Disclaimer: I don't own HP or any of these characters. That belongs to JKR, Scholastic Books, Warner Brothers, etc.
Chapter Thirty Three : Signal
Harry mindlessly pushed his food around his plate, not feeling very hungry at all. Ron was jabbering about how some customer had been a damn fool and managed to get one of the pranks he bought to backfire on him, and Harry supposed it was a really funny story. But his mind wasn't on that right now.
Somehow ever since Hermione had told him about that 'solution,' he couldn't stop thinking about it. It wasn't as though he wanted a baby just yet – he was being completely honest when he told Hermione that he wasn't ready for that yet. The thing that was hard for him to get over was that when he thought of having a family, he thought of having it with Hermione.
Not that was a bad thing, given that they were together and he wanted to stay that way. But it was kind of scary to think like that. Perhaps it was so natural because she had always been in his life. Well, not always, but for as long as he had been in the Wizarding world, she had been there and maybe that was why he thought they would always be together. But the thought was still scary. Especially when he didn't know if Hermione felt the same way. He knew that she cared for him and even kind of loved him—but he didn't know if she was thinking always as well.
It was probably something he should bring up to her. But on the other hand, he didn't want to scare her off.
"—And so that big idiot came screaming back into the shop today, insisting that we give him a refund and recompense him for his time off work and all that. Fred just took one look at the bloke, pulled out another package of the Electric Bugaloo, and pointed out where the directions were, all in red. I tell you, I've never seen anyone turn so red in my life. Though I don't know if it were from embarrassment or from anger, as he kept on shouting," finished Ron, shaking his head. "He was still there when I left. I felt bad for Fred to have to take the brunt of it, but then again, it is his shop. George said probably that one will get added to the list."
"The list?" asked Harry. He hadn't been really paying attention to Ron, but that part caught his attention. The twins making a list couldn't be a good thing.
Ron rolled his eyes. "Don't worry. I know what you're thinking. It's not a bad list. Okay, it's not good to be on the list but all it means is that we won't let you buy things from us. Because you're too bloody stupid to read the directions and so we're really looking out for you."
"How long is that list?"
"Too long, if you were to hear George go on about it, as he's had to turn several of those idiots away. And that means lost sales, but after today, I can see why they have it. It's just not worth it having to deal with morons like that." Ron stopped in his frantic chattering to inhale a bit of his food. "So what did you decide?" he asked in between bites.
"Decide?" Harry's brow furrowed as he tried to puzzle out what Ron was talking about.
"About . . . you know." Ron waved his arms in the air. Harry supposed that was meant to be some sort of clue, but all it did was confuse him even more.
"This," said Harry, imitating Ron's gestures, "doesn't really help me."
"Gah!" Ron stopped in his eating to throw up his hands in frustration. "About," he said, taking time to rub his stomach noticeably, "this."
Harry wondered briefly if Ron had a stomach ache before cottoning on. When he did, he winced. Damn, I thought Ron would know better than to bring that up in a crowded restaurant, he thought. We'd best get out of here before talking about it . . . and I had better tell Ron what we decided, because it looks like he's about to explode if I don't tell him. Pointing at their plates, Harry suggested, "Are you finished? As I was thinking we could go to my flat to talk and maybe watch something." Harry crossed his fingers and hoped that Ron would get that he was trying to take them to a more private place before answering that question.
"Good idea," said Ron. "But I'll take this with me." He looked over at the food that Harry had left mostly untouched. "And that as well. If you're not going to eat it, I'm not going to let it go to waste."
"And I wonder why Hermione sometimes calls you a pig," Harry said.
"Hey! I'm a growing boy!"
"I wish I had recorded that somehow," said Harry. "So that the next time you insisted that you were now a man, I could pull that out as proof."
"That was a colloquial phrase and you know it." Ron snorted. "And I must be spending too much time with Hermione if I used that word. Let's go."
Harry waved a waiter down to pack up the food. Once that was done and he had paid, the two of them Apparated to the street where Harry and Hermione's flat was located. Not for the first time was Harry glad that they had kept the flat after they had moved to Hogwarts for Hermione's new job. It was nice, having a place they could stay at in London. Once Hermione was better, Harry imagined that they could spend weekends away. Certainly, Hermione needed the time away, considering how suffocating her fan club could be at times. Though they might want to get some new furniture for the place before they spent the night there. Though the flat wasn't completely stripped bare, it was rather sparsely furnished.
When they reached the front door, Harry fumbled for a minute, searching for the key while holding his wand. Finding the key, he opened the door and motioned Ron in, then followed him while making sure the privacy charms on the flat were as strong as ever. They were, thankfully, and so he didn't have to set them once again.
Ron took a glance around the room, frowned, and then kicked back on the remaining armchair. Setting the bag of food on the floor beside him for the moment, he said, "Okay, we're here. Thank Merlin. As I was about to burst and that would have been dire."
"Yeah," said Harry. "As I would have—"
Ron shot him a sharp glance. "Harry, I don't care what you would have done, really I don't."
"You don't?" Harry frowned. "Great. Just great. I spend half my life dealing with the scourge of the Wizarding world and this is the sort of respect I get. I would think that I'd have a more impressive reputation."
"Maybe to other wizards, but not me. I am your best friend. Besides, nothing you could do to me could be half as bad as what Hermione could do to me."
Harry narrowed his eyes. "And what is that suppose to imply? I know she knows more charms and spells than me—hell, she probably knows more of those than most people in the world—but I don't think that she would ever hurt you."
"Let me put it this way, mate. There are some things that a bloke wouldn't even joke about doing to another man. No matter how badly his friend had fucked things out. Witches however . . . ." Ron shuddered, a bit melodramatically in Harry's opinion. "Well, let's just say that some of the things that Ginny's threatened me with still give me nightmares."
"More than spiders?"
"Hell, some of them involved spiders."
"What makes you think that—"
"—Your dear, sweet Hermione would even know about such things? Because she's shared a bloody room with my sister more summers than I care to remember, that's why! And if I had blurted out that you two might be trying to . . . you know . . . I'm sure she would have found some creative threats." Ron winced. "And if not, she could have turned to Ginny for help, which would have been even worse as Ginny might actually carry through with some of them."
Harry shook his head in disbelief. "Your family is really something else, Ron."
"Tell me about it. No, actually, please don't. I could tell you about it. I ought to write a book about the ordeals of being a Weasley. Couldn't you see that being a best seller?"
"Yeah, certainly. How much of England are you related to? Like about half the wizards in it, right? I'm sure they would all buy at least ten copies."
"Funny, mate. You really missed your calling. If you'd been a comedian, at least I could've thrown stuff at you."
"What's stopping you now?" asked Harry.
"The fact that you still haven't told me when you two are expecting. If you are expecting, and I hope you're not. And I would throttle the information out of you, except then I'd have to deal with a mad as hell Hermione, and I don't think I'd survive that encounter."
"You and me both," said Harry. He paused, considering how best to phrase the decision he and Hermione reached. "And about that . . . we've found that we really do agree with you. It's much too soon for you to be a godfather."
"You've got to be kidding me!" Ron's jaw dropped. "You two are out of your minds. You've gone nutters and ought to be sent to Mungo's. You can't seriously be thinking of asking anyone but me to be the godfather for your first sprog? Right? As I thought that—"
Harry held up his hands, trying to get a word in edgewise. "That's not what I was saying at all. I was trying to say that we agree with you that it is too soon and all that."
"So why the bloody hell didn't you say so?"
"I did! You said last time that you're not ready to be a godfather, so I said that we agree with that—"
"Which any normal person would assume meant that you decided to go through with the harebrained scheme and just name someone else as your kid's godfather."
Harry sighed. He didn't understand Ron's thought process at all. "No, Ron. Normal people would know that you're our best friend and so we wouldn't have anyone else in mind, so what I really meant was that we're not going to try that solution yet. Though I don't like calling it that."
Ron nodded. "I agree with you there. It's not a solution. Or if it is one, it just creates more problems that it solves. As kids are horrid."
"Speaking from experience?"
"No, of course not. Babies love me." Ron suffered through Harry's look of disbelief and pressed on. "You'll never catch any baby crying at the sight of me."
"They'll probably smell you coming first," Harry quipped.
"Ha ha. Once again you remind me why you didn't go into comedy." Ron picked up the bag, fumbled for a fork, and then began shoveling in food once again. "Why don't you have a seat?" he said, waving his arm expansively around the empty room.
"Thanks. It is my flat," said Harry.
"No, it's not. It's Hermione's. You should remember that what is yours is hers and what is hers is hers. Cardinal rule of relationships."
"And when did you become the relationship guru?"
"I'm not. I just have a sister who tells me things like that and you don't."
"Lucky me."
"You don't know how lucky."
Harry sighed and sat down on the floor and against the wall. It was useless to try to have the last word when Ron was in a mood like this.
"So tell me, are you going to buy new stuff for this place?" asked Ron.
"Yeah, probably. Eventually that is. We're in no rush." Harry shrugged. "I figure once we find a counterspell, we can spend the weekends here. And maybe the summers as well, since Hermione won't have to work then."
That remark caused Ron to put down his food and bury his face in his hands. "Have you ever thought that you might need to do that a bit sooner?"
"Sooner? But why? It's not really safe for Hermione to spend time here when that charm is active. Truth be told, I could hardly concentrate at the last game, because I was so busy worrying about her and whether she would just vanish in the middle of the game."
"Cabin fever, mate."
"Cabin fever?"
"If I were her, I'd be crawling up the walls by now," said Ron, pointing his fork at Harry. "Having to stay in Hogwarts all the time. Come on. You're not that slow. And you've been there before. Remember all those summers when you were told you had to stay with those awful relatives of yours? No one likes to be confined to one place."
Harry frowned. What Ron said did make sense. He would hate to have to stay in one place at all times. "Hermione hasn't complained or anything like that," he noted.
"She wouldn't complain because she thinks that this whole mess is her own fault. Which it is, mind you, but she probably feels more guilt over it than she should," said Ron.
"She shouldn't feel guilty about it at all. I'd hate to think that she does." Harry sighed. "But she probably does. Because she's supposed to be the sensible one and think things through before she does them—but she can't expect to be like that all the time."
"This is Hermione we're talking about. She probably does." Ron gulped down another large bite before continuing. "And she has that fan club, you said?"
"Yeah. They're annoying, let me tell you that. I don't know which is worse – the young witches that idolize her or the young wizards that . . . adore her."
"I'm sure there are quite a few young witches who adore you as well, if you want to use that as an euphemism."
Harry flushed. "I don't know."
"I do." Suddenly, Ron chuckled. "And do you know how I would have taken care of that detention problem? I would have had Hermione give detention to all of her students who were star struck by either one of you for some reason of the other. Then I would have had let you deal with the boys, while she dealt with the girls. That might have put an end to things."
That did sound attractive to Harry, but he knew that Hermione would have never gone for it. She wouldn't have wanted to do such things to her students – and she wouldn't have trusted him in any case. Still, it was worth a second opinion. "Do you think it would have?" he asked.
"Maybe not. But it would have been fun." Ron sighed. "But Hermione wouldn't let you have such fun."
"Not even if I got you to watch me while I ran the detention?" Harry suggested.
"Ha! I wish. Two minds are better than one and all that rot. But no. She'd be less inclined to trust the two of us together."
"You're right. She wouldn't trust us." Harry shook his head sadly. "It's not as though we—"
"—Gave Terry Boot the scare of his life for even thinking about asking Hermione to Hogsmeade—"
"—While he was still dating Hannah Abbot," Harry finished. The two wizards exchanged a pair of wicked grins. "I bet he still remembers that speech of ours."
"I know he does. Ginny went out with—well, if you can calling spending two hours alone in the library going out, which come to think of it, since you date Hermione, you probably do . . ."
"Hey!" Harry protested. "I do not."
"I bet she does. But back to what I was saying, Ginny said that it would have never worked as he kept looking over his shoulder and she thought he was going to wet his pants at any moment. She was mad about that one. She thought I had said something to him beforehand."
"Did you tell her the truth?" asked Harry.
"No. I'm not that stupid, thank you. If I had told her that I hadn't and what Boot was afraid of was everything we told him when he was thinking of asking Hermione out – well, that would have resulted in two angry witches plotting against both of us instead of just my sister trying to get back at me. Which I'm used to anyway." Ron gave a slight smile. "The things I do for friendship."
"Thanks," said Harry dryly.
"Don't mention it." Ron's mood suddenly turned serious. "But if you ever need any help in finding furniture for this place, let me know. And I hope you do because Hermione can't stay in Hogwarts forever. If the walls don't get to her, her fan club following around will. And it won't get better when you're there as you'll just attract more people."
"I know," said Harry. "I know." He sighed. "Before I do any of that, I think I want to improve the wards on this place though."
"Hermione's going to know that you did that first," Ron pointed out.
"Of course. She's the most brilliant witch I know. But I should still improve the wards. For both protection and privacy. Besides," continued Harry without thinking, "I don't want to think about what you did to me if I didn't make the wards as strong as I could and she disappeared on us."
Given the fact they had been joking with each other for the last hour, Harry had expected that would get a laugh out of Ron or at least a smile, but it didn't. "I wouldn't do anything, mate," said Ron solemnly. "I wouldn't want to do anything to you. As you're not the type to easily forgive yourself."
And when Harry thought about it, that was true. And thinking of
that charm activating and taking Hermione away from him again – it wasn't
really that funny at all.
Author's note: That's all for this chapter, and the next one will be up at the usual time next week. I hope you enjoyed reading this one and I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know what you think by leaving a review. Finally, last but definitely not least, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter: Shawn Pickett (Hermione has a few ideas to try yet, though the simplest one won't occur to her ), danielerin (no, I wasn't about to make anyone wait for the conversation, though I did think about splitting up the chapter just so no one expects the next few ones to be that long), Ann (yes, Ron was rather shell shocked, wasn't he?), Connie (yeah, they've switched roles in that last chapter, but Hermione will be back to her logical self soon enough), Tanaly (Ron in Charming is one of the most fun characters to write so am glad that people like him), xxbabysparklesxx (nope -- Hermione read him wrong there, but then she can't expect to know how he would react to everything that might get tossed his way), l-xFaTaLx-l, jennymay, ExcalibursZone (thanks, but I'd feel bad if I didn't. As for the wards breaking, that would be something else indeed), EuphoniumGurl0, lee74, terrylove (yes, I agree Hermione wouldn't want a child right away. She wouldn't put it off for as long as some might argue for I think she'd want to have while she was still young enough to keep up with it though), Leah6, Cynthia 21, LeslieGlady, Sadistic Shadow (yeah, Harry has other things on his mind to get done before having kids ), Smalls, SilverFoot (I'm amazed that you could keep all those stories straight), TheGreatFox2000, ears91, Gamali Howell (Ron was just very, very shocked at the idea -- and he thinks it is an absolute horrible one), Jabba1, Redneck Horse lover (I hope you are feeling better), Zekintha (thanks, will have to change those), Star19, aliceinwonderville, Fire-bound heart, hpluver456, TheWraith1, chunkigoldfish, gabbychan (some are, some aren't though I doubt anyone could guess where all the chapter titles come from), PoTtErSPaYnE, Bulma Queen of Saiya-jin, liongirrl4eva (that is a closely guarded secret - for if people knew how long the story is, they'd know when to suspect things to start happening ), CookiMonstr08, Trinity144, malu (yes, but it was either that or put it off, and putting it off would have only made it that much harder), DarkChild2004, wyndnfyr, myman-harry526, genvessel, darbaby, and PalmTreeBlood. Thanks so much for leaving those reviews -- they mean so much to me!