George and Daphne laughed as Hermione's mouth remained open for a few more seconds at Daphne's announcement.

"You're a Weasley? You married Percy? How did that even happen?" Hermione shook her head in bewilderment, memories of Daphne's supposed allergy to the library, her penchant for fine and expensive everything, and her hatred of everything to do with what Hermione associated with Percy; statistics, the Ministry, following rules. The only thing Daphne had ever been precise about was her wardrobe, her hairstyling charms and her posture.

"Don't be outrageous, I kept my own name," Daphne tutted, as if that should have been Hermione's first assumption. "But yes we're married, it's a long story dear, I think we should discuss it at a later date. Right now, you two need to talk and then it's Harry's party -"

"Do you really think this is the time, Daph -" Hermione gave her an exasperated look but her friend was unaffected.

"Yes, this is the time, Hermione. You've been with him for years and he just proposed to you and evidently you'd accepted so no matter how confusing you're finding things and how crazy it all seems please – trust yourself. Trust that even though circumstances over the last four years have changed, and that you as a person have changed, trust that you were still you and that you've made the decisions you did for a reason," Daphne pressed, her hand raising to point in George's direction. "You were happy with him."

Hermione's breath hitched and she bit her upper lip. Happy?

"That's… That's like asking me to have blind faith." Tears sprung to Hermione's eyes yet again and she stomped her foot in frustration, wiping the sleeve of her sweater over her cheek roughly. "I don't do blind faith, I do facts and figures and long answer essay questions, I don't -"

"In all fairness, a marriage proposal is a lot like asking for blind faith as well, and you were ecstatic with that," Daphne dropped bluntly. "And now my darlings, I'm going to leave you to it. I'll see you both later at Harry's party."

Daphne departed with as much joie be vivre as she'd had upon entry, leaving a lingering trail of Chanel perfume and the sound of her heels on the stairs outside.

Silence permeated every corner of the apartment, making the sound of running water upstairs more evident. The two occupants shifted, and Hermione tried to think of something to say.

"I… Thank you for coming," she said quietly.

George was looking at his loosely laced hands and taking shallow breaths, his chest hardly rising and falling. When standing, he was just as tall as she'd remembered, and just as broad in the shoulders. His hair was not quite as ginger as Ron's, it leaned a touch more brown, like Ginny's. He tilted his head up to look at her standing in the middle of the room and at a loss, and Hermione got a clear view of his face. His eyes had a strange sort of dullness about them, but otherwise he seemed fine. Lightly tanned skin, hair just long enough to mussed up. The scruff he was sporting both softened him around the edges and toughened him up and Hermione didn't understand that at all.

"Well, we should probably talk," George nodded.

"I haven't opened the envelope yet," Hermione supplied, hoping to defer some questions she might have had coming. She hadn't been able to get herself to open the little package Ron had passed on to her since last night.

"You should probably go get it; it's important," George stated, offering no more explanation.

"Right," Hermione felt odd walking back to her bedroom and picking it up, the weight of it terrifying in her palm. George hadn't followed and the place was quiet again as she flicked a nail under the seal and tipped it over onto the bedspread.

There was a vial of clear liquid, tightly sealed, and a folded up note.

Frowning, Hermione inspected the vial closely but there was no label. Veritaserum? Draught of Living Death? What else was clear…

Unfolding the note she realized another was folding inside, the outer one containing what she assumed was George's scribble.

'Hermione, please take this, just to be sure. I know the Healers checked you over because of the explosion but I need to know. –George'

What? George thought something was wrong with her that the Healers might have missed?

Picking up the second square of paper she unfolded it and turned right side up, her eyes freezing on the header, heart pounding heavily in her chest.

"George!" she screeched, thumping out of the bedroom and down the hall. "Do you really think this is something you just send along with Ron? What if he'd looked?"

"Sorry, I… Just didn't think you'd want to hear from me," George gave a small shrug.

"Is it even possible?" she shook the paper at him nervously, her heart still beating wildly in her chest.

"Well, there was this one night after a Puddlemere game and it was Oliver's birthday and they'd won and things were quite… celebratory?" George offered delicately.

"And you're saying I could be pregnant?" Hermione's voice almost gave out on her and she dropped herself into a nearby chair. "Oh my god, how perfectly timed."

"Well, neither of us could remember if we'd done the charm but that's happened before, right, and nothing's ever come of it but…" George trailed off, looking back at his hands, his ears pink.

"But what?" Hermione pressed.

"But you hadn't been feeling so well before the accident. Not terrible, just under the weather but you hardly ever get sick and I don't even think it had occurred to you yet but I wanted to make sure because… Well, because I love you. Even if things are crazy right now, I still love you."

"And," Hermione rasped, eyes watering again, "What if I am pregnant? What will I do? Oh my god I'm going to be alone in an apartment I don't know with a baby to take care of -"

"We don't know you're pregnant, and besides – you wouldn't be alone. Can we just figure it out one step at a time, yeah? You've been giving me enough worry over the past week, so maybe just take it down a notch," George sighed and took a deep slow breath.

Hermione's heart was thundering in her chest, her mind working a mile a minute but still confused because she didn't have any memories to think over to reassure herself she wasn't pregnant. She had no context to bring anything enlightening to the situation at hand other than bursting into tears at the drop of a hat. Which, wasn't that something pregnant women did because of hormones?

"Oh god," she whispered, scrambling with the paper again to read the instructions. "One drop of blood and a shake."

Hermione cast her eyes around for something she could use to get a drop of blood from her finger and George frowned.

"Use your wand," he grinned, shaking his head at her.

"It's under the – nevermind, will you do it please?" Hermione held out her hand to him and he shuffled closer, pulling his own wand out of his pocket. Her hand shook minutely as he took it in his own, warm and large and tender. George placed it at the tip of her index finger and Hermione inhaled through her teeth as he made the tiniest of cuts there. She quickly retracted from his hold and unsealed the vial, looking up at him briefly before squeezing a drop of bright red blood into the vial of liquid.

George looked nervous, and Hermione's heart fluttered again. She couldn't imagine what he was going through. Daphne said they'd been together for years. So his girlfriend had lost all memory of his time with her, the moments and habits and inside jokes and fights and cuddles and – the everything that a couple shared together, that hopefully made them fall more and more in love with each other as time passed. Hermione had been wiped clean of that.

To her he was just George, Ron's brother who had blown off school before he'd finished it, started a business that had been doing quite well at her last update, and sent Ginny loads of letters while she was finishing her seventh year at Hogwarts. He defied rules, and came up with ingenious plans and always had a quick line on the edge of his tongue.

To him, she was all those years wrapped up into one, his girlfriend, he loved her. He loved her so much he wanted her to marry him and she'd said yes before it had all been ripped away.

As she looked closer, shaking the vial and holding it sealed with her finger, she observed George closer and what she found made her heart crack. She could almost see the ripped and ragged edges of him hanging off his body, the parts where she had been ripped from him. The dull eyes, the downward stare, the distant letter. He was keeping a distance for her sake, not his. He loved her still and he missed her and all she had done was panic about her memory and not thought what this whole thing had to him because he hadn't been injured like she had.

Hermione lunged at him, locking her arms around his neck and ignoring his brief moment of stiffness before he pulled her closer and tugged her into his lap.

"I'm so sorry," she squeaked out, her throat tightening in preparation to cry yet again.

"I'm so sorry," George responded, low and gruff and more personal and intimate than she ever remembered an exchange between the two of them being, her spine tingling. He shuffled her closer and wrapped an arm around her back as she continued to wiggle the vial around, waiting for the answer to the burning question.

"What's the result indicators?" she asked, and George reached for the slip of paper before coming back to her.

"Green is positive and black is negative," George answered. "But those Healers were doing all sorts of tests. They were bound to find it if it was true, right?"

"I hope so," Hermione breathed and they both held their next breath as she stopped shaking the vial and held in up to their faces, the liquid frothy but settling.

Their eyes widened when the milky colour became evident.


WELL WHAT THE HECK MELISSA WHY DO YOU LEAVE US HERE?

Well dear reader I'll tell you. I set up a poll on my profile to see what you guys think. Do you want her to be pregnant, or not?

I started this with a very vague idea of where I wanted it to go, so we shall see where we end up. If an overwhelming amount of you want that then I'll see what I can make work.

So go vote!

And review too please. :)