? Parvati said she was very beautiful."
"Parvati would know, wouldn't she," Harry said, a bit brusquely. He ignored the warning light in Lavender's eyes. "She has nothing to do with anything, and my private life is just that: private."
Just then, silence, followed by a weak, but definitely infantile cry came from down the hall. Someone started cheering. Both Harry and lavender surged out of their seats and towards the closed door, along with everyone else in the room. By the time the huge contingent had squeezed inside, Hermione, glowing and smiling sweetly as could be was cuddling a little, pink-wrapped bundle. Ron was grinning too, stroking a finger over the little downy head. The hair appeared to be auburn. "It's a little girl," he said softly. "Here, hold her, Godfather."
Harry found himself with an armful of sleepy baby. He smiled down at her. Even after the hours of stressful waiting and everything that had happened in the past few days, it was a happy moment. Little Molly had already climbed up on the bed with her mother and Ronald Jr. was settled on Ronald Sr.'s hip. The baby yawned, and Harry passed her to Ginny who, just like with the other two, would be godmother.
"We've decided on a name," Hermione said softly, her face serious. "She's Angelina Jela Weasley."
Tears came to more than one pair of eyes, and Molly the elder reached for her husband's hand and squeezed tightly. Parvati, who had magically reappeared, had her arm around Lavender, who looked to be shaken quite badly. Alex leaned against the doorframe, his expression thoughtful. Ginny rocked the baby, her eyes full of tears and her mouth smiling. "It's perfect."
