Standard disclaimers and apologies for typos that may be the result of me being under-caffeinated. Or over-caffeinated.
Chapter 2: A house divided
In the ten years since the final battle at Hogwarts, some things hadn't changed much. The Weasleys steadfastly convened on Sundays for family lunch, the twins still walked a fine line between amusing and infuriating everyone with their pranks, and the Chudley Cannons had yet to redeem themselves on the Quidditch pitch. However, there had been some changes at The Burrow, and some people had transformed in even more significant ways than dying their hair or even becoming a parent.
Arguably, no one had changed as much as Hermione Weasley.
Sunday found her squeezed at the table between Ron and Arthur as dishes and gossip were passed freely, although the stream of conversation seemed to flow around her. Head down, she focused on slicing her lamb into tiny, neat squares and arranging them in an orderly line on her plate. She didn't lift her head when Fred and George argued over which of them had caused the latest explosion in their workshop. There was no sign of irritation on her face when Arthur kept saying "enternet" instead of "internet." But she did raise her chin -but not her eyes- when Molly asked her if she had had any visitors that week.
"Lavender came for tea on Wednesday," Hermione tried to sound nonchalant as she answered and then took evasive maneuvers by stuffing some lamb in her mouth and chewing demonstratively.
A full mouth did not prevent Ron from adding, "Yeah, and she brought her kid with her."
Molly's gusty sigh seemed to blow away all the other chatter at the table and there was an awkward silence. Hermione resisted the urge to do any of the things she would have loved to do (roll her eyes, change the subject, hope that someone else would break the tension before…)
"Another baby this year," Molly cooed. "That's lovely, how old is he?" She looked at Hermione expectantly, but it was Ron who answered.
"Eight months," Ron mumbled around a bite of mash. "Cute little thing, too."
'Ten months and a little on the small side,' Hermione thought privately as a sort of silent rebellion. Across from her, Percy made sympathetic eye contact and Bill shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Arthur made an attempt to steer the conversation to Quidditch, but he couldn't prevent the inevitable.
"You know, dear, I read an article in Witch Weekly about a new potion that can-"
Hermione kept her eyes open and didn't allow her teeth to clench only because she was too tired to react. Next would come the litany of stories of other babies who had been fought for and won by triumphant witches Molly knew, then a homily on the joy that children brought to the families who raised them. Ron would assure his mother that he and Hermione were still trying (Hermione agreed that Ron, at least, was trying in the sense that he was deeply trying her patience). Depending on his mood, Ron would then either make a snarky dig at Hermione's continued refusal to try any of Molly's suggestions or a horrifyingly raunchy joke about their attempts to make a baby.
"Sorry, mum, Hermione's brilliant but she never got her NEWT in baby making. But I reckon we can do some revision and keep trying for an O." He chuckled and offered a leery wink to the table at large, but not even Fred and George rewarded him with a laugh. Hermione couldn't help the dull flush that rose in her face or the icy chill of mortification that made the hair on her arms stand up. Still, she said nothing and kept her head bowed, and eventually the talk moved on to other things and her silence rose like a wall around her, isolating her from the other Weasleys.
She sometimes felt that the wall of silence was more of a maze because while she thought she could tear down or leap over a wall, she often found herself wandering in the maze of her messy relationship with no idea of how she'd gotten there or how she could escape.
Well, in fairness, it was pretty clear how she'd gotten there; high on the adrenaline of battle and the fear of death, she could still remember the exhilaration of Ron asking after the house elves of Hogwarts. Such a simple, silly thing, but at the time it had felt like a validation of those feelings that had been so important to her at seventeen. It had felt like a sign of True Love. It had felt like Ron was finally seeing her, all of her, and meeting her halfway.
What it had actually been was fleeting. A far stronger force had pulled them together in the aftermath of Voldemort's defeat: the gravity of expectations. Their kiss had been public and everyone who saw it readily accepted the narrative of two childhood friends who grew into lovers. Mrs. Weasley had loudly cried tears of happiness at the idea of another of her sons achieving marriage. The media had turned them into a fairytale and with Hermione's parents Obliviated and far away in body and spirit, there had been no one to prevent her from getting swept into marriage just a few months after she turned eighteen.
No, Hermione knew exactly how she had become trapped in the maze and she had forgiven her younger self for making the mistake of marrying so young. However, there were other failings that she couldn't forgive herself for.
She didn't blame herself for stumbling into a tense moment in the kitchen after the meal was over, but she did wish that she hadn't offered to make tea for Arthur. Percy's folded arms and Molly's furious scrubbing of a sink that was already spotless encouraged her to be quick about fixing the tea, but even magic couldn't force the water to boil quickly enough for her to escape the argument.
"You have been in my room again," Percy's statement was not a question but an accusation. "You deliberately unlocked my trunk and removed things that were not yours to touch!" As a child, the family had treated his imperious frowns as an adorable affectation. As an adult, they made Molly square her shoulders to meet him, Hermione observed.
"I was simply unpacking your things so you could get comfortable during your stay," Molly started before swallowing the end of the sentence, as if realizing she shouldn't have to justify her actions to her son (Hermione suspected that Molly found it easier to be affectionate with her more deferential sons.) Molly changed tactics. "You know how I feel about her things under my roof," Molly said plainly, wiping her hands off and bustling across the kitchen and away from her son's accusing glare. "I've told you that a dozen times but you boys just never listen. I will not allow you to-"
"You have no right to be nosing in my things, which were locked up, even." Percy's voice was low and tight. "I told you that was a condition of me staying here; I don't want anyone pawing through my belongings. Not the twins. Not you."
"I was hardly pawing," Molly scoffed. "You've quite a flair for the dramatic."
"I have a right to my privacy while I'm here, and if I want to keep some of Ginny's school things then it's really no business of yours!"
"Do not say that name, Percy Weasley! I'm your mother and you will obey me!"
"She's your daughter! You cannot erase her!" Percy hissed viciously, and now the two Weasley tempers were activated and joined in battle. Hermione decided that Arthur could drink his tea lukewarm and without milk and tried to edge silently away from what looked like A Very Bad Time, but footsteps were already thumping down the stairs as the rest of the family converged to take their places on the field and it was too late for her to escape. Arthur drifted to stand next to Molly, looking vaguely helpless, while Ron stomped up to her other side with his lower jaw jutting out. Bill put his hand on Percy's shoulder and the twins ranged themselves behind them.
'All I wanted was to fix some tea and maybe sneak a biscuit,' Hermione fretted to herself, but one glare from Ron had her abandoning any hopes of escape and her tea cup as she reluctantly stepped forward to take the hand he held out for her.
She already knew there would be no resolution to this fight; the sides were too evenly balanced and neither Percy or Molly would be able to swallow their pride and stand down. She was so tired of the pattern they couldn't escape from.
"Do not speak to me like that, Percy!" Molly shrilled, tearing off her apron and throwing it onto the counter, cheeks flaming red. "You will respect me in my home, and I know I didn't raise you to be so rude."
"I never should have come here," Percy uttered in a low, harsh tone, half turning away from his mother. Bill opened his mouth -Hermione didn't know whether it was to support Percy or to encourage moderation- but he ended up doing neither.
"Now, Percy," Arthur piped up, "you know you're always welcome. What's the trouble here?"
"The trouble is that Percy has been disrespecting his mother," Molly seethed. Hermione could have said that the real problem was that Molly had never gotten over her disappointment that Harry and Ginny's relationship had failed. It wasn't even really the whole relationship that had failed, just half of it, in Molly Weasley's opinion. Ginny's half, specifically. Little Ginny Weasley, who had never really followed her mother's example of a strong matriarch and had, instead, turned out to be strong in all the wrong ways. A rebellious, uncouth, scarlet woman of a daughter who couldn't see a good man if he was on his knees in front of her. As far as Mrs. Weasley was concerned, that had been exactly the case with That Girl and poor Harry Potter - her almost-son-in-law - had paid the price. The poor boy had deserved a happy family for himself, but That Girl's selfishness had denied them what they had all surely wanted.
Hermione could have said it. But just because one can do a thing doesn't mean they should, and she had learned long ago that discretion was the better part of valor.
But Percy had apparently never heard that dictum because he fired back at his mother with no regard for his own safety. "Really? I would say that the bigger trouble is that Mum has been disrespecting her children."
"That Girl is no child of mine!"
"Yes she is!" Percy roared, to the surprise of everyone else in the kitchen. "And if you don't think you've disrespected her then you can answer for what you've done to me! You can't stand the idea that you might not know best or that you might be wrong or that you could decide to change your mind instead of staying the course when that course is a ruinous one!" His voice grew louder as if he were determined that she should hear every word even though she was already stalking away from him. Arthur shook his head and followed, throwing a sad glance at Percy as he passed him.
Bill waited until they'd all heard a door slam shut before he asked, "Perce, why do you push her all the time? You know she won't change. I know she won't change. What's the point of it all, mate?"
"I just can't let her go unopposed when she says such hateful things about Ginny," Percy whispered, his lean form suddenly sagging. Running a hand through his hair, his hollow eyes made him look far older than thirty-four.
"Look, we don't like it either," Fred admitted, hands shoved in his pockets. "But you get the old girl riled up and then we all suffer for it."
George nodded and added, "Bit selfish of you, now we'll all be tiptoeing around for days."
"It's easy for you," Ron added glumly, "you lot don't even have to live with her. I'm the one who she'll be lecturing at and I didn't even say anything."
Actually, Hermione thought she'd probably be the whipping girl for most of Molly's rage since she spent the most time helping Molly around the house.
"Don't you ever think that Ginny might come back?" Percy asked, those old, hollow eyes staring unseeingly out the window into the garden. "It's been ten years, but I have to believe she's still out there. I refuse to believe otherwise in the absence of proof."
"So what if she is?" Ron grumbled belligerently. "You weren't even close to her when she was here."
"That's the point!" Percy said, swinging that hollow gaze to Ron. "If no one defends her, then how can we deserve her if she decides she wants to come home? If we all just stand around talking shit behind her back then why would she decide to stay if she does come home?" Silence met his confession, as all the people tried to imagine what a twenty-nine year old Ginny would be like. Hermione wondered if anyone else was thinking about how Harry might have changed as well. She found Percy's chivalry touching; she hadn't known he thought so much about his sister, but she was pleasantly surprised.
"I say forget her," Ron spoke up. "D'you reckon if she cared about her own family she'd have stayed away and never contacted us for ten years? Mum's right, Ginny abandoned us and if she can turn her back on family so easily, then fine, let her. S'not like there's not enough of us, is there?" Hermione glared at her husband, but said nothing. Perhaps it was due to living with Molly (and relying on her cooking to survive), but Hermione had noticed that Ron seemed to be the only brother who actively disliked Ginny, although he saved his real hatred for Harry.
Hermione exchanged a glance with Fred, who rolled his eyes and mouthed 'prat' and pointed at Ron. George snickered, giving a nasty look to their younger brother that made Hermione hope the twins remembered that she had to share Ron's bed, just in case they wanted to slip a nasty surprise in there.
"Guys, let's just call it a night, all right? Get some sleep and we'll see one another next week, yeah?" Bill tried to be the peacemaker. Unfortunately this evening, the situation was not to be diffused so easily. Ron had turned around and caught the twins making faces behind him and he responded by grabbing Hermione's wrist and jealously pulling her closer.
"Oi you dickheads, why don't you clear out. 'Mione, don't look at them."
"Ooh, big man, Ronald," George sneered, pointedly looking at the way Ron held Hermione's wrist. "Decided Hermione needed to go back in the cage?" Hermione bit her lip at this, but had long since learned to keep a low profile during Weasley arguments. While she was secretly grateful that George was calling out Ron's caveman behavior she didn't want to have to spend her evening soothing him after the twins had gone back to their flat in Hogsmeade.
"Yeah, Ronald," Fred chimed in. The other family members tensed, recognizing the start of what could turn into a brawl. "Thought you had Hermione do your thinking for you, since you've got all the reasoning power of a troll. So where do you get off not letting her talk or think for herself?" Ron was clenching his fists now, having dropped Hermione's arm. She backed away and looked fearfully at Bill, who was the largest of the brothers. He nodded at her, exhaustion standing out on his wan face, before pushing his way between his siblings to stop the barrage of insults and threats.
Hermione stepped outside, sitting on the porch as Bill failed to keep the row in check. She turned as she heard the door open a few minutes later and was surprised to see Percy coming to sit next to her - she had honestly forgotten that he was there once the twins and Ron had started to get loud. He cast a Silencing Charm around them to spare them from what sounded like a wild romp in the kitchen and they sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Famous Weasley temperament," Percy said wryly. "You've seen Mum. We never had a chance with that kind of pedigree."
"I can't blame Fred and George, really. I was furious with Ron, too, but I just don't have the energy to try to correct him all the time."
"I hate to reinforce a stereotype, but Mum babied him as the youngest son and he's always been the worst of us. The war allowed him to grow up with his temper. If he had had to get a job and live in the real world like the rest of us, maybe he would have been tamed more."
It was useless to speculate on how her life might have been different with a calmer iteration of Ron, so she didn't bother trying. "You know, I really liked what you were saying about Ginny," she said carefully. "You know, I was there when Ron yelled at her, calling her all sorts of terrible names, right before she left." Hermione trailed off, swallowed, forged on. "And I didn't stop him. I still feel so horribly guilty, because I didn't say anything to defend her. Or Harry, later. I was just so scared of…" but she really couldn't bring herself to finish that sentence because no matter how she decided the sentence should end, it would highlight her greatest failure.
"My brother never," Percy paused, clearly uncomfortable, "well he never - if he has done something to make you… We would want to know about it, you wouldn't have to-"
Almost as uncomfortable as he was, she put him out of his misery. "Oh no! No, no, he's never - honestly, Percy!" she pressed on when it looked as if he didn't believe her. "I don't think he would, and if he did-" here, she broke off, setting her jaw. "If he did, he'd find himself in far more trouble than the Death Eaters ever gave him." Just to give her nervous hands something to do, she cast a Finite on Percy's Silencing Charm, but they both winced as they heard Bill's raised voice and she quickly recast so they were sitting in the quiet again.
"Poor Bill, he can't even bring Fleur to The Burrow anymore," she sighed.
"He told me he and Fleur decided they don't want to get married and that they're happy to keep living in sin."
"Yes, well, I can't exactly blame them. Marriage does seem to cause an awful lot of fuss in your family, doesn't it?" Hermione said without thinking, then clapped her hand over her mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry, that was unconscionably rude to say!"
"Don't be," he said, patting her hand. "It's true, isn't it? It's a miracle Mum and Dad are still together, with the way she carries on. And Ron is truly his mother's son, in many ways." He flicked his eyes sideways to see if he'd offended her, but her profile gave nothing away. "Honestly, Bill is smart to keep Fleur away from the family and Charlie is even smarter to keep himself away from the drama. What does that say about the state of things here?"
"You're right, of course," Hermione nodded. "Ron is-well, he's been different since Harry and Ginny left. He totally agrees with your Mum about Ginny, but he really hasn't been right since we lost Harry. Ron needed Harry, I think, because Harry made him feel special and important and not just the youngest son of a big family. He's never really been able to redefine himself, but …" again Hermione trailed off, looking into the distance. And really, wasn't it silly to define oneself in adulthood by the person they had been at eleven or fourteen or even seventeen? Then again, did she have any room to judge since she could hardly define herself anymore?
There was a long pause. Hermione knew that Ron would eventually come looking for her and she prepared to stand and return to the kitchen, but Percy's hand on her arm halted her. "Look, I'm worried about you," he blurted. She looked at him questioningly and he surged on, "I know Ron, and I've seen how his meltdowns are only getting worse and if he, well, if he does anything, please don't feel like you're alone."
That cold shiver ran down her spine again, not because these were new thoughts but because Percy was vocalizing her own fears that she hadn't been able to articulate even in her own mind. But now they were real and they were floating in the air and she couldn't ignore the implication. However, she wasn't ready to form any kind of response that might require her to commit to an action, so she just stared at him. She wondered if her eyes looked as hollow as his had looked during his confrontation with Molly.
"'Mione, I'm out of clean pants," Ron yawned as they were undressing for bed. Bill and the twins had Flooed home and Percy had retreated to the guest room; he was staying for a few days to consult with the now-retired Arthur about some Muggle technology. Hermione thought it was nice to have an extra person in the house they shared with Molly and Arthur because it gave Molly someone else to fuss over and made it less likely that she would wander into the rooms Hermione and Ron occupied to cluck over some imagined dust.
"I did the laundry this morning," she said, looking up from her book.
"Well I'm not seeing any in my drawer," he grumped, rooting around as if he might find some buried in the stack of (no longer) folded shirts she had put away that afternoon. She didn't bother to respond and his muttering moved away to the bathroom before something hit the back of her book, startling her.
"What do you call that, then?" he asked triumphantly pointing at the pile of dirty underwear he'd tossed into her lap.
She sighed, setting aside her book, knowing that she wouldn't be able to finish her chapter now. "What would you like me to do about this, Ronald? It's ten o'clock at night and I am not going to get out of bed and deal with this now. Where did you even find these?"
"In the bathroom!"
"So not in the laundry basket then."
He gaped at her, sensing that he might lose the right to be the victim before finding his way back onto safer ground. "Well, if you'd Summoned them properly this morning then it wouldn't have mattered if they were in the basket."
"I can't Summon your pants if I don't know where you've hidden them! If you put them in the basket instead of shedding them willynilly and shoving them behind the bathroom door or pushing them down between the bed and the wall or cramming them up under the bedsheets then maybe doing your washing wouldn't feel like an asymptotic Sisyphean task!"
"A what?"
"Never mind," she said, and she was so very, very tired. Tired of the same arguments, which she would never win because Ron had more stamina to wear her down. Tired of living a life that was small in scope and purpose and reward. Tired because it was ten o'clock and the ghoul had woken her up last night with his banging and she just didn't give two shits about Ron not having underwear at the moment. Ron subsided huffily and a wall of silence was raised between them.
Silence created a lot of space for Hermione to do some reflection.
She reflected that when she was twenty, everyone had told her that babies didn't always come immediately and that of course there was still residual stress from years of fighting Voldemort, which would of course take time to resolve, but would definitely, certainly, go away in the end. She had plenty of time, they said, and she should just drink some wine and relax.
She reflected that, at thirty, people had stopped telling her that babies would take their time and that she should drink some wine and relax. Actually, they'd stopped mentioning babies at all (with the notable exceptions of Ron and Molly).
She reflected that it was a peculiar trait of humans that the more awkward they felt, the harder they worked to avoid the source of that awkwardness. And no one ever seemed to think they might be the ones making things awkward.
She reflected that she had never felt awkward about not being able to brew a whole batch of babies until it was all anyone would talk to her about.
She reflected that she was more upset about failing at a long-term goal of having a baby than she was about not actually having a baby.
She reflected that it was lonely to reflect, like a mirror, because she couldn't seem to talk about any of this with her husband.
A/N: Wow, dialogue is hard. I swear I've had a human conversation with other humans before, but every time I try to write dialogue I either sound like a stilted Victorian robot or a completely unhinged reality TV star. How do you talk like a person? I don't even know anymore.
