You guys…you're beautiful, you know that?

The reviews for last chapter simply made my week, and I owe it to all to you! I was dreading writing this (not really sure where to go), but all your kind words made my fingers itch to get on a computer, and somehow it came to me a lot easier than I had feared. That, and the ice storm that has kept me home from work these past two days. Hope #4 is sufficient!

I own nothing, except the warm fuzzies I get from reviews!

"O Children,

Lift up your voice,

Lift up your voice"

She didn't know where he picked it up, the whole "mummy" bit. He had spent every one of his three years in America, and didn't even have a hint of a British accent. The word certainly wasn't something he heard on a day to day basis, other than from herself of course, but she was only one person. He was surrounded by Americans otherwise, and none of his classmates understood what he was saying. Multiple times she had seen a frightened toddler or two look about for a man bound in ragged linen when he had cried out "Mummy, look at me!" from the top of the slide at the park. They teased him for using such a funny word, having a rather ardent fondness of the vowel "o" in her opinion, but none of this did anything to phase the little guy. Hermione was Hugo's mummy, and no one could tell him otherwise.

He was like that sometimes, incredibly headstrong as only a little boy could be, and it seemed like this (this terrible, beautiful moment) was going to be one of those instances. His porcelain forehead was developing tiny furrows almost comical in their shallowness as he attempted to knit his brow in frustration, lower lip puckering up as well. Hugo hated not being in on the know, and would do anything in his power to make his desire to be included heard. It was the same reason he hated to go to bed before she did, this desperation not to miss out on the secret lives of grown-ups, certainly full of terribly exciting adventures kept hidden from children. She noticed his miniature fists curl themselves into balls at his sides and knew a tantrum in the making when she saw one.

"Mum-my!" He said again, stomping one foot on the ground as she leapt to her own feet. Paige had reached the kitchen now, her own son propped on her hip with his thumb in his mouth, a habit Hermione was desperately glad her own boy hadn't picked up from his playmate. The blond woman, not much more than a girl herself, wore a typically exhausted expression, identifiable with single working mothers everywhere. Her body, mind and spirit were beat after a long shift of unappreciated labor, coupled with her turn carpooling two tireless little boys home from daycare. The key to Hermione's place dangled on the key ring she still held in hand, and she was about to scold Hugo for running away before she could get his muddy shoes off of him when her weary eyes finally landed on Ron. Hermione had managed to extricate herself from his lap now, but she was sure they two of them still looked a sight. Paige's eyes widened and she raised an eyebrow, but did not comment on the proximity of the two. In the year that "Hannah" and her and been neighbors, she had never seen the proper British girl so much as glance at a man, leaving her friend confused and with no choice but to ogled them twice as hard for the both of them. But now, judging from the furious blush igniting her cheeks, Paige had a good idea why she wasn't interested in their (gorgeous) mailman.

"Sorry about the mess, "She said with a, gesturing to the trail of footprints Hugo had left from the front door to where he stood now, "they managed to jump in every puddle from the school to my car today. Boys." She said with a shrug, attempting a smile at Ron, who seemed completely oblivious to her presence. Paige subtly noted the hue of his hair with no visible change in her demeanor, and knew exactly where she had seen it before.

"Boys." Hannah/Hermione agreed, swooping down on Hugo and lifting his muddy feet off the floor. His temper quickly subsided as she hoisted him up into the air and pressed her lips against the bright red softness of his hair, breathing in deeply the scent of crayons and mud and little boy (and trying to breathe out that dizzying spearmint smell). He giggled as she plopped him on the counter, delighting in being allowed to sit in such an unconventional location. Hermione busied herself with cleaning him up, her back to the man who remained inert on the floor, staring open-mouthed at the domesticity of the pair in front of him.

"Look at me Brandt! I'm up high!" Hugo exclaimed, wiggling his toes in the air as Hermione pulled the wet socks off his feet and threw them in the sink.

"I wanna go high too!" The other boy pouted, pulling his thumb from his lips with an audible pop and stretching his arms out towards the other mother.

Paige rolled her eyes, though no one noticed the gesture but herself. 'Boys' was right. "Oh no mister, there's only one place you're going, and that is in the tub!"

Brandt and Hugo shared a look of terror. There was nothing worse than having to get clean, when they had only just gone to all the trouble of getting dirty! Paige's son tried to wiggle out of her grasp, but she held on to him with practiced precision and began to back out of the room.

"See ya later." She said, not offended when the stranger did not offer so much as a wave in her direction. Pretending to understand guys was something she gave up on about the time she had a little man of her own.

"Bye. Thanks." Hermione called over her shoulder, her eyes catching Paige's to communicate a look that left no doubt that her appreciation was for more than just bringing her son home.

"No problem." She replied, and her tone contained nothing but genuine friendliness. She was sympathetic to her neighbor's plight, much moreso than some might be. This looked like some baby daddy drama if she had ever seen it, and having had to deal with her fair share of the stuff, she wished Hannah all the best. It was kind of weird, though, that the man was still sitting on the floor and everything…Oh well, Brandt's father wasn't exactly a stand-up guy either. She snickered at her own humor and locked the door of apartment 2340 behind her, pushing thoughts of gossip away for later as the matter of her son's washing and feeding commanded the full use of her attention now.

"I splashed in ten puddles." Hugo said matter-o-factly, holding up ten stubby little fingers for Hermione to see as she rinsed his feet off under the facet and patted them dry with a dish cloth.

"Is that so…" She murmured back, her mind in another place entirely. Ron had still yet to move, and the terrified anticipation of what he would do if and when he finally did was driving her crazy.

"Yes. Brandt can't jump as high as I can. His splashes were small."

"Really." She scratched little flecks of dirt off his pants with her fingernail. There was nothing left to do now, nothing but to turn and face Ron. She cringed at the thought. What would he say? How could she explain?

It was true, all of everything she had said in that surreal moment on the kitchen floor. It was wonderful, and she didn't want to ruin his future, and she couldn't be something he regretted. She hoped he could understand, wanted him to see that she meant every word with all of her heart. It was too much though, surely, judging from the look of him now. For everything that had happened in the past three years to hit him all at once…the vacant look on his face was understandable. It hurt, but that sensation was something she had gotten used to by now.

She had been ready to have it out with him that night, had drawn upon every bit of her Gryffindor courage and made up her mind not to come back home until they had talked through the whole ruddy mess that they had made of what happened between them. But her timing was terrible, and when she apparated to his flat everyone (everyone) was already there. The place was a wreck and full of people in such a tizzy about Harry and his early admission into the prestigious program that she didn't even have time to let her feelings get hurt about him not telling her straight-away. He had blushed when she congratulated him, pulled her aside from the celebration and into the hall to say something, probably one of his blundering apologies that made her knees go all wobbly and her senses fuzzy, but she hadn't let him start. She had made up her mind on the spot to leave this place when she had walked in and found out about Ron's acceptance, as soon as she saw the light in his eyes dim and turn to hesitation when he spotted her. And all this she had settled on even before she knew out about Hugo! It mattered little though, for when she did, it only reinforced the necessity of her decision. Ron needed to pursue what was best for him, for his career, and a bossy, love-struck girl with bushy hair and scars on her heart wasn't it.

And now, with this beautiful little body so snug in her arms, nothing could make her regret what she had done. Even the man she (still, couldn't stop it, kept her up at night thinking about how badly she-) loved.

"I suppose you'll be staying for dinner." She asked the figure on her floor, as indifferently as she could manage to, though truly, nothing had ever sounded as absurd to her own ears as those words.

Food had always had a resounding affect on Ron, and at the mention of it he blinked. With that the spell he was under was broken, and he jolted back to reality and his feet with the agility of a man poised for battle. And maybe he was. His neck, what little of it she could see peeking out from his coat, was already beginning to turn flush, a tell-tale sign of his temper re-igniting itself.

"Please Ron, don't." She asked him in a whisper, placing her hand protectively over the boy she held. "Don't yell, not in front of Hugo."

He gasped at the name, letting out a choked breath he hadn't known he was holding. "H-Hugo?" He managed to say, his mind churning with the flurry of information an implications he had been bombarded with.

"Yes. This is Hugo, my…son. Say hello, Hugo." She prompted, pressing her face against his smaller one and nudging his cheek with her nose.

"Hello." The little boy said defiantly, examining the new face before him as Ron nodded his head mutely in reply. Hermione held her breath as they sized each other up, terrified of what might come if either found the other lacking. She felt her son twist in her arms.

"You have pumpkin hair, just like me." Hugo told the strange man, reaching out and up to pat the top of Ron's head just in case he didn't understand what the boy meant.

Silence, so unbearably loud and thick that she felt as though she would shatter from the weight of it, pressed against their strange trio from all sides. Breathing was out of the question, and what little air she had managed to gather in her lungs was quickly lost from its hiding place somewhere deep inside her chest. She would surely faint from this, from all of this, and just as her vision started to blur around the periphery, a most beautiful sound caught her attention and brought her back to awareness

"Yeah…you're right. I do."

And at that, at the magnificent, tremendous look of wonder on Ron's freckled face, the way his eyes filled with tears and his mouth drew up in that dreamy half-smile, and how Hugo gave him one so perfectly similar in return, she felt her heart twist and tumbled over itself in a surge of gratitude that she could neither explain nor control. It was a beautiful thing, she knew, and something she would cherish for all of her life, this glorious moment when she thanked the Lord above that Hugo had been blessed enough to inherit tresses of the trademark Weasley red from Ginny… instead of getting Harry's black hair.

Hmmm…