CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: SHE LOVED ME

Three months later

Harry and Hermione sat across from Sirius and a woman neither of them knew at a corner booth of a new restaurant in Hogsmeade. They were there at Sirius's request, although neither of them were comfortable being with this woman. Both had their suspicions as to why she was there at all, but wouldn't voice them, except to each other.

"Harry, Hermione, I'd like you to meet Michelle Turner. Michelle, meet my daughter, Hermione Black, and my godson, Harry Potter."

"Are you really Harry Potter?" she asked fixedly.

Harry blushed lightly. "Yes. I really am Harry Potter."

"And are you his wife?" she asked Hermione.

"No."

"Are you his girlfriend?"

"No. I'm his ex-wife and the mother of his children."

"Ah. It's good you two are still obviously so comfortable together. You are still friends then?"

Harry and Hermione stared at each other and didn't answer for a while. "In a manner of speaking, you could say we're friends." Harry answered slowly without breaking eye contact with Hermione.

"So, Hermione. You're twenty-nine, right?"

"Yes."

"And you're an Auror?"

"Yes. What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a waitress at the Leaky Cauldron. That's where I met your dad. But of course, you know that."

"No, actually, I didn't know that. Do you have any kids?"

"No. I'm working on that. I thought I was too young to have kids, but things change."

"How young is too young?"

"I'm thirty-three."

Next to an open-mouthed Hermione, Harry choked on his coffee. Sirius was 49, and although he still looked 39, he had no excuse to be dating a 33-year-old.

"What did you mean by 'you're working on that'? What things changed?" Hermione questioned slowly.

Sirius finally spoke up. "Hermione, Harry, Michelle and I have something we have to tell you."

"We're having a baby!" Michelle announced.

"To.. Together?" Hermione stammered.

"Well, yes, that's the general way things happen." Sirius smiled.

"She's pregnant with your baby. Oh my god."

And with that, Hermione had gotten up from her seat, and was out of the restaurant in tears before anyone could give her a second look.

As she watched Hermione go, Michelle got up quickly to excuse herself to the bathroom, leaving Harry and Sirius at the table. Harry sat staring at Sirius, while Sirius couldn't take his eyes off the door.

At long last, Sirius finally spoke. "Well, she didn't take that too well."

Harry looked at him incredulously. "You honestly didn't expect her to, did you?"

Sirius sighed noisily and rested his head on the table. "No. I didn't think it would go well. How well could I expect her to take it when I didn't accept it?"

"You seemed pretty happy to me." Harry said pointedly.

"I was faking it for Hermione's sake. I figured that if she saw I was happy, she'd tone her response down a little. She, of course, saw right through it. I should have known she would. Tell me, what do you think she was thinking as she left?"

"You really want to know what she was thinking? It wasn't very gentle."

"You know what she was thinking?"

"After all these years, I still understand her."

"I still don't get why you two broke up. Try me. What was she thinking?"

"She was thinking that you had messed up pretty bad this time. She was feeling bad for the baby, thinking that it wasn't being born into very good conditions. She knows that you aren't in love with Michelle, and she knows that you are thinking the same thing."

"Am I really that obvious?"

"No, she's your daughter and she loves you. CeCe does that kind of thing to me, too."

"What am I going to do now? I can't take care of a baby!"

"Well, you're going to have to stop being a baby yourself. Grow up, Sirius." Harry said firmly, garnering him a sharp glare from his godfather. He took it in stride and instead kept with telling Sirius what he needed to hear. "I know taking care of a baby's hard. I've done it. But look what happened. CeCe, who was the baby I raised, turned out fine. This baby will, too. Hell, this kid at least has two parents. Charlie and CeCe didn't. If I can raise two kids, you can raise one with the help of a woman."

"I'm talking to my godson about how to raise a baby. This is a little backwards, don't you think?"

"Well, life happens. What are you going to do right now?"

"I think I'll go see a friend of mine. Her name's Senorita Margarita."

"That's not an option. The last time you got drunk, you got another kid out of the deal. That's two times you've gotten drunk and gotten a woman pregnant. Given, I love the results of your drunken ventures, because if you hadn't gotten overly friendly with the bottle, I wouldn't have a woman I loved and two kids of my own, but you have to stop. I think you need to go home."

"And if Hermione's there?"

"She's not. That's where I'm going."

"What?"

"I'm going to go find Hermione."

"You know where she went? How?"

"You forget that I'm in love with her, even if she doesn't realize it. I know where she went. I know where she's been going every night for five months."

"So you are in love with her, then?"

"Yes."

"Where has she been going, and how could you possibly know? Have you been following her?"

"No, I haven't followed her. I just still understand her. She's been going to the ocean. Somewhere on the coast of France pretty close to Italy. It supposedly calms her, helps her think."

"Ah. I might try reading a page from her book."

"Okay, do that."

"No, I really am going to go see a friend."

"Remus?"

"Yeah. He'll knock some sense into me."

"Oh yeah, that's good ol' Remus."

"Hum, might as well talk about my cousin, too." Sirius frowned.

"Let them do it themselves. Tonks has a crush on him, and I bet he knows. Have you ever known Tonks not to get as she wants?"

"She's like my little sister, though! He had better take care of her. If he breaks her heart, I'll kill him."

"You'll kill your last remaining best friend?"

"Okay, I'll wound him. Critically."

"Uh huh. Behave yourself, Sirius." And Harry walked from the restaurant, following his gut instincts to find his former wife.

Sirius sat kicked back in the softest recliner of his best friend's house, a beer in one hand, a remote in the other. Remus was making dinner in the small kitchen just off the living room where Sirius sat.

"How'd Hermione take the news?" Remus called from the stove.

"Terribly. She stormed out of the restaurant in tears." Sirius grumbled.

"Did you expect anything else?"

"You sound like Harry."

"Then it must be true. What'd Harry say?"

"That I was just going to have to step up to the plate. When I told him I didn't know how, he said 'neither did I, and I still survived."

"He did well with those kids." Remus said as he brought two steaming plates into the room, set one down in front of Sirius and toke a seat in the recliner opposite his friend.

Sirius glared at Remus. "Hey, I'm just telling you." Remus held his hands up in mock surrender. "You should listen to him."

"I'd like to know what Hermione thinks. I wonder if she'll ever talk to me again." Sirius looked away.

"Hell, Sirius, that girl loves you more than air. What do you mean 'will she ever talk to you again'?"

"Why would she? I messed up, Remus, and I pissed her off pretty bad."

"Sirius, once again, that girl loves you. She'll be back, and when she sees you, she will walk up to you, kiss and hug you, and tell you she loves you. She won't turn her back on you. You may deserve it, but she won't do it. You lucky man."

"Thanks for all the support. Buddy." Sirius said sarcastically.

"Anytime." Remus smiled back.

Harry found her on the same beach he knew she went to so often. She was standing facing the water on a rock ledge, her arms wrapped around herself, hair blowing around her face.

God, she's beautiful. He thought. I miss her being mine.

"Hey, stranger." he said softly from behind her. He moved up to face the sea next to her. "You alright?"

"Yeah. What did he have to go and do that for? He's really done well this time." she said, a bit begrudgingly.

"He knows, and he is sorry. He was faking being happy for your sake."

"I guessed."

"I told him you would."

"What does he think he is going to do, raising a child?"

"That's where you come in, wouldn't you guess?"

"Excuse me?"

"He's going to need all the help he can get. You are a good mother, I'm a good father, and between the two of us, we can figure out how to teach him and Michelle what to do. They will need us."

"You really think so?"

"Yes, I do."

"I'll be teaching my own father how to raise a child. This will be so weird." She laughed, a low, smooth laugh that sent Harry soaring.

"Are you ready for this?" he asked as he wrapped his arms around her from behind.

"I don't really have a choice, do I? Yes, I'm ready for it."

"Good. Let's go tell your dad how to be a dad." Harry chuckled as he led her away from the edge of the cliff.