Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I never will.

"...he greeted Death like an old friend, and, as equals, they departed this life," whispered Hermione. She closed The Tales of Beedle the Bard and gently ran a hand through the sleeping Rose's rust-colored curls.

Hermione headed back to the sitting room, and she and Ron were just about to settle down to read the Evening Prophet together when there was a knock at the door. The bushy-haired witch opened it to find Ron's older brother Percy standing on the doorstep.

"Good evening, Percy. What brings you here?"

"Just wanted to stop by and deliver some of Audrey's homemade fudge," Percy answered as he stepped into the house.

"Hello, Percy," said Ron rather stiffly. Percy may have gotten back in the Weasley family's good books, but Ron still hadn't quite forgiven him for siding with the Ministry during the war and for just being an annoying big brother in general.

"Oh Ron, don't look at me like that. You know all those mistakes I made are in the past." Turning to Hermione, he added, "Expecting again, are you? When's it due?"

"In about two months," answered Hermione.

"Girl or boy?"

"Boy."

"And if you don't mind me asking, how's little Rosie getting on?"

"Pretty well, actually. Though she did learn a new phrase today, thanks to a certain husband of mine - " Hermione gave Ron a sharp look " = after I told him never to swear in front of our child!"

"Hey! You'd shout 'bloody hell' too if you saw a dirty great spider crawling up the biscuit jar!" said Ron indignantly.

"Anyway," Percy said loudly to halt the escalating argument, "as I understand it, you usually leave Rose with Mother and Father at the Burrow during the day when you both have to work, yes?"

"Yeah..." said Ron slowly.

"And she often stays with the Potters whenever you go out during the evening."

"Yeah. So what?"

"Well, don't you think you rely a bit too much on them to babysit?"

Ron scowled. "You didn't come here just to bring us fudge, did you?"

Percy shook his head. "There's a truly excellent nursery for young wizard children in Devon; Audrey and I take Molly there every day before we go to work. Why don't you start sending Rose there?"

"WHAT!" Ron sputtered, jumping up. His wife hastily pushed him back down onto the sofa and put a finger to her lips.

"Shush! You'll wake Rosie!"

"Sorry, 'Mione." Turning to Percy, Ron added angrily, "With all due respect, bro, we are not leaving Rosie with strangers! And what's wrong - not now, Sam!" The little terrier had just nudged Ron's leg and was now lying on her back for a belly scratch. "Oh, all right," sighed Ron as he briefly scratched Sam's belly before looking back up at his brother. "Anyway, what's wrong with letting family babysit?"

"Ron, let's be honest here. Mother and Father are getting a bit old, and soon they won't have the energy to keep up with a young child. And Harry and Ginny already have their own children to look after."

"You do make a good point," said Hermione, "but I don't think we're quite ready to try nursery yet. And in any case, I plan to go on maternity leave in a few weeks, so I'll have more time to spend with Rose."

"Well," said Percy, "will you at least take some time to consider?" After he'd left, Ron and Hermione looked at each other a moment before heading up to their bedroom.

Later, while Ron and Hermione were lying in their bed, Hermione stared up at the ceiling for a few moments, lost in thought. She then said, "Maybe Percy's right. Maybe we should try taking Rose to nursery."

"Don't you start talking rubbish too!" said Ron indignantly.

"Ron, I'm not much more comfortable with the idea than you are, but perhaps Percy had a point - we can't always rely on your parents or your sister to babysit. Besides, Rose might have a much better experience than I did when I was little."

"Hermione, d'you really think Percy can just show up and tell us how to raise our daughter? And he must be mad if he thought bringing us Audrey's cooking was gonna soften us up - he could've brought some of Mum's fudge instead!"

"Tell you what," said Hermione, "we'll try it for just one day. I'll take Rose to nursery tomorrow, and if it doesn't work out, then we can go back to letting your mum and dad babysit during the day."

"Fine," Ron grumbled. He rolled over in the bed and muttered to himself, "Mum's not gonna be happy about this."

The next morning found Hermione standing in front of Merry Cauldron Nursery, a redbrick building with a bright yellow roof. Rose was balanced securely on her hip. As it was no longer safe for Hermione to Apparate, being seven months pregnant, she and Rose had arrived via Portkey. The bushy-haired witch took a deep breath and stepped inside.

The woman behind the front counter looked up with a smile as Hermione approached her. She had short auburn hair and gray eyes and wore a pair of silver-framed glasses. "Why, hello there," she said. "I'm Miss Stella Gould, head of Merry Cauldron Nursery. Who is this cute little girl?"

"This is my daughter, Rose Granger-Weasley," answered Hermione. "And I'm Hermione."

"Ah. Well, I assume this is your first time here, so before we get your daughter settled, let me introduce you to my assistants."

Miss Gould proceeded to lead Hermione into a room on the left, where a young witch with long dark brown hair was supervising a group of young children as they drew with crayons. "This is Miss Marion Lynch; she's in charge of children aged 3-4." Just then Hermione's niece Molly looked up from her drawing and waved. "Hi, Auntie Hermione! Hi, Rosie!" she called. The little girl then snatched up her drawing and skipped over. "Look what I drew!"

Hermione looked at it closely; it took her a few seconds to realize it was a very crudely drawn picture of a Puffskein. "That's really good," she told the four-year-old, who beamed in reply.

Afterward, Miss Gould led Hermione to a room on the right of the building, where several children around Rose's age were playing with blocks, rolling a ball across the floor, or flying around on toy broomsticks. "Miss Eleanor Branstone watches children aged 1-2," she explained, gesturing toward a woman with curly, light brown hair, who was changing one little boy's nappy.

A few minutes later, after Miss Branstone had given Hermione a quick rundown of the day's schedule and informed her that pickup time was 3:00, she gently took Rose from Hermione's arms. The little girl immediately began to cry and reach out for her mother.

"It's all right, Rosie, Mummy will be back soon," Hermione assured her. "You'll have a good time here, I promise. Now be good for the nice lady, okay?" Rose's cries died down somewhat as she waved goodbye to her mother. Miss Branstone began soothing the toddler until she'd stopped crying, then sat her down next to a little boy with a small tuft of white-blond hair and gray eyes, who was stacking blocks.

"Scorpius will play with you," she told Rose with a smile.

The little boy called Scorpius proceeded to put another block on the stack, which immediately changed from blue to red. Rose grabbed another block and put it on top, causing the entire stack to turn a bright green.

Then, without warning, Scorpius swiped his chubby little hand against the bottom block, causing them all to topple over and turn their original white. "Boom!" he yelled.

Rose giggled and clapped her hands; she then restacked the blocks before knocking them down again, shouting, "Boom!" This went on several more times before Miss Branstone gathered the children at the table for snack time.

Not long after the chocolate chip biscuits had been passed out, a rather large two-year-old girl with bristly dark brown hair toddled around the table snatching up several biscuits and shoving them into her mouth. Finally, just as Rose was raising her own biscuit to her mouth, the larger girl grabbed it and said, "Mine!"

"No, mine!" Rose yelled; the other girl managed to tug the biscuit out of her hand, causing Rose to burst into tears along with the other toddlers who'd had their biscuits stolen.

"How many times, Tammy?!" Miss Branstone exclaimed, rushing over and picking up the large toddler. "You do not take others' snacks! To the time-out corner with you!" As Tammy was being placed in the corner, Scorpius broke off a little piece of his biscuit and gave it to Rose, which she happily ate.

Afterward, as the babies were finger painting, Rose rubbed some blue paint on Scorpius' cheek. He giggled and smeared some purple paint on Rose's nose. At naptime, they slept next to each other.

Before long, Hermione had returned to take Rose home. "How did it go?" she asked Miss Branstone.

"Well, there was a minor incident when one of the other children stole Rose's biscuit during snack time, but other than that everything went swimmingly. Rose seemed to get along well with little Scorpius."

Scorpius? thought Hermione. Now where have I heard that name before...? She stepped into the room to fetch Rose - and immediately came face to face with a wizard with a pointed face, gray eyes, and long white-blond hair he was wearing in a ponytail. Draco Malfoy gave her a curt nod before putting his son into a stroller.

"Bye bye, Wosie!" Scorpius called out as his father wheeled him away.

"Bye bye, 'Corpy!" Rose called back, waving.

As mother and daughter reentered the lobby, Miss Gould smiled and asked, "Are you going to bring Rose back tomorrow?"

"Possibly. I'll let you know."

Hermione was lost in thought as she and Rose took another Portkey home; she was glad her daughter had made a friend, but she didn't quite know how to feel about the fact that this friend just so happened to be the son of Hermione's, Harry's, and Ron's old school archenemy. She decided it would be best not to tell Ron about Scorpius, at least for now.

Later, Hermione was reading Rose the story of Little Red Riding Hood and had just reached the part where Red arrived at her grandmother's house in the woods when the little girl suddenly crawled across her mother's lap and reached over to the table where several books were stacked. She then proceeded to knock the entire stack over, uttering a triumphant "Boom!"

"Rosie!" Hermione hastily restacked the books on the table, then placed the toddler back into her lap. "That's a no-no, Rosie," she scolded gently. "Books need to be treated with care. You do not play rough with books, do you understand?" Rose nodded, albeit with a pout. "Now let's finish the story, shall we?"

Hermione had reopened the book of Muggle fairy tales and was just about to start where she'd left off when a voice from the fireplace called, "Hermione?"

Molly Weasley's head was resting there and she looked furious.

"Ron sent me an owl this morning telling me you sent Rose to nursery this morning. Why didn't you leave her with Arthur and me?!" Before Hermione could answer, however, Molly spotted Rose and her face softened. "Oh, hello, Rosie dear. Why don't you come give your grandma a kiss?"

Hermione cast a fireproof charm on Rose before holding her up to Molly's face, and Rose planted a sloppy kiss on Molly's forehead. In response to Molly's question, the bushy-haired witch said, "Well, Percy came by last night and suggested we try this wizarding nursery. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and - "

"Percy!" snarled Molly. "I should've known! He's always offering to help me with one thing or another. Thinks I can't do a thing on my own...sure, it's nice to have some assistance once in a while, but this is ridiculous! I'm not even sixty yet!"

"I'm sorry, Molly," said Hermione. "Ron and I can let you babysit if you really want to."

"Good. And I think I'll give Percy a piece of my mind, tell him what a fool he is to underestimate me like this!"

With that, Molly's head disappeared from the fireplace. Once again, Hermione picked up the storybook, but before she could start reading again, Sam trotted to the front door and started barking to be let out. After the dog had finished doing her business, Hermione was finally able to continue the story where she'd left off: "...Red Riding Hood knocked on the door and a voice called from inside, 'Come on in, dearie...'"

"I'm home!" Ron's voice called out that evening.

"DADDY! BWOODY HEWW!" Rose cried as she stood up in her playpen. Hermione sighed and shook her head; at least her daughter hadn't said that phrase in nursery. Ron had better count himself lucky.

Ron walked over to Rose's pen. "Hi, Rosie Posie. Had a good day today?" Instead of answering, Rose grabbed three of her blocks, stacked them in front of her, and knocked them down with her little hand, saying, "Boom!"

"Who taught you that?" Ron asked curiously. Before Rose could reply, Hermione called her husband over to the sofa to talk. She told him of her chat with his mother and informed him of her decision to go back to leaving Rose with Molly and Arthur during the day.

"Well, that's good," said Ron with a grin. "I mean, what if it turned out that Scorpius Malfoy kid went to that nursery? What if he and Rosie became best mates? What if they started dating at Hogwarts and then got married?"

"Actually, Ron..." Hermione began before leading her husband into the kitchen. A few seconds later, an enraged shout echoed throughout the house.

"WHAT?!"