"Go back to sleep" she murmured as she rubbed his back. He lay back, but didn't sleep. In fact, he hadn't been asleep even before she'd awoken from the nightmare. After all, he might not be a genius like her, but he wasn't exactly dumb. When a man's wife engages in the same bizarre behavior on the exact same day for years on end, he's bound to notice.

Ron Weasley let out a slow breath when he felt the mattress lift as she got up and moved about the darkened room. She wrapped her already pajama-clad body in a shawl she kept draped over a chair in the bedroom. How could she be cold? It's June, for pity's sake. He rolled over, put one arm behind his head and stared at the ceiling; it would be a couple of hours until she'd come running back, sobbing and covered in charcoal. He let his mind wonder as he listened to the poorly disguised sobs coming from the lounge where she worked. His thoughts drifted back in time to try and remember when this had all begun. She'd already been doing it when they'd married seven years prior. He'd asked her mother about it, but typically, the woman was very close-mouthed and told him that Hermione would explain when she was ready. What really confused him was the date. When he'd first learned of her odd behavior when they were dating, he attributed it to something that occurred during the war. If he'd have thought there was one day a year when his no-nonsense, 'logic-is-everything' bride would lose her head and cry until she was sick, it would've been the anniversary of The Battle to End All Battles. But that was Halloween. It made no sense to him why his wife became an absolute basketcase every year on June 5th.

He lay there a long while, thinking about work, about the Cannons' new seeker, about moving out of the flat and getting a little house with a garden, and ultimately about the thing they didn't speak of: having a baby. They'd been trying for over a year now. Hermione refused to talk about it, though she did seem sad at their repeated failed attempts at conception. Of course his family was giving him absolute hell over it. "Who ever heard of an infertile Weasley?" George had snickered at their last family dinner. "Feeling a little….performance anxiety, Baby Brother?" Fred had asked. It wasn't so much that it had bothered him. He'd grown up with them, he was used to it, but the stricken look on Hermione's face as she quickly excused herself and went into the garden "for air", broke his heart a little. The sisters-in-law were no better, with their constant onslaught of unsolicited advice. He feared what she might do in a fit of temper if one more person told her it wasn't going to happen until she stopped trying to make it happen. Maybe he could talk to them and get them to lay off. He was having trouble getting Hermione to family dinners now-a-days as it was, what with twenty-four nieces and nephews about. There wasn't a single nook or cranny in the Burrow that didn't remind her of their failure. Children were everywhere. She hid her despair well; not one of the kids knew how Auntie Hermione felt, for she was good to them and constantly went on about how she loved them all. It was apparent by the way she played with them, read to them and accomplished the near impossible task of learning every one of their names. He nearly snorted at this, but remembered he was supposed to be sleeping. His thoughts were interrupted as the door flew open and his distraught wife came running through the door and threw herself on the bed, sobbing hysterically.

"'Ermione?" He said, feigning drowsiness.

"Oh Ron, Ron, Please, please just hold me!" She wailed and shook and cried for well over an hour until she sobbed herself to a fitful sleep. Ron rubbed her back and whispered reassurances into the mass of her riotous hair. As he pulled away from her, he could see the tell-tale signs of her odd habit. She had tear streaks mixed with dark charcoal on her face. Her finger tips and the sleeves of her pajamas were black from brushing against the overlarge parchment where she'd been working. He reached over her to the night table and retrieved his wand. He cast a quick Scourgify on her and pulled the quilt up to her chin, then gently smoothed the hair out of her face and smiled. Even in this hysterical state, she was easily the most incredible woman he'd ever known.

He padded to the lounge and was met at the door by Crookshanks, returning from his nightly patrol of the neighborhood. "Age hasn't slowed you down in the least, you great furry beast" Ron chuckled as he scratched the cat behind the ear with his big toe. He conjured food for Crookshanks and tea for himself before setting to work to rid the lounge of all signs of distress before Hermione awakened. He walked to the window and looked out at the rosy tinges of dawn beginning to color the sky. Setting down his cup, he looked at her work. It was a charcoal rendering of a child. She always drew children on June 5th, but each of them was a little different. Well, with the exception that they were always boys. This one was ten or eleven, no definitely eleven, for he was holding his Hogwarts letter. It was really good, actually, but Hermione refused to talk about her art or even acknowledge the pictures existed. When he'd gone to talk to Harry about it, he wondered if it was just her way of coping with the losses she'd suffered during the war. Of course, that was a rather one-sided conversation, given the fact that he was actually talking to a headstone, as Harry was dead and had been for ten years. He rubbed his chest at the familiar constriction that particular thought always caused. In the beginning, he thought this…whatever it was on June 5th was about Harry, but as he'd learned more about his wife, he'd come to know that Hermione had a peace about Harry's death, that he could only hope for. It seemed that she had figured out long before it occurred, that Harry would have to sacrifice himself to save the world. She had come to accept it. It wasn't that it didn't make her sad; it did, but there was nothing to be done about it. Not like this. Whatever was bothering her made her sad, deep-in-the-bones sad. Ron removed the large parchment from the easel and banished the art supplies to the cupboard in the hallway, where they would remain until next June 5th. He summoned a large leather portfolio he kept hidden behind the wardrobe in the guest room. He laid it out on the floor and was just going to add the latest addition to the collection, but something niggling in the back of his brain made him pull out the pictures and spread them about the floor. Like a bolt from the blue, an idea struck him. He began to re-arrange the pictures of little boys and soon realized that Hermione wasn't drawing a different little boy on June 5th every year, she was drawing the same one, just a year older. He carefully looked at the child's features. They were familiar, but not too. He wished the pictures were in color so he could get a more accurate feel for what the little fellow looked like. He was quite charming, actually. In the first picture, now yellowing with age, he was a chubby-cheeked little tyke, sitting in a nursery next to a toy dragon. The next picture was in the same nursery, but lacking toys, the boy seemed to be toddling about, clapping his hands and laughing. The pictures went on, like those time-collapsed photographs his in-laws were so crazy about (and Hermione thought he needed to take a Muggle Studies course by correspondence! Pfft. He knew plenty about muggles from interacting with the Doctors Granger). Ron could see the little boy growing up before his eyes. The six-year-old boy played with a toy broom and the seven-year-old held a snitch in his small hand. The nine-year-old was propped on a window seat, reading. Ron's eyes crinkled as he smiled imagining the boy with his red hair and Hermione's brown eyes, but there was something….he just couldn't quite… get. The reading boy sat in profile, his features seemed too sharp, almost. It didn't look like anyone he knew. Maybe that little nose and pointy chin belonged to one of Hermione's grandparents, he'd have to ask her mother to show him a photo.

Still, this revelation only deepened the mystery. Ron scratched his head. Had Hermione been dreaming of their having a child together for eleven years? That would have put the genesis of this fantasy back in their seventh year at school. That didn't seem like her at all. Hermione was never one to moon over boys or write Mrs. Ronald Weasley over and over again on her parchment instead of potions notes. He stretched back through time with his mind, trying to picture June of seventh year. Of course, it was difficult. He'd purposely blocked out most of the memories from that time period. The war, Harry, Dumbledore, it was easier to just carry on and not think about it. Still, he could easily recall images of Hermione. She'd nearly missed graduation because she spent most of their last term in the infirmary due to a botched stomach flu potion. Strange, he didn't question it at the time. It wasn't like Hermione to brew a potion incorrectly. She'd said she had absent-mindedly used cotton root when the recipe called for dandelion. He couldn't figure how that would make a huge difference. Dandelion was a purgative and she'd already been spewing her guts out, literally, for days before that. It seemed to him she would have been better off without it. He probably should have offered to help her brew it, but at that time, he and Harry were busy helping the Order and tracking Voldemort, who had gone into hiding the previous summer when the last (well, next-to-last) horcrux had been found and destroyed. As he thought of visiting her in the hospital, thinking she looked far too pale for someone who only had the flu, another vision came, unbidden, to him: Draco Malfoy stalking through the hospital wing, carrying an ornately carved wooden box, with a murderous look on his face.

"What's that git doing here?"

Hermione looked at her hands and murmured very quietly "He's come to retrieve …something that belongs to him."

"Not something dangerous?" Ron asked, automatically assuming, as Harry would have had he been there, that the lying snake was probably up to no good. How he'd escape prosecution after Dumbledore's death, Ron and Harry would never know. His dad had refused to talk about it and just told them to let it go. Not that he'd tried. Leopards don't change their spots and the Dark Mark on Malfoy's arm was proof enough, to Ron at least, that this particular leopard was beyond redemption. Funny, he couldn't remember Hermione's answer to his question. Well, Hermione had always scoffed at the thought of Malfoy being dangerous. She thought the boys gave him too much credit.

He thought about it for a while longer, but when he heard Hermione stir in the bedroom, he quickly shuffled the drawings and hid them away. She was still sniffling as she made her way to the kitchen. He walked to her and put his arms about her waist.

"You alright?"

"Of course I'm alright. Why do you ask?"

"It's just, you had a rough night. I thought you might sleep in this morning."

"Ronald Weasley, have you ever known me to sleep in?" she replied, bossy as ever.

"No. What are your plans today?" he queried, trying not to look guilty.

She went very quiet for a moment, but then, just as quickly, she perked up and said "I thought I would visit the library at Hogwarts this afternoon. I need to do some research on that new fertility potion your mother was telling me about."

"What does my mum need with a fertility potion?" he asked, playing dumb for her benefit. Secretly, he was pleased; today, at least, she was willing to talk about trying to have a baby. Maybe the pictures were therapeutic, after all.

"Oh, Ron!" she said, hugging him tightly and kissing him on the cheek. "You know she means it for us. I'm going to shower; can you be ready to go in fifteen minutes?" He leaned in and nibbled her neck.

"No and neither will you. It's Saturday, we have no particular place to be, we're young and in love, so let's forget about fertility potions and try to make a baby the old fashioned way, The Weasley Way!" She squealed and actually laughed a little as he lifted her and carried her off to their bedroom.

Three hours later, they were hand in hand, strolling the aisles of the Hogwarts library's vast potions section.

"Hermione, it's a little stuffy in here. I'm going to walk out and see Harry"

"Alright, I'll be done here in about an hour" she said, squeezing his hand and giving him one of her best 'pretending everything is fine' smiles. He left her to her brooding, though he did feel a little guilty about not staying with her today, he just needed to tell Harry about the weird baby pictures and try to figure out what it was about them that made her so miserable.

He walked out onto the lawn and down by the lake. The students were still asleep, for the most part, so he had the beautiful grounds to himself. He breathed in the fresh, warm air and headed toward Harry's final resting place. What had initially begun as a monument to Dumbledore quickly became a cemetery for the honored dead of the war. Harry was on Dumbledore's right, Hagrid on his left. Just as Ron was opening his mouth to tell Harry about Hermione's problem, he detected movement to his right. Looking up he was surprised to see the white blond hair and billowing black robes of Hogwarts' current Potions Master. Malfoy had his back to Ron, giving the redhead the opportunity to watch him without engaging in the war of words normally conducted whenever they met. Malfoy was bending over a grave. "Who does he know buried here?" Ron wondered. Death Eaters' bodies were burned and their ashes scattered, Official Ministry Policy for anyone bearing The Mark. He watched as Malfoy talked to the headstone and caressed the name engraved there. That was odd in itself; Ron had never seen Draco Malfoy show affection to anyone, ever. The stone was smaller than the others in the cemetery and for a moment Ron thought it might have been that of a child. But no, he had personally attended the funeral of nearly every person resting here and he didn't remember anyone younger than fifteen. He shook off a shudder as he remembered the faces of his lost classmates. Turning, he smiled at Harry's stone, knowing his friend wouldn't have been able to resist investigating this new mystery and crept closer, hiding behind a tree. Malfoy straightened to go, but paused to leave a bunch of rosemary tied with a white ribbon. "Rosemary, that's for remembrance. Remember me, Love" Ron whispered, recalling Hermione's words just a few weeks before when she'd planted the herb in a window box outside their flat. Malfoy finally walked away, head down and hands in his pockets. Ron waited for him to leave, before moving to stand in front of the small, black granite tombstone. It had no dates, only a name:

Orion Leonidas Malfoy

Ron was pretty certain the grave wasn't new and he was also certain that Draco was the last of the Malfoys. He scratched his head, shrugged and decided to go look for Hermione, confident that given time, he would figure out both the small mystery of the Unknown Malfoy and the greater mystery of Hermione's June Boys. After all, he might not be a genius, like his beloved wife, but Ron Weasley wasn't exactly dumb.