Special Delivery

1st September 1999 (Ron is 39, Hermione is 19)

HERMIONE: Weasleys were flooing and apparating here there and everywhere in the wizarding world looking for Bill while I sat with Fleur and tried to remember what kind of breathing women in labour on television shows were always told to do while Mrs Weasley took care of the third mid-witch who had been sent after the other two had stormed out due to the grandmother to be telling them they knew nothing about childbirth and that she could deliver this baby herself.

Fleur had been on the receiving end of quite a painful contraction when she screeched at her mother-in-law to get out of the bedroom and leave the professionals to do their job. That was when Ginny went running for cover and Mrs Weasley had punched the mid-witch out cold and was now trying to re set the poor woman's jaw while the fourth mid-witch was being sent for, presumably with an armed guard, leaving me to hold Fleur's hand and reassure her that everything was going to be ok.

"The boys will track Bill down and he'll get here in time I know it," I smiled while trying not to cry out in pain as I felt on of my fingers crack in Fleur's grip, "and the next medi-witch will be here soon to help relieve some of the pain."

Fleur started crying as another contraction passed.

"What eef the baby eez a real Weezlee? What eef eet doesn't like me like all za rest of zem?"

"They all like you Fleur," I said as I picked up a glass of water and let her take a sip, "we all love you, don't be so silly."

"What eef eet's a Veela baby? Zey are so 'ard to raise 'ermione. I am not good enough, I will be a terrible muzzer!"

She began to cry again and I looked over my shoulder for signs of the mid-witch but the flames in the fireplace were still glowing orange.

"Now Fleur, you will be fantastic I know it," I said with my most confident smile and a nod for extra certainty, "I remember how well you handled baby Ron when he was so upset that day at the Burrow."

Just talking about Ron hurt me a little but I made myself keep smiling.

"But ee eez different, ee just loves everybody, you do not 'ave to do anything to win 'im over. You just 'ave to love 'im back."

That was it, I couldn't do it anymore, I started to cry myself.

"Oh 'ermione, I am zorry, I deed not theenk," she began to console me before screaming as another contraction hit her and I tried to do that breathing thing again but Fleur just looked at me as if I had gone crazy so I stopped.

"It's alright Fleur dear," Molly called back to the bedroom, "I've come to an agreement with the mid-witch and we can work together on this as long as I stay three feet away from her at all times!"

I began to laugh on hearing this, she had sounded so merry about having a magical restraining order enforced upon her, and then I realised that I wasn't laughing at all. Fleur was still shaking off the last of her latest contractions and put her hand on the back of my head in an effort to comfort me. I tried to stop crying, Fleur didn't need this, but the tears just kept coming.

"Poor 'ermione," Fleur said with a smile, she even looked radiant while in the agonies of childbirth, "I beleeve 'im you know?"

"I know you do Fleur," I sniffed, "I just wish I didn't know better than you."

Another contraction hit her and she gripped the hair she had been so tenderly stroking at the back of my head and I screamed along with her as I felt chunks of it coming loose at the roots.

"Oh goodness Fleur, there's no need to bald poor Hermione is there?" Molly said as she pried the mother-to-be's fingers open and I fell backwards onto the floor holding my sore scalp and forgetting exactly what I had been crying about originally and focusing on my own physical pain.

Now that Fleur had the attention she deserved I retreated from the room, thinking about finding Ginny and hiding out with her, and jumped as two cracks sounded on either side of me and the twins asked me if Bill had turned up yet.

"No he's still missing," I said, over Fleur's screams.

Fred and George cringed and disapparated without another word to continue their search.

"Oh Molee," Fleur was weeping, "what eef zumthing eez wrong with za baby?"

"Now don't be silly dear, you're going to have a lovely healthy baby I promise you," Molly was saying warmly while the mid-witch cast some pain relieving spells.

"But what eef ze baby 'as epilepsee like Ronald?"

I froze on the spot and hugged my arms to myself.

"Don't be silly worrying yourself about that dear," Molly said with a shush.

Fleur was crying again.

"But I don't want my baybee to dizappear, I don't want eet to get 'urt like Ronald does all ze time."

"No dear, no mother wants that," Molly said with a strange wobble in her voice.

"And eet might 'ave ze epilepsy, eet eez 'ereditary like Arzzur zed."

"Only to the seventh in the family, that's always been the way so far so why would it change now eh?" Molly said in an effort to calm Fleur's nerves.

I didn't want to be the one to point out that Ron wasn't actually the seventh child at all; Fleur seemed too distracted to have noticed it so I let it be.

"You are sure?" Fleur said.

"I promise you dear now don't you worry about this little life you're bringing into the world, just concentrate on bringing it."

The fireplace erupted in green flames and two red haired figures stumbled out of it. It was Bill and Ron.

"Go!" Ron said to his brother who scrambled to his feet and ran frantically for the bedroom where Fleur greeted with a Molly Weasley sized roar demanding to know what had taken him so long.

I looked back and saw Ron getting to his feet and brushing the soot off of a very baggy looking shirt and a huge pair of trousers that he was holding up with one hand, they were obviously not his clothes, and I then realised that he looked too old to have been my Ron. He looked over at me and grinned that grin of his, the one that could bring the sunshine out in the middle of a storm, and I looked away. It hurt to see him from any time at the moment.

"Oh right," he said and I glanced back at him as he seemed to realise something, "you're not talking to me right now are you?"

I straightened myself up and looked him hard in the eye.

"You know what you did so don't make those puppy-dog eyes at me."

He smiled at me again, not the sunshine smile but a enigmatic little smile that reflected his sad eyes, and I wondered what he knew. He looked strangely wise and that wasn't like Ron at all.

"I never lied to you y'know? And I never made a promise I knew I couldn't keep."

I was about to scoff at him when he grabbed a handful of floo powder and tossed it into the fire, stepping into the flames and leaving without another word.

"You're the only one who doesn't believe him Hermione," Ginny said from behind me.

I bit my lip and heard the sound of a baby crying.

20th June 2000 and 22nd May 1981 (Ron is 20 and 1)

RON: I was meeting Harry at Auror HQ when Eldridge grabbed me and hauled me into a strange empty room just before I reached the lift. He put his forearm to my throat and pressed hard. I made a gagging noise and pulled at his Popeye-like arm while attempting to glare at the head of Auror operations with some degree of composure. It's quite difficult to appear menacing while turning blue though.

"Listen, I know you think you're working for the same people as me Weasley but you're not, you are the enemy. You are interfering with top secret Auror business."

He pressed down on my windpipe and I tore my right hand away from his wrist and plunged it into my robes for my wand. He saw this without even moving his focus from my face, which was an inch away from his own, and grabbed my wrist and pinned it above my head. I felt dizzy, he wasn't letting up on the pressure on my throat, and I couldn't quite believe that Eldridge intended to kill me but he was making his point much more vigorously than maybe even he realised.

"Now I don't know whom you answer to," he snarled into my face, "what power player in the ministry is assigning you to look into the private and official movements of my colleagues, but it stops now you hear?"

I couldn't see straight, I couldn't breathe, and I was beyond panic. I hoped that this was pre time-travel nausea and not suffocation. I needed to get out of his grip soon. My head was spinning and my legs buckled under me. Eldridge held me up by the pressure against my throat and the last thing I heard was the door creaking open and Harry's voice.

"Sir I'm going to have to insist you let Agent Weasley go before you kill him and I know that's not what you want."

I felt the pressure and the room around me evaporate and gasped the warm air into my lungs as if I hadn't inhaled in a month. I coughed and wheezed and tried to massage my throat to allow more air to reach my lungs. It was then I realised I was on my bedroom floor at the Burrow.

I saw my empty cot and my teddy bear looking very pre-spider. I had taken another of my trips back to the beginning of my life and I knew that I'd have to go to Bill's room if I wanted to borrow clothes that would fit. I managed to laugh to myself about that. Even in my adulthood I was still stuck with my older brother's hand-me-downs.

I heard a baby crying downstairs as I tiptoed along the landing and down a flight of stairs to Bill's room. He, and subsequently most of his clothes, was away at Hogwarts so I had little choice other than a faded blue T-shirt and an almost completely worn at the knee pair of beige corduroy trousers. I knew that I had to get shoes from Charlie's room as he was the biggest of all of us and had the most shoes, covering the last three or four growth spurts, and rushed across the hall to his quiet room.

As I laced the battered trainers I heard the baby scream an ear-piercing scream again.

Bloody hell I thought mum said I was a pleasant baby.

As I opened the window to Charlie's bedroom and climbed out to shimmy down the drainpipe I heard another scream, not my own infant scream this time, it was my mother's. I lost my grip and fell the rest of the way down, landing hard in the potato patch on top of several gnomes to boot, and ran to the kitchen door.

"Mu...Madam?" I called as I knocked on the door frantically, "I heard a scream, is everything all right in there?"

The door swung open and there, in her bare feet and clutching an enormous pregnant belly, was my mother. She was doubled over in pain, tears in her eyes and floo powder all over the floor beneath her, while my infant self screamed in his high chair at our mother's obvious distress.

"I'm a little busy at the moment," she said as she forced a smile onto her face, "What did you want?"

This woman never ceased to amaze me, manners at a time like this, and I tried to think on my feet.

"Madam I'm a little lost and was looking for a home on the floo network so I could get where I need to go. I saw this place and, well it's obviously a wizarding home, so I thought I might try my luck."

A wave of agony washed over my mother and she let out a little whimper, bracing herself against the open door, before she forced another smile on her face and gestured to the floo powder that had spilled all over the floor.

"If you can scrape together enough from the floor you're more than welcome dear but would I be able to ask you one small favour in return?"

I moved forward and tried to support her, she really seemed to need to sit down, and I guided her backwards into one of the nearby kitchen chairs.

"Of course, anything you need, do you want me to get your husband to come home or get help from St Mungo's?"

She seemed to be recovering from the last burst of discomfort and gave me a chuckle.

"No dear I really need you to get me to St Mungo's quite urgently."

I looked at the fireplace and then back to my heavily pregnant mother before turning my eyes back down to the floo powder scattered all over the floor.

"I don't think you should floo mu...madam, not in your condition."

She let out a sigh and attempted to sit up a little straighter.

"Call me Molly."

I nodded and looked back to the fireplace.

"Well it'll be a bit too physical Molly, you could have a contraction while in there and knock your belly against something."

I kept my eyes focused upon the fireplace and tried to come up with a plan. I knew what the family legend said I did but I really couldn't do that right now, not me, I'm not the accomplished flier Harry is. Mum yelped and bent over again, gritting her teeth through another contraction and my younger self broke into louder and more distressing floods of tears.

"Come now Ronnie, mummy needs you to be a brave boy right now."

I looked back at her instinctively on hearing her address me directly and indirectly at the same time. She was right, she didn't need my inferiority complex right now, she needed the Ron who faced Aragog and Death Eaters and helped vanquish Voldemort.

"Molly do you have a decent broom in the house?" I asked.

Her bloodshot eyes met my own fearful ones and she nodded.

"In the broom shed outside, I've Charlie's quiddich broom from last year, there's been a few modifications made to it but then he won that snitch seeker competition run by the Prophet last summer and won a Cleansweep seven...brand new professional sporting broom that is. Did you see the Prophet? Charlie's picture was the big one beneath the headline..."

Mum stopped to growl as another contraction took her attention away from her motherly boasts and I moved behind her and rubbed her back until it passed.

"It said Weasley wins with ease," I continued for her as the pain subsided and she relaxed a little once again.

I had grown up seeing that article flashed under the nose of any visitor to the Burrow over the years. The Charlie Weasley scrapbook was the fattest of the lot.

"Oh thank you...what's your name again dear," she said in her least tactful, 'are you another distant relative of mine that I can't quite place?', way.

"John," I figured it sounded enough like Ron for me to answer to it and general enough for it to be realistic that they never find me to thank me after Ginny's born.

"Well thank you John, you have no idea how good that feels. Have you done this before?"

"I went to a pre-natal class with my wife once," I found myself smiling.

"Wife?" How old are you John dear? You surely can't be old enough to have a wife and baby already."

"I don't," I said without thinking, "what I mean to say is not yet, I don't have a baby yet."

Mum looked up at me and beamed while looking in the most awful pain at the same time.

"Oh that's why you're so keen to get home. Your wife's soon to be in the same state as I am eh?"

I shook my head, why wasn't I just going along with this? Something in me didn't want to be a father until I really and truly was.

"No, well she will be someday but not for a while, we're...we're not having a baby right now," I smiled and hoped that the subject would be dropped.

I watched as my mother's face fell and she looked utterly devastated. She reached up to me and rested her sweaty palm upon my cheek.

"Oh you poor things, a miscarriage was it? Oh but if you were going to classes and preparing for his stage of the pregnancy she must've been about due, not a still birth dear?"

I had no other explanation to make all the things I had just said add up so I nodded and watched as the tears flowed down my mother's cheeks as she pulled me down to her in her sitting position and held me close to her.

"Oh I'm so sorry John, I know exactly how you feel dear, the same thing happened to me the year before little Ronnie was born."

I flinched and pulled back.

"I never knew that!" I blurted as I stared at her as her son and not the stranger she had been comforting.

"Well why would you," she said with confusion, "the Prophet doesn't report things like that."

I nodded and crouched down before her, I did my best to smile through the shock of hearing I was the seventh of eight children and not the sixth of seven but mum obviously mistook my sadness for my own fictional lost child, and I held her hands in mine.

"Look Molly, I'll go get the broom and you sit with the baby and take deep breaths for me ok?"

She tensed through another contraction before nodding and releasing my hands.

"Go," she gasped and waved me out the back door.

I ran for the broom shed and forced open the door.

"Ah so that's why we can never lock it in the future!"

Then I grabbed Charlie's old broom and ran back to the house where I heard mum in the throes of another contraction and helped her to breathe through the pain.

"Ronnie..." she panted.

"I'm here, it's ok, I'm right here," I said.

"No Ron, the baby," my mother said, obviously thinking I'd miss-heard her the first time, "Do you think you'll be able to fly with both of us?"

I realised what she was saying.

"Oh shit of course, I've never flown with a baby before, what if I drop him?"

Mum gripped my arm tightly.

"You won't, I have faith in you John," she grimaced, "these contractions are too close together now, we need to go."

I nodded and heaved her up before moving around the table to lift myself out of the high chair. The three of us made our way outside where mum mounted the brook sidesaddle and I sat in the middle with the baby in front of me.

So this was my first flight. No wonder I'm not scared of heights.

I kicked off from the ground and flew my awkward load as fast as I could toward London and St Mungo's. I would have to hold the broom steady as a rock during mum's contractions and my infant self would get very upset every time he heard his mother crying out with pain but we made good time and I landed in an empty alleyway where I hid the broom up a broken drainpipe and guided my waddling mother to the entrance to the wizarding hospital. The baby squirmed in my arms and screamed his head off when mum was taken away into a side room by mid witches.

I was directed to a nursery I could leave the baby until the family arrived to take care of me and I set myself down into a large white cot with drawings of bunnies and ducklings all over it. As I turned to leave baby Ron began screaming and I hoped that dad and my grandparents would arrive soon to look after me and be there for mum. Then the screaming stopped abruptly and I rushed back to check on the baby but he wasn't there, just a pile of clothing and a smelly nappy. I had upset myself so much I had gone time travelling.

I frowned at the spot a baby should've been and thought of my mother. All these infant disappearances must have been harder on her than I ever gave her credit for, especially after losing a baby only a year before.

I wished I had asked her if it was a boy or a girl, asked anything about it, and I wondered if they had given it a name.

I left St Mungo's and felt my stomach roar its disapproval at being neglected all this time. I didn't have anybody to go to this early on in my life so I'd have to steal something. I was walking towards a nearby market, the best place for a hungry time traveller pinching food, when I staggered forward and felt the nausea while the vivid colours of the market place blurred and faded into darkness.

I hit the stone floor hard on my back and heard voices as I tried my hardest not to throw up, at least not until I was bending over, and suddenly there were hands on my upper arms pulling me into a sitting position and covering my privates with a jacket or something.

"Ron, Ron are you alright?"

It was Harry.

"What the hell is going on? How did he do that?"

That sounded like Eldridge.

"Shut up and give him some air, light your wand too I need to make sure he's alright," Harry ordered.

"I'm fine Harry, the Burrow in summertime, didn't get into any trouble don't worry," I croaked.

"Did you eat?" my best friend asked as I regained the ability to focus and looked into his worried face.

"What was that Agent Weasley? Was that apparition? How did you do that when I had you immobilised?"

"Eldridge, I've already told you once now, leave him alone," Harry snarled.

Eldridge looked incredibly offended, his wiry straw blonde hair seemed to glow against his red face.

"Might I remind you Potter that I am your superior?"

"And might I remind you sir that attempting to kill a ministry agent is an offence punishable with twenty years in Azkaban?"

I struggled to my feet and pulled my clothes back on while all of this was bubbling out of control.

"Listen Mr Eldridge I'll come and find you after lunch and I'll explain and Harry, it's ok I can look after myself alright? But right now I have to floo home."

Harry blinked at me as I hopped up and down, putting my shoe on, and steadied me with his arm.

"What is it mate, what's wrong? Hermione won't be there remember, she's at work too."

"Not that home Harry, the Burrow, I need to talk to my mother."

Harry had other questions, as did Eldridge, but I didn't wait around for them. Instead I ran for the fireplaces in the lobby and jumped into the nearest outgoing floo, taking a handful of powder and throwing it into the small flame at my feet.

"The Burrow!"

I disappeared in a blast of green flames and watched the blur of fireplaces zoom past my eyes before the kitchen at the Burrow came into focus. It didn't really look all that different to how I'd left it back in 1981. I called out.

"Mum, are you home? Mum it's Ron."

He heard her footsteps on the stairs and ran to the bottom of them to meet her.

"Ronnie dear, whatever is the matter, are you hurt? Are you travelling?"

She clasped my face in her hands and looked at me closely for any telltale signs of damage or distress.

"I just got back."

"Where from?"

"1981, I was talking you to St Mungo's."

Mum's face broke into a wide grin.

"Oh Ronnie I can finally thank you and have you know exactly what I'm talking about!" she threw her arms around me and planted a wet kiss on my cheek.

I needed to get right to the point and pulled away, she looked confused and worried at this so I took her hand in both of mine and pulled her to sit down on the stairs with me, face-to-face.

"Listen mum there's something I need to ask you."

"Go ahead Ron, what's the matter?" she looked so concerned that her past self had upset me that I wondered if this was really necessary.

I decided it was.

"Mum what was the baby's name?"

She could see how serious I was and tried not to smile at this strange question.

"Why Ginny of course, you know your own sister's name Ronald."

"No mum," I said with a squeeze of her hand, "the baby before me, did you name the baby that died?"

Her face fell and so did her head. She pulled her hand away from mine and wiped her face with a sniff before looking back at me with watery eyes.

"Oh Ronnie, yes we named him, it was another boy, a beautiful red-haired baby boy who never opened his eyes to let me see the colour of them.

I swallowed and mum took back my hand.

"We named him John."

My eyes went wide.

"But..."

Mum smiled and shushed me before carrying on.

"Until you explained this whole time-travelling thing to me I always told myself that John became my guardian angel and it was him who came to me that day and bought Ginny into the world safely."

"I lowered my head.

"I'm sorry."

Mum lifted my chin and fixed my gaze with her own.

"You needn't apologise for anything Ronald Weasley, you were an even better person to have help me. You are a real life person and John was just a dream I let myself believe that's all."

"But I never meant to take your dream away from you mum, that's awful, I'm so sorry."

She gave me two more wet kisses on hearing that, one on the other cheek and the other to middle of my forehead.

"You're my dream come true Ronnie. Don't ever be sorry for being able to be there for me, for Ginny, and don't you ever think that you're second best. Promise me Ron."

I closed my eyes to stop the tears from coming.

"I promise."

"Open your eyes and promise me Ron!" my mother shook me by the shoulders and I looked her in the eye, "I waited too long to see another pair of baby blues, I won't let you hide them from me now."

I opened my eyes and said it again.

"I promise."

We hugged at the bottom of the stairs for five minutes, holding each other tightly and rocking from side to side with wordless understanding, before breaking apart and looking into each other's eyes again. Mum pushed my hair out of my face and sniffled quietly.

"When do you cut this all off, I can't wait until you stop hiding behind this mop.

I chuckled.

"Not until I get married I'm afraid, and it gets long again after that remember?"

Mum had seen me at forty apparently, I had tea with her for seven minutes and told her she was a grandmother before disappearing, and had said that I wasn't grey or bald but in fact sporting shoulder length red hair that was being kept a little neater than I have it now.

"What can I say mum," I shrug, "I'm not one for grooming."

She laughed and set off toward the kitchen to feed me up.

"So very thin these days," she mumbled under her breath while I followed her through and sat in the yard while she prepared lunch.

I wondered if I was crushing anybody else's fantasy of a guardian angel with my revelation that I was a time traveller. Maybe in future I'll try to remain anonymous and enigmatic at times like that.

I massaged my throat, it was bound to be bruised by now; she would notice and get all angry and outraged. Hermione would go spare too. I hoped I could get Eldridge to understand, I know I could as I've been to a future where he is my friend, and I hoped that Harry didn't get himself into too much trouble after I left them.

Although I do suspect he'll find himself on quite a few unglamorous assignments for a while now.