A/N: Been sitting on this for a while, but as it's Ron's birthday, figured it was a good time to post. Happy Birthday to my favorite ginger!
Tonight had to go perfectly. In fact, she was determined to make sure it did. But that didn't mean she wasn't extremely nervous it wouldn't.
The last time this had happened, she'd been horrid all day. This time would be different. They deserved for it to be a special night. And she desperately didn't want to be the one to spoil it.
Hermione's nerves were so on edge that she almost dropped the bowl full of salad she was carrying when the oven timer went off. She hastily set it on their kitchen table, just as Rose once again dropped her cup onto the floor. With a sigh, Hermione ducked down to pick it up, knowing it was a fruitless endeavor even as she placed it back on the tray of Rose's high chair.
It was a habit that the almost two-year-old had developed as a way to remind her parents that she hadn't been fed yet. Typically, when Hermione wasn't home by herself, she wouldn't even have Rose in her seat yet. But without Ron there to either take care of dinner or entertain their far too curious daughter, Hermione really didn't have a choice in the matter. If Rose was left to roam on her own, Hermione would likely either trip over her as she followed her around the kitchen, or constantly have to go check on her as she got into something in another part of the house. Either way, dinner would probably burn.
And that couldn't happen tonight.
"Just hold tight a little longer, love," Hermione told her daughter as she kissed her red curls. "Daddy should be home soon."
He was expected any minute, actually. Hermione had gotten the typical memo from the Ministry that the Auror team containing her husband had arrived back from their mission safely. Usually, it took a couple hours for the Healers to do a routine check and for the team to debrief. It was just past six, and Hermione had been watching the clock since four.
Ignoring her daughter's impatient fussing and finally turning off the still beeping oven timer, Hermione cracked open the door to check on the roast. It wasn't something she typically made, knowing it was always a risk that she'd make it too dry. And it was Ron's favorite, so she hated when his excitement turned to disappointment whenever she managed to butcher it. Even though he tried very hard to hide it.
It looked all right and smelled delicious. She just hoped it would taste that way too.
The potatoes seemed perfectly tender, which was a good sign, but before Hermione could get around to checking the meat, the wonderfully familiar sounds of her husband coming home echoed through the house.
Hoping the roast was at least sufficient, Hermione closed the oven door and turned it off, standing as she heard her husband call her name.
"In here!" she hollered back, keeping her voice as steady as possible as she wiped her hands nervously on the apron she was wearing. A smile broke out across Hermione's face and some of her tension fell away when her husband entered the kitchen a moment later.
"Hi, love," said Ron, smiling back at her, but only briefly. It was a bit hard to focus completely on his wife when his daughter was attempting to climb out of her chair on her own and hadn't stopped calling for him since she'd heard the sound of the Floo.
"How's my favorite girl?" said Ron, approaching his daughter as she reached for him, both of them smiling brightly. Rose giggled in delight as Ron scooped her up out of her chair, planting sloppy kisses all over her face. Hermione smiled at them as she leaned against the kitchen counter.
"I remember when I used to be your favorite girl," she said a bit wistfully. Ron paused in lavishing his daughter with affection to smile cheekily at his wife.
"You're my favorite woman," he said, pointedly looking her up and down. Hermione adopted an affronted look.
"I resent your implications," she said, folding her arms in a huff. Ron chuckled and approached her, their daughter now resting on his hip and babbling happily.
"How about person?" he asked, reaching out, grabbing her hand, and tugging her towards him. "You're my absolute favorite person."
Hermione's carefully placed facade cracked as she smiled softly up at him. "Really? More than Harry?"
"Loads more than Harry," Ron assured her, ducking down to kiss her lightly as she giggled. "You're a way better kisser than he is."
Ron chuckled as Hermione shoved at his chest, doing her best to scowl, but unable to keep up the act. She pulled him back to her a second later, rising up on her toes so she could kiss him a little more fully, his free arm winding around her waist. They probably would've carried on for a good while, were it not for the fact that their daughter had other ideas.
"Oi! Stop that," Ron said as he pulled away from his wife, reaching up to grab his daughter's hand that was close to gouging out his eye. "I'm trying to kiss Mummy."
Hermione laughed as Rose planted a big kiss on her daddy's cheek, and Hermione couldn't help but join her daughter in doing the same.
"Happy Birthday," she said softly to her husband, before pecking him lightly on the lips once more. Ron grinned at his wife and thanked her as his daughter wriggled in his arms.
"And we missed you," Hermione added. Ron's expression softened as he continued to smile down at her.
"I missed you too," he said with a contented sigh, his arm going back around her waist as he dropped his forehead to hers and closed his eyes. Hermione allowed herself to bask in his closeness. Every time he came back from a mission, it took everything in her not to ask him to never leave again. Even the ones like this one, where he was only gone for three days.
Their tender moments of soaking each other in when he returned were nice too, but those had changed over the years. When they were younger, it had mostly been passionate evenings and their entire night spent in each other's arms. But the little girl who was currently trying to squeeze her face in between theirs had changed that a bit.
Hermione laughed when she pulled away and Ron let out a groan of disappointment.
"Later," she promised him with another quick peck on the lips. "Don't want dinner to get cold, do you?"
"I suppose you're right," he said with a roll of his eyes, but he turned his focus to his attention demanding daughter a moment later. "And how's Rosie?" he asked with a big smile, lifting her up above his head and making her giggle as Hermione went back to making the last preparations for dinner. "You been good for Mummy?"
Hermione smiled to herself to hear her daughter's laughter behind her. "I think this was the first time you've been gone that she's really taken notice," she said. "She asked for you every night."
"I suppose it's been a while since the last time I was gone," Ron commented, before saying sweetly to his daughter, "I missed you too, Rosie."
Hermione was glad her back was turned as she grinned uncontrollably, her eyes watering with heightened emotion. It took her breath away sometimes, just how wonderful of a father Ron was. He loved his little girl so tremendously well. Doted upon her at times. And the harder things that came with parenting, like discipline and rules and dealing with tantrums and tears, had all come more naturally to him than they had to her.
He'd been the perfect person to learn to become a parent with, and Hermione was thrilled that they'd get to continue to do it together. And that they'd get to do it again.
"Need any help?" Ron asked, but Hermione shook her head. The plans she had for the evening had been momentarily forgotten, but it was all coming back to her, along with her nerves. She needed a moment to collect herself.
She also needed a solid plan. The whole idea of winging it, like she'd originally decided to do, now seemed incredibly stupid. That wasn't something she did. Going into things blindly went entirely against every instinct she had.
Well, it was a bit too late to strategize now.
"How was work this week?" Ron asked, and Hermione took a deep breath to steady herself before grabbing her wand and levitating the rest of their dinner over to the table.
"It was fine," she said, taking the seat across from Ron so they were on either side of Rose at the small round table. She was having a hard time remembering what her week had actually consisted of. Everything was a blur aside from the thoughts she'd had all day of finally seeing her husband that night. Of finally telling him her news. Their news.
"I had a meeting with Kingsley yesterday," she said, her week finally coming back into focus. "Well, Jenny and I did. It looks like we can actually start moving forward with some of the proposals we've been working on for the Creature Equal Opportunity laws. Which, really, should be thrown out completely. There shouldn't even be a separate one for magical creatures, because we're all creatures, you know? They've got hearts and minds and souls just like we do. They shouldn't be separated out like that. I don't think we'll be able to make that change, though. I doubt people would accept such a radical switch, so our proposals are more first steps than the overall end goal."
She'd been working on dishing up Rose's food as she talked, but looked up at her husband when he didn't immediately respond. He was smiling at her in a way that she could only describe as adoringly and was typical of him to do whenever she went on a rant about something. When they'd first gotten together and she'd caught him doing it, he'd blushed and stammered out that he'd always liked seeing her passionate about things.
It had also been the first time one of them had called the other sexy.
By now, Hermione was used to such looks, and merely smiled at him and continued. The conversation about her work carried on, and Hermione was relieved to find that the roast had actually turned out better than it ever had before. She asked him about his mission as well, which had been pretty standard and was more about gathering intel than making any type of bust.
"It went really well, though. And gives us more to go off of," he said, taking the last bite of his roast. "Harry thinks we have everything we need to go after Barnes now, but I'm not so sure. He's always been a bit quick to jump into things when he gets excited. Though I don't really need to tell you that."
Hermione chuckled as she used a wet dish cloth to wipe off her daughter's hands and face. "He's gotten better, though. I think he was just so used to doing things on his own. Even though he's almost always had us, it's different to have a whole team that you're relying on and that's relying on you. Especially when it comes to decision making."
"Suppose you're right," said Ron, washing down the last of his dinner with a chug of water as Hermione stood from the table.
"Hope you saved some room for dessert," she said cheerfully as she opened the freezer. "It's not much since we're going out tomorrow night too, but…"
She made her way back to the table with a tub in her hands, and Ron smirked at her.
"You made ice cream again, didn't you?"
"Yes," she said proudly, waving her wand so spoons and bowls appeared on the table. "And your daughter helped."
Ron laughed as Rose clapped her hands, eyeing the ice cream expectantly. "I blame Angelina for this habit."
"You should," said Hermione matter-of-factly. "You have to admit it's much better than the store bought kind. And I have a feeling you're not complaining about it."
"Not in the least."
By the time they were finished, any work Hermione had done to clean up Rose had been rendered pointless.
"You're just a mess, aren't you?" Ron said playfully, lifting Rose up so she stood in her seat and revealed chocolate ice cream, carrot, and potato covered clothes.
"Probably would've been smarter to just wait and cast a cleansing charm," Hermione said in resignation, but Ron already had his wand out and was doing just that.
"Want me to put her down?" he asked, lifting Rose into his arms now that she was no longer covered in food.
"Sure," said Hermione, offering him a soft smile and doing her best not to yawn. She'd been getting tired very easily lately, and tonight was not the night to let something like fatigue get in the way. Ron came over to her with their daughter in his arms, bending down so Rose could give her mother a hug and a kiss, which she did rather sloppily. She'd always been good about going to bed, which Hermione was very thankful for.
"She's still fascinated by the dragon book Charlie got her for Christmas," said Hermione, "so don't be surprised if she asks for it."
"Is that so," said Ron, more to Rose than to Hermione as he began to take her up the stairs. "Well then, I suppose we can squeeze in one quick story before bedtime."
Hermione smiled at the sound of her daughter heartily agreeing to this suggestion, but couldn't help standing, making her way to the bottom of the stairs, and hollering after them. "Make it quick, okay? Our evening's not over."
Ron shot her a wink over his shoulder before disappearing into Rose's room.
Okay. Time to do some last minute planning and preparation.
Hermione took off her apron as she hurried back into the kitchen, waving her wand at the ice cream and leftovers so they packaged themselves up. Another wave and they were flying into the fridge. She paused to check her reflection in the window over the sink. The wool jumper and leggings she wore were pretty typical of a lazy Saturday followed by a night in. She'd thought about dressing up a bit since it was Ron's birthday, but as they had plans to actually go out together the following night, she'd decided to wait and put her best foot forward then.
Plus, she wanted him to be as unsuspecting as possible.
Her hair had been pulled back all day, so it was starting to come undone. She was on the point of fixing it when she realized it didn't really matter. Not only did she know Ron liked it when her hair went a little wild, but he was likely to take it down himself over the course of the evening as well. Most likely sooner rather than later.
Casting her eyes around the kitchen for something to do, she waved her wand once again so all the dishes made their way to the sink. She set them to washing and paused for a moment, realizing she still hadn't really come up with a good way to break the news to Ron.
Could she really just wait and see where the night headed and casually slip it in? She had a feeling it would just pop out of her mouth before that could happen. It had been hard enough to not blurt it out at dinner.
If only she could have a glass of wine to calm her nerves.
After taking a deep breath and realizing there was nothing left to occupy her in the kitchen, Hermione made her way out to the sitting room, turning off lights as she went. She settled down on the sofa, flicking her wand so the only light left came from the lamp next to the armchair across from her and the dying fire. Another wave of her wand and the flames were lively once again. Knowing Ron would be at least a few more minutes, Hermione picked up the book she'd been reading off the coffee table, settling in and hoping she wouldn't fall asleep.
Her eyes snapped open what felt like only a second later, but due to the fact that her legs were being pulled over her husband's lap and he was lavishing her neck with soft kisses, it had been a bit longer.
"Sorry," she mumbled out, winding her arms around Ron's neck as he continued to pull her into his lap. "Must've dozed off."
"It's all right," Ron murmured against her skin. "Sorry I woke you."
Hermione snorted in amusement as his hand began to wander up the back of her jumper. "You most certainly aren't."
Ron chuckled and pulled away so he could look her in the eye. "Nope. Can't say that I am."
Hermione couldn't help giggling as he moved in to kiss her lightly on the lips, doing so repeatedly, and lingering longer with each one.
"Rose go down okay?" Hermione asked after one of their more intense kisses.
"Took a bit more convincing this time," Ron admitted, moving to trail kisses down her jaw and towards her neck once again. "Went through the book twice and pretty much held her till she was out." He nipped at her ear and made her gasp. "Think she really missed me."
"Mmm," Hermione hummed as he continued to give attentions to her neck. "She's not the only one."
She could feel him grinning into her neck as he reached up and pulled her hair down. "Have I mentioned that I fancy you?"
Hermione chuckled as he continued to nip lightly at her skin. "Not recently, no."
"Remind me to do that more often."
It was so tempting to get caught up in Ron now that she was in his arms. But if things were heading where she absolutely knew they were, she didn't feel like she could do that without telling him first. Both because she'd be too preoccupied and therefore unable to thoroughly enjoy it - which Ron would pick up on - and because she really didn't think she could take him not knowing much longer.
As she wracked her brain for how to tell him, Ron provided her with the perfect opening.
"I wish you got a few days off when I got back from missions too," he said, not stopping in his task, which seemed to be to taste every inch of her skin no matter how long it took. Hermione sunk her fingers into his hair as he slowly lowered her down to her back and hovered over her.
"It's nice you got home on a weekend," Hermione said as Ron maneuvered them so that he was kneeling on the couch between her legs. "And that we still have tomorrow."
"Mhmm," Ron murmured, a bit preoccupied with working his hands under her jumper and finding her bare skin with his fingers. "It'd just be nice if we had more time. It's shite that we lost most of a Saturday."
Hermione was about to respond, but it was hard to focus when Ron started lavishing her stomach with featherlight kisses. It was also getting harder not to cry, his tender caresses overwhelming her.
"Actually, seeing as you're free on Monday," she managed to choke out, "I was wondering if you could leave Rose with your mum and run an errand with me?"
"Sure," he mumbled into her skin, his hands working her jumper further and further up her torso as her hands remained in his hair. "After you get off work?"
"At two, actually," she said. She felt Ron hesitate for a moment, noting the odd request. But he was back to his task a moment later.
"All right," he said. "Where do you need me to go with you?"
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and then softly told him.
"Mungo's"
That was enough to grab his full attention. At record speed, Ron pulled away and propped himself up on his arms, looking down at her in concern.
"What's wrong?" he asked. Hermione could tell he was trying not to panic, but she'd definitely caught him off guard.
"Nothing," she assured him. "We just have an appointment with Healer Torres."
His expression turned from alarmed to confused. "The Healer that delivered Rose?" Ron asked. Hermione nodded. "I thought she only dealt with-"
His eyes widened and he fell silent, the reality of her words hitting him. And then he was glancing from her face to her bare stomach and then back again in rapid succession.
"I… you… we… really?"
The sheer wonder, joy, and love contained in that single word as it fell from his lips was enough to make Hermione finally succumb to the tears she'd held back multiple times that day. Her eyes welled up as she nodded, moving her hand from her husband's hair to caress his cheek as he stared down at her in shock.
"Wait, so, we're…we're having another baby?" he asked, like he needed to actually clearly say it to make sure he wasn't mistaken.
"Yeah," said Hermione, feeling a tear escape and drip down the side of her face even as she smiled up at him. "Nice work, Mr. Weasley."
Ron let out a joyful laugh of delight, and then he was kissing her soundly a moment later, his tongue making quick work of reminding her what it was like to be a teenager. Hermione wound her arms around his neck, finally able to fully experience her joy now that Ron knew. Sharing it with him made it all the more real.
They were both breathless when Ron finally managed to pull his mouth away from hers. "Wow," he panted. "I mean, I was beginning to worry it wouldn't happen."
Hermione nodded as he reached up to tenderly wipe away her tears. "Me too," she confessed. "I know it's only been a year, but…"
"Yeah," Ron agreed, staring intently into her eye. "Blimey. It's insane how much I love you."
Hermione smiled and gripped him tighter. "I love you too."
Ron grinned and kissed her again, pulling away a bit too quickly for her liking, but she forgave him for it when he moved his attention to her belly instead.
"Hi, baby," he whispered softly, dropping a kiss right below her bellybutton. "It'd be fucking brilliant if you were a boy."
"Ron!" Hermione scolded, though unable to not be amused as he went back to his earlier occupation of tasting every inch of her. "Now it's going to come out swearing and resenting you if it's a girl."
Ron snorted against her stomach before working his way up towards her ribcage. "Of course it won't. And I'll love him or her no matter what. But it couldn't hurt to give it a little nudge, right?"
Hermione could only shake her head and chuckle.
"Do you know how far along you are?" he asked, his hands now running up and down her bare sides as he sat back to look up at her.
"About nine or ten weeks, I'd guess," she said. "I'm pretty sure it happened on Christmas morning."
Ron grinned cheekily at her. "That was a good morning."
Hermione giggled, tugging at the hem of his jumper.
"Does Rose know?" he asked, sounding completely sincere as he took her hint and pulled his jumper over his head.
"Umm… I doubt she'd really understand." Hermione said skeptically, running her hands up his bare skin appreciatively.
"Course she would," Ron said with a scoff. "She's brilliant."
Hermione rolled her eyes, lifting herself slightly off the couch to assist Ron in pulling her own jumper over her head. "If you continue on insisting she's brilliant, you're going to end up giving her a complex of some kind."
Ron had gone back to kissing her and was now dragging his lips between her bare breasts, forgoing a bra being a perk of having nowhere to go on a Saturday. He paused to groan into her skin before looking up at her.
"Can we stop criticizing how I raise my children so I can make love to you now?" he asked impatiently. Hermione bit her lower lip to keep from grinning at the petulant look he wore.
"I'm sorry," she assured him, holding his face in her hands and pulling him in to kiss him softly on the lips. "You're a wonderful father. To both our children."
Ron gave her a brilliant smile, kissing her soundly once more before climbing off of her.
"Where are you going?" Hermione asked in surprise and disappointment.
"You mean where are we going," he corrected, reaching down to scoop her up into his arms. "I'm not about to shag the woman carrying my child on the sofa."
Hermione laughed as he moved to carry her up the stairs, dropping kisses along his jaw as they went.
As they drifted off to sleep a few hours later, curled together in love and contentment, Hermione realized that the evening had most definitely not been spoiled. In fact, it had been quite perfect.