CH 109: A Weasley Rite of Passage?
Hermione had just finished texting Ginny when Hazel started squirming in Ron's arms, waking him up. As he got his bearings, he realized Harry was asleep on his shoulder, and his wife was standing in front of him with a smirk on her face.
"Do I want to know?"
"Oh, you most definitely do not," Ron grimaced as he ran his free hand over his eyes and stubbly chin.
Hermione began to extract Ryan gently from Harry's grip trying not to wake the sleeping friend.
"Oy! Harry!" Ron gruffly called as he tried to stretch his stiff neck. "Wake up mate. Go home and sleep in your own bed for a while."
"Nice, Ron. I was going to let him sleep longer."
"Trust me, he'll do better at home. Wake up, Harry."
"Huh?" Harry said groggily as he sat up. "Wha? Oh. Right. Morning, Hermione. Did Ron fill you in?"
"No. Not yet. I was trying to let you sleep and snag Ryan before his screaming lungs woke you up. You two want to tell me what happened?"
Harry closed his eyes and sighed, and Ron did the same.
"That good, huh?"
Then Ron jumped up quickly, Hazel still in his arms. "Did the Prophet come yet?"
"Uh, not sure. I was distracted by the little slumber party you two had going on here in the living room."
Harry jumped up and dashed after Ron into the kitchen.
"Yeah. You two aren't weird at all," she scoffed as she followed them. "Come on Ryan, let's go see what your crazy daddy and silly uncle are up to."
She walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on before she made up two bottles for the babies. Glancing at Ron and Harry studying the paper, she asked, "What's so interesting this morning in that paper that you both despise?"
Ron grimaced and looked at Harry.
"Here, let me take these two and the bottles. I'll feed them in the other room while you two chat," Harry said as he flicked his wand at the bottles, sending them to the living room and then reaching for both babies.
At his comment, Hermione stilled nervously and looked at Ron. "Spill it now, Ron. This is freaking me out."
He watched Harry leave the kitchen, sighed, folded the paper, placed it face down on top of a stack of parchment and motioned for her to come sit next to him at the table. He took her hand as she sat and said, "You remember how I told you last night I thought something was off?"
"Yeah," she said slowly, tension building in her voice. "Your ginger alert system or whatever Fiona called it. Why?"
"Well, unfortunately I was right. Something was off. Very off," he grimaced. Seeing her face blanch he hastened to add, "But, everything is fine now. No one is hurt. Everyone is safe. Problem is all resolved, but you're going to be furious and really, really hate this as much as I do."
She said nothing, but simply pursed her lips together tightly and raised one eyebrow as she waited for him to continue.
"Ok. Just – let me get it all out and say it one go, alright? Then you can ask all the questions you want at the end, and I'll answer everything. Alright?"
She nodded slowly and held his gaze but said nothing.
He took a deep breath and quickly started, "The short version is that Rita Skeeter is an unregistered animagus. A beetle as it turns out. But, apparently, she turned herself into a beetle, sneakily attached herself onto one of our kids' trunks on the Hogwarts Express and snuck herself into our home last night. She spied on our family. She took photographs of us, our home and our kids. She wrote a whole damn article about our life as a family. But, I caught her in the kitchen last night after something made me wake up. I got Harry, and he had her arrested by two other aurors so there could be no perceived conflict of interest. Then we sent the aurors to the paper to be sure nothing was printed. They assured us they stopped it in time. And, it seems they were technically accurate even if it didn't fulfill the intent of the whole directive."
With that, he handed his horrified wife the morning's paper where she saw that almost a quarter of the front page was largely a blank box with only a simple explanation printed in the middle of the white space.
"This in-depth article on the family of Ronald Weasley, his wife and four (yes, FOUR!) children has been forcibly removed minutes prior to press time by order of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. We hope to reconcile whatever legal concerns the MLE has with such heartwarming stories soon. And, we look forward to bringing you this and other positive human interest stories on the lives of our cultural heroes soon. All concerns, questions or complaints on the lack of the article this morning should be directed to Head Auror Harry Potter, Department of MLE at The Ministry of Magic."
He felt his heart breaking as he could see the blood drain from Hermione's face at the same time as her body went rigid in rage.
"I am so, so sorry, Hermione. I am so sorry. And I am furious and horrified and just about every other emotion in between. But at the heart of it, I am sick at the thought of that horrible excuse of a human being anywhere near our kids and our home. And I am so sorry I couldn't keep it from happening."
Hermione still had not spoken, which was alarming Ron more with each passing second.
"Hermione? Can you say something? Or yell something? Or ask something?"
She took a deep breath, but Ron could see her lips were still pinched tightly and her jaw clenched firmly. But, her eyes were a mix of rage and unshed tears. Not knowing how to help her, he simply wrapped his arms around her.
After a few minutes in silence, she was still breathing very rapidly. "Tell me exactly what happened. Don't leave out a single thing, Ron. I need to know exactly where that, that, that evil creature was in my home; and I need to know precisely what she saw and what we are doing about it."
Ron sighed, and went through the night step by step to the best of his knowledge. She was horrified when she realized Hazel had been downstairs with Ron when Skeeter was discovered and argued with him about his decision to leave her sleeping peacefully upstairs with the kids. He held his ground though, insisting that there was no way to know it was Skeeter and not some long deranged Death Eater who she would not have been remotely trained to handle. He had called for skilled, qualified back up and made sure everyone was safe. She was breathing disturbingly fast, almost panting. Ron had an odd thought of how much she suddenly reminded him of the way the mother dragons breathed fire in quick repetitive breaths when protecting their eggs all those years ago in the Triwizard tournament. But suddenly she jumped up and started pacing in the kitchen. He noticed her fingers were trembling slightly now and a light sweat had broken out across her brow, alarming Ron.
Finally she declared, "I can't even stand to be here right now," and rushed out of the kitchen to find the babies in the living room.
Ron followed close behind and found her clutching Hazel and gesturing for Harry to hand her Ryan as well.
"She was in our home. In our car," Hermione panted. "In our kitchen. In our kids' bedrooms. It's just so disgusting and vile! I feel so violated by this whole damn mess. And we can't know what she heard or saw or photographed! What are we going to do? If we can't feel safe here then where can we?"
At this point she was taking such short and rapid breaths, Ron was concerned she would hyperventilate or pass out altogether.
"I'm so sorry, Hermione," Ron said softly, trying to catch her eye.
"Stop it, Ron," she snapped. "Stop apologizing. You didn't do this. You couldn't have stopped it. And don't start down your 'I'm sorry I brought this into your life' bullshit because I don't have the energy for it right now. She could have hurt our kids! She, she…she was in our HOME!"
At her screaming both babies started crying and squirming in her arms, which made her simply hold them tighter to her chest.
Ron looked shocked at her outburst and said nothing, so Harry jumped in. "Hermione, let me go into the office and see what they've gotten out of her in questioning and see what the formal charges are. We'll all be able to handle it a lot better when we know what we are dealing with."
"Really, Harry?" she said sarcastically. "What 'we' are dealing with? What do you want me to do? Sit here with my babies who she could have kidnapped? Or maybe I'll go upstairs with my thirteen year old daughter who I have to tell that she may have been photographed changing clothes or showering as she was watched by a fucking perverted stranger in her own room? You think Ginny would stand for this? There is not a chance in hell your wife would be calm if this had happened in your home. I mean, really? Would you be calm if Skeeter had been in Lily's room with a camera last night? So don't give me this 'we' shite. You know what? I can't stand it either. I'm out. I am not the kind of mother who lets this happen to her kids. I have to go. I can't be here," she said in an increasingly frantic tone. "She's been through our house, our things. Who else did she talk to? How do we know there aren't more people hiding in our house right this very second! I can't do this right now. I'm, I'm, I'm…"
"Hey, hey, Hermione," Ron said as he went to try to disrupt her panic attack with an embrace.
But, she quickly recoiled form his touch. "Don't! Don't try to pacify me with a hug! I know you two are genius aurors or whatever, but let me explicitly clear. The fact that I am so angry I'm spitting nails is NOT the problem here. I am not what needs to be fixed. No, gentlemen, the PROBLEM is that hideous excuse for a person has violated my home and threatened my children. You do not need to calm me down. You need you to fix this! Both of you. How the hell did you two beat fucking Voldemort as teenagers when you can't keep that woman away from my children or out of my kitchen as grown men and experienced aurors!?" Fury was streaming from her eyes and her mouth, and even her hair seemed to just dare one of them to say something to her. Seeing that neither wizard had the audacity to speak, Hermione declared, "I can't be here. I can't be where she was. I can't be here right now. I'm out. It's like my skin is crawling," she said as tears began to fall out of her angry eyes. The babies, still in her arms, were growing increasingly alarmed by her tone and her tight grip and began to crying louder and reaching for Ron, which only managed to upset Hermione even more.
"Ok, that's ok. You're right," Ron said. "I get it. You shouldn't have to stay here. You're absolutely right. Here, give me Ry and Hazel for a sec. Let's calm them down and then let's get you and the babies to the other house, or maybe to your parents for a bit while we figure things out, alright? Let's get you all feeling safe first, ok. Would that help?" Ron asked hopefully, still desperately trying to make eye contact.
At the suggestion, Hermione seemed to calm slightly, and she nodded nervously as she let Ron take the babies from her arms. "Ok. Right. Uh, yeah. That's a good idea. We'll go to the other house. Maybe Mum will come by for a bit. But, what about Rose and Hugo? Should I get them up to come with me? Or are you going to talk to them?"
"Yeah," he said softly as he bounced the babies against his chest trying to calm them down. "I'll talk to them. But let's let them sleep for now, alright?"
"What will you tell them?"
"Dunno, but the truth is what it is," he shrugged. "I think I'll lay out the basics, see how they react and take it from there."
She pinched her lips together tightly. "Ok. Uh. I really need to get out of here right now. You can call me when you've talked to the kids or learned something."
"Here, let me help you get everything together to go over there. Harry will be here 'til I get back, and then he'll go change and go to the office. Won't you Harry?" he said in a firm tone letting his best mate know the only possible answer was yes.
"Yeah, yeah. Of course. I'll just be here 'til you get settled at the other place."
Hermione nodded and set about quickly gathering everything up. Within five minutes, Ron had changed, packed up a nappy bag and the baby carriers and helped Hermione load up the people mover. He helped her unload everything a few blocks down, and soon his wife and babies were settled in her old home. Once both babies were both laying on a blanket on the living room floor flailing their arms at each other and making adorable babbling sounds, Hermione finally started breathing normally again.
"Is this better?" he asked quietly.
"Yeah. I'm really sorry I freaked out," she whispered in an embarrassed tone. "I just, I don't know, I felt like she was still watching us or something. I couldn't breathe in there and had to get out. Like our lives depended on it. Maybe it was a psychotic meltdown or an anxiety attack or something. I don't know – I've never felt like that before. And I don't think I ever want to again either."
"Can I hug you now? I know it won't fix everything, but I could use it right about now," he admitted.
"Of course, Ron," she said leaning into his embrace. "I haven't even asked how you are doing with all of this. God, I'm such a terrible wife. I'm sorry. Are you ok?"
He nodded into her curls still holding her tightly. "Better now. Scared the shite out of me earlier. But screaming in her face felt pretty good."
Hermione giggled into his chest. "I bet."
"But, eventually Harry pointed out that maybe my Christmas pants and 'Kiss the Keeper' t-shirt might not have lent the air of authority I was going for."
At that Hermione started laughing out loud and hugged him tighter. "Oh, I love you, Ronald Weasley."
"I love you too. And I am going to fix this. I promise you," he said, his forehead pressed to hers. "There is nothing in this world more important to me than keeping our children and you safe. Nothing. So, if you are ok with these two here, I'd like to head home and send Harry onto The Ministry to get to work locking her away forever. Maybe for Christmas we can finally be done with that crazy woman."
"I hope so."
"You really ok here? I don't want to leave you until you're feeling calm and safe again. Are you sure you're ok?"
"Oh yeah. I'm fine. Much calmer now. And I have two babies, a cell phone and a wand."
By that afternoon, Hermione was feeling much calmer about the whole situation. Harry had been able to confiscate Skeeter's camera, film, pictures, notes and article from the paper. And, he'd assured them that she would be formally charged with multiple crimes on Monday, and held at The Ministry until at least the day after Boxing Day, so they could relax and enjoy their Christmas as a family. Much to Hermione's surprise and relief, Rose and Hugo had reacted much more calmly to the news than she had. They both seemed to view it as some sort of Weasley Rite of Passage to be mixed up in a ridiculous adventure, and neither seemed to have considered the possibility of what Skeeter may have seen or recorded, so Hermione definitely didn't bring it up. But overall, they all seemed incredibly encouraged that this could really be the thing that got Skeeter out of their lives for good.
The rest of the day seemed to disappear into a flurry of errands and Christmas preparations. Unfortunately Ron had to work at the shop all afternoon, but when Hermione told Angie what had happened, Angie called George and made sure that Ron was back home with his family before dinner that evening.
When Ron came through the floo, he smiled at the site of Hugo and Rose snuggling with the babies on the sofa.
"Hi Dad, how was the shop?" Rose said.
"Insane. I think people simply start losing their minds in the week before Christmas."
"Highly possible," Hugo agreed. "And, don't take this wrong, but you look awful. Maybe you should shower before dinner."
"Yeah. Rough night and rough day, so a shower sounds incredible."
"Just make sure the bathroom's not bugged," Hugo said, busting into laughter at his own pun.
"Very clever. Now I can see why you're a Ravenclaw, I suppose. But, hey, can you lay off the bug jokes around your mum? I don't think she is anywhere near being able to see any humor in the situation yet."
"Yeah, she is still in the protective mother lioness mode," Rose said. "Something very primal when you get between a woman and her children."
"Exactly," Ron agreed. "Don't get me wrong, I don't want anyone messing with my kids either."
"We know, Dad," Hugo assured him. "But you got to go all crazy scary auror on the bug, and Mum didn't have that outlet, so she's still pretty wired."
"Huh. You're right. Hadn't thought of it that way."
"Well, go think in the shower," Rose said. "I think there are about 15 minutes 'til dinner. And I don't think being late for anything tonight is good for any of our health."
"Also a brilliant observation," he said as he leaned down to kiss her and Hugo on the head as he headed up to shower.
By the time they had tucked into roast chicken and vegetables as a family, things were looking up. Hermione had her family of six on one room again, which calmed her immensely. The glasses of wine helped too. Rose and Hugo were telling great stories about their friends and adventures at school, and the babies were awake but not crying as they watched their older siblings with great fascination. As Rose and Ron washed up the dishes, Hugo and Hermione were feeding the babies their evening bottles.
"What do you think of reading as a family of six tonight?" Rose suggested. "Maybe we could all read in the nursery as the babies go to sleep."
"I love that idea," Hermione said with a genuine smile.
"You guys sleeping in there again tonight?" Ron asked.
Rose and Hugo exchanged glances and nodded eagerly. "Yeah, and maybe we'll actually be helpful tonight," laughed Hugo. Rose laughed as well, but Hermione simply pursed her lips together at the reminder of what had happened. Ron noticed her expression and realized he needed to shift the conversation.
"What should we read?" he asked. "A Christmas story or a regular book?"
"Or should it be a baby book?" asked Hugo.
"I think I know just the one," Hermione said with a smile. When the twins had finished their bottles, she popped back over to the other house to find the book she had in mind.
Before long, they had all gathered in the nursery. Hermione was reading from "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" from one rocking chair with Hugo leaned up against her legs while Ron rocked Hazel in the other rocking chair and Rose cuddled Ryan as she sat on her temporary bed on the floor. Despite the late hour and change from their normal routine, somehow the babies seemed to settle right into the new family tradition, quietly listening and enjoying a special story time with their whole family. As she reached the last chapter, she noticed Hugo was "listening" with his eyes closed. Rose still had Ryan, but had shifted to lay down next to him as he slept, and Ron had a peacefully sleeping Hazel on his chest. When she finished, Hugo mumbled something that sounded like "night" and crawled into bed. Ron placed Hazel in the crib and then scooped up Ryan, adding him in next to his sleeping sister. Hermione covered Rose and Hugo with blankets and kissed each of them goodnight, and then flicked the light out with her wand. Hermione quietly shut the door and stood quietly just outside the room. Ron was right behind her, and slipped his arms around her waist.
"We can sleep in there too if it would help," he said with an apologetic tone.
"No, I know. It's just-" she sighed as she put her hands to her face.
"I get it, Hermione," he said sadly. "I'm right there with you."
"Logically I know she is locked up. And logically I know it was a freak thing and wouldn't happen again. Logically I know they are loved and safe and together. But,-"
"But hearts don't always listen to logic."
"Exactly," she sighed as she turned in his arms and placed her face against his chest. She didn't cry. There had been more than enough tears shed that day. But she did finally let herself melt into the safety of her husband's embrace.
He placed his chin atop her head and held her tightly. They stood there silently for some time, and he thought of how he always felt better with her in his arms. He was sick that his family had been so vulnerable, but he did take comfort in the fact that some part of him knew something was wrong. And, in absence of that same sense now, he was not as nervous as Hermione about going to bed. There wasn't a concern of danger. But, in its place was a sick feeling which was a concern of the ones he loved being afraid to be in their own home.
He was transported back to the day he discovered the truth about his pet rat, and how betrayed, disgusted and revolted he had felt. The violation of privacy and trust at the most intimate level had messed with his head for years. And, it had taken him months to feel secure again, even in spaces that should have been beyond safe, like his bed at Hogwarts or his room at The Burrow. He really didn't want that for himself again, but more importantly, he didn't want that for Hermione or the children.
"Care to share what's spinning around in your brain," Hermione whispered.
He sighed, not really wanting to go into all of the stories going through his mind. "Oh, too many things for a tidy summary, I suppose. But, while I hate that this happened, the real problem I'm focused on is that I don't want any of us, but especially you and the kids, to feel unsafe in our own home. And, while I have the benefit of trusting my auror sixth sense, the rest of you don't. And I don't know how to fix that, and it makes me sick."
"But you feel safe tonight, right?" she asked tentatively.
"Absolutely," he replied instantly. "Yesterday felt off from the minute we came home from Kings Cross Station. But since the aurors took her away, that feeling has been completely gone. Trust me, if I had even the slightest suspicion there was an issue, I would turn this house inside out before I let you and the kids sleep here tonight."
"I know," she nodded into his chest. "But it feels better hearing you say it."
"Do you think you could sleep in our room? Or do you want me to set us up beds in here too?"
"Oh, I think I can sleep in our room. But maybe set some extra wards and fancy schmancy spells and such so we know if any of the kids so much as sneeze wrong, ok?"
"Oh, Hermione," he chuckled. "You underestimate me. I had all of those set up before you even started reading tonight."
"I knew I loved you, my hyper-vigilant husband," she laughed before she kissed him.
