Sorry it's been so long! I went on holiday for two weeks and forgot to bring my laptop!
I'm so glad you all liked the last chapter! I am also very glad you liked my naming of her parents (that took a lot of debating in my head).
So here is chapter nine from Henry Granger's POV :)
Henry Granger was a soft tempered man, and he knew it. He had never been the child who complained when the teacher was being unfair - he had just accepted that it was out of his control and got on the best he could. He had never been the teenager who had screaming matches with his parents - he respected that they had authority over him and that they only wanted the best for him. This attitude had worked well for him through life, particularly in his marriage - He was always the first to apologise even if he hadn't really been wrong in the first place.
You see, as Henry saw it, it wasn't worth wasting time being angry or bitter over things that didn't really matter or that you couldn't change anyway.
The issue now however, was that his baby girl had been hurt. Not only that, but she had taken away their ability to do anything about it. Now, as mentioned before, Henry was soft-tempered, and he knew that things needed thinking through before you reacted. With this in mind, he tried to be as much like his normal self as was possible - even though he had an emotional war raging inside. He could tell that this was what Hermione needed, after all she had flinched again this morning when her mother dropped a knife on the floor, and he could tell his wife was a few more flinches away from exploding.
Though that may have been the bigger issue, Henry thought that his wife was stressing enough for both of them and there was another thing plagueing his mind. A boy shaped thing. You see... Hermione... Well she hadn't come to Australia alone.
Over the years Henry had heard a lot about a young Mr Ron Weasley and how he was so close to his daughter and how he was 'so funny' and then sometimes how he made her cry.
Elizabeth often accused Henry of being slow when it came to noticing things of the romance variety - she had been the one to kiss him first after all - but he most definitely noticed something between his daughter and this boy (no, young man) that she had brought along with her.
It first happened the morning after they had arrived and Henry had gone to wake up the pair in the spare room. As he was walking, he was re-thinking his desicion to let his daughter share a room with a boy, seriously! What had he been thinking of? He supposed that it must have been the lack of sleep and emotional trauma that had left him desperate enough for bed that he would agree to anything. He was proven that the idea had in fact been insane when he opened the door to find that though they had turned the bed into two (magic truly did amaze him!), they had pushed the beds close together and their hands were clasped accross the divide.
Henry was stunned as he backed out of the room again. He hadn't even considered the idea that his eighteen year-old daughter could be in a relationship. Yes, he may have worried about them sharing a room, but he hadn't really, truly thought it. After all, wasn't this the boy who had made her miserable that last Christmas?
Henry remembered that Christmas very well, even though it was (gosh was it really?) two years ago now. He remembered the smile as she greeted them at the station alone, he remembered how it hadn't quite reached her eyes. He remembered how she had shrunk into herself in the car journey home and how her eyes had filled with tears when Elizabeth asked her why she hadn't said goodbye to the boys. Most vividly he remembered finding her sitting in the kitchen in the middle of the night on Christmas eve, hugging a mug of hot chocolate sobbing silently; and how he had held her tight without asking any questions even though deep down he wanted to find out who had hurt his baby and... well he didn't know what.
When he had found out that it was her so-called best friend who had done this to her (via Elizabeth - his relationship with his daughter wasn't really a share-y one, though they were close) he had been all set on taking him aside and giving him a talking to the next time he saw him, but that had never happened as he never did see him again until now.
He knew that hadn't been the only time either, he recalled his wife telling him 'Hermione's fallen out with Ron again' whilst reading her letters countless times over the years. Only now did he notice that she had never fallen out with her other friend Harry that way.
His wife interrupted his musings by stumbling out of the bedroom, ever the lazy one, attempting to smooth down her hair and instead only making it worse. The sight would have usualluy made him chuckle, but he just pointed to the door , wide-eyed. She frowned and peeked inside, she then smiled tenderly and then turned to smirk at him before shutting the door and meandering downstairs, ignoring his hisses of 'Elizabeth!'.
The second time he noticed it was when his daughter was when they came home from sorting things out with their practice - informing them that they were closing in three week's time - and he had walked in to find them in the lounge. Apparently his brother Charlie had gone for a walk, and Henry overheard a very odd conversation.
"Stop it!" He heard his daughter laugh, which made him stop in his tracks.
"I'm not doing anything!" He heard the amused rumble.
"You're staring at me! I can't concentrate when you're looking at me like that!" The thought that this boy was looking at his daughter in any sort of way was disconcerting.
"I can't help it." Even through the door Henry could sense his daughter's blush.
"That's ridiculous."
"It's not." There was a pause, in which Henry considered making his presence known, before the boy continued, "You just look so cute when you're reading. It's irresistable." Henry was unnerved by the intensity of his voice and went to put his hand on the doorknob.
"Don't be silly." His daughter huffed.
"I'm not!" He heard the clap of a book shutting. "You do! You get that really serious look on your face and these little frown lines here." There was a pause, "And you sometimes scrunch your nose up when you're really concentrating and you pout your lips." There was a tense silence before the boy added - far too breathily for Henry's liking, "It's cute."
He stomped on the floor to interrupt them and shouted, "Hermione?" He heard them jump apart and opened the door. "Oh, here you are! Your mother is just buying some groceries, we're all sorted now, we just need to wait until the month's over so we can finish paying the rent here and we can go home."
He took note of the flustered state his daughter was in and looked hard at the young man, who seemed to realise that Henry had heard what he had said and blushed violently. Hermione quickly recovered and smiled.
"That's great!" She exclaimed, standing up. "Why don't you sit down and I'll get you a drink!" She hastily left the room, he knew her well enough to realise that she was trying to avoid any awkward eye-contact with either of them after what had just occurred. He knew that she would likely take her time with the drink, which was good, as it gave him some time to spend with the boy.
"So, how are you liking Australia Ron?" He almost laughed as the boy beathed an all-too-obvious sigh of relief.
"It's great! 'Mione took me to the beach this morning, it was amazing! The water's so much clearer here!"
"It is lovely!" Henry smiled, "How come Harry didn't want to come?"
Ron paused and bit his lip. "He wanted to spend some time with my sister. They started dating before the war, and with Fred... with what happened to my brother, he said he needed to be there for her."
Damn it. The boy was good. It took Henry a beat to come up with his next statement, "It's nice that you wanted to be here for Hemione, what with the family tragedy and all. Most people would want to be at home at a time like that."
Ron looked Henry in the eye, and he could see him trying to figure out what his game was. "Well, she needed m-someone... and I thought that it would be better to spend my time helping her than moping around." He shrugged, as though ending the subject. He was very good.
"Still, not many people would be able to brush aside their own pain to help someone else, not even for a friend." He mat the boys eyes again, imploring him to admit what he had already guessed.
The boy just about managed to control his blush and gulped before smiling, and answering, "Well, Hermione's special."
Henry was starting to wonder if the boy was some expert chess master or something, with the way he was comandeering the conversation. He battled with himself for a moment before sighing.
"Will you be honest with me for a moment?" The boy nodded solemnly. "Are you in love with my daughter?"
To his credit, Ron met his eyes bravely. "Yes." He said it so surely, and Henry's heart dropped to his stomach, he couldn't explain why.
He collected himself and nodded. "And are you dating?"
Again, the boy answered with a bold "Yes."
Henry nodded again. "And what are your plans after that?"
The question stumped the boy for a moment, "I - What exactly do you mean?"
Henry almost laughed at the question, the boy evidently knew exactly what he meant. He settled, however, for a faint smile. "You can't exactly just date my daughter forever, you must have some kind of an idea where this relationship is going."
The boy looked to his shoes and this time couldn't contain his blush. "I'm going to marry her. In a few years though. I know she has things she wants to accomplish before she gets married, and I want to be able to afford to buy her a nice ring, and a nice house." He lifted his heard to look back into Henry's eyes, and he could see the determination there, "I never really had much growing up, I mean, there were seven of us. I want to be able to give my children new things, I don't plan on rushing into anything with this. Hermione's very important to me, she - she's amazing. I know you probably heard all about our fights, but that was just me trying to push her away because I didn't think I could ever be good enough for her, and I thought that she knew that and that she didn't want me. I screwed up a lot, but I know now that she does love me - I don't know why, but she does - and I will do my hardest never to hurt her again. I promise you that."
Henry was taken aback, he didn't know what he was expecting, but it wasn't that. The level of maturity Ron displayed towards his relationship with Hermione was far above that of a usual teen romance. 'I am going to marry her', that's what he said, and Henry couldn't fault that. For some unknown reason, he also knew that one day he would see his daughter walk down an isle on his arm to meet the boy in front of him. He just hoped that it was a long way off yet.
Henry nodded again, and the boy nodded back.
"Well, then I'm glad you're here." Henry finally replied.
"Me too." The boy smiled.
Hermione opened the door, her eyes suspiciously watery. She walked over to her father and handed him his mug, kissing him on the cheek. She then walked over to Ron, who she looked at tenderly before flopping down next to him and leaning her head on his shoulder. He in turn wrapped an arm around her waist.
They sat in silence for a few moments before Elizabeth burst through the front door, chattering away to Charlie, they were both carrying shopping bags. Ron and Hermione offered to give them a hand and soon Charlie was sent away as they three unpacked the groceries.
Henry grinned back at the man as he sat down opposite him. "Did you have a nice walk?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
Charlie laughed, "I guess you know now huh? Not that it was really a secret what with that pathetic look on his face all the time."
"He's not that bad." Henry tried.
"Yeah right! You didn't see him at home! He was all over her like a rash, tripping over himself to do anything for her. He has it bad." He smirked at the thought. "Hermione's nearly as bad too, she just has a bit more... decorum. She is just always touching him... and giving him that doe-eyed look. It's weird, I never thought Ron would ever get his act together with her." Charlie laughed.
Henry reviewed the past few days in his head and decided that Charlie was right! Hermione couldn't stop touching the boy! They were always connected in some way; be it through their hands, or the interlocking of their feet under the table, or even just their shoulders touching. The thought worried Henry, after all, surely it couldn't be good that she had to constantly remind herself that he was there...
Charlie seemed to notice the dark path his thoughts had taken and coughed, loudly.
Henry jumped, startled, and turned to face him.
"All joking aside, I know my little brother and he wears his heart on his sleeve, you can tell that he's serious about her. He was really nervous about meeting you, and he's not the type to get worked up over anything unless he really cares about it. They remind me a bit of Mum and Dad actually, in their relationship I mean, and I figure that since they've lasted so long there's no reason to believe that Ron and Hermione won't."
Henry didn't admit that was exactly what he was worried about, that he didn't even have a few years of scaring off boyfriends (or at least giving them a stern talking to) before he had to accept that Hermione was in a committed relationship and she would likely spend the rest of her life with this person. Instead he smiled.
"I don't doubt it either Charlie."
The next chapter will be from Arthur's perspective and will hopefully come much sooner than this one did... I suppose it depends how easy I find it to write as him...
Anyway! Reviews are always much appreciated (particularly long ones - yes I'm talking to you catcelot! - I utterly adore reading long ones, they are my favourite kind)
As usual, thank you for reading :)