Disclaimer : The Harry Potter characters in this story belong to J.K. Rowling. Many thanks to her for letting them roam about in the world I created for a bit.
Once I again want to thank everyone that reviewed. You're praise is very encouraging and it's what makes me feel guilty when I don't updated as quickly as you all would like. Although, I must say that I'm rather impressed with being able to update so quickly this time around.
We are nearing the end of our journey where this story is concerned, but do not fear, we are not there yet. I've also been working on tweaking the very first fanfic that I ever wrote and hope to build off of that for another story that will hopefullly please as well as this one has.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter!
CHAPTER 10 – Welcome To My Life
It was unseasonably warm in Boston for this late in the summer, or so Ron had been told probably a dozen times in the past two hours by Mark who had been stepping out onto the front porch to check on the redhead's mood. Ron decided that it was lack of anything else to say that left the Bostonian talking about the weather. After all, Ron wasn't the 'Great Harry Potter.'"
Currently Ron was sitting on the front steps of a house that he hoped that after tonight, he'd never have to see again. His eyes were closed and his face was buried in his hands. He was attempting to do those ruddy mind-clearing exercises that Ginny had learned from Luna Longbottom. His breaths were even and he was trying to focus only on the sound of the dog that was barking a few houses down the street. All the exercise was accomplishing was giving him a sodding headache.
Ron let out a long sigh. He had really mucked things up with Hermione and he'd further added to the mess by not coming around to see her since that afternoon they'd made love for the first time in years; that had been Monday.
Now it was a blistering Wednesday afternoon and he hadn't spoke one word to her since, and he hated himself for it. He hated that he had managed to revert back to the sixteen-year-old prat that managed to say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time and then dealt with the situation with avoidance. He hated that he was once again the reason that Hermione cried. Harry and Ginny had both told him that each time they had stopped by to check on Hermione, she had looked liked she'd spent several hours crying even though she insisted that nothing was wrong. Ron knew in his heart that he was the reason for her obvious despair.
But most of all, Ron hated that he was absolutely terrified of having the twins in his life and at the same time was terrified that they wouldn't be a part of his life. He had tried to make an attempt to spend time with them when he had suggested that he, Hermione and the children go to the park on Monday. 'Didn't she know how bloody hard that was for me to ask?' But that suggestion had just ended in disaster.
Ron still couldn't get over how much Emma seemed to be a perfect mix of him and Hermione. He hadn't even met Daniel, but Ginny, who had spent Monday evening trying to clean up Ron's mess before completing the final step in the potion making for the Pensive, had said that it was eerie how much he looked exactly like Ron when he was little but seemed to have that spark of mischief that had obviously been inherited from his Uncles Fred and George.
That fact in itself made Ron want nothing more to scoop up the little red-haired angels and take them home. His family had suffered so much loss during the war and Fred hadn't been the same since he had lost both Angelina and George in the final battle against Voldemort. They needed a breath of new life to lift their spirits.
Ron let out another long sigh. The family would be getting that new life here in the next few weeks when Ginny gave birth to little James, and they had all had time to get used to the idea, nearly nine months to be exact. Ron knew he was being horribly selfish, but part of him was quite hacked off that he didn't get nine months to get used to the idea of being a dad. It also upset him that he had missed so many of their firsts and that he wasn't going to have the trial and error period that parents get to go through before the kids start talking back to them. He just knew that the twins would tell him he couldn't seem to do anything right and, of course, it would be in that bossy, know-it-all tone they had certainly inherited from their mother. And, naturally, they'd be absolutely dead-on!
The screen door closing brought Ron out of his reverie. 'Yes, Mark, it's still bloody hot out.'
"Hey, mate."
Ron jumped when he heard Harry speak. He looked over at his friend who was in the process of sitting down next to him. "Hey. So how're things going in there?"
"I suppose alright. Haven't seen anything of Remus or Ginny since they began the reintegration process. I guess that's a good thing, though. Right? If there had been any complications, they would have had to transport her to Seer of Mercy Hospital for Magical Injuries and Illness, right?"
Ron chuckled and he saw Harry quirk an eyebrow at him. Ron gave a weak smile and said, "That's almost as much of a mouth full as St. Mungo's."
Harry gave a light laugh and said, "I guess so." Then he turned serious again. "She asked for you, you know, before they kicked me and Mark out of the room and sealed the door. You hurt her…again."
Ron groaned and quickly put his face back into his hands. "I know it, mate. I'm a huge, sodding prick. It's like I haven't grown up at all. I still manage to bugger everything between me and Hermione up because I've got my thick head lodged up my arse!"
"Well, I just hope she can forgive you for this one, mate, 'cause she's going to need you when this is all over. Remus was saying that she could have a number of reactions to having her memories back. She's definitely going to need love and support and someone…"
"…there for her that won't fuck things up. I think she'll need anybody but me then!"
"Ron. The two of you have been through a lot and most much worse than this. When she has her memories back, she'll be able to better understand why you've been a right git the past few days. She'll know that its all completely normal."
That was enough to make Ron looked up out of his hands and give Harry a scathing look. "Gee, thanks, mate!"
"Things will work out how you want them, Ron. They always do eventually."
"That's the thing, though. I don't know what I want." They sat in silence for a moment and watched a group of kids across the street throwing water balloons at each other.
Ron broke the silence. "I had a meeting with Shacklebolt today…yesterday…oh hell, I don't know, sometimes I hate this damn time change thing."
Harry chuckled a bit. "So you finally got your chewing out for…oh how did he put it… for disrespecting the sanctity of Auror leadership."
Ron looked at Harry and scoffed. "You mean to tell me that the Great, Almighty, All-Powerful Harry Potter has been accused of disrespecting the sanctity…" Ron stopped short when his best mate punched him in the shoulder.
Ron felt the smile sliding from his face as the dread set in once again turning him serious once more. When he spoke next it was as if he was speaking to the air rather than anyone in particular.
"First Class Supervising Agent."
"Huh?'
"Shacklebolt. He offered me First Class Supervising Agent. He said that he's been quite impressed with our performances and was pleased with both of our performances in the capture of Defoe and our leadership abilities even though we both shirked our duties by not showing up for debriefing, but he understood the circumstances. He said that I had the other qualities he was looking for to fill the position."
Ron focused on the grains in the cement of the step that his feet were resting on. He couldn't see the hurt look on Harry's face but he could hear the wounded tone in his voice when he asked, "Other qualities?" Ron knew that Harry would be feel overlooked.
Ron forced himself to look at his friend so that Harry could see that these other qualities weren't anything to be jealous of. "Yeah. He said that the position requires a lot of long, extra hours; a lot of additional international traveling; and a lot of sacrifices to luxuries. He said that it's the perfect opportunity for me since I didn't have any personal attachments like a wife or children. He said that he couldn't even remember ever hearing anything about me being in any sort of serious relationship."
Ron saw pity fill Harry's eyes. "But he knows we found Hermione. I don't understand."
"Well, apparently, Kingsley is the one of the three British wizards that doesn't know about my history with our best mate." Ron went back to staring at the cement step.
"So what did you tell him?"
"I didn't give him an answer. I asked him if I could wait to give him my answer until after we had finished everything with the spell to return Hermione's memories. I told him that making sure that she was safe was my first priority. He said he'd give me until the first of the week."
"So what are you going to do?"
"Hell if I know, Harry! What exactly am I supposed to do?" Once again, Ron disappeared behind the palms of his hands, fighting against the tears that had been threatening to come for nearly three days.
"Well, let's do our best mate some justice here and make a list. Where's your quill and parchment, mate?" Harry asked cheekily.
Harry received a glare from Ron. "Glad you can see the humor in my troubles."
"Okay, so no parchment…you best be taking mental notes then." Harry chuckled and dodged as Ron attempted to smack the back of his head.
"Harry, come on. This is serious."
"Ron. We stood together in front of the greatest evil of our time and survived. You've got to look at the lighter side of life."
"Well if you can find it in mine, mate, I'll look at it."
"Well, then, you are just on the verge of giving up finding the only woman you've ever loved only to find Hermione singing in a Muggle bar in the States. You finally profess your love to said woman for the first time in nearly five years in words and in actions only to end up in a shouting match in yet another famous Weasley-Granger row. Then to top things off, you're offered a job that every Auror would kill for basically because you're unattached, but you're left to decided how to handle being a father of four-and-a-half year old twins." Harry paused as if to reconsider everything he had just stated. "You're right, mate. There is no lighter side there."
Ron scoffed once again and said, "Yeah, welcome to my life!"
'----------
Hermione sat on the edge of the bed in the guestroom next to Mark, whom had his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. As always, he had been absolutely wonderful to her the last couple of days. She'd done more crying than she would like to admit, and Mark was right there holding her, making her tea and offering her tissues. He had been so great to her that it made her feel even more guilty when she sat wishing that it was Ron's arms that she was in. But of course if it hadn't been for Ron, she wouldn't have needed to be comforted.
She had been so mad at him when she had turned around Monday afternoon, getting ready to ask him to leave and he was already gone. She had spent the entire trip across town to the sitters trying to explain to Daniel and Emma why her eyes were all red and watery. Then as she walked across campus to Walker Lecture Hall, she was to the point of seething with anger at him and his childish behavior.
It was all she could do to focus on the lecture material. Thankfully she had composed herself by the end of the lecture for the meeting with Mr. Banyan and Dr. Calcaveccia. She thought that everything had went well there, but the two gentlemen had told her that it would probably be the end of the week before they had any more information for her. So once she was back in the car and heading back to the daycare, her mind was free to go over the events of that morning, and she again found herself explaining away her tears to her children.
Hermione was finally able to set aside her anger after she received a visit from Ginny that evening just as she had finished washing the supper dishes. Ginny spent a good time belittling her brother's behavior before she made Hermione look at things from Ron's point of view. Her anger had quickly disappeared and was replaced intense grief and misery. Ginny had explained that Hermione's emotions, where Ron was concerned, were always extreme and obviously things hadn't changed.
That evening after a nearly awkward moment when Daniel had come down to get a drink and asked Ginny who she was and Ginny simply said she was a friend of his mum's, Hermione understood that the confusion that Ron must be feeling over the situation must be overwhelming. In the few seconds before Ginny had told Daniel that she was just a friend and not his Aunt, confusion ran rampant through Hermione's mind. How could she begin to explain to her son who the red haired woman sitting with his mummy was. Things were going to get very difficult for not only her but for everyone in her life and Ron's as well.
Tuesday dawned a new day that Hermione went through as if nothing were different with the exception that she was constantly waiting for Ron to pop up. He never did. That evening just after she had tucked her little redheads into bed, she had nearly fallen and broken her neck as she ran down the stairs to answer the door. She hoped beyond hope that it was Ron so she could rectify what had happened between them the day before.
Her heart broke when she opened the door to find Harry, and she couldn't explain why but she was suddenly in tears and in his arms as he attempted to comfort her. When she had calmed down, he explained that it was in Ron's nature to be a prat and that she need not worry because he always came around. He had brought with him one of those basins that showed memories and they spent a couple hours watching memories of his from when they were in school together. He warned her before showing her the last memory that it would probably upset her but she needed to see it. He was right on both accounts.
Even now sitting here watching Ginny and a man who had once been a Professor of hers, back in magic school that is, get ready to return her memories, it was all she could think about. Harry had shown her the memory of finding that nice woman who had dropped her off with the Chase family dead in the middle of a dirt road. There was a man grasping the body tightly and howling a horrendous sob. The man from the memory looked very much like this man, Remus, who would be helping perform the magic here tonight.
However, it was the sight of Ron, ten meters away, on his knees screaming at the sky with tears flowing freely down his face. He kept alternating between screaming "NO" and "Bring her back! You've got to bring her back!" When they had exited the memory, Harry had explained that the woman was the secret-keeper of Hermione's location…the only secret-keeper. So it wasn't the dead woman that Ron was pleading to the heavens above to be returned, it was her…Hermione.
"Hermione?"
She jumped slightly, pulled from her reverie by Ginny's soft voice full of concern. She simply smiled up at the woman, her friend, and said, "I'm fine." She received a warm but sad smile in return.
She heard the phone ringing down the hall in the master bedroom and automatically started to stand. Mark put a hand on her shoulder and said, "I'll get it." He kissed her quickly on the forehead and said, "You'll be just fine, love."
He started to exit the room as the phone rang a second time.
"Mark, if there's something wrong with the twins then…"
"The twins are fine and you know the Chases are more than capable of taking care of them for an evening."
Hermione watched Mark exit the room while Harry entered. Before joining her on the edge of the bed, she watched him hand his wife the vial that Hermione had seen hanging from Ron's neck just a two days ago. Her spirits suddenly lifted slightly. He was here. She closed her eyes a moment and tried to reach out and feel his aura. She knew it was a silly notion but she attempted to believe that if she was truly a magical being that such a thing was possible. It at least worked to calm her nerves momentarily.
She opened her eyes once she felt the edge of the bed dip where Harry had sat down next to her. She looked expectantly at the green-eyed man sitting to her left and quietly asked, "Is he coming up?"
Harry frowned and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her right ear. "No, love, he's not. I left him at the hotel."
Hermione felt the tears start forming in her eyes but nodded as if telling Harry she understood, but she didn't.
"I was kinda hoping to clear somethings before…"her voice broke as the tears began to fall.
Harry pulled her into a tight embrace. She returned the hug before she quickly pulled away and worked to compose herself. She frantically rubbed her cheeks and eyes dry of the tears. Quickly, Harry grabbed the sides of her face with both of his hands and looked her in the eyes.
"Everything is going to be fine. You'll see." Harry pulled her into another hug and then stood up to leave.
Hermione quickly grabbed his hand. "Harry, please, make sure he's here when it's all over. Please."
Harry nodded. He shut the door behind him as he left, and Hermione watched Ginny step toward the door. She pulled out what Hermione now knew to be her wand and muttered a couple of phrases that Hermione thought sounded a lot like Latin and assumed that they must be some sort of spell.
"What was that?"
Ginny smiled. "Spells to lock the door and shield the room. We don't want to be interrupted."
Hermione just nodded.
Remus pulled a chair in front of Hermione and sat down. "Okay, Hermione, Ginny is working on transferring your memories from the vial to the Pensive. I understand that both Ron and Harry have shown you the use of the Pensive."
"Yes, sir," she said in a small voice.
"Well the concept of what we are doing here today is much the same, except that due to the amount of memories and the fact that they've been condensed in the holding vial for so long, the potion we had to fill the basin with has some volatile properties, meaning that we have to be extremely careful."
"So in order to take every precaution, I'm going to give you some tea that contains a low level sleeping drought to sedate you with. Then I'm going to perform a spell that will bind your body and silence you. Basically, you're body will be paralyzed; however, you'll be in a dreamlike state so you won't even notice. These acts are simply for all of our safety. Do you understand?"
Hermione answered her old Professor's question with a nod.
"Now, as we are reintroducing the memories, it should appear that you jumping from dream to dream to dream. Because this can lead to somewhat of an overload of information, it's suggested that we leave you sedated for at least twelve in order for all the new information to be processed."
Hermione once again just nodded. Her entire body was feeling numb from fear. The only other time she had felt such overwhelming dread was the day her doctor had told her they found two heartbeats in her womb. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 'Just calm down. You've survived being a single mum to twins. You'll survive this. You trust Ginny and you don't feel as if you shouldn't trust Remus either.'
"Hermione, there's one more thing you should know about the procedure. We are dealing with very old Magic here. You had all this explained to you before you agreed to have your memories removed, but of course you don't remember that."
For the first time since he sat down in front of her, the man smiled at her.
"With anything magical or even medical in the Muggle world, there is a chance for something to go wrong. The biggest risk with this reintegration is that the flood of memories will be too great that it will affect your sanity or Merlin forbid will cause death, but I don't see that as being an issue here."
"Now, because there's too much risk in removing the false memories and those of events since the original procedure, you may experience moments of confusion, possibly throughout the rest of your life, where you'll have memories that conflict with one another. However, these could simply leave you with the same feelings you get from a dream that seems overly real. So before we proceed, I just need to make sure that this is still what you want to do?"
Again, Hermione chose to answer non-verbally, because she knew that her voice would betray her. She had already been aware of the risks. On her visit Monday evening, Ginny had explained them to her thoroughly. Ginny promised her as a friend that she wouldn't let any of that happen to her, but she also promised that if anything did go wrong that Ginny would make sure that Daniel and Emma would be taken care of.
The last thought that Hermione had before she was properly sedated was that she had to be strong and make it through this for Dan and Em and for Ron, too.
'----------
She felt as if she was standing in a small, darkened room that was painted black and had no doors or windows. She was standing in the center of this tiny room, frozen in place and the only thing on her body that seemed to be able to move were her eyes. She frantically looked in every direction her eyes would go, searching for any semblance of light in this darkness.
Suddenly the room was filled with a blinding white light and Hermione quickly shut her eyes at the pain that shot through her head. When the throbbing began to ease, she slowly opened her eyes to find images flashing on the wall in front of her as well as in her peripheral vision on the walls to the left and the right.
She desperately tried to focus on anyone image and realized that they were images of her and those that she knew and loved. There were images of train rides and three-headed dogs. There where images of rats and cats and spiders and snakes. There were images of uniforms and formal wear. There were images of emerald eyes and ruby hair. So many images that kept flashing faster and faster, all around her and rapidly the pain in her head was nearing unbearable.
Then her entire body felt like it was on fire and then sharp pain and then nothing. The room was dark again. In the dark state, all Hermione could think of was that phrase her father used to always use jokingly about his life flashing before his eyes. There was one last thought that filtered through her mind as she slipped into emptiness.
'I'm dead.'
'----------
As always, reviews not only welcomed…they're encouraged!
Also, I know, I know…I'm evil for leaving all of you hanging. But the good news is that the next chapter is the one that I've been looking forward to writing since I first began this story, so I've already got most of it planned out…it just needs to be actually composed. Secondly, with the holiday here in the States, I'll have a little bit of free time to focus on the story and hope to have it to you by the weekend.