Chapter 8- Cradles and Conmen

Hermione lay in the hospital bed. She was alone in the room. What was taking so long? Why hadn't the healers come back yet? Where was Ron? This was possibly the most important moment in their lives together and he wasn't there! The labour had gone so quickly that there hadn't been time to notify him, and now the baby was born and he wasn't there and the healers had taken her baby away and…

The door opened and two healers walked in, their heads bowed. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Mrs Weasley, but your baby was born with serious brain damage," the first healer said slowly. " I'm afraid he died during the labour. I'm so sorry…"

Hermione sat bolt upright, screaming hysterically. Next to her she felt Ron flying out of bed.

"Who's there? Nobody move! I'm armed!" he yelled, brandishing his wand violently. When no-one replied he lit his wand and gazed around, confused.

"Hermione? Was that you?" he muttered bewilderedly. "What's wrong?"

Hermione tried to breathe through her tears, but the only sound that emerged was a strange gulping noise. It was just a dream, she tried to remind herself. Just a bad dream…

"Are you all right?" Ron said, putting his arm around her shoulder. "Did you have a nightmare or something?"

Hermione nodded. "I was having the baby and you weren't there and then the healers all left and then they came back in and they said the baby was dead!" she sobbed.

"It's okay, sweetheart," Ron said calmingly, handing her some tissues. "It was just a dream. It's not real."

"But it seemed so real," Hermione whispered. "It was so real…what if it actually happens?"

Ron hugged her gently, stroking her hair. "It won't happen," he said firmly. "I won't let it happen. No matter what, I'll be there all the way. I don't care if it means I get fired from work, I won't leave you alone when you're having our baby. I'll stay with you the whole time." He kissed her on the cheek. "And I'm sure the baby will be fine. It's very, very rare for a baby to die during labour, and you know that the healers at St Mungo's are some of the best in the world. If anyone would know what to do in a crisis it's them. And even if something did go wrong, God forbid, I'd still be there with you. You won't have to do this alone." He loosened his hug and looked at her face. "Now try to get some sleep, alright, sweetheart? Try not to think about it. Just go back to sleep." He kissed her once more, extinguished the light and lay back down beside her, but it was a long time before either of them fell asleep.

The next few months passed in a fairly normal fashion, albeit with slightly more morning sickness, hearty congratulations and garlicky concoctions than Ron was used to. They had paid a rare visit to Hermione's parents, and Ron had passed a delightful afternoon looking bewilderedly at Muggle items and making small talk with Mr and Mrs Granger, who he was pretty certain thought that he was more than slightly insane. They had, however, been delighted about the baby, although they were far calmer in their behaviour than his parents had been. All in all everything had been surprisingly peaceful, though Ron knew in his heart that this couldn't last for much longer.

It was a warm Sunday morning when Hermione marched into the kitchen and announced that they needed to talk.

Ron lowered the Daily Prophet. "What about?" he asked placidly.

"The flat," Hermione said firmly. "It's too small, Ron. There's nowhere for everything we need for the baby. We barely have enough room as it is, without adding all of this other stuff as well. Where are we going to put the changing table? The pram? The cot?"

Ron gulped. "I'm sure it'll be fine. We'll think of something…"

"We're going to have to, aren't we?" Hermione yelled irately. "At this rate our baby's going to end up sleeping in a drawer!"

Ron laid the paper down on the table and swung round to face Hermione. "Well," he said plainly, " from what I can see we have two options. The first is that we move out of the flat and into a larger one."

"We can't do that!" Hermione squealed. "There's no way we can afford it, and then of course we'd have to move all of the stuff which would be far too much hassle, plus I really love this flat and-"

"Okay, calm down, dear!" Ron said hastily. "Well, if you don't want to move then there's always the spare room…"

"But what if we want to have people over to spend the night?"

"Hermione, in the entire time that I have lived here with you we have never had anyone over to stay the night. Never," Ron said plainly. "And besides, perhaps it hasn't occurred to you, but once we have this baby no-one in their right mind is going to want to stay here overnight! This child is probably going to spend most of it's time bawling it's head off! Heck, after a few months we're probably not going to want to spend the night here!"

Hermione looked rather shocked. "Are they really that awful?" she said timidly.

"Hell yes!" Ron exclaimed. "They cry constantly, they need changing every three seconds, they puke on all of your best outfits- you'll love it!" He looked at her. "Didn't you know this already?"

Hermione bit her lip contemplatively. "Not really," she said slowly. She had a thoughtful look in her eyes that Ron had come to equate with only very bad things such as cleaning and shopping.

"So we'll use the spare room, then?" he said, rapidly changing the subject.

"Mmm… yeah, that's fine, dear," she said vaguely, as she floated out of the room. "We'll go shopping next weekend for baby stuff… and we'll have to clean out all the junk in there. I'm just going to go make a few calls…"

Ron stood in the middle of Hartes and Rowses' Childcare Goods store, gazing helplessly around him. Hermione had dashed off across the store towards the prams almost fifteen minutes ago, leaving him to search for a crib. The selection, however, had rather overwhelmed him, and he was no closer to finding a suitable cot than he had been when he had entered the store.

"May I help you, sir?" a kindly voice said from behind him. Ron spun round. A short, plump old lady with silvery grey hair and little round spectacles was gazing intently at him.

"Yes, please!" Ron said thankfully. "I'm looking for a cot and I don't really know where to start… do you have any suggestions?"

"Well, there's this one here," the woman said, patting a large white plastic crib decorated with pictures of stars and moons. "It's one of the more popular versions. It's got an Anti-Climbing Charm on the bars, and it has a built in alert to let you know if your child needs you. However," she leaned in candidly, "I find that it's not particularly comfortable for the little tykes and also, if you don't mind me saying, it does look a shade tacky- it's one of the cheaper ones we stock. You look like the sort of person who'd be after something a little classier.

"Now, this one here," she said, tapping a gorgeous wooden cot, which was slowly rocking back and forth, "is much more like what you're after. It's the SleepMeister 650. Not only does it have all of the features of the Goodnight 3000," she pointed back over at the white cot, "but it also has several other very attractive qualities. This strip here is particularly special- the paint is enchanted so it'll help you to figure out what your baby wants. For example, if they're damp it'll glow blue, if they have trapped gas it'll glow green, and so on. It also has a Rockabye Charm on it, so it'll automatically rock your baby to sleep. Trust me," she said, smiling sweetly at Ron, "this is the one you're after. Will you be having it?"

Ron was completely lost, but he thought it was a good idea simply to agree with the saleslady- she would know best, after all! He handed over his money in a daze, collected his receipt and walked towards the door of the shop, where Hermione was standing impatiently.

"Well, what did you get?" she prompted.

"Oh, a SleepMeister 650, I think…"

Hermione looked at him, outraged. "What? Why did you get that?"

"The saleslady said that it was what I was after." Ron said, looking confused. "What's wrong with that?"

Hermione's eyes bugged. "What's wrong with that?" she asked sarcastically. "Oh, nothing's wrong with that. It's only the biggest rip-off ever, but if you're fine with that, Ron, then I am as well!"

"Rip-off? What do you mean? I mean, sure, it was quite a bit more expensive than the other one she showed me, but it had all these really useful-"

"Special features?" Hermione snorted. "Please! Any idiot could put a Rockabye Charm on a cot. And I saw the mixture for the "special paint" in a baby magazine last week!"

"What? That saleslady conned me! We're returning that cot!" Ron marched up to the front desk and began gesturing wildly at one of the assistants, who walked over, rolling her eyes.

"Yes, sir?" she said, flicking her badly dyed blonde hair off of her face.

"I would like to return a cot that I just ordered," Ron said, attempting to remain calm. "I have the receipt right here." He placed it on the desk.

"I'm afraid we have a "No Returns" policy on all large furniture items, sir. It's standard procedure."

"No returns?" Ron said, his voice getting progressively louder. "Did you not hear me? I just ordered it! It's not like it's been used or anything!"

"I'm afraid that we can't accept it," the assistant said calmly, looking at her nails. "As I said, it's store policy."

"Store policy? STORE POLICY?" Ron yelled. "So I'm guessing that it's also store policy to CON innocent people into buying REDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE COTS just because they aren't well informed on the subject? Is that store policy too?"

The assistant raised her heavily plucked eyebrows at him. "Look, sir, I don't make the rules. I can't take it back. As I said, it's procedure."

Ron looked as though he was about to explode. Hermione jumped in quickly. "Well, I can't say I care too much for your "procedure"," she said, glaring icily at the assistant. "so if you don't mind, I think that we'll be taking our business elsewhere." She grabbed Ron's arm and marched him out of the shop, slamming the door behind her.

"I can't believe it!" she fumed. " And it doesn't take much to figure out why they don't do returns! Conning people out of their money like that! The cheek! Well, we'll just have to go somewhere else for the rest of our stuff!"

"There's just one problem," Ron said, with a scowl on his face.

"What?"

"That's the only magical baby goods store in Britain."