A/N: What is this? Why, it's a secret surprise gift, for the rest of my fans. Thanks for being patient while real life interrupted (while I fulfilled the top 2 slots on my bucket list!) and being long-suffering.
Once again, thanks!
DG
"Daddy, I want to see this."
Ron lowered the paper to see what Rose was pointing out. Ron spent his galleons gladly on Friday because Hugo wanted to see the Magical not-Dragons movie and indulged in sweets while there. Then it was a trip the next day with Hermione and the kids to the Dragon Preserve since there were no dragons in that movie.
They had already gone the day before to see the other one, the one that Ron still quietly grumped about for mucking up Rolf's grandfather. But the trip the dragon Preserve the next day made it so much better. Seeing an actual Welch Green flying past the visitor's center did wonders for Hugo, and impressed Rose.
He had tuned out the television earlier in the day since Rose made a fuss about the volume. But since he was home, with the kids while Hermione worked in her library, he could rest some before starting supper for the family shortly. But what he saw instantly intrigued him.
"Daddy, I want to see that movie."
"Well, you know what? I do too." Ron sat up when he saw the antagonist from the movies Hermione introduced him to, and thought was wicked.
"What's that, dear?" Hermione came in from her office with a binder in her arms and her wand shoved into her hair. "Did you say you wanted to go see a movie? I thought you took the kids Friday to a movie."
"Well, yeah. See that?" Ron pointed to the screen and Hermione immediately recognized where it was coming from. They all watched the commercial and no one said a thing.
"Ron, they might not be old enough to see it."
"But it's – "
"I know. But they might be too young to see it, especially that one," She pointed at Hugo and saw her dear son who was still having the occasional nightmare and was crawling into bed with them at night. She refused to bring up that he hated to travel via Floo, still. "I don't want him having another month's worth of nightmares, considering its Christmas time and you will be a bear if he's not sleeping well."
"But, Hermione, it's Star – "
"Not yet, dear. Let me go read up on it and we'll talk about it later."
"Hermione," Ron yelled as his loving and protective wife went back to her office.
"Daddy, can we go?"
"We'll see what Mummy has to say in an hour or so. I'd like to go but if Mummy says no – "
Tap Tap Tap
"Who would be owling on a Sunday bloody morning?"
"Their floo is broken?" Rose added helpfully while reading on the floor of the den.
"It's possible," Ron got up from the couch and went to the window. He opened it and a brown tawny owl flew in to his hand, offering a leg with parchment attached. "For me or Hermione," he mused before taking the parchment roll off and taking the owl to the kitchen for a treat. The owl gobbled it down immediately and hooted in appreciation before Ron took it back to the window and watched the bird fly away.
"Hermione, it's for you," Ron yelled at the MLS seal on the parchment. "Work just owled."
Hermione came stomping into the den, wearing her reading glasses. "I told them I was unavailable this weekend," she growled before taking the parchment out of his hands and reading the parchment while scowling. "Bloody hell, I'm going to take his wand and shove it up – ."
"Mummy said – " the kids stopped what they were saying with one scowl from their Mum.
"Problem, love?" Ron interrupted to save Hermione from any further donations to the children's trust fund jars.
"That idiot Twistleton, you know him, the smarmy git whose mum is on the Wizengamot and thinks he'll be the next minister by 27, refused an assignment today involving an abused house elf in Cambridge because, 'Who cares about a bloody house elf? That's not part of my job description.' Cutcliffe put him on report and will probably be demoted, unless mummy intervenes. So, instead, I have to handle it today, on my day off when I told him I wasn't available, and can't work on my own case." Hermione shredded the parchment and then set them on fire in her hands with her wand. Ron banished them instantly before they could hurt her.
"Love, what is it?"
"It's been a month," she growled before he took her into his arms, "working every bloody weekend for these cases. Twistleton was hired for the small cases, the ones that take entirely too much of my time, cases he's actually competent to handle, and all he does is the bare minimum, kissing bum in the department with the Director and not doing his bloody job."
"So make him take his share, dear."
"I'm not the director, Ron. I can't fire the sod for doing the bare minimum."
"Who said anything about firing him? Keep giving him the crap work you don't have if he won't take actual cases. Treat him like a half priced rent boy," Ron looked over his shoulder and saw the kids weren't paying attention, "since he's on probation for another year because he's not papered yet."
Ron watched the gears in his wife's head spin fast and hard. A menacing smile crept across her face.
"You have an idea, don't you?"
"Oh I do," she winked. "You know that case from the East End, where the wizard was brutalized by his long-suffering witch of a wife? The one that hit my desk last week?"
Ron changed his stance slightly, trying to hide his bits behind his hands without being obvious. "You mean the one that made the Daily Prophet, the bloke who – "
"Yes, that one. Since house elf abuse seems to be beneath him, this case should be completely sorted for him."
"Serves the bugger right," he lamented.
"Anyway, I guess I need to tend to that. Are you going to take the kids to the movies, like you mentioned?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"I hope you wait until I see some reviews for that particular one. I don't know if the kids are old enough to watch it."
"I can cover their eyes if it's too much," Ron pleaded. "You know I want to see it. It'll be fun for the kids."
"Use your own judgement, Ron." Hermione went to get dressed in proper work robes.
Ron turned and saw his two precious children eyeing him. "You want to see the movie with Daddy, don't you?" Two heads nodded very quickly. "OK. Go get dressed. We can make it to the theatre with time to get popcorn and fizzy drink."
The two kids raced down the hallway to their bedrooms to get dressed, with Ron going to change too.
He stepped into the bedroom he shared with Hermione and saw her smirking. "I know you're taking them to see the one you want. I do think that Hugo is too young to see it."
"Rubbish." Ron pulled a jumper from his wardrobe and pulled it over his head. "I'll put a hand over his eyes if it gets too much."
Hermione went to the bedroom door. "If he has nightmares tonight, you get to sleep with him."
Ron laughed but Hermione left him standing in their bedroom without a goodbye kiss.
'I have a bad feeling about this,' he thought before hunting in the closet for some boots and a better jumper.
Hermione stepped into the den of their flat and brushed off the considerable amount of ashes from her winter cloak. What she expected to be two hours interviewing a possibly abused house elf turned into ten hours of crying elves, vehement denials by the Pureblood in question, and one precocious child willingly admitting what actually happened, much to her father's shame and chagrin, and then the filing of reports for rehoming all of the elves from the property.
She dropped her dragon skin briefcase next to the chair and saw that the house was very, very quiet. But then it was after 10 and she'd been gone entirely too long today on her day off. The git who ruined her day with her family would regret it on Monday.
At least Ron left the Christmas tree lit, with tinsel, fairy lights and a fake gnome, dressed as a bad angel, atop the tree. So many presents were under the tree, mostly for the kids, but a couple for Ron, from her. He was so good with the kids, so patient and kind and soft where she was hard edged, and she knew he'd appreciate the gifts she got for him. Even she could be impractical, when she thought of it.
She shrugged out of her cloak – purple with fake fur inside – and slipped out of her dress shoes. Hermione went to the kitchen and saw a dinner under a warming charm for her – chicken alfredo, courtesy of Ron – and said she'd come back for it in a tick, once she made sure where her family was at.
She crept back to Rose's room and looked inside. This week's color scheme, courtesy of Ravenclaw – showed no child in the bed. She went next door – Hugo's room was still decorated in Dragons, on the walls and stuffed versions courtesy of Uncle Charlie – and saw his bed was empty, too.
"Damn it, Ron. I knew it wasn't like the others."
She went back to their bedroom and cracked open the door a little and saw Ron in the bed, eyes wide open at her before smiling brightly, and two sleeping kids in the bed with him. Blue fairy lights lit the room, like nightlights, that he used when the kids crashed in the bed with him. She crept over to the bed and knelt down, intending to whisper. "Nightmares?"
"Hugo didn't want to be alone tonight, after the movie, and Rose didn't either. You were right. It was a bit grow-up of them to see."
"I knew it." But she bit back any further tirades and recriminations. "I warned you - "
"I was the one who was upset, Hermione. Sure, the kids were a little moved by it but I was the one who had two flashbacks and one nightmare. So when I heard Hugo whining and thrashing in his sleep, I went to get him and brought him in here with me. And then Rose was in the bed a few moments later, curled around Hugo." Ron blushed profusely. "I could finally breathe once they were in the bed with me." Ron lifted his hand a touch and Hermione saw his wand in his hand. "I didn't expect to have flashbacks from a bloody movie."
Her stern features crumpled and leaned over the edge to leave a very gentle kiss on his lips. "Give me ten minutes to eat a little and change and I'll be in bed with you."
Ron nodded and shifted back into the bed. Rose wiggled a little in her sleep cuddling up next to Ron more while Hugo turned towards Rose. The children he adored entirely slept comfortable in his arms, protecting them from the monsters that weren't real. But seeing the action on the screen earlier, while holding Hugo in his arms and trying desperately not to shake too much at seeing a story but reliving it in his mind from years before. How could he have flashbacks when he's got two precious kids now, decades later, and the normalcy they have? How could have watching two characters on a screen go through so much, entirely too much, not get some semblance of a fairy tale ending? Faith and hope were only so much when you had to depend on others for fulfillment. That grim determination, born of expectations of being the last son, duty filled to protect Harry up to and including his own life, gave him a terrible case of collywobbles.
Ron wiped his eyes with his left hand while holding his kids in his right.
Only his sense of duty, this time to his kids who did need him, more than Harry did now, kept him from falling completely apart unlike many nights that first year after the fighting ended. Unlike those nights, with Hermione by his side or Harry nearby, all he had was to be the one protecting his kids, if only from his memories. Fortunately, that horcrux was destroyed – including the locked that fucked him up entirely too much – and he could be the adult his children needed.
Hermione slid in behind him, with scant inches he'd left in the bed with the kids, and hugged him tight around his midsection. Soft kisses comforted him and abated the weeping he felt coursing down his face. "What's wrong, love?"
"I saw all of it, including the explosions and magnitude of destruction, and realized how easily we could have all bought it that year. Younger me, who chose to go with Harry to chase Horcruxes, remembered that any single sodding moment, we could all be killed. A dozen times over, we could have all karked it. But somehow, we came through it, fucked up and barmy sometimes, but damn, we're here and you're still mad about me and Merlin knows I'm mad for you." He lifted his head a little to look at his kids. "And bloody hell, we made these and they are pretty good and what did we do to deserve such amazing kids and – "
"Ron," Hermione nudged her nose into the space between his shoulder and neck and kissed him a few times. "I'm sorry you had to go through that today."
"You know what, though?" he continued on while watching the two children in the bed sleeping. "As fucked up as everything was, and might still be, they are why we fought, why we gave everything we could, and some completely more. They are why they can have an easier life, not worried about some lunatic trying to kill everyone."
Hermione budged up a touch more and waited for him to turn his neck. He did and she kissed him, giving him the solace he needed and the passion he craved. That would be all he would get tonight, since the kids were – "
"Mummy?"
Hermione looked over Rose's tangled locks and saw her precious, dear son sitting up slightly in the bed. "Mummy?"
Hermione kissed Ron one last time on the cheek before shifting out of the bed to get in the other side. She lifted the bedclothes and slid in, finding Hugo ready to snuggle in her arms. As soon as she was comfortable and he was too, he drifted back to sleep. But while Hugo slept and Rose did too, she looked over and saw Ron looking at her intently. She kept his attention and they had an entire conversation in those moments, holding their children in their arms in their bed.
Ron rolled onto his side, moving his off-arm to the middle of the bed, holding Rose underneath. Hermione reached out too and took his hand in hers. One more conversation erupted before Ron smiled and drifted off to sleep. Hermione listened a few minutes to three sets of steady, rhythmic breathing before hers joined into their nocturnal harmony.
Happy Christmas to those who celebrate, and Happy Holidays to others this season! - DG