Chapter 7

Hermione hummed cheerfully to herself as she placed the dishes in the sink, poured half a bottle of Insta-Clean Dish Liquid over them and watched as the grease melted off. The evening had been a total success. She had managed to tidy almost every room in the flat and, aside from a small debate with Ron over the quantities of garlic she was adding to the meal (what could she say- she had a craving for it!), everything that she had cooked had turned out perfectly. Molly and Arthur had loved the apartment, thought her cooking was delicious, and were absolutely ecstatic about being grandparents. When they had told them Molly had actually squealed so loudly that poor Crookshanks had jumped about a mile in the air before disappearing under the sofa for the remainder of the meal.

Hermione waved her wand at the now-spotless dishes in the sink. They flew back into their places in the cupboards, closing the doors behind themselves. She walked back into the living room. Ron was hovering next to the front door in an attempt to persuade his mother to stop questioning him constantly about the baby, as she had done throughout the entire meal, and to depart.

"Okay, Mum, you really should be going soon," he said, with a rather exhausted smile on his face.

"Oh, nonsense, Ron!" Molly said cheerfully. "Hermione hasn't even seen those adorable baby photos I have of you in my purse." She turned to smile at her husband. "He was an adorable baby, wasn't he, Arthur?"

"He certainly was, love," Arthur Weasley said, with a smile not too dissimilar to Ron's, "but it's gone 11 now, and I really do think we should be leaving- after all, we don't want to wear Hermione out!"

"Oh, that's right, dear!" Molly said, smiling at Hermione. "I suppose you'll be needing plenty of sleep- its quite exhausting being pregnant!" She rose from the sofa and picked up her cloak. "We'll get going now. Mind you, take care of yourself!" she said, waggling her finger at Hermione. "Oh, and by the way, we think the names you've chosen are delightful, if a little unusual. Well, we'll be leaving now. Bye!" She Disapparated out with a pop.

"Don't worry, dear, she's just excited cause it's her first grandchild. She'll calm down in a few months time," Arthur said to her lightly, pulling on his cloak.

Ron raised an eyebrow at his father. "Really?"

"Well, no." Arthur laughed. "But I can always live in hope, can't I? I'll see you both soon, I expect! Oh, and congratulations again!" he said, before disappearing as well.

Ron flumped down on the sofa. "Urgh!" he groaned. "That was the most exhausting dinner of my life! Tell me," he asked wearily, "was there actually a period of longer than three seconds where no-one was talking during that meal?"

"Ron," Hermione said, with a rather confused look on her face, "what did your mother mean when she said she loved the names we'd chosen?"

Ron turned scarlet, and Hermione could see that he was desperately trying to avoid the question. "Well, whilst you were doing the dishes, she sort of, erm, asked me if we had thought of any names…and… well, I know we haven't really discussed it, but I told her a few of the names that I like…"

"Such as?" Hermione said, slightly worried by Ron's reluctance to share. Surely they weren't that awful?

"Well, for a boy- and this is just a suggestion- but I thought… Camithello, and for a girl, Agnes-Jeanette."

Hermione tried to hold back her laughter. "You were kidding, though, right?" she said, tears of suppressed mirth rolling down her cheeks. "You can't seriously want to call our child that?" One look at Ron's face suggested that he was, indeed, serious about the names.

"You don't like them?" he said, sounding crushed. "I know they're a little… unusual, but what's wrong with that?"

"It's not the fact that they're unusual, it's the fact that they're totally hideous names! Can't we just name our child a normal person name, like Matthew, or Catherine?"

Ron glowered. "But that's so boring! You don't know what it's like to have a boring name!"

Hermione narrowed her eyes. "And what, pray tell, do you mean by that?"

"Well, whenever we meet people, and we tell them that we're Ron and Hermione, they always go, "Oh, Hermione! What an unusual name! What does it mean? How do you spell it?" People remember you for your name. I mean," he spat, "what is there to say about Ron? "Ooh, you have one syllable! How exciting!""

"So let me get this straight," Hermione said slowly. "You feel that people don't remember you cause you have a boring name, so to save our child from the same fate, you want to call them… Camithello?"

Ron nodded mutely.

Hermione gave an exasperated sigh. "You do realise that if we call our baby that they will get absolutely slaughtered at school? You are fating our child to eighteen years of constant torment before they are old enough to legally change their name by deed poll! Do you want that?"

"No. I guess you're right," Ron mumbled bitterly.

Hermione patted him on the back. "I know it's hard, Ron, " she said sympathetically, "but you really should have learnt this by now. I'm always right. Always."