Again

by smolder

"A pulse goes through her, the magic building to a crescendo (music and colors and words all blend together and still mange to escape her in this single moment that is nothing like she has ever experinced, nothing but magic but somehow more than what she has ever known that word to mean since becoming a witch), and Hermione felt her back arch up off the blanket."

3. Reliant

It is waiting after that, weeks that turn into months of waiting for Luna to deem her growing baby to have a strong enough aura to be distinct as it's own and not be dwarfed by her own magical signature. The time starts as preparation but it somehow morphs into an odd calm - and Hermione thinks the waiting should be excruciating, keeps expecting it to be but it isn't. It's healing for all of them.

As expected Harry is angry when she tells him. But it is largely based on fear and worry for her and therefore hard for him to maintain for long in the face of Luna and her own twin calm surety. He instead makes it up to her in his own way - reading books about pregnancy and decorating one of the rooms as a nursery, buying more things than she thought had been possible for a single baby. (She has always had a vague sense that Harry wanted children, wanted family. But his eagerness makes something inside of her crack, makes her clutch both Luna and him tight and just cry. She'll later blame hormones.)

There is also the unexpected development that Harry is able to sleep, still dream but still a full actual eight to ten hours a night of sleep, if he kept contact with her stomach. Harry of course is uncomfortable with this, unwilling to, as he feels, take more from her - not understanding that he is her best friend and she would do anything to help him. Luna (Merlin, she feels so reliant on the other woman these days) is somehow able to solve their problems with this by having all three of them sleep in the same bed making it feel less intimate (much easier for both Harry and her to accept) and more like a sleepover - whispering in the dark until they are all asleep.

And every morning as her stomach grows and she wakes up warm with two bodies curled around her it becomes easier to imagine this being her life. Because even if it worked, there was no guarantee that everyone would understand this decision she made and the odd precious child that was the result. But there was no doubt in her mind that Harry and Luna always would, and the future Hermione saw clearer every day of the four of them living in Grimmauld Place was far from a bad one.